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

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

pbehn said:
I have booked a massage for my back, I have a feeling I am going to be loading and unloading tanks guns ammo and armour very soon.
Click to expand...


Don't you have teenaged boys around? They're good for that sort of thing, and they heal faster when they drop something heavy on their feet. Of course, it's really hard for them to work as they can't get away from their phones and gameboys.
 
pbehn said:
I have booked a massage for my back, I have a feeling I am going to be loading and unloading tanks guns ammo and armour very soon.
Click to expand...
No unloading needed for the N, it will perform just fine with wing guns or fuel. The unloading would have helped the P-39D, F, K, and L. Of course unloading the wing guns (and nose armor plate) would have helped the N also, but it already climbed well at normal gross weight.
 
I would like to use the expertise of you other forum members to ask about more obscure aircraft.

For example, what do you have to say when comparing the P-39 vs the P-40? All I (think to) know so far:

- The US used the P-40, not the P-39.
- Both had poor high-altitude performance.
- The P-39 had the engine behind the cockpit and could field a big 37-mm gun in the front.
- According to wikipedia, the P-40 had the stronger engine.
- Also according to wikipedia, the P-39 was faster than the P-40, though this could easily be due to comparing different versions or altitudes. Otherwise, I would assume the P-39 to be preferred over the P-40.
 
There's a great little ditty about the P-39 to be found in the book World's Worst Aircraft. I'm sure someone here who has the book can quote it.
BTW I don't care if it's true or not.
 
Don't give me a P-38 with props that counter-rotate
They'll loop, roll and spin but they'll soon auger in
Don't give me a P-38!

CHORUS:
Just make me Operations
Way out on some lonely atoll
For I am too young to die
I just want to go home.*

Don't give me a P-39 with an engine that's mounted behind
It will tumble and roll and dig a big hole
Don't give me a P-39.

Don't give me an old Thunderbolt. It gave many pilots a jolt
It looks like a jug and it flies like a tug
Don't give me an old Thunderbolt!

Don't give me a Peter Four Oh, a hell of an airplane, I know
A ground loopin' bastard. You're sure to get plastered
Don't give me a Peter Four Oh.

Don't give me a P-51, it was all right for fighting the hun
But with coolant tank dry. you'll run out of sky
Don't give me a P-51.

Don't give me a P-61, for night flying is no fun
They say it's a lark. but I'm scared of the dark
Don't give me a P-61.

Lyrics from, "There I was, Flat on My Back" by Bob Stephens.

Hi Acheron,

The P-39 Airacobra and P-40 Warhawk (Tomahawk and Kittyhawk also) both had the same engine ... an Allison V-1710. The one in the P-39 was an E-series that did not have a shaft for a propeller, but rather had a shaft for remote drive. It fed a driveshaft that went under the pilot and through his legs to the remote gearbox on the nose that drove the propeller. The engine in the P-40 was an F-series and had a standard SAE 50-spline prop shaft and the propeller was mounted to it. But the power sections were identical in appearance otherwise. Both had a single-stage supercharger but no turbocharger.

Most of the P-39s had V-1710s rated at about 1,200 HP. Some had engines with 1,325 HP. It was a good performer at or below 15,000 feet, but the engine rapidly lost performance above 15,000 feet. Yes, it could get up to 35,000 feet or so, but it didn't have fighter-like performance up there.

In the lyrics above, it says, "It'll tumble and roll and dig a big hole." During WWII, some pilot stated the P-39 would tumble in mid-air. A few survived it and complained to the USAAF about it. The USAAF said it couldn't duplicate that behavior in the wind tunnel, and they couldn't. After the war, they found one of the P-39 wind tunnel models and discovered it was ballasted to simulate a full loadout of ammunition. The ammunition in the P-39 is ahead of the center of gravity, and shooting all of it moved the CG rearward. Some guys decided to test the model in the wing tunnel ballasted for empty ammunition and, surprise, it tumbled easily when stalled! Go figure.

