P-51 tank busters?

[pbehn]

The US formed no new units with P-40s after 1943. A-36 units in Italy may have gotten P-40s due to shortages of replacement A-36s for a short period of time in 1944. P-40s using Allison engines may have been seen as requiring minimum training for ground crew. Units were converting to P-47s within weeks or a couple of months. The P-40s may have already been in theater and/or been planes turned in by P-40 units converting to P-47s.

By 1944 the "new" P-40s were going mostly to allies as lend lease. The last few hundred built went directly to scrap yards.

I think by the summer of 1944 Italy had become a sort of back water. Italy had changed sides US forces took Rome on 4 July, and the German military was getting out ASAP. This all stems from a quote from wiki, but I could see sense in using P40s to replace lost A36s in Italy engines are the same and I believe many pilots had flown P40s prior to the A36.

 

[pbehn]

The A-36 did not enjoyed air superiority in 1943 when attacking targets 200-300 miles away from the bases. It actually served as an escort for B-25s and B-26s in 1943.

The subject under discussion was the time when the A36 was (allegedly by wiki) replaced by the P40 summer of 1944, I would say that in Italy in the Summer of 1944 the allies had almost complete air superiority, they had superiority over Northern France which the Germans were actually contesting.

A P-40 produced in 1944 does not automatically mean it will be in USAF service in 1944. Especially not in Europe; Asia/Pacific might be different for the same user.

Did I say that it did?

It's role in keeping the NAA production lines running in Inglewood surely was of great importance With that said, the A-36 flew combat missions with distinction, calling it a political airplane is selling it short.

I have said nothing detrimental about the A 36 apart from being water cooled it was vulnerable, if the US military had a budget for more fighters then the A 36 would never have flown and from that the US could have had 500 P51B/C s much sooner.

 

[Shortround6]

I have said nothing detrimental about the A 36 apart from being water cooled it was vulnerable, if the US military had a budget for more fighters then the A 36 would never have flown and from that the US could have had 500 P51B/C s much sooner.

Not really, the Merlin engines to power 500 P-51B/Cs didn't exist any earlier. In July of 1943 534 P-51B airframes had been completed but only 173 Merlin engines had been received by North American. Packard had only completed 81 two stage Merlin engines by the end of June, 1943. They built 184 in July. It is 1980 Miles from Detroit to Los Angles by air, by train it is ???

 

[Milosh]

Italy had changed sides US forces took Rome on 4 July,

The capture of Rome, June 4 1944, was overshadowed by the Normandy invasion.

 

[stona]

No RAF or USAAF aircraft were good tank busters, even those modified for that role. The P-51 was intrinsically a very good aeroplane which meant that in a ground attack/tank busting role it was inferior to some but better than most.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Greyman]

No RAF or USAAF aircraft were good tank busters, even those modified for that role. The P-51 was intrinsically a very good aeroplane which meant that in a ground attack/tank busting role it was inferior to some but better than most.
Cheers
Steve

What compares favourably enough to a Hurricane IId that you would say that it wasn't a good tank buster?

 

[Kryten]

Hurricane iiD's were mostly used in the desert against the PzII, PzIII and early PzIV, somewhat softer targets than the later uparmoured PzIV V and VI, Stug etc that operated in Italy and Normandy, also consider the visibility and low level approach advantage a gun armed tank buster had in the desert, it would be very difficult to run in low and accurately in Normandy amongst the hedges and trees!

 

[Greyman]

Right, I got hung up on the question by itself and forgot about the time/place in history (movie) this all pertains to.

EDIT: Really when all is said and done - I'd put money on the best tank buster aircraft in Normandy turning out to be the Lancaster (at least the one with the highest overall 'score').

 

[stona]

What compares favourably enough to a Hurricane IId that you would say that it wasn't a good tank buster?

Even in the desert, with targets out in the open, the Hurricane pilots achieved a 10-15% hit rate with AP ammunition (depending who you believe). That's somewhat less than the Typhoons with their 20mm cannon. It's not bad, but hardly game changing.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Greyman]

Even in the desert, with targets out in the open, the Hurricane pilots achieved a 10-15% hit rate with AP ammunition (depending who you believe). That's somewhat less than the Typhoons with their 20mm cannon. It's not bad, but hardly game changing.

Cheers

Steve

10-15% with 40-mm?

