Originally Posted by
KenV
All those different wings cannot be good for mass production, nor for logistics/maintenance. And that was one big reason why the US pretty much standardized on machine gun armament. It greatly simplified production as well as logistics.
It's not as bad as it sounds, by late '41 early '42 the Spitfire Vc was introduced with the universal wing that could carry any of those combination of weapons. Bear in mind there were other modifications being made to the wing as the aircraft evolved to strengthen it and ease production so it's not as if a wing from a Mk1 would have worked on a Mk9 anyway.
http://spitfiresite.com/2010/04/conc...g-types.html/2