Hawker Tempest V vs. P-47D-27

[claidemore]

What i meant by that, was that a pilot who single handedly shot down a bomber in a Tempest V, might get 1/4 credit for the kill, while the other three wingman, also get a 1/4 credit for the kill. This wasn't always the case, but you could see how, kill numbers can be flawed.

AFAIK there is only one instance of a bomber kill being shared by 4 Tempest pilots, a Ju188 on March 31/45.
The Hawker Tempest Page
If you compare 1944 claims to 1945, you will see a greater ratio of 1/2 shared kills, indicating the scarcity of e/a and both pilots taking a 'squirt' at a victim, but I don't see that as pointing to any shortcomings of the Tempest as an interceptor.

 

[drgondog]

If you rely on what Wiki says...lol

Wiki - is always a decent point of reference if not always 100% correct. If it is only source, it is better than making it up.

I would also offer looking at cutaways of the aircraft, to see the disbursement of mass.

Bill - just out of curiosity what will You specifically learn looking cutaways to 'see disbursement of mass'??

Just off the top you will find most WWII fighters designed for CG somewhere around 30% MAC.

Strngth of wing design is not determined by inspection, but by analysis. You have to know what the airframe loading was for the critical design checks, then look at the way the load paths take the load from say a tail in a roll to the fuselage to determine what the designer was trying to do with spar to bulkhead/fittings to longerons and shear panels.

If you don't know the cross sectional area of the longerons, you don't have a clue what tension and compression loads are taken in them. If you don't have the skin thickness and rivet spacing you can't get much on the design shear distribution.

If you can get those kinds of details by inspecting a 'cutaway', will you teach me?

 

[claidemore]

finally,
in my search for weight information, I found this article expressing the vulnerability of the engine.
napier sabre | 1944 | 0765 | Flight Archive

This link shows a scan of a letter to the editor from an ex "Major?" in the RAF. Not much different from an opinion posted on these forums by any of us.

Also I checked a few sources on weights of both the R2800 and Napier Sabre, they are within 10 lbs of each other dry weight.

Magister: I give the radial engine the edge in survivabilty because it is air cooled.

 

[Magister]

claidemore, yes, your earlier post also said, "The radial engine in the P47 give it an edge in surviving combat damage, but that's about it as far as I can see."

How much of an "edge" would you grant to the R2800 engine? I think an "edge" is generally thought of as being minor. Are you saying that the superiority of the R2800 in ability to survive combat damage is minor or do you have a different definition of edge in mind? (my definition may be off)

 

[claidemore]

Minor, is a relative term. By 'edge' I mean 'advantage', and I know of no way to quantify the advantage of the 2800 over the N/S as far as combat damage survivability, beyond a basic understanding that the presence of the liquid cooling system provides one extra area of vulnerability.

 

[Magister]

I wonder if the Sabre would be considered tougher than the Merlin. I think the R2800 was generally considered much, much tougher than the Merlin.

 

[billswagger]

If one a/c was shot down and four guys received 1/4 credit, their is only 1.0 awarded. No over claim for your example.

true, but then if 5 airplanes show 2 kills a piece, but 3 of them did the bulk of the work, then it makes one particular aircraft look more consistent, rather than recognizing superior piloting skills of an individual aircraft.

For example:

Wow...5 tempest got 9 kills, with only two loses.


or....


1 pilot shot down 3 (later shot down)
joe "ace" Schmow downed 4
Bill Swagger downed 1
Drgondog downed 1 (also shot down.... )
Pilot C....0 kills


Whats better for your morale???

Eitherway, you'd have higher morale than the Germans. 2-9 is bad number to hear, when you had odds..

 

[billswagger]

This link shows a scan of a letter to the editor from an ex "Major?" in the RAF. Not much different from an opinion posted on these forums by any of us.

Also I checked a few sources on weights of both the R2800 and Napier Sabre, they are within 10 lbs of each other dry weight.

Magister: I give the radial engine the edge in survivabilty because it is air cooled.

Napier Sabre II, right??

Please site the sources, i dug and dug, and the engine that was 10lb heavier was the Napier Sabre V, which could be a 300lb difference to the SabreII.

 

[billswagger]

The next route i could go with a demonstration of the superior durability of the P-47 airframe is that it could carry an external load of 2000lbs.

What was the external load the Tempest V could carry??

Fighter bombers going deep into Germany needed to be able fly high.

