Fastest piston fighter

All very true. I also don't get ch1466's assertion that the Hurricane was so bad? The Hurricane was definitely slower than most rival fighters after 1940 but on the plus side it was extremely manouverable and could out turn a Spitfire Mk 1, for example, with ease. 14,000 + Hurricanes were built and operated as front line aircraft until 1945.

By comparison, of the US types that were ordered by the RAF , the P-38 and P-39 were quickly rejected by the RAF and all orders cancelled. In the case of the P-38 this was our own fault as we mysteriously decided to order them without superchargers, which rendered them impotent, the P-39 was rejected outright and all RAF P-39's were forwarded to Russia. The P-40 was also rejected because of poor performance but it was felt sufficiently capable to equip the North Africa squadrons who were 'only' going to face the Italians, allowing all Hurricane and Spitfire production to be directed to the home defence squadrons who were up against the Luftwaffe. This hardly shows the Hurricane to be 'worse off' than the P-40, when the RAF were not prepared to use it aganst the Germans.

HRIV,

If you want the old chestnut (Deighton, _Fighter_, page 94) the Me-109E had a turn radius of about 750ft. The Hurricane, 800. The Spitfire 880.

Now we have had a lot of data since then to suggest it was one of those 'it depends' conditions of altitude and airspeed (do we dewing the Auggie) more than anything.

But I prefer Browns comparisons in _Duels In The Sky_ whereby he characterizes the Me-109F as _the best_ fighter in the world, bar none, for 1941.

You have a completely revamped, strengthened and cleaned up airframe (no more WWI 'braces', no more open air tailwheels, larger wingtips). Even the controls were reharmonized and of course the 'slat problem' largely fixed by the F-3.

So that you have an airframe which is running on as much as 150 less HP than the Series 45 Merlin engined Mk.V Spit. Yet the airframe still has a good 10 and even 15mph topspeed edge over it (ca. 382mph vs. 374mph at 20,000ft, more as the altitude increases).

And the 109F will outclimb it at almost all altitudes (at the time 3,640fpm was unheard of in Europe, the Mk.V was almost 500fpm slower).

With B-2 fuel, the horsepower edge is even and the Me-109F becomes a 400mph airframe at 27,000ft.

The only thing that kept the Friedrich from truly excelling (and it crippled the entire series) was the armament package in that it lost the second cannon of the E and replaced it with a 15mm MG-151 variant while retaining the bb-gun MG17s. Mind you, you still got an increase of almost 300m/sec over the MG-FF, so harmonizing the weapons packages along the centerline was relatively simple. But you had no gyro sight to make it workable at range. Later F's got the 20mm IIRR but the 15mm was just too small to be a 'sure thing' fighter killer with 1-2 rounds.

Now, the reason I make this comparison is that if the 109F can readily beat the topline Brit air superioirity machine of the time. And the Spitfire was the master of the Hurricane (be honest now). What is there to be said?

Well lot's actually. The Hurricane is underpowered and has poor drag characteristics thanks to that wing/nacelle configuration. It has decent lift and fairly well balanced controls but this only makes it a 'chugger' in the form of sustained turns and fair agility (bank to bank in the horizontal plane) at _low_ speeds.

The Hurricane was playing with about 1,150hp (The Mk.XX's was clapped and it's turbo useless weight at the altitudes being fought at in the desert) at a time when the rest of the world was at 1,300 to 1,350. It's wing was too far forward and it's nose was poorly cowled. When you add the weight of the later IIb/c wing armament, even the types decent loading goes away and it just...sags. Which is why it was a fighter bomber. And so gave away yet another edge to the 'hun from sun' condition of not-it's-mission attention as much as positioning.

Good fighterpilots use control space through the dominance of planes. Out of plane maneuver requires high installed power because you are playing the vertical almost constantly. It also requires good power and drag characteristics because when you go down, to add God's G, you want to accelerate quickly.

Great fighter pilots use throttle to dominate TIME through the control of angles. Angles are a largely 2D fixed point of combat (though they can be entered into vertically) in which high transient performance outweighs chugger turn.

Given that it is also more snapshot oriented than tracking if you can shoot, you can kill this way.

And it doesn't matter what the threat type is because the first HMG rounds into the wingroot or engine ends the fight. The first /cannon/ (explosive) round almost anywhere into the airframe, ends the fight (A P-47D, flown by Johnson to ONE 30mm round through the rudder/vertical tail area and was instantly forced to retire, only the fact that the Germans wanted the B-17's that day saved him).

Marseilles was the preeminent snapshot artist of the war and he used both the native and transient (throttle-up/down) performance of the 109F to prove it.

>>
Hmm, not exactly speed related, but...

Never was a fan of the Hawk/Warhawk/Kittyhawk, even less of the Airacobra, but that is probably because one of the first things I learned about air combat was the Zeros ate P39 and P40 squadrons for lunch.
>>

The P-40 is an F4F for horizontal performance. A little bit cleaner, rather heavier, not quite as tight a turn, similar robustness and equal or slightly lower (period) armament package. Yet it has dive performance more akin to a Hellcat. So long as you keep your speed above 300mph and your altitude above 17,000ft, the Zero can't touch you. If you are advantaged bust his chops in the vertical. If you are not, unload and extend out, there will always be other days. Another thing that needs to be remembered was that the Japanese 'protected' their airfields by exploiting the range performance of their fighters. You sit in a 100` telephone booth for 4-5hrs and see how well YOU fight.

Facing a 109F, the P-40 has no vertical (up or down) edge and it weighs almost a third more (Kittyhawk, Warhawk is worse) while it's hp is roughly similar to the Hurricanes. What this means is that while the 109 may actually have a higher loading, it's slats and it's power make it vastly better in the BnZ or TnB fight which leaves the (Air Superiority dedicated) Kittyhawk little or no place to go. But at least it had the choice of starting height, skysearch attention and no bombs/tanks/cannon under the wing.

Zeros are kite fighters. All climb, all turn. But only so long as the speed ranges stay in the area 220-250mph. You increase the density altitude and they lose aspiration even as they lose lift and they cannot playup the speed because their rudder cannot defeat high power setting prop torque and so their nose gets loose and tends to wander independent of bank angle. VERY hard to be precise with your turn if you are fighting elevator/aileron to compensate for rudder loss. No nose control means losing all hope of being a good snapshot gun platform and the aircraft simply didn't carry enough rounds to be a spray and pray hose machine.

In this, the Zero is closer to a 109E for weapons system design point (too few cannon rounds, no reason for the cowl guns, primitive sights) but it doesn't have the latter airframes high speed/high altitude option to at least dictate the terms of the fight. Having traded it for pure vertical and range performance at PTO typical altitudes. If you look at a Zero and say 'hmmmm, fast biplane!' you have it's number completely.

The P-39 is a hotship below 8,000ft. At 10-12 or so it's still competitive. Beyond that and you're riding a flung brick. This is more or less as you would expect when you aren't shoving half a ton of high density steel around 'ahead of' your turn but have no turbo on a high wingloading. It's roll rate is fabulous and it's turn rate acceptable if you don't push it beyond what it can do (it has some high speed stall issues not unlike the 190s IIRR). It's clean and so accelerates reasonably well for it's weight.

What kills the P-39 is the lack of turbocharging (ironic considering the 37mm was originally a bomber killer), it's weapon package which is not only hefty but slow rated for the caliber mix (.30's are /worthless/ and the P-39 has as many as six of them!) and it's wingloading. That wing is just too damn small for higher altitudes, resulting in turn performance more like a late 109 (with too little power and no slats to play stall fighter). To which I would add that there was never any real justification for the cabdoor configuration, if you can't shift the dorsal inlet someplace else, you can sure as heck hinge the canopy one way or another. The pilot sits too low to have to look around foot wide frames at his 4 and 8 o'clock.

Obviously there are Russian pilots (Pokryshkin 48 of 59) who liked the P-39 a lot.

www.acepilots.com...

But then again, they were fighting at lawnmower heights and they had a lot of other considerations to take into account (working radios, rough field conditions, extremes of environment). To which I can only say, they never had a Mustang or a TBolt to compare with. And they never played with the RVD at 30,000ft where the bad guys /almost always/ had radar vectoring and height advantagement.


KPl.

Originally posted by ch1466
Now, the reason I make this comparison is that if the 109F can readily beat the topline Brit air superioirity machine of the time. And the Spitfire was the master of the Hurricane (be honest now). What is there to be said?

Well lot's actually...

Got Deighton, had him since I was a kid. Also got Time Life's history of flight (seriously cool series for a kid to read) plus a bunch of others.

I would point out that Hurricane was armoured to protect the pilot, a legacy of the short French campaign, had more guns than Willi's baby, could take more punishment than Willi's baby, landed and took off more easily than Willi's baby, had its guns in a more accessible and workable area than Willi's baby, was stronger than Willi's baby...and already had its successor entering service at the outbreak of hostilities.

