How good a plane was the P-40, really?

pbehn said:

The P-51D didnt replace the P-40N or any other version of the P-40. The British tried the P-40 in the tactical recon role and it couldnt do it, the Mustang Mk I could and did until the end of the war. Rate of roll is a technical discussion, it has been posted here that many post war P-51s were and are rigged with a different aileron maximum deflection to that used in combat in WW2. By the time the P-51D was introduced, mid 1944, which theatre would a P-40 be useful in?

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For recon, the desired properties is speed and range, that the P-51 did do better than the P-40

BobB said:

Not over 10,000. P-51 control forces and maneuverability don't become better at 25K. Read what the man who flew them said. Summary: the P-40 is a better dogfighter but won't win if the P-51 pilot is competent and uses his airplanes strengths. Another 1960's warbird owner, Bill Ross, said that the Spitfire was a better sport plane and the P-51 was a better warplane. Dogfighting isn't everything, it's just one tool.

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I think this is true, but the complicating factor is that that 'dogfighting' and hit and run tactics are not as sharply distinct as is sometimes presented. Doing hit and run / boom and zoom tactics well and correctly requires a lot of self-discipline.

I'm not sure the P-51B and later is a better warplane than all versions of the Spitfire. Both types had their strengths and weaknesses. Unlike the P-40, the Spitfire was made with two stage engines, kept being improved to the end of the war, and though it was never as fast as the P-51C, arguably, it retained superior agility plus better climb, acceleration, and other useful / valuable traits.

P-51A was a very good tactical recon aircraft apparently, and as the A-36 was I think underrated as a dive bomber, but did not work out so well as a fighter, even at low altitude. This may have been due to the the way the ailerons were rigged, which was corrected in the Merlin versions.

pbehn said:

The P-51D didnt replace the P-40N or any other version of the P-40. The British tried the P-40 in the tactical recon role and it couldnt do it, the Mustang Mk I could and did until the end of the war. Rate of roll is a technical discussion, it has been posted here that many post war P-51s were and are rigged with a different aileron maximum deflection to that used in combat in WW2. By the time the P-51D was introduced, mid 1944, which theatre would a P-40 be useful in?

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Probably both the CBI, the Pacific, and the Med.

P-40s were used by the RAF until the end of the war in the Med though only in the fighter-bomber role. They were used IIRC as fighters into late 1944 in the CBI, and as fighters to early 1944 in Italy and until mid 1944 in the South Pacific.

The last RAAF claims with a P-40 were by 78 Sqn on June 3, 1944. Seven A6M and two D4Y in the "Japen Straits"

The last RNZAF claims with a P-40 were by 18 Sqn on Feb 13, 1944. Two A6M.

I agree though the P-40 of any type does not compare or compete with the P-51B, C or D as a fighter. Nor with the contemporaneous Spitfire variants in mid-1944 (or 1943).

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

but did not work out so well as a fighter, even at low altitude.

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The A-36 was actually a solid fighter when jumped by enemy aircraft.

With 84 enemies claimed, Lt. Russo with the 27th F/BG in the MTO was the only Allison Mustang ace of the war.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

Probably both the CBI, the Pacific, and the Med.

P-40s were used by the RAF until the end of the war in the Med though only in the fighter-bomber role. They were used IIRC as fighters into late 1944 in the CBI, and as fighters to early 1944 in Italy and until mid 1944 in the South Pacific.

The last RAAF claims with a P-40 were by 78 Sqn on June 3, 1944. Seven A6M and two D4Y in the "Japen Straits"

The last RNZAF claims with a P-40 were by 18 Sqn on Feb 13, 1944. Two A6M.

I agree though the P-40 of any type does not compare or compete with the P-51B, C or D as a fighter. Nor with the contemporaneous Spitfire variants in mid-1944 (or 1943).

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Both those last claims dates are before the P-51D came into service.

GrauGeist said:

The A-36 was actually a solid fighter when jumped by enemy aircraft.

With 84 enemies claimed, Lt. Russo with the 27th F/BG in the MTO was the only Allison Mustang ace of the war.

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I think the A-36 may have had the better aileron system in place by then...?

It played a very important role for a while as a dive bomber in Italy. Not just because it could defend itself, but because they figured out how to use them in a way that it could do a job no other Allied aircraft could really do. The Germans were stacking up so much light and heavy AAA in the hills, valleys and mountains that light and medium bombers had to stay above a certain altitude (and so rarely hit anything), and regular fighter bombers like P-40s and P-47s were taking too many losses when they came in low.

