"Spitfire!"
Presented by Raymond Baxter.
First broadcast on Sunday 9th May 1976 at 15:10 on BBC One and watched by an eight-and-a-half year old yours truly.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPoCU5FeUKc

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZX8m84cU0

According to the above it was nearly the Supermarine Shrew.

Correction 28.09.24.

It looks like there were two versions of the programme. The first was a two-parter first shown as a regional opt-out by BBC South in March 1976 and the single-part version first broadcast in May 1976. The two-part version is the one I've posted the links for and it looks like the end of Part 2 is missing.

Correction 01.10.24.

I've watched both versions (the one-part version is on YouTube too) and the two-part (above) is the one to watch as the some footage from the two-part version has been cut from the one-part version.

Furthermore, the end of Part 2 wasn't missing. The end was at about 30:00 and then a 5-minute long segment from the programme was repeated. The repeated segment was the an interview with some of the workers from the Castle Browmich factory.
 
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Supermarine Spitfire dead ends​


The British had acquired the manufacturing rights of the 20-mm Hispano-Suiza HS.404 cannon with explosive shells, but its installation on the wings of fighters was problematic. The weapon had been designed as an integral part of the Hispano-Suiza HS.12 Y-31 engine and lacked structural strength to act independently. The adaptation was difficult; during the Battle of Britain, some Spitfires Mk I of the 19th Sqn were experimentally equipped with two Hispano Mk I, suffering numerous stoppage problems. The RAF avoided its usage until the appearing of the Mk II in the summer of 1941.

Several methods were considered to mitigate this situation, including air-to-air bombing and rockets vertically fired from the rear fuselage of the Hurricanes. Another idea was the ramming, inspired in the Soviet Taran tactics, developed in Spain and Khalkhin Gol that assured the destruction of an enemy bomber by collision. In the summer of 1940, the British pilots were forced to resort to ramming in some extreme combats, destroying four Bf 109, two Do 17, one Ju 88, one Bf 110, one Fiat CR.42 and one He 111.

The ramming sometimes happened accidentally due to miscalculation of distances by the attacking aircraft or because the pilot had been injured or killed by the defensive fire of the attacked aircraft. At other times, it was a desperate measure, consequence of the malfunction of arms in a conventional attack made from behind. The impact used to occur at low speed—between 40 and 80 kph—because both aircraft were flying in the same direction, with the propeller of the attacking plane acting as a circular saw on the tail surfaces of the attacked plane. The rammer usually suffered damages in the propeller, engine bearings, and engine cowling; the survival rate of the pilot used to exceed 50 per cent with a good chance of making a glide landing.

When ramming large aircraft, it was more effective to target the fuselage section between wing and tailplane to sever control cables, but the side attack manoeuvre required a very precise calculation of relative speeds that only very expert pilots could perform. The impact, between 300 and 450 kph, used to boot a wing of the attacking aircraft that fell into an uncontrollable flat spin; the pilot was violently thrown in the opposite direction to the damaged wing, getting wounded or shocked and with survival possibilities below 25 per cent because the fuselage airframe tended to deform, rendering the opening of the cockpit very difficult.

The most effective ramming, and also the most extreme solution, was the head-on-attack, a manoeuvre that Japanese pilots termed Tai-atari (body crashing) in which both aircraft crashed at a joint speed close to 1,000 kph with decelerations of up to 100 g. No one could survive an impact like this, with the rammer embedded into the nose of the bomber and both aircraft falling intertwined. Any aircraft could be used for this task if it had enough ceiling and speed to reach the target. The main problem was the survival of the pilot after a collision in a time when ejector seats did not exist.

In May 1939, the British inventor Mr. I. Shamah proposed to the firm Phillips and Powis (later known as Miles) the transformation of a standard fighter into a specialised rammer. The modification included the replacement of the engine by a surplus Rolls-Royce Kestrel and the guns by an armoured wing-leading edge, the installation of steel rammers in the propeller hub and wingtip, and one downwards ejector seat located over a ventral hatchway.

The idea was considered in 1940, due to the shortage of experienced pilots that mastered the technique of the deflection shooting. Out of the 2,330 fighter pilots who fought against the Luftwaffe between July and November, only 900 managed the destruction of an enemy aircraft, almost always by surprise and firing from closer than 200 m.

In 1929 Frank Whittle investigated the possibilities of the ducted fan driven by a piston engine. In the late 1930s, Max A. Mueller, engineer of the firm Junkers AG, patented a ducted-fan device that greatly improved the performance of the conventional propellers. In 1938, a team of technicians of the company BMW GmbH, under the leadership of Dr.-Ing. Hermann Oestrich, modified a Bramo 325 radial engine fitted with a four-bladed ducted-fan with a diameter of 1 m. The modified engine, named Motorjet, was installed in a trainer Focke-Wulf Fw 44 and successfully tested in flight by Hanna Reitsch.

