No, you had fast climbing hard hitting short range interceptors because they only had 85G of internal fuel.
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Our priority was fast climbing hard hitting interceptors, not gallivanting over the French countryside hoping some pretty mademoiselle was going to wave at us.
you don't need climb performance when you have enough fuel to take off and be formed up at altitude before the enemy has crossed the channel instead of having to wait till the last minute and climb like hell
That was exactly what we needed. The only long range fighter we had was the Hurricane II with 2 x 45 IG drop tanks. We used them for close escort on our raids into France. The Spitfire Vb with its single 45 IG slipper had to drop it before entering the danger zone. They were top cover. So 12 squadrons of fighters would escort 1 Squadron of bombers. Obviously, there's withdrawal support too. Spitfire Vb's with 30 IG combat capable slipper tanks?No, you had fast climbing hard hitting short range interceptors because they only had 85G of internal fuel.
It took the USA until the end of 1943 beginning of 1944 to have a bomber that could be escorted on deep penetration raids in Germany.
You ALWAYS need climb performance.
Where are you getting the additional warning time? They weren't being held on the ground, taking off at the last minute to save fuel.They were launched as soon as the information was sufficiently processed to result in a successful interception.The British specified climb performance because their planes had short range, they took off at the last minute to intercepted incoming aircraft, if the Spitfire had another 30G of fuel it could be at 20,000ft waiting for the enemy instead of climbing like a rocket. A Spit at 20,000ft with 85G of fuel instead of 60G is still going to have adequate performance.
Was that before or after they put a Merlin engine in it? You cant put and 85G auxilliary tank in a Spitfire and even if you do you dont get the range of a P-51, because its main tanks are larger and it uses less fuel while cruising.And they developed tested and fitted 85G auxiliary 75G drop tanks to the P51 to escort it, in about 18 months.
With a 1000HP engine and about 660HP available at take off with a twin blade wooden prop the last thing a Spitfire needed was extra fuel. Twin pitch props were only introduced in 1940. There was very little loitering about at 20,000 ft in the Battle of Britain unless that was the intention. Park used to put squadrons up covering areas in case of a change in direction of enemy raids.The British specified climb performance because their planes had short range, they took off at the last minute to intercepted incoming aircraft, if the Spitfire had another 30G of fuel it could be at 20,000ft waiting for the enemy instead of climbing like a rocket. A Spit at 20,000ft with 85G of fuel instead of 60G is still going to have adequate performance.
Please look at the rest of the data sheets. Cruise speeds of these planes was 155-165mph to get those ranges, and it doesn't matter if they can fly that far. The proposed escort Spit can't come close. Of course neither could a P-51 until it got rear fuselage tanks and bigger than 75 gallon drop tanks.
It was on the "lean into France" campaign that the British figured out you could NOT go potting about the french (or Low countries) countryside at most economical cruise speed without just providing pretty much target practice for the Germans.
So we need the long range spit (1941 version) and much better tactics.
And we need to figure out what the effect range/radius of this 1941/42 Spitfire is. At 20,000ft the MK V could burn anywhere from 88 imp gal an hour (for 368mph true) down to 36 Imp Gal and hour for 263mph true. It might be possible to fly even slower at 20,000ft and burn even less but how slow do you want to go? 300mph true is going to cost 46 imp gal an hour. If you get down low the Merlin 45 will burn 150gal an hour at 16lbs of boost but at that point you are no longer escorting the bombers. You are way too low.
You also need very careful coordination with bombers. Just like the American fighters (of whatever type) and the American bombers one group of fighters is NOT going to fly all the way, not without flying at suicidally low speeds. You need to have relays of fighters coming in to relieve the fighters doing the high speed weave and to relieve the fighters that have dropped external tanks and are running for home on internal fuel laving the bombers behind. anybody what to figure out the chances of 50-100 Hampdens flying over Germany after the Spitfires have had to head for England due to low fuel?
Bombers flying at 10-15,000ft at 165mph are training flights for German flak gunners. flak accuracy depends on several things, one of which is the time of flight for the projectile. Since the projectile covers much more distance in the first few seconds of flight than in the later stages cutting the distance disproportionately increases the AA guns chance of success.
yes the bombers might well accomplish much more flying in daylight but the losses are going to be much higher.
When Spitfires were used to escort US bombers in the very early days of the campaign how far did they take them before handing over to US P-47s?You have me scratching my head wondering when I've proposed that a slightly modified, armed Spitfire can do 1800+ mile range while escorting something. Data sheets are response to the statement: The things that were within reach of UK bombers with fighter escort were mainly French farms, very little that the Germans felt obliged to defend.
...that was patiently false (as proven by data sheets and simple geography): for example, a whole Ruhr area is well within 300 mile radius for RAF flying from Kent and East Anglia.
For bombing the Ruhr, the bombers don't need to fly at most economical speed (for max range), but can use max lean mixture power. Gets them to 190-200 mph at 15000 ft, with a lot of range to spare.
Having fighter escort relays against a target 300 miles away is a far easier affair than doing that against a target 600 miles away. It also allows for 'target escort' to come under umbrella of 'last part of sortie escort' on the return leg.
Where are you getting the additional warning time? They weren't being held on the ground, taking off at the last minute to save fuel.They were launched as soon as the information was sufficiently processed to result in a successful interception.
When the Spitfire was being designed radar was not in existence, warning time was very short indeed. The British had conducted exercises before the war and concluded that standing patrols were not practical due to wear and tear on men and machines. Rate of climb was obviously very important If not the most important paramete.
No they were not. A raid picked up 100 miles away travelling at 200mph presents a huge number of possibilities. The object was not to chase them but to stop them hitting their targets and to fight over land.LW aircraft were picked up on radar and tracked before they crossed the channel, the ground controllers kept the planes on the ground until the raids bearing and then possible target were established, only after that were the fighters ordered up because they didn't have the fuel to chase them if they got it wrong. The Spitfire sacrificed fuel for performance based on the power available at the time, under 1,000hp, by 1941 it had another 300-400HP available and MkII PR Spits had been using 30G rear 20G underseat tanks for 12 months by that time.
With a 1000HP engine and about 660HP available at take off with a twin blade wooden prop the last thing a Spitfire needed was extra fuel.
No they were not. A raid picked up 100 miles away travelling at 200mph presents a huge number of possibilities. The object was not to chase them but to stop them hitting their targets and to fight over land.
During Dunkerque they had fuel to fly and fight over the beaches. Once crossed the coast RADAR couldn't be used so the forces had to be in place beforehand.Yes and if they got it wrong the fighters did not have the fuel to change direction and chase which is the reason they stayed on the ground until the very last minute and climbed hard into the attack once the raids target was identified, because of the 85G of fuel,
When Spitfires were used to escort US bombers in the very early days of the campaign how far did they take them before handing over to US P-47s?