Messerspit what-if question

[Adam Poultney]

I'm sure most of us here have come across the messerspit, the joining of the spitfire with a German engine. 

I'm quite fascinated by this unique aircraft and have been getting into what-if builds, so I was thinking about this aircraft again.

What if the Germans had perhaps done this earlier, and had found it to be a very good aircraft indeed. Apparently in the real world, the aircraft outperformed other captured spitfires. 

What if they then decided to reverse engineer the spitfire, using a German engine and cowling, put it into production and then into the service of the Luftwaffe. 

Would such a thing even have be possible? Could the Germans have done it, would they be willing to use a British design even if they were able to? 

And if they had, what developments would have been likely to see, what armament would it have and how would they evolve the airframe?

[Charlie Hugo]

hmm think along the lines of getting a pre-WWII license to build the Spitfire, or how about Rumania/Yugoslavia or similar country having done so and then Germany had invaded and annexed the production lines.

[Mr T]

Probably not, in a what if world by the time Germany had been able to tool up Spitfire production, Berlin, Hamburg a couple of other cities would have been radioactive wastelands (the development of the atomic bomb being driven by fears of the Reich developing one). Would a DB605 powered Spitfire be that much better than a FW190 to justify disrupting production lines when Germany actually spent most of the war undergoing crisises in maintainng output? (The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze is a very good read about the German economy and industry) 

[Adam Poultney]

3 hours ago, Charlie Hugo said:

hmm think along the lines of getting a pre-WWII license to build the Spitfire, or how about Rumania/Yugoslavia or similar country having done so and then Germany had invaded and annexed the production lines.

Mmm I like this idea

 

[Graham Boak]

Reverse engineering takes a long time, and is only justifiable if significant benefits are gained in the process.  That's why it is rare.  In this case any potential benefits were small, and given the pace of development the result would be obsolescent before service entry.  There is a regular suggestion from enthusiasts that the Germans were considering doing just that with the Dinah, but the same realities refute this.

 

Not quite as long a process as developing the A bomb, however.

 

What is much more common is to nick good ideas, and perhaps the classic case of this is the study of the Fw190 and its adoption of radial engine without base drag, although other "productionising" lessons were also learnt.  It is more difficult to determine which if any features of the Spitfire could have benefitted German designers, beyond what they were already doing or planning.

 

It is difficult if not impossible to see the Spitfire licenced to any of the proposed customer  nations, with the possible exception of France.  Let's not forget that production of the Merlin would also be required, and RR were not generally inclined that way. France again being a possible if not likely exception, with the Merlin intended for the Amiot bomber and the D.520.

 

 

 

 

[Adam Poultney]

The French licence is a possibility then for a what-if. I like that. 

The other way of approaching this would be perhaps a small number being converted as they were captured.

[torqueofthedevil]

5 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

Reverse engineering takes a long time, and is only justifiable if significant benefits are gained in the process.  That's why it is rare.  In this case any potential benefits were small, and given the pace of development the result would be obsolescent before service entry...

 

What is much more common is to nick good ideas, and perhaps the classic case of this is the study of the Fw190 and its adoption of radial engine without base drag, although other "productionising" lessons were also learnt.  It is more difficult to determine which if any features of the Spitfire could have benefitted German designers, beyond what they were already doing or planning.

 

 

 

 

 

Agree. The Spitfire simply wouldn't have offered the Germans anything they didn't already have within a useful timescale. After all, the Spitfire had many of the same issues as the Bf 109 - narrow track undercarriage, short range, cramped cockpit etc. 

[AltcarBoB]

The Luftwaffe was short of fuel, training aircraft and pilots. Fighter aircraft were never in short supply in Germany.

[Adam Poultney]

I think I'll sort this one into the realm of pretty much fantasy apart from the possibility of converting more captured aircraft on a very small scale.

[Max Headroom]

Intruiging idea but I think the RLM were quite happy with the 109 and 190. That’s not to say that if Yugoslavia, Latvia, Finland or wherever had a set of production drawings, they may have pursued the idea themselves.

