Earlier Sea Hurricane?

You don't need an air filter to operate over the jungle, or even the desert on a calm day. You do need an air filter to operate from up-paved air strips IN the jungle and IN the desert, unless those strips are sodded with fine English grass. The Germans had a cute and effective trop filter with a clam shell door in front, and P-38 Lightnings sucked air through a filter when the undercarriage was lowered. Those Hurricanes that operated over Burma were generally based in India.

Did the UK make any attempt to copy these ideas?
 
Did the UK make any attempt to copy these ideas?

The way I interpreted the official history was that the Hurricanes that were belatedly sent to Malaya didn't need the air filters. That suggested to me that all the airfields had concrete runways.

However, when I checked The Fight Avails it said that most of them had grass runways. Therefore the Hurricanes sent to Malaya ITTL before December 1941 in place of the Buffaloes of OTL would have needed them.

Therefore it seems that substituting Hurricane Mk IIs for the Buffalo in the Far East wouldn't produce an improvement in the quality of the British and Dutch fighter forces in terms of performance. However, the Hurricane Mk IIC was better armed than the Buffalo. It might be able to take more damage before being shot down and be more manoeuvrable.
 
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It might be able to take more damage before being shot down and be more manoeuvrable.

It might not, and it wasn't. I've already mentioned that it wasn't.

Intelligence statisticians in England determined that the Hurricane was 3.5 times more likely to be brought down by defensive bomber fire than the Spitfire.

People like Dowding and Keith Park, or Claire Chennault could probably give better advice on how to improve fighter performance. It takes some Cs. Then add some Ts, from John Thatch.
 
It might not, and it wasn't. I've already mentioned that it wasn't.

Intelligence statisticians in England determined that the Hurricane was 3.5 times more likely to be brought down by defensive bomber fire than the Spitfire.

People like Dowding and Keith Park, or Claire Chennault could probably give better advice on how to improve fighter performance. It takes some Cs. Then add some Ts, from John Thatch.

What were the statistics Hurricane v Buffalo?
 
Did the UK make any attempt to copy these ideas?

The nifty installations were helped by configurational opportunities not always present. The Spitfire filter did undergo some revision. Hawker Typhoons in Normandy received some last minute engineered "momentum" air filters which were quick to design, manufacture and deliver, and were highly effective, without reducing power much. It would have been better installed before Normandy.
 
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