No, it couldn't turn with a Bf 109 <Senty

I would evade being shot at accurately by pulling so much g force... that you could feel the blood leaving the head and coming down over your eyes... And you would fly like that for as long as you could, knowing that if anyone was trying to get on your tail they were going through the same bleary vision that you had and you might get away. I had deliberately decided that any deficiency the Kittyhawk had was offset by aggression. And I'd done a little bit of boxing — I beat much better opponents simply by going for [them]. And I decided to use that in the air. And it paid off.ht***tp://www.abc.net.au/austory/transcripts/s513633.htm

 

A very interesting note about the P40 and the P51 is that they cost about the same price. The P40 cost the DOD about $47,000.00 and the Mustang cost about $50,000.00. A P47 cost almost $133K and the Corsair/F6F came in around $125-130K. So you could build two and a half mustangs for the price of the other types. The P40 had reached a point where it showed no advantage over the Mustang so it became the odd man out. Still our allies were happy to recieve it when the other more advanced designs were going to the USAAF. The Mustang was a better aircraft but that does not mean it wasn't the equal of its contemporaries like the Zeke and Bf109.

 

It's combat record against those types proved different.

 

Check Six

 

Rocky

Cute, but irrelevent. I am comparing the P40 to the aircraft it was pitted against. It was challenged by the A6M and the Bf109, not the F16. It was overall equal in performance to those types and certainly not a second rate aircraft by any measure. I never said it could escort bombers to Berlin, nor was it ever asked to. The Vaunted P47 couldn't make the trip to Berlin either so does that mean it wasn't a world beater?

 

 

Check Six

 

Rocky

 

Cute, but irrelevent. I am comparing the P40 to the aircraft it was pitted against. It was challenged by the A6M and the Bf109, not the F16. It was overall equal in performance to those types and certainly not a second rate aircraft by any measure. I never said it could escort bombers to Berlin, nor was it ever asked to. The Vaunted P47 couldn't make the trip to Berlin either so does that mean it wasn't a world beater?

 

 

Check Six

 

Rocky

 

1) You quote its range a plus, I'm merely pointing out that it's range is OK, but as far as long-range needs go it was inferior to the P-51D.  So inferior that it was a role that could not be filled by the P-40.  In many ways it was a fine a/c, in this role it would have been a dog...  The P-47 had as equivalent range, more fire power, was sturdier, and could perform A2A and A2G, I'd give the nod to the P-47 over the P-40, and no neither of them were dogs.  It's merely that the P-40 was an older design that got caught and then passed by later designs, such as the P-47.

2) You're too used to herald/BW blood feuds...that was a joke at BW's expense, re: the P-40 and Spectra, you know, not a dig at the P-40.  You know some folks believe that the Rafale is the end-all-be-all of modern a/c design and can be used multi-role wunderwaffe...I was merely poking fun at that attitude, not you or the plane.

Okay I didn't get the joke, sorry. I am limiting my comparisons to its contemporaries the Zeke and the Bf109 and showing that it could hang with those in its day as well as other allied types. Clearly it was passed by by about 1943 when better allied aircraft started arriving. Still, it fought right to the end of the war and its overall performance in combat was nothing short of excellent.

 

P-40 has advantages in toughness, firepower, ammo capacity, turn, roll, cockpit vision and ergonomics.  It's only disadvantages are rate of climb and altitude performance.  Its poor kill ratio vs the 109 has to be pilot quality.  The majority of 109 kills on the P-40 were Commonwealth pilots.  I am unsure of their tactics or training but it obviously wasn't enough to deal with Marseille and the other Germans.

Earlier this evening, I was reading this thread while watching a Military Channel program on the P-40. Very interesting. I never had given much thought to the P-40 other than I thought it looked cool.

 

Some points from the program I'd love for someone to educate me on.

-They said the P-40s weren't good enough to to tangle with the Bf-109, so the Commonwealth forces sent them to the Pacific. That seemed very odd on the face of it. The Zeke/Zero was no slouch. That doesn't seem right. I wonder what the full story is.

-They did point out the superior dive rate. In fact, the pilot they were interviewing said they had to stand on the left rudder. I'm not a pilot, so I'm guessing here, is that because of the torque from the prop?

-They brought up the point about the Allison vs Rolls Royce engines. They also brought up the supercharged engines vs. engines sans supercharger. So what's the real scoop? Some had SC's and some did not? Was this simply an availability issue?

Thanks.

 

I'll start with answering what a Supercharger & Turbo Super Charger is. All aspirating (piston) engines loose power as they climb up above sea level because the higher they go the less oxygen is available for burning in the fuel air mixture. What a supercharger or turbo super-charger do is compress the air that is available at what ever altitude the aircraft is at to maintain seal level engine performance which is measured in manifold pressure. The compression is created by a set of impellers that spin inside of a little cylindrical chamber. The energy to accomplish this is either bled from the exhaust stack via a small line or it is driven off of an accessory pad on the back of the engine, or in the case of the P40's Allison, it can be a geared drive off of the engine.

 

 

All Curtis P40s left the factory with a supercharger. Repeat, the P40's have superchargers and allot of information out there gets that wrong. The Allison's supercharger was a simple, single stage system that would only maintain sea level manifold pressure to about 15000 feet or so depending upon conditions. Above that the aircraft's performance against other aircraft with multi stage superchargers will begin to fade. The reason the Allies sent it to Africa and the Pacific was because most of the air combat in those theaters took place below 10,000 feet MSL. If needed, the aircraft certainly could have been fitted with a higher performing turbocharger and in fact eventually it was fitted with a Merlin engine. US Turbo super chargers in the P38 and in the P47 were big systems. The P38's TC's were housed in the booms behind the wings with those snail shaped impeller sets you see from above on the Lightning, and the P47's was stuck in the rear fuselage behind the fuel tank and plumbed all the way up to the engine. These were big, heavy, complex systems. The P51's was mated right up under the engine just like the Spitfire's. Smaller, lighter, easier to house.

 

Regarding the Bf109, I have already posted that the P40 was argueably a better performer, at least at the elevations where they saw combat against the 109 in Africa and Italy. One US airgroup, the 325th, with relatively inexperienced pilots ran up a 133-12 kill ratio mostly against Luftwaffe Bf109s (April 1943-Sept1943, the 325th had no combat experience prior to arriving in Africa).  This validates the British experiences of Nick Barr, Australia, 12 P40 kills and Clive Caldwel, 20 1/2 kills in the P40. The P40 was faster than the 109 and I believe could turn inside of it, Senty disagrees. The P40 was the fastest thing above the planet in a dive so a P40 pilot could leave when he decided it was the better part of valor.

Once the P40 pilots learned how to fight the airplane they became very successful against enemy Zekes/Zeros and Bf109s. It's greatest virtue was probably the fact that when things got really tough, the P40 pilot could bug out and live to fight another day. Something the enemy pilot couldn't do.

 

Check Six

 

Rocky