The ducted fans provided more static thrust for the same amount of power than a conventional propeller of same diameter and could operate at higher rotational speeds. In 1940 it was proposed the installation of a four foot diameter cowled propeller assembly in one Spitfire Mk.II, but the idea was not taken further as the device would have considerably diminished the pilot’s forward view.

In May 1940 engineers at the R.A.E. began experimenting with a Meredith ramjet housed in a 48x30x15 inch duct mounted under the belly of a Spitfire Mk.I, as a third radiator, but the experiment was abandoned during the Battle of Britain. In June 1944 the ramjet idea was reconsidered, to boost the Spitfire Mk.IX during the Operation Diver against the V-1 flying bombs, but the German missiles had been beaten before the bench tests were solved.

By 1943, the increasing speed reached by the fighters created many difficulties for bailing out as the air pressure acting over the pilot tended to return him to the cockpit or impact against the tail surfaces. In the Spitfire Mk 21, the plan was to install the 'swinging arm', a Martin-Baker invention, to help the pilots overcome the air pressure at high speeds. The upper part of the fuselage detached itself to form an articulated arm that extracted the pilot from the cockpit by means of two hooks inserted in the parachute harness. The arm was actioned by powerful springs and by the air drag, rotating around a hinge located at the base of the tailfin, launching the pilot backwards over the tail surfaces.

The project was started in 1944. A model of this scheme was shown to Sir Stafford Cripps, Minister of Aircraft Production and Air Chief Marshall Sir Wilfred Freeman, at the Ministry on 11 October, 1944 although it was finally decided to use the seat fitted with an explosive catapult as it was lighter and required fewer modifications in the airframe.

In November 1939, Supermarine started the design of the Type 338, a navalised version of the Spitfire Mk.IA powered by one Rolls-Royce Merlin III engine. The project was submitted to the Fleet Air Arm on 2 January 1940 and a contract for 50 airplanes was signed in February but was cancelled on 16 March to not interfere with the production of the Merlin engine. Supermarine considered the possibility to use the

Rolls-Royce Griffon designed in 1938 after a request of the Royal Navy. A prototype already existed in November 1939.

On 16 December 1939, Supermarine issued the Technical Office Report NAD 925/39, a navalised version of the Spitfire Mk.IA powered by one 1,730 hp Griffon IIB, 12 cylinder Vee, liquid-cooled engine, with one-stage, two-speed supercharger. The new engine weighted 1,790 lbs and had a length of 5.9 ft. Its installation in the airframe of a

Spitfire Mk.IA required to increase the fuselage length by 20 cm to compensate the higher weight and power of the Griffon. The NAD 925/39 was 2,316 lbs heavier than a standard Spitfire, had fold-back wings could take off in 300 ft against a 20 knots wind.

NAD 925/39 technical data

Wingspan: 36.8 ft (11.22 m), length: 30.6 ft (9.32 m), height: 10 ft (3.04 m), wing area: 242 sq. ft (21.78 sq. m), maximum weight: 8,100 lbs (3,670 kg), estimated maximum speed: 396 mph (637 kph) at 15,000 ft, armament: eight wing-mounted 0.303-in Browning machine guns.

The Admiralty was not interested in another Spitfire Mk.IA converted. The Fleet Air Arm needed a new fighter designed specifically for naval operation and the NAD 925/39 was rejected. On 15 February 1940 Supermarine issued the Technical Report Nº 2846, a navalised version of the Spitfire F Mk IV, with inverted gull folding wings, split flaps with increased area, inward retracting landing gear, arrester hook and catapult gear.

The airplane was powered by one 1,735 hp Griffon RG2SM engine, with one-stage, two-speed supercharger and armed with six wing-mounted 13.2 mm FN-Browning heavy machine guns. Early 1940, on the orders of the Minister of Aircraft Production, work on the Griffon engine had been halted temporarily to concentrate on the urgently needed Merlin III. The Nº 2846 proposal was rejected on 29 March 1940.

Report Nº 2846 technical data

Wingspan: 40.4 ft (12.31 m), folded wingspan: 10.3 ft (3.15 m), length: 31.9 ft (9.72 m), height: 10.8 ft (3.3 m), wing area: 249 sq. ft (22.41 sq. m), maximum weight: 10,350 lbs (4,689 kg), estimated maximum speed: 397 mph (639 kph), armament: six wing-mounted 13.2 mm FN-Browning heavy machine guns.

In the Autumn of 1941, when the Luftwaffe offensive stabilised and the war at sea reached a highly critical phase, the Admiralty obtained permission to acquire 166 Seafire IB (Type 340). The naval fighter was almost identical to the Spitfire Mk.VB, apart from the A-frame arrester hook and the slinging points.

