# Three reasons why the P-40 was a better fighter in the PTO than the Spitfire



## CobberKane (Nov 24, 2013)

Great things were expected of the Spitfire when it arrived in Darwin. Already a legend due to its role in the Battle of Britain the Spit, it was hoped, would be the fighter that really showed those pesky Zeros and Oscars what's what. It it never really happened, but today the Spitfire is still a legend whereas the Curtis P-40, which did far more to halt the Japanese air forces, has largely slipped from common memory. I would go so far to suggest that the P-40 was a better fighter in the PTO than the Spitfire could ever be for the following reasons.

1. It was tougher. The P-40 might have been the toughest liquid cooled single engine fighter of the war, in terms of it's capacity for withstanding battle damage. For all its virtues, no one would ever say that of the Spitfire.
2. With the exception of flat out speed, whatever the Spitfire could do better than the Zero or Oscar the P-40 could do better again. The weakness of the Japanese fighters was always their sluggish high speed handling, particularly in a dive. The The P-40 could out-dive and out-roll the Spitfire at speed, giving it a greater degree of superiority in these respects. The Spitfire could of course turn tighter and out-accelerate the P-40, but as the Zero was easily better than either of them these performance parameters were of limited use.
3. The P-40 was the better frontline fighter. It was more simply built and more able to be operated and serviced under the conditions that were typical of the PTO

The Spitfire was a Ferrari to the P-40s pick-up truck. But even today, people in Northern Australia, Papua New Guinea and Burma don't drive many Ferraris. Any thoughts?


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## N4521U (Nov 24, 2013)

A Ferrari would look silly with a sharks mouth painted on its snout!

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## VBF-13 (Nov 24, 2013)

I'll agree with everything you said, pretty much. However, I'll observe, that had the Japanese been taking on these Spitfires over Britain, we might have seen a different outcome.


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## glennasher (Nov 24, 2013)

Ruggedness, can't argue the point at all.

I'm thinking another maybe more salient point might be the supply chain, though, since the US had so many aircraft using Allisons, that maybe the supply situation might have been better in the South Pacific due to the "relative" abundance of spare parts compared to the Merlins. Yes, I know that supply was always a problem in the early years of the Pacific war, though I'd think that it might be easier to find Allison parts than Merlin bits.


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## MikeGazdik (Nov 24, 2013)

CobberKane, great post! This is something that has always been hard for me to understand. But some thinking of this had me wondering if: The Spitfire was a defensive fighter supreme. No questions asked. But even in Europe it's offensive ability was not the best due to range and lack of ordinance carrying ability.

Could it be that because when and if the P-40 was used offensively it was a little better than the Spitfire, coupled with the attributes that made the Spitfire great in Europe, turning and climbing, was nullified by the Japanese fighters? Whereas the P-40 could not climb or turn as well as the Spitfire, but because of the way it was used forced the enemy to fight in a way it was not best, made the P-40 better?

These thoughts are more questions than answers or statements because it still is odd to me, and I LOVE the P-40. 

A second thought is the robustness as you pointed out. Including I would think that just by the layout of the landing gear and how low slung the Spitfire is, that the P-40 would be more tolerant of crappy airfields.
?


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## N4521U (Nov 24, 2013)

VBF-13 said:


> I'll agree with everything you said, pretty much. However, I'll observe, that had the Japanese been taking on these Spitfires over Britain, we might have seen a different outcome.




But then................................................................................... it wasn't!


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## VBF-13 (Nov 24, 2013)

A boy can observe, can't he? 

Really, I think they got a bum break, and for much the reasons Mike said.


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## wuzak (Nov 24, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> Great things were expected of the Spitfire when it arrived in Darwin. Already a legend due to its role in the Battle of Britain the Spit, it was hoped, would be the fighter that really showed those pesky Zeros and Oscars what's what. It it never really happened, but today the Spitfire is still a legend whereas the Curtis P-40, which did far more to halt the Japanese air forces, has largely slipped from common memory. I would go so far to suggest that the P-40 was a better fighter in the PTO than the Spitfire could ever be for the following reasons.
> 
> 1. It was tougher. The P-40 might have been the toughest liquid cooled single engine fighter of the war, in terms of it's capacity for withstanding battle damage. For all its virtues, no one would ever say that of the Spitfire.
> 2. With the exception of flat out speed, whatever the Spitfire could do better than the Zero or Oscar the P-40 could do better again. The weakness of the Japanese fighters was always their sluggish high speed handling, particularly in a dive. The The P-40 could out-dive and out-roll the Spitfire at speed, giving it a greater degree of superiority in these respects. The Spitfire could of course turn tighter and out-accelerate the P-40, but as the Zero was easily better than either of them these performance parameters were of limited use.
> ...




I would say that the Spitfire V could outclimb the Zero quite handily, and totally destroy the P-40 in that regard.

The Spitfire couldn't turn with a zero - at low speeds. As speeds went up the Spitfire could match, then out-turn the zero.

The Spitfire's roll-performance could be vastly improved by the simple expedient of bolting on different wing tips.

The P-40 was not, and never was, a better front-line fighter than the Spitfire. The P-40 being relegated to second line (eg fighter-bomber) duties before the Spitfire was.

The only _real_ reason the P-40 could be considered a better fighter for the PTO was range. It had some, the Spitfire had very little.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 24, 2013)

A couple of points woirth mentioning about your post Cobber, whilst I agree with some of your conclusions, I don't with all of them. Firstly, the P-40 was not a better fighter in the PTO than the Spitfire. Yes, it was more important to the RAAF and yes, it was more suited to the PTO environment, but the Spitfire F.VC could outperform the P-40E in terms of rate of climb, altitude, level speed and manoeuvrability. Once the Spitfire VIII appeared the P-40 was definitely not in the same class.

It is also worth reminding ourselves that the Spitfire was used by the RAAF in the role it was designed for; as a short ranged interceptor. It's first role was defence of the north of Australia and despite difficulties with serviceability, lack of supply of spare parts, lack of numbers of aircraft, lack of sufficient early warning and poor tactics, somehow the RAAF Spitfire squadrons did manage to gain air superiority over the Japanese. It is worth making a comparison with the situation in North Africa; the P-40, or Tomahawk and Kittyhawk were available as fighters and fared well enough against the Luftwaffe, also their ruggedness and ease of maintenance of their Allison engines made them more suited to the harsh environment, it was the appearance of the Spitfire in numbers that turned the tables on the Luftwaffe in the North African air war, however.

The fact was, the Spitfire and the P-40 occupied different roles in the RAAF; the Spit was a short ranged interceptor and the P-40 a long range fighter bomber. The Spit was there for defence and the P-40 for attack; once the Japanese threat over Australia itself had been nullified and their forces driven further north, the P-40 came into its own. Despite this however, the Spitfire VIII was considered for manufacture by Australian firms alongside the P-51, to which it lost owing to the latter's superior range and other factors. The P-40 was not considered. The Latter was arguably stronger structurally than the Spitfire, but the Spitfire was not weak and this was never an issue with it in any theatre. It can be said that the P-40 was stronger than most, which made it more surviveable. Its Allison engine could take considerable more punishment than the Merlin; it had fewer parts and could be fixed by any trained mechanic, whereas the Merlin required specialist Roll-Royce trained technicians for overhaul. 

The P-40 could carry a heavier load across a greater distance than the Spitfire and proved an excellent ground attack fighter, but perhaps the biggest virtue of the P-40 over the Spitfire in the Pacific was its availability and supply train in support of it. These two factors hampered the RAAF's operations with the Spitfire, but not the P-40. Both the RAAF, the USAAF and RNZAF all operated the P-40 in theatre; not so the Spitfire, which was far more urgently required in Europe, where its virtues could and would be better appreciated.

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## OldSkeptic (Nov 24, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> Great things were expected of the Spitfire when it arrived in Darwin. Already a legend due to its role in the Battle of Britain the Spit, it was hoped, would be the fighter that really showed those pesky Zeros and Oscars what's what. It it never really happened, but today the Spitfire is still a legend whereas the Curtis P-40, which did far more to halt the Japanese air forces, has largely slipped from common memory. I would go so far to suggest that the P-40 was a better fighter in the PTO than the Spitfire could ever be for the following reasons.
> 
> 1. It was tougher. The P-40 might have been the toughest liquid cooled single engine fighter of the war, in terms of it's capacity for withstanding battle damage. For all its virtues, no one would ever say that of the Spitfire.
> 2. With the exception of flat out speed, whatever the Spitfire could do better than the Zero or Oscar the P-40 could do better again. The weakness of the Japanese fighters was always their sluggish high speed handling, particularly in a dive. The The P-40 could out-dive and out-roll the Spitfire at speed, giving it a greater degree of superiority in these respects. The Spitfire could of course turn tighter and out-accelerate the P-40, but as the Zero was easily better than either of them these performance parameters were of limited use.
> ...



4. It was far better at being shot down by 109s...... so I suppose it all depends on what you mean by 'better', the 109 boys in North Africa loved the P-40s. They thought they were much better ... targets ... than Spitfires.
Shame they never used them in Malta, the amount of Nights Crosses it would have earned the Luftwaffe fighter boys would have been humungous.

Note the heavy irony here.

Trouble with your Ferrari/truck analogy is that the other side had them .. and they were all at a race track where they were trying to kill each other.


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## Wildcat (Nov 24, 2013)

Whilst I believe the P-40 was the RAAF's most important fighter, the spitfire was still crucial in the point defence role as stated by Nuuumannn and both had a spot in the wartime RAAF. It's also worth mentioning that before the arrival of the MkVc's nothing could catch and shoot down the high flying Ki-46 recce planes encountered over Darwin.


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## stona (Nov 24, 2013)

nuuumannn said:


> A couple of points woirth mentioning about your post Cobber..............



You saved me a lot of typing with that post nuuumannnn as that was essentially what I was about to write 

Cheers

Steve


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## rednev (Nov 24, 2013)

OldSkeptic said:


> 4. It was far better at being shot down by 109s...... so I suppose it all depends on what you mean by 'better', the 109 boys in North Africa loved the P-40s. They thought they were much better ... targets ... than Spitfires.
> Shame they never used them in Malta, the amount of Nights Crosses it would have earned the Luftwaffe fighter boys would have been humungous.
> 
> Note the heavy irony here.
> ...



lucky no one told boys like clive caldwell or john waddy that


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## stona (Nov 24, 2013)

rednev said:


> lucky no one told boys like clive caldwell or john waddy that



And Caldwell was happy to trade in his Tomahawk/Kittyhawk for a Spitfire when he returned to Australia. It's a question of having the right tool for the job. I'm not sure that a Spitfire was ideal for his side line as a bootlegger 
Cheers
Steve


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## CobberKane (Nov 24, 2013)

Nuuumann, I wouldn't for a moment disagree that the Spitfire could out-climb, out-turn and out run the P-40. But bear in mind that the assertion was that the P-40 was a better fighter IN THE PACIFIC (sorry to shout, can't do italics). The ability of the Spitfire to out-manoeuver a P-40 was immaterial - the fighter it needed to out-manoeuver was the Zero, and it couldn't.
Wuzak, your claim that the Spit V could out-climb the Zero handily is at odds with the conclusions of the RAAF, at least if we are speaking of the A6M5. They tested one against a Spitfire and found that while the Spitfire was some what faster and had an advantage in RoC, neither attribute was enough to allow the Spit to disengage safely. In fact the overall conclusion was that the Spitfire was outclassed below 20,000ft. Spitfire or P-40, the only safe way to tackle a Zero was to dive on it, fire and keep going. The only reliable way of escaping one was to dive. In both these exercises the P-40 was at least as capable as the Spitfire, probably more so ( with the caveat that the Spitfires better RoC would make it more capably of gaining a height advantage if time was short.)
If I was three thousand feet above a Zero and about to commence a diving attack I would rather be in the P-40; better diving characteristics, plenty of ammo. Likewise if I had a Zero on my tail and my only good option was to put the nose down and firewall it, I would take the P-40; better roll to initiate the dive (or the option of shoving the stick forward without losing power) and better ability to take the hits until I'm out of range. And it I was in charge of procurement I think I'd say thank but no thanks to the Spit; more expensive to buy, harder to keep in service, less ability in secondary roles like ground attack and no more able to take on the Zero at it's own game than the humble P-40.


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## wuzak (Nov 24, 2013)

Here is a piece from teh aforementioned Clive Cadwell....

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/japan/spitfire-v-zero-caldwell.jpg



> Manoeuvrability is the keynote of the Zero but the Spitfire has the advantage of greater height, greater speed and *can climb faster*. The latter has a manoeuvrability factor which becomes more favourable at high speeds. So, the Spitfire can generally sieze the initiative against the Zero and retain it, thus forcing the Jap pilot to fight when the "Spit." pilot chooses.





> As the Zero is an aircraft which can climb at a steeper angle and virtually "hang on its prop" we aimed to break away sideways and open the distance between his guns and ourselves at a faster rate by climbing gently in a slow turn at high forward speed. This manoeuvre also enabled us to watch him with greater ease.





> The Zero has a better climb angle but it *cannot gain height faster than the "Spit."* and cannot go as high [nor, for that matte, could the P-40.



And another comparison:

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/japan/spit-v-zero-wawn.jpg


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## Neil Stirling (Nov 24, 2013)

The Merlin 46 Spit V as used by the RAAF was limited, IRC to +12lbs boost and had a Vokes intake filter. Probably the worst performing Mk V variant.

Neil.


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## CobberKane (Nov 24, 2013)

Which Zero was Caldwell speaking of? Regarding the A6M5:

"These differing technical characteristics determined the pattern of relative performance between the two machines, as shown by the tactical trials conducted by two experienced RAAF fighter pilots in flying trials conducted over three flying days[2]. Flight Lieutenant ‘Bardie’ Wawn DFC and Squadron Leader Les Jackson DFC flew against one another in both aircraft, and what they found was not encouraging.

They found that the Zero had a lower rated altitude than the Spitfire, 16 000 feet against 21 000 feet, which delivered the Spitfire a good speed advantage at height – it was 20 knots faster at 26 000 feet. However, as had already been noted by RAF Fighter Command in Europe, the Spitfire had relatively slow acceleration, and thus the Zero was able to stay behind the Spitfire within gun range while the Spitfire gradually accelerated away out of range. Even in a dive the Spitfire still accelerated too slowly to avoid the Zero’s gunfire. Climbing away was also not an option, as the Spitfire’s climb superiority was too slight (not to mention the slow acceleration problem once again)."

"The Zero developed its maximum speed of 291 knots at its rated altitude of 16 000 feet. The Spitfire produced 290 knots at 15 000 feet, confirming that below 20 000 feet the two types were more evenly matched in speed performance. Given the Zero’s much superior acceleration, in practice this meant that the advantage tipped more heavily in favour of the Zero at these lower altitudes. In comparative tests at 17 000 feet, the Spitfire was again unable to safely draw away from the Zero. The unanimous conclusion of Wawn and Jackson was that ‘the Spitfire is outclassed by the Hap at all heights up to 20,000 feet’."

Full Text here: 
Spitfire vs Zero | Darwin Spitfires, the real battle for Australia - Spitfire fighter pilots height tactical advantage superior


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## wuzak (Nov 24, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> If I was three thousand feet above a Zero and about to commence a diving attack I would rather be in the P-40; better diving characteristics, plenty of ammo. Likewise if I had a Zero on my tail and my only good option was to put the nose down and firewall it, I would take the P-40; better roll to initiate the dive (or the option of shoving the stick forward without losing power) and better ability to take the hits until I'm out of range. And it I was in charge of procurement I think I'd say thank but no thanks to the Spit; more expensive to buy, harder to keep in service, less ability in secondary roles like ground attack and no more able to take on the Zero at it's own game than the humble P-40.



What do you classify as "better diving characteristics"?

_America's Hundred Thousand_:


> A very significant dive characteristic was the strong right yaw tendency requiring more left rudder as speed increased. As one P-40B pilot put it "The need for constant attention was dramatically illustarted during strafing runs; the aircraft had a tendency to skid."In addition there was some right wing heaviness. When diving a P-40 tended to roll to the right; the higher the speed the greater the tendency to roll. As the book said of the P-40E, trim tab action was required to counteract both turning and rolling forces in dives. Pilots had to keep hard on th eleft rudder pedal to avoid skidding. The rudder required excess pedal pressure in a dive, and as noted earlier, rudder tab action was too slow to completely alleviate the pressure during steep dive bombing attacks.
> 
> With the significant design changes making up the P-40E model, major faults in directional stability and control came to teh fore. As a NACA test report put it "Difficulties were experienced in P-40 series aircraft in dive demonstrations, and there were inadvertant entries into spins in service operations." Yawing led into snap rolls and then to spins. There were also rudder force reversals in sideslips using rated power at the lower speeds, as noted subsequently.





> Later when a a more major change could be reasonably introduced into production, th elonger fuselage was born, first in the later P-40Fs. These fixes were succesful in taming the very worst of the directional problems, but P-40s still could be a handful (or more accurately perhaps a footful) in diving flight. One pilot who had flown both fuselage versions stated Äs far as I could tell there was no flying difference between short and long fusleage modesl". But pilots were told the short fuselage P-40s had greater rudder and elevator loads and required more rudder and elevator pressures.



As for being above:


> The last war axiom of "get above him before you attack," applies to the Hap too. We tried it with the Spit at 19,000ft and the Hap at 15,000ft. The Spit could dive down, have a squirt, and be back up at 19,000ft before the Hap knew what happened. And there was nothing he could do about it.



http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/japan/spit-v-zero-wawn.jpg


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## wuzak (Nov 24, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> And it I was in charge of procurement I think I'd say thank but no thanks to the Spit; more expensive to buy, harder to keep in service, less ability in secondary roles like ground attack and no more able to take on the Zero at it's own game than the humble P-40.



Interesting that you argue for the P-40 as being a better _fighter_ in the PTO because it had mor ability as a _fighter-bomber_.

Also, the account you linked is by the same guy regarding the same trials as the second of my links. With different results.

And, from your link:



> However, despite the gloomy overall assessment provided by the comparative tests, the relative situation was not unfavourable to the Spitfire. Given that the strong fighter and AA defence over Darwin forced the Japanese to penetrate Australian airspace above 25 000 feet, the Zeros were thereby forced to play to the Spitfire’s strengths.



