Improve That Design: How Aircraft Could Have Been Made Better

tyrodtom said:

I noticed the only P-39s I found with the radio behind the pilot's headrest seemed to be Russian P-39s, but didn't check enough pictures to be sure.

I've read some Russian tanks early in the war had receivers only, only company, or platoon CO's had transmitters.
Either they did that because their industry couldn't produce enough transmitters, or it wasn't considered important for the line tanks to be able to talk back, they only needed to hear orders and obey, The CO didn't need advice from them.

Surely the Soviets didn't extend that attitude to aviation too.

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Some Russian tanks, in fact most had no radios at the start of the war and relied on flag signals

tyrodtom said:

I've read some Russian tanks early in the war had receivers only, only company, or platoon CO's had transmitters.
Either they did that because their industry couldn't produce enough transmitters, or it wasn't considered important for the line tanks to be able to talk back, they only needed to hear orders and obey, The CO didn't need advice from them.

Surely the Soviets didn't extend that attitude to aviation too.

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Yes, that was exactly their attitude - follow orders, you don't need to be able to talk back.

gumbyk said:

Yes, that was exactly their attitude - follow orders, you don't need to be able to talk back.

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Come to think of it, that's kind of the attitude in any military organization.

tyrodtom said:

I noticed the only P-39s I found with the radio behind the pilot's headrest seemed to be Russian P-39s, but didn't check enough pictures to be sure.

I've read some Russian tanks early in the war had receivers only, only company, or platoon CO's had transmitters.
Either they did that because their industry couldn't produce enough transmitters, or it wasn't considered important for the line tanks to be able to talk back, they only needed to hear orders and obey, The CO didn't need advice from them.

Surely the Soviets didn't extend that attitude to aviation too.

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I think in the tank case, it was production and cost issues — I believe the Soviets were not unique in not having universal radios

We have been over this a few times (at least).

US P-39s used several different radio sets. Pictures of them are in other threads.
US P-39s, the later ones anyway got IFF receivers and transmitters in addition to the regular communication radios.

Due to the P-39s less than generous tolerance for weight placement and CG not all of the radio gear could go in the tail cone, and some wound up behind the pilot over the top of the engine. The IFF gear got a demolition charge to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.

What the Russians got for radios from the US in their P-39s may not have been the most up to date sets.

One set up used multiple single channel transmitters and multiple single channel receivers ( 4 of one and 3 of the other) and the pilots selector switch in the cockpit selected which units were connected to the mike and earphones. Rapid channel changing was not a feature as it sometimes took over a minute for the newly selected transmitter or receiver to warm up and operate properly.
I am not sure what modern restorations are doing. At least one in a Museum has this multiple radio installation over the engine (now in Russian Museum?)
P-39s that fly more than likely have modern radio stuffed into them somewhere (depending on a nearly 80 year old vacuum tube radio doesn't seem to be the smartest thing to do)

Even the newer, better radios in the later P-39s had at least three pieces. the small switch box in cockpit, the transmitter/receiver proper, and the dynomotor that turned the aircrafts 24/28 volt electricity into 600 volts (or so) for some of the radio circuits.

I have no idea if the Russians moved the communications radios into the area the IFF used to occupy or what was going on. Or if they moved the complete radio or left the dynomotor (30-40lbs?) where it was and just moved the boxes with the circuits.

tyrodtom said:

it wasn't considered important for the line tanks to be able to talk back, they only needed to hear orders and obey, The CO didn't need advice from them.
Surely the Soviets didn't extend that attitude to aviation too.

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Why not? It fits their ideology to a "T".

tyrodtom said:

I noticed the only P-39s I found with the radio behind the pilot's headrest seemed to be Russian P-39s, but didn't check enough pictures to be sure.

I've read some Russian tanks early in the war had receivers only, only company, or platoon CO's had transmitters.
Either they did that because their industry couldn't produce enough transmitters, or it wasn't considered important for the line tanks to be able to talk back, they only needed to hear orders and obey, The CO didn't need advice from them.

