Advantages & Disadvantages: Nations & Doctrine, Aircraft and Technology of WWII

[Zipper730]

I was wondering about the advantages & disadvantages each nation had over the other during the course of WWII.

For example, here's a few advantages I can readily think of

1. The Germans, Russians, and British seemed to be best able to identify intellectual prowess and make use of it (i.e. allocating these individuals to career paths that made use of their skills).​

• The Russians were at a disadvantage in that they lacked sufficient amounts of skilled labor, and were often dependent on the resources of other nations (UK/US) to supply it.
• The Germans and British had plenty of skilled labor in one way or another, but the Germans tended to use it to develop all sorts of oddball designs they could think of, while the older designs they had weren't being replaced in a timely manner.
• The Germans and British were both able to see the advantages in ideas, such as gas-turbines (something not all nations saw as being useful), and possessed the industrial capacity to build them.

2. The British and Soviet Union were the most capable and utterly ruthless when it came to covert operations and special forces. This is something that requires the intelligence of a chessmaster, ruthless-cunning, and a capacity for savage, yet dispassionate cruelty normally seen in violent psychopaths, while still retaining the discipline to not turn on one's masters (that last part didn't always work out...).​

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3. The British seemed to have the best abilities to produce designs that range from conventional to unorthodox as hell and seemed, as a rule, the best in their ability to determine what they needed and didn't.​

4. The Germans & Japanese seemed to have the most recent experience in aerial warfare (at the time). Both also had extensive experience in ground warfare as well​

• The Japanese were more battle-hardened, having been waging war against China for an additional 7-8 years.
• The Germans were better equipped in terms of technology and doctrine.

While the British had extensive experience in ground warfare, and had one of the oldest and most experienced independent air-forces in the world: It had not engaged in combat against a major power for roughly 20 years. The USMC would be the most experienced in the United States in terms air-to-air, air-to-ground, and ground-to-ground combat, though it intervened mostly in small nations.​

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5. Of all the independent air-arms, the Luftwaffe and Soviet Air Force were the most able and willing to perform army support, and had produced large numbers of light & medium bombers, including those capable of dive-bombing to this purpose.​

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The USN/USMC and RN showed serious interest in this, the RAF had a periodic interest, and the USAAF's interest was barely existent until they saw how effectively the Luftwaffe was able to plow across Europe.​

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6. The USAAF seemed to have put the most effort into making high-altitude capability (25,000'+) for fighters and bombers a reality early on. It was one of the only nations, if the only one to mass-produce turbosuperchargers.​

• The Luftwaffe did propose and fly some seriously high-altitude designs, such as the Ju-86P, many other designs that were produced were either not built for the altitudes the USAAF sought out early on, or were not produced in massive numbers (the Ju-86 production run as a whole was around 900 aircraft).
• While the Soviets sought to produce turbosuperchargers, they lacked the industrial capacity to produce them in large numbers
• The Luftwaffe, RAF, RN, and USN were more designed around operating altitudes of around 15,000 to 24,000 feet early on, though by the end of the war, the USN would have the F4U-4 (critical altitude 29,800'), the RAF would have the Merlin-60s and Griffon-60's which would provide altitudes similar to what the USAAF started with.

7. The Japanese seemed to value maneuverability above all the other powers, even going o far as to place speed below that of agility. This yielded aircraft such as the Ki-43 and A6M that could turn inside damned near anybody else. It also proved to be a weakness when it's lack of self-sealing tanks, and armor made them flying zippo-lighters.​

 

[tomo pauk]

Too big a topic this is

Soviet Union: they, as everybody else, tried many a funky aircraft designs as prototypes, but produced and used conservative types. The only departure was the Il-2. Being 1st on fast fighters (I-16) and fast bombers (SB-2) worked as a disadvantage when Germans come knoncking. The ability to out-produce Germany even in the darkest days was amazing in any metrics, however, luckily the new fighter and bomber types were useful and 'realistic' aircraft. Guns/cannons used or prototypes were excellent.
Failings: too late introduction of a follow-on for the SB-2 role, not using the Mikulin engines on a more elaborate scale, MiG-1/3 with plenty shortcomings, no use of drop tanks, strategic aviation was not that good, no escort doctrine and assets to do so, no use of either turbo or 2-stage supercharging apart from test aircraft, advances in aerodynamics were. Too bad they did not introduced a small & & small 2-engined fighter with 2 Klimov engines and 4 x 20 mm. The worst failing was probably training, eg. the Fininsh AF managed to hold their own.
Almost no night fighting ability. Firepower of fighters was usualy too light when compared with British, for example.

