Best and worst Spitfire?

[NPL]

45 minutes ago, Vlad said:

 

I think the assessment that the Spitfire airframe had far more development potential than the 109 is unfair. The F is only considered a high point from a handling point of view, the later types continuously improved speed and rate of climb and were never really behind allied fighters.

 

Can you really compare the development path of the Spitfire, allowed to fulfil a pure fighter role in a time of increasing resources and ever better quality fuel, with 109s increasingly lumbered for bomber hunting and starved of good fuel and construction quality? I imagine a more lightweight 109K derivative with an engine using 150 octane fuel would give a Mk.XIV a real run for its money.

 

Maybe but not according to schematic comparisons published in various places. And -- and that is important -- the Bf109 did not get 150 octane fuel,  but 87 which was not really a positive thing (except for environmentalists). And then there were the pilots, at a time when only few Experten were still alive. 

 

I believe that it is perfectly correct what I wrote. The late Karls might have a stand against the Mk.Vs and perhaps the Mk.IXs, but then came the IV, XVIII, 24. Another thing, the Bf109 was definitely representing a concept from the 1930s. It was definitely too small. A lot has been written here about the Spitfire's lack of  range, but that did not seem to impede the PR Mk.XI and XIX. The short range did not prevent L.Col. Gustav Lundquist to fly a Spitfire IX from US to England via -- of course a pitstop or two, and provided with two Mustang fuel tanks. That the Spitfire was not developed into a long range fighter seems to have been the decision of the RAF brass. 

 

So I stand with my evaluation. The BF109G & K were definitely slower and had a lower ceiling that the Mk.XIV. It's rate of climb was definitely not in the same class a the Mk.XIV which could practically go up vertically. 

[Vlad]

I think you're exaggerating the performance differences. 87 Octane K is neck and neck with +18lb boost XIV for speed at altitudes up to 26,000 feet, and only about 10% behind in climb rate. With 100 Octane the K would match the climb rate too. The 109 airframe did not have inherently less development potential. The Spitfire is just as much a '30s concept and had plenty of its own problems with getting the huge Griffon engine. Sure the 109 had flaws but being small alone wasn't one, after all the Soviets had great success with evolving their Yak series into the amazing Yak-3. 109 derivatives also served into the 1960s.

 

In any case my point was that you're comparing apples and oranges. All I was trying to say is that, hypothetically, a 109K optimised as a pure light fighter and built to a high standard of quality would not have been outclassed in 1945.

[NPL]

32 minutes ago, Vlad said:

I think you're exaggerating the performance differences. 87 Octane K is neck and neck with +18lb boost XIV for speed at altitudes up to 26,000 feet, and only about 10% behind in climb rate. With 100 Octane the K would match the climb rate too. The 109 airframe did not have inherently less development potential. The Spitfire is just as much a '30s concept and had plenty of its own problems with getting the huge Griffon engine. Sure the 109 had flaws but being small alone wasn't one, after all the Soviets had great success with evolving their Yak series into the amazing Yak-3. 109 derivatives also served into the 1960s.

 

In any case my point was that you're comparing apples and oranges. All I was trying to say is that, hypothetically, a 109K optimised as a pure light fighter and built to a high standard of quality would not have been outclassed in 1945.

 

Low standard fuel, bad -- sloppy workmanship at the time --- it was outclassed.  And this is not hypothetical. You could also say that at the end of its development, the Spitfire had very little to compare with among German piston engined fighters, whereas the Tempest was a serious competitor. 

 

And then we have the factor of the quality of pilots. This is part of the discussion. Every source I have seen mentions the Bf 109 as a difficult mount for rookies, whereas the Spitfire was if not without problems at least easier to fly for such pilots. And here it did not help the 109 that there so few experienced German pilots alive in 1945. So if you use this parameter, the Kurfürst or Karl was a bigger problem to its pilots than the Spitfire to its. And the pilots were probably decisive. To match this problem the Germans would have needed an airplane much easier to handle and much more maneuverable than the 109.

 

And in this way the discussion can go on forfever. 

[noelh]

This is a very subjective topic. In reality there was no bad Spitfire  There were less good Spitfires and great Spitfires in the context of the the particular moment in time they existed. The Mk 1 was top of the range in 1940. The V in '41, the IX, in 42, etc.

Later they were left behind to some extent as requirements moved on. Let's be honest the P51D was the the definitive liquid cooled interceptor at the end of the war. Not least because of its range.

 

The Spitfire was one of the greats though not least because of it's iterations right up to the 24.

 

One of my real irritations though about the Spitfire was the sometimes American attitude to it. I'm not British I should point out but in 1977, yes long memories, Flying Magazine refused to list the Spitfire as one of the top fifty aircraft of all time, I still have that magazine. The logic was that the Hurricane shot down more enemy in the Battle of Britain. Bizarre in my opinion because it ignored the long term career of the Spitfire as opposed to the Hurricane which was obsolete by mid war 

More recently another another US magazine wouldn't have the Spitfire in the top ten for much the same reason.

 

Ludicrous. I love the Hurricane but the Spitfire was something else.

 

No bad Spitfires.

 

 

 

[Giorgio N]

29 minutes ago, NPL said:

 

Low standard fuel, bad -- sloppy workmanship at the time --- it was outclassed.  And this is not hypothetical. You could also say that at the end of its development, the Spitfire had very little to compare with among German piston engined fighters, whereas the Tempest was a serious competitor. 

