improving the 109??

GregP · Jun 14, 2016

Slats do not allow the Bf 109 to turn tighter at any given speed. They do not deploy until the leading edge airflow has separation and pulls the slats out. The slats only increase the CL of the section they cover, and that would be the ailerons, mostly. For the slats to come into play, you need to be near stall or at least into pre-stall buffet or the local airflow keeps the slats stowed. It works the same on the F-86.

I certainly agree the slats help maneuverability and, especially, controlability when deployed, but they have almost no effect when not deployed, which is most of the time. I don't think there was enough elevator control authority to stall a Bf 109 above 300+ mph, but you could certainly pull hard enough to get there from 180 - 250 mph or so, maybe a bit faster. There was much less pitch control and very little roll control above 400 mph, from pilot reports.

The Bf 109 was a very good airplane in its design combat speed range, though. It cruised right in the middle of the sweet spot of its combat envelope, so jumping a cruising Bf 109 was not exactly a foregone conclusion. If it survived the first pass, it was capable of getting into the fight quickly and had a very steep climb attitude at a lower airspeed than the Spitfires did.

I would think you'd want to stay away from slat range most of the time and use the slat range when required to break away from an attack or to quickly get on a someone's tail and then get back into the slat-retracted range. If you stayed in the slat range, then everyone else is faster while you are either slow (relatively) or slowing down. Out of airspeed, altitude,and ideas is not a good place to be in combat.

WWII fighters were formidable, but didn't generally have enough excess power to stay flying near stall and then attack anything much while there. Getting slow has never been a good aerial attack plan.

stona · Jun 14, 2016

Shooter8 said:
Covering a withdraw as you state was very rarely done! As it both reduced the sure protection over the fiercely defended target and was very wasteful of resources. Read Len Deighton's book "Battle of Briton"!

But it was done.
Read the writings of Park and Dowding or one of the better biographies of either. Also several accounts given by men from both sides who were there.
The British operated NO organised air sea rescue service in 1940. One of the advantages the RAF enjoyed was that its pilots, if they landed on or parachuted to home soil, could return quickly to the fray. If they went down in the Channel they were almost certain to be lost. Those picked up by friendly ships were few and far between.
The Germans did operate an air sea rescue service, but such was the fear of dying a lingering death from hypothermia and exposure that several aircrew whose bodies washed ashore were found to have shot themselves. This resulted in a ban on the carrying of sidearms whilst flying operations across the Channel.
The RAF wanted to avoid exposing its pilots to this risk.
Cheers
Steve

stona · Jun 14, 2016

Shooter8 said:
All things aside, the P-40, if it had replaced 1/3 each of Spits and hurries would have made a huge difference in the final outcome of the BoB.

What? Like we might have lost it?

I am struggling to take seriously someone who can write that rate of climb is not really relevant in an interceptor in a scenario like the BoB where every foot of altitude and every second saved by early warning and squadron scrambles was vital. You are either being provocative or really have no idea what was going on in our skies in 1940.

Fighter Command was not trying to shoot down Bf 109s, it was trying to shoot down or disrupt the formations of Luftwaffe bombers, preferably before they bombed their targets. It was absolutely essential that they reached the altitudes at which the bombers attacked in the limited time available. It was the whole point of the air defence system developed by the British in the 1930s. The Spitfire and Hurricane are just one, highly visible, facet of that system.

What possible difference could the P-40 make? It was inferior in almost every respect to the Spitfire as an interceptor, you can argue the toss with the Hurricane, but I know which I'd take.

That'll be me out of here now, there's only so much nonsense one man can tolerate.

Cheers

Steve

.

GrauGeist · Jun 14, 2016

Shooter8 said:
It was made that way by bending the shank, ( short of the threads, IIRC.) in a jig after heating it with an oxy torch.
It was made like that for clearance of the tire when retracted.
I am amaized because of so may comments about such a trivial item!

If someone sees something that may look wrong, then why not speak up about it?
The "pickle fork" may look odd to some people who may not be used to seeing the sub-doors on the Fw190, because it was not a common feature. Add to that, the unusual angle on the shank, and it would appear to be damaged.

The fact is, it did have a slightly bent angle to provide better leverage when the tire contacted the assembly when retracting.

And it was not placed "in a jig after heating it with an oxy torch", it was manufactured that way. Heating it with "an oxy torch" would alter it's temper unless it was properly annealed after being heated "with an oxy torch" to maintain it's temper.

