Over 30,000 feet
Best Japanese B-29 'Killer'
- Thread starter Nicodemus
- Start date
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How many encounters do you have data for at that altitude that involved a turning fight?
30,000 feet also happens to be about the optimum altitude for a Thunderbolt.
I don't believe the 109G and later had a particularly low stall speed either.
- Ivan.
So a bit of topic but what piston engined fighter would be good for shooting down B29's at 30,000ft, Spitfire 14 with 4 hispano's, Ta152 with 20 or 30mm cannon, late mark P47 with hispano's or say a mozzie with Merlin 70's and 8 hispano's in the nose or a 40mm bofors in the bomb bay with an auto loader?.
Kevin J
Banned
Westland Welkin. Intercept of high altitude pressurised bombers or recce aircraft is what it was designed for.
CORSNING
Tech Sergeant
Kevin,
The Welkin is a very good choice. I personally believe the Spitfire XIV
with 4 x 20 mm armament would have been an excellent choice. My
personal favorites were a close call. The P-72A with 4 x 20 mm. and
De Havilland Hornet I.
Welkin I: 387 mph/26,000 ft.
Spitfire 14: 437 mph/32,808 ft.
P-72: 490 mph/25,000 ft.
Hornet I: 460 mph./32,808 ft.
The Welkin is a very good choice. I personally believe the Spitfire XIV
with 4 x 20 mm armament would have been an excellent choice. My
personal favorites were a close call. The P-72A with 4 x 20 mm. and
De Havilland Hornet I.
Welkin I: 387 mph/26,000 ft.
Spitfire 14: 437 mph/32,808 ft.
P-72: 490 mph/25,000 ft.
Hornet I: 460 mph./32,808 ft.
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Hello Kevin J,
There were reasons why the Welkin was never produced. The problem was that the aircraft had a serious compressibility issue and compressibility problems and high-altitude aircraft just do not work well together. That is my understanding for why the design failed.
I believe I heard this in a recorded interview with Philip Lucas.
- Ivan.
Kevin J
Banned
So long as there is no escort fighters the Welkins deficiencies are irrelevant.
Kevin J
Banned
Only the Welkin is pressurised. Neither the P-72 or Hornet are operational.
The P72 was supposedly going to be armed with either 6x20 mm or 4x37 mm cannon.
My mistake. I read your original question wrong, I thought you were asking what was high altitude for a B29 intercept.
High altitude for the P47 to start out turning an Me109 was, I think, 28,000 feet. (Could be as low as 26,000 or 27,000 feet) but I'm 95% sure it was 28,000. I just read that, couldn't tell you where. But especially with the paddle prop, no loss in power and large wing it certainly doesn't surprise me.
CORSNING
Tech Sergeant
P-80? Two were operational by the end of the war.
I know, too much, too late. But not enough of them.
I was always curious why they weren't thinking 4 x 20 mm.
Even the F-86 was still using 0.5in. Brownings.
Hello Kevin J,
"The Welkin was seriously handicapped by compressibility problems caused by its long, high aspect-ratio wing which needed to be thick at the root (thickness-to-chord ratio of about 19%) for strength reasons.[5] Compressibility caused the flight envelope (flyable speed range) between high-incidence stall and shock-stall to become very small at high altitudes – any decrease in airspeed causing a "normal" stall, any increase causing a shock-stall due to the aircraft's limiting critical Mach number. This reduction of the speed envelope is a problem common to all subsonic, high altitude designs and also occurred with the later Lockheed U-2. When W.E.W. Petter came to design his next high-altitude aircraft, the English Electric Canberra jet bomber, the required wing area was distinguished by noticeably short wings, with thickness-to-chord ratio (t/c) at the root of 12%,[6] a t/c ratio which delays compressibility effects to an aircraft speed of about Mach 0.85.[7]"
This is lifted from Wikipedia, but is consistent with what I understand to be the problem. It ISN'T a matter of dogfighting but just a matter of just staying in the air at high altitude.