The Griffon engine was available in March 1942 and Supermarine proposed a naval version of the Spitfire F Mk IV (Type 337) powered by one 1,735 hp Rolls-Royce Griffon III with one-stage, two-speed supercharger driving a four-blade airscrew with 10 ft 9 in of diameter. The new fighter was fitted with inverted gull wings, inward retracting landing gear, modified ventral radiator, ‘butterfly’ tailplane and four wing-mounted 20 mm Hispano cannons. The project was dropped in favour of the manually-folding wings Seafire III (Type 358), a total of 1,220 machines being built with Rolls-Royce Merlin 55 engines.

Supermarine naval fighter proposal (March 1942) technical data

Wingspan: 41 ft (12.5 m), length: 31.6 ft (9.63 m), height: 12.9 ft (3.95 m), wing area: 275 sq. ft (24.75 sq. m), armament: four wing-mounted 20 mm Hispano cannons.

On October 1942 the Admiralty received a new Supermarine proposal for a point-defence interceptor fighter powered by one 2,240 hp Napier Sabre IV, twenty-four-cylinder, horizontal H, liquid-cooled engine driving a three-blade contra-rotating airscrew.

Supermarine naval fighter proposal (October 1942) technical data

Wingspan: 30.4 ft (9.27 m), length: 25.3 ft (7.7 m), height: 11.2 ft (3.4 m), wing area: 200 sq. ft (18 sq. m.), armament: four wing-mounted 20 mm Hispano cannons.

On March 1944 Supermarine initiated the design of the Type 391 (a 120 per cent homothetic enlarged version of the N5/45 Seafang), powered by one 3,500 hp Rolls-Royce Eagle II, twenty-four cylinder, horizontal H, liquid-cooled engine driving a six-bladed contra-rotating airscrew. On 20 June 1944, the project was submitted to the Royal Navy but was eventually dropped in favour of the Type 392 jet-powered fighter.

Type 391 technical data

Wingspan: 46.3 ft (13.3 m), length: 39.7 ft (12.10 m), height: 14.8 ft (4.54 m), wing area: 335 sq. ft (31.2 sq. m), maximum weight: 15,750 lbs (7,144 kg), estimated maximum speed: 546 mph (879 kph), range: 880 mls (1,415 km), armament: four wing-mounted 20 mm Hispano cannons.

On 18 November 1942, the Spitfire VB (EN830) from Nº 131 Sqn was captured intact in the German occupied Isle of Jersey. The aircraft, coded NX-X, was dismantled and shipped to the Daimler-Benz test facility at Echterdingen. On December 1943 it was extensively modified with the installation of one DB 605 A-1 engine, with the cowling and carburettor scoop from a Messerschmitt Bf 110 G and the variable pitch VDM 9-12159A propeller from a Messerschmitt Bf 109 G.

The 12-volt electric system was replaced by one 24-volt Fl 32629-1 system, German instruments and Pitot tube was also installed. The cooling system, except the British radiator, was replaced by one coming from a Bf 109 G, the hydraulic system was modified, and the fuel pump was replaced. The fuel tank was replenished with 170 lt. of 87-octane B4 gasoline and the oil tank with 40 lt of schmierstoff lubricant. The aircraft was coded CJ+ZY and painted RLM 74/75 on the upper surfaces, RLM 65 lower surfaces and RLM 04 elevators, rudder and engine cowling.

Flight tests performed in the Abteilung E2 of Erprobungsstelle-Rechlin, revealed that the German engine gave better performance than the Merlin 45, with an impressive climb rate of 69 ft/sec and 41,656 ft ceiling, 5,166 ft more than that of a Spitfire Mk.VB. The aircraft was still equipped with a British radiator and could not exceed

490 mph top speed to avoid overheating of the engine. The CJ+ZY was heavily damaged on 14 August 1944 when a formation of B-17 bombers attacked Echterdingen.

CJ+ZY technical data

Wingspan: 36.8 ft (11.23 m), length: 30 ft (9.14 m), height: 13 ft (3.96 m), wing area: 242 sq. ft (21.78 sq. m), maximum weight: 6,026 lbs (2,730 kg), maximum speed: 490 mph (788 kph), climb rate: 69 ft/sec (21 m/sec), service ceiling: 41,656 ft (12,700 m), armament: none.

During the demolition of the Desford Airfield hangars, it was discovered one schematic arrangement for returning pilotless aircraft. The 11 June 1944 print shows a plan for fitting Spitfires LF Mk XIVe with a device for capturing V-1 flying bombs, turning them round and releasing them in the opposite direction. There is no record of it ever having been attempted.

On D-Day, the Luftwaffe had lost the air superiority over their own airspace. All the Reich air bases were within reach of the Mustangs and were regularly bombed to keep the runways unusable. Very few of the 39,807 German aircraft manufactured in 1944 had the opportunity to fight. Paralyzed on land for lack of fuel, they were destroyed by air strikes. In 1945 the few survivors were forced to operate from the Autobahnen.

