Was the Hurricane obsolete at the beginning of WWII ?

That is true Roel.

 

I must differ in opinion. The Brits did not win the Battle of Britain so much as Hitler lost it. When Hitler switched from bombing the airfields to London, he threw away his victory.

Such is the case in much of history.

Still, the Hurricane was a good plane and was much more numerous than the Spitfire; hence the book: "Hurricanes of the 40 Days".

:smok:

 

Quite. But there again the allies didn't win in Normandy Hitler lost it by not putting his best troops in the area covering the beaches.

Again I am not trying to put down the achievements of the allies in Normandy.

 

Agreed!

"We must stop them in the water" - Rommel

 

There fore America never won WW2...... Germany lost it.

 

That can certainly be argued one way or the other. There is a distinct difference between making a stupid operational decision as Hitler did in the Battle of Britain and in Germany not moving more troops to Normandy prior to the invasion.

One was simply a stupid decision based on emotional reaction to Berlin being bombed. The decision not to reinforce Normandy was due to many military strategies, espionage misinformation and the like.

One is sheer stupidity, the other is strategy. Personally, I see a difference.

Fortunately for the Allies, Ike was in over all command and not Monty. Had Monty been in command, the invasion may have failed.

:smok:

 

??? Until his brainstorm at Arnhem, Monty was a very careful, thorough and rather cautious commander. He took a look at the original D-day plans and insisted on considerably beefing up the number of troops landed, and increasing the area of the landings - a good call.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

 

Yeah, but you have stuff like the German forces being forbidden to move until Hitler says so - and nobody dares wake him up to ask!

 

No, America never won it, but played an important part in winning it. No single country won WW2 because the Allies were such a tight bond of cooperation and coordination.

Oh come on Ricky. Had Hitler been awake, he wouldn't have approved the release of the Panzer divisions either because he like most German commanders believed the D-Day landings to be a diversion.

 

No, he probably wouldn't -

but I still find it funny!
:lol:

 

Tony, I will have to do a bit of checking up on dear old Monty.

I was under the impression Monty wanted a concentrated area of attack in Normandy and was over-ruled by Ike.

Perhaps that is incorrect?

:smok:

 

Because of Monty Normandy was as easy as it was. I believe Ike didn't want to use the amount of airborne troops who prevented many of the good panzer divisions from reaching the beachheads in time.

But please correct me if I am wrong.

 

Revolution verus Evolution

Revolution verus Evolution?

Hawker was a well established company that had produced a number of different designs for the RAF between the wars. The Hurricane was, I think originally called the Fury Monoplane, the Hurricane was basically the next logical step fowards. The Spitfire in contrast was a major leap forward but better performance came at the expense of a more complicated, and different from what had come before, contruction methods.

During the 'finest hour' the Hurricane was definitely the weakest of the single seaters but was close enough to mean that the real separating factor was the relative skill of the pilot. So at this point it wasn't obsolete. After that... with the Spitfire becoming avalable in greater numbers did the Hurricane receive the updates the Spitfire enjoyed? After all the Spitfire of 1945 was very different from that of 1940.

On a final note the Hurricane will enjoy immortality, Watson to the Spitfires Sherlock Homes

 

The Hurricane was indeed more numerous than the Spitfire in the BoB - about twice as many, and they claimed about twice as many victims. However, relatively speaking they suffered more losses than the Spit.

No-one has so far mentioned the specialised ground attack versions: the Mk IID, armed with a pair of 40mm Vickers S anti-tank guns, and the improved Mk IV, which could carry either the big guns or rocket projectiles.

The successor to the Hurricane was of course the Typhoon, which was quite similar in concept except for the powerful Napier Sabre engine. The later Tempest was much more cleaned-up, and one of the best all-round fighters of the war.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

 

Um, sorry you're wrong. It was Leigh-Mallory who didn't want to use the paratroopers, he predicited huge casualties. Ike insisted on the airdrops. The initial plan for the American airborne divisions was originally more ambitious and was scaled back after the German 91st Air Landing division moved into the 82nd ABs proposed landing zone.

 

Thank you

 

How did we get on to Monty again? :-?

If we're gonna mention the ground-attack Hurricanes, how about the Mk. IIB, with 12 machineguns, for straffing targets.

 

Very true. I would like to point out, however, that even the P-40 could handle the Me 109 at low altitude; the German plane simply did not do well at low altitudes.

 

Dragging up an old post I know, but I'm afraid I couldn't help picking up on this one:

"There fore America never won WW2...... Germany lost it."

America did not win WW2 at all, the Allies did. That includes Britain, the Commonwealth and dominion armed forces (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Rhodesia, South Africa and India to name a few and I apologise for nations I have left out), the Soviet Union, the various "Free" forces such as the Free French, Belgian, Dutch, Poles, Czechs and Norwegians to name but a few, again apologees for any I have omitted, who refused to give up when their nations were over-ran.

Don't forget that there was a hell of a lot more to the Allies than just the US, contrary to what Hollywood seems to be increasingly portraying.

Similarly, there was more to the Axis than just Nazi Germany...

 

Hollywood focuses more on what America did in WW2 for the simple reason that that is what most Americans are interested in. This is not necessarily wrong; similar attitudes about what their nations did in the war likely enough exist in Russia, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, for example. "Enemy At The Gates" is one of the better exceptions.