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As a piece of trivia: the swirl throttle was part of the Rolls Royce support for the BRM V16 Grand Prix cars. Intended to be used in the next annual update to tame the brutal power curve of the centrifugal supercharger but Formula 1 was all but abandoned in that following year with the world championships being run to the naturally aspirated Formula 2 and development of the 1.5 litre BRM V16 was abandoned.
Good, progress can be made, the simple comparisons between US fighter groups needs to take into account 1 with Spitfires spending time in the Coastal Air Force and 1 with P-40 in the Strategic Air Force, the date of majority P-38 missions out of Africa was later than stated, the location of 15th Air Force fighter combats was different to stated, the number of Luftwaffe losses was much higher than stated as starters.
the promise in message 380Effectiveness of the P-38
I really feel like we are talking past each other, but I'm just going to say this. I'm not trying to change the official score of any particular pilot (the case about Boyington is interesting and worth discussing, but not for the reasons you seem to assign to me) or any particular unit, or...ww2aircraft.net
Insults are a form of engagement, I have been advised to treat the smiley as an insult, though of course we know the strongly opinionated are the ones most likely to laugh at data that does not fit.
A supercharger uses engine power to maintain manifold boost. If you have a two-speed supercharger, as just about everyone did late in the war, you use less engine power to drive the supercharger at low altitude. That is extra power to the propeller, where you want it, at low altitude. So much engineering is a compromise.
A no effort fact free editorial inviting people to ignore the information, which both relies on an defines the reputation of the person making the editorial.
When it comes to data accuracy plenty of people are able and willing to point out errors, like mine about Merlin altitude ratings, or at least query the data, if someone is continually posting bad data expect lots of corrections, moving on to ignoring the messages as not worth the time to read or reply to. It is more than a single person's opinion. Part of places like this is removing the various inaccurate stories/impressions we all pick up.
For my statement "largely" to be incorrect means either most to a solid minority of the air combat claims need to have been made after the given dates or Largely is redefined as Totally. The withdrawal of the Luftwaffe and the switch to mainly fighter bomber operations reduced the chances of P-40 units engaging in air combat. What does heavily mean?
Please provide the list of what subjects I am supposed to know something, which usually tells more about the person making the list.
Good, progress can be made by everyone else, the simple comparisons between US fighter groups needs to take into account 1 with Spitfires spending time in the Coastal Air Force and 1 with P-40 in the Strategic Air Force, the date of majority P-38 missions out of Africa was later than stated, the location of 15th Air Force fighter combats was different to stated, the number of Luftwaffe losses was much higher than stated as starters.
That comes across as do not contradict the truth bringer, is that classified as an insult?
Make the connections, after listing large numbers of USAAF fighter claims and noting they were mostly for enemy fighters, so few enemy fighters actually lost says trying to figure out the better USAAF fighters should really become why were a collective near failure, disguising this by massive over claiming, or the enemy losses figures are incorrect instead more like the ones in Williamson Murray.
Plus, if installed on something like the Spitfire II instead of the Merlin XX, it would've gave the RAF a 370+ mph fighter already in the closing stages of the BoB; the Merlin 45 was only available after 1940.
Similarly, 33rd FG claimed 137 victories in 16 months of fighting with P-40s, of which more than 13 were claimed during Anzio in one month (January) in 1944, which is 9%. But they were 'largely ceasing to engage in air combat' by September 1943? Are you sure about that?
A Spitfire mark VII, VIII, IX, or XVI with two-stage supercharger exceeds 400mph at around 26000ft. This is well above the critical altitude of most single-stage superchargers. A Spitfire XII with an single-stage Griffon engine could not quite hit 400mph at 18,000ft. It was very fast at low altitude.
You are really describing yourself, and you are editorializing here. You didn't merely challenge data, which is fine, but veered heavily into childish and gratuitous insults layered on top of (incorrect) claims on the data, to which I responded. You apparently want to go on forever trading insults but I'll limit my engagement to the bare minimum. Everything I said about you holds true and I think it's obvious to most reading the thread.
