"Dismantling the Spitfire myth" Topic

Stumbled across an interesting argument that the Spitfire was far from a stunning success, and could have been the downfall of the RAF.

Dismantling the Spitfire myth, by Matthew Willis

link

"There are too many myths about the Supermarine Spitfire to list, but uppermost is the notion that it was in any way a war-winning weapon. In fact, it might have been a war-losing one had circumstances been different. Britain certainly didn't need it, and in some respects would have done better without it. It was not a bad aircraft so much as the wrong aircraft at the wrong time."

Controversial views? A rebuttal has been posted here:

Spitfire's revenge: A rebuttal of the anti-Spitfire article, by Jon Lake

hushkit.net/2015/12/16/10616

"In his Hush-Kit article Matthew Willis charges that the Spitfire was a "war-losing weapon", and that it was "the wrong aircraft at the wrong time." I would counter that this is largely revisionist nonsense – and although he makes a handful of good points these are things that are discernible only with the benefit of 20:20 hindsight, and there are an awful lot of charges which do not, in my view, hold water."

Discuss :-)

I find it hard to believe that all the experts until now have had the wrong analysis

If the Spitfire wasn't a war winning weapon why is it that when a Spitfire flies over England ordinary people stop, look up and shout "Spitfire!"?

They don't do that for other planes.

A quote from Jon Lake's article:

One distinguished former Battle of Britain pilot has said that by the time the Battle began, the Hurricane was already obsolescent

I'll go with the hands on expert view.

Didn't it help the Scots save the world….or the Irish develop civilization or something? Maybe I'm wrong…

Yep, and the Tiger was a war-winning tank because people it and shout, "Tiger!," while no one can tell the PzIII ande PzIV apart without a guidebook.

I count the road wheels and divide by two.

Wouldn't that make one for a Spitfire?

Already read this article and found a lot of the arguments spurious; the FAA's lack of a good, long-range, single-seat fighter was mired in many, many issues beyond the Spitfire, for example.

-Will

An aside: I think that while many people of dubious intent and/or talent have written revisionist history, just looking at something from a new perspective does not make it wrong.

I find the more recent interpretation of Monmouth more believable than the standard version, for example.

I'm not saying this guy is right, just lamenting the use of the term revisionist as though that is proof of idiocy or evil intent.

David Irving wrote revisionist "history", denying the holocaust. But not every revisionist is wearing his shoes.

Well said, vtsaogames. The Spitfire was not a 'war winning weapon' but I don't think it has been described as such by anyone with an understanding of WW2 air combat. It has certainly gained a mythological status, but like many legends, it's reputation is not without foundation.

The author exposes his misunderstanding of the issues facing Fighter Command in 1940 by suggesting that the Spitfire's superior ability to fight escorting fighters was of no consequence, because the RAF's task was to shoot down bombers. That would be perfectly true, except for the fact that said escorting fighters will do something unpleasant to anyone attacking their bombers, while ignoring them.

Hurricanes alone could not have won the Battle of Britain. Although excellent fighters in many respects, they did not have the performance to tangle with 109's, and they provided no real direction for fighter evolution into 1941. The Spitfire did.

The author needs to re-examine his evidence. I confess to being a little tired of 'Spitfire bashing', although I agree that the aircraft's reputation deserves taking down a peg or two.

If you set up a plant today, you could build Hurricanes cheaper and faster than Eurofighters.

It's historical fact that the Hurricane flew many more sorties during the Battle, and shot down many more Luftwaffe planes (both bombers and fighters). If you replaced the relatively few Spits with Hurricanes, I doubt the outcome would've been much different.

However, I agree the Spitfire was able to keep pace/exceed the performance of the 109 and 190 in the war's later stages; the Hurricane simply couldn't.

I find the more recent interpretation of Monmouth more believable than the standard version, for example.

I mean the battle of Monmouth fought in New Jersey, not the Protestant claimant to the throne who got a very short haircut. Looked back and realized it wasn't clear.

Yes, I do agree there's nothing wrong with revisiting and challenging long-held assumptions; a LOT of stuff 'everyone knows' is actually dead wrong. But I find the Hushkit site to be long on opinion and short on good research.

-Will

The article is flawed in its use of statistics but is worth reading to see cognitive bias in action.

The historical ratio of 34 Hurricane and 20 Spitfire squadrons total resulted in 2749 German aircraft shot down.

Statistically had we built all Hurricane squadrons and fielded 54 squadrons (historical number limited by the availability of pilots) they would (assuming same kill ratios) have shot down 2477 enemy aircraft which is less than the historical result.

