F4F's in Europe

Issue isn't F4F v Spitfire. The Spitfire was the most preferred plane by the British, but if there had been enough of them, they wouldn't have operated any of the other types of early-mid war as air-air fighters (like Hurricane, P-36 and P-40 variants, Buffalo, even Fulmar and Gladiator occasionally operated from land bases, etc). The issue would be F4F v those other types, assuming there were F4F's to spare. The F4F had a consistently far superior fighter combat record to the Hurricane in the Far East, not just in a few fluke combats but Hurricanes had a highly disadvantageous kill ratio v Japanese Army fighters all the way through 1943. The F4F didn't have as superior a record to the P-40, but still tended to get better results v the same Japanese fighter opposition. So it's not at all obvious the F4F wouldn't be a credible or even superior substitute to the Hurricane or Tomahawk in Med theater situations, especially the Hurricane. From Malta for example remember that the Hurricane's kill ratio result v Bf109E was 0:35. It accomplished other things of course, shooting down Axis bombers and it did much better v Italian fighters, but so could the F4F have done those other things, and how much worse could it possibly have done v the Bf109E? The record of Hurr and P-40 generally v 109 wasn't as lopsided, Malta 1941 was the poorest showing of the Hurricane Bf 109E, but still Hurr/P-40 v 109 tended to be clearly in favor of the Bf109 in most cases. So we shouldn't imagine that the Hurricane and P-40 were completely competitive with the Bf109, and that the F4F might somehow give up that parity. It's very plausible that the F4F would have done no worse than Hurricane and P-40 v German fighters in Med theater situations, just as it better than those two v Japanese fighters, again especially better than the Hurricane.

Of course, even the Spitfire had a (much) poorer record v the Zero than the F4F, but it had certain clear advantages in performance that can't be ingored. I wouldn't suggest generally substituting F4F's for Spitfires, not in most cases anyway. But compared to the 'second rate' types used by the British, the F4F was at no particular disadvantage as a practical air combat fighter IMO, and it showed that when the types operated alongside. Consider also that the P-36, ie French H-75's did better than the Hurricane v Bf109's over France in 1940, and that was a fairly similar plane to the F4F, inferior overall if anything.

Joe

I think we need an established time line.

Quoting results from the battle of France for the Hurricane (MK I without self sealing tanks or armor) vs the combat capabilities of the MK II in the fall winter of 1940 even though only 6-8 months apart aren't quite the same.
Did the Hurricanes in the Far East have tropical filters which affected their performance slightly?

And for some reason combat over England and Europe tended to be at different altitudes than in North Africa/Med and Asia. It put a premium on performance at over 20,000ft. This is one of the reasons that the P-40, considered second rate for combat over Europe could do better in the other theaters. It could fight closer to the altitudes it's engine gave it's best performance. At 20,000ft or above the F4F might be faster than a P-40C or even E but at 12-15,000ft the P-40 would be 30-40mph faster than the F4F. Against Italian Aircraft who's engines tended to peak at 4000 meters or against early Japanese fighters with single speed engines the over 20,000ft performance while useful, wasn't as important.

While the F4F did have better performance over 20,000ft than the P-40 the real question is did it have enough better performance over the Spitfire or Hurricane MK II to really change the the air war over Europe at that time? Granted another several hundred fighters AND PILOTS might have made a difference but would changing the type of fighter in use make a real difference.?
And again without a time line are we talking about F4Fs in the Battle of Britain or F4Fs on Rhubarbs in the Summer of 1941?

vanir said:

Probably didn't help the Brits had a habit through 41 of swapping .50's out of Tomahawks for .303's or just leaving the nose armament deleted (most, but not all Brit Tomahawks had either 4 or 6 .303 brownings, which isn't exactly sparkling armament for 1941 but good enough against Japs).

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I admit thats the first time that I have heard of the British swopping 0.5 for 0.303. Have you any photo's or sources to back that up. I know that the P40C used in the desert had 4 x 303 and 2 x 0.5.
The RAF did order a small no of P40B which I thought had the same weapons but could be wrong on that.

The F4F was clearly disadvanced to the HurriII at all altitudes.

The FM-2 in 1944 had just a similar performence like the HurriII in 1941.

The F4F´s kill ratio in the pacific in big degrees was related to the advanced radar on the carriers where it did operte from. They could take off in time, while the Hurris and other land based fighters often got suprised.
The P40 could do better there, due to its advanced dive speed and highspeed handling.
Vs the slow japanese planes it was a good plane to survive, the Hurri, with its rather bad dive and low level performence had more trouble.

