fubar57
General
Wildcat pilots claimed 4 Bf 109s off Norway Mar.26 '45
Japanese Zero vs Spitfire vs FW 190
- Thread starter Chiron
- Start date
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The USN found that one Hispano was worth 3 .50's in regards to effect on target, when you look at the weights involved, two 20mm give the performance of 6 .50's but are lighter, that is why the British skipped the .50 back in 1940.
fubar57
General
British sorta-navaized the Hurricane and fully navalized the Spitfire into Seafire.
P-36 was a smaller aircraft than Wildcat, without the prominent belly - basically, there is already the FM-2 equivalent in 1941 with run-on-the-mill Twin Wasp S3C4-G (as used on early Martlets).
Here you're talking about all marks of Spits in the Pacific/CBI, At which point the appropriate comparisons are Hellcat and Corsair vs Spits.
Yeah but claims I think not verified. Kind of like the 11-1 legend for some of the USN fighters
There's a dozen pages of replies answering this question, and 1 wing gave the Japanese a big enough bloody nose that they left and never returned.
I know this is probably controversial and may get me in trouble, but the Seafire seems to have been a debacle as a Naval fighter. Poor range mainly but also a host of other problems. At least in the MTO (Italy) it was basically a disaster. They would have been much better off with Martlets.
No doubt the P-36 is much slimmer and more streamlined but how much fuel can you fit in it for those long range carrier strikes? Can it keep up with the SBDs and TBFs? And considering it was already pretty slow even without armor etc., how fast is it going and how well is it climbing once you add 1,000 lbs of stuff?
I never did understand why the P-36 was so slow even with 1,200 hp engines.
They never returned because their bases were pushed back out of range and their aircraft were decimated by USN, USMC & USAAF.
Spitfires and Hurricanes shot down 229 Me109's in August 1940 alone.
fubar57
General
I think he was pointing out (in that and the subsequent post) that Martlets / Wildcats didn't have many claims against German fighters. Most of their 26 MTO victories were actually Vichy French aircraft during Torch.
How lucky are we to have big brother looking after us while we sat on our hands and did nothing, thank's for the history lesson.
I don't know why those rivalries always come up but seriously, it was a collaborative effort. Right? The Brits and Commonwealth surely bore the brunt in Europe especially for the first two years of the war, and did so with great courage and skill. The US did a lot of the heavy lifting in the Pacific, that's just a fact. We couldn't have won without each other, and without the Soviets lets not forget.
We all likes planes a lot. We have a lot more in common with each other than with people in our own countries who like the Kardashians ...
We all likes planes a lot. We have a lot more in common with each other than with people in our own countries who like the Kardashians ...
So 4 planes lost to Wildcats in 1945 constitutes regulatory fighting the Luftwaffe?.
The Japanese decided to stop bombing Australia because their losses were unsustainable, it had nothing to do with any other reason.
It took awhile to tweak the cooling baffling for twin row engines with tighter cowls. As they got better at it, it became evident that Curtiss's approach with the P36 was excessively draggy and inefficient. And the P36 used the early style 1830 before it got the "enhanced finning" cylinders. The baffling was a baffling nightmare that they never quite got right. And then along came the V1710 and they stopped beating their heads against the wall. Remember, most propeller aircraft have 30-40% of their total drag inside the cowling and radiators.
Cheers,
Wes
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fubar57
General
They shot down what they fought
You didn't sit on your hands, you tried your darnedest, but your efforts with the Spit V weren't well suited to the local circumstances; about like ours in ETO prior to mid 1943. And your troops on the Kokoda Trail, now there were some lads who had it all together.
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No poor range for P-36 with 160 gals of internal fuel - no worse than Wildcat or Zero.
316-317 mph at 17000 ft with 950 HP, as tested in Sept 1939. That is with R-1830-23 engine, that didn't have military power setting (power of 950 HP was at max continuous setting, rated altitude of 14300 ft. Martlet received the improved engine that offered 1050 HP at 13100 ft, plus 1200 HP at 5900 ft - made it go 317 mph. One of improvements was a 2-speed supercharger.
1000 lbs added on P-36 = 6800-7000 lbs. Martlet, clean went between 6800 lbs (early models, Cyclone engine) to 7800 (F4F-4 equivalent).
1200 HP engines used on P-36 were low-atitude engines; the R-1830-23 (with 1100 HP for take off) will provide better hi-alt power than -17 (with 1200 HP for take off).