 

And then we have the factor of the quality of pilots. This is part of the discussion. Every source I have seen mentions the Bf 109 as a difficult mount for rookies, whereas the Spitfire was if not without problems at least easier to fly for such pilots. And here it did not help the 109 that there so few experienced German pilots alive in 1945. So if you use this parameter, the Kurfürst or Karl was a bigger problem to its pilots than the Spitfire to its. And the pilots were probably decisive. To match this problem the Germans would have needed an airplane much easier to handle and much more maneuverable than the 109.

 

And in this way the discussion can go on forfever. 

 

Really by the time the K was in service the pilots may have been one of the problems but even with extremely well trained pilots things would not have changed for the Germans. Messerschmitt managed a miracle in producing more than 1,500 K4s in 7-8 months but at that point allied production figures were such that the Luftwaffe was heavily outnumbered. Add to this the loss of any kind of early warning due to the closer proximity of the borders and no matter how well trained the German pilots were, at that point of the war any mission was potentially suicidal. The lack of fuel did the rest.

[Meatbox8]

12 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

 

Agree on these points, and the approach still survives today as in the development of tactics the pilots community is heafily involved.

Of course it's not always possible to lay the hands on all enemy types, and in this case other ways are needed to know as much as possible about the opposition.

Have to say that there have been a few cases in the past when even the opinions of test pilots were skewed by their "education", but this could be a topit for another day..

 

Can't disagree on the success of the Spitfire, it is afterall my all time favourite WW2 type !

As an engineer I could point a few more faults, that were the result more of the "tradition" behind the design than of any wrong decision by R.J. Mitchell and his successors, but we should also keep well in mind that the Spitfire was a 1935 design ! When the war ended in 1945 it was a 10 year old design, that had sure been developed magnificently  but those 10 years had seen a lot of advancements in aeronautics. That the Spitfire was still relevant in 1945 and for a few more years is a testament of its greatness.

 

 

The Italians didn't consider the V trop as a type of superior performance when compared to the MC.202, that is roughly the equivalent of that variant. The only aspect of the Spit that they found really superior was the armament.

The Italians had a lot of other problems that prevented them from operating succesfully in many situations but types like the MC.202 and later the 205 and the G.55 had the performance to take on every contemporary Spitfire variant. We've discussing here on how many Mk,.V or IX were produced, had the Italians been able to produce as many MC.202s as any of these variants of the Spitfire, things in the northern desert would have been more problematic for the RAF.

 

 

Overall the "Mk.20" wing doesn't seem to have been such a success as hoped, or better didn't have quite the edge that Supermarine and the RAF hoped for.

 

 

 

On some internet discussion forums this would cause a holy war between US and British members !😁

More seriously, the problem with anecdotal evidence is that for every source mentioning pilot x saying that he hated going from the Spitfire to the Mustang there's another source mentioning how pilot Y hated the Spitfire and much preferred the P-47 and so on.

Well, I would still maintain what I said which is that I consider the MkVB and C as good as or better than types fielded by the Reggia Aeronautica.  It was certainly superior to the CR.42, MC.200, G.50 and Re.2000.  I would consider it on a par with the MC.202 and Reggiane 2001, even with a Vokes filter fitted.  The differences, in terms of performance, were marginal of course and other aspects need to be considered, as others have alluded to.  The Italian types were certainly manoeuvrable. The RAF also had difficulties, sheer geography being one of the main ones.    The 205 and 55 came along some time later and, of course, had a superior performance than the VB/VC, but by then the principle versions of the Spitfire in theatre were the VIII and IX. Interestingly 'Winkle' Brown rated the Re.2001 over the MC.202, claiming it had a better performance and being more manoeuvrable.  In his view the (Sea) Hurricane could take on the 202 fairly equally, making up for a slight inferiority of performance with superior agility and heavier firepower whereas the Re had a definite advantage over the Hurricane.  He was, however, particularly taken by the C.205 'One of the finest aircraft I ever flew... ...a delight to fly and up to anything on the Allied programme.'

[Meatbox8]

1 hour ago, NPL said:

 

Low standard fuel, bad -- sloppy workmanship at the time --- it was outclassed.  And this is not hypothetical. You could also say that at the end of its development, the Spitfire had very little to compare with among German piston engined fighters, whereas the Tempest was a serious competitor. 

 

And then we have the factor of the quality of pilots. This is part of the discussion. Every source I have seen mentions the Bf 109 as a difficult mount for rookies, whereas the Spitfire was if not without problems at least easier to fly for such pilots. And here it did not help the 109 that there so few experienced German pilots alive in 1945. So if you use this parameter, the Kurfürst or Karl was a bigger problem to its pilots than the Spitfire to its. And the pilots were probably decisive. To match this problem the Germans would have needed an airplane much easier to handle and much more maneuverable than the 109.

 

And in this way the discussion can go on forfever. 

I think the handling of the 109 got increasingly difficult the more power it had.  If you combine that with the decreasing quality of pilots then you are at a severe disadvantage. By contrast even the installation of the mighty Griffon in, essentially, the same airframe as all prior Spitfires only had a marginal affect on handling.  Having said all that the '109 was still able to compete against the best the Allies could field even in May '45.

[Procopius]

1 hour ago, NPL said:

 

Low standard fuel, bad -- sloppy workmanship at the time --- it was outclassed. 

"Sloppy workmanship" less than slaves striking back at their tormentors at the risk of their own lives, I daresay. 200 of the 350 or so forced laborers the Germans hanged (as opposed to worked to death or otherwise murdered) at the V2 Mittelwerk, just an example, were killed because they had deliberately sabotaged rockets. Forced laborers paid with their lives to ensure German aircraft were of poorer quality than their Allied opponents.