Groundhog Thread Part Deux - P-39 Fantasy and Fetish - The Never Ending Story (Mods take no responsibility for head against wall injuries sustained)

[Just Schmidt]

Well, when and where?

There's this incident known as the battle of Midway.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

If I'm reading your post correctly there were 36 operational P-40s and P-35s with 30calMGs? Out of 100000 AAF and USN fighters with 50cals and or cannons? That's .00036%.

200yds was way too short ranged. One had to get within 200yds of a fighter to have a good chance at a victory? Or within 200yds of a bomber that was returning fire? The 30s didn't have enough hitting power or range. That's why the AAF/USN used 50calMGs and the British progressed to the 20mm cannon.

Uh, when did the US have 100,000 fighters operational at one time?

 

[gordonm1]

I have been watching History Channel Battlezone on the net about early war and they said the USA took P400's from a Brittish order after Pearl Harbor for fighting at Guadacanal. They were delivered without oxygen and I presume no pessurization so their ceiling was 12,000 ft. The other planes they had were Navy/Marine Wildcats which could go higher so the island hopping begins with the Americans having reasons to avoid it's use in the Pacific. The Wildcats were said to use them as bait and it helped the Wildcat pilots get experience diving and zooming and booming I bet the P40's also had a higher ceiling (WIKI 29,000 ft for p40E) even if they were not at Guadacanal until the marines moved on. This bad start for the type would explain to me why we had so many to give to the Russians where they fought at lower altitude(and probably loved the big gun).

 

[Glider]

My point is: British were specifying 30cals on P-400s when shortly the AAF/USN would move on to 50cals and cannon.

A 1942 P-39/400 at 7150lbs looks pretty good against P-38s since they weren't in combat until late 1942. P-47 was not in combat until spring 1943. Would outclimb a Mustang I and go about the same top speed. Spitfire IX started in mid '42 but production didn't get rolling until :ate '42. Would outclimb a Typhoon and about as fast. As far as a FW190A5 it would be outclimbed by a 7150lb P-39/400.

The problem of course being that there was no 7150lbs P39.
The Typhoon was faster, climbed faster, had more firepower, had better armour protection, carried considerably more payload, had a better range and didn't have the nasty handling habits. Something we debated in some detail earlier on and you seem to have forgotten.

PS Still waiting for your observations of the British deliberately sabotaging the P39's performance.

 

[pbehn]

Put that into perspective with Berlin being 520mi from England. P-47 came up a little (a lot) short. This computation uses the most economical setting (105gph) for the P-47 at 25000'. Most charts give the P-47 with drop tank a combat radius of 375mi but that is still way short of Berlin.

No it didnt, the only thing that comes up short is your ability to read, comprehend and remember. On a heavy long range daylight bombing raid no bomber or escort fighter took off and headed for the target, once you understand that you are making progress.

 

[SaparotRob]

P-47D-25 didn't get to combat until mid-'44. P-39D was operational mid-'42. That's two full years.

To get combat radius go to the Flight Operation Instruction Chart in the P-47 pilot's manual. Take total fuel including 110gal drop tank 415gal. Then compute the "fooling around time" as you put it by deducting the takeoff and climb allowance 45gal, 20 minute combat reserve 90gal, and 20 minute reserve for landing 25gal. The net fuel 255gal can be used for cruising is divided by 105 gallons per hour at 25000' yielding 2.4hours cruising time. Multiply by 285mph TAS cruising speed (190 IAS) for a total of 684mi. Divide by 2 for 342mi combat radius.

Put that into perspective with Berlin being 520mi from England. P-47 came up a little (a lot) short. This computation uses the most economical setting (105gph) for the P-47 at 25000'. Most charts give the P-47 with drop tank a combat radius of 375mi but that is still way short of Berlin.

Are those figures for my "Bastille Day 'Bolt" or my wrong choice, the P-47D-25 RE?

 

[pbehn]

Uh, when did the US have 100,000 fighters operational at one time?

1942, and 500% were P-39s, we have run into real number, time and type problems here, the decimal point is like an IFF set, you can put it anywhere.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

P-47D-25 didn't get to combat until mid-'44. P-39D was operational mid-'42. That's two full years.

To get combat radius go to the Flight Operation Instruction Chart in the P-47 pilot's manual. Take total fuel including 110gal drop tank 415gal. Then compute the "fooling around time" as you put it by deducting the takeoff and climb allowance 45gal, 20 minute combat reserve 90gal, and 20 minute reserve for landing 25gal. The net fuel 255gal can be used for cruising is divided by 105 gallons per hour at 25000' yielding 2.4hours cruising time. Multiply by 285mph TAS cruising speed (190 IAS) for a total of 684mi. Divide by 2 for 342mi combat radius.

