improving the 109??

I have never heard of a plane being converted from one armament configuration to another once in the field/service squadron.
I am not going to say it didn't happen or it couldn't be done (with a suitable supply of parts) except for the F6F.
I suppose I should mention the substitution of Browning .303 s for some .50 cal guns in some early US Aircraft used by the British. either to lighten planes or get around local ammo shortages.
Point is it was far from common and it is a lot easier to go smaller than go bigger. Local shops being much more able to build spacers/fillers than new "structure". Structure meaning ammo boxes/chutes rather than spars or ribs.

Not sure anybody converted an early P-51 wing or A-36 wing to a six .50 cal wing in the field. Might be a lot easier to convert the Mustang IA wing to four .50s than convert the P-51B wing to four 20mm guns though.

You not only need to re-arrange the gun and ammo bays but need to come up with the gun fairings/leading edge pieces.
Certainly not impossible but perhaps more effort than they thought it was worth?

It would definitely have been beyond the squadron service infrastructure. I was suggesting it would have been difficult even at the Maintenance Units, where all these aircraft would have gone to have their British equipment fitted before being delivered to their units.
Cheers
Steve

Shortround6 said:

...You not only need to re-arrange the gun and ammo bays but need to come up with the gun fairings/leading edge pieces...

Click to expand...

The Cannon armed Hurricane and the Typhoon had substantial cannon fairings...probably wouldn't be too difficult to adapt those to a retro-fit in the need came up.

Those guys were pretty sharp at field-mods.

Again it is one thing to do a few planes (or even a dozen) but when you are dealing with a few hundred you may want standardized parts coming from a central supply.

Shortround6 said:

Again it is one thing to do a few planes (or even a dozen) but when you are dealing with a few hundred you may want standardized parts coming from a central supply.

Click to expand...

Of course.

I imagine that if it was decided to make that change, the same vendor(s) that was making the cannon fairings for the Hawkers, would be able to produce what was needed on fairly short notice, since they already had the experience.

We are well into the reals of conjecture, but if the change was to be made retrospectively wouldn't it have made more sense to acquire the kits from the US manufacturer? I have no idea, it just seems like a sensible option as the Americans had already produced some cannon equipped aircraft and must have had the relevant plans/designs to hand. Why go through the entire design process again?
Cheers
Steve

T

Shortround6 said:

I have never heard of a plane being converted from one armament configuration to another once in the field/service squadron.
I am not going to say it didn't happen or it couldn't be done (with a suitable supply of parts) except for the F6F.
I suppose I should mention the substitution of Browning .303 s for some .50 cal guns in some early US Aircraft used by the British. either to lighten planes or get around local ammo shortages.
Point is it was far from common and it is a lot easier to go smaller than go bigger. Local shops being much more able to build spacers/fillers than new "structure". Structure meaning ammo boxes/chutes rather than spars or ribs.

Not sure anybody converted an early P-51 wing or A-36 wing to a six .50 cal wing in the field. Might be a lot easier to convert the Mustang IA wing to four .50s than convert the P-51B wing to four 20mm guns though.

You not only need to re-arrange the gun and ammo bays but need to come up with the gun fairings/leading edge pieces.
Certainly not impossible but perhaps more effort than they thought it was worth?

Click to expand...

The P-51-1-NA (shown) was NA 91. It was a production version which followed NA-73, NA 83.. This series of 150 aircraft followed the earlier runs of a total 620 Mustang I's for RAF.

NA 91 also pulled two Mustangs for NA 101 - which became the XP-51B (XP-78) Merlin Protoypes and one of them had the 4 gun 20mm P-51-1-A configuration. 93 NA 101 went to RAF as Mustang IA, 55 went as P-51-1-NA, then -2-NA as F6 recon versions.

Simply - kit to convert P-51B to 4x 50 cal or 4x20mm would have been about as much trouble as the DFF kits.

DFF? Dorsal Fin Fillet?

Thank you for the correction. Mistake was that 308 Mustang IIIs were P-51Bs and the rest were P-51C from the Dallas factory.

Now the question on the short barreled Hispanos is when they showed up and how many.

To show the pace of development and the time lag involved in getting US aircraft into combat.
First flight by XP-51D was Nov 17th 1943
The first fighter sweep using P-51s over NW Europe was Dec 1st 1943. No drop tanks in use.
First combat mission with drop tanks was Dec 13. 1943
The British start operations with Mustang IIIs in Feb 1944.
March of 1944 sees P-51Ds enter production at the Englewood plant.
June of 1944 sees P-51Ds start to show up in quantity in England.
June 30th sees contract for 1000 P-51Hs placed.

Series II Tempests with the short barreled cannon start showing up in June of 1944.
It might have been a fantastic combination but there seems to have been a shortage of guns (at least in mid to late 1944) and Mustang development was moving along.
Please note that there was often a 2-4 month delay in getting US aircraft from the factory door to getting them into combat.

James W. said:

However, for pure flying, I preferred the Messerschmitt, despite all of
its problems during take off, & landing."