Which would, I presume, make your P-40s toast?


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## timmy (Nov 24, 2013)

MikeGazdik said:


> CobberKane, great post! This is something that has always been hard for me to understand. But some thinking of this had me wondering if: The Spitfire was a defensive fighter supreme. No questions asked. But even in Europe it's offensive ability was not the best due to range and lack of ordinance carrying ability.
> 
> Could it be that because when and if the P-40 was used offensively it was a little better than the Spitfire, *coupled with the attributes that made the Spitfire great in Europe, turning and climbing, was nullified by the Japanese fighters*? Whereas the P-40 could not climb or turn as well as the Spitfire, but because of the way it was used forced the enemy to fight in a way it was not best, made the P-40 better?
> 
> ...



^ Yeah I think that is mostly it

Experienced ETO/MTO pilots with new Spitfires thinking they are going to out turn the Zeke with this supreme legendary dogfighting machine

Big mistake I say. USN pilots wouldn't dare do the same trick with the Wildcat, and they where so much better for it

Plus the IJN was still a force in early 1943.They still had some crack fighter pilots and the Zeke's weaknesses was still not that well known 
In fact didn't the P38/F4U still cop a hiding or two in early 43 like in the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre

Later in year I think the Pilot Losses and the Zero's weaknesses well known through out the Pacific, really killed the IJN


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## nuuumannn (Nov 24, 2013)

Thanks, Steve for the like.

Cobber, whilst the P-40 _was_ more suited for combat in the Pacific, as I said, it was not the better fighter of the two. (to convert a word to italics, you highlight the word by dragging the mouse over it with your finger on the left button, once the word is highlighted, click on the _I _in italics in the bar above the text box you write your post in)

As for the Spitfire's performance against the Zero, yep, it was more manoeuvrable at low speed; there was nothing that wasn't, including the F4U, Mustang, F6F etc, but once the Spitfire VIII appeared, the Zero was no match in a fight except in manoeuvrability and range. The Spit VIII was faster in level speed, had a higher ceiling and faster climb rate than the A6M5, as for the P-40; like I said, it was outclassed by the Spitfire - and the Zero for that matter. But again, you are ignoring the fact that the Spitfire and the P-40 were used in differing roles and the factors against the RAAF over Darwin and the north were such that it didn't really matter what aircraft they had, the hardships were the same. One book I've read about the RAAF over Darwin states that apart from supply issues and a lack of replacement Merlins and a few issues with their guns, Spitfire serviceability rates were no worse than any other fighter in theatre. 

The RAAF and USAAF used P-40Es in defence of the north before the Spitfires arrived; once they did, the P-40 units were moved into Papua New Guinea - on the offensive, leaving exclusively Spitfire squadrons defending the Australian north. Lets not forget that the Spitfire F.VCs of the three squadrons of No.1 'Churchill' Wing under the command of Caldwell, Australia's highest scoring ace of WW2 no less, were not coming up against the A6M5 over Darwin, but the A6M3, which had a shorter range and lower speeds overall than the A6M5. Also, lets look at the facts regarding the Wing's performance, air superiority over the Japanese over Darwin was gained after less than eight months from the arrival of the Wing in February 1943. By the end of that year Japanese attacks against Darwin ceased. 

The last large enemy formation over Darwin was a Ki-46 escorted by no less than 20 Zeroes (obviously the Japanese were getting tired of their solo recon aircraft not returning) in early September, the Wing putting up 46 Spit VCs, the end result was estimated to be 7 - 4 to the RAAF before the Japanese fled the area. The use of the Spitfire VIII outside of Australia was largely as air defence of Allied bases, while the P-40s and Beaufighters went off on attacking sorties, its fast rate of climb and high speed at altitude, much superior to that of the P-40 were of considerable advantage and the Japanese had no answer to it.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 24, 2013)

I think this statement pretty well covers it. 

"while the newly raised 79 Squadron, destined for service providing urgently needed ‘high cover’ for the RAAF’s Kittyhawk squadrons in New Guinea."

From : Shortages of drop tanks, spares and Spitfires | Darwin Spitfires, the real battle for Australia - 452/A58 Spitfires spares aircraft

If the Kittyhawks "urgently needed ‘high cover’ " it is a little hard to argue that they were superior to the Spitfire providing that high cover. 

While the Spitfire MK Vs had more than their share of problems operating over Darwin in 1943 the P-40s _could NOT operate_ at the altitudes needed.


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## davparlr (Nov 24, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> While the Spitfire MK Vs had more than their share of problems operating over Darwin in 1943 the P-40s _could NOT operate_ at the altitudes needed.


Of course that brings up the question associated with the P-51/Spitfire debates, could the Spitfire operate at the ranges needed? And the answer is, it depends on the mission, sometimes yes, sometimes no. I think that, for the Pacific, for the most part, range was important. I think there are too many unknown variables to answer this issue, like aircraft availability compared to effectiveness. If you have squadron of P-40s and a squadron of Spitfires in Darwin in 1943, which squadron would have the most flying hours? If the Spitfire was more effective, how many less Spitfires would be needed to be flying, etc.?

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## varsity07840 (Nov 24, 2013)

If I was three thousand feet above a Zero and about to commence a diving attack I would rather be in the P-40; better diving characteristics, plenty of ammo.

The problem would have been gaining that 3,000 foot altitude advantage in a P-40 in time. Poor ceiling and climb rate was the curse of single stage/speed Allison powered fighters and the worst of them all(climb rate) was the P-40E.

Duane


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 24, 2013)

Good thread - a lot is being said about performance but now we're eluding to IMO was the real reason why the P-40 was a better fighter in the PTO;

Tactics, tactics, tactics.....

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## drgondog (Nov 24, 2013)

Range and external load capability are the only attributes the P-40 truly had over the Spit. The Spit was superior from the deck up to the Ceiling of the P-40, faster, climb faster, turn better, accelerate better, but not roll better than P-40 with standard wing. 

In low to medium speed the P-40 was inferior to standard wing Spit but crossed over in medium speeds and was much better at high speed.

Both were better than the Zero except (Perhaps) at low end.

I would disagree that "not being able to take on the zero at it's own game" was truly important if tactics were communicated properly. The importance of understanding the limits of your own craft versus adversary is survival factor for the good fighter pilot. The other aircraft that could not take the Zero in its element (low/medium speed maneuver combat) include all the Allied fighters that fought in WWII.

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## drgondog (Nov 24, 2013)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Good thread - a lot is being said about performance but now we're eluding to IMO was the real reason why the P-40 was a better fighter in the PTO;
> 
> Tactics, tactics, tactics.....



Absolutely - Tactics and mission - not performance. Tactics evolve to emphasize strengths and avoidance of circumstances leading to inferior 'survival quotients'..

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## VBF-13 (Nov 24, 2013)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Good thread - a lot is being said about performance but now we're eluding to IMO was the real reason why the P-40 was a better fighter in the PTO;
> 
> Tactics, tactics, tactics.....


Everything else being equal, you didn't get upstairs on the Zero, you were a loser. They were just that good.


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## Glider (Nov 24, 2013)

Tactics are the key, mind you having extra performance never did anyone any harm. As I understood it the key was to keep your speed up, stay close to or above 250 and the Zero loses its big advantage, agility.


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 24, 2013)

VBF-13 said:


> Everything else being equal, you didn't get upstairs on the Zero, you were a loser. They were just that good.



And if your airspeed was kept up - remember at higher speeds the Zero's strengths were negated and they became nothing more than clay pigeons.


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## BiffF15 (Nov 24, 2013)

drgondog said:


> Absolutely - Tactics and mission - not performance. Tactics evolve to emphasize strengths and avoidance of circumstances leading to inferior 'survival quotients'..




If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.

Sun Tzu

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## BiffF15 (Nov 24, 2013)

Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.
Sun Tzu 

I used this or a variation of it more times than I can count. It won me a LOT of Cokes for the debrief. The greatest enemy sometimes lies within, and I would encourage / prod him to come out and play...

Cheers,
Biff

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## oldcrowcv63 (Nov 24, 2013)

Seems to me the history of the early war in the PTO (late-41 thru early-43) suggests the sheer numbers of P-40s available, coupled with allied command's determination and willingness to make whatever changes were required to achieve every possible advantage, permitted the outclassed P-40E's some measure of success. As interceptors over Darwin in mid to late '42 , both the USAAF and RAAF were apparently flying their P-40Es a few hundred lbs lower than max gross weight at take-off. Some USAAF pilots were resorting to removing guns, reducing both ammo and fuel load, while the RAAF appears to have been satisfied by reducing the fuel and ammo carried. Then of course, better tactics evolved after the initial drubbings during the winter of 42 and the now savvy veteran pilots were flying with healthy respect for the A6M's strengths and weaknesses as well as those of their own mount.


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## davebender (Nov 24, 2013)

There's a flaw in that argument.

P-40 acceleration and climb were relatively slow. In a fair fight (i.e. no diving ambush out of the sun) A6M, Spitfire and quite a few other aircraft will use superior climb to gain an altitude advantage over P-40. That removes the P-40 dive advantage.


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## VBF-13 (Nov 24, 2013)

Glider said:


> Tactics are the key, mind you having extra performance never did anyone any harm. As I understood it the key was to keep your speed up, stay close to or above 250 and the Zero loses its big advantage, agility.





FLYBOYJ said:


> And if your airspeed was kept up - remember at higher speeds the Zero's strengths were negated and they became nothing more than clay pigeons.


That's the idea, to put it in a nut. When they can't stay with you, they can't fight you. The higher ceiling only bears in that it enables that tactical asset.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 24, 2013)

Step 1. Have an airplane that can get into the fight. (With too little range or too little altitude performance you don't even get in the ring)
Step 2. Have an airplane that has a least one or two advantages over it's opponent. 
Step 3. Use tactics or plan that emphasis those advantages or at least negates some enemy advantages.


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## bobbysocks (Nov 24, 2013)

it was either in an interview with Tex Hill or some article/book on the AVG i read that Claire Chennault shared the tactic of how to deal with japanese fighters with either us or allied groups coming into the PTO. It was basically if dogfight with them you will lose. attack from above and dive out of range...and repeat. iirc they didnt adhere to that advice and learned the hard way.


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## davebender (Nov 24, 2013)

Chennault was lucky in that most of his IJA opponents flew inferior aircraft. P-40 tactics that work well against Ki-27s don't work as well against A6M and Ki-43 fighter aircraft.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 24, 2013)

> If you have squadron of P-40s and a squadron of Spitfires in Darwin in 1943, which squadron would have the most flying hours?



It depends on when you are talking about; like I stated earlier, with the arrival of the Spitfires in February 1943, the P-40s were sent into Papua New Guinea on the offensive and the Spits were used exclusively as interceptors, taking over from the P-40 units, both USAAF and RAAF, and remained in that role until the war's end, so the Spitfire, of course.

Agree with all here on the benefit of tactics over performance, which, again brings us to an important issue as to the use of each aircraft. By the end of 1943 the Spitfire units being stationed in the Solomons were being used as interceptors, while the P-40s were primarily used as long range fighters/fighter bombers. The tactics in use by the Spitfires and P-40s were different in each combat situation since the P-40s were largely (but not always) meeting Japanese fighters defending their territory, whereas the Spitfires were meeting Japanese fighters on the attack. Both types were sensibly employed to make use of their respective strengths. There was an occasion known as the Officer's Revolt, when RAAF P-40 pilots got annoyed with their principally ground attack role as dictated by MacArthur over Rabaul, when the Australians were being expected to mop up any Japanese resistance, whilst the USAAF forces were being advanced forward.

The P-40 was by far and away the most numerous fighter the RAAF operated, with over 900 being employed. The Spitfire, however was in theatre in far smaller numbers than the P-40; in total, some 655 were operated by the RAAF, although over 100 of those never saw squadron service before the end of the war and a large portion were solely based in Australia throughout the war (in a front line role, excluding for training purposes).


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## RCAFson (Nov 24, 2013)

The Spitfires were intercepting IJ aircraft that were flying well above the P-40's effective ceiling, and in some cases above the P-40's actual service ceiling. The "big wing" tactics employed by the Spits was the primary cause of the Spitfire's less than expected kill rates, IMHO. The failure to use the available drop tanks in their initial missions along with high altitude armament and CS prop issues were also contributing factors.

Some of the issues encountered with Allison engined fighters in the Pacific:



> First priority naturally went to the defense of Allied bases, a burden which fell upon the fighter units at Moresby and Darwin. Over both points the enemy bombers usually came in at 22,000 feet and above, too high for satisfactory interception by P-40's, P-39's, or P-400's, the only fighters available to the AAF in the Southwest Pacific, and their limitations seriously affected Allied operations.(64) During July the P-39 had made contact with enemy bombers only four times in a series of nine raids despite a thirty-minute warning; in sixteen actual contacts it never once enjoyed an altitude advantage and the Zero invariably could outclimb and outmaneuver this fighter, which suffered the additional disadvantage of increased vulnerability because of the location of its motor behind the pilot. The P-40 was somewhat better, but it, too, was outperformed by the more nimble enemy fighters, particularly at high altitudes. Inferior performance of their planes lowered the morale of the pilots.(65) It was true that the Allied planes were more rugged and less inflammable, they could outdive the Zero, and if given warning to permit them to reach sufficient altitude they could achieve creditable scores, as they did on 30 July over Darwin when twenty-seven P-40's shot down six Zeros and two bombers at the cost of one P-40.(66) But pilots continued to be frustrated, as on 17 August, when for the seventy-eighth time enemy bombers struck Moresby in an attempt to disable their favorite target, Seven-Mile Airdrome. Although defending fighters had received adequate warning, they were unable to intercept.(67)
> HyperWar: The Army Air Forces in WWII: Vol. IV--The Pacific: Guadalcanal to Saipan [Chapter 1]


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## nuuumannn (Nov 24, 2013)

Regarding tactics, trials carried out using the Aleutian Zero against Allied fighters revealed their strengths against the Zero and subsequent analysis of Japanese intel offered an insight into how the Japanese countered Allied fighters. The Airacobra, which could outperform, but not out manoeuvre the Zero at low to medium altitude, and the P-40, often found themselves at a distinct disadvantage since the Japanese pilots learned to take advantage of their low speed manoeuvring by turning in toward a pursuing opponent, the P-39 generally being able to catch the Zero at low altitudes, by pushing his fighter into a steep climb, then quickly turning in and whilst the P-39/P-40 was establishing itself in the climb. The Zero was still able to manoeuvre since its stall speed was lower than either fighter. It was found that pursuing pilots concentrating on their gunsights would find themselves losing speed, at which point they were vulnerable to the Zero. In this condition, not even the Mustang or Corsair could better the Japanese fighter despite showing considerable advantages in level speed, climb and dive over the Zero.

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## DVH (Nov 24, 2013)

As an earlier post stated, tactics.
The P40 was effective at being good in a dive, which was at the heart of Chennault's tactics of hit and run, which proved to be the only way to oppose the zero. 
if the spitfire squadrons in Darwin had heeded this advice they would have fared batter. But based on European experience, they wrongly believed the spitfire to be an unmatched dogfighter, based on Luftwaffe confrontations.
There are countless examples of tactics being the key to success in wars, but this doesn't make the P40 a superior aircraft. 
I have read accounts of a P40 being pitted againsed a Hurricane, and they fared equally. The Spitfire was certainly superior to the Hurricane. In the pacific, the short range nature of the Spitfire was unsuitable, but horses for courses. 
The Spitfire evolved at a fast pace, you can't compare a mark one to a mark five, the P40 didn't benefit from this kind of investment. So it remained largely an old school aircraft. 
To sum up, it was more tactics than hardware that was the key. 
it should also be said that Chennault ultimately failed to defend china from Japan. That's not to downplay the P40, there was a much bigger picture, but all in all, there were better aircraft flying than the P40. The reason the spitfire is more celebrated is because it played a more important role in the war, it basically was key to keeping Britain free from invasion and also kept pace with every other fighter aircraft throughout the duration of the war, that was a monumental feat.


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 24, 2013)

DVH said:


> The P40 was effective at being good in a dive, which was at the heart of Chennault's tactics of hit and run, *which proved to be the only way to oppose the zero*.



Not entirely true! All you had to do was enter combat in the horizontal or diving vertical at airspeeds higher than the Zero's effective maneuvering speeds, something like 250 mph, (probably a little less) and stay within the energy egg at those higher speeds (Biff, chime in any time). the zero's ailerons became concrete at higher speeds.

FYI - the AVG NEVER fought the Zero!

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## Shortround6 (Nov 24, 2013)

FLYBOYJ said:


> FYI - the AVG NEVER fought the Zero!



That is true but Chennault may have, at least forces under his command since he was in charge of the Chinese airforce and not just the AVG.


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 24, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> That is true but Chennault may have, at least forces under his command since he was in charge of the Chinese airforce and not just the AVG.


Later in the war perhaps. During the time Chennault commanded the AVG there were no IJN units - the AVG fought IJAAF units in China and Vietnam. I don't believe Chennault ever commanded the entire CAF


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## nuuumannn (Nov 24, 2013)

> the zero's ailerons became concrete at higher speeds.



Yep, the Zero was too slow in such manoeuvres and Allied fighter pilots learned to take full advantage of this. The A6M3 in reality couldn't go much faster than 270 - 280kts for this reason. Saburo Sakai later recalled how the use of team work in the air and energy manoeuvres by American pilots put his fellow airmen at a distinct disadvantage. When Sakai ordered his men to concentrate on working as a team in the air and covering each other's backsides, his pilots returned frustrated and angry for two reasons; they didn't know what to do and they were never able to get into a firing position; such tactics went against their training.

