Italian Carrier Aircraft

[GrauGeist]

the Gnome Rhône Mistral powered a lot of aircraft, some of them pretty successful ones: IAR 80

The Rumanians had to modify their version of the Mistral because their original version was underpowered.
Their K14-1000A eventually solved the power issue for the IAR 80/81

 

[Schweik]

The Rumanians had to modify their version of the Mistral because their original version was underpowered.
Their K14-1000A eventually solved the power issue for the IAR 80/81

Like I said, highly hackable.

The French were already working on a two stage supercharged version of the 12Y (for the VG series of fighters), the 12Y 51 produced 1000 hp at 3200 meters in 1939. Hispano Suiza also had the 12Z, which was a 12Y with with four valves and two cams instead of 2 and 1. These were capable of using the higher octane fuel, and some were producing 1300 hp which is pretty good for 1940.

I think both the 12Y and the Mistral were clearly viable engines in the early war and both demonstrably had potential as the basis for far more advanced engines.

No aircraft engine was perfect in the 1930s and nobody could predict which designs really had the potential for continuous improvement sufficient to stay relevant through the end of WW2. It was always going to be a guessing game, you have done a pretty good job in many of your posts pointing out what a difficult challenge it was anticipating needs in time to get factories rolling with the right kit that was going to be needed a year or two years or more in the future. There was no certainty in it.

But clearly these two engines did have potential to power some formidable aircraft. D.520 and IAR 80 were still flying fighter missions with some efficacy in 1944 which is more than a lot of much later designs can really say. Yak 1 / 7 /9 and Pe 2 etc. can take a large part of the credit for winning the war IMO. You can say what you like about the designs but they were on the side that won the war in the East and destroyed the German army in the field.

And I would say clearly, also, the British could have developed radial engine fighters earlier than they did, they just had such a promising series of inline engines that they preferred to go with that option (sensibly). But not every country has Rolls Royce or a Daimler Benz.

I think Hispano Suiza tends to be a bit underrated because they were kind of a transnational without any big PR effort behind them. Countries which did successfully adapt their engines and improve them tend to prefer to assign credit to their own engineers.

You (Shorthand6) can say what you like about the Yak series fighters or the Pe-2, but the proof is in the pudding.

Now we should talk about putting a Peregrine in a Bristol 146

 

[Shortround6]

You (Shorthand6) can say what you like about the Yak series fighters or the Pe-2, but the proof is in the pudding.

I don't believe I said anything about the Yaks or the Pe-2 except perhaps that some of the Yaks were lightly armed compared to some other planes. I do wonder if they would have done better with a better engines.

both the 12Y and the Mistral were clearly viable engines in the early war and both demonstrably had potential as the basis for far more advanced engines.

That depends on how far from the "base" you were willing to go.

1000hp at 10,500ft was not particularly first rate 1939. It is 6,000ft lower than a Merlin III and about 90 hp less than an early Allison. It is also behind the DB601.
The basic 12Y without a major "Hack" had reached it's limit. It part because it needed a new crankshaft, a bigger, beefer better counterweighted crankshaft. Which may need a new crankcase to hold bigger bearings.
That was part of the Merlin's advantage, for what ever reason/s the basic Merlin of 1938 would hold up to around 1800hp (testing for the Speed Spitfire), the problem was making that amount of power or making it at the desired altitudes. The Hispano would not stand up to those power levels, it had trouble standing up to the power levels they were using.
Changing cylinder heads is not so easy, Hispano kept the same cylinder head design for many many years because they were using old tooling (jigs and fixtures) from their V-8 days to help make the cylinder heads (machining the valve seat areas for one thing).
Mistral was in the same boat. It needed new cylinders, new heads, and new crankshaft and a new crankcase, other than that, yes a marvelous engine to build off of.
They did do this and the engine gained over 400lbs. Obviously you need a lot of new tooling.
Wright did this a number of times in the R-1820 history so obvioulsy it can be done, but it needs a lot of engineers and a machine tool industry that can supply all they new tooling.

Some of the French pre-war (or 1940) and immediately post war power numbers are rather suspect.

 

[BobB]

Since there's been quite a bit of thread drift, why hasn't anyone mentioned the carrier version of the best WWII fighter, the P-39 (XFL)?

