Why did the RAF put so many resources into the Hurricane?

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Until the new Spitfire factory was producing in mid 1940 the Hurricane did most of the work for the RAF. Despite all the losses of Hurricanes in France and at Dunkerque the number of Hurricanes and Spitfires available at the fall of France was equal at about 250 each. At the outbreak of the war the RAF only had about 140 Spitfires in service, while Hawkers had been producing Hurricanes faster than the RAF could take them allowing Hurricanes to be exported to several nations.
 
The Spitfire is technically superior to the Hurricane, but is that technical superiority needed in all theatres of war, or even within any theatre itself. The Hurricane was a better bomber interceptor, the Spitfire the better fighter bomber interceptor. If you can build 5 Hurricanes for every 3 Spitfires, and I don't know the answer to that, I'm just guessing, then the Hurricane becomes the most cost effective interceptor during the BoB. In the UK, you only need Spitfires in the South-East of the country where you are liable to encounter Bf 109's, Hurricanes will do elsewhere. Can you easily support the Spitfire in the field overseas? To me it appears that the first Spitfires suitable for overseas deployment were the Vc, IXc and VIII. Maybe you could deploy the Vb Trop to airfields where there was good engineering support facilities locally? Like Malta, Alexandria, possibly even Ceylon and Singapore?
 
syscom3 said:
The Spitfire was a far better machine. So why expend scare resources in building the Hurricane? Especially in 1940?
Click to expand...

I guess it is scarce resources?
As other people pointed out (or not), and in no particular order: factories were tooled up for it (neither Hawker nor Gloster were tooled up to make Spitfires), Hurricane was a decent fighter especially for 1940, it will take time & resources to tool up for another type.
UK's material resources were probaly not scarce, though trained pilots were in 1939-40 (not a fault of Hurricane). If we want to axe someting from production in 1939-40, some other aircraft fit the bill much better than Hurricane.
 
The Air Ministry was looking at axing the Spitfire in 1939 in favour of the Beaufighter.
 
Kevin J said:
The Air Ministry was looking at axing the Spitfire in 1939 in favour of the Beaufighter.
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It was intended to stop the Spitfire at the original 300 ordered.

There was some frustration at the time it took Supermarine to get quantity production up and running.

If they had gone to the Beaufighter (which was not ready in 1939), they would have had fewer aircraft for the BoB. And the Beaufighter would have struggled in the interceptor role.

Ultimately the intention was to replace the Spitfire with the Tornado/Typhoon. The Tornado/Typhoon to also replace the Hurricane.
 
Kevin J said:
The Hurricane was a better bomber interceptor, the Spitfire the better fighter bomber interceptor.
Click to expand...

The Spitfire was a better interceptor. Full Stop.



It wasn't a case of suitability for overseas deployment, but the priority for home defence which kept the Spitfire in the UK. When sufficient numbers were built up (which was during Mk V production) overseas deployment began.
 
In terms of construction the Hurricane was based on tried and tested design and construction, in its early stages it was referred to as the Fury monoplane, Hawkers already had factories used to making such aircraft by the thousand in WW1. By contrast the Spitfire was a completely new type of design which Supermarine ha no experience of, Supermarine ended up in the hands of Vickers to bring some production expertise to the job. Coupled with that, UK strategy was based on fighting Germany in Germany, the fall of France left the Supermarine factory basically just over the Channel from the Luftwaffe so as production needed to increase it had to be dispersed at the same time. While the long term aim was to take the Hurricane out of the front line and replace it with the Spitfire and Typhoon Tornado, in the short term it got the newer more powerful Merlin engines before the Spitfire just to keep the number of fairly competitive fighters up. Though not as good as the Spitfire it did have some advantages in terms of utility, it was a while before it could be replaced in the desert. I believe it soldiered on until 1944 in the far east.
 
