Intake burnt, oil gasket leak.

[Moggy]

Had the Merlin been fuel injected like the DB's then they wouldn't of had the performance boost that they enjoyed. The Spitfire would of probably been slower than the 109.
It's as simple as that, though I have the feeling you're going to pointlessly argue this now.
At the end of the day, the RAF won the Battle of Britain with Merlin engine aircraft and the Germans lost. Wasn't a score draw and the Germans certainly wanted to win.
I don't believe either of the aircraft were the best fighter (nor the P-51 for that matter!) in the ETO.
Oh and you could of at least had the dignity to of watched the video before commenting about it! Do yourself a favour and watch it through the link I provided or fire up the VHS.

Originally Posted by Moggy

Had the Merlin been fuel injected like the DB's then they wouldn't of had the performance boost that they enjoyed. The Spitfire would of probably been slower than the 109.
It's as simple as that, though I have the feeling you're going to pointlessly argue this now.
At the end of the day, the RAF won the Battle of Britain with Merlin engine aircraft and the Germans lost. Wasn't a score draw and the Germans certainly wanted to win.
I don't believe either of the aircraft were the best fighter (nor the P-51 for that matter!) in the ETO.
Oh and you could of at least had the dignity to of watched the video before commenting about it! Do yourself a favour and watch it through the link I provided or fire up the VHS.

yeah, if we start to play the "IF" game god knows where we would get..

IF the Germans didn't have lunatic clowns for Air Marshalls and Fuhrer we'd all be hailing to the swastika now probably..

The RAF didn't win the Battle of Britain because of the Merlin engine nor because of the air force itself (all brave young fighters, but not enough to counteract the German attack), that's propaganda for little people. The Battle of Britain was won by the RAF because of the continuous strategic mistakes made by Hitler, Goering and his entourage..

Any serious historian will confirm what I say and so did my critic of history books..

[Moggy]

Wow! That's truly an eye opener for me, the British didn't need to fight at all because the Germans lost the battle because of Goering and Hitler. I'm going to let you in on a little secret as to how the British won the Battle of Britain. It's really quite simple but complex at the same time. Britain had the 1st integrated air defence network in the World. From radar to the Oberserver Corps, the RAF pilots, the anti aircraft gunners, the plotters, even the Post Office telephone engineers and many more I've forgotten to mention. They all had a part to play in the defeat of Germany during the Battle of Britain.

Originally Posted by Moggy

Wow! That's truly an eye opener for me, the British didn't need to fight at all because the Germans lost the battle because of Goering and Hitler. I'm going to let you in on a little secret as to how the British won the Battle of Britain. It's really quite simple but complex at the same time. Britain had the 1st integrated air defence network in the World. From radar to the Oberserver Corps, the RAF pilots, the anti aircraft gunners, the plotters, even the Post Office telephone engineers and many more I've forgotten to mention. They all had a part to play in the defeat of Germany during the Battle of Britain.

*yawn* they still bombed a good part of London and other cities flat.. if they concentrated all that power on airfields and factories things would have been pretty different.. and as much as it might hit your little heart, it comes from a RAF historian that I met and talked to on several occasions..

..now go back to your Sir Stanley Hooker video and leave actual history to adults.. I'm SO tired of all this "history for Dummies" experts..

[Moggy]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger

*yawn* they still bombed a good part of London and other cities flat.. if they concentrated all that power on airfields and factories things would have been pretty different.. and as much as it might hit your little heart, it comes from a RAF historian that I met and talked to on several occasions..

..now go back to your Sir Stanley Hooker video and leave actual history to adults.. I'm SO tired of all this "history for Dummies" experts..

They what? They bombed cities flat? What concentrated power, do you mean from tactical bombers which had a very poor loadout? Sorry to break it to you but the Germans lost the battle before the blitz and in fact turning to London made no difference. The losses they were suffering could simply not be sustained.
Your schoolboy\it's all about Hitler\Goering theory holds no water and frankly your theory is insulting to those who fought and died on both sides, you should be ashamed of yourself!
Nice to see you've talk to a RAF historian, it's a shame you haven't taught any military history\doctrine\values...unlike some of us.
Go back to your school books, I'm done here.

[Azimech]

I do remember reading multiple times that when the Luftwaffe changed tactics from attacking airfields and aircraft industry to bombing cities, they lost the BoB. Because they stopped when RAF resources were almost depleted.

But, other historians dispute that and say the Luftwaffe could never have destroyed the RAF.

One thing is for sure: looking at which plane was the better is pointless, since there are so many factors that were unfavorable for the germans. The RAF had the higher morale, the Polish RAF squadron was one of the best and most motivated due to their anger and superb pre-war training. Defending territory means no capture when having to bail out. Ditching in the channel was another unpopular risk for german pilots, including the lack of drop tanks until late in the Blitz, prior to that having the need to keep one eye on the fuel gauge and the other on the sky. The abundance of B4 fuel when everyone wanted C3.

If the situation were reversed, i.e. Germany on the island and Britain in continental Europe, attacking Germany, the outcome would've probably been the same, victory for the people on the island. Because in the early stages of the war the hardware wasn't that different.

The discussion which engine was better is IMHO a matter of personal taste. I like fuel injection, I adore the brilliant and elegant variable hydrodynamic clutch driving the supercharger on the DB series, but those designs didn't provide the edge over the Merlin. Critical altitude for the DB601 was 5,5 km, why so low puzzles me at this time. If I'm not mistaken the Merlin had better high-alt performance.

[Moggy]

Well the thing you have to remember is...we still have fuel injection today so it was far from a bad engine. I also like the whine it makes from it's supercharger...for me it harks back to the late twenties and the races between the Mercedes and Bentleys. I just believe the Merlin was a better engine, it's problems were identified and fixed...partly by Miss Shilling and later by the diaphragm carburetor. As Bader and Stanford-Tuck say in the video, they could catch the 109 after it had dived because they believed word had got round the Luftwaffe that an ace pilot had ripped the wings off a 109 in a dive and pilots would pull out of dive early. Wasn't the 109 tested pre-war with an earlier Rolls Royce engine, the Kestrel?
Also, 1 last thing to consider...the Spitfire and Hurricane were never really designed to go up against 109s. They were at heart bomber interceptors kind of like 109s later in the war.

Moggy,every inch of you is RAF pride,and u have any right to do it,but u need to be objective: Coventry was flattened and a good part of London was devastated.. had they kept on hammering airfields you would have had no chance to defend yourself. I'm not offending anybody's memory,I respect fighters on both fronts,but you need to get yourself a better source of info,not just watching documentaries.. You show poor understanding of aviation (your conclusions about engines is pretty senseless),I'm only trying to explain things in an objective way,and I know that sometimes I come out a bit blunt,but you can decide for a life in denial or listening to people that actually spent hours on books and met many historians.. Ask in person to Prof Holland what he REALLY thinks of the BoB..he's quite a renown English historian..