Why did the British airforce adopted highly similar Hurricane and Spitfire at the same time?

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tomo pauk said:
As good as Rommel was, even he can't be on two places simultaneously.
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True but was he the only effective field commander in the Afrika Korps?


Well it helps to capture Allied trucks, and taking Malta would make it a lot easier to send ships across the sea. But this does bring up another glaring deficiency for the Axis. Lets look at the oft neglected category of transport planes.

Ju 52 Range 1,000 km, top speed 265 km/h, cruise speed 200 km/h, ceiling 5,900 m, cargo capacity 17 troops or 3 tons
SM 81 Range 1,500 km, top speed 340 km/h, cruise speed 260 km/h, ceiling 7,000 m , cargo capacity (I couldn't find it)

C-47 Range 2,600 km, top speed 360 km/h, cruise speed 257 km/h, ceiling 8,000 m, cargo capacity 28 troops or 3 tons

C-47 is also probably easier to maintain if only due to two engines instead of three.

And the Allies had Wellingtons, B-24s and various flying boats to use as a long range cargo planes (and could use many other types if needed).

The Me 323 looks impressive but turned out to be a tragic catastrophe when used in the resupply effort across the Med. Ju 252 looked promising but were never built in sufficient numbers.

tomo pauk said:
Knock-on effects for the Eastern front due to Germany sending stuff earmarked for Easter Front to the N.A. for the best part of 1942?
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Knock-on effects of having more fuel? Admittedly 1942 is a bad time to send troops to North Africa and by the end of 1942 it's almost certainly not going to happen.

tomo pauk said:
Capable escort fighters were needed as far back as 1940. Same for fast bombers.
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Yes - Luftwaffe proved incapable in the Strategic bombing campaign (though they did surprisingly well given their technical limits). But the Axis still had a notable advantage in both air superiority and tactical bombing capability over the battlefield, at least on the front line, up to about early 1942 in the West and maybe mid 1943 in Russia, after which it starts shifting against them.

A long range fighter or fast bomber appearing in some numbers in 1942 or 43 I think could have made a difference for them.
 
For the former probably jets jets jets, for the latter also jets but something like the Ju 188 showed promise that should have been exploited, IMO.

I would argue that something like a longer ranged Fw 190, or a better Bf 110 (equivalent of a P-38) could have also been very helpful in the mid-war.
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
Knock-on effects of having more fuel? Admittedly 1942 is a bad time to send troops to North Africa and by the end of 1942 it's almost certainly not going to happen.
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Armies in the East will have less ful in 1942, since we've just shipped a lot to the N.A.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
True but was he the only effective field commander in the Afrika Korps?
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He was one of the best ones, especially if he has war material required (we've just handwaved it to him), can read Allied mail, or the enemy is still 'green'.
 
tomo pauk said:
Armies in the East will have less ful in 1942, since we've just shipped a lot to the N.A.
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I'm not sure why so much would have to be sent if Rommel has more uneven victories

tomo pauk said:
He was one of the best ones, especially if he has war material required (we've just handwaved it to him), can read Allied mail, or the enemy is still 'green'.
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The Wiki on Kasserine that you linked notes a couple of times the significance of the Axis air support. That was an advantage which was rapidly fading for them by then, but inadequate US preparation made it possible to fully utilize it there.
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
or a better Bf 110 (equivalent of a P-38) could have also been very helpful in the mid-war.
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Not really, The Germans can't afford large numbers of twin engined aircraft. Yes they made a bunch but you need to stop with with some of them to make the P-38 copy.
Make escort but now can't build bombers?
The Germans needed something like the Italian "5" series coming on line in 1942, not thinking about them in mid 1943. The P-51 hadn't shown up in Mid 1943 but it was pouring out of the factory/s in mid 1943 (or waiting for engines) but you can't wait for the P-51 to show up to react to it. You have to be ahead of the Curve and not behind it.
The 109 was behind the curve in 1942 and it never really caught up. Sricking an 1800hp engine in it in late 1944 just means it endurance/range turns even worse if you try to use the power. Better hope you are pointing at the airfield when the engine is pushed to 1800hp.

The Germans held on to many of their early bombers for too long without improvements (or big improvements) while waiting for the Wunder planes that never showed up.
I have pointed out before that the Do 217 wasn't much different than a B-25, it traded lack of guns for some speed but it didn't have enough speed for it to work. And the few guns didn't work either. Anybody want to think about the B-25 as the best American bomber in Europe in WW II?
The Do-217 didn't get speed until it got DB 603 engines.
The DO 217E wasn't much (if as fast) as stripped B-25s and B-26s.
 
