hawker hurricanes

[AlMac11]

was the hurricane actually a crap plane? I know it was the most used plane in the battle of britain but that doesn't make it good. I hear at Stalingrad, the russians hated the hurricanes loaned to the by churchill. So, was it good? Better than the spitfire? The messerschmit or what?

[LazyGun]

Depends on your definition of good and crap really.
It was an aging design.... but, it was a very simple design so was cheap and easy to mass produce.
Initial models were light on firepower, but this was upgraded fairly early on in the war.
It had less speed that its direct opponent, the Messerschmidt, but had better turning ability, and with the upgraded Merlin engine, it could outperfom the Messerschmidt, particularly at lower altitudes.
Its also fair to say that the fabric "skin" held up better damagewise than metal skins, such as was present on the spitfire.

Overall though, its probably fair to say that both the Spitfire and the Messerschmidt were superior planes when comparing absolute performance capability.

[Mikeyd2]

It was also used with great effect in North Africa as a low level Tank Buster when fitted with Cannon's as well as the usual 303 Browning machine guns .

[nadolig]

it could take a significant amount of damage before being disabled.

[Mortartube]

The hurricane was very quick to repair, having a fabric skin, it could be repaired and back in service far quicker than the metal skinned planes such as the spitfire. This was probably one of it's main advantages, although to look at, I'd say the spitfire is a far more graceful aircraft.