More Hurricanes than Spitfires, but why?

Thanks!

Here’a tricky one to answer. At what date, +/-, did the number of Spitfires in service exceed that of Hurricanes?

I can’t answer “in service”, but it appears that October ’43 is the month in which total production of Spitfires overtook that of Hurricanes. This includes exports, I assume. (August if you include Sea Hurris and Seafires, but there aren’t many counted as Sea Hurricanes- presumably the rest are conversions.)

I thought at one time I had counted the number of squadrons on each type, but I’m not finding it right away, and it isn’t something I can do promptly.

Pleasure John – flush riveting I hope 🙂

basv

Thank you for posting that. I hadn’t before seen it. Riveting !

Here’a tricky one to answer. At what date, +/-, did the number of Spitfires in service exceed that of Hurricanes?

I forgot to post this the other day,a BBC2 documentary about the spitfire shown in 1976 with Raymond Baxter and inc some chat from ‘Lucky’ Bob Tuck,Dogsbody and JJ (possibly a contender for the least popular post war AVM/AOC ? 🙂 ).
Even DB comes over quite well initially but it soon becomes apparent that Bob does not necessarily ”agree with me” 🙂
Always nice to see these programmes with chat from the boys and girls involved in building/maintaining and flying any WW2 aircraft – a lovely documentary which I am sure the older members of the forum will have seen before but definitely worth a 2nd (or 3rd) viewing.

The Hurricane wasn’t a dead end per se – as already mentioned, there is a fair bit of similarity under the stressed skin on the front of the Typhoon, and there is a developmental line from that to the Hunter (some of which was on paper only, such as Jet Fury that eventually became P1040).

It’s also interesting to speculate how Mitchell might have developed his designs if he had lived

Ive been lucky to work on Jack MacDonalds Hawker Demon restoration and also do the fuselage frames for Spit A58-27.Hawker is pinned Joints and precision cut tubes etc.Spitfire is sheetmetal Frames and riveted intercostals. [ATTACH=CONFIG]258770[/ATTACH][ATTACH=CONFIG]258771[/ATTACH]

There was also the threat looming across the channel — nasty nazi bombers looking for aircraft factories to flatten.

Better to have lots and lots of facilities turning out something useful, than few.

As referred-to above, Spitfire production was dangerously slow at the start. Castle Bromwich did not get properly going until after Churchill was PM, and he tasked Beaverbrook with making-it-happen. From wiki:

In spite of promises the factory would be producing 60 per week starting in April, by May 1940 Castle Bromwich had not yet built its first Spitfire.[33] On 17 May, Minister of Aircraft Production Lord Beaverbrook telephoned Lord Nuffield and manoeuvred him into handing over control of the Castle Bromwich plant to his Ministry.[35] Beaverbrook immediately sent in experienced management staff and workers from Supermarine and gave control of the factory to Vickers-Armstrong. Although it would take some time to resolve the problems, in June 1940, 10 Mk IIs were built; 23 rolled out in July, 37 in August, and 56 in September.[36] By the time production ended at Castle Bromwich in June 1945, a total of 12,129 Spitfires (921 Mk IIs,[37] 4,489 Mk Vs, 5,665 Mk IXs,[38] and 1,054 Mk XVIs[37]) had been built. CBAF went on to become the largest and most successful plant of its type during the 1939–45 conflict. As the largest Spitfire factory in the UK, by producing a maximum of 320 aircraft per month, it built 12,000 aircraft of this type, before its closure in 1945.[39]

And it’s the opposite today where a Hurricane is far more expensive and time consuming to restore than a Spitfire.

To expand on Graham’s comment, the total fighters required for the current expansion scheme, by the set target date, was 900. It was expected that Hawker could do about 600 Hurricanes (as it became) in that time. Supermarine could be expected to do the remaining 300 with their design. While perhaps a bit of a gamble, that gamble ran both directions- new technology might throw a spanner in the production plan, but the aircraft might also turn out to be a pretty good one.

By the time of the production plan/orders (June ’36), the gleam in the Air Ministry’s eye was the next great thing, not the “current” state of the art. The Hurri persisted because it was in quantity production and was useful- and because the intended replacement ran into difficulties. The Spitfire persisted because it was (eventually) in quantity production and showed unexpected growth- and because the intended replacement ran into difficulties.

Plus Fighter Command needed more fighters than either factory could produce singly. History has shown that it would have been disastrous to have depended upon the Defiant or Whirlwind to make up the numbers and only one single-seat fighter been ordered. Neither of those two came from a company used to or immediately capable of mass production.

Add into the mix that Supermarine had no experience of mass production, the initial order for Spitfires was +/- 3 times the total number of all aircraft they had built since 1919. Their works were being expanded (for Stranraer, Walrus and Spitfire) and they could draw on Vickers’ expertise to some extent but it was still somewhat of a leap of faith that they could deliver on schedule. Ordering Hurricane from a group (Hawker Siddeley) that had a proven track record of large(ish) production orders and a reasonable amount of production space made sense..

