DJ_Dalton said:
RG_Lunatic said:
Dalton...
Excuse me but that is hogwash. The Spitfire was the superior plane when compared with its rival Bf109 at almost any point in the war after 1941.
DJ_Dalton said:
The problem with your blanket, fact inconsistent and unsupported statement is that the Spitfires were restricted to smaller and smaller roles as the war progressed. They couldn't do what the P-47's and P-51's could.
LOL - that is because the P-47's and P-51's had the range to reach into German held territory beyond the range of the Sptifires. The Germans wouldn't even venture into airspace patrolled by Spitfires! This "Spitfire flaw" is shared by both your 109 and the 190 wonder planes.
DJ_Dalton said:
Those planes could outdive the luftwaffe and had the fuel loads to generally came in from above them. Spitfires would have lost the war people. Why do you cling to the illusion that they were an exceptional plane? The Battle of Britian? They were mauled there, pickin on Heinkels and Junkers and 110's when they could. They were outmatched vs the 109's.
The Spitfire's were limited to defense, just like the 109 and 190's. In the BoB, I agree the 109 was probably slightly superior for about 2 minutes of combat, after that the Spitfire was superior. Because it was not suited for offense, the 109 got beat anyway - it simply lacked the range for the job it was assigned.
DJ_Dalton said:
The Spit had .303's its entire existance and 2 20mm Hispanos in later variations. That gun just didn't compare with the German cannon and thats why Spitfires fell out of the air in the numbers they did.
Ummm... the Spit Ia had 8 x .303's - weak but sufficient to kill any German fighter or bomber in the BoB. Some 109E's had 2 x 7.9 mm MG17's, certainly less effective than 8 x .303's, and 2 x MG-FF's or MG-FFM's with a mear 60 rpg. The cannon armed E's might be considered superior, but those 20mm were really not that useful in a dogfight and ran out of ammo fast. And the all mg armed E's made up a fair portion of the 109 force in the BoB - it had only 4 x 7.9 mm mg's.
The Spit Ib had 20mm cannon. The Spit V had 2 x 20mm + 4 x .303's, pleanty sufficient to kill any German fighter through the end of 1941. The FW-190A-1 entered combat in Sept. of '41 but that model had serious overheating problems and very weak armament. The Spit V was the dominant fighter over all German rivals until March '42 when the FW190A-3 entered service (with 2 x 20mm + 2 x 7.9 mm guns).
In June 1942 the Spit IX entered combat, armed with either 4 x 20mm or with 2 x 20mm +
2 x .50 calibers, only a few had 2 x 20mm + 4 x .303's. So much for your statement "
The Spit had .303's its entire existance and 2 20mm Hispanos in later variations". The German's on the otherhand, continued to mount 7.7mm guns through the end of 1943 and even into 1944!
Also, the Hispano was cleary superior to the MG151/20 for fighter vs. fighter combat.
DJ_Dalton said:
The Spitfire was energied up for the IX but it lost its maneuverability. It was carburated its entire existance and just could not match the German planes in hard G maneuvers. It lost its power people not to mention its unresponsiveness in the roll or at high speed. What don't you understand. For every fiction you create or misrepresentation you cling to. I'll point to another Experten that slaughtered Spitfires. The question with this Experten is which plane did he kill them in later and I think its the FW190, but that plane was more suited to bomber attacks.
The Spitfire IX was a very manuverable fighter. Yes the weight went up a little and its low speed turning was slightly diminished, but improvements in the wing construction and other control surfaces made up for a good part of that. And the same thing can be said about the FW-190A, later versions included more weight and more powerful engines, diminishing some manuverability characteristics. And none of the FW190A's could operate effectively above 24,000 feet, giving the altitude advantage to the Spitfire without contest. And the 109... the 109G was noticably less manuverable than the 109F, still had weak guns, had poor armor, poor visibility, and an inability to maintain the combat speeds of any of its rivals for more than about 1 minute! The Bf109 was a very old dog by the end of 1943, it should have been withdrawn from production by the middle of that year.
As for the carberators, you have this wrong. By 1941 the British were using the American carberator designs, such as that by Bendix. These carberators were not subject to failing under negative G loads. Fuel injection had some minor response advantages, but also some reliability and mixture problems not found in carberator designs. It is very hard to say which was better during WWII. American carberators never had any G problems - many 109's died when they tried the forward bunt move to escape American fighters or later Spitfires. And later Spitfires could dive with German fighters and achieve higher dive speeds.
As for the "Experten", it's a hard call about many of them. The nature of the way German military politics worked, the units status was determined by the kills scored by its leading aces. Very often, the whole squadron flew to support one or two pilots racking up as many kills as possible. US and British units did not do this, so it is hard to compare aces from the two sides.
=S=
Lunatic
