Quote Haraka
" I would venture to suggest that the Hurricane was apparently more damage tolerant and also easier to repair. Very important when fighting to maintain serviceability levels in onging high intensity operations."
Sorry, but you are going to have to quote your statistics to back that up.
OAP
It would be interesting to see such statistics but I think the fitters would have been too busy to keep them. My late father escaped from France in mid-1940 and was posted to Halton as an airframe instructor. He was reluctant to talk about the period but he did mention the Hurricane v Spitfire discussion when helping me study for my own engineering licences almost 50 years ago. The following is based on my dodgy memory:
At that time all-metal aircraft were still relatively new, the Spitfire and Blenheim dating from the mid-1930s. He considered the wood and fabric Hurricane structure was far easier to maintain and his classes of new conscript fitters were easier to train than those for the Spitfire, which required skilled assessment and metalworking skills. Cannon shells would indeed pass through fabric without exploding, while inspection/repair required a pen-knife to cut a Vee in the fabric, closed in minutes by a few stitches and a patch doped over the area. Wooden longerons etc could be replaced or jointed in situ. Damaged tubes could often be joined by clamps placed over the affected area and secured by rows of 2BA bolts on each side. The experienced NCO could decide on the extent of the repair though of course spar etc damage required wing replacement. (I actually discovered one of these clamps on a Tiger Moth fuselage member. The Air Registration Board surveyor made me take it off, revealing a deep dent in the tube. Dad said that in 1940 he wouldn't have worried and the clamp had been there for 20+ years, but in peaceful times the surveyor insisted on a welded repair).
Stressed skin structures such as the Spitfire's could be patched but major damage often required design study for an individual repair scheme. In such cases it was usual to replace wing or fuselage, the old unit being sent to the MU for major repair or scrap. He agreed that the Hurricane pilot was in terrible danger from fire; he may have said that its fuel tank was in front of its pilot, while the Spitfire's was aft?
My father had great regard for the Poles who came to Britain to play such a key role in the Battle and afterwards. He had no contact with the pilots, but did have a few groundcrew for type training. He remembered them as intense and sombre men who had left their families and country. They were already experienced on wood-fabric aircraft and despite the language barrier they needed little introduction to the Hurricane with which the Polish squadrons were equipped. While other fitters looked forward to their '48' passes, the Poles' lives apparently centred on their work and thereby helping their aggressive pilots attack the Luftwaffe. He said that while RAF groundcrew worked hard, the Poles seemed to work even harder and their serviceability record was among the highest in the Service. Perhaps in this case the Hurricane was the right machine at the right time.