Light fighters alternatives, 1935-1945

[bf109xxl]

Change from 109C/D to 109E was about 450kg, mostly due the DB 601 engine and accessories (and fuel). But the bigger engine allowed for almost 100kph more speed.
The 109E-3 weighed 2608kg, useful load was 555kg (1224lbs) But the 109E carried a bit less fuel but more guns/ammo than old Curtiss.

109E-1 weighed 2500kg, E-3 - 2610, E-4 - 2570.

I am sorry, I am failing to follow the logic of an old obsolete aircraft being being demoted to ground support somehow allows a "standard" fighter to be transferred to the Light fighter catagory?

Surprisingly, our opinions are in agreement.

So what's the problem with accepting the definition offered above as a definition? Only "true" "light" fighters - C.710/713/714, Potez 230 (with HS12Xcrs), MB.700, XP-77 (thanks, SaparotRob!), SAM-13, R.30, SAI 207/403 - would be included . Even the VG.30 can no longer be considered as "light" - it was supposed to be equipped with HS 12Y-49 and Allison V-1710 in serial production, its weight corresponded to the contemporary Bf.109s. The CW-21, still, was a "colonial" fighter, and was not considered as an alternative to "conventional" fighters. Therefore, it is also outside the scope of the concept.
It is impossible to achieve a reasonable compromise between flight performance, operational characteristics, avionics equipment and armament within the "light fighter" concept. Sacrificing one of these characteristics for the sake of the others results in a deliberately inferior airplane. The flight performance of the unarmed prototypes should not be misleading - it would have inevitably deteriorated if armament had been installed. Why consider alternatives to something that was fundamentally unsuitable?

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Well, we have done this a few times before

I've seen you denigrate and ridicule the very concept in this forum before.

And there are several hiccups when we try to come up with definitions.
A big one is simply time. What was standard weight in 1936/37 was often "light weight" in 1940. So which is it?
And does changing the engine bounce a plane from "light" to "Standard weight?
Like.

The P-36/ Hawk 75 is a really great plane as with a little selective selection you can often prove most any thing you want.
The Hawk 75 first flew In April 1935 and grossed 4843lbs (2187kg) and had top speed of 281 mph and had two .30 cal machineguns.
Unfortunately it used an Experimental Wright 14 cylinder engine that went nowhere and the search for newer and better engines began and the weight gain saga began.
however a breakdown of the weight of the fixed landing gear Hawk 75H is rather instructive.
Wing............................... 780lbs
Tail....................................107lbs
Landing gear................342lbs
Fuselage.........................467lbs
Airframe weight.........1696lbs
Powerplant weight....1893lbs
Fixed equipment..........386lbs
Empty weight...............3975lbs

Normal useful load..1330lbs
Normal gross..............5305lbs
The useful load consisted of
Pilot.................................200lbs
Fuel (120 US gal)........720lbs
Oil.....................................68lbs
Guns/ammo.................174lb
Radio...............................100lbs
Oxygen system.............15lbs
Signal pistol.....................8lbs
Flairs (landing)...............50lbs

The engine was an 875hp Wright Cyclone R-1820
The guns were one .50 cal machine gun with 200 rounds and one .30 cal with 600 rounds.
Speed with fixed gear was 280mph at 10,700ft.

Now for our "light fighter" we can reduce the useful load by taking out some things, like the chubby pilot
Some of the fuel and oil. Taking out the .50 cal gun and replacing with a .30 cal (two .30 cal total?)
Radios are over rated
We won't fly at night so we won't need landing flares

That's just one version of a P-36 / Hawk 75. I really have no idea what you are trying to prove, or what you are trying to imply that I was trying to prove. But even at 5,305 lbs, that is a light fighter compared to most US types.

You can define it however you want, the point here was to have a friendly discussion about a particular category of fighters (the second group I listed) which I think was interesting, but which yes were never developed into successful designs during the war.

Isn't this the "What If" subforum? I though that is what this area was for. I didn't see this as a contest even though some of you appear to want to do so. On speculative matters (i.e. "What If" it's kind of pointless especially if you seem to assume and represent malice.

However, if you are feeling ornery, we could certainly have a debate about the merits of lighter vs heavier fighters, such as those from my first list vs some of those brought up in the "How good were P-38s really" thread. We can look at the actual data on a day by day and week by week basis, and see which types really lived up to the hype (and the cost, and the sheer volume of aluminum) and which ones clearly didn't. Which ones seemed to work out right away and which ones took a looooooooooong time to grow up.

We can have that discussion with some teeth, because there are actual facts to check. I'll be glad to veer back into that.

Change from 109C/D to 109E was about 450kg, mostly due the DB 601 engine and accessories (and fuel). But the bigger engine allowed for almost 100kph more speed.
The 109E-3 weighed 2608kg, useful load was 555kg (1224lbs) But the 109E carried a bit less fuel but more guns/ammo than old Curtiss.


I am sorry, I am failing to follow the logic of an old obsolete aircraft being being demoted to ground support somehow allows a "standard" fighter to be transferred to the Light fighter catagory?

I think you are struggling with some more basic fundamental things than that.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

109E-1 weighed 2500kg, E-3 - 2610, E-4 - 2570.