Germany: very useful early- and mid-ww2 aircraft, probably the best trained and most experienced AF before mid-ww2. Jet aircraft pioneers. Useful & well equipped nightfighters, but nothing over-performing. Use of guided missiles. Aircraft guns were very good. Installtion of engines was usualy top-notch, they used fuel injection in a wide scale. Night bombing ability from 1940 on.
Failings: lowering the training standard from mid-ww2 on (this is not just the failing of LW), the next-gen bombers went nowhere, lack of long range fighter that can perform, no introduction of better supercharging until too late, serious problems with reliability of even the wide-scale used engines, too many engine and aircraft projects that did not gave fruit but spent too much of resources, obsession with dive bombing. No 'classic' heavy bomber, those factories the Russkies evacuated and oil fields won't destroy themselves. Of all the French engines available, they used the 700 HP radial on a somewhat wide scale. The UK and SU outproduced Germany early in the war. Questionable co-operation with other Axis powers (not just German fault, obviously).

UK: mass production of useful aircraft and engines for those, the RR Merlin was a truly excellent engine, plenty of very good or excellent designs (Hurricane, Spitfire, Whirlwind, Wellington, Lancaster, Mosquito, Tempest...), jet aircraft pioneers, high firepower.
Failings: (more later)

 

[tomo pauk]

Major pluses for the UK were the Imperial Training scheme, workable radar-aided C&C network, and top-notch airborne electronics aids. Long range & well equipped marine patrol aircraft. Big bombs, torpedos that work.

Failings: sometimes the obsolete or under-performing types were left in production for too long, lack of long range fighters, hoarding of the Spitfires in the UK itself after 1940, not coimng out with over-performing naval aircraft despite the early lead. Shared with Soviets is lagging behind in basic aerodynamic development and low usage of high-lift devices. The next-gen fighters and bombers sometimes failed behind expectations. No doctrine, nor means for close air support until late in war. Early war fighter tactic was well behing German 'finger four'. Once forced to do night bombing and for next ~2 years there was no electronics nor training to actually navigate in night and hit targets. Too long using obsolete carb types, engine installations lagged behind German or US, esp. the radial engines. Low production of Napier engines. No Centaurus for ww2, desipite the early start.

Italy: useful bombers and floatplanes, once German engines and guns were available the resulting fighters were competitive, looks like traing and morale was good. Workable torpedos. Long-ish range of fighters.

Failings: non introduction of carrier vessels and their aircraft, lagging too much vs. other in development of more powerful engines and engines' installations. Obsolete thinking that maneuverability of fighters trumps speed and firepower. No 20mm cannon until German guns are available, no multiple (4-5-6) HMG on fighters, no indigenous capability to fight during the night. No basic aerodynamic research worth speaking about, ditto for electronic aids (both research and use), questionable application of high lift devices. Tactical bombers of neither quality nor quantity. Aircraft too labour-intensive for real mass production. Low production totals.

 

[Shortround6]

I was wondering about the advantages & disadvantages each nation had over the other during the course of WWII.

For example, here's a few advantages I can readily think of

Oh boy..............

1. The Germans and Russians seemed to have the most brilliant minds, with the UK following very close behind those two:
Russia's disadvantage was that it did not have much skilled labor, and was often dependent on the resources of other nations (UK/US) to supply it; Germany had plenty of skilled labor but seemed to develop every oddball design they could think of, failing to grasp the need to produce things in bulk and cancelling projects with little promise; the UK seemed to have a good ability to come up with ideas that ranged from conventional to novel, and the ability to better determine what they did and didn't need.

