Qualities that made for a great aircraft that don't show up in performance stats.

[Kevin J]

Not at all aimed at you. I find your comments useful and interesting, and I have changed my opinion of the P-40 based pretty much only on your comments.

I meant stuff like:

Listen mate, Cobber, you need to live over here to realise just how biased everything on the TV is towards the Spitfire, which is grossly unfair towards the Hurricane. Even comments on the forums that I've come across that suggested that the Hurricane was obsolete in 1939, whereas in reality the Air Ministry was considering stopping further production of the Spitfire in 1939 in favour of Beaufighter production.

 

[swampyankee]

The Hurricane was about a half-generation older than the Spitfire; it was going to be inferior in some regards.

That said, the Hurricane was easier to repair, so it was able to demonstrate a greater availability rate than the Spitfire, especially in the first year or so of the war, and it had adequate performance to be competitive, albeit not superior, to its Axis opposition.

 

[eagledad]

Thanks much appreciated! From the numbers I assume this includes Italy but not North Africa?

I have always considered the data included North Africa. However, there is nothing in the book that says it does or does not. It is somewhat easy to guess the data includes the MTO because the A-36 was not used in Northern Europe. I do not believe that the P-38 kills would be at the level stated in the table if North Africa were excluded.
FWIW

Eagledad

 

[Ascent]

Granted the media does prefer the Spitfire but you do the Hurricane no favours by trying to suggest it was a better aircraft. It has plenty of good points without trying to over do it

 

[Kevin J]

Granted the media does prefer the Spitfire but you do the Hurricane no favours by trying to suggest it was a better aircraft. It has plenty of good points without trying to over do it

What I said is that it scored more victories. By the time all the issues had been sorted out with the Spitfire in 1942 with the Vc/IXc the war had begun to switch to a deep penetration war in the ETO for which the Spitfire was unsuitable.The I/II/Va/b were good in the hands of a good pilot, but I don't believe that there a lot of them in any air force. For the average pilot in a ground hugging war or as a bomber interceptor before mid 1942, the Hurricane was better than the Spitfire and of course the P-40 series even better still. Given a choice between a Tomahawk IIa/b and a Spitfire Va/b overseas, I'd go with the Tomahawk, although for purely interception duties at overseas naval bases, then I would chose the Spitfire Vb Trop. Given a choice between a Hurricane II and a Spitfire II overseas, I'd go with the Hurricane as the performance difference is marginal. After mid-1942 then that's a different issue, its clearly the Spitfire.

 

[Shortround6]

Listen mate, Cobber, you need to live over here to realise just how biased everything on the TV is towards the Spitfire, which is grossly unfair towards the Hurricane. Even comments on the forums that I've come across that suggested that the Hurricane was obsolete in 1939, whereas in reality the Air Ministry was considering stopping further production of the Spitfire in 1939 in favour of Beaufighter production.

And the soon to be produced wonder airplane the Hawker T_______.
But let's get a few things straight. Supermarine was making a hash of getting the Spitfire into production with delivers running from late to very late making selecting it as the standard fighter rather dubious. Fighters on order but not delivered, no matter how good, don't shoot down anything. The initial performance estimates for the Beaufighter were off by 30-40mph in top speed, a problem created by lack of good wind tunnels in Britain at the the time. WHich also affected the Hawker T series fighters. While the British tried to cover their bets with the Hawker T series by ordering prototypes with 3 different engines, all three engines ran into problems and failed to make it into production in a timely fashion.
Factoring into this mess was that nobody expected the Merlin engine to improve the way it did. in 1939 nobody really knew what sort of improvements that 100 octane and then 100/130 fuel could/would bring. Stanley Hooker started at Rolls Royce in Jan 1938 and was told to look at anything that caught his fancy. He started looking at superchargers. Between the better fuel and Hooker's modified supercharger the Merlin gained over 30% in power (and added several thousand feet to it's altitude) at little or no increase in weight.

The Hurricane was obsolescent in 1939. Which is why Hawker was building the T series. Obsolescent is not quite the same as obsolete.
The Hurricane benefited quite a bit from the improved Merlins. Getting the Merlin XX engine instead of the Merlin XII that the Spitfire II got was a major advantage. It was even an advantage over the Merlin 45 that the Spitfire V got.

Had the Air Ministry actually stopped production of the Spitfire in 1939 the British would have been in world of hurt in 1940 and later.