The piston engine fighters were most affected by the lack of fuel. After the Bodenplatte Operation, only 1,300 airplanes continued fighting. They were airplanes propelled by turbojets of the types Arado Ar 234, Messerschmitt Me 262 and Heinkel He 162 and a hundred Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket fighters that used sonderkraftstoff (experimental propellants). As German fuel reserves declined, the OKL cancelled a large number of aircraft projects; first the heavy bombers, then the piston fighters and finally the turbojet powered aircraft that required long runways. Also eliminated were the rocket fighters with landing skids, when the experience gained with the Me 163 proved that their low mobility on the ground made them extremely vulnerable to strafing attacks by enemy fighters.

Finally, the VTOL was the only option left.

By early 1944 Professor Walter Georgii and Oberst Siegfried Knemeyer, director of the Research and Development Institute of the Luftwaffe, initiated contacts with several aeronautical companies looking for ideas for the construction of a senkrechtstarter jagdflugzeug (tailsitter VTOL fighter) that could operate independently of the runways.

In the late 1930s, Dipl. Ing. Otto Muck, of Siemens, patented a project of tailsitter aircraft with contraprop airscrews. In 1940 a team of engineers from AVA-Göttingen calculated that a VTOL aircraft of 5 tons would require 4,000 hp power to lift-off, an engine that did not exist at the time. On January 1944, Daimler-Benz built a twenty-four cylinders engine with 3,800 hp, called DB 613, formed by two DB 603 G engines coupled together to drive a single-shaft power with counter-rotating airscrews. But the set weighed two tons and was not useful to propel a VTOL aircraft. At the end of 1944 Dr. Ing. Gerhard Schulz and designer Karl Reiniger of Heinkel-Vienna designed a tail sitter point-defence interceptor fighter with annular wing, called Lerche, based on the aerodynamic theories of Dipl.-Ing. Von Zborowski. It was propelled by two DB 605 DC piston engines, with 2,000 hp each, installed nose-to-nose so propellers would rotate in opposite directions without using heavy and complex reduction gears. Its estimated lift-off weight was 5,600 kg.

In May 1944 Daimler-Benz received an order from RLM to concentrate on the development of a turboprop version of the Heinkel 109-011 turbojet, dubbed DB 109-021, with 2,400 hp of shaft power, 585 kp of residual jet thrust and 1,266 kg. It was selected by Heinkel to power a tailsitter fighter project, with the Zborowski annular wing, called Wespe, and an estimated lift-off weight of only 2,140 kg. The turboprop operated two counter-rotating, variable pitch, three-bladed airscrews through reduction gearing with 1,800 rpm constant speed. The annular wing increased the propeller efficiency and generated lift during the horizontal flight. Lerche and Wespe were proposed to OKL on 2 February 1945.

On ground the Heinkel tailsitters were kept upright over four tailfins and the narrow landing gear track affected the stability during vertical landing. In August 1944, the firm Focke-Wulf developed a semi-automatic landing system para el VTOL Triebflügeljäger. Data on the semi-automatic landing procedure plan have not been kept. It might be expected that it might have used part of the ‘blind bomb’ and ‘level bomb’ electronic equipment developed for the Arado Ar 234 and adopted by the firm Focke-Wulf for its project 1000 x 1000 x 1000 bomber. After making the transition to the vertical flight on the landing area, the pilot would connect the three-axis Patin PKS autopilot and the Lofte tachometric bomb-sight rear periscope. Both devices acted together with the FuG 101a radio-altimeter, driving the airplane according to the pilot movements over the bombsight.

On 8 January 1941, an engineer of the Bell Aircraft Corporation named Arthur Young applied for a patent of a project of a tailsitter type VTOL. It was propelled by a radial engine located behind the pilot that, by means of a geared drive shaft, actioned two big contra-rotating propellers. It was a clever application of the technology developed by Bell in 1937 to propel the P-39 fighter. For security reasons, the patent (No. 2382460) was not published until 14 August 1945.

In 1946, the Juriev OKB Soviet bureau of design developed a point defence VTOL fighter based on the propulsion system of the Airacobra under the name Jurijev KIT-1. The novelty, compared to the Young design, consisted of the usage of propellers with different diameter measures. The forward metallic two-bladed was used for propulsion purposes only. The rear one, with a light structure partially covered by fabric, like the autogyro’s rotors, was used to balance the rotation of the other during take-off and landing and both had the same weight. There is no information about the rotor being articulate to improve the control of the machine in vertical flight or if this was achieved by the control surfaces located in wings and tail. In horizontal flight, the rotor of big diameter was disconnected from the drive shaft, blocking it in parallel to the wing with 0 degrees pitch, acting as a canard plane.

