Worst mass produced, monoplane, single-engine, single-seat, retractable undercarriage fighter of WW2?

[Shortround6]

They didn't know about the Bf 109F4

Heck, they didn't know about the F-0/F-1 when the decision to put the Merlin XX into the Hurricane was made.

Spitfire squadrons had a higher kill to loss ratio than the Hurricane and just as, if not more, important a lower attrition rate. At least combat attrition.

There were 18-19 Spitfire squadrons for most of the battle compared to 28-31(?) Hurricane squadrons so the total number of kills per type has to be looked at carefully.

 

[ktank]

Bachem Natter

Doesn't have retracting landing gear

And a guaranteed 100% aircraft loss rate per mission

 

[tyrodtom]

And a guaranteed 100% aircraft loss rate per mission

I think the Natter pilot parachuted out, then the Natter itself also descended on a parachute, for reuse.

It's a stretch, but a parachute might be considered a landing gear.

 

[nuuumannn]

It must have been terrifying for a pilot who hurt his back during landing, knowing he's sitting in a mostly wooden airframe, to then see fire break out with often explosive ferocity.

Indeed, even when getting in the thing for the first time, the pilot is confronted with the thought that the two tanks either side of him contain volatile fluid. I used to work at a museum in the UK with an Me 163 and we had a guy come in and demonstrate for us the ease at which HTP flashes if exposed to an element it reacts to. We were gonna do this for the public, but the curator thought better of it!

Some cockpit shots.

Komet 07

Either side of the seat are T-Stoff tanks.

Komet 09

Komet 16

Wooden instrument panel.

Komet 13

Here's a recollection by Komet pilot Mano Ziegler (from his book Rocket Fighter, The Story of the Me 163, Macdonald, London, 1963) of a landing accident he suffered and was very lucky to survive.

"I made a wide turn over a freshly ploughed field, and then crunch! I hit the ground heavily. The Komet bounced several times and then the skid bit into the sparse grass, grated over some stones and gravel, and I was slowing down rapildy. To be on the safe side, I pulled the canopy release handle while the aircraft was still moving, punched my harness quick-release and stripped off my goggles. Then it happened! There was a blinding flash from the floor and a wave of searing heat struck my face! Instinctively, I pulled up my knees, planted my feet hard against the seat, and jumped for all I was worth. Maybe I landed on my head or possibly on all fours. All I could think of was putting as much space between me and that burning Messerschmitt as was possible in no time flat!"

" There was a bang behind me, and I ran like a hare for twenty or thirty metres, and then glanced over my shoulder. The Komet had come to a standstill and was steaming like a boiling kettle and the skid housing ripped wide open and half the cockpit blown away! By the time the fire tender, the ambulance and the starter truck were racing towards me at full speed, and almost within seconds, jets of water were dousing the wreckage and Karl Voy and two of his mechanics were screaming at me: "Mano! Are you alright?"

"My face and hands felt as though they were on fire, and the tears streaming down my face were stinging my cheeks like drops of acid, but before getting medical attention I wanted to take another look at the wrecked aircraft. The cockpit really was in a bad way. Both the finger thick armour plates in the floor had burst asunder like so much cardboard, their jagged edges turned upwards. Metal scraps were dangling here and there, every rubber connection had burned away, and the glass in all the instruments had been shattered by heat. The frontal armour was as black as soot, and had cracked in the middle like a piece of rotten timber."

Science Museum Komet

Worst fighter of WW2? I don't think Buffalo, MS.406, or I-16 pilots had to contend with having to worry about that happening every time they landed.

 

[Kevin J]

It is clear that the Hurricane required the XX to remain competitive, while the Spitfire did not.

They didn't know about the Bf 109F4 or Fw 190A at the time, otherwise they may have pressed ahead with the Spitfire III with Merlin XX.

I would like you to lay out the statistics that support the assertion that "Think about this one. For the number of aircraft 'used up', the Hurricane destroyed 10% more enemy aircraft than the Spitfire and cost 10% less to build".

And are you advocating dropping Spitfire production in favour of the Hurricane?

If you don't know all this then obviously you haven't been following what sort of info is coming up on this forum.

 

[Kevin J]

Heck, they didn't know about the F-0/F-1 when the decision to put the Merlin XX into the Hurricane was made.

Spitfire squadrons had a higher kill to loss ratio than the Hurricane and just as, if not more, important a lower attrition rate. At least combat attrition.

There were 18-19 Spitfire squadrons for most of the battle compared to 28-31(?) Hurricane squadrons so the total number of kills per type has to be looked at carefully.

