RAF starts early with 4-engined bombers: feasibility, plausability, consequences?

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules


Two 20mm guns and four .303s with ammo are about 650lbs. 85 Imp gallons of fuel weighs 612lbs.
In 1941/42 you have Spitfire MK Vs.

The plane needs to be able to fight at the end of it's 'radius'. How much weight can you load in and still be able to 'fight'. Speed will be affected only a little, climb will be affected a lot. The ability to turn and maintain speed or maintain altitude altitude in a turn are going to be affected even if the actual radius is not affected much.

The PR Spitfires were not expected to 'fight'. They were expected to run in pretty much a straight line.
 

With PR Spits they had already worked out rear tanks, under seat tanks and leading edge ones (which were introduced into full production the MK VII and then the later VIII).
Another 10 gals, at least, in the outer leading edges if you eliminate the 4 x 0.303's and just have the 2x20mm cannon which were fine for fighter to fighter combat.

So lets plug in the numbers for a Mk V, 29 gal rear tank, 26 leading edge, 90 gal drop tank, 85 gals front tanks.
350 mile combat radius with 32 gals in reserve. Makes no diff if you put in only a 45 gal drop tank, since it is the internal, aerodynamically stable fuel that matters for fighting and return.
And that is conservative in that it assumes you use ALL the rear tank fuel first to get back to a stable CoG. Which to be fair is sensible assumption for the Mk V which was the most aerodynamically twitchy of all the Spits in terms of CoG, even with bob weights and the later changed elevator horns. The greater weight of the 2 stage Merlins and the Griffons in the front improved that with the later models.

Theoretically you could add 10 gals, at least, under the seat and another 10 gals in the outer wing leading edge, both with no CoG issues (though the roll rate would suffer if the outer wing tanks were full). Doing that and you just about make a combat mission to Berlin and back, though the reserve is pretty tight. A 400 mile combat radius is much more comfortable, especially since you have less power and speed and therefore may have to spend a longer time at max economical cruising speed over certain areas, compared to the 2 stage Merlin Spits.
 
More fantasy I'm afraid.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. It is easy to write that kind of stuff regarding any aspect of an aeroplane's performance, fuel, armament, engine etc. In reality it was much more complicated than that. Even minor changes often required months of tweaking and testing.
This kind of thing is just not going to happen. The Spitfire and Hurricane were both designed to the compromise between the old "zone" and "interceptor" fighter requirements. The blurring of the line between the two very much favoured the interceptor as this was what Fighting Area/Fighter Command needed, particularly as the integrated system based around the Home Chain RDF system was developed. Fighter Command came under ADGB, that is Air DEFENCE of Great Britain.
Trying to convert a short range interceptor designed for a specific defensive role into a long range offensive fighter is like painting a zebra and calling it a donkey. You won't fool anybody for long and it won't bray like a donkey.
Cheers
Steve
 

This is something I have researched in VERY great detail. There were no technical issues that could not be overcome. It came down to the RAF's boss, Portal.
He hung his hat on 'long range fighters are impossible' right from the beginning, even though experiment with them had been started in 1939 under Dowding.
Then Cotton came along and showed that MR, then later LR PR spits were perfectly possible.

But Portal, just like he starved Coastal Command of LR and VLR planes, worked endlessly to sabotage LR fighters. The records are clear, his correspondence is available in the PRO (and many books).
He was still fighting with the Americans in late 43, just a month or so before the P-51Bs were introduced into operations..
The USAAF was so desperate that they even did their demonstration flight across the Atlantic with their own Spitfires to try and get the RAF to 'fill them up' and escort the USAAF bombers.

The irony continues, the RAF needed Mustangs too, but the US did not hold (much) of a grudge so they got ...some, which they took the rear tanks out of......
But they also had later Spits with long range rear tanks .. which they deliberately crippled, by setting rules so tight that they were hardly ever used.

