debunking the myth of the Spitfire

[Arlo]

[DaveBB]

I believe the DC-6 was the first production aircraft to have legitimate wet wings.

[Wmaker]

Only WWII combat aircraft that I am aware of having a wet wing is the G4M 'Betty'.  Consequences were, as Mitsubishi told the IJN, predictable.

Here's a scan from Japanese Maru mechanic book handling Betty where separate fuel cells are visible (G4M2):


Another drawing about G4M2 which looks like an integral tank between the spars in mid-wing and also integral leading edge tank:


Francillon indeed mentions integral fuel tanks when talking about the G4M1. As far as other WWII aircraft, Brewster F2A-family also had two integral fuel tanks in mid-wing inside a torsion box-like spar.

[GScholz]

That's a wet wing.

[FBKampfer]

Don't try to muddy the issue with half-truths and gorilla dust.

The fact is that both aircraft had roughly equal endurance and range, and you're using the 109's relatively short range as a basis for saying the Spitfire was better.

You're either stupid or you don't care.

[FBKampfer]

That job would be ........

Interception.

[Arlo]

Interception.

Ah, which is different than escort.

[MiloMorai]

Interception.

Yes intercepting the a/c attacking the a/c the 109 is escorting.

[Squire]

Most of the factors that had allowed Fighter Command to "win" the Battle of Britain were reversed in the summer of 1941 with the RAF's failed sweeps and "Circus" operations over north-western Europe. Just as the Luftwaffe failed to force Britain to make peace, so the RAF with its own air campaign in the aftermath of the BoB failed to defeat Germany. 

The RAF made no attempt to destroy the Luftwaffe as a military arm in 1941. No historian anywhere that I have ever read compares The Battle of Britain in 1940 to the RAFs 1941 offensive operations over Norther France. They are in no way similar in scope of forces or strategic aims.

...it was not until late 1943 and Operation POINTBLANK that the Allies sought to destroy German fighter forces and aircraft industry. The British had no capability to mount such an operation in 1941.

...unlike the Luftwaffe in 1940 who did.

[FBKampfer]

Ah, which is different than escort.

Yes. The 109's were out near the end of their range, leaving  little combat time.

Range was sacrificed for performance, as the aircraft was conceived as an interceptor.

Both the Spitfire and 109 were basically the smallest possible airframe mated to the best engines available, with pure performance being the primary design goal. Range and armament were secondary considerations.

[FLOOB]

The fact is that both aircraft had roughly equal endurance and range, and you're using the 109's relatively short range as a basis for saying the Spitfire was better.

You're either stupid or you don't care.

Me??

You barfed in the punchbowl we all share, and now you expect us to believe it’s alphabet soup?

[RJH57]

The RAF made no attempt to destroy the Luftwaffe as a military arm in 1941. No historian anywhere that I have ever read compares The Battle of Britain in 1940 to the RAFs 1941 offensive operations over Norther France... are in no way similar in scope of forces or strategic aims.

I agree, the English had no hope of defeating Germany on their own and knew it, were just counting on the United States to eventually join the fray.

The RAF made no attempt to destroy the Luftwaffe as a military arm in 1941.

There was no Luftwaffe to destroy in western Europe at that time, most of it was in the east supporting Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia. But after the much over-rated Douglas Bader  was appointed OC of Tangmere Wing, it began flying operations in the summer of 1941 given the name of "Circuses" and "Rhubarbs" and claimed a PREPOSTEROUS (!!) 311 enemy a/c destroyed, 130 probably destroyed and 159 damaged.     In fact the Germans _never_ had more than 150 single-engine front-line fighters in the Pas de Calais in August 1941. Douglas Bader was very much a "Air-Vice-Marshal Leigh-Mallory" man, both ambitious men and advocates of using "Big Wings"   - which achieved little success - to confront the Luftwaffe. Fyi, when Bader was appointed as OC of Tangmere Wing he immediately replaced pilots, officer cadre, squadron leaders and flight commander with men admiring of and agreeable to Bader.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1904943969/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[save]

And the Me-262 made them all obsolete  in a modern war.

In that regard, my view has been this:

The Spitfire held the line in the air in the west, then the P-47 broke the back of the Luftwaffe in the west and then the P-51 finished the Luftwaffe as a fighting force in the west.

[nrshida]

I agree, the English had no hope of defeating Germany on their own and knew it, were just counting on the United States to eventually join the fray.

Is that because the Germans are so uber and powerful and skilful? Wow. Must be the aryan DNA huh?

One factor I never see raised in these slightly dubious discussions is that the fight was by no means even because Germany essentially had a twenty year advance over everyone else with equipment and tactics. They started with no legacy weapons, a completely re-structured military a huge R&D budget and used the Spanish civil war and other naughtiness to test elements of a new approach as far removed from the previous trench warfare as possible. It was indeed innovative but let's not forget why it was motivated. In the interwar years Europe was fumbling with the concept of trying to move to a world peace philosophy - so outraged were most NORMAL people and governments about the horrors of the first world war. Just look at the arts movements and social developments of the day. Look at the policy of appeasement and that poor deluded fool Neville Chamberlain. Hitler and the other fascists took advantage of this movement to rearm with a vengeance while externally promising peace. The back-stabbing, lying, monotesticular, scumbag.

Britain did not have the capacity immediately after the BoB to counterattack anything interesting and Germany's U-boat blockade was to try and forestall the inevitable and Hitler bloody-well knew it. Had America stayed out it's highly likely Britain would eventually have closed the technological and tactical gap - even it it would have taken to the late 50s - and some kind of different landscape of Europe would have eventually announced. There is evidence for this if you compare equipment towards the closing of the war. They were never going to leave Hitler unmolested if they could. This was an ethical as well as political objection. Go listen to Churchill's speeches.

But by no means let any of those factors disturb your Luftwining, slightly racist, unobjective delusions that Nazi Germany was noble and uber alles and that Britain is and always was the bad guy in every possible scenario. A not uncommon point of view as it deserves to be, apparently.

[Bruv119]