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I suspect some, perhaps much, anti-P39 sentiment was due to prejudice.
Not to disregard actual relative performance deficiencies, but it just may be possible that some people were put off by what they considered an unusual, odd layout and different handling characteristics.......I imagine if the P-39 offered outstanding performance these prejudices would have been more easily overcome.
P-39s in US service suffered from bad timing. Committed to combat with unresolved electrical/ mechanical issues, with insufficient support, using bad tactics and flown by mostly green pilots it is little wonder they failed to make a good impression.
Good you're trying to learn about Darwin campaigns at least, but you *MUST* consult two-sided references, claims by the Alliedsin those campaigns are almost completely unreliable and I'm not basing anything on them. Also you're cherry picking here. The only successful combat by Spitfire V's v Zeroes (May 10 1943) had the Spits surprising Zeroes on the deck strafing an airfield (downed 2 Zeroes for 1 Spit written off to combat damage, half the Zeores downed by the Spits in the campaign). The Spits outnumbered the Zero escorts in every engagement over Darwin. And February 1942 carrier raid on Darwin was before the few defenders had any radar warning, which was set up in March 1942. You're also completely ignoring the fact that the Spit campaign was a whole year later in the attrition of JNAF fighter pilots; the 3rd/202nd had lost pilots it forwarded to units at Rabaul to fly over G'canal in fall of '42, as well as losses on its own operations earlier in 1942. There's no way anyone objective could say the Spit showed itself superior to the P-40 in the campaigns defending Darwin; in other cases yes, but the point remains the Soviet verdict on Spit V was not bizzarrely surprising: in some circumstances the Spitfire V's weaknesses outweighed its strengths v more rugged a/c like the P-39/40.
They was free. Just like P-40s, Sherman tanks, M3 light tanks, M7 SP artillery etc.
IIRC the P-39s were ordered before Lend Lease was approved so the UK paid for the whole batch irrespective of what happened to it.
The British, who were the first to actually try to fly it in combat, felt that they had been deceived about it's actual performance. Put that together with trying to debug a new aircraft with a lot of problems and said aircraft doesn't really do anything that other available aircraft won't already do and it is not hard to figure out why they passed on the P-39.
Americans used bad tactics and persisted in overloading the plane. Add in the serviceability issues of the early models and the plane's lack of range, hard to go the offensive with it the Pacific or Europe from British bases, and one can see why the P-39 wasn't a favorite of the war planners.
Early American P-39s either had the 20mm, which may have had problems of it's own and only had a 60 rd drum, or had the 37mm, which in early versions had a defective ejection chute which caused numerous jams, usually after just a couple of shots. By the time the electrical system was sorted out and the armament issues resolved and the engines officially allowed to use WEP ratings, other fighters were becoming available in quantity for US forces.
P-39s in US service suffered from bad timing. Committed to combat with unresolved electrical/ mechanical issues, with insufficient support, using bad tactics and flown by mostly green pilots it is little wonder they failed to make a good impression.
While few in numbers how did the Free French and Italian pilots make out with them in 1943-44?
Anyways, there's something I've always wondered, the main knock on the P-39 (apart from some early maintainance bugs) was the lack of the supercharger that the US model had. Couldn't the British manufacture their own S-chargers to make the plane more useful at high altutudes?
P-39 had a supercharger as at least almost all WWII fighters, but it did not have turbosupercharger or twostage mechanical like Spitfires from Mk VII onwards, not sure on Mk VI.
The reference I have lists the version exported to the UK ( rejected) as being without a supercharger.
Did the later versions (like P-39N or Q) still have a single stage S-charger?