You have to just shake your head at the stupidity and absurdity of it.
Nowadays everyone knows that Harris was a total clot, but Portal was his boss and agreed with everything he did, except when he was forced to change because it would cost him his job, which he did reluctantly (and always tried to reverse later).

One of the classics was the great flowering of British (and hence western Allied) CAS, the famous Moreth operation under the great Broadhurst.
Finally the RAF had not just matched the Luftwaffe CAS it exceeded it and set the model for the rest of the war (it was early 43, took a long time).
Though the British press (thanks to Montgomery) took that as a great RAF victory, the RAF higher brass were NOT AMUSED and Broady (as he was known) was told off in many ways. But by then he was politically untouchable, though Portal would have loved to have fired him (and surprisingly, at least for people here in this forum, also Tedder and Cunnnigham... they were NOT HAPPY to at the 'misuse' of the RAF).

Fortunately Monty protected him, thus Brooke did and also Churchill.



When the Mustang came along it was a god send to the, by then, desperate USAAF.

Added: the opposition to escorts was endemic to the RAF. They had, thanks to Trenchard were fixated to the belief 'that the bomber will always get through".
Hence the opposition to night fighter support, read Bob Brahams's book (amongst many) about how hard it was to get the RAF to send out its night fighters to support the, increasingly slaughtered, night bombers

Even, very late in the war, it was just the minimum they could use, very reluctantly to get Churchill, and the press off their back .. they basically didn't believe in it and didn't care. I've quoted the RV Jones piece about the 2nd in command to Harris before.. look it up .. his model trains were SO more important than his crews being slaughtered.

A 50% death ratio .... that was the BC (except Mossie crews) lot, only overcome by the 70% one of the U-Boat crews.
 
Last edited:
The rules for use of rear tanks in Spitfires were set to prevent the average service pilot killing himself when attempting to take off in an aircraft whose handling had been compromised beyond normally accepted limits by the additional fuel.
After the war the use of the tank was forbidden completely, it was only ever allowed as a wartime expedient.
There might have been no technical reason why all the extra fuel tanks you would like could not be fitted (though I doubt this very much when armament is still to be fitted) but there would certainly be difficulty flying aircraft thus equipped.

The PR ID carried 114 gallons of fuel in the wings, 29 gallons behind the pilot and 14 gallons of extra oil in what had been the inboard gun bay. It is often overlooked that if you add endurance you will need more oil.
A man who flew this aircraft described it thus:

"You could not fly straight and level for the first half hour or hour after take off. Until you had emptied the rear tank the aircraft hunted the whole time. The centre of gravity was so far back you couldn't control it. It was the sort of thing that would never have got in during peace time, but war is another matter" Wing Commander Tuttle.

This does not make an aircraft suitable for squadron service. Many service pilots would probably not get it off the ground.

Grinding your axe against the men who were in command at the time is easy with the benefit of hindsight. There may or may not have been others who could have done better at the time . We'll never know.

Cheers

Steve
 

Sounds like a recipe for disaster, considering that the standard Spitfire Vs were already outclassed by the Fw 190As. Adding more fuel to the outer wings by deleting the outer .303s, when the ammunition capacity of the 20 mm Hispanos in the Spitfire VB (the standard version of the V used by British based FC units) was 60 rpg, would have meant a lot of defenseless RAF fighters trying to get back to Britain, albeit from further inland because of the increased fuel load, should they have been faced with sustained fighter opposition.
 
A big problem with using the MK V is the extra weight, much like the 109 gunboats it is not the reduction in speed that matters but the reduction in climb rate. A 300fps reduction in climb rate at sea level may not seem like much (under 10%) but the same reduction in climb carries through all the way up, 300fps less at 25-30,000 ft can be a 20% reduction in climb rate or more at altitude. It can be a reduction of several thousand feet in operational altitude (500fpm climb) or combat altitude (1000fpm climb).

The effect on maneuverability is compounded, please see:

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit109turn.gif

Granted these are for earlier planes and different conditions but the principle applies.

