Recent content by SpitTrop

Easy one; Had the B-17 and B-24 been able to bomb in daylight, without fighter escort, as was planned, then they would have been the best. However they couldn't, consequently the Lancaster was best because it carried a far larger bombload to the target, and its range was good also. The role...

I must admit I didn't realise this was another of those "Luftwaffe worship" sites, so I thought I'd put in a few well needed words to redress the balance a bit, and bring a touch of reality to proceedings. I used to be nuts on the Luftwaffe too, then as I got older and started researching and...

Top 3 are Typhoon, P-47 and Il-2 Shturmovik. Of the 3 the Typhoon was reckoned to have the most firepower to bring to bear on a tank; 4x20mm cannon and 8x60lb rocket projectiles. More than the broadside from a destroyer!

Hardly saw any of them did they?

This is really simple; without the Spitfire, Hurricane and radar combo in 1940, there would have been no role for the C-47! The war in the west would have been lost! The UK would have been under German rule (seems to be now with the number of BMW's and Mercs about!) so where would the allies...

With regard to the original post; Never have truer words been spoken on an aviation forum. Without this superb designer, and his rightfully acknowledged legendary fighter, along with the venerable Hurricane and radar (what a combination), WW2 would have been over in the West in 1940. The USA...

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

Brewster - I'd say that apart from the Finns, who used it against a VERY WEAK Red airforce, using obsolete biplanes like the I-153 in 1939-40, the Buffalo was not a particular success in its appointed role as a fighter in WW2. Just ask those poor RAF and USMC pilots who had to take on Oscars and...

"German aircraft design was ahead in 1939.....and 1945". Really? So how come they couldn't cope with even a narrow piece of water like the English Channel! Maybe their designers forgot to allow factors to increase range? What about their routinley inferior bombers (exception; Ju-88), and the...

The Mosquito series was in a differant class to anything else built in WW2, that is a simple fact. It was a complete multi-role combat airplane that did EVERYTHING well. It could carry the same bombload as the B-17G all the way to Berlin and back, only faster and with just two crewman aboard...

Wow - what an active forum this is, I've only been away a couple of days too! Funny enough I went to the Aeromart at Shoreham airport on Saturday, and I picked up a tatty old copy of Green's bible "Famous fighters of WW2" 1968. In it he says that "cannon-armed Spits got into combat during the...

Hello folks, my first posting! Does anybody know when the Spitfire 11B first went into operational service? The 11B was the first operational Spit armed with 2x20mm cannon, the 1B carried cannons but was not operational I believe. I'm wondering whether the 11B got into action late in 1940, or...