Greg Spouts Off About P-38 Drop Tanks

Thumpalumpacus said:

I have to say that I don't trust anyone using either "greetings" or "salutations" as an opening. Greg, of course, uses the former.

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Back when I was recovering from my wreck, the boss had me do a Monday video conference from home on the week's shop workload (which I did not want to do).

I'd start the meeting with "Hola Pendejos" and the bossman was not amused.

Perhaps this phrase would be a good starter for a YT series?

Hey everyone, how's it going? Ok, it's actually a while since last I clicked on a Greg. In the beginning I liked his explaining technical stuff where I did not have a clue. For someone with my background, the level was pretty bang on. For some here it was of course kindergarten.
YouTube is a big place, and the quality varies immensely. Greg got less interesting as he began to tackle the larger picture, where frankly he is out of his deaths . It's like that with many channels, you start out doing something you're pretty good at, and suddenly you has to continue a succesful channel and know everything.
A lot falls through when they reach that point. And sme get their ego greatly inflated
Bonuspoint to anyone who recognizes the rather meandering channel the greeting is from. It's not meant as a recommendation...

Just Schmidt said:

Hey everyone, how's it going?

[...]

Bonuspoint to anyone who recognizes the rather meandering channel the greeting is from. It's not meant as a recommendation...

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IHYLS

Thumpalumpacus said:

There are channels in which I wish the creator used an AI voice -- it would be better than his leaden diction.

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There were mornings when I wished to have an AI voice. And face.

Dimlee said:

There were mornings when I wished to have an AI voice. And face.

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I think you have a very lovable face. Wait, is that not your real face?!

MIflyer said:

As other have said, they were not dropped on peacetime missions except in emergencies.

I recall a friend saying in our home town said he observed a USAF T-33A dropping its tip tanks over a populated area.
I recall reading in a USAF safety magazine about a T-33A taking off from Mountain Home AFB, ID, just before a storm front hit. They were rolling down the runway when the gust front overtook them from behind, instantly causing a huge drop in airspeed. The only way to get off the ground before the runway ran out was to punch off the tip tanks.
And I recall a former military pilot admitting that he left two drop tanks in a golf course.

And that is all the cases I have ever heard about, despite 25 years on active duty in the USAF and a lifelong study of aviation.

Now, a friend of mine who was in a German POW camp in WW2 said that Allied pilots would on occasion drop their tanks into the POW compound. They probably were Polish pilots and were just trying to say hello, buck, up, we're here, etc. but of course everyone's reaction was to run like hell and duck for cover. He said there occasionally was enough fuel left in the tanks to fill a cigarette lighter and that the tank he saw was made out of paper.

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I may have mentioned in another thread, way back, about an incident with Geography exams and a T-33. It seems that our Geography exams were in a luggage pod attached to the belly of the T-33 our instructor flew home for the weekend. Monday morning, we were told that all of us had passed our exams as they were lost somewhere west of the Rockies.

tomo pauk said:

Hear me out.

I'd suggest that we don't do some mad scramble the moment Greg posts a video, even if the title contains the word like 'Bomber mafia' and similar. I know that finding mistakes in his videos is cool here, but still.

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Just to be clear--I watched the entire video and posted numerous comments before posting the video here. I had also discussed this topic with Greg and he apparently decided to ignore an extensive historical study that I pointed him to. He appears to obliquely dismiss it in the video.

Greg is absolutely right that there was a bomber mafia, and that it held unrealistic views. However, he ignores the views of the fighter advocates in the years leading up to the Second World War, leading him deep into nonsensical error. When the fighter guys don't think that it's possible to build an effective long-range escort, it's hard to argue against unescorted bombers.

Jabberwocky said:

Anyone got a month by month (or even week by week) comparison of USAAF claims in North Africa and Western Europe?

I wonder at what point the rate of ETO claims takes over that of MTO claims.

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This may be true, but it is also irrelevant.

To be accurate, it's cause-and-effect error. Are you shooting down more Axis aircraft in the MTO because there are more of them there, or simply because almost all of your fighter forces are there? You can construct some simple distributions of squadrons between the theaters that make it obvious that you can allocate forces to put the majority of the shoot-downs that you achieve into one theater or the other.

elbmc1969 said:

Just to be clear--I watched the entire video and posted numerous comments before posting the video here. I had also discussed this topic with Greg and he apparently decided to ignore an extensive historical study that I pointed him to. He appears to obliquely dismiss it in the video.

Greg is absolutely right that there was a bomber mafia, and that it held unrealistic views. However, he ignores the views of the fighter advocates in the years leading up to the Second World War, leading him deep into nonsensical error. When the fighter guys don't think that it's possible to build an effective long-range escort, it's hard to argue against unescorted bombers.

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There were bomber mavens who truly believed "the bomber will always get through", especially when that bomber carried a lot of machine guns. The question is whether those mavens were so devoted to their own doctrine that they chose to sacrifice lives rather than admit error.

