Spitfire Combat Radius (range) evolution, limitations?

Geoffrey Sinclair said:

The 320 mph speed was based on Spitfire VIII operations in the Mediterranean. The reason for the 320 mph cruise is speed = safety, it made it much harder to bounce the formation, based on things like the Fw190 evaluation. As well it gave better opportunities to set up an attack.

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Understood: Was the P-51 better in acceleration from 300-350 mph?

When did the US decide that bombers needed escorting at all times? Initial British reservations about the B-17 were dismissed because there werent enough of them for mutual defence. It became increasingly obvious to some, not all, that even the heavy defence of the B-17 was not sufficient, so when was the decision made by the USA and why would the British develop the Spitfire as an escort before that date. They had a long range fighter that they ordered in 1940 called a "Mustang". It is a rhetorical question because I have a book on the development of the P-51B.

As said the longest Spit escort missions were to La Pallice. 12 Spit VIIs from No. 131 escorted Lancasters there thrice in August 1944 (9, 11 and 12 August) operating from RAF Culmhead, straight line one way distance 550 km /340 mls, over water route, around Brittany/Bretagne, 750 km / 465 mls. Flight times were 3.45, 3.50 and 3.35 hours. Number of Lancs were according to the 131 Sqn F540 about 30, 14 and a force of.

Ps. I forgot one word, in Europe, RAAF Spit VIIIs made at least one longer in South West Pacific Area, escorting 4 B-25s against a Japanese radar station on Timor in Nov 1944.

Looking at this image a MkVIII with rear tanks plus a 90G drop tank could have flown out between the P47 and P38, that would have made a great contribution to the war instead of flying pointless sorties over Belgium.

PAT303 said:

Looking at this image a MkVIII with rear tanks plus a 90G drop tank could have flown out between the P47 and P38, that would have made a great contribution to the war instead of flying pointless sorties over Belgium.

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Mk VIII was mostly used away from the G. Britain...

There is no reason the hundreds of MkIX's and XIV's sitting on RAF fields couldn't have aux tanks fitted, the MkIX had larger 17G leading edge tanks designed for them so had another 10G over the MkVIII.

PAT303 said:

There is no reason the hundreds of MkIX's and XIV's sitting on RAF fields couldn't have aux tanks fitted,

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Agreed 100%.

PAT303 said:

the MkIX had larger 17G leading edge tanks designed for them so had another 10G over the MkVIII.

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Please elaborate about the larger 17G L.E. tans for the Mk.IX, this is the 1st time I hear about that.

PAT303 said:

View attachment 661233Looking at this image a MkVIII with rear tanks plus a 90G drop tank could have flown out between the P47 and P38, that would have made a great contribution to the war instead of flying pointless sorties over Belgium.

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But that is not what they DID with them in real life, is it? Spitfires were used as short-medium-range fighters, regardless of what WE might think to use them for. You're playing at a big "what-if," and it's fun to do. I'll say this for you Pat, you have a real desire to rewrite history.

What if we captured all the Fw 190D's intact and used them against Germany? It might have had a decent effect, but we didn't do it, so any arguments about what might happen if we had done so are 100% pure conjecture ... a big what-if. There are no correct or incorrect thoughts in a what-if because there is no possibility to prove or disprove the supposition.

So, yes, they COULD have used the Spitfires for different missions than they were actually used for, but the effect of NOT FLYING the missions that were actually flown has to looked at when you postulate any changes to the war outcome. And you can't go back a choose from missions that did not result in enemy contact because they had no way of knowing which missions those were until they had already been flown. Re-tasking any mission would have to be done before you knew how it would actually turn out.

A textbook "what-if" in the case of re-tasking Spitfires that were never going to be really released for re-tasking in any event.

It's like going back in time and trying to convince anyone that Pearl Harbor was going to happen, like in the movie, "The Final Countdown." History didn't record it that way, so it never happened, despite Hollywood's best attempt at it. I enjoyed the movie a lot when I first saw it. It shows you really can't fight an F-14 at 210 mph even if you wanted to. Now we don't even have F-14s to fly about. They be gone, except for maybe a few in Iran that likely need some maintenance and some new parts.