No country has an advantage in Brilliant minds due to the nationality. Brilliant minds are pretty much evenly distributed. That mean s for every 1 million people you get X number of real geniuses. Y number of medium geniuses and Z number of lower grade geniuses.
Obviously countries with large populations have an advantage. Countries with good education systems have an advantage. You can't educate someone into being a genius but you can identify them easier and steer them into higher education easier so Genius X doesn't spend his life being the best dang pig farmer in lower Mongo-Bongo.
Many nations wasted quite a bit of effort on rather useless programs in hindsight. I have mixed feelings about the British as they sure built a lot of, shall we say junk, to go along with some of the better ideas. Granted the pace of development of aircraft then was about like that of cell phones today so picking winners was difficult.

2. The Germans and British, due to their brilliant minds were able to see the advantage in a gas-turbine where such ideas were either ignored, or erroneously viewed as useless in other nations like the US.

There is a very fine line between Brilliance and stupidity at times. A lot of the early "schemes" were too ambitious or over complicated for the state of the industry at the time. At times there was a fumble, Dr Sanford Moss describing the failure of GE to put a combustion chamber between the compressor and turbine of a standard turbo charge as "Just dumb, just dumb". However the not so brilliant Americans managed to come up with quite a few programs (some of which showed what NOT to do) and some successful engines by 1945 which was about all that anybody else did. ALL the 1944-45-46 engines being things that few people in the right minds would have OK'ed in less stressful times.

3.The Luftwaffe & USN/USMC both seemed to be the most adaptable in real time.

Not sure what you mean by this, examples?

Of all the independent air-arms, the Luftwaffe and Soviet Air Force were the most able and willing to perform army support, and had produced large numbers of light & medium bombers, including those capable of dive-bombing to this purpose.

Not sure where this comes from. For some reason there is a belief that close support means dive bombers and lack of dive bombers means lack of interest in close support by an Air Force. The American P-26 could carry five 30lb bombs or two 100lb bombs. The P-35 could carry bombs. The Americans had an entire series of aircraft dedicated to close support. The "A" or attack series. The A-20 was intended to be a close support aircraft. Some other countries had close support aircraft that were not dive bombers. Dive bombers as Army close support lasted pretty much from 1939-43. It rather depended on the defenders AA capability. Once armies moved from LMGs on pintle mounts to multiple heavy machine guns and 20-40mm automatic cannon dive bombing became a lot less entertaining and a lot worse career choice. Russians got several thousand A-20s.

The Luftwaffe and Soviet Air Force as independent entities, seemed to have taken the greatest interest in dive-bombing. For overall air-arms, the USN/USMC, and RN also took a serious interest in the idea. The RAF had a periodic interest, and the USAAF's interest was barely existent except in 1940 when they saw how effectively the Luftwaffe plowed across Europe.

The Dive bombers had good press agents. The Dive bombers took a lot of the credit that should have gone to the German artillery.
The German artillery, on average, had bigger guns (105 howitzers vs 75mm guns) a better radio network (methods for calling in fire) and in 1939/40 more motor transport for carrying ammo. Artillery worked day or night, rain or shine.
yes the Luftwaffe certainly helped, in part by clearing the skies so the artillery spotting planes could work.

Of all the air-arms, the USAAF seemed to value high-altitude capability (as a general rule) more than all the others in that they were willing to put in the effort to make the concept an actuality: To that effect, the US was the only nation to mass produce turbochargers, and while the Russians were quite fond of the idea, they lacked the industrial power to make it work (The Luftwaffe had made at least some successes with turbochargers in the form of the Ju-86P). The Luftwaffe, RN, and USN generally preferred to use superchargers, and while it's possible to produce superchargers with remarkable high-altitude performance, the Luftwaffe and the RAF seemed to both be designed around operating altitudes of around 15,000 to 22,000 feet, the USN/USMC around 21,000-24,000 feet; the USAAF were working on or developing aircraft that could fly comfortably around 25,000 feet (B-17) before the war even started (by 1945, that was of course different: Seemingly everybody could comfortably operate over 25,000 feet)

The JU-86P worked because Diesel exhaust is cooler than Petrol exhaust. We are back to materials/industrial capacity.
Russians tried to put turbos on practically every thing but the T-34 tank. Lost a number of aircraft due to turbo explosions.
I would also note that the ability to operate at high altitudes was also somewhat fuel dependent. The Western Allies could do it using small engines operating at high boost pressures. With 96 octane or less gasoline you have to resort to large displacement engines that are heavier than the smaller engines. Your ability to use boost is limited even with turbos.

