Best fighter in the world in 1940? Spitfire, 109, Zero, or something else

1940: Bf 109, Spitfire or Zero?

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From my reading the RAF began to fit armour slightly before the Germans, though ther is less than three months in the difference.

I still think the Spit was more manouverable in the horizontal, and more controllable in a dive. The 109 had heavier armament and was a better climber, and in certain situation was more manouverable horizontally as well. The 109 was a smaller target, but working against that it was cramped and this could sometimes be difficult in a high speed dive. It also had that problem with the opening slats in the wings, which tended to make the aircraft flinch at certain times.

The spitfire had a lighter arment, but it could fire for a longer duration. I think at longer ranges it was probably better.

Both aircraft suffered from narrow tracked landing gear.

I dont know which aircraft was cheaper or easier to build, but both could be produced as relatively cheap and easy consumer items, in factories not really designed for the purpose. But in 1940, the Spitfire was being mass produced, the Mw 109 was not, and this proved to be a decisive advantage.

So, it depends on your priorities and who is flying the machine IMO
 
Hi,

the 109 was known to be cheap planes in relation to the difficult eliptical wing Spitfire.

The 109E already got mass produced in 1939, the Spitfire production started rather late and slow, almost to slow, thats why there was so few in the med, even in 1941.
With enough Spitfires in 1941, the Hurri wouldnt have been a frontline fighter anymore.

I go for the 109E, for the reason of the best combat speed and climb from sea level to at least 5000m and the cannons was an advantage.

btw, the 109 MG´s had also a way longer duration than the Spitfire or Hurri guns and the 2 nosemounted MG´s probably was as much worth as 3-4 wing mounted guns(very exact gunnery was possible).

A very good fighter in 1940, at least regarding the plain performence was the Yak-1, at least up to 6000m. The Kilmov 105 was a very good 1940 engine, with more than 1000 HP military power.
Though, i doubt the Yak-1 saw service at that time.

Greetings,

Knegel
 
Markus said:
Thank but no thank to that (slow) flying gas tank from the land of the rising sun. I prefer my two 20mm cannon with armour and protected fuel tanks. For carrier use ... Model 439 would be cheating I guess.
Click to expand...


Hmmm:
F2A-3 (Brewster Model B-439): Third production model. Similar to the F2A-2 but with self-sealing fuel tanks with increased capacity, additional armor protection, and redesigned canopy and nose section. An order for 108 aircraft was placed on 21 January 1941 with deliveries beginning in July 1941. The increased weight due to the additional armor protection resulted in instability and handling difficulties.

So not a landplane for the DEI (that was the 339C/D), delivered in 1941 and not a very good aircraft at all (Midway, anyone?). I think no contender...

I don't understand the negativity about the Zero, especially in 1940. I believe the knowledge about 1944/45 colours this view. Estimated 99% of the fighters at that time (1940) hardly had any armour/self sealing tanks, so almost all fighters in the world were 'flying gas tanks'. But the Zero did that while being very competitive to all fighters at that time. It wasn't slow by 1940'ies standard had more range than any of his competitors and a big punch with it's 20mm canons. I think it's a contender indeed. Would like to see the Bf109e or spit mk.I duel with the Zero in 1940. The outcome might not be so obvious as many think.
 
I'm inclined to go with the Zero. In 1940, bombing altitudes were squarely in the Zero's strike zone, it was already carrier qualified, it had enormous range and it proved itself aganst Hurricanes and Spits in 1942.

After that I'm inclined to go with Timppa's comment re: 109F.

Both the Spit and 109 could outdive the Zero and had a speed advantage - and survivability.

The mission flexibility is all Zero advantage...(IMO)
 
I saw somewhere where a Allied WWII pilot had sat in a 109 cockpit and had been suprised by the poor visibilty out of it. I believe he said had he known that back then - he would have been more aggressive!
If you take out the pilot and tactics - each aircraft has advantages that could give it the edge.
Firepower is quite a persuasive argument! But it also quite nice to think you have a chance of surviving if the other guy bounces you! (so I rule out the Zero).
So its down to the 109 or Spitfire - both were not user friendly to the inexperienced pilot.
On aesthetic grounds I would go for the Spitfire - I love its lines.
 


At least the the 109E already had selfsealing tanks and a amored seat and afaik also the Hurri and Spit had this, in oposide to the P40B(afaik that was the reason why it didnt count as combat ready).

The Zero only was successfull until the enemys did use tactics like the germans did already in Spain.
With this tactics speed is the most important factor and a good firepower is most important.
The RAF and acttually most responsible people in great britain did need a while to understand that WWI like turnfights are badly outdated.
In most other european countrys and the USA the contructors did understand this and so the wingloads increased a lot(Yak´s, La(gg), P38, P40, D520, MS406, 190, 109, P47, P51).

Even vs the rather poor F4F the Zero had bad trouble, cause the Zeros high speed manouverability was extreme poor(the 109 was agile in that relation), if it ever got there, cause its dive performence was worse than that of the Hurri.

The Zeros real advantage was its range and as such it would have been better for germany to have the Zero in 1940 than the 109E, on the other hand it would have been easy to fit a droptank to the 109E before boB, but by luck the german HQ was dazled by it own success, so they dont saw this shortcomming.

Already in 1940 it got clear that the RAF estimation, after the mock up fights between Hurri and 109E, where they thought the Hurri was more than a match for the 109E, was badly wrong.
The Hurri, no matter how nimble it was, couldnt stand the 109E, flown with the new tactics.