- Ivan.
Hello Pinsog,
I can see this match up going either way. It kind of depends on what version of Thunderbolt and what version of Me 109 is involved.
The wing on the Thunderbolt was a very interesting design but just remember that the aircraft was so heavy that its stall speed was still very high. Regardless of which "paddle blade" propeller was fitted, the engine power and aircraft weight could vary quite a lot between different versions. With the 109, you could be encountering a G-6/R-6 cannon boat or a K-4 and the results are going to be pretty different as well.
- Ivan.
The biggest danger to a B-29 was its engines and take off.
If yiu got off the deck in one piece, and an engine didn't catch fire, your chance of being lost in action to direct enemy action was very minimal.
Once Mustangs started escorting them, even that risk dropped away to almost nothing.
If yiu got off the deck in one piece, and an engine didn't catch fire, your chance of being lost in action to direct enemy action was very minimal.
Once Mustangs started escorting them, even that risk dropped away to almost nothing.
Silverplate B-29's we're flying 5,000 ft higher and 50kts faster, rendering them effectively invulnerable to interception.
Fairly easy job to switch all B-29's to that spec if Japanese fighters had managed to become troublesome.
The B-29 was a very tough target for piston engined fighters.
Fairly easy job to switch all B-29's to that spec if Japanese fighters had managed to become troublesome.
The B-29 was a very tough target for piston engined fighters.
Conslaw
Senior Airman
Japan's most effective defense against high altitude raids by the B-29 was the jet stream. These high altitude winds can reach speeds of 250 MPH. The B-29s flying from the Marianas to Japan had to fly against these winds, and they caused the ground-speed of the bomber to be reduced by the velocity of the wind. My physics teacher in high school was a B-29 pilot in WWII, and the only time he would talk about his wartime service was his frequent lecture about the jet stream. It must have traumatized the crews to have an air speed of 300 miles an hour and a ground speed of 90.
The jet stream also played havoc with bombing accuracy, being a big cause of the switch to low-level night bombing.
The jet stream also played havoc with bombing accuracy, being a big cause of the switch to low-level night bombing.
Barrett
Senior Airman
We've known forever and a day that Japanese aerial victory claims are absurd, not that other nations (occasionally including us) don't get way off track. Thing is, tho: even allowing for rare intercepts over water, the Japanese could count wrecks if they wanted to, same as the Vietnamese who claimed 100+ shootdowns over/around Thanh Hoa Bridge when the verified total is 14. Off Formosa, Oct 44, the IJN claimed sinking something like 11 carriers and 2 battleships etc--and those industrious Yanks replaced them in a week or so at Leyte Gulf. Sometimes military claims, especially for the losing side, are whistling past the proverbial graveyard.
Sidebar: in researching Whirlwind I found one or two documents stating that P-51s were not much needed to escort 29s but of course that realization came late. VIII FC flew more strike sorties than escort. Just FWIW.
Sidebar: in researching Whirlwind I found one or two documents stating that P-51s were not much needed to escort 29s but of course that realization came late. VIII FC flew more strike sorties than escort. Just FWIW.
Shortround6
Major General
The F-86 used M3 Brownings not M-2s. The M3 fired at a 50% higher rate than the M2 so six of them were about equal to 9 M2s of WW II.
The T25E3 ( early version of the M3) had gone into small scale production in late 44? So a hypothetical P-47 bomber interceptor could have carried eight of them in mid to late 1945.
The F-86 also used different ammo, the M23 incendiary round which not only carried a lot more Incendiary compound per bullet than WW II ammo but since the bullet was lighter it had hundreds of feet per second more muzzle velocity making defection shooting easier. This round was combat trialed in WW II with not very good results but development continued all during the late 40s.
Exactly the same reasons RAF Bomber Command did - daytime raids were doing too little damage and the losses were too high, and there wasn't the time to train the crews in greater accuracy. Result - night time area bombing. Which in the campaign against Japan was devastating.
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