RAF BoB Fighters OTL ATL v Me-109

merlin said:

Quite frankly I'm amazed, in any ATL of BoB, I would not have considered the Fulmar - at the outside just as a possible emergency night-fighter, but then it would probably take too long to climb to have any chance of achieving an interception.

Whilst, an ATL BoB helps to do away with the Defiant Blenheim, when every I do an alternative FAA - the Fulmar doesn't get a look in!

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The climb rate of a NN Fulmar would be similar to the Hurricane, it's turn radius would be similar to a Hurricane, and while it's top speed would be lower, it's speed in a dive would probably be higher.

Question: Could the RAF have employed the Martlet II/IV profitably during the BofB? If the answer is yes, then the same could be said for the NN Fulmar.

stona said:

And not a Bf 109 to be found

This is all very well but hardly supports the contention that the Fulmar would have been useful, or even capable of surviving, in the cauldron of the Battle of Britain.

Cheers

Steve

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The 109 wasn't everywhere, all at once, during the BofB when we all know that much of the UK was well beyond the range of the 109.

Again, the key factors during the battle were interception rates and kill rates per firing pass. The Fulmar certainly proved that it could achieve very high kill rates per firing pass. When the Fulmar met single seat fighters, it generally fought well although overall probably on a losing exchange rate, just as the Spitfire and Hurricane did against the 109 during the BofB, and for much the same reason; if the RAF fighters or the Fulmar were bounced, then they generally lost, but generally won when the situation was reversed, and generally fought the 109 to a draw during encounters when neither side had the advantage of surprise.

RCAFson said:

Again, the key factors during the battle were interception rates and kill rates per firing pass. The Fulmar certainly proved that it could achieve very high kill rates per firing pass.

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Could you please explain how you came to this conclusion? I take it this means that you have thoroughly researched every combat in which Fulmars participated, worked out how many firing passes each Fulmar made and calculated how many aircraft were shot down?

Question: why on earth would the RAF spend so much time and effort de-navalising the Fulmar when aircraft like the Miles M 20 were available?

Again any comparison with the sort of environment to which the Fulmar would be exposed in the BoB is spurious.

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Yep, Steve, but Parsifal is steadfastly ignoring it.

Nothing you've written confirms anything you've said about how the Fulmar would do in combat with up 30 Bf 109s at once, Parsifal. Still waiting on evidence of Fulmar combats with lots of '109s over Malta...

The 109 wasn't everywhere, all at once, during the BofB when we all know that much of the UK was well beyond the range of the 109.

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This is rather a pointless statement because where there were lots of Bf 109s was the biggest concentration of RAF fighters.

As for the Defiant, yeah, we know it didn't do well in the BoB as a day fighter, but like I said, it wasn't it's turret at fault but its tactical use. Proof of this was that in December 1940 the Air Ministry altered a previously released night fighter specification - can't remember which one off the top of my head - to a turret equipped replacement for the Defiant! Bristol fitted a BP Type A turret (as fitted to the Defiant) to a Beaufighter and GdeH toyed with the idea of fitting a turret to a Mossie, although he protested strongly to the idea). A number of manufacturers issued designs to the tender, so the turret fighter still had life in it after the Daffy's day fighter debut.

In all accounts of the Fulmar I've come across it is regarded as a good aircraft but lacking that essential fighter quality; speed. I can provide several different quotes stating exactly the same thing, so what is so difficult about accepting that it would suffer high losses against large numbers of Bf 109s at once? In the words of Daryl Kerrigan from 'The Castle'; "Tell 'im 'ee's dreamin..."

Fulmar I rate of climb: 1,200 ft/min, Hurricane I RoC: 2,520 ft/min, Bf 109E RoC 3,300 ft/min...

Aozora said:

Could you please explain how you came to this conclusion? I take it this means that you have thoroughly researched every combat in which Fulmars participated, worked out how many firing passes each Fulmar made and calculated how many aircraft were shot down?

Question: why on earth would the RAF spend so much time and effort de-navalising the Fulmar when aircraft like the Miles M 20 were available?

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So you're now claiming that the Fulmar was so fast that it could make repeated passes at Axis bombers? I thought the argument was that the Fulmar was too slow:

nuuumannn said:

"...In all accounts of the Fulmar I've come across it is regarded as a good aircraft but lacking that essential fighter quality; speed..."