Note the curved line in both charts that goes from left to right and is marked "angle of straight climb". This is the limit line for making a turn and staying at the same altitude and speed. Below the line the plane can make the turn and climb, depending on how far below the line (speed and turn radius/G) the more it can climb. Above the line the plane will loose altitude if it tries to maintain the turn and speed. Pilot has a choice of

More power will move the line up, greater weight will move the line down on the chart. And this was at 12,000ft. at higher altitudes at lot of things change and not for the better. Please note that even relatively gentile turns (1.5-2 Gs) at high speeds can cause either loss of speed or loss of altitude.
 


The difference is it was, even if you right, a better recipe for disaster than what actually happened. At least in the trying they would be going for clear strategic goal. And with good tactics they would have had a fair chance of success (not guaranteed, nothing was that fighting the Germans).

What they actually did was have a real 'recipe for disaster', while having no clear goal and very poor tactics. So you had lots of Spits swanning around France, in big clumsy, easy to see gaggles waiting to be shot down when it suited the Luftwaffe ... which it did in droves.

As I said they had 2 clear alternatives, find a way to pin the Luftwaffe to French targets they HAD to come up to fight for and give their fighters the range to do so (since that was the U-Boat pens being built in 41/ through 42), or forget it and concentrate on NA, Malta and SE Asia and send 15-20 squadrons of Spits over there. Instead they chose the worst of all worlds.

They picked targets that the Luftwaffe didn't care about, the Luftwaffe moved its bases well outside the escorts ranges, they never tried to increase the range (except for drop tanks), they starved Malta and NA and SE Asia of Spits. Lose, lose decisions all around and despite their tremendous numeric advantage achieved ... nothing.
Even the most stated goal, getting the Luftwaffe to bring back fighters from the eastern front never happened. They brought them back ... but to the Med campaign, that area that had been staved of resources.

Plus it cemented the idea that a single engined LR fighter 'was impossible', mainly because they never tried, except for the ever more successful PR boys.

I am fascinated by this period in the RAF (not just in FC). it was time of regression not advancement and experimentation, where old dogma re-asserted itself and new (and very dodgy) dogmas were created. Where tremendous mistakes were made that set the scene for the rest of the war. Only in North Africa was real development achieved (probably because it was so far away), where the DAF slowly developed the war winning western Allied TAC air capability, which was copied (over dead bodies of the higher reaches of the RAF and the USAAF) and applied to the rest of the ETO.

Even at the basic tactical level insane mistakes were made, yes the 'finger four' formation was finally adopted, but it was nullified by using huge gaggles of fighters, the 'big wing' philosophy. Which simply were 'big clumsy targets'.

If the push had been to follow a real strategy, with good tactics then the technology would have been developed to achieve it. If they really wanted it, somehow that necessary extra 30-60 gals of fuel would have been squeezed into a Spit and the tech fixes, pilot training, etc would have been made.

Noting that fully fueled up Merlin Mustangs were severely out of CoG and were total pigs to fly until they ran down their rear tanks. But by that time the USAAF was so desperate that they just went and did it and the pilots handled it real fine, because it was not that bad and was only for a short period of time..

I always think that Portal went to his grave regretting that he didn't kill the Merlin Mustang, unfortunately it slipped under his radar and had the backing of Rolls Royce (which had huge amounts of political clout then). Even he wasn't going to pick a fight with Hives at RR, though he tried. MAP actually told RR not to do it, which RR completely ignored and did their conversion (while also working through their Packard wing to work with North American on their version).

And in all that I think NA then made a mistake. The British P-51A Merlin conversion was not as (overall) good as the later P-51B, but it could have been put into production far quicker, at least by 6 months. An interim version, still in the 420mph class (say called the P-51A-M) would have been of tremendous benefit in that crucial early-mid 43 period.
 