 

[Kevin J]

And the soon to be produced wonder airplane the Hawker T_______.
But let's get a few things straight. Supermarine was making a hash of getting the Spitfire into production with delivers running from late to very late making selecting it as the standard fighter rather dubious. Fighters on order but not delivered, no matter how good, don't shoot down anything. The initial performance estimates for the Beaufighter were off by 30-40mph in top speed, a problem created by lack of good wind tunnels in Britain at the the time. WHich also affected the Hawker T series fighters. While the British tried to cover their bets with the Hawker T series by ordering prototypes with 3 different engines, all three engines ran into problems and failed to make it into production in a timely fashion.
Factoring into this mess was that nobody expected the Merlin engine to improve the way it did. in 1939 nobody really knew what sort of improvements that 100 octane and then 100/130 fuel could/would bring. Stanley Hooker started at Rolls Royce in Jan 1938 and was told to look at anything that caught his fancy. He started looking at superchargers. Between the better fuel and Hooker's modified supercharger the Merlin gained over 30% in power (and added several thousand feet to it's altitude) at little or no increase in weight.

The Hurricane was obsolescent in 1939. Which is why Hawker was building the T series. Obsolescent is not quite the same as obsolete.
The Hurricane benefited quite a bit from the improved Merlins. Getting the Merlin XX engine instead of the Merlin XII that the Spitfire II got was a major advantage. It was even an advantage over the Merlin 45 that the Spitfire V got.

Had the Air Ministry actually stopped production of the Spitfire in 1939 the British would have been in world of hurt in 1940 and later.

The best engine went into the best bomber interceptor. For the Spitfire, the best engine to engage the high flying recce aircraft and fighter bombers.

 

[Schweik]

I have always considered the data included North Africa. However, there is nothing in the book that says it does or does not. It is somewhat easy to guess the data includes the MTO because the A-36 was not used in Northern Europe. I do not believe that the P-38 kills would be at the level stated in the table if North Africa were excluded.
FWIW

Eagledad

If that is the case the numbers are a little off. For example American flown P-40's had 592 claims in the MTO. See:

Warbirds and Airshows- WWII US Aircraft Victories

Those numbers also match the Osprey books, though they aren't definitive.

 

[Schweik]

Granted the media does prefer the Spitfire but you do the Hurricane no favours by trying to suggest it was a better aircraft. It has plenty of good points without trying to over do it

I wouldn't say the Hurricane was better... though they were probably closer in effectiveness in 1940 than 1941 or 1942

 

[Shortround6]

The best engine went into the best bomber interceptor. For the Spitfire, the best engine to engage the high flying recce aircraft and fighter bombers.

No,
The best engine went into the plane that was being produced in the greatest numbers in order to keep total production of viable fighters high.
The Spitfire could be viable fighter plane with 2nd best engine. The Hurricane could not.
The Merlin XX had better high altitude performance by far than the Merlin XII and slightly better than the Merlin 45

The idea that Spitfires could/would handle the German fighters while the Hurricanes shot down the bombers was a nice theory that seldom worked out in practice and was not the way Downing handled the intercepts.

 

[Kevin J]

No,
The best engine went into the plane that was being produced in the greatest numbers in order to keep total production of viable fighters high.
The Spitfire could be viable fighter plane with 2nd best engine. The Hurricane could not.
The Merlin XX had better high altitude performance by far than the Merlin XII and slightly better than the Merlin 45

The idea that Spitfires could/would handle the German fighters while the Hurricanes shot down the bombers was a nice theory that seldom worked out in practice and was not the way Downing handled the intercepts.

The Merlin XX was meant to go into the Spitfire III which would have meant changes on the production line in 1941 and no doubt fewer fighters produced at a critical moment in time. Some Spitfire III changes were introduced into the 'c' wing of 1942. You need the Merlin 46 of 1942 to get the performance of the XX of 1940/41. The first casualty of war is not just the truth but the battle plan, so yes, the intention was to use the Spitfire to take on the fighters while the Hurricane took on the bombers although it didn't always work out that way.

 

[Schweik]

Wow... I didn't realize that they put stronger / more powerful engines in the Hurricanes before they put them in Spitfires. That's interesting.

 

[pbehn]

I cant think of any significant area the Hurricane was superior to the Spitfire from Sept 1939 apart from ease of production and landing due to the track of the undercarriage.

 

[Schweik]

It could turn a little tighter right? The Spit was better in roll, dive, acceleration and climb though. Firepower is the same until the Hurricane Mk II but after that the IIb and IIc have more firepower.

How did handling compare between the two fighters?

 

[Schweik]

Just anecdotally Hurricanes do seem to be particularly devastating against bombers for some reason.

 

[pbehn]

Instantaneous turn may have been higher, limited by the pilot sustained turn was lower, the Spitfire was faster too, and less likely to burn its pilot when hit.

 

[Kevin J]

I cant think of any significant area the Hurricane was superior to the Spitfire from Sept 1939 apart from ease of production and landing due to the track of the undercarriage.

