Hurricane or Spitfire which the better plane ?

PatsytheNazi

I remember watching a documentary on the BoB ( Battle of Britain ) and old chaps who had fought in it were giving their accounts. Anyway, the chaps who flew the Hurricane were of the opinion that the Hurricane, although not as manoverable and more stylish to fly, actually could take a bit of a pounding and hence said it was teh fighter that had won the BoB not the Spitfire ! To which of course the Spitfire pilots disagreed.

So those of you in the know, which would you say was better and why ?

Prefab Sprouter

Well the Hurricane was the workhorse of the Battle, and claimed more victories than the Spitfire. The Hurricane could outturn an Me109 yet its speed was inferior. In a dogfight the Hurricane was well capable of handling itself but I believe the Hurricanes tended to focus on the bomber formations. I dont know how many of the above victories were Me109's though.

Both planes were very successful gun platforms and excellent designs.

Fratton Fred

Prefab Sprouter wrote: »

Both planes were very successful gun platforms and excellent designs.

And brilliant engines as well. It wasn't until the Americans stuck one in a P51 that that became an outstanding plane as well.

Penrose

I have heard the same thing about the Hurricane before problem is the only way you can get an accurate opinion is if you get someone who flew the two planes.

Fratton Fred

Did either of them ever come up against the Zero?

I saw a very good documentary about Pearl Harbour the other week, it was about one of the midgets subs, but in it they were talking about the Zero and how the US completely underestimated just how good it was.

Several US pilots had come back form voluntarily flying for the Chinese and were telling the USAAF top brass how good they were. They competely disregarded everything they said as they did not believe a plane could go that fast and was that manouverable.

One of them was saying how the only way to attack a Zero was from high, dive onto the Zero firing all the time in the hope that you hit it, if you didn't, you carried on the dive as far as possible to put as much distance between him and you. If you didn't, if you tried to double back for another go, or pulled up too early, you were toast.

The USAF military had a surprising lack of respect for the air war prior to Pearl Harbour apparantly.

BlaasForRafa

Prefab Sprouter wrote: »

Well the Hurricane was the workhorse of the Battle, and claimed more victories than the Spitfire. The Hurricane could outturn an Me109 yet its speed was inferior. In a dogfight the Hurricane was well capable of handling itself but I believe the Hurricanes tended to focus on the bomber formations. I dont know how many of the above victories were Me109's though.

Both planes were very successful gun platforms and excellent designs.

The Hurricane was at the end of its development though whereas the Spitfire had a lot more development potential in 1940. After the battle of britain the Hurricane was moved from being a front line fighter to being a figher bomber at which is performed well in North Africa. The Spitfire would be developed during the war and continue to serve as a front line fighter.

It could be argued that the BF109F which came into service in late 1940 with its improved wing, aerodynamics and cannon firing through the propeller was superior to both.

xflyer

Without the Spitfire the Battle of Britain would be lost. Without the Hurricane the Battle of Britain would be lost. Without the Spitfire the war may have been lost. The Spitfire was better but what was needed in 1940 was quantity over quality.

The Spitfire is the better fighter, simple as that. But the Hurricane did it's job early in the war and then faded away.

PatsytheNazi

So the jury is out on this one.

Puding

as others have said, spitfire the poster boy with the hurricane being the workhorse

McDougal

Obviously the spitfire. The hurricane could not compete with the Me-109 so it was left to shoot down bombers while the spitfire protected the hurricanes. The reason the hurricane shot down more planes was because there were far more of them but it was slow and bad on the turn. When the hurricanes came up against the Me-109s without a spitfire escort they would be massacred. Hurricanes were good planes in the 1930s but even by the time of the Battle of Britian they were near obsolete. The british sent a few hundred hurricanes to serve on the eastern front in 1941 and they were abysmal.