Put that into perspective with Berlin being 520mi from England. P-47 came up a little (a lot) short. This computation uses the most economical setting (105gph) for the P-47 at 25000'. Most charts give the P-47 with drop tank a combat radius of 375mi but that is still way short of Berlin.

I stopped debating flight manual charts with you because you don't now how to use them properly and refuse to listen to people on here who are actual pilots and flown real airplanes, and I don't want to continually bang my head against the wall. There is no "combat reserve" or "landing reserve," that is calculated within your flight planning. A 30 or 45 minute reserve is what is normally planned into a mission should something happen and you have to extend. It's quite obvious that many missions were flown well into the reserve calculation.

I'm not going to debate this with you!!!!

To the other members partaking in these discussions, any "calculations" our friend here comes up with regards to flight planning and using flight manual charts, I would really double check if you have access to the data/ flight manual.

 

[pbehn]

I stopped debating flight manual charts with you because you don't now how to use them properly and refuse to listen to people on here who are actual pilots and flown real airplanes, and I don't want to continually bang my head against the wall. There is no "combat reserve" or "landing reserve," that is calculated within your flight planning. A 30 or 45 minute reserve is what is normally planned into a mission should something happen and you have to extend. It's quite obvious that many missions were flown well into the reserve calculation.

I'm not going to debate this with you!!!!

To the other members partaking in these discussions, any "calculations" our friend here comes up with regards to flight planning and using flight manual charts, I would really double check if you have access to the data/ flight manual.

P-39 is fighting his own war in his own plane making his own calculations about how he will attack Berlin, I guess the bombers will just have to hunker on in behind. When you read Parks instructions to controllers saying two good squadrons climbing together to 30,000ft take 15% longer than one squadron then its clear things arent as simple as an individual planes performance. Drgondogs recent post on another thread shows how complex things were and what the room to manoeuvre for the escorts was.

 

[P-39 Expert]

Lol, no it means that on 7 Dec 1941 40% of the USAAC first-line fighters in Philippines were armed with .300 mgs, Wiki says that most of USAAC fighters on Oahu were P-40Bs, I had exact numbers in my attic, but because you do not mind facts, why bother, you like to use wiki, so be it. Now that means that when the Pacific War began, most of the USAAC fighters there were armed with .300s (plus also with two 0.5s). That was over a year after the end of the BoB.

Maybe this thread gives to you some idea on air combat RAF Fighter Gunnery Analysis the main point to understand air gunnery and air combat is that to achieve a kill in 99.9% of the cases you must first hit the enemy a/c.

Joe Baugher says 131 P-40Bs and 193 P-40Cs were produced for the AAF for a grand total of 324 produced. And maybe 60 P-35As. These early P-40s and P-35s represent .4% (that's 4 tenths of one percent) of the 100000 fighters produced by America for the AAF/USN. Totally insignificant by any measure. The rest had 50calMGs/cannon. Except for the P-39.

One could say that all the AAF/USN fighters in combat were armed with 50calMGs and/or cannon, but he would only be 99.96% correct. Except for P-39s.

 

[pbehn]

Joe Baugher says 131 P-40Bs and 193 P-40Cs were produced for the AAF for a grand total of 324 produced. And maybe 60 P-35As. These early P-40s and P-35s represent .4% (that's 4 tenths of one percent) of the 100000 fighters produced by America for the AAF/USN. Totally insignificant by any measure. The rest had 50calMGs/cannon. Except for the P-39.

One could say that all the AAF/USN fighters in combat were armed with 50calMGs and/or cannon, but he would only be 99.96% correct. Except for P-39s.

The discussion is about planes in service at the end of October 1940, not the end of the war, you have just done that goalpost thing again.

 

[P-39 Expert]

The discussion is about planes in service at the end of October 1940, not the end of the war, you have just done that goalpost thing again.

The discussion is about how many AAF/USN fighters had 30calMGs in WWII. We weren't even at war in October 1940, not for another year.

 

[pbehn]

The discussion is about how many AAF/USN fighters had 30calMGs in WWII. We weren't even at war in October 1940, not for another year.

But that isnt how the discussion started, it was about the cheating British wanting heavy armament in the P-39 when they didnt have them in their own. I said that they were using cannon in 1940 Spitfires and you made your statement about US airplanes. So the discussion is about the end of the BoB. It doesnt matter to me that the USA wasnt at war, the UK was.

 

[SaparotRob]

Okay, here's what I'm trying to figure out. Remember the map of Europe posted once, having concentric circles indicating fighter escort ranges? Had it been there, how far would the semi circle go for the the P-39? Say mid 1943.

 

[pbehn]

Okay, here's what I'm trying to figure out. Remember the map of Europe posted once having concentric circles indicating fighter escort ranges? Had it been there, how far would the semi circle go for the the P-39? Say mid 1943.