As been mentioned before, the sub-doors were not all that common on an Fw190, but can be seen on occasion with the earlier models. A good example would be the Fw190A-5 purchased by the Japanese. Another would be the Fw190a-6/R6 in South Africa's military museum. And there's many good photos of the sub-door's retracting mechanism, especially showing the pickle fork.

Shortround6 · Jun 14, 2016

Shooter8 said:
Wrong on all counts! The early, BoB Spit, Hurry and P-40 all had single stage engines and very similar altitude performance curves. If we consider that the Hurricane was heavier, lower performance than the P-40 in every way, why did they shoot down more enemy planes than Spitfires? This sort of shoot holes in your argument, does it not? Because of Strategic Considerations, the RAF Command tasked the Spits with dealing with the escorts and the Hurricanes with the Bombers. If the P-40 had been bought instead of some of the RAF's other fighters and available during the BoB and tasked with downing bombers, it would have been very much more effective than the Hurricane. German Armor that was impervious to .303 was just so much extra weight to the .50 Caliber M-2. Instead of taking on average three passes to down a bomber with eight .303s, one would have been enough and it would have been outside of return defensive range and thus fewer P-40s would have been lost.

Oh Boy, more mis-information
The Hurricane was NOT heavier than a P-40. MK I Hurricane went just under 6800lbs fully loaded. (and that is with a constant speed prop) A P-40B with the rear fuselage tank about 1/3 full and full ammo went about 7350lbs.
The engine in the P-40 was good for 1040hp at 14,300ft no including RAM and the engine in the Hurricane and Spitfire was good for 1030hp at 16,250ft not including ram. Hurricane had a lower wing loading.

P-40s at this time had two .50 cal guns and the .50 did not take to synchronizing very well. rate of fire might be around 500rpm per gun if you were lucky. the four .30s (or .303s) in the wings comprise a fair amount of the fire power.
The effective range of the .50 is not that much greater than the smaller bullets and especially if you are attacking a bomber. Pulling away before you are in effective range of the defensive guns means you are firing from way too far away.

drgondog · Jun 14, 2016

SR, Greg and Stona beat me to the reply..that said the first Tomahawk IA (P-40A-H8A-1) for Army Co-Op reached Britain late September, 1940. The first one rolled off the line 0n September 18, immediately prepared and shipped from Port of New Jersey on the 20th.

Basic weight was 5625 pounds, combat loaded was 6807 pounds (normal) with 300 rounds of 50 caliber and 325 rounds of 30 caliber, no armor and unprotected fuel. As SR pointed out the ROF of the synch'd 50's was not impressive.

The Brit Browning 30 cal had a far greater rate of fire than US version, but not until a little later in the war. Brit 50 caliber ammo was less potent than US M2 Ball but that was ll that was available to the I and IB. The Hurricane was, in contrast, more heavily armed in bomber attack role - until the US made 50 cal ammo is available and the guns moved outboard.

The roll rate of the P-40 was outstanding but the altitude performance was not equivalent to the early Merlins and all P-40s suffered in both ROC and high(er) altitude performance, particularly versus the 109E.

The primary point to be made is that not a single P-40A is available to the RAF until after BoB is pretty much sewed up in favor of RAF during the critical July-Mid September battles.

So why are we arguing this?

Glider · Jun 14, 2016

Shooter8 said:
All things aside, the P-40, if it had replaced 1/3 each of Spits and hurries would have made a huge difference in the final outcome of the BoB.

The P40 at the time of the BOB was far from being considered battleworthy. It lacked everything, firepower, performance, agility, sealing fuel tanks, armour. It could dive and roll and that's it, but if you cannot climb then you don't have far to dive.

pbehn · Jun 14, 2016

Shooter8 said:
All good "What if" arguments, but, except the thing about climbing, not really relevant. Getting bounced, while it is mostly fatal, is not the end of the battle. The P-40 was a larger and very much stronger and thus harder to shoot down plane. It had heavier, much more effective and very much longer ranged weapons than the BoB Spit and Hurry! Between the longer ranged and faster cruising attributes of the early P-40, it was much more effective than the Spit in defensive combat.

It is easy to forget when someones English is excellent that it isnt a posters mother tongue "while it is mostly fatal, is not the end of the battle" is a contradiction in logic, fatal means it kills and being killed is the end of the battle. Rate of climb was everything in the BoB to the RAF, the differences between the Hurricane Spitfire and 109 were not great enough to overrule the simple fact that the squadron who had hight and were up sun. Mass engagements between the two sides who had seen each other and were at the same height were usually inconclusive. Losses were inflicted by those with height on their side and that means RoC is paramount.

