Long range, high speed Spitfire fighter: the best approach?

[OldSkeptic]

Just to keep banging on saying Portal killed lots of RAF crew for dogmatic reasons does not work for me.

Oh, the more I study history the more important it seems (to me at least) to understand the people behind the decisions. The 'why', to explain the 'what'.
And that means you have to examine their motivations, attitudes, ideas and ideologies.

This is commonplace in some areas. You can't separate BC's campaign without examining Harris for example.

But Portal doesn't get nearly as much attention as he should. He was at the heart of a lot of the major decisions the RAF made (or backed his subordinates when they made their ones), but since he was the boss he had the responsibility.

Right from the beginning and the appalling way Dowding and Park were treated after the BoB, the 'leaning towards the enemy', the debacle of Coastal Command, Malta, NA, et al. He was at the heart of all the major decisions made. Therefore has to take at least some responsibility.

Plus he had his particular personal prejudices, of which his antipathy towards the LR fighter was just one and that, naturally, affected his decision making and thus tactics, strategy and even personnel selection for the RAF throughout the war.

Therefore you can't select out 'what' the RAF did throughout the war, without looking at the 'who' and the 'why'.

One way of looking at it would by doing a 'thought experiment' and imagine that (say) Portal had been really for a LR fighter and pushed it real hard. What would have happened then? What could have been done and how would that have affected strategy and tactics?

I pick on the LR fighter issue more than some others, because it was a critical variable in virtually every area of air strategy. The lack of it meant all sorts of limitations on what could and couldn't be be done . To take the obvious dependency, no LR fighter, therefore bombers have to fly at night, which means they can't (initially) hit anything, therefore centers of cities is just about all they can (sort of) manage to hit (sometimes) and you need heaps of them to achieve anything. Each of the decisions, post the LR fighter one, is made for you therefore that is the critical one to make.

 

[Mike Williams]

Any Rotol props (and there were very few, in fact Supermarine don't list them) fitted to the Mk.I were 2-position, and standard radios were HF or VHF. Rotols were mostly reserved for the Mk.II, since the Merlin XII had a necked-down shaft capable of taking them.

I'm sorry Edgar but thats incorrect. Please see:
AP 1565A, Spitfire I Aeroplane, June 1940
Alan Deere, Nine Lives, page 55
Flight, May 23, 1940: The Latest Rotol Airscrew

Beginning approximately April 1940 the Rotol constant speed props were mostly used on new production Hurricanes and then also the Spitfire II when they entered production. See for example:

W/C Ian Gleed D.F.C., Arise to Conquer, (Random House, New York 1942) pp. 62-63.
No. 1 Squadron Operations Record Book, 18 April 1940
No. 1 Squadron Operations Record Book, 2 May 1940
Paul Richey DFC, Fighter Pilot (Redwood Press, Wiltshire 1990) p 93.
No. 151 Squadron Operations Record Book, 13 April 1940
No. 151 Squadron Operations Record Book, 15 May 1940
Hugh Halliday, No. 242 Squadron, The Canadian Years, (Canada's Wings, Ontario, 1981). p.78.
Wing Commander Tom Neil, DFC, AFC, AE, Gun Button to 'Fire', (William Kimber, London 1987), pg 48.

 

[Aozora]

For interest, here are the Flight articles on the Rotol propellers from 1939 and 1940:

View attachment Rotol 1939.pdf

View attachment Rotol 1940.pdf

 

[razor1uk]

To be attempt to be a real student/patriot/knowledged person involves if possible learning both/all sides or as much as can be about the good bad ugly and beautful and worse etc, not just a/one bit of something, that leads to being more blind and/or to the dark side of things.

 

[Juha]

Thank you for making it plain that you have no interest in a discussion (and learning.) Twice you've been told that a rear tank could not be fitted into the Mk.V (and I've found further confirmation, of this, as late as the end of 1942,) and yet you persist in the same tired old nonsense. I see no point in continuing this farce.

Again, look Morgan Shacklady p. 149 and also BR202. The rear tank was very rare, but M S, Price and Shores all agreed that the Spit Mk VCs which flew from Gibraltar to Malta during the siege had them, 17 were sent of which 16 arrived to Malta.

Juha

 

[Greyman]

Again, look Morgan Shacklady p. 149 and also BR202. The rear tank was very rare, but M S, Price and Shores all agreed that the Spit Mk VCs which flew from Gibraltar to Malta during the siege had them, 17 were sent of which 16 arrived to Malta.

Also, the Spitfire V Pilot's Notes mentions a 29 gallon rear fuselage tank.

 

[Juha]

Thanks Greyman, Yes it does. And it also noted that the drop thank should be emptied first, then the rear tank. The 170gal tank can be dropped when empty or in emergency earlier and the fuel in the 29gal rear tank can be used after that.

Juha