FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
And for the technology of the day, this was the state of the art and I think history shows it worked
March until October of 1940: fighters' ranking
- Thread starter tomo pauk
- Start date
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Oh I actually agree with you.
A. I know what it is
B. They did as good a job implementing a new technology as could ever be expected (USA had surface ship radar at Guadalcanal but lack of experience in using it really showed up in the early stages of the battle along with Japanese night fighting skills and torpedos)
C. "The best coordinated air defense system in the world" rolls off the tongue MUCH better than "a bunch of radar sites and several telephones"
So Chain Home system was nothing more than a radar and telephone?.
Plotter (RAF) - Wikipedia
I'm not going to drag the discussion that far off topic. It was leading edge technology and they did as well as anyone could expect the first time it was tried in battle. People can argue Big Wing vs smaller attacks if they want to but the British developed it, used it, it worked and they won the battle. It was a tongue in cheek comment. Let's move back to the regular discussion.
Greg Boeser
1st Sergeant
China had telephones and lots of Mk. I eyeballs. Worked well enough for most of the war. Only broke down in 1944 during the I-Go offensive when the Japanese overran many forward bases and OPs.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
Criticizing Chain Home as being primitive is some serious retrospectroscope stuff. At the time it was in service there was nothing else close in the world.
I think the technical term is "force multiplier."
I think the technical term is "force multiplier."
wuzak
Captain
Without Chain Home, would the Spitfire and Hurricane be different, or replaced by aircraft with longer loiter times?
BlackSheep
Banned
- 443
- May 31, 2018
State of the art for it's time and aside from some balloon bombs that took the long way around, it was pretty much impenetrable!
I would think that fast climb would be even more important without Chain Home. With the engine power of the time and no constant speed props early on, I wouldn't think they would try to add more fuel, you would more than likely end up with a P40 situation if you did (slow climb)
wuzak
Captain
I was thinking that they would have to have standing patrols.
buffnut453
Captain
And that's exactly why the Chain Home system was a force multiplier, as
Thumpalumpacus
observed.Maintaining a single standing patrol of 2 airframes during daylight hours consumes almost an entire squadron of airframes: 2 on-station; 2 heading home; 2 outbound for relief; 2 being refuelled/rearmed; 2 for combat spares. Sustaining standing patrols is airframe intensive, increasing airframe hours and decreasing maintenance intervals.
Then there's the problem of of how many squadrons you need to provide the same coverage as the Chain Home system. Bearing in mind you're relying on visual range to detect incoming formations, you can't space your standing patrol pairs too far apart.
Finally, if you're eating up squadrons in standing patrols, you don't have a force available to scramble and respond to an incoming raid. That means you need even more squadrons that are just sitting around.
To defend UK airspace using standing patrols alone will probably use up 10 times the number of squadrons that Fighter Command had during the Battle of Britain...and the likely success rate would be lower than was the case in 1940.
John Vasco
Senior Airman
Radio Direction Finding, RDF (which is what it was called in 1940), only looked outwards. So it could determine when and where German raids were building up over France, and their course as they headed out over the Channel. Once they crossed the English coast, the role of tracking the German formations then fell to the Observer Corps as they proceeded inland. The Observer Corps also fed information to the Command and Control system. You omitted to mention this part of the system.
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You need 2 speed and or 2 stage engines to carry more fuel and still be competitive in combat which weren't available.
Howard Gibson
Senior Airman
You need superior technology to build a long range fighter that can defeat short ranged interceptors. Fancy superchargers give you performance at a wider range of altitudes.
In WWII, it just so happens that American bombers and their escort fighters had two stage superchargers, allowing them to fly at altitudes above anything the Germans and Japanese were effective at. This is not something you should rely on. The general rule of thumb is that well designed long range fighters will not have the performance of well designed short range fighers.
No it wasnt, it wouldnt have worked if it was just that Miscellanea. Teleprinters were used to send details of a raid semi automatically to the filter rooms.
From the link, the teleprinter message to the filter rooms was.....
The message to be transmitted to the filter room was of the form of 10592 AB123C XY1234 N12 46 where
10592 was the time in hours, minutes and tenths of minutes.
ABJ23C was the raid designation for the raid under consideration.
XY1234 was the map reference.
N was the type of aircraft, i.e. hostile or friendly.
12 was the number of aircraft.
46 was the height in thousands of feet.
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I think that was the idea behind the "slip wing" hurricane.
