Military History | How To Make War | Wars Around the World Rules of Use How to Behave on an Internet Forum
Fighters, Bombers and Recon Discussion Board
   Return to Topic Page
Subject: First critical element of WW-II fighter plane effectivness?
45-Shooter    1/18/2013 9:22:46 PM
Given that the "typical" WW-II Single engine fighter could be spotted at 1-2 miles, depending on aspect, about half the time, I propose that the smaller the plane, the more effective it will be! Sort of a semi-stealth solution to the "Spotting" problem?
 
Quote    Reply

Show Only Poster Name and Title     Newest to Oldest
Pages: PREV  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21   NEXT
Schemer    Belisarius1234   1/22/2013 11:08:26 AM
Thanks for those posts very informative and educational.
 
Just a question:
Why do you regard the Hurricane as a failure? Everything I read is that the plane perfomed acceptable.
It was no top-performer I agree however it did have some virtues from what I read:
- good handling
- stable gun platform
- relative easy maintenance (compared to the Spitfire)
From what I understand especially for inexperienced pilots the Hurricane was a better aircraft then the Spitfire.
Of course during the BoB the British were happy to use anything that worked.
I do however agree with your assesment on its armement. the .303 they used at the start of the war was outdated.
 
 
 
 
Quote    Reply

Belisarius1234    Schemer reply.   1/22/2013 11:27:14 AM
The only good thing about the Hurricane was the Merlin engine. It was put together with one of the worst fabric and shoddiest metal structured airframes you could imagine. The wing was atrocious as an airfoil. Whereas, the excessively complex Spitfire at least had superb flight characteristics to overbalance its rather poor  Human-factors  and poor ease of manufacture design flaes, the Hurricane with its obsolete skinning techniques and poor fit together was a bitch to repair after battle damage. It was the P-40 with none of the P-40s rugged toughness, and simplicity virtues. The plane could not compete with the BF109 in a fight in any part of the energy spectrum at any altitude. The plane was a stable gun-platform which made it an adequate bomber killer during the BoB. Without the Spitfire to handle the 109s and keep those off the Hurricanes, things would have been dicey for the RAF.   
 
The Russians who were given both the Hurricane and the P-40, used both. The Russians screamed for P-40s and  P-39s, but rejected Hurricanes when Churchill offered additional planes. THAT was how bad the Hurricane was. The Russians preferred the better-made American JUNK.
 
B.
 
Quote    Reply

oldbutnotwise       1/22/2013 11:29:21 AM


Thanks for those posts very informative and educational.

Just a question:

Why do you regard the Hurricane as a failure? Everything I read is that the plane perfomed acceptable.

It was no top-performer I agree however it did have some virtues from what I read:

- good handling

- stable gun platform

- relative easy maintenance (compared to the Spitfire)
 
The maintenance was very similar I assume you actually meant Repair as the fabric Hurricane was easier than the all metal Spit 
From what I understand especially for inexperienced pilots the Hurricane was a better aircraft then the Spitfire.
Actually hisory and pilot reports say otherwise, the Hurricane was a easier plane to shoot from but was actually harder to fly (but easier to land) 
Of course during the BoB the British were happy to use anything that worked.
not at all, we rejected the P38(non turbo) and the P39
I do however agree with your assesment on its armement. the .303 they used at the start of the war was outdated.
it was still effective to start with and what other choice was thier, the RAF tested various guns in the early 303s and correctly came to the conclusion that 8 fast firing 303s were required to hit a fast bomber enough times to do damage, they also realised that the 303 would soon be obsolete so loooked for a replacement, they concluded that the .5 was too slow a firer and was only marginly more effective than the 303 this left the cannon, after testing all those available they choose the HS404 and bought the rights to build it (the oerlikon was quite a lot slower and less powerfull and despite  many historians was never used as an Aircraft gun by the RAF)
the problem was the hs404 was designed to fire though an engine and flexed in a wing mount it took a while to eliminate the fles issues of the gun and feed systems
 
It is worth noting that the Luftwaffe had similar problems against US bombers and in fact reinstated the discredited V formation to concentrate firepower
 