Fulmar I rate of climb: 1,200 ft/min, Hurricane I RoC: 2,520 ft/min, Bf 109E RoC 3,300 ft/min...

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You can't really have it both ways...

The greatest effort was to navalize it. A parallel development of a non-naval Fulmar would have been trivial in comparison.

Yes, the M20 would have been another alternative.

Yep, Steve, but Parsifal is steadfastly ignoring it.

Nothing you've written confirms anything you've said about how the Fulmar would do in combat with up 30 Bf 109s at once, Parsifal. Still waiting on evidence of Fulmar combats with lots of '109s over Malta...

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Ive not ignored it at all. ive given several detailed responses outlining my reasons my friend, which you choose to ignore. not the other way around. Fine, i understand, you dont agree, but please dont say im ignoring what you say, when that is patently untrue. i happen to not agree with you, that is not ignooring you, its disagreeing with you. You should have the nouse to know the difference.

Ive given you a response as to why it was possible for the fulmar to survive in skies dominated by the 109. The Fulmar, for whatever reason, could act in those sorts of situations, survive, and do some good things to boot. It could not on its own challenge for air superiority. Please take the time to read those words more carefully than you have. You do know what thet means dont you. it means, a Fulmar cannot dogfight with a 109. But it doesnt follow that a Fulmar cannot fly in skies filled with enemy fighters. it could, it did. thats a fact. what is conjecture are these claims that it would be shot out of the sky over england, because on a front measuring several hundred miles there were many more 109s than over a point target like Malta. Ask yourself a basic mathermatics question....how many points are ther in a line. if we equate SE england as a line, and Malta as a point, then as a line, it is immeasurably bigger than the point target. that means that despite the much larger numbers of fighters, they also had a much ;larger frontage to cover. Of course malta is not a mathematical point, and England is not a mathematical line,, but how many battlefields the size of malta can be fitted into the battlefield the size of SE england...50, 1000??? probably closer to the latter i would suspect.

The hypothesis that needs to be proven is whether the fullmar would be shot down over england, not that , not that it would be unable to survive with any 109s about. Its already proven that in skies filled with 109s, with the specific mission of killing it, those 109s could not do it. Your argument has been thats because there were so few 109s, but mine is that density wise there is no difference between malta and England. As to whether a fulmar could survive in 109 dominated skies or not, the proff is already there, it could, it did, its a fact, at least when in the company of some help (9 hurricanes) . its up to you guys to give examples or provide evidence that it could not or that would be shot out of the sky if it got airborne over England during the battle.

I suspect you guys are extrapolating the experioences of the hurris and Spits over England, and concluding that if these aircraft were hard pressed to compete with the 109, then how on earth would an aircraft like the Fulmar survive. I would say this, if the Fulmar attempted to mix it with a 109 in the way the hurricane of the spit did, then it would most certainly wind up dead. that is not the starting supposition to my claim. I am not claiming the Fulmar could dispute air superiority over a 109, I am merely claiming it could survive....hang back, fly around them, wait for the Hurricanes and Spits to do their thing then move iin, whatever it did over malta to survive and then take out more than a few of the bombers

For the record, ther were two squadrons of fulmars present in the British Isles, and suffered 0 losses. They didnt fire a shot, to be fair, but they were there, I guess...

RCAFson said:

So you're now claiming that the Fulmar was so fast that it could make repeated passes at Axis bombers? I thought the argument was that the Fulmar was too slow:

You can't really have it both ways...

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Wrong, please don't try misrepresenting my post - You're making these claims about the Fulmar:

RCAFson said:

Again, the key factors during the battle were interception rates and kill rates per firing pass. The Fulmar certainly proved that it could achieve very high kill rates per firing pass.

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I'm asking you how you reached that conclusion; please explain.

