IOTL Belgium and Yugoslavia built Hurricanes under licence. ITTL they built Spitfires under licence. That picture would have been plausible if the Germans captured the factories intact.
wehraboo wank
Your own Spitfire wank
- Thread starter tomo pauk
- Start date
I agree with @Salamander and go further by repeating that as this is a wank there should be a one-to-one substitution of Spitfires for the Hurricanes that were built IOTL. See what I wrote in Post 3.
Rough field capability is valuable.
Not hurricane outside the UK but hurricane until proper airfields are built.
Also I don't think we have seen a proper suggestion for simplifying manufacture so that a 1:1 replacement is viable. The spitfire wasnt easy to make 15000 man hours in manufacture1940 (compared to 10,000) for a hurricane.
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There was another advantage to having the Hurricane in service during the BoB and that was that the civilian repair service was able to rebuild damaged Hurricanes and get them back into service quickly, not so with the Spitfire.
General agreement with what has been said. Ideally as soon as the Spitfire design is approved for construction tell Vickers and Supermarine that the Spitfire is Supermarine's prime and sole project, no bombers or twin engine fighters, just get the Spitfire right and keep developing it.
So the order the the cannon Spitfire in 1937 is not cancelled and work on it continues in parallel with the eight mg version.
Castle Bromwich is grabbed by the short and curlys from the start and is spitting out Spitfires in great numbers by mid 1939.
Also start dispersing production out of Woolston as soon as war starts.
Those two actions alone would give you around 1,000 extra Spitfires by the end of the BoB.
Further when the Belgium's come asking for Hurricanes and say that they are going to arm them with Browning 0.5 inch Mg's modified to take the Hotchkiss 13.2 inch ammunition with explosive round the RAF says " Yes Please, we'll have some of that " and by August 1940 the Spitfire is using four 13.2 Browning and four .303 Browning guns.
Ideally I would like the Mark3 in production by late 1940.
By the way that is just for starters, add long range types and four cannons by early 1941 please.
General agreement with what has been said. Ideally as soon as the Spitfire design is approved for construction tell Vickers and Supermarine that the Spitfire is Supermarine's prime and sole project, no bombers or twin engine fighters, just get the Spitfire right and keep developing it.
So the order the the cannon Spitfire in 1937 is not cancelled and work on it continues in parallel with the eight mg version.
Castle Bromwich is grabbed by the short and curlys from the start and is spitting out Spitfires in great numbers by mid 1939.
Also start dispersing production out of Woolston as soon as war starts.
Those two actions alone would give you around 1,000 extra Spitfires by the end of the BoB.
Further when the Belgium's come asking for Hurricanes and say that they are going to arm them with Browning 0.5 inch Mg's modified to take the Hotchkiss 13.2 inch ammunition with explosive round the RAF says " Yes Please, we'll have some of that " and by August 1940 the Spitfire is using four 13.2 Browning and four .303 Browning guns.
Ideally I would like the Mark3 in production by late 1940.
By the way that is just for starters, add long range types and four cannons by early 1941 please.
And for some strange reason in one of the pre war RAF Fighting Area Attack formations. (That didn't work)
Have people read Decisive Duel by David Isby?
While searching for information on the Spitfires manufacture I came across a quote attributed to that book.
It claimed that the Spitfire was a fighter that would not have been built by any other country due to how difficult manufacture was.
Does anyone know the context for that claim? Did he supply more details?
While searching for information on the Spitfires manufacture I came across a quote attributed to that book.
It claimed that the Spitfire was a fighter that would not have been built by any other country due to how difficult manufacture was.
Does anyone know the context for that claim? Did he supply more details?
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What if the Merlin was designed with the possibility of a motor cannon? Having anti-bomber capabilities like the 30 mm Bf109s or the 37/45 mm Yaks?
This could be a cooperation with Hispano-suiza, with ultimately an improved French HS engine.
On the Spitfire, fuel tanks need to go somewhere else - obviously before it flies for the 1st time - since the volume between the engine and pilot is mow required for the receiver of the cannon as well as for the ammo.
