Spitfire cost vs Hurricane

[FLYBOYJ]

That shop is next door to where I used to work.
The guys said that it was difficult to get anything to fit, especially on the wing, as there isn't one straight line on it. Also, the girder-style ribs take a lot more labour to produce than a simple stamped aluminium rib. The main spars are also a fairly significant piece of engineering, with having a number of box-sections sleeved on inside the other, and then all bent together to form the dihedral angle.

there's three issues that would have made the spitfire wing more labour-intensive to produce.

The guys in the photos built jigs for the restoration, that's the key. Its a lot harder to restore a warbird than it was to build one on an already developed assembly line with jigs and fixtures that made assembly a lot more simple. During production you also had manufacturing engineers who continually looked at ways to improve the production process, so there was a lot of "local tricks" that won't be made available to the maintainer or restorer. I would bet dollars to donuts more complicated tooling existed (especially later in the war) that made it possible to quickly mass produce Spitfire wings just as quickly as any other fighter of the day.

 

[Kurfürst]

Stona, ive heard that as well, but it does not stand up to closer srutiny. In a related thread there is a similar discussion going on at this minute.

These are the facts....in 1940, with about 2/3 the workforce dedicated to spitfire production as was dedicated to 109 production, the british managed to produce roughly twice as many of their type as the germans did of theirs.

I very much doubt that. First of all, how are these workforce numbers arrived at? Secondly it seems just plain wrong - Spitfire production started some time before the Bf 109E production, yet at the start it was so slow it took IIRC about half a year just to get a single Spitfire Sqn operational with a full compliment of planes... and when you look at the number of planes in service, you find that by the start of the war, the Germans had about 1200 Bf 109Es in service already, the British just a hundred or two Spitfires. During the BoB all German single engined fighters available (roughly 1100) were Bf 109Es, yet on the British side there were just about 2-300 Spitfires available. In fact well until the middle of the war there simply weren't enough Spitfires to re-equip Hurricane Squadrons.

Admittedly the brits devoted about three times the factory space as the germans, and were working about 50% longer hours per worker, but this still does not justify the notion that the 109 was an easier plane to produce. even allowing for nazi innefficiency simply cannot explain thjis.

Its not a notion, its a simple fact, repeated by wartime reports, people who worked on these airplanes. See from 5:00
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgvfklVzYZo

Its also striking to the eye if you look them up close - the Spit is almost like a random collection of panels riveted to each other (and much of it still using domed? rivets as opposed to the all-flush riveted 109). Look at the 109 in contrast - its basically made up by a much lower number of large dural panels, and its quite obvious that someone gave it serious thought to simplify construction.

In early 1940, it took 15 000 hours to produce a Spitfire, 10 000 to produce a Hurricane, and somewhere around 6000 hours to build a 109E. These figures are from British and German Air Ministry.

 

[Glider]

I very much doubt that. First of all, how are these workforce numbers arrived at? Secondly it seems just plain wrong - Spitfire production started some time before the Bf 109E production, yet at the start it was so slow it took IIRC about half a year just to get a single Spitfire Sqn operational with a full compliment of planes...

An accurate but very misleading statement. What you say is true, in that production of the 109E started after production of the Spitfire however you ignore the fact that the 109 had been in production for years before this producing the 109B/C/D with factories in place and a trained workforce. Plus a lot of care went into the design of the 109 to make it easier to produce and all credit to the design teams for that, something that has never been said of the Spitfire.

and when you look at the number of planes in service, you find that by the start of the war, the Germans had about 1200 Bf 109Es in service already, the British just a hundred or two Spitfires.

Production of the Spitfire didn't begin until mid 1938 so at the start of the war it had been going for about 12 months. It would be interesting to know how many 109B's were produced in the first 12 months.

During the BoB all German single engined fighters available (roughly 1100) were Bf 109Es, yet on the British side there were just about 2-300 Spitfires available. In fact well until the middle of the war there simply weren't enough Spitfires to re-equip Hurricane Squadrons.

