It seems to me that there was a great failing here; the performance of the Bf109 or Fw190 was surely comparable to the Spitfire, German camera technology was certainly capable, and it is a lot easier to fly over Britain from occupied France than it is to fly to Berlin from Britain.
The Luftwaffe must have been aware what the PR Spitfires were doing (some must have been shot-down and examined); so why didn’t the Germans do the same?
Much of the problem stemmed from the production of Jumos. They were dogged from the start, especially with regard to the crankshafts, which were outsourced from the German Highgrade Steelworks, and often not best quality. Parts were also produced by a Swiss firm, which meant problems in providing foreign funding. Many, if not the majority, of Jumos were in fact produced under licence by Mimo – Mitteldeutsche-Motorenwerke in Taucha near Leipzig, which had been established based on the Auto Union car factory in the early thirties. There was no love lost between Jumo in Dessau and Mimo, with BMW also getting their spoke in. The continuous changes of plans from higher up the ladder, plus the need to produce engines for panzers, bombing raids, possibly sabotage, all resulted in a less than satisfactory output.
I’ve simplified somewhat, but have just got hold of three ‘new’ very detailed books on the subject of German aircraft engine production which I am trying to transform into something useful for the thread!
brgds
Alan
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