The Germans had the same if not worse problems with pilots than England. The Germans just couldn't sustain the attack, Britain was winning the war of attrition. The spit had ample range and endurance for the mission. At most economical cruise it was only burning 25 gal/hr at full belt 89 gal/hr, with settings in between. So on average you'd get somewhere around 90 minutes of flight, with a fair bit of that at high speed. I think OBNW actually aluded to them taking off sometimes with less than full tanks, first I've heard of that but I'd like to know more about it. I've gotten the impression from books and documentaries that when they actually engaged the enemy they tended to fire off most or all of their ammunition. It makes sense considering how little training they had. I contend that missed interception were the fault of limitations of the GCI and pilot training and would have occured even if the spit had a more endurance.

one point about air patrol that has been missed, you need more aircraft, as if you have standing patrols you need to rotate them, this means that at any one time you may have a larger proportion of your force being refueled/returning for refueling/fully fuelled and climbing fo altitude, leaving only a small force availible to attack, bear in mind that you are already outnumbered, does this sound like a good situation~?

I think the P-40 would have been a great plane for the RAF during the BOB. While it may not have been quite as good as the Spit or 109 it was close and it was far better than the Hurricane which made up the majority of RAF fighter numbers....It was faster, better ranged, and more heavily armed..6 .50 vs 8 .303. It would have been a much better bomber killer than the Hurricane. In addition look at how well P-40's did in North Africa vs Me-109's and 110's. But realistically this is idle speculation as Curtis was probably not able to meet both Army Air Corps needs as well as the RAF's. They were only able to supply the RAF amply in 1942 when other aircraft were being produced in enough numbers to allow P-40 production to be sent to the RAF.

the p40 availible in 1940 wasnt the p40 used in the desert, it was a lot slower, and turn climb and dive rates were also very inferior, had the 1941 P40 been availible then I would agree but the early model wasnt a match for the hurricane let alone the spit/109, and if you are taking 41 models then the hurricane II carried a better set of weapons with 4x20mm whilst giving little away to the p40. plus the P40 worked better at lowish attitudes whilst the bob was fought at farely high ones.

To OBNW: One last time. NOBODY is recommending STANDING PATROLS. My position is that an increase of range (and endurance) even at some sacrifice in climb rate, would have improved Frt Com performance. Reasons: During BoB barely half the sorties by Frt Com engaged the Germans at all, and a large portion of those that did engage did so from a position of about equal altitude, or even at an altitude disadvantage. With increased endurance, the time window for scrambling squadrons would have been much larger, improving both situations. The RAF GCI system in the BoB was the only such system in the world, but like all new things there were bugs in it, and due to the tactical position, (including the limited endurance of their ftrs) they had to be nearly perfect. This is why the German change of targets to London was important -- it changed the situation enough to give them a greater margin in their decisions. I don't blame the GCI people about ignoring the importance of sun direction: no one ever told them it was important until well into the BoB. Anyway, they had enough problems getting interceptions at all, without trying to control the direction of approach. With greater endurance a/c a far greater proportion of sorties could have made contact and done so with altitude in hand for a diving initial attack. Also, with greater endurance the intercepting pilots would have had the option of attacking, then disengaging to regain altitude for another diving attack. Even in the best situation, they had to attack, and stay in to make additional attacks before fuel exhaustion forced RTB. This meant getting hit on by the '109s. With so many green (often very green) pilots, mixing with the '109 quickly got VERY expensive. They (green pilots) had a far better chance to survive and learn the job, doing dive and run away to dive again attacks.

the p40 availible in 1940 wasnt the p40 used in the desert. You're absolutely right. The 1940 model was the P-40B...Not much better than the Hurricane if at all...It still did quite well vs the Zero in the hands of the AVG but that was after they learned not to dogfight the Zero. The later P-40E model was what the RAf and RAAF used quite effectively against the Me-109E's and F's in North Africa...as fast as the Me-109 and very rugged

To Ispose: Actually, the RAF etc used the P40B (Tomahawk) prior to getting the later models (Kittyhawk). In fact the 100 P40Bs the AVG got were diverted from an order built for the RAF under a deal in which they got a priority on the later models.

cgi in the bob was crude, the ground controlers could get the RAF close but not to the extent of placing them upsun, it was not like modern radar which picks out indivual aircraft, the radar of 1940 were just peaks on a oscilascope, in height they were acturate +/-1000ft, even worse with an inexperianced operator,whilst the cgi was vital to the bob it was a very crude system, for large periods of the battle the radar chain was out and they relied on the observer corp, if you read the autobiography of ginger lacy(the bob top scorer) it says, iirc, that often they used to short fill the hurricanes to improve performance trading endurance against speed knowing that the engagements were short and frenetic, the dive shoot run away and try again tactics are fine if you just intend to knock off a few bombers, but a major role was to break up the formations, this needed the aircraft to get amongst and cause havoc, they reckon that the luftwaffe needed to do this against the b17/24 raids if they had a hope of success, they failed and the rest is history(they later tried all sorts of ideas to try and get this effect, aeral bombs, rockets cables strung between fighters!!! and remeber that the germans in 44 had excelent radar

the early kittyhawk was significantly inferior to the hurricane in an interceptor role, its performance was so poor that if not for the case of there was nothing better the RAF would have cancelled the contract, as it was it was transfered to other theaters where the air war was at lower altitude and the performace deficient not as great. the later models(merlin engined or the later Alison) actually did make the P40 superior to the mk1 hurricane and on par with the mk2 however remember that the hurricane at that time was regarded as obsolite as a fighter and was ebeing relegated to other uses. however in defence of the p40 it was by far the best fighter in service in the usaf in 1940, far superior to the dog p39, in service which is more than the p38 was. by the way a quicky for shooter, why if the spit and mossie were so inferior were they the PR planes of choice by the USAF, by end of 45 the PR squarons of the USAF were nearly exclusively spits and mossies!

To OBNW: I know that the USAAF used some Mossie PRs, and some Spits early on, when the US had nothing available and I don't know the equipement of PR units in Europe, but I do know that the PR units in the Pacific in '45 were equiped with the PR versions of the P38 and P51, not with Spitfires, and good as the Mossie was, I don't see why it would be preferred to either the Mustang or Lightning in that role. Several hundred P38s and P51s were completed as F4s,F5s and F6s. Why bother if all the PR units were using Spits and Mossies.