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Visual differences of Spitfire Mk. 1 vs Mk. II


WildeSau75

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Perhaps you should read the whole letter; you'll see that Dowding's main concern was the short (five seconds) firing time for the cannon-only Spitfire, which he considered wholly inadequate for fighter-v-fighter combat:-

PICT0035_zpsg8t4ibfv.jpg

PICT0036_zpsvwyp63bo.jpg

Edited by Edgar
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Thank you for that Edgar, it is always good to read the full text. I don't think that I've seen the comment about plans for thirty such aircraft anywhere else, and it is interesting to see his comments on the penetration ability of the 0.5. However, the fuller text only confirms and indeed reiterates the point made above. The initial aircraft delivered/being prepared for 19 Sq only have the two cannon and no other weapons, as he points out in direct opposition to the Me109 which has two cannon and two machine guns

I would disagree that a comment preceded by "Furthermore" can be regarded as his main concern, with it coming only third on his list of shortcomings. Particularly as he is well aware that the solution to this is already on the way with the belt feed. On the other hand the point about only two guns is made three times.

Incidentally, the guns remaining mounted on their sides, but perhaps fitting them upright was considered in the early days of working on the belt feed.

His initial comments imply (to me) that these first production examples bear a close relationship to the prototype, but we lack a detailed description of what appears to have been three stages in the development of the B wing i.e. prototype, initial production, production B wing.

Edited by Graham Boak
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Digging further. to Bruce Robertson's "Spitfire - The Story of a Famous Fighter". Yes, the old Harleyford tome. This includes a similar account - mentioning thirty wingsets - if rather more extended from the 19 Sq viewpoint. It includes the comment that on August 11th the squadron received "a new Spitfire armed with two Hispano cannon AND four machine guns. It was judged to be rather overloaded but, as the unit officially recorded, it was a step in the right direction and a suitable further step might be a reversion to eight machine guns!"

The serials quoted here are R6761, R6776, R6904, R6627, R6809 and R6890.

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The plastic seat was originally intended to be exclusively for Castle Bromwich, so it's very unlikely that, on the Mk.II, they were anything but the red type;

This comes up regularly as a 'fact' that all Castle Bromwich built MKIIs on had the phenolic resin seat.

However we have the remains of George Beurling's MkII (a Castle Bromwich built machine) P7193 that crashed near Wisbech in the FAWNAPS Museum. It was fitted with a metal seat. Indeed we have had 'experts' tell us that the seat is wrong despite the fact that bit came out of the ground like that!

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Interesting, since P7280 was the first Mk.II listed as being built by Castle Bromwich; maybe that should be P7293? There's also a well-known story that the first airframes built at CB were made from kits of parts sent up by Supermarine, to keep Beaverbrook quiet.

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This previous posting is of interest in claiming/showing differently-shaped bulges on Mk.Ib

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234972890-photos-from-spitfire-mkiib-please/?hl=%2Bspitfire+%2Bcannon#entry1916394

This doesn't deal with mg/no mg discussion, but does point to one external feature that's relevant to the later aircraft, at least.

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  • 3 years later...

After 3 years I'm refreshing old meat. 

New Tamiya's Spitfire has this panel to instal just aft the prop. It looks like extra engine cowling panel. It's a bit surprising as I don't remember seeing such panel on Spitfires Mk.I and Mk.II. Have I missed something? 

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10 minutes ago, DominikS said:

New Tamiya's Spitfire has this panel to instal just aft the prop. It looks like extra engine cowling panel.

can you show what you mean,   or do you mean this

spitfiremkinewtamiyamn_1_5.jpg

 

the front panel I presume allows ease of moulding the panel detail?

from

http://www.hyperscale.com/2018/galleries/spitfiremkitamiyanew48mn_1.htm

 

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21 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

can you show what you mean,   or do you mean this

spitfiremkinewtamiyamn_1_5.jpg

 

the front panel I presume allows ease of moulding the panel detail?

from

http://www.hyperscale.com/2018/galleries/spitfiremkitamiyanew48mn_1.htm

 

I meant that panel. I read that some Mk. IIs had such divided upper cowling, yet I have never seen it. 

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 12/16/2018 at 10:26 AM, DominikS said:

I meant that panel. I read that some Mk. IIs had such divided upper cowling, yet I have never seen it. 

I’m currently converting Tamiya’s new kit to a Mk.II and also have not seen this panel line on any of my references. 

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It is not a separate two-part thing. There is a panel line, but it's very subtle and I would fill that on a Tamiya 1/48 kit and CERTAINLY not fill it in black! Maybe a very light line drawn with a sharp pencil.

If you sashay over to the Wikipedia pic of  X4650 and blow it to to max resolution (it's much, much bigger than this small version) you can *just about* make out the panel line.  Same pic can be found here https://www.flickr.com/photos/ajw1970/19076877434/

(not embedded due to humongous image size)

 

 

 

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