Surprisingly, our opinions are in agreement.

So what's the problem with accepting the definition offered above as a definition? Only "true" "light" fighters - C.710/713/714, Potez 230 (with HS12Xcrs), MB.700, XP-77 (thanks, SaparotRob!), SAM-13, R.30, SAI 207/403 - would be included . Even the VG.30 can no longer be considered as "light" - it was supposed to be equipped with HS 12Y-49 and Allison V-1710 in serial production, its weight corresponded to the contemporary Bf.109s. The CW-21, still, was a "colonial" fighter, and was not considered as an alternative to "conventional" fighters. Therefore, it is also outside the scope of the concept.
It is impossible to achieve a reasonable compromise between flight performance, operational characteristics, avionics equipment and armament within the "light fighter" concept. Sacrificing one of these characteristics for the sake of the others results in a deliberately inferior airplane. The flight performance of the unarmed prototypes should not be misleading - it would have inevitably deteriorated if armament had been installed. Why consider alternatives to something that was fundamentally unsuitable?

It's only impossible due to the way you choose to define it, 100% with the goal of proving that it's impossible Enjoy your circle of self congratulation.

 

[Shortround6]

So what's the problem with accepting the definition offered above as a definition? Only "true" "light" fighters - C.710/713/714, Potez 230 (with HS12Xcrs), MB.700, XP-77 (thanks, SaparotRob!), SAM-13, R.30, SAI 207/403 - would be included . Even the VG.30 can no longer be considered as "light" - it was supposed to be equipped with HS 12Y-49 and Allison V-1710 in serial production, its weight corresponded to the contemporary Bf.109s.

I have not problems with that definition. The US had two other "light fighters but they didn't get far, either not off paper or very little wood cut. Tucker XP-57 (powered by an inline 8 designed by Henry Miller) and the Douglas XP-48 which seem to have had some extremely optimistic performance estimates.

The CW-21, still, was a "colonial" fighter, and was not considered as an alternative to "conventional" fighters. Therefore, it is also outside the scope of the concept.

Details of the CW-21, sketchy as they are, hint at some of the "methods" these light fighters used to get good performance. Like considering radios as "optional" equipment.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Quirk is that a light fighter that US government might've bought would've been a 'full size' fighter in the USSR. So one definition will not fit all the parts of the world. What is a light fighter also changed with time.
But we can try with the more localized definitions, that are not absolute but relative. A fighter that weights 70-75% of what the current in-production fighter weights, while providing 70-75% firepower and similar range? Eg. the Bf 109E-3 was at ~2600 kg clean, so a light German fighter fit for this thread for late 1938 to late 1940 should weight 1900-2000 kg and have perhaps one MG FF + 4 MG 17s? If the fighter has engines of yesterday and can be made in the factories and by the workforce that is not seasoned in working with light alloys, and it fits the 'light' guidance, even better.

This is much closer to what I was going for, but again, it was a waste of time.

 

[Shortround6]

I've seen you denigrate and ridicule the very concept in this forum before.

Because the concept of the "light fighter" doesn't make much sense.
You have to use a full size cockpit so there is no savings in material or volume (unless you can recruit horse racing jockeys to be be pilots) in the cockpit area.
You have put a full suite of instruments in the cockpit so there is no cost savings there.
You should put in a standard radio so there is no cost or weight savings there.

Now we can shift to things like not putting in the normal amount of guns. This keeps the weight down but it means you need more planes to get the same number of guns into the combat area, so the cost per gun is not much different. And that slops over into the engines/propellers. If we need 30% more 700hp engines to get the same number of guns into the air as we need 1000hp engines what are we saving?

And this is from a 1939-40 point of view. Once you start putting in armor/BP glass and fuel tank protection things look even worse for the light fighter. You need to protect the pilot and fuel to a certain level, using thin armor or BP glass because you used a cheap/low powered engine means you loose more pilots/aircraft and the cost of the substandard protection is wasted along with the aircraft.

You seem to have an anti-American bias.
The US did do some not too bright things at times during the war. The insistence of using six .50 cal machine guns as a standard armament was probably one of them. This seems to have been down with little or no actual combat experience to justify it which did lead to some of the size/weight problems of the American fighters.

 

[bf109xxl]

I have not problems with that definition. The US had two other "light fighters but they didn't get far, either not off paper or very little wood cut. Tucker XP-57 (powered by an inline 8 designed by Henry Miller) and the Douglas XP-48 which seem to have had some extremely optimistic performance estimates.

Well, I've only included projects that have been finalized for flight testing. If we consider all the projects, you are right, the list would be longer.

Details of the CW-21, sketchy as they are, hint at some of the "methods" these light fighters used to get good performance. Like considering radios as "optional" equipment.

Nevertheless, I tend to consider the CW-21 not as an alternative to "conventional" fighters, but rather as an exceptionally well-engineered lightweight design of a "conventional" fighter with a sufficiently powerful engine (1000 hp in 1938 is pretty good!). But that's just my personal point of view.

 

[Shortround6]

Nevertheless, I tend to consider the CW-21 not as an alternative to "conventional" fighters, but rather as an exceptionally well-engineered lightweight design of a "conventional" fighter with a sufficiently powerful engine (1000 hp in 1938 is pretty good!). But that's just my personal point of view.

