Aircraft Economics the forgotten consideration

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z42 said:
I suspect what was standing in the way of a 'universal' tank, or MBT at the outset of the war was doctrine as well as available guns. Engine-wise they could, had they so wished, been in a pretty decent position.
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There were a lot things against the idea of a 'universal tank', a major one in the late 30s and early 40s was many armies wanted their tanks go over their portable bridge equipment without destroying the portable bridge. Bridging equipment got a lot better (bigger) during the war and a lot more was done after the war.

The quality vs quantity thing showed up in ships. Needing enough "good enough" ships to be where needed vs a super ship that could only be one place.

And back to aircraft, The Germans and the Soviets got trapped a kind of the quantity side. Yes the Germans had jets but the 109 was getting a bit past it.
It didn't carry enough guns to be a good bomber destroyer or if it did it needed "escorts" to keep the allied fighters busy while the more heavily armed bomber busters did their thing.
Needing two aircraft to do one job might not have been the ideal quantity vs quality. Neither was the short range which meant you needed a lot of fighters to defend Germany. It is around 380 miles from Hamburg to Munich so you need a LOT of fighter fields to defend the area. Even 20-30 minutes more endurance might mean you have fewer fighters stationed around Germany.

Soviets were about as bad, since they rarely had to attack large bombers they got away with their standard fighter armament. They didn't like it, near the end of the war with better engines and/or less weight due to more duralumin they started putting in more guns. But in order to get the performance they thought they needed they opted for poor armaments quality (per plane) for good performance quality per plane and made up for it in quantity. The M-106 and M-107 engine project failures limited the Soviet options for better overall quality that would require less quantity.

A lot of times there were a number of factors that resulted in the quantity vs quality decisions and not just a pure price decision.
 
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No armament system exists in a vacuum, including tanks. So yes, if you go for heavier tanks you also need heavier portable bridges, tank transporters etc. etc. And also the existing infrastructure matters. It's all fine to have a near-invulnerable behemoth tank, but if none of the existing permanent bridges in the area you're planning to operate can take that weight, you might never arrive on the battlefield in the first place.

And back to aircraft, The Germans and the Soviets got trapped a kind of the quantity side. Yes the Germans had jets but the 109 was getting a bit past it.
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Everybody was doing it, to an extent. The last Hurricane, for instance, rolled of the production line in July 1944. Even the USA with its vast industrial capacity kept the P-40 in production long after the much better P-51 arrived on the scene, and so forth.


Apart from the number of guns issue, Britain did the same during BoB, preferring to use the more nimble Spitfires to keep the escorts occupied while the Hurricanes went after the bombers.

A lot of times there were a number of factors that resulted in the quantity vs quality decisions and not just a pure price decision.
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Yes, like having a production line setup that is churning out planes as we speak, rather than setting up a new factory to produce planes sitting on an ostensibly more optimal point on the price-performance spectrum.
 

Soviets also shot themselves in foot by not having a M82-powered fighter in pipeline until the second half of 1942, and in service by late 1942, ie. about a year later then the Su-4 was in service. Past, 1941, they never gave much of a chance for a Mikulin-powered fighter, too, yet another self-inflicted wound.
They didn't needed an outsider to say to them that a 35-45% more powerful engine is better than it's less powerful competition, nor that a 800-900 kg engine (M82, AM35A) has more stretch in it than a ~600 kg engine (M105, M88), and to tweak production towards that goal.
A fighter with 1600+ HP engine will carry 4x 20mm cannons and look good while doing it; saddling a fighter with a 1100-1200 HP engine with the 4x 20mm cannons' battery will not work half as good.
 

z42 said:
Apart from the number of guns issue, Britain did the same during BoB, preferring to use the more nimble Spitfires to keep the escorts occupied while the Hurricanes went after the bombers.
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The Hurricane and P-40 (and the P-39) were no longer being used as fighters for most part. They were being used as single engine bombers/ground attack planes.
They also were used for lend-lease and for the P-40s that meant to just about every country that asked for an airplane
Part joke but P-40s flew for something like 24 countries?

