Hawker Hurricane

The Hawker Hurricane was introduced in 1935 and served as the roots of the Royal Air Force Fighter Command until 1941 when it was replaced by the Spitfire. The Hurrricane was one of the first monoplane fighters available to the RAF (Royal Air Force) and was the creation of Hawker Aircraft Limited designer Sydney Camm with an all metal design and wing mounted machine guns The Hurricane played a crucial role in the war and would go on to become one of the most legendary fighters of World War Two. 

During the Battle of Britan, the Hurricanes, of which there were over 500 units, played a critical role. Hurricane pilots were mainly tasked with the job of taking out bombers while their more advanced counterpart, the Spitfire, kept enemy figters at bay. They were very sucessful in this mission, shooting down over 1500 planes from the first year of the war through the end of the Battle of Britain.

The first Hawker Hurricane Mk. I’s had an arnament of eight .303 (30 caliber) Browning machine guns mounted in the wings. This was paired with a 1030 hp Merlin II, and later the Merlin III engine with 1310 horsepower. This combination led to a formidable fighter at the time especially compared to slower biplanes and monoplanes with weaker arnament and less powerfull engines.  

As the war continued, the Hawker Hurricanes were remodeled. The main changes were in engine and arnament. All versions of the Mk. II had a brand new engine, the Merlin XX with a two-stage supercharger and 1280 hp. The Mk. IIA, it was planned to include an impressive 12 guns in total, but a scarcity of .303 Brownings made it impossible to achieve this on a production scale. The 12 Brownings were finally implemented on the Hurricane Mk. IIB with the 4 new guns in place close to the wing tips. The Mk. IIB Also saw the addition of bomb racks for two 250lb or 500lb bombs. Later on the Mk. IIC had four 20 mm Hispano-Suiza cannons mounted in the wings and was the most common Hurricane variant, still with a large ammunition capacity. The Mk. IID, sometimes called the “tank buster” came outfitted with 2 Vickers 40mm S guns in pods under the wing. Two of the machine guns were kept and loaded with tracer rounds to assist in aiming the cannons, which had little ammunition. The Mk. IID was used extensively in the desert campaign against eary war tanks with light armor.

The Hawker Hurricane played a pivotal part in the earliest stages of  World War 2 and served from the opening stages, through the Battle of Britain, and all the way to the end.