Greg Boeser
1st Sergeant
Actually, chicken wire of sufficient gauge will do the trick.That's precisely why I wear a tinfoil hat...because we don't need no thought control!
Groundhog Thread Part Deux - P-39 Fantasy and Fetish - The Never Ending Story (Mods take no responsibility for head against wall injuries sustained)
- Thread starter greybeard
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buffnut453
Captain
How about flaming bloody bombers, then?
I guess you could use that to describe the Jabos!
buffnut453
Captain
I knew he deliberately misspelled the name out of respect for who he was, simply because Adler is a German speaker. I dont appreciate combat aces being dragged into this when they are not here to comment, especially when other combat aces are dismissed as "joe pilot". Chuck was a famous aviator, also famous for not really liking the British, however that doesnt mean he would think using a P-39 to intercept Jabo formations at 30,000ft is a good idea in any year of the war.
How much does chicken wire weigh? Would it be useful on a P-39 radio as far as dry weight is concerned?
Probably somewhere. When RV Jones was researching his theory about German use of radio signals to guide the bombers, which he was spot-on about, after a raid on a factory in Birmingham the pattern of the impact of the bombs demonstrated very good accuracy for the time, although accuracy was highly subjective and was, compared to later in the war not as good. There is an illustration of the bomb plots in his book Most Secret War. From the bomb plots they were able to ascertain where the X Gerat cross beams timed when bomb release took place based on where they fell, pretty much in a straight line directly over the target, although there were two lines of bombs some distance either side of the target, which Jones after the war queried German scientists on that they had no idea why there were shadow signals that led to three lines of bombs being dropped.
Nevertheless, when attacking pinpoint targets the system worked very well, but the Germans concentrated on bombing city centres, like Coventry and London, when they had a very accurate means of attacking pinpoint targets, which in hindsight, they could have done more of. This is why I have said in the past in other threads that I believe the Kampfgeschwader to be the most accurate and best bombing force at the beginning of WW2. No other air force could match the level of accuracy nor ratio of aircraft and thus bombs over the target area as the Luftwaffe. It took the RAF and USAAF a couple of years to get to the same degree of accuracy as what the Luftwaffe had in its hands in 1939/1940.
Agree, man, keep your head down and your loved ones close.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
I see what you did there.
Taking an average makes no sense. The raid on Coventry showed how devastating a raid could be with guidance like Knickebein, but once the beams were bent they were equally not devastating at all. At the start of the BoB there was no defence other than pilots going up and hoping to get lucky. Efforts were made with using fighters around searchlights but the BoB was over before effective aircraft carrying RADAR came into use. Wiki isnt a great source but in this link table sorties flown shows between October 1940 and May 1941 night sorties went from 5,900 with 23 lost to 3,800 with 55 lost. So a 30% reduction in operations and more than double the losses.
The Blitz: estimated Luftwaffe bomber sorties.[119]
| Month/year | Day sorties (losses) | Night sorties (losses) | Luftflotte 2 sorties | Luftflotte 3 sorties | Major attacks | Heavy attacks |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| October 1940 | 2,300 (79) | 5,900 (23) | 2,400 | 3,500 | 25 | 4 |
| November 1940 | 925 (65) | 6,125 (48) | 1,600 | 4,525 | 23 | 2 |
| December 1940 | 650 (24) | 3,450 (44) | 700 | 2,750 | 11 | 5 |
| January 1941 | 675 (7) | 2,050 (22) | 450 | 1,600 | 7 | 6 |
| February 1941 | 500 (9) | 1,450 (18) | 475 | 975 | – | 2 |
| March 1941 | 800 (8) | 4,275 (46) | 1,625 | 2,650 | 12 | 3 |
| April 1941 | 800 (9) | 5,250 (58) | 1,500 | 3,750 | 16 | 5 |
| May 1941 | 200 (3) | 3,800 (55) | 1,300 | 2,500 | 11 | 3 |
buffnut453
Captain
It depends, remembering that at the time Jones and his scientists were producing that information they still had not concluded that this was what the Germans were doing, so they needed as much raw data as they could get.
As for the effectiveness of the beams after they had been 'bent', that's irrelevant to how effective they were in practise before they were bent. It's worth noting that the theory of using ground-mounted radio signals for navigation and guidance was similar in Gee and Oboe, so these were the logical successors to the German systems. That they were defeated was a matter of time, but that in no way discounts how effective they were.
Also, the Germans didn't just stop using the systems because the British developed countermeasures, the German raids against Britain failed due to a number of reasons, not least the quality of night fighters improving, but that's a different story.
