Quote:
Originally Posted by skullblits
Never knew israel used em. Just odd the hurricane is completely side stepped, as the spitfire's, design was rejected a few times @ There where less of them in the Battle of Britan and more hurricanes
|
The Hurricane was a reasonably good fighter in the first two years or so of the war, but it rapidly became obsolete as a fighter after that. The main limiting factor was the thick wing, which meant that short of a major redesign the Hurricane would always be slower than the Spitfire, assuming both planes had the same engine. In combat the only edge the Hurricane mkI had over the Spitfire mkI was it had a slightly tighter turning circle, and it was a bit more damage resistant. The Spitfire was 35mph faster, climbed, dived and rolled better and had better high speed handling.
Even during the Battle of Britain the Hurricane wasn't really a match for the Bf109E, and with the introduction of the Fw190A and Bf109F even the improved Hurricane mkII became totally outclassed as a fighter.
Hawker looked at various was of improving the Hurricanes performance, including fitting a more powerful Napier Sabre or Rolls Royce Griffon engine. The thick wing meant the resulting plane would still be slower than a Spitfire powered by the latest version of the Merlin, so Hurricane development was switched to the fighter bomber role. Hawker had recognised the limitations of the Hurricane design even before WWII started, and had been working on a successor, which was to emerge as the Typhoon.
By contrast the Spitfire went from strength to strength. Improved versions of the Merlin kept the Spitfires speed competitive, the Spitfire was always very agile compared to its enemies, and it had an excellent climb rate. The addition of the Rolls Royce Griffon engine turned the Spitfire MkXII into one of the best low level fighters in the world, and the MkXIV with an improved Griffon and a redesigned airframe was still one of the absolute best dogfighters in the world at the end of the war. The only real problem the Spitfire had was it lacked the range to carry out long range escort missions.