Hawker Hurricane Mk. IIB vs. Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat

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The uneven heating and cooling was the main reason for the brittleness I mentioned earlier. (at least in steel) Aluminum had some weird heat-treating characteristics (one example being aging), but we were (or I was) speaking of a welded steel structure, and in many cases the weld will (and should) be the strongest part of the material. The metal will tear more easily than the weld its self, but a weld makes a structure more rigid and if said structure is undergoing many changes in loading and forces (as an a/c will experience) the areas around the welds (and the general structure) will be more prone to fatigue and stress fractures/tears. (albeit not normally at the welds) While a bolted structure will have a degree of flexibility or "give" which will allow the structure to absorb stress more effectively.

The statement I made on a weld actually failing was for a direct hit on the weld its self (not very likely) which could cause a fracture of the relatively brittle weld material (or the base metal right against the weld, which also would be more brittle from the heat stresses of the welding process). This scenario is not very likely though.


The type of strength you want for a tank isn't the same as desired for an a/c. (plus there's not a big chance of bolts becoming shrapnel like in the M4's case) Case in point would be the fact that (as Elvis posted) the M4 went from a bolted hull to welded then to a CAST hull. I don't think cast components would ever be desirable for an aircraft's structure as it tends to be heavier and more brittle (albeit harder) than other methods. The increased weight would not be as important (or really significant) on a tank, and the advantages of lower cost and the fact that a harder heavier hull will likely be more damage resistant to the damage a tank would receive. (despite the brittleness)

This is the opposite of what would be desirable on an a/c. Flexibility elasticity ("toughness" opposed to "hardness") are more important to the overall strength and integrity, along with lower weight.


And HoHun, you mentioned the rounds passing through fabric on the Hurricane, but the only fabric on it (except for early Mk.I's wings) was the rear fuselage. The rest was aluminum skin over the steel frame (and a small portion of stressed skin on the outer wings), granted though that the behavior of the rounds would be similar though. (but holes in the skin from HE shells would tend to be much smaller)
 
Another thing about the Hurricane's survivability: Didn't the Hurricane have a fuel tank right in front of the pilot?! (just aft of the engine)

Unless there was considerable armor around it there could be a serious problem. Even with good self sealing a small leak could be made and easily cause a fire large enough to harm the pilot. (and the engine was right there too!) And with a larger fire more likely (before the tank could seal, if it could -cannon hits would not be easy-) the flames could wrap around the canopy and cause considerable harm even if there was a firewall to protect the pilot. (or force a bail-out)

That would make a very vulnerable spot, and and in the same target area of the other most vulnerable target: the liquid-cooled engine! (and of course the pilot)
 
Heres a report on a Hurricane IIb salvaged recently from a lake in Russia.


Hawker Hurricane IIB 'Trop' Z5252

Also, the Hurricane has two tanks in the wings, 66 gals, one reserve tank of 28 gallons between engine and cockpit.
I believe the Wildcat has a fuel tank right under the pilot?
I did find one other weakness of the Wildcat. Not only was it's landing gear narrow, but they had "an inordinate amount" of landing accidents because the gear occasionally didn't lock down properly. The gear was a leftover from older Grumman designs, and they changed it in the F6F Hellcat.
 
Many WWII fighters including the Spitfire and the Corsair carried their entire fuel load in front of the pilot. Since most aircraft were shot down from behind without knowing what hit them , front placement of the fuel was viewed by some as superior to placement aft of the pilot.

The main fuel tanks of the hurricane are in the wingroots nestled between the two steel spars affording them additional protection . The reserve (gravity)tank is in front of the pilot. It is unpressurized, self sealing and protected with a fireproof bulkhead , armour plate and 10G(bullet resistant) cowling .

The use of mechanical fastners in the construction of the Hurricanes tubular steel frame enabled the use of higher quality, lighter and stronger heat treated steel that could not be welded with the technology of the time. This is also what made it easy to repair.

The Hurricane is tougher than most of its contemporaries because of
- its unique construction
-substainial amount of steel in its structure
-through wing construction
-very thick strong wings(2 steel spars)

Slaterat
 
Not to nit pick but F4U1s had fuel tanks in the wings as well as the fuselage tank. It would be hard for me to imagine that a Hurricane would be harder to shoot down than a Wildcat. To begin with a radial engine is going to be much harder to put out of action than a liquid cooled engine. Two other factors are that the Wildcat was designed as a ship board AC and thus was stressed for higher loadings than a landbased fighter. The other factor is the Wildcat was manufactured by Grumman, which was known as "The Ironworks" with good reason. It was said that Leroy Grumman always doubled the the strength of various components over the design limits. The FM2 had no dive limits with or without wing stores. A quote from one of it's pilots," The F4F was as solid as a brick outhouse, almost a flying tank." Another quote, "Incidentally, if you had a Zero any place around, the safest place for him was right on your tail. That back armor would hold up beautifully; they could shoot at you all day long back there-and that's not an exaggeration!" Incidently, there is an interesting article in the latest "Air and Space, Smithsonian" about Spitfires and Hurricanes and their construction. Seems that Spits are easier to restore than Hurris because the Hurricanes requires wood working skills that are difficult to find now. The longerons and formers of the Hurri are all wood. If you see the photos of an ongoing restoration it would seem that a Hurricane would be very susceptible to fire with all that wood and fabric.
 