The A6m2 would have been a more difficult target, but it had a very low altitude of best speed (4,6km), as such the 109, same like the Spitfire had advantages in high alt and as we know, with its paperplane behaviour, it even couldnt stand the F4F.
 
This might be a true statement on 1st Jan 1940 but wasn't by mid 1940. By that time all British and German fighters and bombers had self sealing fuel tanks, armour for the pilots and armoured glass on the fighters. Some tanks were never fitted with self sealing but that was a decision that was kept to until the end of the war.

I understand your frustration but the Zero was very vulnerable and both the 109 and Spit were well armed by comparison. Your comments on the range and firepower are valid. To be honest I believe that to include the Zero is pushing it, I don't disagree that they did see combat but they were pre production prototypes. If you include them then you are lookng at Spitfire IIB and possibly early 109F.

Even if you ignore this the Zero was still vulnerable, slower and poorer in a dive, it would be down to tactics. If the 109 and Spit kept their speed up above 250 then the Zero would also lose most if not all its advantage in agility. The lack of ammunition for the 20mm would also be a problem. A 109 or Spit firing LMGs at a Zero stand an excellent chance of doing fatal damage, a Spit or 109 being fired at by a Zero with 2 x LMG stand a good chance of getting away with it.
 
I think there is less than a cigarette paper between the 109E and Spit I. The Zero would be neither here nor there in the BoB equation. It was superior tactics, superior pilot training and a stream of obsolescent enemies that made the Zero so deadly in the early days of WW2. Over Kent in 1940 it would have had no of those advantages. On the other hand, it may have been able to give RAF interceptors a bloody nose due to longer combat loiter. But that is still irrelevant unless Hitler continued bombing the airfields. British factories were producing fighters faster than they could be shot down, and unless there was a sudden jump in aircrew fatalities (unlikely, IMHO), there were enough pilots to fly the replacement planes. So the Zero makes no difference either way.
 
Has everyone forgotten about the veteran BoB Spitfire squadron shipped to the far east to fight the Japanese? When told to keep their speed up and not to try and turn with the Zero they had a laugh and blew it off. They were told to do high speed hit and run tactics and the squadron commander told them he considered hit and run tactics to be cowardly and would courtmartial anyone who did it. When they engaged the Zero's the first time they got slaughtered. I'm trying to remember where they were deployed, was it Port Moresby?
 

Hi Knegel

The Me 109 was in mass production at the beginning of the war, with monthly deliveries hovering at around 100-150 per month throughout 1939-40. In 1940 1828 Me109s were built.

By comparison the development of the spitfire production program was slow prewar, but it displayed a spactacular increase in production throughout 1940. In the period mid 1938 to mid 1939, British fighter production did increase, but at a fraction of the rate German production in the prewar period expanded. In that one year time period, Hurricane production increased from 25 airframes per month to 45. In that same period, Spitfire production increased from 13 per month to 34. There was nothing inherently difficult about building Spitfires, though the workforce needed to learn new skills to build the monocoque body. Once this had been mastered, and the workforce found to fill the new factories, the Spitfire could be turned out in great quantities. So too could the Me 109, but that did not happen in 1940, or even 1941. And its 1940 that we are looking at here.

As I said, in 1940, the Germans managed to produce just over 1800 Me109s. By comparison, Spitfire production started behind early in 1940 (about 80 per month), had overtaken German production by April. By the end of the year, Spitfire production had complewtely eclipsed Me 109 output....the 109 factories were still churning out about 130 per month, to over 450 per month for the British type. In early 1941 the Germans did begin to peg back this disparity , but that is outside the parameters of this discussion. Total British Spitfire production was just under 3000.

And this was not achieved with a massive increase in the workforce. British labour dedicated to Spitfire production increased by only 12% in 1940, though the amount of factory space more than tripled. and there were less workers dedicated to Spitfire production than there were german workers dedicated to 109 production. This is not the fault of the 109....its later production figures point to an eminently buildable type, but neither is it trrue to assert that the Spitfire was somehow difficult to build. Its one of those common myths kicked around in the post war wash up....
 
The first batch of eleven pre-production Yak 1's were delivered to units in June 1940 and had completed all trials by the end of that year. Those would be 'operational trials' which with the Soviet system was an after the fact way of 'proving' a plane already scheduled for serial production. First serial production Yaks came out of the factory in September and were being delivered to units later that fall (total of 64). So yes, they were operational in late 1940.
Speed was 356mph at best alt (16000ft), climb rate was 3000 ft/min, range 1120 miles (pre-production planes) .
 

I often hear this story but don't know which squadron it was, do you know which unit it was?
 

The British did a review of the Me109 to understand how easy it was to maintain and buld and basically raved about the design features that made it easy to produce. Somewhere I have the original documents and will see if I can find them.
 
Found them sooner than expected, apologies for the poor quality.
 

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Afaik this squads actually did fly SpitfireV´s and later versions, not 1940 Spitfires.

But btw, the SpitIIa and 109E4/N also already saw service in 1940, so i think no other plane was comporable to this two types.
 

It depends how you descripe "Mass production". 1800 109´s in 1940 i would call mass production, although its not as high as later, but so was the "pilot production".
As we could see in BoB and later over the "Reich", planes dont matter much, if you dont have enough educated pilots to fly them.

Somewhere i did read that the production of one Spitfire toock 1/3 more hours than to build a 109.

Greetings,

Knegel
 
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