 

Trevor

[Jure Miljevic]

Hello

Adam, if you are into what-ifs, perhaps you might fancy DB601 powered Hurricane? One of Yugoslav Royal Air Force license built Hurricane I fighters had been converted to receive a spare Me 109 (German export designation for Bf 109 E-3) Daimler-Benz engine, combined with locally designed cooling system. The hybrid had been test-flown against Yugoslav Hurricane I (fabric covered wings, DH adjustable propeller, Belgian FN machine guns) in early 1941. DB 601 Hurricane required shorter take-off distance, had superior climb and was faster than Merlin Hurricane I and was only marginally slower than Yugoslav Me 109. So, what if this conversion would have taken place a year earlier and there would have been a squadron or two of DB Hurricanes in service with JKRV by the beginning of the April war? Cheers

Jure

[Denford]

Another problem would have been that the Spitfire, Merlin etc were all built to Imperial Measurements, whereas the 109 would have been Metric.

 

Not impossible as the Russians 're-built' the B-29 to metric measurements and I believe used proprietary Russian equivalents such as radios, guns and presumably a myriad of smaller parts such flight deck instruments, electric motors, ignition systems, bearings etc.  It was for this reason that parts of Packard and Rolls Royce Merlins were not interchangeable.

[Work In Progress]

Another reason why this would have been industrial insanity is that the 109, like the P-51, was a genuinely properly mass-produced airframe with parts interchangeability. The Spitfire was much more hand-fitted, and was never designed to be produced with the same efficiencies. Which is one of the reasons there were 34,000 109 airframes made versus only 20,000 Spitfires, and why it took 13,000 man-hours to make a Spitfire, versus 4,000 man-hours for a 109.

 

The Spitfire was entirely unsuited for production in the required numbers in the available facilities and any attempt to adopt it would have crippled German fighter production.

Edited December 23, 2019 by Work In Progress

[Giorgio N]

The Germans in WW2 put to use a wealth of foreign materials of all kind, so it is entirely possible that had they captured a factory that was building Spitfires, they would have put the type in service in some kind of unit. However, even if in whif land the Germans could have captured a French factory that was building Spitfires, would they have used the type extensively ? Probably not, in the same way as they did use the Dewoitine D.520 but not extensively.

 

In addition to the very good reasons posted above for not reverse engineering the Spitfire,, I'd add another one: was the Spitfire really so superior to the German types ?

IMHO it wasn't, or better some variants were better than the corresponding variants of the German fighters but the opposite was true for some other variants. At the end of the war the Spitfire sure still had some development potential left, while the BF.109 was probably well past its best, but even then the advantage of the Spitfire was not such to be worth disrupting the whole German aircraft production system.

[Seahawk]

Then there's the political aspect.  The ruling party's ideology was based on the idea of German superiority to all other nations and races.  That's a little bit undermined if you have to concede that your enemy's technology is so superior to your own that it's worth copying.  I believe that, after the shock of the Wehrmacht's first encounters with the T-34 medium tank, serious thought and some design work went into simply copying it.  This was deemed unacceptable and the properly German Panther was the end result.

 

And the superiority the T-34 enjoyed over comparable German tanks was immeasurably greater than any the Spitfire enjoyed over the Bf 109.

 

 

 

[Work In Progress]

6 minutes ago, Seahawk said:

Then there's the political aspect.  The ruling party's ideology was based on the idea of German superiority to all other nations and races.  That's a little bit undermined if you have to concede that your enemy's technology is so superior to your own that it's worth copying. 

 

 

 

Well... that didn't stop them adopting the 1934 pattern Browning Hi-Power pistol, the Norwegian-built Colt 1911, the ZB-30 LMG, various Spanish Star pistols and lots of other guns made in occupied factories like FN Herstal in Belgium and CZ in Czechoslovakia. Plus the Swiss Solothurn anti-tank rifles, captured 25mm Hotchkiss, and Russian 35mm M39 anti-aircraft cannon, the Italian 90/53 and 75/46, and the Swedish 37mm Bofors

[MilneBay]

12 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

The Germans in WW2 put to use a wealth of foreign materials of all kind, so it is entirely possible that had they captured a factory that was building Spitfires, they would have put the type in service in some kind of unit. However, even if in whif land the Germans could have captured a French factory that was building Spitfires, would they have used the type extensively ? Probably not, in the same way as they did use the Dewoitine D.520 but not extensively.

