"Give me a Squadron of Spitfires"

[simon]

Well, Galland is famously supposed to have said this during the Battle of Britain whilst being lambasted by Goering for the failure of Luftwaffe fighters to stop the bombers from being shot down.

This is quite a "What if" but it got me thinking, what if the equipment situation in 1940 had been reversed.

The Luftwaffe's armoury consists of:

Spitfire
Hurricane
Wellington
Whitley
Hampden
Blenheim
and Skua (To replace the Stuka)

The RAF's fighter armoury consists of the Bf109 and Bf110, plus a handful of older biplanes in the secondline role.

The question is, here Galland has his squadron of Spitfires and then some, how might this have altered things if played out? Yeah, I know it would never have happened, I'm just interested in other's views, especially RTF's if he's still out there...

[Ricky]

Well, bearing in mind the range of the Hurricane & Spitfire, probably about the same!

Although the 4-gun turrets on the Wellington/Whitley would be a nasty shock to our poor pilots...

[simon]

So, what might have been altered in the Luftwaffe's armoury of RAF equipment to make things different? Could the deployment of the Whirlwind have been brought forward far enough to be useful as a longer ranged escort fighter?

[Corsarius]

Do we also swap the Me-262 with the Meteor
And the He-162 with the Vampire?

[robert]

quote:Originally posted by simon

So, what might have been altered in the Luftwaffe's armoury of RAF equipment to make things different? Could the deployment of the Whirlwind have been brought forward far enough to be useful as a longer ranged escort fighter?


Probably not - the Whirlwind was beset with numerous development problems (not only with the engines), and was put into service about as quickly as was possible.

[simon]

Corsarius, yeah sure why not, except that we'd have to assume that the Vampire's service entry would still be post war (At least within the historical timeframe anyhow), and certainly neither would have had any influence in the Battle of Britain.

Robert. I pretty much agree with you. I think the Bf110 would have proven a pretty effective bomber destroyer, especially if the Bf109s could have kept the fighters away from them for long enough. As for the Whirlwind, again that was pretty much my assumption.

What about the Gloster twin engine plane (I'll find the designation if I can), apparently it had quite good performance, might that have been brought into service?

[Ricky]

Well, it would probably go the same way as the Fw-187 Falke...

[Alex H.]

Well, the Spitfire had a shorter range than the Bf109, by about 40 or 50k while the Hurricane was slightly longer. Given that the Bf109 only had about 10 minutes fighting time over English airspace, I'm guessing the Spit wouldn't even have made it. The Hurricane was apparently out performed by the Bf109 so I don't know how effective a fighter escort it would have made.

Both the Bf109E and Bf110C/D had a far more suitable armament for bringing down bombers than the Spit or Hurricane, which may be offset by the Wellingtons ability to take damage.

Skua was even slower than Stuka so even more vulnerable. Anyone know about the rest of the bombers?

Alex.

[Ricky]

The Hampden was nippy & surprisingly manouverable, but had horribly insufficient defensive armament.

The Whitley was slow (and a bit funny-looking) but had power-operated turrets (2-gun nose turret, 4-gun rear turret) so would probably have been a more respected opponant.

The Fairey Battle (pause while Ricky explodes with laughter) was not really suitable as an aeroplane, let alone a tactical bomber. Strategic bomber? Ha ha ha ha!

The Blenhiem - fast in the 30's, slow in the 40's. Plus a piddling (2000lb) bomb load.

Yes, the Wellington would have been supreme.

As for fighters...

I do have a wonderful image of the great new German bomber escort - the Boulton-Paul Defiant!

However... I suppose that might not be as silly as it sounds - just have the Defiants flying in or around the bomber formation, providing extra defensive firepower (not unlike the 'escort fighter' versions of various bombers pioneered in the 30s).

:D

[Alex H.]

B.P. Defiant? Nice one, range of 800k so almost 150k better than a Spit. Tactics would have been an interesting topic. Wouldn't Defiants almost need to be attacked to be of any use? They don't appear to be capable of chasing the attacking fighters away.

Whitley and Wellington would both have been vulnerable to ventral/dorsal attacks due to lack of defensive armament. Ventral in particular, can you imagine the effect of several 20mm shells working their way into you bombload? Ouch, if you lived long enough to think or say that.

I think the Blenheim would have been hacked out of the sky with contempt. Only two defensive weapons and the Bf109 was almost 1/3 as fast again. I think this would have been even worse than the German bombers. I just found this quote in "Military Aviation Library - British Aircraft"

"Before long the Blenheim was found to be extremely vulnerable to enemy fighters."