It’s interesting to read about the development of the Hurricane and Spitfire and learn how large a step the development of the Spitfire was.

I believe there is no doubt that the Hurricane was essentially a dead end developmentally, but I also believe it was the right aircraft, in the right place, at the right time. A year or so later and I think it would have been a considerably different story.

(I enjoyed the books by Leo McKinstry on the Spitfire, Hurricane and Lancaster)

CD’s point is a very important one. My research into an article on the P-38 has opened my eyes to the real answer to so many enthusiasts’ ‘why didn’t they….’ type questions. Money. These are private companies with bottom lines, who are in turn paid by a department with a budget, who in turn are funded by a government with its own bottom line. Hurricanes were 33% cheaper, and Hawker’s were tooled up to manufacture in quantity even before the first flight of the Spitfire. The Spitfire had to be considerably better to have been ordered at all, and as alertken says, it was done with some trepidation.

Wasn’t it partly because Tom Sopwith invested over a million pounds of Hawker Aircraft cash on tooling-up to mass-produce the Hurricane before the Air Ministry had even placed an order?

Also, the Hurricane was cheaper; you could build three Hurricanes for the cost of two Spitfires.

https://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?76315-Why-did-Vickers-acquire-Supermarine

H98: Baldwin wins 11/35 Election. Mood of the times was anti-War, League of Nations’ attempts to Ban the Bomber! But PM came clean:
3/3/36 Re-Armament White Paper embracing RAF Expansion Scheme F. Policy would be to contain/defeat Germany by Blockade, Naval and Air: no BEF in France, secure behind the Maginot Line.
Big Bombers and their twin/cannon escorts were initiated. Base defenders would be turret loiterers, plus last-ditch sprinter Hurricane/Spitfire of limited payload/range, so interim procurement, pending better.

7/4/36: MInisters revived auto-industry Munitions shadow Production Scheme. That required Parent designers to draw things that could be built by semi/low-skilled labour, and to provide a Quality/Supervision service.
3/6/36: 600 Hurricanes ordered from new Hawker Siddeley Group, who would fabricate widely, for assembly at Hawker/Brooklands. 310 Spitfires ordered, with some trepidation, from a muddy carpenter unfamiliar with metal or volume.

Hurricane proceeded apace; Spitfire…not. V-S MD Sir Robert McClean perceived he knew better than his Customer, that he “owned” Spitfire, so resisted “sub-contracting” (Ministers had imposed Westland and others to make chunks of “his” Spitfire), and obstructed shadow second sourcing. Austrian Anschluss, 4/38, triggered the shadow scheme: Spitfire was then evident only in its absence. Vast Castle Bromwich A/c Factory, turf turned 8/38, was to do Whirlwind. Spitfire II was added 4/39: although McClean had been fired by V-A Chairman Sir Charles Craven, 10/38, and Parent assistance then provided to Suppliers, Spitfire was soon “in danger of being eliminated from the re-armament programme (Ministers planned to put Beaufighter into Woolston. Its) future was assured (due to) stubbornness of 1 man (CBAF Project Manager Lord Nuffield, insisting) on producing (all of all) 1,000 (at CBAF, so Whirlwind was) squeezed out”’ A.M.memo,11/7/39,E.B.Morgan/E.Shacklady, Spitfire,Key,87,P51.

V-A delivered from CBAF from 6/40; V-S organised dispersal after Woolston was bombed; the sub-contract production scheme worked; Westland was made second source and Seafire Design Authority 8/40, soon DA for all Merlin-variants. Constant Product Improvement, plus pain on many “replacement” types, caused machines still called Spit/Seafire to be built to 1/49. They differed from Mk.I pretty much as Hurricane differed from Sea Fury.

A to OP’s Q is that we sort-of-equalled our buy of Hurricane and Spitfire: its just that Hawker changed the name, where V-A dissuaded MAP from intent to name V-S T.368/372 in 1944 as Victor/Valiant, and to settle for Spitfire Mk.21/23.

There is also the ‘back up’, belt and braces requirement if one contender ran into unforeseen problems. This even went on into the 50’s.

Wasn’t this the back-up?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_M.20

The Hurricane was an intermediate step…old style structure with a modern retractable gear design.

Back then some military planners were a conservative lot, so it was a smart move to combine tried and true structural design with that new fangled one wing setup.

Thus, it helped set the stage for the state of the art Spitfire.

I recently came across a story told by pioneering American aeronautical engineer Grover Loening. When he proposed his single engine amphibian (an early-day Grumman Duck) he was afraid it’s unique configuration would be a bit too modern for some military officials, so he purposely went retro on the wings, using a design already in wide use.

There is also the ‘back up’, belt and braces requirement if one contender ran into unforeseen problems. This even went on into the 50’s.

John