Cost price, easier to learn how to fly, and of course land, availability as opposed to Supermarine still struggling to manufacture a complex aircraft. The plane needed to be made simpler to produce, plus the mods to make it combat worthy. I think you'll find that when Beaverbrook took over the Castle Bromwich factory he sorted it out. The IIa/b was meant to do about 385/387 mph, it did 30 mph less. The Ia started off at 365/7 mph and ended up 10 mph less. It wasn't until 1942 that Spitfire exceeded Hurricane production. To give you a clue of the difference in performance between a Hurricane and Spitfire, take the Sea Hurricane IIc (Merlin XX) of 1942 which did 342 mph and the Seafire IIc (Merlin 46) of 1942 which did 342 mph when both equipped with four 20 mm cannon. The difference between them was that the Sea Hurricane didn't have catapult spools, so what's that, 7 to 12 mph loss in speed depending on height? You'll probably find that the Hurricane I had a better roll rate and turning circle to the Spitfire I, although dive speed with fabric covered wings, about 100 mph less, reducing to 60 mph with metal wings. From what I've read about the BoB, combat resulted in a lot of Spitfires with bent wings so clearly a problem there. Also the twin banks of Brownings were more effective than the spread out layout of the Spitfire Ia/IIa/Va guns which had a shotgun effect.To me, it makes sense for the Air Ministry to put the Merlin XX into the Hurricane II when it did until all the Spitfire's deficiencies were sorted out. So the Hurricane II is 10 mph slower, big deal.

 

[GregP]

I believe the table from Ray Wagner above via Eagledad is for ETO only, but Ray just published the tables in his book and gives overall references. I have no idea where the data came from specifically. My copy of his book doesn't give me the table references. It is labeled as ETO-only. The ETO was broken out for US ground forces as Europe, north of Italy and the Mediterranean.

So, Italy was considered as MTO along with North Africa by the people who defined the US Theaters of Operations. The Navy also didn't have a PTO (and didn't save the same data as the USAAF in any case). They had Central Pacific and Southwest Pacific. The Northeast Pacific was considered as part of the Alaska Theater of Operations.

 

[Schweik]

The thing about the Hurricane having a better roll rate is really baffling, the idea that the Hurricane rolled well - let alone better than the Spitfire, goes against all the anecdotatal comments by pilots. It was one of the main complaints / criticisms of the Hurricane. What am I missing here?

 

[Schweik]

I believe the table from Ray Wagner above via Eagledad is for ETO only, but Ray just published the tables in his book and gives overall references. I have no idea where the data came from specifically. My copy of his book doesn't give me the table references. It is labeled as ETO-only. The ETO was broken out for US ground forces as Europe, north of Italy and the Mediterranean.

So, Italy was considered as MTO along with North Africa by the people who defined the US Theaters of Operations. They also didn't have a PTO. The Navy also didn't have a PTO (and didn't save the same data as the USAAF in any case). They had Central Pacific and Southwest Pacific. The Northeast Pacific was considered as part of the Alaska Theater of Operations.

Well the Osprey books (and the aggregated numbers on the "Warbirds and Airshows" page linked above) are pretty well documented on their numbers for claims. Actual real verified victories of course is another matter. But the numbers for several aircraft types between Osprey and Wagner vary by about 20%. So I thought maybe they were distinguishing between claims in North Africa vs. claims in Italy (including Sicily, Sardania and Lampedusa / Pantelleria) which is technically Europe, whereas Tunisia is not. Those Islands in particular are where a lot of the USAAF victories were scored in the Med, and in Italy in fairly intense air combat up to the time of Anzio. By comparison USAAF was only fighting in North Africa for a few months and most of that in limited numbers.

P-38 European + MTO claims should be 1928 (1431 Med and 497 ETO) vs. 1,758 in the Ray Wagner numbers (spreadsheet)
P-40 European + MTO claims should be 592 (all Med) vs. 481 in the spreadsheet
P-39 European + MTO claims should be 27 (25 Med and 2 ETO) vs. 14 in the spreadsheet
US Spitfire European + MTO claims should be 379 (364 Med, 15 ETO) vs. 256 on the spreadsheet
P-47 European + MTO claims should be 2,948 (263 Med + 2685 ETO) vs. 3,082 on the spreadsheet
P-51 Eurpopean + MTO claims (including A-36) should be 5,302 (1,063 Med + 4,239 ETO) vs. 5,034 on the spreadsheet (P-51 + A-36)
P-61 European + MTO just about matches 59 vs. 58

P-47 and P-51 seem to be pretty close - they only fought in Italy not really in North Africa (a few A-36 sorties but i don't think any claims there)