 

[nuuumannn]

Well, the context of the discussion was British war planning, right? Or did I miss something? And you said that the Italians didn't have anything which would outclass the Gladiators based on Malta in 1939.

In that case, it doesn't really matter that much that only a few G.50s and MC 200s were deployed in 1939 or how fast they were being produced, (there weren't that many Gladiators on Malta either). The issue is more that they were there and they clearly outclassed the Gladiator (as the British were to learn in North Africa once MC.200s started arriving in significant numbers). So on a Strategic level, they actually did need something better than a Gladiator (or for that matter a Skua, a Roc, or a Fulmar) and they should have been able to extrapolate that need based on the extant enemy fighters which were already flying. G.50 was flying since 1938.

Also, given the fact that Germany and Italy were already very chummy in 1939, had fought together in Spain from 1936, specifically had fought with and developed their aircraft and air combat tactics in Spain. So I don't think it's a huge stretch to expect (and plan for) German aircraft to be flying from Italian bases in say, Sicily or Sardinia.

The fact that fighters in general at that time tended to have very short range was lucky for the RAF and RN, because it meant that a lot of the bomber raids were unescorted, at least initially.

It doesn't change the point though, British naval aviation policy between the wars believed that the aircraft it had could outclass what the navy might encounter, or at least the Air Ministry in all its wisdom thought. Once the Admiralty regained control of the FAA it made changes. Remember that during the early 30s when the decisions behind the FAA's future were being made with the advent of 'modern' aircraft, the British were not expecting to go to war, which is something we always forget. You're assuming the British would know it would be at war with Italy when the decision was made to put the Gladiators in Malta to begin with. It was peacetime.

I stand by what I state as far as the availability of aircraft to the Italians in 1939, you can have as many modern fighters as you like, but if they are not combat-worthy, they are of no use to you. From 1940 when Italy entered the war the Gladiators in Malta did not encounter these types in combat initially for the simple fact that the Italians didn't believe they needed them; the SM.79 had established a reputation within the RA and the pilots and planners believed they didn't need fighter escort. so they didn't. The Italians were slow to learn and the lessons from the campaign in Europe took a while to sink in because it proved the RA was no match for an organised and well-equipped adversary.

 

[don4331]

It doesn't change the point though, British naval aviation policy between the wars believed that the aircraft it had could outclass what the navy might encounter, or at least the Air Ministry in all its wisdom thought. Once the Admiralty regained control of the FAA it made changes. Remember that during the early 30s when the decisions behind the FAA's future were being made with the advent of 'modern' aircraft, the British were not expecting to go to war, which is something we always forget. You're assuming the British would know it would be at war with Italy when the decision was made to put the Gladiators in Malta to begin with. It was peacetime.

I stand by what I state as far as the availability of aircraft to the Italians in 1939, you can have as many modern fighters as you like, but if they are not combat-worthy, they are of no use to you. From 1940 when Italy entered the war the Gladiators in Malta did not encounter these types in combat initially for the simple fact that the Italians didn't believe they needed them; the SM.79 had established a reputation within the RA and the pilots and planners believed they didn't need fighter escort. so they didn't. The Italians were slow to learn and the lessons from the campaign in Europe took a while to sink in because it proved the RA was no match for an organised and well-equipped adversary.

I think I'd like to qualify that Nuuumannn, 'cause I think RAF gets a bum rap here:

To mid '30s, there is no early warning system aka RADAR. Given aircraft performance of the time, the bomber gets through before there is any chance of fighter interception. So, why order/specify fighters to fight a lost cause. Instead lock the fighters below deck, improve AAA and armour, and fend out/survive the attack in that manner. There is also the belief that torpedo defenses of capital ships are resistant to airborne torpedoes - best you can hope for is to slow the enemy down. Also, Allied airborne torpedoes need to be dropped at <90kn/<20m, so why invest in a 400 kn plane?

2ndly, 95% of time, FAA aircraft are doing the boring reconnaissance/patrolling tasks and a 2 seater is MUCH better for that task. That the reconnaissance/dive bomber/fighter might be inferior for the 5% of time they were operating as pure fighter was supposed to be addressed by tactics and training - see twin heavy fighter for land based equivalent.

