June to Sept was the extent of the attack on Britain from land launches on the Continent. The Canadian and British armies cleared the launching sites by then. As I mentioned there were later attacks on Britain by V1s launched from He 111s, however this was at night and thus became exclusively a Mosquito war, where the focus was on destroying the bombers, very sucessfully too. Many were launched against Antwerp later in the war, but there was no effective defences. You're right about the guns, after moving them to the coast and the introduction of the proximity fuses they became very sucessfull and fighter success dropped, though still significant. It's an interesting topic, often forgotten, but I think my main point originally was that while Spitfires may not have been the best gun platform, it still was a pretty good one and capable of high speed, stable manouvers and shooting. The V1 campaign showed they were not too bad. Think of it as a controlled experiment. No plane's perfect at everything, but all the acknowledged 'great' fighter planes were all pretty good across quite a range of performance. Some better at this, some better at that, overall good packages. Really came down to the pilots getting the best out of them on the day. As I said, I'm surprised about the Mustang as well, particularly given their performance, they were faster than the Spit at low altitude and could loiter on patrol at high cruise for longer. Only thing that seems to make sense is the guns. There had to be something, otherwise they would have used a lot more of them. I'm definately open to suggestions. Someone got more data?

To OBNW; You are clearly showing your lack of understanding of both strategy and tactics with the following statements. The .5 issue below also shows a lack of knowledge of history! >>as to the .5 issue larry is correct that by 1940 FDR wopuld have said yes to the production of .5s in the UK however in 1936 the answer was no! and as pointed out many times when the spit and hurricane entered service they were the heaviest armed fighters of the day! by the time it became obvious that the 303 was no longer sufficent the raf had decided that cannons were the future and by 40 had cannon armed spits flying - unfortunatly not reliably.<< The origional Me-109 had a 20MM cannon IIRC, But the boeing P-26 of 1934 had a .50 which had more power than the four/eight .303s of the early Spits. what rubish 1 .5 was superior to 8 303? in which world? in the mid to late 30s 303s (or us 30s or 7.62) as more than suficient to destroy an aircraft, it was the introduction of spit and hurricane than created the need to fit amour which in turn meant that the 303 were unsuitable. chicken and egg. if the spit had been fitted with .5s from inception it is likely that the bombers and fighters would have gone for amour to surive .5 hits and by 41 the .5 would have been as obsolete as the 303 as had been pointed out a synronised gun losses about 40% of its ROF so 2 nose guns only have the same weight on target as 1 wing gun of the same type! the only exception to this is aircraft like the P38 that didnt reqiuire sycronisation. shame they never gave the p38 the merlin and allowed it to be the fighter it could have been(I was visting a ww2 USAF base in norfolk, on the readyroom wall are cartoons of the US aircraft, still readerble are the milk bottle P47 and the time bomb P38 the flying fortress and the flying boxcart - kind of shows what the p38 was thought of in the ETO) wrong the original 109 had 2x 7.62 it wasnt till the later d model that it got a nose mounted 20mm and that was after (and as a result of) the introduction of the spit >your claim that 2x.5 nose guns and 2 x .30 wing guns was superior to 2x20mm and 4 x .303 is joke!<< No it is not. Two nose guns will put all of their shots on the target at ANY range that is within the "point blank" range. But all the wing mounted guns on the planet will be sure to miss a perfectly centered target at 1/2 the ZERO range! In addition a 5MM armor plate will stop 100% of .303 fire at 250 yards. many German fighters carried armor plates much thicker than this at 8-10MM, that could not stop a .50 at 600 yards, let alone 250. >>but your hindsight is so flawed, if the RAF knew what the BOB was going to be like would they have given up any performace of the spit for the sake of additional fuel that wasnt going to be used! yes it would have been advantagous later in the war but had the RAF been destroyed in 1940 then an ability in 42 would have been pointless would it not!<< Right! I've got a thousand bucks at ten to one odds that says; I can beat you playing either side of the BoB, buy much more than you can get back, IF I have longer ranged planes. Care to risk a hundred bucks to win one-thousand? ok if this is so sure fire, how about if I use ther longer range planes and tou use the short range planes? by youor argument I should despite little sim experiance be able to beat you with your 1000's of hours and 1000s of kills. just because you can do something doesnt make that a fact. as has been proved many times an expericaned pilot can make up for a planes faults, however an experianced pilot needs a superior plane to survive, and remember that the pilots in the BOB were in the majority inexperianced. >>if they RAF had the kind of foresight you mention then the RAF would have been equiped with jets by 1940.<< This is certainly true! They really stepted on their colective "Johnsons" whith that serries of choices didn't they! yes they did >>as for RM the original spit specification was for a range 30% lower than Mitchell actually included.<< So what! the failure was in the choices made to arive at the Spec in the first place! Then by Mitchel who failed to do his due dilligence and just went about his own way and built what he thought they wanted instead of making the right choices on his own. There is more than enough blame and bad design to go around! what a utter lack of understanding of history you show The UK was not alone in the above bad choices! The US had more jet engine projects in the works before WW-II than the rest of the world combined! In addition to GE, Lockheed, Northrup and at least TWO minor players ALL got rejections from the USAAF on their origional jet submissions! and yet it was a british engine that powered the first US jet! shows that the US were inferior lol >>yes the spec was written after the spit was on the drawing bored but not as you claim after it had flown, the design was changed many times in line w