Assuming that is take care off, the cannon in the Vee is now nice and cozy, directly warmed by the engine. Even the Oerlikon S should be able to fit in nicely. RAF can outfit a lot more fighters with cannon armament in 1940 when the production of the cannons is low and need so high. When the production is satisfying the needs and the cannons are debugged, have another pair installed in the wings for 3-cannon fighters, resulting in a ~45% greater firepower than what Spitfire Vb and Spitfire IX had, and less demanding for the Hurricane to carry than the 4-cannon battery.
Hurricane with a single Vickers S cannon can still kill tanks (and other A/C), while also being able to carry bombs/rockets/ 8 .303 battery.
As an idea (= lets' have a motor cannon) - yes, why not, after all HS engines were sporting such feature back in ww1.
Assuming that HS engine is/was as powerful as Merlin in any year past 1938 - better no. One Merlin II/III has enough of power for two 20mm cannons to be carried in the wings and a fighter still perform, while a fighter powered by HS 12Y-31 from the same time will struggle if demand was that two cannons need to be carried.
Spitfire was certainly difficult to produce.
It was not the only A/C in that category, though - seems like French were of the opinion that the 2-engined Potez 63 series were easier to make than the 1-engined MS.406, while Germans were cold to the idea that Italian series 5 fighters were to be manufactured in Germany due to the high number of manhours required to make them. Still, French were making MS.406s, and Italian were making the Series 5 fighters (as well ass their predecessors, that we can safely assume that were manhours-hungry). Japanese were paying for the Ki 45 fighter, that was no better than the Spitfire or the Zero (okay, they made a mistake with making the Ki-45, but still).
Toss in what USA was making, like the P-38 or P-47 (= aircraft that no one will categorize as simple or easy to make), and the claim looks more of exaggeration than a proven fact.
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I have read, though I forget where, that the Spitfire was very nearly cancelled due to production difficulties. Only the lack of a suitable replacement saved it.
First flight in 1943 and 27 reach units in the last days of 1944 before their defeat
Small bit but I'd say earlier on buy the license to produce the M2 Browning in .50BMG. Or ideally have the Browning 13.2mm version get developed slightly earlier and have RAF license produce it. Wonderful gun.
There was a point in 1938 where Supermarine was told that the initial order of 310 was going to be all the Spitfire would get. Supermarine would be building beaufighters on a license basis.
Vickers came in and promised the Air Ministry to support their Supermarine subsidiary in getting production figured out if the Air Ministry would increase their order. The Air Ministry increased the order by 200.
They later suggested that the Air Ministry place an additional order with Castle Bromwich with the hopes that Nuffield who had more experience with mass production would figure out a way of speeding up production. Given that Vickers had to bail out Castle Bromwich I guess that didn't work out so well.
Considering there was slow start to getting Colt converted into the .303" browning, and the 20mm a series of problems, I agree.
I would suggest just straight buying M2 for inner guns and get the 20mm systematicly shorted. The US has the guns, pre lead lease, UK is making ammo.
There is a huge stockpile of .303", and pre reflex sights, pilots still need to stray and prey. But with .50" de Wilde and AP, you have ammo that can defeat light armour, shatter engine blocks with good incendiaries.
20mm advantage of HE was not fulfilled until much later.
Can anything be done to improve the rough field capability of the early Spitfires without degrading their performance?
Apart from the money, what's to stop the proper airfields being built sooner? Plus money spent on more proper airfields sooner would save money in the long term as fewer proper airfields would be needed later.
I think we haven't either.
However, I also think that more Spitfires to the end of 1940 would have been a lot better for the RAF than Spitfires that flew faster and were more heavily armed.
This may be a false memory.
In a previous better RAF in WWII or improve the Spitfire thread someone suggested that the purchase of a commercially available machine tool would have reduced the number of man hours required to build the Spitfire considerably. IIRC (and I am by no means certain that I do remember correctly) said machine tool would have made the leading and trailing edges of the wing easier to produce.
Does that ring a bell with any of you?