Between December 1941 and April 1942, the Japanese offensive cost the British the loss of the Singapore naval base, one battleship, one battlecruiser, one aircraft carrier, three cruisers, four destroyers and more than 300 airplanes. Early 1944 the Japanese kept a hard fight that it was foreseen would be long and costly. The Royal Navy considered the possibility to lose all their aircraft carriers under kamikaze suicide attacks; in that case it would have been necessary to develop an high-performance, catapult-launched floatplane fighter specifically designed by the air defence of the Fleet. The Blackburn B.44 was designed for operation from small seaplane carriers out of range of shore bases and from island sites with minimal infrastructure.

But there was another possibility. On 26 February 1944, Supermarine published the Technical Office Report No. 4040 with the description of a VTOL tailsitter fighter designed by A.N. Clifton.

It was a single-seat high performance fighter designed to protect the Fleet or convoy vessels from attack by enemy aircraft operating from small platform areas afloat or ashore.

The propulsion system had already been developed by Rolls-Royce for the Mustang F.T.B. It was a 2,490 hp Griffon 58 located behind the pilot connected to the reductor gearbox of the 5.9 m of diameter 8-bladed contra-rotating propellers by means of a long power shaft.

Not requiring a big wing surface to take-off or landing, the wings could be very small and light and the fuselage was reduced to a cone located behind the engine, to serve as support for the four tail surfaces.

Being available the first turboprop engines during the first 50s, new designs of tail-sitters appeared based in the same formula. The Lockheed XFV-1, the Convair XFY-1, the Northrop N-63 and the Martin Model 262 were not successful as a practical vertical flight control system could not be found.

Supermarine Technical Report No. 4040 (Technical data)

Power plant: one 2,490 hp Rolls-Royce Griffon 58, twelve-cylinder Vee, liquid-cooled engine, with one-stage, two-speed supercharger and water/methanol injection power boost, wing span: 22.4 ft (6.84 m), length: 27.6 ft (8.42 m), wing area: 100 sq. ft (9 sq. m), maximum take-off weight: 15,000lbs (6,795 kg), maximum speed: 450 mph (724 kph), armament: four wing pods-mounted 20 mm Hispano cannons

In late 1943 the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) had begun a systematic high-speed research programme using Mustangs and Spitfires diving to above Mach 0.80, the most dangerous flight tests in the history of aviation. A typical dive would start at 40,000 ft, finally reaching 89 per cent of the speed of sound (606 mph) at about 29,000 ft. The January 1944 RAE Report Aero 1906 stated the Spitfire superior performance above Mach 0.75, by comparison to the Mustang, due to its thinner wing.


On 27 April 1944, the Spitfire P.R.XI EN409, flown by Squadron Leader Anthony F. Martindale, eventually reached Mach 0.92 (620 mph). The aircraft was damaged losing the propeller and the reduction gear, Martindale was knocked unconscious when the change in the centre of gravity forced the airplane to pitching up violently, at high-g, and climbing at 40,000 ft out of control. The pilot managed to glide the aircraft back to Farnborough to make an emergency dead-stick landing.
 

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Link to the Opening Post.
For what it's worth this links to the last make the Spitfire even better thread on Alternatehistory.com
 
this links to the last make the Spitfire even better thread on Alternatehistory.com
I went and had a look. As crazy as some of the stuff is that we come up with here (and yes, that includes me), they seem to be thinking the same way I did when I was ten, i.e. without a true grasp of how difficult the engineering problem would be. Wondering how the Spitfire line might have evolved if the III and Griffon IV had formed the basis for future development is one thing. Handwaving enough fuel into (and enough drag off of) the Spitfire to let it compete with the Mustang is something else altogether.
 
In terms of numbers, no. In terms of an aircraft that is better able to hold its own against the latest German fighters, maybe. If the performance projections of the Mk III Spitfire work out, 390mph at altitude with four 20mm cannon is quite potent. It gets closer to being able to deal with the 190 and probably overshadows the 109F.
Who cares about the 109s and 190s, you need to deal with the bombers!
 
I went and had a look. As crazy as some of the stuff is that we come up with here (and yes, that includes me), they seem to be thinking the same way I did when I was ten, i.e. without a true grasp of how difficult the engineering problem would be. Wondering how the Spitfire line might have evolved if the III and Griffon IV had formed the basis for future development is one thing. Handwaving enough fuel into (and enough drag off of) the Spitfire to let it compete with the Mustang is something else altogether.
The British did not need a long-range escort fighter because their bombing raids on the Reich were nighttime and they could use Mosquito and Beaufighter escort night fighters, but if the Mustang had not been available, in 1943 Supermarine engineers could have fitted the wings of a Spiteful with reinforced landing gear on the production Spitfires. This modification would have allowed the installation under the fuselage of a large detachable fuel tank and two others under the wings. It was also within the reach of 1943's technology (but not its mentality) to use fuel tanks mounted on the wingtips. The fixed tanks would have harmed the performances, but the fighters would have arrived in Berlin and returned.
 