The separation of the Hurricanes and Spitfires seems to something of myth. Somebody/s may have had the idea but implementing was a lot harder. Hurricanes made up just about 2/3rds of the fighter strength so you were never going to have enough Spitfires to take on the German fighters while the Hurricanes attacked the bombers. The British radar network and command and control was not good enough to get the right planes to the right part of the sky for this to work even if they had the right numbers of planes on a given day.
The whole "big wing" theory never worked in practice either. The British generally threw squadrons in one or two at time as they became available rather than keeping them orbiting around waiting for more squadrons to show up in the right 'mix' to attack.

In practice this may have been true for the Germans with the 109s. But the Germans knew that they had performance issues with the "gun-boats" even in 1942. Speed was not really the issue. It was climb, especially at altitude, and it was turn and roll.
 

I`m not sure I agree with all of that. Its pretty clear that (possibly after early learning had to be done) that separation of the fighters absolutely was carried out.

This would not really have been very restricted by having lots of Hurricanes, as usually only a tiny number of squadrons were sent after any particular raid at the same time.

(This story may appear a "myth" possibly merely because its very often repeated but I`ve never seen anyone actually quote or show the archive files, one such file entry is below)


 
11 Group, which was sited on coast, was always the first to intercept and 11 group had a disproportionate number of Hurricane squadrons. 12 Group had more Spitfire Squadrons and was sited inland. Consequently, it was the Hurricanes that endured the brunt of Me109 interception.
 

Given the time span and area that the BoB covered trying to sum it up in few sentences is difficult.

There were evolving tactics over the 3-4 months of the battle and last month or so saw the Germans shifting to night attacks (not instantly).

The big multi unit (formation) attacks don't seem to have been used much before Sept so there was about one month of the initial low intensity part. The about 2-3 weeks of the high intensity period before the attack on Sept 7th noted in the report (was there an earlier one?) and then about one week and a day to what the British considered the peak and the Germans slowing down but not ending.

I am perfectly OK with the Spitfires being used specifically for anti-fighter duty on 5-10 days out of the BoB in certain areas or zones. But that is somewhat different than what the
Myth usually says.
The British were adapting as the BoB went on as there was no guide book to go by (nobody had done this before) and figuring out deployments was going to take time. Spitfires climbed a bit faster than Hurricanes and could reach the higher altitudes 1-2 minutes quicker so which airfields do you base them out off? And trying to get 4-5 squadrons formed up in the air at the desired altitudes also took some practice.

We are arguing over how often it was done. It is never a good thing to say never
But widespread or common in the BoB?
 
A universal tank requires a universal gun, straddling the contradiction higher muzzle velocity was good for AP while lower muzzle velocity was good for HE, then that 75mm was around the lower limit for an effective Army HE round. Turret needed, but turret weight and complexity goes up with gun power. Armour is the discretionary item, go the M36 route, largely bullet proof but not much more? Keeps suspension and engine problems down. Or the Tiger route, keeps damage from hits down. Or the universal tank needs protection from guns of similar power to its at some "reasonable" combat range? Going from short to long 75mm the Panzer IV F1 to F2 weight grew from 22.3 to 23 tons, the IVG added another half a ton to upgrade protection.

Tanks and aircraft were bleeding edge technology, plenty of feedback about improvements. The US system outsourced a significant amount of production inefficiencies to the modification centre system. Thought exercise, a formation of P-47D built in February 1943 versus a similar size formation of P-47D built in July 1945, Or Spitfire IX built in June 1942 versus July 1945, how much of an advantage for the later production types, and if we cannot decide afterwards they could not decide before hand what improvements were worth it. And remembering many improvements were not about better combat ability, but about reliability, safety, ease of maintenance etc.

