How did the Martlets rate against the European aircraft?

Jabberwocky said:

On paper, the Sea Hurricane is a little better performer than the F4F-4 and about as good as the F4F-3. However, speed/climb stats don't really tell you much about about how good a fighter it was, just the relative performance levels. The Wildcat dove better and handled better at high speeds.

Canadian pilots certainly considered their locally made Hurricane IIBs better than the USN's F4F-4s, and even engaged their USN counterparts in some friendly dogfights, where the Hurris typically ended up glued to the rear ends of the Wildcats.

In contrast, Eric Brown stated the Wildcat - no mention of sub-type - was "faster and more maneuverable than the Sea Hurricane". Possibly the weight gain in the conversion of the Sea Hurri sapped some of the performance. Mr Brown was something of a fan of the Wildcat, summing it up as "A potent fighter with splendid manoueverability, good performance, heavy firepower and excellent range and endurance". He also admits an emotional fondness for the Wildcat.

Certainly, in the wash of things, the F4F had a better combat record (at least in US hands) than the Hurricane did. The F4F usually just about broke even against its fighter opposition, and the FM-2 had a sterling record. On the other hand, the Hurricane rarely had a favourable kill-loss ratio, and was considered a lovely aircraft but a bit of an underperformer.

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Yep, Brown certainly had a soft spot for the Martlet, unsurprising perhaps as he scored his only two kills in the type (Fw200 Condors). Still, in describing the Wildcat generally as the outstanding carrier fighter of the early war years, he's open to the charge of hyperbole. For all the F4Fs ruggedness and the courage of its pilots, I think an assertion that it was superior to the A6M2 might be pushing it a bit far.
Regarding the effectivenes of 4x.50s - depends on what you're using them for! Good on Zeros, average on 109s, badly inadequate on heavy bombers (bear in mind that the Fw200 was pretty lightly built, and Brown knocked down his two by targetting the cockpit). In terms of firepower for weight a couple of 20mm cannon would have been much better, but the fifties still made sense for logistical and ammo load reasons

CobberKane said:

Still, in describing the Wildcat generally as the outstanding carrier fighter of the early war years, he's open to the charge of hyperbole. For all the F4Fs ruggedness and the courage of its pilots, I think an assertion that it was superior to the A6M2 might be pushing it a bit far.

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It may depend on which Wildcat/Martlet you are talking about and which Zero. The A6M3 being introduced in the Spring of 1942 so a lot of the summer/fall 1942 fighting was between A6M3s and F4F-4s. It also depends on which attributes you prize more. The folding wing F4F-4 did allow for a 50% increase in fighters carried which has to count for something.

CobberKane said:

Regarding the effectivenes of 4x.50s - depends on what you're using them for! Good on Zeros, average on 109s, badly inadequate on heavy bombers (bear in mind that the Fw200 was pretty lightly built, and Brown knocked down his two by targetting the cockpit). In terms of firepower for weight a couple of 20mm cannon would have been much better, but the fifties still made sense for logistical and ammo load reasons

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The four .50s were also fairly decent against single engine bombers, float planes and many twin engine bombers. The big problem with the .50s is that they are heavy for the firepower they did provide which is a different matter than if they provided adequate or inadequate firepower regardless of weight. I don't like the .50 cal because of weight reasons but that doesn't make it a popgun.

I could probably post more than a half dozen likes on this page of this thread. But that just seems over the top. I'll just say, "Neat discussion!"

CobberKane said:

Regarding the effectivenes of 4x.50s - depends on what you're using them for! Good on Zeros, average on 109s, badly inadequate on heavy bombers (bear in mind that the Fw200 was pretty lightly built, and Brown knocked down his two by targetting the cockpit). In terms of firepower for weight a couple of 20mm cannon would have been much better, but the fifties still made sense for logistical and ammo load reasons

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Do you have documented proof of that or is this just your opinion?

oldcrowcv63 said:

I could probably post more than a half dozen likes on this page of this thread. But that just seems over the top. I'll just say, "Neat discussion!"

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I'd be right behind you in those likes. I like where this is going, too. If we can't nail down anything that specific on the Martlet encounters with the Luftwaffe fighters, this is the next best thing, I think, identifying and discussing these relative strengths and weaknesses.