 
Quote    Reply

oldbutnotwise       1/22/2013 11:39:33 AM


The only good thing about the Hurricane was the Merlin engine. It was put together with one of the worst fabric and shoddiest metal structured airframes you could imagine. The wing was atrocious as an airfoil. Whereas, the excessively complex Spitfire at least had superb flight characteristics to overbalance its rather poor  Human-factors  and poor ease of manufacture design flaes, the Hurricane with its obsolete skinning techniques and poor fit together was a bitch to repair after battle damage. It was the P-40 with none of the P-40s rugged toughness, and simplicity virtues. The plane could not compete with the BF109 in a fight in any part of the energy spectrum at any altitude. The plane was a stable gun-platform which made it an adequate bomber killer during the BoB. Without the Spitfire to handle the 109s and keep those off the Hurricanes, things would have been dicey for the RAF.   

 harse as the huricane was of the same vintage as the P36, the P40 was 4 years later by which time the Hurricane was pretty much regarded as obsolete, it aslo had a worse reputation for landing crashes than the spit suposedly weak legs.
The P40 was a 1938 fighter that arrived in 1941! and then was made in stupid numbers many late models were flown directly from the facory to the scrapyard.
 
the hurricane seems to have shot down quite a few 109s during the bob and could turn inside a 109e
 
 

The Russians who were given both the Hurricane and the P-40, used both. The Russians screamed for P-40s and  P-39s, but rejected Hurricanes when Churchill offered additional planes. THAT was how bad the Hurricane was. The Russians preferred the better-made American JUNK.

 

B.



 
Quote    Reply

Belisarius1234       1/22/2013 11:51:48 AM
At slow speed, (below 200 knots at below 7000 feet). Once the Germans learned its limits, like the Zeke to the Hellcat in the Pacific, it was DEAD MEAT.   
 
Illusive transient advantage in a narrow specialist circumstance was not the general rule.
 
B.
 
 
Quote    Reply

Schemer    Belisarius1234 and OBNW   1/22/2013 1:03:27 PM
Thanks for your replies:
 
OBNW yes you're right I meant repaires. Most sources I read state that the fabric Hurricane was easier to repair then the Spitfire's metal contruction.
 
I agree that the performance of the Hurricane was insufficient for it to be able to deal with the Me109.
I guess maybe the fact that it was available was its greatest vitrue of all.
 
I did read somewhere that the BoB German aircraft lacked armor. It was only during the BoB that they started placing some armor plates for pilot protection. Can anyone confirm this?
 
 
 
Quote    Reply

Belisarius1234    The B-17 Flying Fortress.   1/22/2013 1:21:41 PM
There was once an American named Billy Mitchell, who staged a propaganda stunt to promote the idea of airpower.
 
Arnold's account....
 
Needless to say, the Army Air Corps lied about who actually sank those ships. (the Navy with F5Ls)
 
Anyway, armed with the idea that they could defend the coasts of the United States with their "heavy bombers" the Army Air Corps searched for someone to design their 1000 mile range, 300+ mph at 30,000 feet dream-bomber that could sink a battleship, WHICH THEY DID NOT HAVE.
 
They had some problems. Nobody had a 1500 kilowatt engine yet. The best they were promised (by Curtiss Wright) was possibly a 900 kW (1200 HP)  engine sometime within the next five to ten years when the AAC went bomber-shopping. Plus the US aircraft industry was just learning how to make stressed skin construction aluminum skinned aircraft. Nobody on the west side of the Atlantic could aspirate an engine properly above 17,000 feet, and there was the little problem that no-one had designed the required 2000 pound battleship killer bomb. 
 
So enter Boeing around 1935. They actually thought they could meet the ridiculous (to American tech at the time) AAC requirement for a coast defense bomber of 250 mph at 10000 feet with a three hour endurance and 4000 pound bombload.
 
Now understand, this was at a time, when the main army wanted a large force of medium bombers, for CAS and battlefield interdiction. The AAC was marching to a different drummer and was not paying any attention to the Army, when it came to their dream of strategic bombers (which to them, meant battleship killers as well as city-killers, because the bomber would be used against the JAPANESE.).    
 