 

[bobbysocks]

from wiki

Despite establishing a "reputation for reliability and performance, "the one "Achilles' heel" of the A-36A (and the entire Mustang series) remained its vulnerable cooling system leading to many of the losses.[24] By June 1944, A-36As in Europe were replaced by Curtiss P-40s and Republic P-47 Thunderbolts.[6]

so the A36 suffered because of it was water cooled and the P40 didn't?

 

[pbehn]

so the A36 suffered because of it was water cooled and the P40 didn't?

I think they both did but they were running out of A36s, neither were originally designed for ground attack.

 

[pbehn]

10-15% with 40-mm?

In Normandy the standard 75mm sherman tank armament struggled to knock out German tanks, the firefly fitted with the high velocity 17 pounder was better, good luck mounting them on any single engine aircraft. I think the Hurricane with 40mm cannon only carried 15 rounds.

 

[Greyman]

Hurricane iiD's were mostly used in the desert against the PzII, PzIII and early PzIV, somewhat softer targets than the later uparmoured PzIV V and VI, Stug etc that operated in Italy and Normandy, also consider the visibility and low level approach advantage a gun armed tank buster had in the desert, it would be very difficult to run in low and accurately in Normandy amongst the hedges and trees!

Excerpt from a report from Air Vice Marshal Broadhurst (Air OC, RAF, Western Desert) on this very subject:

The future policy for tank busting aircraft must be considered with relation to the general strategic situation and it is submitted that too much weight should not be attached to the experiences gained in the AFRICAN campaign. If land operations in the future are likely to take the form of opposed landings and subsequent fighting in close country, such as is found in most of EUROPE, then tank busting aircraft, as at present designed, are not likely to achieve the successes they have in the open desert country. Indeed, it is already becoming increasingly difficult to find suitable targets for them in the mountainous and wooded country of Northern TUNISIA.

.. it would probably be uneconomical to embark on large scale production of a specialist aircraft of this nature and certainly unwise to rely on it as a major battle-winning factor in future campaigns. - 12 May 1943

 

[wuzak]

In Normandy the standard 75mm sherman tank armament struggled to knock out German tanks, the firefly fitted with the high velocity 17 pounder was better, good luck mounting them on any single engine aircraft. I think the Hurricane with 40mm cannon only carried 15 rounds.

The Firefly was a single engined aircraft.

Can you elaborate about the "high velocity 17 pounder"?

 

[Greyman]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Firefly

 

[wuzak]

The Mosquito Tsetse with a 57 mm gun would probably have been great but with its rate of fire you need your enemy to sit the tank exactly where you can hit it, plane mounted anti tank guns seem to me to be suited to the steppes or north african desert in Europe The land isnt flat enough and has trees on it.

The 57mm auto-cannon in the FBXVIII had a rate of fire of 55 rounds per minute, so a 2 round burst would take a little over a second, a 3 round burst just over 2s. How much distance could a tank travel in that time? 60km/h is 16.7m/s, but surely that is flat out for a tank, and not its normal battlefield speed?

With only 21 rounds in the rack you wouldn't want to expend too much ammo in a burst. I think they used the 0.303"s to line up, but I'm not sure how much help that would be in aiming the 57mm cannon.

 

[stona]

10-15% with 40-mm?

Yes. HE ammunition was more accurate, probably something to do with its trajectory being closer to that of the sighting machine guns. It does mean that even firing all 30 rounds at a target (unlikely) they'd struggle statistically for a hit. Nonetheless the North African squadrons were credited with some tank kills. I don't remember the total, nor can I find it, but a figure of about 40 seems to be lurking in my memory. That might not seem many in the context of total German losses, but is pretty good going for a relatively few aircraft (never more than four squadrons, with low operational rates).

The IID had the advantage of carrying armament specifically to destroy the vehicles it would encounter in 1942. It has also been shown in numerous trials and experiments that cannon and machine guns were by far the most accurate weapons that fighter bombers carried when compared to dropped ordnance (bombs, napalm etc) or rockets. To that extent the IID was a good tank killer, but I wouldn't fancy my chances flying one in the ETO in 1944/5, and of course nobody did.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Milosh]

Didn't 184 Squadron operate IIDs in NE Europe for awhile ('42-'43)?

 

[stona]

Didn't 184 Squadron operate IIDs in NE Europe for awhile ('42-'43)?

Possibly before they got Typhoons, but I'd have to look them up. I know it was part of 2nd TAF from mid '43.

Cheers

Steve