In September 1939 Bf 109 was the only plane on the continent that Hurricane couldn't take, and even that wasn't guaranteed.

And when it entered service it was a definitely the better of the two (Bf/Me 109 or Hurricane) as a choice for your first monoplane fighter. Easier to learn on, easier for ground crews to change to. However, Willi was looking further ahead than Sidney Camm was when he designed it. The proof that neither was more genius than the other is Camm's work on the Tempest/Typhoon and the Hunter, not to mention everything else Hawker built.

and I would point out that BoB was in 1940, not 1941.

Marseilles was the preeminent snapshot artist of the war and he used both the native and transient (throttle-up/down) performance of the 109F to prove it.

Can't remember his name, but he got the Knight's Cross, crossed swords, oak leaf cluster AND diamonds for killing something like 350 Soviet planes. Had a black leaf painted on his prop boss and front end. Anyway, I thought he was the king of deflection shooting. The Soviets hated him so much that when he refused to joine the EAST German Luftwaffe they slung him back in the gulag.

edit: BoB info. Damn power failures...

[edit on 26-1-2006 by HowlrunnerIV]

Me-109E had a turn radius of about 750ft. The Hurricane, 800. The Spitfire 880.

This statement, for a start, is wrong. Plain and simple. Your belief in the superiority of the 109 is quite startling given that, by 1942, it was considered overdeveloped and due for replacement by dint of the fact that successive increases in power and weight had shot the handling to pieces! For this reason the Me 209 (different from the air speed record 209) and 309 were being developed but would never appear of course. The Luftwaffe was forced to carry on with the 109 because there was nothing else. Hardly sounds like a 'superior' fighter does it.
Wing loading rose to over 40lb/sq.ft while the Spitfire V was at 27lb/sq.ft, rising to 30lb/sq.ft in the Mk IX, a huge difference that also meant there was NO WAY a 109 could out turn a Spitfire. I have heard Luftwaffe pilots say as much, for example Adolf Galland onthe 'Battle of Britain' region 2 DVD additional documentary feature; "you would never try to out turn a Spitfire in a fight, if you kept going round in a circle he would always get you" . Maybe he was lying?

Also Here is something I have just copied out from an RAE comparative flight test between the Spitfire XIV and Bf 109G. The comparison was just one of many carried out during the war taking advantage of captured aircraft. The salient points only, of course.

Turning Circle The Spitfire easily (my emphasis) out turns the 109 in either direction
rate of roll the Spitfire rolls much more quickly both with and against engine torque

conclusion The Spitfire is superior to the 109 in every respect except initial dive speed which adavantage is quickly closed by the Spitfire if the dive is held

Both these aircraft are further developed from the ones you mentioned with highter gross weight, installed power and wing loadings but the comparison stands up due to the turning circle comparison not even being close despite your claim that it had a 130ft advantage over the Spitfire!

This being so wrong you then have to wonder about the rest of your claims, interestingly, your statistical demolition job on the Hurricane is completely at odds with the historical fact that it served successfully throughout the war, in the front line, and was by a large margin the dominant RAF fighter during the Battle of Britain, where, by your calculations, they should have been decimated by the far superior Bf.109's?

The thing about the Hurricane was, it didn't just destroy more enemy aircraft than the Spitfire, the actual quote is .....destroyed more enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain than all other defences combined . Quite remarkable, for such a dud.


edit; I just want to add a footnote, out of interest. Having glanced at the comparative report for the F6F-5 and F4U-1D against the A6M5 Zeke I noticed that the first line of the 'conclusion' says *DO NOT DOGFIGHT WITH THE ZEKE 52!*.


[edit on 26-1-2006 by waynos]

Howlrunner,

I am aware of when the Me-109F was considered top of the dogpile. And of when the 109E fought in BOB.

Originally posted by waynos

Me-109E had a turn radius of about 750ft. The Hurricane, 800. The Spitfire 880.

>>
This statement, for a start, is wrong. Plain and simple. Your belief in the superiority of the 109 is quite startling given that, by 1942, it was considered overdeveloped and due for replacement by dint of the fact that successive increases in power and weight had shot the handling to pieces!
>>

The G-2 was still more or less a decent aircraft though the advent of the 13mm cowl guns to go along with the DB-605 would soon ruin it (as would the further additin of the 20mm underwing 'Kanoneboote' pods necessary for bomber killing).

But that's just it. The Gustavs are not the Freidrich.

>>
The Luftwaffe was forced to carry on with the 109 because there was nothing else. Hardly sounds like a 'superior' fighter does it.
>>

I believe I made firm mention of periodicity as an argument for breaking down the 'best of the best' by historical period. Surely I did.

The 109 was a machine that saw it's best years in Spain (vs. Ratas and Chaikas) was fuel beggared as much as outclassed by 1940 in both France and over Britain. But had a second brief twilight period of greateness in 1941 on both the Coast (Snicker, /now/ who fights with one eye on the gas guage?) and in Russia and the Desert. 1942 belonged to the FW. And from there on out, the 109 is outclassed in all areas by /someone/.

Again, something I made pretty clear.

>>
Wing loading rose to over 40lb/sq.ft while the Spitfire V was at 27lb/sq.ft, rising to 30lb/sq.ft in the Mk IX, a huge difference that also meant there was NO WAY a 109 could out turn a Spitfire.
>>

Slats that work bubba. Along with a lot more power. The Mk.IX has a Series 60 Merlin and that makes the power race about even. As you state later, it has equal or better wingloading (though not significantly with the Freidrich as it is with the Gustav). It also has the beginnings of proper armament and sights and that takes things further. The 109 was always a CF of knobbly bits, protrusions and bulges. This made it a bit of a drag pig UNTIL the 109F. With the 109G5 and onwards, everything that they had got right (retractable tailwheel for instance) was instantly screwed up again. When you add this to the weight of the engine, armament package and the high altitude mods, the airframe was destroyed as weight went up by 20% but installed power by only about 10.

Heck, even the /paint/ was a factor in it's 'bigger pigment balls means more surface (friction) drag' deleterious performance.

>>
I have heard Luftwaffe pilots say as much, for example Adolf Galland on the 'Battle of Britain' region 2 DVD additional documentary feature; "you would never try to out turn a Spitfire in a fight, if you kept going round in a circle he would always get you" . Maybe he was lying?
>>

In BOB, yes. Because the 109 could fight faster and hold a tighter turn at speed. The reality however was that you could bend the wings off an Emil and everyone knew it (literally, the first signs of spar failure were drooping turn rate as the airfoil no longer cut the smae AOA). OTOH, twice round a circle over SE England and you're going home or swimming. Whereas slashing passes could be made good on the zoom and _who cares_ if the threat survives, so long as it's effectively stiff armed. Because you are bombing the crap out of his airfield support structure and the morons in Fighter Command are doing nothing to change this.

>>
Also Here is something I have just copied out from an RAE comparative flight test between the Spitfire XIV and Bf 109G. The comparison was just one of many carried out during the war taking advantage of captured aircraft. The salient points only, of course.
>>

Well /duhhh/. You're looking at a fighter with upwards of 2,040 horsepower in the series 65 Griffon as well as a completely redesigned airframe (tail and wings) rather than the 'Mk.VIII mod' as is often asserted.

Yet the fact remains that while the Mk.IX was 'almost' as sweet as the Mk.V in terms of overall handling, the Mk.XIV was a monster in all axes that had to be whipped around corners with ten different kinds of rudder/aileron throws to keep it from (pro torq) whipping over or (anti-torque) skidding out of the turn. No harmony was left, it was all speed and max rate performance until you were inside his turn or above his fight plane and could gun him like a strafe rag, wings level.

www.spitfireperformance.com...
www.spitfireperformance.com...
www.supermarine-spitfire.co.uk...

If you want a fair comparison with that airframe then you need to go to a late model Corsair which should tell you a lot about how much, 'too much', power can do to a small fighter as nobody would willingly admit to the type being that heavy handed. But it is.

>>
Turning Circle The Spitfire easily (my emphasis) out turns the 109 in either direction
rate of roll the Spitfire rolls much more quickly both with and against engine torque
conclusion The Spitfire is superior to the 109 in every respect except initial dive speed which adavantage is quickly closed by the Spitfire if the dive is held
>>

A Mk.IX could beat the Freydrich, what is the point in illustrating what a variant almost a year and a half later in evolution could do? It sounds an awful lot like Brit Inferiority Complex accidently tripped the breaker here Waynos. Which is strange because I would be the first to admit that almost the entire range of U.S. Naval Fighters were inferior to anything in the ETO. The P-51 was a cruise-control platform not half as maneuverable or rapid-accelerating as is it is often accredited (the same engine as the Mk.IX in an airframe as much as /5,000/ pounds heavier!). The P-38 lost whatever chance it had when some nutjob in a Spit mistook a C-54 for an FW-200. The P-47 was short legged and awfully heavy handed in pitch. The list goes on and on for most U.S. fighters in /some area or timeframe/.

