Battle of Britain without Hawker Hurricane; pick another fighter

[nuuumannn]

M.S.406? Hmm, even looks a bit like the Hurri, but I don't mean to burst your collective bubbles, but there is no way the Air Ministry would have contemplated buying, let alone building a French design. Dowding and Churchill would be rolling in their graves with laughter!

Was it really a British spec or a North American design with the specification retrospectively written around a private initiative?

The Mustang was built to a British requirement, not to a British specification. The British Purchasing Commission approached NAA to build P-40s under licence, so NAA designed and built the Mustang using private funding after messing about with ideas on their own initiative - and happened to design one of the best fighters of the war!

 

[Shortround6]

Shortround, I am not sure of the source of the difference in the numbers you quote, but this website would seem to imply a total constructed number of about 1,000 Hurricanes, unless I am missing something. Oh, there was apparently some foreign manufacture occurring, Could that account for the difference?

Already answered I believe.

 

[Shortround6]

I'd have to go with the Miles M.20

From what I've read it was not that bad of a plane.

maybe not but I believe it used a Merlin XX engine which didn't become available until July/Aug of 1940? which makes any use of the Miles M.20 in the BoB a rather limited affair.

 

[oldcrowcv63]

Hurricane orders and deliveries:

Block 1: 600 aircraft, delivered December 1937 - October 1939

Block 2: 300 aircraft, delivered September 1939 - May 1940

Block 1G: 500 aircraft, delivered November 1939 - April 1940 (built by Gloster)

Block 3: 544 aircraft, delivered February - July 1940

Block 1C: 40 aircraft, delivered February - August 1940 (built in Canada)

Block 2G: 100 aircraft, delivered May - July 1940 (built by Gloster)

(figures from K5083 - Aircraft Production Summary )

That's just over 2,000 Hurricanes delivered by the 20th July. Any replacement for the Hurricane needs to be available in similar numbers.

These are very impressive build totals and as shortround indicated, I would expect the production volume to be matched by any other domestic option previously mentioned and can't see a foreign design becoming available in such initial large numbers let alone having losses replaced as fast as GB's domestic industry.

It is also interesting, based on the posted url, the Gloster production rate was pretty close to that of Hawker at about 3 or so Hurricanes/day. That seems to suggest Gloster was able to match Hurricane production of a non-company airframe. This seems to suggest any of the candidate fighter designs (Vickers, MB, Gloster) might have been produced domestically by any combination of the major airframe manufacturers.

 

[buffnut453]

Bear in mind that Gloster was owned by Hawker at this time so not really "non-company". A case of "you say Pontiac, I say Saturn" perhaps...?

 

[nuuumannn]

It wasn't that simple, as Gloster was one of the firms that was slated to produce the Wellington, but this was changed to Hurricanes after the Nazi annexation of Austria.

 

[Hop]

This seems to suggest any of the candidate fighter designs (Vickers, MB, Gloster) might have been produced domestically by any combination of the major airframe manufacturers.

I think so too. A lot of the problems with Spitfire production were down to the fact that Supermarine was a small flying boat manufacturer. Hawker and Gloster were much larger and more experienced. I'd expect them to have a lot less trouble getting Spitfire production under way than Supermarine did.