Had we had the resources to build 54 squadrons of Spitfire then (with the same assumptions) they would have shot down 3210 enemy aircraft which is more. The point being that quantity has a quality all of its own really can be applied to the number of kills and in war economic rules come second to military strategy.

At one level the argument is that if we had more pilots we could've had more Hurricanes fails at the problem of available pilots and no amount of economic argument can address that fact.

Spitfire and Hurricane were completely different animals that complemented each other. Hurricanes were cheaper, tougher, and took out more German aircraft in the Battle of Britain than the Spitfire did.

The Spitfire was faster and generally superior with more potential in the future – but was also more fragile and expensive.

I guess that given the average member of the public – assuming they even know what a Spitfire is/was – think it was the ultimate fighter aircraft of all time then the article debunks that myth. But few in the know would claim that the Spitfire was anything more than a good aircraft.

All aircraft are of course a balance of factors. Spitfires may have been slow and expensive to build but the Hurricanes were more effective because they were sent after the bombers while the Spitfires tried to fend off the Me109s and the Hurricanes had a majority of the veteran pilots, including those from Poland and Czechoslovakia.

This skews the results against the Spitfire. How much better would they Poles and Czechs have done in Spitfires will never be known.

What really helped the RAF in the Battle of Britain was it being a 'home' game. Pilots who bailed out had an excellent chance of returning to combat – damaged aircraft only had to make it to the nearest airfield or even flat open area to have a decent chance of being repaired. The Germans had to cross the channel – often several times a day.

Much is made of the Finest Hour and the RAF as saviours of Britain. It's 90% propaganda.

They fought hard, bravely and well and deserve credit for their achievements – but it wasn't quite how Churchill portrayed it. In reality, the Germans never really had much of a chance.

I don't recall anyone ever calling the Spitfire a "war winning weapon." I think I smell a strawman…

I think I smell a strawman…

The favorite tool of arguments.

I don't recall anyone ever calling the Spitfire a "war winning weapon." I think I smell a strawman…

I'm pretty sure that when I was eight I was convinced that Spitfires won the war and I might well have said as much out loud. So this could be my fault.

I don't know of Spitfire was or not the war winning weapon, but looking at the Italy campaign I was asthonished by the hight number of accidents due to engine( so much appreciated) failure.

Everyone knows that Pappy Boyington and the Corsair won the war. Single Handedly. By Shooting down thousands of Zeros. They even captured full color film of it, aired weekly in the US in the 1970's. Sheesh.

Yes, but Boyinton fought against T-6 Texans.

However, I agree the Spitfire was able to keep pace/exceed the performance of the 109 and 190 in the war's later stages; the Hurricane simply couldn't.

Except that the Hurricane led to the Tempest and Typhoon which were no more different from the Hurricane I than the Spitfire XV was from the Spitfire I. Continuing to use the same name when the airframe had been completely redesigned was purely for marketing/propaganda reasons.

Good point, I had forgotten that connection. Still, I thought the Tempest was primarily intended for ground attack and would be at a disadvantage vs. actual fighters.

<<Yes, but Boyinton fought against T-6 Texans.>>

The same Texans that bombed Pearl? 'Cause it seemed like they were nearly annihilated by two P-40s!

Hurricanes in later life were also used a lot for ground attack.

After all that just LOOK at the Spits profile gentlemen just look at its beautiful lines, of course it bloody well won the war. The blaggard needs to be bludgeoned hard about the head with walking sticks I say and be done with his heresy.
Cheers, wearing hand eye goggles humming Battle of Britain theme song happily.

Yes, if aircraft were porn, the Spitfire would be the Centerfold; and I think that's part of the mythos.

@Spudeus
The Tempest was designed as a low-altitude fighter. The Typhoon was the big low-altitude fighter-bomber, although it was designed as a high-altitude fighter.

My three kids all in their twenties and one a mother herself will still tell you if asked "There are three types of aircraft, Spitfires; lesser fighters and targets:" Learned almost as soon as they could talk.

Fatman

Wg Cdr Frank Carey, the second highest-scoring Hurricane ace of the war, upon taking command of his new wing in Burma in 1942, took a Hurricane IIb (the 12xMG version) up for an air test in a series of mock dogfights against the much-maligned Buffalo.

He found that the Buffalo was actually BETTER than the Hurricane at high altitude, with the Hurricane better at low altitude and both machines the same at medium altitude.

He put in a request for Spitfires…

As discussed by some posters above, the reason that Hurricanes had the higher tally during the Battle of Britain was that there were more Hurricanes than Spitfires. The Spitfire squadrons achieved a higher kill ratio.

