No Spitfire?

[Shortround6]

The Whirlwind was proving to be troublesome, they couldn't wait for the Typhoon's development and they had a solid option before them.
Sure, make more Hurricanes, but if Boulton-Paul had an assembly line ready aircraft, then why not?

We may be mixing up the time line here a bit. The Whirlwind was a bit late in showing up ( a mark against Petter doing much of anything else) and the troubles don't really start to show up until the summer of 1940 which is a bit late to look for alternatives.
The single seat Defiant may have been a lot closer to production ready, just don't expect much difference in combat results than the Hurricane. Also don't expect much in the way of future development.

 

[Admiral Beez]

The Whirlwind was proving to be troublesome, they couldn't wait for the Typhoon's development and they had a solid option before them.

In an absence of an all metal high performance fighter the Whirlwind would have been worked on. Fix the reliability of the cannon and adjust the Peregrine's HA performance and it'll do fine umtil the Typhoon arrives. As more Peregrines were made they would have been updated and improved. But the Peregrine and Whirlwind would still be a sideshow, the main event is near complete focus on making as many Hurricanes as possible. So the Defiant dies, those Merlins and BP's production capacity are needed for Hurricanes.

 

[Shortround6]

I assume Petter, Fairey, Camm, etc, would make to the spec rather than tell the FAA what they need

Go back and look at the F.7/30 aircraft. The air ministry told the manufactures what they wanted to the plane to do and then let the manufactures figure out how to do it.
What hurt was that the air ministry often had rather unrealistic demands that could NOT be met in full leaving the manufacturers to guess as to what parts of the requirement the Air Ministry considered the most important.
This

and this

were built to the same specification. Westland, (Not Petter at this time) took the night fighter part of the specification more seriously than Supermarine did and gave the pilot better vision for landing, and kept the exhaust glare out of the pilots vison. Specification called for a top speed of 250mph and a landing speed of just 50mph. A speed range (5 to 1) that many later aircraft could not get close to. None of the contenders came close to the desired top speed.

Whatever the FAA or RAF issued for a specification for a single seat fighter the manufacturers had some latitude in what features/arrangements they thought would be suitable.
The Blackburn Firebrand was started in March 1939, The torpedo requirement was not added until the summer of 1943. The FAA or Air Ministry thought the Firebrand would make a better carrier plane than folding wing Typhoon and made that decision back in 1939.

I was somewhat joking about Petter, but it sometimes took quite a bit of effort (or near loss of aircraft) to get him to change his mind about certain things or features. Like the through (or next to) the fuel tank exhaust pipes the the first Whirlwind was fitted with. In his quest for streamlining (and not realizing how exhaust thrust worked) the exhaust pipes on the Whirlwind were routed inside the wing to the rear of the wing and made their exit there. Granted the exhaust pipe/s was/were contained in tubes to help insulate the structure (and fuel) from the heat of the exhaust pipe but they nearly lost the prototype when the hot exhaust (leak in pipe?) caused an aileron control rod failure.

 

[GrauGeist]

Also don't expect much in the way of future development

Going to play Devil's advocate here and ask why.
The P.94 was different in several respects and even planned to have the Merlin XX fitted.

As we know, there were quite a few types that were continuously upgraded during the war, even the Hurricane had several upfits in it's lifetime.

I know we have the luxury of looking back with what we know, but I'm trying to put my mind into 1939 and look for options. It didn't help that the British stalled their rearmament program until the situation was urgent.

 

[wuzak]

If the Spitfire is rejected, do Supermarine try to improve the design for a future requirement, as they did from F7/30 to the Spitfire?

Or will they go all in with the Type 324, that was put up against the same specification as the Tornado/Typhoon?

Or will they just concentrate on the Type 317 bomber?

 

[PAT303]

If the Spitfire is rejected, do Supermarine try to improve the design for a future requirement,

I seriously doubt Supermarine abandon it, Mitchell and Jones walk around the prototype and see what they have made, they admire her curves, they aren't stupid men, they see speed and performance even if the air ministry doesn't.

 

[Admiral Beez]

If the Spitfire is rejected, do Supermarine try to improve the design for a future requirement, as they did from F7/30 to the Spitfire?

Or will they go all in with the Type 324, that was put up against the same specification as the Tornado/Typhoon?

Or will they just concentrate on the Type 317 bomber?

As long as Mitchell is alive the Supermarine fighter will continue. Here's where it goes after the Spitfire is rejected No Spitfire?

 

[PAT303]

Going to play Devil's advocate here and ask why.

Go hire a 1980's muscle car with a 6ltre V8 engine then hire a 2020 Golf GTI, the muscle car has a huge engine with lots of power but the GTI's performance humiliates it. Any plane that isn't closing in on 400 mph in 1941 and betters it after '42 is prey for those that can, nothing you can do to the P.94 or Hurri is going to get you those numbers hense no growth potential, they are design dead ends.

 

[SaparotRob]

How 'bout we make that a 60's muscle car? Same end result but the 60's car would probably be more potent.
I'm thinking a 454 cu in rat block.

 

[GrauGeist]

Go hire a 1980's muscle car with a 6ltre V8 engine then hire a 2020 Golf GTI, the muscle car has a huge engine with lots of power but the GTI's performance humiliates it. Any plane that isn't closing in on 400 mph in 1941 and betters it after '42 is prey for those that can, nothing you can do to the P.94 or Hurri is going to get you those numbers hense no growth potential, they are design dead ends.

I was under the impression that the scenario was set pre-battle of Britain (1940) when Britain was in need of a stop-gap solition between the Hurricane and Typhoon.


And interesting analogy between vehicles, but how would they be challenging each other: road course, circle track or quarter mile?

