In combat 57 times, or just over one a month on average, kinda backs up the fruitless sweeps statement.
Spitfire Combat Radius (range) evolution, limitations?
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I'm talking about long range fighter sweeps, I have a report on 610 squadron mentioning how excited they were to fly over German, years after everyone else had been doing even though the aux tanks and drop tanks were approved for the spit. http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/610-ORB-1sept44.jpg
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
There have been pilots who flew hundreds of "missions" and saw little to no combat where an enemy was engaged so I still don't understand where you're coming from.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
So 57 enemy encounters in 200 operations (missions?), 34 claims. Sounds about average (or even better then average) when comparing to other allied aces who were given leave during the course of the war.
So a Spit could travel 1000 miles plus.
drgondog
Major
It would have to have a Range (straight line optimal cruise) of 1700-2000 mi (with combined Interna/Externals for 500mi combat radius and 20 min of MP/WEP combat. For a 500 mi radius after combat it would need more than 120 gal internal fuel remaining - to cruise bac and have a 20-30minreserve.
GregP
Major
Why is that a problem? Almost all RAF pilots were "given the chance" at combat during WWII.
Not all, but a very good percent. I'm sure some of the instructors would like to have flown combat, but somebody has to jeep the new pilot supply train going. Somebody has to fly transports / liaison / clandestine special missions / etc. Somebody has to fly bombers, IF you are bombing. That leaves a cadre to fly fighters, and they were hard-pressed to keep a sufficient supply of fighter pilots at times, especially early-on.
That being the case, what Spitfire pilots are you talking about that didn't get the chance? If they were flying Spitfires and didn't get the chance at combat, I am assuming they were assigned to places where the Germans didn't attack, but might have, and so had to be covered by fighters. Is that it?
A BoB pilot commented that even during the Battle of Britain most of the pilots most of the time were not involved in combat. Many were stationed outside of the LW range, there were days without any ops and even on a raid Park put up a screen of patrols to cover possibilities, obviously many of these never saw the enemy. There were also a few standing patrols, rarely mentioned because they rarely saw anything.
There was no such a doctrine/requirement by the RAF.
When the topic of long-range fighters was brought out mid-war, dogma was that a LR fighter will be inferior to a short range fighter, thus not worth it.
Well they werent far wrong as far as the RAF were concerned. They didnt have anything to escort during the day. The numbers British industry could make would not be sufficient to provide a L/R escort in the required numbers and in terms of quality not numbers the Me 262 was contemporary with the P-51D. Spitfires did assist a lot in the early days, but for the RAF to escort to and from the target on long range missions needs a whole lot more Spitfires, but the Spitfire wasnt as good as the P-51B/C D, so better for the RAF to operate those which is what they did.
GregP
Major
Hi pbehn,
People can ALWAYS look back at a battle or a war and see where things might have been done differently to better overall effect. Not intimating you are one of them. These same people would likely never make those decisions in real time, without the knowledge of what would soon come to pass, but they now know 70 years after the events happened. Hindsight always has 20-20 vision. How many would commit ALL the Spitfire pilots at once back then, leaving no reserves, and if they were shot down somehow, lose the entire country's fighter air arm and possibly the entire war?
The guys who ran the war ran it with the resources they had and could generally develop during the war. They didn't know, in advance that they could, for instance, not build the Lancaster at all and instead make a huge force of Mosquitoes, as had been suggested in here several times. They made their decisions based upon maximum likelihood of national survival at present and in the near, foreseeable future and, in the case of the real world, did a pretty damned good job of it --- they won.
The Spitfire pilots who weren't engaged in the real fighting were "the reserves" that would be sorely needed, and needed quickly, if the BOB and a few other early events had not gone as well as they did. I'll say that, in my opinion, the British / Allied planners did about as well as they could with the information they had and the resources they had to work with. Heck, even the Normandy invasion wasn't without potentially disastrous weather possibilities, and Eisenhower received about as much advice to postpone it as he did to go through with it. In the end, he made a good decision with fewer casualties than could reasonably be expected had even a small number of things gone the way the Germans wanted them to go.
I'm guessing that many of the Spitfire pilots who missed out in the BOB and other early actions didn't miss out for the rest of the war. If they did, then that is another story that I haven't seen investigated in here as yet.