Better question is: Why it was produced years after it became obsolete (July 1944)
It was not the only , though:
P-39 production ended August 1944
P-40 production ended November 1944
FM-2 production ended May 1945
 
Kevin J said:
The Air Ministry was looking at axing the Spitfire in 1939 in favour of the Beaufighter.
Click to expand...
Perhaps right up until they flew the Beaufighter, discovered it was 20-30mph slower than anticipated. When somebody figured out that the Hercules engine was months (or a year) from production is iffy, full production may have only 1-2 months away for 12 months

It can take months to change a factory over and months more to work up to full production.
Schemes to change from one type of aircraft to another have to be looked at in that light.
We also have to remember that we have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, not only in aircraft performance but in what some of the manufacturing difficulties were.
 
Timppa said:
Better question is: Why it was produced years after it became obsolete (July 1944)
It was not the only , though:
P-39 production ended August 1944
P-40 production ended November 1944
FM-2 production ended May 1945
Click to expand...

The productions lines were in place, and aircraft were needed. The logistics of retooling is not trivial. Same reason every factory in the US didn't produce Corsairs and Mustangs.

I can't help thinking in the US lobbying also played a part in continuing P-40 production. Curtiss Wright was the largest company in the US, bigger than GM, I'm sure they had a lot of influence in Washington to continue the P-40 vs retooling for P-51s and paying North American a royalty.
 
Timppa said:
Better question is: Why it was produced years after it became obsolete (July 1944)
It was not the only , though:
P-39 production ended August 1944
P-40 production ended November 1944
FM-2 production ended May 1945
Click to expand...
Okay,
1. The Hurricane could still be used as a fighter bomber in the CBI as its main opponent was the K-43-II which had the same sort of performance clean.
2. The P-39 gave sterling service on the Eastern Front. It was the favourite mount of the Soviets top aces.
3. The P-40 was still scoring victories in the South West Pacific and CBI as it didn't have to combat the latest fighters of the IJN and JAAF.
4. The FM-2 had sufficient performance to act as a DLI against Japanese kamikaze and attack aircraft from the USN's jeep carriers.
None of these planes were obsolete, but their usefulness was reducing as the years went by. All were being replaced.
 
Timppa said:
Better question is: Why it was produced years after it became obsolete (July 1944)
It was not the only , though:
P-39 production ended August 1944
P-40 production ended November 1944
FM-2 production ended May 1945
Click to expand...
A plane becomes obsolete when you have something better or your enemy does. There were still places up to 1943/44 where the enemy didnt have anything better than a Hurricane and the allies had better use for the better planes it had.
 


when do you decide to change over?

NA made about 1700 P-51s in 1943, Curtiss made over 4250 P-40s. In the late spring/early summer of 1943 NA had P-51 airframes sitting outside the factory waiting for engines.

Curtiss was supposed to making P-47s but that didn't go so well.

For the US it could be 2-3 months from when a plane was rolled out the factory door to when it was delivered to a combat unit on the front lines. Getting planes to England was easy (comparatively) , getting them other places was a lot harder.

I don't think royalties really entered into it. I could be wrong. Many companies, once the US was in the war, worked on a "cost plus" basis. Grumman for one, the Hellcat was priced at whatever the Grumman and government accounts, working together agreed the raw cost was plus 3% profit above that for Grumman. Prices often fell as production experience was gained and companies figured out how to make things cheaper/faster, The company didn't get to keep the savings as extra profit. Any company making another companies design would have any royalties figured into the cost and it wouldn't come out of the profit.
P & W at one point agreed to a one dollar an engine royalty for some of the R-1839=0s and R-2800s made by other companies. A few times they even waived that.
 
There were several factories making the Hurricane Luckily), if the Typhoon had been a success from the start the change over would have been much quicker, as it is the total production of Hurricane, Typhoon, Tempest and Sea Fury amounted to about the same as those of the Spitfire series.
 

An old Wing/Airpower article covered the development of the P-51, the author stated one of Dutch Kindleberger's motivations to develop the NA-73 for the British, was to avoid building P-40s and paying royalties to Curtis and he thought he could design a better plane. Yes all the US contracts were Cost Plus Fee, it was hard to loose money, but then as now, companies wanted to maximize profits.

And all engineers think they can do it a little better than anyone else. I used to work with a guy whose father was an engineer at Curtis. He sad his father swore the P-40Q could fly circles around the P-51 and was better plane. I'm not trying to overstate this side of it, the production boards determined what factories would build which aircraft.
 
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