Surely the Soviets didn't extend that attitude to aviation too.

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On their early planes, yes.

Kevin J said:

On their early planes, yes.

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In 1941 some batches of Yak-1s only had one radio in ten aircraft.

The radios for Red Army tanks were U.S. production on the Lend-Lease basis.
My Father, that was a Radio Amateur, had in early '70 a surplus transceiver, working around 30 Mhz, that had both indications on the knobs, in English and Cyrillic, probably coming from the remains of a supply never sent to Soviet Russia, and stored in a big place near Livorno, where all the remnants of the unwanted equipment left behind by the Allied Armies were stored and sold.
No doubt about the American design and cosnstruction of that radio, very similar to this one, if not the same


So, the lack of radios of the Red Army tanks in the early stage of the war was not only a simple matter of ideology, I think.

P=39s were the first Russian planes to have radios in all planes. The Germans could pick off Russian planes one by one with no way to warn others in the squadron.

Russian (or communist?) ideology/military theory was a lot more advanced than some people give it credit for.
Russian inventiveness and/or technical theory was also more advanced than they are often given credit for.

Actual Russian capability to mass produce weapons to fit the military theory and technical designs was way below what the Russians wanted.


Russian tanks supplied to the Chinese with radios (at least the ones nearest the camera).

The Russians simply did not have a radio/electronics industry large enough to supply the needed number of radios regardless of what military doctrine wanted.
French in 1940 had only about 1/3 or less of their tanks with radios and even the Germans used hundreds of MK I tanks in Poland and France (lesser numbers in Russia) with only radio receivers, not transmitters.

War time Russian doctrine/ideology often had to be simplified or cut back due to both equipment shortages and lack of training of both troops and officers. Stalin's purges of the late 30s had decimated the Russian officer corp and many officers were operating a number of grades above the level they had the experience and training for (assuming that they would have ever reached those grades in the first place).

When looking at Russian equipment and how it was used we have to be careful not to confuse or misinterpreted cause and effect.

P-39 Expert said:

P=39s were the first Russian planes to have radios in all planes. The Germans could pick off Russian planes one by one with no way to warn others in the squadron.

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I strongly believe that the Hurricane was the first by some margin

Elmas said:

The radios for Red Army tanks were U.S. production on the Lend-Lease basis.
My Father, that was a Radio Amateur, had in early '70 a surplus transceiver, working around 30 Mhz, that had both indications on the knobs, in English and Cyrillic, probably coming from the remains of a supply never sent to Soviet Russia, and stored in a big place near Livorno, where all the remnants of the equipment left by the Allied Armies were stored and sold.
No doubt about the American design and cosnstruction of that radio, tubes were, for example, 12BY7 and so on.
So, the lack of radios in the Red Army tanks in the early stage of the was not only a simple matter of ideollogy, I think.

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Glider said:

I strongly believe that the Hurricane was the first by some margin

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Some early Russian fighters had radios but they were crap.

(re armoured vehicle radio doctrine)

As far as I am aware, only the UK had 2-way radios in nearly all their tanks at the start of WWII. At the beginning the UK had 3 different radios in operational tank units, the No.7 (short range), No.9(medium range) , and No.11(very short to short range). Cruiser and Infantry line tanks usually had both No.9 and No.11 radios, with company HQ tanks having a second No.11 radio for communication over the command and artillery nets. The Light Tanks MkV&VI were fitted with only 1 radio, either No.7 or No.11, primarily due to lack of space.

The No.19 set (very-short to short range, plus medium range) began replacing the No.9 and No.11 sets in 1941.


The French intended to fit all of their armored division tanks, along with their cavalry/scout units, with 2-way radios but the war intervened.


Although all US line tanks in US service came with radios, only the command vehicles (i.e. platoon, company, battalion, regiment command) and specialist vehicles (ie OP) had 2-way radios. The regular line tanks only had receiver sets. This was true through the end of the war as far as I have been able to determine.

