A Critical Analysis of the RAF Air Superiority Campaign in India, Burma and Malaya in 1941-45

[Shortround6]

Verry true and I realize hindsight is 20/20 but by 1940 there was trouble brewing with Japan( they were already at war with China and from what I've read many saw the potential for conflict with the US) so seems like the need for more range would have been appearant and doesn't seem like youd loose alot of performance on a p47 by packing a little more fuel.
Maybe it just didn't look as obvious then as it looks now.

The P-47 started with 305 US gallons or over 1800lbs of fuel. Which is about the the same as a P-38 once the P-38 got self sealing tanks.

For perspective the fuel fraction for the P-47 was about 15.25% ( weight of fuel as a percentage of the normal gross weight) fir 12,000lb plane, production versions got heavier quickly and the fuel fraction shrank. Meanwhile the fuel fraction of the Spitfire MK I was about 11%.
As the planes got heavier the fuel fraction dropped. The Fuel Fraction tells you nothing about how plane performs (or it's range/endurace) it merely tells you what sort of choices the designer made or perhaps how clever he was in using weight. Bigger planes do have some advantages though. (Pilot fraction for a 12,000lb plane is 1/2 the pilot fraction for a 6000lb plane unless you get really big pilots

As to hindsight, the paddle blade props, water injection and WEP power settings that really turned the P-47 into a formidable fighter were several years away when initial design and prototype testing were going on. The bigger internal fuel tanks on the late P-47Ds weighed about 90 lbs more than the small tank set up. and held about 390 lbs more fuel.
Most early P-47s had trouble climbing better than 2500fpm and many of the test planes were not carrying full ammo (425rpg weighs about 1020lbs). one test plane was carrying 525lbs of ballast which is equal to about 218-220 rpg. a few test planes only had 6 guns.

Adding almost 500lbs to an early P-47 might not be what you want to do regardless of how well the P-47D-25 handled it

 

[RCAFson]

Re-reading your thread on the Darwin MkV's, they should have been able to do 380-385mph between 16,000 and 24,000ft when fitted with the Merlin 46, instead they did 330mph at 20,000ft as per RAAF testing. How does a plane lose 50mph?.

?

RAAF tests:
speed at 5min rating, clean/30IGDT/90IGDT

20 000ft: 356 / 341 / 329mph

 

[Mad Dog]

So, you disagreed with my statement "it was a bad idea to not put drop tanks on early models of Wildcat, P47 and Me109" by saying they eventually got them?....

Nothing "eventually" about it. The P-47 wasn't originally designed as a long-range escort, that was the role of the P-38. The P-47 was a high-altitude interceptor that was pushed into the role of escort because P-38 production was too slow. The 56th FG, the first unit to equip with P-47s, was originally to have been equipped with P-38s. Even so, the first operational model of the P-47, the P-47C, came from the factory with the fittings for a 200-gal belly tank. This was used operationally in the ETO. The P-47C-5 block introduced a field kit that could be fitted to allow the carriage of a 75-gal drop-tank or 500Lb bomb, and this became a factory-fitted item with the P-47D-5-RE. So you are incorrect about the P-47. I have already posted a link to P-47 drop-tanks, I assume you just didn't bother to read it. Likewise, the ME109 had to take on the role of bomber escort because the Germans didn't have enough ME110s, yet was very quickly fitted for drop-tanks as soon as the problem was exposed operationally in late 1940. Messerschmitt had already looked at drop-tanks as early as 1938. The P-47 and ME109 were designed as interceptors. You are complaining about interceptors not being factory-ready for a role outside their original design goals, like someone saying; "Well, your Ferrari can't tow a caravan!"

….Oh my. Please read this very slowly and carefully....

Read it slow or fast, you're still just wrong.

….The EARLY models of the Wildcat, P47 and ME109 did not get drop tanks....

Already debunked for the P-47 and ME109, with the reasoning given. You seem to be struggling to comprehend the difference between a true, long-range escort and a fighter developed into an escort.

