Posted on 05/08/2025 5:11:39 AM PDT by DFG
The Spitfire relied on fuel manufactured on an island in the Caribbean. If the Germans had sent a U-boat to shell the refinery, it would have reduced the performance of the Spitfire. Luckily, they didn’t know about it.
I did not know Britain fought WWII by themselves.
They pretty much fought the Battle of Britain all by themselves.
The Spitfire was a great airplane but I liked the Hawker Typhoon as well.
The Spitfire was very short legged plane and so fragile (Seafire) it was withdrawn from Carrier operations as they crashed most of them on landing even before seeing Combat with the Japanese in 1944-45. They went with the Hellcat and Corsair instead. The US Army Air Force gave the Spitfire a try in 1943 and flipped many of them on landing due to the nature of the Brakes being so touchy and we returned them for US Models coming online.
Yet today, they are happily surrendering, without a fight, to Islam.
The Hawker Hurricane was overall a better plane and more rugged.
Please pardon my curiosity, but what was the fuel and what island was the source?
> I did not know Britain fought WWII by themselves. <
From the fall of France to Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union, Britain pretty much was fighting WWII on its own. And that was for more than a year. It was a remarkable accomplishment.
(I didn’t forget China. They had been fighting Japan since 1937 . But that really wasn’t part of a greater conflict until after Pearl Harbor.)
The homely Hurricane was also a more stable gun platform.
I’d guess rum. Cuba maybe?
60% of the Luftwaffe losses at the Battle of Britain were inflicted by Hawker Hurricanes. It just wasn’t as sexy as the Spitfire.
Britain didn’t win crap. They were in trouble, and we saved the day as usual.
The Spit was a great short range fighter but the P51 Mustang had much longer range, was faster, and many believed better armed with 6 50 cal. Brownings. The greatest thing about both aircraft was they shared the awesome Merlin engine. Their shared weakness was the Merlin’s liquid cooling.
The USA’s use of big, powerful radial engines(P47 Thunderbolt, F6F Hellcat, F4U Corsair)turned out to be the way to go in piston-powered fighters.
If you want to know what made it formidable try some other article. The article explains it is a great plane but never anything other than it feels great.
Always loved the Hurricane.
I would imagine the fuel was progressively higher-octane aviation gas made possible by an unlimited supply of American oil.
Unlike the Luftwaffe which was limited to 84-87 octane from captured oilfields in the East, and liquid fuel derived from coal.
Don’t know about the island.
Very true...The Seafire even though beefed up for Carrier duty but on landing was so unstable landing as it was designed for grass landing strips that most were destroyed plus the range made them only suitable for CAP patrol as getting outside of view of Carrier was a real risk of running out if fuel so they went with American aircraft.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