 

[tomo pauk]

USA: mass production of everything - engines, airframes and complete aircraft, guns, ammo, electronics, pliots. Many decent, very good or excellent designs, whether bombers, fighters or transports, sturdy machines. Desings that were flops were mostly isolated in experiental stage. Basic aerodynamic and materials research, as well as application of that. Turbo- and 2-stage superchargers, though some were better than the others. .50 was hard hitting, if heavy. Rangy fighters. Good or very good/excellent engines, the R-2800 as an outstanding engine. Water injection widely applied.

Failings: took them quite some time to realize that bombers need escort. Lagging somewhat after UK and Germany in jet engines. Very problematic Mk.13 torpedo until fixes were in place after many months of the war, part of the wider torpedo scandal. 20 mm cannon was a problem, other developments, like the .60 did nothing for Allied war effort. Smaller or bigger issues with P-47B, early P-39s and P-38s, B-26, and production at Brewster, Curtiss, Wright. Desire to overburden the fighters with too big an armament, armor and electronics outfit. Took some time to iron out the naval/CV flight operations. Army wasted plenty of money and time on hi-per engines that delivered nothing for war effort.

 

[parsifal]

Australia's big mistake was to rely on British engine makers for indigenous production. nothing wrong with the engines, but the rules about their export were changed damning the local industry for more than a year whilst alternatives were cast about and eventually found.

We should have cut to the chase pre-war and selected the twin wasp instead of continuing our wishful thinking to build merlins and Taurus engines

 

[Shortround6]

We should have cut to the chase pre-war and selected the twin wasp instead of continuing our wishful thinking to build merlins and Taurus engines

Somebody should have taken a long hard look at the Taurus and said "This dog won't hunt" for sure.
Merlin at least didn't require new manufacturing techniques.
Wither Australia had the necessary machine tools and foundry equipment in country at the time might be another question but at least the Merlin was being made in quantity in England at the time. The Taurus was not. Licensing an engine the Parent company isn't building in large numbers (scores per month in not hundreds) and is still having teething troubles is a recipe for disaster.

 

[Shortround6]

Army wasted plenty of money and time on hi-per engines that delivered nothing for war effort.

Time yes, money not so much. At least pre-war. Don't forget Wright flushed about 6.5 million down the porcelain throne on the Tornado project and didn't come close to passing a type test. This may have been more money than the Continental and Lycoming hyper engines sucked up combined and at least they flew (not well and not long for the Continental).
The R-2800 cost about 8 million to bring to flight status and the R-4360 cost about 25 million.

What is unknown is if the Army learned anything that could be applied to other projects?

 

[Ascent]

Don't forget a big advantage for the USA was being geographically isolated from the fighting as well as having an additional two years to see what worked and what didn't before having to commit forces. If they'd gone to war in 1939 they would have struggled.

 

[tomo pauk]

Japan: early emphasis on long combat radius and suitable fighter escort, IJN used cannon armament, useful torpedos, trained manpower early on making the most of their aircraft, the most formidable attacking force when Pacific war started.

Failings: low standard of training as ww2 progressed, took too long for production to gear up, production of obsolete types after 1943, inter-service rivalry, IJA with too light weaponry until too late, low standard of protection until too late, no big strategic bomber worth takling about in service, no follow on for the Zero, separate designs for separate roles, low state of electronics both development and use, for either surface-based or airborne platforms, low capability for night combat, no 2-stage engine, too late turbo developments, messing with Ha-140 and Atsuta instead of license production of DB 605, low emphasis on V12 engines in general.

 

[swampyankee]

For Australia, I believe that policy out of London was to discourage industrial development outside of the British Isles. All that would require is making capital for industrial development harder to get. One wonders what would have happened had London encouraged Indian industrial development.

The US's aviation and auto industry benefited from the size of the US. While trains could, with a great, and uneconomic effort do the run from NYC to California in about 40 hours (with the same effort a train could probably go from the UK's southernmost city to it northernmost on the island of Great Britain in ten), even by the early 1930s trans-continental, aviation was showing it could beat that. While air transport was subsidized (mostly through air mail contracts) and regulated (prices and routes), there wasn't anything resembling the control exerted by the UK Air Ministry. This said, government support for aviation technology in the US was probably greater but more indirect than that in most other countries, which is why, for example, NACA airfoils were used by so many countries (including Germany).