That said, no less a person than Eric Brown freely admitted that NONE of the German examples tested at RAE were ever run with boost (they simply didn't have the means to produce the chemicals) and so, for instance, he couldn't get the top 20% out of the Ta-152 when he flew it and had to 'sounds about right' guesstimate performance based on how close he got without them. 20% is an awful lot when it comes to climb rate and topend.

And in _DITS_ he compares the Hurricane to both Allied and German fighters and it routinely comes out the loser (I think it beat the Martlet/Wildcat but I don't know which variant.).

>>
Turning Circle The Spitfire easily (my emphasis) out turns the 109 in either direction.
>>

If it doesn't have altitude and airspeed combinants attached, it's pointless. If the Spitfire XIV outturns the Me-109G at all altitudes, it's pretty much proof positive that the 109G is of an earlier generation (if not 2 or 3). Test an Me-109F against an early FW-190A3 and /then/ see the comparitive differences in a dissimilar style of fighter as much as 1 generation change in technologic approach. Now realize that while the 109F could hold it's own at medium/high altitudes in the horizontal and actually had /better/ high speed capabilities (no snap stall) in the vertical, it would not have as good a chance against the Mk.IX as the FW (especially the period A4 or A5) would at low to medium altitudes. Because the Tank and Mitchell products were again at parity by their very dissimilarity while everything that the 109F did well, the Mk.IX matched or bettered.

>>
Rate of roll the Spitfire rolls much more quickly both with and against engine torque
>>

At what power setting? There is a reason why all the online people use the 109 as a high altitude stall fighter because they can flick it into and out of tracking shots with the correct applications of power and rudder trim. Almost like magic. Before using all that POWER to take their narrow behinds up and away or otherwise (accelerate) from the existing fight condition to a new one.

>>
conclusion The Spitfire is superior to the 109 in every respect except initial dive speed which adavantage is quickly closed by the Spitfire if the dive is held
>>

The sadness here being yet another 'well knowner' that you are blatantly ignoring. The Spitfire and the Me-109 have similar ranges. Because they were originally both designed as light PDI aircraft not longrange OCA/escort planes. Combat radius being measured in minutes, about 60 for the 109 or 90 with a centerline tank and roughly 20 minutes more for the Spit (at least before the thirsty Griffon). Thus you HAVE TO compare the Gustav (or Kurfust to be completely fair) with the Mk.XIV because it's hard to get the two together in any other definitive way once 1942 rolls on and it's all Eastern Front + Reich's Defense (France is a yielded void of German air supremacy and the Low Countries are hard to reach). Until after we come back onto the Continent in 1944. British Mk.IX's in the crucial 1943 period were little more than recovery escorts, they had to push hard to get to a Paris/Brussels radial arc terminator.

>>
Both these aircraft are further developed from the ones you mentioned with highter gross weight, installed power and wing loadings but the comparison stands up due to the turning circle comparison not even being close despite your claim that it had a 130ft advantage over the Spitfire!
>>

You know better than to compare a Mk.I or II Spit with a Mk.XIV. Just as you /should/ know better than to compare an Me-109F with DB-601E with an Me-109G with DB-605 since /everyone knows/ that the 109G was the point where the plateau fell off a grand canyon cliff.

Just on 'how much can we put ahead of the CG' factor-

DB-601 1,322lbs vs. DB-605 1,652lbs.
Merlin 1,636lbs vs. Griffon 1,975lbs.

The reality of the fact being that it's how well your airfoil is set up to take what the power loading can give you (CG and P Factor vs. rated G at the roots), how high your elevator loads (for a given airspeed) are in holding it. And how much added tip twist/washout or slats effect the basic L@D equation. Put another way, an F-15 has about a 1.4:1 T/Wr when lightly loaded. It has about a 60lbs:squarefoot wing loading. Compared to an F-16 which has about a 1.2:1 and upwards of 85lbs:squarefoot. At low and medium altitudes and subsonic, the F-16 will cut a tighter turn. Why, if wingloading is all that matters?
Ans: Because the F-16 has marvels of 'blackart' Vortice Flow Dynamics coming off that LERX and a much more variably optimizable wing surface allied to a reasonable static margin (though I believe the F-15 is actually within 2-3% around 25% maximum displacement).
All of which combine together with lower mass overall to make the turn _and the turn reversal_ happen, competitively.

>>
This being so wrong you then have to wonder about the rest of your claims, interestingly, your statistical demolition job on the Hurricane is completely at odds with the historical fact that it served successfully throughout the war, in the front line, and was by a large margin the dominant RAF fighter during the Battle of Britain, where, by your calculations, they should have been decimated by the far superior Bf.109's?
>>

The Hurricane was butchered wherever it encountered a truly 1940's fighter with it's inherently 1930's engineering. The Hurricane was /converted/ to intruder and like 'hurribomber' roles which only added yet more weight to an already sagging airframe BECAUSE we understood this. This increased the performance disparity to the point where it was no longer even close to being competitive by the time the Mk.IIb/c rolled around.

Suck it up, it did what it had to when it had to, against bombers, over friendly territory where you could at least grab most of the pilots back up. It doesn't need a greater mythology than that.

>>
The thing about the Hurricane was, it didn't just destroy more enemy aircraft than the Spitfire, the actual quote is .....destroyed more enemy aircraft during the Battle of Britain than all other defences combined . Quite remarkable, for such a dud.
>>

And one Do-17 had over 7,000 .303 rounds shot at it by six Spitfires and still flew home because the DeWilde just wasn't enough and Britain's armament ministry got all snooty over the 20mm because it had a 'French Feed'.

Two years later they were essentially using that very feed, because the one they designed to replace it jammed every 5th-7th round. How many Spits had working cannons in BOB?

Oh yeah.

Of course _by 1941_, Germans were knee deep in Russia instead of sipping English tea like they should have (whether that be in High Street or Alexandria's Windsor I leave up to you) if they wanted to avoid Hitler's two front economic disaster. The Brits didn't win BOB, the Germans lost. Considering the number of heavy guns you had to site around the key 11 Grp and Industrial targets vs. those which you /wasted/ on London. Considering the Me-109 couldn't stay with the bombers as they made their way up-Thames. Considering the /weather/ on several key days. Considering the state of radar technology. Considering the utter stupidity of the Norwegian basing scheme. Considering the lack of correct (even PreWar mapped) data on 'just exactly which are the CC airfields anyway?'.

It's kinda pointless to say much about a 1940 fighter based on 1937 engineering. In light of an aircraft which _did not exist_ at the time BOB was fought. You cannot compare apples with oranges for rottenness and who was the better grower until you acknowledge the time they were picked vs. the time they were dumped off the back of the truck.

These are the numbers you want-
www.csd.uwo.ca...

Note, that with less than half the total numbers available on any given day (38%), the Spitfire was making a respectable 1.2:1 vs. 1.7:1 kill ratio and that by the critical months of September/October, the Spitfire loss rate was only 2/3rds that of the Hurricane. This despite the fact that they were both within 5% of each other's 109 total kills and 15% of each other' total kills overall (i.e. no penalty for having one's guns pointed at the bomber and one's tail at the escorts).

So here too, YOU CANNOT measure the performance of an unequal force, unequally deployed, in a complex scenario as a justification for ONE aircraft's pride of place. Anymore than you can take 1v.1 in a tardisian timelessness. Because where single combat is too pure relative to single aircraft performance and pilot skills without a technology modifier. Group combat inevitably comes down to who has more to lose as a function of situational conditions.

>>
edit; I just want to add a footnote, out of interest. Having glanced at the comparative report for the F6F-5 and F4U-1D against the A6M5 Zeke I noticed that the first line of the 'conclusion' says *DO NOT DOGFIGHT WITH THE ZEKE 52!*.
>>

Nobody dogfought with the Zero nor with the Hayabusa which it was more often than not mistaken. Spitfires sent to Burma made this mistake and had their heads handed to them despite being nominally the 'best allied fighter in the world' at that time and nominally (on paper) easily the match of the Japanese aircraft. OTOH, the Zeke 52 was exactly what the 109G was: an overmuscled, overweight, /tired/ design that simply could not compete after they strengthened it for 460mph dives (we just went to 500-550) and added armor and the new weapons package (3X 12.7 and 2X 20mm IIRC). If you want to play fighter kite, and IF the enemy is willing to stay in your turn circle and airspeed range, you want a good ol' fashioned Type 21/22. No Hamp, No Zeke-5.

