1938-41 fighter-bombers?

GrauGeist said:

With the exception of "floor armor", there was:
KI-84, N1K1-J, KI-61/KI-100

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Challenge is the timing, this thread is 1938-41.

Admiral Beez said:

Challenge is the timing, this thread is 1938-41.

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Those are the only types designed from the start to have armor and fire resistant features.
You'll be hard-pressed to find a 39-41 vinrage type that would perform well with all the extra weight added.

Also, very few fighters, let alone types that were used in the fighter-bomber role, had floor armor.

Admiral Beez said:

Some degree of armoured seat or floor shouldn't be impossible in 1940. Floor aside, many 1940-41 single engined fighters had armoured seat bases and backs and bullet resistant canopy fronts.

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Steel is about 40lbs per sq ft per 1in of thickness.
Or about just under 40lbs for a 1 foot wide, 3 foot length about 1/3 in (8.5mm?) Thickness.

Figure out how much armor you want to use in addition to the back/seat armor.
Figure out the tank protection (self sealing or fire suppression but tanks leak)
figure out what kind of 20mm cannon you want to use. A 20mm Hispano 404 can weigh double what the light weight cannon do.
Now with 1000-1200hp on tap, can you really out fight, or at least hold down the losses vs the enemy interceptors ?

A Spitfire II carried about 440lbs of guns and ammo (eight .303s and 350rpg)
Two 20mm Hispano guns without ammo weighed 294lbs
More than one 20mm Hispano or two MG FFs (or 2 Japanese 20mm) starts to at too high a weight.


Decide if you want a fighter bomber or a cannon armed fighter.
Also decide how big an airfield do you want to use.

Admiral Beez said:

Some degree of armoured seat or floor shouldn't be impossible in 1940. Floor aside, many 1940-41 single engined fighters had armoured seat bases and backs and bullet resistant canopy fronts.

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Remember that in that era Japanese engines didn't match up to others in terms of power. Lugging around a few extra hundreds of pounds would probably put them behind the curve on speed/maneuverability on the power they had on tap.

Admiral Beez said:

Challenge is the timing, this thread is 1938-41.

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What power do the Japanese engines of that era clock? Can they pull around the extra armor you're mentioning as well as a useful weapons load?

It might have been possible to design/issue fighter bombers.
Perhaps you could operate on only slightly longer air fields (very few fighters were using drop tanks).
Perhaps you could trade some of the guns for extra armor?
Just 200lbs of armor would suck up about four .303 guns leaving four for the "bomber" to fight it's way out of trouble with.
Adjust other fighters as you see fit,

Designing/adapting an existing fighter to carry heavier than normal armor while carrying heavier than normal armament might keep the fighter bombers from being shoot down in great numbers but they are going to suffer a negative loss ratio. Maybe it is worth it?

Seems the Japanese were hanging bombs on their fighters from early on. A5M, Ki-27, A6M, Ki-43, all had provision for bomb racks.The Germans were using fighter bombers in Spain (He 51). P-36/H-75 had provision for bomb racks. F4F had bomb racks. These weren't second line aircraft refitted with bomb racks because their usefulness as front line fighters was over, these were designed into the original product. Now admittedly, these aircraft had a relatively small bombload, but they were fighter-bombers nonetheless.

Greg Boeser said:

Seems the Japanese were hanging bombs on their fighters from early on. A5M, Ki-27, A6M, Ki-43, all had provision for bomb racks.The Germans were using fighter bombers in Spain (He 51). P-36/H-75 had provision for bomb racks. F4F had bomb racks. These weren't second line aircraft refitted with bomb racks because their usefulness as front line fighters was over, these were designed into the original product. Now admittedly, these aircraft had a relatively small bombload, but they were fighter-bombers nonetheless.

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Hi
During the inter-war period most RAF bi-plane fighters could carry 4 x 20lb bombs for ground attack, as they had done during 1917-18 (great use of the 'fighter-bomber' concept was undertaken by the RFC/RAF). Indeed the early drawings of the 'Hurricane' and 'Spitfire' designs (with 4 x MGs) also show them having the ability to carry them, although later drawings (8 x MGs) tend not to have them included.

Mike

What if the French (and/or British) purchasing commission(s) ordered a bunch of Hawk 75s as fighter bombers? France had already ordered 300+ as fighters, so it's not a stretch that they could conceivably order an 'attacker' variant too.

By February 1937 Curtis had developed a variety of bomb loads for the Hawk:

500 lb bomb on centreline installation
1 x 100 lb bomb per wing (200 lb total)
3 x 50 lb bomb per wing (300 lb total)
5 x 30 lb bomb per wing (300 lb total)

Max bombload was supposedly 800 lbs.

Performance is reasonable, but by no means exceptional: Wright Cyclone with constant speed prop and 1100hp for takeoff, 900 hp at 6300 ft and 750 hp at rated altitude of 18,000 feet. Top speed of 303 mph at 19,000 ft, time to 20,000 ft of just under 9 minutes.

Curtis' advertising brochure also has a Twin Wasp installation available, also with 1100hp for takeoff and 950 hp at a rated altitude of 15,300 feet. Top speed of 323 mph, time to 20,000 ft of 7.64 minutes.

Fixed forward firing armament is only one .50 and one .30 in the cowl, but there were also provisions for a range of other installations:
Cowl:

2 x .50, with 200 rpg
1 x Madsen 7.35 mm with 600 rpg and 1 x 11.35 mm, with 200 rpg
1 x 8mm (Madsen??) with 385 rpg and 1 x 12.7mm Vickers, with 175 prg

Wings:
1 or 2 x .30 in each wing, with 500 rpg
1 x 6.5mm or 8 mm Madsen in each wing, with 500 rpg
1 x .50 under each wing, with 200 rpg
1 x 20 mm Oerlikon under each wing, with 75 rpg
1 x 23mm Madsen under each wing, with 100 rpg

The Hawk 75s bought by Finland from German war booty, a mix of A-1, A-2, A-3, A-4, and A-6 had bomb racks capable of carrying small bombs beneath the wings. A few ground attack missions were flown by Finnish recon units before all Hawks were transferred to LLV 32.