The Spitfire was never going to be a long range escort. Its simply the wrong airframe with the wrong design ethos. You can plump out a P-47, P-51 with enough fuel to get out beyond 700 miles. A P-40, Typhoon or Tempest can similarly get out to about 450 miles, once you hang enough external fuel tanks off them.

However, the Spitfire would, and should have been, a better medium range escort. The Mk III airframe, with 95 gal nose tanks and plumbing for drop tanks, should have been the production standard from 1941, if not for short-sightedness at the Air Ministry. Similarly, the Mk VIII airframe should have been the production standard from late 1942, and it would have, if not for the appearance of the FW 190. Actually, if the Mk III had been adopted as the production standard, then the RAF would have had a 400 mph capable fighter by late 1941 and the Focke Wulf panic would not necessarily have materialised.

With the 95 gal nose tanks and the 26 gal wing tanks, along with a 45 gal or 90 gal drop tank, say 166 or 201 gal total, the Spitfire is a 350-375 mph combat radius bird. That's 1/2 of the range of the P-51D or the very late bloc P-47Ds, but its still enough to get from Kent, Essex or Norfolk all the way to Dusseldorf, Essen and Cologne.

RAE tests in May-1942 with a standard Mk V with a 90 gal overload tank - that's 165 gal total - gave 'practical' ranges of 875 miles to 1060 miles. Another test gives a practical range of 1030, including allowances for climb to 20,000 ft and 15 minutes combat. Using a rough rule of thumb that radius is 35% of practical range, that gives you a combat radius of 305 to 370 miles.

BR 202 was the first Spitfire fitted with a 29 gal rear fuselage tank.

Reading Morgan and Shacklady, it sees that both the Air Staff and Shoto-Douglas was calling for a 'tropical' Spitfire with range of at least 1000 miles in the second half of 1941, something I never knew about. One of the modifications requested was fitting of 30 gal of fuel into each wing, something that never eventuated. Shoto-Douglas even called for just 10 gal per wing as a last resort to get more range out of his Mk Vs.
 
Would early access to a true heavy bmber of either of the types projected affect the early RAF naval and inland inland waterway mining 'gardening'' operations? Would they reach all of the French U boat bases with much more weight of mines earlier for example? Harris was an enthusiast for such air power mining of german ports whle he was still at 5 group (?single source). And I beleive the RAF could always find a coast line target at night, one of the few things they could find before radar/radio nav aids?

Mining was very effective vs Japan main lands later on 1944-5 and in south west Pacific earlier - 1942-3. Any use there for your early 4-engine type operatnig with mines from mainland china/australia/islands as was done with Catalina's earlier but mostly with B-29s and B-24's later (if I'm reading my other single source right) in the OTL?
 
On the subject of escorting bombers, it's interesting to note that Ludlow-Hewitt, former C-in-C Bomber Command, in one of his pessimistic forecasts before the war of how Bomber Command would do during wartime, actually stated that he felt that Britain should produce a long range escort to cover his bombers over hostile territory. He was replaced by the somewhat ineffectual Peirse, some say, because of his view that his bombers would not be able to live up to expectations and that everything would not be alright on the night. It seems that initially, Ludlow-Hewitt was right.

OldSkeptic, despite agreeing with some of your posts, I'm with Steve on the 'grinding your axe' comment. How differently would it have been done by anyone else without the benefit of hindsight that we have today?

his model trains were SO more important than his crews being slaughtered.
Click to expand...

I also disagree with this comment; Harris was not the callous individual toward his crews he is portrayed as, in fact his bomber crews admired and respected him and he them. His attitude toward the Stirling, Halifax and their comparison to the Lancaster is a case in point; he was appalled by the initial loss rates of the Stirling and Halifax and favoured the Lanc over those two aircraft.

Have you read Bomber Command by Max Hastings? A very even handed account of the force and highlights some of the points raised in previous posts.
 
Last edited:
Nuuumann, that quote came for Prof RV Jones book, 'Most Secret War'. He went into in depth, quoted the whole meeting, including the point where the SASO concerned got up, checked his watch and said that the 'some-o-clock from somewhere was late (fill in the blanks yourself after getting the book and being horrified).