Maybe another thread on the subject?
Cheers!
People can ALWAYS look back at a battle or a war and see where things might have been done differently to better overall effect. Not intimating you are one of them. These same people would likely never make those decisions in real time, without the knowledge of what would soon come to pass, but they now know 70 years after the events happened. Hindsight always has 20-20 vision. How many would commit ALL the Spitfire pilots at once back then, leaving no reserves, and if they were shot down somehow, lose the entire country's fighter air arm and possibly the entire war?
The guys who ran the war ran it with the resources they had and could generally develop during the war. They didn't know, in advance that they could, for instance, not build the Lancaster at all and instead make a huge force of Mosquitoes, as had been suggested in here several times. They made their decisions based upon maximum likelihood of national survival at present and in the near, foreseeable future and, in the case of the real world, did a pretty damned good job of it --- they won.
The Spitfire pilots who weren't engaged in the real fighting were "the reserves" that would be sorely needed, and needed quickly, if the BOB and a few other early events had not gone as well as they did. I'll say that, in my opinion, the British / Allied planners did about as well as they could with the information they had and the resources they had to work with. Heck, even the Normandy invasion wasn't without potentially disastrous weather possibilities, and Eisenhower received about as much advice to postpone it as he did to go through with it. In the end, he made a good decision with fewer casualties than could reasonably be expected had even a small number of things gone the way the Germans wanted them to go.
I'm guessing that many of the Spitfire pilots who missed out in the BOB and other early actions didn't miss out for the rest of the war. If they did, then that is another story that I haven't seen investigated in here as yet.
Maybe another thread on the subject?
Cheers!
1 - Who was supposed to provide the escort for Battles and Blenheims above Ardenes (or anywhere) in 1940? Escort to the Wellingtons trying to attack KM assets? Escort over Africa and Med? Bomber Command's doctrine was to attack during daylingt (since the bomber will always get through), before Luftwaffe made them reconsider. So there was certainly enough of stuff to escort.
2 - Hurricanes were produced into 1944. 1000+ Defiants was produced. Blenheims in many hundreds past 1940. Lets introduce a biplane fighter in 1937, and produce it in 740+ copies. Botha - 580 examples. I can understand the 1st 500 Battles, even the 1st 1000 - but more than 2000, all with Merlins?? So yes, with hundreds of clunkers on the production lines, there was certainly not enough capacity left to make more Spitfires or other over-performers.
Not having 200 imp gals of internal fuel on day one on the Typhoons, Tempests and Spitfire 14s is AM's/RAF's idea.
Me 262 vs. P-51D is a red herring. There were years of air war well before Luftwaffe was able to get 50, let alone 100 of 262s in the air.
Everyone was entitled on mistakes and missing opportunities. Not having a day fighter with 500 mile escort footprint was British AM's missed opportunity.
Unsure, but I have heard different figures in manuals even
That is pretty strange, I do remember seeing proposals to put larger fuel tanks in there including some
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I agree completely. Dowding had to both husband his resources and ensure that the whole of the south and east coasts were protected. My point was that even in what is considered a fairly long and intense battle most spent most of the time at readiness or on patrol, training, reforming etc. A bit like I have read of infantry soldiers life 99% boredom 1% homicidal terrifying madness.Hi pbehn,
People can ALWAYS look back at a battle or a war and see where things might have been done differently to better overall effect. Not intimating you are one of them. These same people would likely never make those decisions in real time, without the knowledge of what would soon come to pass, but they now know 70 years after the events happened. Hindsight always has 20-20 vision. How many would commit ALL the Spitfire pilots at once back then, leaving no reserves, and if they were shot down somehow, lose the entire country's fighter air arm and possibly the entire war?
The guys who ran the war ran it with the resources they had and could generally develop during the war. They didn't know, in advance that they could, for instance, not build the Lancaster at all and instead make a huge force of Mosquitoes, as had been suggested in here several times. They made their decisions based upon maximum likelihood of national survival at present and in the near, foreseeable future and, in the case of the real world, did a pretty damned good job of it --- they won.
