Recent content by davebender

HS 129 was designed for two As 410 engines producing 465 PS each. The 960 PS BMW 132 engine provides twice the power. That's not a trivial increase.

You don't need BMW 801 engines. BMW 132 engines would be a huge improvement over the historical powerplants and they were readily available by the late 1930s.

View for the pilots is always going to be worse No forward firing armament unless it's synchronised. No space for nose mounted radar I suspect these were the most important reasons. Nose space is prime real estate on a combat aircraft. Wing space is not.

Face hardened armour works best with relatively thicker plate It is my understanding that tanks with face hardened armor tend to shatter the outer (i.e. hardened) portion when hit by by a heavy non penetrating hit. This could happen even from HE artillery fire. I have no idea how this plays out...

Germans started out with very good Armor plate that for the most part was face hardened Face hardened RHA tends to work well when armor is thin. It does not work as well with thicker armor. That's why late war Germany switched armor types for medium and heavy tanks. I suspect the Soviets...

Radial aircraft engines are not designed for prolonged operation at idle speed. Tanks spend more time idling then moving at high speed. Early production Sherman tanks with radial engines had a big problem with spark plugs fouling prematurely.

Lee and Sherman tanks used aircraft-derived engines Air cooled radial engines designed for aircraft use did not work so well in the Sherman tank. The Germans were smart to use purpose made engines for their tanks.

SB2C could carry a greater payload because it had about 50% more engine power. That does not make it a good aircraft. I tend to believe the multitude of first hand pilot comments about poor flight characteristics. This is an aircraft that should never have been approved for mass production.

Luftwaffe Resource Center - Transports & Utility Aircraft - A Warbirds Resource Group Site I suspect you could build a CV capable variant of the Arado Ar 232. Power it with four Bristol Hercules engines. Two of the B-0s were captured by the British at the end of the war. After test flights by...

Ferrying an aircraft from point A to point B is one thing. Performing combat maneuvers is something very different.

I'm under the impression the early P-38 had stability problems in level flight. Stability problems when diving were a foregone conclusion.

TBF and TBM ended up being used as bombers more than they did torpedo planes. Given the poor quality of USN torpedoes during the early 1940s what else could they do?

SBD was about the only American bomber that could reliably hit a ship size target. That makes it look great compared to everything else we flew.

Modern aircraft will have modern technology such as stabilized gun sight and GPS for navigation. Significant advantages even if radar and missiles are omitted from the comparison.

I always thought the a/c was designed to be a fast bomber destroyer not a dogfighter This is only speculation but I believe recon would be the best role. Think SR-71. Fast, long range and almost impossible to intercept.