GregP said:

But that is not what they DID with them in real life, is it?

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They didn't use P47's P51's or P38's for long range missions either until they decided to fit aux and drop tanks too them, I'm not trying to rewrite history, the single biggest negative against the Spitfire was it's lack of range, it could have easily been given longer legs but it wasn't and that was the difference between the British and the Americans, the British said it's too hard, the Yanks said get out of the way we are making it happen.

GregP said:

What if we captured all the Fw 190D's intact and used them against Germany?

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????, I'm taking about fitting aux tanks to Spitfires such as the 33+33G rear aux tanks fitted to all MkXVI's from the factory, what has that got to do with flying captured 190 Dora's?.

tomo pauk said:

Please elaborate about the larger 17G L.E. tans for the Mk.IX, this is the 1st time I hear about that.

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A 17G fuel bladder was developed for the MkIX to go where the MkVIII 13G metal tank was fitted, like all good idea's it was squashed very quickly by the RAF.

PAT303 said:

A 17G fuel bladder was developed for the MkIX to go where the MkVIII 13G metal tank was fitted, like all good idea's it was squashed very quickly by the RAF.

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Thank you.
Do you have a source?

PAT303 said:

A 17G fuel bladder was developed for the MkIX to go where the MkVIII 13G metal tank was fitted, like all good idea's it was squashed very quickly by the RAF.

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That is pretty strange, what benefit would that have over the 13G tank?

Without knowing the construction of the tanks it gets hard to judge.
Fuel bladders had different degrees of self sealing but so did "tanks".
Bare metal tank or external coating/ covering or internal tank liner?
Fuel bladders had different thicknesses and numbers of layers depending on the size of the bladder and the support from surrounding structure and the degree of protection desired.

One 7.9mm hit or multiple 7.9mm hits/ single 13mm hit ?
Although very few tanks offered full protection from a 12.7-13mm hit.

What is the weight of the bare tank or bladders and what is the cost ?
The US and British did not have unlimited amounts of rubber or rubber compounds even though they had a much better supply than the Germans.

Basically the Spitfire needs the larger fuselage tank, the two 13 gallon wing tanks and about 30 gallons in the tail to equal a P-51 with just internal wing tanks.
P-51 with a pair of 75 US gallon drop tanks has about 120 imp gallons outside. Spit is limited to 90 imp gallons outside?
P-51 cruises 20-30mph faster at the same fuel burn per hour as the Spitfire (?).

The P-47`is criticized for it's short range but it holds about 254 Imp gallons inside so even if it needs twice the fuel per hour as the Spitfire VIII it has a range just getting into the rear tank territory.
Actually the P-47 can do pretty well cruising on 105-110 Imp gallons an hour, about 210-215 ISA at 25,000ft.

Well Pat,

You are correct that, near the end of the war, they figured out how to get at least SOME decent range from Spitfires. Since they did that, I'm pretty sure you are correct that they COULD have done it earlier than they did in real life. The U.K. was never never really flush with Spitfires and pilots at the same time and, had they found this range earlier, then yes, some Spitfires COULD have been re-tasked with different missions.

I am just pointing out that, had they done so, you would have to factor in the Spitfire missions that didn't get flown due to the retasking. It makes for an interesting "what if," except for the fact that they HAD longer-range fighters that DID fly those missions, and we'd have to speculate whether or not the Spitfires would add some dimension that was lacking in the missions flown by other fighters.

Suppose some missions flown by Mustangs or Lightnings, et al, were to be retasked with Spitfires. Would they get better results than were achieved or did the Mustangs, Lightnings ,et al, accomplish the mission? If they DID accomplish the mission, what would the Spitfires add that was missing in the original mission? If they didn't accomplish the mission, why do we think Spitfires would have done so when the mission failed in the event when flown by other aircraft?

I'm trying to understand what adding range to the Spitfire earlier than they did in real life would change, and I'm having a hard time flushing out the benefit that would accrue over and above what was actually accomplished by other aircraft. If you replace 300 P-51s with 300 Spitfires on an escort mission, would they do it better? By the time we were flying 300-plane escort missions, the Luftwaffe wasn't exactly in a position of air superiority, and the losses were pretty low. Some of the losses we HAD were due to Me 262 kills, and I'm not really sure Spitfires could have done any better than P-51s did against Me 262s. Maybe, maybe not.