 

In addition to the very good reasons posted above for not reverse engineering the Spitfire,, I'd add another one: was the Spitfire really so superior to the German types ?

IMHO it wasn't, or better some variants were better than the corresponding variants of the German fighters but the opposite was true for some other variants. At the end of the war the Spitfire sure still had some development potential left, while the BF.109 was probably well past its best, but even then the advantage of the Spitfire was not such to be worth disrupting the whole German aircraft production system.

 

Although I don't really get the idea of alternate history etc. I'd make one suggestion.

 

The aircraft types, in particular fighters produced by the main powers Britain, the US, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia were all fairly similar in performance and the main strengths of their combat use. Germany had two very successful types in production the Me 109 and the FW 190/Ta 152. As the war progressed each type in those families evolved in response to the evolution of their competitors and combat needs. There was never a shortage of them, only of pilots. So why would Germany go to the trouble of putting into production a clone of an enemy aircraft  - they didn't need it.

 

Yes the Germans used captured technology small arms (quoted above) and also armoured vehicles and tanks. But that was just common sense given the vast numbers they captured or took from occupied countries, plus the production lines were in place to continue the production because the process of occupation had not destroyed the factories. Putting an aircraft type into production by reverse engineering requires that you set up tooling, production lines and new factories and given the overall closeness in performance to your own aircraft already in production why bother? The answer to the OP's question lies in the time it took the Russians to reverse engineer the B29 from the few intact samples they interned. In the end they wound up with an already obsolescent design. The only benefit gained was a quick lesson in American aircraft technology but even that was a little redundant as their own designers were quite capable.

 

The whole what-if scenario lacks plausibility, as the only reason a captured Spitfire was reengined was simply some self indulgent whim allowed by the RLM because at that stage of the war they were convinced they were winning. A year later it would not have been allowed.           

Edited December 23, 2019 by MilneBay

[Adam Poultney]

1 minute ago, MilneBay said:

 

Although I don't really get the idea of alternate history etc. I'd make one suggestion.

 

The aircraft types, in particular fighters produced by the main powers Britain, the US, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia were all fairly similar in performance and the main strengths of their combat use. Germany had two very successful types in production the Me 109 and the FW 190/Ta 152. As the war progressed each type in those families evolved in response to the evolution of their competitors and combat needs. There was never a shortage of them, only of pilots. So why would Germany go to the trouble of putting into production a clone of an enemy aircraft  - they didn't need it.

 

Yes the Germans used captured technology small arms (quoted above) and also armoured vehicles and tanks. But that was just common sense given the vast numbers they captured or took from occupied countries, plus the production lines were in place to continue the production because the process of occupation had not destroyed the factories. Putting an aircraft type into production by reverse engineering requires that you set up tooling, production lines and new factories and given the overall closeness in performance to your own aircraft already in production why bother? If you want an answer to your question look at the time it took the Russians to reverse engineer the B29 from the few intact samples they interned. In the end they wound up with an already obsolescent design. The only benefit gained was a quick lesson in American aircraft technology but even that was a little redundant as their own designers were quite capable.

 

The whole what-if scenario lacks plausibility, as the only reason a captured Spitfire was reengined was simply some self indulgent whim allowed by the RLM because at that stage of the war they were convinced they were winning. A year later it would not have been allowed.           

We can assume in this what if scenario, that either the 109 or 190 has a serious flaw but present in reality, perhaps the 190 is never produced at all...

Who says a what if timeline has to start at the point where they capture the spitfire that became the messerspit. Who says they couldn't have done something like that earlier, or has been suggested a French factory producing license built Spitfires.

Definitely the realm of fantasy, but not to the same degree as some of the more adventurous Luft'46 things (that seem more like Luft'2146). More a semi plausible alternate timeline. 

 

A few weeks ago I watched through Amazon's take on The Man in The High Castle, a great show that I would recommend. It's based on a book, which I intend to read at some point, where the axis win ww2. That timeline diverges from the real world quite early on, I've been thinking about building some models to represent that universe. It's quite fascinating and doesn't really step into the realm of pure fantasy (rather a semi-feasible timeline) until the point where the show (and I assume the book also) takes place, in an alternate 1960s, where you get parallel universes and all sorts. 