As to range, there seem to have been a lot of mods to the Typhoon. Numbers I found were: a/c R8762 (Typhoon IB) tested in Nov.'42 -- range on max. internal fuel: 374 miles (less than a Spit). a/c SW555 (Typhoon IB) tested in Oct. '45 -- range with 2x500 lb bombs -- 510 miles. Obviously an inmprovement between the two. I know that the P47 was no where near as bad as the description I found of the Typhoon on take off and landing. Yes, it needed a firm foot on the rudder on take off, but that was it. Offer following quote for comparison: First Typhoon flight described by Pierre Clostermann in THE BIG SHOW: "I had been warned that Typhhons swung, but surely not as much as this! ... I corrected as much as I could with the brakes, but even then I found myself drifting dangerously to the right. Halfway down the runway my right wheel was practically on the grass. ... To hell with it, I tore her off the ground. "This plane just had no lateral stability at all. I still went on drifting to starboard and, with those miserable ailerons that only 'bit' at speeds higher than 100 mph I daren't lower my port wing too much ..." The descriptions of the MkXIV Spitfire suggest that unless the throttle was opened very slowly, the a/c became completely uncontrollable and charged off an a right angle to the intended take off line.

To OBNW: The problem wasn't so much armor, as the fact that an all metal, internally braced monoplane was much harder to damage than the biplanes they replaced in the late '30s. The armor was installed to protect a few particularly vulnerable points (like the pilot). One fifty wasn't worth 8 .303s (unless they were scatter aimed as the RAF did until most of the way thru '40, but is was certainly better than 3 of them. As for armoring against the .50, a/c armed exclusively with .50s were shooting down German fighters quite nicely in '45. The standard armament for a P26 was either one .50 and one .30 or two .50s. Even figuring off for syncronization, two fifties are better than 4x .303s in the wings.

I recommend the article "Biggin Hills 1,000" by Donald Nijboer in the new (March '06) issue of AVIATION HISTORY magazine. It concerns operations by Spitfire squadrons based at Biggin Hill between the BoB and the 1000th confirmed kill claim by a/c there. In particular, the author notes the problems encountered attempting to gain air superiority over the coast of Europe due to the Spitfire's short range. He states that during the second half of '41, during which the FW190A and Me109G entered service, RAF fighter command claimed kills of 731 Luft fighters for the loss of 411 RAF fighters (nearly all of which would have been Spitfires). Actual German losses for the period wer 103 fighters. Kill to loss ratio: 4 to 1 in favor of the Germans. RAF overclaiming by a factor of 7.

