The Hurricane was sturdy and its 2x4 Browning machine gun firepower nicely concentrated for shooting down a lumbering Heinkel or Dornier, Stuka or Me 110 (which is why Bader liked it over the Spit with its less concentrated Browning fire power),
"Like all pilots who flew and fought in the Hurricane, I grew to love it. It was strong, highly maneuverable, could turn inside the Spitfire and of course the Me 109. Best of all, it was a marvellous gun platform. The sloping nose gave you a splendid forward view, while the eight guns were set in blocks of four in each wing, close to the fuselage. The aeroplane remained rock steady when you fired. Unlike the Spitfire with its lovely elliptical wing which sloped towards the tip, the Hurricane wing was thicker and straight. The Spitfire was less stead when the guns were firing because, I have always thought, they were spread further along the wing, and the recoil effect was noticeable."
but it was no match against an Me 109 E, much less the F model.
The vast majority of German airplanes downed in the Battle of Britain were non-Me 109s. In fact, fewer single seat German fighters were shot down (or ran out of gas) in the Battle of Britain than RAF single seat fighters. I have doubts whether Hurricanes shot down Me-109s in any significant quantity, but that was not their job, they were there to shoot down bombers and that they did well. If no Me-109s were around that is.
Bader was a skilled pilot and a courageous man and maybe
he did have a chance in a fight with a fresh Me-109 pilot in 1940, but between two equally skilled and experienced pilots, the Hurricane had no chance against an Me-109. The Luftwaffe fighter pilots didn't take the Hurricane serious as an opponent and Hurricane losses in North Africa against Luftwaffe fighters were as bad as P-40 losses.
The Battlle of Britain might have been won by the RAF even without the Spitfire, but it would have been a lot more arduous.
This makes for interesting reading, but should be read with a pinch of salt given that pilots had a natural inclination to favor their own aircraft types:
http://kurfurst.org/Tactical_trials/109E_vergleich110SpitHurCurtiss/109E_vergleichsflg_Aug1940.html
