Hawker Hurricane Mk. IIB vs. Grumman F4F-4 Wildcat

[bf109 Emil]

Originally Posted by renrich

Wouldn't the statistics during the BOB be skewed a bit that alledgedly the Spits were supposed to go after the 109s (far more dangerous than the bombers) and the Hurricanes were supposed to go after the bombers. An example how stats can be misleading: In the Pacific, the Hellcat had 5257 kills and only 270 losses to enemy AC, Really good ratio. The Corsair had 2155 kills and 189 losses to enemy AC. Very clear that Hellcat better than Corsair. Right? Not necessarily. On a closer look, Hellcat shot down 1445 bombers and 3718 fighters, while Corsair shot down only 478 bombers but killed 1662 fighters. Add to that the Corsair was in action several months before Hellcat in the Solomons when there were many veteran IJN pilots still around. Corsairs were proportionately much more likely to be engaged against fighters with veteran pilots than were Hellcats. Stats can be deceiving.

I believe the reason for this lower # of kills in the corsair didn't pass, or wasn't used by navy crews, but where split between the RN carriers, after the seafire, proved poor or numerous undercarriage incidents, so RN switched to corsairs, and was also used by marines, so more where lost to AA fire, in support of land based operations, or to bomb land targets...

didn't pass is a ppor wording, better with the naval procurement board used or purchased grumman aircraft, specifically desiigned for carrier operations..f2f, f4f, f6f. I know the USN carriers launched corsairs, but maybe someone can elaborate as i think these where flown by marine pilots rather then naval aviators??

bf109 Emil

[pbfoot]

Originally Posted by slaterat

Henning,

Here's another example of how flawed Bungays theory is .

As already mentioned the spits entire fuel load was carried just forward of the pilot. The fuel was carried in two seperate tanks the top one of 48 gals and the lower one of 37 gals capacity. The catch is that in spit mkI and IIs the top tank was not self sealing,the bottom one is. Check out the spit II pilots notes. So basically as far as fuel tank protection goes early spit and hurricanes are about on par, slight advantage to the cane as its reserve tank is only 28 gals compared to the spits top tank of 48 gals. So the difference in survivability, during the early part of the BoB must be due to some other factor. In any case, over the course of the entire BoB, the survivability was the same.

JoeB

I think I can speak for everyone here , and agree with you that combat assessment based solely on performance is flawed. Thats why forums like this one exist. Simply keeping a score card of K/D ratio doesn't answer all the questions either. Both historical context and combat results must certainly have a place in any evaluation of combat aircraft.

Slaterat

I don't believe the upper tank was ever self sealing I stand to be corrected but spent much time checking it out with a set of good resources

[HoHun]

Hi Joe,

>But the plane performance approach assumes that plane and other factors can be distinguished by analysis, so in fact combat results don't tell us anything we didn't already know, we already knew the plane effectiveness by analyzing the stats, any discrepancy between that analysis and the actual historical results 'must' be something else; if actual results were never brought up at all it wouldn't really affect that kind of analysis.

I wouldn't disagree with that. What you're looking for when you are doing an analysis of performance (and other engineering aspects) is really the combat potential of the aircraft, and the best tactics to turn the potential into reality.

However, I'd qualify the "wouldn't really affect" bit by saying that the evaluation of actual combat results is beneficial to check one's assumptions over what factors are important in combat. That's why I thought your post regarding the various factors like cockpit visibility for deflection shooting was a good one, even though my assessment of the impact of these points is different from yours.

Another reason to rely on combat reports is to check if the historical performance data we have is in the ballpark ... usually, "ballpark" type accuracy is the best we can hope for since combat was not really a good environment for performance measurements. For example, Kelly's account of the action over Singapore allowed this kind of reality check, and it went fairly well with the data we have on Hurricane II and A6M2.

>I simply doubt that approach, that's really all.

Hm, I think it's usefulness should be beyond doubt (remember the Shaw quote), at least when you're trying to determine combat potential of and best tactics for a type.

However, I'll admit that if you're looking at history with a different type of question in your mind, the performance analysis approach might not yield an answer at all. "Why did the F4F so well historically?" cannot be answered from an engineering analysis alone, since it combined some obvious strengths with relatively poor performance while facing an enemy with good performance (and some obvious weaknesses, too).

>I think instead that combat results *might* *suggest* to us that our combat effectiveness analysis based on performance stats *might* have holes in it. Ie. I think the large discrepancy in Hurricane and F4F combat record v early war Japanese fighters *suggests* that *maybe* a performance analysis that finds them about equal v such opponents *might* be missing something.

That's basically correct, but it can only serve to highlight the need for a detailed analysis. You pointed out these "intangible performance factors" earlier in this thread, but in my opinion, factors with an impact large enough to create the large discrepance you noted would not go unnoticed in the historical records.

With regard to the *mights*, it's important to remember that in the absence of data, we cannot decide whether an overlooked aspect of performance or a superiority in the tactics of one side is the more likely cause for what we observe. It might as well be the one as it might be the other, so all we can learn from your statement is that we should gather as much data as we can before trying to arrive at any conclusions.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[HoHun]

Hi Slaterat,

>Here's another example of how flawed Bungays theory is .

Hm, he actually suggests an alternative possibility for the Hurricane's vulnerability too, namely the wing tanks which increase the vulnerable area of the aircraft.

And he mentions a fire-proof bulkhead in front of the Spitfire pilots that the Hurricane didn't have in the early period, but were retrofitted with later.

The numbers for the early period appear to support the hypothesis of a greater vulnerability of the Hurricane, so we seem to have engineering aspects and actual combat results in agreement here.

>In any case, over the course of the entire BoB, the survivability was the same.

Do we really have numbers for the entire Battle that are comparable in focus to those provided by Bungay? I'd love to see them!

If they do indeed show equal survivability for both types over the entire Battle, that could eiother mean that the loss numbers early on are a statistical fluke, or that the retro-fitted Hurricane was much tougher than the Spitfire, making good what the unprotected variants had lost early on

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[kool kitty89]

The Mustang had most of its fuel in wing root tanks (all on early models) and the RAF regarded it as a pretty rugged a/c.

The P-40 had a fair amount of fuel in wing tanks as well iirc, and ruggedness was one of it's prominant characteristics. (moreso than the P-51 due to the "miles" of plumbing running from the engine to the radiator, opposed to the P-40's radiator directly below the engine making a much smaller target)