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Originally Posted by NZtyphoon
As it happens I don't agree with some of Sandstone's comments; for example, the 109 was better designed for mass production than the Spitfire - witness the problems involved in getting the Spitfire into production at all. The 109 had a much better modular construction, its engine was far easier to remove and access for servicing etc etc...
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Hello, Typhoon. I actually agree with you. The Spitfire was also not a particularly good design for mass production (or low-hours pilots). As you say, it was probably even less so than the Bf-109. The beautiful elliptical wing is a case in point. It conferred at best a small performance gain, but was a sod to manufacture. Not worth it in a war where mass production is required. It's noticeable that none of the second generation Allied fighter aircraft used such a wing. Where the British did score with the Spitfire was that they organised its manufacture quite efficiently. So they mobilised the female population, organised the factories, rationalised the development of the aircraft and involved industrialists in the process (so as to provide the best aircraft that could be produced rather than the best aircraft that could be designed) etc. They also worked on bringing forward designs that addressed the shortfalls of the Spitfire and managed to get them into service.
In contrast, the German aviation industry was asked to generate a bewildering variety of prototypes, suffered from very poor management and was faced with a manpower and skills crisis as industry personnel were drafted out to the services. The result was an industry that moved from a high-tech one built around a skilled workforce and modest production to one that was reliant on slave labour to achieve a level of mass production. In such an industry it is no surprise that the record of new types successfully introduced was unimpressive.
I posted here because I saw someone claim that the Bf-109 was the aircraft equivalent of the T-34 tank. But as far as I can see, this is the exact opposite of the truth. Interestingly, the Germans
did try to develop a cheap fighter aircraft that could be mass produced by unskilled labour using non-strategic materials and so might be a better analogue of the T-34. This was the Heinkel-162 jet fighter. It was cheap, used a wooden airframe, could be built by unskilled and slave labour and was supposed to be easy to fly and operate. The unit cost was ~ 75,000 RM, compared to ~ 144,000 RM for a Ta-152 or ~ 150,000 RM for an Me-262. Of course, it was a disaster because the industry was attempting something far beyond its abilities.
It's interesting to compare this with the approaches to production adopted by the Allies. The Russians mass produced simple but effective designs like the IL-2 and La-5 series or the T-34 tank. For all its faults, Russian production was very rational in recognising what could be achieved. Similarly, in the West, industrialists were heavily involved in the selection of designs, with Ford's astonishing Willow Run plant representing the ultimate 1940s expression of harnessing industry to aircraft production.
It is sobering to consider the different lives experienced by a worker at Willow Run building B-24s and a malnourished slave worker in an underground factory in Germany building Bf-109s.