Fulmars? Only 600 built. Sea Hurricanes, about 500 as we've discussed. F4F series about 7900, IIRC including the FM2 which finally achieved HSH1B performance figures in 1944. The Sea Hurricane had fixed wings and the the folding wing was the real big advantage of the Martlet II/IV over the Sea Hurricane, just as the F4F-4 replaced the fixed wing F4F-3, despite the poorer performance of the -4. Right? The Seafire III was only retained because it had folding wings.
They certainly could have made more Fulmars and they could have made or converted thousands more Sea Hurricanes (god knows they had far more Hurricanes than anyone needed or wanted). There is a reason why 7900 F4F were built, it certainly wasn't foreordained at the time of Pedestal or PQ 18.
Schweiks point about endurance is no point at all. In combat the air cooled P&W or Curtis engine used a lot more fuel than the Merlin and it used more for climb as well. The difference in endurance in actual combat conditions was small.
Your
opinion while clearly of huge significance to you in all of these discussions, means very little to me. In this thread and others, you have made it abundantly clear that you don't care about facts, reality, or data, you just have a pressing need to insist that any and every FAA and RAF aircraft was THE BEST and had no flaws in comparison to other types, including and especially when it's very obvious that the opposite is true.. There is no other way to characterize it. So I definitely don't expect to change your mind about anything. You are impervious to facts, logic, or reason.
The extremely poor combat endurance of the Sea Hurricane was the major issue raised by all of it's critics within the FAA (which seems to be most of the people who wrote down opinions about it). It is mentioned in every single description of the aircraft I have ever read.
For others reading the thread, I suggest, don't rely on my opinion. Read what the pilots and historians said about it. Some direct quotes about the Sea Hurricane
from Armoured Carriers:
"
Fortunately there was little to separate the Martlet and Hurricane in terms of combat performance, except in the key area of endurance. "
"Ark Royal was offered three Sea Hurricanes in July 1941. Old ex-RAF aircraft, the single-seaters were barely capable of 300kmph at 18,000ft, and although they had the same armament as the Fulmars, they had only half the ammunition capacity
and less than half the patrol endurance. Comparative trials showed that the Fulmar II's performance below 10,000ft was rather better than the Hurricane's and so although the latter would have been useful for patrols above the Fulmar's ceiling, the carrier declined the offer."
"16. The short operational endurance of the Hurricane and small amount of ammunition carried must result in frequent turns into wind to land on aircraft which have been in combat, greatly aggravating the position in regard to flying off others or maintaining sections standing by to fly off. "
"Endurance
The Sea Hurricane's range was recorded as about 450 miles. But it was loiter time that meant the most for carrier operations.
Sea Hurricanes carried only enough fuel to sustain themselves for 1 hour at combat power, and 4.5 hours at full-economical settings. The Fulmar and Martlet could stay aloft for 2 hours and 2 hours 45 minutes under combat power, and 6 hours economical.
The consequence of this was carriers being forced to turn into the wind far more often to take-off and land Sea Hurricanes. So they were often held as 'alert' aircraft on the deck while their longer-legged stablemates maintained the CAP."
That is to say, the Sea Hurricane had a 1 hour endurance, the Fulmar had a 2 hour endurance, and the Martlet had a 2 hours 45 minute endurance. Still not great for a navy fighter, but better than a Fulmar and
far better than a Sea Hurricane. Since basically everyone in the FAA acknowledged that the Sea Hurricane and Martlet were roughly equivalent in performance (with the latter clearly pulling ahead as later models became available) having a fighter which could remain available for combat almost three times as long, and could fly out to twice the distance, was obviously the better option. That is why the Sea Hurricane was never really developed as a fighter.
The to be charitable, very long and difficult teething period if not to say outright failure of the Seafire and the disappointing performance of the Firefly meant that the FAA needed to continue to use US types like the Corsair and the Hellcat, as well as the later model Martlets, right to the end of the war. With bombers similarly, the antiquated Swordfish and the marginal Albacore (ultimately given up to go back to the Swordfish) gave way to the disastrous Barracuda which meant most FAA ships were flying Avengers for strike and ASW aircraft.
I'm sorry if anyone other than RCAFson finds any of this offensive, the US also had many failed designs. We have talked about the TBD Devastator. The Vindicator was a marginal (at best) strike aircraft. The F2A may have worked out for the Finns but the Buffalo was a
disaster for the US Navy and not much better for the British. The US Mk 13 etc. torpedo was one of the worst procurement fails of the entire war, and etc. I don't have to go through the whole list. Frankly the Wildcat / Martlet wasn't that great, it's just that there wasn't much competition for it in the Allied sphere. It was clearly inferior to the A6M except in the crucial aspect of suitability for attrition war.
The fact that Allied pilots including some of our relatives and ancestors had to contend with not always the best kit in their struggle to survive and overcome the enemy is one of the more interesting aspects of studying something like WW2. But if every discussion about specific kit turns into a war in which any admission of flaws or design failures is treated like an attack on patriotic values then we can't actually have the kinds of discussions we like to engage in here.
You and slaterat managed to bore everyone to death with your highly creative and relentless cherry picking in this thread. I really didn't have the time available to get that far into the weeds any more with someone who clearly isn't interested in the truth, but I have finished a big project and have more time now. And I do in fact remember the spurious claim by RCAFson trying to compare Japanese strikes against the RN vs. the USN, pretending the strike on HMS Hermes was vastly larger than it was. I'm ready to argue all of those points if necessary.
C'mon don't waste my time.
