Spitfire V ME109. I have found these links on the net.

Tante Ju said:

It seems data is consistent through war you could build 109 1/3 time of a Spitfire. In 1944 or 1940.. Hawker Hurricane, in 2/3 time. Anyone has figures for Hawker Typhoon or 190? I believe it was more or less meant replacement of Spitfire/109.

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Your data can be consistent and still result in the wrong conclusions. Your conclusions from your data can be accurate but wrong. Garbage in = Garbage out. Any complex issue can be explained by a simple, easy to understand, rational, data supported explanation and be completely wrong. People spent thousands of year using brilliant logic, reason, and flawed data to prove the Sun revolved around the Earth. Check your data very closely to determine methodology of collection before disregarding what common sense is telling you. I don't think you can build a 109 in one third the time of a Spit.

It is what data says... it may right, it may wrong. But I will not research if its true or it is misunderstanding.. Most likely it simply say what it says.. reason to doubt it? Why? Serios reason I mean.. anyone guess what number mean, and what it should not mean.. both way. There may be difference in counting, but I do not think it will change much - margin of error is possible not big. Say it was not 1800 h for 109 and not 1600, and not 15 200 hours for Spitfire, but 14 000.. if by same standard. But this error - not significant. So why worry? Go look up how fast Southampton Spit is built, how fast at same time CB Spit is built, how it relates to Erla, Regensburg, Heinkel 109.. preferably in month when day was equally sunny during month, so worker mood was equally good.. etc. "Much ado for nothing". Simple truth for scope of this thread - Spitfire was much more difficult to produce than 109 at same time in British factory. This is internet forum, not 500-page dissertation of doctorate in Unversity of Economics.. that is where people challange data, like aha! You miss 1,5 hour work of cleaning tools after aircraft assembly, including in one 15 200 hour but not in 4700 hour..

Remember, people also took lifetime proving wrong Earth revolving around Sun..

From Wiki….
"In February 1936 the director of Vickers-Armstrongs, Sir Robert MacLean, guaranteed production of five aircraft a week, beginning 15 months after an order was placed. On 3 June 1936, the Air Ministry placed an order for 310 aircraft, for a price of £1,395,000.[83] Full-scale production of the Spitfire began at Supermarine's facility in Woolston, Southampton, but it quickly became clear that the order could not be completed in the 15 months promised. Supermarine was a small company, already busy building the Walrus and Stranraer, and its parent company, Vickers, was busy building the Wellington. The initial solution was to subcontract the work out. The first production Spitfire rolled off the assembly line in mid-1938, and was flown on 15 May 1938, almost 24 months after the initial order.
The final cost of the first 310 aircraft, after delays and increased programme costs, came to £1,870,242 or £1,533 more per aircraft than originally estimated.[4] Production aircraft cost about £9,500. The most expensive components were the hand-fabricated and finished fuselage at approximately £2,500, then the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine at £2,000, followed by the wings at £1,800 a pair, guns and undercarriage, both at £800 each, and the propeller at £350."

It seems clear therefore that the figures being quoted for the manhours needed to produce a Spitfire in January 1940 relate to the prewar factory at Woolston. As of may 1940, the prewar shadow factory at Bromwich was yet to turn out even a single Spit. The story of its initial failure and ultimate success is an interesting one.