If the RAF had P40s cruising around at 15,000ft looking for targets they would be soon bounced by 109s.

The use of Spitfires to engage fighters while Hurricanes took on bombers is a myth late on in the battle some squadrons were paired but it was hardly a success, the Spitfire and Hurricane had different rates of climb and angles of climb and so keeping them together or forming up wasted time.

Hurricanes appear at the top of most stats in the BoB simply because there were more of them they had more kills and losses, statistically the hurricane killed more RAF pilots as it was lower in performance and caught fire more easily.

The LW did protect returning aircraft over the channel and on the big London raids there were specific withdrawal escorts as the escorts outwards could take them to London but not back.

GrauGeist · Jun 14, 2016

The problem is, that the Democratic built P-40, flown by Monarchy pilots, would have had trouble intercepting the Nazi bombers, since it was at altitudes where the Democratic fighters did not perform well.

GrauGeist · Jun 14, 2016

Faster at what altitudes?
I see the repetetive Wiki cut and paste, but do you actually understand what your posting?

The P-40 was fast and manouverable at certain altitudes. So was the Spitfire, so was the Hurricane, so was the Fw190, so was the Bf109 and on and on and on.

BUT, it had limitations, and this was that the P-40 was a stronger performer at lower altitudes. The Fw190 was an extremely fast and powerful aircraft - at lower altitudes.

Just because the P-40 could climb (eventually) to 29,000 feet, does not mean that it had any speed or performance at those heights. It simply means that's as high as it could go before it eventually stalled.

The Fw190 could climb to about 37,000 feet, but could it do 400+ miles an hour up there? Absolutely not.

Before you start insisting that the P-40 was a world beater at Mount Everest altitudes, you better get your facts in order.

Greyman · Jun 14, 2016

Shooter8 said:
True, but statistic show that more bombers were shot down by Hurricanes than Spits! Buy a huge margin! Why was that? Partially because the Hurry was the better gun platform and in spite of the same number and caliber of guns, the Hurries guns were in two neat batteries while the Spits were strung out along the wing which was not strong enough to stop them from spattering dispersion and dilution of their firepower. Did you know that the typical dispersion of the Spit's guns was 1.1 Meters at 100 yards? That means that each gun was spreading it's bullets over a circle 44" across! Because the Hurries guns were mounted in a single strong battery, their dispersion was less than 1/5 the area. The eight gun Spitfire was a terrible, maybe the worst gun platform of the war!

All true, but it was not nearly as lopsided as you infer. The Hurry was much better at shooting down anything in front of it's guns and the P-40 would have been very much harder to shoot down than the hurricane because it was faster and it's guns were several times more effective at much longer ranges. How does a single 7.92 MM RCMG fair Vs 4X.50s at 1,000 yards range? The luck hit puts the P-40's engine out, in the next 5-25 minutes, but the withering return fire from the rest of the pass destroys the bomber.

Typical dispersion of a .303 Browning was similar in either a Hurricane or Spitfire wing. A 100% group from a weapon in either aircraft would roughly give the figure you gave. The main reason the Hurricane is lauded as being a better gun platform is due to the aircraft itself being steadier - particularly in pitch.

The longer range advantage of the Browning .50 wouldn't be much of a factor as both .50 and .303 relied on the same Mk.II Gunsight. Performance vs. aircraft armour is also often greatly overstated (by armaments of all types) because it is seldom taken into account how easy it is for rounds to be deflected, fragmented and/or tumbled by aircraft skin/structure before reaching the plate. The lack of a good .50 incendiary round would also be an issue.

In terms of durability versus Luftwaffe armaments - I don't think 109 pilots were ever particularly vexed by the P-40's toughness.

Pieced together a quick graph on climb rates based on A&AEE test data. I understand the Bf 109E was very similar to the Spitfire I.

stona · Jun 14, 2016

Shooter8 said:
Also, the cowl mounted .50s had an effective range of 1,800 Meters compared to 250 Meters of the various .303 armed RAF Fighters,

More nonsense. The effective range of the weapons was not determined by ballistics but by the sighting system used.

This might make for some educational reading.

RAF fighters had their guns synchronised at 250 yards, the maximum range at which the average pilot stood any chance of hitting anything. In fact almost all Luftwaffe aircraft downed during the BoB and examined by the various ORS showed strikes from rounds fired from a deflection of less than 15 degrees, which goes to show that virtually no pilots could hit anything at any range from any significant angle off. In reality most pilots couldn't hit anything...period.The idea that they could hit anything out at over 1,000m is just laughable.