There seems to be some kind of universal fallacy that the only good weapon is a perfect weapon. Which leads to either remaining completely blind to any actual weaknesses your favorite tank or plane may have or to see nothing but flaws in that "super-weapon everybody loves, but you know has an absolutely undeserved reputation."

There was the anti T34 blog a while ago and now this one about the Spitfire.

Now the Spitfire wasn't without flaws and there were planes with better features and if they had done all they could UK engineers would have come up with something far better.

But we are talking about wartime production, dealing with shortages, sub-par parts, companies that can't deliver the necessary volumes etc.

It's like those games that allow you to create your own design, it's very easy to min-max some super-design that will wipe the floor with anything you throw at it, but nobody could afford it because it costs as much a ten regular ships and it can never defeat ten of those at a time …

According to the Spitfire manual, the Mk I was slightly worse than the Me109E, but it improved considerably better than the Me109 series.

I thought the Tempest was primarily intended for ground attack and would be at a disadvantage vs. actual fighters.

Not really, the Typhoon was supposed to be the direct replacement for the Hurricane as an interceptor fighter but turned out to have a number of design flaws.
The main problems were poor high altitude performance, a cockpit that gave poor visablity and was difficult to get out of in an emergency, a tail structure that had a tendency to break off during high G maneuvers and an engine that, while it delivered a lot of power tended to leak Carbon Monoxide into the cockpit and catch fire for no reason!
For a while the Typhoon was an unwanted plane but eventually found a role, first as a low level interceptor against Fw 190 fighter-bombers then as a dedicated ground attack plane.

The Tempest was originally supposed to be the "Typhoon Mk2" but was so altered from the original airframe design that it became a new aircraft.
Originally it was supposed to be powered by the new Bristol Centaurus radial engine but because this was delayed in development most Tempests built were of the stopgap Mk 5 type that used the Typhoon`s Napier Sabre engine and the Centaurus engined Mk 2 didn`t appear until after the wars end.

if aircraft were porn

They're not?

There seems to be some kind of universal fallacy that the only good weapon is a perfect weapon. Which leads to either remaining completely blind to any actual weaknesses your favorite tank or plane may have or to see nothing but flaws in that "super-weapon everybody loves, but you know has an absolutely undeserved reputation."

Amen brother. Testify!

The article is basically taking the arguments (or has coincidentally happened upon the same ones) in Correlli Barnett's book the Audit of War link The book is concerned to criticize Britain's overall industrial performance in WW2. This seems a fairer target than the actual aircraft whose performance was fine (as in the primary effect of replacing Spitfires with more Hurricanes would be to increase your own aircraft and pilot losses a bit but you would save a bit of industrial capacity)

vtsaogames

True.

Fatman

I think if the statistics are looked at RAF pilots had a better chance of survival flying the Spitfire than they did the Hurricane during the BoB when considered for the duration of that campaign. I guess that this may have been down to the speed and agility of the aircraft.

Generally speaking when you look at the figures the Spitfire squadron's had much better kill to loss ratios so they were preserving the lives of precious pilots better in combat. Typically Spitfire squadron's were achieving close to 3:1 which was significantly better than the typical Hurricane squadron although there were exceptions to this.

As has been noted elsewhere it wasn't getting replacement aircraft during the battle it was the lack of pilots that was our concern. This fact alone rather makes his argument a bit hollow. There's also the possible effect on the morale of the enemy – perhaps they were also taken in by the myth of the Spitfire while they were fighting against them.

Everybody knows the Spits and Hurri's were just flying escort for the true war winners: the Defiants!!!

"Except that the Hurricane led to the Tempest and Typhoon which were no more different from the Hurricane I than the Spitfire XV was from the Spitfire I. Continuing to use the same name when the airframe had been completely redesigned was purely for marketing/propaganda reasons."

In case anyone does take this statement at face value, try tapping the fuselage (and indeed in the earliest builds, the wings)of a Hurricane. Fabric – with all of the loads being taken by the tubular structure underneath WWI style.

Spitfire – stressed skin metal construction with the skin itself contributing to carrying the loads, such a revolution that when it entered service RAF fitters were caught tapping it in astonishment !

The Tornado and Typhoon were a new technology in this respect for Hawker but they still persisted with the thicker wing due to misleading wind tunnel data. Great for low-level and load carrying as a fighter bomber though, where the Tiffie found its niche.

Switching the wing approach to a thinner section (and semi-elliptical, Republic taking a similar approach on the P-47) plus the grunt of the Sabre/Centaurus gave the Tempest V and II true high speed performance.

To suggest that a designer of Camm's calibre just kept going with tweaked Hurricanes is very misleading.