The A-36 had a much faster cruising speed, making it less vulnerable than other fighter bombers, and because it was a true dive bomber with dive brakes, could hit targets far more accurately which meant they could send one or two strikes to take out a given target, instead of a dozen. Eventually the wings started getting worn out from too many dive pull-outs but I think it had an overlooked niche for a while.

It's a bit like the niche the RAF found for it in tactical recon. It was uniquely suited for a particularly dangerous task.

pbehn said:

Both those last claims dates are before the P-51D came into service.

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I was going by your comment of 'mid 1944', but while I am deffo not an expert on the P-51, I have to say Hmmm... are you certain about that?

USAF museum says "The P-51D arrived in quantity in Europe in the spring of 1944, becoming the USAAF's primary long range escort fighter."

It seems like there were some P-51D in the CBI aparently since May of 1944..? Maybe those were P-51C...?

Anyway, this Osprey book notes that on 27 October, 1944, during the Ichi-Go offensive, a group of 16 P-40s from the 3rd FG / CACW, led by multiple ace and former AVG pilot Lt Col. Bill Reed, encountered nine Ki-48 "Lily" and 10 Ki-43 "Oscar" aircraft over the Japanese airfield at Kingmen, engaging them and claiming 16 victories. I found one more of the pilots who made claims that day here.

There seems to have been multiple claims by P-40 pilots in August and September 1944 in China. The last US P-40 units evidently transitioned to P-51D in late 1944

The book gives the following dates:

23rd FG USAAF
74th FS - Oct 1944
75th FS - Nov 1944
76th FS - May 1944

51th FG USAAF
16th FS Nov 1944
25th FS Nov 1944
26th FS Aug 1944

80th FG USAAF
88th FS Jul 1944
89th FS Jul 1944
90th FS Aug 1944

20th TRS USAAF - Sept 1944
118th TRS USAAF - Oct 1944

3rd FG CAF
Jan - April 1945

5th FG CAF
April - June 1945

It is notable that by late 1944, only the P-51B/C/D and Spitfire VIII had a better claim to loss record than the P-40 pilots flying in the units listed above. P-38s and P-47s did not do super well in this Theater. Spit V did about even. P-51A, Buffalo, P-43 and Hurricane did poorly. According to that same Osprey book there were 48 (US and Chinese) pilots who made Ace while flying P-40s in the CBI. Of those, 8 of these scored most or all of their victories while in the AVG.

GrauGeist said:

The A-36 was actually a solid fighter when jumped by enemy aircraft.

With 84 enemies claimed, Lt. Russo with the 27th F/BG in the MTO was the only Allison Mustang ace of the war.

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Typo? 8.4, or 8, or 4?

Thumpalumpacus said:

Typo? 8.4, or 8, or 4?

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Ahh, brilliant - a portion of my post disappeared

The A-36 itself accounted for 84 Axis aircraft downed.
Lt. Russo had 5 of those to his credit.

Sorry for that.

GrauGeist said:

Ahh, brilliant - a portion of my post disappeared

The A-36 itself accounted for 84 Axis aircraft downed.
Lt. Russo had 5 of those to his credit.

Sorry for that.

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No apologies needed, just didn't feel right. Thanks for clarifying for those of us needing it.

What I've watched on the A-36 makes me wish that avenue had been, pardon the pun, pursued. I need to read more.

As this thread and others have shown, aircraft considered today as second tier played an important role
during the war. For many it meant a change of role as well.

For the allies, three come to mind (alphabetical order here so as not to ruffle anyone) ;

Hurricane.
P-40.
Wildcat.

All three used extensively during the war with the Wildcat being more specialised for naval use.
Hurricane and P-40 in various roles.

I still see the question coming as to why these planes continued for so long and were built for so long.
Answer. They were pretty well sorted, they worked, and they were still dangerous to any opposition.

Used in some crappy conditions they were able to manage quite well and each was made with an
airframe that could take punishment and still get home.

For the three, a total build of 36,110. There is more info on verified claims for the three, a bit harder for Wildcat
claims being mostly over water but I went with the claims and rounded it down to the nearest hundred.

For all three, a combined kill total as close as known of 8,375. Not a bad total.

Ground attack versions - enemy strongpoints, armour, other vehicles, guns, troops. Not a quantifiable amount
but again something the Hurricane and P-40 were good at.

