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Re: Long-Range Hurricane II (internal tanks)
"Refurbished" could mean anything: any fighter old enough to have served in the BoB would have been through a number of overhauls by whatever time this was in 1941. Do we have any better guide to the timing? However, the Mk.I wing was not capable of carrying anything other than the fixed external ferry tanks.
Many Mk.Is were converted into Mk.IIs, and this was capable of carrying the jettisonable tanks. However, this does not seem to have appeared in the Middle East before the middle of 1941 at the earliest - the operations in Greece/Crete only involved Mk.Is. I don't recall any mention in Shores/Cull book on this campaign concerning anything other than standard Mk.Is in 33 Sq., and late production ones at that, so I suspect the timing is late in the year.
The problem remains that there seems to be no place in the Hurricane wing for additional tanks other than the armament bays, and 33 was a fighter unit not FR/PR where a reduced armament would be acceptable.
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