Vs the german planes the Hurri was still less good, but at least it could turn better, so there was an advanatge. The F4F would have been a poor replacement for the HurriII and even more for the P40.

Knegel said:

The F4F was clearly disadvanced to the HurriII at all altitudes.
.

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can you explain this point the speed of Hurry II and Wildcat are near, wing load are near

The reason the Hurricane did poorly against the Zero was because it could do NOTHING better than a Zero. It wasn't any faster, it couldn't outclimb it, certainly couldn't outturn it, and it couldn't outdive it either. A Wildcat at least had the ability to outdive the Zero if it had any altitude. In fact, the Wildcat could outdive a 109. Plus, the Wildcats armament of 4 or 6 50's was more than adequate against any axis fighter, certainly better than the 303.
The Hurricane held its own against the 109 because it could outturn it, the Wildcat would have had the same advantage plus the ability to outdive the 109 also.
I think the Wildcat would have done at least as well as the Hurricane against Germany.

A-ha, so a design 3-4 years older (Hurricane) lags in some categories vs. it's younger competitors (Zero, Wildcat).

Now that's something new

First flight of Hurricane was in 1935. First flight of F4F was in 1937. So the designs were around two years apart. And the F4F had the handicap from the beginning of being designed as a ship board fighter. That the Hurricane and Wildcat had similar performance seems somewhat surprising. Because the Wildcat was probably more resistant to battle damage and more heavily armed with four 50s versus eight 30s, it seems to me that the Wildcat, if available, which it was not, would have done at least as well as the Hurricane in 1940 against the LW. For what it is worth, Eric Brown seems to favor heavily the Wildcat over the Sea Hurricane, but the Sea Hurri did not have the performance of the land based Hurri.

the XF4F-3 first flew in late 1939, 2 years after the XF4F-2.

While they used the same actual fuselage the -3 prototype had different wings with 4 feet more span and square instead of round tips, different tail surfaces, An engine with a 2 stage supercharger instead of a single speed single stage engine and it used a different propeller. Still kept the cowl guns though.

Production F4Fs or even Martlet Is only show up 2-3 months before the MK II Hurricane which might be a better match-up time wise.

Tomo Pauk, I wasn't running down the Hurricane, I actually like it, I was just explaining in my opinion why it didn't do well against the Zero, but did ok against the 109. It's one advantage it had over the 109 was rate of turn, which didn't work against the Zero, so it was screwed.

How come the Hurri could not dive faster than the Zero or manouver better at higher speeds? The Zero wasn´t good above 250mph if memory serves right.

i some doubt that hurry and 0 fightning most time over 250 mph (and this near sure a IAS)

I don't know why the Hurricane and Spitfire couldn't dive very well, but everything ever written says they couldn't.
I would say there were 2 reasons the Hurricane didn't fight the Zero about 250 mph: 1. The Hurricane may not have had the power to maintain that amount of airspeed in a turning fight 2. British pilots were blooded against 109's and their best chance of survival against a 109 was a turning fight. When faced with the Zero they reverted back to their training and earlier experiences which was, if you want to survive against a 109 you turn with him, that was suicide with a Zero.

The F4F had a very long gestation period which probably wou;d have been shortened if war had been imminent forthe US like it was for Britain.

pinsog said:

2. British pilots were blooded against 109's and their best chance of survival against a 109 was a turning fight. When faced with the Zero they reverted back to their training and earlier experiences which was, if you want to survive against a 109 you turn with him, that was suicide with a Zero.

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And here is one more piece of the puzzle explaining why the Hurricane did not do well vs. the Zero over Burma.

Glider said:

I admit thats the first time that I have heard of the British swopping 0.5 for 0.303. Have you any photo's or sources to back that up. I know that the P40C used in the desert had 4 x 303 and 2 x 0.5.
The RAF did order a small no of P40B which I thought had the same weapons but could be wrong on that.

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The 81A-1 was delivered with 7.5mm French guns in the wings and two .50 brownings in the nose. The British swapped the wing guns for .303 brownings and often (not always but often) deleted the nose guns. (source: Aircraft of WW2, Jim Winchester, the very first book in my collection I picked up, I've read this at dozens of sites/sources).

