Maneuverability vs Speed

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I think that is fair, but it seems to have been SOP to dive down (often though not always as part of an 'escape maneuver'), gain speed where you had the much better horsepower, then zoom climb back up. And the consensus by both Allied and Axis pilots was that the P-40 could fairly handily outmaneuver and out-dive the Bf 109E, F or G that they encountered (and MC 202). The big German advantage was in altitude performance and climb.

James Reed 33rd FG: "Regarding performance against the Me-109 and FW-190. The 190 was tough to out-turn. I could out-turn the 109, but it was hard to do. I, at times, had to drop a few degrees of flaps and slow down to out-turn it."

Robert Conly 324 FG "When I pulled back up, I had just climbed to about 7000 ft when another '202 jumped me at nine o'clock high. I turned into him, and he started turning to get on my tail. At this point I really swore by a P-40, because I could dogfight and out turn him with ease. He saw I was going to get a shot and headed for the deck, strait down. I never got farther than 100 yards behind him, and he stayed right in my sights. I watched my tracers pound into him all the way. Those good old six "fifties" raked him from the tail up. He hit the deck about 50 ft just offshore and went strait in. I almost got wet in the splash." (Source is Osprey P-40 Warhawk Aces of the MTO

Lt Richard E Holcomb, 59th FS (also Osprey) "Lt Harry Haines and I ended up in a ground-level dogfight right over the German airbase. It was quite a fight, as we were out-turning them and shooting up aeroplanes on the ground while they climbed to start the fight again. We would run for home until their cannon shots came close to Harry's tail and again we would out-turn them. I felt sure we at least two were damaged as they left the fight but we couldn't confirm them."

Robert De Haven 49th FG (ace in both P-40 and P-38): "[Y]ou could fight a Jap on even terms, but you had to make him fight your way. He could outturn you at slow speed. You could outturn him at high speed. When you got into a turning fight with him, you dropped your nose down so you kept your airspeed up, you could outturn him. At low speed he could outroll you because of those big ailerons ... on the Zero. If your speed was up over 275, you could outroll [a Zero]. His big ailerons didn't have the strength to make high speed rolls... You could push things, too. Because ... f you decided to go home, you could go home. He couldn't because you could outrun him. [...] That left you in control of the fight."

General Benjamin o Davis, 99th FS - "The P-40 operations in the Pacific and Europe were much like the F-86 and the MiG in Korea*. All the MiG's had to do was stay away from the F-86's; yet we had an eleven-to-one kill ratio of F-86's over MiG's**. Same thing with the P-40 and the Me 109. If the German fighters wanted to stay away, the P-40's couldn't get them. When the Me 109's came down to engage the P-40's we were superior."

Tom Russel 3 RAAF - "After 3 Squadron had gone through Hurricanes at that time and onto Kittyhawks, Kittyhawk could out turn a 109, it couldn't out climb, but it could out dive it too because of its weight. But the Germans learned very quickly against Peter Jeffrey and his men, not to fight on an equal level. So they would stand up above and come down and pick you off if they could. "

Jack Doyle 3 RAAF - "But in the main the Kittyhawk could out-turn most enemy aircraft so you could at least stay alive, but you might have to stay where they wanted you to and not where you wanted to be"

Bobby Gibbes, 3 RAAF commander and double ace: ".... Our ability, though, was we were able to out-turn a Messerschmitt and we could in actual fact, being a very heavy aeroplane, we could out-dive them. But when the Germans woke up to the fact that we could out-turn them, very seldom would they stay in and try and dogfight."

Kittyhawk could out turn it quite comfortably and if the Messerschmitt boys came in and tried to dog fight, they were gone. We could dive away from them. If we started with same speed and they dived away, we could catch them in the dive.

He also mentions the tactics they developed to contend with attacks from above: "We'd all do 180 degree turn and when the German attack would come in, or the Italian attack would come in, we'd all be facing them, and this was very effective. The Americans eventually did adopt our formation while they flew with us...."

(Gibbes did think the Bf 109 was better overall though)

Soviet Turn time tests also give turn times for P-40C at 18 seconds, P-40E-1 at 19.2 seconds, and P-40M at 18.8 seconds, vs. Bf 109F-2 20.5 seconds, G-4 20.5-21 seconds, and G-2/R6 22.6 -22.8 seconds.
 
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Shortround6 said:
But they were months long campaigns that wound up causing more losses than some of the more intense but shorter battles.
And in 1941 they would affect the evolution of the planes (on both sides) sooner than the battles of 1942.
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Well that's probably fair. I would agree A6M would not thrive in the environments of NW Europe and the ... you might say Strategic and attritional engagements around the English Channel. Speed and high (and also very low) altitude performance were more important there both due to the nature of the air combat and to flak.