A couple of observations
a) I think you will find that it the 2-300 number for Spitfires isn't for those that were available it was for those that were in the front line and servicable. A very different number.
My understanding is that the Luftwaffe Quartermaster General's returns for Aug 3rd - 1,065 Me 109's of which 850 combat ready and 760 in the right place. The RAF figures for Aug 3rd are 244 servicable Spitfires in the front line.
B) It was never the intention to replace all the Hurricane Squadrons with Spitfires. Hurricane Squadrons tended to be nominated as GA squadrons and were replaced with Typhoons/Mustang I.

Its also striking to the eye if you look them up close - the Spit is almost like a random collection of panels riveted to each other (and much of it still using domed? rivets as opposed to the all-flush riveted 109). Look at the 109 in contrast - its basically made up by a much lower number of large dural panels, and its quite obvious that someone gave it serious thought to simplify construction.

On that I totally agree with you.

 

[fastmongrel]

Its also striking to the eye if you look them up close - the Spit is almost like a random collection of panels riveted to each other (and much of it still using domed? rivets as opposed to the all-flush riveted 109). Look at the 109 in contrast - its basically made up by a much lower number of large dural panels, and its quite obvious that someone gave it serious thought to simplify construction.

The Spitfire was tried with complete flush rivetting and this was intended to be the way that the unproduced MKIII was constructed. Tests were carried out and it was found that flush rivetting gave a noticeable improvement on the wings but made little difference on the fuselage. As flush rivetting is much more time consuming in the interests of production it was limited to the wings.

Part of the reason that Spitfire construction was so slow to ramp up was the Castle Bromwich shadow plant was meant to be the main production plant. With Supermarines factory at Eastleigh supposed to be more of a prototype, pre production, modifications and special purposes factory.

As is usually the case all these fine plans were thrown into disarray by the well known problems at Castle Bromwich where the Nuffield organisation tried to build an aircraft factory on the lines of a car factory. Something that only the Americans cracked.

 

[stona]

A (female) German worker rivetting unflanged sheets in a jig for Bf109 assembly

I'll bet that picture wasn't taken in 1940. It may very well not be a german woman either. "Imported" labour being a feature of german war production. Again ,a whole other subject.
Steve

 

[parsifal]

hi Kurfurst

There are any number of ways the data you presented might be misrepresented or misinterpreted. I dont think there is any serious disagreement that in the prewar build up to war, the british lagged in aircraft production. But it was not just the Spitfire production lines that lagged, in all categories the British seemed to lag behind the German expansion program. But there are good reasons to explain that. In that prewar period the Germans tended to concentrate on the hardware production, whereas, under the the Plan "L" expansion program the british concentrated on the support echelons...getting the rolled aluminium sheet industry organized, doing the prepratory work to set up the "shadow factory" systems, that kind of issue. That explains why, in the fiscal year 1938-9, the British on a budget nearly 1/3 that spent in 1939-40, only managed to put out 1/6 the numbers of aircraft in the earlier year.

Which raises another point. You mentioned that it takes 6000 hours to build a 109, whereas it took nearly three times that time to build a spitfire. Might be true, but are we comparing apples to apples here. In what time frame are we talking about this massive time diference. Are we comparing prewar spitfire construction times with say 1944 109 construction times. You might be right as I do know that factory space allocated to spitfire production was roughly three times that for the 109 production. However it seems unlikely in my opinion. The Germans with a budget roughly 1/3 larger than the RAF, and a workforce in germany about double that employed by the british in the production system, only produced slightly more than 1/2 as many fighters in 1940 and about 2/3 as many aircraft overall. Either the germans were super efficient in producing 109s as you say, and therfore absolutely hopeless in efficiency for all other types, or the cost per unit in 1940, including 109s went up (or at least was not reduced as it was for the RAF). I think the latter scenario is the more likley. Whereas prewar the british had invested heavily in preparing the infrastructure to facilitate production once the war broke out, the germans did not. The Germans concentrated on getting the finished product out the door from the very beginning. this gave them impressive short term benefits but in the long run meant their aero industry could not, in the early war period expand as easily or rapidly as the British could. This means, inevitably the unit costs for the british dropped markedly, whereas those for the germans were not so spectacular. After 1942, with Speer in charge of production the germans did turn this around, and demonstrated that they could churn out aircraft efficiently (which means their unit costs had to go down.