 

[pbehn]

Put all the Vulture engines into Tornados and scare the bejabbers out of Goering with a squadron or two in the BoB.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I was under the impression that the scenario was set pre-battle of Britain (1940) when Britain was in need of a stop-gap solition between the Hurricane and Typhoon.

For the BoB there is no issue. The Hurricane is fine, especially as it can be vectored by radar to advantageous positions.

Once the BoB is over the Germans are busy getting their asses kicked in Russia, and the Typhoon is coming online, so again the lack of Spitfire isn't critical.

 

[Shortround6]

Going to play Devil's advocate here and ask why.
The P.94 was different in several respects and even planned to have the Merlin XX fitted.

As we know, there were quite a few types that were continuously upgraded during the war, even the Hurricane had several upfits in it's lifetime.

The Hurricane had one "upfit" if you don't count propeller changes, and several armament schemes.
It was given the Merlin XX as an upfit to keep it competitive with the 109E.
Better armament was fitted, first 12guns and then four cannon but each armament upgrade degraded speed and climb (but only a little). With the 109F taking over more and more of the Luftwaffe fighter duties they turned the Hurricane into a fighter bomber/ground attack plane. Useful yes but it needed better fighters to cover it while it did the attack role.
any further attempts to "upfit" the Hurricane as a fighter were rejected.

The P.94/Defiant would follow a similar path.
If you keep large portions of the original Defiant so it is easy/fast to get into production because the tooling already exists you automatically keep some of the weight and drag issues that keep it performing only slightly better than the Hurricane. If you change it so much it only looks like a Defiant if you squint really hard looking into the sun with one eye then you have a new airplane with all the time and development trouble that means (much latter introduction in service).

Some planes were more upgradable than others. Nobody wasted much time trying to upgrade the Buffalo, improvements in flight performance to the F4F were minimal after the F4F-3, Grumman concluded twice that using the R-2600 engine really required a new airframe. P-40 plateau was hit later than the Hurricane but with it being 20-30mph slower than the Mustang with the same engine wasting a lot of time/money upgrading it didn't make a lot of sense.

In some cases compromises were made in order to "upfit" like reductions in armament fit ( or no improvement in armament) or acceptance of shorter range (no room for additional fuel for the thirstier engine).

The British were fooled (or trapped) by the large orders in place for the Typhoon. Just one more tweak would give them the plane with the promised performance, then just one more.........then just one more..........then...........

 

[Shortround6]

and the Typhoon is coming online, so again the lack of Spitfire isn't critical.

Except the Typhoon never really came on line, being pretty much a flop at medium to high altitude work, It was never used outside of NW Europe,
Hurricanes in Italy in 1943? If you even make to Italy using Hurricanes.
Spitfires gave top cover to the Typhoons operating in Europe using bombs and rockets.
It was a great replacement for the Blenheim, as a fighter it was a lot more limited.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Except the Typhoon never really came on line,

Well yes, but we've kicked a can of butterflies here. Something will be in the can to replace the Hurricane, and it may not be from Hawker at all. Or, we may see an earlier Centaurus-powered Typhoon/Tornado or maybe Napier gets their act together.

And what do our poor friends in the FAA do for a folding wing, single seat fighter? Britain doesn't have a homemade one until the postwar Sea Fury.

I want to know what Mitchell's been doing if he's not making the Spitfire. That's the big missing piece of the puzzle here. Maybe he's beaten cancer for good in 1933 and spends the 1930s and 40s as a farmer.

 

[Shortround6]

lets just say that not all of Supermarine's post Spitfire projects may have been the best of the bunch.

Twin Taurus engines with pusher props.
A bit earlier

in competition with the Whirlwind.
Not official Supermarine drawings.

 

[pbehn]

Except the Typhoon never really came on line, being pretty much a flop at medium to high altitude work, It was never used outside of NW Europe,
Hurricanes in Italy in 1943? If you even make to Italy using Hurricanes.
Spitfires gave top cover to the Typhoons operating in Europe using bombs and rockets.
It was a great replacement for the Blenheim, as a fighter it was a lot more limited.

In a what if about no Spitfire, it is impossible to ignore that the Spitfire and other types existed. I would be the first to say the Typhoon wasn't very good in retrospect, but it saw of Fw 190 tip and run raiders and from then on was developed as a fighter bomber not a fighter. Its speed was restricted to 400MPH with rocket racks on, so the development was carrying more armament and armour. Why would you develop both the Spitfire and the Typhoon as high altitude air superiority fighters? If the RAF made the strange decision of putting 4 cannon and rocket racks on a a MK V Spitfire then a Hurricane with a two stage supercharger would act as its top cover, it just wouldn't have been very good at it. Hawkers sold as many SE fighters (Hurricane/Typhoon and Tempest) to the RAF as Supermarine did and not only ended up with the dogs bollocks of low level piston engine fighters, also took that to the only piston engine fighter to be adopted post war. Lets not forget that with all the failings these three types had, the Hurricane won the BoB, the Typhoon was the best RAF CAS fighter bomber while the Tempest was the biggest "killer" of V1 flying bombs.

 

[PAT303]

I was under the impression that the scenario was set pre-battle of Britain (1940) when Britain was in need of a stop-gap solition between the Hurricane and Typhoon.


And interesting analogy between vehicles, but how would they be challenging each other: road course, circle track or quarter mile?

There is no stop gap or future, the Hurri is already outclassed, the P.94 will just get all your pilots killed, the Typhoon is not reliable until '43 and is not a high altitude fighter, without the Spit Britain is neutered. Your muscle car is beaten every where, the only thing it excels at is turning huge quantities of fuel into noise.

 

[PAT303]

the Hurricane won the BoB

I don't think your going to get many agreeing with you here.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I don't think your going to get many agreeing with you here.

The Battle of Britain was doomed to be a German failure.