Did any bomber doctrine on either side of the Atlantic take note of runways? AFAK the UK only had 3 concrete airfield runways when war was declared. You cannot consider using the P-51 or P-47 for repeated operations from grass fields in Autumn Winter and Spring in UK with their take off weights taken to the maximum.
Prewar USAAF Doctrine
- Thread starter Akuma
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GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
By the late 30's, virtually every Army and Navy field were equipped with concrete facilities.
To be honest, I don't think that operating from grass or unimproved fields was something they took into consideration with designs beyond the mid-30's.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
The Dutch operated the CW 21B with Air Group IV, No. 2 Squadron at Andir airfield, Bandung, Java in February 1941.
"With its light construction, radial engine, low wing loading, limited pilot protection and lack of self-sealing fuel tanks, the CW-21B was the Allied fighter most similar to the opposing Japanese fighters. It had a rate of climb superior to the Nakajima Ki-43-I ("Oscar") and Mitsubishi A6M2 Zero. The CW-21B had similar firepower to the "Oscar", but worse than the cannon-armed Zero. The lightweight construction of the Curtiss-Wrights gave rise to structural problems, and several aircraft were grounded by cracks in the undercarriage, and were still awaiting repair when war with Japan began on December 7, 1941. According to one source only nine CW-21Bs were operational on that day."
Curtiss CW-21b
Nearly all of them were lost with the exception of one that was captured. IMO the CW-21/ CW-21B was a losing proposition although it was an attractive aircraft.
Thats great, so they can launch their operations from their home fields in USA? Building airfields in UK was a massive civil engineering project using up to 60,000 people, I can't see that this civil engineering was ever considered pre war. How many operatioanal squadrons of heavy bombers did the USA have on Sept 3rd 1939?
Thumpalumpacus
Major
- Thread starter
- #26
CW-21 (First Type) Landing Gear Partially Retractable, Advertised Climb 5000 ft/min Measured Climb 4850 ft/min.
CW-21b (2nd Type) Armor behind pilot, Armored Glass, Fully Retractable Landing Gear, Perspex Canopy (Replacing lighter type original canopy.
Measured Climb 4500 ft/min, Wing loading (Approx.) 25.8 lbs/ft Note: A6M Zero Wing loading (Approx.) 25.5 lbs/ft
Shortround6
Major General
Jeeesss....................
The 109 came out with the Jumo 210 with a FTH of around 12,000ft, it varied a bit from exact engine model to engine model, as did the engines power which was pretty much in the 700hp neighborhood. Hardly a high altitude plane using any startling technology. Once again light weight in the form of light armament (2-4 rifle caliber machine guns) low fuel capacity (240-270 liters) and no protection (armor, BP glass, protected fuel tanks) contributed to whatever altitude performance it did have.
The DB 601 engine didn't show up until 1938. And it didn't have a better engine performance than the long nose Allison in the P-40B&C. Small fighter with low weight armament and short range was not a recipe the US could use in the late 1930s give the size of the United States. One squadron took almost two weeks for fly from the east coast to the west coast and ALL of it's aircraft to the new base due to mechanical difficulties and weather.
Shortround6
Major General
The British during the 1930s (or late 30s) had a requirement that the tyres on the aircraft could NOT use more than 38lbs pressure. This was to avoid rutting the grass fields and applied to both fighters and bombers. The Whirlwind designers had to ask permission to use 42lbs pressure as the plane gained weight to avoid redesigning the landing gear/wheel well/nacelle.
Permission was granted.
Permission was granted.
- Thread starter
- #29
All of that technology was being developed within that time period, yes?
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
That's a good question about the numbers of heavy bombers by '39, though it would be interesting to know.
The US's ideology about heavy bombers, was primarily to fly out to sea and intercept an approaching enemy.
Until things going going in earnest in Europe (and the Pacific), I suspect they hadn't thought about using airfields on any territory other than their own installations.
If you look at USAAC installation photos prior to 1940, you'll see fairly well developed facilities, even in places like Hawaii and the Philippines.
