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I think you'll find that the USAAF operated less than half the total number of P-40's that were built and many of them were used as trainers. So, as a guess, look at 4400 victories at least. I don't know if this helps at all for RAAF and RNZAF victories.Pacific Victory Roll - HomeNot from me. Would have been 'neat' to have some V-1650-3 powered P-40s, but the P-40 never would have had the range or the speed of the Mustang. The P-51 was the plane they needed for the rest of the war in the ETO for sure. And the bottom line is nothing like that happened so speculation is mildly interesting at best.
I'm less interested in "coulda woulda shoulda" kind of stuff and more interested in what actually happened. History is what scratches my itch so to speak. What is nice about this forum is that the tidbits of Aviation History does emerge in these discussions aside from the rest of what goes on. Like that memo on the Allison engined P-51s, that thing is gold. I probably never would have found it. Really helps open up the whole 'overboosting' thing, 70" Hg for 20 minutes without damaging the engine... that is some heavy duty hot rodding!
As far as the P-40 goes, I'd really like to know what the Commonwealth victory claim numbers were. That may that beleagured US fighter shine a bit brighter in the estimation of all those folks who still call it 'obsolete from the start of the war', 'rugged but unmaneuverable' and so forth. If they had 2200 victory claims in USAAF service, how many were there under Commonwealth, plus Russian? Russian numbers might be out of reach for another year or two (unless somebody in here from Russia has some they can translate for us) but I suspect Commonwelath numbers are out there somewhere.
If the Gold Standard is 5950 for the P-51, I'd be very interesting to see just how close the P-40 actually got if you added up all the victory claims from everyone who used it. I think it would be close.
The P-40 was a flawed design, the engine / performance ceiling issue crippled it, but it seemed to knock down a lot of enemy planes in spite of that problem.
S
The total of 4950 is an oft quoted victory credit for the Mustang and represents Only US ETO/MTO (and low). The final total of Mustang air victory credits (after claims processed) for US and Commonwealth, for all types and theatres, is ~ 6300
I think you'll find that the USAAF operated less than half the total number of P-40's that were built and many of them were used as trainers. So, as a guess, look at 4400 victories at least. I don't know if this helps at all for RAAF and RNZAF victories.Pacific Victory Roll - Home
Well you could also add the Fleet Air Arm claims made in Hurricanes, plus whatever claims were made by the Soviets 3000 lend lease Hurricanes, to the 5,871 RAF Hurricane claims, and the number must be pretty close to the Mustangs total claims. Probably hard to verify, maybe someone here has those numbers?
The P-40, born from the P-36, was a design embedded in the 1930's. It truly had the aerodynamics of a brick when compared to later aircraft designs of the war. The fact that it soldiered on, across all fronts from the start of the war, to the end, is a testament to Curtiss' design....It was a deeply flawed design but also clearly had some significant merit in Air to Air combat. The old Trope that it was a 'rugged but obsolete fighter-bomber' is looking a bit weak.
As the saying goes "history is written by the victors" and as the Curtis company didn't exist post-war, it certainly wasn't one of them.yes, I think that is a safe bet.
P-40s became more interesting to me when a bunch of data started coming out 15 or 20 years ago, mostly from Russian and Commonwealth sources that undermined some of the old Tropes about the plane. Some US sources too. There was an Australian author, Russell Brown, who was one of the first to actually check the victory claims against losses and pointed out that many of the experten claims were wildly inflated. Unfortunately his book is hard to find outside of Australia. But Christopher Shores in particular took that concept and ran with it. He has done a lot of hard work particularly in his Mediterranean Air War series, comparing victory claims with actual losses on both sides. Christoph Bergstrom et al has done something similar with Black Cross / Red Star series. Hopefully we will see more of these.
