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Was the Emil really better than a Spitfire? In several ways it was more sophisticated, it had fuel injection and leading edge slats, combat flaps and a hydromatic / barometric controlled supercharger. But the Spitfire was so beautifully streamlined in spite of having 4' wider wingspan and a 40% greater wing area (with resulting superiority in turn performance) was actually faster than the Emil. I think the Spit I and the Emil were roughly equivalent. Which was better Spit or 109 went back and forth through the war with all the different variants, but they were always pretty close.
Point is you can you have the extra fuel or you can have the weight penalty.
If the Germans are operating at less than a full load they have the advantage.
If your Hurricane is operating at, say 50% full (combat then getting home) then a P-40 isn't going to have much more fuel or it is going to be carrying more weight.
Yes. MS 406 was a 30's era fighter whose time had come and gone. And lets not forget the Bloch 150 / 152 series, which seems to have been a dud.
[...] but it was the government's mind-set that caved in first. Had the country had more stout leadership its army could have been able to defeat the Germans on the ground [...]
Didn't the Spitfire have an unprotected or lightly protected (i.e. no self sealing) fuel tank in front of the pilot?
Mk Is (and Mk IIs) received a curved aluminum 'deflection plate' over the top tank in early 1940 (at least as early as February 1940 on a Mk II trials aircraft). This is variously given as 3 mm, 3.9 mm, 4 mm or 6 mm thick.
It's a long and complicated story (as is usual with the Spitfire).
...
Sometime in 1940, the rear fireproof bulkhead on the Mk I was improved and extended to better protect the fuel tank (and the pilot). I think it was 8 mm of aluminum, plus an asbestos layer.
All the way out to the Mk 22, the top tank wasn't self sealing. Except for the Mk VIII and Mk VII, where the did introduce a self sealing top tank. The December 1943 manual Mk VII & Mk VIII manual lists all four fuel tanks as self sealing. As I understand it, more space was made available in the airframe by changing the upper fuel tank dimensions and lowering it directly onto the bottom tank.
Let's look at the Emil versus the Mk.I. Both had technical advantages and disadvantages over each other, the list is quite extensive, but context again. The Emil had, despite a high wing loading benign stall characteristics, but it was a beast on the ground; poor visibility, poor lateral control on the ground, a heavy tail, awkward undercarriage geometry which made ground loops a mandatory aspect of operations, particularly after landing on rollout. Taxiing with the canopy open was a no no because the vibration from operating from grass strips meant the hinges wore out. In its favour the Emil has cannon armament, high altitude, high cruise speed at altitude and operating as escorts from altitude was able to carry out vertical combat manoeuvres to nullify the advantages that the Spitfire and Hurricane had over it in being superior low speed dog fighters.
Emils also had variable pitch props, although the switch was initially located on the dashboard, which meant the pilot had to do a dance with his hands to activate it, a distraction in combat that led to the lever being mounted sensibly on the side console next to the power lever. The Spit I started the war with a giant block of wood on the nose, which to be fair was in the process of being replaced by a two-position variable pitch prop, which again was later updated with a fully CS prop. The German supercharger was a very efficient piece of technology that operated barometrically by varying its output based on its altitude, whereas the Merlin's supercharger was effective only at a prescribed altitude band.
In the BoB the Emil was formidable and widely recognised as having a better ceiling than the RAF fighters, but of course the way combat worked was that the German escorts would have to dive down on their adversaries. In commenting about the Bf 109's perceived superior altitude, one RAF pilot stated, "Well, they have to come down here and get us..." This meant the RAF fighters could take advantage of their virtues, better manoeuvrability, which as we know combat descended into twisting turning individual scraps where the superior dog fighters could get the better of the Bf 109s that couldn't pull as tight turns as its adversaries. At high angles of bank, those lift slats snapped open asymmetrically and spoiled the pilot's aim.
As for the claim the Emil was arguably the best fighter in the world in 1939, it could at that time out perform the Spitfire I in altitude and it was more modern - no wooden prop, cannon armament, plus the Luftwaffe tactics learned in the Spanish Civil War meant that the Jagdgeschwader were better prepared for modern war.
You think the early Spitfire was a better low-speed dogfighter than the Bf 109E?
I think it was the other way, with the Bf 109E slats helping the Emil hang in there in turns, even if stalled, and the Spitfire being better at medium to high speeds, when the Bf 109E controls got too heavy to be of much use.
You have to compute the additional wing area once the slats are deployed, that will paint a better picture of the wing loading once the -109 is in that configuration.Spitfire Mk 1 - 5,935 lbs / 242 sq ft wing area = 24 lb / sq ft wing loading
Bf 109E - 5,700 lbs / 174 sq ft wing area = 32 lb / sq ft wing loading
I just googled the weights so there might be some variance in those numbers, but I think that is in the ballpark.
And I don't know how much the slats helped but that is a lot of ground to make up for. As in about a 25% advantage for the Spit.
I believe that RAE or ADFU test pilots found that to be the case.
What was determined was that service pilots were unable to turn as tightly in Spitfires as the test pilots were in the 109E. With experienced test pilots in both, the Spitfire handily out-turned the 109.
German pilots were more experienced before the BoB, and would likely have more confidence to get close to the limits of the aircraft than their British counterparts.
Jabberwocky,The Germans thought the Spitfire was better turning than the 109E as well. Quoting from the August 1940 German trials of a 109-E3, 110C, Spitfire, Hurricane and a Hawk 75 "Curtiss":
"Before turning fights with the Bf 109 E type, it must be noted in every case, that all three foreign planes have significantly smaller turning circles and turning times.
An attack on the opponent as well as disengagement can only be accomplished on the basis of existing superiority in performance."
Both Spitfire and Hurricane had the older, two pitch propellers - I'm not sure how much that hurt/helped turn performance.
The RAF's Hurricane Mk I vs a 109-E trials from May 1940 found the British could go from in front of the Germany fighter to behind it in the space of four circles. The RAF also found that the Hurricane's turning circle was about 10% better than that of the Spitfire.
June 1940 Spitfire Mk I vs 109-E trials stated "the Spitfire out-turned the Messerschmitt almost as easily as the Hurricane".
It is in the line above Spitfire, Hurricane and Hawk 75. However by August 1940 the Spit and Hurricane were both fitted with CS props and the Spitfire MkII was starting to come into service.Jabberwocky,
Are you able to identify "all three foreign planes" from your passage? I'm assuming it's the Hurricane & Spitfire, but am curious what the third A/C might be.
Cheers,
Biff
117 Spitfires were ridden off at Darwin to all causes.The RAAF pranged a lot of Spitfires around Darwin as well.
Anthony Cooper's Darwin Spitfires book gives 36 Spitfire VCs damaged badly enough during takeoff or landing between February and September 1943 to require attention from the Repair and Servicing unit. He attributes this to the conditions inherent to the bush airfields the Spitfires were operating from. These were narrow and made of dirt (compared to the wide grassy airfields used by in the UK and in NSW). Of the 36 Spitfires, only seven (~20%) were actually damaged at the main paved Darwin airfield, the rest were damaged at the smaller ancillary dirt fields.