I believe in the book details of what happens earlier on are quite vague, and certainly are in the Amazon series, so there's a lot of room to play with various ideas. 

[MilneBay]

Sorry as I said I don't do alternate history scenarios - too much has gone on in real history. 

[Troy Smith]

1 hour ago, Adam Poultney said:

It's based on a book, which I intend to read at some point, where the axis win ww2.

I don't know what the Amazon series is like, the book is by Philip K. Dick,  and, like all of his work, is rather strange, his works that have been filmed, or adapted into films, tend to take out the sheer oddness of his work,  the only one that comes close is a A Scanner Darkly.

(others are Total Recall, the original is a short story, Minority Report, again, a short story,  and Blade Runner, 'based' on Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep,  note that 2 are based on short stories, and Dick knocked out LOTS of these)

P.K. Dick is an acquired taste I suspect, he's not a great writer, and he turned out a lot of work,   but the ideas in them are what makes them interesting,  much science fiction of his era was basically westerns in space,  Dick is more psychological,  dealing with how people deal with these new realities. 

Unsurprisingly he was a weirdo, and copious drug use didn't help,  but if you like something different, and don't expect instant rewards,  the ideas are worth the effort.  (I'm a fan, and always pick up his stuff when I find it cheap, well did before charity shops got a makeover and they don't put out worn interesting books anymore, just pristine dull ones  ) 

 

One of the most impressive alternate history films is It Happened Here, which started as a school project, and took 10 years too make from 1956-66!

 What is really impressive from the detail point of view is the uniforms and equipment, on of the makers , Andrew Mollo,  later wrote book on this, and it's very well researched.  And unsettling,  when I first saw it I also saw a documentary about life in Vichy France, and what happened there.  

There is book on the film, and the story of ti's making is fascinating,  even using ex-German soldiers , as German soldiers....

and then there are the British collaborators in the SS...

 

note the Black Prince cuff title... 

the film is full of this kind of detail.  It was very controversial as it has film of real British nazis explaining their ideas.

 

have a google, looks like the film is up on Daily Motion and other info is out there

 

Sorry for the digression,  but perhaps of interest.. 

 

I'm not entirely sure why the Germans re-engined the Spitfire with a DB engine.... Don't forget the British had the last laugh on that front....  

 

a little fact that always makes me chuckle...

[nsmekanik]

On 12/22/2019 at 11:04 AM, Adam Poultney said:

I think I'll sort this one into the realm of pretty much fantasy apart from the possibility of converting more captured aircraft on a very small scale.

As a fantasy it's not so far off reality as the Germans, among many others including the Fins made pretty good use of modified captured equipment. one possible scenario is the Finns capturing a Russian example and re-engining it with a DB whatever, or the Germans/Italians doing the same with captured examples in North Africa using a Manufacturers supplied kit. I think there are a lot of possibilities and camo options.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

1 hour ago, Troy Smith said:

I'm not entirely sure why the Germans re-engined the Spitfire with a DB engine

I think if my memory serves that after a short time the merlin got worn out or damaged ? So someone proposed the idea of “can we use a german engine to replace it ?” I may be incorrect. However for some reason that is what i remember reading here, maybe a year ago here on the Forum. 
 

Dennis

Edited December 24, 2019 by Corsairfoxfouruncle

[Work In Progress]

5 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

 

 

I'm not entirely sure why the Germans re-engined the Spitfire with a DB engine.... Don't forget the British had the last laugh on that front....  

 

 

a little fact that always makes me chuckle...

And the first laugh too, given that the first flight of the 109 prototype was with a Kestrel engine

[gingerbob]

I think the original engine change was done as a way to evaluate (or compare) the Spitfire's cooling system- sort of an "all things being equal" test.  I've got a copy of the German test report, but my German isn't good enough to read it.

 

 

[smackers]

Another alternate history could be that the British re-engined the Spitfire for tests and found it was superior to the Merlin so reverse engineered and produced the DB engine in large numbers equipping many aircraft.