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In OTL in the BoB the RAF had three single-engine fighters, the Hurricane, the Spitfire Defiant ---------- cope?
Gloster f.5/34 - could depend on the engine fitted, but has the best cockpit canopy for all round vision, is said to be easy to fly, slower yes than the 109 but similar to the Hurricane; its problem maybe altitude performance!?
Boulton-Paul P.94 - plausible to get some in service, said to be almost as fast as the Spit., but would the length impair combat performance!?
Curtis P-36 - said to have done quite well in France, personally I'm not convinced - BoB combat was at higher altitude than in France.
Boulton-Paul P.88a - could've been available, again depends what hp the Hercules engine it has goes up to. A big machine, robust, IMO likely to be a little faster than the Hurricane - and with those cannon once you get hit your down out!!?
Gloster F.9/37 - again could've been available with earlier PODs, granted it's a 'twin' but Blenheim 1Fs were in 109 range, the Gloster twin was much faster and said to handle well?
Westland Whirlwind - problems with manufacture and the engine, long take-off, nevertheless maybe some could've been available earlier, it was best at low to medium altitude!?
Fighter production was not the bottleneck. Trained pilots were. Especially as enough had to be held back to assault any landings.
Changing the training program would have helped, giving more gunnery training would have helped. Changing the pattern the guns were harmonized for may have helped. Making more incendiary ammunition would have helped.
As built? Slow, no self sealing tanks or armor, Mercury engine has FTL several thousand feet below Melrin III. Without an major engine change a service version will be 20-30mph slower than a Hurricane.
French versions were lacking in armor and self sealing tanks, without major engine up grade ( just putting 100 octane in the tanks won't do it) a British Hawk will be slower and poorer climbing, they was a reason they didn't use the ones they had.
...Finland used 87 octane fuel, so the factory performance levels were not achieved.
The plane had slower and climbed worse than the Brewster.
Against old Russian planes it perform well, but I do not think that it possible against Bf 109 E model.
I am not saying it wasn't possible but when you stick that stuff in the performance (especially climb and altitude) will go down. British were sending the Hawks to India and other places away from Western Europe in the summer/fall of 1940.
You also have 3-4 different engines being used in the Hawks along with different armament layouts so getting really good performance figures is a bit hard. You also have the P&W engines rated at 2550 rpm on a P-36 (American) for "flight" but allowed to run at 2700 rpm for take-off so we are not sure what rpm was used to hit which performance numbers. ( It seems at 2550rpm the P-36A could NOT break 300mph?)
As JoeB wrote earlier: �In the Battle of France period, as given case by case in "Battle of France Then and Now" by Cornwell:
Spitfires downed 24 Bf109E's for 32 Spitfires shot down by Bf109E's, .75:1
Hurricane: 74:151, .49:1
Hawk 75: 23:38, .61:1
D.520: 14:30, .47:1.�
see:http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/dewoitone-d-520-vs-spitfire-bf-109-a-24052-2.html
So during the BoF Hawk-75As did better than Hurris against 109Es but worse than Spits. The BoB was different than the BoF, a pure air war versus a massive ground attack with powerful air support but Hawk wasn't helpless against 109Es.
Juha
What the heck is OTL and ATL?
Doesn't compute.