XN923…here we go again indeed. The small margin of performance in some areas that the Hurricane gave away to the Spitfire was made up many times over by speed of manufacture, ease of maintenance and repair and robustness in the field. Not only were there more Hurricanes than Spitfires at the beginning of the Battle – they could be put back into the fight more quickly and replaced more quickly. Spitfire squadrons suffered more attrition than Hurricane squadrons for this reason. The Hurricane could even stand-by with its engine running longer than the Spitfire as its cooling was more efficient putting it in a better position to intercept. I venture to suggest that if Fighter Command was, by some quirk of manufacture (that JDK has already noted would have been impossible) an all-Spitfire force in August 1940 it might have been an even ‘closer run thing’ than it already was – losses from attrition would not have been able to be made up as quickly as with a largely-Hurricane fleet.
Spitfire snobbery’s all very well, then and now, but it didn’t win the Battle of Britain. The Hurricane did.
As for the Closterman quote, thanks for digging that out K5054. I fully concur with JDK’s points. Given the tactics of the Luftwaffe from the mid-30s were to avoid dogfighting and use surprise and superior speed it’s not surprising they would decline to get into a low speed turning fight with a tighter-turning foe – to deliberately do so would be madness – as JDK rightly suggested, when they had the choice which was rare in 1945. Interesting that the characteristics attributed to the Spitfire which make it so feared here – tighter turning if slower than the German fighters – could also be attributed to the Hurricane in 1940.
XN923Sadly the significant ships have all gone, in my opinion. The Washington Treaty did for some possible preservation projects (there was a lot of public pressure to preserve HMS Lion, Beatty’s flagship at Jutland and Dogger Bank) after the First World War, but the terms of the treaty did not allow for such a powerful vessel to be hung on to (lest it be converted back to less peaceful purposes anyway). That’s as maybe but our record after the Second World War is less explainable. If ever a ship should have been preserved it should have been ‘Old Lady’ Warspite but she was unceremoniously junked like the rest of them.
I suppose one can’t turn the entire country into a museum, much as we would like to, and I can’t imagine preserving ships is anything other than immensely expensive and difficult. On the other hand, as someone else pointed out, the significance of the Navy to Great Britain has been immeasurable, and it’s astounding we have so few tangible reminders of that. Perhaps it’s that we don’t want to be reminded how far we have fallen – Jacky Fisher would be spinning in his grave.
XN923“Achtung, achtung Schpifeur !”
What other figher illicited such fear in Luftwaffe pilots ?
Especially in the early stages of the war ?
If anything, the sight of a Spit over England, Occupied France, or Malta etc. would have been an amazing morale booster for any allies.
Even towards the end days, when it had lost its edge in speed, the luftwaffe were still wary of tangling with the more manouvarable ‘midges’ and preffered to take on the Tempests instead (read Pierre Clostermann).
Regards all
You didn’t need Spitfires to get Spitfire snobbery. In Bungay’s The Most Dangerous Enemy he quotes a Luftwaffe pilot writing to his ma who eulogises about the Spitfire and decries Hurricanes as ‘tired old puffers’. He is shot down days later by a tired old puffer. It’s a matter of record that far more Luftwaffe pilots claimed they were shot down by Spits than could have been. In the most ludicrous example of this, aircrews from the forces in operation Weseruebung (invasion of Norway) repeatedly claimed it was a Spitfire that had shot them down. No Spitfires were 400 miles… so what WAS that masked aeroplane? Ladies and gentlemen, I present… The Blackburn Skua. Even allowing for awful a/c recognition at the time all this proves is that the Luftwaffe would prefer to have been shot down by Spitfires than anything else. In my earlier post I suggested that ‘Spitfire Snobbery’ allowed the Luftwaffe to save face, and being trounced by Hurris and Skuas would have been a salutary lesson – bad for morale at least.
I’ve read The Big Show and I don’t recall Closterman suggesting the Luftwaffe preferred to be attacked by Tempests than Spits… quote?
XN923I know – it is a forlorn hope – and the assertation that only UK citizens can sign is a shocker when so many boys from the Commonwealth laid down their lives. Thanks for the support though.