Inside the Spitfire.

 

[SaparotRob]

Appreciate it, Brother.

 

[pbehn]

Appreciate it, Brother.

How far you can go depends on altitude and rated altitude and a lot of other things, the Spitfire MkIX and Mk VIII were short ranged but could cruise at 25,000ft the P-39 couldnt cruise at that altitude it could just stay there for a short while.

 

[SaparotRob]

As I have read so many times before from so many of our fellow posters.

 

[GrauGeist]

If I'm reading your post correctly there were 36 operational P-40s and P-35s with 30calMGs? Out of 100000 AAF and USN fighters with 50cals and or cannons? That's .00036%.

200yds was way too short ranged. One had to get within 200yds of a fighter to have a good chance at a victory? Or within 200yds of a bomber that was returning fire? The 30s didn't have enough hitting power or range. That's why the AAF/USN used 50calMGs and the British progressed to the 20mm cannon.

First of all, 200 yards is 600 feet or roughly an eighth of a mile - this is a distance where many fighters engaged.
They didn't stand off and shoot laser beams at five miles.
As for the piddly .30 caliber, the Axis types claimed thousands of Allied air craft with their piddly 7mm MGs.
The British held the Luftwaffe at bay with their piddly .303s during the Battle of Britain.
So why was that?
Did it possess a mystical P-39ish power that defies physics?
Or was it simply because a .30/7mm round will pass through wood, aluminum skin, glass and human bodies at ranges over 3,000 feet.

And entire world war was being fought with .30/7mm weapons before the US entered. They just didn't sit around for four years (in the Orient) and two years (in Europe) wondering what they could use to shoot down an enemy aircraft - the .50 delivered a harder punch, doing more damage for each round delivered, yes, but just because an aircraft was armed with them, didn't mean it had invincibility.
A KI-43 could shoot down a P-40 armed with .50MGs just as easy as it xould shoot down a P-40 armed with .30MGs.

Regarding the .30 armed P-40, there were several hundred manufactured (not including exports) before the D model.
They saw action at Pearl Harbor, the Philippines and other areas of the Pacific.

The SBD was one of the first US aircraft to be designed and built with the .50MG as it's armament (two in the cowl). Up to that point, it was common for fighters to have a mix of one .30 and one .50 OR being being solely armed by .30s, which, prior to WWII, was a world standard.

 

[buffnut453]

See my post #2617.

I did see your post #2617 (I actually read the stuff you write and respond to it) and it makes no mention of the P-39C (Model 13).

On one of the many threads you've turned into a P-39 Groundhog Day, you made the following statement in the context of additional "useless" items specified by the British for the P-400 (Source: SHOULD the P39 have been able to handle the Zero? Was it training or performance?):

"…and other such items as a cockpit heater that was fueled by kerosene when the P-39 already had probably the best cockpit climate control system of any American fighter that simply ducted hot air from the radiator"

I'll summarize the Bell Model numbers again in case you missed it the first 3 times I posted it:

Model 13 (P-39C) - Equipped with the gas-fuelled heater just as per the P-400 (Source: Groundhog Thread Part Deux - P-39 Fantasy and Fetish - The Never Ending Story (Mods take no responsibility for head against wall injuries sustained))

Model 14 (P-400) - Had the same gas-fuelled heater as the P-39C. Per the above quote, you are claiming that the British specified the "useless" gas heater when the P-39 already had "probably the best cockpit climate control system" using ducted air from the radiator. The problem is the ducted air solution doesn't appear until after the Model 14A-1 below.

Model 14A (P-39D-1) - Same gas-fuelled heater as the P-39C (Source: Groundhog Thread Part Deux - P-39 Fantasy and Fetish - The Never Ending Story (Mods take no responsibility for head against wall injuries sustained))

Model 14A-1 (P-39D-2) - Same gas-fuelled heater as the P-39C (Source: Groundhog Thread Part Deux - P-39 Fantasy and Fetish - The Never Ending Story (Mods take no responsibility for head against wall injuries sustained)).


It seems that the ducted-air heating solution wasn't present in the P-39 until after the P-39D-2. I need you to explain how it is that the P-400 had a ducted air cockpit heating that seemingly didn't appear until a much later Bell Model number? None of this is covered in your Post #2617 so please, share your expertise and explain how I'm wrong (again).

One final point. In Post #2617 you state that the gas-fuelled heater was useless because of its impact on the radio. As pointed out in my previous post, that's the fault of Bell for not integrating the heater effectively with the other aircraft systems. That is NOT the fault of the British. However, take out the gas-fuelled heater from the P-39C/D-1/D-2 and P-400 and you're left with a fighter that has no cockpit heating. How good will the aircraft's high-altitude performance be if the pilot is frozen?