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You will find pilots loyal to Messerschmitt or Focke-Wulf in almost equal numbers in personal recollections. It's just individuals expressing a personal preference, these are invariably coloured by all sorts of individual experiences and are pretty meaningless in any comparison of the various types.
Cheers
Steve

The delay in getting Mustangs to ETO combat units of ~13-16 weeks was when the P-51B 85 gallon tank installations were starting up at Depots in Niagara and Buffalo about the last week October/November 1943. The learning curve was pretty steep by the time the last of the P-51B-5-NA series rolled out in November/December. When the last of the P-51C-1 and some C-5 and B-5 left the line, the 85 gallon tanks were installed in production and the cycle to get from Inglewood/Dallas reduced considerably with about equal time from factory to Port for pre-ship prep, the voyage to Liverpool and subsequent ground transport to BAD2 Warton, then ETO Mods at BAD2 and transport to Operational units.

The delivery times reduced to approximately 10 weeks from factory to combat unit when the 85 gallon fuse tanks install time at depots were removed.

The drag of the 20mm guns were considerable. I have to dig but IIRC, depending on altitude, they could be as much as 20-25+ mph speed loss.(P-51-1 and Mustang IA)

You will find US pilots that initially hated trading their Spitfires for P-47s. And Pilots that hated trading their P-47s for P-51s.
I am sure there are plenty of other stories of pilots not wanting to trade what they were used to (and trusted) for the unknown.
Of course some aircraft were so bad (or out classed) that most any new aircraft was viewed with hope.

drgondog said:

The drag of the 20mm guns were considerable. I have to dig but IIRC, depending on altitude, they could be as much as 20-25+ mph speed loss.

Click to expand...

That would be for the Hispano Mk II. The Hispano V was shorter and fit entirely within the Tempest wing, so caused no additional drag.

Drgondog was referring to the Allison powered Mustangs with 20mm cannon.

There was no such difference in the Tempest

Tempest was big enough that even the long barreled Hispano guns fit mostly in the wing. look at port wing. The short barreled guns tidied things up a bit on the Series II aircraft but the Mustangs had more barrel sticking out than Spitfires.

James W. said:

Little guys such as 'Winkle' Brown reported feeling the big ol' Tempest to be a fair handful,
yet others, such as All Black built top RNZAF ace Evan Mackie "even after 800+ hours on the various Spitfire marks" preferred
the "much more warlike" Tempest,

Click to expand...

You've just illustrated my point perfectly
Cheers
Steve

James W. said:

I note that the 'Tactical Trials' report reckoned that Typhoon units should transition to Tempests, & not Spitfire outfits,
but of course, in the 2nd TAF, post invasion, Typhoons were of much more value than Spits, so Spits were replaced by Tempests.

Click to expand...

But a surprising number of squadrons transitioned from Typhoons to Spitfires.
Nos. 1, 4, 164, 183, 186 and 485 (RNZAF) all went this way.

As for transitioning from Typhoons to Tempests
Nos. 3, 56, 174, 247 and 486 (RNZAF) went this way.

It seems that the Spitfire might not have been so much less valuable than the Tempest after all. In fact more Typhoon squadrons converted to Spitfires than to Tempests, whatever the recommendation may have been. Not all the Tempest squadrons above were operational during the war

The 11 squadrons above are part of the 30 squadrons that operated the Typhoon. 14 were disbanded, never replacing the Typhoon, No.137 became No.174 but kept its Typhoons, 2 converted to the Meteor (Nos.245 and 263). No. 438 (RCAF) went from Typhoons to Mustangs.

There were only ever 9 squadrons of Tempests declared operational before the end of the war, 3 converted from Typhoons the other 6 from Spitfires.
Overall 6 squadrons went from Spitfire to Tempest, whilst 6 also went from Typhoon to Spitfire!

Cheers

Steve

James W. said:

Steve, 485 (NZ) Sqd was a Spitfire squadron from start to finish, it was intended to transition them to Tempests,
but that was in 1945, & with the hard use in the 2nd TAF, there were simply insufficient available.

Click to expand...

Your information is incorrect. No. 485 received Tempest Vs in February 1945 at Predannack in Cornwall. It began training under Sqn Ldr K. J. McDonald DFC, but this was soon abandoned and it 'disposed' (as the RAF likes to say) of the Tempests in March. It then started conversion to the Typhoon but 'disposed' of these about a month later and reverted to Spitfires.
It certainly did not remain a Spitfire squadron throughout, going from Spitfires to Tempests (never operational) to Typhoons (never operational) before reverting to Spitfires in April, just before the end of the war in Europe. It is true that it only had operational status when Spitfire equipped.
You will notice that it started to convert to Tempests before it started to convert to Typhoons, some sources have assumed that the Typhoons came first, as a step towards conversion to the Tempest, but this is not so.