Lastly, they needed to be able to operate off the RN light carriers.

So, RAF delivered exactly what RN wanted, a torpedo bomber - Swordfish and reconnaissance/dive bomber/fighter - Skua/Fulmar that were world class.

Late '30s (really very early 40s), RN has a problem - RADAR has suddenly made interception more than possible, likely in fact. RN is suddenly building the wrong ships - bigger ship with squadron of interceptors is looking like preferred solution (caskets are ordered to bury those who told them so ) RAF has its hands full with planning to resist LW, so gives FAA control to sort its issues out. But why would Supermarine/Hawker/Gloster spend huge $$$ developing planes for CVs which might total couple hundred, when there are RAF contracts for planes in the 10s of thousands coming.


By philosophic question is: Who is the Italian CV going to fight? And how is it going to fight? Answer those and you can develop the carrier her air group around them.

Examples:
Are you wanting to do the same/opposite your RN counterpart - slow down the RN battle fleet so your battle fleet doesn't get in over their heads?
Are you fighting the French? Will French play in the bathtub of the Med?
Are you providing air cover to convoys travelling to your colonies in Africa?
For the last 2 - will you be outside of range of shore based interceptors enough/can you engineer enough performance in your carrier plane to engage with reasonable chance of success?

With ranges involved in Mediterranean, does the plane need to be recovered on the CV?
Will your CV ever operate outside of the Med?

 

[nuuumannn]

I think I'd like to qualify that Nuuumannn, 'cause I think RAF gets a bum rap here:

I'm not 100 percent certain what criticism you are trying to respond to here. My point has little to do with the RAF at all, so do us a favour and explain...

My original point is about the Air Ministry (not the RAF) making decisions for the FAA regarding the lack of a modern single-seat fighter, which the FAA had in service since the Great War.

So, RAF delivered exactly what RN wanted, a torpedo bomber - Swordfish and reconnaissance/dive bomber/fighter - Skua/Fulmar that were world class.

Let's not forget these aircraft were built to specifications issued to the admiralty by the Air Ministry. Yes, the Swordfish was excellent, but about the Fulmar and Skua, the Fulmar was designed as an interim until a two-seat turret fighter design was built - it never was, as once the Admiralty took over the FAA the specification was cancelled and a single-seat fighter spec was written, so it wasn't exactly what the navy wanted. The admirals wanted a single-seat fighter but got the Fulmar and Skua.

The Skua was a good dive bomber but it was slow and inadequate as a fighter, except against larger, slower types, even in 1937 before it had entered service admirals stated they thought it would be obsolete. That doesn't inspire much confidence. Not only that, but the haste by which the admiralty attempted to get single-seat fighters into FAA service once they had control of the FAA and experience in the first few years of WW2 backs their suspicions.

Much effort was expended attempting to get single-seat fighters, from canning specifications and issuing new ones - yes, handing it to Blackburn was a big mistake as the Firebrand was terrible and late, but that's not the admiralty's fault, to buying F4Fs from Grumman and getting Hurricane Is carrier-capable, to approaching Fairey to build Spitfires. There was much effort to rectify the shortcoming.

Now, what were we arguing about?

By the way, 'CV' is an American term. The British never applied it to describe their carriers during WW2.

 

[don4331]

I'm not 100 percent certain what criticism you are trying to respond to here. My point has little to do with the RAF at all, so do us a favour and explain...

My original point is about the Air Ministry (not the RAF) making decisions for the FAA regarding the lack of a modern single-seat fighter, which the FAA had in service since the Great War.


Let's not forget these aircraft were built to specifications issued to the admiralty by the Air Ministry. Yes, the Swordfish was excellent, but about the Fulmar and Skua, the Fulmar was designed as an interim until a two-seat turret fighter design was built - it never was, as once the Admiralty took over the FAA the specification was cancelled and a single-seat fighter spec was written, so it wasn't exactly what the navy wanted. The admirals wanted a single-seat fighter but got the Fulmar and Skua.

The Skua was a good dive bomber but it was slow and inadequate as a fighter, except against larger, slower types, even in 1937 before it had entered service admirals stated they thought it would be obsolete. That doesn't inspire much confidence. Not only that, but the haste by which the admiralty attempted to get single-seat fighters into FAA service once they had control of the FAA and experience in the first few years of WW2 backs their suspicions.