….The Wildcat did not get them until very late in the Guadalcanal campaign which means that it was in service with the British and US Navy for over a year before it was plumbed for drop tanks.....

I already said they did get drop-tanks, I just wasn't sure of the exact date. So you're basically just proving yourself wrong there.

….The first P47's deployed to Britain did not have drop tanks and had a horrible combat range, something like 200 miles.....

So you didn't read the P-47 tanks post then.

….The Me109 did not get drop tanks until, I believe, the end of the BoB. It doesn't matter that they didn't plan to use it as a "long range" fighter, it was still a bad idea to not give it drop tanks.....

Why? The Luftwaffe didn't have any crystal balls to predict the requirement, and had already got what was probably then the World's best long-range fighter in the ME110 long before the Zero flew. Germany's whole problem was Hitler took them to war without the economic and industrial structure in place to defeat the British Empire, and the shortage of ME110s was simply another result of that fundamental failing. Messerschmitt even had problems keeping up with demand for the ME109E! Again, just because a Ferrari doesn't come with a tow-hook, just in case it needs to tow a caravan, does not make it a stupid design.

….It was a massive mistake not to equip the very first Wildcat and P47 with drop tanks......

Again, in the case of the P-47 and ME109, THERE WAS NO DESIGN REQUIREMENT BECAUSE THERE WAS ALREADY A LONG-RANGE FIGHTER IN THAT ROLE IN THE USAAF AND LUFTWAFFE. As it was, the P-47 did have drop-tank capability, and it was quickly added to the ME109.

…It was a massive mistake not to equip the Me109 with drop tanks before the BoB started......

You say that like the Luftwaffe ignored some obvious warning, when in reality there was no way they could have predicted the requirement. The Luftwaffe was tailored to the role of tactical support to the Wehrmacht, a role it served brilliantly right up until the BoB. No-one in the German High Command ever considered a requirement to have to fight a strategic air-battle over the English Channel. Indeed, Hitler had hoped the British would simply sue for peace after the Battle of France. Similarly, the RAF did not predict the need to defend against escorted bomber raids on the UK and designed a defensive system and training optimised for unescorted bombers. The USAAF predicted that high-flying, heavily-armed, well-armoured bombers would not require long-range escorts, and the USAAF's "Bomber Barons" didn't even want the fighters to be able to fly long ranges. The RAF didn't predict a requirement for a long-range day-fighter because the heavy bomber force was designed and trained for night bombing. You are thumping the side of your armchair and insisting your opinion is somehow "insight" without understanding the actual situation that created the problems in the first place.

 

[Mad Dog]

......The performance margin of the Spitfires over the Zero at Darwin was slim above 20,000 and nonexistent below 20,000.......

Actually, the Zeros refused to fly above 30,000ft, and as soon as the RAAF realized that they switched their tactics to climbing above 30,000ft before engaging. That "safe zone" between 30,000 and 36,000ft was because the Japanese were very aware that the Spitfire V would out-perform the Zero at that altitude. The Luftwaffe had been passing them test data on captured Spitfires for years.

…..They needed true drop tanks.

So the slipper tanks weren't "real" drop-tanks???? It was an external tank that could be jettisoned as required - kinda the definition of a drop-tank!

 

[Mad Dog]

Please please start a "Bristol Beaufighter as high altitude long range escort" thread. Some others in here might enjoy that.

If the Beaufighter could boom and zoom a Spitfire Trop V at high altitude, why didn't they use them to intercept the Japanese raids over Darwin? With your logic the Beaufighters could have escorted the Spitfires and protected them from those 2nd rate Zero's with boom and zoom tactics and let the Spitfires engage the bombers.

 

[Mad Dog]

Please please start a "Bristol Beaufighter as high altitude long range escort" thread. Some others in here might enjoy that.....

