The Spit was enough faster than the Hurri to have a better chance of gaining attack position before the '109s interfered. The idea of Spits attacking escorts while Hurris attacked bombers was talked about a lot, but rarely worked that way in practice. The RAF fighters rarely attacked in great enough massed numbers for anything but individual attacks. In any event, the comparison isn't just mine. Quote from Sqn Ldr Stanford Tuck, OC No. 257 Sqn. '40, who went to Hurricanes from Spitfires, talked in glowing terms of "it's remarkable steadiness and solidness when the eight guns crashed into life ..." RAF pilots of the period all conceded that the Hurricane was a better shooting platform than the Spitfire.

In any event, using BoB numbers on this can be misleading due to the very bad gunnery training by the RAF. Except for a handful of 'natural' shots, like Tuck, the level of gunnery skill for Ftr Comm pilots was discouragingly low. Moreover, the 'scatter' style of gun alignment was still in general use. On those rare occassions when gun cameras were mounted it was found that Ftr Com. pilots habitually opened fire at about twice the 400 yards set by policy, and fire on other Hurris and Spits mistaking them for '109s with alarming regularity. Bombers were easier to hit and less likely to acutally be other RAF fighters. Simply put, few of the RAF pilots were able to take advantage of the Hurricane's potential for greater accuracy.

but you still havent explained why the spit shot down more aircraft proportionally than the hurricane if the hurricane was a better gu platform! the facts tend to dissagree with your statement, whilst it was said that the hurricane was a superior gun platform it is also said that the spit flight charateristics meant that pilots spent less effort both menatlly and phisyically, flying the the spit which meant that they could get into better firing positions

OBNW: My argument was that a Merlin powered 'hawk type a/c could have been built in '39 as all necessary technology was available, with hindsight yes it was, but as i pointed out if you were building a intercepter for RAF service in the 30s you designed it round the requirements, if curtis had submitted a design they would have built it with the same range as the spit/hurricane as this is what the RAF stated! and such an a/c would have had tactcal advantages due to superior endurance (range). as i stated before if this was an issue then work toincrease the range of the Mk1/2 spits would have been persued as it was untill 41 the only spits to get any range increases were the PR models, some of the fuel increase ideas of the PR models of 40 were later used on the fighter versions yet no attempt was made to apply these to the Mk1/2 despite the fact that the PR being built next to them was recieving the mods! The a/c was quite capable of handling 2x.50s and 4x.30s which would be at least the firepower of a Spit IX. The actual production history of the actual P40 is not relavent to the argument. 2x .5 (with vastly reduced rof as they were nose mounted) and 4x.3 was no where near the 2x 20mm 4x .303 of the MkV let alone the 2x 20mm 2x .5 thata lot of mkIX carried plus the fact that pre 39 the US was refusing a liciense to produce .5's and would you rely on imports unless you were forced? The problem was that the short range Spitfire got only one chance to intercept and it either the sqd. ldr or the GCI messed up, the a/c lacked fuel for another interception attempt. With 25-30% greater endurance a second intercption could be plotted and attempted, radically improving the intercepts/sortie ratio. Except that squadrons could be scrambled earlier, the GCI system would remain. This has nothing to do with standing patrols -- a straw man argument in this situation

Sounds like an amazing amount of what ifs. What if ... they had fitted a Merlin to a p40, what if ... etc etc. Better still, what if the Raf had built a meteor jet in 1937? Can we stick to the facts, combat in the BOB was {rountinely} 15,000ft + More often than not 20,000ft. Jeffery Quill (yes the test pilot) was in combat then and he said he never fought below 20,000ft. There was nothing in the US inventory that could handle combat at that height at the time. We can imagine so many alternatives, but given the historical record it was a miracle (called Dowding) that the RAF was ready at all. The highest scoring aces in the BOB were predominately Hurricane pilots. Don't knock it, it was a b***y good plane. Pilots very soon (those who survived the Battle of France and the early BOB) very soon learned to use their strengths as much as possible. Dowding's decision to try (as much as possible) to aim Hurricanes towards bombers was more a reflection of their greater hitting power by the grouped guns. You always have to see the tactical and strategic dimension. There was not enough Me109s and they had to accept combat to protect the bombers. If they left the bombers died. The Hurricanes might have been slower but the Me109 piolts had to fight them to protect the bombers, that meant dog fights, which meant they were on more equal footing. And the RAF kept coming. The battle's outcome was a result of German strategic failing. Escort protection, as much as it was thought of, was the job of the Me110 (basically an inferior P38) which was a failure. Remember what Galland said, the single engine fighter was the handmaiden of the Luftwaffe. The elite was the bonbers & 110s. They never had enough fighters .. ever. When the Luftwaffe had the tactical advantage (the infamous circus operations of 41/42) they won. They also won: (1) The Day battle of Gremany in 43 (2) The night battle in 43/early 44. Because the initially the Allies suffered from the same failed dogma as the Germans ... not enough escort fighters. P39,P40, heck strap a Merlin to a SE5 and see how it goes. Slap on a couple of 20mm .......