The RAF had a nominal 62 fighter squadrons on 10 July 1940 when 310 (Czech) formed, including those in Coastal Command, by end October it was 72, on 10 July 11 group had 23 squadrons, 14 Hurricane, 6 Spitfire and 3 Blenheim, end October 25 squadrons, 13 Hurricane, 7 Spitfire, 1 Blenheim, 2 Blenheim/Beaufighter, 2 Defiant. In terms of operational fighter squadrons on 7 July it was 32 Hurricane to 19 Spitfire, on 27 October it was 35.5 Hurricane to 19 Spitfire.

10 July, number 11 group: 1 (Northolt, Hurricane I), 1RCAF (Middle Wallop, Hurricane I), 25 (Martlesham Heath, Blenheim If), 32 (Biggin Hill, Hurricane I), 43 (Tangmere, Hurricane I), 54 (Rochford, Spitfire I), 56 (North Weald, Hurricane I), 64 (Kenley, Spitfire I), 65 (Hornchurch, Spitfire I), 74 (Hornchurch, Spitfire I), 79 (Hawkinge, Hurricane I), 111 (Croydon, Hurricane I), 145 (Tangmere, Hurricane I), 151 (North Weald, Hurricane I), 238 (Middle Wallop, Hurricane I), 257 (Northolt, Hurricane I), 501 (Middle Wallop, Hurricane I), 600 (Manston, Blenheim If), 601 (Tangmere, Hurricane I), 604 (Gravesend, Blenheim If), 609 (Middle Wallop, Spitfire I), 610 (Biggin Hill, Spitfire I), 615 (Kenley, Hurricane I)

31 October, number 11 group: 17 (Martlesham Heath, Hurricane I), 23 (Ford, Blenheim If), 25 (Debden, Beaufighter If, Blenheim If), 41 (Hornchurch, Spitfire I), 46 (Stapleford, Hurricane I), 66 (West Malling, Spitfire I,IIa), 73 (Castle Camps, Hurricane I), 74 (Biggin Hill, Spitfire I), 92 (Biggin Hill, Spitfire I), 141 (Gatwick, Defiant I), 145 (Tangmere, Hurricane I), 213 (Tangmere, Hurricane I), 219 (Redhill, Beaufighter If, Blenheim If), 222 (Hornchurch, Spitfire I), 229 (Northolt, Hurricane I), 249 (North Weald, Hurricane I), 253 (Kenley, Hurricane I), 257 (North Weald, Hurricane I), 264 (Southend, Defiant I), 302 (Northolt, Hurricane I), 501 (Kenley, Hurricane I), 602 (Westhampnett, Spitfire I), 603 (Hornchurch, Spitfire I,IIa), 605 (Croydon, Hurricane I), 615 (Northolt, Hurricane I)

Keith Park's instructions to controllers would be a useful guide to evolving tactics. Number 18 on 16 September said in clear weather the Hornchurch and Biggin Hill squadrons should attack the fighter screen in pairs. 72 (Biggin Hill, Spitfire I), 92 (Biggin Hill, Spitfire I), 222 (Hornchurch, Spitfire I), 603 (Hornchurch, Spitfire I)

12 Group wing did have the idea as Spitfires as top cover Hurricanes attack bombers but on 1 occasion at least the opposite happened.
 
Hi
In addition to the above, Dowding's Despatch includes quotes from Park's Report (starting para. 202) about using pairs of Spitfire squadrons to engage German high flying fighter screen:



I hope that is of interest.

Mike
 
Shortround6 said:
Having seen the T-34 in the summer of 1941 why did it take until Dec 1943 for this to show up?

And why did no PZ IV tank ever get a pointy nose or slightly sloped side armor?
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To get to this tidbit.
Due to the long and clumsy ammo, the Stug IV was with 63 pcs of of it, the JgdPz-IV with 55-60, and the StuG IIIG was with 56 rounds. Not that much of a difference, let alone vs. the JgdPz, and the Pz-IV made more sense as a full-blown tank than a Stug, IMO.
What they gotten wrong was that the Sug IV/JgdPz-IV wasn't produced with the long 7.5cm from the get go, preferably by Summer of 1943.
(yes, I know that the Stug IV as-is was even later)
 
To try and summarize a couple of the conversation threads in economic terms:

The perceived value of losses changes for each combatant during the course of the war based upon the perceived likelihood of defeat. During the early years of the war, the perceived likelihood of defeat for Britain and the western allies allowed for the acceptance of greater losses in the Atlantic as each shipment had greater value for survival. As the war progresses, the tolerance for loss goes down as the likelihood of defeat goes down.

