Concerning Spitfire manufacturing versus the Me-109 it took…..

“……13,000 man-hours needed to make a Mk. V airframe with the 4,000 for the ME-109G. The Spitfire also took two-and-a-half times as long to make as a Hurricane……”.

“…….Willy Messerschmidt took production needs into account in his design. Mitchell took nothing except performance into account. This was one of the consequences. Maybe Mitchell would have done better to do so, but the advantages of his designs over the 109 also have to be considered. Even German engineers would have had trouble with the wing, which allowed every Spitfire pilot to outturn any 109, and despite all the incompetence it could muster, the British industry finally managed to make 22,000 Spitfires. Heinkel had rejected the elliptical wing after his experience with the He-70 because it was so difficult to manufacture in quantity.”

“The British aircraft industry in 1940 was in fact more productive and more efficient than the German one, outproducing it with smaller numbers of workers until 1944. However, attaining that efficiency took a great deal of effort. The Air Ministry placed its first order for 400 Hurricanes in June 1936, but the first production Hurricane did not roll out of the assembly sheds at Brooklands in Surrey until 12 October 1937, which was almost two years after the prototype had flown. The ministry had expected to have its first fifty by September. The production capacity of the British aircraft industry had been allowed to decline so far over the previous twenty years that it could barely cope. Similarly, it was only due to the energies of Ernest Hives, who became General Works Manager in 1938, that Rolls-Royce could manage to meet an order for 3,350 Merlins.”

“In 1936, the government had conceived the idea of building dedicated factories to “shadow” production at existing works. On 15 July 1938 work began on building an entirely new works at Castle Bromwich near Birmingham under the supervision of Lord Nuffield`s Morris Motor Works. Lord Nuffield and his men knew how to mass produce cars, but knew nothing about aeroplanes. The project was plagued by changes to the production specification from the Air Ministry, the management`s ignorance of aerospace technology and squabbles between the car unions and management over money. Delays continued into 1940…….. To meet the June target of ten Spitfires, machines were surreptitiously transferred from Eastleigh.”

“The British innovation of shadow factories, whilst difficult to get started, gave it a major advantage as the war continued and was copied in the United States.”

Adding to my earlier post where it was stated that …It turns out that Goering was addicted to morphine as a result of treatment from a gunshot wound at the beer hall putsch. Apparently this can have serious side effects like making an honest person completely untrustworthy and delusional resulting in criminal actions.

Added text…

“Goering was quite prepared to pursue petty feuds to the detriment of morale. He disapproved of the Kommodore of JG53, Hans-Jurgen von Cramon-Taubadel, because he had married into a family whose Aryan credentials were less than perfect. So in July, he ordered the unit to paint out its “Ace of Spades” insignia, of which it was very proud. They painted red bands around their cowlings instead. In retaliation, when Wolf-Deitrich Wilcke took over III./JG53 in August, he had the swastikas on the tails of his Bf 109s painted out, which was both an expression of solidarity with his Kommodore and a signal to Goering. His standing was very low in JG53.”

“Goering was first and foremost a Nazi politician, skilled at scheming and using people. He ran the Air Ministry on a divide-and-rule basis and did nothing to improve the ruinously bad relationships Milch, Jeschonnek, and Udet had with each other and with him………..The Luftwaffe was not run by a team but by a set of isolated individuals who had to look out for themselves and tried, if anything, not to co-operate.”

“When Hitler provoked the Czech crisis in 1938, raising the real prospect of war with Britain, Goering was shocked to receive a report from General Felmy that an exercise had shown that the Luftwaffe was in no condition to take on the RAF. After the invasion of Poland, Hitler’s eagerness to attack France provoked similar anxiety within the Luftwaffe High Command. They were not ready, but by that time Goering’s boasting had made it impossible to tell Hitler the truth without losing face or worse.”

As an interesting sidenote….

