debunking the myth of the Spitfire

[MiloMorai]

Yes, and the British scrapped the Long-Range Spitfire program in favor of just buying Mustangs from the US.

(Image removed from quote.)

The Germans also made a few long range variants of the 109 and 190 for special purposes, but the Luftwaffe rarely needed more range than what the standard models offered.

That graphic is standard for late war Spit IXs and XVIs.

[Zimme83]

I think when "Winkle" Brown interviewed Göring after the war they both agreed it was a draw. Which is perhaps a fitting parallel to this thread.

It did not ended as much as it faded away when Germany started their ops in the East.

[Squire]

Had the P-51 not come along there would have been armed Spitfires over Berlin in 1944.

It seems to be a very common idea to mix the USAAF and RAFs wartime strategies and just call them "Allies". This is a mistake.

The USAAF and ONLY the USAAF had a long range daylight bomber strategy in the ETO in WW2. The RAF had a seperate but parallel strategy of night bombing which was eventually morphed into what was loosely described as the "Combined Bomber Offensive".

The USAAF was responsible for escorting its bombers. Not the RAF. The USAAF had the need for a long range fighter. Not the RAF. Not in daylight.

The RAF had no plans for a long range bomber offensive in daylight. Ergo it had no plans and no need for fighters to escort its bombers in daylight. That was a USAAF problem.

P-38s were over Berlin and if there was no Mustang P-38s would have continued on as the 8th AF Fighter Commands primary escort fighter along with the P-47 Thunderbolt. The P-51B did not see combat until December 1943. It was a late comer to escort duty but the USAAF already had not one but two fighters already doing the work. I see no indication that they suddenly would have converted to Spitfires in 1944. I am sure that the long range Spit was considered...it was...but that does not mean any sort of manifest destiny. Lots of planes were tested for all kind of roles they never flew.

...and saying the Spit could not fly to Berlin is criticising it for a role it was never going to be asked to perform...by the USA or Britain. It was a short range fighter interceptor and later fighter-bomber.

I also find it curious the notion somehow that Spits were an oddity in the fighter bomber role when the P-47, P-38, P-51, Typhoon and Hurricane did those roles and NONE of them were designed for it either...so why the Spit gets singled out? Anyways the record of the RAF and RCAF Spit fighter-bomber units in 1944-45 is every bit as good as any of the others despite some unsubstantiated claims to the contrary. 

From the original article:

It took 13,000 man hours to build the airframe – for that amount of effort you could have two-and-a-half Hurricanes or three-and-a-bit Messerschmitt Bf 109s.

...The Hurricane took 10,000 man hours so maybe homey can get a math tutor. 13,000 not 25,000.

"Straw-man" the size of a T-Rex the whole muddled splotch of it.

Ltr. 

[Zimme83]

The numbers ive found is 10.000 man hrs for the hurri and 15.200 for the Spitfire.
For 109E the numbers ive found is 12.000 man hours in 1939. (it was down to 2000 hours for the 109G in 1944 but its irrelevant in this case.)

[Karnak]

Squire,

The USAAF also had a long range armed Spitfire project that was also ended when the Merlin P-51 came along.

[Squire]

I don't dispute that but the argument that somehow the Spitfire falls short as a design because it can't fill a foreign services long range escort role seems somewhat far reaching. It was not designed to fly for the defence needs of the United States.

I will also point out that by the time the P-38 was withdrawn from escort duty in the ETO the Allies had landed in Normandy. So what the huge benefit would have been I think is dubious anyways. The "hump" was behind them by the time the P-51 (or insert Spit variant here) was in service in large #s.

Also there is no guarantee a "project" of any kind would have led to anything. Its just a big historical "maybe".

One last item. When the Allies landed in Normandy they didn't need a fighter to go to Berlin they needed a fighter to bomb and strafe enemy troops 2-4 times a day and shoot down anything they came across while covering their advancing armies. Its a narrow focus to assume that only the long range air war mattered...wringing hands and fretting about flying over Berlin as if that was the sole purpose of Allied air power.

[DaveBB]

Wet wings.  P-51 had them, as did later model P-47s. 

Pure and simple, the Spitfire was a short range interceptor.  Anything it could do, a P-51 or P-47 could do, 600 miles further away.

[Chalenge]

I think the PR Spitfires might disagree with you on that. Granted, the PRs were not interceptors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie3SrjLlcUY

[Crash Orange]

[italian] No, nonononono... [/italian] The 109 was produced from 1937 to 1958. It served well into the 1960s with the Spanish air force. Where do you think they found the 109s for shooting "Battle of Britain" (1969)... 

Wasn't that mostly because no one would sell more modern designs to Franco?

[FLOOB]

NOT because of any great superiority in the Spitfire's performance but because the limited range and loiter time of the Luftwaffe's Me-109E fighter.

That's like saying car A didn't win the drag race because it was better, it won because car B was worse.

You can find photos of spits with bombs under their wings and even kegs of beer but you'll be hard pressed to find any photos of a spit with wing drop tanks. This tells me that if anyone was trying to make a long range spitfire they either weren't trying very hard or they didn't want to. The only time I've ever head of spits using under-wing drop tanks was when flying across the atlantic.

[FBKampfer]

No, it's like saying car A won because car B ran out of fuel because the race was held next to where Car A was parked.

It says nothing about which fighter was better.

[nrshida]

Strange myth to address: that the Spitfire was war-winning. I don't feel that's a very common belief. The Spitfire does and always will hold a special place in British culture because it made a timely and significant contribution to forestalling invasion. I don't know if it's true but we were always told that the civilians of the day tuned into the radio communications of the Battle of Britain on their valve radios. If so this undoubtedly included some pretty raw and emotive sounds. Back against the wall, Western Europe fallen, Gerry at the door and all that. Sticky wicket.

As to the Battle of Britain being considered a draw. I think that's disingenuously confining the context too much. Adolf had to destroy the RAF and gain air superiority to invade and he couldn't do that. Plus Göring was immediately put on the Atkins diet for punishment. That's a lose-lose on the sausage side I think.   

[Karnak]

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.

[PJ_Godzilla]

Strange myth to address: that the Spitfire was war-winning. I don't feel that's a very common belief. The Spitfire does and always will hold a special place in British culture because it made a timely and significant contribution to forestalling invasion. I don't know if it's true but we were always told that the civilians of the day tuned into the radio communications of the Battle of Britain on their valve radios. If so this undoubtedly included some pretty raw and emotive sounds. Back against the wall, Western Europe fallen, Gerry at the door and all that. Sticky wicket.

As to the Battle of Britain being considered a draw. I think that's disingenuously confining the context too much. Adolf had to destroy the RAF and gain air superiority to invade and he couldn't do that. Plus Göring was immediately put on the Atkins diet for punishment. That's a lose-lose on the sausage side I think.   

Yep, the victory conditions being different for the Jam Bun, it's a loss for the cabbage crates, especially those monkeys on the ceiling that were ushered into the briny.

In any case, I find this whole thread silly. The "myth" of the Spitfire... har-bluddy-har. Just look at the war record. By all accounts, it was an excellent air superiority fighter and even interceptor - and generated lots of kills.

[Chalenge]

That's right. No myth to see here. Move along. Move along.