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## vinnye (Nov 24, 2013)

I have enjoyed this thread and have learned from reading through it.
I rate the P40 quite highly, it did well when it was used properly - the same is true of the Spitfire, F6 , F4U etc.
It is sad, but pretty accurate that had those pilots flying those Spitfires adopted the correct tactics, they would have had greater success and lasted longer!
The Big Wing was not in my opinion the correct use of the Spitfire outside of the ETO, and even then not the best use until the BoB had been won.
The best tactics have been discussed in earlier posts - get higher than your opponent, stay at fairly high speed and make short diving passes before returning to height again.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 24, 2013)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Later in the war perhaps. During the time Chennault commanded the AVG there were no IJN units - the AVG fought IJAAF units in China and Vietnam. I don't believe Chennault ever commanded the entire CAF



Sorry for the confusion, while not in charge of the Chinese air force before the AVG he was involved with training and observing and was an adviser to the Chinese air force, granted he spent a fair amount of time in the US organizing the AVG but since the Zero WAS used in China before the AVG became operational he may have had opportunities to observe/ receive reports on the Zero's performance/tactics and try to work out a counter to it _before_ the AVG went into action. Or it may be that since many of the early Japanese fighters performed sort of the same ( maneuver fighters rather than speed fighters) the same general tactics may have been useable against most of the Japanese fighters. He may have had an opportunity to see/receive reports on how Russian supplied I-16s fared against Japanese planes.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 24, 2013)

vinnye said:


> The best tactics have been discussed in earlier posts - get higher than your opponent, stay at fairly high speed and make short diving passes before returning to height again.



Which is actually a tactic the Japanese Zero pilots used quite a bit, at least at the start of many combats. AS formations broke up and things turned to furballs the Japanese may have been much more willing to get into twisty fights to finish things up.


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 24, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> Sorry for the confusion, while not in charge of the Chinese air force before the AVG he was involved with training and observing and was an adviser to the Chinese air force, granted he spent a fair amount of time in the US organizing the AVG but since the Zero WAS used in China before the AVG became operational he may have had opportunities to observe/ receive reports on the Zero's performance/tactics and try to work out a counter to it _before_ the AVG went into action. Or it may be that since many of the early Japanese fighters performed sort of the same ( maneuver fighters rather than speed fighters) the same general tactics may have been useable against most of the Japanese fighters. He may have had an opportunity to see/receive reports on how Russian supplied I-16s fared against Japanese planes.



Agree...


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## bobbysocks (Nov 24, 2013)

davebender said:


> Chennault was lucky in that most of his IJA opponents flew inferior aircraft. P-40 tactics that work well against Ki-27s don't work as well against A6M and Ki-43 fighter aircraft.



are you saying that attacking from 3 to 5K behind and above... and diving through at a high rate of speed..pure hit and run tactics would not work on an A6M or Ki-43?


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 24, 2013)

davebender said:


> Chennault was lucky in that most of his IJA opponents flew inferior aircraft. P-40 tactics that work well against Ki-27s don't work as well against A6M and Ki-43 fighter aircraft.



The AVG fought the Ki 43 and did very well against it.

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## VBF-13 (Nov 24, 2013)

FLYBOYJ said:


> the zero's ailerons became concrete at higher speeds.


Just thinking how that happens, I'm thinking it's a trim-tab issue. Am I on the right track?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 24, 2013)

FLYBOYJ said:


> The AVG fought the Ki 43 and did very well against it.




That is right, they may have mis-identified them as Zeros, that doesn't mean they didn't shoot them down.


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## N4521U (Nov 24, 2013)

I have to laff, out loud, evvvverrrry time one of these "what if" "it's better than" threads show up...........


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## glennasher (Nov 24, 2013)

Nearly 70 years later, practically ALL threads are "what if" threads...................d:^)


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## nuuumannn (Nov 24, 2013)

> Just thinking how that happens, I'm thinking it's a trim-tab issue. Am I on the right track?



It was due to aerodynamic loading of the control surfaces; the Zero wasn't overly fast by late war standards and as it got faster, the control surfaces got heavier. Curtiss test pilot H. Lloyd Child stated that he thought the Zero's control harmonisation was poor, claiming that the ailerons were heavy by comparison to the other surfaces.

The Zero's ailerons had ground adjustable tabs only. The only flight surface with flight adjustable trim tabs was the elevators.

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## CobberKane (Nov 25, 2013)

> wuzak said:
> 
> 
> > > What do you classify as "better diving characteristics
> ...


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## Greyman (Nov 25, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> I couldn’t find a direct comparison between the Spitfire V and the P-40 ...



Yeah, closest thing I could find was this report on wwiiaircraftperformance: 

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/P-40/PHQ-M-19-1307-A.pdf


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## nuuumannn (Nov 25, 2013)

Looks like you've got it all sewn up neatly, Cobber. So, what are you trying to prove by establishing this thread if you already know the answer? Thankfully (heaven help us...) the RAAF didn't have to bother with such box ticking when it had to go to war because both options were available to it. It chose the Spitfire for short range defence and the P-40 for long range fighter bomber duties and if I were in the same situation I would also make the same choices. Why bother trying to justify which was better when the answer is clear. Read your history books and learn about both types' use in the PTO by the RAAF.


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## CobberKane (Nov 25, 2013)

> nuuumannn said:
> 
> 
> > Looks like you've got it all sewn up neatly, Cobber. So, what are you trying to prove by establishing this thread if you already know the answer? Thankfully (heaven help us...) the RAAF didn't have to bother with such box ticking when it had to go to war because both options were available to it. It chose the Spitfire for short range defence and the P-40 for long range fighter bomber duties and if I were in the same situation I would also make the same choices. Why bother trying to justify which was better when the answer is clear. Read your history books and learn about both types' use in the PTO by the RAAF.



Sorry Nuuumann, just making conversation. Maybe I feel a certain empathy for the P-40, being so ugly, underappreciated and all (*sob*).

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## wuzak (Nov 25, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> I couldn’t find a direct comparison between the Spitfire V and the P-40, a Spit I was compared to the P-40s air cooled predecessor, the Hawk 75. From Wiki: “The Hawk was found to have lighter controls than the Spitfire at speeds over 300 mph (480 km/h), especially in diving attacks…”



What version of Spitfire was that? Metal ailerons or fabric?

Does having lighter controls mean it is a better diver?




CobberKane said:


> And from Ray Hanna, who spent plenty of time in both types: "Where the P-40 excels and will throw out most other fighters is in diving, rolling manoeuvres".



He doesn't say that the Spitfire was better or worse or otherwise?




CobberKane said:


> As neither the Spitfire or Zero were renowned for diving and rolling, I’d guess he was including them in his category of ‘most fighters’



An assumption. Spitfires are renowned for their manoeuvrability, so diving qualities are probably glossed over. 

Roll performance was lower than the P-40. But if that was a big deal, they could always clip the wings and gain that roll performance. As I said before, it requires unbolting the existing wingtips and bolting on a new set.




CobberKane said:


> Several posts have refuted the assertion that the P-40 was superior to the Spitfire by comparing their performance figures. The Spitfire will always win this contest in the air, but to use its superior performance against the enemy in the PTO it would often need to take off and land from third rate fields and be kept operational in between.



That is quite true.

But how much difference between the Spitfire and the P-40 in regard of serviceability was down to the supply chain? As in there were plenty of Allison aircraft and the spares to keep them going, but a dearth of Merlins and spares.




CobberKane said:


> The Spitfire was known as a tricky aircraft to land and take off in



According to the Luftwaffe pilots who tested them it was ridiculously easy to land and take-off in them.

Maybe the Griffon models were a bit tricky to get off the ground, mainly because of the strong torque reaction.

The P-40 didn't have the best ground handling, or take-off and landing characteristics:



> The P-40 was noted for its landing qualities, many of them bad, according to pilot's testimony.





> "The P-40 was the hardest to land of any of teh US World War II fighters".



AHT.

The P-40's undercarriage was quite narrow as well, which caused as many problems as on the Spitfire.




CobberKane said:


> and it required highly skilled technicians to maintain it.



What was so much more difficult on teh Spitfire than the P-40?




CobberKane said:


> Also, in response to the view that comparing the two is a case of apples and oranges as the P-40 was a fighter bomber and the Spitfire a pure fighter, I’ve never differentiated to much between these categories as I can’t think of a single fighter that wasn’t also a fighter bomber as the need arose.



Some went to fighter bombing because they were no longer up to the pure fighter role. The Spitfire V in the ETO is an example. The P-40 is an example everywhere.

Others, of course, because there were no more aerial targets.





CobberKane said:


> I want my fighter to cover as many bases as possible and I still maintain the P-40 ticks more boxes.



Maye it ticks the fighetr-bomber box. But not much else.




CobberKane said:


> The Spitfire was undoubtedly much better as an interceptor, or it should have been given the right tactics, although the figures suggest it didn’t shine even in this role in the PTO.



But wasn't that _because of the tactics used_?




CobberKane said:


> But at all but the highest altitudes the P-40 made similarly effective use of the same tactics



Which was, from what one of the earlier links said, where the battles over Darwin were fought.




CobberKane said:


> plus it could take more punishment



What is your justification for this?




CobberKane said:


> plus it was better in ground attack



Well, the Spitfre had more firepower. Surely that counts for something in ground attack?




CobberKane said:


> plus it was easier to fly from goat tracks



AHT says that the P-40 wasn't particularly easy to take off and land with. Especially with cross winds. Does "flying from goat tracks" make it better?




CobberKane said:


> plus it was easier to keep in the air.



Was this because it was easier to maintain, or because it had a better supply chain?




CobberKane said:


> Like the Hurricane in the BoB it was the right aircraft in the right place at the right time.



Perhaps "because it was available" would be the better terminology?

I wouldn't say it was the "right aircraft", rather that it was there. Same with the Hurricane.


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## pattle (Nov 25, 2013)

Maybe I feel a certain empathy for the P-40, being so ugly, underappreciated and all (*sob*).[/QUOTE]

Crikey you are living dangerously saying the P40 is ugly, don't be surprised if you wake up one night and find dozens of Americans stood outside your house carrying burning torches.


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## CobberKane (Nov 25, 2013)

> wuzak said:
> 
> 
> > > What version of Spitfire was that? Metal ailerons or fabric?
> ...


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## wuzak (Nov 25, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> Given that the overwhelming tendancy seems to be that controls stiffen as airspeed increases, yes



Doesn't that also occur with the P-40?

At what speed does this occur? Does it inhibit the manoeuvrability of the aircraft? How does their acceleration compare (this, when all is said and done, is what is referred to as dive performance). The P-40 is heavier, so may possess the advantage in that respect, but does the little bit extra count?

Is the Spitfire still more manoeuvrable during the dive? Does this count for more than a little extra acceleration.

Was the Spitfire's dive performance advantage marginal over the Zero's? Or was it substantial?




CobberKane said:


> No, he doesn't specifically compare the P-40 to the Spitfire in this regard. So show me a quote from a similarly experienced pilot stating that the Spitfire excels in diving and rolling Manoeuvres, or words to that effect, and I'll happly concede the point



I was speaking of diving manoeuvres only. Not contest in roll performance with the standard wing Spitfire.





CobberKane said:


> For real? How would you characterise the second part of the above quote then?



As a generalisation.




CobberKane said:


> But they didn't, so far as I know, so in the real world we are stuck with unclipped Spitfires.



Perhaps roll performance was not such a big deal. After all, if it were the option was available. And they'd already done it in the UK to try to combat Fw 190s.




CobberKane said:


> Yep, if nothing else US industrial might was bound to make a huge difference to supply. But the P-40 had other big advantages - I know Wiki is not everybody's favourite reference source so feel free to refute the following quote: "Comparisons between Allison engine and the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine are inevitable. What can be said for the Allison is that it made more power at less boost with a longer time between overhauls and the part count was nearly half that of the Merlin engine which facilitated mass production greatly. The British-made Merlin engines were still reliant upon hand-crafted and fitted parts from skilled craftsmen, something which was corrected by the redesign and success of the Packard V-1650 license-produced version of it in the United States, built with American production-line techniques. There also was a high degree of commonality of parts throughout the series. The individual parts of the Allison series were produced to a high degree of standardization and reliability, using the best technology available at the time."



The hand crafted part is BS. Ford of the UK and Rolls-Royce were building Merlins with production line techniques before Packard started production.

Of the extra components in the Merlin, I think you'll find most of them are BA screws.




CobberKane said:


> I believe you are paraphrasing one pilot, Werner Molders, who had one point of reference: the Bf109, a fighter renowned for its difficulty in landing and take-off



That may be so. I can't recall who said it.

Do you have anybody that said it was tough to land and take-off? I am speaking of early Merlin Spits, not the later hairy chested Griffon Spits.




CobberKane said:


> Yes, the P-40 was nothing like as good in this respect as that other unglamorous work-horse, the Hurricane. But I was thinking as much of serviceability as flying characteristics. I can't see any way the splayed undercarriage of the Spitfire is going to be as forgiving of heavy landings of rough sufaces as the (somewhat) wider, up and down gear on the P-40, especially given the Kittyhawks reputation for toughness in adverse conditions. Also, I believe the P-40 had more prop to ground clearance, which was an issue with the Spit



Spits landed on grass airfields throughout the war. I suppose they were all bowling greens. What about in the deserts of North Africa, where they were imported to protect the P-40s? Did they have an issue there?




CobberKane said:


> The RNZAF, who absorbed the hard learned tactics of the US pilots flew plenty of ground attack and pure fighter missions with their small force of P-40s through to 1944, and were credited with something like a hundred Japanese fighters destroyed for a fraction of the losses in return. So it seems they were still up to it. Had they Japanese been able to field numbers of their later designs the story might have been different, but they didn't and it wasn't.



1944....that would after the quality pilots were gone from the IJAAF and IJN?




CobberKane said:


> Whereas the Spitfire ticks the interceptor box but not much else?



Isn't that what you require? Something to take down attacking Zeros?




CobberKane said:


> Yes. The Spit became much more effective once it started using the tactics the Americans were already using with their P-40sOnce it the right tactics were used it became much more efective



Right, so tactics is the most important thing to take from the P-40 experience?




CobberKane said:


> I believe that once the early warning system was in place the P-40s were typically able to attack from above also, and took a significant toll on both Japanese Bombers and fighters



How long is the warning?

Spitfire V time to climb to 30,000ft is ~12-13 minutes.
P-40E time to climb to 20,000ft is ~12 minutes.
P-40E time to climb to 25,000ft is ~29 minutes.
P-40E time to climb to 30,000ft is ~40 minutes. Which, btw is the aircraft's service ceiling.




CobberKane said:


> Something, yes. Just nowhere near as much as the ability to carry more bombs much further.



And other options could carry bombs further.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 25, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> > ...
> >
> > Yep, if nothing else US industrial might was bound to make a huge difference to supply. But the P-40 had other big advantages - I know Wiki is not everybody's favourite reference source so feel free to refute the following quote: "Comparisons between Allison engine and the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine are inevitable. *What can be said for the Allison is that it made more power at less boost with a longer time between overhauls and the part count was nearly half that of the Merlin engine which facilitated mass production greatly. *The British-made Merlin engines were still reliant upon hand-crafted and fitted parts from skilled craftsmen, something which was corrected by the redesign and success of the Packard V-1650 license-produced version of it in the United States, built with American production-line techniques. There also was a high degree of commonality of parts throughout the series. The individual parts of the Allison series were produced to a high degree of standardization and reliability, using the best technology available at the time."
> > ...
> ...


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## CobberKane (Nov 25, 2013)

Wuzak, the point for point format is making me dizzy so perhaps as a courtesy to everyone else we should abandon it. In defence of my countrymen I'd iterate that I said the RNZAF used the P-40 _through to_ 1944, when there was still plenty of stiff opposition from the Japanese. And they did very well as I'm sure you would acknowledge.
One thing we can all learn from this discussion; if you want to start a thread with legs, diss the Spit, even if only implicity!


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 25, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> and it required highly skilled technicians to maintain it.



Hogwash! There might have been systems that each aircraft possessed that made certain maintenance items more labor intensive but I see nothing on either aircraft that would require "highly skilled technicians". If you think otherwise or have specific information regarding this please educate this aviation mechanic (with those specific items) whose been either building or maintaining aircraft for the past 35 years!!!! I'm all ears!!!!


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## drgondog (Nov 25, 2013)

Per anecdotal references to 'ease of handling' including landing.. A very fine RCAF pilot FltLdr Warren Peglar was an exchange pilot with the 354thFS/355th FG from mid July through the Frantic VII mission and late September. I have had a lot of exchanges with him over the past 40 years, and specifically on the qualities of the Tempest V, Spit (IV and IX), and Mustang. Note: in 402 missions with RAF/RCAF squadrons, Peglar encountered LW aircraft two times air to air, but like all fighter pilots rat raced with all types including P-47's and P-38's.

The two encounters were August 3 in which he shot down a JG300 190 and a JG 53 109, the September 11 in which he shot down two more 109s - one a low altitude high G turning engagement - all with Mustangs. Peglar finished as an 8th AF ace with four air and one ground, then added three ground with Tempests during the Bulge.

The point: When asked about the handling qualities it was Spit IX, Mustang, Tempest. When asked about combat capability it was Mustang, Spit then Tempest - only because the Mustang had the ability to go anywhere and the capability needed to get the job done - but he would have preferred the Spit if it had the range. 

He stated that the Spit was the easiest to land and had no vices relative to ground looping - and I can say that you have to be alert in the 51 with a crosswind - but Warren stated that the Spit rolled out like it was on railroad tracks.


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## MacArther (Nov 25, 2013)

pattle said:


> Maybe I feel a certain empathy for the P-40, being so ugly, underappreciated and all (*sob*).
> 
> Crikey you are living dangerously saying the P40 is ugly, don't be surprised if you wake up one night and find dozens of Americans stood outside your house carrying burning torches.



RABBLE RABBLE BURN AND PILLAGE RABBLE RABBLE DESTROY THE P40 HATER RABBLE RABBLE!

Now that I've done my good American duty, onto the topic at hand. I love the P40, I do. I wish better things had been done for its engine, or its enemies had fought worse than they did. However, I acknowledge that the P40 was a stop-gap as far as interceptors go, and much more suited to fighter bomber roles. Down low, the P40 can drop its bombs and maybe mix it up with a low level fighter or two, and return to base if using the right tactics and planning. Up higher than 15,000 ft....well, the P-40F model was made for that reason, but the other models were definitely anemic in that regard.

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## Juha (Nov 25, 2013)

wuzak said:


> What version of Spitfire was that? Metal ailerons or fabric?...



Spit Mk I, as CobberKain wrote, with fabric covered ailerons vs Curtiss Hawk H-75A-1 loaned from the French AF.