The Spitfire pilots who weren't engaged in the real fighting were "the reserves" that would be sorely needed, and needed quickly, if the BOB and a few other early events had not gone as well as they did. I'll say that, in my opinion, the British / Allied planners did about as well as they could with the information they had and the resources they had to work with. Heck, even the Normandy invasion wasn't without potentially disastrous weather possibilities, and Eisenhower received about as much advice to postpone it as he did to go through with it. In the end, he made a good decision with fewer casualties than could reasonably be expected had even a small number of things gone the way the Germans wanted them to go.
I'm guessing that many of the Spitfire pilots who missed out in the BOB and other early actions didn't miss out for the rest of the war. If they did, then that is another story that I haven't seen investigated in here as yet.
Maybe another thread on the subject?
Cheers!
Sorry I thought we were discussing long range escort, how far did Battles and Blenheim's fly to get to the Ardennes? The RAF couldnt get air superiority over Dieppe in 1942 so maybe they were wise not to get involved in a long range daylight bombing campaign?
Hi
There was quite a lot going on in northern Europe between the BoB and D-Day. Looking at the summaries of 'Fighter Command War Diaries' Volumes 2-4 by John Foreman illustrates some of this activity:
The first P-51Bs did not arrive for use by the USAAF in Britain until late 1943, the Mk. IX Spitfire entered service in July 1942. The Mk. IX was introduced to help deal with aircraft like the FW 190, trying to make it long range as well at the time would probably been mistaken, after all the FW 190 was based on the other side of the Channel. The Spitfire Mk. VIII (with the wing tanks) was in service in the Med in August 1943. The P-51D did not arrive until just before D-Day, the Spitfire XIV had entered service in January 1944, again it was designed to be competitive with newer enemy fighters, both the IX (and VIII) and XIV succeeded in that role. Trying to make both long range would probably delayed their introduction (although any extra range is very useful but not totally at the expense of performance) which would have been detrimental to the war effort. The P-51 was a later larger/heavier design than the Spitfire and if the USAAF wanted long-range fighters earlier to escort 8th AF bombers maybe it would have been better to get the P-51B in service quicker (but there are always problems with that in real life). As it was the RAF (and USAAF) Spitfires did escort the 8th AF bombers on their early missions as they were mainly over France, the bomber crews had to get experience in combat before risking longer range missions. Of course there were a lot of enemy assets that needed attacking that were nearer than Germany it was never one or the other, so if there is a belief that only attacking Germany was useful then I think a closer look at the war situation is needed.
Mike
There was quite a lot going on in northern Europe between the BoB and D-Day. Looking at the summaries of 'Fighter Command War Diaries' Volumes 2-4 by John Foreman illustrates some of this activity:
The first P-51Bs did not arrive for use by the USAAF in Britain until late 1943, the Mk. IX Spitfire entered service in July 1942. The Mk. IX was introduced to help deal with aircraft like the FW 190, trying to make it long range as well at the time would probably been mistaken, after all the FW 190 was based on the other side of the Channel. The Spitfire Mk. VIII (with the wing tanks) was in service in the Med in August 1943. The P-51D did not arrive until just before D-Day, the Spitfire XIV had entered service in January 1944, again it was designed to be competitive with newer enemy fighters, both the IX (and VIII) and XIV succeeded in that role. Trying to make both long range would probably delayed their introduction (although any extra range is very useful but not totally at the expense of performance) which would have been detrimental to the war effort. The P-51 was a later larger/heavier design than the Spitfire and if the USAAF wanted long-range fighters earlier to escort 8th AF bombers maybe it would have been better to get the P-51B in service quicker (but there are always problems with that in real life). As it was the RAF (and USAAF) Spitfires did escort the 8th AF bombers on their early missions as they were mainly over France, the bomber crews had to get experience in combat before risking longer range missions. Of course there were a lot of enemy assets that needed attacking that were nearer than Germany it was never one or the other, so if there is a belief that only attacking Germany was useful then I think a closer look at the war situation is needed.
Mike
Read the report I posted on 610 Squadron, they flew 800 miles and back with 50-60G of fuel remaining, obviously combat will shorten that distance but they didn't use leading edge tanks either so it's possible.
He was a very good pilot, he used to stretch his squadron out line abreast for over a mile or more hunting for enemy aircraft, everything I have read about him shows he was keen for combat, very well liked by his fellow pilots also. All up over 700 missions but like posted earlier he injured himself which kept him out of action for a while.