It was attempt to sell a beefed up trainer as a fighter. Curtiss had limits success selling the armed trainers to South America. There were several versions of the trainers in almost simultaneous development.
Most popular of the series was the CW-22
US Navy wound up with around 300-400(?)

Perhaps Curtiss was hoping to sell both the single seaters and two seaters to the same air forces using the common airframe parts as a selling point? or similar flying characteristics?

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Because the concept of the "light fighter" doesn't make much sense.
You have to use a full size cockpit so there is no savings in material or volume (unless you can recruit horse racing jockeys to be be pilots) in the cockpit area.
You have put a full suite of instruments in the cockpit so there is no cost savings there.
You should put in a standard radio so there is no cost or weight savings there.

You seem to be desperate to prove that the very concept of a "light fighter" was inherently impossible, and yet...

Now we can shift to things like not putting in the normal amount of guns. This keeps the weight down but it means you need more planes to get the same number of guns into the combat area, so the cost per gun is not much different.

I really don't buy that chain of logic. Hurricane Mk IIC had twice as many guns and probably ten times as much firepower (you can feel free to do the math) as a Ki-43. and yet, in Burma and India, over and over and over across at least two years, the Ki-43 proved vastly superior as a fighter, in the following ways:

Ki-43 pilots survived combat encounters more often.
Ki-43 pilots shot down many more Hurricanes than they themselves lost to Hurricanes
Bombers protected by Ki-43 pilots survived their missions at a higher rate
Enemy bombers protected by Hurricanes were lost at a higher rate

And it also had much better range and endurance.

The idea that victory comes down to a particular weight of ordinance brought into the battle area is taking the logistics side of the argument to absurd lengths. It doesn't matter how many guns you are carrying if the other plane gets the one little itty bitty bullet into the cockpit or your radiator. And that seemed to happen a lot with a lot of these "lighter" planes.

And that slops over into the engines/propellers. If we need 30% more 700hp engines to get the same number of guns into the air as we need 1000hp engines what are we saving?

See above ... and I guess the converse of this, playing devils advocate:

Do we need two 1,600 hp engines to get five guns into the Theater?
Do we need 6,000 kg of aluminum and steel and oil and fuel to accomplish the fighter mission? Or will 2,000 kg actually get the job done just as well? In part, this depends on what the fighter's mission actually is, which also depends on the Theater. But here's a hint: There was more to the war than the Battle of Britain and the 8th Air Force Strategic bombing campaign.
Do we even need five guns? Or eight? I think in part that depends on what we need to shoot down. But clearly some planes were doing pretty damn well with just two or three guns.

And this is from a 1939-40 point of view. Once you start putting in armor/BP glass and fuel tank protection things look even worse for the light fighter. You need to protect the pilot and fuel to a certain level, using thin armor or BP glass because you used a cheap/low powered engine means you loose more pilots/aircraft and the cost of the substandard protection is wasted along with the aircraft.

As Tomo was articulating, which I thought was obvious - This was an arbitrary category based on an observation of the wartime facts. You seem to want to imply that there is only one way to saddle this particular horse. And yet, we can see viable wartime fighters ranging in gross weight by as much as 8,000 lbs.

Yes things did change over time. Maybe at some point, and for some missions, one P-47 was worth two Ki-43s, but I think that took quite a while. In 1943 I don't think you can actually make that argument.

You seem to have an anti-American bias.

I really don't, I'm just making a point.

The US did do some not too bright things at times during the war. The insistence of using six .50 cal machine guns as a standard armament was probably one of them. This seems to have been down with little or no actual combat experience to justify it which did lead to some of the size/weight problems of the American fighters.

The thing with the guns probably could have been cured by adapting the motorkanone approach. They figured it out for the P-39 so the Americans could do it, but they just chose not to. Probably because they couldn't figure out how to make the 20mm cannon work. I don't know if that was just a lack of sufficient emphasis in time for the war or what.

There was a kind of "Gigantism" to a lot of American planes during the war, and it went way beyond the guns. I think the issue was more on the planning / spec side than the firms involved, because some firms made planes that ended up being purchased by other European countries and they were comparatively thin and light, but when the same firm made planes to US specs they were much bigger and heavier and carried more than twice as many crew. And it's highly debatable that they were any more effective.

But I don't think you have to break it down by nation. By time does make sense. There is an average fighter weight for 1938, 1940, 1942, 1944 etc. And yes it did gradually go up, at least to a point.

And there were some fighter planes which were maybe 80% of the size and weight of the average, but seemed to get the job done pretty well. I was calling these "Lighter fighters"
And there were some fighter planes which were more like 60% of the size and weight of the average, and I'd call those 'Light Fighters'.

That is the definition part. It has nothing to do with a particular program. The US tended to make fighters 120% to 150% as big as average, probably (guessing). Some of these worked out to be pretty good anyway, but it did take a while, and it's probably a luxury associated with having basically unlimited fuel and raw materials.

Ultimately, I think it's debatable whether this approach was better or worse. Whether lighter, average, or heavier fighters were better, on balance. Whether "light" (as in, 60-70% average size and weight) was even viable is another matter, but I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it or so glib in doing so.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

I can also say with certainty, that right up to the very end of the war, a single P-47 (6000 kg) was not worth two Yak-3 (2700 kg) on the Eastern front. The Soviets could have had P-47s in fact and declined the offer.

