80 years ago today - Britain Declares War on Germany

[Ayahuasca]

Penelope Stopit said:

Ayahuasca said:

I am a bit surprised however that you haven’t pointed out that the photo of the spitfire exhaust that someone posted yesterday is not a Battle of Britain era Spitfire

Which goes to show my lack of knowledge

Sorry about that

Have now deleted the flame thrower image

Wouldn't have posted it if I had known

This topic is top notch and have no intention of trashing it in any way

Keep the info coming, enjoying the reads very much

Don’t be daft, it was a great picture, I don’t think even Eric would be (too) offended by it. Most of the Spitfires in the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight are not BOB era aircraft either.

[Ayahuasca]

You can tell Spitfire models apart by the number and shape of the exhaust stubs. The Mark 1 BOB era Spit has three on each side.

Also the BOB era ones had brown and green camo. When they later carried the war over the sea to the continent, brown was changed to ocean grey.

[Eric Mc]

There are lots of subtle and not so subtle differences between the various Spitfire marks. There were even differences within the various Mark designations. Anyway, not really relevant to an "80 years on this day" thread.

[Eric Mc]

Regarding the Beaufighter, theMkI had entered service by the Summer/Autumn of 1940. However, their initial use was as nightfighters where they began replacing Blenheim MkIs from the late summer of 1940.

Note that the Beaufighter MkII had Merlins.

[The Mad Monk]

Were the Beaufighters popular with aircrew?

[Eric Mc]

By and large, yes. They could be a bit of a handful and had some directional instability. This was improved in later versions by adding dihedral to the tailplanes and later adding an extension to the tailfin. They were as tough as an old boot and pretty reliable.

The bulk of Beaufighters were powered by the Bristol Hercules radial. The MkII had Merlins but the Hercules engine worked best for the various roles the Beaufighter took on.

[Eric Mc]

Some Beaufighter variants -

This is the Mk.I nightfighter variant which saw action in the Autumn and Winter of 1940.



This is the MkII fitted with Merlins and a dihedral tailplane



And this is one of the last versions with the extended tailfin

[s2art]

Eric Mc said:

By and large, yes. They could be a bit of a handful and had some directional instability. This was improved in later versions by adding dihedral to the tailplanes and later adding an extension to the tailfin. They were as tough as an old boot and pretty reliable.

The bulk of Beaufighters were powered by the Bristol Hercules radial. The MkII had Merlins but the Hercules engine worked best for the various roles the Beaufighter took on.

As an aside it was Bristols work on high temperature alloys for its radial engines that gave us a huge technology lead over Germanyfor jet engines .

[Eric Mc]

Didn't know that - interesting.

[Europa1]

Am I right in thinking there was a variant of the Beaufighter fitted with an unfeasibly large gun for anti-ship duties, or have I mis-remembered?

[s2art]

Europa1 said:

Am I right in thinking there was a variant of the Beaufighter fitted with an unfeasibly large gun for anti-ship duties, or have I mis-remembered?

Certainly there was a Mosquito with one, the Tsetse variant.

[XCP]

s2art said:

As an aside it was Bristols work on high temperature alloys for its radial engines that gave us a huge technology lead over Germanyfor jet engines .

My grandfather worked at BAC Filton during the war, he was an instrument maker apparently. He died 45 years ago so I can't ask him about his experiences.

[Eric Mc]

s2art said:

Europa1 said:

Am I right in thinking there was a variant of the Beaufighter fitted with an unfeasibly large gun for anti-ship duties, or have I mis-remembered?

Certainly there was a Mosquito with one, the Tsetse variant.

Which, although impressive, was largely ignored in favour of Mosquitos carrying rocket projectiles. The Beaufighter also carried rockets for anti-shipping work and ground attack - but that was later in the war.
Its first successes were in the role of nightfighter where they replaced the barely adequate Defiants and Blenheims.

[Ayahuasca]

My ancient Airfix variety is a later one, although with rockets AND torpedo, because why not.

[ettore]

I’ve always loved the Beaufighter - looks hard as nails and had a distinguished and under-recognised career throughout the war.

I seem to remember that the Merlin versions were a right handful which is why they were discontinued.

[Penelope Stopit]

Ayahuasca said:

Penelope Stopit said:

Ayahuasca said:

I am a bit surprised however that you haven’t pointed out that the photo of the spitfire exhaust that someone posted yesterday is not a Battle of Britain era Spitfire

Which goes to show my lack of knowledge

Sorry about that

Have now deleted the flame thrower image

Wouldn't have posted it if I had known

This topic is top notch and have no intention of trashing it in any way

Keep the info coming, enjoying the reads very much

Don’t be daft, it was a great picture, I don’t think even Eric would be (too) offended by it. Most of the Spitfires in the RAF Battle of Britain Memorial Flight are not BOB era aircraft either.

Ok then

[Penelope Stopit]

Battle Of Britain - The hardest day

Was 80 years ago today the hardest day?

We were enjoying a chat and a smoke outside the shelter as we had done in the past weeks for, although there was plenty of air activity, nothing much up to now had happened. However, on this day, not many minutes had elapsed before we realised we were being attacked by machine gun and cannon shell fire as three Dornier aircraft, at low level, flew over the rooftops of our billets. There was a mad scramble to get underground and, from then on, all hell let loose.

http://ww2today.com/18-august-1940-battle-of-brita...

[Zirconia]

Another linky with a handy graphic.
https://twitter.com/RAFBF/status/12957379260731678...

Podcast worth following
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/all-stations...

Edited by Zirconia on Tuesday 18th August 17:21

[ninja-lewis]

Timeline of the Luftwaffe raids and RAF defence on 18 August 1940
https://youtu.be/34KxPpoq7iU

Worth checking out the other videos on the channel btw

[FunkyNige]

Europa1 said:

Am I right in thinking there was a variant of the Beaufighter fitted with an unfeasibly large gun for anti-ship duties, or have I mis-remembered?

Could you be thinking of the German HS-129 with the 75mm gun?


The Americans also put a 75mm in the B-25 Mitchell