Hi Slaterat,

>Many WWII fighters including the Spitfire and the Corsair carried their entire fuel load in front of the pilot. Since most aircraft were shot down from behind without knowing what hit them , front placement of the fuel was viewed by some as superior to placement aft of the pilot.

Hm, all of the comments I've read were rather unfavourable since hits in the tank often would make fuel pour back into the cockpit - sometimes burning, sometimes just soaking the pilot in volatile gasoline.

Geoffrey Page of "Guinea Pig" fame mentioned that the first thing the brilliant surgeon Archibald McIndoe asked after seeing Page's horrible burns was - "Hurricane or Spitfire?"

>The main fuel tanks of the hurricane are in the wingroots nestled between the two steel spars affording them additional protection . The reserve (gravity)tank is in front of the pilot. It is unpressurized, self sealing and protected with a fireproof bulkhead , armour plate and 10G(bullet resistant) cowling .

Admittedly, in the early Hurricane aircraft, the upper tank was neither self-sealing nor separated from the cockpit by an armoured bulkhead, both of which were introduced after the Battle-of-Britain experience showed that the Hurricane was more vulnerable against hits than the Spitfire.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)
 
Fuel under the pilot wouldn't be as bad as fuel and flames would move aft of the cockpit.

The Wildcat's landing gear was also manual (cranked) so I can see how some accidents could occur if the pilot didn't fully extend it. (external tanks also had to be pumped manually iirc) (the F2A had wider gear that was powered, but that's no good if it's too weak for carrier landings...)

And though it wasn't originally designed for it the Hurricane's rugged structure friendly low-speed handling, and wide track landing gear made it well suited for the carrier role (though the liquid-cooled engine didn't) and was probably better suited than the Seafire was. (narrow landing gear, sensitive controls, trickier low-speed handling, dangerous stall characteristics)


Compared to the F6F, F4U, and P-47, the skin of the wildcat was pretty thin (nearly as thin as the Zero's according to a post by FLYBOYJ on another thread) but the structure had many bulkheads and strengthening supports which made it very resistant to damage or structural failure.


And are you sure all Hurricanes had that much wood? I thought the Mk.II's did away with that. (or at least the IIC, as the cannon recoil was found to compromise the integrity of wooden components in the wing)
 
Geez I dont know where to start.

Only the Corsair prototype had leading edge fuel tanks in its wings. These were deleted in the production run to make room for the USN requirements that it carry 6 .50 in the wings. The prototype had 2 x.50 in the wings and a.50 and a .30 in the fuselage.

In fighter vs fighter combat the worst place for the fuel tank is behind the pilot as this is the most likely area of attack.

Every single Hurricane built had the fire proof bulkhead between the fuel tank and the cockpit. It is an integrel part of the structure. After assembly it mates evenly with the front spar of the wing.

All Hurricanes had front armour from the summer of 39 onwards.

All Hurricanes manufactured from Feb 1940 had rear armour all others were retro fitted well before the BoB.

The wing tanks were made self sealing in early 1940 too. The reserve tank was not made self sealing until Sept 1940.(due to BoB experiance)

There is no wood in the wings of any Hurricane.

The only wood used in the Hurricane is for the steamling structure aft of the pilot. The structures are called formers and stringers. This is what gives the Hurricane its distinctive slightly ribbed look.

The fuslage longerons are the 4 load bearing tubes that run the length of the fuselage. They are made of steel.

The Hurricane was Sydney Camms first monoplane fighter and he overbuilt it too. With war on the horizon Camm knew that this plane had too work and it had to be able to go into production quickley. Anything too experimental and you've lost the war before it begins.

As you can see by 1940 the Hurricane was one of the best protected fighters in the world. The Mk IIa,b recieved additonal armour in front of the glycol header tank, an extra plate extending the rear protection downwards and a thicker head plate. The IIc also recieved additonal armour for its cannon magazines. Keep in mind that the Hurricane IIa entered operational service in Sept 1940.

Maybe some of you haven't read a lot about the RAF, Commonwealth air forces in WW II, so you don't know the reputation the Hurricane had for its toughness. There certainly seems to be alot unfounded disbelief that the Hurricane could be as tough as an American fighter, (and not even the toughest American fighter at that)

Slaterat
 
An update on "Bloody Shambles". I'm reading the middle volume first that covers from Dec 41 to May 42. I can't say enough about these books. I rate them 10 out of 10. I will read and re read these books many times. I've got a pretty decent collection of books on the WW II airwar, some are very factual but a little on the dry side. Others are fantastic first hand accounts of the pilots and men who were there, but these are sometimes lacking in details.
Bloody Shambles rolls them both together in a great combo. The amount of reasearch in these books is astonishing. There a literally hundreds of first hand accounts all cross referenced with post war records.