>>what rubish 1 .5 was superior to 8 303? in which world?<< In any world that had 8MM of armor and 200 meters between the shooter with the eight .303s and the soft squishy stuff that he was trying to hit. >>as had been pointed out a synronised gun losses about 40% of its ROF so 2 nose guns only have the same weight on target as 1 wing gun of the same type! << This is clearly ingnorance on your part. As you are arguing from the Spicific to the general. That the one plane you are thinking of MIGHT have suffered from reductions in firepower of that order, There are conflicting reports about the P-40/51's nose guns, there is abslutely no reason to belive that a properly done example might loss any rate of fire. I site numerious German examples with electricly primed ammo. Many had no reduction in RoF at all. Shooter>>>Right! I've got a thousand bucks at ten to one odds that says; I can beat you playing either side of the BoB, buy much more than you can get back, IF I have longer ranged planes. Care to risk a hundred bucks to win one-thousand?<<< OBNW>>ok if this is so sure fire, how about if I use ther longer range planes and tou use the short range planes? by youor argument I should despite little sim experiance be able to beat you with your 1000's of hours and 1000s of kills.<< This is so true that I would not take those odds!(I am very competitive and do not like to loose even if it's only a hundred bucks!) But I do have ten thousand not thousands of hours in various SIMs but only 859 kills mano-y-mano! Man Vs the computer does not count.

Dear Larry; Great post! where do you guys get all this stuff? This is so good that i just HAD to copy it to here! In particular, the author notes the problems encountered attempting to gain air superiority over the coast of Europe due to the Spitfire's short range. He states that during the second half of '41, during which the FW190A and Me109G entered service, RAF fighter command claimed kills of 731 Luft fighters for the loss of 411 RAF fighters (nearly all of which would have been Spitfires). Actual German losses for the period wer 103 fighters. Kill to loss ratio: 4 to 1 in favor of the Germans. RAF overclaiming by a factor of 7. Again, great post!

Shooter: In this case, I subscribe to the mag. New issue came yesterday. Was the first article I read.

More proof of the bone headedness of the top of the RAF. In an offensive role range is a critical variable. The Luftwaffe simply pulled back and only engaged when they had the tactical advantage (Murray, Luftwaffe, Strategy for Defeat, amongst many others). It also helped that they had the best pilots and planes in the West. Heck, the pilots were desperate for more range so they could come to grips wih the enemy. No-one is claiming that a Spit could be tricked up to Mustang range, but it could have been improved greatly, at least to early P47 levels and probably to about the same as early P38s (note I said early, they both improved over time). That would have put real pressure on the Luftwaffe in 41/42 in the West, stretching them further when they were already over extended in the East and the Med/North Africa. It would also have been invaluable help for the USAAF for the early 42/43 daylight campaigns and really helped out the P47 and P38 boys. Still would have needed the 'stang for the coup de grace in 44 though, though it could have brought forward the Luftwaffe's demise months earlier or at least saved a lot of bomber crews lives. Hey, look at my handle, do you really think I'm anti-Mustang? Portal (head of the RAF) told Churchill in 41 that a long range fighter could never hold its own against a short range fighter. There is a lot of truth in that, except the simple fact that by the time the escort fighter gets to a combat position its burned off most of its fuel (using a layered escort system of course, with shorter range fighters covering the early stages). The Luftwaffe and the USSAF don't come out much better on this topic, the Luftwaffe never built a competitive long range fighter and the USAAF initially didn't even think they were necessary! The Mustang was a very fortuitous accident. Perhaps it was lucky that the power that be didn't really know what they had with the Mustang, or some idiot would have probably killed the whole project on the grounds that "it was impossible".

To MustangFlyer: I agree with nearly all of this. With leading edge tanks (requiring change of armament), decent drop tanks and a self sealing fuselage tank (could have been used for climb and formating if no combat) the Spit's combat radius could have been pushed to 400 miles or so. Still a little less than a P47B and much less than a P38F, but more than twice that of a MkII, or a MkV before drop tank. The article I quoted earlier states that the limit for MkIX Spitfire escorting B17s was "Brussels-Lille-Beavais-Rouen", and that's with a 30 imp.gal. drop tank. Little wonder that the Germans facing the UK couldn't be forced into combat by fighter command, and even when they chose to fight (Channel dash by German Battle Cruisers in Feb.'42, or Dieppe later in the year) they were able to successfully contest RAF air control. Besides the range issue, Fighter Command didn't come close to catching up with Luft. air tactics and tactical formations until late '43. The USAAC was just as blind as the RAF. In their case it was the need for high altitude performance. With just a little foresight and effort a delay of at least 18 months in the developement of the P38 could have been avoided, and production rates seriously increased. That would have given the USAAF a serious force of P38Fs in Dec. '41, and P38Js (with range at least as great as the P51D, and the engine problems behind them) entering service before the end of '42. Think that wouldn't have altered the course of the air war???