Much effort was expended attempting to get single-seat fighters, from canning specifications and issuing new ones - yes, handing it to Blackburn was a big mistake as the Firebrand was terrible and late, but that's not the admiralty's fault, to buying F4Fs from Grumman and getting Hurricane Is carrier-capable, to approaching Fairey to build Spitfires. There was much effort to rectify the shortcoming.

Now, what were we arguing about?

By the way, 'CV' is an American term. The British never applied it to describe their carriers during WW2.

I use BB/CA/CL/BB/DD/SS as I am too lazy to type out the full name; sue the Yankees for having convenient abbreviations.

I view the RAF and the Air Ministry as synonymous, and I really shouldn't in this forum. The Air Ministry didn't issue specifications to the Admiralty is a vacuum - while the FAA had single seat fighters, they also had twin seat fighters in greater numbers. Specification 08/38 (Fulmar's requirement) for a two-crew fighter capable of observation and fleet defense operations sounds pretty Admiralty based - Lobelle meeting the requirement but not delivering a state of the art is different discussion. Admiralty didn't remove the requirement for Fulmar to mount floats and be able to be catapult launched off a gun ship .

Just about everything rolling off the lines in '37 was obsolete by the time it made it to production. Designers needed the foresight of Mitchell/Camm/Messerschmitt - to design/balance the aircraft with the '37 engine but upgradable to the '39 one. And they needed their engine manufacturer of choice to deliver on that engine. In a lot of cases, you could see before the prototype lifted of the runway, there wasn't any development path - Skua, Fulmar and XF4F-0 biplane being examples.

Brewster Buffalo is almost as bad - gained couple hundred pounds with the engine upgrade from R-1670 to R-1820, extra fuel to satisfy the thirst of the more powerful engine and other things like self sealing tanks and armour. As the structure wasn't upgraded for the extra weight, plane has some issues.

Turret fighter was right up there with Zerstorer twin on everyone list in mid 30s. The reality of the Defiant, made everyone reassess what the cost of the turret was - both financial and performance. Note: requirement N.9/39 was still asking for a turret fighter and Admiralty/FAA had control of specifications by that point. Firebrand is built to N.8/39, the single seat fighter equivalent. Blackburn needed another 6 months to get Firebrand sorted out - the time just didn't exist. And Napier had enough issues with Sabre; they didn't need RR under cutting them.

As I noted RADAR and other electronic aids - Homing beacons, IFF - that were fantasy novel stuff just a couple years before, were suddenly possible and made single engine fighter of early '40s range possible.

IMHO, Merlin/Griffon powered carrier plane is bad idea - the engine isn't designed for it. Allison powered would have issues too.

p.s. Discussing, not arguing.

 

[nuuumannn]

Interesting points Don, but you're assuming a lot about what was known and not known at the time.

Lobelle meeting the requirement but not delivering a state of the art is different discussion.

The Fulmar was definitely state of the art - it was a modern, all-metal monoplane with retractable undercarriage, a 1,000 hp engine, and 8 machine guns and it was built to an Air Ministry issued specification that followed the tendency to request a number of roles in one airframe. The Fulmar did very well for itself during the war, as you well know, but it doesn't detract from the fact that the admirals wanted single-seat fighters.

Just about everything rolling off the lines in '37 was obsolete by the time it made it to production.

Not necessarily, that's a bit presumptuous as the Spitfire, Hurricane, Wellington and Sunderland were entering or under production in 1937. It also doesn't explain the disdain for the Skua by admirals.

Firebrand is built to N.8/39, the single seat fighter equivalent.

The Firebrand was not built to N.8/39. N.8/39 was for a two-seat single-engined fighter that was amended to 5/40F to which the Firefly was built. The Firebrand was built to N.11/40.

 

[Schweik]

I really don't agree that the Fulmar did well at all - it was pretty dismal as a fighter and didn't really have the range to be a good recon aircraft. I did look into the May 8 combat and it doesn't look as rosy to me as it does to the guy who posted that (not surprisingly). The biggest problem for the Fulmar though was the repeated inability to intercept bombers. It just quite often couldn't catch them. The Fulmar pilots are really lucky they only had the one (catastrophic) run-in with the IJN and rarely came within range of Bf 109s or MC 202s.