I would say it is very hard to make the case that one P-47 was even worth a single Yak-3 for that Theater, to be honest.

 

[Shortround6]

Part of the US design was the extra fuel. I don't know were it actually came from but it had either very little or nothing to do with bomber escort.
You were not going to escort B-17s with P-36s.
Fuel capacity of the P-36/P-40 family jumped around a bit. Most were "rated" at 105-120 US gallons (454 liters) for performance numbers but the US built in a lot of extra tankage.
The Fixed wing Hawk 75H could hold another 100 (?) US gallons inside. The P-36A held 105 US gallons at normal gross and 164 gallons at overload. The extra fuel was in the tank behind the pilots seat and screwed up the CG so the extra fuel was not to be put in when combat was anticipate.

US had stagnated with fighter armament for much of the 1930s. They kept to the one .50 cal and one .30 cal too long and then swung the other way very hard. The P-40 was not a well thought out airplane. It was what they could get in a hurry that was better than a P-36. But two synchronized .50s in 1939 was little better (if as good) as the Italian fighters. US tried putting a single .30 in each wing to try catch up. There were a number of P-36s floating around with some interesting armament set ups. Like two .50s in the fuselage and four .30s in each wing. Then the US almost panicked 1940 and bunch of armament setups were proposed (Like the Curtiss P-53/P-60 which were trying to match the P-47s eight guns).
Given the limited power of the Allison in the P-40 trying to double the weight of the guns and ammo was not the best idea.
The early P-40s had 365lbs of guns and ammo, the the P-40Cs had 600lbs and the P-40E had 901lbs. Plus the armor and self sealing tanks and this was just too much. The increase in power was something of an illusion. The 1150hp at 12,000ft dropped to 1090hp several thousand feet higher, very close to the power in the P-40C. I don't know if they were hoping for a power increase that was late (very late) in coming. A mistake was increasing the ammo capacity of the fuselage .50s in the P-40B&C from 200rpg to 380rpg. A lot of weight for not much additional firepower. 108lbs of ammo that they had to wait over 20-24 seconds to use. A smarter choice would have been four .50s in the wing and then leave it alone for the P-40E. Save 300lbs.

The P-39 was pretty much a disaster from the start. Way too much gun and ammo for the same engine. Less fuel meant to could not travel as far as a P-40 and it couldn't climb enough different to make any difference.

I would say it is very hard to make the case that one P-47 was even worth a single Yak-3 for that Theater, to be honest.

Kind of depends what you want to do, doesn't it.
Stop high altitude German recon planes?
Try to stop high altitude German nuisance raiders?

Soviets never tried P-47s for ground attack. Kind of a waste of the turbo but the late model P-47s could almost give IL-2s a run for their money carrying bombs/ground attack munitions.

Yes the P-47 may not have been the best choice for fighter vs fighter at under 15,000ft but it wasn't that bad either.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Part of the US design was the extra fuel. I don't know were it actually came from but it had either very little or nothing to do with bomber escort.
You were not going to escort B-17s with P-36s.

No but you could certainly escort say, DB-7s. They escorted a variety of bombers - Blenheims, Vultee Vengeance, even B-24s in Burma / India.

Fuel capacity of the P-36/P-40 family jumped around a bit. Most were "rated" at 105-120 US gallons (454 liters) for performance numbers but the US built in a lot of extra tankage.
The Fixed wing Hawk 75H could hold another 100 (?) US gallons inside. The P-36A held 105 US gallons at normal gross and 164 gallons at overload. The extra fuel was in the tank behind the pilots seat and screwed up the CG so the extra fuel was not to be put in when combat was anticipate.

P-51 had the same issue with the fuselage tank, that fuel would be used before entering a combat area. P-40s did that routinely for longer strike missions.

US had stagnated with fighter armament for much of the 1930s. They kept to the one .50 cal and one .30 cal too long and then swung the other way very hard.

One .50 and one .30 is pretty much what the early Ki-43s had right into 1943, and they were shooting down Hurricanes, P-51As, P-40s, P-39s, and yep P-38s with those.

The P-40 was not a well thought out airplane. It was what they could get in a hurry that was better than a P-36. But two synchronized .50s in 1939 was little better (if as good) as the Italian fighters. US tried putting a single .30 in each wing to try catch up. There were a number of P-36s floating around with some interesting armament set ups. Like two .50s in the fuselage and four .30s in each wing. Then the US almost panicked 1940 and bunch of armament setups were proposed (Like the Curtiss P-53/P-60 which were trying to match the P-47s eight guns).
Given the limited power of the Allison in the P-40 trying to double the weight of the guns and ammo was not the best idea.
The early P-40s had 365lbs of guns and ammo, the the P-40Cs had 600lbs and the P-40E had 901lbs. Plus the armor and self sealing tanks and this was just too much. The increase in power was something of an illusion. The 1150hp at 12,000ft dropped to 1090hp several thousand feet higher, very close to the power in the P-40C. I don't know if they were hoping for a power increase that was late (very late) in coming. A mistake was increasing the ammo capacity of the fuselage .50s in the P-40B&C from 200rpg to 380rpg. A lot of weight for not much additional firepower. 108lbs of ammo that they had to wait over 20-24 seconds to use. A smarter choice would have been four .50s in the wing and then leave it alone for the P-40E. Save 300lbs.

