Getting P-40 into the air quickly

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

Japan was supposed to declare war on USA before the attacks on Pearl so that would have given a few minutes.
Also the idea that the Western powers had broken IJN codes so the attack may have been known. All adds to the flavour.

The Pearl CAP and Midway CAP would have been different as the 20mm cannon had a few seconds shooting time so the constant landing at Midway would be to re-arm. Which is not an issue at Pearl.
 
The Basket said:
Japan was supposed to declare war on USA before the attacks on Pearl so that would have given a few minutes.
Click to expand...
30 minutes was the plan, that was allowed under the Hague Conventions.
Also the idea that the Western powers had broken IJN codes so the attack may have been known. All adds to the flavour.
Click to expand...
That's interesting if that was known. I had many family members that lived in Hawaii (technically, I still do, but the generation that witnessed the start of WWII are all dead), and many of them believe the attacks were allowed to happen on purpose, so as to justify WWII.
 
Conspiracy theory abound. Would have gone to war anyway over Philippines so Pearl was not necessary for USA to join up.
Although the oil embargo was an act of war in itself. Well and truly stuffed the Japanese good and proper. And what used the most oil was the IJN. So the oil embargo would have left Japan defenceless and the Yamato a floating gin Palace.
Sooo... Leave China and stay at home with tail firmly between legs...or go for broke.

Cowabunga it is.
 
The Basket said:
Conspiracy theory abound. Would have gone to war anyway over Philippines so Pearl was not necessary for USA to join up.
Click to expand...
Probably true, but what appeared to be an unprovoked attack on the Pacific Fleet headquarters has a way of provoking national indignation. I'm not sure if the emotions would have been as intense and vitriolic.

One thing I've noticed is that certain emotions (fear, anger, hatred) are very good ways to motivate people: They can sustain people like fuel when most more balanced emotions would have long died out, particularly when you are given an object, person, group of people to vent that hatred against. Anger can actually sometimes be pleasant, as it makes you feel alive, and it tends to go well with explosions and fires.

This is only partially stated in gest...
 

I see you watch the mainstream media...


Cheers,
Biff
 
Making your enemy as bad as bad can be is as old as hills.
The battle of the Philippines is much worse from an American point of view as it was the biggest surrender of American troops since the Civil War plus the Bataan death march so plenty of talking points.
 
The Bataan death march wasn't known about by the general public until almost 2 years later.
Even the military didn't know the extent of it until they started liberating large numbers of survivors of the march, when they invaded the Philippines , until then they only had a few isolated accounts from the few troops that escaped during the march.
 
There really IS a warm-up period in a P-40 or any WWII fighter. If you takeoff with the engine temps not at least near the green, you are looking for an early engine failure. Not right away, but over time. The engine needs to be up to temp before it will put out full power reliably. I worked for 2 years at an Allison overhaul shop, and we got ALL engine up to temp (even the odd Merlin) before running them faster than idle RPM.

A cold engine will not reliably accelerate and could easily either accelerate or cut out, and you can't always tell which it will do. Almost any cold carbureted engine will do the same until it is warm or nearly warm. You run the real risk of local hot spot in the combustion chamber that lead to detonation.

I might not warm up fully if I was being attacked, but I would want the temp to be off the bottom of the peg or I might just die right after lift-off. These planes had a glide ratio like a falling safe in many cases, especially if they were near takeoff or stall speed.

Lift off, engine failure, 2500 fpm downward rapidly.

I'd estimate a P-40 from cold to warm or almost warm will sit or taxi about 2 - 3 minutes minimum to get the temp needle to come alive (off the peg, anyway), depending on local temperature ... more if the weather is substantially cold, near the minimum if the local temp is warm. If you are still taxiing after 10 minutes, you have rather definitely over-temped it. An Allison will take a mild overtemp quite well, but you need to get the air moving soon or it will die just as a Merlin will. Easy to tell some things when you open them up. The ones that have over-temped due to tight main bearings have rods that have turned blue-black, indicating an almost-seize condition. But over-temp due to just not taking off is less readily seen. It would be relatively heavy black carbon on the piston crown and erosion of the valves / valve seats.
 
I think it's fair to say that had the radar warning not been ignored things would have turned out alot differently.
Of the US had scrambled everything they had, p40s, p36s, SBDs etc I think the number of Japanese planes that made it through to carry out a successful strike would have been greatly reduced. By what percentage is anyones guess but I'm guessing there still would have been damage but it would have been comparatively minimal.
It's interesting to think about...... If the attack at Pearl Harbor had been largely blunted what would history look like.
 
That morning, the USAAC had on hand:
P-26 - 14
P-36A - 39
P-40B - 87
P-40C - 12
plus
A-20A - 12
B-18A - 33
B-17D - 12

The USN/USMC had, on hand:
F2A - 8
F4F-3 - 21
SBD-1 - 20
SBD-2 - 6
SB2U-3 - 8
This does not include the SBDs of VB-6/VS-6 that arrived during the attack.

So with advance warning, American forces could have put up a considerable defensive force, plus with the number of B-17s and PBYs (and one B-24A) available, could have launched an aggressive search for the Japanese fleet.
 
