This is my constant argument, it couldn't be done yet they fitted it with numerous different engines, guns, cannons, bombs,rockets, camera's, made it fly at 45,000ft to shoot down PR aircraft, fitted it with Jato's, folding wings, tow gliders, carry beer made it work in Europe, the desert the pacific in Russia off carriers and dived it to almost MACH 1 to name just some of the things it did but add fuel to give it long range, nah mate, too difficult, can't be done, beyond our engineering ability.
British escort fighter--what might it have been like? (3 Viewers)
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MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
I did not say that. The RAF did.
Admiral Beez
Major
The reason the Spitfire wasn't turned into a long range fighter was that with rare exception there were no RAF long range bombers flying in daylight to escort. Had there been a need, there would have been a long range Spitfire.
I like to see the camo scheme on a Lancaster painted for daylight raids. Like the RAF's B-17s, I expect.
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Thumpalumpacus
Major
Long-range escort, obviously.
Yeah, I'm aware of this. I'm pointing out that for all the handwavium ... a long-range Spit was never adopted. I'm sure Fighter Command would have appreciated the input offered here. What the hell did they know, anyway?
I wouldn't tout the Spit's wartime naval service, myself. And I don't know that PR Spits are relevant to the conversation.
Shortround6
Major General
Spitfires were somewhat better on carriers than the common reputation which is skewed by Salerno. Many of the escort carriers only got their planes a few days before combat, the winds were dead calm (or 2-3 kts), the carriers were restricted to a small area and had to steam back and forth to pick up what wind there was on one leg of the trip (limited time to actually fly off and recover planes) and there was a ground haze which limited visibility to just a few miles.
On the other hand I fully agree about the PR recon Spits.
Grumman made 21 F4F-7 photo recon Wildcats with non-folding wet wings that held 555 US gallons in the wing spaces and 130 gallons in fuselage tanks (685 US gallons total). Truly phenomenal range but without guns/ ammo and with unknown G limits in the early stages of flight a very poor example to base a long range fighter on.
British 4 engine bombers were a little on the rare side in early 1942. The 1000 bomber raid on Cologne used 88 Sterlings, 131 Halifaxes, 73 Lancansters, 46 Manchesters and about 600 Wellingtons. Plus a some odds and sods to make up some more numbers. Since over 350 odds and sods of the bombers (and crews) were borrowed from Training Command for the raid the ability of the British to mount an effective daytime bombing campaign was going to take some time to build up in 1942.
Air Pollution over the Ruhr was practically it's own smoke generator installation. German flak was not what it would become but flying in daylight makes things easier for the Flak units.
Most of the British bombers fly lower than the American bombers which also makes things easier for the Flak crews.
Effective AA ceiling of the guns is generally figured at what altitude can the gun (battery) keep the target in range for 20 seconds. The envelope of the gun (battery) is sort of a flatten sphere. Flying high puts the planes in top of the sphere for a limited amount of time (may very well be more than 20 seconds?) flying 3-5 thousand feet lower puts the bombers in a much fatter slice of the sphere. Much more time for the guns to fire, and more accurate. Time fuses have a accuracy depending on a percentage of the time of flight. Shorten the time of flight by 20% and you get a lot more shells bursting within lethal range.
I am not going to argue about the effectiveness of the British bomber gun armament compared to the US bomber gun armament except to say if the American Armament didn't work can we expect the British Armament to do any better?
Thumpalumpacus
Major
Salerno isn't the basis for most criticism of the Seafire, as we both know. The big problems were the floatiness over the landing deck, the bounciness on impact, and the landing gear frailty. Armoured Carriers has vid on this for those interested.
I've only seen the opposite opinion -- ie: .303 preferable for ground attack.
eg:
The Army Support Role. For the attack of ground and air targets such as are likely to be met in support of an army it has been the policy to retain a percentage of the lighter calibre guns on the grounds that the 20 mm. gun, except against armoured vehicles, is too big for the job. The advantages of a high rate of fire and big ammunition load for this purpose are obvious and the .303 gun fulfills these requirements more completely than the heavier .5 gun. -- Wing Commander, Armament
For demoralising personnel and immobilising transport, .303 is better than .5 because there is more of it. A .303 in a man or in the radiator of a vehicle should have as good an effect as .5. By having more rounds per minute and more guns, we should immobilise more men and vehicles. -- Group Captain, Operations
I have always considered that the retention of the four .303 guns was with a view to attacks in support of the Army, on soft-skinned vehicles, troops, ground targets etc. when I feel sure that the four .303 guns would be more effective than two .5 guns. -- Squadron Leader, Air Tactics
For demoralising personnel and immobilising transport, .303 is better than .5 because there is more of it. A .303 in a man or in the radiator of a vehicle should have as good an effect as .5. By having more rounds per minute and more guns, we should immobilise more men and vehicles. -- Group Captain, Operations
I have always considered that the retention of the four .303 guns was with a view to attacks in support of the Army, on soft-skinned vehicles, troops, ground targets etc. when I feel sure that the four .303 guns would be more effective than two .5 guns. -- Squadron Leader, Air Tactics
Leigh-Mallory was the main driving force behind the Spitfire .5-inch armament and his opinions always referred to air-to-air combat. He formally requested the complete switch 14 May, 1943 but the Air Ministry ruled that the .303 armament be retained.
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That B-17 in the above photo was an RAF Mk.II serial FK209 (ex USAAF 41-9203) photographed at Dorval, Canada on 24 Aug 1942 while on delivery. One of several taken of it at the time. Destined for Coastal Command it was painted in Temperate Sea Scheme colours - Dark Slate Grey & Extra Dark Sea Grey upper surfaces and Sky undersurfaces.