I can see that there is something endearing about the Fulmar, and I would say this - for a two person fighter it was pretty good. So IMO the issue may very well have been with the specs. I can't really think of another two-person carrier fighter that was of any use during WW2. For a land based two-person fighter, I'd go with a Beaufighter of course. But FAA pilots seemed to have been really frustrated by not being able to intercept bombers in it. I think they should have made a longer ranged scout plane (with fewer guns and more fuel) and a dedicated fleet defense fighter. In the event they did Ok with Martlets eventually but they could have done something much better.

I'll post some examples later, Mediterranean Air War Volume 1 is really poorly bound and has fallen apart so it's a big nuisance even just leafing through pages, but I found a couple of examples the other day when I was looking up the May 8 thing. Unfortunately Pedestal doesn't seem to be in there. But Fulmars seem to have failed to intercept SM 79s on a few occasions, and (the SM. 79 isn't exactly a state of the art military aircraft in 1941-42) and to have been basically outclassed by the Ju 88.

 

[Schweik]

I don't believe I said anything about the Yaks or the Pe-2 except perhaps that some of the Yaks were lightly armed compared to some other planes. I do wonder if they would have done better with a better engines.


That depends on how far from the "base" you were willing to go.

1000hp at 10,500ft was not particularly first rate 1939. It is 6,000ft lower than a Merlin III and about 90 hp less than an early Allison. It is also behind the DB601.
The basic 12Y without a major "Hack" had reached it's limit. It part because it needed a new crankshaft, a bigger, beefer better counterweighted crankshaft. Which may need a new crankcase to hold bigger bearings.
That was part of the Merlin's advantage, for what ever reason/s the basic Merlin of 1938 would hold up to around 1800hp (testing for the Speed Spitfire), the problem was making that amount of power or making it at the desired altitudes. The Hispano would not stand up to those power levels, it had trouble standing up to the power levels they were using.
Changing cylinder heads is not so easy, Hispano kept the same cylinder head design for many many years because they were using old tooling (jigs and fixtures) from their V-8 days to help make the cylinder heads (machining the valve seat areas for one thing).
Mistral was in the same boat. It needed new cylinders, new heads, and new crankshaft and a new crankcase, other than that, yes a marvelous engine to build off of.
They did do this and the engine gained over 400lbs. Obviously you need a lot of new tooling.
Wright did this a number of times in the R-1820 history so obvioulsy it can be done, but it needs a lot of engineers and a machine tool industry that can supply all they new tooling.

Some of the French pre-war (or 1940) and immediately post war power numbers are rather suspect.

We've debated this before - my take is this - there is more than one way to skin a cat. The Soviets had other options than to go the route they did (small, simple, agile fighters made of relatively few strategic materials) rather than something on the other end of the design spectrum like say, a P-47. They were offered the P-47 in fact and were given some to evaluate it. They tested it, and declared it 'not a fighter'. That is debatable, but it wasn't what they needed. They didn't need an aircraft that could do 420 mph at 30,000 ft, they needed aircraft that could take off from tiny improvised airstrips on the front line, that pilots with minimal training could fly with some efficacy, that mechanics who didn't grow up working on cars or tractors could still manage to fix, and which could fly with great agility and dexterity at 5000 feet right over the tanks. That aircraft was the Yak 9, the Yak 3, the La 5FN, the La 7 etc.

We tend to assume that a bigger engine is always better, more guns are always better, more stuff in general, but that is not necessarily the case. Smaller aircraft had a lot of advantages, like being smaller targets, and having less drag. The D.520, a 1940 design with basically no upgrades, was still scoring victories in 1942 and 1943. With a Hispano engine as powerful as say, a Klimov Vk 105PF I think it would have continued to be a small, agile, deadly aircraft for the French well into the war, had circumstances been different. The small Macchi C.202 was highly effective. The small, lightly armed Ki-43 was the most effective aircraft flown by the IJA, and routinely got the better of much larger, heavier aircraft. And of course, the Bf 109 itself was a small aircraft. It did eventually get extremely powerful engines but the most successful variant, the one the pilots liked the best, was the very lightly armed Bf 109 F series. And so on.

