Sounds like we're pretty much on the same page, Rapaire. ;-) As to which plane was superior...Spitfire or 109...it was nip and tuck between them. I'd say that the Spitfire had a slightly better long range development potential, while the 109 had perhaps a slight edge in some respects in 1940 (when 109Es were up against Spitfire Is and IIs)...but they were really very evenly matched airplanes.

The 109's worst weakness, as you already pointed out, was its very narrow and tricky landing gear. A hell of a lot of them were lost in landing or takeoff mishaps because of that. (Willy Messerschitt could have cured the problem by realigning the wheels a bit more to the vertical which would have necessitated quite noticeable "wing bumps", but he refused to do that. He wanted a clean wing. In the end, however, they did provide thicker wheels for improved ground handling in the G model 109s, and small wing bumps were required for that.) The Spitfire had a somewhat similar general landing gear arrangement, but it was better thought out and considerably less prone to causing landing or takeoff accidents.

Teribus is dead right in his lengthy comments of 18 Jun 08 - 02:32 PM.

It is fascinating to consider, as he writes, that "At no time at all did the Germans ever have superiority in armour, artillery or manpower." That is correct. They won their greatest victories not through having more weapons or better weapons, and certainly not through numbers, but through very innovative and flexible tactics.

One weapon they did have, however, which often proved decisive on the battlefield was the 88mm Flak gun. It caused a tremendous number of Allied casualties, and it was responsible for decimating Allied tank forces on a number of crucial occasions. The advance of the British Matilda tanks could not have been stopped at Arras (?) in 1940, but for a handful of those 88mm guns. It also proved to be the only ground weapon capable of destroying the Russian KV heavy tanks in 1941. They were impervious to the guns on the German tanks of the time, and along with the superb T-34 they totally outmatched the German Mark III and Mark IV tanks, as well as the Czech tanks the Germans were using.

The fact that the Germans did as well as they did in Russia (and in the West) speaks volumes about how well organized they were...and how poorly organized the Russians were...but the Russians had plenty of land and manpower and indutrial strength to call upon, and eventually they were able to reverse the fortunes of the Wehrmacht.

Like Napoleon, the Germans lost their war by invading Russia.