You need to go look at the production figures mate.

 

[Kevin J]

It is a mighty small numbers in the BoB. The First Hurricane IIs don't show up until September and the Spitfire MK IIs only went to the first operational squadron in August.
With the Germans shifting over to mostly night attacks by the beginning of October neither of the MK IIs really had any influence on the Battle.

The performance difference was so small because they made the deliberate choice to use the MK XX engine in the Hurricane because any other version of the Merlin available in late 1940/early 1941 would have meant a fighter that was NOT competitive with 109E.

If you swapped the engines you would have had a really great Spitfire at the end of 1940 using MK XX engines but a Hurricane with a MK XII engine wasn't something the air ministry wanted to use. That meant a real reduction in the number of 1st rate fighters. So the Hurricane got the MK XX engines to help keep it competitive.

High altitude fighter bomber attacks too.

 

[buffnut453]

Because he's dumb in not understanding what I'm saying, like he's just being argumentative.

In Post #83 I freely admitted I didn't understand your reference to the Merlin XX. I simply couldn't follow your train of thought. Unfortunately, instead of enlightening me you resorted to childish name-calling.

To summarize the discussion (with a few amplifying comments on the "truthfulness" or "accuracy" of total losses and combat losses), at Post #73 you stated that the RAF was lying about losses. I queried what part of the RAF loss figures were lies (Post #74). Your response (Post #75) was rather confusing because it started out with the relative ease of repair of the Hurricane-vs-Spitfire, but the general tenor was that the RAF should have reported total losses not just combat losses. In Post #76 I clarified that there's a difference between combat losses and total losses because they're measuring different things. You responded that, in your opinion, total loss numbers are "more realistic".

At Post #81 I tried to explain why numbers for both total losses and combat losses are needed because they're measuring different things. I'll expand on that a little further before I go on. Military operations have 2 broad categories of metrics: Measures of Performance (MOPs) and Measures of Effectiveness (MOEs). MOPs are top-level assessments of what the force is doing, such as flying a number of sorties, dropping a certain tonnage of bombs. MOEs are measuring how effective those operations are at achieving the objective (e.g. removing the ability of the enemy's senior leadership to communicate with tactical forces). MOPs and MOEs are often used together "We conducted 250 sorties dropping 500 bombs [those are MOPs] and have effectively neutralized the enemy's air defences with no friendly combat losses [those are MOEs]."

Going back to the thread, the total loss metric is a MOP. Combat losses is a MOE as part of the kill/loss ratio. They're measuring different things and one number is not any more accurate or truthful than the other. It just depends what they're being used for. A total number of sorties on its own is just a number. What was accomplished with those sorties provides context. Same for losses. A total number of losses is just a number whereas a kill/loss ratio shows some measure of effectiveness and provides context. It's an established practice for kill/loss ratios to compare friendly combat losses with those enemy aircraft believed to have crashed during combat because there's no way for one force to know how many enemy aircraft reached home but were written off, nor is there any way to know how many enemy aircraft were lost in training accidents outside of combat operations. The kill/loss ratio is an attempt to make a like-for-like assessment of progress within the air campaign.

In Post #82 you persist in suggesting that the measure of losses is somehow misleading. You then go onto a discussion about Hurricanes and Spitfires "used up" and a reference to the Merlin XX being installed in the Hurricane rather than a Spitfire. It's at this point that you lost me completely. I simply cannot see the connection you're trying to make. I explained that confusion in Post #83. Instead of explaining your statement and enlightening me, you simply labelled me dumb.

So…over to you. Please explain the relevance of your Merlin XX comment to the truthfulness or otherwise of combat losses.

 

[Kevin J]

In Post #83 I freely admitted I didn't understand your reference to the Merlin XX. I simply couldn't follow your train of thought. Unfortunately, instead of enlightening me you resorted to childish name-calling.

To summarize the discussion (with a few amplifying comments on the "truthfulness" or "accuracy" of total losses and combat losses), at Post #73 you stated that the RAF was lying about losses. I queried what part of the RAF loss figures were lies (Post #74). Your response (Post #75) was rather confusing because it started out with the relative ease of repair of the Hurricane-vs-Spitfire, but the general tenor was that the RAF should have reported total losses not just combat losses. In Post #76 I clarified that there's a difference between combat losses and total losses because they're measuring different things. You responded that, in your opinion, total loss numbers are "more realistic".