Just to help make my point on the toughness of the cane RAF pilot Sanddeman Allen rt'b after a fight in which he claimed on kill and a probable while his Hurricane sustained 28 cannon shell hits aand 43 bullet holes.

Slaterat
 
slaterat,

Two things...

1) If a person wanted just one set of books that gave a good overall picture of the Commonwealth's contribution to the airwar, would you say the "Bloody Shambles" collection would be your recommendation?

2) On the toughness of the Hurricane, personally, I'd say it was an equally tough airplane as some of the others mentioned, including the F4F, but my problem is your earlier statement that it was tougher.
I just have a hard time swallowing that.
"As tough", yes. "Tougher", well....
I do know that overall, the Hurri was always considered a very tough and reliable aircraft, but so were others (The CAC Boomerang and the Curtiss P-40, for instance).
The F4F has been quoted as being referred to by pilots as "a flying tank" and the company that made it had the nickname "The Ironworks".
There's a reason for those accolades and I've never heard them attributed to the Hurricane or Hawker.
...maybe there's a reason for that, too?




Elvis
 
As far as "Bloody Shambles" - probably the most detailed books written about the WW2 air war.

"'Toughness" between the Hurricane and Wildcat? I've had the opportunity to see both aircraft very "up close and personal" and I would have to say comparing both aircraft side by side the Wildcat takes it hands down. If I was in either aircraft and was having 20mm shells pounding me I would much rather be in the Wildcat. With that said the Hurricane, with the materials used for its construction was built like a tank. I could see this aircraft surviving not only intense battle damage, but abuse from bad landings and over Gs during flight. There were two different design philosophies as each aircraft were designed to serve two different roles, but in the end I'd have to say the Wildcat was the "tougher" of the two and that's not taking anything away from the Hurricane, which IMO was the real reason why Britain won the BoB. I place the Hurricane and the P-40 on the list as the two most under-rated aircraft of WW2.
 
Hi Slaterat,

>Every single Hurricane built had the fire proof bulkhead between the fuel tank and the cockpit.

Hm, according to Stephen Bungay's "The Most Dangerous Enemy", that was not the case. Not only does he list details on the protection, he also quotes higher loss ratios for Hurricanes when it. His book is fairly recent, and on first reading it, I haven't spotted any errors that would shake my confidence in his research.

He might be wrong anyway, of course. However, his explanation matches the anecdotal evidence of flaming fuel pouring into the cockpit after hits (often enough, inflicted from behind - anything passing to the left and right of the back armour could hit the instrument panel and the fuel tanks).

>The wing tanks were made self sealing in early 1940 too. The reserve tank was not made self sealing until Sept 1940.(due to BoB experiance)

Well, so it seems Bungay is correct at least about the reserve tank.

>The Mk IIa,b recieved additonal armour in front of the glycol header tank, an extra plate extending the rear protection downwards and a thicker head plate.

Thanks for the details! Don't get me wrong, I too believe that the Hurricane was a tough aircraft and probably would have withstood A6M attacks as well as the F4F, but in the interest of historical accuracy I felt obliged to point out the dangerous vulnerability of the nose tank arrangement.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)
 

Well, not exactly, and, truth be known, that was my belief at one time as well, but I once had reason to chase down the story and found the pilots manuals are quite specific on the subject, complete with diagrams of the before and after fuel systems . . .

The F4U-1, F3A-1, FG-1 and British airplanes, serial numbers JT 100 to JT 554 did indeed have wing tanks, built integrally in the outer leading edge panels with a capacity of 63 U.S. gallons (53 Imp. gallons) each. The wing tanks were provided with a CO2 vapor dilution system. They were generally used only for ferry purposes.

Wing tanks and their CO2 dilution system were eliminated starting with the F4U-1D, FG-1D and British airplanes numbered JT 555 and above. These airplanes also had (hence the "D") provision for two more drop tanks (in addition to the one drop tank capability of the earlier models) of the standard 154 gallon navy type tank, or, in a pinch the USAAFs P-38 type drop tank of 171 gallons.

The confusion arises in that the originally planned wing tanks in the prototype XF4U were indeed eliminated as a result of the change in armament, and were moved to the outer leading edge location.

There were some 3156 Corsairs of the F4U-1, FG-1, and F3A-1 varieties produced.

Rich
 
FLYBOYJ, it the reason for the Wildcat's better "toughness" the radial engine or is there some other property of the structure that made it tougher than the Hurricane?
 
I should have said "was it just the radial engine or.." the radial engine obviously increasing survivabillity.

But what in the Wildcat's structure made it "tougher" than the Hurricane?

And a side question: which a/c would have been easier to repair in field conditions? (engine aside)
 
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