So this is what I suspect. I suspect you are quoting production times (and hence costs) for the later war period, which would be entirely plausible. You are also probably quoting prewar production costs for the Allied types, when the unit costs were being skwed by the behind the scenes secondary preprations.

To give you some idea of perspective, in 1942 when it first was produced, it took on average 57000 man hours to build a lancaster bomber. By 1943, with the production lines well organized and the glitches ironed ou, this figure had dropped to just over 21000 hours. Daves example for Ju88s is another good example, he says in 1939, the man hours spent for the then prototype ju88 was about 100000 hours, but by 1941 this had reduced to 15000 hours. I believe his figures

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Its not a notion, its a simple fact, repeated by wartime reports, people who worked on these airplanes. See from 5:00
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgvfklVzYZo

Its also striking to the eye if you look them up close - the Spit is almost like a random collection of panels riveted to each other (and much of it still using domed? rivets as opposed to the all-flush riveted 109). Look at the 109 in contrast - its basically made up by a much lower number of large dural panels, and its quite obvious that someone gave it serious thought to simplify construction.

In early 1940, it took 15 000 hours to produce a Spitfire, 10 000 to produce a Hurricane, and somewhere around 6000 hours to build a 109E. These figures are from British and German Air Ministry.

In viewing the clip I doubt by this person's age that he actually BUILT Spitfires but rather restored them and it seems he's more of a pilot than a mechanic. Compound curves in a structure is a design feature and has nothing to do with the guy assembling the structure - he just puts the rivets in and pounds away. Additionally the appearance of the way skin panels are placed in construction does not necessarily dictate the complexity of the structure. Now with that said I will agree that the -109 is more maintainer friendly. The British seemed to be reluctant to use cam locks in many places making removal of cowls and panels difficult.

As parsifal stated there are a good many reasons why construction manhours on the spit were so much higher than the -109 during the shown period. Training, tooling construction, part shortages all play into the matrix of coming up with these hours as well as developing the most efficient way to assemble the aircraft.

 

[Milosh]

Actually they did...

In the US all manufacturers had huge training programs when they brought in people off the street. Aviation maintenance schools were booming and there were dozens of aircraft assembler apprentice programs that paid new-bees during training. I had a uncle that worked for Brewster for about 3 or 4 months and then he got drafted.

It was a question, not a statement.

 

[davebender]

tried to build an aircraft factory on the lines of a car factory. Something that only the Americans cracked.

U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Aircraft Division Industry Report
Mass production of the V1 cruise missile began during March 1944. 21,450 were produced at the VW automobile plant over the next 12 months dispite being repeatedly bombed. If ordered to do so I think VW could have mass produced fighter aircraft like the Me-109 and Fw-190 instead.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

It was a question, not a statement.

Ok - did this answer your question?

 

[fastmongrel]

U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey Aircraft Division Industry Report
Mass production of the V1 cruise missile began during March 1944. 21,450 were produced at the VW automobile plant over the next 12 months dispite being repeatedly bombed. If ordered to do so I think VW could have mass produced fighter aircraft like the Me-109 and Fw-190 instead.

That is an impressive statistic for V1 production and shoots down my statement in flames

I cant help thinking it would have been better to have Volkswagen producing vehicles for the army rather than the relatively ineffective V1.

 

[davebender]

Since you raised the issue of V1 effectiveness.....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-1_(flying_bomb)
The U.S. Army concluded that V1 cruise missiles compared favorably to conventional bombers for area bombardment of urban areas. V1s were dirt cheap mass production marvels costing only about 5,090 marks (about 2,000 American dollars) each. That's about 1/100th the price for a B-17 bomber during 1944.

 

[Njaco]

Concerning the V1 and V2: 2,745 civilians have been killed by the bombs, and 2,900 aircrewmen have died in the campaign against them. Wouldn't call that ineffective.

 

[fastmongrel]

I believe the V1 was relatively ineffective because it had no bearing on the war. For all the effort that Germany put into the V weapon programme they got very little back in terms of damage to the Allied war effort. The loss of 2,745 civillians was terrible but as the Luftwaffe had found and the RAF and the USAAC would later realise killing civilians doesnt win wars.

