P-39 vs P-40

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No, ground kills were not officially counted as kills.
 

Merlin hawks were powered by single stage two speed Merlin 28s.
 

So, here's where I'm at with the P-40, which is my favorite fighter although in fact it was indeed a pursuit plane in the classic pre war nomenclature.
Escort for high altitude bombers? No way. Interceptor? No way UNLESS an inordinate warning time was available, as in China. Offensive fighter sweep fighter in conjunction with top cover. Good. Same for ground attack. Bottom line is that there was no real concept for the P-40 when the real war started.
 


Just FYI - it's a common myth that P-40s usually operated with top cover in the Med - this is one of the things often brought up to explain lopsided victories by P-40 squadrons against Bf 109s and MC 202s on a few occasions. However most of the time the P-40s had no top cover.

Up until June 1942 P-40s were the top cover in the Med, flying escort to medium bombers other (older) P-40s or Hurricanes carrying bombs. There were (almost) no Spitfires in the Theater.

Spits arrived in the Summer of 42 and very gradually ramped-up in numbers, but P-40s were still usually operating without top cover. P-40s had longer range than Spitfires, and the two types typically operated in different areas, while P-38s were usually assigned to escort heavy bombers.

So for example on their famous victories during fighter sweeps over Sardania etc. in 1943, 325th Fighter Group P-40Ls were flying all on their own. That unit, 325th FG was assigned as the escort squadron for a wing of B-26 medium bombers.

Similarly in the Pacific and CBI P-40s were usually the only fighters available and did not have top cover.
 
varsity07840 said:
No, they could struggle up to that height. fight is a different story.
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20,000 feet was critical altitude meaning that is where performance (specifically speed) started to decline. Service ceiling for the P-40F was 34,400 ft - that is the altitude it could struggle up to.

P-40E's, with a critical altitude 8,000' lower, were able to destroy Japanese bombers over Darwin at 27 - 28,000 feet. P-40E also had a ceiling of 29k', 5k lower than the F.
 
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In any theater, P-40s were totally vulnerable to being bounced from above, especially in an "interceptor" role. In China, that became real problem when the Japanese turned the tables on the P-40 equipped groups and started using dive and zoom tactics with the Ki-44. There was no theater or environment in which the P-40 was in its element. P-40 pilots always had make do and adapt. It was a stop gap fighter that could be massed produced when we needed it and served relatively well given the circumstances. But, they were kept in production way too long, probably because it was still a viable export aircraft and considered "good enough" in the Pacific and China.
 
More or less agree, I think it may be more of a glass half-full / half-empty type thing. A matter of how you look at the data. I would characterize it very differently.

Altitude was always an issue but that tends to be very overstated. They developed tactics to deal with it which were very effective. This is part of why it was used for so long - the tactics were worked out pretty early and continued to work.

Not too many Ki -44s ever available, and they (23rd FG etc.) did adapt to them, they only caused problems initially. (P-40 could easily out turn it and dive speed was basically the same)

Still shot down a bunch of 109s and Fw 190s in the Med in 1944 over Anzio so I don't think it was that obsolete.
 
Milosh said:
No, ground kills were not officially counted as kills.
Click to expand...
You may very well be right about that. Wouldn't be the first time something I've read for years or even decades turned out to be baloney. Was hopping i would have some time this evening to try and research it but worked late so that will have to wait for another day.
However, even allowing for that any difference in the respective number of p51s to p38s with gun cameras is not going to materially change the victories to planes manufactured ratio. If we suppose that fully one third of p38s had no gun cameras(if gun cameras were showing up in the Med in late 42 its verry doubtful the number was this high but lets go with it).
And then suppose that overclaiming by those early p38s were inflated by 100%( doubled). Lets further asume there is no overclaiming on the part of p51s in those numbers. What you end up with is a 15% reduction in the p38s overall succes rate compaired to the p51. The p38 still has the 2nd best success rate by a wide margin, at least according to the numbers that were posted and is still just marginally behind the Mustang.
 
The KI-44 was less maneuverable than the KI-43.
It's only strong point was it's heavier armament and even then, the KI-44 and KI-44-II weren't available in any great numbers until 1943/44

And the P-40 was used to being bounced from above, that was the IJN's favorite tactic - from above and out of the sun. The AVG was well aware of this and their countermeasures were to turn into them and face them head-on. Old-school tactics.
 
The Japanese Army's Ki-61 "Tony" fighter seems to have a similar performance envelope to the later P-40, and the Ki-61 hada hard time intercepting the B-29, likely for similar reasons. (Here's a thread that compares the Ki-61 to the P-40L. Kawasaki Ki 61-1 Hien vs Curtiss P-40L Warhawk)
 

Yes and this is what the British eventually figured out in North Africa, though it took them almost a year. Their original Tactic against Bf 109s was the defensive fighter circle - which worked except when you had guys like Joachim Mariseilles who knew how to attack it, and it was obviously very limited.

In Mid 1942 the Australians apparently initiated a new Tactic of turning the whole squadron into each attack and opening fire with all guns at convergence. They would wait until the last minute and the squadron leader would call on the radio "Prepare to break." and then "Break. Break. Port now." This apparently had a very discouraging effect on attacking Bf 109s and MC 202. Seventy two .50 cal machine guns aimed at you at full auto even for a second or two was somewhat intimidating. If the attacking fighters weren't very disciplined about breaking off their attack and climbing away at high speed, they could then be pursued further.

It seemed to coincide with some kind of mysterious improvement in performance of the P-40s allowing for the higher power. Either due to newer Kittyhawk models or overboosting or both. Australian pilots coming from the Middle East apparently brought this strategy with them to the Pacific.

This quickly spread to all RAF Kittyhawk units. They also began pursuing attacking Bf 109s that did manage to make an attacking pass, which they usually followed by a high speed climbing turn to the right. Later model P-40s apparently had the 'juice' to follow them up into that turn and get a burst or two off. They continued this until the enemy planes either gave up or disengaged, or - if they had to press the issue to get at medium bombers or protect their own airfield for example, continued to engage in which case they would end up in an equivalent E state and the P-40s would start to get the upper hand as the dogfight inevitably descended downward and devolved into individual chases of 2 and 3 aircraft.



The strategy, adopted in the CBI, the Pacific, and North Africa, and also by the Soviets, is apparently a major part of what enabled P-40s to continue being used even where they faced attack from above all the way through 1943 and into 1944. I think it's a major part of he puzzle.

The US fighter groups also began launching attacks against the German air bases. This helped a lot - there was usually a small CAP of 2 or 4 fighters, but most of the enemy planes had to scramble and climb up from below, putting them at a major disadvantage, as medium bombers dropped bombs on their base.
 
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The Ki-44 was faster than the P-40 and had a much, much better climb rate.
 
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