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Subject: How to fix the design defects of the Spitfire airplane of WW-II.
Shooter    5/26/2005 5:12:16 PM
Given 20-20 hind sight, It is easy to see where R.M. went wrong with the Spitfire! The following list of items is my idea of how they should have done it, IF THEY HAD READ ANY OF THE COMMON TEXTS instead of designing a newer SPAD for the last war! 1. Start with the late Seafire or even better the Martin Baker MB-5! they have contra props and wide track gear. The MB-5 also has a much higher LOS out of the pit forward. This is also one of the Spits larger problems. 2. Change the shape/planform of the wing and eppinage from eliptical to trapiziodal. The eliptical surfaces caused the construction time and cost of the Spitfire to be more than double that of the Mustang and almost as much as the P-38. 3. Reduce the wing cord and thus area by 35-40%! This reduction in surface aria will increase the cruising speed substantialy! This is probably the single biggest defect in the design. The change in aspect ratio will also help fuel ecconomy! 4. To compensate for the increased landing and take off speeds install triple slotted fowler flaps with a long hinge extension. This gives a huge increase in wing area and changes the camber for supirior "DOG FIGHT" ability, should you ever need it! ( because the pilot really screwed up!) At full extension and deflection, they would reduce the landing speed by 11~13MPH? (Slip Stick calcs!) 5. Remove the wing mounted radiators and install a body duct like the P-51 or MB-5! This one change would add ~35MPH to the plane? 6. use the single stage griphon engine and install a "Turbo-charger" like the P-38 and Most American Bombers had. This would increase power and save weight, both significant contributers to performance. 7. Remove the guns from the wings! This would lower the polar moment of rotation and give the plane snappier rates of roll! It also makes room for "wet wings" with much more fuel. A chronic Spit problem. It also fixes the Spit's gunnery problem of designed in dispersion! 8. Install the Gun(s) in the nose! Either fireing threw the prop boss/hub or on either side 180 degrees either side of the prop CL. This fixes the afore mentioned dispersion problem. One bigger gun between the cilinder banks or upto four 20MMs beside the engine or both, depending on what your mission needs were! 9. Make a new gun based on the American 28MM or 1.1" Naval AA ammo! This shell was particuarly destructive, had a very high MV and BC and was all ready in service. A re-engineered copy of the existing gun to reduce weight and increase RoF is a faily simple task. Pay the Americans for it if British spring technology is not up to the task! it also frees up much needed production capasity for other things. 10. Design a new drawn steel "Mine" shell for the above gun! Spend the money to load it with RDX instead of the TNT used for the first 4/5s of the war. 11. Pay North American or Lockheed to design it for you, since the Supermarine staff was to tied up fixing the origional spitfire design to get it done any time soon. Did I miss anything?
 
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Aussiegunnerreturns    RE:USAAC P-40 fighters in WW-II....Larry   11/10/2005 8:25:25 PM
"I suspect Shooter is just poking at some of you to get a raise." If that is the case then Shooter seriously lacks a life, because all his posts on Strategypage are of the same nature. I however tend to think that he legitimately demonstrates extreme arrogence, made worse by the fact that he knows nothing. As for the reasons for the British purchase of the Hawk and related comment, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that count unless you can provide some proof that the Hawk was purchased for any reason other than a shortage of manufacturing capacity in Britain at the time. The point about it being a better ground attack aircraft than the Battle(I agree that this aircraft was a piece of crap) is irrelevant, as it was designed as a fighter, not a bomber, and couldn't do its job. I also don't give much credit to the range in the desert issue either. Having a "base" in the desert in the 1940's didn't involve a concrete runway, so keeping one within Spitfire and Hurricane range of your 15 - 40km per hour, 100 to 200km range tank force can't have been that hard. The fact that both types were successfully used in the desert proves it, as far as I'm concerned. I stand by the comment that British doctrine didn't initially involve long-range fighters, though I agree that eventually find a need for them and found using the likes of the P-51 suitable once they sorted out the bugs. However, have you ever hear of them using their P-40's to escort bomb raids to Europe before that happenned? I don't think so, which proves that they didn't have the confidence in them in the European environment. That said, the Spits did an good job covering the Dunkirk withdrawal and other operations against the French coast. It had quite enough range for the tactical roles that it was assinged to.
 
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Aussiegunnerreturns    RE:USAAC P-40 fighters in WW-II....   11/10/2005 8:29:07 PM
"The Germans successfully drove RAF heavy bombers out of day attacks. The RAF had expected to do night attacks as well, but totally underestimated the technical problems of navigation and night bombing. Not until into '42 was the night bombing campaign more that a morale sop to the British public (badly needed, but still not of any real military improtance)." Out of interest and not intending to have a dig, do you know why the US then decided to go and do unescorted daylight raids, despite the RAF's experience?
 
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Aussiegunnerreturns    RE:USAAC P-40 fighters in WW-II....   11/10/2005 8:33:06 PM
"The Allison, the Merlin and the German engines were all quite comperable. I don't claim any of them were inherantly superior except in very narrow applications. The USAAC fighter doctrine (which I mentioned earlier) resulted in developement of an engine that didn't include an integral blower as the Merlin did. This has nothing to do with reliability, only altitude applications." I don't think anybody is claiming that it was unreliable. It was just underpowered and lacked altitude performance for a long time, because of the US inability to design a decent blower for it. PS, I appreciate that you seem to recognise the abilty to design good aircraft has more to do with the resources committed(as per your comments re: Britains head start), than it does any inate abilty of one country over another. It is the latter attitude that I have such a problem with.
 