And I will crawl into the cockpit of a Bearcat or Corsair and hand you your head anyway. Because I will use double attack (tap-bounce) theory in which the lightweight fighter kite is going to break for number 1. Be down to zero airspeed for #2 and _die_ at the hands of my wingman. Meanwhile IT'S wingman is going to be looking for trouble and wondering why it can't keep up long enough to find any. Even horizontal, right on the deck. Because the installed power disparity is that bad.

But those same aircraft will in turn be completely outclassed by the late war P-47M and Spitfire XIVe at altitude.
Until you try to fly 900 miles with a 500 or 1,000lb bomb and two tanks, overwater.

It's always in the details.

KPl.

LINK-
Best Of The Breed (seek and ye shall find a turn circle datum more pleasing to your national preferences...;-)
www.geocities.com...

Can't you ever engage in adiscussion without typing unintelligible gabble or resorting to insulting the person you are speaking to or their nationality?

I answered your specific point about the turning circle of the two types and yet, in all that collection of (to this topic) irrelevant facts you still haven't proven your claim that the 109 could outturn a Spitfire. Whether certain specific conditions or operational needs or tactical considerations would make such a manouvre unnecessary or unwise is, frankly, irrelevant to the simple, direct point that the assertion is wrong.

Neither am I 'sticking up for Blighty' or however you see it. You have accused me of this before when I am simply trying to balance your own extremely over-jaundiced negative points by reporting the facts as I have come to understand them. By mentioning the feared agility of the Zero am I somehow turning Japanese? Please keep to the point.

For instance you say 'The G-2 was still more or less a decent aircraft.....'. I never said otherwise, I simply referred to its being overdeveloped and difficult to handle and that it couldn't out turn the Spitfire (of the same vintage).

Moving along, 'periodicity' is not even a word, how can you hold a discussion when you are inventing your own private language along the way? Fortunately it is easy to work out what you meant on this occasion (chronology), sadly this is not always the case.

The 109 was a machine that saw it's best years in Spain (vs. Ratas and Chaikas) was fuel beggared as much as outclassed by 1940 in both France and over Britain

Almost right, the French had no fighter that was the operational better of the 109, in broad terms the best France had (Bloch 152) fitted in somewhere between the Spitfire and Hurricane in overall ability but was only available in minute numbers, Frances other fighters were well outclassed and out of date. Even so this is relevant to the turning circle argument, how?

(skips a load of correct but not entirely relevant facts)

in BoB yes

This is my fault I think. Galland was talking about his combat experiences during the whole war in this documentary as well as his role as advisor on the movie (and the falling outs he had) when he said the 'never get in a turning fight with a Spitfire' bit, not just the BoB. He even made mention of how things were better for the Luftwaffe fighter pilots when it was the RAF who were crossing the channel to fight over France, as you said. It is contained on the DVD of the movie called 'Battle of Britain' as an extra feature, I didn't really make this plain.

Because you are bombing the crap out of his airfield support structure and the morons in Fighter Command are doing nothing to change this.

This is an example of you being offensive, and for no good reason as it is a pointless and nonsensical statement. What were they to do? Move the airfields? Aircraft were already dispersed as much as possible, fighters were scrambled ASAP, What do you think was going on? On second thoughts don't answer that one.

Well /duhhh/......

Yes? And?

what is the point in illustrating what a variant almost a year and a half later in evolution could do? It sounds an awful lot like Brit Inferiority Complex accidently tripped the breaker here Waynos.

It was the best comparison to hand at the time and in fact, as you point out, installing the Griffon made a mess of the Spits previously fine handling so it is very relevant as the G was much closer to the turning capability of the F than the XIV was to the V (and not in a good way) as, again as you say, by then it was all about speed and firepower, not turning. As for the last sentence above, again, it was unnecessary and extremely wide ofg the mark. If you read my posts at all you must surely realise that I am perfectly willing to lay into flawed decisions and poor equipment whatever the nationality (my recent posts on the Defiant and Wyvern, both British, for example) so you are barking up the wrong tree there. Its nothing to do with nationality, its just that I don't accept your view in this matter.

And now a mystery, what were you trying to say with this next quote? I don't know what you are referring to;

The P-38 lost whatever chance it had when some nutjob in a Spit mistook a C-54 for an FW-200

Moving on;

Turning Circle The Spitfire easily (my emphasis) out turns the 109 in either direction.
>>

If it doesn't have altitude and airspeed combinants attached, it's pointless. If the Spitfire XIV outturns the Me-109G at all altitudes, it's pretty much proof positive that the 109G is of an earlier generation

I realise its a bare statement but it is a quote from an official report summary, in any case it is pretty self evident what is being said, don't forget also that the G was used as a comparison because (a) that's what was captured and (b) there were large numbers of 'G's still in front line service on the other side so the comparison was relevant, however I accept that you were specifically talking about 1941, not 1943.

conclusion The Spitfire is superior to the 109 in every respect except initial dive speed which adavantage is quickly closed by the Spitfire if the dive is held
>>

The sadness here being yet another 'well knowner' that you are blatantly ignoring. The Spitfire and the Me-109 have similar ranges. Because they were originally both designed as light PDI aircraft not longrange OCA/escort planes. Combat radius being measured in minutes, about 60 for the 109 or 90 with a centerline tank and roughly 20 minutes more for the Spit (at least before the thirsty Griffon). Thus you HAVE TO compare the Gustav (or Kurfust to be completely fair) with the Mk.XIV because it's hard to get the two together in any other definitive way once 1942 rolls on and it's all Eastern Front + Reich's Defense (France is a yielded void of German air supremacy and the Low Countries are hard to reach). Until after we come back onto the Continent in 1944. British Mk.IX's in the crucial 1943 period were little more than recovery escorts, they had to push hard to get to a Paris/Brussels radial arc terminator.

And yet there is not one single thing in that answer that relates directly to the point of mine it seems to have been written in response to? And then we toddle off into the world of F-16's and F-15's!!!! This is now looking like a deliberate attempt to subdue my opinion by sheer wordcount, as per.

And now, in answer to my point about the Hurricanes success in the BoB;

How many Spits had working cannons in BOB?

Er, about the same number as there were Hurricanes with cannon, ie none. Both types were armed with the same Browning .303 machine guns except for a single trials Hurricane, L1750, which flew on a ccouple of combat sorties with two Hispano cannon. The first cannon armed version to reach the squadrons was the IIC which entered service with 3 Sqn in April 1941.

The notion you also cling to that the Hurricane only fought the bombers is a long standing myth, to quote 'Ginger' Lacey, "Thats how it was supposed to hhappen, but once the sh*t hit the fan any such plans went out of the window and it was everyone versus everyone".

One final quote, this time from F K Mason.

The Hawker Hurricane was never at any time during the second world war the fastest fighter in the RAF. It was, however, frequently the best British fighter available, arriving in many theatres months, if not years, before the first Spitfires. This accounts for the remarkable statistic that, of all enemy aircraft, German, Italian and Japanese, shot down by the RAF, RN and Commonwealth pilots added together, 55% fell to the pilots of Hurricanes, 33% to Spitfire pilots and 12% to the pilots of all other operational types.

Look, I'm not disputing that the Hurricane was outdated fairly quickly, but I utterly refute your seeming assertion that it was a complete turkey.








[edit on 26-1-2006 by waynos]

Originally posted by waynos
Can't you ever engage in adiscussion without typing unintelligible gabble or resorting to insulting the person you are speaking to or their nationality?

Look, I'm not disputing that the Hurricane was outdated fairly quickly, but I utterly refute your seeming assertion that it was a complete turkey.

Hear, flipping hear...

And what was all that crap about Fighter Command and some sad, desperate effort to remember the glories of the Empire?

Originally posted by ch1466

OTOH, twice round a circle over SE England and you're going home or swimming. Whereas slashing passes could be made good on the zoom and _who cares_ if the threat survives, so long as it's effectively stiff armed. Because you are bombing the crap out of his airfield support structure and the morons in Fighter Command are doing nothing to change this.

Huh? Do you know anything about the BoB?

Dowding and Park were proven to be totally correct in their strategic and tactical decision making.

Leigh-Mallory and Bader were proven to be ego-driven media hogs whose ideas could not be put into practice.

>>
conclusion The Spitfire is superior to the 109 in every respect except initial dive speed which adavantage is quickly closed by the Spitfire if the dive is held
>>

The sadness here being yet another 'well knowner' that you are blatantly ignoring. The Spitfire and the Me-109 have similar ranges.

What have ranges got to do with anything mentioned here? The dive problem was injection vs carbuerration, simple.

and as for this...

Of course _by 1941_, Germans were knee deep in Russia instead of sipping English tea like they should have (whether that be in High Street or Alexandria's Windsor I leave up to you) if they wanted to avoid Hitler's two front economic disaster.