Well, at least it would be more factual than your posts. The reason the Beau IIF wasn't used as a long-range, high-altitude, daylight escort in 1943 was there was no Allied requirement for a long-range, high-altitude, daylight escort not already being filled by a better design, such as the P-38. The Beaus were used in the ETO, MTO, CBI and PTO for escorting long-range, low-level, anti-shipping and interdiction strikes. I merely suggested the Beau IIF (and Mosquito, and Me410, and P-38F) could have done the job because you insisted there was no other aircraft other than the Zero which could have. You are simply delaying the inevitable in not admitting your mistake.

…..If the Beaufighter could boom and zoom a Spitfire Trop V at high altitude, why didn't they use them to intercept the Japanese raids over Darwin?.....

Because there weren't any Beau IIFs at Darwin. And because the Spit V was a better daylight interceptor. Please try and remember the difference between and interceptor and a long-range escort when throwing your straw men around.

 

[Schweik]

The P-47 started with 305 US gallons or over 1800lbs of fuel. Which is about the the same as a P-38 once the P-38 got self sealing tanks.

For perspective the fuel fraction for the P-47 was about 15.25% ( weight of fuel as a percentage of the normal gross weight) fir 12,000lb plane, production versions got heavier quickly and the fuel fraction shrank. Meanwhile the fuel fraction of the Spitfire MK I was about 11%.
As the planes got heavier the fuel fraction dropped. The Fuel Fraction tells you nothing about how plane performs (or it's range/endurace) it merely tells you what sort of choices the designer made or perhaps how clever he was in using weight. Bigger planes do have some advantages though. (Pilot fraction for a 12,000lb plane is 1/2 the pilot fraction for a 6000lb plane unless you get really big pilots

As to hindsight, the paddle blade props, water injection and WEP power settings that really turned the P-47 into a formidable fighter were several years away when initial design and prototype testing were going on. The bigger internal fuel tanks on the late P-47Ds weighed about 90 lbs more than the small tank set up. and held about 390 lbs more fuel.
Most early P-47s had trouble climbing better than 2500fpm and many of the test planes were not carrying full ammo (425rpg weighs about 1020lbs). one test plane was carrying 525lbs of ballast which is equal to about 218-220 rpg. a few test planes only had 6 guns.

Adding almost 500lbs to an early P-47 might not be what you want to do regardless of how well the P-47D-25 handled it

The other thing about the P-47 is that while it was designed to be a very high altitude fighter, and excelled in combat up above 25,000 ft, it was very big and draggy for use down low where it was actually fighting a lot of the time. To counter all that drag and weight they did run that giant engine very hard, and that means a much higher rate of fuel consumption than the small, clean, and comparatively very light Spitfire. So the ratio of how much fuel they were carrying compared to weight alone is kind of misleading.

 

[Mad Dog]

I don't think they had sent any VIII or IX to the Pacific in time for Darwin, though I could be wrong. They didn't get any Spit IX in the Med until a couple of months into 1943. VIII came later....

Correct, but that was mainly because Whitehall treated the Med and CBI/PTO as less than secondary importance. Whilst there was no reason for the Air Ministry to predict Darwin becoming a frontline station, they could have sent Spitfires to Australia (and India, Singapore, Malta and the Desert) in 1941 without seriously reducing operational capabilities in the UK. That early a start would have meant revealing and fixing many of the problems long before they arose over Darwin in 1943. Even when considering Darwin as a secondary port, its status as one of the most important Royal Navy bases in the theatre should have accorded it better defences in 1942, even if they had just been Hurricane IIs or Wildcats.

Hurricanes had a fairly dismal record against A6M and Ki-43 type fighters....

No, you are just repeating already debunked myths. Go back and read the post about the Calcutta raids, escorts over the Arakan, and Frank Carey. As soon as they got the right tactics the Hurri IIs did fine against the Ki-43 and Zero.

…..They even had trouble intercepting higher flying bombers at Malta which was arguably less hostile conditions than New Guinea, probably similar to Darwin....

