Best Battle of Britain Aircraft

[freebird]

Originally Posted by Hobilar

As mentioned before, the Bristol Beaufughter was not involved during the Battle of Britain. The first five Beaufighter IFs were handed over to the R.A.F. on July 27, 1940. These were followed on August 3rd by a further five.

No.25 and 29 Squadrons each received a single Beaufighter on September 2, 1940. No.29 Squadron becoming operational with the type on September 17, 1940 with No.25 Squadron following on October 10th.

Do you have any data on their combat from the fall/winter of '40-'41? Were they involved in any combat with Me 109's?

[HoHun]

Hi Negative,

>I wonder what would've happened if the Beaufighter was available a few months earlier? With a Spitfire escort they could've torn into bomber streams almost at will

I wonder how the Bf 110 would be rated had it flown for the RAF ... powerful cannon armament, useful loiter time to avoid the need for a last-minute scramble like the Spitfire and the Hurricane, it with an escort, it could have torn into bomber streams almost at will And with the Luftwaffe Me 109s seriously limited in combat time, disengaging from them after the attack on the bombers wouldn't be all that difficult ...

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[Hakenkreuz]

The Bf 109E was only marginally superior to the Hurricane, and the Spitfire wasfully its equal,if not its superior incertain key areas. The 109 had a higher speed at high altitude, better dive speed, and a fuel injected engine giving the 109 ability to perform neg-G manoeuvres without the engine cutting out. The Spitfire was faster at medium heights and slightly more manoeuvrable,although it could not simply dive away from an opponent, as the 109 could. The 109 had heavier armament. The 109 was easier to handle than the Spitfire thus making it better beginers aircraft and more kills. Thats why i vote for the 109. PS i`m also a Brit.

[milford maniac]

The Hurricane gets my vote every time; it was the work horse of Fighter Command. It did what it says on the tin, not elegant like the spitfire, but it did destroy more Luftwaffe aircraft, which was the whole point of the battle.

[Heinz]

For sure, the hurricane was my pick too. Though I consider it as elegent as the spitfire because the Hurricane has very clean lines in my opion.

[Hobilar]

Originally Posted by freebird

Do you have any data on their combat from the fall/winter of '40-'41? Were they involved in any combat with Me 109's?

The first of twenty Beaufighter confirmed kills was achieved by Flt. Lt. John Cunningham of No.604 Squadron on the night of 19-20 November 1940. As a radar equipped night fighter it is extremely unlikely that it would have encountered a short range Day-fighter such as a Bf.109E.

['Lil'tyger]

I WENT WITH THE "SPITFIRE" BUT THE JUNKER-88 WASN'T TO BAD EITHER

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

And you really felt like that had to be in CAPS?

[Jerry W. Loper]

Originally Posted by cheddar cheese

Which aircraft do you think was the best during the Battle of Britain?

I have a feeling the Hurricane and Spitfire will run away with this but it will still be interesting to see.

Whether by design or lucky accident, the Hurricane and Spitfire complemented each other very well in the Battle as a sort of "high-low" mix, with the Hurricane being strong on numbers but a little short on performance, and the Spitfire the opposite. Sydney Camm, the Hurricane's designer, said he could have gotten better performance from the Hurricane by tweaking it a bit, but realized that the RAF needed numbers; according to Richard J. Overy's book The Air War, 1939-45, in 1939 the RAF could produce 2.5 Hurricanes using the same number of man-hours it took to produce 1 Spitfire. For a variety of reasons, RAF's Fighter Command began sending Hurricanes after bombers and Spitfires after fighters when possible, but the Hurricane proved itself able to combat the Me-109 when necessary, which was fortunate, considering the relative number of Hurricanes, Spitfires, and Me-109s participating in the Battle.

[kool kitty89]

The main advantage of the Hurricane was that it was 2.5x as easy to produce. Would you rather have 5 Hurricanes or 2 Spitfires?


It could turn tighter than either the Spit or 109, and had better instantaneous tern rate. Sustained turn would probably be no better than the other's though, due to worse power loading and higher drag. But, importantly, the Hurricane would be abble to stay out of the 109's guns in a turn.


For survivabillity the Hurricane would be better as long as the nose tank had self sealing. W/out it that could be a very bad situation, and a hit there could splash gas back into the cockpit and with a fire would be a very unpleasant way to die. (and if you made it out with burns you'd be in a hell of alot of pain for quite a while recovering) This spot would be particularly volnerable to bomber fire.

It had a reputation of being a tough a/c that could take considerable damage to take down.

The Hurricane was much more forgiving than the Spit and much easier for a novice to fly.