Sorry, maybe badly worded on my part. I meant taking an average across the whole war makes no sense for any force. Like the survey that said only half of British bombers got within 3 miles etc. A bombing survey will just tell you the bombs dropped where they were aimed. Hull became the most bombed place in UK by nights bombed not tonnage, it was the easiest place to find as a secondary target being on a headland north of the Humber. It was bombed so much there was no military value in bombing it anymore but as a secondary target it got hit time and again.
Quite possibly not, but surveys serve a purpose. The Butt Report (wot you referred to) confirmed what a few people already knew about how ineffective Bomber Command was; Ludlow-Hewitt had been going on about it in multiple memos prior to the war regarding how poor the RAF's navigation was but no one listened. It's a part of understanding how techniques in vogue are doing and if you can't review what you are doing, how can you expect to do better? This is why the Luftwaffe did so badly during the Battle of Britain, it had no way of accurately determining whether or not it was doing what it believed it was doing.
I was taught that learning is a lifelong thing.
Stop learning = start dying.
He needs someone to tell him what the 25 airframe mods were that grounded P-39s in UK in 1941 and also needs to know how much these mods weighed, once this is combined with the weight of an IFF transponder, his education will be complete, as a P-39 expert.
Shortround6
Major General
A connection can be drawn between the BoB and the P-39/P-400 in that the P-39 was no longer wanted by the British not because the the BoB was already over ( and Russian being invaded when they showed up) but because the P-39 no longer met the tactical requirements of the British.
Operational altitudes had gone from 15,000-20,000 ft in the Battle of France to 25,000-30,000ft in the BoB in just 6 months.
The British had introduced the Hurricane II with the Merlin XX and the Spitfire V with the Merlin 45 many months before the P-400 showed up.
From Wiki " During a meeting held at the RAE at Farnborough on 17 February 1941 the Air Ministry asked "that a Spitfire should be provided with a pressure cabin capable of maintaining a pressure differential of 1 pound per square inch (69 hectopascals; 0.068 standard atmospheres) at 40,000 feet (12,000 m)."
Bolding is by me, this is 4 1/2 months before even the P-39C shows up in England. It is also about 2 1/2 months before Bell gets that tricked out 2nd production P-400 to barely make the qualifying speed for the contract.
The British were afraid that operational altitudes would continue to climb. It turns out that they didn't or at least not as fast as the British thought they would. Making aircraft work at 35-40,000 ft was somewhat harder than adding a very weak pressure cabin and small compressor. Germans found out the same thing.
But in the summer and fall of 1941 the threat of higher altitude combat was thought to be real and the P-400 wasn't going to work. The British also had more than enough lower altitude fighters. The P-400 wasn't even performing as promised.
Operational altitudes had gone from 15,000-20,000 ft in the Battle of France to 25,000-30,000ft in the BoB in just 6 months.
The British had introduced the Hurricane II with the Merlin XX and the Spitfire V with the Merlin 45 many months before the P-400 showed up.
From Wiki " During a meeting held at the RAE at Farnborough on 17 February 1941 the Air Ministry asked "that a Spitfire should be provided with a pressure cabin capable of maintaining a pressure differential of 1 pound per square inch (69 hectopascals; 0.068 standard atmospheres) at 40,000 feet (12,000 m)."
Bolding is by me, this is 4 1/2 months before even the P-39C shows up in England. It is also about 2 1/2 months before Bell gets that tricked out 2nd production P-400 to barely make the qualifying speed for the contract.
The British were afraid that operational altitudes would continue to climb. It turns out that they didn't or at least not as fast as the British thought they would. Making aircraft work at 35-40,000 ft was somewhat harder than adding a very weak pressure cabin and small compressor. Germans found out the same thing.
But in the summer and fall of 1941 the threat of higher altitude combat was thought to be real and the P-400 wasn't going to work. The British also had more than enough lower altitude fighters. The P-400 wasn't even performing as promised.
Greg Boeser
1st Sergeant
Now just think what mayhem those P-400s could have caused if they had been sent to Malaya to augment the Buffalos already there.
They've got to be better than tropicalized Hurricane Mk IIBs.
They've got to be better than tropicalized Hurricane Mk IIBs.
P-39 Expert
Non-Expert
Certainly not at 7850lbs. At 7100lbs that's a different story.
Why, you keep saying this but why? Can we have some facts about thrust, lift drag etc, not just your feelings.
Both the Spitfire and Hurricane had more wing span and wing area than the P-39
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Peter Gunn
Master Sergeant
I appreciate the thoughts you guys, but thankfully it was kind of a big let down, not that I'm complaining mind you. I don't think the wind hit 35MPH but the vegetation got quite a dousing.