So Boeing  rolled out the YB-17. They came mighty close to the AAC dream-list. The plane could carry 4000 pounds of bombs at close to 240 mph (not knots) at (an astounding at the time) 25000 feet to just a little over 950 miles mission radius.
 
It HAD four engines to do it. ( PRATT 600 kW (750 HP) Hornet engines.). It was armed with 5 @ .30  Brownings. It could UTTERLY defeat the USAAC fighter force then existent (and everyone elses).
 
It was complex and full of mechanical and aero-design flaws. It was heavily overbuilt and over-engineered. It was expensive as hell to make. 
 
And CONGRESS balked at the price.
 
That didn't stop the USAAC. They asked for and got permission to buy an evaluation batch from Boeing.
 
In the meantime, Boeing went shopping for engines and decided on the rotten Wright Cyclones which eventually produced the 1200 HP promised. That SHOULD have produced the 300+ knot bomber at 30,000 feet the AAC wanted. Nope.
 
After the change in bombing doctrine from mid altitude line abreast to high altitude formation flight bombing from a combat box, it occurred to someone that enemy fighters would love that herd-sized formation where they just had to buzz the combat box, spray and pray and they would inevitably hit somebody. Then they would just down the cripple. Repeat as needed. The B-17 would need to grow a hide-full of guns.
 
13 of them. All that extra horsepower was eaten up by the additional guns, gunners and ammunition. BACK to 240 mph at 25,000 feet.
 
Then someone discovered that the Flying Fortress had a weak tail that caused her to fly sideways into the wind when she tried to unload bombs with her bomb-bay doors open. Ever tried to bomb from the air sideways at a slant? It doesn't work. So Boeing changed the tail. That was the B-17A all the way to-F. 1935 to 1944! That is a long time to screw around with an aircraft-especially when from 1939 on that plane is being used in WAR.  
 
The famous G series finally came into service in time to serve as Luftwaffe fighter bait and to become the star of the TV series 12 o' Clock High. 
 
THIS was the strategic bomber the USAAF got RIGHT!
 
(next post.)
 
Quote    Reply

Belisarius1234    The B-17 Flying Fortress.   1/22/2013 1:23:33 PM

The B-24 Liberator and the B-29 Superfortress which are HORROR stories of mismanagement, bad aircraft design, and bungled management by the AAC and private industry, are much worse than the B-17 as to their development histories.  

 
 A little taste of what I mean is the B-29. Many aircraft historians state that the He-177 Greif (GRIEF) heavy bomber failed because the Germans couldn't get the double-sided DB-610 engines to work without catching fire? The Luftwaffe rejected the plane as unsafe. 

Well... the USAAC deployed the B-29 with the Wright R-3350-22-23 series of engines which NEVER were properly fixed, that had the same explode in flight and blow the wing off potential problems. THAT is what a professional air force will do to get the job done. Risks and aircraft liabilities, that even the crazy Luftwaffe refused to accept, the USAAC did. 

Note that the USAAF made do with training to work around the problems with flying horrors like the A-26? Once the USAAC figured out how to fly those pilot-killers, they passed on the lessons learned to the allies.

B.

 
Quote    Reply

JFKY    You miss one thing in your diatribe.   1/23/2013 12:45:29 PM
The B-29 worked.  It was the ONLY bomber that could reach mainland Japan, in 1944.  By 1945, when the B-17/24 MIGHT have made it, Japan was a burned out husk.  And the engines did work, as advertised, by the end...and changes in tactics rendered their operation safer, any way....low-level apporach placed much less burden on them.
 
So please, let's not be silly and toss out the B-29...and considering how grossly inaccurate you are about the B-29, I'm going to question you on the B-17 and B-24, as well.
 
Quote    Reply

Reactive       1/23/2013 4:29:21 PM
The development issues are well-documented - in fact you'll scarce find any article about the B-29 that doesn't explicitly reference the troubles with its initial engines. That is a separate issue entirely to what the USAF managed to achieve with the plane and for goodness sake you don't have to discount what the F-22 is capable of to acknowledge it had a terribly compromised development program. 
 
Quote    Reply
PREV  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21   NEXT



 Latest
 News
 
 Most
 Read
 
 Most
 Commented
 Hot
 Topics