At Post #81 I tried to explain why numbers for both total losses and combat losses are needed because they're measuring different things. I'll expand on that a little further before I go on. Military operations have 2 broad categories of metrics: Measures of Performance (MOPs) and Measures of Effectiveness (MOEs). MOPs are top-level assessments of what the force is doing, such as flying a number of sorties, dropping a certain tonnage of bombs. MOEs are measuring how effective those operations are at achieving the objective (e.g. removing the ability of the enemy's senior leadership to communicate with tactical forces). MOPs and MOEs are often used together "We conducted 250 sorties dropping 500 bombs [those are MOPs] and have effectively neutralized the enemy's air defences with no friendly combat losses [those are MOEs]."

Going back to the thread, the total loss metric is a MOP. Combat losses is a MOE as part of the kill/loss ratio. They're measuring different things and one number is not any more accurate or truthful than the other. It just depends what they're being used for. A total number of sorties on its own is just a number. What was accomplished with those sorties provides context. Same for losses. A total number of losses is just a number whereas a kill/loss ratio shows some measure of effectiveness and provides context. It's an established practice for kill/loss ratios to compare friendly combat losses with those enemy aircraft believed to have crashed during combat because there's no way for one force to know how many enemy aircraft reached home but were written off, nor is there any way to know how many enemy aircraft were lost in training accidents outside of combat operations. The kill/loss ratio is an attempt to make a like-for-like assessment of progress within the air campaign.

In Post #82 you persist in suggesting that the measure of losses is somehow misleading. You then go onto a discussion about Hurricanes and Spitfires "used up" and a reference to the Merlin XX being installed in the Hurricane rather than a Spitfire. It's at this point that you lost me completely. I simply cannot see the connection you're trying to make. I explained that confusion in Post #83. Instead of explaining your statement and enlightening me, you simply labelled me dumb.

So…over to you. Please explain the relevance of your Merlin XX comment to the truthfulness or otherwise of combat losses.

My comment about installing the Merlin XX is simple to understand AFAIK. Imagine you're an accountant in the Air Ministry. Your buying 300 Hurricanes and 150 Spitfires pcm during the Battle, you have the same number of fighters at the end of the BoB as you did at the beginning. It costs 10% less to build a Hurricane than a Spitfire, 55% of Luftwaffe aircraft have shot down by Hurricanes, 25% by Spitfires, 2/3 single seat fighters are Hurricanes, 1/3 Spitfires. Obviously the decision to install the Merlin XX in the Hurricane is the correct one as overall, the Hurricane squadrons have destroyed 10 % more enemy aircraft than the Spitfire ones. You'll need a grasp of simple maths here.
The Hurricane needs the Merlin XX to be competitive with the Bf 109E. The Hurricane is always competitive with the Me 110, which is one third of Luftwaffe production. Only a tiny fraction of South East England is flyable to by any Bf 109 even with drop tanks, so at best you only need a third of fighter production to be Spitfires. You do need the Spitfire to intercept high altitude bomber raids, so you take the high blower out of the Merlin XX and call it the Merlin 45 and put it in the Spitfire V.
You don't want the Spitfire III with Merlin XX because of too many changes to the production lines. The Hurricane II is still competitive in most of the UK until well after Fw 190a comes along although it is replaced with both the Typhoon and later mark Spitfires.
You're getting the dumb rating because of your childish comments, please go back and read what you've been writing, it may also be an idea to edit them. Then I'll review my dumb ratings. You're also be unnecessarily augmentative. I know, words with more than one or two syllables. You might need a dictionary. Ronald Reagan definitely won't be able to help out there.

 

[buffnut453]

My comment about installing the Merlin XX is simple to understand AFAIK. Imagine you're an accountant in the Air Ministry. Your buying 300 Hurricanes and 150 Spitfires pcm during the Battle, you have the same number of fighters at the end of the BoB as you did at the beginning. It costs 10% less to build a Hurricane than a Spitfire, 55% of Luftwaffe aircraft have shot down by Hurricanes, 25% by Spitfires, 2/3 single seat fighters are Hurricanes, 1/3 Spitfires. Obviously the decision to install the Merlin XX in the Hurricane is the correct one as overall, the Hurricane squadrons have destroyed 10 % more enemy aircraft than the Spitfire ones. You'll need a grasp of simple maths here.
The Hurricane needs the Merlin XX to be competitive with the Bf 109E. The Hurricane is always competitive with the Me 110, which is one third of Luftwaffe production. Only a tiny fraction of South East England is flyable to by any Bf 109 even with drop tanks, so at best you only need a third of fighter production to be Spitfires. You do need the Spitfire to intercept high altitude bomber raids, so you take the high blower out of the Merlin XX and call it the Merlin 45 and put it in the Spitfire V.
You don't want the Spitfire III with Merlin XX because of too many changes to the production lines. The Hurricane II is still competitive in most of the UK until well after Fw 190a comes along although it is replaced with both the Typhoon and later mark Spitfires.
You're getting the dumb rating because of your childish comments, please go back and read what you've been writing, it may also be an idea to edit them. Then I'll review my dumb ratings. You're also be unnecessarily augmentative. I know, words with more than one or two syllables. You might need a dictionary. Ronald Reagan definitely won't be able to help out there.