CobberKane said:

Regarding the effectivenes of 4x.50s - depends on what you're using them for! Good on Zeros [...]

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And the F4Fs didn't even have to hit these in the "sweet spot" to take them down. That's evident just from the combat films. I've seen film of Zeroes going down virtually "smokeless." You see the tracers, then they go belly-up, and fall. I imagine that "observation deck" they had for a canopy was implicated in a number of those "smokeless victories."

More on Sea Hurricane/Martlet performance:

Page 44 Brown notes that the folding wing Martlet MkII was about a 1000lbs heavier than the MkI - of course the Mk II had a plethrora of other additions such as armour and self sealing tanks. Brown states that the Mk II was good for 254 knots at 5400 and 13000ft. on Page 114 Brown states that the Sea Hurricane 1C was good for 256 knots at about 15000ft. Of course the Sea Hurricane IC with it's 4 x 20mm cannon was the heaviest and draggiest of the Mk1 series and would compare least favourably to the Martlet. However, under 6000ft, the SH IC would have a decided edge at the Merlin III's 16lb boost, combat rating.

FLYBOYJ said:

Do you have documented proof of that or is this just your opinion?

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The Luftwaffe did detailed analysis of wrecked B-17s and calculated that on average it took twenty 20mm cannon hits to bring one down. Gun camera footage indicated that about 2% of cannon shells fired actually hit a Fortresss, ergo to score twenty hits, one thousand rounds would need to be fired.
Thus a Fw 190 with four 20mm cannon firing at 600 rounds per minute fires about 40 rounds per second, and would take twenty five seconds of firing time to loose off the 1000 rounds required on average to do the job. Typically, multiple passes by several fighters would be required.
The USN considered one 20mm cannon to equal three .50 mgs in terms of firepower. By this reckoning four .50s are about equal to 1.3 20mms, or about 32% of the firepower on an Fw190 (I've excluded the 190s two .50 cal mgs for the sake of simplicity). Thus a fighter with four .50s, say a P51B, would take about three times the firing time to inflict the same amount of damage as an Fw190 with four cannon. In other words the P51 would need on average 75 seconds of firing time to reliably down a B-17. I would regard that as inadequate fire power for the job.
The Luftwaffes research and calculations were the impetus for the adoption of the 30mm cannon as standard fighter armament. They judged that for all its shortcomings, it was the only gun that gave the average pilot a realistic chance of inflicting fatal damage in a B-17 in a single pass

Good thing it was their job to shoot down 190s and 109s instead of B-17s.

CobberKane said:

Thus a fighter with four .50s, say a P51B, would take about three times the firing time to inflict the same amount of damage as an Fw190 with four cannon. In other words the P51 would need on average 75 seconds of firing time to reliably down a B-17. I would regard that as inadequate fire power for the job.

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Good thing it was their job to shoot down 190s and 109s instead of B-17s.

CobberKane said:

The Luftwaffe did detailed analysis of wrecked B-17s and calculated that on average it took twenty 20mm cannon hits to bring one down. Gun camera footage indicated that about 2% of cannon shells fired actually hit a Fortresss, ergo to score twenty hits, one thousand rounds would need to be fired.
Thus a Fw 190 with four 20mm cannon firing at 600 rounds per minute fires about 40 rounds per second, and would take twenty five seconds of firing time to loose off the 1000 rounds required on average to do the job. Typically, multiple passes by several fighters would be required.
The USN considered one 20mm cannon to equal three .50 mgs in terms of firepower. By this reckoning four .50s are about equal to 1.3 20mms, or about 32% of the firepower on an Fw190 (I've excluded the 190s two .50 cal mgs for the sake of simplicity). Thus a fighter with four .50s, say a P51B, would take about three times the firing time to inflict the same amount of damage as an Fw190 with four cannon. In other words the P51 would need on average 75 seconds of firing time to reliably down a B-17. I would regard that as inadequate fire power for the job.
The Luftwaffes research and calculations were the impetus for the adoption of the 30mm cannon as standard fighter armament. They judged that for all its shortcomings, it was the only gun that gave the average pilot a realistic chance of inflicting fatal damage in a B-17 in a single pass

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Your original statement...