Getting back to your comment, given the large number of P-40s used by the RAF, RAAF, RNZAF, RSAF, and Free French (in descending order of impact), and the large number (at least 46 that i know of) of Commonwealth Aces who scored 5 or more of their victories while flying P-40s, I suspect that Commonwealth pilots shot down a large number of planes with them. Similarly if you look at a list of Soviet aces you'll see that a large number of them flew P-40s at one time in their career, some almost exclusively. That site lists 1338 Soviet Aces, a quick count tells me that about 50 flew the P-40 in at least part of their career, including some of their top guys. They had three twice HSU recipients who flew P-40s and at least four quadrouple, and well over twenty double aces on the P-40. And as we know the Soviets had higher-scoring aces than any of the other Allies.
I suspect the actual grand total of P-40 victory claims might be as high as the neighborhood of 5,000.
Whether it's 4,000 or 5,000 though, that would put the P-40 in the top 3 US produced fighters, above the P-38 and P-47. It's already above the F4U and F4F/FM2 which is impressive. Maybe one day the rep of this machine will be a little more realistic. It was a deeply flawed design but also clearly had some significant merit in Air to Air combat. The old Trope that it was a 'rugged but obsolete fighter-bomber' is looking a bit weak.
Of course once this is proven it will start a new debate about actual losses vs. mere claims, but I welcome that too! The facts are much more intriguing than the legends.
S
Well you could also add the Fleet Air Arm claims made in Hurricanes, plus whatever claims were made by the Soviets 3000 lend lease Hurricanes, to the 5,871 RAF Hurricane claims, and the number must be pretty close to the Mustangs total claims. Probably hard to verify, maybe someone here has those numbers?
The Curtiss company still exists: Curtiss-Wright Corporation - Company - History.As the saying goes "history is written by the victors" and as the Curtis company didn't exist post-war, it certainly wasn't one of them.
Yep, widely used and certainly appreciated by it's pilots in the Pacific.60+ P-38 aces in Europe and Mediterranean.
The P-40, born from the P-36, was a design embedded in the 1930's. It truly had the aerodynamics of a brick when compared to later aircraft designs of the war. The fact that it soldiered on, across all fronts from the start of the war, to the end, is a testament to Curtiss' design.
Every one would agree with that, but what? If all the Merlins were put into P-40s from the start you have a slightly better P-40 and no Hurricanes. It would be a complete shock for any later plane not to out perform the Hurricane and they did. However it was the ease of production and repair of the Hurricane that meant Germany did not have a free hand anywhere, even to the point of being used as a disposable single use catapult launched fleet defence aircraft.Ok, I'll bite - I've made my admiration for the Spitfire pretty clear, and the Hurricane was indispensable in the early years of the war. But I certainly would agree they would have been much better off putting those Merlins wasted in any Hurricanes (XX or whatever model) after 1942 in something else... I know the devil is in the details as to what would be most feasible of course.
But rather than debating that pointlessly in circles I'd rather see the total Victory numbers on the Hurricane, maybe it will turn out to have done better post 1941 than I thought it did...
S
The P-40, born from the P-36, was a design embedded in the 1930's. It truly had the aerodynamics of a brick when compared to later aircraft designs of the war. The fact that it soldiered on, across all fronts from the start of the war, to the end, is a testament to Curtiss' design.
The problem with using victory claims as an indication of fighter planes success, is that claiming accuracy varied quite a lot. Taking the list for US claims posted earlier as an example; late war ETO has the most accurate Allied claiming, which is good news for the P-51 and P-47 as the large proportion of their victories were scored in this theater. However, the ETO is an outlier, claiming accuracy being less, even much less, in the other theaters.
It's difficult to say much about the RAF/ CW claiming accuracy, though the late war ETO accuracy would also apply.
When it comes to the Eastern Front, any claims numbers should be considered more than just 'optimistic'.
The P-40 in all of it's versions that saw service, did NOT have aerodynamic qualities that benefitted it's performance. It was a very capable aircraft and it's predecessor, the P-36, was a very maneuverable aircraft, well liked by it's pilots.That is the sort of cliche / Trope I've seen written about the P-40 for many years, and is completely meaningless. As Shortround pointed out, for an 'Aerodynamic Brick' it was quite fast on a 1000 hp engine. As fast or faster than all the other 1930's designs like the Spitfire, Hurricane, Bf 109 or A6M.