To MustangFlyer: the jets for a Meteor weren't available in '39. Both the 'hawk airframe and the Merlin were. The Germans suffered the same strategic lack of vision as the RAF: failure to grasp the advantages of greater range. The Germans had more '109s than the RAF had Spits and Hurris, but for an attack on London '109s had to work in three shifts due to lack of range. If the a/c had 30% more range, it would have effectively doubled the number of fighters available for escort. Add to that the escort tactics were very poor and only got worse as the battle progressed. Day bombing Germany, numbers weren't the most important factor. Bomber losses beyond escort range were totally prohibative, but even a small number of escorts, using effective tactics, reduced bomber losses radically.

My point exactly. The RAF (and the Luft also) fail to understand the need for range. The result was that the Spitfire was built to a design that precluded any major range increase -- there just wasn't anyplace to put much more in the way of combat usable fuel. The PR Spits sacrificed armament and armor for fuel because they were expected to avoid combat, something a fighter couldn't do. Attempts to increase range of the fighters were already ongoing during BoB and didn't go anywhere. Note that the range on internal fule of a Mk21 was slightly less than that of a MkI Spitfire, and that was after two redesigns. The ferry tank in the rear fuselage wasn't combat usable, it seems to have taken a remarkably long time to develope a good, reliable, combat usable drop tank. Even with RoF reduction, one .50 is worth more than two .303s. The Spit V was nowhere to be seen in '40, and attempts to put 20mms into Spit IIs weren't what anyone could call a stunning success. The fact that the US restricted export of the .50 Browning is an arguement, but it's hard to believe FDR wouldn't have changed that if Churchill had brought it up with him. Note that eventually .50s were built in the UK for the RAF. The original plan was to replace the .303s in the Lancs and 'faxes, but production never got very high and the Spitfires ate about all of them.

While acrobatics and tight formation flying in a Spit required less physical effort than in a Hurri, the greater sensativity would mean more mental and physical stress on things like landings (much easier in a Hurri) and simple cruising flight. As has been noted, most of the top RAF aces of the BoB were Hurricane pilots. As I mentioned earlier, the generally low gunnery skill level, and 'shotgun' style weapons alinement pattern in general use then meant that the Hurricane's advantages weren't of much use to most pilots in the BoB period. The fact remains that the RAF pilots themselves were convinced the Hurricane could shoot more accurately than the Spitfires of the BoB period. Later Spitfires, with larger engines to increase performance, would actually have been worse than the MkI/II in this.

I wish my brain worked better than it does now! >>A 550 pound increase from 6050 to 6600 pounds is a 9% increase in weight. Induced drag being proportional to the square of the weight if all other things are constant the induced drag is only increased by 19%(last time had rounding error). << I belive that you are backwards on this. The increase in speed would be the Square root of 9% as you have stated the problem now. Induced drag increase should be about 5.4% of the total of 9%?

To OBNW; You have based this argument on three false premices; 1. That BoB claims are reliable. Of the two types it is clear that Hurry claims are less subject to OC than Spit claims are. After all they could count the wreckage and associate it with the claims of BOMBERs and fighters shot down! 2. Post war records searches show that Hurries downed ~2 for every one downed by Spits. 3. You are using logic/ancidotal? Evidence? to dispute the FACTS as Stated by the Vast majority of pilots who flew both; IE, The hurry was the better gun platform. You also ignore the US tests at the time; All of the US Types were better gun platforms than the Spit with the best by far being the P-38 followed by the P-47 and far less effective were the P-40/39/51, ALL of which were better than the Spit or on parr with the Hurricane! No amount of arguments can change the FACTS!