CobberKane said:

Regarding the effectivenes of 4x.50s - depends on what you're using them for! Good on Zeros, average on 109s, badly inadequate on heavy bombers (bear in mind that the Fw200 was pretty lightly built, and Brown knocked down his two by targetting the cockpit).

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This is all based on loose statistics - regardless of how effective you're trying to determine the 50 caliber to be (or not to be), 4 .50 calibers hitting their mark are going to do considerable damage, be it against a Zero, -109 or FW-200 and there is no way you can determine real effectiveness in this situation unless you make comparisons of where the aircraft was hit, stress analysis on the damage resulting in structrural damage and finally gun accuracy.

Unfortunately, in many of these comparisons, there are too many variables. And in too many cases people read into them what they want.

The American .50 was not a super gun and yet it was not a popgun either. It was heavy for the firepower it did deliver and it's ammo was also heavy. This is somewhat offset be it's high velocity (only the German 15mm mg 151 was much faster) and good bullet shape. This meant shorter flight times to any given range (not so important at 100-200yds but the more important as the range grew), which meant it was easier to get hits with. Depending on range, angle and obstacles in the way, it is rather impractical to armor a plane to be "proof" against .50 cal gun fire. The best that can be done is provide enough armor to stop rounds fired beyond at certain range and fired at certain angles. Using the radio as "extra" protection is one way of saving the pilot but doesn't mean the plane is bullet proof because the pilot wasn't killed.
Effectiveness also changes with the ammo fired. US Navy Planes in 1942 were using mixed belts of ball, AP, tracer, and perhaps incendiary rounds. Difference between ball and AP is that the steel core in the ball was soft or unhardened steel while the AP core was hardened. Now it becomes real crap shoot as to which bullet hits what part of the air frame. Some pilot armor may stop the ball round or the incendiary while failing against the AP bullet. Ball and AP rounds may cause fuel tanks to leak but will not set them on fire. Tracers may or may not light up a fuel tank while incendiaries, while not 100% by any means, give the best chance. By the time P-51B/Cs are common in Europe the belts are almost 100% MK8 AP/incendiary. No ball and every AP round has about ( just under?)) 1 gram of incendiary material (about double what a .303 De Wilde incendiary carried). The incendiary is in front of the AP core and will not be carried through armor to light up stuff behind it but it does mean that each bullet is effective against a wider range of areas of the airplane than the old mixed belts.

FlyboyJ has mentioned stress analysis on the damage. I believe one of O'Hare's victories was when he shot an engine off of a twin engine bomber. Some say the Japanese planes were lightly built. This may be true to some extent but the plane in question used a 1500hp engine and a 4 blade propeller. The structure mounting the engine to the airframe and the local airframe has to withstand 25% more thrust than a B-17 or B-24 engine generates and even if the plane is only pulling a 3 G maneuver the heavier engine and propeller would impose more strain than the engine/s on the B-17/B-24. I would say that if you could shoot an engine off a Betty with four .50 cal guns you could shoot an engine off a B-17 or B-24 with a similar burst. The two big differences are that shooting one engine off a 4 engine bomber does not guarantee the destruction of the 4 engine airplane (although it certainly would be a mission kill) and that attacking a small formation of Bettys (defended mostly by single 7.7mm machine guns) and attacking a larger formation of 4 engine bombers defended by large numbers of .50 cal guns in power mounts is a much different thing. Not trying to take anything away from O'Hare, his wingmans guns were jammed and he was the only american shooting at the time. One fighter vs 8 bombers is pretty strong odds but 12 fighters or so vs several dozen bombers doesn't give the fighter pilots as much scope for either maneuver or time to pick shots.

The German 20mm MG 151 is often rated as roughly equal to the Hispano in power, however each gun had it's individual strengths and weaknesses so trying to go from comparing the the .50 cal to the Hispano and then by extension to the MG 151/20 introduces a few extra areas of dispute.

FLYBOYJ said:

Your original statement...



This is all based on loose statistics - regardless of how effective you're trying to determine the 50 caliber to be (or not to be), 4 .50 calibers hitting their mark are going to do considerable damage, be it against a Zero, -109 or FW-200 and there is no way you can determine real effectiveness in this situation unless you make comparisons of where the aircraft was hit, stress analysis on the damage resulting in structrural damage and finally gun accuracy.