Maybe, but the P-40s had fairly good combat records in a wide array of Theaters, pretty much everywhere they used them. In cases where they were facing a lot of fighter combat they did sometimes remove two or even four of the guns from the Kittyhawk types. Having more ammunition seemed to be a trend over time, P-40s carried a lot less than most later war US fighters.

The Hawk 87 / Kittyhawk types seemed to do a little worse than the Hawk 81 / Tomahawk type initially, but when they started increasing power (and I guess getting better fuel) they more than caught up. It didn't take that long.

The P-39 was pretty much a disaster from the start. Way too much gun and ammo for the same engine. Less fuel meant to could not travel as far as a P-40 and it couldn't climb enough different to make any difference.

I don't totally disagree, though it seemed to do fairly well in the Soviet Theater, to wit

Kind of depends what you want to do, doesn't it.
Stop high altitude German recon planes?
Try to stop high altitude German nuisance raiders?

I agree a P-47 might be good for that, but this did not seem to be enough of a problem for the Soviets to want any. They had Spitfire Mk IXs for their PVO units which seemed to do those jobs more than well enough.

Soviets never tried P-47s for ground attack. Kind of a waste of the turbo but the late model P-47s could almost give IL-2s a run for their money carrying bombs/ground attack munitions.

Yes the P-47 may not have been the best choice for fighter vs fighter at under 15,000ft but it wasn't that bad either.

I just don't think it was nearly as good of a fighter as a Yak-3 for that environment, or as you say below 15,000 ft. If there was a major high altitude bombing campaign going on, on either side, a P-47 would probably have been useful, but that wasn't the case, and the Soviets were offered P-47s, and they did an assessment, but just didn't think they really had any role in their war. In fact they much preferred later model P-39s and P-63s.

On the other hand I'm not super impressed with the Il-2 either, and a P-47 may well have been a better fighter-bomber since it would be much faster at low level. Both are big targets but the Il-2 is actually a little bigger and the P-47 carries more ordinance. You might have a point there.

And personally, I don't think using fighters for attack missions is necessarily a 'downgrade'

 

[GrauGeist]

This has been entertaining so far - keep at it lads, it's like watching angry children fighting in the school yard.

 

[bf109xxl]

Kind of depends what you want to do, doesn't it.
Stop high altitude German recon planes?
Try to stop high altitude German nuisance raiders?

The P-47 was practically useless as an interceptor - on tests in the USSR it gained 5000m altitude in 8.5 min (P-47D-10RE), which was absolutely unacceptable.

Soviets never tried P-47s for ground attack. Kind of a waste of the turbo but the late model P-47s could almost give IL-2s a run for their money carrying bombs/ground attack munitions.

Actually, the P-47 with a bomb load above 1100kg was comparable to the Pe-2 (which had a standard load of 600-700kg!), especially since it could successfully bomb from dive. And the Soviets finally even realized this and transferred the P-47s to the Northern Fleet, where they were used both as escort fighters and bombers - including skip bombing.

 

[Shortround6]

A lot to unpack.

No but you could certainly escort say, DB-7s. They escorted a variety of bombers - Blenheims, Vultee Vengeance, even B-24s in Burma / India.

This is rather after the fact isn't it?
When the US Army ordered the P-36s (or thinking about the first P-40s) they were not worried about escorting DB-7s, or Vultee Vengeances or B-24s, none of them existed yet. The US Army was certainly not worried about escorting British Blenheims. The US Army never ordered any DB-7s. But a lot of things didn't go as planned. The US Army ordered 63 A-20s and 14 A-20As May 20th 1939. The A-20s were supposed to have turbos and the A-20As had two speed superchargers. Turns out the Wright R-2600 engines did not play well with turbos (chronic overheating). Trying to escort turbo equipped bombers with non-turbo fighters flying at lower altitudes would have been interesting.
What many planes wound up doing was often not what they were designed to do. But you often can't go back and design new planes and get them into production in time to fight. Sometimes yes but a lot of times no.

P-51 had the same issue with the fuselage tank, that fuel would be used before entering a combat area. P-40s did that routinely for longer strike missions.

P-51 had the tank added late in the design process to meet a specific mission requirement. P-36/P-40s were planning on using the extra fuel capacity for deployment/ferry flights, not combat. The belly tank on the P-40s was to restore the fuel capacity to pre self sealing levels, not to add range but to restore range. Depending on the rear tank for combat escort depends on the enemy co-operating. Like not attacking in the early stages of the bombing mission. Escorting bombers in the Pacific where there were long distances of flying over water where you could burn off the fuel helped. But the P-40 was not as critical as the P-36. The longer, heavier engine in the P-40 meant that the P-40 didn't have the same CG issues that the P-36/Hawk 75 had.

One .50 and one .30 is pretty much what the early Ki-43s had right into 1943, and they were shooting down Hurricanes, P-51As, P-40s, P-39s, and yep P-38s with those.