And it is a purely arbitrary measure. You only have to watch a few games of football in UK to realise not all land drains in the same way and at times any grass field can be flooded.
Shortround6
Major General
Great,
CW-21 wing area 172 sq ft (Approx.) times 25.8 equals 4437 lbs
Zero (A6M2) wing area 241 sq ft (Approx.) times 25.5 equals 6145lbs.
What did the CW-21 leave out? guns, ammo, fuel, ???????
- Thread starter
- #33
The source I read agrees with the one you're referring to but also adds that a Japanese report said they had suffered greater damage and losses to the CWs than had been incurred against other types up to that time.
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- #34
Fully loaded. Original design armament was four thirty cal. with two in nose and one in each wing, during production changed to one thirty and one fifty in nose while retaining wing guns. Model B switched to two .50 cal. in nose. (I believe they retained the wing guns.) I rounded off the Wing area/ Weight figures. The source I used gave 4500 gross weight for the CW-21 and 6164 for the A6M2. I forgot to add that when the CW was designed and built it was supposed to be going up against the Nakajima Ki-27 and the Mitsubishi A5M. Correction: Original proposal was for four thirty cal. guns in nose changed to two in nose and one in each wing changed to two guns in nose (1X.30-1X.50) to final configuration of two .50 cal. in nose.
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Shortround6
Major General
What technology?
The Jumo 210, the early DB 601 and the early Allison all had full throttle heights with hundreds of feet of each other. In fact in 1939/early 1940 the Merlin III had the highest FTH of any engine in squadron service in just about any air force in the world. 16,250 ft.
Every air force wanted more. But waiting to get it meant squadrons with NO aircraft.
That was the choice the USAAC had to make in 1939-40. Planes with less than desired performance or no planes while they waited for the technology to catch up with what was desired.
The Germans and Japanese made sacrifices in some areas to get the "altitude" performance with the engines and fuels they had.
Zero and 109 run out of cannon ammo in about 7 seconds leaving a pair of rifle caliber machine guns. P-40C had well over 30 seconds firing time for the .50 cal guns and 25 seconds for the wing .30 cal guns of which their were four.
- Thread starter
- #36
As I remember, most of the B-17s were being sent to the Pacific at that time. The thinking seems to have been send the bulk of the Navy to the Atlantic, Keep a smaller naval force in the Pacific and support it with more air power.
Shortround6
Major General
This is first I have ever heard about wing guns in the Curtiss CW fighters. It may be possible.
I do happen to have a copy of " Curtiss Fighter Aircraft" by Francis H. Dean & Dan Hagedorn open as I type this. No mention of wing guns in section of the CW-21 fighter from page 242 to page 247.
There is picture of a four gun synchronization pattern from a Model 21-B on page 247 that shows the pattern for four.303 guns.
There are a lot of drawings/descriptions of four gun Model 21s in older books/articles but all four guns are in the fuselage. Two guns in the upper cowl and two guns in the lower cowl sides firing through spaces between the engine cylinders.
A cut away can be found here Curtiss-Wright CW-21B
There was quite a bit of misinformation floating around in old books/articles. Like up to four .50 cal guns. Of course you can find old books/articles with 400mph P-40s too
- Thread starter
- #38
This is first I have ever heard about wing guns in the Curtiss CW fighters. It may be possible.
I do happen to have a copy of " Curtiss Fighter Aircraft" by Francis H. Dean & Dan Hagedorn open as I type this. No mention of wing guns in section of the CW-21 fighter from page 242 to page 247.
There is picture of a four gun synchronization pattern from a Model 21-B on page 247 that shows the pattern for four.303 guns.
There are a lot of drawings/descriptions of four gun Model 21s in older books/articles but all four guns are in the fuselage. Two guns in the upper cowl and two guns in the lower cowl sides firing through spaces between the engine cylinders.
A cut away can be found here Curtiss-Wright CW-21B
There was quite a bit of misinformation floating around in old books/articles. Like up to four .50 cal guns. Of course you can find old books/articles with 400mph P-40s too
There are also some older cutaway views of the proposed armament. I came across one that showed one .30 in each wing along with the nose guns. It was common in those days to change armament and equipment as they went ahead with trying to build The aircraft. Here is a more recent cutaway view. This is the one with 4X.30 guns (Original proposal)This is first I have ever heard about wing guns in the Curtiss CW fighters. It may be possible.