But Parsifal, if the Fulmar is going to operate over England during the BoB in an area where there are some of your 'softer' targets for it, that is Luftwaffe bombers, it will have to operate in an area also laden with Bf 109s and Bf 110s. Over Malta it could operate around the fringes, relatively safe from the Bf 109s since the total number of Bf 109s flying on any particular mission was barely into double figures (often it wasn't, serviceability in Sicily wasn't great). Malta might be a point target but a dozen Bf 109s can't cover it and its environs.
The Luftwaffe did not attack 'Southern England'. It attacked specific targets with large concentrations of escorted bombers. There would be extremely limited opportunities for the Fulmar to engage bombers around the fringes without itself falling victim to escort fighters which were much more numerous and concentrated than over Malta.
The Defiant faced exactly the same problem. It was designed to engage unescorted bomber formations, and would have been good at it too. The appearance of Bf 109s with the bombers rendered it redundant overnight and the same would have happened to the Fulmar.
Your 'air superiority' argument seems to be that the Spitfires and Hurricanes could have somehow handed off the Luftwaffe's fighters allowing the Fulmars (and why not Defiants?) to wreak havoc on the bombers. Unfortunately the RAF did not exert this kind of air superiority over Southern England. The air space was being bitterly contested, both sides felt that they had the advantage at various stages of the battle.
Cheers
Steve

RCAFson said:

The 109 wasn't everywhere, all at once, during the BofB when we all know that much of the UK was well beyond the range of the 109.

Again, the key factors during the battle were interception rates and kill rates per firing pass. The Fulmar certainly proved that it could achieve very high kill rates per firing pass. When the Fulmar met single seat fighters, it generally fought well although overall probably on a losing exchange rate, just as the Spitfire and Hurricane did against the 109 during the BofB, and for much the same reason; if the RAF fighters or the Fulmar were bounced, then they generally lost, but generally won when the situation was reversed, and generally fought the 109 to a draw during encounters when neither side had the advantage of surprise.

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The Bf 109 was present where the RAF's targets, the Luftwaffe's bombers, where. The BoB (with few exceptions) was fought over SE England and the Channel.

What evidence do you have to support the contention that the Fulmar could achieve 'very high kill rates per firing pass'. I have first hand accounts from Fulmar pilots who were surprised at the amount of punishment some Italian types could sustain and keep flying. It had the same forward firing armament as the much superior single seat eight gun fighters. Maybe flying much slower and engaging slower targets, having more time to fire, might bias the figures if there are any.

RAF air to air gunnery during the BoB was woeful. I doubt that the FAA's was any better. The vast majority of pilots never hit, let alone shot down, an enemy aeroplane. Kill rates per firing pass sounds like something from a computer game manual. The number of strikes needed to shoot down various types using various ammunitions was carefully calculated and updated throughout the war by the 'boffins' at Orfordness, but it was irrelevant if the average pilot couldn't hit the target, and he couldn't.

If a Fulmar 'bounced' a Bf 109 there was nothing to stop the Bf 109 simply turning and accelerating away. The reverse is not true and could easily end badly for the Fulmar. The Bf 109 out performs the Fulmar in just about every criteria known to quantify aircraft performance. One Hurricane pilot said that the most disconcerting thing about flying the Hurricane against the Bf 109 was that it wasn't fast enough 'to run away'. Refreshing honesty from someone who was there. In a Fulmar the situation would be much, much worse.

Even Parsifal isn't suggesting that the Fulmar could have competed with the Bf 109. Pitting a two seat navalised fighter based on a light bomber against one of the two best single seat fighters in the world is always going to be a no contest.

Cheers

Steve

But it doesnt follow that a Fulmar cannot fly in skies filled with enemy fighters. it could, it did.

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Prove it, then? Provide me/us with examples of the Fulmar tackling large numbers of Bf 109s - not Italian bombers, not CR-42s, not Bf 110s and Stukas, but Bf 109s. The thing is, Parsifal, you can't because you and I both know, such combat did not happen. Like we've been stating from way back, the Bf 109 did not enter the fray over Malta in anywhere near the numbers it did over Britain, therefore comparisons of combat over Malta are pointless; there is little common frame of reference. You can go on all day about the strategic situation and what the FAA was up against, but no amount of interceptions against the numbers and types of aircraft present over Malta is proof that it could survive during the BoB.

How can you believe that the Fulmar, with worse performance than the Defiant could survive where the Defiant couldn't? And don't mention the turret as a reason why it is different, because it was the Defiant's low speed that was its biggest hindrance, not its armament. How can you not agree that with worse speed than 300 mph the Fulmar could survive against large numbers of the best German fighter pilots flying one of the best fighters in the world at the time? Steve's right; I can provide plenty of examples of Defiants being shot down even when in the presense of single seaters - Defiants were too slow at 300 mph; the Fulmar was a German target waiting to be shot down at less than that speed over Britain.