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## Aozora (Nov 25, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> Wuzak, the point for point format is making me dizzy so perhaps as a courtesy to everyone else we should abandon it. In defence of my countrymen I'd iterate that I said the RNZAF used the P-40 _through to_ 1944, when there was still plenty of stiff opposition from the Japanese. And they did very well as I'm sure you would acknowledge.
> One thing we can all learn from this discussion; if you want to start a thread with legs, diss the Spit, even if only implicity!



Have a read of "The Blue Arena" by Sqn Leader Bob Spurdle, a New Zealander and member of the RNZAF who flew Spitfires in combat over Europe and RNZAF P-40s in combat over the Pacific. In one passage he describes RNZAF P-40s escorting USAAF B-24s; once they dropped their bombs, the B-24s climbed and left the "escorting" P-40s floundering to catch up. 

Yep, the P-40s performed okay in medium to low-level combat, but that's not to say that Spitfires in the competent hands of the NZ pilots would not have done even better.


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## bobbysocks (Nov 25, 2013)

its all knowing the strength and weakenss of your ac and keeping within that envelope. most FGs in europe had some sort of "clobber college" where new recruits were given flight time in the 51 and dogfighting the groups vets. one group had a couple p-40s that the vets would fly in these mock DFs with the green pilots. they would would deal them a healthy dose of reality showing them that having the "superior" plane isnt enough by itself....


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## nuuumannn (Nov 25, 2013)

> Maybe I feel a certain empathy for the P-40, being so ugly, underappreciated and all



No need to apologise, Cobber, it just appears that you've already made up your mind without really assessing the situation. As for the P-40; all the pilot's reports I've read by Allied airmen who flew it express a fondness for it, even the die hard Spitfire afficionados. When Neville Duke, post war test pilot heard he was being transferred to Norrth Africa to 112 Sqn flying the Tomahawk and leaving his Spitfire Vs behind, he was none too happy, but came to admire and respect the Tomahawk and Kittyhawk, preferring the former as a fighter because of its lightness over the Kittyhawk. He didn't seem to mind its armament by comparison to both the Spit V and Kittyhawk. He also liked the bigger roomy cockpit compared to the Spit (most British pilots commented favourably on American cockpit spaces compared to their own indigenous products) and also that the Kittyhawk was more advanced in many ways compared to the Spit V. 

Bottom line? They are two very different fighters in use in the similar environment. Sure, the P-40 was more suited to the PTO and North Africa, but the Spitfire, like I said did not suffer as much as many would have us believe. Like I stated earlier; its serviceability levels were no worse than any other fighter in theatre, which says a lot.


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## wuzak (Nov 25, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> Wuzak, the point for point format is making me dizzy so perhaps as a courtesy to everyone else we should abandon it.



Ok, that sounds fair.


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## wuzak (Nov 25, 2013)

Juha said:


> Spit Mk I, as CobberKain wrote, with fabric covered ailerons vs Curtiss Hawk H-75A-1 loaned from the French AF.



So not very applicable to a Spitfire V with metal ailerons vs the P-40.

And wasn't it this tendency to stiffen up the controls the reason why they changed quickly to metal ailerons in the Spitfire?


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## pattle (Nov 25, 2013)

Perhaps this thread should have asked which was the more useful of the two aircraft in the PTO, I think if CobberKane is saying that the P40 was more useful than the Spitfire in the PTO then that sounds like a perfectly reasonable opinion to me.


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## Glider (Nov 25, 2013)

Everyone is talking about the Spit V, Can I take it we agree that when the Spit VIII arrived it was game over in favour of the Spit?

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## drgondog (Nov 25, 2013)

LOL - I thought it was 'Game over' when the Spit V was in service

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## Procrastintor (Nov 25, 2013)

I agree with pattle, the Warhawk was definitely more useful, but generally not a better 'fighter'. 
*Looks at signature and profile picture* EDIT: I realize I may be slightly biased.


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## CobberKane (Nov 25, 2013)

Procrastintor said:


> I agree with pattle, the Warhawk was definitely more useful, but generally not a better 'fighter'.
> *Looks at signature and profile picture* EDIT: I realize I may be slightly biased.



I guess it largely comes down to semantics. When I say 'fighter'' I mean an aircraft primarily designed for air to air combat but required to fullfil whatever other roles are required of it. Others reserve the term fighter solely for the air to air role and therefore contend that the Spitfire, on the basis of performance, is the better fighter. When I say 'better' I am looking at the whole picture including ease of maintenance and the ability to operate in harsh conditions, whereas others are unconcerned with what happens on the ground and prefer to start in the air with a full tank of gas.
Ultimately I haven't seen much to sway me from my initial assessment of the strengths of the P-40 relative to the Spitfire. It would be very nice if we had a direct comparison to draw on, but lacking that we can only look at the preponderance of pilot reports and what we can see in design of the aircraft. No-one ever put a Spitfire and a P-40 side by side and fires bullets at them to see which would fall apart first, but the reputation of the P-40 amongst its pilots as a tough machine, coupled with the fact that it was a bigger, heavier fighter with more metal and a five spar wing, strongly supports the assertion that it was the more damage resistant of the two. I haven't seen a direct comparison between the P-40 and the Spitfire in terms of roll and dive, I can only point out that the primary factor in determining acceleration in the dive is weight and the P-40 was regularly lauded in these areas by it's pilots whereas the Spitfire, for all it's manifest virtues, was not. I cannot claim that the P-40 was the equal of the Spit as an air to air weapon because it wasn't, but I can claim that the P-40 could still make a fist of the task the Spitfire excelled in, and that its range, bombload and ruggedness gave it at least an equal measure of superiority in the similarly important role of ground attack and close support. By my definition of the term, that assertion that the P-40 was the 'better fighter' remains defensible.


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## MikeGazdik (Nov 25, 2013)

Well, the historical achillies heel of both aircraft seem to dominate here. The Spitfire lacks range, the P-40 lacks performance at altitude.

The only way to settle this is a flight of Spits and a flight of P-40's take off, and fly 45 minutes to a point in which they battle, and then must return to their prospective airfields. The flight with the most returning aircraft wins!!!

( Regardless of outcome, I still love them both. And will still be in awe of the beauty of a Curtiss P-40!! lol )


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## nuuumannn (Nov 25, 2013)

> Already a legend due to its role in the Battle of Britain the Spit, it was hoped, would be the fighter that really showed those pesky Zeros and Oscars what's what. It it never really happened, but today the Spitfire is still a legend whereas the Curtis P-40, which did far more to halt the Japanese air forces, has largely slipped from common memory.



And this is the crux of the matter regarding both types in the PTO. Your statement, Cobber is based on the perception of so called 'common memory', often in contrast to the facts about both types. Both the P-40 and Spitfire were subject to myth building during and post war, which means the perception we might have of each type does not necessarily meet reality. Lets look at the Spit first.

The Battle of Britain did much for the Spitfire's reputation abroad, even though we now know the Hurricane bore the brunt of the fighting. The public at the time in Australia did not see it that way, so the arrival of the Spitfire gave promise to the public that the Battle of Darwin would be won by the Spitfire, but first encounters were not promising; heavy losses, unserviceability, inadequate tactics all went against the Spitfire's reputation and the truth of the matter was not entirely obvious to the public. 

The fact was the Spitfire did suffer its share of serviceability issues, constant speed governor failures, gun stoppages etc conspired against it, not to mention a supply issue that could not be met as easily as other types in proliferation in the region. As for its performance in the air - the biggest failing was not the aircraft itself, but the tactics used to combat the Japanese. Spitfire pilots attempting to tackle the Zero on its terms were failing because of the Zero's low speed manoeuvrability and the high fuel consumption resulting from hard manoeuvring chewed up the Spitfire's short endurance. Once the Aussie pilots learned to take advantage of the Spitfire's assets, high speed, good rate of climb and excellent ceiling, they could turn the tables on the Japanese and diving slashing attacks proved successful in defeating them. 

The fact still remains that the Spitfire _did _overcome the threat to the Australian north and successfully lived up to what was expected of it - contrary to the damning opinions of the aircraft after its early misadventures at the time and post war from authors not indulging in enough fact finding about it.

The P-40 has also been subject to much inaccurate post war assessment; from what I've read, none of the pilots of the RAAF and RNZAF (not read much about USAAF pilots, but not aware of too many who didn't like the P-40) believed that what they were operating was a second rate fighter. Its post war assessors have much to answer for bearing this in mind. The P-40 was highly regarded by the pilots that flew and fought in it and to be fair in terms of its performance not being as great as other types in theatre, it was based on a pre-war design. Despite the appearance of the likes of the F4U, P-38 and Mustang in theatre, the P-40 was still a usefully employed front line fighter and its disadvantages that are often highlighted since were never cause for questioning of its abilities _at the time_. No, it did not have the manoeuvrability of the Japanese fighters, or the ceiling of the Spitfire, but it was an excellent fighter/fighter bomber. The RNZAF used the P-40 exclusively as its wartime fighter, even once the F4U appeared with the RNZAF; it is interesting to note that despite the superior performance of the Corsair over the P-40, the former was primarily used in the ground attack role, although not always, but there were no RNZAF pilots that gained 'ace' status in the Corsair alone.

As for serviceability between the Spitfire and the P-40 in the Pacific, again there is some misinformation. Once in the islands, the Spitfire's serviceability was no worse than any other type in the region. This means that either the P-40's serviceability was not as great as we'd like to think or the Spit's was better than we are prepared to accept. One of those statements is more accurate than the other. One thing that is for certain is there were far fewer Spitfires than there were P-40s, which does even out any comparison between the two types in theatre.

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## Shortround6 (Nov 25, 2013)

AS far as air to air combat goes, in both North Africa and in parts of the Pacific where there were both types, Spitfires were routinely used to fly top cover for P-40s. Which should tell us something about the P-40s ability to survive on it's own or to handle ALL the duties of an superiority fighter. The nickname "Kittybomber" should tell us something to. 

AS far as the there being no RNZAF aces with the Corsair, in order to be an ace you have to shoot down enemy airplanes, if the enemy has NO airplanes in area it is more than a little difficult to become an ace regardless of how good your airplane and pilots are. 

From wiki, open to correction,; "By the time the Corsairs arrived, there were virtually no Japanese aircraft left in New Zealand's allocated sectors of the Southern Pacific."

"The first squadrons to use the Corsair were 20 and 21 Squadrons on Espiritu Santo island, operational in May 1944"

" By late 1944, the F4U had equipped all 10 Pacific-based fighter squadrons of the RNZAF"

I would take exception to this sentence: "the P-40 was still a usefully employed front line fighter and its disadvantages that are often highlighted since were never cause for questioning of its abilities at the time." The P-40 was first ordered in 1939 as an interim fighter and none of the modifications in the next 4-5 years really changed that. The USAAC was issuing training manuals in 1943 on the P-40 telling student pilots training on the P-40 that they would fly something else in combat as the P-40 was no longer being issued to new fighter squadrons and existing squadrons were being changed over. 
The bulk (all?) of the Merlin powered P-40s were sent to North Africa and the Med because they were useless for Europe (and the Allison versions were worse) the Merlin Versions at least had a chance against the Italian aircraft and small numbers of German aircraft in theater or so the theory went. Allison powered versions went to the Pacific (still under estimating the Japanese?) in additoin to amking up number in NA and going to the Soviet Union and other allies (got to give them _something_ but NOT what our own squadrons really want) Please remember that it could take months for an aircraft to leave the factory in Buffalo NY before it saw action in a combat theater, allocations of aircraft were often made _before_ combat experience could be acquired in theater. 

The P-40 may be rugged, it may be pleasant/fun to fly, it may have a _few_ tricks it can play on other airplanes. That doesn't mean it was a first class fighter at anytime in it's career. It's pilots and ground crewmen deserve a lot of credit for using it as well as they did.

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## CobberKane (Nov 25, 2013)

I don't think the Kiwi Corsairs shot down a single Japanese aircraft, let alone produced any aces. After the USN had been through there was nothing left to shoot down. I don't think the Spitfire was ever considered as an RNZAF fighter, perhaps because in recognition of some of the factors that later made the P-40 a good choice, or more probably because they couldn't get them even if they wanted to. The RNZAF started out with Buffalos, but unsurprisingly were keen to upgrade. I believe the first choice was actually Hurricanes. These were also unavailable, though from the stirling work done by RAF Hurricanes in Burma as jacks of all trades, they would have been a sound choice. Eventually it was P-40s, which the Kiwis liked and did well with, and maybe the experience of being on the end of US supply lines was a factor in sticking with American Iron thereafter; F4Us and, post-war - Mustangs.


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## OldSkeptic (Nov 26, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> I would take exception to this sentence: "the P-40 was still a usefully employed front line fighter and its disadvantages that are often highlighted since were never cause for questioning of its abilities at the time." The P-40 was first ordered in 1939 as an interim fighter and none of the modifications in the next 4-5 years really changed that. The USAAC was issuing training manuals in 1943 on the P-40 telling student pilots training on the P-40 that they would fly something else in combat as the P-40 was no longer being issued to new fighter squadrons and existing squadrons were being changed over.
> The bulk (all?) of the Merlin powered P-40s were sent to North Africa and the Med because they were useless for Europe (and the Allison versions were worse) the Merlin Versions at least had a chance against the Italian aircraft and small numbers of German aircraft in theater or so the theory went. Allison powered versions went to the Pacific (still under estimating the Japanese?) in additoin to amking up number in NA and going to the Soviet Union and other allies (got to give them _something_ but NOT what our own squadrons really want) Please remember that it could take months for an aircraft to leave the factory in Buffalo NY before it saw action in a combat theater, allocations of aircraft were often made _before_ combat experience could be acquired in theater.
> 
> The P-40 may be rugged, it may be pleasant/fun to fly, it may have a _few_ tricks it can play on other airplanes. That doesn't mean it was a first class fighter at anytime in it's career. It's pilots and ground crewmen deserve a lot of credit for using it as well as they did.



Well said. The reason I mentioned the 109s before was that the P-40 could only exist, mainly as a fighter bomber, in a permissible environment. If there were a lot of 109s or Zeros (or their successors and upgrades) it could not survive. If there were none it could do a fair job (though getting high flying bombers would be beyond it, it could take out Stukas), if there were a few around it could still do a fair job, albeit with (as per NA) with appalling losses.

Oh it could dive, but before you dive you have to climb, which was not a strength. It was not that great a plane to fly, therefore, even with a very good pilot, it was hard to get the best out of it (though its best was not all that great anyway). Oh, yes it could out turn a 109 on the deck, but then again anything could, if one was silly enough to try it. Its controls were poorly harmonised. Sluggish in acceleration, low speed, poor altitude performance, awful climb, draggy as a Mack truck, fairly miserable mach limit (though that was not often a problem).

As for tough, maybe, depends how you determine that, if it was G limit a Spit could pull things that would rip a P-40's wings off and/or break its fuselage. If you mean pilot survivability, that was a function of armour, can't see much difference in the diagrams I've seen. If it was hits, it had to be since it was going to take a lot more..... and I'd like so see the evidence.

The Allison Mustang was totally superior in every way and, if the US had been more sensible, they would have shut the P-40 assembly lines and forced them to make more Mustangs.

Makes you wonder about Caldwell. Imagine if he had a decent plane in NA and the Med, just how many victories he would have got?

So as for the PTO, it was the same as the ETO. If there was much opposition around it got slaughtered. If there was none it could straff and bomb away and do a fair sort of a job, that an Allison Mustang could do far better.

Edited to add: Thinking about this some more, the US made some bad mistakes (as did the Germans, British, Japanese, etc in their own ways). 
NA was a small company, even though they went through massive expansion, forcing Curtiss to make Allison Mustangs would have been a real good idea. There is not a single measure that a P-40 is better than an Allison Mustang.
NA should have put a Merlin XX series into a Mustang ASAP and they also should have just put straight into reduction the Rolls Royce Mustang X, thus saving 6 months.

Therefore you would have had some numbers of Mustangs with better mid/high altitude performance very quickly (Merlin XXs). The very high performance Merlin 60 series Mustangs would have been available earlier.
And there would have been a lot of Allison Mustangs, red hot at low altitude with great range ... and doing a much better job than the P-40s from early 42 onwards.
Those, well documented, anti-Mustang Americans cost a lot of pilots lives (not theirs of course).

_"Curtiss-Wright shut down its entire Aeroplane Division and sold the assets to North American Aviation."_... would have been better for the Allies if it had happened sooner, much sooner, 1936 would have been a good year.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 26, 2013)

> I would take exception to this sentence: "the P-40 was still a usefully employed front line fighter and its disadvantages that are often highlighted since were never cause for questioning of its abilities at the time." The P-40 was first ordered in 1939 as an interim fighter and none of the modifications in the next 4-5 years really changed that.



Point taken SR, but what I meant was in RAAF and RNZAF service and what I stated about its reputation among its pilots stands. I have not found any that are disparaging about the aircraft. Point taken also about RNZAF Corsiars, too; not many Japanese fighters about, but they were in action against Japanese airfields, Rabaul in particular. There were 13 RNZAF Corsair squadrons during 1944 and 1945; No's 14 to 26, but not all of these reached the Pacific.



> I don't think the Spitfire was ever considered as an RNZAF fighter, perhaps because in recognition of some of the factors that later made the P-40 a good choice, or more probably because they couldn't get them even if they wanted to. The RNZAF started out with Buffalos, but unsurprisingly were keen to upgrade.



The RNZAF never operated Spitfires or Buffaloes. 485 and 488, which operated each type respectively were RAF units, not RNZAF, but you might be right about the Spitfire and difficulties of supply, Cobber. Part of the reason why the RNZAF went for P-40s was because of mutual agreements between New Zealand's Prime Minister Peter Fraser and Roosevelt; Fraser was smart enough to recognise that in time of war, this is prior to Pearl Harbour, America would be a better option for equipment purchases. The Kiwi P-40s were largely pulled from from RAF stocks.


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## CobberKane (Nov 26, 2013)

> [
> _"Curtiss-Wright shut down its entire Aeroplane Division and sold the assets to North American Aviation."_... would have been better for the Allies if it had happened sooner, much sooner, 1936 would have been a good year.


[/QUOTE]

Hard to see anything a P-40 could do better than an P-51A, except maybe take bullets, which is not much of a recommendation when its performance deficit meant it would be taking more anyway. Ditto to a lesser degree for the Spitfire below 10000ft, but it had attitude capability of course. Maybe Hawker should have been ordered to scrap the Hurricane and start making Spits! But then, they had the Typhoon in the wings, which was supposed to complement the Spit but ended up as a sort of super-P51A. The vagaries of war...