The clock was ticking on all combat aircraft designs, all the time. The Spitfire was probably a half-generation ahead of the Hurricane, less in its aerodynamics than its structural technology. It was also contemporary with the Bf109, which remained in production throughout the war.

The Hurricane was robust, easily maintained, and had enough performance to be useful, at least in ground attack roles, throughout its time in service. Its production was stopped in 1944 as it was recognized its time was definitively over.
 
Shortround6 said:
Not really, The Germans can't afford large numbers of twin engined aircraft. Yes they made a bunch but you need to stop with with some of them to make the P-38 copy.
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Kinda what stops the Fw 187 dead in it's tracks, too.


They can have a DB 601E or DB 605A grafted in the nose of the Fw 190 = 'German Series 5'.
The 109 was still out-pacing and outclimbing 90% of the 1942 fighters. It was the longest-ranged 400mph fighter, too. Yes, the wing cannons should've been retained. 1800 HP engines were necessity, and were also too late.
OTOH, a Fw 190 + DB 605 + 2x300L drop tanks = long range performer.

Indeed, the German bombers' saga was a sorry one past 1940.
 
One might want to note that Algeria was also taken by the British First Army.
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
If they had won the war in North Africa, which was within reach at one point, they could have pulled in more oil. This would have been much easier if they had faster transport aircraft.
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Even had they gotten to the Syrian or Iraqi oil fields, which is doubtful, they're still going to have the issue of getting that fuel back to Europe safely. How many tanker-bottoms did they have, and how to guard them against the RN in the Med? The Axis will have to seize Malta ... but that didn't seem like a fun idea after Crete.

Just the fuel required to get DAK and Italians to, say, Damascus is going to be one hell of a strain, if not outright impossible, unless Malta is seized and the Allies are defeated at Cairo, and Palestine, and Syria. That's a lot of ammo that'll be needing shipping, as well as replacement men and equipment, too. And we've seen how slender were the Axis logistics at the end of the road in El Alamein.

Bear in mind that the Libyan oil reserves weren't available in the early 40s, so there's no nearby oil, and you'll need to send many divisions to both defeat the Allied armies, and defend the supply line of the Axis armies, for over 2300 km from, say, Benghazi to Damascus. UK still has a naval force at Gibraltar to both contest Malta and interdict oil coming into Italy from those North African ports, and land forces in Iraq to present a threat to Syria or the northern Iraq oil fields.

I don't think the Axis can surmount these difficulties.
 
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Shortround6 said:
Not really, The Germans can't afford large numbers of twin engined aircraft. Yes they made a bunch but you need to stop with with some of them to make the P-38 copy.
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Well they built 15,000+ Ju-88s. Pretty sure that wasn't all in 1940. The reasoning on not developing say the Ju 188 was that it would cut back on Ju 88 production.
Ju 88 was arguably an excellent bomber in 1941. A bit less so in 1942. Having trouble though still usable in 1943. In big trouble by 1944.
All those planes probably weren't actually deployed and many were destroyed on the ground or broke down, but if say half of them were shot down in combat that's 30,000 crew.
Maybe make 5,000 Ju 88s and who knows? 3-4,000 Ju 188 or 388 models, and possibly you don't lose as many crew, or waste as many machines. Production capacity doesn't help that much when the dualumin and engines and fuel are all ending up in a smoking heap on the ground a few weeks after the plane is built.

Shortround6 said:
Make escort but now can't build bombers?
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Again... they made a ton of Bf 109s, probably most of them after they were falling behind in many respects. It's about using the capacity differently not requiring more.
Maybe instead of 30,000 BF 109s you make 15,000 plus 2,000 Me 262s. Or something.


They looked hard at the Re 2005 and (especially) the G55, but by then it was too late as you say and they were perceived as too complex in manufacture. It proves that something better could have been done though.
Shortround6 said:
The Germans held on to many of their early bombers for too long without improvements (or big improvements) while waiting for the Wunder planes that never showed up.
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yep, this is one of the many ways I would argue their ideology was a hindrance to their war effort.


And yet, in the operational history at least in the Med, Do 217 seem to be knocked down in rather brutal numbers. B-25s and B-26s are not getting slaughtered like that. Maybe the Germans just don't have fighters to escort the 217s out to the open sea where they are attacking Allied ships, I don't know.