But I do think it probably would have been viable in the Med and on the Russian Front, based on the other aircraft operational there and the general combat environment.
 
You can't have it both ways. If you want to cruise at 240mph you don't go anywhere near as far as you can go at 200mph.
For a B-25C/D for illustration sake see

Using 900 gallons of fuel (wing tanks)
you can cruise about 669 miles at max cruise. using 375 gallons an hour
Or about 1110 miles at 195 IAS at 15,000ft using 230 gal/hr
Or about 1280 miles at 190 IAS at 15,000ft using 165 gal/hr

Bombers often could trade bombload for fuel.

Unlike quicky refences like Wiki, there were a huge varieties of cruising speeds and ranges most planes operated at. And yes they often used different speeds at different points in the missions.

The thing with the Pacific is that both sides knew with a fair degree of certainty where the enemy airfields were, where the radar was, and where any AA guns were. There were occasional surprises. In NA or in Russia you had a much lower degree of certainty.
Now since it can take several minutes to accelerate from a low cruising speed, even for fighters, to combat speed (forget max speed) you can't be stooging around at low speed and be taken by surprise and expect to survive. The enemy can often close from beyond visual distance to combat distance in less time that it takes to get up to speed. And if the enemy is higher than you are you are really screwed.

You also can't take your radar net with you on offensive missions.

The Japanese seemed to design their bombers with rather low bombloads compared to most everybody else so they weren't playing the bombs for fuel game. However that also meant that they couldn't double the payload for short range missions.
 
Yes I agree with that, and no, I'm not trying to have it both ways.

I do realize that at different speeds, fuel efficiency changes, and flying faster means less range.

However, what I disagree with and think is spurious, is the notion that A6M2 range is based on 120 mph and Bf 109 is based on 300 mph.

What I know, is that pilots, air commanders, ground commanders and naval commanders during the war routinely lamented the limited range of Spitfires, Hurricanes, Bf 109s, MC 202s, and almost never complained about the range of an A6M2, (though they did complain about the shorter range of the A6M2). So I do not buy into the idea that somehow the Bf 109 had comparable range to the A6M, I think the claim or implication that it is is not only wrong, but insincere.

I know that Allied fighters and bombers both routinely flew missions around North Africa and the Med at fairly low speeds in the low to mid 200 mph range. I believe but don't know for sure that the Axis aircraft did the same. They also flew at higher speeds when in more dangerous areas. For example, Baltimore bombers would cruise at 220 mph (and this requires escorting fighters to keep similar speed) until they got close to enemy airfields and then they would accelerate to closer to 280 mph. After dropping their bombs they would go into a shallow high speed dive and 'cruise' away at over 300 mph.

Shortround6 said:
Bombers often could trade bombload for fuel.

Unlike quicky refences like Wiki, there were a huge varieties of cruising speeds and ranges most planes operated at. And yes they often used different speeds at different points in the missions.
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Yes I am aware, as noted above. I acknowledge I don't have all of the exact cruising speeds for every aircraft or the rate of fuel consumption for every aircraft easily to hand. You probably have better data on that than I do. But I do know the operational histories, i.e. what has been recorded about what really happened, fairly well.


I don't know about Russia but the Germans only had one radar in North Africa, and the Allies didn't have that much with very long range.


Though apparently they often did, and this led to a lot of losses. Gradually they modified tactics, but I don't think they were tooling around at very high speed before they spotted enemy aircraft. For fighters, they would often dive a little to more quickly gain speed when they saw enemy planes. They didn't just do it in a strait line.


They may have had a little bit less payload than some other bombers, but the same is also true for many of the most popular US bomber types which seem to have done quite well in the Theater, like Maryland, Baltimore, early Boston etc. Same for Soviet bombers like the Pe-2.
 
Aircraft which could cruise somewhat fuel-efficiently at very high (close to 300 mph or better) speeds, like the Mosquito, Merlin P-51, B-29, A-20 etc. were fairly rare during the war I believe. And I don't think Bf 109 was one of those.
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
I think that is fair, but it seems to have been SOP to dive down, gain speed where you had the much better horsepower, then zoom climb back up.
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That only works to a limited extent, otherwise you have invented perpetual motion.
You are doing two things,
one, gaining speed in the dive which is trading potential energy (altitude) for speed kinetic energy (speed).
two, getting to an altitude that lets your engine make more power.

