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Hi Vincenzo:I've some doubt as Wildcat as 2nd in the asian threater.
I don't think there were 190 fighter in Africa but i don't checked it
CORRECTION II/2 came in Africa in november '42 and fightning same month
Hi Vincenzo:
The FW190 did indeed serve in North Africa from November 1942.
II/JG2 for example flew 190A4s there.
a good link.
The Focke-Wulf FW 190 in Afrika
Just ran across an interesting table in Dean's "America's Hundred Thousand" that I had not digested before since I have only owned the book about ten years. LOL For those not familiar, the book is about the approx. 100000 fighters the US built during WW2 and is voluminous. The part of the table I will tack on here rather than start a new thread shows the date a contract was awarded for that particular fighter and the date of first combat. Here it is:
F4F/FM, July 28, 1936, December, 1940.
F2A, June 22, 1936, April, 1940
P40, July 30, 1937, May, 1941.
P38, June 23, 1937, August, 1942
P39, October 7, 1937, April, 1942
F4U/FG, June 11, 1938, February, 1943
P51, May, 1940, July, 1942
P47, September 6, 1940, , April, 1943
P61, January 30, 1941, June 1944
F6F, June 30, 1941, August, 1943
P63, June 27, 1941,
The interesting point to me is that every fighter was in development before the war began for the US. Apparently the P63 never saw combat.
Maybe Dean should get with the guys over at "Warbird Alley".Elvis, the book is fairly recent and very authoritative. Why are you saying there is a typo? OK, I understand now, I went back and reviewed the text and Dean says that about two thirds of the P63s went to Russia. Apparently he had no date when they first saw combat. An interesting point is that the Russians claimed the P63 had a weak aft fuselage and they had to be strengthened.
Warbird Alley said:Production of the P-63 Kingcobra for the USAAC began in October of 1943, and nearly 3,300 aircraft were produced before the end of the war. Under lend-lease, the Russians bought 2,400 Kingcobras, and a further 300 were flown by the Free French. The rest were restricted to training squadrons in the United States by the USAAF.
About 300 P-63s were turned into RP-63 flying targets for dogfight practice with frangible bullets. All armor and armament were removed from these planes, and a skin of duralumin protected the wings, fuselage and tail. Bulletproof glass was installed, steel grilles were put over the air intake, and a steel sleeve protected the exhaust stacks. A propeller with thick, hollow blades was also installed. When a hit was scored, a red light came on in the cockpit to indicate where the P-63 had been shot.
Production of the P-63 ended on VJ-Day. Only a half-dozen P-63s remain flying today.
Umm, where does that say when P-63's first saw combat? But I tried to answer that in my post above. In general if you're implying you can save your money on books like Dean's (or Petrov and Guest or the Japanese documents I used in the post above) and get the same quality info on generic websites...I don't agree.Maybe Dean should get with the guys over at "Warbird Alley".
Here's a quote from their section on the P-63, which I included in my last post...