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## wuzak (Nov 26, 2013)

nuuumannn said:


> Fraser was smart enough to recognise that in time of war, this is prior to Pearl Harbour, America would be a better option for equipment purchases. The Kiwi P-40s were largely pulled from from RAF stocks.



Was that part of Lend-Lease?

The RAF giving the RNZAF and RAAF aircraft it didn't want for itself.


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## OldSkeptic (Nov 26, 2013)

Yes, people are funny, doctrine and dogma and self interest always seem to rule the day. The numbers that can actually examine evidence and change their minds quickly are miniscule. The numbers that can do that and also care about the people in the front line can be counted on one hand.

Yes, Hawker. Old Camm was quite a political player, not quite as bad as Messerschmitt, but he got his way pretty often. Very good at promising the earth and not delivering and denigrating the 'other' manufacturers' products. He even once promised a 430mph Hurricane .. but even MAP by that time had got wise to his nonsense (hint: you could strap a V2 rocket on a Hurricane and not get to 430mph).

Again, loke all his type, got a lot of pilots killed by wasting Merlin XXs in a vain attempt to wring more speed out of a Hurricane, still slugs whatever you did.

And stuck in his ways. The Typhoon actually used fabric and tubes for part of its construction (and a thick wing) just like the Hurricane ... and the previous bi-plane Fury. All that 'monocoque' and thin wings nonsense, he didn't like it. Finally extracted the digit with the Tempest series (also late) and did something he almost never did .. listen to some of his younger and more talented experts. Not that they got any credit.
Very modern manager, all praise went upwards, all blame downwards, only when facing disaster did he change.
You have guessed I am not a big fan of Camm, must have been terrible to work for him, but he knew how to play the game ....just like the Curtiss management, who were quite happy to keep producing rubbish for ages, paid the bills after all.

Now think about it, after the Mustang came along, with all their resources Curtiss could have done a crash program to improve the P-40 significantly (ah lah a Typhoon to Tempest like job). Maybe not quite as good as the Mustang, but still far better than what it was.
Did they? Not a chance. I'm sure, for some of the senior management, the awful losses, in their minds ... meant more orders. Cynical, sure, but I'd bet heaps that some of them thought that way.

We tend to see on this forum people arguing about the technicalities .. without examining the doctrines, the ideologies, the dogma, the self interests and of course the people ... that created the technicalities.

Why did Supermarine and North American produce such great designs, while Hawker and Curtiss didn't ... and more especially didn't change them very quickly after they got the evidence in?

This applies to all sides of course. Just been reading a book and the 109G's ailerons were actually worse than the 109E's, elevator still horrible and even then no rudder trimmer and also made the visibility even worse????? Now how can you pull that one off.....


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## wuzak (Nov 26, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> Hard to see anything a P-40 could do better than an P-51A



It had availability. P-51As not becoming available before 1942?




CobberKane said:


> Maybe Hawker should have been ordered to scrap the Hurricane and start making Spits!



The problem was the loss of production that would have caused. The RAF needed aircraft, and switching from the Hurricane to the Spitfire would have cost too much production.




CobberKane said:


> But then, they had the Typhoon in the wings, which was supposed to complement the Spit but ended up as a sort of super-P51A. The vagaries of war...



The Tornado/Typhon were intended to replace the Spitfire and Hurricane. As it tunred out, the Typhoon was unable to do that.


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## wuzak (Nov 26, 2013)

OldSkeptic said:


> Now think about it, after the Mustang came along, with all their resources Curtiss could have done a crash program to improve the P-40 significantly (ah lah a Typhoon to Tempest like job). Maybe not quite as good as the Mustang, but still far better than what it was.
> Did they? Not a chance. I'm sure, for some of the senior management, the awful losses, in their minds ... meant more orders. Cynical, sure, but I'd bet heaps that some of them thought that way.



To be fair, Curtiss tried.

They either failed (XP-46) or had the program cancelled (XP-53/XP-60).

The also developed the XP-40Q - too little, too late, however.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 26, 2013)

On January 1942, Curtiss have had the contract in their pockets to build P-47s (designated P-47G), and built only ~350 pieces in 1.5 years! They lost a contract for 4220 of P-47s on May 1944.
Contrary to that, Republic have had the brand new factory from ground-up in mere 6 months in Evansville, Indiana, 1st P-47s rolling out a few days before the factory was completed. Seems to me that they should've opted for two birds in the hand (P-47G), rather to go for two birds on the roof (P-46/P-60).

To be honest, the P-40 with 2-stage V-1710 looks to me as a better bet than P-63.


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## Elmas (Nov 26, 2013)

OldSkeptic said:


> .................
> This applies to all sides of course. Just been reading a book and the 109G's ailerons were actually worse than the 109E's, elevator still horrible and even then no rudder trimmer and also made the visibility even worse????? Now how can you pull that one off.....



While I agree on your post, it must be said that the Me109G required much less manpower hours to be assembled than Me109E......


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## wuzak (Nov 26, 2013)

The XP-53/XP-60 programe pre-dated the P-47G program.

The XP-53 was cancelled because its engine (the IV-1430) was not going to be ready when needed. The XP-60 was the XP-53 with a V-1650-1 Merlin. Two other XP-60 versiosn were to have turbocharged Allisons. One with the GE type, on with a different type. The installtion of the former was deemed poor and not flight worthy, and the second type was experimental and didn't go into production.

Curtiss were allowed to contune devlopment, culminating in the XP-60E, powered by an R-2800.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 26, 2013)

The XP-53 indeed pre-dated the P-47G contract. The early XP-60 was also earlier, the later ones (eg. the XP-60A, the one with turbo V-1710, or especially the XP-60s with 2-stage R-2800) were running late vs. P-47G. Curtiss also continued the work on the XP-62 even after the initial contract was cancelled; quote from Joe Baugher's excellent site:



> Proposals were submitted on January 13, 1942 for 100 production P-62 fighters, the first of which was to be delivered in May of 1943. A letter contract for 100 P-62s was approved on May 25, 1942. However, the contract was terminated by the Army on July 27, 1942 since it was feared that production of the new P-62 would have adversely affected deliveries of critically-needed Curtiss-built P-47G Thunderbolts.
> Even though no production of the P-62 was envisaged, work on the XP-62 continued.
> ...
> The following performance figures are manufacturer's estimates, since only limited flight testing of the XP-62 took place. Maximum speed: 448 mph at 27,000 feet, 358 mph at 5000 feet. Normal range: 900 miles. Maximum range: 1500 miles.



We could put some blame to the USAF here, too, for encouraging the Curtiss to mess with their own 390-420 mph fighters (XP-60A/C/D/E), plus the XP-55 (pusher), instead of ordering them to channel more effort to sort out the P-47 production.


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## pattle (Nov 26, 2013)

The RAF was replacing it's Hurricanes with P47s towards the end of the war in Burma and I think from what we saw of the P47 in Burma it was the best choice.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 26, 2013)

tomo pauk said:


> We could put some blame to the USAF here, too, for encouraging the Curtiss to mess with their own 390-420 mph fighters (XP-60A/C/D/E), plus the XP-55 (pusher), instead of ordering them to channel more effort to sort out the P-47 production.



This seems to be a persistent myth that Curtiss was content to sit back fat, dumb and happy and try to rake in profits in the 1940s from a 1935 design. Curtiss ( or Curtiss-Wright) had 14 different airframe Projects (not counting engine swaps) between the P-40 and 1945. Fighters, dive bombers, trainers, transports, float planes. Seems like a lot of effort for company that was fat, dumb and happy 
Now management may have been less than the best and maybe they were spread too thin or other problems But lack of effort or lack of trying new things doesn't seem to be the problem. 
As far as the engine division goes they were trying to maximize profits, they didn't want to licence other companies to build C-W products but wanted the new satellite plants to build parts to be assembled in C-W shops. P&W on the other hand was more than willing to licence production to factories owned or operated by car companies and take a dollar an engine royalty ( and waived that at times). However the US did have limited resources in some areas and one of them was in the number of competent management teams for such projects. Several car companies declining to open (staff) government funded factories because they were running out of managers. I don't know if this was a Curtiss-Wright problem or not. There was an awful lot of turn over in the aircraft industry in WW II. The US did NOT order workers to stay at one factory and if you had your choice of working in Buffalo NY in the winter (sometimes outside) (Curtiss and Bell) or in Southern California ( North American, Douglas, Lockheed-Vega) where would you go?

BTW on XP-62 " Because it would be an effective testbed for dual-rotation propellers and a pressurized cabin, it was decided on 18 July 1942 to proceed with a sole airframe, the remaining machines on order being cancelled." So Curtiss was not proceeding on their own after the production series was canceled.


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## tomo pauk (Nov 26, 2013)

> Shortround6 said:
> 
> 
> > This seems to be a persistent myth that Curtiss was content to sit back fat, dumb and happy and try to rake in profits in the 1940s from a 1935 design. Curtiss ( or Curtiss-Wright) had 14 different airframe Projects (not counting engine swaps) between the P-40 and 1945. Fighters, dive bombers, trainers, transports, float planes. Seems like a lot of effort for company that was fat, dumb and happy
> ...


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## Shortround6 (Nov 26, 2013)

I didn't think you were saying that but you were replying to a post that expressed something along those lines. Sorry for the confusion.

I don't know why Curtiss produced so few P-47s, it took about one year (or a bit less) form the contract date to rolling out the first one which doesn't actually seem too bad. It is the slow production after that is the puzzle. So far most online sources gloss over it with a sentence or two and provide no real answer. Boeing built Douglas A-20s in 1940/41 When B-17 orders didn't fill the Boeing factory. Lockheed's Vega Division built B-17s and so on, building other peoples aircraft wasn't a new concept to the US aviation industry. Even Grumman and Brewster sub contracted to each other in the lean days of the late 1930s. 
In some cases the awarding of a contract could be decided on a company's past performance, making your main customer angry by late/slow deliveries is certainly no way to get future contracts. Perhaps Curtiss just bit off more than they could chew? 

Thing with the work force was to point out that the work force (especially it's ability) could fluctuate. even if hundreds left every month hundreds more could/would be hired but the constant retraining was a drain ( Allison and many other companies had the same problem) and it just wasn't production workers that moved around. designers, engineers and managers also moved around. Don Berlin Himself started at Douglas, then moved to Northrop after 6-7 years, then moved to Curtiss after a few more and by 1942 was working for the Fisher div of General Motors, He left them in 1947 and went to McDonald. 5 Companies in 20 years and this was not uncommon in the 20's, 30's and 40's. Jack Northrop had gone through 6 companies ( 3 of them started by him) by 1940. 
Without specific details it seems that the slow production of the P-47s is being answered by a lot of speculation. But anybody who had been in the aviation business for more than a few months in the mid/late 30s knew you couldn't stay in business selling old models of airplanes. Things were changing too quick. Going from no flaps to split flaps to slotted flaps and Fowler flaps to double slotted flaps took about 10 years for one example. 

Companies might do design studies on their own but actually cutting metal on an unapproved plane took a _LOT_ of guts and engines and propellers were gov furnished equipment and getting engines/propellers for unapproved projects ( there was NO commercial market for such items during the war, airliner engine deliveries were subject to government approval) would be late or non-existent unless you could convince the Army or Navy of the merits of the project _before_ the engine/s were delivered.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 26, 2013)

> The RAF giving the RNZAF and RAAF aircraft it didn't want for itself.



Or rather could afford to do without by 1942/43.



> The P-40 may be rugged, it may be pleasant/fun to fly, it may have a few tricks it can play on other airplanes. That doesn't mean it was a first class fighter at anytime in it's career.



So, we're agreed then? The P-40 wasn't _better _than the Spitfire in the PTO?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 26, 2013)

nuuumannn said:


> So, we're agreed then? The P-40 wasn't _better _than the Spitfire in the PTO?



Well, unless somebody can come up with a bunch of examples of P-40s flying top cover for P-40s _after_ the Spitfires were based near/with them


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## stona (Nov 26, 2013)

I quite like the P-40 but the Spitfire was a better fighter. 
I'm not convinced that it's geographic position at any particular time makes the slightest difference and nothing I've read here has given me cause for a second thought 
Cheers
Steve

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## parsifal (Nov 26, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> Great things were expected of the Spitfire when it arrived in Darwin. Already a legend due to its role in the Battle of Britain the Spit, it was hoped, would be the fighter that really showed those pesky Zeros and Oscars what's what. It it never really happened, but today the Spitfire is still a legend whereas the Curtis P-40, which did far more to halt the Japanese air forces, has largely slipped from common memory. I would go so far to suggest that the P-40 was a better fighter in the PTO than the Spitfire could ever be for the following reasons.
> 
> 1. It was tougher. The P-40 might have been the toughest liquid cooled single engine fighter of the war, in terms of it's capacity for withstanding battle damage. For all its virtues, no one would ever say that of the Spitfire.
> 2. With the exception of flat out speed, whatever the Spitfire could do better than the Zero or Oscar the P-40 could do better again. The weakness of the Japanese fighters was always their sluggish high speed handling, particularly in a dive. The The P-40 could out-dive and out-roll the Spitfire at speed, giving it a greater degree of superiority in these respects. The Spitfire could of course turn tighter and out-accelerate the P-40, but as the Zero was easily better than either of them these performance parameters were of limited use.
> ...



It certainly was expected that the Darwin Wing would do great things, and it is certainly true that in general it did not live up to expectations. The extent to which this can be blamed on the Spitfire, however is a very disputable claim to make.

Firstly though, lets put the P-40s achievements into perspective. In all TOs, throughout the war, it is now credited with about 1500 victories. The US post war wash up on claims prepred around 1946, gave it credit for 1320 victories in the pacific (from memory). That figure has been severely slashed downward since that initial wash up report. It might be responsible for half that number in the PTO. 

For the RAAF, there is a very accurate report that places about 180 victories (again from memory) at the feet of our P-40s. Thats a very modest total by any standards.

Over darwin, the Spitfire Wing was meant to be the best of the best in the RAAF, but in fact it was a bit of a hasty lash up, and suffered badly from its leaderships insistence on using the wrong tactics. Men like Caldwell had done very well against the Germans using manouvre tactics against the Germans, but these hard won lessons in the ETO were absolutely the wrong tactics to use against the japanese. it took some time to unlearn these combat expereiences.

Moreover, over Darwin, the Australians really were up against the best of the best. The Japanese air wing they faced was largely undiluted in quality as the air wings over New Guinea had been diluted, and this skill showed.

Energy tactics were the way to go against the Zero, and whilst the p-40 was supeior to the Spit in certain resects, in other respects it was decidely inferior. the Spit was more manouverable and had a better climb rate. It is not relevant to compare the p-40 dive rate to the Spitfire dive rate. all that was needed was for both to be better than the Zero. and both were better. so, it was what to do with that advantage and when to use it that mattered, not that one might or might do something better than another fighter fighting on the same side. 

Usualkly, the allied fighters would get the altitude advantage (something the P-40 struggled with) dive through the Japanese, and then do a tight turn at high speed at the bottom of that dive as the zero attempted to follow. The critical bit was the turn at the bottom of the dive and the speed of theaircraft at that point. the Spit could undertake those elements of the standard manouvre better than the P-40. But if your air group is not using those tactics in the first place, and sntead are trying to outmanouvre a known dog fighter....probably the best in the world at that time, then the results should come as no surprise. 

The Spit was less durable than the P-40, but not in the sense of being a dogfighter. this counted in rough strip handling, and ground support roles, but counted for little in a dogfight with a 20mm armed enemy. If a P-40 was hit by a cannon burst, it would behave little differently to a spit, i would suggest.

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## nuuumannn (Nov 26, 2013)

> Well, unless somebody can come up with a bunch of examples of P-40s flying top cover for P-40s after the Spitfires were based near/with them



Well then. That settles it! 

Stranger things have happened; on the day the RAF Museum's Dornier was shot down (by a Defiant, no less), 1 (Canadian) Sqn Hurricanes sped off to attack a formation of Heinkels, whilst 264 with its Defiants were left to tackle the Bf 109 escorts. 264 lost three Defiants and claimed six Do 17s and a single Bf 109. We know they got at least one Dornier that day!


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## CobberKane (Nov 26, 2013)

> The Spit was less durable than the P-40, but not in the sense of being a dogfighter. this counted in rough strip handling, and ground support roles, but counted for little in a dogfight with a 20mm armed enemy. If a P-40 was hit by a cannon burst, it would behave little differently to a spit, i would suggest.


[/QUOTE]

This at least seems to be something of a stretch. The Spitfire did not have a reputation for being fragile, but neither did it share the P-40s reputation for soaking up damage. As I mentioned earlier, this appears in line with fact that the P-40 was simply a bigger aircraft with much of it's weight in design features like a five spar wing, a feature the Soviets occasionally took advantage of in ramming LW aircraft. The radiator of the P-40, the achilles heel of any inline fighter, was also arguably better positioned to survive fire from the rear, the direction most attacks came from. Before any roaming climate change deniers leap in yelling 'prove it' - I can't, anymore than I can 'prove' the P-47 was more battle resistant than the Spitfire. I can only go on the preponderance of the surviving opinion from the men who flew it and the structure of the aircraft themselves.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 26, 2013)

You're right about that, Cobber; I agree. The P-40 had very good survivability.



> Before any roaming climate change deniers leap in yelling 'prove it'



Its all a fallacy, I tell you! A fallacy!


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## CobberKane (Nov 27, 2013)

Now here's something interesting. I found this post on a gamers forum - not the most reliable source of data, except that in this case the post is largely a transcript of an RAAF comparison of the Kittyhawk and Spitfire V as flown over Darwin. It makes for some surprising reading

RAAF comparition of P-40 vs Spitfire V | Forums

The RAAF found that the Spitfire was far more manoeuvrable at all altitudes and also climbed better, which no-one questioned. It also found the Kittyhawk was _far better _in roll and dive, which some people did. The Kittyhawk was also acknowledged as handling dirt runways better although the Spit had a shorter take off run. 
Now the surprising bits. The Kittyhawk was faster up to 16000 ft and accelerated better than the Spitfire, even in level flight. Yes, I know: "Ïf the Spitfire didn't have the Volkes filter..." But it did - these are the aircraft used over Darwin, tested by the airforce that flew them, not "what ifs". In dogfights up to 16000 ft the Kittyhawk was at least the equal of the Spitfire, with the added advantage that it could engage and disengage at will, largely due to its superior roll and dive. At these altitudes it was therefore regarded as the better fighter. The Spitfire was regarded as the better fighter overall due largely to ease of flight - this assessment was apparently a reflection of the performance in the air and did not take into account factors such as fighter-bombing duties or serviceability.
Perhaps the humble P-40 deserves a bit more respect?