Now even with WEP P-40s climb like crap so trying to regain thousands of feet of altitude is not going to work. You can trade you kinetic energy for altitude in a zoom climb.
Now even if you leveled off and didn't try to climb your P-40 would slow down due to drag from 400+ mph to what speed it could sustain using engine power. It may take some time to do this, not instant. Once you start climbing you will start slowing down to a climb speed (depends on the angle you are climbing at, angle off attack) and with an 8500lb fighter you take longer to slow down than a 6500lb fighter.

You have also bought time/separation to trade back for altitude while you engine contributes energy to the situation. But if you dive too far you are out of the fight until you can regain the altitude. A gentile dive can work but a steep dive may take too long to recover from.
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
Soviet Turn time tests also give turn times for P-40C at 18 seconds, P-40E-1 at 19.2 seconds, and P-40M at 18.8 seconds, vs. Bf 109F-2 20.5 seconds, G-4 20.5-21 seconds, and G-2/R6 22.6 -22.8 seconds.
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The Soviet turn test was done at 1000 meters altitude and I believe a certain radius?

I am sure somebody knows some more details, but the radius is rather important as it helps us judge the actual speed of the aircraft.
 
Shortround6 said:
That only works to a limited extent, otherwise you have invented perpetual motion.
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Well, I would agree kind of, which is why most air to air combat, if it didn't end after a quick surprise attack, tended to descend downward, unless they manage to disengage.

A split S and escape dive was usually an option in a P-40. Which is one of the reasons so many pilots liked them. Out-turning German or Italian fighters also seemed to be a pretty routine option in a P-40. This was attested not only by numerous Allied pilots that flew them, as I have shown, but also by some of the German pilots. They also didn't like getting in sustained turning fights with Hurricanes or Spitfires either.

Shortround6 said:
You are doing two things,
one, gaining speed in the dive which is trading potential energy (altitude) for speed kinetic energy (speed).
two, getting to an altitude that lets your engine make more power.
Click to expand...

But they also apparently gained speed by just doing nose down turns to gain a little energy, ala "Low Yo Yo". I believe this is what Robert De Haven is describing in the quote i posted up above.

Regardless, it is clear that many, in fact I'd say most Allied p-40 pilots were of the impression that they could out-turn a Bf 109 or MC 202, at least within their performance altitude limits (12-16,000 ft for Allison P-40s, up to about 20,000 for Merlin). The notion that P-40s were very unmaneuverable is something that came out of the Pacific Theater in WW2, since it couldn't turn with a zero (at low speed), and it became part of the mostly negative postwar trope about the plane which keeps being repeated, gets built into the computer games and so on, so it is very persistent.

Jeff Ethel, the Warbird pilot and aviation author, noted that he himself believed this trope and included it in books he wrote, until he actually flew one. Which he then described as being like "a Pitts with an Allison". I don't know if I would got that far but i think he was making a point.


I'm not certain what you are saying here but I gather that in some cases, zoom climb works well with heavier fighters, as with the Fw 190 for example, and this also seems to be the case with the P-40s.


As noted, I think they did both short 'dives' in combat and also longer ones as an escape maneuver. Neville Duke has a long anecdote where he described doing this three times in a big fight, and ended up making some claims.

Shortround6 said:
The Soviet turn test was done at 1000 meters altitude and I believe a certain radius?

I am sure somebody knows some more details, but the radius is rather important as it helps us judge the actual speed of the aircraft.
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I would love to see more details about these Soviet tests especially the precise wartime source, if anyone knows of one. But it seems to be yet another data point showing the same thing - that the P-40 was one of the better turning monoplane fighters of WW2, and also as we know, one of the fastest rolling. This is also supported by interviews from some Soviet pilots. Golodnikov for example said the P-40 was superior to Bf 109F and G in 'horizontal maneuver', and noted, somewhat reluctantly, that he could easily out-turn a Yak 7 in his P-40 when it mistakenly attacked him.

He thought the P-39 was better though of course!
 
It's worth keeping in mind that pilots like Bobby Gibbes, who noted repeatedly that the P-40 could out turn the Bf 109 (and himself shot down several German pilots when they tried it), still felt that the altitude deficit was a major flaw and that the Bf 109 was better because it could attack from above. That was a big problem. Fighter pilots don't like having to react to attacks from the other guy.
 
The 11 to one is claims not actual kills. The kill to claim ratio seems to be more like 5 to 1 which is still very impressive.

