Was the Sea Hurricane a superior naval fighter than the F4F? (2 Viewers)

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

AIUI, almost all TBF CVE operations involved the use of catapults. Swordfish were primarily used on CVEs that didn't have catapults.
Two things.

Firstly, with the exception of the Pretoria Castle largely used as a trials and training carrier, British built escort carriers and MAC ships weren't equipped with catapults.

Secondly, Swordfish were used by squadrons on RN US built escort carriers. Check out the histories of ships like Biter, Fencer, Striker amongst others between 1942 and 1944. But the Swordfish was incompatible with US catapults and their tail down launch methods, so couldn't use the catapults on these ships.

For that reason Swordfish were later equipped with RATOG (Rocket Assisted Take Off Gear) to aid their take off at high all up weights. This was especially so for the Mk.III with its large centimetric radome between its undercarriage legs which entered service from mid1944.
 
I found this in the Somerville Papers:



We have to remember that aircrew cannot be expected to fly daily operations when they have a fairly high probability of crashing upon TO, not just due to the human cost but also because even a small loss rate had a large impact on a CVE's ability to maintain an acceptable sortie rate. However, most, if not all USN CVEs had catapults and they used them constantly.

And in 1944/45 Shah was operating in the Bay of Bengal / Andaman Sea area just where you would expect a much greater number of days with zero / very low wind conditions due to that Inter Tropical Convergence Zone. So this shouldn't have been a surprise to any sailor.
 
And in 1944/45 Shah was operating in the Bay of Bengal / Andaman Sea area just where you would expect a much greater number of days with zero / very low wind conditions due to that Inter Tropical Convergence Zone. So this shouldn't have been a surprise to any sailor.
To name a couple of other examples, low wind was a factor at Midway on June 4th, and at Casablanca in Nov 1942. It was also a factor during HARPOON (light wind from the west) and, as mentioned, at Salerno.
 
Last edited:
In the days of sail, transitting the Indian Ocean could only be accomplished during certain seasons.
True and at times the prevailing wind was too strong to go the other way. Winter winds across the lower ocean of Australia to the south
and west came predominantly from the west. Ships that were to go from the East (Melbourne for instance) would sail East under South America
and Africa to get to Western Australian ports because it was quicker and safer.
 
My l tuppence worth, but iirc winkle-brown said the hurricane was a poor aircraft for a naval fighter on account of it being difficult to land due to the propensity of the hurricane to float over the deck and bounce over the arrestor wires.

Regards

Butch
 
He also mentioned ditching characteristics and short range. But he felt the Hurricane was a better dogfighter than the Martlet. I tend to credit Brown as a good source, but many people are highly dismissive of him as being biased.
 
My l tuppence worth, but iirc winkle-brown said the hurricane was a poor aircraft for a naval fighter on account of it being difficult to land due to the propensity of the hurricane to float over the deck and bounce over the arrestor wires.

Regards

Butch
There's lots of FAA pilots who flew the SH1B/2C and they rated it highly for deck landing and I know that it had a very low carrier landing accident rate. In fact, one of Eric Brown's first assignments was to carrier rate the SH1B on escort carriers and it went really smoothly:

The Hurricane's hook was halfway up the fuselage, whereas the
Martlet had hers right in the tail, where it had the best opportunity of
snagging a wire. You had to make a perfect three-point landing in a
Hurricane, or you missed the wires, or the hook bounced clear of them.

I did the trials from the first of the 'Woolworth carriers', the adapted
merchantmen which we were to get from America, the Avenger. To my
delight I found that with reasonable care the Hurricane could be operated
from these little flat-tops quite successfully. They were not ideal, but they
were better than the slow and stately Skuas and Fulmars. Pilots would be
able to catch Focke-Wulfs with them and on the Russian convoys do battle
confidently with the nippy Junkers Ju88. (Wings on my sleeve)



OTOH, new pilots in 806 NAS wrote off 4 Martlet IIs (F4F-4A) prior to PEDESTAL during a multicarrier training exercise, including 3 in landing accidents (Cull - 806 NAS). AFAIK, from all the sources I've consulted no SH1Bs were lost in training during the work up.

Mike Crossly (They gave me a Seafire) states:

In 1940 the Hurricane was believed by the 'test pilots' to be "too tricky by far
to be deck landed on board a carrier, even on the vast 800 foot decks of the
Illustrious Class. Now, this same feat was being performed by
wartime-trained pilots with only 200 hours in their log books,
the length and with windspeeds 50 per cent slower. ,
The Sea Hurricane's main decklanding advantage was its good view over the
nose, an exceptional asset for any Naval single-engined fighter. It also had a
crisp response to small control movements during the approach to land and
good stall warning characteristics. However, it was not given folding wings like
the Seafire, so that it took up too much room in the aircraft carriers' hangars
and was unpopular with the gunners if stowed on deck.
Furthermore there were very few left for the FAA after Russia had been given
20 per cent of production during 1943-44, and they were in very short supply.

Crossly states that he was trained on SH1Bs in the UK and then assigned to 801 NAS on HMS Eagle on Dec 28 1941 . He performed his first ever deck landing, in his SH1B (on HMS Eagle).
 
Last edited:
There's lots of FAA pilots who flew the SH1B/2C and they rated it highly for deck landing and I know that it had a very low carrier landing accident rate. In fact, one of Eric Brown's first assignments was to carrier rate the SH1B on escort carriers and it went really smoothly:





OTOH, new pilots in 806 NAS wrote off 4 Martlet IIs (F4F-4A) prior to PEDESTAL during a multicarrier training exercise, including 3 in landing accidents (Cull - 806 NAS). AFAIK, from all the sources I've consulted no SH1Bs were lost in training during the work up.

