|Firstly the P40 wasnt designed as a low level ground attack aircraft! it was designed as a fighter based on the normal requirements of a late 30s fighter, which ground attack was always a secondary role, the spit was designed as an interceptor whic is why its range was reduced (Mitchell actually reduced the fuel load between prototype and production but by only half of what the ministry said was acceptable. as for your 800 P40s being able to do the job, I fail to see how, the supply of superior spits and hurricanes always excceded the pilots availible to fly them so production was not an issue, the ability of the US to supply them was doubtfull as you had already stepped up production for your own use, to retool in england to produce the P40 would have been a diaster and you would have ended up with only 400 not 800 imho. remember that when the UK did ask for more P40 curtis couldnt deliver and they asked North american to build them for curtis, fortunatly they siad they had something better and by god they did too the p51. yes the RAF used bombers during daylight, but for tactical missions not straegic, strategic bombing was always intended to be done at night. the difference was that tactical bombing was to be done by medium/light bombers while the heavies were to do strategic, as for the battle it was obsolete by 37 let alone 39/40 as was the all the light bomber force, the RAF could only aford th replace one force and that was the fighter command, this is why they were looking at us bombers for the light bombing role, later the mossie arrived which out performed any other light bomber. coastal command by the way didnt replace there twin engin bombers with ansons it was actually the other way round, they started with ansons and these were replaced with wellingtons which were thier mainstays untill the arrival of B17s and 24, and were still in service at war end. Coastal command always got the short end of the stick when it came to supply, nearly all of there aircraft were either hand me downs from bomber command, aircraft no one else wanted (forts 1's being a prime example) or obtained by other means (fokker flying boats for example). As to tactics! yes the RAF had a few bad tactics, the formation flying for one, but as the only country that had change from this was Germany and they were hardly likely to offer helpful sugestuions were they! they were late in changing to lead/wingman in fact nearly all BOB squadrons were operating this formatoion by late july nearly 2 months before the office change. the CGI system used by the RAF was the most efficient use of the availible resource, the use of standing patrols would have required a 30% increase in fighter force to put the same number of aircraft on target, whilst having them airborne would have given some advantages it would not have made up for a such loss of aircraft. your idea that these longer range fighters could have attacked earlier and for longer is not as simple as you imply, if the RAF had been pulled over the french mainland, the germans could have reinforced thier fighters (remember that they had a lot more availible) and any pilot losses would have been disaterous, over the english mainland a lot of pilots shot down in the morning sorties were fly in the afternoon ones, if lost over france this would have been impossible. and remember it was pilots we were most short of. as for bomber escort, I have read of B17/24 missions in the mto that consisted of 130+ p38s and 50 bombers! so this over sizing of escorts was not an RAF thing!

Thanks AE.

The links I have provided below, one from the USAF, list the P-40's primary function as being a fighter, with a secondary ground attack capability. I'd also note on the latter count that a 700lb warload and 4 x ma duce a great ground attacker do not make. BTW Larry, I'm still waiting to hear why, if the P-40 was a fighter that would have been acceptable enough to win the Battle of Britain, neither the RAF or the USAF saw fit to make use of its longer-range to escort early bombing raids on the continent. It appears to me that they didn't think it would be worthwhile for such an outclassed aircraft to act as an escort in the European environment and that the bombers would do just as well going it alone. http://www.af.mil/history/aircraft.asp?dec=1940&pid=123006546 http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/p-40.htm I note you still haven't answered the question of why P-40's were not used as bomber escorts in Europe, for

Ignore the last sentence of my last post. It's a cut and paste from a draft I forgot to delete.

Aussie, a point of note is that they did use the P40 for bomber escort in the MTO but not in the ETO.