If you want to talk about the best fighter of WW2 it was the P-51 mustang

BlaasForRafa

McDougal wrote: »

Obviously the spitfire. The hurricane could not compete with the Me-109 so it was left to shoot down bombers while the spitfire protected the hurricanes. The reason the hurricane shot down more planes was because there were far more of them but it was slow and bad on the turn. When the hurricanes came up against the Me-109s with a spitfire escort they would be massacred. Hurricanes were good planes in the 1930s but even by the time of the Battle of Britian they were near obsolete. The british sent a few hundred hurricanes to serve on the eastern front in 1941 and they were abysmal.

If you want to talk about the best fighter of WW2 it was the P-51 mustang

Its all about right time and right place really. One could make arguments for any one of the TA152, the Tempest II, the F8F Bearcat to be the best piston engined fighters of the war but they either arrived too late or not in enough numbers to make a difference.

xflyer

When you say the best fighter in the war you have to set parameters. Because the late war fighters were abolutely better than the early war machines. The Tempest was a class apart from the Hurricane. The P51D was way beyond the P40. The Ta152 in a different universe to the Bf109E. The Spitfire XIV or XVI was a totally different animal to the Mark 1.

But that to me makes the Spitfire the best fighter of the war because it was in from the start and was there at the end albeit in a different form. But it was continually developed and improved and went on to the Mark 24 while retaining most of the best qualities of the early models.

So I say the Spitfire in all it's forms.

Incidentally, if you are interested in trying out all the major fighters of the war for yourself. I suggest trying out Aces high from High tech creations. You can download the game in full for nothing and you get two weeks free online. No credit card or anything. After that you can fly offline as long as you like but you'll probably get hooked and end up subscribing. The flight models are pretty good and you can really see how each aircraft differed. It is noticeable that the most favoured aircraft for players are the Spitfire, particularly the XVI and the Lavochkin La7. They are the easiest to fly and highly manoeuvreable with plenty of firepower. So you could put up the La7 as the best fighter of the war at least based on the Aces High model.

Prefab Sprouter

Well the original thread makes no mention of the Best fighter of the war. Patsy was merely referring to the Spit versus Hurricane. Maybe a seperate thread for Best fighter of the war (whatever that is)

RedRebel

Spitfire was superior or equal in every important respect.

Faster, better acceleration, better climb, more manoeuvrable. Firepower on both was the same in BoB though some Spitfires were equipped with Hispano cannons that were still working out teething problems.

Had the RAF had the choice their front line fighters would have been 100% Spitifres, but given the limitations of pilot training and aircraft production (Spitfires were more expensive and took longer to build iirc) they were forced to maked do with what was available.

When possible Spitfires were tasked with engaging Lufwaffe escorts while the Hurricanes took on the bombers. An ME109 flown by an experienced pilot is always going to be harder to shoot down than a HE111, DO17 or JU88 flying in formation

So, the Hurricane did do its fair share of the work during the BoB and was still used after (predominantly as CAS airframe), but the Spitfire was the superior fighter aircraft.

cyrusdvirus

Another reason that the Hurricane went for the Bomber formations and the Spitfire for the fighters was that the Hurricane was more rugged and could take more punishment.

A bomber stream will have a whole shed load of guns firing so you could be getting targeted by multiple aircraft, at multiple angles. The Hurricane could absorb more hits and still keep on coming.

Likening them to horses, the Spit was a thoroughbred racer, honed to within an inch of perfection at a set number of tasks.

The Hurricane was more of a jack of all trades, master of none.

Tony EH

Fratton Fred wrote: »

And brilliant engines as well. It wasn't until the Americans stuck one in a P51 that that became an outstanding plane as well.

Not in 1940 they weren't.

The RR Merlin engines of 1940 vintage Spit's and Huri's lacked fuel injection. This meant that the engine cut out if the pilot put the plane into negatine G. During the Battle of Britain, BF109 pilots simply had to push the stick forward and "bunt" away from an attacker, because the Daimler Benz engine had fuel injection. The RAF fighters just couldn't follow. They had to do a split-s and by that time the 109 was well gone.