Sabre vs MiG - Korean War air combat adversaries

Korean War: MiG-15, F-86A-5 Sabre: fighter aircraft, photos, specifications, discussion, Combat Photos, Infantry Weapons
www.koreanwaronline.com
 

Yes I wasn't endorsing the kill ratio thing, it's just a direct quote from General Davis.
 
That is one obvious scenario, but there were many others. Park routinely had to put up a screen of patrols because although it was obvious a raid was coming, it wasnt obvious where t would go. Standing patrols were mounted over London docks for example. Baders big wing could have been got off the ground and put in place if they had an extra hour of endurance. Away from the south, in the north east and Scotland more endurance could have got more squadrons to the fight. Inland once any LW aircraft had got through Chain Home it was difficult to track a raid, more range would allow the SE fighters to do a better job than Blenheims. Later, after the BoB with tip and run Jabo raids standing patrols were mounted, it is obvious that more endurance is a help with these.
 
According the TAIC data the A6M3/with DT, burned ~38usg/hr at 174knots/200mph at 1500ft. It used the Sakae-21 engine, but in low blower consumption was similar to the Sakae 12.
Speed for max range was 144mph at 1500ft and that burned about 21/usg/hr. IIRC, the A6M2 cruised a bit slower and got slightly better economy.

In the ETO, even with a DT the A6M2 would have had dramatically less range due to the need for high speed/high altitude cruise.

The A6M2-21 did have the Sakae-12 engine, and it had longer range, (but obviously inferior performance at higher altitude compared to a Sakae-21 A6M3), as was common in the ETO. Francillion gives the endurance at maximum range as 12 hours and 1930 miles (1675nm) with a 90usg DT which works out to ~160mph, again at 1500ft. Fuel capacity was ~225usg (with DT) and consumption was ~18.5usg/hr.

I'd guesstimate that a no allowance range for an A6M2-21/DT at 200mph @ 20Kft would be about 1300 miles (1140nm) and with allowance for TO and climb it would be around 1100 miles.
 
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RCAFson said:
According the TAIC data the A6M3/with DT, burned ~38usg/hr at 174knots/200mph at 1500ft. It used the same engine as the A6M2.
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That is incorrect. A6M2 used Sakae 12 with 940 hp. A6M3 used Sakae 21, which as already noted, had a two speed supercharger and 1,130 hp.
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
That is incorrect. A6M2 used Sakae 12 with 940 hp. A6M3 used Sakae 21, which as already noted, had a two speed supercharger and 1,130 hp.
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Yes, ( I edited the above posts) but the key factor is that in low blower the Sakae -21 and -12 were similar in consumption. The extreme range of the A6M2-21 was at a very low speed, low RPM, low altitude cruise. Most WW2 fighter engines can be adjusted to run at extreme low RPM (just above the minimum RPM to charge the batteries) to give extreme range but in the ETO this would be a near suicidal behaviour.
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
Aircraft which could cruise somewhat fuel-efficiently at very high (close to 300 mph or better) speeds, like the Mosquito, Merlin P-51, B-29, A-20 etc. were fairly rare during the war I believe. And I don't think Bf 109 was one of those.
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A-20 didn't cruise efficiently at high speed. It could cruise at 300-305mph at 9,000-12,000ft but it was burning over 300 gallons an hour. At a bit over 240mph at similar altitudes it burned about 1/2 the fuel.

Now the 109 is another plane where we have to be careful as to which version we are talking about.
the 109E was pretty bad. The 109F could do about 30mph faster than the 109E when both were powered by the same engine.
The reduction in drag meant the F could climb almost 10% faster, turn better and climb while turning much better.
The German fuel injected engines also didn't show the large jump in fuel consumption the allied engines did when the Allied engines went from lean to rich.
The German engines often stayed within around 10% on fuel consumed per HP/hour.

The Early 109Gs may not have been too bad, the later ones suffered. Both with the extra lumps and bumps and with build quality.
 

I would recommend reviewing this post contributed to the thread by Thomas P.

How bad would a Euro-spec A6M Zero be?

They can't, the engine isn't quite ready yet. While they didn't stick the engine into the A6M8 until 1945 the engine was ready earlier, It was used in the D4Y3 starting in May of 1944 and might have been used a bit earlier? But not 1942. Lower powered versions were used.
ww2aircraft.net

3700 km / 2300 miles at low speed (330 km / hr - 205 mph)

1200 miles (with 20 min combat and 30 min reserve) at 250 mph TAS,
 

The 109, all versions, was still essentially an interceptor / frontal air superiority fighter.

No version of a Bf 109 had anywhere near the range of an A6M. Even the short legged A6M3 outdistanced them by a wide margin.
 
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