 

[GrauGeist]

the one the pilots liked the best, was the very lightly armed Bf 109 F series.

Actually, I beleive it was the G-2 that garnered the most praise and was the last of the lightweight Bf109s.

 

[nuuumannn]

I can see that there is something endearing about the Fulmar, and I would say this - for a two person fighter it was pretty good.

But that's exactly the point. It was designed and built as a two-person fighter, so at what it was designed, it was good. The problem the FAA had was that it didn't have enough fighters at all, and it should have had single-seat fighters. It's like the Defiant, it was actually excellent for what it was designed for, but the specification was at fault.

 

[nuuumannn]

I view the RAF and the Air Ministry as synonymous, and I really shouldn't in this forum. The Air Ministry didn't issue specifications to the Admiralty is a vacuum - while the FAA had single seat fighters, they also had twin seat fighters in greater numbers.

Yup, Sorry I couldn't respond in depth before, I had to dash out. Copy that on the abbreviations, got it now. As for the Air Ministry and RAF, the former is a government department populated by civil servants that make decisions about all aspects of aviation, civil as well, whereas the RAF... Well, I don't need to explain.

The process went something like this, the Admiralty issued a requirement, formalised in an Operational Requirement (OR) that the RAF and Air Ministry would discuss, then a specification was issued to fulfil the OR. In fairness, not all ORs are successfully filled and not all branches of the armed forces get what they want, but the lack of a single-seat fighter on British carrier decks going into the 40s was untimely and the FAA had to 'make do' with the underperforming Skua and Fulmar when encountering single-seaters. The rationale behind a two-seater is obvious, it was very unlikely that it was going to encounter single-seaters far out to sea, nonetheless, the lack of a specification for a modern single-seat naval fighter in the mid-30s left the FAA short of effective fighters.

The Admirals didn't always know exactly what they needed during the 1930s, to be fair, but by the mid-to-late 30s, as they saw what the RAF was getting and where foreign fighter design was going, it caused questions to be raised and in 1937 the question of a navalised Hurricane was asked. The same with a navalised 'Sea Spitfire', which Joe Smith of Supermarine proposed was further evidence, if any more were needed that the Admiralty wanted single-seaters.

 

[nuuumannn]

it was pretty dismal as a fighter and didn't really have the range to be a good recon aircraft.

Ok, compared to what exactly? A single-seater, no it wasn't as good, but dismal is a bit harsh, it has/had a good service history and record for itself and as for range, its normal range on internal tanks was 780 miles, that's pretty good for a big two-seater for fleet spotting, which is what it was designed for and fitting an external tank increased that to 1,100 miles.

But again, it's academic, the Fulmar was what the FAA had, good or bad and what it really needed was a decent single-seater, but didn't have one. As Thumpalumpacus said in a different thread, you dance with the girl you bring, or summat like that...

 

[MikeMeech]

I really don't agree that the Fulmar did well at all - it was pretty dismal as a fighter and didn't really have the range to be a good recon aircraft. I did look into the May 8 combat and it doesn't look as rosy to me as it does to the guy who posted that (not surprisingly). The biggest problem for the Fulmar though was the repeated inability to intercept bombers. It just quite often couldn't catch them. The Fulmar pilots are really lucky they only had the one (catastrophic) run-in with the IJN and rarely came within range of Bf 109s or MC 202s.

I can see that there is something endearing about the Fulmar, and I would say this - for a two person fighter it was pretty good. So IMO the issue may very well have been with the specs. I can't really think of another two-person carrier fighter that was of any use during WW2. For a land based two-person fighter, I'd go with a Beaufighter of course. But FAA pilots seemed to have been really frustrated by not being able to intercept bombers in it. I think they should have made a longer ranged scout plane (with fewer guns and more fuel) and a dedicated fleet defense fighter. In the event they did Ok with Martlets eventually but they could have done something much better.

I'll post some examples later, Mediterranean Air War Volume 1 is really poorly bound and has fallen apart so it's a big nuisance even just leafing through pages, but I found a couple of examples the other day when I was looking up the May 8 thing. Unfortunately Pedestal doesn't seem to be in there. But Fulmars seem to have failed to intercept SM 79s on a few occasions, and (the SM. 79 isn't exactly a state of the art military aircraft in 1941-42) and to have been basically outclassed by the Ju 88.