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I went and had a look. As crazy as some of the stuff is that we come up with here (and yes, that includes me), they seem to be thinking the same way I did when I was ten, i.e. without a true grasp of how difficult the engineering problem would be. Wondering how the Spitfire line might have evolved if the III and Griffon IV had formed the basis for future development is one thing. Handwaving enough fuel into (and enough drag off of) the Spitfire to let it compete with the Mustang is something else altogether.
(my emphasis)
This is my pet peeve when the talk about a long-range Spitfire is on: since it can't compete with what Mustang did in 1944-45, let's can the whole idea.
That way of thinking forgets that there was a huge, world-encompassing war between 1939 and 1944, and that there was a place - and many time the need - for a LR high-performance fighter. Spitfire was a high-performance fighter as-is, so there is a merit into thinkering and discussing of the idea of stuffing more fuel into a Spitfire to make it a long-range fighter. At least on the what-if topics.
A LR Spitfire that has the radius of action (not range, radius) can have a much greater loiter time over Belgium/N. France, so it can interfere with LW operations by inflicting the losses on them, making more of British and Allied servicemen escape it to the UK. It can provide a workable escort to the British bombers during the early ww2. Like eg. when RAF was trying to bomb targets near the North Sea and failing badly.
During the BoB, LR Spitfires from No.10 and 12 groups can take part in the air combats above the No.11 Group territory before the LW retreats - a major boon.
The LR Spitfire cetainly has it's place in the MTO and Asia/Pacific, and later when day bombing commenced above Europe.

Unfortunately, there was no such thing as long-range fighter doctrine to escort bombers at RAF in the 1930s, and still by 1944 the higher-ups were firmly into belief that a LR fighter will be decimated by LW. No doctrine = no hardware ordered.

The British did not need a long-range escort fighter because their bombing raids on the Reich were nighttime and they could use Mosquito and Beaufighter escort night fighters, but if the Mustang had not been available, in 1943 Supermarine engineers could have fitted the wings of a Spiteful with reinforced landing gear on the production Spitfires.
British bombing raids were daytime business at 1st, before LW slaughtered the bombers and crews in 1940.

Spitfire have had the problem of not having enough of both internal and external fuel. The external fuel tankage problem was solved by installing the drop tank under the fuselage (up to 170 gals) already by 1942, while it took until late 1944 to came out with the LR Spit Mk.IX, that have had extra fuel tanks behind the pilot (some 60-70 gals, depending whether the fuselage was 'normal' or cut-down) - see here, for example; note that also the lower front tank is bigger, as it was on the Mk.VII/VIII.
The in-between steps were installation of greater fuel tankage on the Mk.VII/VIII, while the 29 gal rear tank was used just in conjunction with the 170 gal tank for ferry purposes.

Just slapping number of drop tanks on the Spit will not make it a true LR fighter, of whom we might expect, perhaps, a 500 mile combat radius.
 
This is my pet peeve when the talk about a long-range Spitfire is on: since it can't compete with what Mustang did in 1944-45, let's can the whole idea.
That way of thinking forgets that there was a huge, world-encompassing war between 1939 and 1944, and that there was a place - and many time the need - for a LR high-performance fighter. Spitfire was a high-performance fighter as-is, so there is a merit into thinkering and discussing of the idea of stuffing more fuel into a Spitfire to make it a long-range fighter. At least on the what-if topics.
All this is true. What I'm saying is that it's not as easy as "Let's cram all the fuel we can into a Spitfire". And that's before we get to the fact that any race between the Spit and a Mustang with the same engine ends with the Mustang streaking ahead; it's not a contest. (IIRC there's a graph in Secret Horsepowe Race that shows a Merlin XX Mustang keeping pace with a Spitfire IX).

So that's why I said that tweaking a Spitfire to match a Mustang is a very different thing. You might well be looking at a complete structural redesign. Certainly it's going to need its airframe and undercarriage beefed up to take the extra load, even if it looks identical outwardly.

When I eventually find my copy of Jeffrey Quill's book on the Spitfire (it is doing its best not to be found, because I want it!!!), I will quote you chapter and verse that someone did actually modify a couple of Spits to be able to fly Transatlantic non-stop with drop tanks, but that the modifications compromised the aircraft's structural integrity for combat.
 
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All this is true. What I'm saying is that it's not as easy as "Let's cram all the fuel we can into a Spitfire". And that's before we get to the fact that any race between the Spit and a Mustang with the same engine ends with the Mustang streaking ahead; it's not a contest. (IIRC there's a graph in Secret Horsepowe Race that shows a Merlin XX Mustang keeping pace with a Spitfire IX).

So that's why I said that tweaking a Spitfire to match a Mustang is a very different thing. You might well be looking at a complete structural redesign. Certainly it's going to need its airframe and undercarriage beefed up to take the extra load, even if it looks identical outwardly.