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gf0012-aust    USAAC P-40 fighters in WW-II....Larry - Range issues   11/10/2005 8:52:04 PM
re: "I also don't give much credit to the range in the desert issue either. Having a "base" in the desert in the 1940's didn't involve a concrete runway, so keeping one within Spitfire and Hurricane range of your 15 - 40km per hour, 100 to 200km range tank force can't have been that hard. The fact that both types were successfully used in the desert proves it, as far as I'm concerned." agree, the RAAF and RAF often had fuel drums scattered throughout the desert. There are any number of photos in the Aust War Memorial that show aircraft fueling up at temp fuel dumps sans any other "soldiery form of life" nearby. Often a 44 gall drum and a hand pump was a "fuel depot" The RAAF was constantly operating on a target of opportunity mindset and numbers of aircraft didn't have regular facilities.
 
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AussieEngineer    RE:USAAC P-40 fighters in WW-II....AG   11/11/2005 12:13:07 AM
good to see you back AG
 
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larryjcr    RE:USAAC P-40 fighters in WW-II....Larry   11/11/2005 3:56:30 AM
The Curtis 'hawks were designed for low level combat and ground support, which is exactly what they were used for in North Africa. Name the British ground support a/c that was as good?? They were badly handicapped above about 15K, but even the tests in the UK showed that below 10K they were an even match for a Hurricain in a fight. Ever more so in North Africa, where the Merlin engined a/c suffered performance reductions due to the addition of dust filters. And the Hurricain was THE RAF ftr in North Africa until well into '42 when the Spitfires finally arrived. I agree that British doctrine didn't involve long range fighters. And that was an error by the RAF. There was active opposition in the top levels of the RAF to 'wasting effort' on long range fighters, since (it was believed) any a/c carrying a large fuel load would be hopelessly outclassed in performance by short range a/c. This, along with its unbelievably bad air combat doctrine were the major pre-war mistakes of the RAF, which, otherwise did a great many thing right. The Spitfire had enough range for the tactical roles it was assigned to, because it could only be assigned tactical roles within its range. AS an arguement against the need for long range fighters, that's not valid. It did not have enough range to force the Luft in France to fight it by threatening important objectives, or to provide any meaningful support for things like the intruder missions by Bostons. German fighters remained within striking range of the coast until US P38s and '47s forced them back -- something that HAD to be done before an invasion was possible.
 
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larryjcr    RE:USAAC P-40 fighters in WW-II....   11/11/2005 4:02:38 AM
The USAAF believed that its higher flying, and much more heavily armed bombers could make unescorted raids. They were wrong, but the '17s could at least defend themselves agains attacks by small groups of fighters (which the RAF bombers armed only with .303s couldn't). What they needed fighter protection against was massed fighter attacks that saturated their defenses and broke up formations. Note that the ratio of fighters to bombers in USAAF daylight raids was never anywhere nearly as high as for the much smaller '41 short range daylight raids by Wellingtons and Stirlings. In those, even when the ratio exceeded a full squadron of Spits or Hurris per bomber, the Germans continued to get through and inflict serious losses.
 
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larryjcr    RE:USAAC P-40 fighters in WW-II....   11/11/2005 4:18:53 AM
The Merlin and Allison were quite similar in power, both starting out at just over 1000 hp and ending up around 1600 (very late and post war developements aside). I don't think that there was much of an attempt to develope a mechanical blower for the Allison for some time. The P39 and '40 were recognized as dead ends. They both stayed in production longer that they should have (the '39 for the Russians, the '40 because of Curtiss' political clout). The P38 used turbo chargers. The US was producing excellent blowers for other engines. The two stage unit on the P&W R-1830 for the Wildcat/Martlet for example, was first rate, as were those later used on the R-2800 for the Hellcat and Corsair. I don't think its the quality of the design that's effected by resources committed, so much as the developement. The Lightning was a much more technically advance a/c than the Spitfire and actually needed much more effort in developement, but for a number of reasons, got much less support early on in the program. Locheed was heavily committed to work on other a/c and the USAAC saw it as only an 'insurance policy' against a threat that was unlikely to develope. Only after combat reports from Europe brought their low altitude fighter doctrine into question, and the XP38 showed its performance (before being destroyed in a stupid publicity stunt) did they suddenly decide it was important, and by then they'd lost at least 18 months that they never got back.
 
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larryjcr    RE:USAAC P-40 fighters in WW-II....Larry - Range issues   11/11/2005 4:28:23 AM
A piece of desert hardpan big enough for an airstrip wasn't all that easy to find. Also, while all it took was a few fuel drums and a stirrup pump to take care of an a/c that got lost, or was low on fuel, you couldn't actually fly missions without a lot of other support equipment, and the desert was a pretty big place. Not a problem while the armies were standing still, as they sometimes were for months at a time, but when they moved, it could be 150 miles a day, and as that could be either way, you didn't want to base your a/c too close to the front where they could be overrun. Yes, they were used, but that doesn't mean that their short legs were often a problem. When the 'Torch' landings went in, they sucked up nearly all the p38s available because long range fighters (and the P38F wasn't all that long range compared to later '38s) were absolutely critical to the success of the campaign, and it was the only long range fighter on hand.
 
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oldbutnotwise    RE:USAAC P-40 fighters in WW-II....Larry - Range issues   11/11/2005 6:33:40 AM
What am i missing here? the spit was used to support the torch landings, in fact there is a pic of the beachhead with a US spit in the surf that was printed in the stars and stripes as a P40 as it was deemed politcally incorrect to admit the us was using spits
 
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