The Fulmar certainly proved that it could achieve very high kill rates per firing pass.

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Got any figures to back that up with? I can provide you with the fact that no FAA pilot became an ace on the Fulmar alone. Yes, aces did fly Fulmars, but none of them shot down five or more aircraft flying the Fulmar. Sub Lt Graeme Hogg was the highest scoring FAA fighter pilot to fly the Fulmar with 4 claims plus 8 shared in the Fulmar of his total of 12. During an attack by S.79 torpedo bombers against the Illustrious, Hogg and two of his 806 squadron mates claimed a bomber each, but used up all their ammunition shooting down their bomber.

It's common knowledge that Fulmar pilots had to make the first pass count because they would not get another chance because of, you guessed it, its low speed and acceleration. Robert Henley of 806 Sqn stated after being shot down during attacks on Illustrious that; "I recall a fairly massive raid raid of Ju 87s and Ju 88s, with all available fighters scrambled - some four Fulmars - and we just flew around uncontrolled, shooting at anything that came within range. The poor old Fulmar had problems gaining height and speed against the Ju 88s. My aircraft was hit, I think to my embarrassment, by a Ju 87, which stopped my engine some miles east-south-east of Hal Far."

The Fulmar was very unlikely to anymore successful than a Hurricane per firing pass since they used the same guns in essentially the same layout and both were noted as steady gun platforms. The Fumlars advantages were that it could make MORE firing passes (assuming it could catch the targets), and due to it's low rate of closure it's firing pass would last longer.

Differences in performance of the guns between 1941 and 1940 might be due to a different ammo load out and perhaps to a different harmonization pattern. Standard loadout for eight guns in the BoB ( and yes, it could vary) was 3 guns with ball, 2 with AP, 2 with MK IV tracer and 1 gun with MK VI Incendiary (De Wilde). as time went on the percentage of MK VI Incendiary increased and the ball disappeared. Mosquito's and Spitfires with four .303 guns tasked with air to air later on were loaded with two guns of AP and two guns with MK VI Incendiary. For ground strafing is was 3 guns to 1 AP/incendiary.

These changes in ammo and perhaps changes in harmonization patterns make it difficult to compare combat effectiveness based on 'type' of aircraft unless the comparison is done for the same time period.


The South East England and Malta comparison needs a bit of looking at to. Granted over Malta the Germans could put a high ratio of fighters but the routes to and from Malta were pretty limited and the limit on the total number of aircraft the Germans were using meant that the while the raid was concentrated in area so was the strike formation. Over England there were often multiple strikes per day on targets a number of miles apart by formations that based a number of miles apart. Pin point density may be lower but British single fighters or small formations of fighters (3-4) that engage in 30-40 mile pursuits of stragglers can find themselves engaged by a German fighter group (3-12 aircraft) that was assigned to a different raid than they one they are pursuing.

Weather conditions may also play a part. Was the weather over Malta "clearer" on average than over England, less clouds? Were the extra crewmen able to give better warning of a possible bounce? Would cloudier conditions favor the Fulmar over England or hurt them?

nuuumannn said:

How can you believe that the Fulmar, with worse performance than the Defiant could survive where the Defiant couldn't?

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Forget the Defiant, the Blenheim had better level speed and climb performance than the Fulmar.

Only advantage/s the Fulmar had over the Blenheim was more guns and perhaps turn.

Had the British really wanted to, the Blenheim could have been modified for slightly better performance. Ditch the turret, clip the wings, a few sheet metal fairings around the nose, fit constant speed props NOT controllable pitch props and run on 100 octane fuel. Cotton at the Photo Recon unit had one modified like that with a few other tweaks and got it to do over over 290mph with no belly gun pack. But it does nothing to help or make up numbers at 15,000ft and above.

Surely the best thing would be to increase production of Spitfires and Hurricanes, but in any case the shortage wasn't planes it was pilots.

Shortround6 said:

due to it's low rate of closure it's firing pass would last longer.

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And consequently it's exposure to return fire from the target would also be longer. Many Spitfires and Hurricanes were shot down by return fire from the bombers making their usually shorter passes.