And this was about getting one, yes just one, Mosquito to go out and learn the radar freqs of the new German night fighters, which were slaughtering the British bombers.
In the end, because not a single Mosquito was given, the job ended up with a Wellington crew, oh they did it and got shot to pieces in the process.

They simply didn't give a toss. RV Jones also quotes when he went to Harris with a complete radar map and order of battle of the German night fighters (he was an intelligence genius) . Harris's comment was "well that shows we are hurting them'. Jones, in his own book said that he thought 'and they will hurt you more'. Which is what happened.

Then there is the pathetic work on intruder night fighters. Read Bob Braham's book about the frustration of trying to get planes to go out to kill the German Night fighters. He was not the only one that wrote about it either. A total uphill battle all the way. Only when the losses got so great that the politicians got involved was anything done ... and far too little and far too late.

You can't , when you read all accounts, help but come to the conclusion that they were the decendents of the WW1 Colonel Blimps ... 'up and at them boys just run right towards that machine guns. Oops ... oh well get more of them ready for tomorrow, where is my gin and tonic'.
 

Yes and no. You are so right about the Spit III a totally lost opportunity. A clear match for the Fw-190 even without 2-stage Merlins, a serious upgrade.

But the numbers you use don't add up. I got so fed up with the 'Spitfire has no range" I built a spreadsheet to calculate it, based on actual recorded performance numbers and tests.

300-350 combat radius was quite possible for a Mk V (after either the bob weights or new elevator horns were introduced). 500 miles (to be fair a total limit without further changes, see below) with a Mk VIII with a 66 (UK) gal rear tank and a 90 gal drop tank.

More if you (1) add 10 gals, maybe a bit more, in the outer leading edges of the wings, costs you the 4 x 0.303s (2) up the rear tank to 75 gals, very twitchy but just possible, Quill did it on a test.

You still had the option of a 10-20 gal under the seat, 20-30 gal without sealing, as per the PR Spits, though that was pushing it.

So it could be done and in fact was, for PR versions and ferrying and much later end of war versions.

But, and this is important, when your boss hangs his hat on something (ie Portal swears to Churchill that a LR Spit was 'impossible') .. are you going to be the one to walk in and tell him that we have one? .... Welcome to Iceland (or Antarctic) command.
 
OldSkeptic, I have a copy of Jones' book and I have read it and refer to it regularly and do remember reading the section you specify; that one incident certainly doesn't paint a rosy picture of Harris, but it also doesn't paint a complete one either. There is a difference between simply not giving a toss and refusing to see an issue owing to ego or established policies. The fate of Bomber Command was very much the latter definition in the early years of the war. Harris was brought in because Peirse was not producing the desired results - again because of a lack of understanding of the situation the bomber crews faced. Harris' aggressive approach endeared him to his crews and this is despite the fact that they went out every night facing a horrfying ordeal. This from Hastings in Bomber Command:

"But Harris' style, the stories about his rudeness and extravagance, contributed immensely to his popularity with his overwhelmingly lower-middle class bomber crews. They endeared him to them, though they never saw him, with a warmth that a more distant, discreet, patricial figure such as Portal never inspired. Harris was a real leader. From beginning to end, he succeeded in seeming to identify himself totally with the interests of his men."

Although Harris was not a supporter of Jones' views on the German beams, he did lead Bomber Command as it was about to introduce Gee into service and under him, such innovations as H2S etc came to be fitted to his bombers. According to Hastings, he was somewhat surprised when his bombers performed successful precision raids, however. More:

"Harris was a nerveless commander of great forces, and the history of warfare shows that such men are rare. His very insensitivity rendered him proof against shocks and disappointments. He possessed the considerable gifts of clarity of speech and purpose, and from the moment he became C-in-C at High Wycombe, he infused these into his entire command. He was never afraid of taking decisions. He made his officers at every level feel that they were now part of a great design instead of merely running a ramshackle air freight service exporting bombs to Germany."