…Not forgetting French, Poles, Czechs etc. who also flew with Bomber Command. Let’s honour them all.
XN923Do show us the final product, i may whant a copy of the plan if it flys.
Thanks Ollie. I’m doing the Supermarine Type 510 as well, that will be a simpler build as the wing is much less complicated, and also the tail surfaces are low mounted and larger.
I suspect the HP88 model’s wing wasn’t developing enough lift and the Rapier L1 may not have been man enough to power it, so there’s a way to go yet.
XN923XN923 have you repaired the wing yet?
I decided on a more comprehensive rebuild which included moving the c/g, reducing weight, strengthening the wing join and increasing dihedral. I’ll probably do all that then use it as a prototype for a new model.
XN923Definitely has something of the Bestmann about it, but only in a ‘character scale’ way. Tail, fuse, cockpit and fixed undercart suggest it – but for that radial engine…
(apologies for the awful quality of the photo, it’s cropped down from one with several other a/c in the frame…)
XN923Interesting discussion. We’ve covered chivalry (or lack thereof) and Malcolm also mentioned the ‘warrior’ tradition. I think there’s also a sense of this, or the individual ‘champion’ in air war (particularly in the first war) which allowed easy comparisons with knights. The fact that, rather than the industrialised slaughter of the surface war (land and sea), there was the possibility for (relatively) ‘clean’ one-on-one combat makes the comparison with knights easy, and that’s followed by all the attendant stuff. It’s easier to identify ‘heroes’ (people who win VCs in the land war are generally dead before they become famous and it’s hard for the newspapers to follow the fortunes of a corpse) and not being able to see the faces of the enemies who butcher your compatriots makes it less personal.
What’s equally interesting is the way this was protrayed. According to some sources, the German government played on creating individual heroes while the British command refrained from it, and it was left to the newspapers to give the people what they wanted. The whole culture of giving medals for achievement was different as well (the British tend to give medals for conspicuous heroism usually in the face of overwhelming odds and often pointless sacrifice) so the Germans seemed to have played up the ‘knights’ comparison while the British emphasised the ‘team’. This is also true in the BofB when the ‘experten’ went jousting round the skies trying to beat the scores of their rivals accompanied by bands of ‘squires’ who were purely to keep the enemy off the back of the lords.
XN923My reply to you and the others comes three years late, but it is only now that I read your threads about a He-112 shooting down a P-38 over the Spanish Morocco of that time. I was there, and the Spanish officer who did it was my brother-in-law Miguel Entrena. He flew higher that the group of P-38s and attacked the last one, hitting one of the engines. The P-38 crash-landed on the French Morocco. Miguel confessed me that he was lucky that none of the other American planes had decided to go for him. His flying group got orders to leave the Americans alone in the future.
Fascinating, always good to here the inside story – certainly sheds some light on this incident. Thanks for posting Melillita.
XN923This picture came to me in some old family pictures. Can anyone educate me on it more?
Vickers Vernon or Vimy Commercial?
XN923Excellent post Malcolm, not much to disagree with. And yet… and yet… there seem to be some characteristics of the scout pilots of the first world war that make the ‘knights’ analogy easier to apply, if not entirely appropriate. For example, many RFC pilots claimed to feel no animosity to the Germans (though some certainly did) and even felt an affinity with them because they were also airmen. Many of the worst horrors of the Western Front were not immediately apparent to the aircrews so this undoubtedly allowed RFC men the luxury of not needing to hate their adversaries. There are also stories that reinforce the ‘affinity’ idea even between adversaries who were fighting to the death. Von Richtofen reported that as he was locked in a turning battle with Lanoe Hawker, the two men gaily waved at each other (neither could bring their guns to bear and all they could do was try to hold the turn. Eventually, running out of altitude and fuel, Hawker had to make a bolt for the lines and Von Richtofen used his Albatros’ superior speed to chase down Hawker’s DH2 and shoot him down). Admittedly, MVR’s ‘honouring’ of his foes often took the form of rather grisly trophy hunting. It’s a fascinating mixture of cold ruthlessness and respect for one’s enemy’s humanity.
