My point is simply that Packard improved the Merlin at a time when it was technically beyond RR and introduced mass production and quality control concsistancy that was beyond RR as well.
So which are you claiming, that the Merlin wasn't reliable in 1941, or that is wasn't being mass produced?
The answer is that it was relaible and in mass production, so the argument that it was Packards input that made that possible falls down.
Getting all you want for free was pretty damned good deal when compared to the relative trickle GB imported before the war.
Certainly the extra fuel came in handy, especially with the enormous size of the strategic bomber offensive in 1944 and 1945, but pre war supplies were hardly a "trickle". As of mid 1941, imports from non-US sources of 100 octane were 500,000 tons a year. In November 1940, just after the BoB, stocks of 100 octane in the UK amounted to 500,000 tons, and the air ministry was justifying the large amount of fuel purchased by saying it would have commercial use after the war, and was a "capital asset that will not depreciate".
To put those figures in perspective, Fighter Command consumed about 25,000 tons of 100 octane during the BoB, and the 500,000 tons in Nov 1940 was, according to the report, enough for 80 weeks consumption.
These figures were dwarfed by the expansion later in the war, of course, but hardly represent a trickle, especially by the standards of the much smaller forces in the early war years.
The American auto industry more than excelled in war material production.
There's no doubt of that. But it's a huge stretch to go from that to claiming that Packard was required to productionise the Merlin, and to improve it's reliability, when both had been done long before Packard became involved. The myth of Rolls Royce craftsmen hand building, and hand fitting, Merlins until Packard came along is just that, a myth.
It's also true that the British motor industry carried out the same functions. For example, it was largely the car inductry that mass produced the Bristol Hercules, turning out close to 60,000 of them before the end of the war. Morris cars created the Castle Bromwich Spitfire plant, that produced more than 15,000 Spitfires during the war.
Don't forget, Britain, with just over half the population of Germany, produced more aircraft, and far more in terms of weight, and far more aero engines, whilst employing less workers in the aircraft industry than Germany.
Simply installing machine tools to give capacity for numbers does not guarantee consistancy or quality for your new-found quantity output ability. That was the problem RR had.
So you are claiming quality problems for Merlins before Packard became involved? Could you provide some evidence of that (apart from the early models in 1937 and 1938, when the design was still being developed)
Because the RAF seemed very happy with the quality and reliability of the Merlin once it was properly in service during the war.
They had absolutely no experience in large quantity production of complex engines and the attendant quality control consistancy needed to ensure that the 1st engine off the line was as reliable as the last in a given annual prodution run.
Which is probably why they also drew experience from the motor industry.
There was no way RR could go from a couple hundred engines a year to 200,000 as they did without immense changes to their philosophy of quality control.
I don't think they ever went to 200,000 units a year.
Simply building factories that could put out quantity didn't mean that modern quality control was automatically apparent. The Merlin's success was partly due to the influence of Packard's modern techniques of quality, mass production consistancy an innovation.
So you are saying that until 1941 the Merlin wasn't reliable? Again, this isn't borne out by the facts. The fact is, long before Packard became involved, the Merlin was being mass produced with excellent quality. Now certainly Packard mass produced a lot of Merlins, and their contribution made sure even more Merlins could be produced, but the Merlin was already in mass production, and already reliable, before Packard became involed. And again, it was the Packard engines that had more of a reputation for problems than the British built engines.
Ford and Chevrolet alone each produced over 1 million cars in 1941 before our entry into the war. No one on the planet produced vehicles or engines of those numbers with consistantly reliable reputations, no one.
Of course not, America was a much larger country, with far more people, and far more cars. But it's a huge, and unwarranted, jump to go from saying America produced more cars than anyone else to saying only America could mass produce with quality. The historical record is that in the late 30s Rolls Royce developed the Merlin for mass production and sorted out the quality.
If you want to claim Packard was responsible for this, you have to show that the Merlin was either unreliable before Packard became involved (ie in 1940 and 1941) or not being mass produced. Neither is true.