“III./ZG 76 were under strict instructions to protect the Stukas whatever the cost. And this they did, paying a heavy price. Between them, the British pilots shot down four of them. One of them was flown by Oberleutnant Hans-Joachim Goering, the Reichsmarschall’s nephew, described by one of his colleagues as ‘a boisterous young man’ who ‘stupidly tried to take on the whole RAF’. His aircraft plunged out of the sky in a screaming dive and hit the ground on the Verne heights overlooking Portland Harbour……..Uncle Hermann was not amused and ‘stirred up quite a fuss’ having been assuming that the Gruppenkommandeur, Hauptmenn Dickore would be taking special care of his nephew”

Info added to an earlier post…

“One of the most successful British fighters of WWI, the Bristol fighter, had been a two seater. In 1935, the Air Ministry issued specification F, 9/35, calling for a two-seater with a power operated gun turret. An Air Staff memorandum from June 1938 shows the thinking behind it:

‘The speed of modern bombers is so great that it is only worthwhile to attack them under conditions which allow no relative motion between the fighter and its target. The fixed-gun fighter with guns firing ahead can only realize these conditions by attacking the bomber from dead astern. The duties of a fighter engaged in ‘air superiority’ fighting will be the destruction of opposing enemy fighters. . . For these purposes, it requires an armament that can be used defensively as well as offensively in order to enable it to penetrate into enemy territory and withdraw at will. The fixed-gun fighter cannot do this.’

Whilst some of the stated premises were correct, the conclusion was not. It was thought that it was an advantage to divide up the work of flying and shooting between two people and that the armament could be used both offensively and defensively, whatever the means. The Bristol Fighter had in fact been armed with a fixed forward-firing gun operated by the pilot, who flew it like a single-seater with an added sting in its tail.

The response to F.9/35 came from Boulton-Paul which created a two seat fighter around their-gun turret. It first flew on 11 August 1937. The turret was heavy and, as might be expected with such an innovation, unreliable at first. But it seemed to many to be a good idea, especially against bombers.

Churchill, no less, seems to have flirted with the idea that turret-armed fighters were best, and in 1938 the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff, Air Vice-Marshall William Sholto Douglas, ordered Dowding to form nine squadrons of Defiants, informing him that 450 had been ordered. ‘For work over enemy territory,’ he stated, ‘a two-seater is best’. It was a British heavy fighter, a Zestorer. Dowding vigorously opposed this and prevailed to the extent that when the Battle of Britain opened, the Defiant equipped only two squadrons, 141 and 264. They were very proud of them. Their tragic tale was only an incident in what followed, but it was to show how critical fighter performance had become and how easily, but for Dowding, Spitfire and hurricane production could have been curtailed in favour of a machine which would have lost the Battle of Britain within a few weeks.”

Added…

“…in the expectation of action, 11 Group ordered 141 Squadron, the one equipped with Defiants, from West Malling to Hawkinge. They had not yet been in action. Despite their misgivings, Park and Dowding decided to use them on the strength of the successes enjoyed by 141’s sister squadron, 264, over Dunkirk.

“At 1223, 141 were ordered off to patrol twenty miles south of Folkstone. Nine machines took to the air. At about the same time, Theo Osterkamp decided to make use of the break in the weather to lead III./JG51 on a ‘free hunt’ sweep. The Grupenkommandeur of III./JG51, Hannes Trautloft, suddenly saw the Defiant formation below him, heading south. With the sun behind them,Trautloft’s men dived to attack. It was 1245. Four Defiants fell in Trautloft’s first pass”

” Their hunt was interrupted by the arrival of 111 Squadron which shot down one of the Messerschmitts and allowed the four remaining Defiants to get back to Hawkinge. They touched down at 1300. Two of them had been hit. One of them crashed on landing, the other was a write-off. Within half an hour, the fresh squadron had lost seven aircraft and twelve pilots and gunners.. The shocked survivors were withdrawn back north over the next few days”

“On very few other days during the Battle of Britain would Fighter Command lose more aircraft in combat than the Luftwaffe.”

“When Hurricanes and Spitfires were involved, however, the balance of losses was largely the result of tactical situation”

“…most of the features of Dowding’s system remained a closed book. This is in spite of the fact that many of the details had been shared with the French, whom the Germans could have interrogated in June or July had they wished to do so. The Germans knew all about radar and used it themselves to great effect. They had in fact invented it first. It was in the application of radar technology to create a command and control system that the British were pioneers.”