It's worth noting that this book has been praised as one of the best characterisations of Harris by its critics.
 

I don't think that's a fair reflection of what Jones wrote.


He goes on about Saundby showing him his model trains, then:

As we made our way back to his office, I asked "Now, what about those Mosquitoes?". "Certainly", was his [Saundby] answer, and I went back to the Air Ministry happy.
Click to expand...

Jones then says he handed the request (and BC's agreement) over to the Air Ministry who would have to reallocate the aircraft, but that after 2 months "the Mosquitoes were still not available".

That doesn't suggest either Harris or Saundby were at fault. Harris passed the decision to his subordinate, who agreed. The request never made it through the Air Ministry.
 
Sorry Hop you are not thinking it through. It is not about how many the RAF could put over France on a given day, but (as per all the air battles) how long can you handle a war of attrition.
Click to expand...

The answer was: not long enough. The fighter offensive really got in to high gear in June 1941 (to support the Russians by keeping Luftwaffe fighters in France). The air ministry called a halt in November 1941. That was rescinded in March 1942, only for another halt to be called in July.

In 1941 the British aircraft industry employed 1,259,000 workers. The German aircraft industry employed 1,850,000. The British industry was more efficient than the German, but part of the extra production in the UK was an increase of trainers for future expansion, and keeping old aircraft like the Hurricane in production.


This is of course what they tried to do. The attrition was always in the Luftwaffe's favour. The Luftwaffe had all the advantages the RAF had in the BoB and more. The radar network was newer, therefore better. There were few targets the Luftwaffe cared about defending. The Fw190 was clearly superior to the Spitfire V. And Luftwaffe aircraft shot down were easy to salvage and repair, and their pilots were usually recovered.

The RAF never hit anything that the Luftwaffe HAD to come up to fight for, so they just made lots of Luftwaffe aces and got lots of them their 'throat ache' medals.
Click to expand...

They tried. They repeatedly bombed the Luftwaffe airfields. Losses were still too high. They bombed the German capital ships in harbours. Losses were still too high.

The problem was not that the Luftwaffe wouldn't come up and fight, the problem was the RAF lost too many fighters when the Luftwaffe did come up.

The RAF's fighter offensive in 1941 and 1942 was never intended to drive the Luftwaffe from France. It was a: designed to keep pressure on the Luftwaffe, to force them to keep fighters in France, and b: show the Russians Britain was doing something.
 

Another book worth reading is James Holland's Dam Busters Dam Busters: The Race to Smash the Dams, 1943: James Holland: 9780552163415: Amazon.com: Books

In this Holland describes how Harris totally lambasted Barnes Wallis' idea of using a bouncing bomb to attack German dams, often for good technical reasons, and because he didn't want the build up of Lancasters in the main force of BC disrupted by being forced to modify at least 30 of them to use a "bonkers new weapon". However, once the idea was accepted by the Air Staff and Portal, Harris threw all the resources available into forming 617 Sqn and getting the Upkeeps and Lancasters into service; when the Möhne and Eder dams were breached Harris turned congratulated Wallis and admitted he didn't think the idea would work.
 
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Thanks Aozora. This quote alone proves that although a hard man, Harris wasn't afraid to be proven wrong and accepted it when he was, even though he mightn't have liked it. A sterling quality and one that far too few ordinary people, let alone military commanders in the past, possess.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Similar threads

Mustang with the early Merlins
Replies
10
Views
570
Shortround6
S
C
An early Me 264
Replies
5
Views
632
tonycat77
G
RAF PBM Martin Mariner
Replies
0
Views
607
Geoffrey Sinclair
G
T
Early records of UK preparation for WWII
Replies
3
Views
769
yulzari
B
Roald Dahl RAF Logbook : anyone has it ?
Replies
4
Views
548
bobolex
B
Menu
Log in
Register