XN923This book http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brief-History-Royal-Flying-Histories/dp/1841194700/sr=8-3/qid=1164274063/ref=sr_1_3/026-5310586-4078044?ie=UTF8&s=books has a few things to say about the different attitudes of Germany and Britain on the cult of the ‘Ace’ and the new knights – in a nutshell, the British Army wasn’t so keen on it (eventually bowing to popular newspaper creation of indiividual heroes) while the Germans seemed to encourage it. Stephen Bungay also discusses how the first war values were reflected in the Battle of Britain in ‘The Most Dangerous Enemy’ – more on individual ‘champions’ rather than fighter aces being ‘verray, parfit, gentil knights’. In essence, not so different from the Middle Ages then where the ‘knightly ideal’ had more to do with literature then reality…
XN923Let’s call it a draw then shall we, I have heard reasonable appraisals of the Battle and you have found a damning quote.
Either way, I am pretty sure that neither of us has had first hand experience of flying a Battle and we are therefore both passing on second hand information. I suggest we wait until one is flying and then we can ask the pilot 🙂
Best regards,
Absolutely. In researching my book on the Skua I’ve found people who thought it was an awful aircraft, a rattly old deathtrap and really not good to fly at all and others who say it was beautiful to fly, stable in all aspects of flight and rather comfortable. I’m sure you get this with many aircraft of the era – some crews liked them, some didn’t. I’m sure both aircraft had plusses and minuses and in that era of handbuilt aircraft, quite possibly one airframe would be a dog and another a sweetie. Best of luck with your project.
Hi XN923 , i have the cockpit section of a battle , in this area there is no provision for any armour , the seat which i have two of has no provision for any armour plate , and also there is no provision for any bullitproof glass in the windscreen , the only metal behind the pilots head is the overturn truss frame .
I have had a look but the manual also does not make any comment on armour plate fitted anywhere in the airframe.
Perhaps this is a variation between marks? I was fairly sure there was armour fitted to at least some Battles. With no references to hand all I can think of is the part in ‘Fighter Pilot’ where the squadron leader of No.1 squadron is reported as having removed the seat armour from a crashed Battle to try in a Hurricane. There’s a new book out on the use of armour in RAF aircraft called ‘Knights of the Sky’ and I’m sure that would sort this out.
XN923As for stripping out guns/armour etc as the battle did not have any armour plate fitted/or self sealing fuel tanks and was ony fitted with one foward firing 303 browning and one lewis gun for rear defense there would not be much weight to be gained by not fitting her out with wartime equipment.
Battles had armoured seat back for the pilot by the way, but James is right that leaving out certain bits of equipment may only throw the C/G out of whack and mean you have to add ballast. Incidentally this is one reason why armour wasn’t fitted to Hurricanes earlier, but when fitted with a VP prop C/G moved forward so fitting armour armour, and the removal of ballast, restored the C/G. Couldn’t be done with a Watts prop because the ballast was on the C/G (armour was behind) and would have needed corresponding weight further forward.
But the moral is you can’t go chucking everything out and expect a sweetly handling aircraft.
XN923Well, according to a number of the veterans who come to see the Battle we are restoring for the RAF Museum, they tell us that the Battle was a good solid aircraft which handled very well.
‘And let’s face it – almost any bomber was better than the hideously ugly Fairey Battle which was neither good to fly nor nice for ops. It lumbered and wallowed behind its spinnerless, variable pitch airscrew incapable of reaching its designed top speed.’ – Squadron Leader D.H. Clarke DFC AFC.
As far as I can tell the last testbed Battle was the Rolls-Royce Exe machine, K9222 which was flown as late as 1944 and struck of charge in 1946 – but 1987 beats this somewhat.
I’d love to see a Battle fly, as long as someone restores a Skua to airworthy condition to go along with it, perhaps as the ‘great unsung pair’.
Ah, but you’re talking about a Combat spec Battle. This one wont have guns, bombs, ammo, 1940’s radio etc etc… so will be much lighter for a start. Less weight should improve stability.
Most importantly, no-one will be shooting at you.
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