What?

Even if the RAF had been destroyed the RN would have destroyed any German invasion fleet, because the Germans had no invasion fleet. They were hastily commandeering barges to transport troops across the Channel. The Fallshirmjager would have landed with no support amidst a 100% hostile population. The Kreigsmarine was never in any position to do anything to the RN in 1940 and the Luftwaffe didn't have the capability to sink all its ships, even if they were crammed in the Channel hunting canal barges.

The Brits didn't win BOB, the Germans lost.

Right. The Vietnamese didn't win their war, the US lost it....

Considering the number of heavy guns you had to site around the key 11 Grp and Industrial targets vs. those which you /wasted/ on London.

Uh-huh, protecting the administrative hub of the entire Empire is a waste, huh? How about the War Cabinet? The Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock?

Considering the Me-109 couldn't stay with the bombers as they made their way up-Thames. Considering the /weather/ on several key days. Considering the state of radar technology.

You mean Chain Home and Chain Home Low? The very tools that guaranteed a British Victory...

Considering the utter stupidity of the Norwegian basing scheme.

The Brits had been there once, what's to stop them coming back?

Considering the lack of correct (even PreWar mapped) data on 'just exactly which are the CC airfields anyway?'.

Uh-huh, which ones are RAF and which ones are RAuxAF and which ones are flying clubs? Which ones are FAA?

Originally posted by ch1466
HRIV,

But I prefer Browns comparisons in _Duels In The Sky_ whereby he characterizes the Me-109F as _the best_ fighter in the world, bar none, for 1941.

Uh-huh, you know which year the BoB was, huh?

Given that I was talking about Hurricane destroying more Luftwaffe aircraft in BoB than anything else, why would you choose to disprove my statement by bringing up a plane that didn't yet exist and then extolling its virtues vs its previous model, which you point out was full of vices?

Makes no sense.

Just spotted another mistake, ch1466. Although Griffon powered it was not the Spitfire XIV that was completely redesigned, as you said, that was the post war XX series (F.21 - F.24 etc up to Seafire FR.47. The final version to use the 'classic Mitchell wing' being the F.XVIII which entered service in 1946., the F.XII (first Griffon powered model) to F.XVIII had an extra radiator, repositioned intercooler, strenghtened undercarriage and broader fin and a 2ft extension to the nose, but no major structural changes from the Merlin models. The F.21 however represented a complete redesign of the internal structure and this and all subsequent Spits are characterised by the reshaped eliiptical wing with its slightly squared tip.

HR,

>>
Huh? Do you know anything about the BoB?
>>

More than you. Because I don't look at it with Winning Winnie's Pooh Bah view of '1940, everytime...'.

The relevance of radius is _simple_. You can bounce a 109E3 /anywhere/ between France and The White Cliffs and _mission kill_ it's ability to function as an escort. Because once it throttles up, it had better fight well, because it will then be going home. This was a known, from both sides, long before the battle.

>>
Dowding and Park were proven to be totally correct in their strategic and tactical decision making.
>>

You cannot be 'proven correct' unless your ideas are carried over INTO successfully prosecuted strategies.

As such, in combination with the above and the vast numeric inequality, it becomes OBVIOUS that you _cannot_. MUST NOT. Bleed for dirt.

Since it was Park's and Dowding's duty to conserve DCA assets while formulating a strategy that allowed them to _break up the effectiveness_ of German raids. As a function of psychology of assumed air superiority, /whatever/ the bomb count.

And since it was further _utterly_ impossible to defend the CH stations.

They completely blew it when it came time to fight the battle because their system of mad scrambles, whether by one or a dozen squadrons, simply emptied their reserves without breaking up the escort force that made the bombers truly effective.

If the Luftwaffe had linearized (streamed) their raids, split their strike pacakges hi-low, or simply attacked ONE target, repeatedly, until dead. The RAF could have done NOTHING to stop them from achieving virtually uncontested aerial supremacy, which would have led to invasion and the /morale/ conditions by which Winnie's speeches about fields and hills come to sound just like Hitler's later did.

There are three occasions to bleed: Lives. Time. Victory.

Lives gets people across the Channel, perversely it also gives your warriors a break as the greater mass of Londoners die so that they may regroup. Time buys you a chance to see a change in conditions, whether planned or otherwise. Victory is when you can see the end in sight and The Few must pave the way to victory of The Many. On a road of corpses.

The sadness here being that if Britain had stuck with the plan in Belgium, she might have held a foothold on the Continent or at least have had evac conditions from a REAL PORT. While Time is nothing if you do not exploit it with OCA of your own to throw back the enemy where they sit, 80% of their days, on French Fields. And Victory was /never/ fought for. So much as defeat staved off until the Germans made the mistakes that let them lose. Not the British win.

Bleeding for dirt is synonomous with bleeding for nothing on the STUPID SCALE.

>>
Leigh-Mallory and Bader were proven to be ego-driven media hogs whose ideas could not be put into practice.
>>

They are tactical leaders whose only appeal to the young turks in their charge is there go-get'emness. It is up to the wiser heads to see through the BS and understand that BOTH were right.

You needed a QRA force which could land and take off from the hundreds of available road strips, farmers fields and whatever else had to be taken up into government service. Because these smaller units would be simple to mass and simple to recover (Tingaling and Fire Beacons) and in just a few numbers, launched immediately upon CH or forward (high altitude, recce configured) raid warning, brought to height over the Channel, and descended upon the escorts like ravening wolves in 1PHA tactics that then further took them down to RN flak lanes and back over the coast.

Let them burn the CC and FC strips. They are unsaveable and /unworthy of being saved/ but for the SOC/IOCs. Let London burn, you cannot hide it. You cannot pretend that you can defend it. Concentrate on fuel killing the Luftwaffe escorts.

THEN you bring in your secondary 'Big Wing' (streaming attacks with Marshals just shy of the raid return path) units from 'across the river'. And get your 10-20% raid attrition KNOWING that the majority of German bombers had ineffective tail coverage and KNOWING that you don't have to make snapshot passes as there IS NO escort to worry about as you saddle up.

And then you chase home whatever is left with Bomber Command. Day. Night. Dawn. Dusk. As they land. As they are maintained. As they are about to take off. Always varied but always looking to destroy the precious German sense of order and sequence to events so that they /understand/ that they are completely outclassed by an opponent that runs them like dogs.

Giving the Germans no rest, no hope, no /belief/ in victory. And no TIME to adjust their tactics to meet what they see of British ones.

THAT is how you defeat an enemy air doctrine.

Not the utter BS that was "Well maybe if we keep trying the same ol' way..." they won't shag our women standing whilst atop our brave corpses.

>>
What have ranges got to do with anything mentioned here? The dive problem was injection vs carbuerration, simple.
>>

Because the Me-109G was the Hurricane Mk.II/IV of the series. A dedicated bomber killer and high altitude airframe which gave up all the handling factors that made it a worthwhile _fighter_ platform. Since the only time the RAF encountered the 109F was in Rhubarbs and the like during the early phases of trying to generate Continental Air Superiority, and since you were so badly mauled that you became gutless and unwilling to commit to further casualties throughout the following YEARS of the offensive air war (recorded in the annals of the 8th where multiple bomber wings observed Spitfire _IX_ unwilling to 'come down and play', even when the Luftwaffe chased them far enough West to matter).

While, by 1943, the Germans had 'better things to do' out East and over their homeland with an airframe that STILL could not operate effectively over England but which needed to fly fully 10,000m higher than it did in 1941.

So you are left comparing the Mk.XIVe with the Me-109G? as a snide way of saying "But, look when we finally got there, we ruled a 1942 airframe design metric with a 1944 one!".

Which is utterly bogus and you know it. Simply because an Me-109F (a 1940-41 learning curve design) would have again been a superior _fighter_ platform at low/medium altitudes in 1944/45, when the fighters and medium bombers were roaming at will over Germany. Than the 109G ever was as a 1942-43 machine. How ironic that you seemingly have no problem 'accepting my acceptance' of the fact that _against a Mk.XIV_ it wouldn't have made a difference either way!

>>
Even if the RAF had been destroyed the RN would have destroyed any German invasion fleet, because the Germans had no invasion fleet.
>>

And you are wrong again. Ever hear of the Wilhelm Gustloff? How about the Berlin? The Europa? The Goya? These are ships which could, over short ranges, ferry 20,000 soldiers. Before dumping them out the side of 'assault door' rigged debussing planks onto those very same barges. Even if it was as nothing more than a temporary pier to a beached sacrifice.

With no effective carrier assets to cover her PT, Destroyer and Cruiser flotillas in Portsmouth and along the Tramline the RN could not effectively fight against this because they could not effectively REACH THE BATTLE without being interdicted, massively, by the Luftwaffe (just look at the multiple battleships and carriers you lost in the Med trying to resupply Malta if you don't believe me).

