Something that strikes me as odd in your analysis of P-40 v. Bf-109 or A6M is the use of what appear to be (based on the language of the quotes) claimed kills v. own losses.  I don't know that the claimed numbers are not reliable, but I think it's safe to say the number of claimed kills certainly aren't going to be less than the number of actual kills, at any rate.  Have you read any accounts/assessments of the P-40 by its opponents in the air, i.e., by German or Japanese pilots?

 

In fact I have presented the combat record in terms of kill ratios in two of the primary combat theaters the P40 participated in. The USAAF, the RAF, and the RAAF in the Med and in the Pacific. Without exception the P40 sustained a favorable or at least an even tactical record against its contemporary Axis numbers. These comparisons are valid early in the conflict during the period of time that the Axis pilots were every bit as good as the Allies (before the Axis crew qualilties began to seriously diminish) Nobody has been able to document any circumstances to the contrary. Based upon that performance I am forced to the logical conclusion that the P40, in the words of RAAF P40 ace Clive Caldwell, "had almost no vices".

 

This is a great aircraft that deserves more respect than I think it is getting today.

 

 

Check Six

 

Rocky

So far, the P&W 1830 with a GE-centrifugal supercharger looks like the upgrade path. Still working out the kinks.

Herald

Herald,

 

What about the R2600?  The diameter is 7" larger than the 1830.

Size also means weight-bigger heavier engine means bigger heavier airframe, fuel tank etc. Sooner or later we wind up with the JUG.

 

The P-36 wasn't that big.

 

Herald

You are comparing dissimilar numbers, what a unit CLAIMS, and what it lost...what it THINKS it killed, versus a hard number, the number of a/c that failed to return...this isn't about flaming or calling you a liar or the writers liars, it's about what fighters claim as kills, versus what they really killed, VERSUS what they lost.

 

A ratio of claims versus losses, is only good when you compare it to German/Japanese claims versus losses, or if you do what the fellow in First Team did, examine all the dog fights...in that book it is amazing the number of shot down a/c that were double claimed or that made it home...

 

 

Bottom-line: the best portion of your claim is what the pilots said of the P-40..."It had no vices."  The claims numbers are really suspect, for giving a historically accurate account of kill ratios.  Because the first number Japanese/German A/c shot down is very suspect:Known P-40 losses, very determinable.

 

Actually, I am comparing what is of historical record. Historians record and audit claims, kills and losses. I am using historical data to support my theory (and giving you access to that data to audit on your own). For instance, Clive Caldwell does not claim to have killed 20.5 enemy aircraft with his P40s. It is a fact. His opinion there-fore carries weight with me and supports my case. Now, if the data is in dispute. I have challenged others to produce the conflicting information so we might examine it. So far, my data is the only data presented.

But the data isn't complete, I didn't include the RAAF's 75th squadron ,Port Moresby, who with only 1 week's training in the P40 scored 34-12 against the cream of the IJN Zekes (best pilots in the world the were IJN), RAF 3sqd Africa 115 kills - 34 lost, RAF 112sqd 118 kills- 38 lost, nor the China theater where another 40 USAAF pilots achieved Ace status in the P40 with another 973 dead IJN/IJAF, nor the US AVG group. The list appears to go on and on.

 

My data is out there. I'm looking for informed discussion. It is easy to tell me I'm wrong but it appears to be a different kettle to prove it. Cowboy up if you think I've missed something here. Where did the Japanese, Italians, or Germans even claim that they had a theater wide positive kill ratio against allied P40s of any variant?  any theater? any year of the war?

 

Check Six

 

Rocky

I can name two theaters for sure, and possibly a third: New Guinea, Russia, and the possible being North Africa. 

 

Over New Guinea, Australian P-40s were up against the Tainan Kokutai, which had all three of Japan's top aces in it--Hiroyoshi Nishizawa among them.  The Japanese sustained a very high kill ratio against the Allies over New Guinea until pilot attrition (mostly from long-range fighting over the Solomons, and the introduction of the P-38 and F4U) finally ground them down.  Russian P-40s got hacked down by Luftwaffe pilots on a regular basis.  North Africa I know you'll argue with me on, Rocky, and you may be right--but the Luftwaffe in North Africa produced a number of aces, among which was Hans-Joachim Marseille.  Marseille didn't just confine himself to shooting down Hurricanes.

 

In the P-40's defense, in most cases the negative kill ratio was a case of pilot quality--IJN pilots being among the best in the world at the time, as you mentioned; Soviet pilots were poorly trained and often little more than clay pigeons against Erich Hartmann and Gerhard Barkhorn.  This is not a fault of the P-40 so much as it's a fault of the pilot or circumstances they found themselves in.

 

I will caution this: the P-40 was a great airplane, but it wasn't the be-all and end-all.  Otherwise, it wouldn't have been surpassed by the P-38, P-47, and P-51. 

Again read First Team...several pilots CLAIMED and received credit for kills that were double kills or for a/c that made it home.  For a real kill ratio you need what the Germans/Japanese know they lost that day and what the P-40 unit(s) know they lost that day.

 

I claimed a kill, and it is credited...the only ones you have little to fear are the ones that flamed and impacted and the pilot saw it all the way to impact...

 

The "record" you cite is still a little unreliable...claims even "substantiated" claims still are based on a subjective basis...adrenalized men, in a fast-moving situation...it's not always reliable.

 

Again when a man says, "It had no vices" is a testimony to the a/c, and requires no outside verification...but when a man says "I shot down 7.5 A/c", yeah it does....and recent research bears that out...Read Franks on Guadalcanal or Bergerud and you'll see that even after the winnowing of dubious claims, BOTH SIDES shot down more a/c than were really lost.