From Wiki, the same article

"Castle Bromwich
In 1935, the Air Ministry approached Morris Motor Company to ask how quickly their Cowley plant could be turned to aircraft production. This informal asking of major manufacturing facilities was turned into a formal plan to boost British aircraft production capacity in 1936, as the Shadow factory plan, under the leadership of Herbert Austin. Austin was briefed to build nine new factories, and further supplement the existing British car manufacturing industry, by either adding to its overall capacity or capability to reorganise to produce aircraft and their engines.
Under the plan, on 12 July 1938, the Air Ministry bought a site consisting of farm fields and a sewage works next to Castle Bromwich Aerodrome in the West Midlands. This shadow factory would supplement Supermarine's original factories in Southampton in building the Spitfire. The Castle Bromwich Aircraft Factory ordered the most modern machine tools then available, which were being installed two months after work started on the site. Although Morris Motors under Lord Nuffield (an expert in mass motor-vehicle construction) at first managed and equipped the factory, it was funded by government money. When the project was first mooted it was estimated that the factory would be built for £2,000,000, however, by the beginning of 1939 this cost had doubled to over £4,000,000. The Spitfire's stressed-skin construction required precision engineering skills and techniques outside the experience of the local labour force, which took some time to train. However, even as the first Spitfires were being built in June 1940 the factory was still incomplete, and there were numerous problems with the factory management, which ignored tooling and drawings provided by Supermarine in favour of tools and drawings of its own designs, and with the workforce which, while not completely stopping production, continually threatened strikes or "slow downs" until their demands for higher than average pay rates were met.
By May 1940, Castle Bromwich had not yet built its first Spitfire, in spite of promises that the factory would be producing 60 per week starting in April. On 17 May Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of Aircraft Production, telephoned Lord Nuffield and manoeuvered him into handing over control of the Castle Bromwich plant to Beaverbook's Ministry. Beaverbrook immediately sent in experienced management staff and experienced workers from Supermarine and gave over control of the factory to Vickers-Armstrong. Although it would take some time to resolve the problems, in June 1940, 10 Mk IIs were built; in 23 July rolled out, 37 in August, and 56 in September.[ By the time production ended at Castle Bromwich in June 1945, a total of 12,129 Spitfires (921 Mk IIs, 4,489 Mk Vs, 5,665 Mk IXs, and 1,054 Mk XVIs[) had been built. Today it is owned by Jaguar Cars, and known as Castle Bromwich Assembly used for final assembly of all current Jaguar vehicles."

The details of Spit II production from Bromwich are as follows:

Vickers Armstrong (Castle Bromwich)Ltd Contract no.B981687/39/C.23(c) First order for 1000 Spitfire MKII. Dated 12 April 1939.
Serial allocations-P7280-7329, P7350-7389, P7420-7499, P7490-7509, P7520-7569, P7590-7629, P7661-7699, P7730-7759, PP7770-7789, P7810-7859, P7880-7929, P7960-7999, P8081-8049, P8070-8099, P8130-8149, P8160-8209, P8230-8279, P8310-8349, P8360-8399, P8420-8449, P8460-8479, P8500-8549, P8560-8609, P8640-8679, P8690-8729, P8740-8759, P8790-8799.
Built as MkIIA/IIB/VA/VB between June 1940 and July 1941. First delivered P7280 27 June,1940 last P8799 21 July 1941.

We know from the Wiki article that 126 Spit IIs were built June to September. That means that the remainder (795) were built from Bromwich October 1940 to the end of July 1941, or an average of about 80 per month. These were not the only aircraft produced from Bromwich at this time, but the output was about 3 per day from this factory.

In addition to this the factory was also producing a further 500 Mk is (upgraded to MkVs during construction. This increases the output of this factory at this time to about 4.3 Spits per day in 1940-41, once peak output rates had been achieved

What I can also say is that in 1940, those plants engaged in Bf 109 production were not achieving outputs of 6 per day. There were at least three factories that i know of, with a combined monthly output of about 160-200 Se fighters per month. Thats an average of about 1.8 per day per factory. A long way short of 6 per day inother words, and still a long way short of 4.31 per day which was being achieved by British Industry at this time

Is the 109 build time from the start of the building on the production line?

Is the Spitfire build time including the time required for the 'bits and pieces 'component manufacturing that would be assembled on the production line?

As someone mentioned once the jigs were set up for the fuselage, wings and tail, there shouldn't be much difference in assembly times and certainly not a times 3 or more difference.

According to wiki (again), a bf 109g-6 cost RM42900 to construct to the front of the factory.

The Spitfire Is of the initial order cost 9500 pounds per copy, but this reduced to less than 5000 pounds per copy from about 1942.

This is dangerously innaccurate, but i will attempt it. We need to look at exchange rates to try and compare construction costs of the two aircraft.