Hi
I have already posted this on another thread but here is Norman Friedman's 'Fighters over the Fleet' take on 'Pedestal' air ops (p.114):

You will note by 'Pedestal' in August 1942 the FAA had two types of single seat fighters in service as well as the Fulmar II.

Mike

 

[MikeMeech]

I'll post some examples later, Mediterranean Air War Volume 1 is really poorly bound and has fallen apart so it's a big nuisance even just leafing through pages, but I found a couple of examples the other day when I was looking up the May 8 thing. Unfortunately Pedestal doesn't seem to be in there. But Fulmars seem to have failed to intercept SM 79s on a few occasions, and (the SM. 79 isn't exactly a state of the art military aircraft in 1941-42) and to have been basically outclassed by the Ju 88.

Hi
Information on 'Pedestal' is contained in Shores, Cull & Malizia's 'Malta: The Spitfire Year 1942', Chapter 8, pages 448-516, this is not repeated in 'Mediterranean Air War' as the author's make clear in the Volume One Introduction (p.7) of that series.

Mike

 

[Shortround6]

We've debated this before - my take is this - there is more than one way to skin a cat. The Soviets had other options than to go the route they did (small, simple, agile fighters made of relatively few strategic materials) rather than something on the other end of the design spectrum like say, a P-47.

Actually they didn't have any other options. Not ones that would work anyway.

In 1933-34 they had licensed the HS 12Y engine, The Gnome-Rhone 9K and 14K, the Wright R-1820F.
These were to replace the Bristol Jupiter.
They were "developing" the AM series of engines starting in 1931, first production in 1934.

The Soviets had a real problem in that while they were very technology minded, with advanced theories and designs their infrastructure was technologically backward.
They could not build, in quantity, what they could think up/design. Both the Wright and G-R engines (and possibly the HS) were initially built with parts kits from the parent country with diminishing outside content over several years at the start of production. Things like piston rings, bearings, carburetors, magnetos, etc.
The Soviets spent a lot of time improving the original designs they had bought (and they did license a few others which went nowhere), but the designs were coming to the end of their life (mostly) in 1939-41. Major changes were increasingly difficult and they had fewer options as WW II approached.
You also have the fuel problem. A P-47 wouldn't have worked with 87 octane fuel for example.

Some of the later (say 1936-38) Soviet versions of the initial license engines were developed in parallel with improved engines in the home countries, original contracts specifying the Russians would be kept informed of improvements. The Russians improved some of the engines beyond what the home countries did, in part because development in France pretty much stopped in 1940.

With low powered engines you have choice of small, simple fighters or large, slow, ponderous fighters (read targets). That is the choice the Soviets faced.

The M-106 development started in 1938. It was supposed to be 1350hp engine, production started in 1942 about 150 were built before production stopped in 1943.
Some were fitted to production Yak-1s but they were never issued for service and the engines were taken out and the airframes given M-105s. A number (50?) were rebuilt in 1944 with a new supercharger, water injection and anew ignition system. These were fitted to a small run of Yak-9PV fighters in 1944. The engine was never really sorted out.

The M-107 work started in 1940, Series production started in 1942 and with a number of stops and starts (two of which were post war) production stopped in 1948 with about 7900 engines built. Most of which seems to be post war.

It took until Sept of 1944 to get the M-105PF-2 into mass production. The Soviets simply didn't have a V-12 engine of sufficient power at a light enough weight to build larger, heavier fighters with more armament than they did for most of the war. They didn't have much actual "choice".

For V-12 engines that leaves the AM-35 series and since the version under development in 1939 weighed 1720lbs ( soon to go to 1830lbs with the AM-35A) small, simple fighters were something of a design problem. The Mig-3 weighed empty about as much as a Spitfire VIII. one 12.7mm gun and two 7.62mm guns were a pretty poor return on investment.

Trying to stick one of these in a Yak or Lagg would have been a disaster.

By the time the Russians got through with the G-R K series engine they got it up to 1100hp, they also got it up to around 1500lbs of weight. Trialed in a number of fighter prototypes it never saw service in fighters.