You really need to just stop and go do a LOT more reading about the air battles for Malta. For start, it was not unusual for the Malta Hurricanes to be out-numbered ten-to-one just by the Axis escorts, let alone the bombers, on a daily basis And the escorts were often Bf109Fs and Gs, which are certainly far more deadly any model of the Zero. Considering that, after the Spit V, the Hurri II was the fasting climbing option available, had the altitude performance to get high enough and speed to catch them, plus had the firepower to shoot down the Japanese bombers, and by 1943 had the tactics to deal with the Zeros, the Hurri II was probably the next best available choice after the Spit V.

…..P-47 wasn't available later in '43.....

P-47s weren't available at Darwin in 1943. The first P-47Cs left the factory on September 14th 1942, and the 56th FG took their P-47s to the UK in January 1943, so P-47Cs could have been at Darwin in May 1943 if the USAAF had had the foresight to send them to Australia instead of the UK. But the climb performance of a clean P-47C was pretty bad, so it might not have been able to get high enough in time to intercept the May 2nd raid without a lengthy stern chase, raising the possibility of the P-47s also running out of fuel.

…..Considering that the P-40E, with a 12,000' critical altitude, was used to some good effect in the defense of Darwin, it stands to reason that the P-40F with a 20,000' critical altitude might have been considerably more effective......

The Jap escorts would still have been able to sit higher than the P-40F's operational ceiling and dive on them at will. Plus the P-40F took so long to get to 25,000ft the raid would be long gone by then. If the faster-climbing Spit Vs weren't getting high enough until after the Japanese had bombed then there was no way the P-40F could.

…..Rate of climb was also dependent on load, it could range from as low as 1,700 fpm to as high as 3,300 fpm, depending on how heavy the aircraft was......

Not in any figures I have seen. Maybe if you stripped it down to a water-pistol for armament, a thimble of fuel, and the pilot was a shaved-naked squirrel, then maybe 2500fps.

…..It's probably a cinch though that either way they could have taken out a pair of the wing machine guns and associated ammunition for work over Darwin, and as seen in the Med and shown in some side by side tests by the Aussies, in actual field conditions with four guns it would probably have a climb to 20,000 ft better than the Hurricane and definitely quite a bit better than the P-40E or P-39.......

We've been over this, the figures are already in and any model of the P-40 in any stripped-down form couldn't match the climb of a Hurricane II. A normal loaded P-40F weighed 8500Lbs, whereas a 12-gun Hurricane IIB was 7080Lbs, which is why the P-40F took 2.6 minutes longer to get to 20,000ft with what was practically the same engine. Those are the real test figures. Good luck trying to trim 1500Lbs off the P-40! You'd be better off taking the Hurri IIB and taking the twelve .303 Brownings out and replacing them with four .50s as the Belgians did. But that would still be slower climbing and slower on the level than a Spit V.

Interestingly (and probably very annoyingly to Pinsog), the P-40F with the 141.5-gal drop-tank had a range of 1500 miles, which implies it could have cruised the 500 miles to Darwin as escort, dropped the tank and had a ten minute combat, and then made it the 500 miles back home on remaining internal fuel (700 mile range on internal fuel at 20,000ft). The pilot would probably suffer some puckering for the last 50-odd miles, but possible. Strip it down to four guns and you'd probably feel a bit happier for those last 50 miles, and four .50s would still be deadly against a Spitfire.

 

[Schweik]

I have read quite a few books on Malta (where on more than one occasion Hurricanes had trouble intercepting unescorted but high flying / fast bombers like Ju 88s), two or three on Darwin, and a whole shelf on the P-40. None of the facts I quoted about rate of climb and so on are incorrect. I'd get into details but they have already been posted more than once and you don't seem to be receptive to data which contradicts your theories.

Being outnumbered was a fairly common situation for Allied pilots in early 1942, in fact for much of 1942. Some pilots with some aircraft were able to adjust to the conditions rapidly and develop tactics which allowed them to do some damage to the Axis juggernaut, many could not. Fortunately enough did that it did slow down the Axis leading up to the great tipping point in late 1942.

