The position of the fuel tank gave the hurricane the hump-backed look as it was beneath the pilot's seat, the spitfire's was just in front of the pilot, therefore more vulnerable. The early dog-fights between me 109s and spits had the spit more agile (tighter turning circle) but that was countered by mes pilots using a few degrees of down-flap. Both the spitfire and me sacrificed function in order to achieve the most streamlined shape, ground-handling problems caused significant deaths for both as forward vision was non-existant and the undercarriage was narrow and prone to tipping. Like Concorde, the Spitfire shape came about by following the aerodynamic principles that were accepted at their moment of evolution, both were superb looking but had inbuilt problems that could not be cured without a complete re-design. Later versions of spitfires had bubble cockpits and the "pure" wing shape was cllpped for more speed, but by then range rather dog-fighting was a bigger factor and the mustang and mosquito were superior for that role. If one thing could be said to have "won the war" (impossible) it was the rolls-royce Merlin V12 28 litre power plant.