This also shows up in how each combatant values any loss. The USSR, for instance, tolerated the highest losses of any allied combatant as the perceived likelihood of defeat was also the highest. The US, on the other hand, which was never in real risk of defeat and only the perception of defeat in the earliest months of the war had by far the lowest tolerance for loss. For the Axis powers, the tolerance for loss rises as the war progresses and the likelihood of defeat rises.

As far as weapons systems go, there are some fairly simple metrics that help understand the German fixation on super weapons. For example:

Tank A might have a relative combat value of 1, Tank B might have a relative combat value of .75, and Tank C might have a relative combat value of 1.25

Assuming that there are 100 Tank A with a combat value of 100, you would need 134 Tank B or 80 Tank C to achieve combat parity. Now let's say that the Sherman is Tank A and there are 500 deployed in the field. If you are Nazi Germany and only able to produce 300 tanks in the same time frame then they would need to have a combat value of 1.67 to achieve parity. Since parity does not lead to victory, the actual combat value of any tank you produce needs to be higher than 1.67.

As the Allies production capacity increases during the course of the war, Germany needs to develop weapon systems that have increasingly higher relative combat values. In essence, this is an economic death spiral. As long as one combatant's production continues to increase and the other remains flat, you would need to make a quantum leap in performance to regain the likelihood of victory.

This metric also affects today's militaries especially the US Air Force and its emphasis on developing aircraft that are generationally advanced above our adversaries. This approach is based on the premise that the US is numerically inferior but qualitatively superior in the field.
 
Geoffrey Sinclair said:
A universal tank requires a universal gun, straddling the contradiction higher muzzle velocity was good for AP while lower muzzle velocity was good for HE, then that 75mm was around the lower limit for an effective Army HE round.
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Indeed, as I mentioned back in post #120 (Aircraft Economics the forgotten consideration ).

But in a way, they (or well, at least Germany) had the gun for a universal tank all along, had they been willing to use it (and doctrine seeing it as desirable in the first place). Namely even the low velocity 75/L24 gun the Pz IV started the war with, when equipped with an AP shell, had an armor penetration capability about equal to the 37mm anti-tank gun the tanks that were supposed to fight other tanks were using at the time. Of course this did come with downsides, like the shells taking up much more space than the 37mm shells, and much slower muzzle velocity making it harder to hit moving targets. But it would have had the big advantage of a single tank that could engage both soft and hard targets.

So instead of upgrading from the 37mm gun via the 50mm gun, and then to a series of ever higher velocity 75 mm guns for for hard targets, they could have started with the low velocity 75mm and and kept upgrading that one with higher and higher velocity guns, and retained a good capability against soft targets for all tanks.

Well, as usual, easy to be a smartass after the fact..
 

There is another consideration as far as ballistics goes.
Assuming that you have shells of reasonable shape (streamline) you have point blank range (when aiming at the middle of a "standard' tank target) equal to the muzzle veleocity + 10%
Yes the big shells do little bit better so don't quote the last digit and be careful with the 2nd to last.
But the 37mm was good for around 745m +75= 820 meters, adjust a bit down if you want.
The short 75mm was good for around 450 + 45 += 495 meters.
The projectile is going to fall just about 16ft or just under 5 meters in the 1st second of flight (ignoring wind resistance) So just center the arming mark and bang away, not carrying if you hit the top of the tank at 200-300yds or the bottom at 500-800 yds. The short 75 is going to need a lot more corrections (2nd and 3rd shots and 4ths) as the range gets longer.
Once you get to 2 seconds of flight time (48ft [14.6m]) of drop shooting gets really hard and the short 75 is really lobbing shells in.
And this is for stationary targets.


