【Military And Military Sub-Plane】Author: Seventh Uncle
"Never before in the history of human warfare has so few people made such a great contribution to so many people." After the Battle of Britain, Churchill was able to blow so well thanks to the Spitfire. Today's military film, let's talk about the love and hatred between the Spitfire and the German fighter.
In the centuries-old aviation history of mankind, there are countless famous aircraft, but it is in response to the old saying - "the times make heroes". As a strategic defensive fighter, the only thing that can control the balance of life and death of the country is the Spitfire that saves Britain.
Fateful showdown
In countless movie blockbusters, the fierce battle with the Spitfire is always a German BF109 fighter. This is just like the protagonist of the story always has a powerful boss to echo it, spitfire and 109, the enemy of the enemy, when did it start to bite?
Speaking of which, the 109 entered service a year earlier than the Spitfire, but the earliest prototype of the 109 used a Rolls-Royce engine, so the two aircraft basically started at the same time. In mid-May 1940, a few days before the Dunkirk evacuation, the Spitfire engaged the Bf-109 for the first time, with the Germans mainly equipped with the Type 109E and the British Spitfire being the Mark I. In fact, the spitfire Mk I and BF-109E have very close paper performance.
The Advantage of the Spitfire is a smaller turning radius, which is slightly higher than the 109E at altitudes below 4600 meters; but the 109E climbs faster, and the speed above 6000 meters will exceed the Spitfire 109E, which is an improvement of the previous generation by the German army based on some experience in the Spanish Civil War, and the Spitfire is still the first generation of works without actual combat at this time. Over the next two years, spitfires and 109s have been making improvements, with the Spitfire upgrading from Mark I, Mark II to Mark V, and 109E to 109F, which is comparable in performance.
But just as the Spitfire and the 109 were inseparable, the Luftwaffe sacrificed another killer, the Fw190. After testing the performance of the 190, the British army was surprised to find that the Fw190 was better than the Spitfire Mark V at all heights of 600 to 6000 meters, whether it was speed, climb, dive or roll, and the Spitfire had the advantage of only turning and more resistant to beating compared to the 190. After the appearance of the Spitfire IX (9) in 1942, it was finally able to tie the FW190 and BF109G.
By 1944, when the Spitfire Mark XIV (14) with griffin's Type 61 engine appeared, the balance of performance was completely tilted to the side of the British. According to the British Air Force's operational studies of the Spitfire Mark XIV (14) and Fw190A and Bf 109G, in addition to the dive and roll rate of the Fw190 being equal, the Spitfire Mark XIV can crush two German aircraft in all other aspects.
On a technical level, the Spitfire and Bf-109 have one more thing in common, that is, they have been converted into aircraft carriers. However, the Spitfire family of carrier-based aircraft has about 8 major models, from the Mark IB to the Seafire 47. The German Bf-109T, which was improved according to the 109E, failed to ship because of the cancellation of the Earl Zeppelin aircraft carrier program, and the 60 produced were delivered to the Luftwaffe unit in Norway after removing all the ship's equipment, and the airfield there was small, which was very suitable for the characteristics of the 109T carrier-based aircraft, and it was also used to the fullest.
Of course, in addition to paper performance, personnel quality and tactics also have a great impact on whether the fighter can give full play to its performance. Because the Germans intervened in the Spanish Civil War before World War II, they not only tested the performance of fighters, but also trained a group of early Luftwaffe pilots, which also added to the group experience of the entire Luftwaffe. The German pilot, Marceau, who shot down the most British and American aircraft in the 109, had 20 Spitfires in his 158 record.
In addition to the superiority of pilot experience, the German army also reformed air combat tactics earlier, especially the "four-finger formation" used first, as the name suggests, looking down at his right hand, in addition to the thumb, the fingertip of the other four fingers is the position of the four aircraft in the "four-finger formation". This formation is more flexible than the british traditional V-type three-aircraft formation. During the operations in Dunkirk, British Air Force Admiral Hugh Dowding resisted the pressure and sent only a small number of fighters to assist the front, and a total of 67 Spitfires were shot down during the French campaign, but the British Air Force gained a lot of actual combat experience, preserving the strength for the upcoming Battle of Britain.
Different from the facial paralysis shape of the British ground equipment in World War II, the Spitfire fighter can be said to be the face value of the British army's equipment, compared with the US military's "flying board bricks", the elegant fuselage curve of the Spitfire is indeed unforgettable. Although it was given the general name of "Runaway Lolita", it was also angrily angered by its designer! But based on Spitfire's performance in World War II, the name is still very appropriate.