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## wuzak (Nov 27, 2013)

The report recommended removing the filters for operations. Did this happen?

And again, if the roll was such an issue they could have ordered the clipped wing tip kits. They would have lost a bit of climb performance, but they had advantage over the P-40 in spades. The question is whether or not it had the advantage over the Zero.

It's not that surprising that the P-40 was faster at lower altitudes - that's where the engine worked its best, whereas the Spitfire's engine worked better 6-8000ft higher.

The conclusion of the report was still that the Spitfire be preferred for operations.

Also, would be interesting to know what the condition of the two aircraft was - my understanding is that the RAAF Mk Vs were war weary aircraft, not newly built ones.


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## CobberKane (Nov 27, 2013)

I guess we could approach it from two angles; that the RAAF got it wrong, failing to realise that the Volkes filter was un-needed and could be dumped, or that clipping the spits wingtips would allow the Spit to roll (and dive) with the 'far better' P-40, or that they didn't notice they were comparing a clapped out Spitfire to a hot rod Kittyhawk, or any number of other speculative reasons why the Spit didn't ace the P-40 like it should have. Or we could assume that the RAAF knew what they were doing, and the P-40 had its own attributes that made it every bit the equal of the Spitfire up to 16000 ft. Personally I've found that the simple explanation is usually the right one.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 27, 2013)

Now if the Japanese had co-operated and flown their raids at 15,000-20,000ft we might not be having this discussion. But they didn't. 

And what was one reason the P-40 was a _successful_ fighter bomber in New Guinea? Perhaps the Spitfires fly top cover for them? 

BTW the Volkes filter gets more than it's share of blame, The Australians did try pulling a few of them. Trouble is that when you pull the Volkes filter you need a whole new bottom cowl panel which the Australians didn't have so they had to try to fabricate them. Results turn out to be about 5-10mph speed difference between the Volkes filter and the local cowl panels.


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## wuzak (Nov 27, 2013)

This report was done before they went operational (AFAIK).

There was a recommendation to remove the Vokes filter. I simply ask if that recommendation was acted upon.

As for the rolling, they didn't seem too perturbed by it, since they, apparently, didn't recommend the change to clipped wing tips. Which would have improved that aspect of performance, and was a simple thing to implement, providing they could get (or make) the parts.

And since the Zeroes were rolling in at 25k ft, does it really matter that the P-40 could break of an engagement with a Spitfire at 16k?


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## wuzak (Nov 27, 2013)

I'm sure the Vokes filter would have affected the dive performance as well as the top speed. Since it produced drag.

It also comes ack to an earlier decision made by the MAP. They put the Merlin XX in the Hurricane in hopes of getting some benefit, and bypassed the Spitfire III in favour of the V. The V was basically a II with a Merlin 45, while the III had the Merlin XX and was tidied up a bit aerodynamically.


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## Shortround6 (Nov 27, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> I guess we could approach it from two angles; that the RAAF got it wrong, failing to realise that the Volkes filter was un-needed and could be dumped, or that clipping the spits wingtips would allow the Spit to roll (and dive) with the 'far better' P-40, or that they didn't notice they were comparing a clapped out Spitfire to a hot rod Kittyhawk, or any number of other speculative reasons why the Spit didn't ace the P-40 like it should have. Or we could assume that the RAAF knew what they were doing, and the P-40 had its own attributes that made it every bit the equal of the Spitfire up to 16000 ft. Personally I've found that the simple explanation is usually the right one.



I think you are reading what you want into that report. "the P-40 had its own attributes that made it every bit the equal of the Spitfire up to 16000 ft. " is not stated in the report is it? Nearly equal may be more like. While the P-40 can _ keep from being shot down_ in the four different test combats it also cannot dominate the Spitfire at any time. Just like the superior turn of the Hurricane the "diving away" is a defensive move that leaves the battlefield to the opponent. Not bad in a one on one dual but of questionable effectiveness for either a bomber interceptor or bomber interceptor. 

Quote " Combat 4 - Commence at 16,000ft (height advantage to Spitfire) and lasted 11 minutes. Spitfire pounced on Kittyhawk and attempted to gain a position on tail. Kittyhawk used speed advantage in first level flight and then shallow dive to gain separation and then climb for advantage. Spitfire countered by climbing hard. Gaining advantage Spitfire used climb and dive tactics to force the Kittyhawk to make repeated diving breaks to avoid. At 7,000ft Kittyhawk used superior roll rate to scissor behind the Spitfire, who countered with steep climb. Kittyhawk then used speed advantage to again gain separation and fight was broken off."

Notice that the Spitfires climb can be used _in combat_ and not just to get to altitude for the intercept. Also in 3 of the 4 test fights the P-40 broke off the combat by diving away leaving the area to the Spitfire. While the Spitfire may not have established a dicisive advantage or "scored" shoot downs it doesn't look like the P-40 was "every bit the equal" to me.


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## CobberKane (Nov 27, 2013)

> I think you are reading what you want into that report. "the P-40 had its own attributes that made it every bit the equal of the Spitfire up to 16000 ft. " is not stated in the report is it? Nearly equal may be more like.



The report says "Thus, in combat up to 16,000ft, _the Kittyhawk has the distinct advantage _in that the pilot can commence the fight and discontinue it at will." (my italics) You interpret this as 'nearly equal"- and I'm reading what I want into the report?
Re this P-40 only achieving it's reputation as a fighter bomber courtesy of top cover from Spitfires, I guess that explains it's lousy air to ground performance in China, where Spits weren't there to look after it.


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## wuzak (Nov 27, 2013)

It's always nice to break from combat (ie run away) whenever it suits you. But if you can't get into an winning position against an enemy invading your airspace, what good is that?


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## wuzak (Nov 27, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> Re this P-40 only achieving it's reputation as a fighter bomber courtesy of top cover from Spitfires, I guess that explains it's lousy air to ground performance in China, where Spits weren't there to look after it.



What was the opposition like in China? Compared with North Africa.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 27, 2013)

> my understanding is that the RAAF Mk Vs were war weary aircraft, not newly built ones.



Actually, they weren't. That's another misconception about the Spit Vs or 'Capstans' as they were named for secrecy reasons. They were on the whole, new aircraft with a few exceptions. For example, the first arrivals in Australia were made in October 1942; among these was F.VC BS158 (A58-11, although not all the Aussie Spits wore their Aussie serials), which first flew on 16 June 1942, went to 39 MU on the 18th, then 46MU on the 8th July, then was loaded aboard ship on the 30th before arriving in Australia on 18th October. The last Mk.V delivered to the RAAF was MH646, which was the last Mk.V built at Castle Bromwich; it went to a couple of MUs, the first on 31 July 1943 before being loaded aboard ship for Aussie on 20th August and arriving in Australia on 16 November '43.

One among many minor issues that was discovered on arrival was that the Spitfires had many differences among them. Some had metal control surfaces, some had metal covered in fabric and some had wooden ones covered in fabric. There was also differences in radiator fits among them (apparently some Mk.Vs had bigger underwing radiators for tropical use - I'd not heard of this beforehand), so some overheated faster than others.

The interesting thing about the report is that despite such tests, the RAAF initially had a hard time against the Japanese because of the tactics it used, attempting to mix it with the Zeros, which was a costly mistake, so if wuzak is right and the report was made before the Spitfires entered service it proved to be of no value at all in combatting the Japanese. It would be interesting to make a similar comparison between the Spit VIII and the P-40.

By the way, it's a _Vokes_ filter, not 'Volkes' as written in the article.


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## CobberKane (Nov 27, 2013)

> What was the opposition like in China? Compared with North Africa.



It seems a good comparison - tropical country (in those regions) similar opposing aircraft perhaps somewhat more formidable in that the Tojo and Frank made limited appearances - but then the P-40s and Spits in New Guinea also had to deal with the Tony. Mostly the P-40s flew fighter bomber missions and contended with Ki-43s. As for much of the time they were the only US fighters around, they provided their own top cover and did fine. I've recently read a book about the theatre and the combat accounts did not generally mention any great numerical advantages one way or the other.
If I had both Spit Vs and P-40's to use on a fighter bomber mission, the allocation of roles would be a no brainer - P-40s for the grunt work and Spits for top cover, because the P-40 with its longer range, better bomb load and tougher construction make it a better fighter bomber. The Spit would get the top job not because it is the better air to air weapon at these altitudes - the RAAF comparison indicates it was not - but because the P-40 is the better ground pounder.
In regards to the Spit's undoubted superiority over both the P-40 and the Zero at altitude; the Japanese bombed Darwin from high altitude not because they liked the view, but because they had to. Darwin had a good early warning system (Coastwatchers?) and if the Japanese came in much below 20000 ft even the P-40s could wheeze their way to an altitude advantage, as they often did . Thus the P-40s can take a piece of the credit for at least limiting the damage before the Spits arrived to carry on the fight. Also, as the allies went more and more on the offensive, the Spits altitude prowess would have been increasingly less relevant. The allies predominantly bombed low, where the Spit V was no more capable than the P-40 in the air to air role and lacked the range as an escort.
Spit VIII v P-40? The VIII was a big jump forward from the V and a better air to air weapon than the P-40 just about everywhere. Maybe in roll and perhaps dive there might have been some advantage but the Spit was so much better everywhere else it would make no difference. I wouldn't be risking my pretty Spits in the jabo role though - still plenty of rusty old P-40s around for that.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 27, 2013)

> I wouldn't be risking my pretty Spits in the jabo role though - still plenty of rusty old P-40s around for that.



Precisely the point. The RAAF didn't bother in 1942 - 45, so why would you? You also have not mentioned that there were fewer Spitfires in theatre than there were P-40s and _again_ you are not taking into account the clear definition the roles each type served in the RAAF.



> The allies predominantly bombed low, where the Spit V was no more capable than the P-40 in the air to air role and lacked the range as an escort.



A bit irrelevant because as a fighter, regardless of what altitude your bombers are at, height is a precious asset. Not only that but the Spitfire could get to height faster than the P-40.


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## parsifal (Nov 27, 2013)

Most will know the basic story of the Churchill Wing, but for those who dont, here is a version I agree with. I should preface this by saying there are many revisionist challenges to this conventional account, Ive even had it seriously argued that the Spits did not achieve a single victoy in 6 month of fighting. I reject those anglophobic rebuttals, for at least the reason that the Japanese in the TO were forced to abandon their daylight offensive, and this was due, mostly, to losses they were suffering. I think the following is a better, more accurate summation, but its up to each member to decide for themsleves. 

Preliminary note. The losses mentioned here are "claimed" losses. Even today there is hot debate and disagreement about actual Japanese losses. 

On the 6th Feb '43 the Spitfires of the "Churchill" Wing drew first blood, shooting down a Ki-46 Dinah recce bomber, but it was to be the 2nd Mar that they first faced Zeros. 21 A6Ms of the 202nd Kokutai escorted 9 G4M Bettys on a raid against Darwin. 20 miles off the coast, low on fuel, a flight of 6, 54 squadron Mk Vc Spitfires caught the raiders. A swift, confused, 8 minute dogfight ensued. Both sides claimed to have shot down several enemys, but in fact only one Spitfire and two Zeros were damaged. 
Wg Cdr Caldwell noted that in tight, 160 mph turns, the Zero didn't get dangerously close until after the Spitfires' speed had begun to wash off after the second turn. He "easily evaded" the Zero with a downward break.

On the 15th Mar '43, returning from night ops and with their oxygen supply depleted, 452 sqn attacked a force of 50 Japanese aircraft, split evenly between fighters and bombers. Four Spitfires were lost, but four Zeros were shot down, three of the bombers destroyed and a further seven Japanese aircraft were damaged. It was a cold comfort, two of the Spitfire pilots downed were killed, including seven 'kill' ace Sqn Ldr Thorold-Smith, 452s CO.

On the 2nd May'43 another 50 'plane Japanese raid was met by all 33 of the Wings operational fighters. In a gruelling twenty five minute running battle the Spitfires had five of their number shot down, but took ten enemy aircraft in return, with many more damaged. However, a further ten Spitfires were lost to fuel shortages and mechanical failures! The press release from Gen. MacArthurs office stated they had suffered a "severe reverse". With no way of knowing how many of their damaged foes made it back to base there was no way to refute the report. Mud sticks. When the air war over Darwin is mentioned today, the loss of 15 Spitfires for just 10 enemy aircraft inevitably surfaces. Usually with an inevitable analysis about the accuracy of the 10 claimed by the Australians. Because the claimed Japanese losses does not inlude their "failed to return" losses and the Australian admitted losses do, it is not a valid comparson to compare admitted Australian losses to estimated Japanese losses. In terms of claims, the Spits lost 5 aircraft whilst claiming 10. If the overclaiming by the RAAF is consistent with the wartime norms, one can pretty estimate actual losses at about 8 aircraft during the combat. We don’t know how many were lost in the flight home. 

On 9th May '43 Spitfires operating out of a satelite field claimed two Zeros and damaged a third. The RAAF admitted the loss of a Spitfire in a landing accident. 

28 May '43 six Spitfires met thirteen Japanese aircraft. They lost two fighters (one to fuel shortage), but claimed shot down two bombers and a third damaged.

It apparent that something happened in the Australian camp after the 28 May engagement. I don’t have specific proof as such, but the loss exchange rate fundamentall
Changed from that date, as the following account shows

20th June '43 the JAAF dispatched 30 bombers and 22 Ki-43 Oscars. They were met by 46 Spitfires. RAAF claims were 9 bombers destroyed, 8 more damaged, 5 fighters were claimed shot down, 2 damaged without the Wing losing a single Spitfire.

28 June '43 a mixed bag of 18 Zeros and Bettys were bounced by 457 sqn. 3 Zeros were claimed destroyed, 2 bombers probably joined them, for no Australian loss.

30 June '43 Fenton, the base of the USAAF 380th BG, was attacked by 27 Bettys and 20 Zeros. 4 bombers were destroyed, 4 more probably destroyed, 3 Zeros were destroyed with 6 probables, for no Spitfires lost.

6 July '43 saw 26 bombers and 21 fighters being engaged by the Wing. 9 Japanese aircraft were destroyed, 2 Spitfires were shot down, but 6 more were lost to mechanical defects and fuel shortages again. I would put that down to a loss of flight discipline

The Japanese had finally had enough. They switched to night bombing. The Spitfires, almost 11,000 miles from their supporting factories, often heavily outnumbered and suffering from conditions that their desert fighters were never designed to cope with, had achieved the task Churchill set them. Yet here we are saying or claiming they were a failure. Im sorry, but I don’t make the connection. Far from being defeated by the Zeros, they doggedly ground them down until they could no longer support further attacks. How is that any different to the countless other battles the Spitfires (or for that matter the P-40s) found themselves in 1940-43. They might not have been the magic bullet an adoring public wanted, but skill, courage and a superb fighter carried the day

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## CobberKane (Nov 27, 2013)

nuuumannn said:


> Precisely the point. The RAAF didn't bother in 1942 - 45, so why would you? You also have not mentioned that there were fewer Spitfires in theatre than there were P-40s and _again_ you are not taking into account the clear definition the roles each type served in the RAAF.
> 
> 
> A bit irrelevant because as a fighter, regardless of what altitude your bombers are at, height is a precious asset. Not only that but the Spitfire could get to height faster than the P-40.



Re the first point; not sure what you mean here. The Spit V was there to be used, and top cover for the ground attacking P-40s is the obvious place for them as they did not have the ability of the P-40s in the ground pounding role. But if they _weren't_ there to be used the P-40s were just as effective air to air at these altitudes anyway, and could have been assigned to top cover themselves, as in China


The Spits RoC might have helped re-engage more quickly after following the accepted tactics of breaking off rather than dogfighting Japanese fighters, but then again the P-40 could disengage and extend more quickly. In the washout, the P-40 was as good air to air as the Spit at these altitudes. and better air to ground. Away from its high altitude capability, which was what was needed over Darwin for sure, what could the spit offer that the RAAF test indicates the P-40 couldn't do as well or better?


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## nuuumannn (Nov 27, 2013)

> what could the spit offer that the RAAF test indicates the P-40 couldn't do as well or better?



You're asking that question now? After this entire thread? You read one performance report and that's it? You ignore everything else?

Okay. Faster rate of climb, higher ceiling, having Spit squadrons means that P-40 units can be released for service abroad as GA/fighters whilst the Spits can be used for air defence, their forte. Need I go on and repeat myself that the RAAF bought the Spitfire for the role it was intended - as an interceptor _again_. At that time that trial was carried out the RAAF had not evolved tactics to deal with the Zero satisfactorily so regardless of which aircraft they used, until better tectics were evolved, the results would not have differed much. The Spit's altitude performance came into its own once hit and run tactics were brought in.


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## parsifal (Nov 27, 2013)

well according to a sumary of the no 2 OTU tests, the following observations can be made

The tests were conducted over 3rd to 5th of November 1942, at the No.2 Operational Training Unit in Mildura - a very hot dry open locale in western Victoria. Oversighting the tests was Wing Cmdr. Peter Jeffrey; the actual test pilots beng: 

Flying the P-40E - Flt. Lt. Arthur and Flt.Lt. Jackson.

Flying the Spitfire Mk.Vc - Flt. Lt. Foster and Flt Lt. Wawn.

All pilots involved were experienced combat pilots, with Arthur, Jeffrey, Foster and Jackson all being aces - Foster (9) flying Spitfires over Europe, Arthur (8) and Jeffrey's (6) flying P-40's in the Western Desert and Jackson (5) flying the P-40 against the Japanese over Port Moresby, New Guinea.