 

So for a final summation, of the P-40's effectiveness, someone needs to examine the records of the Japanese, the Italians, and the Germans for data on ACTUAL losses, from that record we can determine the REAL loss ratio.

 

Again I mean no disrespect to you or the P-40, but nowadays we have access to records that the USAAF or the RAF RNZAF or the RAAF never had access to, during the war.

I have never said it was the end all of fighters and you might note I said in my set up piece it was well replaced by better types. All good with me. What I have proven is with the data available to US right now it appears very clear that the aircraft was as good as anything its pilots faced. It was competitive if not a superior type to the Bf109 and the A6M Zero/Zeke. Against all comers, except perhaps in the hands of the Russians which we don't have data on. The P40's combat record is clear.

 

 

 

 

1. RAAF Historical Section (1995). Units of the Royal Australian Air Force. A Concise History. Australian Government Publishing Service: Canberra.

My thesis here began with and continues to prove that the P40 was competitive or maybe even superior to the Axis contemporaries the Axis put up against it, early in the war. The Bf109 and the A6M. In fact historians are auditing the records of the Axis and much of it is being published. The P40 is rather coming out very well in those audits. The Japanese claimed something like 100 kills over New Guinea against the Aussies that didn't happen. The Aussie's records were pretty good on their losses and the only had 12 pilots killed (24 planes) for 60 claimed enemy shot down. If it turns out the Japanese only lost 12 pilots ( a silly notion) my case is still made here!

 

 

I compare the sourced data I have presented to a whole bunch of empty hot air being generated by you & I wonder about our public school system!

 

Check Six

 

Rocky

P&W 1830 was used on the P36 wasn't it?

      Yeah, the 14 or the 17 which was a 780 kilowatt type. What I'm looking at is the R-1830-72 or 90 which is an 890 kilowatt engine for the follow on. Add the GE centrifugal two stage supercharger and you get up to 7,000 meters altitude for about another 220 kilograms overall dryweight putting you around 2800 kilograms . The PROBLEM  as you pointed out was drag and mass. The P-40 is not that big an aircraft: even the Mustang is far bigger and heavier-so for an early fighter you have to use the early solution engines. The other radials that would fit were the Wright R-1820s, the R-1820-34A specifically which gives me inferior performance at 7000 meters altitude with a single stage supercharger to the solution at which I look.

 

      I actually agree with you, Rocky, that the P-40 is not, upon close examination, a bad exercise in aircraft design. I of course have a soft spot for radials, as I think the radial was a better tech tree choice and a more survivable solution at the time for an American fighter. The fascination for glycol cooled engines for the "streamlining" advantage  was a false path that robbed the US of a good family of radial-engined fighters early, when we needed them desperately. Hellcats, two years earlier, and a better designed Lancer would have made CACTUS a far different proposition.

      The abortive Curtis XP-42 should not have tried to out-Tank, Kurt Tank, and should have used American NACA research to just get the stub-nosed cowling correct.

      Attend as to why I argue this:

      a. Claire Chennault was teaching zoom and boom tactics (vertical fighting) at the fighter tactics school before the Chinese got him. The USN Atlantic fleet carrier squadrons exercising against  AAF types, and studying their European enemies were adopting much the same style of fighting. Vertical acceleration, POINT, roll, yaw control, and diving speed are design characteristics you want in a y-z axes type fighter to use those tactics: good turn if you can design it-but the point is to put the most powerful best aspirated engine with the most efficient screw (propeller) onto the lightest aircraft you can. You want a piston-engined ROCKET for an American fighter.     

       b. We didn't get THAT right until late (Skyraider and Bearcat). Even then the heavyweight fighters we built were underpowered-including the P-51. So we ignored our own experience and tech tree, early war, and produced some serviceable, but underpowered machines. 

       c. Like many solutions we should have tried, we should have adopted the common sense powerpack (radial engine with a supercharger or turbo-charger) engine solution. The money we wasted on the liquid cooled Hypers in the early 1930s should have gone into turbo-charged corncob radials. People forget that we poured tens of millions into hyper engine research in the 1930s and got NOTHING out of it. ZILCH. Meanwhile the underfunded research we put into radials produced Wasp and Cyclone engine families that was to power most of our air armada. We could have done better. a 1500 pound 1500 horsepower turbocharged radial was just within our grasp.  

       d. What about drag? Didn't bother the Corsair, and it didn't bother the Hellcat. Wouldn't have bothered a Curtis radial fighter follow on to the P-36.

       e. What about engine cooling? Magnesium fin cooling and airflow radiator baffles is the answer. Not that hard. We had magnesium and we had good engine designers: we just didn't have the 7-10 years it would have taken to get the corncob benchtested to work in 1940 when we started it in earnest. Should have started it in 1930, like Pratt and Whitney wanted.             Like Sherman tanks-> Griersons, this was a missed aviation opportunity to make a tech tree design choice based on engineering we knew, instead of what was "cool" at the time.    

        We went liquid cooling (Allisons), because it seemed "easier" to get more horsepower to faster aircraft speeds that way. Well it wasn't, because we ran out of the lead time in that tech tree development line. We wound up using foreign tech (Merlins) to power our land based fighters (Mustangs) while our Navy made chumps out of our air force (The Cats and the Corsairs) with their "puny" radials.

 

         All in all, Rocky, the P-40 was competitive to type it faced. We need to recognize it as our version of the Hurricane, which is another historically maligned fighter, that is often disparaged because of the Spitfire. Well, it too, did well because it was a well designed and built plane. Well designed and well built will bring you back. Flashy won't. You can make mistakes in a Tomahawk or a Hurricane in combat, that you'll survive. You can't do that in pretty boy Willie's BF-109 or in Mitchell's Spitfire, or in Johnson's Lightning. Make a rookie mistake and those planes will KILL you.  

 

Herald