Last edited:
Well, since we're throwing history out the window anyway for the sake of our movie script, why not let Phil "Gramps" Cochran invent his skip bombing trick a couple years early and "wreak havoc" upon Kido Butai, along with the rest of GrauGeist's impressive air fleet. With KB occupying pretty much all of Japan's drydocks, the great offensive of Dec '41 to Jun '42 would have been seriously hamstrung and the war in the Pacific brought to a much earlier conclusion.
Cheers,
Wes
 
Last edited:
"Wreak havoc", nice play on words, I like that. The US certainly had the equipment to stop the Japanese advance right from the beginning if we had only used what we had differently. Skip bombing could have changed everything from day 1. US medium bombers were tough as nails, A26's were fast and well defended, A20's were extremely fast. If the US had employed skip bombing medium bombers from day 1, the Japanese carriers would have been sunk the first time they came within range of any US land base that had more than a handful of B26's or A20's
 
pinsog said:
If the US had employed skip bombing medium bombers from day 1, the Japanese carriers would have been sunk the first time they came within range of any US land base that had more than a handful of B26's or A20's.
Click to expand...
I'm not so sure about that. What made skip bombing survivable against a warship was the heavily upgunned "strafer's nose", a lesson written in blood. The prewar "fast bomber" mediums tended to be a little anemic in their gun armament, as speed was supposed to be their defense. A single bow mounted .30 wasn't very effective at suppressing AAA fire, as proved by the Midway Marauders. OTOH, if they had had noses configured like a B25H, and carrying skip bombs, history might have turned out a little differently.
Cheers,
Wes
 
I see your point, but, early war Japanese AA was pretty pathetic as well. At Midway one B26 flew the length of one of the carriers after dropping his torpedo and they had to slow down to drop the torpedo. Picture instead of 4 B26's carrying torpedoes, you have 4 A20's or 4 B26's per carrier. They are carrying bombs internally so they are capable of full speed the entire run and never have to slow down to drop. The A20 was faster but the B26 has better defensive firepower. If they dive from 5,000 feet or so and level out at 300 mph on their final run, they are covering a mile every 12 seconds. If the 20 mm guns on the carrier have an effective range of 1000 yards, then they are only in effective range for around 6 seconds. Definitely better than a Devastator carrying defective torpedos!!

The Zero CAP would have great difficulty in defending against that sort of attack as would the poor AA of the Japanese carriers.

One question though: how thick was belt armor on the hulls of the early Japanese carriers? Would a 1,000 pound bomb at 250 mph have any trouble penetrating it? Any danger of a GP bomb breaking up or would they need to use AP or semi AP bombs to skip bomb a carrier?
 
pinsog said:
One question though: how thick was belt armor on the hulls of the early Japanese carriers?
Click to expand...
I believe the "big muthas", Kaga and Akagi, were built on battleship hulls, and probably had pretty heavy armor. IIRC, Hiryu and Soryu were on cruiser hulls, so probably armored as well. Shokaku and Zuikaku, were, I think, dedicated thin skinned carriers. I don't think all this detail was known at the time. The last two were purportedly equivalent to a US Essex class carrier, which we didn't even have deployed yet.
Cheers,
Wes
 
3 different bomb types, GP, semi AP, AP against 3 different hull types, battleship, cruiser and unarmored. Shokaku and Zuikaku wouldn't be a problem.

Do you have a best guess on what a 1,000 pound GP skip bomb hitting the Kaga and Akagi hull at say 250 mph would do? Penetrate? Break up? Bounce off? Would a Semi AP penetrate or deflect? Would AP penetrate or deflect?

I think they would penetrate Hiryu and Soryu hulls as well but I think I would be inclined to use semi AP or AP bombs.

Your thoughts on all of this?

Should we do a separate thread?
 
I think those are questions for ordnance guys like tyrodtom or shortround6. I'm a delivery driver, not a van loader. That said, I speculate that surface ship armor is usually thickest in a belt around the waterline, and a 1K GP hit anywhere between deck edge and waterline could easily wreak havoc with aviation fuel and firefighting plumbing, ordnance lifts, and communications and power distribution circuitry. If the impact is high enough, it might even penetrate the hangar deck and havoc might be an understatement, as the Japanese often fueled and armed their planes below decks. The killer on a carrier is always uncontrollable fire, even more so then holes in the hull. Avgas is nasty stuff from a damage control standpoint. If you've been through boot camp and Aviation Fundamentals Prep school, you've had that drilled into your skull in ways you won't forget.
Cheers,
Wes
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Similar threads

A
Perun: Building the Worst WW2 Air Force
Replies
13
Views
1K
pinehilljoe
Paper comparing the flight performance of the P-40E Warhawk and the A6M2 Zero
Replies
8
Views
1K
Ivan1GFP
I
How good a plane was the P-40, really?
23 24 25
Replies
493
Views
41K
Think Tanker
11th Air Force
Replies
7
Views
712
GreenKnight121
Effectiveness of the P-38
6 7 8
Replies
145
Views
13K
Thumpalumpacus
Menu
Log in
Register