Mike Crossly (They gave me a Seafire) states:



Crossly states that he was trained on SH1Bs in the UK and then assigned to 801 NAS on HMS Eagle on Dec 28 1941 . He performed his first ever deck landing, in his SH1B (on HMS Eagle).
Thanks happy to be corrected 😀
 
He described the Sea Fury as a 'first class naval aircraft', but I've never read anything in-depth.

Again, nothing in-depth with the Sea Hornet, but he was quick to mention how poorly the ailerons controlled at low speeds.

He seemed to really like the Sea Hawk as well. Writing that when the Royal Navy received it they '... received an altogether splendid machine, a beautiful piece of aesthetic and practical design which looked, and was, superbly airworthy.'
 
Last edited:
To quote the man himself,

"In my book the Sea Hornet ranks second to none for harmony of control, performance characteristics and, perhaps most important, in inspiring confidence in its pilot. For sheer exhilarating flying enjoyment, no aircraft has ever made a deeper impression on me".
 
Is there any British-made single-seat carrier fighter that Brown liked? Did he ever try the postwar Sea Fury?
To be fair, when discussing the Seafire in Wings of the Navy:

As a result of a brilliant piece of improvisation, the Navy
had been presented with the Sea Hurricane which had proved
that a high-performance shore-based fighter could be oper-
ated with relative safety from a carrier, but the Hawker
fighter's chances of survival against a Bf 109G or Fw 190
were anything but good. Nevertheless, its successful adapta-
tion for the shipboard role had at least brought about some-
thing of a revolution in naval thinking, and logically enough,
in 1941, the Admiralty began to demand a similar adaptation
of what was then the highest performing fighter available -
the Spitfire...

....Prior to Torch, Seafire Mk IBs of No 801 Squadron flying from Fur-
fous and participating in Operation Train had failed to over-
haul Ju 88s shadowing the force in which the carrier was
included, and the German bomber had proved capable of
outdistancing the Seafire Mk IICs of No 807 Squadron with
some ease. These frustrating encounters were primarily responsible
for the decision to test the Merlin 32 in the Seafire, this
differing from the Merlin 45 or 46 in having a cropped
supercharger impeller, max boost being raised to +18 Ib and
max output rising by 430 hp at 3,000 ft (915 m) to 1,640 hp,
full advantage of the increase being taken by means of a
four-bladed propeller which replaced the standard three-
blader. With this engine change, the fighter became the
Seafire L Mk IIC and I was to become familiar with this
variant when it first arrived in November 1942 at the Service
Trials Unit at Arbroath, to where I had been posted on 12
September, after my brief sojourn aboard Biter.

The Seafire L Mk IIC was the most exciting aircraft that I
had flown to that time. Its initial climb rate and acceleration
were little short of magnificent, and at maximum boost it
could maintain 4,600 ft/min (23,36 m/sec) up to 6,000 ft
(1 830 m). The fully-supercharged Mk IIC took at least two
minutes longer to attain 20,000 ft (6 095 m) and was mar-
kedly slower at all altitudes up to 25,000 ft (7 620 m). Later,
some Seafire L Mk IICs were to have their wingtips clipped to
boost roll rate and incidentally, add another four knots (7,5
km/h) to maximum speed, although these advantages were to
be obtained at some cost in take-off run and service ceiling.
Another result of the installation of the Merlin 32 was a quite
dramatic reduction in take-off distance and, in fact, the L Mk
IIC without flaps could get airborne in a shorter distance than
the standard Mk IIC using full flap! My enthusiasm for this
new Seafire variant was such that, one afternoon, in sheer
exhilaration, I looped it around both spans of the Forth
Bridge in succession - court-martial stuff nowadays but
during a war nobody has the time to bother with such for-

malities...

One thing that should be apparent is that the Sea Hurricane and Seafire were being compared to the best aircraft in the Luftwaffe's inventory. Brown dishes faint praise on the Sea Hurricane and praises the Seafire LIIC for it's exceptional climb rate, when both FAA fighters had two and three times the climb rate of his beloved F4F-4 in the same time frame!
 
To be fair, when discussing the Seafire in Wings of the Navy:



One thing that should be apparent is that the Sea Hurricane and Seafire were being compared to the best aircraft in the Luftwaffe's inventory. Brown dishes faint praise on the Sea Hurricane and praises the Seafire LIIC for it's exceptional climb rate, when both FAA fighters had two and three times the climb rate of his beloved F4F-4 in the same time frame!


The F4F was much tougher and could survive damage that would destroy either of them.
Both could be brought down by a single 7.92mm bullet to the nose or wing mounted radiators
 
One thing that should be apparent is that the Sea Hurricane and Seafire were being compared to the best aircraft in the Luftwaffe's inventory.
They never seem to mention Italian aircraft in these comparisons… a just as likely opponent in the MTO.

Sea Hurricane or Martlet vs. Re.2001 or earlier fighters like the Macchi C.200?
 
Last edited:
Both could be brought down by a single 7.92mm bullet to the nose or wing mounted radiators
Isn't the Hurricane's radiator belly mounted? Which aircraft has a nose mounted rad? P-40?

ane-vint-radiator-shassi-oblaka-hawker-hurricane-v.jpg
 
Last edited:

Users who are viewing this thread

Back