I must admit I was surprised at the loss of 2,900 aircrew in the campaign against the V1. I know a lot of ground attack aircraft and medium bomber aircraft were lost looking for V1 sites and casualties on the Peenemunde raid were quite high but I didnt reallise so many casualties were taken. Do you have any links to information on the aircrew casualties I would like to read further.

I have read somewhere that Germany spent an equivalent amount of money in percentage of GDP on V weapons as The USA did on the Manhattan project.

 

[timshatz]

V1 might have been a more effective weapon if it was used on a better target. Something like the ports of southern England or even the Normandy beaches would've probably done a lot more damage than bombarding London.

Probably wouldn't have changed the outcome of the campaing, but it would've made it more costly.

 

[Shortround6]

V1 might have been a more effective weapon if it was used on a better target. Something like the ports of southern England or even the Normandy beaches would've probably done a lot more damage than bombarding London.

Probably wouldn't have changed the outcome of the campaing, but it would've made it more costly.

Not by much, They had enough trouble hitting greater London. an area of around 600 sq miles(?)

aimed at a coastal city would mean a fair number hitting open water and if the city was 1/4 the size of London another fair percentage hitting surrounding country side rather anything important. There is always the chance of a lucky hit but the V-1s didn't do a whole lot to the London docks did they?

 

[Colin1]

V1 might have been a more effective weapon if it was used on a better target. Something like the ports of southern England or even the Normandy beaches would've probably done a lot more damage than bombarding London

Tim
That's a degree of accuracy that wasn't available in WWII.
They might be able to drop it somewhere behind the ports in the hope that it fell short but being able to pinpoint beach landings with WWII autonomous-targetting technology would have just been showing off.

London was both convenient in that it was the capital and that it was big enough to aim at and probably hit.

Anecdotally
On December 24th 1944, modified He111s launched 45 V1s on Manchester from the Lincolnshire coast - the first one landing at Chorley at 5.30 in the morning, obliterating a hen coop with thirty birds in it; if the Luftwaffe had a declared strategy to undermine our powdered egg ration, that would have been a powerful testimonial to intent and capability.

More seriously, fishermen who witnessed the launch said that several failed to ignite and fell harmlessly into the sea, most of them however, did ignite. 31 bombs touched down, 15 on the city and the remainder 'over a wide area of the north-west and north of England'.

So something of a reliability problem and definitely issues with accuracy.

 

[timshatz]

I'm thinking the ability to hit something as small as a city block would be beyond the ability of a buzz bomb but hitting a city would be in the range. The ability to hit was based on the distance measuring device (small prop in the front of the bomb) turning a given number of times (basic speed/distance equation) and then shutting off.

While I agree it was not a great weapon for disrupting the invasion, it didn't have to be. Most of Southern England had US/British/Commonwealth troops as well as dumps, communications, logistics, ect. In short, it was not an accurate weapon but it really didn't have to be. Get it somewhere close to the embarcation spot and you're going to do some damage. Also keep in mind there were 6,000 ships in the invasion.

A decent idea of how effective (or ineffective) it might've been would be the bombardment of Antwerpt in 1945. By then, the defenses had been figured out but it still did a good bit of damage.

Lastly, my point was not that it was a good way to bombard the ports but more that it was better than bombarding London which was pretty much irrelevent to the war effort (although the people of London might think otherwise) and more of a terror target than a viable target. The return on hitting invasion ports (or the Normandy beaches) would've been much better.

 

[davebender]

I can think of lots of weapons and military campaigns which contributed little to the war yet cost a lot more then V1s.
- Most battleships.
- RAF Bomber Command prior to 1944.
- U.S. 8th Air Force prior to 1944.
- The huge sums of money poured into Alaska.
- The conquest of Italy north of Naples and the Fogia airfield complex.
- The conquest of Italian East Africa.
- The conquest of Mozambique.
- The conquest of the Philippines south of Luzon.
- The conquest of New Guinea.
- The re-conquest of Burma by Britain.
- Developing the Jumo 222 engine.
- The Type XXI submarine program.

V1s were a military bargain.

 

[Glider]

I admit that the V1 was probably worth the cost, it was cheap, easy to produce and tied down a lot of resources, but the effort spent on the V2 was a waste of money.