But I think the heyday of the Hurricane was in 1940, not 1942 or 1943.

I've yet to see anything to change my opinion of the Hurricane vis a vis the A6M or Ki 43. I read everything you and everyone else posted about it in this thread.

 

[Shortround6]

So the ratio of how much fuel they were carrying compared to weight alone is kind of misleading.

That ratio can be misapplied or misinterpreted and it often is.

I have already said that the the number cannot be used to predict actual range or endurance. It is a design benchmark of sorts. How well is a designer able to divide up the weight of an aircraft to meet his design goals Fuel is part of the payload. For the MK I Spit and it's 5875lbs 1890lbs were structural or about 32% which is a fairly normal number for a single engine fighter of that size. the power plant went 2035lb or 34.63% (and this is with a 96lb wooden prop) leaving about 1585lbs of payload or 27% to be divided up between pilot, guns/ammo.etc, fuel and oil (there was 335lbs of assorted "sundries"which might include radio/s, etc)
The designer can trade fuel and oil for armament fairly easily. It is harder to design a light weight structure that allows for a higher payload. Like I said, size does help as some things (cockpits, equipement and pilots don't change much), Structural weight British/American for single engine fighters in 1943 went from a low of about 26% to a high of almost 40%

The original question was why didn't they stick more fuel in the P-47 from the start (design/development) not how the plane wound up being used.
American fighters in general carried more fuel and had longer "yardstick" ranges than most/all European fighters. This is in the late 30s and 1940/41. yard stick range is the range you can get if you magically transport the airplane to cruising height with a warmed up engine but with full fuel tanks and fly at optimum cruising speed (with no regard for tactical situation) and also allow no reserve.

An interesting number for comparing different designs but totally useless for mission planning.

As noted the P-47 had almost twice the "range" of a Spitfire or 109 in the planning stage/s. Without operational experience in late 1940 or early 41 why would they have tried to add more fuel to the P-47 design when it already was one of the longest ranged fighters they knew about? (they didn't know about the Zero at this point)

It turned out that it didn't have the range needed for the missions they wanted it to do in the 2nd half 1943 but then next to nothing did.

 

[Schweik]

Here is a silly and no doubt misguided question SR6. I notice that the Boulton Paul Defiant managed (allegedly) 300 mph running a 1030 hp Merlin III, even with a second crewman and a turret. If true, that is considerably better than say, a Fulmar with it's second crewman and no turret.

If they took the second crewman and turret out of the Defiant, fared over the intervening space nice and clean, (maybe put a fuel tank there) and put in say, a Merlin XX instead of the Merlin III, and add a pair of 20mm and a pair of .303 guns in the wings, could it have made a better Hurricane than the Hurricane?

 

[michael rauls]

That ratio can be misapplied or misinterpreted and it often is.

I have already said that the the number cannot be used to predict actual range or endurance. It is a design benchmark of sorts. How well is a designer able to divide up the weight of an aircraft to meet his design goals Fuel is part of the payload. For the MK I Spit and it's 5875lbs 1890lbs were structural or about 32% which is a fairly normal number for a single engine fighter of that size. the power plant went 2035lb or 34.63% (and this is with a 96lb wooden prop) leaving about 1585lbs of payload or 27% to be divided up between pilot, guns/ammo.etc, fuel and oil (there was 335lbs of assorted "sundries"which might include radio/s, etc)
The designer can trade fuel and oil for armament fairly easily. It is harder to design a light weight structure that allows for a higher payload. Like I said, size does help as some things (cockpits, equipement and pilots don't change much), Structural weight British/American for single engine fighters in 1943 went from a low of about 26% to a high of almost 40%

The original question was why didn't they stick more fuel in the P-47 from the start (design/development) not how the plane wound up being used.
American fighters in general carried more fuel and had longer "yardstick" ranges than most/all European fighters. This is in the late 30s and 1940/41. yard stick range is the range you can get if you magically transport the airplane to cruising height with a warmed up engine but with full fuel tanks and fly at optimum cruising speed (with no regard for tactical situation) and also allow no reserve.