The Soviets were also rather dependent on western nations for machine tooling. Both before the war and during the war. If you are tooled up to make small simple engines then you build small simple fighters (and bombers) to go with them. Not what the Soviet leaders wanted or chose but what they were stuck with, they were smart enough to realize it however and did not go off on hairbrained schemes to the detriment of actual production. They did build a bunch of rather dubious prototype engines and aircraft but rarely, if ever, at a cost to supplying the front lines with equipment. However these prototypes do show what they were thinking or hoping to build.

 

[Schweik]

Actually they didn't have any other options. Not ones that would work anyway.

In 1933-34 they had licensed the HS 12Y engine, The Gnome-Rhone 9K and 14K, the Wright R-1820F.
These were to replace the Bristol Jupiter.
They were "developing" the AM series of engines starting in 1931, first production in 1934.

The Soviets had a real problem in that while they were very technology minded, with advanced theories and designs their infrastructure was technologically backward.

Yes, they were transitioning from an agricultural society to a partially industrialized one, not an easy or comfortable process, as we know.

You also have the fuel problem. A P-47 wouldn't have worked with 87 octane fuel for example.

Yes, fuel is another big problem with large planes and another reason why you don't necessarily want turbo supercharged 10,000 lb aircraft because (among many other reasons) they will use up several times the fuel for each sortie without necessarily doing better in combat.

Some of the later (say 1936-38) Soviet versions of the initial license engines were developed in parallel with improved engines in the home countries, original contracts specifying the Russians would be kept informed of improvements. The Russians improved some of the engines beyond what the home countries did, in part because development in France pretty much stopped in 1940.

With low powered engines you have choice of small, simple fighters or large, slow, ponderous fighters (read targets). That is the choice the Soviets faced.

Well, you seem to be forgetting their development of the R-1820, the Shvestov ASh series engines. They were eventually able to use this on the La 5 series (by 1942) and make what were still small, simple fighters but faster ones. It's debatable however whether the 1900 hp La 5FN was better than a 1300 hp Yak 3.

The Soviets were also rather dependent on western nations for machine tooling. Both before the war and during the war. If you are tooled up to make small simple engines then you build small simple fighters (and bombers) to go with them. Not what the Soviet leaders wanted or chose but what they were stuck with, they were smart enough to realize it however and did not go off on hairbrained schemes to the detriment of actual production. They did build a bunch of rather dubious prototype engines and aircraft but rarely, if ever, at a cost to supplying the front lines with equipment. However these prototypes do show what they were thinking or hoping to build.

Considering the large numbers of Hurricanes, P-40s and various other aircraft (including eventually Spitfires and had they wanted them, P-47s) they were receiving by the mid-war (in the thousands) they could have just as easily imported Merlin or Allison engines (and parts, machine tools whatever) to make their own, had they chosen to do so. In the long run, the Yakovlev and Lavochkin aircraft proved better suited to their specific mission. A good indication of this is the famous Normandie Niemen squadron of French volunteers who, offered any fighter they wanted (which included Spitfires) they chose Yak 9 and then Yak 3 fighters.

 

[Darthtabby]

According to a quote from Carrier Fighters by David Brown on the Armoured Carriers website, Ark Royal actually turned down an offer of three Sea Hurricanes.

Ark Royal was offered three Sea Hurricanes in July 1941. Old ex-RAF aircraft, the single-seaters were barely capable of 300kmph at 18,000ft, and although they had the same armament as the Fulmars, they had only half the ammunition capacity and less than half the patrol endurance. Comparative trials showed that the Fulmar II's performance below 10,000ft was rather better than the Hurricane's and so although the latter would have been useful for patrols above the Fulmar's ceiling, the carrier declined the offer.

Things might have turned out differently had a single seater with greater range and endurance been offered, but the above quote does indicate that the Fulmar had its virtues in addition to its vices. Also IIRC during the early days of radar directed intercepts in the Royal Navy the rear seaters played a critical role. The need for a second crewmember became less critical as the direction techniques became more refined, but to some degree I think one could say that the Skua and Fulmar were the wrong planes at the right time.

I find a lot of the topics being discussed in this thread quite interesting but it would be nice if we could also have a little more discussion of the original topic (Italian aircraft designs that might have made good candidates for carrier use had the Italians started developing carriers earlier and/or been able to continue their carrier program) as well.