Exchange Rates- based on Average NY stock exchange noon-time exchange rates 1938
source (World Almanac and Book of Facts 1940)
RM = 0.40 US Dollars
UK PND = 4.88 US Dollars
Franc = 0.029 US Dollars
Ruble = 0.20 US Dollars (used for internal pricing/ exchange)

On that basis, a G-6 costs about $17160 USD to produce, to the Spit Is cost of $46360 per copy. however, as per one of my previous posts, we are not comparing apples to apples when we compare the initial order for a new type, to that of an established type. If we compare the cost of the post 1942 Spit, to the 1942 Bf109, we get a closer comparability, and not surprisingly, the unit costs are very nearly the same. A midwar spit cost $24400 USD, which given the inherent innaccuracies of this analysis means the two aircraft are the same in terms of cost.

Now, by mid-1942, German costs were being held in check by the extensive use of slave labour, and an artificially low pegged rate of exchange. Given these artificial crutches that the germans were using to prop up their economy, I would still argue that the British aero industry was much more efficient during the war at producing aircraft than the germans.

Tante Ju said:

It is what data says... it may right, it may wrong. But I will not research if its true or it is misunderstanding.. Most likely it simply say what it says.. reason to doubt it? Why? Serios reason I mean.. anyone guess what number mean, and what it should not mean.. both way. There may be difference in counting, but I do not think it will change much - margin of error is possible not big. Say it was not 1800 h for 109 and not 1600, and not 15 200 hours for Spitfire, but 14 000.. if by same standard. But this error - not significant. So why worry? Go look up how fast Southampton Spit is built, how fast at same time CB Spit is built, how it relates to Erla, Regensburg, Heinkel 109.. preferably in month when day was equally sunny during month, so worker mood was equally good.. etc. "Much ado for nothing". Simple truth for scope of this thread - Spitfire was much more difficult to produce than 109 at same time in British factory. This is internet forum, not 500-page dissertation of doctorate in Unversity of Economics.. that is where people challange data, like aha! You miss 1,5 hour work of cleaning tools after aircraft assembly, including in one 15 200 hour but not in 4700 hour..

Remember, people also took lifetime proving wrong Earth revolving around Sun..

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I understand your point about this not being a review of a doctorate thesis but to believe the claim of three 109s built in the time of one Spit is asking for a triumph of credulity over common sense. Admirers of the ME-109 are quick to dismiss claims of landing gear design contributing to accidents and losses greater than comparable aircraft. The shoe is now on the other foot. I am dismissing the claim of Messerschmitt devotees of superior ME-109 cost in man-hours being so substantial that three could be built in the time of one Spitfire. The ball is served to your court ME-109 guys! Use the racquet of truth and reason to deliver a winning return if you can!

Ya, I watched some of Wimbleton.

three, no. 1 1/2 though absolutley.

not sure what you are saying P-40K. Is it 1.5 RM to the dollar???? If so, that would increase the cost of a 109 in USD. You need to clarify a bit please

parsifal said:

not sure what you are saying P-40K. Is it 1.5 RM to the dollar???? If so, that would increase the cost of a 109 in USD. You need to clarify a bit please

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for every one spitfire built, the Germans made 1 1/2 Bf109's. as opposed to what some say of 3:1

P-40K-5 said:

three, no. 1 1/2 though absolutley.

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That is a much more believable build to build ratio. I am not agreeing it is the absolute truth but that it probably is closer to the truth.

It has to be the truth, because 33000 109s were built to 20000 (roughly) spits. thats a ratio of 1.5 to 1. The question is at what cost, and the further question is, at what cost earlier in the war.

This I know. The RLM was spending a much larger amount of money on procurement in 1940 than the RAF. For that greater expenditure it was getting considerably less numbers of aircraft. This is reflected in spades in the aircraft received records for each country. Britain outproduced Germany in 1940-41 by a considerable margin. Germany began to catch up and eventually overtake Britain in 1943-4, but by then it was much too late.

Whilst i am less sure, I reasonably confident that the unit production costs for each type are quite comparable. The issue of the Spitfire being difficult to build only holds true for the early (ie prewar) production runs. The argument that the Spit was built in small innefficient factories is equally only true for the pre-war, and early part of the war.

Truth is, both types ended up being produced more or less as military consumer items, built in great quantities, cheaply, yet still effective pieces of kit for both sides. But the Spit reached this happy state before the 109 did.....due largely to the different approaches made in the prewar planning and general wartime strategies of the two sides

All i am responding to is these largely fallacious claims that the Spitfire was far more expensive, and/or far difficult to produce than the 109, or that the 109 was this piece of comsummable hardware, whilst the Spit was not. These are all gross distortions of the facts IMO.

