Spitfire contretemps: Part 4

Where else can I reblog this post…

Hush-Kit

In his controversial article ‘Dismantling the Spitfire myth’ Matthew Willis asserted that the Spitfire’s role in British history is hugely over-stated. Jon Lake countered by defending its reputation in ‘Spitfire’s Revenge’. Willis clipped his wings, strapped on some cannon and fired back with this. Here is Lake’s response, the fourth part of a fascinating debate. 

“Since writing my response to Matthew’s attempted demolition of the Spitfire I have been lucky enough to have spent a day with a former Spitfire pilot who flew most marks of that aircraft, and who was part of a Mustang wing being formed for Tiger Force at the end of the War.

He was in no doubt whatsoever as to the relative merits of Spit, Hurricane and Mustang. Over the course of my 31 years working full time in aviation, I’ve met and talked in depth to many wartime pilots – British, American…

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

And loving it…

Hush-Kit

 

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.

Matthew says that: “It’s pretty well accepted these days that the Battle of Britain was won by the Hurricane, and there’s no reason to suspect that more Hurricanes wouldn’t have defeated Goering’s armada just as soundly, if not more so.”

I think he’s wrong on both counts. The Hurricane was undeniably important, and shot down more enemy aircraft than the Spitfire, but that was inevitable, given that there were more of them, often flown…

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Why the Spitfire’s place in history should be challenged

I just love this!

Hush-Kit

In his controversial article ‘Dismantling the Spitfire myth’ Matthew Willis asserted that the Spitfire’s role in British history is hugely over-stated. Jon Lake countered by defending its reputation in ‘Spitfire’s Revenge’. Now in the third part of a fascinating debate, Willis hits back. 

Challenging the Spitfire is, due to its iconic status, always going to be a difficult thing to do. Nevertheless, after reading Jon Lake’s response to my earlier piece, I continue to assert that the Spitfire’s place in the history of World War II should be challenged.

If I might first answer the charge of ‘revisionist nonsense‘. On the second point (of it being nonsense), it’s not for me to say. On the first, though the word revisionism seems to have become a pejorative term of late, it properly stands for a proper historical re-examination of existing orthodoxy and accepted ideas. If the ideas…

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Dismantling the Spitfire myth

Very interesting article about the Spitfire

But also this impressive comment

The Spitfire’s tactical strong points are probably among the most poorly understood of WWII fighters. It is generally an overrated but capable design. Here are some salient points of its tactical advantages/disadvantages.

#1: It did not turn that well (inferior to both the Hurricane and the FW-190A in prolonged turning, according to RCAF pilot John Weir, and many combat accounts demonstrate this very well, including those by top ace Johnny Johnson): The Spitfire’s wing for some reason displayed poor lift while turning, but excellent 3 axis control while stalling: This, combined with overly light elevators, allowed it to stall and turn itself to point “inside the circle”, in effect allowing to briefly shoot “across the circle” while stalling: The powerful 20 mm wing guns often made this brief advantage pay off. Most of the time, with an average 2% hit rate, the target had to be shot at a long time, which made turning dogfights far more important in WWII than is generally acknowledged.

The Spitfire sustained turns poorly, so much so Russian tactics had to be adapted when they used this aircraft (they even tried removing the outer guns to help it), the Russians being forced to use instead dive and zoom tactics to which the Spitfire was well adapted (as did most users of the Spitfire, including the RAF). However, its light elevators did allow some harsh initial turns at high speed, giving the impression of a high turn rate after a dive, again helpful in diving attacks.

#2 It rolled poorly: This is well established, but less well-known is that it was actually one of the poorest of all WWII fighters in roll at higher speeds: This was not so pronounced at high altitudes, because the thinner air was more forgiving to its flexible wings, and its low lateral stick leverage.

#3 It was a great diver: For extreme high speed dives from high altitudes, it was one of the better WWII propeller fighter aircraft, superior in diving speed even to the US fighters, until denser lower altitude air was encountered, where its lack of wing rigidity allowed US fighters to overcome it. Again this was a feature favourable to diving and zooming attacks, which is how it was actually used.

#4 It was an extremely good climber: Little emphasized is that the +25lbs boost LF Mk IX probably had the highest climb rate of any WWII piston engine fighter below 20 000 feet. Again a feature helping vertical fighting and dive and zoom tactics.

As a fighter it was forgiving to novice, and its engine kept up with the pace of development: Its short range severely reduced its usefulness.

One on one it was a match to the Me-109, but much inferior to the FW-190A in overall maneuverability, particularly for roll and sustained horizontal turns, but far superior on the vertical plane where the 190 was very poor. It roughly matched the P-51, and far outclimbed the P-47, but like the FW-190A, the P-47 was better on sustained horizontal turns, which is why almost all combat accounts have the big fighter obsessively used in turns, especially vs the Me-109, while the Spitfire climb and dived.

As to the airframe cost in man-hours, I would point out that the relevance of this may depend on the industry: With an excess of labour and a lack of machinery, and especially materials, it might make sense to go for a labour-intensive design that is economical in materials: The engine is the most costly item in any case… Pilot training is also much more costly in time, and the pilot was always more valuable than his machine. In any case, whatever the case may be, the Spitfire did not provide any large superiority except for its climb rate, and maybe its handling at very high altitudes (25 000 feet plus).

Gaston

Hush-Kit

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.

Let’s be clear. The Spitfire is a very pretty aeroplane and a very charismatic one, which is great to see at airshows. It’s also said to be lovely to fly. The first three of these points mattered little in 1939-45, and the third was not as important as other factors. It’s pretty well accepted these days that the Battle of Britain was won by the Hurricane, and there’s no reason to suspect that more Hurricanes wouldn’t have defeated Goering’s armada just…

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