In 1945 617 squadron, which was flying mostly daylight sorties, found its aircraft suffering a higher degree of flak damage. In Feb they sought a change to their Lancaster paint schemes. This was agreed and the new scheme was applied to a batch of Lancaster B.I (Special) aircraft being delivered configured for dropping Grand Slam 22,000lb bombs. Orders came through to the factory too late for it to be applied to the first 4 of the batch. But the rest were supposed to be finished in Dark Green / Dark Earth upper surfaces and Medium Sea Grey undersurfaces with a low fuselage demarcation between upper and lower colours. The IWM has some photos of these including this one, with a "normal" 617 aircraft for comparison. Note 617 Grand Slam aircraft carried YZ squadron codes instead of the usual KC in this period.
Official photograph
Two Avro Lancaster B Mark 1 (Specials), PD118 'YZ-M', PD129 'YZ-O', and a B Mark 1, NG489 'KC-M', all of No. 617 Squadron, Royal Air Force, based at Woodhall Spa, flying in 'vic' formation, 8 May 1945. (Port threequarter rear views).
There was an article in Scale Aircraft Modelling magazine in May 2023 about these aircraft and some controversy about the exact colours purportedly seen by a reliable witness applied to one of these aircraft in 1946.
Some of these airframes were used by 15 squadron postwar.
We were bombing the Ruhrgebeit. I cant see any time that the RAF would have the additional S/E fighters to mount a campaign and I cant see how loses on such a campaign wouldnt be as prohibitive as they were for Germany in 1940.
The Corsair earned itself a reputation caused by floatiness over the deck, the bounciness on impact, the wings stalling unevenly on approach and the airframe rotating around the prop flipping the plane onto it's back and it was designed as a Naval fighter, does that mean we can throw even more criticism at it?. Armoured Carriers has a video on this if your interested.
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Instead of re-engining MkV's into MkIX's they would have re-engined MkIII's into MkVIII's therefore having two aircraft able to deal one on one with all the models of 109 and 190's they would have encountered, the trouble the RAF had was the MkV offered no advantage over the 109 and was outclassed by the 190 so they couldn't defend themselves let alone the bombers they were escorting as history showed, having two higher performing models of Spitfires with longer range allows far greater flexibility in what, were and how they attack as well as giving the RAF pilots the confidence to take the fight to the Luftwaffe.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
I've already watched it, thanks. Floatiness, no -- the video you mention has quite a few FAA pilots saying that when you chopped throttle on a Corsair, it dropped. The bounciness was resolved by adjusting the oleos. The uneven stall was resolved by the stall strip.
None of that impacts the sheer unsuitability of the early Seafires. This is simple whataboutism.
Shortround6
Major General
You need two stage Merlins to do either and you don't have two stage Merlins in numbers until late 1942.
MK V had double the firepower over the standard 109s of 1941, early 42.
For escort duty (not attacking German bombers) maybe they could have gone back to eight or even 6 .303 guns?
No 20mm barrels/fairings worth 5-6mph?
No 20mm feed bumps?
Easier to fit fuel into the wings?
Use more boost sooner on the Merlin 45s?
Use Merlin XX engines?
Since you are not escorting B-17s/B-24s you can fly a bit lower and don't need the two stage superchargers as much.
Using US .50s instead of 20mm's in 1941 was a no go. British could not get the .50s to work with any degree of reliability for most of 1941.
'Whataboutism'....
Can someone explain to me the relevance of a debate on Seafire unsuitability for carrier ops in the context of a thread titled British escort fighter--what might it have been like???
You lot really are an eccentric bunch.
buffnut453
Captain
Neither could the Americans for wing-mounted 50 cals through much of 1942.
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ThomasP
Senior Master Sergeant
"But . . the bones, man . . . look at the bones!"
Antarctica
Airman
- 72
- May 20, 2023
How about a single-seat Beaufighter with Merlins for a long-range escort for British bombers in daylight. The Beaufighter used many parts of the Beaufort but with a new fuselage. The Beaufort was flying in 1939 & Bristol did make engine mounts to fit Merlins (used on the 700 Beaufighter Mk.II).
The standard merlin-engined Beaufighter ii had a lower performance than the Hercules engines ones, some unpleasant handling quirks and was something of a dog. The Beaufighter was also a big chunk of an aircraft and not very manoeuvrable for all its other merits (low down speed and robustness). All getting rid of the otherwise useful observer would achieve is the deletion of that rear cuppola/perspex bubble, and would still leave that formidably chunky fuselage. Perfectly good as a long range strike aircraft or for escorting Sunderlands etc against JU88s and Bf110s out to sea, or for strafing airfields and roads (as were the standard models), but would probably be made mince-meat of by anything else. The Beaufighter is always going to be limited by its bulk and thick wing.
If you're going down the 'what if' path of reimagining the 1940s era RAF twins, it might make more sense that if a long range escort fighter was really needed, it would have been easier to lean on Rolls Royce and get them to persevere with the Peregrine and to work with Westland to get the Whirlwind right. That was considered a well handling aircraft with huge firepower even at its sub-optimum level of development (good enough to see it serving all the way through until 1943, even though production and development was stopped in its tracks)
Talk about a blinkered view, the ensign eliminator was designed as a carrier aircraft yet it took how many years and how many modifications to get it right?, the Spitfire on the other hand was never designed as a naval aircraft so to level criticism at it considering that fact and likewise the fact that before the Seafire III all of them were more or less converted Spitfire V's I don't think you have a leg to stand on in this argument.
How the Navy Tamed the “Killer Corsair”
A little piece of aluminum solved the WW2 fighter’s vicious behavior problem.
This is true but Merlin XX engined MkIII's were a much better aircraft than Merlin 45 engined MkV's up until the second half of '42, I wonder if the performance from the XX would have sped up interest in the two stage development?
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