FAA Seafire vs Corsair

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They did - maybe didn't call it a yo-yo but the maneuver was used.

Too many people watch movies and videos and horizontal maneuvering gets implanted in their brain.
 
Thumpalumpacus said:
Right, and if you're coming down in a dive and trying to overshoot your opponent, pulling into a high yoyo will both reduce horizontal turn radius and preserve alt.
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Or if you have some E and are in a beast of a plane like a Corsair with a ton of power, and a nimble enemy aircraft like an A6M does a tight horizontal turn, you can go high and come out right on their tail.
 

Only 103 Seafire F.III were built from the earliest aircraft on the Westland production line. By the end of 1944 only 887 squadron on Indefatigable still had them. In Jan 1945 the squadron had 24 (of 40 Seafires on Indefatigable), but that number fell until by July the squadron had 15 F.III and 9 L.III, as replacements were hard to come by. The F.III was fitted with the Merlin 55 rated at 1,470hp at +16lb boost at 9,250 ft.

The first L.III came off the production line in March 1944. That had the Merlin 55M engine with the cropped supercharger impeller & +18lb boost generating 1,585hp at 2,750 ft.

The final version was the FR.III (or LR.III in some references) which was an L.III with the same camera installation as an LR.IIc. Some conversions by Westland and the final 129 from Cunliffe Owen in 1945. Mike Crosley's personal mount while CO of 880 on Implacable in 1945 was FR.III NN621 coded 115/N. That was a Cunliffe Owen built aircraft produced around Feb 1945.

A lot of changes were made during the early Seafire III production days. Some came off the line with fixed wings (incl LR765) on which some later had folding wings substituted. Some early aircraft (incl LR765 the first F.III) had three bladed props although I note that this had been replaced on LR765 with a four bladed one by the time of the test. Individual exhaust stacks added some thrust (and reduced weight), the smaller wing blisters were worth 5mph. The air intake that LR765 came off the line with, was replaced early in production with the Vokes Aero-Vee filter common to later Merlin engined Spitfires as shown here:-

LR765 as originally built


Later production L.III



The outboard cannon stubs were deleted on the production line very early. From late 1944 the shorter & lighter Hispano Mk.V began to be fitted in place of the Mk.II. Very few of these seem to have reached combat before the end of the war however, although Implacable's squadrons do seem to have had a few. Big discussion about this a few years back here.

Seafire lll - Use of Mk V 20mm Cannon

I have read that later versions of the Seafire lll LF were equipped with the faster firing, lighter weight and shorter barrel Mk V 20mm cannon in place of the heavier long barrel Mk II 20mm cannon. The Mk V cannon was 12 inches shorter than the Mk II cannon, and the cannon fairing covering the ba...
www.britmodeller.com

Zero length rocket launchers became a possible fit but were not cleared for use before the end of the war despite Implacable's squadrons taking them to the Pacific.

There was a quality of finish problem with early Westland built aircraft. LR766, the second F.III built, was examined in detail and photos sent back to the factories to highlight areas for improvement. I've read that such poor finish could cut as much as 20mph from the top speed but whether it had any affect in the case of this test is not recorded. Cunliffe Owen is reputed to have produced the best quality Seafires but only produced 350 Mk.III compared to the c900 produced by Westland. The same effect was seen on aircraft in service, as they got bashed about and panels stopped fitting quite so well etc.
 
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GreenKnight121 said:
The initial production of the Mustang was for the RAF - the Mustang 1, with 2 x .50 mg under the nose and 2 x .50 mg & 4 x .30 mg in the wings (the RAF had specified 2 x .50 mg & 4 x .30 mg, but NAA added bonus guns).
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True, but only because NAA denied priority for 20mm. Atwood delivered three armament configs to AFPC in March 1940 (for P-509 which morphed into NA-73), one of which was 4x50, another 4x50 plus 4x30 and last 4x20mm. Strictly speaking the cheek guns were specified (in NA-1620 Specification joint development for NA-73) in contrast to bonus?
GreenKnight121 said:
150 Mustang 1As (93 of which ended up with the USAAF as the P-51 {no variant letter} did have 4 x 20mm cannons... but these were British ordered aircraft - the USAAF never ordered any with the cannons.
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Info surfaced recently by fellow poster Colin Ford and Bob Bourliet that only 92 were actually on the RAF books. Of the 58 remaining, 56 remained P-51-NA and -1-NA and -2-NA depending upon Depot mod for camera install. One went to USN and two were sent (after acceptance by AAF) to Experimental Department at NAA to emerge as XP-51Bs.