I don't pretend that to know anything about costs and to be honest, any comparison of cost when you have such different cultures re labour used in construction is probably meaningless.
That said I do know that when the RAF evaluated the the 109 they also evaluated it on ease of production and were clearly very impressed. There were a lot of features mentioned.

Have no idea what happened to the order of the photo's but you can work it out from the page numbers

Hi Glider

Not sure if im in your sights with your post. The material youve posted is very interesting and relevant (as usual). Just so we are clear, I am not levelling criticism so much at the produceability of the type. But rather the arrangements made for its production were not optimised prewar. The Germans had nothing like the brits prewar in terms of the shadow factory system, and failed to make adequate arrangements for offsite componentry manufacture. The result was that early in the war their unit costs were much higher than they were for the RAF. This is shown in their relatively low outputs overall. You can, moreover cut that any way you like....airframe weight, nos of engines, aircraft delivered. The Brits were ahead in reducing aircraft production to an item of military consummables than the germans. But the germans were not far behind, and from about 43 onward shot past the brits, because of those extraneous matters like forced labour and the like. But in the early years it was all one way traffic. the Brits had the LW pegged at every juncture in terms of production, though in my opinion they were spending less overall. But in terms of the actual designs themselves, apart from the clarification about the Spitfire wing, I have not really said much about the efficiency of the design themselves. this is because in the context of that early war period, the design efficiency was not a critical issue to production.

Hi Parsifal
Not my intention to have sights on anyone, just thought that it might be of interest.
My personal view is that the German production methods were very inefficient but it didn't stop some of the designs such as the 109 as being designed for easy production.
There can be little doubt that Speer made huge inprovements in efficiency but had their organisation/methods been better from the start these changes wouldn't have been needed. Can you imagine what would have happened if Germany had started the attack on Russia with a thousand more aircraft and a thousand more tanks. Scary Stuff

I don't think anyone doubts that British pre- and early war economical efforts were much more efficient than the German ones.

The question was however, how easy the Bf 109 and Spitfire were to produce as products themselves.

Glider said:

My personal view is that the German production methods were very inefficient but it didn't stop some of the designs such as the 109 as being designed for easy production.

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I think you and parisfal both mix production efficient with production plan. Factory do not work like people work all day and then see in months end how many could they produce... so comparing production number a bit.. stupid.. sorry.

Factories produce as much as order is for. No more. If there is order for 200 fighter a month, they will produce 200.. even if there capacity for 600, really. USSBS says German aircraft industry was under ultized until 1944. Meaning: lot of spare capacity, they still work in single shift etc.

If you want to see effiency, it is there in labour hours needed for aircraft. Already posted for 1940.

Spitfire 15 200 hour
Hurricane 10 300 hour
Wellington 38 000 hour

109E 7900 to 5400 hour
Ju 88A 37 000

So these are comparable type. You see German fighter factories built fighters more efficient than British.. of course 109 being simpler and result cheaper also to build is bonus, but even compared to Hurricane.

But for example Wellington requires almost same man hour as Junkers 88.

Simple reason why there were more Hurricane is that British ordered more in aircraft procurement plan. Germans - less. But on other hand, German order more bomber. So they have more resource spent on bomber, so more bomber than British (and heavier - many British bomber are Blenheim, Battle. Really no same thing as say, big at time He 111).

Also parsifal say German spent more on aircraft in 1940, but got less aircraft.. I do not know exact numbers, would like to see... but this is again very simple. Ignores complete what was produced. It is easy to produce many fighters from same money. German produce bombers first, more than British.. and German bomber, like 88, was SIX time expansive than a cheap 109. In RM.. no need to convert. And of course a 109 with big engine probably 2 - 3 times as expansive as simply trainer aircraft, like Bücker.. made of canvas and some small engine, no radio, guns etc.

British produce mostly of fighter and trainer. Of course more from same money.

I agree German could use more. They should seen, world is becoming enemy, and prepear. But I do not think it is because "poor effiency", bad organisation. It is idea raping facts.. shown by labour hour required for aircraft type shown above.

