Nobody was shooting at Lindbergh. Hurricane pilots had a gunsight as their crash zone.
A better Hawker Hurricane
- Thread starter EAF602Whizz
- Start date
Nobody was shooting at Lindbergh. Hurricane pilots had a gunsight as their crash zone.
They also sometimes worked in the Herford, its just the whine they made was not good for the crew.
Pretty much everything that was done to improve the Hurricane could have been done a bit sooner. The bubble type canopy, as shown earlier would also have been popular before Malaya. I like the idea of using .5 machine guns early on. That would have made a huge difference. Huge Lupus' ideas about the wing are the only ones that come close to giving us the super hurricane to face the zeros in early 1942. I'm trying to imagine how such a wing would look and what the general appearance of the improved Hurricane as discussed in this thread would be. I think we've shown that it was feasible and probably desirable and would have made at least some difference to the air war. Another thing would be a more aerodynamic tropical filter.
Any illustrators fancy a crack at drawing the ATL Hurricane? I'd print it and frame it if you did.
Any illustrators fancy a crack at drawing the ATL Hurricane? I'd print it and frame it if you did.
1942?
By 1942 the competition for the air to air role will be major. The Spitfire IX will be the fighter of choice. Even a much improved Hurricane will be mostly used as a CAS bird, except maybe as a naval fighter, were an improved Hurricane could enjoy advantages over the Seafire that keep it in service until the RN has enough Helcats.
As for the ultimate CAS Hurricane, a Low Alt Griffon, as in the Spitfire XII, would give it extra speed and allow it to carry an heavier load. I'm thinking specifically about variants capable of carrying a torpedo, or a heavy bomb, like the Re2001G versions.
Griffon powered Hurricane in late 42 as a Typhoon alternative?
By 1942 the competition for the air to air role will be major. The Spitfire IX will be the fighter of choice. Even a much improved Hurricane will be mostly used as a CAS bird, except maybe as a naval fighter, were an improved Hurricane could enjoy advantages over the Seafire that keep it in service until the RN has enough Helcats.
As for the ultimate CAS Hurricane, a Low Alt Griffon, as in the Spitfire XII, would give it extra speed and allow it to carry an heavier load. I'm thinking specifically about variants capable of carrying a torpedo, or a heavy bomb, like the Re2001G versions.
Griffon powered Hurricane in late 42 as a Typhoon alternative?
Quite true about the Spit being the fighter of choice in 1942 AdA, but there weren't any in Malaya. There were none in Malta until later in 1942 and the first Spitfire squadron wasn't in North Africa until late Summer. There were no Spitfires in Burma until 1944 so....meanwhile..
What point in adding yet another foreign weapon in a British aircraft? Though acceptable, at least in the criteria, the weapon relied on foreign production, in a time the RAF adn the UK as a whole still had not signed up a Lend-Lease contract with the USA. British .50 cal ammunition for the Vickers gun was not fitting well in the US made Browning gun of the same size.
Besides that, the .50 was slower in ROF to the .303 and lacked the punch compared to the 20mm explosive shell. Since German aircraft of all sizes seemed to evolve with more protection, as did the British by the way, the .50 was only effective when used in large numbers, like the US planes did, but not with just two, as you mention. (German aircraft were more sturdy than those of Japan, so in the Pacific the .50 did well, as a single round could bring down a hostile IJA, or IJN plane in most cases. Against the more sturdy German planes, especially the ones often deployed against the day bombers, were armored and heavily armed with cannon themselves, outranging the .50 in most cases.) 20mm was therefore more logical, as the UK already had decided to use it in future aircraft.
In general the Hurricane was there in the right time, as it was produced more easily than the more complex Spitfire. The RAF needed numbers in 1940, and the Hurricane did just that.
As a fighter the Hurricane was inferior to the German Bf-109E, but still well matched to all other contemporary german planes, up to the arrival of the FW-190. As such the Hurricane did what it was supposed to do in combat, so realy nothing bad at all, unless you can see things with an aftersight. As long as the Hurricane was accompanied by spitfires and having the Spit's battle it out with the Bf-109's the hurricane did just fine.
As a fighter the Hurricane was inferior to the German Bf-109E, but still well matched to all other contemporary german planes, up to the arrival of the FW-190. As such the Hurricane did what it was supposed to do in combat, so realy nothing bad at all, unless you can see things with an aftersight. As long as the Hurricane was accompanied by spitfires and having the Spit's battle it out with the Bf-109's the hurricane did just fine.