Chain Home actually did see "backwards" inland but not very far, the first thing an operator had to do was determine which side of the transmitters the signal was from.
Mike Williams
Senior Airman
- 572
- Oct 19, 2006
Maybe the P-40 wasn't given due consideration?
Regarding these speeds the "Official Performance Summary" notes: "Temporary restrictions on engine operation prohibit the attainment of these values". I have no idea how long these restrictions were in place.
P-40 Official Summary of Characteristics and Performance Summary
Performance Chart Curtiss P-40 Based on Official Performance Summary
Memorandum Report on P-40, A.C. No. 39-156: Speed Tests of P-40 Airplane
Memorandum Report on Pursuit 1-Engine P-40, A.C. No. 39-165
It appears these early P-40's were without armour. I haven't checked yet to see when they got armour.
Max. climb rate of 3,080 ft/min. Dang, this thing is no slouch.
Shortround6
Major General
Check the fine print. 
Also cross reference with the P-40B documents.
Check the normal gross weight.
The gross weight at which the performance numbers were obtained.
Now the early P-40s had zero protection.
They also had two .50 cal guns with 200rpg and two .30 cal guns (one in each wing) with 500rpg.
The Allison engine was not quite ready for prime time (although it might have been as good or better than some other countries engines) and was limited to 2770rpm and not the full 3000rpm and it was restricted to 950hp ( Vee's for Victory). The first 277 engines (of the US engines) were sent back to Allison for rework.
The P-40B ballooned to gross weight of 7326lbs but still only carried 120 gal of fuel.
P-40B performance was measures/estimated on 6833lbs vs the 6787lbs of the P-40.
The P-40B had 93lbs of armor, crude self sealing tanks, two extra .30 cal guns, more ammo for the .50 cal guns.
One wonders what was left in the plane to get to the weight where the P-40B was rated at?
less than 30 US gallons of fuel if all the ammo was still in the boxes/bins?
The British Squadrons flying the Tomahawks in the beginning of their career could not get the .50 cal guns to work at all reliably and figured the effective fire power was the four .303 guns.
There was a report by Army Air Corp Lt Hubert Zemke in England at the time dated July 28th 1941 that went through 3 main areas of the Tomahawk.
In speed, climb and maneuverability the Tomahawk was found to be superior to the Hurricane MK I up to about 20,000ft.
At 20,000ft the Hurricane would out climb the Tomahawk. At 18,000ft the Tomahawk was 20mph faster than the Hurricane and it was 30mph faster at 13,000ft.
The Tomahawk only had a slight edge in maneuverability.
a lot may depend on the reliability/dependability of the .50 cal guns and the expected life of the Allison engine.
Also cross reference with the P-40B documents.
Check the normal gross weight.
The gross weight at which the performance numbers were obtained.
Now the early P-40s had zero protection.
They also had two .50 cal guns with 200rpg and two .30 cal guns (one in each wing) with 500rpg.
The Allison engine was not quite ready for prime time (although it might have been as good or better than some other countries engines) and was limited to 2770rpm and not the full 3000rpm and it was restricted to 950hp ( Vee's for Victory). The first 277 engines (of the US engines) were sent back to Allison for rework.
The P-40B ballooned to gross weight of 7326lbs but still only carried 120 gal of fuel.
P-40B performance was measures/estimated on 6833lbs vs the 6787lbs of the P-40.
The P-40B had 93lbs of armor, crude self sealing tanks, two extra .30 cal guns, more ammo for the .50 cal guns.
One wonders what was left in the plane to get to the weight where the P-40B was rated at?
less than 30 US gallons of fuel if all the ammo was still in the boxes/bins?
The British Squadrons flying the Tomahawks in the beginning of their career could not get the .50 cal guns to work at all reliably and figured the effective fire power was the four .303 guns.
There was a report by Army Air Corp Lt Hubert Zemke in England at the time dated July 28th 1941 that went through 3 main areas of the Tomahawk.
In speed, climb and maneuverability the Tomahawk was found to be superior to the Hurricane MK I up to about 20,000ft.
At 20,000ft the Hurricane would out climb the Tomahawk. At 18,000ft the Tomahawk was 20mph faster than the Hurricane and it was 30mph faster at 13,000ft.
The Tomahawk only had a slight edge in maneuverability.
a lot may depend on the reliability/dependability of the .50 cal guns and the expected life of the Allison engine.
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