FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
They fly?
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It is now a well known fact that they performed the worst piece of industrial espionage and counterfeiting in engineering history. Apart from the location and orientation of the engines and materials used what do they have in common?
Not even close. The P-38 was designed to a pretty specific design spec. from the get go, it was to be a fighter/ interceptor. As the war began the P-38 fulfilled similar roles as the Bf 110 but that occurred more out of operational requirements than intention.As to the p38 being inspired to some degree by the me110. I'm certainly no aeronautical engineer but aside from the number of engines these two aircraft seem about as different in design as you could get for two aircraft meant to fill even somewhat similar roles.
The UK needed fighters and later fighter bombers The total number of Hurricanes Typhoons and Tempests produced was about the same as the number of Spitfires. In an ideal world there should have been less Hurricanes and more Typhoons and the Typhoon should have performed as the Tempest eventually did but sometimes sh!t happens and you don't get what you want when you want it.Speaking of numbers, it was already common knowledge that the hurricane is obsolete and even slower than the BF 110, and to be replaced by the spitfire. So, when did they build 15,000 hurricanes? I can understand 23,000 spitfires, but 15,000 Hurricanes?
So was the Ju88, A-20, B-25 and P-61 - none of which, were designed for the role.The bf110 was also a ground attacker
It was basically a way to get 1000HP+ into an air frame before any single engine produced 1000HP+. In desperate times anything becomes a ground attack aircraft, the UK were looking at getting Tiger Moths and any other trainer to do it in 1940.So was the Ju88, A-20, B-25 and P-61 - none of which, were designed for the role.
Also claiming that other twin-engined aircraft were based on the Bf110 is sadly being misinformed.
Virtually every nation that designed and manufactured aircraft in the 1930's had a twin-engined "heavy fighter" concept at one point or another. It was the natural prograssion in aerial combat thinking, much like the heavy bomber could "get through" unescorted.
The French had the Potez 630, the Italians had the SM.91, the Soviets had the Pe-3, the Japanese had the KI-45 and J1N1, the British had the Whirlwind and Beaufighter, the Dutch had the G.1 and the list goes on.
Virtually ALL of these heavy fighters had their roots in the mid/late 1930's.
Just under 200 BF 110s were lost in Bob. Almost all they had available at the time.
Speaking of numbers, it was already common knowledge that the hurricane is obsolete and even slower than the BF 110, and to be replaced by the spitfire.
It couldn't be commonly known in 1940 because it isn't known now. The highest scoring ace in the battle flew a Hurricane, as did the highest scoring squadron and the Hurricane had the most victories overall on the RAF side. At the fall of France the Hurricane was exactly what was needed because it was easy to produce. The Bf 110 was not fighting Hurricanes or Spitfires it was fighting in the LW against a RADAR guided defence system which usually transferred the element of surprise and positional advantage from the attacker to defender. All this reversed when attacking France later but that is a different issue.No, it wasn't common knowledge that the Hurricane was obsolete in 1940, .
I think that was the way of the war, a plane was either uprated every 12-18 months or replaced by another type, despite all the Spitfires made there were rarely more than 1,000 in service.I would note that the British considered the Spitfire MK I either obsolete or obsolescent in the summer of 1940 or they wouldn't have put the MK II into production.
Virtually every nation that designed and manufactured aircraft in the 1930's had a twin-engined "heavy fighter" concept at one point or another.
As to the p38 being inspired to some degree by the me110. I'm certainly no aeronautical engineer but aside from the number of engines these two aircraft seem about as different in design as you could get for two aircraft meant to fill even somewhat similar roles.
Very well but I do have problem with his numbers, lets take a look.
First of all, in fairness, he has a total loss for Hurricanes and Spitfires at 932, which is very close to 915 losses for all of RAF fighter Command during the BoB as stated in "The Narrow Margin"(Wood and Dempster) How does he then get to the figure of 1120 kills for the combined total for the 109 and 110? Is he including losses of Bomber Command over Germany?
Total victories for the Hurricane and Spitfires are given as 1300 by Bergstrom.
German losses from combat, taken from the German Quartermaster general returns give a total of 1733 losses due to combat. This would be the minimum figure for German losses at the time. These losses are from the 10th of July to Oct 31, 1940.
This leaves us with at least 433 German combat losses not shot down by Hurricanes or Spitfires, a rather generous sum to be attributed to AAA and Defiants.
Bergstrom doesn't seem to have the same generous allowance for return fire from Luftwaffe bombers.
Other questions are also apparent when you don't have his full paper for review. For example what dates is he using for start and stop of the battle, how does he reconcile double claims between competing aircraft types ect.
Frankly I see too many glaring problems with this study.
The PE-2 was a derivative of the VI-100 high altitude escort fighter.(to escort the ANT-42/PE-8) first flown in Dec of 1939, work started when? Was modified to the light bomber/dive bomber configuration and fist flew in that form Dec 14th 1940. Since it used an internal bomb bay and the Bf 110 didn't one wonders how much of a copy it was?
At which part of 1940? At the fall of France the RAF had about 250 in front line service, despite all that had been made up to then. Its main advantage was that it was easy to make and repair. Throughout the Battle of Britain a shortage of aircraft wasn't a problem, despite all S/E aircraft losses to all causes they finished with 200 more in frontline service (Spitfires and Hurricanes).
As soon as you start using them you start losing them, training and operational crashes, many were lost fighting in France and then just left in France as well as over Dunkerque. Spitfires were different, their numbers were low in Sept 1939 circa 120 in service, rose to 250 at the time France fell but by that time production had been ramped up and the new factory started up in the summer.Ok, why so few in service despite all that made
I see your point and I agree that we need to compare apples to apples, in this case - full "Bergrstrom's paper" and another one, as your mentioned German Quartermaster report, for reference. Otherwise, doubts remain and proper discussion is hardly possible.