13 Spitfires in the sky not too far from Sheffield

[drummonds]

suppose it depends what you prefer. spitfires had far more speed and manouverability where as the 109 had better weapons. i watched the guy martin progamme about the spitfire and was surprised to learn they only had around 12 seconds worth of ammo before they ran out, makes it even more impressive what the achieved

 

i think it was actually 16 seconds. not much but enough for 8 two second bursts. i suppose it depends on circumstances which was the best weapon. spitfires were available with cannon, but most pilots prefered the 8 machine guns. a 2 second burst was actually 320 .303 rifle bullets in a combination of ball, tracer and incediary. over britain a couple of bullet holes in a fuel tank was often enough to have the enemy run out of fuel on the way home. the incendiaries also did much harm. with that much lead flying around you didn't need the accuracy required of cannon fire.

 

the 16seconds of ammunition was not a major problem when you could land and rearm without having to return to northern france. when you look at losses on both sides during the battle it seems that loss of aircrew became more of a problem to the germans.

[NERVY-OWL]

i think it was actually 16 seconds. not much but enough for 8 two second bursts. i suppose it depends on circumstances which was the best weapon. spitfires were available with cannon, but most pilots prefered the 8 machine guns. a 2 second burst was actually 320 .303 rifle bullets in a combination of ball, tracer and incediary. over britain a couple of bullet holes in a fuel tank was often enough to have the enemy run out of fuel on the way home. the incendiaries also did much harm. with that much lead flying around you didn't need the accuracy required of cannon fire.

 

the 16seconds of ammunition was not a major problem when you could land and rearm without having to return to northern france. when you look at losses on both sides during the battle it seems that loss of aircrew became more of a problem to the germans.

 

well i wasn't far off:) still wouldn't want your fighters leaving mid battle to re arm so and it must of been so hard for the pilots not to be too trigger happy. lack of pilots was a problem for both sides but at least ours didn't have far to go to get back if they bailed out, shame they hadn't sorted out anything decent for the pilots if they had to ditch at sea

[GLASGOWOODS]

But it's not as simple as that. Hitler's eastern campaign tied up 75% of german manpower. Therefore we resisted a wholly lesser german force just in the air. The russians took the brunt. Without them and the failures of Stalingrad and Operation Citadel we'd have burned.

 

The Germans underestimated the strength of the RAF. We overestimated the strength of the Luftwaffe.

 

The problem we had wasn't a shortage of planes, it was pilots we needed.

[hillsbro]

During/before the war I meant, I believe Ambrose Shardlows or one of the other large steel works down Attercliffe produced and finished them so it would have been nice to give us a fly over

Yes, Shardlow's produced crankshafts for the Rolls-Royce 'Merlin' engine used in the Spitfire. To quote from this web page:

 

World War II: 1939 saw another expansion of both the Forge and the Machine shop. A much larger hammer was installed ... This monster could forge with a pressure of 20,000 pounds. ... A new department was created for “nitriding” – the special hardening of crankshafts for the Rolls Royce Merlin and Napier Sabre engines. Throughout the war Shardlow’s were the only producer of crankshafts for airplanes and military vehicles. There were regular attempts by the Germans to find Shardlow’s, the nearest bomb coming down in Woolley Woods about a mile away.

[Event Horizo]

So having got the history wrong,

 

Hitler's attention was always towards the east even in 39-40. He just didn't want to carry the air campaign on whilst Barbarossa was being planned. He had huge reserves of fighters and bombers.

[beechnut]

.........

[glennpickard]

The info on Shardlows is fascinating !!! I don't know where it was on Attercliffe, but would like to. Extremely risky & dangerous if there was no secondary source ! I wonder if the US was producing any ? The Merlin was on so many aircraft, if Shardlows was hit we would have been really in it.

 

Re the Battle of Britain itself, the generation before us were the best. The battle was the first very serious reverse the Wehrmacht had, and the Luftwaffe was badly compromised for aircraft and crew for its pending attack on the Soviet Union. I believe without that win, the UK would probably have been over run, the GB Gov't would have been in Ottawa(with the fleet), the allies would have lost the North Sea, the Atlantic, the Channel and the whole of the Mediterrean incl. North Africa. Fascist Spain would have turned on us, Italy and Vichy France would have kept their surface navies (thanks to the RN they did not !), and the Wehrmacht would have been able to move hundreds of thousands of troops to the east from Norway, France and the Low Countries.

 

As PM Churchill said "So much was owed by so many to so few ."

 

---------- Post added 21-08-2015 at 15:43 ----------

 

I just read up on the review by David Price on Ambrose Shardlow. They were based in Washford Street then moved to Meadowhall. It said Washford Rd was flattened by the Germans but Meadowhall was not touched.

We had some bad luck during WW2 but this move was fortuitous !