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The expression Dowding used was "turning off the Hurricane tap".
171 Spitfire was produced in the last 4 months of 1939 alone.The 120 number for Spitfires in service in Sept of 1939 vs the 250 in service in April also has to be seen in that light. They made a lot more than 130 Spitfires in those 7 months.
Never heard of Haddock Force?Might have included Whitleys? Hmmmm - why, I wonder?
I very much doubt that was ever a serious contention. Whitleys were exclusively night bombers. The Phoney war made it very clear that for the time being, neither side was contemplating any kind of strategic bombing with anything more than leaflets, lest the other side retaliated in kind. And they could perform that mission from their home bases in England...? (along with the other in-service 'heavy' bombers - the Wellingtons and Hampdens that were not deployed in France either)
Besides sharing an engine, what non-superficial similarities are there between the Hurricane and Spitfire?Why did the British airforce adopted highly similar Hurricane and Spitfire at the same time?
The advanced striking force consisted of two echelons, the 1st in France with 10 Battle squadrons and (from Dec 1939) two Blenheim IV squadrons and 2-3 Hurricane squadrons.Might have included Whitleys? Hmmmm - why, I wonder?
I very much doubt that was ever a serious contention. Whitleys were exclusively night bombers. The Phoney war made it very clear that for the time being, neither side was contemplating any kind of strategic bombing with anything more than leaflets, lest the other side retaliated in kind. And they could perform that mission from their home bases in England...? (along with the other in-service 'heavy' bombers - the Wellingtons and Hampdens that were not deployed in France either)
Cheers. Interesting stuff!The advanced striking force consisted of two echelons, the 1st in France with 10 Battle squadrons and (from Dec 1939) two Blenheim IV squadrons and 2-3 Hurricane squadrons.
This is not the total number of planes in France
However there was a 2nd echelon in England with two Whitley squadrons (the 77th and the 102) 4 group and four Blenheim IV squadrons 2 group.
What they were going to do with them I don't know but they were in the command structure.
They would also have been a nightmare to deal with on crappy, wet airfields (so would Hampdens and Wellingtons).
They were available to be moved forward if the situation demanded/enabled it.
Its fascinating - but doesn't really answer the question as to why Whitleys would be based in France.Never heard of Haddock Force?
A very small, brief and unsuccessful attempt in June 1940 to bomb Northern Italy from French bases in Southern France with Welingtons before the French surrender. There was more opposition from the French than the Italians!
The advanced striking force consisted of two echelons, the 1st in France with 10 Battle squadrons and (from Dec 1939) two Blenheim IV squadrons and 2-3 Hurricane squadrons.
This is not the total number of planes in France
However there was a 2nd echelon in England with two Whitley squadrons (the 77th and the 102) 4 group and four Blenheim IV squadrons 2 group.
What they were going to do with them I don't know but they were in the command structure.
They would also have been a nightmare to deal with on crappy, wet airfields (so would Hampdens and Wellingtons).
They were available to be moved forward if the situation demanded/enabled it.
Look it up, it is rather fascinating. The Whitley's refueled on a Channel Island (Guernsey?) and some of them managed to make it through the alps to bomb Genoa. Ice/weather was against them.Has Op Haddock been covered in a previous thread? it looks like a very worthy topic in its own right!
They might have, this was just the Advanced Striking Force, it was not the total number of British aircraft in France (and the British couldn't put anything into Belgium until the Germans attacked) None of the Lysanders were part of the Advanced Striking Force and there may have been other aircraft/squadrons based in France that were in a different command. There may have been fighter squadrons based in France that were not part of the Advanced Striking Force.Wasn't there some Battles and Hurricanes sent to Belgium as well at some point?
I think it's a good point about the logistics - getting all the parts and lubricants and ammunition and everything into place for the British aircraft would have been tricky
Burma, too.Interestingly Lysanders were also used as bombers and CAS strike aircraft in the very early days in North Africa too.
Kind of, sort of, maybe????I was thinking about the whole Fury / Hurricane thing, and just remembered that the Wildcat was also developed from a biplane...
That is 100% not even close to the truth. Although Polikarpov worked on both the I-15 and I-16 at the same time, the original intent was develop a monoplane fighter with advanced features like retractable landing gear and flaperons. I believe the I-15 was developed fallback should the I-16 fail. I believe we have some manuals on here that show the construction of these aircraft and although it's obvious they came from similar DNA, it's also obvious they came from different wombs.I-16 was transitional, being basically a monoplane version of the I-15 / 153. Yak -1 was second gen.
Everybody was evolving. The questions are how?Bf 109 was kind of an early version of the second gen (party due to the peculiarities of the origins of the Luftwaffe). Spitfire was at least to some extent inspired or influenced by the (monoplane) seaplane racers of Supermarine and was also an early example of second gen. Macchi probably influenced by their racing seaplanes as well and the (second gen) 202 was a development of the 'transitional' (first gen) MC 200 which owed a lot to the older Fiat biplane designs IMO.