The results of the tests were as follows:

1. The Spitfire was fitted with a Volkes Filter

2. As the Spitfire was fitted with VHF, and the P-40 with HF, no R/T between them could be used.

3. The Spitfire tested suffered from negitive 'G' cutout, a typical Spitfire trait.

4. The Tests were carried out at heights between ground level and 20,000ft.

5. Results:

a) Spitfire had the greater rate of climb at all heights - the difference becoming greater as height increased above 13,000ft.
b) Spitfire is far more manoeuvrable at all heights.
c) Kittyhawk is faster in level speed from 0 to 16,000ft. Above 16,000ft Spitfire is faster and again the difference becomes greater as height increases. Estimated speed advantage of Kittyhawk up to 16,000ft: 0ft - 15mph; 12,000ft - 20 to 25mph; 16,000ft - 5 to 10mph.
d) Kittyhawk accelerates, both in dive and on increase of throttle on the level, far more quickly than the Spitfire.

6) Combat 1 - commenced at 13,000ft (equal height) and lasted for 5 to 7 minutes, in which time the fight was practically a stalemate. At the end of this period height was reduced to 4,000ft when the Kittyhawk pilots decided he had nothing to gain by staying and so broke off by diving away. Thus, in combat up to 16,000ft, the Kittyhawk has the distinct advantage in that the pilot can commence the fight and discontinue it at will. In such a combat the Kittyhawks tactics are to hit and run, and then come again.

7) Combat 2 - commenced at 20,000ft (equal height) and lasted less than 2 minutes. Spitfire quickly gained dominate position on the tail of the Kittyhawk and couldn't be shaken. Kittyhawk pilot broke off by diving away.

8) Combat 3 - Commenced at 16,000ft (height advantage to Kittyhawk) an lasted 14 minutes. Kittyhawk made repeated dive and zoom attacks with the Spitfire alternatively breaking hard to avoid and climbing for advantage where possible. Fight reduced to 9,000ft with neither pilot gaining a decisive advantage.

9) Combat 4 - Commence at 16,000ft (height advantage to Spitfire) and lasted 11 minutes. Spitfire pounced on Kittyhawk and attempted to gain a position on tail. Kittyhawk used speed advantage in first level flight and then shallow dive to gain separation and then climb for advantage. Spitfire countered by climbing hard. Gaining advantage Spitfire used climb and dive tactics to force the Kittyhawk to make repeated diving breaks to avoid. At 7,000ft Kittyhawk used superior roll rate to scissor behind the Spitfire, who countered with steep climb. Kittyhawk then used speed advantage to again gain separation and fight was broken off.

10) Visions - the vision in the Spitfire with the hood closed is better than the Kittyhawk, but it is a definte disadvantage that the hood cannot be opened at speeds above 160mph particulary when searching up-sun.

11) The flying characteristics of the Spitfire make it more suitable for Operations:
a) it is easier to fly.
b) Take-off run is much shorter and so could be operated from smaller landing grounds. Note - ithe Spitfire does not handle hard dirt strips as well as the Kittyhawk.
c) Mixture and boost are automatically controlled.
d) It is not necessary, as it is in the Kittyhawk, to alter rudder and elevator trims over great speed changes.

All these facts greatly reduce the pilot's problems and so increase his fighting efficiency.

The report concluded by recommending that as the large Volkes air filter on the Spitfire cost 20-30mph in top speed, it should be removed inoperational service - or at least an alternative found. Also mentioned was the effect of the Spitfires rough paint finish on performance but the general feeling of the report was that the Spitfire was perahps the better fighter, especially at altitude.

The report also mentioned being surprised at just how well the Kittyhawk managed to hold it's own against the Spitfire in combat, concluding that in combat against an opponet it highlights the importance of using one's aircraft strengths to advantage.


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## parsifal (Nov 27, 2013)

so the answer is....the Spitfire had strengths that the P-40 lacked, and vice versa. not shown in these tests is the firepower advantage of the Spit over the P-40


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## nuuumannn (Nov 27, 2013)

Yep, Parsifal I agree, but the _real_ answer to how the RAAF fighters would defeat the Japanese (which was the reason why the Spitfire was bought in the first place, not for comparison with the P-40) was, like Joe pointed out earlier; tactics, tactics, tactics...


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## CobberKane (Nov 27, 2013)

> You're asking that question now? After this entire thread? You read one performance report and that's it? You ignore everything else?
> 
> Okay. Faster rate of climb, higher ceiling, having Spit squadrons means that P-40 units can be released for service abroad as GA/fighters whilst the Spits can be used for air defence, their forte. Need I go on and repeat myself that the RAAF bought the Spitfire for the role it was intended - as an interceptor _again_. At that time that trial was carried out the RAAF had not evolved tactics to deal with the Zero satisfactorily so regardless of which aircraft they used, until better tectics were evolved, the results would not have differed much. The Spit's altitude performance came into its own once hit and run tactics were brought in


.

Nuuumaann, I'm not asking what the Spitfire offered compared to the P-40 in respect to particular aspects of it's performance. I know it offered better climb, and better turn and much better altitude capacity. As you say, that's why the RAAF bought it - as an interceptor. There those attributes were vital. In any other role the P-40 had attributes of it's own that enabled it to do the tasks required in the PTO itself. I asked "Away from its high altitude capability...what could the spit offer that the RAAF test indicates the P-40 couldn't do as well or better?" If someone can give me examples that happened - for instance, Spitfires being successful in intercepting raids where the P-40 would have been in its operating zone, but was too slow in the climb to contact the enemy - I'd like to hear. Faster rate of climb, higher ceiling are only as good as their application to the situation at hand, and according to the RAAF at 16000 ft or below these attributes did not confer any superiority over the Spitfire air to air.
Regarding my basing my opinion only on the RAAF report - yes, because it's the only report I've seen. If you have any conflicting reports from the people who flew these aircraft they would be very welcome.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 27, 2013)

But what difference does it make, Cobber? Like has been stated, until the RAAF changed its tactics against the Japanese, the points in the test were irrelevant, but for what its worth, the Spit had a greater rate of climb at all heights and was far more manoeuvrable at all heights. Points worth remembering and which any Spitfire pilot would take advantage of against a P-40, if any such combat was to take place.

Of interest, as an aside, in the original document written by Wg Cdr Peter Jeffrey, OC 2 OTU, Mildura, the Spitfire was referred to throughout the document as the Capstan and the original spelling of 'Vokes' was used.


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## wuzak (Nov 28, 2013)

The Spitfire in that test was a Vc. This would mean it was fitted, at least at some stage, with 4 x 20mm cannon.

We know that the cannon cost performance, due to extra drag. I assume that the 4 cannon Spits had even more drag penalty than the 2 cannon Spits.

Did the RAAF remove the outer cannon for operation service? Apparently the outer guns were unreliable because of inadequate heating, and woul dsometimes be removed.


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## nuuumannn (Nov 28, 2013)

> The Spitfire in that test was a Vc. This would mean it was fitted, at least at some stage, with 4 x 20mm cannon.



Wuzak, the Aussie VCs had the 'C' (or Universal) wing with the capacity to fit the two Hisso cannon in each wing, but it appears that almost (but not certain) all were fitted with the 'B' wing armament of a 20 mm cannon and two .303s in each wing. The second, nominally outboard cannon position was unoccupied. Since I've never seen any pics of Aussie VCs fitted with two cannon in each wing, I suspect this work was done at the MUs before the aircraft left the UK. I've also read that the vast majority of VCs built were, in fact fitted with the 'C' wing with 'B' wing armament.

Its interesting to note that in North Africa the Spit-bomber, based on the VC was actually quite successful and introduced by Keith Park himself; "The reason I introduced the Spit-bomber was that the enemy was ignoring our fighter sweeps over his aerodromes in the south of Sicily. I used Hurricane bombers at first and the enemy reacted by sending up his fighters to intercept. As a result of flying trials we found that the fitting of 2 x 250 lb bombs to the Spitfire slightly increased the take off run, but slowed down the rate of climb by about 10%. There was practically no difference in the speed at level flight, and in the dive the speed was increased owing to the higher wing loading."


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## nuuumannn (Nov 28, 2013)

> Away from its high altitude capability...what could the spit offer that the RAAF test indicates the P-40 couldn't do as well or better?" If someone can give me examples that happened - for instance, Spitfires being successful in intercepting raids where the P-40 would have been in its operating zone, but was too slow in the climb to contact the enemy - I'd like to hear.



This is patently obvious even without examples, Cobber. With a superior rate of climb at all altitudes to the P-40, the Spitfire could easily do this. In fact, if you re-read that assessment you will see that the only advantage the P-40 holds against the Spitfire in a combat situation is its faster dive speed. What advantage in a combat arena could this possess, except to escape?

Let’s look a scenario based on the information provided in this report. Scenario One: P-40 attacks Spitfire. P-40 at higher altitude than Spitfire initiates attack by diving toward the Spitfire. If the P-40 does not finish the Spitfire in its first pass, the P-40 has one of two options; either disengage by using its superior dive speed and outrunning the Spitfire, or turn back toward the Spitfire. Taking advantage of his aircraft’s superior climb rate, the Spitfire pilot could initiate a climb away from the P-40, which, once established in a climb, would find itself at a disadvantage since the higher it goes, the slower it gets. The Spitfire could maintain a higher rate of climb to altitude where it could then escape by speeding away, while the P-40 would struggle to catch the Spitfire at any height above 13,000 ft.

This leads to Scenario Two: Spitfire attacks P-40. At any altitude, the Spitfire could use its superior climb speed to draw the P-40 into chasing it. Once established in the climb the P-40 would begin to slow and lose energy, at which point the Spitfire could use its superior manoeuvrability and turn in toward the P-40. The P-40 would be at a considerable disadvantage as any attempt to turn away in a climb would result in either the Spitfire turning inside it and gaining a favourable firing position, or the P-40 stalling owing to a high angle of attack and speed loss. The only manoeuvre the P-40 could do in order to survive would be a bunt and dive away, but doing this whilst in the climb would result in a sudden loss of energy, which the Spitfire could capitalise on since it has the advantage of higher speed in the turn and subsequent dive toward the P-40, which would place it in a favourable firing position. The Spitfire’s cannon armament would come into its own in this scenario as the P-40 dived away.

In conclusion the only way the P-40 can defeat the Spitfire is a fast single pass dive from altitude. At any height, the Spitfire could use its superior climb rate to accelerate away from the P-40, or initiate a turning fight, where the Spitfire will gain the advantage owing to superior manoeuvrability.

The Imperial Japanese Navy pilots flying the Zero learned to defeat American fighters by luring them into a climb and turning in on them since the Zero’s low stalling speed enabled its pilots to manoeuvre when the American aircraft suffered a loss of control or the pilot lost concentration owing to following the Japanese fighter through his gun sight.


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## CobberKane (Nov 28, 2013)

> This is patently obvious even without examples, Cobber. With a superior rate of climb at all altitudes to the P-40, the Spitfire could easily do this. In fact, if you re-read that assessment you will see that the only advantage the P-40 holds against the Spitfire in a combat situation is its faster dive speed. What advantage in a combat arena could this possess, except to escape?



The report found that as well as being able to out-dive the Spitfire, below 16000ft the P-40 could out-roll it, out-accelerate it and was faster. These are not advantages in a combat situation?



> Let’s look a scenario based on the information provided in this report. Scenario One: P-40 attacks Spitfire. P-40 at higher altitude than Spitfire initiates attack by diving toward the Spitfire. If the P-40 does not finish the Spitfire in its first pass, the P-40 has one of two options; either disengage by using its superior dive speed and outrunning the Spitfire, or turn back toward the Spitfire. Taking advantage of his aircraft’s superior climb rate, the Spitfire pilot could initiate a climb away from the P-40, which, once established in a climb, would find itself at a disadvantage since the higher it goes, the slower it gets. The Spitfire could maintain a higher rate of climb to altitude where it could then escape by speeding away, while the P-40 would struggle to catch the Spitfire at any height above 13,000 ft.


 
Lets take a look at the same scenario playing out a different way. The Kittyhawk pilot is not 'lured' into climbing and discovers he does have options beyond diving away or turning back. He can make repeated attacks by booming and zooming while the Spitfire must break away and climb when it is able, which after quarter of an hour of combat is still not enough to enable it to turn the tables. Which is, of course, exactly what happened in the test. 



> This leads to Scenario Two: Spitfire attacks P-40. At any altitude, the Spitfire could use its superior climb speed to draw the P-40 into chasing it. Once established in the climb the P-40 would begin to slow and lose energy, at which point the Spitfire could use its superior manoeuvrability and turn in toward the P-40. The P-40 would be at a considerable disadvantage as any attempt to turn away in a climb would result in either the Spitfire turning inside it and gaining a favourable firing position, or the P-40 stalling owing to a high angle of attack and speed loss. The only manoeuvre the P-40 could do in order to survive would be a bunt and dive away, but doing this whilst in the climb would result in a sudden loss of energy, which the Spitfire could capitalise on since it has the advantage of higher speed in the turn and subsequent dive toward the P-40, which would place it in a favourable firing position. The Spitfire’s cannon armament would come into its own in this scenario as the P-40 dived away.



Or: Spitfire attacks P-40. Inconveniently P-40 again does not play to the Spifire's strengths by climbing or turning but annoyingly uses his speed and dive advantage to separate. Both aircraft climb for advantage, Spit being the better climber gets higher and initiates repeated boom and zooms, which the P-40 avoids by breaks, as the Spitfire did in scenario one. P-40 manages to use superior roll to get behind Spitfire, but Spitfire able to climb away. P-40 ends the fight by using its strengths to disengage. Which is what happened in the report



> In conclusion the only way the P-40 can defeat the Spitfire is a fast single pass dive from altitude. At any height, the Spitfire could use its superior climb rate to accelerate away from the P-40, or initiate a turning fight, where the Spitfire will gain the advantage owing to superior manoeuvrability.



An alternative conclusion, and the one reached when the aircraft were tested: Below 1600 ft the Kittyhawk is able to fight the Spitfire to a stalemate, and has the distinct advantage of being able to engage and disengage at will. 



> The Imperial Japanese Navy pilots flying the Zero learned to defeat American fighters by luring them into a climb and turning in on them since the Zero’s low stalling speed enabled its pilots to manouevre when the American aircraft suffered a loss of control or the pilot lost concentration owing to following the Japanese fighter through his gun sight.


[/QUOTE]

And the American fighters learned the hard way not to be lured in to climbing and turning fights, but to use their advantages in speed, dive and roll at speed to combat the Zero and Oscar successfully.

I suspect we might actually be at cross purposes here. I was asking what the Spitfire offers that the P-40 does not in terms of use in the PTO against a common enemy. I was not concerned with the specific advantages the aircraft have compared to each other


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## nuuumannn (Nov 28, 2013)

> The Kittyhawk pilot is not 'lured' into climbing and discovers he does have options beyond diving away or turning back. He can make repeated attacks by booming and zooming while the Spitfire must break away and climb when it is able, which after quarter of an hour of combat is still not enough to enable it to turn the tables.



Nope, read the report again. it stated the following: "Combat - commenced at 13,000 ft and lasted 5 - 7 minutes". In reality P-40 could only make one diving pass successfully. The P-40 pilot has a slower rate of climb to get back above the Spitfire, so do you think the Spitfire pilot would just fly straight and level while the P-40 pilot is dragging his arse back above it? Use your brains! The Spitfire pilot would initiate a climb away while the P-40 is entering a climb and the scenario I proposed would result.



> P-40 manages to use superior roll to get behind Spitfire



Not true. Here is a quote directly from the report: "The tests were carried out at all heights between ground level and 20,000 feet. Result: Capstan has greater rate of climb at *all* heights - difference becoming greater as height increses above 13,000 ft. Capstan is *far more manoeuvrable at all heights*"

Rolling is not going to get you behind an enemy aircraft, a superior turn rate will, however. Spitfire would not use boom and zoom, but a turning fight where the scenario I proposed would result _again_. The only thing the P-40 can do is break away and end the combat, but as I said, the Spitfire's cannon armament gives it advantage in range at which it can engage the P-40. 

Quote from the test; "Combat - commenced at 13,000 ft and lasted 5 - 7 minutes in which time fight was practically a stalemate." In reality any Spitfire pilot smart enough would climb above that altitude where its advantages come to the fore, leaving the P-40 floundering.



> Below 1600 ft the Kittyhawk is able to fight the Spitfire to a stalemate, and has the distinct advantage of being able to engage and disengage at will.



Not necessarily true in a realistic scenario, despite what the report states. At _any _altitude the Spitfire could out turn and outclimb the P-40, enabling _it_ to break off or initiate combat and any Spitfire pilot worth his smarts would take advantage of this. Like I said, how can a superior dive speed benefit in an attack if the only means of utilisng it is by diving away? If the object is to destroy the enemy aircraft, diving away is of no use at all.



> And the American fighters learned the hard way not to be lured in to climbing and turning fights, but to use their advantages in speed, dive and roll at speed to combat the Zero and Oscar successfully.



True, but for the purposes of demonstrating a one-on-one combat between these two aircraft I used that description. It proved very successful for the Japanese for over a year and even once the Americans got the ascendency over the Japanese, nothing they had could outmanoeuvre the Zero - nothing, so its advantages were still there and Allied pilots were warned _not_ to engage the Zero in a turning fight.



> I was asking what the Spitfire offers that the P-40 does not in terms of use in the PTO against a common enemy.



And if you re-read through the entire thread you'll find the answer, Cobber.


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## CobberKane (Nov 29, 2013)

In response to my mentioning that in your first scenarion the P-40 could make repaeted attacks on the spit:



> Nope, read the report again. it stated the following: "Combat - commenced at 13,000 ft and lasted 5 - 7 minutes". In reality P-40 could only make one diving pass successfully.



Nuuuman, you specifically stated that the P-40 was _above _the Spitfire and initiated the attack. In the report this scenasio had the P-4 able to make _multiple_ attacks of the spitfire

In response to my mentioning the P-40 used roll to get behind the Spit:



> Not true. Here is a quote directly from the report: "The tests were carried out at all heights between ground level and 20,000 feet. Result: Capstan has greater rate of climb at *all* heights - difference becoming greater as height increses above 13,000 ft. Capstan is *far more manoeuvrable at all heights*


"

Again, from the report "At 7,000ft Kittyhawk used superior roll rate to scissor behind the Spitfire". How much more explicit can that be?



