Why the USAAF gave up on the A-36 in favour of the P-47.

[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

Yes the RAF brought in faster aircraft than the Spitfire IX but that is not the same as the Mk IX no longer being a viable type in combat - it was used in large numbers up until the end and I don't recall reading of any occasions where it was outclassed and massacred by the opposition.

Appearantly it wasn't messarcred but ignored. Clostermann wrote about this (the situation in the 2nd TAF in late 1944):

The Spitfires were powerless. There was only one Wing of three Spitfire XIV Squadrons and the rest were equipped with Spitfire IXs or Spit XVIs (Spit IXs with Rolls-Royce engines built by Packard in the U.S.A.). In any case all the Spit IX Squadrons operated most of the time as fighter-bombers. The Huns, knowing the Spits quality in dogfight, carefully avoided taking them on, and the poor Spits had neither the speed nor the range to force the new German fighters to fight.

Clostermann's Big Show, page 214.

BTW he didn't mean the 262 but rather uprated piston engined fighters of the LW with MW-50 and other boosts (ie. G-14s, A-8s, A-9s, D-9s). These had some significant speed advantage (up to 40-70 km/h) over the Mark IX that was just introduced in service in numbers.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by Kurfürst

The Huns, knowing the Spits quality in dogfight, carefully avoided taking them on …

Clostermann's Big Show, page 214. BTW he didn't mean the 262 but rather uprated piston engined fighters of the LW with MW-50 and other boosts (ie. G-14s, A-8s, A-9s, D-9s). These had some significant speed advantage (up to 40-70 km/h) over the Mark IX that was just introduced in service in numbers.

I'm quite familiar with Clostermann's book and the reliability of some of his observations. If the Germans really avoided taking on the Spitfire IX at a time when much of their fighter effort in the west was in defence of their own supply lines against fighter-bombers, doesn't that rather reinforce my point that it remained a viable combat aircraft in 1945?

[tcolvin]

Nick, it was you I believe, who evidenced the Spitfire IX/XVI to rebut my statement that 2TAF operated retired air-superiority fighters for the sake of convenience.

Surely Clostermann's statement that Spitfire IX/XVIs were powerless, because they lacked the speed necessary to enforce air superiority, revealed the truth they were well past their sell-by date as air-superiority fighters in 1945.

Their manoeuverability was such, however, that faster German fighters left them alone, but that is a different point and the reason Austers and L4s were rarely troubled either.

Hill, CO of 662 Sqn, described what happened to two FW-190 pilots who decided to 'have a go' near Nijmegen at end September 1944 with one of his Austers, flown of course by a soldier. "A 'C' Flight pilot, called Cracknell, got the warning of bandits. He came down very low for ten minutes and then, seeing three Spitfires flying above him, decided that he would continue his registration shoot. Unfortunately above the Spitfires and flying in and out of clouds were two FW-190s. They pushed their noses down and went straight at him. He saw them and dived for the ground. One of the Spitfires also saw them, dived after them and shot one down and then crashed himself. For ten minutes we then watched the FW and the Auster have a battle. Round the trees, down the side of the river, round the chimneys of the power station. The FW got in four bursts but missed each time. Eventually he decided the AA was getting too hot and cleared off. The Auster landed and had to be completely re-rigged - one wing had gone back about one inch during the attack."

Tony

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

Nick, it was you I believe, who evidenced the Spitfire IX/XVI to rebut my statement that 2TAF operated retired air-superiority fighters for the sake of convenience.

Surely Clostermann's statement that Spitfire IX/XVIs were powerless, because they lacked the speed necessary to enforce air superiority, revealed the truth they were well past their sell-by date as air-superiority fighters in 1945.

Their manoeuverability was such, however, that faster German fighters left them alone, but that is a different point …
Tony

But what I actually said — and you have not refuted — was that the Spitfire IX remained a viable combat aircraft from its introduction through to the end of the war.

If faster German fighters left them alone, then so much the better: the Spitfires were free to strafe and bomb German targets. What good were "superior" machines doing the German cause if they avoided the most numerous combat type on the British side?