The P-40 used a similar engine that was rated mostly at about 1,325 hp. Some had engines of 1,425 HP or so. Two variants of the P-40, the P-40F and P-40L, had Packard-Merlin V-1650 engine, but the Merlins so used were single-stage engines and the resulting P-40s performed almost the same as with the Allison engines. The Merlin-powered units were very slightly faster and had very slightly better altitude performance, but not enough to make much of a difference. They were still low-altitude fighters. You can tell the Merlin units because they airscoop on top of the nose is missing.

The U.S.A. used both aircraft, though we DID use more P-40s than P-39s. The P-39 had a sister aircraft development that looked very similar to the P-39, called the P-63 Kingcobra. It was a bigger airplane that also used the Allison engine, but the horsepower rating was also higher. The U.S.A. used very few of the P-63s. Most went to the Soviet Union, who loved them since they were employed as ground-support aircraft at low altitudes where they shined in performance. You can tell a P-39 and P-63 apart by the shape of the vertical tails. Google them both, check the shape of the tail, and you can instantly tell which one you are looking at.
 
Last edited:
I didn't know there was more. This goes onto the "What cheered you up today?" thread!
I would have used more exclamation points but that's been done to death.
 
Just looked up that title hoping to find a recording.
If I didn't look up the wrong guy, Bob Stephens was a minor league pitcher and enlisted after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He became a fighter pilot flying Mustangs and had a dozen kills. His P-51B was named "Killer" from his father's nickname. He was killed in a two seat F-100 while checking out a new pilot.
I got this from the website baseballinwartime.com. after entering "there I was, flat on my back bob Stephens". He has books of aviation cartoons as well. The stuff I learn from this Forum is amazing.
 
The USSR did not use the P-39 for ground attack. It was an air superiority fighter for the Soviet Air Force. Contrary to often repeated myth, the 37MM cannon could not crack open Geman tanks. In fact the USAAF claimed to the RAF that the P-39 could do as good a job as the Hurricane IID with 40MM cannon, the British did tests that proved that was not true. And they also found the 37MM cannon jammed every time they fired it, until they devised a fix by sawing off the ejection lever. The 37MM used in the P-39 was relatively low velocity and designed to attack the light structure of aircraft, not penetrate tank armor (refernce the book Druids' Circle). The 37MM used with the Stuka was designed as an ground based AA weapon and had higher velocity.

Interestingly enough, when the USSR developed better fighters such as the Yak-3, Yak-9, and LA-5 they did not use them to replace P-39's in service. See the Osprey book on the P-39.

One drawback for US use of the P-39 was it shorter range compared to the P-40. After the first few months the US primarily fought a war of offense and getting to where the enemy was of great importance. At Guadalcanal the P-39 was used to provide air cover for convoys and reportedly the P-39's generally arrived back at base virtually on fumes. I read of a case where a P-40 was yelling for help with a Zero on his tail and the only way some returning P-39's could be of help was that the Zero was basically in the traffic pattern.

One article I posted here said that the P-39Q with the externally mounted .50 cal guns under the wings had flight characteristics inferior to the earlier models.
 
SaparotRob said:
Acheron, I gave you a winner for starting this thread.
Click to expand...
Thank you!

One thing I recall, the Soviets reportedly claimed that the 37-cannon was great against the rugged FW-190. Having a radial engine, the FW-190 supposedly could take quite some punishment, but a 37-mm shell would ruin its day. I wonder though if 37-mm shells were considerably more destructive than 20-mm shells, anyone got any idea?

GregP and M MIflyer regarding the use of the P-39 in a round attack role, please let us know whether you are talking about the P-39 being used as a ground-attacker in its primarily role or ground-attacks on targets of opportunity. Given the normally low altitudes of Eastern Front air combat, the later could be significant, no?

Regarding the 37-mms destructive power vis-vis the Ju-87's gun, the Ju-87 was tasked with cracking the T-34's, right? To my knowledge, the Panzer III's and IV's were considerably lighter armored (or at least had much mess slope), especially early in the war. Any ides if the P-39's 37-mm could have been effective against these?