The Spitfire by contrast was a generation ahead when it entered service and its basic airframe concept remained relatively unchanged (although progressively strengthened) until the combined improvements of the Mk XVIII and the complete redesign of the Mk21/Mk 23, at which point new names were indeed genuinely considered.

… and the XV was a Seafire, the first of the Griffon engined variants and of itself a bit of a lash-up (like the Spitfire XIV) with quite a bit throwing back to earlier variants.

The war winning aircraft ? No, patriotic pride aside that title probably has to go to the P-51 for taking the fight over the skies of the Reich. The aircraft that stopped us from losing the war at that point – absolutely yes.

Incidentally, I once worked with a chap (British) who flew both Spitfires and Mustangs. His answer to which he preferred, undoubtedly the Mustang. When I asked him why, he answered it was because the Mustang was fitted with a tube you could pee into on a long flight ! On such things rest the opinions of those who really matter …

Mark Barker
West Sussex (and regularly overflown by Spitfires)
UK

So how come the fact that the ME-109 was kept in production for the entire war is looked at as great German engineering but the Spitfire is derided for this same thing?

The author would have done better to have suggested the Hurricane has been underrated by history, which probably would have been a good case to make, but also chose to suggest that the Spitfire was much overrated and thus inevitably created controversy. No doubt without the Hurricane the Battle of Britain would have been lost by the RAF as they provided the necessary quantity of defending fighters. So what if the Spitfire was overlong in production because of delays in the development of the next generation of fighters? Hardly their fault? The more robust construction of the Spitfire was going needed to take the fight onto the continent. The Hurricane was brilliant in having to take on the enemy on all fronts in a variety of roles and to succeed; no need to assault the Spitfire.

So how come the fact that the ME-109 was kept in production for the entire war is looked at as great German engineering.

I don't think it is; I thought it is seen as an act of desperation.

The Hurricane and the Curtiss P-40 both did much heavy lifting during the war, only to see the glamour boys in Spits, Mustangs and Thunderbolts swoop in and carry off all the girls.
Both these designs were kept in production much too long for want of a legitimate replacement. Same goes for the Bf/Me 109.

Although there are a handful of other fighters in the Battle of Britain, it basically boils down to 2/3rds Hurricane, 1/3rd Spits. Kills were likewise split approx 2 to 1. To me this suggests the Spitfire outperformed Hurricane, because with that split you'd expect Hurricanes to actually score more than 2/3rds (for the same reason that a 4 tank troop will score more kills than 4 individual tanks, for instance).

I did quite a bit of research when I wrote my BoB rules. One of the complications I found is that Bf109 vs Spitfire was that who had the upper hand in performance varied with altitude – they didn't have a nice straight line or curve in performance degradation. It seemed, when I had to boil it down to something playable, 109 more power than Spitfire which had more power than the Hurricane. This gives a Spitfire a 300 meter advantage during a 5 minute climb from scramble.

One thing that seemed relatively constant is that pilots from both sides were more likely to feel the Spitfire was a more forgiving plane (the fuel intake problem to the pistons aside in the Spitfire, which is why you see them do that little flick before a dive). While not every 109 pilot preferred the Spitfire, no Spitfire pilot preferred the 109, for a variety of reasons- combat visibility being a biggie.

One fact I found out, and I think is pretty obscure, is the way the designs handled tight turns. The wings 'warped' near the root as stall was approached. In the Spitfire this was later than a 109- closer to the fuselage. Also the 109 had flaps that automatically popped out to help prevent stalling.

This wing warp, along with the flaps on the 109, was the signal to the pilot he was at the edge of his envelope. Actually on the 109 it was a little later/tighter, and the best pilots could judge this, and turn as tight as a Spitfire, but that took balls – to push past the point where physics appears to be telling you you can't go further.

The Build rate is actually a minor point – as mentioned above the problem was pilot availability. In his book 'Fighter' Len Deighton relates a story told by a BoB pilot. He is heavily damaged, but manages to nurse his 'kite' (I don't know which kind) back to the airfield. He gets out, all pleased with himself, and then his engineer says "Why didn't you bail? I've got to fix this one, if you'd crashed it I could have a new one tomorrow."

As to the '10 minute' fuel problem of the 109's. BoB is a perfect asymmetrical scenario! The attacker has the faster, more numerical* planes with heavier weapons, but that is countered by lack of persistence both in fuel and ammunition, and restricted by the need** to protect 'straight-and-level' bombers.

*Not only number of platforms, but with the advantage they could get to altitude before setting off, where as the RAF had to react, and planes of the time did not have the persistence to perform "BarCAP's" as they are called now, so were having to climb into combat.

** Whether they would have done better if allowed to roam rather than close protect was and still is a matter of debate.