To your point about AAF not ordering a 20mm version, you are correct. The Aussie contract for NA-107 was originally for 2x20m plus 2x50cal, then morphed into NA-110 as P-51D-5-A kits plus one production P-51D-5-NA, as NA-107 was dissolved into NA-103 and NA-111; and NA-106 was dissolved into NA-104 and 109. That said, the AAF and NAA went deep into production P-51F discussions, with 4x20mm interceptor version, before P-51F was cancelled due to impossibility of installing even a 55 gal fuse tank - and there was no interceptor mission currently deemed 'inadequate with P-38 or P-51B/D'. So, the 20mm configs were proposed by NAA (including A-36 when it was Low Level Pursuit as a 2x20; and 4x20; and 2x37 plus 4x20mm, among several proposed armament suggestions, but not accepted by AAF. IIRC the first NAA proposed, and accepted by USAF 20mm config, was the GunVal F-86 in 1953, even though the USN had figured it out long before for all NAA produced fighters.
Picky but the XP-51F and G and J were 4x50cal. but there is no evidence that the J armament was ever installed, AFAIK.
 
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Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
Wasn't the USN still having trouble with their 20mms into the 50s?
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Which 20mm guns?

and how much trouble, nobodies guns were 100% trouble free.

The USN used M3 20mm guns that fired at around 700-750rpm on some of the late 1940s fighters.
They switched to MK 12 20mm guns on the slightly newer planes, like FJ-2s and F2H-3s.
The MK 12s used electrical primed ammo and fired at 1000-1200rpm. I don't know how much trouble was from the guns or how much trouble was from the installations.
Certainly the F-8 Crusader had trouble in a number of areas. One trouble was the empty cases jamming in the collection chute, the fired cases were not ejected overboard due to potential airframe damage.
The fast firing guns came up with problems of their own or increased existing problems. Some gun bays did not have enough venting for the gun gas. The Vought Cutlass had problems with gun gas from muzzles causing flame outs of the engines, a lot of jets suffered from this with a number of different cannon and engines.

Also note that the ammo used in the MK 12 gun was not the same ammo as was used in the Hispano. While both cartridges are called 20 x 110 the USN cartridges used a fatter cartridge case. They also used a lighter projectile.

It doesn't really matter if they had solved the 20mm Hispano problems or not. The problems with the 1950s guns were with new guns and with new ammo.
 
Clayton Magnet said:
The F-86 GunVal program in Korea used T-160 rotary cannons (which became the M39)
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Just being a bit persnickety and usage may have changed but now the rotary cannon is generally considered to be the Gatling type gun with multiple barrels.
The M39 used multiple chambers but a single barrel and is now usually referred to as a revolver cannon.

I don't know what old articles/documents may have said.
 
Good catch. I've edited my post to reduce confusion
 
FLYBOYJ said:
There's a maneuver called a yo-yo...

As mentioned, "the Corsair was more able to dictate the terms of the dogfight than the Seafire."
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We seem to be in violent agreement.

As I noted, no Corsair pilot would have to engage in a classic turning fight with a Seafire unless he was 'playing fair' in a goof off fight.
This is why many fighter 'comparisons' based on simple turn rates are off, see the Tempest - it could handily defeat a Spitfire in a turning fight using its brute power and ferocious snap roll ability - Spitfires bent if snap rolled.
 
Spitfire bent if snapped rolled? You have a source for that?
 
The USN decided before they entered the war that then 50 cal was inadequate for their needs as far as shipboard defense was concerned. They went to a great deal of effort and expense to replace the already available 50 cal with a weapon that was even slower firing rate than the Hispano and with an even lower muzzile velopcity.

From the BuOrd history




This next paragraph was a Suprise to me



For aircraft mounted guns




The Navy was interested in the 20mm long before the Army (and by extension the AAF) because they needed stopping power.
 
No mention of proximity fusing?

I believe that technology had quite a bit to do with improvement of shipboard AA capability. Not critiquing the article. Just surprised.