With Scapa Flow /deliberately/ days from the battle, the Luftwaffe, uncontested by the RAF. And naval assets picked up from the low countries acting as nothing more than minesweepers.

They only need make sure a naval landing force survives once to put a suffciently large force sufficient into a beachhead.

After which they, can go right back to interdicting the heavy guns which would be needed to dislodge the (now well inshore) 'beachhead' with the effectiveness of mines in channelizing assets through very small chokes. Using the 'other half' of the bloody air force transfered out of Norway.

What's more, a shattered UK air defense would have merely upped the likelihood of Winnie's propoganda campaign being seen for what it was as pro-Nazi elements in Parliament and the Royals decided to 'take things quietly in hand'. And out of his.

Because the best propoganda in the world is victory and the Germans were already seen as supermen, losing only adds to the predominant fear that, 'maybe they really were' (unfightable).

>>
They were hastily commandeering barges to transport troops across the Channel. The Fallshirmjager would have landed with no support amidst a 100% hostile population. The Kreigsmarine was never in any position to do anything to the RN in 1940 and the Luftwaffe didn't have the capability to sink all its ships, even if they were crammed in the Channel hunting canal barges.
>>

And for all this, BC lost almost 30% of it's assets destroying less than ten percent of an plank-and-timber invasion fleet that had NOTHING to do with winning the _Battle Of Britain_. An event that could only be determined by the outcome of the quest for air supremacy.

Just look to Iraq for what happens when a small-craft fleet decides to take on an air force in litoral waters. Then realize that in the /very minute/ that Winnie The Pooh Bah was ending his speech about fighting the Germans as a civillian militia with NO heavy or mobile weapons; an He-115 seaplane was putting a torpedo into the side of The Black Swan. In Portsmouth harbor.

No small craft. No ability to inflict heavy losses on a one-crossing sacrificial landing force.

Don't pretend that being an islander makes you better when you have been invaded by conquering Continentals since time immemorial. Don't pretend that being caucasian 'but not Teutonic' makes you more able to defeat a _mindset_ of uncertainty than the Japanese. When the very act of defiance is the psychological indicator of inchoate terror just beneath.

If the RAF had lost the battle for air supremacy (uncontested vs. ineffectively contested air ops), the British would have folded.

Because their leadership could not put the guns and the heavy weapons behind the smile of their brave words about 'never surrendering'. And because London was in the wrong place. And because, though Winning Winnie might well have unleashed anthrax as a spoiling tactic, it would have been as nothing compared to the chem weapons that the Brit populace would have faced from the Germans _preemptively_, had they given the slightest resistance. And don't tell me about everyone wearing little satchels either, because I know how hard it is to be competent in MOPP with modern logistics and training available. And I know what Phosgene does to skin even tangentially exposed through clothing.

>>
Right. The Vietnamese didn't win their war, the US lost it....
>>

The difference being, 'we were winning when we _left_'. Had the Viets lost another massive offensive on the order of Easter-becomes-Christmas, had _we kept our word_ to go back, it would have been The North who faced insurrection as much as another round of 'Lies In Paris'. Their own populace called The South 'the dying place' and their yearly quota of volunteers to go there had succeeded in bringing a subsistence agriculture to the point of ruin.

OTOH, YOU HAD NO PLACE LEFT TO RUN _TO_.

Which means you had better not count on an enemy to make mistakes you fail to tiger-trap engineer the circumstances of his falling into.

>>
Uh-huh, protecting the administrative hub of the entire Empire is a waste, huh? How about the War Cabinet? The Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock?
>>

How about the 4 million people there who should not have been? You KNEW, from Poland and Belgium, what the Germans were capable of. You KNEW IT and yet you did /nothing/ beyond putting stupid civillians in self-built 'crematoriums' had the firebombing been worse or gas been used en-masse. The Capital can be rebuilt because IT IS NOT 'The Empire'. The War Cabinet can be moved. If the Germans had come ashore, you would have been /dead/ as a nation, small arms be damned.

If you lose the battle for Air Superiority (note, you only have to keep the fight going, it's the Germans who have to smash you completely) you have lost the damn war.

If, to win that battle, you have to sacrifice London, then you OWE IT TO YOUR OWN PEOPLE to give them the reasons why their protectors are leaving. So that you can do it quickly and with purpose rather than as a functional consequence of attrition. If you trust them. If you 'believe' in their fighting spirit. Give them the truth that they might understand that this is JUST _the dirt_. Not the victory of a battle that is being abandoned.

You then also owe it to them to provide their own exit if they have friends or family to take them.

Truth be told, Winning Winnie was terrified of his own people's reactions and this fascinated him. So much so that he sold the big lie, as often as he could, like a gambler addicted to losing his last bet by making ever bigger ones. He then had the gall to 'walk among the ashes', daring someone to shoot him as Londoners realized what they had bought themselves listening to his broadcasts without connecting the dots as to what it meant for the /other side/.

It's just a shoddy miracle that no one did put a cap in his nether regions.

>>
You mean Chain Home and Chain Home Low? The very tools that guaranteed a British Victory...
>>

I mean the Observer Corps which took over as soon as the bombers crossed the Brit coast because you had next to no look back. I mean giant acoustic trackers that didn't work through the muffling of overcast that is 'blightey'. I mean British fighters continually vectored late and off course, under altitude, to bar-brawl with an enemy which they should have been stalking with the precision of hunters and slaughtering with the efficiency of an abatoir.

I mean the radar station which was obliterated on Adler Tag and the two others crippled. DAY 1, RAID 1 of the campaign.

I mean the three low altitude raids which virtually /levelled/ Kenley and the one on Biggin Hill.

If you are left trying to sustain the damage of an enemy's attack against the very asset which is mounting the defense, while doing NOTHING to stop further raids beyond refusing to lie down, your entire battle plan is flawed.

>>
The Brits had been there once, what's to stop them coming back?
>>

Who cares? You fight the war at hand. In July 1940, that has NOTHING to do with Norway! I would rather take on 11 and 12 group /together/, provided the RAF stupidly uses MOB tactics and late-launch, than halve my effective sortie count putting all of the North Country and 'parts of Scotland' at risk.

>>
Uh-huh, which ones are RAF and which ones are RAuxAF and which ones are flying clubs? Which ones are FAA?
>>

Even if you cannot HUMINT your way into determining this (and the maps were quite detailed so finding the fields at least was simple), prewar; you should be running high/lo strike recce on a continual basis. Because the BDA difference between hitting a target twice because you screwed up the first time and NOT hitting another target because you think you have to go back. Is Zero. Gutting an airforce is like sinking an inflateable dingy. You stab a hole in it and the air starts to come out. You use the predictability of that hole to make another one and _the water starts to come in_. At which point you simply widen the salient until the enemy has to come a long ways over airspace that you control, just to link up with the rest of their forces and try to cover the gaping wound as the sharks swim IN the boat to get the rest of them.


CONCLUSION:
Stop looking at your 'greatest moment' through the rosey eyed glasses of a victor. Vae Victis syndrome is the surest way I know to assure 'historical diversity' by making the other guy the (hungrier, humbler) victor /next time/.



KPl.

ch, or KPI, whichever you prefer...

Your posts here have become nothing more than an anti-British tirade. Anti-British products, anti-British leaders, anti-British anything. It seems that you are the world's greatest armchair general, continually telling us all exactly where the political and military leaders of history went wrong...and always bringing in every red herring you can catch in your incredibly wide net.

What does range have to do with dive speed?

Answer: Nothing. Just one more of your red herrings...

Waynos may be a Brit and proud of it, I'm an Aussie and even prouder of it, suggest you check who you're debating with in the future.

So, the government of Great Britian should have let London burn and simply told the people that defending them was, well, inefficient under the terms of economic rationalism?

Clearly you come from a family, people and nation that have never sustained a long-term home front casualty list...

Is it just that Winston's command of the King's English was so far in excess of your own that leads you to denigrate him so much?

Oh, right, you were winning VN when you left...Try another one, statistics don't make a reality, they're just numbers and numbers only tell half a story. You had ten years to make a difference in VN and you did nothing except to exacerbate the problems, guaranteeing your own defeat.

The RN had the greatest force of destroyers on earth in 1939/40, it had the largest force of cruisers, it had KGV battlewagons going into commission, it had MTB and MTG boats, it had carriers and unlike the Germans on D-Day, it had the numbers, even if the RAF lost the battle, to do real damage.

Malta is no comparison, days of unrelenting aerial attacks on a force with no enemy in sight, not the english Channel full of comandeered barges and small ships wallowing across the Channel in an effort to put a non-amphibious force on a hostile shore. The Germans had no experience in the kind of combined ops required to invade across the Channel, Norway was a campaign on the fly against unprepared forces, the Brits had already successfully landed and evacuated three expeditionary forces by Adlertag. the Germans were hoping to "reverse-engineer" Dunkirk.

Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV
ch, or KPI, whichever you prefer...

Your posts here have become nothing more than an anti-British tirade. Anti-British products, anti-British leaders, anti-British anything. It seems that you are the world's greatest armchair general, continually telling us all exactly where the political and military leaders of history went wrong...and always bringing in every red herring you can catch in your incredibly wide net.

What does range have to do with dive speed?

Answer: Nothing. Just one more of your red herrings...

Waynos may be a Brit and proud of it, I'm an Aussie and even prouder of it, suggest you check who you're debating with in the future.

So, the government of Great Britian should have let London burn and simply told the people that defending them was, well, inefficient under the terms of economic rationalism?

Clearly you come from a family, people and nation that have never sustained a long-term home front casualty list...

Is it just that Winston's command of the King's English was so far in excess of your own that leads you to denigrate him so much?

Oh, right, you were winning VN when you left...Try another one, statistics don't make a reality, they're just numbers and numbers only tell half a story. You had ten years to make a difference in VN and you did nothing except to exacerbate the problems, guaranteeing your own defeat.

The RN had the greatest force of destroyers on earth in 1939/40, it had the largest force of cruisers, it had KGV battlewagons going into commission, it had MTB and MTG boats, it had carriers and unlike the Germans on D-Day, it had the numbers, even if the RAF lost the battle, to do real damage.

Malta is no comparison, days of unrelenting aerial attacks on a force with no enemy in sight, not the english Channel full of comandeered barges and small ships wallowing across the Channel in an effort to put a non-amphibious force on a hostile shore. The Germans had no experience in the kind of combined ops required to invade across the Channel, Norway was a campaign on the fly against unprepared forces, the Brits had already successfully landed and evacuated three expeditionary forces by Adlertag. the Germans were hoping to "reverse-engineer" Dunkirk.

I agree , the royal navy would have significantly posed a threat to the germans the luftwaffe had at that time a poor to say the least record against the royal navy,39 RN destroyers were present at the evacuation at dunkirk,a quick search indicates that just 6 were sunk , 6 with almost total air supiriority against ships in shallow water desperate to help the thousands of stranded BEF troops , sitting ducks for the mighty luftwaffe, not good strike rate? Im not saying that the RN would have been able to deploy all of its regional assets at once but as was the conclusion of the sandhurst wargames of 1974 the German invasion force would surely have been eventually been cut off from resupply.

Any German invasion would have been too dependant on the Luftwaffe they would have to have been evey where winning every thing acting as air
support for the army , suppressing the RN ,preventing British Reinforcements from getting to the landing sites dealing with any remaining RAF units , they would have been overwhelmed.they would have had to win every thing where as if just a few of the home fleet ships of the RN had got amongst the poorly equiped amphibious fleet they would have been mullared, surely that cant be denied?

Anyhoo I thought this thread was supposed to be about piston aircraft why does that obviously anti british kpi keep bringing up other stuff. the victor should reserve the right to look back on their victory however they want too


[edit on 27-1-2006 by buckaroo]

[edit on 27-1-2006 by buckaroo]

I won't bother deconstructing that last rant because Howlrunners response summed it up very succinctly, and he's not even British so his has the benefit of being an impartial stance.

KPI, you always accuse me, and others, of having this blind, rosey eyed worship of all things British. This is absolutely stupid, you think because we argue with you it is through national pride, Howlrunner is Australian!

I suggest that it is the exact opposite and that you demonstrate repeatedly on these boards an anti-British arttitude that seems to be quite deep seated to the point where rational argument is overshadowed by vitriol every time.

Referring to 'Winnie the Pooh', 'morons in Fighter Command' 'stupid civilians' etc betrays a real contempt and if you think you are being the voice of reason here then I suggest you think again. Idiotic name calling does not an argument make. In fact it most likely detracts from what you are trying to say because it is so loaded with 'attitude'.

The notion that all the inhabitants of London be moved out (and all the industry and administrative institutions with them) in order to allow the Germans to bomb it as some sort of trap is the biggest pile of crap I've ever seen you post. It is straight out of the realms of fantasy with no appreciation of real life whatsoever. This is not the only steaming turd in that post but it is by far the biggest.

Originally posted by waynos
I won't bother deconstructing that last rant because Howlrunners response summed it up very succinctly, and he's not even British so his has the benefit of being an impartial stance.

Impartial? Him? I can go show you how he feels about the Chinese in general if you cared to see it. Lets just say there are few people in the world who should bother using the word "impartial" or "objective" and he aint one of those.

I can see your very well informed on the specifics of airplanes and so forth so you have VERY little reason to aim low blows. If you keep at that you will either show up all his errors or learn something yourself. Either options serves the community far better than your current strategy...

KPI, you always accuse me, and others, of having this blind, rosey eyed worship of all things British. This is absolutely stupid, you think because we argue with you it is through national pride, Howlrunner is Australian!

Well their part of the commonwealth/empire so i am kinda wondering how that makes him impartial in your eyes. Ch tends to show up ignorence in others ( real easy when you know as much as he does) and they love seeing this as some kind of attack on X nationality wich i have never seen it to be.

I suggest that it is the exact opposite and that you demonstrate repeatedly on these boards an anti-British arttitude that seems to be quite deep seated to the point where rational argument is overshadowed by vitriol every time.

I have been reading many dozens of his posts over the last two weeks( i search for them) and i can tell you your not only wrong but know it. If this is the way your going to try "retreat" from a lost cause you should probably not get involved in them.

Referring to 'Winnie the Pooh', 'morons in Fighter Command' 'stupid civilians' etc betrays a real contempt and if you think you are being the voice of reason here then I suggest you think again.

In my humble ( kidding) opinion his the closest to a voice of reason your going to find on this section of the forum.

Idiotic name calling does not an argument make. In fact it most likely detracts from what you are trying to say because it is so loaded with 'attitude'.

It can only dectract from what he said if your looking for a reason to get distracted.

The notion that all the inhabitants of London be moved out (and all the industry and administrative institutions with them) in order to allow the Germans to bomb it as some sort of trap is the biggest pile of crap I've ever seen you post.

The Russians never burned Moscow to the ground, right?

Stellar

[edit on 3-2-2006 by StellarX]

I typed several rebuttals to your points but chose to delete them again because Buckaroo was right, this has gone too far off topic and this arguing serves no purpose, as you said, so I will not get involved in one with you (unless its about something specifically to do with aircraft).

However I made one wrong call back there that I will retract. I accused KPI of being anti British, I now see across several threads that he shows almost equal disdain for almost everyone so I recognise nationality was never an issue.


One small correction if I may, detracting from what has been said is not the same as distracting, so you appear to have misunderstood that point. It simply means the message is cheapened, not hidden. I recognise KPI's vast breadth of knowledge, but it doesn't mean he is right all the time. He has corrected me previously, in other threads, and I recognise that, but not, I'm afraid, on this occasion.

I hope we can put this to bed now and the next post to appear will show us some more relevant information.

[edit on 3-2-2006 by waynos]

Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV
Your posts here have become nothing more than an anti-British tirade. Anti-British products, anti-British leaders, anti-British anything.

His calls stupid stupid and if that irks you stick around as i love doing it myself.

It seems that you are the world's greatest armchair general, continually telling us all exactly where the political and military leaders of history went wrong...and always bringing in every red herring you can catch in your incredibly wide net.

I am the worlds greatest armchair general but i would hire him for sure.

Waynos may be a Brit and proud of it, I'm an Aussie and even prouder of it, suggest you check who you're debating with in the future.

Nationalistic rambling is not going to help you here.

So, the government of Great Britian should have let London burn and simply told the people that defending them was, well, inefficient under the terms of economic rationalism?

Well mabye Churchille should not have invited general attacks upon London by ordering a general strike against Berlin. He did it hoping against hopes that Hitler would take the bait and respond in kind thus saving Fighter command from "destruction".

Clearly you come from a family, people and nation that have never sustained a long-term home front casualty list...

And you talk about red herrings?

Is it just that Winston's command of the King's English was so far in excess of your own that leads you to denigrate him so much?

Why should people not denigrate a drunk who were rarely sober while trying to "save the nation"? Winston would not have minded the criticism as he got it from the english press/house every day of the week for the duration of the war.

Oh, right, you were winning VN when you left...Try another one, statistics don't make a reality, they're just numbers and numbers only tell half a story. You had ten years to make a difference in VN and you did nothing except to exacerbate the problems, guaranteeing your own defeat.

The US never did lose in Vietnam anymore than the USSR lost in Afghanistan. Politicians make choices and prevent fighting men from getting the job done as they are ideally trained to do. Both countries may have "beaten off" their respective invaders but at that cost one wonders if the survivors had energy left to celebrate.