If a 109 got into a turning fight with a Hurricane and both pilots knew what they were doing, the Hurricane would win or the 109 would either break off or change tactics. (though there weren't many offensive options left) The 109 would easily be able to break off in a dive, even with a realitively short one. It just wouldn't be a good idea to turnfight with the Hurricane, that was it's main performance advantage in a fight in this arena.

[claidemore]

The Hurricane had a few other advantages over the Spit besides being easier to produce. Some of this has probably been covered in earlier posts.

The eight brownings were placed in two close grouped sections of four guns, so you had two streams of bullets that were grouped closer together than in the Spitfire which had its guns spread out along the length of its wing. it also carried more ammo than the Spitfire. 2800 vs 2400.

The wing was stiffer, and the plane was more stable longitudinally, allowing more accurate shooting.

It had a slightly lower stall speed, (72mph) allowing it a smaller turn radius.

It had a better angle of view over the nose than the Spitfire.

Now for the disadvantages:

According to the manual for the Hurricane 1 with two blade prop, the max dive speed was only 380 mph, and that is pretty darn slow. With the constant speed props in use during BoB it would be higher, how much I don't know. Suffice it to say, it dived slower than a Spit, and much slower than a 109.

Top speed was also slower, 30-40 mph depending on altitude. (More powerful engines brought about greater gains in speed for a Spit than a Hurricane, one of the reasons the Spit was chosen for continued developement and the Hurri was not.)

Ceiling was lower, it struggled to engage 109s at high alt.

I don't have numbers, but I'm pretty sure the roll rate on the Hurricane was a bit poorer than the Spitfires. It's handling is described as 'gentlemanly'. It had more wing area, so all things being equal, roll rate would be slower.

Hurricanes shot down more planes during BoB than Spifires, but their kill ratio was lower, another reason the Spit was chosen as the main RAF fighter after BoB.

If we look at the number in the poll, we see that 47% of us think the advantages of the Spit outweight the advantages of the Hurricane, or the Me109.

Claidemore

[kool kitty89]

I knew that about the Hurricane. Except for the dive speed. Adding the all metal wing also should have increased max dive. I remember reading tat ~450 was the redline dive speed for the Hurricane Mk.II, though some pilots reported 500+ mph. (though these were probably due to air compressing in the pilot tube)

[B-17engineer]

I say the He-111 it was a great medium bomber. My second choice was the Hawker Hurricane

[joy17782]

Like I have said before, its hard not too pick for the best because some people Pick there favorite aircraft no matter what , the hurricane and spit were great fighters , but it clearly shows in all the info from the time and test aircraft the ME-109 was a better preformer in every way but in time over target, and this is because they had farther too fly , and because they had nuckel heads in Berlin who forgot what a fighers rule was , too be a hunter , you can come up with a thousand reasons why or why not the me 109 was not a better fighter then the huricane or spitfire , but read the data on those planes and the me _109 was a better aircraft in all ways , and the ju -88 was also very good in its rule , also something too ponder on rainy nights, the ju-87 stunka sunk more shipping then any other plane in the world , and thats a fact ,

[claidemore]

AFAIK the Ju87 didn't sink many ships after about July 1940, while the Beaufighter went on in the anti-ship strike role till the end of the war in ETO, MTO, CBI and PTO. If I get time I'll try to look up the figures on tonnage but I'd be willing to bet the Beaus sank a lot more ships than the Stuka.

The 109 enjoyed several advantages over the Hurricane, but against the Spitfire it was a pretty close match.
109 was initially faster in a dive than a Spit, and faster at some altitudes, while the Spitfires had superior speed at other altitudes. (RAF was using 100 octane fuel by the time BoB got going.) One of the problems with evaluating performance stats on Spitfire Mk1s is that the numbers listed are usually from earlier dates for 87 octane fuel and 2 speed props. Practically all the BoB Spits were using 100 octane and constant speed props, giving it much better performance.
The Spitfire had a lower stall speed than the 109, turning radius was smaller and the leading edge slats of the Emil which brought it's turn capabilities closer to those of the Spit, were troublesome to say the least.
The 109 had a better roll rate at higher speeds, but heavier elevators.
The 109 had 20mm cannon, albeit not very good ones, and I would say that was an advantage over the 8 Browning mg in either RAF fighter. By the end of BoB they were trying out two Hispano cannon in the Spits and that eventually became the standard armament for that plane.
The Spitfire was much easier for low-time pilots to fly, the 109 being a much more demanding machine that needed experten to get max performance from. Attrition to pilots was a major factor during BoB, and some Spit pilots had as little as 10 hours in Spitfires before going operational.
Range was a problem for both Spitfire and 109, causing problems for the Luftwaffe over Britain in 1940 and problems for the RAF till drop tanks became common.
It's largely a matter of preference as to which of those two fighters a person choses as best. Like I pointed out earlier, +47 % think it's the Spit.