The US was also much closer to self-sufficient in things like food and aluminum than were the UK, Germany, or France.

Also, do remember that Germany and Japan went on a war footing earlier than the democracies or the USSR, so the Allies had to play catch-up.

 

[swampyankee]

Japan: early emphasis on long combat radius and suitable fighter escort, IJN used cannon armament, useful torpedos, trained manpower early on making the most of their aircraft, the most formidable attacking force when Pacific war started.

Failings: low standard of training as ww2 progressed, took too long for production to gear up, production of obsolete types after 1943, inter-service rivalry, IJA with too light weaponry until too late, low standard of protection until too late, no big strategic bomber worth takling about in service, no follow on for the Zero, separate designs for separate roles, low state of electronics both development and use, for either surface-based or airborne platforms, low capability for night combat, no 2-stage engine, too late turbo developments, messing with Ha-140 and Atsuta instead of license production of DB 605, low emphasis on V12 engines in general.

One other issue is that Japan had a poor bearing industry.

 

[tomo pauk]

Interesting - care to elaborate?

...
Also, do remember that Germany and Japan went on a war footing earlier than the democracies or the USSR, so the Allies had to play catch-up.

I'd say that USSR was on war footing from the 1920s.

 

[Shortround6]

What is interesting is that some people tend to confuse what a country needed with what it's opponents had. The "strategic bomber" being the prime example. A few dozen or even a few hundred large 4 engine aircraft are not a strategic bombing force. They are a long range recon force. The scale of forces needed to actual mount a strategic bombing campaign and the logistical support needed was simply beyond the capabilities of any Air Force except the US and the British commonwealth.

Adding to that is the fact that until 1944 and the B-29 bomber the only way the American and British bombing campaign worked was using Britain as the airbase with the relatively short distances that involved. Germans never got anywhere near close enough to Urals to actually mount a bombing campaign against the Russian industry there, and transporting the fuel, bombs, ammo and supplies (food?) for the tens of thousands of men for an 8th air force style campaign from Germany to Stalingrad (assuming the Germans held it) would have been a nightmare of it's own.

Flips for the Russians. At what point do the Russians get close enough to bomb Germany and not captured Russian territory or Poland?
The bombers have to be ordered 2 years or so before the bombing campaign hits full stride. How much lend lease fuel do the Russians devote to this effort? What doesn't get built? 10,000 IL-2s?

Japanese strategic bombers? What are they going to bomb? Chinese industry? Bomb India from China or Burma? Bomb Hawaii from the Marshal islands? 2300 miles one way.

XB-36, specification put out in Aug 1941, ordered in Nov 1941, production order for 100 placed in June/July 1943.

This was for a bomber that could bomb Germany from Newfoundland or perhaps Japan from Hawaii.

The Japanese could terror bomb Chinese Cities with twin engine bombers. Japanese industry could not build enough 4 engine bombers, even of B-17/B-24 size to really do anything even if the Japanese had millions of gallons of av-gas.

 

[Zipper730]

Removed, everything in place

 

[tomo pauk]

Might be, but I didn't know where else to put it...

Place (this sub-forum) is good, the scope of the topic is too big for just one thread.

[Soviet designs]Is this an advantage, disadvantage, or both?

Good, IMO.

When you say it was not-conservative, you mean the idea of using armor as an integral structure?

That, plus the protected coolant circuit.

Do you mean that they were slow by 1941?

Darned slow.

Yeah, and they [Soviets] were doing it with most of the labor force in jail...

Labor force was not in jail.

Even the Pe-2 and Tu-2?

Pe-2 was not as over-performer in it's era as it was the SB-2 in it's era. The Tu-2 was not produced and deployed early enough

I'd almost swear the I-16 had the provision for drop-tanks, I can't vouch for other aircraft used by the USSR; they definitely had strategic aviation, as well as airplanes to fulfill it (Yer-2 and Pe-8), though I'm not sure how many of either were built, and they might have lacked navigational aids to make their targets.