Cheers

Steve

Interestingly, on the subject of firing passes, the Admiralty didn't like the point harmonisation recommended by the RAF and stuck with their own, more spread out pattern. They found that point harmonisation was of no added benefit in destroying enemy aircraft, and that casualties to their own fighters were much higher (five times higher by their figures).

Their reasoning was exactly what you just described - longer exposure to enemy defensive fire as the Fulmar tried to get within 250 yards.

pbehn said:

Surely the best thing would be to increase production of Spitfires and Hurricanes, but in any case the shortage wasn't planes it was pilots.

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I'd qualify that as 'combat ready' pilots. The shortage was of well trained and experienced pilots and it was chronic. The total number of pilots in Fighter Command actually increased between July 1940 (1,377) and November 1940 (1,796).

The need for properly trained pilots in 11 Group seems to have evaded Douglas at a meeting at Bentley Priory on 7/9/40. The net loss in pilots in the four weeks leading up to 4/9/40 was only 68 (348 lost against 280 from the OTUs) but the OTU course had been reduced to two weeks and pilots emerging had as little as ten hours on front line fighters. 11 Group was losing almost 100 pilots per week and had resorted to fielding composite squadrons on some occasions. In Dowding's own words, addressed to Douglas. "You must realise that we are going downhill."

Coming back to the Fulmar, Dowding gave a series of lectures in the U.S. between November 1940 and May 1941. On the practicalities of air fighting he emphasised the need for fighters to be 'at least 30 mph faster than any bombers they opposed'. He also emphasised the need for a fast rate of climb and speed in level flight and the advantages of easy manoevrability at all heights and speeds. Pilots needed protective armour, good radios, cockpits offering good all round visibility, anti-icing devices and bullet proof windscreens. He discussed the relative performance of cannon and machine guns and emphasised the need for pilots to be trained at and become proficient in deflection shooting.

It is not difficult to see, given the criteria he gave, why he would not have been a fan of the Fulmar when fighting the pivotal defensive air battle in British history, but maybe others know better

Cheers

Steve

Of course the pilots needed to be combat trained. I can never understand why pilots with 10 hrs experience were thrown into the fray while other pilots with much more experience were up in Scotland and N England.



The Spitfire and Hurricane had different rates of climb and I believe climbed at different forward speeds which made it a bit difficult for them to operate together. Putting another Marque in the mix would make even more headaches.

pbehn said:

Of course the pilots needed to be combat trained. I can never understand why pilots with 10 hrs experience were thrown into the fray while other pilots with much more experience were up in Scotland and N England.

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Squadrons in other Groups were relieved of their experienced pilots and men which they had trained, who were transferred to squadrons in 11 Group. 11 Group squadrons were also maintained with a higher number of pilots, on average about 19 as opposed to as few as 10 in other Groups. By mid September 1940 even 11 Group's squadrons had on average only 16 pilots. The official establishment for a squadron in Fighter Command was 26.

This was Dowding's so called 'stabilisation system' introduced on 8/9/40 a day after the conference I cited above. Entire squadrons would no longer be rotated in and out of 11 Group, trained men would be. This system was very unpopular, particularly with the squadrons who lost their most experienced men along with newly operational pilots whom they had just trained. Introduced as an 'expedient', read desperate measure, it continued until the end of November 1940.

Dowding himself wrote. 'The stabilisation of squadrons in the line and the creation of Class 'C' squadrons was a desperate expedient forced on me by the heavy losses.'

Many squadrons in other Groups were either not fully operational or, as Dowding himself said, capable only of taking on unescorted bomber formations. On 23rd October 1940 440 of Fighter Command's pilots, roughly one third, were non-operational. This is why the raw figures for pilot numbers are somewhat misleading.

There was no large reserve of experienced pilots upon which Fighter Command could draw.

12 and 13 Groups both had jobs to do even with their limited resources, protecting the industrial infrastructure of the Midlands and the North. 13 Group did this very well as Luftflotte 5 discovered on 15th August.
We know, but Dowding could not, that such an attack would not be repeated.

Cheers

Steve

stona said:

The Bf 109 was present where the RAF's targets, the Luftwaffe's bombers, where. The BoB (with few exceptions) was fought over SE England and the Channel.