“At the beginning of the war, Bomber Command was highly confident. It had 280 aircraft of four main types, the Whitley, the Hampden, the Wellington, and the Blenheim. The first three all cruised at about 160 mph and could take a 4,000 lb bomb load about 1,200 miles. The Blenheim Mk. IV was lighter and faster, being capable of taking a 1,000 lb load 1,460 miles, cruising at 198 mph. They had all been designed for specific tactics. They would operate by day in order to be able to find their targets, and by flying in massed ‘box’ formations would put up a screen of defensive fire no fighter could penetrate. Their targets were German warships and ports, well away from civilians. At night, they would scatter leaflets in order to explain to the Germans that the war was not a good idea and to suggest that it be called off and that everyone should go home.

In addition, there were ten squadrons of Fairey Battles sent to France to operate in support of the navy. The Battle dated from 1933, when it elicited little enthusiasm but was ordered anyway because it was better than nothing. It was very slow and clearly obsolete in 1939. It was probably in fact a good deal worse than nothing. The men who flew it were a gallant but tragic band.”

“In May, 1940, the Battles sent to France were annihilated.”

“Bomber Commands first operation was launched one hour after the war was declared. It did not find the target, and nor did the second. Early the next day, a reconnaissance flight identified naval vessels in the harbours of Brunsbuttel and Wilhelmhaven. Fifteen Blenheims left for Wilhelmshaven and fourteen Wellingtons set out for Brunsbuttel. Five Blenheims and two Wellingtons were brought down by flak and fighters. The shipping was barely molested.”

“The loss rates showed that unescorted bombers could not survive in daylight. This conclusion was very threatening to Bomber Command for it jeopardized the doctrine on which its very existence was based. An alternative explanation had to be found.

The leader of the Wellington formation, Wing Commander Richard Kellett of 149 squadron, provided Bomber Command with what it needed by maintaining a very strict and tight formation amongst the flight of four aircraft he led directly throughout the engagement. Only one of these machines had been lost, and from the list of claims submitted by this flight, it seemed that they had inflicted a small but significant defeat upon the intercepting fighters.

So it was that, having experienced loss rates of between 30% and 50% on three out of four major operations conducted since the war began, 3 Group of Bomber Command concluded:

There is every reason to believe that a very close formation of six Wellington aircraft will emerge from a long and heavy attack by enemy fighters with very few, if any, casualties to its own aircraft.”

“Thus Wing Commander Kellett, through his skill, courage, and dedication to duty, condemned many of his colleagues to death over the coming months.”

‘Over at Fighter Command, senior officers muttered that they had told them so…..”

It was not only some of the German pilots`and leaders that were not forward looking…

“Air Chief Marshal Sir Robert Brooke-Popham, a man whose views had some weight given that he was C-in-C, Air Defence of Great Britain, liked open cockpits and thought eight guns was ‘going a bit too far’. Indeed it was, for there was nowhere to put them on a biplane.”

“The biplane school had a lot of arguments and almost all of past experience on their side. The majority of pilots preferred biplanes. The key to fighter combat was widely believed to be maneuverability. That implied low wing loading, which in turn implied two sets of wings. Many pilots thought that the innovations being discussed by designers were fine in theory but introduced too much complexity for the rigours of war service. Retractable undercarriages, flaps and variable pitch propellers were all devices which added weight and could go wrong, adding to servicing needs in the field and adding to the pilots workload. Enclosed cockpits created a feeling of claustrophobia, made bailing out more difficult and added a barrier of perspex between the pilots eyeballs and his enemy. Goggles were already a necessary evil. If the perspex were curved, it introduced distortion, and any perspex could get scratched or mist up. It may, as Sydney Camm wrote after the war, have been obvious to the industry that the biplane had had its day, but it was not obvious to the pilots.”

” The British could also choose what numbers to send up to engage any raid”

“From the point of view of any British fighter pilot, the odds seemed daunting. When he was scrambled to meet a large formation, the only friendly aircraft he saw were his dozen or so companions. Squadrons like this might often wade into formations of 100 to 150 bombers and fighters, and the Germans always seemed to have more of them. He did not see what happened before or after the ten minutes or so of frantic fighting in which he was usually engaged, and did not know whether in the course of the hour it spent over England, the hostile formation itself might be attacked by a total of 100 or 150 British fighters. He just knew that he was up against it, and this, the feeling that things depended on him and his few pals, acted as a spur to his efforts. Like most soldiers, he had no idea of the overall shape of the battle he was engaged in. He had to keep going up, because there seemed to be no one else.”