Late war air to air combat was a "vultch contest"....highest planes often had the advantage and were more likely to keep it, as dogfighting was not as common and often discouraged from the allied side.
I think the Tempest had its fighter bomber roll, but it would be better described as ground support. when i think of Bombs and rockets, the P-47 comes to mind, all though the Typhoon, as i mentioned twice before, was a better comparison.

This is just my opinion, which i'd back with sources, but ish....none of that seems to hold weight with this crowd.

You know...Seagulls are harder to shoot down, does that make them as durable as the P-47?? lol

watch out below....

 

[Glider]

Survivability I would give to the P47 if only for the radial engine.
As for the external payload I don't think there is much in it as both could carry 2,000lb of bombs but the P47 had more options as the Tempest didn't carry rockets during the war. Please don't ask me why, I have no idea.
Both dived like stink but the Tempest had the advantage in a climb.
Clearly the P47 had the advantage at altitude which is not important for a GA aircraft.
Clearly the P47 had a longer range which never does any harm.

Which would I call the best as a GA the P47.
Which would I call the best as a low medium fighter, the Tempest for the climb
Which would I call the best at altitude, the P47
Which would I rather be attacked by? No idea as I would be in the biggest deepest hole I could find

 

[drgondog]

The next route i could go with a demonstration of the superior durability of the P-47 airframe is that it could carry an external load of 2000lbs.

Bill - the hang weight of either airframe is most unlikely to be the structural limit analysis focus. More likely it would be a 7-8 g pullout with a full load of fuel and ammo. I suspect the same pullout with two 1000 pound bombs still attached would result in a very big hole in the ground but the wings would be somewhere else.

What was the external load the Tempest V could carry??

Fighter bombers going deep into Germany needed to be able fly high.

Actually they needed a lot of internal fuel if carrying bombs and rockets

Late war air to air combat was a "vultch contest"....highest planes often had the advantage and were more likely to keep it, as dogfighting was not as common and often discouraged from the allied side.

??? the basic Allied strategy was 'see a german fighter - kill it". You will rarely find debriefings which stated they did not attempt to engage because the German fighter had an altitude advantage - it was safer to turn into them and climb into the fighters than attempt to turn and run

I think the Tempest had its fighter bomber roll, but it would be better described as ground support. when i think of Bombs and rockets, the P-47 comes to mind, all though the Typhoon, as i mentioned twice before, was a better comparison.

This is just my opinion, which i'd back with sources, but ish....none of that seems to hold weight with this crowd.

You know...Seagulls are harder to shoot down, does that make them as durable as the P-47?? lol

watch out below....

The 'crowd' - keeps posting sources to back up performance, and grants you some of your stated points about relative advantages of the P-47.

I like both ships and see advantages/disadvantages in both. To me the Jug was better suited to high altitude performance arena and the Tempest seemed better low to medium with a cross over around 20K.

Where you seem to stumble a little bit is offering opinions on features like structural integrity where you really have no facts to offer - which invites a challenge or two on your opinion and has no referenced links with performance - which is readily sourced.

 

[claidemore]

Hi billswagger,

Late war air to air combat was a "vultch contest"....highest planes often had the advantage and were more likely to keep it, as dogfighting was not as common and often discouraged from the allied side.
I think the Tempest had its fighter bomber roll, but it would be better described as ground support. when i think of Bombs and rockets, the P-47 comes to mind, all though the Typhoon, as i mentioned twice before, was a better comparison.

Yup, altitude advantage has been a part of air combat since it's beginnings in WWI.
I'm curious to see what sources document allied pilots being discouraged from dogfighting in the ETO? Makes sense against Zeros and Oscars in the PTO, but in Europe allied fighters were quite capable of 'dogfighting' with 190s and 109s, and in the AFDU trials turning ability was directly compared.
Tempest was primarily a mid and low alt fighter, their secondary role was ground attack.

Fighter bombers going deep into Germany needed to be able fly high.

How high is 'high'? Ground attack aircraft didn't usually fly at high alt, nor did they go particularly deep into Germany, their targets being tactical in nature. In fact they commonly flew at low to medium alt, with escorting fighters above. The higher you are the harder it is to see targets on the ground and it takes a lot of extra fuel and time to climb higher with a heavy load of ordnance, which just has to come back down to the ground to be delivered. Exit from the target area was not done at high alt either.
Consider the Soviet emphasis on ground attack and army cooperation. VVS literally had zero high alt fighters (some in PVO). Medium and low alt were the norm for ground attack planes and their escorts.