Comparing the two fighters misses the point. There was no Mustang capable of fighting it out at all 'normal' altitudes against LW's best before the late 1943 (= deployment of the P-51A/Mustang II), while Spitfire was there 5 years earlier (4 years of a war in that). There was no Mustang in any service in 1939, 40, 41 - it was basically half of the war that went before there was a Mustang in service.

The 1st requirement for the LR Spitfire is indeed 'let's cram a lot of fuel in the Spitfire' - includes both internal and external tankage - with the caveat that such a Spitfire is safe to fly & fight by the run-on-the-mill pilot. Same as the with the P-51B: 269 + 150 US gals of fuel made it a far longer-ranged fighter than it was the P-51/Mustang I with just 180 US gals and no drop tanks facility.

Lastly, Spitfire does not have to equal Merlin Mustang to still be a very valuable fighter for the Allied cause. Being earlier in the fight makes it a better fighter than the Mustang.
 
While we're playing What If, I found the following in Morgan and Shacklady's massive tome (p253, revised edition):

On 27 January 1944, the following Mark number reservations were communicated to Supermarine:

"All rear view variants up to Mk21 to receive the suffix RV"
Mark 23 - reserved for high-speed wing as trialled (results disappointing, variant not built).
Mk 24-39 - reserved for variants of basic Mk 21 design.
Mk 40 and other marks that are multiples of 10 - development prototypes.
Mk 41-49 - Naval variants of F.21
Mk 51-59 - PR variants of F.21
Mk 61-99 - Reserved for F.21 developments
Mk 101 - "Type 371" (Spiteful laminar-flow wing) with Merlin engine, 5 blade prop
Mk 102 - as above, with contraprop.
Mk 103-109 - Merlin Spitefuls
Mk 110-111 - Not used.
Mk 112 - Spiteful with Griffon engine, 5 blade prop
Mk 113 - Not used.
Mk 114-119 - Further Griffon Spiteful developments.
Mk 121-129 - Spiteful naval variants.
Mk 131-129 - PR Spitefuls

Someone obviously had grand visions for Spitfires heading into the future. At the time, no jet aircraft had yet joined service squadrons and I suppose they were keeping their options open in case jets were a failure.

By 14 March, some grasp of reality appeared to have set in, for the reserved Spitfire Mark number list was much reduced:
Future Griffons - Marks 21-30
Future Merlins - Marks 31 to 40

Of course, by that time Merlin Spitfire development had just about ceased. The last Merlin Spitfire was the XVI, and only to separate it out from the IX for logistical purposes (the XVI had the US Packard Merlin variant).

Laminar wing developments ("Supermarine New Name") were split out from the Spitfire proper and got the following numbers:
Mark 1-9 Merlins.
Mark 10-19 - Griffons
Mark 50-59 - Naval.
And even that never got adhered to, because no Merlin Spitefuls were ever built and Griffon Spiteful Mark numbers in production started at 14 (since it evolved from the Spitfire XIV with the Spiteful wing) and ended at 16, while the Seafangs all ended up with numbers in the 30 range.
 
Lastly, Spitfire does not have to equal Merlin Mustang to still be a very valuable fighter for the Allied cause. Being earlier in the fight makes it a better fighter than the Mustang.
No, but it does have to beat the Fw190, and that means a two-stage (or at least high-blown, high-boost two-speed) Merlin and the structural strength to handle the extra fuel. Where are you going to find the "slack" in the system to design and build this new variant? The British needed fighters immediately, which is why they rushed the 40-series Merlin into production (easier and faster to build than the XX) and got a 60-series onto the airplane as soon as was humanly possible. They didn't have time for anything else.
 
No, but it does have to beat the Fw190, and that means a two-stage (or at least high-blown, high-boost two-speed) Merlin and the structural strength to handle the extra fuel. Where are you going to find the "slack" in the system to design and build this new variant?

Supermarine found the way to increase the structural strength when they came out with Spitfire III already in 1940, and it's kinda-sorta 'children' - Mk.VII and VIII. The later have had 120 imp gals of fuel, an useful increase vs. 84-85 as carried by the majority of Spitfires.
They also had no problems with the much increased weight of the Griffon Spitfires, where the Mk.XIV prototype was up-engined Mk.VIII, and weighted some 630 lbs heavier than the early Mk.VIIIs.

The Mk.V was flown with additional 29 imp gal tank aft the pilot and the 170 imp gal drop tank already in 1942. What was not there is the will in AM and RAF to have every Spitfire outfitted with the similar extra internal tank by some time of 1942 (preferably already before 1940, for the Mk.I), so there is, for example, a Spitfire VIII with 149 gals of internal fuel + the drop tank as-is, as well as the Spitfire IX with 113-114 gals + drop tank. Both were with 2-stage Merlins, so that covers the Fw 190 threat, as well as the 109F-4 and G-2.