And of course, Fairy Battles were. What a stupid name for a bomber. I wonder if any of the crew painted Tinkerbell on the side of their engines or tails?

Alex.

[Ricky]

LOL - they couldn't help the company name! [:o)]

[simon]

I can't imagine many of the Battles lasted long enough to warrant being personalised!

Oh, and just for the record, Battle was not a direct reference to war, the plane was named after a town in East Sussex near Hastings where the Battle of Hastings reportedly took place in 1066 (Quite a nice place in Summer too). There's an excellent post somewhere about the naming conventions of British warplanes.

I can't imagine the Defiant really being useful as an Escort fighter, it might serve a purpose flying in and among the formation to bolster the defensive fire of the bombers, aside from that it'd be easy meat for the interceptors...

[B-24WillowRun]

For the mention of the bomber escorts in the 1930s, trying to develop a gun platform to escourt the bomber formations failed. Both the B-17 and The B-24[:p] were developed in the hope that it would cure the need to have fighters. Both plans failed. If anyone is interested I can dig up the info.

Wellingtons rule. I think that the use of Helifax and Lancasters would have really hurt British cities, but only at night. though would it have made a difference decause of the different radar sets?

Also must agree the Halifax would have taken a beeting from below. If they could have only developed a sensible venturel turret. Like use of the sperry[?]

[simon]

If what you're refering to is the YB-40, and I'm guessing that the Lib also had it's equivalent, then yes I'm very interested, especially in numbers and placements of guns, and if available rounds per gun.

[Ricky]

Well, if I remember rightly, the Halifax (and Lancaster?) was produced in a version that had a manually aimed machinegun mounted in the bottom of the bomber (behind the bomb bay) to fire behind & below.
It was removed to fit H2S.

[simon]

Early Stirlings were fitted with a ventral retractable Dustbin turret too, but these were removed because extending the turret caused such excessive drag that the it was more of a hinderance than a help!

[B-24WillowRun]

Simon, I will try to look for the info and post what I find. It may be a while, but I can find it.

Thanks all, I have read of the positions removed for radar, and think that was bad. As good as the radar was the loss of a gun position that covered the lower half of your aircraft is a lot to give up. Also, though if attacking at night primarily it might not be as bad.

On topic more early in the war it might have looked very grim, with the Wellingtonsmarching along, but I do not think that the production would have been able to make it to operational units. Now what about the Eastern Front? The Spits against the Mig-2 or 3? or the Ii-2? The Russian planes would still be very good, but with the bomber force if used well might have won the east, and taken Moscow.[:0]

[Romantic Technofreak]

I know that we Germans lost the BoB, and I don´t know if you consider the following fair, but if you make a direct comparison between the types, and consider speed as the main difference, I think the British samples don´t look very good:

Wellington vs. He 111
Hampden vs. Ju 88
Blenheim vs. Do 17
Whitley vs. Fiat BR 20
Beaufighter vs. Bf 110
Hurricane vs. Bf 109
Spitfire vs. ... o.k.. here we have the problem! But for fun, even the biplane contest
Gladiator vs. Fiat CR 42
goes to the Axis side (414 vs. 430 kph)!:D

The British bombers had their turrets, but they caused additional drag and I don´t think they would have made the difference. I don´t know about their loss ratio during the British counteractions against the "Sealion" ships and boats, but, as much as I know, decent daylight actions for the RAF became impossible until imported A-20s appeared on the scene.

Only the Skua makes its stand against the Ju 87. It surely would have been faster by using a stronger engine.

For fun once again, for Wellingtons and Whitleys with only forward and backward turrets the Defiant could have been used as escort fighter for giving upside cover ;). But what if attacks came from downside? You would have needed a Defiant with ventral turret![:o)][:p] Of course it had to disappear when the bombing started.

[Ricky]

Or maybe they could just fly half the Defiants inverted? [:o)][:p]

[B-24WillowRun]

Escort Bombers were just wrong. The YB-40 did make about ten missions in europe but the added second top turret, massive amounts of ammunition and increased armor and guns made the thing so slow that it could not keep up with B-17s in formation on the return trip. [:0] The XB-41, escort for the B-24s only had one prototype converted. The plane had poor handleing! The YB-40s were all returned to the B-17F configuration. The only good that came from it was the chin turret that was standard for the B-17G.:(

Our compairision should also look at the fact that the RAF crews were flying in friendly sky. If they were shot down, then they could get back into the war faster then the German crews. Just a thought to ponder![:X]