The Spitfire Mk 21 wasn't a success, the AFDU wrote a scathing report on it, esp' in relation to its flight control characteristics,
& by comparison to earlier marks,
Scathing here means not as good as before.
In fact, production was cancelled, & the following 20-series types received the larger Spiteful tail empennage to ameliorate the issue,
& 40 brand new Mk 21s were unceremoniously sent to Shoeburyness for use as research targets (grounded) -
Lots of production was cancelled due to the war ending or obviously ending. Castle Bromwich was being cancelled as an aircraft production location, the F.21 and F.22 shared the same Supermarine type number, the former was high back and small tail, the latter had the bubble canopy and "Spiteful" tail F.21 produced from April 1944 to January 1946, F.22 from March 1945 to February 1946, 55 of the 122 F.21 were built by end March 1945, then the two types were being built in parallel. If things were that bad in the F.21 the fix was easy and obvious.
The original claim was none of the F.21 were used, now it is a third, both claims are wrong. In 1945/46 the RAF is supposed to send some of its latest production to be destroyed in armament tests when it literally had thousands of airframes to dispose of.
the Spitfire V was thereby approved for a 450mph IAS at low level,
The Typhoon dive speed reported was TAS, Spitfire given as IAS and at low level?
(& why the RAF rushed the Typhoon in to service - while rejecting the Bell P-39 which had been bought on the promise of its low-level speed, but didn't deliver on test)
Typhoon, 56 squadron "reformed" with Typhoon on 11 September 1941, first Typhoon operation 20 June 1942 by 2 squadrons, up to 3 operational squadrons on 19 July 1942. First P-39 imported in June 1941, 601 Squadron received its first in August 1941, first operation 6 October. The Russian delegation arrived on 8 December 1941, but 18 P-39 had already been exported in November followed by another 29 in December. 601 squadron went to Spitfires in March 1942. Assigning the P-39 to the USSR helped fill the British quota of fighters, removed a fighter type from the RAF that clearly needed some debugging and was in line with the RAF requirement in 1941 for altitude performance, then came the news the Red Air Force liked the type.
The urgent low level requirements were later, seen by the Spitfire XII starting production in October 1942.
The Hurricane only carried 4 rockets,
Not what the RAF raid reports say.
The Sabre VA was a development of the Sabre IV, (ironically, receiving the benefits of work done to sort out the high-altitude issues the
earlier unit had suffered from, (same issues other engines had) viz: oil foaming & high-tension ignition scatter problems.
Sabre IV failed to pass the 50 hour test, the other engines largely succeeded. Earlier came the idea the RAF did not want altitude performance so the Sabre IV failure did not matter. Here apparently the IV sets up the success of the V, of which 5 were built in 1943, 22 in 1944 and 68 in 1945 (36 of these August onwards). The RAF converted II to V post war creating a sizeable amount of the total Sabre V stock but any Sabre/Typhoon failure really is a success it seems.
Funny but true, the expensively developed high-altitude 2-stage supercharged Spitfires (Merlin & Griffon, both) could find 'no trade'
'upstairs' & Spifire IX & XVI were pressed into duty as (fairly unsatisfactory - compared to the Typhoon) fighter bombers, while the
vaunted Mk XIV was out-performed & out-scored (both V1 & EA) by the "more warlike" Tempest in the 'air superiority' role.
While a capability the Sabre did not have is expensive and unused, apparently even with the Spitfire XIV flying top cover for the Tempests. The RAF heavies flew around 20,000 feet in day raids, escorts needed to be higher.
So where are the lists of claimed victories by Spitfires by altitude? The Luftwaffe rarely flew high when doing ground support.
So where are the trials showing the average error when bombing was greater in Spitfires than Typhoons?
So where are the lists of claimed victories broken down by Spitfire mark, and are they corrected for the opportunities the type had versus other types? V-1 a well as regular Luftwaffe types. Noting for example Spitfire XIV providing top cover for Tempests.
Likewise, the expensive turbo-optimised P-38 & P-47 were relegated by the P-51B/C/D from the 'glamour' 8th AAF 'strategic missions'
to TAF 'mud-moving' -
Anyone else feel the desire to rewrite the above P-38/P-47 to Typhoon, P-51 to Spitfire?
a role that was brutal enough on the the sturdy T-blot, (even after they put big 'stars & bars' markings under
both wings in an attempt to lessen 'friendly fire' from the ground) while the P-38 suffered even more, & was eventually put in sort of
a defacto Mosquito light-medium bomber role via a 100 odd 'droop snoot' conversions as formation leader/bomb aimer planes.
The 9th AF noted a loss rate (Missing+Category E) of 1.2% for the P-38 and 0.74% for the P-47, the P-38 claimed a 1 kill per 124 credit sorties the P-47 1 kill per 175 sorties, indicating the P-38 probably saw more Luftwaffe fighters on average. Bombs were P-39 690.5 pounds per effective sortie P-47 591.5 pounds, the P-47 probably did more escorting plus used rockets. Total Droop Snoot bombing was 31 sorties airborne, 19 effective dropping 10 short tons of bombs. it would be interesting to see what the overall Typhoon loss rate was, given the usual anecdotal reports of heavy losses. John Foreman lists Typhoon losses as 87 in June and 67 in July 1944, the 9th AF says 52 and 47 P-38 along with 210 and 154 P-47.
Again you repeat the mistake of conflating Sabre design/performance with poor British manufacturing/organisational effort.
End 1942 Sabre Time Between Overhauls was 25 hours. Helps explain why there were so many Sabre in the repair system. I am impressed that someone who has been talking about so many low quality British aviation products decided to claim the above. It would be great to drop the attitude of the Sabre/Typhoon is the answer or it does not matter, now what was the question?
www.history.navy.mil