I do happen to have a copy of " Curtiss Fighter Aircraft" by Francis H. Dean & Dan Hagedorn open as I type this. No mention of wing guns in section of the CW-21 fighter from page 242 to page 247.
There is picture of a four gun synchronization pattern from a Model 21-B on page 247 that shows the pattern for four.303 guns.
There are a lot of drawings/descriptions of four gun Model 21s in older books/articles but all four guns are in the fuselage. Two guns in the upper cowl and two guns in the lower cowl sides firing through spaces between the engine cylinders.
A cut away can be found here Curtiss-Wright CW-21B
There was quite a bit of misinformation floating around in old books/articles. Like up to four .50 cal guns. Of course you can find old books/articles with 400mph P-40s too
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Just reassessing this. The USAAF did have high altitude fighters before the war. It depends entirely on what standard you want to apply to their fighters and where you get your ideas of why the USAAF fighters might not be considered 'high altitude'. The Hawk 75 (P-36) managed very well against the 'high-flying' Bf 109, as did the Hurricane and Spitfire, the former of which had lower operational ceiling than the Bf 109E. Combat in Europe, it was found descended from altitude pretty rapidly into individual melees, with the German fighters breaking off to scurry across the Channel to avoid running out of fuel.
The concept of US fighters not having 'altitude' performance is a bit of a misnomer and probably originates from the introduction of the Mustang I into RAF service, but that doesn't mean US fighters weren't capable of operating at the altitudes British and German fighters fought at. One of the first US aircraft to enter combat in WW2 was the Hawk 75. It was an excellent aircraft and trials by the RAF showed that it could exceed 30,000 feet. The RAF didn't put into service until mid/late-1941 as it received ex-French examples that had to be altered to suit British needs, the power levers working in reverse to normal 'balls-to-the-wall', for example. The British actually regarded the Hawk 75 favourably, praising its great handling and manoeuvrability, but by the time it entered RAF service it was outclassed by the Spitfire V and the Bf 109F. It was not disregarded for not having altitude performance, the main complaint was its low performance and inadequate armament. The P-40 or Tomahawk and Kittyhawk was the same; it was not used in Britain as a home defence fighter by the time it entered RAF service because the Spitfire could out perform it. The complaint the British had about the P-40 was that it was too slow, but the type saw extensive RAF and Commonwealth use.
The Airacobra I (P-39) and the Lightning I (P-38) in RAF service were the exception in that they weren't fitted with turbo-superchargers, but the Airacobra had other issues that led to its rejection, such as compass deviation after gun firing, up to 160 deg(!). Of course the P-38 with the turbos was a formidable fighter and goes to prove that US fighters did have good altitude performance.
Cheers,
Some misconceptions are still alive up to this day. One of them was that P-39 was without a supercharger. It indeed lost turbosupercharger (a.k.a. turbo) going from XP-39 to the XP-39B, but the internal supercharger was still there (even if it was of not of the greatest capacity). Turbo was feeding the compressed air to the internal supercharger that was to compress it ever further (= two superchargers were working in series), needed since air at high altitudes was not as dense as at lower altitudes.
The initial XP-39 was draggy affair, with drag coefficient (0.0329) comparable with the biplanes with fixed undercarriage, thus the XP-39 was making 340 mph at 20000 ft instead of close to 400 mph as expected and touted by Larry Bell.
XP-39 was promptly shipped to NACA in order to improve the streamlining. One of their suggestions was to remove the turbo installation alltogether, and install the engine version with faster-turning impeller; expected was 400 mph at 15000 ft on 1150 HP, and P-39C was almost there, even after the guns were installed.
USAAC was still pursuing turbo-outfited fighters with P-43, P-38 and later P-47.
P-36 and P-40 were very good fighters, lack of engine power at higher altitudes keeping them from being in the top league..