To OBNW: I've been thru this at least twice now, but one more try: Pre-war USAAC doctrine was focused on support of ground forces. Fighters were supposed to be LOW LEVEL a/c. The P40 was designed to fill the role of LOW LEVEL ftr & ground support. This is exactly what it was used for in North Africa, and the RAF didn't have anything else that was any better. Below about 10K it was equal to a Hurricain as a fighter, as the trials in the UK showed, and that was against a Hurri without the 'trop' air filter that cost it about 15mph top end, as well as climb penalties. My BoB reference had nothing to do with logistics. I was pointing out that IF the RAF had 'hawks rather than an equal number of Hurris and Spits, it could still have won the BoB, but would have needed better tactics to do so. Check THE BOMBER WAR by Robin Neillands. Wellingtons were making daylight attacks on German ports, etc in '39. Like the USAAC they believed the pre-war "the bomber will always get through" crap, and planned on it. They soon found out that it didn't work that way. At the same time, the night missions being flown wer almost entirely pamphlet dropping, rather than anything strategic. RAF Fighter Command tactics in the spring of '43 were still well behind the German tactics of '39-40. They were flying leader-wingman, but the formations remained nearly as tight as the old 'bunch of bananas' string of 'vics'. They just didn't get enough actual combat experience between the end of '40 and the beginning of '43 to improve. I don't recall mentioning the Anson. My referrence was to the Blackburn Botha, which was supposed to be Cost. Com.s medium patrol plane. Rapidly replace by Locheed Hudsons, just as the Saro Lerwick (medium patrol seaplane) was replaced by the Catalina. The only one of the 'new' Cost. Com. a/c types at the beginning of the war that performed as hoped was the Beufort. Again with the 'standing patrols' nonsense. I have NEVER suggested standing patrols. I HAVE pointed out that CGI had to operate nearly perfectly to get interceptions short of the LOndon area due to the Spit's lack on endurance. They had to time take off almost perfectly. This is why about half of Ftr Com.s BoB sorties failed to make contact at all. Greater range (enduracne) even with some sacrifice in rate of climb would have made the problem much easier to handle. As to escort size. The difference was escort tactics. In '41 Ftr Com stacked more and more Hurris and Spits so tightly around the bombers that their own pilots referred to the formation as 'the beehive'. It was useless becasue when one or two '109s attacked, everyone was so bury avoiding collisions, no one could do anything militarily useful. Depending on speed and gunnery instead of turn rate, the P38s couldn't have worked that way even if they'd been crazy enough to try.

To OBNW: ref Spits in Torch. Nobody is arguing that the USAAF didn't use Spit Vs in North Africa (at least two USAAF Ftr Groups, one was the 31st FG were equiped with MkVs, and in regular USAAF markings) but they along with the longer range P40Fs were mostly brought in on carriers and flown ashore or staged in from Gibraltar. The Lightnings could be flown in from the UK. The Spits were for local defence because they lacked the range for strike or escort missions and the 'hawks were better for ground attack. They were needed because protection of the logistical base (ports) was essential, and there were no where near enough '38s to do that job on top of everything else. Fact remains that for several months North Africa was where all but a handful (that went to SOPAC) were sent. This is why the 8thAF lost all of its original '38s in late '42. Two groups (1st and 14th FG) sent south, along with the a/c from the 78thFG).

To AGR: Actually the gun armament for the MkI Tomahawk was 2x.50s and 4x.30s. If it wasn't a great ground attacker, it was a lot better than anything else available to the RAF for N. AF, and at the altitudes where it operated, was about as good a fighter as the Hurricain, which is the ftr the RAF was using in that theature until well into '42. As mentioned below, US doctrine was for LOW ALTITUDE operations for all fighters. The Lightning was a special case -- a dedicated bomber interceptor. The low altitude doctrine (as I've mentioned before) was similar to that of the Soviet Union, but was clearly an error for the US. Still, the 'hawks in North Africa were being used for exactly the job intended for them by the USAAC, and did it better than anything else the RAF had at the time. By the time the USAAF was convince that escorts were needed in Europe, they were also convince that the P40s lacked the performance to contribue enough to matter. Actually the P40s were used for heavy bomber escort in China and SOPAC (before there was anything else). They were pretty pathetic, wallowing along at 20K+, but at least they had enough range to do a 700 mile (round trip) mission at all.

To OBNW: No other thought. In late '41 and '42 the AVG in China, flying MkI Tomahawks (diverted from an RAF order) and using a much more primative GCI system then Ftr Comd., were quite successful intercepting and attacking Japanese bombers operating a heights similar that of BoB Luft bombers, and escorted by ftrs with speed and climb quite comperable to '109Es, flown by even better trained and more experienced pilots that the German's put up in '40.

On my last, that's supposed to read "One other thought"