The reasoning was until through 1941 the British still felt the ~fairly-kinda new .50 browning was not relatively combat tested and preferred the .30 browning chambered for .303 (source for this tidbit: Worlds Greatest Fighters, Robert Jackson - citing British Air Ministry FO1 document signed SqnLdr Ralph Sorley)

In this photo of a MkIIa you can see the fuselage guns have been deleted (barrels normally protrude slightly).
tomahawk IIa

The 81A-2 was delivered to a British order and had .30 Brownings in the wings and .50 Brownings in the nose, the British went and swapped all the guns for .303 Brownings most of the time (again not always). The Tomahawks given to SAAF and RAAF forces in NA retained US armament.

In this photo of a MkIIb you can see the fuselage guns are a pair of .303 brownings in common with the wings
tomahawk IIb

Harder to see because distance but if you look close this photo of a preserved USAAC P-40B shows thicker barrel protrusions on the fuselage guns of the .50 Brownings.
USAAC P-40B

Importantly however all the initial P-40's used by the Flying Tigers were British supplied, so they had mostly (not all) 4-6 .303 Brownings fitted.

Here's one of a USAAC P-40C, I think you can see again, fairly thick barrels for the .50's which you should compare several times with the RAF 112-sqn DAF one pictured above, which I think are clearly .303.
USAAC P-40C

In no P-40 did the gun barrels protrude from the cowling or the fairings.

The back of the gun receivers were about level with the instrument panel and the pilot could reach the guns in flight through cut outs in the instrument panel.

What do protrude from the fairings on the top of the cowl are blast tubes.

On the Hurricane, I mentioned in another thread the MkII's sent to Burma, which were the ones in combat through 43 agianst the Japanese had infamously poor local fuel quality and were boost restricted, pilots complained this killed their performance (describing them as overweight MkI's for performance).

The Hurris in Singapore (very few) were MkI and these did poorly too but there are a lot of circumstances to consider for that battle.

Pound for pound the Hurricane isn't a bad show against a Zero. The Hurri's biggest problem is being so damn stable its thick wings bleed a lot of airspeed through sustained manoeuvres. The Zero's biggest bonus (also true for virtually any Japanese fighter really), is butterfly-like turn rates.

You'd use Hurri's like P-40's and I don't see why they wouldn't stand up just fine. P-40's dive better, Hurris climb better. Both need to use extending and avoid turn fights or sustaining vertical aerobatics without extending. The main difference is you'd have to make sure diving out of danger meant extending straight for some time before turning back in a climb, where with a P-40 you can dive to safety very quickly, circular if you want and go vertical for a head to head.

P-40 dive acceleration is great and it sustains manoeuvres well without bleeding too much airspeed, the Hurricane dives better than a Zero but bleeds airspeed quickly if you start making turns or trying flashy manoeuvres, so you need more distance after passes.

Shortround6 said:

In no P-40 did the gun barrels protrude from the cowling or the fairings.

The back of the gun receivers were about level with the instrument panel and the pilot could reach the guns in flight through cut outs in the instrument panel.

What do protrude from the fairings on the top of the cowl are blast tubes.

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well which are nevertheless clearly larger diameter on some than others, makes sense if they are a larger diamter for a bigger gun and smaller one for a smaller gun, yes? And whilst an absence of blast tubes clearly infers an absence of fitted armament. Thanks for this info though, some development P-40's have really long looking barrels that always confused me, now I know they're blast tubes.

here's a clear picture lacking blast tubes on an RAF tomahawk

actually come to think of it that one looks like wing guns have been removed too. must've been one of the ones converted for training. nevermind.

compare the RAF 112-sqn picture above with the USAAC P-40B/C ones below it back and forth and really check out the blast tube diameters between them, it's a clear difference. Try this all over the web for pics in fact. Like I said I've read this at literally dozens of sources, but RAAF/SAAF and USAAC/F ones did use US armament and British deliveries mounted US weapons (only the French order mounted different guns at the factory).

Glider said:

I admit thats the first time that I have heard of the British swopping 0.5 for 0.303. Have you any photo's or sources to back that up. I know that the P40C used in the desert had 4 x 303 and 2 x 0.5.
The RAF did order a small no of P40B which I thought had the same weapons but could be wrong on that.

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Glider,

IIRC, the problem was lack of availability of .50s in the RAF. When the first Buffalos arrived in Singapore, 151 MU was tasked with developing mounts for .303s in the wings because there weren't enough .50s to fit 4 to each airframe. This piece of work was used to good effect by 21/453 Sqn which opted to use the .303s from the end of Dec 41 onwards because it lightened the load on the rather overweight RAF Buffalos.

I know this isn't P-40 specific but I'm pretty sure my memory isn't playing tricks on me re the insufficiency of .50s in the inventory.

Cheers,
Mark