This to me is why they remained in production for so long.

WARSPITER said:

I still see the question coming as to why these planes continued for so long and were built for so long.
Answer. They were pretty well sorted, they worked, and they were still dangerous to any opposition.

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They were in large scale production in 1942/43 and any attempt to change over would have meant hundreds if not over a thousand fewer fighters in those years.
The Change over came for 2 of them in 1944.
For the F4F they had a lot more carriers (small) that needed any sort of fighters and F4U and F6F production did not exceed F4F production until the 2nd half of 1943.

The other thing that helped was failure of the Germans (a little bit) and the Japanese (a lot) to really improve their fighters.
Yes the Germans had the Fw 190 but the 109 was still the largest production fighter in Germany and the 1943 versions weren't that big an improvement.

For the Japanese the Army built about 1230 Ki-44s and Ki-61s together in 1943, for the year, Curtiss built over 1200 P-40s in their best 3 months of 1943.
The Japanese navy was still using A6Ms or not much change in performance and they built about 131 N1K1 in 1942-43, meaning that 99.9 percent of allied pilots had never seen one in 1943.

The Allies were planning on phasing them out, there just wasn't a panic to do it.

For the British the Hurricane alternative was the Typhoon and they were NOT sending that thing further from Britain than they could see on a clear day.

They also provided aircraft for allies.

I think all three were in production and used longer than they should have been, probably.

That said, I'm a little torn on this angle. It tends to be very much focused on the end of the war and what was good in 1945. By 1945 the outcome of the war assured, jets were flying. The allies have the advantages both in numbers and in training. It's a very different situation. This is how almost all early or mid war types that did not for whatever reason get an upgrade during the war are described, and I think it does not really capture the reality. All three of those aircraft were much more important to the war than the Ta 152, Bearcat, or Hawker Fury.

Hurricane wasn't just 'good enough'. It was arguably the most important Allied fighter in the world for a while, very successful in 1940 and 1941. I believe they shot down 60% of the enemy planes lost in the BoB, and estimates I've seen for total number of victories scored were in the several thousands (someone can provide the exact number, with a source hopefully) which makes it more important than many other much more well regarded types. It just hit a wall in the mid-war.

Wildcat was the second best naval fighter built at the start of the Pacific War, and it was close enough in quality to the best (the A6M) that it managed to achieve parity in combat outcomes within a very short time. Naval fighters have a very particular set of requirements which are needed for them to be viable. It was in many respects a very good aircraft for it's time.

The much maligned P-40, based on the brilliant Don Berlin design, though deeply flawed due to it's altitude limitation, also turns out to be far more effective than it's postwar reputation suggests. It too hit a wall, though that happened really in the final quarter of the war. I've said enough about that already in this thread, so I'll just leave it at that.

But this is an interesting issue in general, which types were kept going in plants longer than they should have been.

The Hurricane is IMO the most egregious of the trio here, but I think SR6 nailed the real reason it was kept in production so long - delays / teething problems with the Typhoon which was meant to be it's replacement already by the time it was aging out, in 1941/42. I don't know the actual details but I would assume that the Hurricane work force was being kept busy for the transition into making Typhoons or Tempests (or the Tornado). As soon as the bugs were ironed out, which just took much longer than anticipated.

By 1942 though it was probably time to retire the Hurricane. It was no longer viable as a fighter. They did still use Hurricanes as fighter-bombers after that, but Kittyhawks had better range and were much more survivable in combat, and carried a bigger bomb load. UK should have built Kittyhawks or Mustangs, but that may have been too disruptive to the production lines.

Wildcat was good for 1942, and as SR6 the FM2, which came later than it should, really breathed new life into the type for Escort carriers. But you don't get the FM2 until 1944.

There is a gap year for much of 1943. For the fleet carriers I think Wildcat went too long, especially since the F4F-4 was such a downgrade in performance. They could have made it much more viable just with some fairly incremental adjustments (remove 2 guns and some ammunition) and improvements (improve the engine), but the emphasis was on the next generation of planes, especially the Hellcat, which to be fair did turn out to be fantastic as the main fleet carrier fighter.

Kittyhawk was aging out for Southern Europe by 1944. It was probably viable until then. Delay in phasing them out was largely due, I think, to the disappointing combat record of the P-51A, and teething problems with the P-47 and P-38, which did not prove as useful in the Theater as expected. Maybe the US should have manufactured Spitfire MK VIII, or taken the resources of Curtiss and put North American aviation in charge to make more P-51B/C.