An interesting number for comparing different designs but totally useless for mission planning.

As noted the P-47 had almost twice the "range" of a Spitfire or 109 in the planning stage/s. Without operational experience in late 1940 or early 41 why would they have tried to add more fuel to the P-47 design when it already was one of the longest ranged fighters they knew about? (they didn't know about the Zero at this point)

It turned out that it didn't have the range needed for the missions they wanted it to do in the 2nd half 1943 but then next to nothing did.

Interesting explanation of how things appeared to designers and planers of the time and why they didn't do things that look like so obviously good ideas with hindsight.
Trying to look out into the future and looking back at the past can certainly yield different priorities, and hindsight is indeed 20/20.
Still seems to me that at least a bit of greater full capacity in the p47 pf all planes would be desirable and doable but who can really blame the designers too much for not seeing the eventual need. They only had the past and preasant to guide them.

 

[Mad Dog]

I have read quite a few books on Malta.....

Then you should know the situation in Malta was completely different to that in Darwin. In Malta, especially during the Luftwaffe blitzes, the RAF faced day and night bombing that actually destroyed more aircraft than air combat. Malta was the most bombed place on the planet with often several raids each day. The defending Hurricanes were restricted by fuel shortages and faced a far superior enemy fighters in the shape of the Bf109F and MC202, and a far tougher bomber in the shape of the Ju88 and SM79. The Axis often mounted faints to draw the defenders into the air and then attacked them as they landed to refuel - nothing like that at Darwin. The Hurricanes at Malta had to put up with German fighters flying in below the radar and strafing their airfields, again unknown at Darwin. Yet the Maltese Hurricanes (and a few Fulmars and the original Gladiators) shot down just short of 200 Axis aircraft (and that's confirmed post-War, not just claimed) before the Spitfires arrived in 1942, for only 20 Hurricanes (Is and IIs) lost in air combat. Compared to Malta, the defence of Darwin was sporadic and relatively undemanding. The Spitfires at Darwin had no shortage of fuel nor food and plenty of time between raids to repair and prepare, and the Spit V had a number of important performance advantages over the Zero. The comparison doesn't stand scrutiny.

.......you don't seem to be receptive to data which contradicts your theories......

LOL, more like you can't stand any criticism of the P-40F, despite the many historical facts and figures provided. Even the P-40B, the lightest version, could only just beat 3000fpm, and it couldn't operate at 30,000ft. You had to go to the XP-40Q prototypes to get climb over 3000fpm. Checking here, the best figure for the P-40F is under 2500fpm, with an operational figure of 8 minutes to 15,000ft, which is less than 1900fpm. The idea you could get a production P-40F to 3000fpm without attaching boosters from the shuttle is - frankly - laughable.

.......I've yet to see anything to change my opinion of the Hurricane vis a vis the A6M or Ki 43. I read everything you and everyone else posted about it in this thread.

Try reading with your eye open then. Or at least a more open mind.

 

[Schweik]

LOL, more like you can't stand any criticism of the P-40F, despite the many historical facts and figures provided. Even the P-40B, the lightest version, could only just beat 3000fpm, and it couldn't operate at 30,000ft. You had to go to the XP-40Q prototypes to get climb over 3000fpm. Checking here, the best figure for the P-40F is under 2500fpm, with an operational figure of 8 minutes to 15,000ft, which is less than 1900fpm. The idea you could get a production P-40F to 3000fpm without attaching boosters from the shuttle is - frankly - laughable.

Try reading with your eye open then. Or at least a more open mind.

The Malta / Darwin comparison is interesting and worth exploring, but you have to have some credibility and mutual respect carry out that kind of complex discussion. You and I don't have that between us.