Cheers

Steve

GregP · Jun 14, 2016

The .303 surely is accurate beyond 250 meters.

pbehn · Jun 14, 2016

Shooter8 said:
This last is also true as far as it goes. But what about the bombers when they are still over England? What happens when the 50% of interceptors that failed to make the connection, get a second and third try at the pinata? If half of the misses convert at a 50% rate, then an extra 37.5% of German Bombers get a chance to live or die!
No mater how you slice it some fraction of extra targets shot down changes the force ratio and the stronger, easier to service and more battle resistant P-40 make what is Strategically a huge difference.

Most raids were escorted to and from the target, it was the raids over London that were problematic for the LW and these had a withdrawal escort.

You have a strange perception of air warfare which doesnt match my understanding. One phenomenon that many pilots reported was that they would attack a formation of german aircraft and then within a matter of minutes intense combat would find themselves apparently alone, That was the point the pilot would return home to re arm and re fuel, cruising about alone looking for a target is a fools errand, you have only two eyes and are probably next on the lunch menu.

stona · Jun 14, 2016

GregP said:
The .303 surely is accurate beyond 250 meters.

Certainly, but not when mounted in the wing of a fighter using the sights fitted in 1940.
Cheers
Stevel

Shortround6 · Jun 14, 2016

In reference to the climb chart in the above post I would note that service ceiling is more useless for figuring out combat capabilities than top speed. Service ceiling being the altitude at which the plane could still climb 100fpm while flying straight and level. Please note that slowing down at that altitude by 10-20mph means either descending or stalling.
Operational height was the altitude at which the plane could still climb at 500fpm as it was figured that was performance margin needed for a group of aircraft to maintain formation.
Actual effective combat height was figured as the altitude a fighter still had 1000fpm climb capability. The Hurricane had over 2000ft advantage over the P-40 and the Spitfire almost a 4000 ft advantage.
This by way, was one of the main reasons for the Hurricane II getting the Merlin XX engine. An attempt to raise the combat ceiling of the Hurricane to equal the Spitfire and 109. If the Hurricane II was thought need the Merlin XX in the fall of 1940 in order to stay in the fight then the P-40 was a lost cause.

pbehn · Jun 14, 2016

GregP said:
The .303 surely is accurate beyond 250 meters.

The synchronisation of the guns is its concentration of fire, the effective range is the ballistics of the gun/round. Discussion of what a single round can do at 1800metres is ridiculous, the top snipers in the military would be and are heros making a kill with a dedicated sniper rifle in still conditions at that range. Spotting an aircraft in a clear sky at that range is a challenge, looking at an open sky your eyes focus about 20ft in front of your face and so aircraft can be invisible even in clear sight, hitting an aircraft at1800m is fantasy.

pbehn · Jun 14, 2016

Shortround6 said:
In reference to the climb chart in the above post I would note that service ceiling is more useless for figuring out combat capabilities than top speed. Service ceiling being the altitude at which the plane could still climb 100fpm while flying straight and level. Please note that slowing down at that altitude by 10-20mph means either descending or stalling.
Operational height was the altitude at which the plane could still climb at 500fpm as it was figured that was performance margin needed for a group of aircraft to maintain formation.
Actual effective combat height was figured as the altitude a fighter still had 1000fpm climb capability. The Hurricane had over 2000ft advantage over the P-40 and the Spitfire almost a 4000 ft advantage.
This by way, was one of the main reasons for the Hurricane II getting the Merlin XX engine. An attempt to raise the combat ceiling of the Hurricane to equal the Spitfire and 109. If the Hurricane II was thought need the Merlin XX in the fall of 1940 in order to stay in the fight then the P-40 was a lost cause.

I think the chart should read feet per minute (or other) not feet per second but regardless it shows a massive difference, the P40 just wouldnt make it to the fight at 20,000ft any time that would be useful

Greyman · Jun 14, 2016

pbehn said:
I think the chart should read feet per minute (or other) not feet per second ...

Whoops, too right. I'll edit.

pbehn · Jun 14, 2016

Greyman said:
Whoops, too right. I'll edit.

Thanks, when you look at it and think about it the P40 was about 800 ft/minute behind, I will produce a chart showing cigars smoked and tea drunk by Spitfire and Hurricane pilots prior to taking off to join their P40 mounted comrades.

improving the 109??

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