B-25 doesn't look so great on paper nor does B-26, but they, and the Martin 187 and later model A-20s seemed to be able to operate at acceptable casualty levels whereas Do 217 are dying like flies, so I'd actually say it's an inferior design to the US twin engined bombers. Maybe their relatively heavy defensive guns helped.

Some operational data (more or less at random, from MAW Volume IV around the time of Sicily / Southern Italy invasions):

17 August 1943 - 10 x Ju 88A-4 lost with most crew KiA or MiA
22 August 1943 - 7 x Ju 88A-4 lost with crews KiA or MiA
27 August 1943 - 3 x B-25 shot down with crews KiA or POW
1 Sept 1943 - 10 x P-38G shot down, 1 x B-17
1 Sept 1943 - 5 x Fw 190A-5 shot down, 6 x Bf 109g-6 shot down, 2 x He 111 missing
3 Sept 1943 - 7 x B-24 shot down crews KiA or POW
7 Sept 1943 - 1 x B-25 shot down, 1 x B-26 shot down, 1 x B-17 shot down (at cost of 5 x Bf 109G4 and G-6)
8 Sept 1943 - 4 x He 111H-11, 12 x Ju 88A-4 shot down.. Most crews KiA or MiA these were maritime strikes
9 Sept 1943 - 1 X B-25C shot down (two more crash landed out of fuel but crews rescued), 1 x He 111H-11 and 4 x Ju-88A4 lost in maritime strikes
12 Sept 1943 - 3 x Ju 88A-4 and 2 x Do 217E-5 lost crews MiA
13 Sept 1943 - 1 x Bf 109G-6, 1 x Fw 190A-5 shot down, 2 x Do 217K-2 and 1 x Do 217E-4 shot down (all in strikes against Allied invasion)
17 Sept 1943 - 4 x Do 217E-5 shot down, one crew returned the rest KiA or MiA
30 Sept 1943 - 3 x Do 217E-5 lost
Oct 4 1943 - 2 x Do 217E-5 lost with crews
Oct 20 1943 - 3 x Ju87D5, 17 x Ju-88A-4 lost, 4 x He-11H lost
Oct 23 1943 - 7 x Ju 88A-4 lost

Anyway you get the idea. I did find one or two cases (Sept 3 stands out) where the US lost a bunch of bombers, or (Sept 1) fighters, but by and large the Germans were taking what I'd call unacceptable / unsustainable losses whenever they used their bombers on major strikes, and on most missions the Allied bombers were losing more like 1 or 2. Just on those days listed above the Germans lost 60 Ju 88s and 14 Do 217s (which may not sound like much, but it was typically about half of what they sent out every time). The Do 217s managed to damage several ships with Fritz X and HS 293 weapons, and sunk the Italian battleship Roma, the light cruiser HMS Spartan and a few smaller ships and landing craft.

III./KG 100, which seems to be the only Do 217 unit in the region, appears to have been based in Greece, got Do 217s in April and disbanded or was refit by Nov 10. They tried to convert to He 177
 
There were no meaningful oil fields in in Saudi Arabia in 1942. The first discoveries were only made in 1938 along the Persian Gulf Coast, and it was later in WW2 before US companies got it flowing. There were some oil reserves being exploited in Egypt on the western side of the Red Sea (c5 million barrels per year), but these were minor compared to what lay further east.

The major pre-war Middle East oil fields were in northern Iraq around Kirkuk which was piped across the desert to refineries at Haifa in Palestine and Tripoli in Syria. The real prize were the oil fields in Iran at the head of the Persian Gulf with one of the biggest refineries in the world at Abadan. Those were a long way from the Suez Canal and there were substantial Commonwealth forces based across Palestine, Syria, Iraq & Iran with Soviet Forces also in Iran.
 

Malta is a lot smaller than Crete. The Allied occupation of Malta was contributing heavily to the loss of Axis shipping which had reached 35% by mid 1942.


Again, the Germans were losing a lot of fuel in sunk ships in the Med, so capturing Malta would have cut down on those losses significantly and presumably that much more fuel would be available to Rommel. At Second El Alamein in Oct 1942 the Axis managed to field 547 tanks, 192 armored cars, 800 aircraft, 500 artillery guns and 500 AT guns so they weren't quite so crippled. If they had taken the thorn of Malta from their side presumably they would have more. If they had the tactical bombing advantage we were previously discussing it's quite possible they would have won another lopsided victory like so many of their previous ones.