Ok, so what you're talking about is an entirely appropriate use of total loss figures, and that's exactly what the RAF did. To the bean counter in the Air Ministry, total losses are critical. To an operational commander, and to the general population, kill/loss is a more relevant metric.

This still doesn't explain why you think combat loss figures are lies or less useful. Again, it depends on the audience and what the data is needed for.

For the record, I'm not being unnecessarily argumentative. You made the claim that the RAF lied about losses. I'm simply trying to understand why you made that statement and explain, from my perspective, why combat loss figures still need to be measured in addition to total loss figures.

 

[Kevin J]

Ok, so what you're talking about is an entirely appropriate use of total loss figures, and that's exactly what the RAF did. To the bean counter in the Air Ministry, total losses are critical. To an operational commander, and to the general population, kill/loss is a more relevant metric.

This still doesn't explain why you think combat loss figures are lies or less useful. Again, it depends on the audience and what the data is needed for.

For the record, I'm not being unnecessarily argumentative. You made the claim that the RAF lied about losses. I'm simply trying to understand why you made that statement and explain, from my perspective, why combat loss figures still need to be measured in addition to total loss figures.

There are statistics, more statistics then just straight forward lies. Let me give you a quick test here on how politicians use statistics to lie. How have our politicians used statistics to cover up why so many Black Asian and Minority Ethnic people have died?

 

[buffnut453]

There are statistics, more statistics then just straight forward lies. Let me give you a quick test here on how politicians use statistics to lie. How have our politicians used statistics to cover up why so many Black Asian and Minority Ethnic people have died?

I entirely agree that statistics can be used to mislead and lie...but you have yet to explain why RAF combat loss statistics constitute lies.

 

[Kevin J]

I entirely agree that statistics can be used to mislead and lie...but you have yet to explain why RAF combat loss statistics constitute lies.

I rephrased my comment to say that they were being economical with the truth.

 

[buffnut453]

I rephrased my comment to say that they were being economical with the truth.

You can change the words but it still doesn't alter the fundamental question. Why is a discussion about combat losses being economical with the truth? The fighter pilots made claims about enemy aircraft shot down and the RAF knew the resultant friendly losses. Therefore, it was straightforward and sensible to compare those combat-related activities. Using total losses is inappropriate because the RAF didn't have a clue about total Luftwaffe losses.

Sorry, but I just can't understand why a direct comparison of combat kills/losses is being economical with the truth.

 

[Kevin J]

You can change the words but it still doesn't alter the fundamental question. Why is a discussion about combat losses being economical with the truth? The fighter pilots made claims about enemy aircraft shot down and the RAF knew the resultant friendly losses. Therefore, it was straightforward and sensible to compare those combat-related activities. Using total losses is inappropriate because the RAF didn't have a clue about total Luftwaffe losses.

Sorry, but I just can't understand why a direct comparison of combat kills/losses is being economical with the truth.

It's statistics for propaganda purposes.

 

[buffnut453]

It's statistics for propaganda purposes.

Then we'll have to agree to disagree that the data was used solely for propaganda. From my perspective, the combat kill/loss ratio is an entirely valid MOE which provides context that the average person can understand regarding progress of the campaign.

It's also worth noting that OPSEC concerns mean that total losses are seldom discussed in the open. To use an Army example, there's never open reporting about the percentage of casualties within units and formations (if it does occur, it's long after the event when the loss numbers don't matter). No force is going to openly share the total state of its force because the enemy then has access to that data, which may enable them to change tactics or exploit weaknesses. There's no point making it easy for the enemy.

 

[tyrodtom]

I think the question still needs to be put to a poll.

 

[Peter Gunn]

Clearly you guys don't understand the question, the answer to worst mass produced (>500 units), monoplane, single-engine, single-seat, retractable undercarriage fighter of WW2 is obvious:

 

[swampyankee]

Some of the aircraft (I-16) were known to be obsolete at the start of WWII; one would expect them to perform poorly. This defense does not work for some, like the Buffalo.

 

[RW Mk. III]

I'm still stumping for the 406.