Strategic aviation was there, but it's capcity (payload vs. range, availablity of escorts, or ability to operate well during the night) was not approaching UK or US capacities.

[no turbos or 2-stage engines for VVS]Same thing could be said of the UK...

In the UK, Rolls Royce came out with 2-stage supercharged Merlin in early 1942, and it was used in combat from second half of 1942 on. 2-stage s.charged Griffon went in production by winter of 1943/44.
Granted, neither Napier nor Bristol came out with 2-stage engine for service use in ww2.

[Soviet lack of night fighting capacity]They didn't have many Pe-3's and Tu-2's?

Aircraft does not equal capability in this case, radars are needed. Soviets have experimented wit radar-equipped A-20, but again experiments don't equal actual capability during a war.

One thing I've noticed with the Russians is they seemed to have attempted to develop an escort fighter in the form of the Pe-2. It wasn't originally designed as a fast-bomber, but an escort fighter.

They tried with Yak-9D and -DD. Low power of engines combained with too heavy aircraft made under-performers, and still drop tanks were not used to the advantage.

The Germans had an issue with producing shitloads of designs and tying up lots of resources on them, but not allocating enough resources on one project to see it through.

Number of German aircraft designs actually produced was low, when compared with US, UK or Japan. The notable flops that got produced were Me-210, He 177, while the Me-410 and He-219 fell behind expectations. Ju-288 needed reliable, high powered engines, but at the end it was a money pit.
IMO, variety of engine types that went trough design stage was huge.

You mean the zerstorers right?

Nope, I was thinking or either 1- or 2-engined long-range fighters, or both, that can perform.

I have almost no knowledge of german supercharger design..
Installation was good, but reliability was bad?

Problems with BMW 801 almost killed whole Fw 190 program, The DB 605 was sometimes called as the engine that killed H.J. Marseille, the ban on max RPM and boost lasted for perhaps 15 months, and 6 months on the DB 601E. The 601N was supposed to do 1.43 ata, was reduced to 1.35 (though they upped max RPM after some time). DB 603A was having reliability issues into 1944, despite being produced from late 1942. Jumo 211N did not liked the 5-min (max power) rating so much that it crashed 6 (six) Ta-154 prototypes via it's (engine's) problems.

German superchargers are a topic on their own.

Yeah, but the Russians also developed the Pe-2 and Tu-2... they were big two engined dive bombers. Hell the Tu-2 could carry something like 8300 pounds of bombs

Those two were much more reasonable dive bombers than what was hoped for He 177.

 

[Shortround6]

The Russians were severely handicapped by a lack of really competitive engines and/or a lack of production capacity for some engines.
They also had a fuel problem.
The Russians, while they did crank out large quantities of certain types of war goods had a limited number of well equipped factories and limited ability to subcontract out parts. Many of their production plants had been built with the aid of western engineers and western supplied equipment, Russian machine tool industry was rather small so even if new factory shells (buildings) are constructed equipping the factory is difficult. Allison for instance was able to rely on Cadillac for the manufacture of Piston rods, wrist pins, and even crankshafts.
The Russians had no such back up, whatever automotive industry existed was already fully committed.
Factory 19 built the M-25 and M-62/63 9 cylinder radials. It went on to build the M-82/ASh-82 and here is part of the problem is saying the Russians shoulda done...... There were only about 24,000 M-82/ASh-82 engines built during WW II. They would go on to build over 30,000 more after the war. Production of the M-82/ASh-82 was shared with Factory 29 but factory 29 was also building the M-88 14 cylinder radial used in the DB-3/IL-4. Factory 29 was moved from Zaporozhye to Omsk in the summer/fall of 1941.
So questions become what engines were available when and it what numbers? More TU-2s in 1942/43 means less LA-5s?
The M-100 series of engines shows similar production problems, it also shows that the Russians were planning better engines. The almost total failure of the M-106 caused the M-105 to be used well beyond it's expired date even in modified forms.
The Russians did amazingly well with what they had, siphoning off engines and airframe manufacturing capacity for schemes like long range bombing (aside from propaganda raids) was probably not going to pay off. A PE-8 could suck up the resources of 3-4 IL-2s to begin with and given the short overhaul life of the AM series of engines running four per plane on 8-10 hour flights is going to put more drain on logistics than just initial manufacture suggests. IL-2 missions being short range/short endurance the engines are good for quite a few more missions before overhaul and the same amount of fuel goes a lot further. Enough long range raids to keep some German aircraft and AA guns away from the front was a good thing but a serious long range campaign was more than likely too costly.