Wikipedia is sadly not good when it comes to stats, engine power and speed at times lack the altitude for which the values are given. Was the P-39 indeed faster than the P-40 by a good margin?

And any idea why the US military got more P40's than P-39's? The reliability issues? The lower range? Or something else entirely.
 
The Soviet Fighter Units were viewed by the Soviet high command as an extension of the ground Army. Their reason to be, in upper Soviet circles, was as support for ground operations.

The Luftwaffe tried coming in at high altitudes and the Soviets responded by ignoring the high-altitude German aircraft entirely and sending many aircraft at low altitude to attack the German ground troops. The Germans were faced with a simple decision: 1) Continue high-altitude attacks and suffer unsupportable ground casualties, or 2) Come down to low altitude and fight to save their ground troops. Without ground troops, there was no Operation Barbarosa. They chose to save their troops and the Soviet fighters got to dogfight with German fighters at low altitudes.

The P-39s were used as Soviet fighters. Yes, there was some ground attack involved, but the primary ground attack airplanes were Il-2 and Il-10 later on, with a few other Soviet attack types thrown in, such as the Pe-2 (outstanding) and Su-2 and others. The P-39s, P-40s, Spitfires, Hurricanes, P-47s, P-51s, etc. were mainly used to escort the attack planes in support of ground forces, so they primarily dealt with German fighters.

At first, Soviet equipment and pilots weren't very good. After mid-1941, it was hard for a Soviet fighter to live in a German sky over the Soviet Union, and many Germans racked up impressive scores quickly. The Soviets even had to move aircraft production more than 1,000 miles east to escape German bombing. But, by mid-1943, it was getting hard for a German pilot to live in a Soviet-controlled sky over the Soviet Union, Erich Hartmann notwithstanding (he got to the fight in Oct 1942). The La-5/7 were excellent, as were the Yak-3/9 series, and Soviet tactics caught up with the reality of situation. The German attacks in 1942 (Case Blue) and 1943 (Operation Citadel) were failures, helped by Russian weather, and resulted in the German retreat and eventual collapse.

At least, that is my current understanding from books and conversations with former VVS pilots and Russian internet contacts. I suppose it could be wrong ... but I'd need some evidence of it more than a few posts to think otherwise.
 
Certainly the Soviet P-39's could and no doubt did hit targets of opportunity in terms of ground attack. The 37MM was effective against thin skinned vehicles and I recall reading that a USAAF P-39 pilot in the Med described it was great for attacking barges, a 37MM round doing a good job of clearing the decks.

Now, the Soviets built a version of the Yak-9 that had a 45MM gun firing through the prop hub, for ground attack.

As Grep P says, there was no high altitude war in the East. Remember that neither the Germans nor the Soviets had high altitude heavy bombers in numbers that would represent even a decent airshow by US standards

But I recall that German ace Erich Hartmann said, "The P-39 performed like the BF-109 at low altitudes." That says a lot right there. It was not better than a 109, but it was in the ball game. On the other hand, the P-39 certainly was easier to land than the 109, especially the later "Beul" models. If the Soviets had been given all the 109's they wanted they would have been lucky to get one mission out of them with neophyte pilots.

And while Hartmann and some others racked up big scores against the Soviets, the real questions are, "Did they keep the IL-2's and Pe-2's off their ground troops? Did they successfully defend the Stukas and fighter bombers against the Yaks and P-39's?" The answer is NO.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Similar threads

The poor performance of the 343 Kokutai against USAAF fighters
2 3 4
Replies
60
Views
4K
GrauGeist
M
P-39 Turbo - Here We Go Again
Replies
13
Views
2K
GregP
  • Sticky
A Thread for Data Files
2
Replies
25
Views
2K
GregP
P-51H Mustang earmarked for the UK?
Replies
1
Views
580
Geoffrey Sinclair
G
Effectiveness of the P-38
6 7 8
Replies
145
Views
8K
Thumpalumpacus
Menu
Log in
Register