This is because German error we know from back view had too small number aircraft plan to built. Not because industry was poorly organised, or workers work bad. It is because top leaders (Udet) made poor decisions, and did not foresee that much more aircraft required for war.. of course in 1940, future looked bright for German.. still largest/strongest air force in world. I think real error was to wait until 1943 with actual order of lot of aircraft. Until then, Germany was giant with one hand tied behind back.. it should have done late 1941 when invasion of Russia defeated.. they should see it was go to be long war that point. And make much bigger aircraft procurement plans/orders.

Tante
I don't think we have mixed these factors up. I do doubt doubt the figures for man hours you mention and there is no denying that Germanys leaders could and should have ordered more aircraft from the start. The man hours needed to build an aircraft are more to do with the design than anything else. The documents I produced show that the 109 was designed from the start with ease of production in mind, even the worlds greatest spitfire fan would ahve to agree that the Spitfire put ease of production way down the list.

However the German production processes were inefficient, Speer made huge improvements in production and at the same time made the production more efficient. It wasn't just man hours that improved he reduced waste in the production process, removed the overheads and organised priorities between conflicting requirements from the different parts of the armed forces and civilian authorities. But those inefficiencies were there in the first place for him to resolve.

I also have some questions re your assertion that the German Air Force built bombers first and fighters second and that the RAF did the reverse. The RAF made a significant number of Wellingtons, Hampdens, Whitleys and Blenheims, probably at least as many as the German He111, Ju88 and Do 17/215/217. But they also made a massive investment into their replacements, Sterling, Lancaster, Halifax, Mosquito and others that didn't get produced in any numbers, an investent that Germany didn't make in anything like the same scale.

Sorry Tante, but I just cannot agree with your measures of efficiency. I'm not saying you are wrong in the numbers you are producing, although the figures you quote raise more questions than they answer. Significantly for me is the issue of cost, if the 109 was so efficient in terms of manhours to produce, why is its cost comparable to that of a spitfire produced at the same time? I strongly suspect that the manhours you quote for the Spit are for one time period (likely the prewar period) whilst those for the 109 are for another, probably around 1944, when great advances in efficiency had indeed been achieved. But if we compare apples to apples, we need to be sure that the time frames and other issues coincide. What was the most efficient time for production of the Spitfire to the most efficient time for production of the 109. I'll be honest with you, I dont believe your figures are doing that.

Certainly, if we view the German aero industry overall it was not very efficient in 1940. Compared to the British aero Industry, it was employing three times the workforce, yet could only afford to turn out about 2/3 as many aircraft. Its budget in 1940 was clearly much larger than the Britiah procurement budget. If the figures you are suggesting were applicable in 1940, for all types (which you did not claim, but I am trying to illustrate to you why the figures cannot be comparable to each other) then if it takes 1/3 the man hours to build each unit, with three times the work force and twice the budget, then why the hell did the Germans not outproduce the british to hell in 1940???? If your figures were comparable, that would mean the German industry, on a unit by unit basis was only about 1/12 as efficient, which I think is a ridiculous claim to be honest. If they were spending twice as much on procurement, and had three times as many workers, to proce about 2/3 as many aircraft, the production times per aircraft had to be much greater per aircraft. Either that or the German air ministry were simply burning reichmarks to keep warm. As well as the cost per unit. They are facts that simply cannot be swept under the carpet or ignored by quoting unsubstantiated and suspect man hours per airframe figures

The reason is because in the time frame we are talking about, your figures are not correct. On top of that, there were gross innefficiencies in the German aero industry, as we have alluded to earlier....a lack of forward planning, a shortage of components from subcontractors, and similar. It took time to overcome those problems, once they were, the efficiency in the design insoifar as building is concerned really did shine through. You will not get any argument from me that the 109 was an easy to build aircraft, once its production issues had been worked out, later in the war. But then we would need to compere that efficient production, with the most efficient numbers for the Spitfire, which is not happening at the moment

I dont think you can reasonable compare exact figures but in general I would say the Bf109 was easier to build and repair because it was designed that way. Britain set out from the start to fight an enemy which boasted of its thousands of aircraft. Goering and others didnt realise how many AC they would lose on campaigns like Poland France Britain and Russia and so made little preparation for it until it was too late.