In a previous better RAF in WWII or improve the Spitfire thread someone suggested that the purchase of a commercially available machine tool would have reduced the number of man hours required to build the Spitfire considerably. IIRC (and I am by no means certain that I do remember correctly) said machine tool would have made the leading and trailing edges of the wing easier to produce.
Does that ring a bell with any of you?
Astrodragon mentioned something like that earlier in this thread but didnt provide any details so there probably is something out there. I couldn't find anything obvious and I read through a couple of old threads.
If it was easily available thought it would have been used eventually.
Audit of war states that in 1944 the Spitfire was still taking 13,500 hours to produce. That compares 15,000 per hyperwar for 1940.
Therefore I feel that it probably didn't make a massive difference when used eventually.
That's a decrease but it's still significantly higher than the 1940 Hawker Hurricane.
I'll have a think about your other post and reply later.
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The Opening Post.
I'm specifically thinking of replacing the vic formation with finger four before the Battle of France. Is there a plausible way to make that change? Something that I meant to write in threads about the RAF 1934-39 and never get round to, is that any extra production should not necessarily be used to form the maximum number of extra squadrons and that instead the quality of the RAF might be improved by more the second-line units like what became the OTUs and operational research units. The former so aircrew could do their operational training before they joined their squadron instead of training "on the job" in a squadron and the latter to develop tactics. That's something that AIUI the pre-war RAF wanted to do, but a shortage of aircraft and the need to give priority to the formation of first-line units prevented it from being done to the extent desired. Maybe more Spitfires would allow Fighter Command to expand its operational training & operational research organisations and one of the results might have been that the latter developed the finger four formation by September 1939 & the latter might have been supplying the squadrons with pilots trained to use it in large quantities by May 1940.
And AIUI the guns on all RAF fighters were set to fire straight forward because it was thought that hitting the enemy aircraft and doing some damage was more important than destroying it. However, experience during the Battle of Britain made the RAF decide that it was better to shoot down a smaller number of aircraft than damage a larger number. Therefore, the guns were reset so that their fire converged at a set distance ahead of the fighter. Maybe the expanded operational research organisation would come to that conclusion ITTL before the RAF did it the hard way IOTL.
Does improved tactics count?IOW, make the success story even a greater one
Required is a much greater number of them produced, to be even more capable and earlier, including in weapon-lifting capacity, improvement in different roles, new roles, new users etc. Reduce the man hour count required. Lower the drag, improve the horsepower. All on tech of the day, of course.
Axe what you don't find useful, or don't like, to boost the Spitfire footprint on the ww2 and beyond.
I'll start the ball rolling with the Spitfire III being adopted, thus making LW's (as well as Italian and Japanese) task after the late 1940 much harder.
I'm specifically thinking of replacing the vic formation with finger four before the Battle of France. Is there a plausible way to make that change? Something that I meant to write in threads about the RAF 1934-39 and never get round to, is that any extra production should not necessarily be used to form the maximum number of extra squadrons and that instead the quality of the RAF might be improved by more the second-line units like what became the OTUs and operational research units. The former so aircrew could do their operational training before they joined their squadron instead of training "on the job" in a squadron and the latter to develop tactics. That's something that AIUI the pre-war RAF wanted to do, but a shortage of aircraft and the need to give priority to the formation of first-line units prevented it from being done to the extent desired. Maybe more Spitfires would allow Fighter Command to expand its operational training & operational research organisations and one of the results might have been that the latter developed the finger four formation by September 1939 & the latter might have been supplying the squadrons with pilots trained to use it in large quantities by May 1940.
And AIUI the guns on all RAF fighters were set to fire straight forward because it was thought that hitting the enemy aircraft and doing some damage was more important than destroying it. However, experience during the Battle of Britain made the RAF decide that it was better to shoot down a smaller number of aircraft than damage a larger number. Therefore, the guns were reset so that their fire converged at a set distance ahead of the fighter. Maybe the expanded operational research organisation would come to that conclusion ITTL before the RAF did it the hard way IOTL.