People have killed dangerous animals with .22LR guns. Doesn't mean it was good idea, most of the time it was because they didn't have anything better at the time.
US Army (and Navy) screwed up. They thought (planned) on their enemies attacking them with the same sort of bombers that the US was building/planning to build.
Not that early B-17s had very good defensive armament. They just thought that 4 engine 40,000lb planes would be harder to shoot down than twin engined 20-25,000lb planes.
Japanese designed a lot of their fighters to shoot down Japanese style (or German or Soviet or just about anybody else) bombers. Up until 1939 very few people were putting armor or protected tanks in planes.

Maybe, but the P-40s had fairly good combat records in a wide array of Theaters, pretty much everywhere they used them. In cases where they were facing a lot of fighter combat they did sometimes remove two or even four of the guns from the Kittyhawk types. Having more ammunition seemed to be a trend over time, P-40s carried a lot less than most later war US fighters.

Going in circles here. P-40s more than tripled the weight of guns and ammo from early 1939 (initial orders) to mid 1940 (orders for the P-40D/E), with very little power increase. The newer US fighters were ordered with even more guns/ammo. Yes, they did take some of the guns and ammo out of the P-40s, both in the factory and in the field to help get around the lack of power problem.

The Hawk 87 / Kittyhawk types seemed to do a little worse than the Hawk 81 / Tomahawk type initially, but when they started increasing power (and I guess getting better fuel) they more than caught up. It didn't take that long.

Really
Over boosting the engines at low altitude was only a partial solution. It also only worked, in part, because the British and Americans had other types of fighters to fly top cover for the P-40s.

I don't totally disagree, though it seemed to do fairly well in the Soviet Theater, to wit

Really brings up some of the differences in theaters. May also bring out differences in operation and expected engine life and aircraft life.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

A lot to unpack.

This is rather after the fact isn't it?

If a fighter turned out to be successful, it was going to have lives far beyond what the original planners theorized about.

When the US Army ordered the P-36s (or thinking about the first P-40s) they were not worried about escorting DB-7s, or Vultee Vengeances or B-24s, none of them existed yet. The US Army was certainly not worried about escorting British Blenheims. The US Army never ordered any DB-7s. But a lot of things didn't go as planned. The US Army ordered 63 A-20s and 14 A-20As May 20th 1939. The A-20s were

No idea what point you are making here.

supposed to have turbos and the A-20As had two speed superchargers. Turns out the Wright R-2600 engines did not play well with turbos (chronic overheating). Trying to escort turbo equipped bombers with non-turbo fighters flying at lower altitudes would have been interesting.
What many planes wound up doing was often not what they were designed to do. But you often can't go back and design new planes and get them into production in time to fight. Sometimes yes but a lot of times no.

This, IMO, is why warplanes needed to be versatile. Which a lot of these lighter fighters turned out to be.

P-51 had the tank added late in the design process to meet a specific mission requirement. P-36/P-40s were planning on using the extra fuel capacity for deployment/ferry flights, not combat. The belly tank on the P-40s was to restore the fuel capacity to pre self sealing levels, not to add range but to restore range. Depending on the rear tank for combat escort depends on the enemy co-operating. Like not attacking in the early stages of the bombing mission. Escorting bombers in the Pacific where there were long distances of flying over water where you could burn off the fuel helped. But the P-40 was not as critical as the P-36. The longer, heavier engine in the P-40 meant that the P-40 didn't have the same CG issues that the P-36/Hawk 75 had.

I mean, yeah you would use those overload fuel tanks for missions where you didn't have to be in enemy territory right away. For things like climbing up to altitude, rendezvous and forming up with the bombers, and flying to the target. If you are flying a mission from a strip right on the front lines and going a short distance to enemy territory, you won't need that extra fuel and won't use those tanks. Anyway, it's all academic seeing as they routinely did it, successfully, during the war.

People have killed dangerous animals with .22LR guns. Doesn't mean it was good idea, most of the time it was because they didn't have anything better at the time.

Given the actual combat history of the Ki-43, and other planes like the Bf 109F-2, the MC 202 etc., I think that is a laughable statement. You seem to be like a lot of Americans, "If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."

US Army (and Navy) screwed up. They thought (planned) on their enemies attacking them with the same sort of bombers that the US was building/planning to build.
Not that early B-17s had very good defensive armament. They just thought that 4 engine 40,000lb planes would be harder to shoot down than twin engined 20-25,000lb planes.
Japanese designed a lot of their fighters to shoot down Japanese style (or German or Soviet or just about anybody else) bombers. Up until 1939 very few people were putting armor or protected tanks in planes.

It's funny because Ki-43s shot down a bunch of B-24s in Burma. I saw a thread in this forum which quoted a passage from Bloody Shambles Vol. III which covered one of the bloodier incidents in which multiple B-24s were shot out of a large formation (escorted by P-38s and P-51s) by the supposedly insufficient Ki-43s. There is a reason why assassins used .22s a lot. And there is a reason why so many WW2 fighters were comparatively lightweight, and only had two or three machine guns for armament.

Going in circles here. P-40s more than tripled the weight of guns and ammo from early 1939 (initial orders) to mid 1940 (orders for the P-40D/E), with very little power increase. The newer US fighters were ordered with even more guns/ammo. Yes, they did take some of the guns and ammo out of the P-40s, both in the factory and in the field to help get around the lack of power problem.