Stalins purges of 1938 sure didn't do the Military any good. How much it affected aircraft procurement it is hard to tell. The critical time being around 1937-39 when few, if any new designs were procured. For example the Lagg-1 was started in 1938 but didn't fly until 1940.
The SB-2 was an interesting aircraft, It pre-dated the Blenheim by over 1/2 a year and was one of the first metal, monoplane bombers with retracting landing gear. It started at about 250mph in early production form and could easily out run just about anybodies bi-plane or fixed gear mono-plane fighters, however standing still or taking small steps wasn't good enough. Last models with higher powered engines and pointy nacelles could hit 280mph.
Using more powerful versions of the same engines (same production footprint) the PE-2 could carry the same internal bombload around 50-60mph faster although range was shorter. Nobodies aircraft in 1940 were showing the dramatic increase in performance that happened in 1934/35. Everybody had given up on biplanes (mostly and had given up on fixed landing gear (mostly

Russians got stuck on 96 octane fuel for the most part which limited engine power. Which was probably just as well as 2 of their 4 main engines couldn't take much boost anyway. M-88 radial, like it's Gnome-Rhone parents, lacked a center bearing on it's crankshaft so both boost and RPM were limited. The M-100 series did exceed the Hispano parentage but only at the cost of beefing up and more weight. However dumping lend lease 100/130 fuel in the tank/s and cranking up the boost was likely to result in very short missions.

The fuel situation would limit the ability of two stage superchargers to really provide high performance like the Western powers enjoyed. Yes more power at altitude could have been obtained than the engines gave with single stage superchargers but inter-coolers and/or water injection would have been needed even more than Western engines to avoid detonation.

 

[GrauGeist]

Don't forget a big advantage for the USA was being geographically isolated from the fighting as well as having an additional two years to see what worked and what didn't before having to commit forces. If they'd gone to war in 1939 they would have struggled.

Has the U.S. gone to war in 1939, it wouldn't have struggled as much as one might think.

Two years was an eternity in regards to aircraft development by the nations at war and had the U.S. been pulled in at the onset, the aircraft it had on hand would have been competitive.

At the outbreak of war in Europe, the Germans had the Bf109D (soon to be replaced by the E) but no Fw190. Italy had just introduced the G.50. England's go-to fighters were the Hurricane and the new kid on the block: Spitfire.

The Japanese had the A5M and KI-27 as their primary fighters, the A6M was still a year away and KI-43 would be a little over a year away.

The U.S. had the F2A, P-35 and P-36 as front-line fighters in 1939.

The problem was, the U.S. wasn't on a wartime footing until winter 1942 and the two years that elapsed between the invasion of Poland and the attack on Pearl Harbor did not see urgent fighter develpment, so when the U.S. did get drawn in, it was not as well equipped as it should have been.

 

[buffnut453]

The U.S. had the F2A, P-35 and P-36 as front-line fighters in 1939.

The problem was, the U.S. wasn't on a wartime footing until winter 1942 and the two years that elapsed between the invasion of Poland and the attack on Pearl Harbor did not see urgent fighter develpment, so when the U.S. did get drawn in, it was not as well equipped as it should have been.

It wasn't just an issue of fighter development as, in all likelihood the P-36 and F2A could have acquitted themselves reasonably well in 1939. IMHO the bigger issue was simply lack of numbers. The USAAF and USN/USMC simply weren't big enough for a major scrap in 1939. Even 2 years later, it still took the USAAF several months to get moving and start deploying assets to the UK.

 

[GrauGeist]

Considering that Germany had roughly 230 (+/-) Bf109D types on hand when they invaded Poland, the U.S. had a substantial amount of fighters in service by summer of 1939. And again, the U.S. wasn't on a wartime footing, so the types in service reflects that.

There is no doubt that if the U.S. were drawn into the war in 1939, the production numbers for the F2A, P-36 and P-35 would have ramped up until the F4F, P-39 and P-40 entered production.