Eagle over London
After Dunkirk's first appearance, the Luftwaffe did not give the Spitfire much time to learn from its experience. Just a month after the retreat, on 10 July the Luftwaffe attacked a British shipping fleet off the coast of Kent. The Royal Air Force Spitfire quickly rushed to the battlefield. About 100 aircraft were involved in the fighting that day. In the end, the Luftwaffe lost 13 aircraft, while the British Air Force lost 6. The British thus regarded 10 July as the first day of the Battle of Britain, the largest and longest-lasting air battle in human history.
Throughout the Battle of Britain, the British lost 1547 aircraft, including 770 Hurricanes and Spitfires; the Luftwaffe lost 1887 aircraft, of which 650 were Bf 109 fighters. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill praised the well-known quote in his speech: "Never before in the history of human warfare have so few people made such a great contribution to so many people." ”
The biggest contributors to the Battle of Britain were the Spitfire and Hurricane fighters, in fact, the British Air Force's victory accounted for 55% of the Hurricane squadron, while the Spitfire accounted for only 43%. But many of the German pilots who were shot down or injured mistakenly believed they had been attacked by the Spitfire, which stole a lot of the Limelight.
In fact, during this period, the single-wheel combat capability Spitfire and hurricane were also comparable, and later the British Air Force preferred to use hurricanes to attack bombers, while Spitfires were used against fighters. Starting from the defense of the skies of Britain, the Spitfire was found in almost all the battlefields of World War II, Western Europe, the Soviet Union, North Africa, the Bay of Bengal, and pilots who spoke English, French, Russian and other languages flew Spitfire fighters around the world.
Legend forever
The Spitfire is no longer just a weapon in the minds of the British, it is a totem and a belief. Churchill once said that if the British Empire could exist for another thousand years, people would still say that the victory in the Battle of Britain was their most glorious moment. After all, at a time of British life and death, it is not difficult to understand the British love for Spitfire fighters when a group of brave pilots fly Spitfires to save the country from danger.
However, after the Spitfire was completely withdrawn from active service in the British Air Force in 1957, the number of flyable Spitfires worldwide decreased dramatically, and by the 1960s, only 10 Spitfires were left to fly in the entire United Kingdom. It was not until the filming of the movie "The Battle of Britain" that this number rose, and the British also began to be interested in repairing the Spitfire, the rich began to invest in the repair of the Spitfire, and the people also began to buy in India, Israel and other post-war countries equipped with spitfire, and brought back to the British for repair.
There were even requests from the Ministry of Defense to donate its own private collection of fighter jets in exchange for the janitor spitfires that were used as decorations, and to provide full-size models to replace these real aircraft. There have also been some small companies in the United Kingdom that specialize in repairing old fighter jets, but repairing the Spitfire is far more difficult than building one, and it will take several years to get the old Spitfire back into the blue sky while keeping the original parts as much as possible.
By the 1990s, restoration projects were bearing fruit, and by 2007 there were more than 40 airworthy Spitfires worldwide, and the number was growing. It is hard to imagine that a veteran equipment from World War II that has been retired for more than 60 years is actually increasing in its movable quantity.
Nowadays, on the anniversary of the first Spitfire flight or the anniversary of the Battle of Britain, we can see the spitfire fighters in formations roaring over the crowd. Such a vivid patriotic education is obviously more attractive to children. It is better for them to see the fighters that their ancestors flew for the country recreate the heroic appearance of that year, than to see only those who have fallen in the park and rusted and dilapidated.
Finally, I still have to say it for new and old friends: there are many military programs on the market, but not all of them are called "Military And Military Sub-Planes".
While adding a large number of historical images and pictures, in order to reproduce the weapons and scenes at that time, we also produced a large number of 3D animation special effects, "details determine success or failure", a shell shell, a screw, and strive to restore the real image of the weapon at that time. This is something that many other military shows can't do.
▲ Partner who is making modeling
We don't like to do the "chicken blood" title party, because even if the title is attractive, there is no good enough content, like drinking a bottle of white water, twisting it open with interest, drinking it is tasteless, and what we want to do is a bottle of wine that needs to be carefully brewed, not attracted by the gorgeous appearance, but drinking it will also make you taste endlessly. Only real effort, and then the audience can really learn all kinds of military knowledge, we think this is what military programs should look like.
At the same time, I also hope that the military programs we produce can be loved and recognized by more audiences. That's what motivates us the most.
▲ At the end of the video, Wu Xinlei teaches everyone how to play CS well
For more interesting and interesting military articles, videos, pictures, movies, and games, please pay attention to the "Military and Military Sub-Plane" WeChat public account