MK III carried 121-131 rounds of 37mm and 4500 rounds of 7.9mm
MK IV carried 80 rounds of 37mm and 2400 rounds of 7.9mm.

Now this is before they get into combat in Poland so things are pretty much in theory.
Also note that the Germans did have smoke shells for the short 75mm and this was almost as important as the HE. That 80 rounds of 75mm ammo was split up 3 or 4 ways.

You also needed a bigger tank. The first 70 or so MK III were 16 ton tanks while the first MK IVs were 18.5-19 ton tanks. They both gained weight and some of cost difference went away but they had already set up the factories in 1938-39. You need to get to the PZ III E before the weight equalizes.

They had also rigged the MK III to take the short 50mm gun.
The 37mm was to simplify ammo production and logistics.

What the Germans did do was design/set a good gunnery system. There a set of aiming marks that could be used for judging distance and there were range scales for quick aiming and repeat shots. The commander was suppose to watch the tracers and give corrections to the gunner.

Most armies of the time (late 30s) were figuring on 3 different tank sizes. Light, Medium and Heavy but some armies designed and prototyped Heavies but did not build enough to issue due to cost. By the time the 1950-60 armies show up that went to universal tanks had given up on both light tanks and heavy tanks although since most of the Universal tanks of the time were over 40 tons the distinction gets a little iffy. Now what made the "universal" tank a workable preposition in the late 50s and 60s was the British/NATO 105mm gun firing APDS that could take out 50-65ton tanks at several thousand meters range. Whoever hit first won and there was no longer a need for 'support' tanks that were heavier than the "mediums" since they offered no additional protection (improving ground tests, actual combat was somewhat scarce until 1967) and the old UK/US/Soviet 120-122mm guns were no longer needed.
By the way, there were calculations on what size (weight) tank you needed to fire certain size guns and stay "stable" (not fall over on your side or slide backwards several feet) when firing big guns. APDS actually cut down on the recoil compared to full bore AP rounds.
 
Shortround6 said:
Now what made the "universal" tank a workable preposition in the late 50s and 60s was the British/NATO 105mm gun firing APDS that could take out 50-65ton tanks at several thousand meters range.
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(my bold)
Do we know that for sure? Not talking about the 105mm APDS taking out the Tiger, of course, but something of the same generation.
 
The British 17pdr seemed to able to take out the King Tiger even from the front, the problem was getting the ADPS to actually hit at greater than suicidal range. Which stopped the US from using APDS for much of the 50s. APCR worked at short range but didn't work at long range. The British persevered with APDS. The French spent a lot of time/money on better shaped charge projectiles.

The British/NATO APDS was usually credited penetrating 400 mm of armor at 1000meters (?) . I forget the slope but even the Conqueror and US M-103 were not driving around with 8ins of armor sloped over.
Newer projectiles and the advent of APFSDS really changed things but there were several generations of APDS before the APFSDS showed up.
 
Shortround6 said:
The British/NATO APDS was usually credited penetrating 400 mm of armor at 1000meters (?) .
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Probably half of that, at least when looking here.
It will take the advent of APFSDS to much improve that figure.
FWIW, it seems like that Israelis didn't took any T-72s with their tanks, or at least not by KE ammo (105mm all across), but only by their TOWs (and perhaps with HE ammo?).
 
There is a long discussion about 17pdr accuracy with APDS and the potential reasons for it at the link below. The matter then got complicated as there seems to have been 3 different APDS Marks issued as the war drew to a conclusion.

17 pounder APDS - & 17 pdr in general.

Extracts from a US report: U.S. Army Firing Test No.3 U.S. Army Firing Tests conducted August 1944 by 12th U.S. Army Group at Isigny, France....
ww2talk.com

And then there is the question about what was the average engagement range in NWE in 1944/45. The US Army research suggested about 800 yards. (It is in one of the links in the above thread).
 
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