P-38 was perfect in the Pacific though in many respects, and between that and the F4U I think had production kept up sufficiently, they had what they needed there for 1943. That said, P-40s were still viable in the PTO well into 1944, partly because as SR6 noted, the Japanese were slow to bring out improvements. A6M5, Ki-61, and Ki-44 were not particularly superior to the P-40. Of the new fighters only the N1K2 really outclassed it, and there were precious few of those. It's main limitation was range, as Robert DeHaven said. P-38 had the extra range, plus having an extra engine was very useful on long flights.

Kittyhawk was definitely good enough for the CBI, and should have replaced the Hurricane there some time in 1943. But as soon as Spitfire VIII or P-51B/C/D were available, P-40 could have been phased out. The reason it wasn't was probably just that these planes were needed in NW Europe.

All three aircraft probably had a role back on the home front as advanced fighter trainers. They were more useful than types like the Henley or the Defiant, the Buccaneer or the Buffalo (except to the Finns).



You could also add the P-39 (almost 10,000 built) to this list, but at least they had a market, in Russia. Probably half that number would have been enough for the Soviets though. It definitely didn't do much good at all in the MTO, and was only marginally useful in the Pacific. More P-40s would have been much better in 1942-43.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

Kittyhawk was aging out for Southern Europe by 1944. It was probably viable until then. Delay in phasing them out was largely due, I think, to the disappointing combat record of the P-51A, and teething problems with the P-47 and P-38, which did not prove as useful in the Theater as expected. Maybe the US should have manufactured Spitfire MK VIII, or taken the resources of Curtiss and put North American aviation in charge to make more P-51B/C.

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P-51A was just a footnote in the air combat history of ww2. NAA was delivering the P-51B by the time P-51A was flying it's 1st combat sorties.
Bell should've been making the P-51s ASAP, even if the V-1710 is in the nose.

special ed said:

I remember Werner Moelders died as a passenger.
An ex father in law told of Dick Bong as a B-17 passenger going on leave asked to come up front so he could see out. Seems if he couldn't see out, he would be sick.

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Maj Bong wasn't the only one with that problem, off topic, I worked with a Naval Aviator that was the EW Officer in back of an EA-6. He described it as H*** when his face was glued to the Radar screen and the pilot was flying at tree top level, you couldn't anticipate any maneuvers or turns. He said the rule in the Navy was you did it, you clean it up, regardless of rank.

I picked 1943 for a reason. They just didn't "turn off" the production lines for the P-40 and P-39 in 1944, it took a number of months to wind things down. Perhaps if they really needed more P-51s (with engines from where?) they just would have shoved hundreds of P-40s in various stages and piles and piles of parts out the doors, followed them with the jigs and fixtures and tooled up to make P-51s. How many months where nothing is coming out of the factory?
Nov 1943 was the last time Curtiss built over 400 P-40s in one month. Dec was 200, Jan-March bounced from a high of 283 to a low of 241, April saw 203 and and Sept saw 202, several months during the summer saw numbers under 100 per month.

Bell was more sudden, they dropped from making 4947 P-39s in 1943 to 1729 in 1944, Aug saw the last 13 P-39s, of course Bell built 1725 P-63s in 1944. Curtiss was building ????? after the P-40. What do you do with the workers? The Curtiss plant was hundreds or thousands of mile from the other aircraft plants. Maybe Curtiss made B-29 ailerons as a subcontractor?

Planning was looking several years down the road, then "stuff" happens. Sometimes good (only took a few months to stuff the Merlin into the P-51) sometimes bad (Continental engine and few other US engines, Sabre engine/Vulture).
Hawker got "stuffed". They had 3 airframes flying with 3 different engines in 1940/41. NONE of them were combat ready in 1941-42. The Sabre is questionable for at least part of 1943(longer?). The Centaurus finally shows up in 1945. 3-4 years late.