> Rolling is not going to get you behind an enemy aircraft


, 

See above



> ....a superior turn rate will, however. Spitfire would not use boom and zoom, but a turning fight where the scenario I proposed would result _again_. The only thing the P-40 can do is break away and end the combat,...



From the report: "the Kittyhawk has the distinct advantage in that the pilot can commence the fight and discontinue it at will"


"


> but as I said, the Spitfire's cannon armament gives it advantage in range at which it can engage the P-40.



And the disadvantage of running out of ammo much sooner (cue debate about the relative merits of .50s v 20mm, sigh)




> Quote from the test; "Combat - commenced at 13,000 ft and lasted 5 - 7 minutes in which time fight was practically a stalemate." In reality any Spitfire pilot smart enough would climb above that altitude where its advantages come to the fore, leaving the P-40 floundering


.

And if the P-40 doesn't try to climb after him we are back to the fourth scenario in the test, where the P-40 evades attack from above and breaks off at will. Perhaps that's why the combat veteran flying the Spitfire didn't do it - that or he wasn't "smart enough"



> At any altitude the Spitfire could out turn and outclimb the P-40, enabling it to break off or initiate combat. Like I said, how can a superior dive speed benefit in an attack if the only means of utilisng it is by diving away? If the object is to destroy the enemy aircraft, diving away is of no use at all.



Out-turning your opponent will not allow you to break contact, just avoid betting hit (which is certainly important). I can see how in a level engagement the Spit might break away by climbing, but I suspect it might give your oponent a better free shot that the P-40's tactic of diving, particularly given the Spits negative G cut out. And when the P-40 initiated combat from above the Spits superior climb was insufficient to prevent the P-40 from making multiple attacks before diving away at the tiime of it's choosing. In any case, having gained a height advantage We are back to the fourth scenario in the repot, which resulted in - a stalemate 




> True, but for the purposes of demonstrating a one-on-one combat between these two aircraft I used that description. It proved very successful for the Japanese for over a year and even once the Americans got the ascendency over the Japanese, nothing they had could outmanoeuvre the Zero - nothing, so its advantages were still there and Allied pilots were warned _not_ to engage the Zero in a turning fight.



Just as, no doubt, the Japanese were warned not to try outdiving the allied fighters, whose advantages remained just as constant.

Bear in mind here that I am not trying to say the Kittyhawk was a better air to air weapon than the Spitfire below 16000ft - just that it was _as_ good, both in direct comparison and against the Japanese fighters thay faced.



> Use your brains!



Sorry, I'm tyring. And avoiding invective, too.


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## stona (Nov 29, 2013)

The oft quoted 30mph reduction in speed was not what the Aussies discovered when they ran trials with a "Capstan" aircraft fitted with a Vokes filter against one fitted with a locally manufactured approximation to the standard temperate air intake.
There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth in Australia about what should be done, and whether the trade off in reduced engine life was worth the less than expected gain in speed.

These are just some of the relevant documents generated in Australia regarding the filters. I was surprised that the Aussies had no drawings from Supermarine for the Spitfire and had to seek the drawings for the temperate air intake which they wished to copy from England.




























Cheers

Steve

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## Greyman (Nov 29, 2013)

Only a loss of 3.5 mph due to the tropical cowling and filter? Pretty surprising. A look at the data at wwiiaircraftperformance.com somewhat agrees as well. I judge only a loss of about 4-6 mph under 17,000 feet (though measured on two different aircraft).

And here all this time I thought the Bf 109 and its tropical equipment were far more efficient, but they appear to be about the same.


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## stona (Nov 29, 2013)

It is important to note that the Australians were aware that the testing was not exactly rigorous (as at Farnborough or Boscombe Down) because they had neither the means nor facilities. They made practical trials as best they could. They were also well aware that their version of a non tropicalized filter/cowling might not be as efficient as the Vickers Supermarine original, these were experienced airmen who knew what they were doing, they were just a very long way from London, Eastleigh or Castle Bromwich.

In 1939 Australia had effectively no native aircraft industry at all. The Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation was embarking on the Wirraway project and de Havilland Australia was nailing together parts imported from the UK.

The RAAF did seek and receive the relevant drawings and "official" performance figures from the UK, via its overseas HQ in London.






As an ex rugby player I have had cause to call Aussies many things, but "daft" is not one of them  

Cheers

Steve

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## oldcrowcv63 (Nov 29, 2013)

nuuumannn said:


> Its all a fallacy, I tell you! A fallacy!



I agree, Climate change only happens in the _Fall _and I have the data to prove it.

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## Glider (Nov 29, 2013)

Excellent documents Steve


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## tomo pauk (Nov 29, 2013)

Indeed. Much appreciated.


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## Aozora (Nov 29, 2013)

The RAAF carried out several tests to establish how "Capstan" would perform with a locally manufactured lower cowling, which was based on the standard Spitfire cowling; the experiment didn't work very well:






























RAAF Spitfire VCs in their natural environment, showing why the Vokes filters were a necessity:






The consequences of poor airframe maintenance explained:
View attachment Spitfire External Maintenance.pdf

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## Aozora (Nov 29, 2013)

Why the RAAF selected the Mk VIII to succeed the VC:

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## CobberKane (Nov 29, 2013)

How come the Spit VIII didn't require a filter? Was it the aircraft or an improvement in operating conditions by the time it arrived?


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## fastmongrel (Nov 29, 2013)

It did have a filter it had a Vokes Aero vee filter






Though I think this is actually a MkIX which had them fitted when they were moved to dusty forward strips in France.

This link shows the longer filter on Caldwells MKVIII

http://www.airpages.ru/eng/uk/spitf9.shtml


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## CobberKane (Nov 29, 2013)

A bit more elegant than the Vokes


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## Aozora (Nov 29, 2013)

CobberKane said:


> How come the Spit VIII didn't require a filter? Was it the aircraft or an improvement in operating conditions by the time it arrived?



The Spitfire VIII was already equipped with an aero-vee filter as standard; this was much more compact and aerodynamically efficient than the Vokes. As it was the comments referring to the Mk IX being unsuitable for use in tropical or desert conditions only referred to very early production Mk IXs. After the first few production batches most Mk IXs were also fitted with aero-vee filters.


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## CobberKane (Nov 29, 2013)

It's easy to see how the P-40 air intake was much better positioned to avoid excessive dust than the Spits. What about the Merlin engine versions though? The intake disappears from the top of the cowling, I presume because the Merlin has an updraught carburettor. Any known issues of dust problems there?


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## Shortround6 (Nov 29, 2013)

Yep, The P-40Fs in North Africa were known to chew up engines much quicker than their Allison powered counterparts. Since the USAAC had not bought/supplied enough spare engines this caused something of a crisis. Alleviated somewhat by the British supplying up to 600 Merlin engines (used?) to be broken down for parts needed to overhaul the American built engines which rather gives lie to oft repeated internet claim that Rolls Royce and Packard engines were built to different standards or couldn't use each others parts.


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## parsifal (Nov 30, 2013)

If the Spits had a poor serviciability rate, compared to the P-40, it sure wasnt apparent in the P-40 operations over new guniea. Serviceability rates throughout 1942 into the first half of 1943 were consistently below 50%. only by the most ruthless cannibalisation were readiness rates able to be maintained even at this low level. 

Admittedly, i dont think that poor serviceability was due to anything wrong with the P-40. The main problem in that early part of the Pacific war was an acute shortage of spares. 

I dont kno9w what the average serviceability rates were for the Churchill Wing. but logistics in northern australia were at least as difficult as they were around Moresby and milne Bay, and on top of that spares had to come from even further away than for the US types. On the few occasions that I do know the Churchill Wingf was scrambled, it generally was able to put up well in excess of 50% of available airframes


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## fastmongrel (Nov 30, 2013)

Shortround6 said:


> Alleviated somewhat by the British supplying up to 600 Merlin engines (used?) to be broken down for parts needed to overhaul the American built engines which rather gives lie to oft repeated internet claim that Rolls Royce and Packard engines were built to different standards or couldn't use each others parts.



Packard, Ford GB and RR engines were stripped for useable parts for Meteor tank engines and they were given the same part numbers irrespective of which factory built the engine. 

Of course everyone knows that RR engines were hand carved by Elves in a small woodland clearing. Luckily Detroit fixed all the engines problems and built them by the millions. After the war the evil overlords of RR demanded a license fee for the Packards used by the USAAF, how dare they all those profits belonged to the Packard shareholders.

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## Aozora (Dec 2, 2013)

fastmongrel said:


> Packard, Ford GB and RR engines were stripped for useable parts for Meteor tank engines and they were given the same part numbers irrespective of which factory built the engine.
> 
> Of course everyone knows that RR engines were hand carved by Elves in a small woodland clearing. Luckily Detroit fixed all the engines problems and built them by the millions. After the war the evil overlords of RR demanded a license fee for the Packards used by the USAAF, how dare they all those profits belonged to the Packard shareholders.



Here is actual photographic evidence of Merlins being built in secret woodland locations; in this case a giant Wood Elf is "pinking" a Merlin 66 after misunderstanding instructions to test the Merlins _*for*_ pinking: 






2 TAF ground crews subsequently uncrated several bright pink Merlins which were immediately installed in Pr Mk IXs thus creating an attractive colour combo which deeply puzzled the Germans:

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## parsifal (Dec 2, 2013)

Its not long now before the bacon makes its entry....


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## DVH (Dec 8, 2013)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Not entirely true! All you had to do was enter combat in the horizontal or diving vertical at airspeeds higher than the Zero's effective maneuvering speeds, something like 250 mph, (probably a little less) and stay within the energy egg at those higher speeds (Biff, chime in any time). the zero's ailerons became concrete at higher speeds.
> 
> FYI - the AVG NEVER fought the Zero!


I am aware of the zero not being an adversary of the avg but my chennault quote is an innaccurate approximation of the actual quote 'never turn with a zero'which is repeated all over the place. I would guess thats either its a miss quote, or he was referring to all japanese fighter aircraft in a catch all term 'zero' seeing as they were mostly of similar characteristics.
What is actually very interesting here, is the info delating to the spitfires real performance againsed the japanese fighters, rather better than widely reported.


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## nuuumannn (Dec 10, 2013)

> If the Spits had a poor serviciability rate, compared to the P-40, it sure wasnt apparent in the P-40 operations over New Guniea.



This is one of the things that is often quoted as being where the Spit has a disadvantage, but I have read that the serviceability rate of the aircraft of the Churchill Wing was no worse than that of any other aircraft in theatre. The maintenance issues with the Spitfires comes down to supply as much as suitability to the environment. There is much made of this, but the facts were that the P-40's serviceability was _not_ significantly better than other aircraft in theatre, including the Spitfire's. I've mentioned this before. The Pacific was a particularly harsh environment and general serviceability of aircraft was far worse there than at their home bases.



> 2 TAF ground crews subsequently uncrated several bright pink Merlins which were immediately installed in Pr Mk IXs thus creating an attractive colour combo which deeply puzzled the Germans:



That should be _PR.XI_, rather than Pr.IX, but whose being picky? That photo of PL965 was taken at East Fortune, Scotland in July 2000. Next to it is the Scandinavian Historic Flight's Mustang painted as Urban Drew's _Detroit Miss_. Both these aircraft were based on the airfield for a week in hangars there for an airshow. The Spit was in the hands of Tony 'Taff' Smith of the Real Aeroplane Company at Breighton, Yorkshire and Andy Gent flew the Mustang. I got offered a flight in the Mustang - if I fronted up with 200 quid for a touch-and-go! Sadly, I had to decline. I have a similar pic from a similar angle to that one.


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## Airframes (Dec 10, 2013)

It should really be FR.IX if we're talking pink Spits.


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## FLYBOYJ (Dec 10, 2013)

DVH said:


> I am aware of the zero not being an adversary of the avg but my chennault quote is an innaccurate approximation of the actual quote 'never turn with a zero'which is repeated all over the place. I would guess thats either its a miss quote, or he was referring to all japanese fighter aircraft in a catch all term 'zero' seeing as they were mostly of similar characteristics.


It was probably a little bit of both. Some AVG pilots were quoted similar.


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## nuuumannn (Dec 10, 2013)

> It should really be FR.IX if we're talking pink Spits.



Terry, PL965 wore a similar pink scheme in service, although not quite as 'pink'. She was/is a PR.XI, being unarmed.


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## buffnut453 (Dec 10, 2013)

FLYBOYJ said:


> It was probably a little bit of both. Some AVG pilots were quoted similar.



The Ki-43 was not recognized as a distinct aircraft type until well after the AVG was subsumed into the 14th AF. To American and Commonwealth pilots who faced the Japanese, any fighter with a retractable undercarriage was a Zero (or Navy Nought if you prefer).


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## FLYBOYJ (Dec 10, 2013)

buffnut453 said:


> The Ki-43 was not recognized as a distinct aircraft type until well after the AVG was subsumed into the 14th AF. To American and Commonwealth pilots who faced the Japanese, any fighter with a retractable undercarriage was a Zero (or Navy Nought if you prefer).


Quite true, it wasn't until later in the war when it was verified that only JAAF units were operating in South China during the periods the AVG was operational. I believe that last Zeros to be in the area were gone by October or November, 1941


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## bobbysocks (Dec 11, 2013)

so they were "zeros" but not "the zero"...??


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## FLYBOYJ (Dec 11, 2013)

bobbysocks said:


> so they were "zeros" but not "the zero"...??



Yup!


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## Wawny (Aug 6, 2017)

CobberKane said:


> Which Zero was Caldwell speaking of? Regarding the A6M5:
> 
> "These differing technical characteristics determined the pattern of relative performance between the two machines, as shown by the tactical trials conducted by two experienced RAAF fighter pilots in flying trials conducted over three flying days[2]. Flight Lieutenant ‘Bardie’ Wawn DFC and Squadron Leader Les Jackson DFC flew against one another in both aircraft, and what they found was not encouraging.
> 
> ...




My father! Died 1990. Interesting to note on one the 'Most Secret; doc that they found he bent the tail of the Spitfire 9 Degrees during manoeuvres

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## grampi (Aug 7, 2017)

I don't know why so many people think the Zero was the ultimate dog fighter. Basically, it was deadly if opposing pilots chose to get into a turning match with the Zero at slow speeds, but that's about the only area where it reined supreme. It was slower than most of the fighters of the day, was lightly armored, and it couldn't take any punishment at all....if opposing pilots chose their tactic, the Zero wasn't much of a match for any fighter...

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## stona (Aug 7, 2017)

"The unanimous conclusion of Wawn and Jackson was that ‘the Spitfire is outclassed by the Hap at all heights up to 20,000 feet’."

Correct. But reading the second part of the report shows that by fighting to the relative strengths of the Spitfire, rather than those in the tests from which that conclusion was drawn, fighting to the Zero's strengths, a rather different conclusion can be drawn. It's why such trials were undertaken, to develop tactics to counter the enemy.

To introduce a little balance, If I was a Spitfire pilot I would try to achieve a height advantage of at least 4,000 ft before interception, fight above 20,000 ft and never pursue a fight at less than 250 mph. If an altitude advantage was not possible, then keep flying fast.Under such conditions it is the Spitfire that holds a distinct advantage.

I don't understand why people always try to make such complicated issues into simple black and white ones. It is simplistic and not really terribly helpful, usually used to reinforce a prejudice. The best pilots and air forces fight, or at least try to fight, to the strengths of their aircraft while exploiting the relative weakness of the enemy's. 
A Spitfire pilot who engaged in a low speed turning fight at 15,000 ft with a Zero would be a fool, and probably very quickly a dead one too.

The critical factor in most air combat, given competitive aircraft, wasn't and still isn't the aircraft; it's the human(s) at the controls.

Cheers

Steve

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## Balljoint (Aug 7, 2017)

stona said:


> "The unanimous conclusion of Wawn and Jackson was that ‘the Spitfire is outclassed by the Hap at all heights up to 20,000 feet’."
> 
> Correct. But reading the second part of the report shows that by fighting to the relative strengths of the Spitfire, rather than those in the tests from which that conclusion was drawn, fighting to the Zero's strengths, a rather different conclusion can be drawn. It's why such trials were undertaken, to develop tactics to counter the enemy.
> 
> ...



Agree. But initially the Spit did try to play the Zero's game with poor results. When the lesson was learned the Spit pretty much handled the Zero.


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## stona (Aug 7, 2017)

They got it badly wrong at the beginning. Cooper touches on this in his book. The 'British' RAF squadron sent out (No.54) had to have its 'colonial' members replaced with Britons before transferring, and the two Aussie squadrons were no less typical of Fighter Command in 1942.

_"All three squadrons were quite unremarkable - thoroughly average examples of RAF Fighter Command in 1942, with hastily promoted leaders, unready wartime-trained pilots, and limited operational experience all around. Contrary to the media releases at the time, they were in no sense 'crack squadrons'. Moreover they came unwillingly, loath to give up their comfortable bases in England and their high profile role in the cross-Channel war against Hitler's 'Fortress-Europe'. No.452 Squadron's former Australian CO, Squadron Leader Bob Bungey, flew into Redhill airfield to commiserate with the pilots upon hearing of their impending 'Ovidian exile'. This was an ironic reference, given that it was 54 Squadron being exiled to the antipodes, rather than the two Australian squadrons."_

No. 54 Squadron had only three pilots considered combat experienced. 45% had no combat experience at all. Their CO, Squadron Leader Eric Gibbs, was the only prewar regular in the entire Spitfire wing of three squadrons, and even he had limited fighter experience, having recently transferred from Coastal Command.

No. 452 was theoretically the most experienced, but of the 29 pilots on strength in 1942, when it was withdrawn from combat operations, most of the experienced pilots transferred out. Only 11 stayed with the unit when it went to Australia, and 9 of these were new arrivals with little or no combat experience.

No. 457 Squadron had effectively been operating as an OTU, training Ausralian and Canadian pilots for those nations' more senior squadrons in Fighter Command. It had carried out operations in France but with poor results.

Early operations were a steep learning curve for these units, and the results show this.

I could make some comments about Wing Commander Caldwell, a man new to the Spitfire, new to wing tactics and new to defensive fighter operations, however competent he may otherwise have been, but I won't. Some of our Australian friends might make the trip up here from time to time and might find out where I live. Caldwell is one sacred cow I shall leave well alone (at least until 1945  )

Cheers

Steve

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