Originally posted by DaddyAck
Far be it for me to criticize any man's choice in aircraft, but do we not currently have enough variations on a theme here when it comes to the spitfire? I know there are passions on both the pro and con spitfire debates for various reasons, but I look at it like this. Why add more versions of an aircraft we already have when there are gaping holes in certian nation's plane sets.
Now please I am not here to down play this thread nor am i here to Hijack it for my own topic, I am merely asking the question "would AHII REALLY benifit from the addition of one more spitfire variant?"
To that end I will hush now. If the powers that be desire more spits the so be it.
I think what most people forget is that the UK didn't have the industrial capability to produce masses of different aircraft.
So they took existing ones and continually updated them, and occassionally produced a new aircraft.
Geoffrey DeHavilland when he designed the Mossie quickly realised that because of shortages a metal skinned aircraft was out of the question, hence the Mossie was made of 'wood'.
So you could equate for example the Seafire IIc, LIIc and LIII to the F4U (all marks), F4F, F6F, FM2 etc etc.
So looking at it that way thats 7-8 U.S. CV birds, and only 1 Seafire (which is the early non representative version)
Ditto for the Spits v P-38's, P-47's, P-51's, doesn't look as bad comparing them that way.
Good thing is I would 'assume' the Spits were built modularly so the wings, tails etc can be interchanged.
In which case they already have all the parts needed to produce any Seafrie or Spit barring the late cut down fuse versions and the extended tips versions.