What evidence do you have to support the contention that the Fulmar could achieve 'very high kill rates per firing pass'. I have first hand accounts from Fulmar pilots who were surprised at the amount of punishment some Italian types could sustain and keep flying. It had the same forward firing armament as the much superior single seat eight gun fighters. Maybe flying much slower and engaging slower targets, having more time to fire, might bias the figures if there are any.

RAF air to air gunnery during the BoB was woeful. I doubt that the FAA's was any better. The vast majority of pilots never hit, let alone shot down, an enemy aeroplane. Kill rates per firing pass sounds like something from a computer game manual. The number of strikes needed to shoot down various types using various ammunitions was carefully calculated and updated throughout the war by the 'boffins' at Orfordness, but it was irrelevant if the average pilot couldn't hit the target, and he couldn't.

If a Fulmar 'bounced' a Bf 109 there was nothing to stop the Bf 109 simply turning and accelerating away. The reverse is not true and could easily end badly for the Fulmar. The Bf 109 out performs the Fulmar in just about every criteria known to quantify aircraft performance. One Hurricane pilot said that the most disconcerting thing about flying the Hurricane against the Bf 109 was that it wasn't fast enough 'to run away'. Refreshing honesty from someone who was there. In a Fulmar the situation would be much, much worse.

Even Parsifal isn't suggesting that the Fulmar could have competed with the Bf 109. Pitting a two seat navalised fighter based on a light bomber against one of the two best single seat fighters in the world is always going to be a no contest.

Cheers

Steve

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The RAF developed the 8 gun fighter because they foresaw the need to maximize kill rates per firing pass. The RAF/Air ministry placed maximum firepower as a requisite precisely because the average pilot was not a good shot, nor was he likely to make (or get the opportunity to make) repeated firing passes at a target. The latter part of the previous sentence was especially true for the Fulmar but because he could open fire sooner and fire longer he could maximize his chances of a kill per pass. However, another factor which has not been mentioned is that the Fulmar's long endurance would enable it to remain on station, and with sufficient remaining firepower to be combat effective.

If a Fulmar 'bounced' a Bf 109 there was nothing to stop the Bf 109 simply turning and accelerating away. The reverse is not true and could easily end badly for the Fulmar. The Bf 109 out performs the Fulmar in just about every criteria known to quantify aircraft performance. One Hurricane pilot said that the most disconcerting thing about flying the Hurricane against the Bf 109 was that it wasn't fast enough 'to run away'. Refreshing honesty from someone who was there. In a Fulmar the situation would be much, much worse.

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A Fulmar diving from above has been gaining energy and speed in its dive, so it will have a momentary advantage over the 109, and it doesn't take long at all for the Fulmar's armament to tear apart a 109 airframe. However even the "bogeyman" 109 pilots don't have eyes in the back of their heads:

... It has been estimated that throughout the history of air combat 80 to 90 percent of downed fighter pilots were unaware of their danger until the moment of the attack. Surprise, then, and conversely, the avoidance of surprise, must be considered the most vital element in air combat.
Shaw, Fighter Combat: tactics and Maneuvering, p.195.

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Of course the corollary of this statement is that only a small portion of aircombat, where neither side had the advantage of surprise, resulted in kills.

For the historical two seat Fulmar, having a rearward facing observer was a huge advantage (and given the above statement by Shaw we can see why):

The original pair of Fulmars—those flown by Lt. 'Buster' Hallett and Lt. Frank Pennington (a New Zealander)—had meantime also been engaged by half a dozen MC202s and CR42s, two of the latter damaging Pennington's aircraft. His TAG, Pty.Off.(A) Len Barrick, was gravely wounded; despite the severity of his wounds, Barrick continued to give warning of the approach of the Fiats until he fainted. Hallett's aircraft was also forced down from 12,000 feet to sea level. Both aircraft managed to escape however, landing-on at 1230 and 1240 respectively.

Malta, the Spitfire Years, p.485

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It's been mentioned previously that 9 Fulmars met a superior number of 109s and 110s over Kirkenes, with the result that 2 Fulmars and 1 110 were shot down - according to you this outcome should not have been possible, yet it is predicted by Shaw, above. It also explains why the Wildcat/Martlet could tackle the Zero.