 

[billswagger]

Try not to take me to literally, folks.
Planes still fought and engaged, but the classic dogfight where planes duked it out through twists and turns, gaining advantage...etc. was a thing of the past.

Late war fights were energy fights. Usually relying on a dive of some sort to either evade an attack or, gain energy to take a swipe at an enemy plane.

Come to think of it, that was probably always the more common tactic of the European theater even when Spit 1As were duking it out with early model FWs.
Anyhow, fighters were discouraged from dogfighting, meaning...they'd make their quick pass on a plane then get away. Long turn battles and jockeying for position was less common in both theaters because the planes weren't designed for that kind of performance. They were designed for speed.

I refuse to cite information that is readily available through a brief google search, or books.google. Or you can also flip through a few other threads and probably find enough information to write your own chapter on the History of WW2.
I can recommend reading anything by Martin Bowman, particularly his take on the P-47 and Bf109K from 1943 to 1945.

 

[drgondog]

Try not to take me to literally, folks.
Planes still fought and engaged, but the classic dogfight where planes duked it out through twists and turns, gaining advantage...etc. was a thing of the past.

So turning and manuevering fightes were a 'thing of the past' in WWII?

Late war fights were energy fights. Usually relying on a dive of some sort to either evade an attack or, gain energy to take a swipe at an enemy plane.

Bill, simply - the WWII fighter versus fighter engagements (in the range of 100,000+ ) took all forms based on the tactical situation.

Come to think of it, that was probably always the more common tactic of the European theater even when Spit 1As were duking it out with early model FWs.

Anyhow, fighters were discouraged from dogfighting, meaning...they'd make their quick pass on a plane then get away. Long turn battles and jockeying for position was less common in both theaters because the planes weren't designed for that kind of performance. They were designed for speed.

Fighter pilots were discouraged from engaging in manuevers in which their opponents had either parity or an edge - that's it.

If the other guy had multiple advantages then it was more common to use your one advantage once and get away - for example P-47s were discouraged from turning fights with Fw 190s but did so all the time depending on the skill of the pilot.

I refuse to cite information that is readily available through a brief google search, or books.google. Or you can also flip through a few other threads and probably find enough information to write your own chapter on the History of WW2.
I can recommend reading anything by Martin Bowman, particularly his take on the P-47 and Bf109K from 1943 to 1945.

take a walk through a couple hundred encounter reports and find the full spectrum

Mustang Encounter Reports

Mike has P-47 enconter reports and Spit encounter reports also. Study them and see how much agreement there is for your point of view?

 

[claidemore]

Come to think of it, that was probably always the more common tactic of the European theater even when Spit 1As were duking it out with early model FWs.

Actually the Spit MkIa would have been duking it out with Me109 Emils's. The FW190 was contemporary with Spitfire Mk Vs.

One possible advantage the P47 might have had over the Tempest in the ground attack role was the inability of the Tempests guns to be aimed below the datum line. There was a danger of flying into the ground during low level strafing runs.
Anybody know if the P47 guns could be adjusted to shoot below the datum line?

 

[davebender]

Could the P-47 carry a more effective gun package ILO the .50cal MGs?

 

[Magister]

Somewhere on this forum, there is a thread concerning the feasibility of installing six 20mm cannons (three in each wing) in the P-47. As I recall, there was a back and forth about whether it could have been done in light of the Hurricane's successful employment of four 20mm cannons.

Whether it should have been done is, of course, a different issue. The Thunderbolt's eight .50's were very effective against aircraft and lightly armored vehicles / equipment.

Notable is the fact that included in the USAAF's first order for the XP-72 in 1944 (eventually canceled) was an alternate armament package of four 37mm cannons.

 

[davebender]

That would be perfect for the CAS role. .50cal MGs just don't cut it against bunkers and armored vehicles.

 

[red admiral]

It would depend on what the 37mm cannons actually were. I don't think it's been found what gun they would actually be fitted. The M4, M9 or something else. Probably better sticking with 0.50" or 20mm guns in the wings and having heavier weapons on underwing pods (like the 47mm fitted to a Tempest)

 

[davebender]

What's wrong with the 37mm M9 aircraft cannon? It was made U.S. Army standard during January 1943.

47mm is too large for general use. In fact 30mm is probably optimum.