Really
Over boosting the engines at low altitude was only a partial solution. It also only worked, in part, because the British and Americans had other types of fighters to fly top cover for the P-40s.

The former is a cartoonish oversimplification, the latter is a common myth. But P-40s were by no means a 'light fighter' so I don't even know what the point is?

Really brings up some of the differences in theaters. May also bring out differences in operation and expected engine life and aircraft life.

As I keep saying, WW2 air combat was more than the Battle of Britain and the 8th Air Force Heavy Bombing Campaign.

Anywhere there was a ground war, that meant bombers needed to be accurate. Hauling bombs to the general vicinity of a rather large target like... a city... and just shoveling them overboard from 25,000 feet like so much coal into the bin, was not going to win battles like 2nd El Alamein, Milne Bay, Stalingrad, Guadalcanal, Imphal etc. where small things like tanks, trucks, supply dumps, artillery emplacements, bunkers, bridges etc. needed to be hit. Same for anything involving ships or naval combat. To hit targets like that, bombers had to go down quite low. Often almost treetop level.

And the fighters have to go where the bombers go. Otherwise fighters don't have a lot of purpose Big, heavy planes don't show that much agility in the thick air way down low where the action sometimes is.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

This has been entertaining so far - keep at it lads, it's like watching angry children fighting in the school yard.

This is just the sour denouement of what could and should have very easily been a light, pleasant, and dare I say, enlightening discussion? But this seems to be a pattern on this forum, for all it's virtues.

 

[Glider]

Dare I step in with my general views. Please note the word GENERAL there will be exceptions.

The problem with light fighters isn't when they were first deployed and entered service, its when the need changes. They tend to be short of something, protection, firepower, range, future development, any one or any combination of these.

The Ki43 has been mentioned and there is no doubt that it is a light fighter. With 2 x HMG it is more than good enough to handle early war fighters and early bombers. However to believe that because it had an occasional good day against B24's that it was good enough to take them on on a regular basis isn't realistic. There is a reason why Germany went to such lengths to up gun the Fw 190 (which started with 4 x 20mm) and the 109 (which started with 1 x 30 / 20mm and twin HMG). I believe that Japan were trying a Ki43 with twin 20mm s the war closed. and 4 x 20mm was the goal for Japan in the last few months of the war. Clearly they didn't believe that twin HMG was sufficient. Its a personal view that the Ki43 suffered from three of the problems with light fighters namely, protection, firepower and development potential.

The P36 has also been mentioned but it also had similar issues. It lacked growth. I don't know how many times it escorted B24 but I doubt it was common or regular.

Both the P36 and the Ki43 had a very limited ability to increase performance, they were left behind.

In the post war period the Folland Gnat is a good example. It had performance, protection and firepower. The problem was that it had a chronic range issue and lacked further development possibilities. If light was good they would have sold by the bucket full, not the handful.

Going back to WW2, lets compare the Me109 against the Spitfire. You couldn't get two more equal fighters at the start of the war, but the Spit had the development potential, which the 109 lacked due to its smaller size and this showed.

Starting with the 109E3 the firepower went from 2 x 20mm and 2xLMG, to 1 x15mm 2 x LMG (Me109F2) to 1 x 20mm and 2 x HMG (Me109F4 - G), to 1 x 30mm and 2 x HMG. There were attempts to carry underwing cannon but these had a very significant impact on the aircrafts performance and handling. Chances of surviving fighter combat with this loadout were slim, very slim. As a fighter bomber it was normally limited to a 550Ib payload.

Weight of Guns
2 x 20mm FF and 2 x mg17 = 80KG
1 x 20mm Mg151 and 2 x Mg131 = 76KG
1 x 30mm Mk108 and 2 x Mg131 = 94Kg

There was little weight growth in the weapons carried

The Spit went from 8 x Lmg to 4 x 20mm with a number of stages in between. As a fighter bomber 1,000Lb payload was common, as a PR aircraft it had a fabulous range and performance. The 109 equivalent wasn't close.

8 x LMG = 80 KG
2 x 20mm Hispano II and 4 x LMG = 140KG
2 x 20mm Hispano II and 2 x 0.5 hmg = 158KG

Growth almost doubled.

Size may not be everything, but it sure helps.

 

[SaparotRob]

Maybe it would be better if we started yet another thread about how marvelous the Luftwaffe is?

The Forum has already established, in multiple threads, that applying Balkankreuz to any aircraft will immediately improve performance.

 

[Steamed_Banana]

Dare I step in with my general views. Please note the word GENERAL there will be exceptions.

The problem with light fighters isn't when they were first deployed and entered service, its when the need changes. They tend to be short of something, protection, firepower, range, future development, any one or any combination of these.

The Ki43 has been mentioned and there is no doubt that it is a light fighter. With 2 x HMG it is more than good enough to handle early war fighters and early bombers. However to believe that because it had an occasional good day against B24's that it was good enough to take them on on a regular basis isn't realistic.

It was a lot more than an occasional good day. In fact the speed at which Ki-43 became obsolete, (and I agree, it eventually did) arrived a lot later than many of us were led to believe.