That's possible but British naval fleets proved to be pretty vulnerable to air attack as they approached Sicily or Malta as we know. Maybe USN carriers could have helped with that. I'm sure getting the oil back would have been quite challenging but if there was a real possibility to get it, I suspect they would do so. The British could destroy the equipment at the oil fields too and probably would have if they thought the Axis were going to take them, but then they are going to be losing a chunk of their petrol supplies.

Thumpalumpacus said:
I don't think the Axis can surmount these difficulties.
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Probably not, but who knows? We are well into the land of speculation here. I'm just saying it wasn't impossible. It was probably their best option. But it was out of reach due to limitations of their aircraft, IMO.
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
Malta is a lot smaller than Crete. The Allied occupation of Malta was contributing heavily to the loss of Axis shipping which had reached 35% by mid 1942.
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Right, but the Fallschirmjager had already taken heavy losses in Crete, leading Hitler to oppose future airborne ops, and Axis sealift capacity -- and experience in amphibious assaults -- was dubious. An opposed landing on an RN base featuring rough terrain that favors the defender is going to get ugly fast, especially when, unlike Crete, cutting off Allied supplies will be harder (Fliegerkorps X and RA can support the landings, or attack Allied logistics, but can they do both?)


I'm not sure how much more fuel would have been available, but I do know that at second El Alamein, a large number of the Axis vehicles were captured by dint of being abandoned once they ran out of fuel. The Axis would have to have taken Malta ... and then even after that, fueled many divisions to drive on Syria before they would see any return on investment. With the war in Russia at full spate, not likely, in my estimation. And -- the divisions to drive on Damascus, and guard the supply line to and fro', have to come from somewhere. Russia? Nyet. The Balkans, perhaps, but those are largely police divisions by 2nd El Alamein, of questionable combat effectiveness, and pulling them out invites headaches there anyway.



Very true. Don't foget RN subs, though I'm unsure if they could range patrols from the Rock to the eastern Med where they would be needed. Even so, given the paucity of tankers possessed by the Axis, it wouldn't seem to take many subs to do decent interdiction, if they indeed have the range to do so.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
Probably not, but who knows? We are well into the land of speculation here. I'm just saying it wasn't impossible. It was probably their best option. But it was out of reach due to limitations of their aircraft, IMO.
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It was out of reach due to their inability to project power that far, imo. Keeping, say, ten or twelve divisions secure as they drive 2300 km (comparison: Berlin to Moscow, 1800 km) when those divisions need an estimated 300 tons per day of supplies is a huge ask for a Germany fighting and dying in Russia. You've got to hold Malta. You've got to hold Tripoli. You've got to hold Benghazi, Tobruk, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Beirut. You've got to supply those forces doing the holding.

And then you have to make sure your spearhead is armed, supplied, and in good working order after a 1500-mile drive across what is largely desert. Hope you brought a lot of spare treads, ball-bearings, and POLs ... and recovery vehicles.
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
Maybe instead of 30,000 BF 109s you make 15,000 plus 2,000 Me 262s. Or something.
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Over, 1,400 Me262s were manufactured but less than a quarter of that number made it into combat.
This was due to lack of fuel, spare parts and the logistics of safely transporting them from the factory to the front.

There was also the issue of pilots. They were in such short supply, they even had pilots with the rank of Gefreiter flying them.
A Gefreiter is basically a Corporal.
 
Engine supply was not conductive for making more 262s, either.
A smaller number of very high performance fighter will make less of the strain to the supply of pilots than a greater number of every day fighters. But then again, quantity is a qulity on it's own...
 

Well maybe you are right, but seizing the Suez canal was certainly within reach if you got Malta, and if they had done that you could cause major problems for the British. That alone should have helped somewhat.
 

yeah I meant 2,000 more me 262s, though that is just a wild guess based on very little (i.e. the extra production capacity if you made fewer of the older aircraft designs).

Presumably if they made more jets earlier they lose fewer pilots so fast, so the shortage doesn't become critical as soon.
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
Well maybe you are right, but seizing the Suez canal was certainly within reach if you got Malta, and if they had done that you could cause major problems for the British. That alone should have helped somewhat.
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We agree about that, and it was a close-run thing. I seem to remember reading about the Brits burning papers in Cairo as First Alamein loomed, though I can't attest to the veracity of that reading as it was long ago and I forget the author. Seizing Cairo would both hamstring Empire sealanes and force the British in Africa to fight from Somalia with Cape supply routes. Ugly.
 
Jumo made about 6,000 engines and yet only around 300 Me 262s entered service. Somewhere I saw a claim that there was a rebuild program for engines but have no idea if that actually happened. I suspect pilots and logistics were the real bottlenecks
 
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