The British needed fighters immediately, which is why they rushed the 40-series Merlin into production (easier and faster to build than the XX) and got a 60-series onto the airplane as soon as was humanly possible. They didn't have time for anything else.

British have had their fighters, and immediately. What there was not were the trained pilots.
They can have even more Spitfires with the wholesale cutting back of the deadwood (= aircraft that were manufactured in hundreds even though they were badly behind the curve by the time they left the factory, or were barely usable, or not usable at all), as well as by timely lightning the fire under the Castle Bromwich management.
 
When I eventually find my copy of Jeffrey Quill's book on the Spitfire (it is doing its best not to be found, because I want it!!!), I will quote you chapter and verse that someone did actually modify a couple of Spits to be able to fly Transatlantic non-stop with drop tanks, but that the modifications compromised the aircraft's structural integrity for combat.

Chapter 21, page 239-240 (in my 1985 Arrow edition) states that the Americans modified two Mk IX Spitfires at Wright Field.
"By local modifications they added two Mustang overload fuel tanks under the wings and some additional fuel inside the wings. They flew them across the Atlantic by the Northern route - via Greenland and Iceland - and eventually they were thoroughly examined by the Supermarine design department. Unfortunately some of the structural modifications carried out were detrimental to the structural strength of the aircraft and so could not be considered for production."

Note that there is no mention that the Americans added a fuselage fuel tank behind the cockpit for this flight.
It seems unlikely that they flew non-stop, but probably refuelled in Greenland and/or Iceland.
 
Chapter 21, page 239-240 (in my 1985 Arrow edition) states that the Americans modified two Mk IX Spitfires at Wright Field.
"By local modifications they added two Mustang overload fuel tanks under the wings and some additional fuel inside the wings. They flew them across the Atlantic by the Northern route - via Greenland and Iceland - and eventually they were thoroughly examined by the Supermarine design department. Unfortunately some of the structural modifications carried out were detrimental to the structural strength of the aircraft and so could not be considered for production."

Note that there is no mention that the Americans added a fuselage fuel tank behind the cockpit for this flight.
It seems unlikely that they flew non-stop, but probably refuelled in Greenland and/or Iceland.
That's the quote I was looking for! Thanks for supplying it (and correcting me on the bits I didn't remember right).

The British added behind-cockpit fuselage tanks to some marks, but the centre-of-gravity limitations were tight and there wasn't much leeway there. The never-built Seafire XVIII with a low-blown Griffon and extended rear fuselage was probably intended to get around that problem by providing more of a lever arm for the tail and increasing the CoG limits, but since it wasn't ever proceeded with, we will never know.
 
They can have even more Spitfires with the wholesale cutting back of the deadwood (= aircraft that were manufactured in hundreds even though they were badly behind the curve by the time they left the factory, or were barely usable, or not usable at all), as well as by timely lightning the fire under the Castle Bromwich management.
About 5:30 into Part 2 of "Spitfire!" there's an interview with Stanley Woodley who was a manager at Castle-Bromwich. He said that the problem was that the factory used mass production methods to make the Spitfires when what was needed in 1940 was aircraft straight away. He was sent there from Supermarine to provide experience of making aircraft including the "short cuts". But he also said that the factory used the mass production methods later.
 
The British needed fighters immediately, which is why they rushed the 40-series Merlin into production (easier and faster to build than the XX) and got a 60-series onto the airplane as soon as was humanly possible. They didn't have time for anything else.
British have had their fighters, and immediately. What there was not were the trained pilots.

They can have even more Spitfires with the wholesale cutting back of the deadwood (= aircraft that were manufactured in hundreds even though they were badly behind the curve by the time they left the factory, or were barely usable, or not usable at all), as well as by timely lightning the fire under the Castle Bromwich management.
I think you're at cross purposes. I think @pathology_doc is talking about the situation when the Fw190 appeared and @tomo pauk is talking about the situation in the summer of 1940.
 
I went and had a look. As crazy as some of the stuff is that we come up with here (and yes, that includes me), they seem to be thinking the same way I did when I was ten, i.e. without a true grasp of how difficult the engineering problem would be. Wondering how the Spitfire line might have evolved if the III and Griffon IV had formed the basis for future development is one thing. Handwaving enough fuel into (and enough drag off of) the Spitfire to let it compete with the Mustang is something else altogether.
I posted the link because I didn't want to spend hours repeating what wrote on that thread. To summarise I think more Spitfires would have had more of an effect on World War Two than better Spitfires. Especially in the first half of the war. I don't want to say more because most of what I would have written here is in that thread.
 
This is the first I've heard of the Seafire XVIII with a lengthened fuselage. I've read here and there the XVIII was a proposed PR variant of the XVII, and that later XVIIs with a somewhat different Griffin were informally called XVIIIs. Does anyone have a drawing of the long fuselage version, or at least what was the amount of the lengthening and where on the fuselage was it?
 

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