It means you pulled these statements out of your arse (most likely repeating from some other summary in a secondary source), with no statistics to back up your claims. Several of these groups continued to be involved in intense combat through Anzio as I already pointed out. Just in the 10 days I posted operational data for - admittedly days when I found combat for these units- if I'm counting correctly (correct me if I'm wrong) US P-40 units claimed 51 enemy fighters, for 12 operational losses. Most of these were by the 79th FG alone which claimed 33 enemy fighters, while 33rd FG claimed 13. How many fighter claims do you think were typical for a given fighter group in ten days of combat?
Air to air combat for all Allied fighter units in the MTO waxed and waned during 1943 and 1944, peaking during major operations such as the battle of Kasserine Pass (Feb 43), the battle for Tunisia (through May 43), capture of Pantelleria (June 43), the invasion of Sicily (July-Aug 43), the capture of Corsica (Sept-Oct 43) and Sardinia* (Aug-Sept 43), the invasion of Italy and capture of Naples (Sept 43) and the battle of Anzio (Jan-Jun 44). Between these peaks there were lulls where air to air combat diminished, basically for all Allied fighter groups, the only exception being the P-38 units flying long range escort missions for the B-17s and B-24s. The rest of the time P-40 units were mostly flying fighter-bomber sorties, but as soon as the Axis fighters showed up they were engaged with them again. Often on their own due to their longer range than the Spit V and IX, and the use of the P-38s in other types of missions (more Strategic).
* Before I get corrected as a 'gotcha', Corsica was annexed by Free French, Sardinia by Italians taking over after the Germans withdrew to Corsica, then taken by Allies
You provided zero backup for your claims, but are doubling down on it anyway. Which isn't surprising. But to prove you wrong in detail I would have to count up all the claims for each fighter group across 2-3 years. However, I don't need to do all that.
The total number of claims with P-40s by US and Free French units in the MTO are as follows:
33rd FG (3 squadrons, 137 victories, Nov 42 - Feb 44)
57th FG (3 squadrons*, 144 victories, Aug 42 - Jan 44)
325th FG (3 squadrons, 133 victories, Apr 43 - Oct 43 )
324th FG (3 squadrons, 66 victories, March 43 - July 44)
79th FG (3 squadrons, 118 victories, Dec 42 - March 44)
99th FS (1 squadron / independent - Tuskegee, 17 victories, June 43 - June 44)
Free French GC II/5 (2 squadrons, 8 P-40 victories according to this, July 43- Sept 43)
So given that 79th FG claimed 118 'confirmed' victories with P-40s during their entire deployment in the MTO, and more than 33 of these (27% of their total claims) were claimed during the battle of Anzio in 1944, would you still insist that your claim that they were 'largely' done with air combat by June 1943 is correct?
I would argue that these facts alone already prove you wrong for those two units. If I thought there was need or enough interest by others here in the rest of the data I would go through the entire histories and count up all the claims for each unit, but that would take days and I doubt very seriously you would admit you were wrong even then, so what is the point?
There was a great deal of overclaiming, clearly, in the realm of 2-1 to as much as 4-1 depending on the battle (larger air battles tended to result in higher rates of overclaiming, by both Allies and Axis pilots, and not intentionally or as a 'disguise', but due to Fog of War as most people here are well aware). But the US P-40 units were mostly fighting against enemy fighters, with a few exceptions such as the well known 'massacre' of Ju 52 transports and occasional interceptions of large numbers of Ju 88s. The stats from the unit history of the 325th FG which is what I posted are a typical pattern (95 Bf 109 and 26 MC 202 claimed out of a total of 133 claims with the P-40). You can see pretty clearly in the operational history summaries I posted that most of their claims were against fighters, because this is how they were being used, and because the Germans and Italians were not flying many bomber Sorties during 1943 and 44, with a few brief exceptions such as during Kasserine and the landings at Sicily, but were mostly engaged in defensive combat against Allied bombing.
One other key factor is that the Germans had switched from using bombers like the Ju 87 and Ju 88 to using Fw 190s and even Bf 109s as Jabos, several of which were in fact shot down by P-40s (as well as by Spitfires in larger numbers).
If it is either:
Merlin and Spitfire history is a bit more complicated.
The best ones were at 370-375 mph. The ones where fit & finish was sloppy were loosing up to 10 mph.