As for the climb rate thing, you are quoting stats for 6 guns and a full fuel load. This is the P-40N-5 (lightened, 4 gun) but it's from the same source you linked (WWIIaircraftPerformance), and it's definitely not a P-40Q or any other experimental type. So read this chart and think about it for a moment, maybe take your own advice:

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/P-40/A29-412-climb-WEP.jpg

I really, really don't want to turn this into another debate about P-40s and I know you in particular won't agree regardless of what I or anyone else posts about it so maybe we should just agree to disagree. Like with the Hurricanes in Burma.

 

[Schweik]

I'd also like to point out I think the Spit V is a better interceptor than the P-40F, and a Spit VIII or IX would be much better (for the Pacific, the VIII probably would be the best of the three). My only point about the F/L is that it would have been better in that role than a P-40E or a P-39. Or a Hurricane.

 

[michael rauls]

Over the years I've read more different climb rates for the p40f/L than I have fingers and toes but the majority have been around 2400/ 2500 fpm. Not greased lightning in the climb department but not horrendous either as most planes with around 3000 fpm climb like the p51 and A6m are usually refered to has having great climb rates.
Wouldn't be my first pick for an interceptor but you certainly could have done alot worse in that department in 42/43.

 

[PAT303]

?

RAAF tests:
speed at 5min rating, clean/30IGDT/90IGDT

20 000ft: 356 / 341 / 329mph

The MkV's did 330mph clean when the RAAF did performance trails with the spit, p40 and Zero at 20,000ft, the report is about a dozen pages back. Spitfire Mk V Performance Testing It is easy to see the handicap the Merlin 46 was over the 45, even when fitted with fuel injection the 46 was slower, to add more salt to the wounds the report states the Spit it was fitted to was is very good overall condition which gave it a 10mph advantage.

 

[Kevin J]

The MkV's did 330mph clean when the RAAF did performance trails with the spit, p40 and Zero at 20,000ft, the report is about a dozen pages back. Spitfire Mk V Performance Testing It is easy to see the handicap the Merlin 46 was over the 45, even when fitted with fuel injection the 46 was slower, to add more salt to the wounds the report states the Spit it was fitted to was is very good overall condition which gave it a 10mph advantage.

I can't find your 330 mph figure anywhere. RCAFson's look to be more accurate. The 30 gal slipper combat tank should only reduce speed by 5 mph. I think the 341 mph top speed is when the 45 gal slipper drop tank is fitted.

 

[Schweik]

Here is a silly and no doubt misguided question SR6. I notice that the Boulton Paul Defiant managed (allegedly) 300 mph running a 1030 hp Merlin III, even with a second crewman and a turret. If true, that is considerably better than say, a Fulmar with it's second crewman and no turret.

If they took the second crewman and turret out of the Defiant, fared over the intervening space nice and clean, (maybe put a fuel tank there) and put in say, a Merlin XX instead of the Merlin III, and add a pair of 20mm and a pair of .303 guns in the wings, could it have made a better Hurricane than the Hurricane?

Kevin J, I really don't understand why you hit "Disagree" on this, I was just asking a question. What is there to disagree with? I wasn't asserting anything.

 

[Schweik]

Over the years I've read more different climb rates for the p40f/L than I have fingers and toes but the majority have been around 2400/ 2500 fpm. Not greased lightning in the climb department but not horrendous either as most planes with around 3000 fpm climb like the p51 and A6m are usually refered to has having great climb rates.
Wouldn't be my first pick for an interceptor but you certainly could have done alot worse in that department in 42/43.

Initial rate of climb for a P-40L or 'stripped' / 4-gun F is about 3300 fpm, probably at WEP. Roughly the same as that 4 gun P-40N-5 I linked from WWIIAircraftPerformane. Source is "The Curtiss Hawks" (Shamburger, 1972) p. 234 and "Curtiss P-40, snub nosed Kittyhawks and Warhawks", Molesworth 2013, P. 32

Needless to say, A6M and P-51 also climb better if they have less fuel on board.