Look at the various types operated by numbers of squadrons in 2nd TAF.
This is from the order of battle as of June '44

Spitfire, 46 squadrons
Typhoon, 18 squadrons
Mosquito, 14 squadrons
Mustang , 11 squadrons

There were then a few other types, Mitchell 2 squadrons, Tempest 2 squadrons, Boston 2 squadrons, Wellington 1 squadron, Beaufighter 1 squadron.

These are numbers of squadrons, the strength of these would vary, particularly in the reserve Groups.

Spitfires made up roughly half the squadrons in the 2nd TAF. I'm sure those running the show would be surprised to find that they were 'obsolescent and all".
There were only 8 squadrons of Spitfire Vs in total and all formed part of 83 Reserve Group, itself attached to ADGB and not expected to operate on the Continent. The other 38 Spitfire squadrons were equipped with Marks that could not be described as obsolescent in mid/late 1944.

Cheers

Steve

James W. said:

Actually Steve, your information is incorrect.
485 (NZ) 'trained' on a few Typhoons, (as Tempest analogs) & series 1 Tempests, ( which were not used on the continent for ops)
& because no 2nd TAF suitable Tempests were available, & never became so in wartime, they stayed with Spits, Mk XVIs.
Edit: Addit.

Click to expand...

What's your source? Mine is primarily Mason from the squadron ORB. They did finally become operational again as a Spitfire unit, with that I agree, just in time for the end of the war in Europe.

I included the two Tempest squadrons of 150 Wing which comprised, No.56 Squadron Spitfire IX, No.3 Squadron Tempest V and No.486 (RNZAF) Squadron Tempest V . They are included with the other types (the Mitchells, Bostons etc) operated by two or less squadrons.

Clostermann tells some good stories, but history it most definitely is NOT !

Cheers

Steve

Actually it was 349 Sqd that trained on the Mk 5 but went to Spitfire XVIs when was training suspended,

485 Sqd converted to Typhoons when training was suspended.

Both units flew Spitfire IXs before the Tempest training.

You are going by memoirs, always fallible, and Mason is going by the ORBs. I know which I'll take, and whilst anything is possible, Mason doesn't make many mistakes.

No.349 was at the same airfield as No.485 in February 1945, so when it too reports the arrival of Tempest Vs that month, they are undoubtedly the same batch of aircraft reported by the Kiwis of No.485 Squadron. They were at the same time and place.

The Belgians (349) did not then go on to Typhoons but kept their Tempests until 19th April before 'disposing' of them in favour of Spitfires.

The Kiwis (485) disposed of their Tempests in March 1945 in favour of Typhoons which they kept for barely a month before disposing of them and reverting to Spitfires.

There would have been some crossover of types, there were certainly Tempests and Typhoons on the airfield at Predannack together for at least one month, and later there may have been all three types as both squadrons reverted to Spitfires.

Neither squadron was operational on anything but the Spitfire.

Wartime Tempest production:
The first production batch of 100 aircraft did come slowly, an average of only 4 aircraft per week were produced and delivered between 12/43 and 5/44.

The second batch of 300 aircraft went rather better, averaging 18 aircraft per week, delivered between 5/44 and 9/44.

The third batch of 199 aircraft came off the line at a rate of 12 aircraft per week, delivered between 9/44 and 2/45.
This is the last batch relevant to the war, production was slowing as the end of the war loomed. There was one more wartime batch.

The fourth production batch of 201 aircraft was produced at about 9 aircraft per week, delivered between 1/45 and 6/45. The last of this batch, serials SN368-SN416, were cancelled.

I'm not sure where the shortages stem from. It seems that in the closing stages of the European war there were several hundred Tempest Vs available, yet they were present in few operational squadrons.

Cheers

Steve

Edit: I've dug out Shores and Thomas 2nd TAF series and volume four covers the various squadrons.
Here are the pertinent bits.

No.349.
"In February 1945 it was posted to Predannack to convert to Tempest Vs, but in the evnt not enough of these were forthcoming to allow the unit to equip with them and consequently in April it returned to 135 Wing, now based on German soil, and resumed flying Spitfire IXBs. At the end of April the squadron was transferred to 131 (Polish) Wing where it received Spitfire VVIEs during the following month, too late for use prior to the German surrender."

No. 485.
"135 Wing was to be converted to Tempests at this time. Two of the squadrons departing for this purpose. Accompanied by 349 Squadron, 485 followed suit at the end of February 1945, moving to Predannack in Cornwall for this purpose. Due to shortages of Tempests, however, the conversion was cancelled. Finally the two squadrons returned to 135 Wing in April, then moving to when join 132 Wing at B.106 [this must refer to 485 as 349 went to 131 Wing]......Transfer to 145 Wing at B.105 followed at the end of the month and here the unit remained until 26th August 1945, it was disbanded."

None of this conflicts with Mason. The intention was to transfer to Tempests and both squadrons were presumably using the same few reported in February. Shores and Thomas don't mention 485's use of Typhoons before returning to Europe with Spitfires, but their focus is on operations on the Continent.

They do confirm a shortage of Tempests in early 1945, though I don't know why that should have been the case.