US line tanks had only a SCR-538 (1x BC-603 receiver), except for platoon command tanks which had a SCR-528 (1x BC604 transmitter + 1x BC603 receiver) set, company command tanks which had a SCR-508 (1x BC604 transmitter + 2x BC603 receivers), and battalion command tanks which had a SCR-508 and a SCR-506 high power long range set.

It might have been possible to improve the Kugisho MXY7 Ohka if the Japanese Navy and Army had cooperated, although this would not have benefited either the Ohka's pilots or Japan. Development of the Ohka started in 1943 and the preliminary design was approved in August 1944 as described in "Japanese Special Attack Aircraft & Flying Bombs" by Ryusuke Ishiguro & Tadeusz Januszewski, page 149). This states "Initially it was planned to use a liquid fuel rocket that would give it a long range, but..." and goes on to explain that Japanese industry could not produce the rocket fuels used by Germany for the Me 163. The design team thus chose to use three solid fuel RATO rockets that were already in production for the Navy and gave a total of 800 kg thrust, although they were fired sequentially to extend the range with each giving 8-10 seconds of thrust.

The consequence was that the G4M carriers had to approach as close as 35 km from the American Fleet which caused them to suffer interception by radar directed fighters, often before launching their Ohkas.

I recently bought "Japanese Aero-Engines 1910-1945" by Mike Goodwin & Peter Starkings, which mentioned the Kayaba Model 1 ramjet (pages 192-3), which suggests that two examples had been built and tested for the Japanese Army in 1943 before the design of the Kayaba Katsuodori fighter was commenced. Power was quoted as 300 to 750 kg of thrust at speeds of 230 to 685 mph. The design was never flown but https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=1461 gives an empty weight of only 1,874 lb (850 kg) for the fighter and a MTOW of 6,614 lb (3,000 kg), for 30 minutes of operation.

The design was only a paper proposal Kayaba Katsoudori as it was rejected by the Army, who preferred a design based on the Me 163. However, Kayaba had been working on ramjets since 1937 and it seems plausible that they had a working ramjet. The army may have doubted their ability to design an aircraft as the Wikipedia article Kayaba Ku-4 - Wikipedia on their previous project, the Ku-4 glider has "Work on the prototype was well advanced by April 1941, but the following month, Kimura's relationship with the Army soured following the crash of the Ku-2. The Ku-4 was cancelled, and Kimura eventually received only ¥17,000 of the ¥200,000 that had been promised for the development of his tailless designs."

Returning to the Ohka, it was normally released at a speed of around 280-325 Km/h and between 6,000 and 8,250m and glided towards the target at a glide angle of 5 degrees. The rockets could accelerate the Ohka to 860 km/h before entering a final 50 degree dive at up to 995 km/h (Isiguro & Tadeusz, page 159). The glider version reached 462 km/h in an unpowered dive, suggesting that it would be easy to reach sufficient speed to use a ramjet after launch.

Thus I propose an Ohka powered by the Kayaba Model 1 ramjet and suspect that it would have sufficient range to be launched well before interception of the carrier.

cherry blossom said:

Thus I propose an Ohka powered by the Kayaba Model 1 ramjet and suspect that it would have sufficient range to be launched well before interception of the carrier.

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The first standoff AGM missile. "A missile with a man in it"! (Any aging cold warriors remember that phrase?)
Cheers,
Wes

delete

Shortround6 said:

Curtiss P-6 Hawk used a "slipper" tank?
View attachment 548813
Hawk III/BF2C-1

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In my opinion, the P-6 Hawk is the most beautiful bi-plane ever built, especially with that paint scheme.

XBe02Drvr said:

The first standoff AGM missile. "A missile with a man in it"! (Any aging cold warriors remember that phrase?)
Cheers,
Wes

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Yep; remember that phrase. Usually (or at least, hopefully) it was not to be taken literally in the 1950s

The Okha was a guided missile, the logical ancestor of all the air-launched anti-ship missiles. Alas, the "missile with a man in it" was being taken quite literally.

I'm curious if a similar version of this thread could be placed in the Cold-War Era?