The RN had the greatest force of destroyers on earth in 1939/40, it had the largest force of cruisers, it had KGV battlewagons going into commission, it had MTB and MTG boats, it had carriers and unlike the Germans on D-Day, it had the numbers, even if the RAF lost the battle, to do real damage.

Well i for one believe that had they gotten air superiority the RN could not have prevented a beached from being established and maintained. That is however speculative and one wonders if the RN would have been sacrificed in such a pointless gesture ( it's easier to build troop ferries than destroyers) when there was always the option to retire to Canada and continue the fight from there. Sinking for dirt ( I had to adapt it a little bit) is not the way to maintain the empire.

Malta is no comparison, days of unrelenting aerial attacks on a force with no enemy in sight, not the english Channel full of comandeered barges and small ships wallowing across the Channel in an effort to put a non-amphibious force on a hostile shore.

Under cover of numerous German coastal torpedo/other craft and the full might of the Luftwaffe? Well one can only speculate and i made my opinion clear earlier.

The Germans had no experience in the kind of combined ops required to invade across the Channel, Norway was a campaign on the fly against unprepared forces,

It was a absolutely brilliant campaign so full of risks that i do not even know where to start. Fighter pilots capturing airfields with service pistols and what not else. The Germans could adapt whatever and learn on the fly whatever has been claimed about their need for dozens of contigency plans to battle their apparent lack of creativity. That fact would be proved time and time again for many many more years.

the Brits had already successfully landed and evacuated three expeditionary forces by Adlertag. the Germans were hoping to "reverse-engineer" Dunkirk.

The British disaster in Norway i will rather not talk about for fear of being called anti-British.

Churchille had choice words to say about the commander of the British forces ,wich managed to fail against some odds, wich were supposed to retake Narvik. In all Norway showed clearly what would happen to British forces again and again when meeting German forces in the near future.

Stellar

Originally posted by waynos
I typed several rebuttals to your points but chose to delete them again because Buckaroo was right, this has gone too far off topic and this arguing serves no purpose, as you said, so I will not get involved in one with you (unless its about something specifically to do with aircraft).

Well i tend to think arguing with the intent to learn is never a bad thing and it almost always serves a purpose however convoluted the process. I would like to imagine that i know what i dont know and i dont think i could teach you anything about second world war airplanes...

I now see across several threads that he shows almost equal disdain for almost everyone so I recognise nationality was never an issue.

Cant say he spared me either but i know when to shut up, take the punishment, and learn as much as i can while getting beaten .

One small correction if I may, detracting from what has been said is not the same as distracting, so you appear to have misunderstood that point. It simply means the message is cheapened, not hidden. I recognise KPI's vast breadth of knowledge, but it doesn't mean he is right all the time.

I stand corrected then!

He has corrected me previously, in other threads, and I recognise that, but not, I'm afraid, on this occasion.

I wish i happened to be qualified to judge but i am going to stick to my guns and just defend his right to make the , imo, accurate claims he does without being attacked for being some kind of anti-X. Been there and would rather defend everyone than end up battling the rabble all alone.

I hope we can put this to bed now and the next post to appear will show us some more relevant information.

Well i have never been dissapointed thus far and i am happy moving on to some of his others posts i have bookmarked. If i catch him slipping up (In my knowledge at least) i will certainly feel better but i am not getting my hopes up and neither should you imo.

Stellar

[edit on 3-2-2006 by StellarX]

Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV
ch, or KPI, whichever you prefer...

Your posts here have become nothing more than an anti-British tirade. Anti-British products, anti-British leaders, anti-British anything. It seems that you are the world's greatest armchair general, continually telling us all exactly where the political and military leaders of history went wrong...and always bringing in every red herring you can catch in your incredibly wide net.

What does range have to do with dive speed?



Answer: Nothing. Just one more of your red herrings...

Waynos may be a Brit and proud of it, I'm an Aussie and even prouder of it, suggest you check who you're debating with in the future.

So, the government of Great Britian should have let London burn and simply told the people that defending them was, well, inefficient under the terms of economic rationalism?

Clearly you come from a family, people and nation that have never sustained a long-term home front casualty list...

Is it just that Winston's command of the King's English was so far in excess of your own that leads you to denigrate him so much?

Agree and I'm an AUSSIE to.

Wasnt this about Fastest Piston Aircraft.

[edit on 4-2-2006 by Jezza]

[edit on 4-2-2006 by Jezza]

Really shouldn't be doing this...

Originally posted by StellarX

Originally posted by HowlrunnerIV
Your posts here have become nothing more than an anti-British tirade. Anti-British products, anti-British leaders, anti-British anything.

His calls stupid stupid and if that irks you stick around as i love doing it myself.

He may do, but in this case he is denigrating one aircraft while describing another as FAR superior and has been shown to be false. He then attacked the conduct of the Battle of Britain, showing the victors(!) to have got it wrong. Then he used puerile insults against the only political leader who successfully defied the Nazis before 1942.

Stupid is as stupid does...

Waynos may be a Brit and proud of it, I'm an Aussie and even prouder of it, suggest you check who you're debating with in the future.

Nationalistic rambling is not going to help you here.

Perhaps you need to re-read the posts and see why I said this...just a hint, nationalistic rambling wasn't a part of it...

So, the government of Great Britian should have let London burn and simply told the people that defending them was, well, inefficient under the terms of economic rationalism?

Well mabye Churchille should not have invited general attacks upon London by ordering a general strike against Berlin. He did it hoping against hopes that Hitler would take the bait and respond in kind thus saving Fighter command from "destruction".

An attack in response to the German's bombing London. Perhaps you need to check your history...

Clearly you come from a family, people and nation that have never sustained a long-term home front casualty list...

And you talk about red herrings?

ch said London should have been left undefended from aerial attack. My point stands. Anyone who had lived through the Blitz, or has relatives who did, anyone who lived through the bombing of Rotterdam, firebombing of Hamburg etc will tell you how stupid that assertion was.

Is it just that Winston's command of the King's English was so far in excess of your own that leads you to denigrate him so much?

Why should people not denigrate a drunk who were rarely sober while trying to "save the nation"? Winston would not have minded the criticism as he got it from the english press/house every day of the week for the duration of the war.

Adolf Hitler was a teetotaller. Talk about Red Herrings...

Oh, right, you were winning VN when you left...Try another one, statistics don't make a reality, they're just numbers and numbers only tell half a story. You had ten years to make a difference in VN and you did nothing except to exacerbate the problems, guaranteeing your own defeat.

The US never did lose in Vietnam anymore than the USSR lost in Afghanistan...

blah, blah, blah, hey, the Russians didn't lose in Chechnya a decade ago, either...

The RN had the greatest force of destroyers on earth in 1939/40, it had the largest force of cruisers, it had KGV battlewagons going into commission, it had MTB and MTG boats, it had carriers and unlike the Germans on D-Day, it had the numbers, even if the RAF lost the battle, to do real damage.

Well i for one believe that had they gotten air superiority the RN could not have prevented a beached from being established and maintained...

Already dealt with by others...

Malta is no comparison, days of unrelenting aerial attacks on a force with no enemy in sight, not the english Channel full of comandeered barges and small ships wallowing across the Channel in an effort to put a non-amphibious force on a hostile shore.

Under cover of numerous German coastal torpedo/other craft and the full might of the Luftwaffe? Well one can only speculate and i made my opinion clear earlier.

The full might of the Luftwaffe? You're joking, right? What was defending the thousand year Reich, then?

The Germans had no experience in the kind of combined ops required to invade across the Channel, Norway was a campaign on the fly against unprepared forces,

It was a absolutely brilliant campaign so full of risks that i do not even know where to start. Fighter pilots capturing airfields with service pistols and what not else. The Germans could adapt whatever and learn on the fly whatever has been claimed about their need for dozens of contigency plans to battle their apparent lack of creativity. That fact would be proved time and time again for many many more years.

MANY more years? How long do you think the war lasted? I'm sorry, but from 1943 the Germans were in retreat everywhere.

the Brits had already successfully landed and evacuated three expeditionary forces by Adlertag. the Germans were hoping to "reverse-engineer" Dunkirk.

The British disaster in Norway i will rather not talk about for fear of being called anti-British.

I said it was successfully landed and evacuated. I said nothing about the success of the campaign. Do you really think the RAF ground crews would have allowed Luftwaffe pilots carrying pistols to capture Fighter Command airfields in the UK?

Churchille had choice words to say about the commander of the British forces ,wich managed to fail against some odds, wich were supposed to retake Narvik. In all Norway showed clearly what would happen to British forces again and again when meeting German forces in the near future.

Hmm, the near future...Do you know what happened at Arras? And I thought Churchill was a drunk worthy only of scorn...