They did prove capable, reliably and predictably, to shoot down heavy American-made bombers in Burma and India. If anything they had a little more trouble with the smaller and faster ones like the A-20s and Beaufighters etc., but they shot those down too. Along with many fighters which were allegedly (and on paper) far superior.

There is a reason why Germany went to such lengths to up gun the Fw 190 (which started with 4 x 20mm) and the 109 (which started with 1 x 30 / 20mm and twin HMG). I believe that Japan were trying a Ki43 with twin 20mm s the war closed. and 4 x 20mm was the goal for Japan in the last few months of the war. Clearly they didn't believe that twin HMG was sufficient. Its a personal view that the Ki43 suffered from three of the problems with light fighters namely, protection, firepower and development potential.

The thing is, Ki-43 turned out to be a lot hardier than the myth tells us. Not only routinely getting shot up and flying back to base, even surviving mid-air collisions on some occasions and making it back. But the Ki-43 is hardly the only example.

Yes the Fw 190 with it's four 20mms was absolutely lethal. But those cannon alone didn't do the trick. The Hurricane IIC also had four 20mm cannons, and it was dead meat against the Ki-43. It was also dead meat against the MC.202 in North Africa, which had a similar armament of two heavy machine guns in the nose, (on paper they had some extra wing guns but these were apparently routinely omitted). I'm also going to point out the Bf 109F-2, which had one heavy 15mm machine gun, (albeit a good one I gather), and two 7.92 machine guns, all in the nose, but utterly annihilated those Hurricane Mk IICs and often had it's way with the (also more heavily armed) Spitfire Mk VB and VCs. The Bf 109F-4 and G-2 were typically only slightly more heavily armed with the single 20mm motorkanone instead of the 15mm.

The Yak-3 was also, I think, not afraid of the heavily armed Bf 109G-6, the Bf 110, or even the legendary Fw 190, even though the Yak often only had two guns - a 20mm cannon (though again, a good one) and a 12.7mm machine gun. Far less armament than they had.

Guns, in other words, are not enough. If it was that simple this would have been the best fighter in WW2

It's also about speed, agility (climb, roll, turn rate), logistics (lighter planes use less fuel, fewer guns less ammunition), cost (lighter planes cost less to build and also to operate), ease of training and flying (later model Ki-43, MC 202, Yak-3 etc. all had good reputations as being pilot's planes).

The P36 has also been mentioned but it also had similar issues. It lacked growth. I don't know how many times it escorted B24 but I doubt it was common or regular.

It was still operating successfully in Burma / India into 1944. It acquitted itself fairly well in Vichy French hands against both the USN and RAF in November of 1942 at Torch.

I agree it did lack growth, mind you, but that was a factor more of the engine and the very early design which wasn't updated at all after 1940. But similar 'packages', like the MC 202 or the Yak 1B, Yak 9, Yak 3 etc. (this last being smaller and lighter than it's predecessors) did show room for growth.

I will agree though that broadly speaking, lighter and smaller planes are a bit less versatile.

Both the P36 and the Ki43 had a very limited ability to increase performance, they were left behind.

The P-36 as I noted, was never upgraded after 1940, except for some minor additions in the field, basically. The Japanese lagged a lot in upgrading the Ki-43, 20mm nose guns would have no doubt made it better. But that was more an issue of Japanese war machine and their design and development process. I point again to the development cycle of the Yak-3, or say, the MC 202 into the MC 205 or the Fiat G.50 into the G.55 etc.

In the post war period the Folland Gnat is a good example. It had performance, protection and firepower. The problem was that it had a chronic range issue and lacked further development possibilities. If light was good they would have sold by the bucket full, not the handful.

Going back to WW2, lets compare the Me109 against the Spitfire. You couldn't get two more equal fighters at the start of the war, but the Spit had the development potential, which the 109 lacked due to its smaller size and this showed.

Starting with the 109E3 the firepower went from 2 x 20mm and 2xLMG, to 1 x15mm 2 x LMG (Me109F2) to 1 x 20mm and 2 x HMG (Me109F4 - G), to 1 x 30mm and 2 x HMG. There were attempts to carry underwing cannon but these had a very significant impact on the aircrafts performance and handling. Chances of surviving fighter combat with this loadout were slim, very slim. As a fighter bomber it was normally limited to a 550Ib payload.

Weight of Guns
2 x 20mm FF and 2 x mg17 = 80KG
1 x 20mm Mg151 and 2 x Mg131 = 76KG
1 x 30mm Mk108 and 2 x Mg131 = 94Kg

There was little weight growth in the weapons carried

The Spit went from 8 x Lmg to 4 x 20mm with a number of stages in between. As a fighter bomber 1,000Lb payload was common, as a PR aircraft it had a fabulous range and performance. The 109 equivalent wasn't close.

8 x LMG = 80 KG
2 x 20mm Hispano II and 4 x LMG = 140KG
2 x 20mm Hispano II and 2 x 0.5 hmg = 158KG

Growth almost doubled.

Size may not be everything, but it sure helps.

And yet, it's not always enough is it. Bf 109F-2 vs Spitfire MV VC, which one wins? MC 202 against Hurricane IIC which one wins? Ki-43 vs P-51A (six HMG) which one wins?