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Well, you asked for evidence and this is what I found. If you can offer evidence that four .50s would be an effective weapon against heavy bombers I'm ears, other wise I guess its just 'personal opinion'.
I don't want to divert this thread onto the relative merits of tthe browning fifty cal because I know its been covered elsewhere. It sems to me it was a good weapon that did very well in the roles it was used for - which was never attacking heavy bombers.
Regarding my 'loose statistics', - they came frome the United states Navy and the Luftwaffe. That's good enough for me.
Of course a fighter with four .50s 'could' shoot down somethng like a B-17; so could a Gloster Gladiator with four .303s, given sufficient luck, but the hard won experience of the Germans was that only heavy cannon were sufficient to reliably (read 'effectively') knock down ruggedly built four engine bombers. From the time they first faced B-17s with BF109Fs (a fighter with comparable firepower to four fifties) the impetus was towards bigger guns and more of them. They weren't doing it just to keep the armament factories open

CobberKane said:

Of course a fighter with four .50s 'could' shoot down somethng like a B-17; so could a Gloster Gladiator with four .303s, given sufficient luck

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My point....

FLYBOYJ said:

My point....

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If your point is that a fighter with four .50 cal Brownings 'could' shoot down a B-17, I agree. I would agree if you said a fighter with one .50 cal could.
On the other hand, if you are suggesting that an armament of four .50s is adequate for fighters tasked with intercepting heavy bombers in a tacticlcal stuation like that faced by the Luftwaffe, I very much disagree. So would have the Luftwaffe, apparently.
Ultimately its all academic, of course, because Wildcats and P51Bs never faced heavy bombers, and .50 proved great for the tasks they were given. But even there the nature of the enemy aircraft in the PTO and ETO seem to have prompted slightly different paths in the development of the respective fighters; the P51 up-gunned to six .50s whereas tthe FM2 went back to four. I guess that's one nice thing about having banks of machine guns compared to, say, quads of cannon; its easier to customise the aramament by increments.

The cannons were rather easy to 'customise' in a fighter, provided they were flexible and compact enough. Unfortunately, that was not the case with Hispano II and it's US derivate.

CobberKane said:

If your point is that a fighter with four .50 cal Brownings 'could' shoot down a B-17, I agree. I would agree if you said a fighter with one .50 cal could.
On the other hand, if you are suggesting that an armament of four .50s is adequate for fighters tasked with intercepting heavy bombers in a tacticlcal stuation like that faced by the Luftwaffe, I very much disagree. So would have the Luftwaffe, apparently.

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No the original point was you can't accurately say that

Regarding the effectivenes of 4x.50s - depends on what you're using them for! Good on Zeros, average on 109s

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Many -109s fell under the guns of P-51Bs...

FLYBOYJ said:

No the original point was you can't accurately say that


Many -109s fell under the guns of P-51Bs...

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You mean I can't accurately say that that four .50s is inadequate armament for intercepting heavy bombers? Woud you say that it is? Any one else got thoughts on that?
And yes, many 109s went down to four .50s - it was adequate armament for the job, as I said. of course, six .50s were better, or four 20mm, or two 20mm and four.303s, or pretty much any other armament set the allies were using at the time.

CobberKane said:

You mean I can't accurately say that that four .50s is inadequate armament for intercepting heavy bombers? Woud you say that it is?.

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I'll answer in part with an earlier quote from someone else....

"If you can't hit em with 4 what makes you think you're gonna hit em with 6?"

Jimmy Thatch, Cmdr, USN


If you had a pilot who really knew aerial gunnery, yes.

CobberKane said:

On the other hand, if you are suggesting that an armament of four .50s is adequate for fighters tasked with intercepting heavy bombers in a tacticlcal stuation like that faced by the Luftwaffe, I very much disagree. So would have the Luftwaffe, apparently.

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Quite honestly I don't know how you can categorically conclude that. Four .50s converged on a bomber for just a matter of a couple of seconds would rip that thing in half. If they didn't do that they'd at least most certainly disable it in terms of its mission. And I'd think they'd suffice to take on any Luftwaffe fighter cover, as well.