I AM sure the Spitfire pilots would all have felt better with some extra fuel aboard and I AM sure they would have found a way to take advantage of the extra range afforded by the extra fuel. So, your point is taken that, yes, more fuel in Spitfires earlier than happened in real life would have been better for the Allies.

We could have had a huge impact had we started flying Douglas Skyraiders in 1943 escorted by your longer-range Spitfires. But, that's another thread ...

GregP said:

You are correct that, near the end of the war, they figured out how to get at least SOME decent range from Spitfires. Since they did that, I'm pretty sure you are correct that they COULD have done it earlier than they did in real life. The U.K. was never never really flush with Spitfires and pilots at the same time and, had they found this range earlier, then yes, some Spitfires COULD have been re-tasked with different missions.

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There was never a shortage of Spitfires, the RAF had hundreds sitting around the country side ready to defend against the Luftwaffe when they themselves were being constantly pushed back towards Germany. As far as how difficult fitting extra tanks where, Sydney Cotton had no issue fitting a 20G tank under the seat of the MkII in 1940 and the MkV had a rear 29G tank designed for it in 1941, drop tanks were used pre war. If you look at the FAA they fitted 89G drop tanks from RAAF Kittyhawk's and flew them off carriers when RAF MkIX's were achieving nothing patrolling the channel with standard 85G main tanks in 1944.

Zipper730 said:

That is pretty strange, what benefit would that have over the 13G tank?

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Have a look at the photo in my earlier post, there is a lot of room in the inner leading edge of the Spitfires wing, I think it was designed to be easily fitted and conform to the shape easily, can't prove it but it makes sense to use a material that when filled stretches out to fill the space efficiently.

PAT303 said:

There was never a shortage of Spitfires, the RAF had hundreds sitting around the country side ready to defend against the Luftwaffe when they themselves were being constantly pushed back towards Germany. As far as how difficult fitting extra tanks where, Sydney Cotton had no issue fitting a 20G tank under the seat of the MkII in 1940 and the MkV had a rear 29G tank designed for it in 1941, drop tanks were used pre war. If you look at the FAA they fitted 89G drop tanks from RAAF Kittyhawk's and flew them off carriers when RAF MkIX's were achieving nothing patrolling the channel with standard 85G main tanks in 1944.

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There were way fewer Spitfires than Hurricanes in the BOB and they never DID have a lot of the "sitting around."

PAT303 said:

Have a look at the photo in my earlier post, there is a lot of room in the inner leading edge of the Spitfires wing, I think it was designed to be easily fitted and conform to the shape easily, can't prove it but it makes sense to use a material that when filled stretches out to fill the space efficiently.

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I don't think I need to look more at your post. Spitfires had the gas they had, didn't get more until they did, and it was always less than long-range until late in the war. So, they were used for the missions they flew. Anything else is conjecture. Conjecture is fun, but what the heck are you trying to do, Pat? Rewrite history so it conforms to your pet theory? Why are you still going with this?

They did what they did and, yes, they COULD have done other missions. To what end? The war was won in the real world and almost certainly would not have been much, if any shorter had another 500 miles been added to the Spitfire's flying range. The U.K. built some 20,367 Spitfires. They were well used in WWII.

So, again, what are you trying to change and why? What is your end aim? To replace all U.S.-furnished fighters with British fighters? Or what? There weren't enough Spitfires to replace 15,000+ P-51s and 15,000+ P-47s with Spitfires.

I'm not really arguing. I'm trying to understand what you want everyone to see, and what it would change during WWII in your eyes.

GregP said:

There were way fewer Spitfires than Hurricanes in the BOB and they never DID have a lot of the "sitting around."

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20,000+ Spitfires were built, most of them during the war.

How many Spitfires were available in the BoB is irrelevant to how many were available in 1943-1945.

The clue to the availability of Spitfires is when they were released for overseas service. Which was in 1942, if I am not mistaken.