Two per wing. That gives four, as in the P51B, that never had trouble shooting down German planes. There was room for six (three each wing) but that would weight more. The .303 Browning was a foreign design, license made. Why not have the UK buy manufacturing rights for the .50 instead of the .30 and have the whole RAF use the bigger caliber for everything.
The major advantages are range, armour penetration and target demage. Four Brownings give enough volume.
The Browning .303 used British made amunittions, as it was the same cartridge as in the normal Army riffle, so easy to produce. The weapon was based on the US Browning .30, but addapted to take in the British .303 round. Having a seperate US model round for an non british weapon was too much to ask for in the 30's, as the time simply was not good to make such a move, given the priorities then.
I agree the Hurricane could easily carry six Browning .50's in her thick large wing, although weight would be problematic. It was even thought to put six larger 20mm guns in at first, but that was luckily not proceeded with, as the penalty in serious reduced flightperformance was too big. In the end, the wing only had two .303 mg's and two tankbusting 40mm guns under the wing.
By the way, the shooting down of german aircraft with .50 cal guns is not at issue, only that you need to use more rounds to do the job, where a single larger shell could do it more easily. The FW-190's in the Wild Boar variant, with heavy armor and heavy weapons (Some FW-190 variants used the standard two 7.92mm mg's and four 20mm, to which they added two wingpods with and additional two 20mm's each, for ten guns in all. Flightperformance was not too great logically, due to the overloaded status, but these could bring down a B-17 with a short burst only. If you had only .50's, you need to empty your magazines to bring down one B-17.)
They made 7.92 ammo for the BESA. And they used .50 in Sptifires later. The .50 was retained as a fighter weapon right up to the Sabre. The targets the Hurricane would have to down in 39/40/41 were perfectly within .50 capability. After that it would mostly be straffing targets, a role for wich the .50 is well suited. The reason why I'm pushing for the .50 is that it's a OTL weapon, while the RAF didn't have a good OTL 20mm wing gun. Adapting the Hispano would be a lot like OTL. Another option would be the 15mm BESA, but I don't think that would be as good as the Browning as a aircraft HMG. Having shot a lot of stuff with both 7.62mm and .50, I have a lot of respect for the bigger MG capability to "damage" stuff...
amphibulous
Banned
But this was because the US had made a mess of its switch to 20mm and then sulked - as I remember they re-design the round in some way that made the cannon jam and ordered huge amounts before working this out. Things then stalled while they tried to come with a technical solution, then bureacratic ass covering kicked in...
Not really. There where 20mm guns that could have armed US fighters and that worked (the M3 on the Skyraider worked well) The choice of the .50 for the Sabre was because they actually felt it was the best weapon for the job. Korea experience, were the MiG15 proved to be a lot more resistant to .50 multiple hits than expected, lead to a change to 20mm. They then had some problem with the lightweight colt guns in some applications.
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That may all be true, but it does not explain why the OTL was the OTL. The basic was tho keep the standard ammunition addaptable through the different services in the UK, which meant the .303, as that was the standard before the war. The war itself could point to certain facts, the .303 was a bit too underpowered to do much against state of the art aircraft, but that alone is not an excuse to use the US weapon immediately. (which also was old and due for replacement, as was mentioned already.) Fully automatic Cannons had the future, and mg's always were a stopgab. Especially germany excelled in aereal cannons later in the war, though retaining smaller mg's for strategical and not tactical reasons in most cases. Cannons were in such high demand, there were never enough of them, so older types of aircraft had to be fitted with a mixed outfit of mg's and mk's. The newest first rate aircraft had cannons only.
amphibulous
Banned
Yes. But this has nothing to do with what happened - ie they committed to a design that wouldn't work and ordered lots of ammo for it! Yes, there were working 20mm guns, clearly - the British and Germans had used them for years.
Both the .303 ammunition and fabric-covered biplane aircraft with wood 2-bladed fixed pitch propellors were standard when the RAF was created. Doctrine.
Why change before private ventures and efforts by individuals proved them foolhardy and totally mistaken? How would the Gladiator with 4 .303s have done in the BoB?
Why change before private ventures and efforts by individuals proved them foolhardy and totally mistaken? How would the Gladiator with 4 .303s have done in the BoB?
Dreadfully. But I wonder if, taking doctrine to it's ridiculous conclusion, the RAF might have run a competition for a biplane replacement for the gladiator with a more powerful (Merlin?) engine, retractable undercarriage and heavier armament? It might have been quite a handsome machine.