Of course not only did Hawker get stuffed. So the RAF (and maybe Westland

The RAF needs something, anything, to tide them over, even if they want to build more Spitfires that is going to months (over 12) to get any real numbers and you need some sort of fighters in NA, in the Far East and to send to Uncle Joe and you need them NOW!
Meetings with Napier could have been done with wire recordings or playing phonograph records, "We are working on it and everything should be fine next month" on repeat. repeat. repeat.
The Hurricane II was never going to be in front once the 109F showed up. Then they stuck the four 20mms in (bomber interceptor?) and then it was ground attack pretty quickly.
With the Sabre (Vulture/Centaurus ) fiasco what choice did the RAF have? They were buying (begging) all the P-40s they could get.

and again, it takes months, and months, to change factories over. Even in 1941/42 (?) Curtiss had 7 parallel production lines running. 7 complete sets of tooling.

The focus is always on the last Hurricane, delivered from the Hawker Langley factory in July 1944.

However, Hawker Langley produced its first Tempest V in June 1943, with 3 more in Sept, all devoted to the development programme. Then series production began in Oct 1943. So factory changeover took over a year. And that was after a delay in starting Tempest production by about a year.

The first Tempest II came from the Bristol factory in Oct 1944, with deliveries to MUs in March 1945. With contract cutbacks, Bristol only built 30 with another 20 assembled from Bristol components at Hawker Langley.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

Hurricane wasn't just 'good enough'. It was arguably the most important Allied fighter in the world for a while, very successful in 1940 and 1941. I believe they shot down 60% of the enemy planes lost in the BoB, and estimates I've seen for total number of victories scored were in the several thousands (someone can provide the exact number, with a source hopefully) which makes it more important than many other much more well regarded types. It just hit a wall in the mid-war.

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Someone correct me if I'm wrong but the air ministry only ordered 300 Spitfire's initially which is one of the reasons there wasn't as many on frontline service during the BoB as there were Hurricanes, the Hurricane also got the better Merlin engine boosting it's performance. I believe the BoB could have been won with just the Hurricane but that had more to do with Goring and Hitlers mistakes rather than the planes effectiveness and I can't help but think if I was a Luftwaffe pilot facing Hurricanes I'd be very confident going into battle, especially at high altitudes.

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:

By 1942 though it was probably time to retire the Hurricane. It was no longer viable as a fighter. They did still use Hurricanes as fighter-bombers after that, but Kittyhawks had better range and were much more survivable in combat, and carried a bigger bomb load. UK should have built Kittyhawks or Mustangs, but that may have been too disruptive to the production lines.

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The Hurricane lived on because of the failure to get the Typhoon into service, Hawker should have built dedicated long range Spitfires based on the MkVIII for the Pacific and ranging to the Ruhr and low altitude models derived from the MkXII, that would have been more useful to the war effort.

PAT303 said:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but the air ministry only ordered 300 Spitfire's initially which is one of the reasons there wasn't as many on frontline service during the BoB as there were Hurricanes, the Hurricane also got the better Merlin engine boosting it's performance. I believe the BoB could have been won with just the Hurricane but that had more to do with Goring and Hitlers mistakes rather than the planes effectiveness and I can't help but think if I was a Luftwaffe pilot facing Hurricanes I'd be very confident going into battle, especially at high altitudes.

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That may depend which version. Bf 109E3 vs Hurricane IIA? I may not love that as the German. Bf 109F sure.



I agree BoB could have been won with just the Hurricane. But the thing about the Spitfire is that it undermined the whole German superiority narrative. Both from combat reports, and just looking at it, the Spitfire, with it's streamlining and elliptical wing was clearly a new thing, modern, elegant, lethal. It was just a little bit faster than the Emil. Everyone knew that. Maybe not enough to make a difference in combat, but symbolically, I think that mattered. It looks like such a leap past the biplanes of a mere 3 or 4 years earlier, it looks like artistic genius. Maybe I'm waxing a bit too poetic here. But that is what I think.


The 109E, it looks modern, efficient, mean. Kind of brutish. A little scary. But ... not quite as elegant. Just as it was not quite as fast. It still has that brace on the elevators. It's squared off, slightly clunky. Which we know today means it was a bit less streamlined. A bit more drag.

The British knew they were fighting for their lives, but to the outside world, I believe they didn't seem scared. They weren't intimidated by the Germans superiority claims, to the contrary, they seemed to kind of look down on the 'Huns'. Churchill definitely did. They saw through the propaganda. The Spitfire, to me, kind of embodies that.

It's also telling to me that the 109F was so much more streamlined than the Emil. Of course for practical reasons. But on some kind of meta level it seems like an answer to the Spitfire. And it was. But by then of course they were getting close to deploying the two-stage Merlin...