The Allies' Billion-dollar Secret: The Proximity Fuze of World War II

An engineering triumph developed under strict wartime secrecy, the proximity fuze vastly increased the lethality of anti-aircraft guns and field artillery.
www.historynet.com
 
Of course there is. I thought I linked the entire history previously. Here:

Catalog Record: U.S. Navy Bureau of Ordnance in World War II

catalog.hathitrust.org
 
The Hispano needed more maintenance than the Oerlikon gun and the Oerlikon tolerated worse weather conditions better. A gun that is frozen up or rusted in place is worthless when the enemy aircraft show up.
By Late 1944/early 1945 the Oerlikon was sometimes considered the last warning system. When the boiler room crew heard the 20mm guns start firing they knew to start shutting down the boiler fans. Even if the 20mm hit the Japanese aircraft the Japanese wreck could still hit the ship.
The 40mm was considered the least caliber gun to be useful and they were considering/planning of replacing the 40mm guns with fast firing 3in/75mm guns (in part because they had figured out how to get a proximity fuse into a 3 in shell)

That is how fast things changed. Late 30s had 4-12 .50 cal guns as the desired light AA aboard ship (depending on ship size) 1946-1948 saw batteries of 3in guns being the smallest AA guns.
 
I didn't realize that the Navy was looking at the Hispano as far back as 1936.
There was quite a divergence in the philosophies of the two services. The Army's (and by extension the AAC) prewar preparations concentrated on getting as many men into uniform as possible with the weapons they needed. Standardization was a necessity. The Navy tended to place a higher value on performance. They had high value assets to protect and to attack. They also had the problem of having nowhere to hide. You can't put some netting and foliage on top of a battleship and pretend it's an island. The Navy was more scientifically oriented by nature of the problems they had to solve. For example, they had far more severe gunnery problems. Hitting a moving target while you are moving isn't as easy as shelling a troop concentration from a fixed artillery position. On the other hand, the Army, for example, decided to leave their 76 mm armed Shermans in England on D-day in favor of the 75 mm version despite the 76s much better anti-tank properties in order to simplify logistics
It's no coincidence that the Navy developed the Norden bombsight and that they obtained the gyro gunsight from the British before the Army expressed an interest in it. After the war the Navy's weapons programs seemed to be more successful than the Airforce's, examples being the Sidewinder and Sparrow and the F4 and the A7, all of which were eventually adopted by the Airforce.
The Army tended to think the best is the enemy of the good, while the Navy thought more along the lines of the best is scarcely good enough
 
re ". . . see the Tempest - it could handily defeat a Spitfire in a turning fight using its brute power and ferocious snap roll ability - Spitfires bent if snap rolled."

and

re "Spitfire bent if snapped rolled? You have a source for that?"

A 'snap-roll' in British parlance was referred to as a 'flick roll' and was often not mentioned specifically as a roll, but simply included under the prohibition against 'flick maneuvers'. The idea being that the pilot should be careful to not over-stress the airframe by moving the stick as quickly as possible when entering a maneuver, thus producing too many Gs. Most of the British fighter aircraft had low enough stick forces that this could be a serious problem. This included entering a rolling maneuver, or roliing into a high-G turn. Most WWII aircraft had this prohibition. In some cases, at higher speeds in particular, performing a 'flick maneuver' could also cause departure from controlled flight - during which maneuver the airframe could encounter excessive Gs.

The Pilot's Notes for the Spitfire/Seafire prohibits 'flick maneuvers'. The Pilot's Notes for the Tempest Mk V also prohibits 'flick maneuvers'.

However, in British tests near the end of the war it was noted that the Tempest could out-roll the Spitfire Mk IX & XIV at speeds over 300 mph IAS. In the same tests the FW 190 out-rolled every aircraft tested at speeds from 200 to 400 mph IAS. The other aircraft tested included:

Mustang III
Thunderbolt II
Tempest II & V
Spitfire IX & XIV
Spitfire 21
Meteor III
Me 109G


Since this thread includes the F4U :

As far as I know, during WWII the only Allied fighter that could safely perform a 'snap roll' was the USN F3F biplane (160°/sec+). As far as I know, the only German fighter that could safely perform a "snap roll" was the FW 190 variant with the original 34' wingspan (the high altitude long-wing variants lost this ability).

In several of the UK and US tests involving the FW 190, comments were made as to how the 190 could perform 'flick'/'snap' roll maneuvers far beyond what the Allied fighters it was being tested against could do. The only exception mentioned among the tests that I am aware of is one where it was said that the F4U could roll about as well as the FW 190 - but based on the designs, other tests/available data, and almost universal after-action reports with other combat aircraft, I can find no reason to believe this was true. It was only at speeds above ~380 mph that a few of the Allied aircraft (F4U, P-51B, and P-38L) could match the FW 190 in roll rate in tests.
 
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