What Greg brings to the table about P-38s being sent to Africa instead of escorting bombers ignores the fact that while 8th AF missions in Nov 42 over Europe were tiny, US Army troops in North Africa needed air-cover right.freakin.now. He also ignores the engine issues P-38s suffered over the ETO.

I'm going to create a phrase:
"Battleship Mafia" because in the days leading up to WWII, the mindset was Battleships would decide naval engagements.

So anything other than Battleships were suppressed by the Battleship Mafia.

Do not come at me with actual facts or documents - anyone disagreeing will be deleted, mocked and blocked.

elbmc1969 said:

Just to be clear--I watched the entire video and posted numerous comments before posting the video here. I had also discussed this topic with Greg and he apparently decided to ignore an extensive historical study that I pointed him to. He appears to obliquely dismiss it in the video.

Greg is absolutely right that there was a bomber mafia, and that it held unrealistic views. However, he ignores the views of the fighter advocates in the years leading up to the Second World War, leading him deep into nonsensical error. When the fighter guys don't think that it's possible to build an effective long-range escort, it's hard to argue against unescorted bombers.

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Greg trips on the semantics of the word "bomber" smashes his head on the wall and falls out of the window into a pile of cow slurry. The "BOMBER MAFIA" were advocates of a strategic and tactical bomber force to project US power in times of war. It is impossible for anyone to argue that they werent correct, bearing in mind how the war in the far east ended and what happened after. To this day the USA has a massive bomb force, they just dont use aircraft anymore. It is a matter of historical fact that the USA was attacked at Pearl Harbor in December 1941, in April 1942 the Doolittle raid on Tokyo used BOMBERS taking off from a carrier at some risk simply to make a symbolic hit on Japans capital. If the USA had a fleet of B-29s in 1942, that is what would have been used. The BOMBER MAFIA were not in any way averse or opposed to using fighters, the issue was getting fighters with the rang to do it. Experiments with in flight refuelling and bombers actually carrying fighters were tried to that end. Gregs Bomber Mafia nonsense is just money making tripe, complete BS and he knows it, but he has years of experience keeping people clicking.

In all honesty, the bombing strategy leading up to, and during the early days of WWII were shaped by technology of the day.

Single engined fighters simply did not have the range to accompany multi-engined (two, three, four, etc.) bombers.

We also saw the various types of interceptors designed to counter them, like Bell's YFM-1, turret fighters as well as the "heavy fighter" concept, which were to either intercept or escort bombers.

There was also the push within the USAAC to develop the extra long range bomber concept, which led to the B-29 and B-36 by way of the YB-15 and YB-19.

The 1930's were an interesting time for military aviation and the "Bomber Mafia" was nothing more than the USAAF making a transition from a 1930's mindset to the evolving battlefield situation of the 1940's.

GrauGeist said:

I'm going to create a phrase:
"Battleship Mafia" because in the days leading up to WWII, the mindset was Battleships would decide naval engagements.

So anything other than Battleships were suppressed by the Battleship Mafia.

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There was a "battleship Mafia", it just didn't go to the extremes that that Greg claims the Bomber Mafia did
The BB Mafia realized they needed escorts, cruisers and destroyers. The All powerful BBs could not deal with enemy night surface torpedo attacks and subs all on their own
The BB Mafia also realized that the DDs could never have the 'range' of a BB. So they built fleet oilers and arranged/experimented with underway replenishment and even figured out how to at least top up DDs from Cruisers, carriers and yes, even the battleships.

The destroyer designers had a similar problem to the escort fighter designer. If you want the range/endurance of a much larger ship/airplane you have to give up stuff (weapons/protection/performance) to get it assuming you have the same level of technology. Things look even worse for the Destroyer vs escort fighter analogy here. Destroyers used much lighter/comp[act engines per HP than battleships. Escort fighter designers do not have that crutch.

A quick look at the B-17B bomber specs shows the fighter designer's problem.

850 US gallons was the normal fuel load. 2492 US gal was max fuel load.
A back of of the envelope calculation shows that a single engine fighter needs to be able to carry 210-215 US gallons to match the normal 'endurance' of the 4 engine bomber.
Use drop tanks or don't. A P-36 needs about a 50-60 gal drop tank and fuel internal fuel and will be considered to very, very over loaded with such an external tank.
Chances of escorting a B-17 that was carrying even 1200 gals? 300 gallons in/under a 1200hp fighter? Even with drop tanks?
A P-43 with 100 gallons in drop tanks?
A P-38 without protected tanks and with a pair of 100 gallon drop tanks gives the twin engine fighter about 600 gallons. Of course even the P-38E only had 1150hp engines so performance with a heavy load of fuel might have been a bit lacking?

The state of the art in Aircraft/engine design did not allow for escort fighters in 1938-39-40. Germans were not stupid when they designed the Bf 110. And they were only trying to escort He 111s.
Now when did the crossover point come?????
When did the combination of aerodynamics, structure and powerplant allow for a decent escort fighter of even 400-500 radius occur?
Hanging 450 gallons under a P-40 is not going to work. You could do it, but you weren't going to escort anything.