"Stretch or not strech" of aircraft designs

[Schweik]

For the Americans you had 3 companies designing major aircraft piston engines, Packard pretty much built Merlin's under licence.

Packard's chief aircraft engine designer had died in 1931 (?) in an an aircraft crash. The PT boat engine was derived from the larger of the old V-12 aircraft engines (and was of 2500 cu in ).


The US did have slew of other engine makers/designers but lets face it. Air Cooled Motors (Franklin), Continental, Jacobs, Lycoming, Kinner, Fairchild (Ranger), and a few others never developed an engine that saw use in a 1st line combat aircraft. Designing 50-350hp engines that ran on low grade fuel was hard to transition to over 1000hp engines running on 100 octane and up.
Many other countries also had engine makers that built light engines. England had De Havilland and Blackburn making inline fours and sixes for instance.

But for piston engines that counted in combat aircraft the numbers of design teams were pretty much as given.

Some of the light engine makers did get development contracts for Jet engines as most of the big companies were stretched to the max working on piston engines.
For the US some weird notion of secrecy prevented Jet engines being developed at major engine companies.

The Soviet Klimov M-100 series was itself derived from the famous and highly influential Hispano-Suiza 12Y, around which the whole Klimov "Design Bureau" was organized, though admittedly they took them farther than Packard did the RR Merlin. Later postwar the whole company was built around making Soviet derivations of the Rolls Royce Nene and Derwent turbojets...

For a company (mostly) in a neutral country and not directly involved in the war effort, Hispano-Suiza was for sure one of the more important firms in terms of original designs for WW2.

 

[Shortround6]

That said, I don't think the Soviets were slacking on engine development, I just think they could have, if they'd really felt the need, put more into engine development vs. manufacture or design of fighters, or bombers, or trucks or tanks or small arms or submarines or whatever. I don't think they felt the deficiencies of the Klimov etc. engines as sorely as it may appear they should have to some.

You might want to come up with a theory that covers all the attempts to replace the Klimov engines then.

Lagg-3 to La-5 for example. The Lagg-3 underperformed with the M-105 engine and was due to be dropped from production until the more powerful radial was installed.

Or how about the fact that the Yak-1s were supposed to be powered by the M-107 engine? Due to problems with the engine it didn't power service Yaks until the Yak-9U

From Wiki:
"Yak-9U (VK-107)
The definitive Yak-9 variant, Yak-9U (VK-105) equipped with the new Klimov VK-107A engine with 1,230 kW (1,650 hp), and the 20 mm ShVAK with 120 rounds replacing the VYa. Weight of fire: 2.72 kg (5.98 lb)/sec. Early test flights in 1943 indicated that the only comparable Soviet fighter was Polikarpov I-185 prototype which was more difficult to fly and less agile due to higher weight. The prototype's top speed of 700 km/h (435 mph) at 5,600 m (18,370 ft) was faster than any other production fighter aircraft in the world at the time, other than the P-51B that could reach up to 441 mph on military power.[15] Early problems with overheating were fixed by enlarging the radiators and production aircraft had further improved aerodynamics. Turning ability to complete a circle: 23 sec, best Soviet fighter at altitude."

Please note that postwar production of the VK-107 and the Yak 9U were stopped twice for several months each time as they tried to sort out the engine.

Yak-7 with M-82 radial?

How about Yak 1s with the M-106 engine.?

In 1941 the engine was supposed deliver 1350hp for take-off and at 6500ft. 1250hp was supposed to be available at 13,000ft. It weighed the same as an M-105 engine. later a different supercharger (single speed) was fitted.

When tested in Jan 1943 this aircraft achieved 342mph at sea level and 391moh at 11,200ft, climb to 16,400ft took 4.5 minutes.
However (like many soviet aircraft) the provisions for cooling were insufficient. Despite problems with both cooling and the engine itself ( vibrations, detonations, smoking and poor oil seals) 47 Yak 1s with the M-106 engine had been built by Feb 18th 1943 (Production aircraft did lose some speed) but it seems they were not accepted (tested?) and some were repowered with M-105PF engines.

A number of variant aircraft often had armament cut to a single 20mm gun in order to increase performance or ceiling.

A number of different aircraft got the M-82 engine but in many cases it did not provide the increased performance the Lagg fighter showed.

The Soviets were searching for more engine power, it was harder to come by than many thought.

 

[Shortround6]

For a company (mostly) in a neutral country and not directly involved in the war effort, Hispano-Suiza was for sure one of the more important firms in terms of original designs for WW2.

I am not sure how you figure that one.
Yes there were Hispano factories in Spain (Neutral?) but there were also factories in France (and the gun factory in England) that Hispano had interests in.

Once France surrendered Hispano's influence on designs of either engines or guns stopped for the duration of the war. Hispano had been heavily involved with France's war effort.
The Hispano V-12 engine was slamming into a wall in 1940 and needed considerable modification to even stay remotely competitive.

 

[Shortround6]

Well I'm certainly not suggesting that if they could have doubled horsepower in 1942 they wouldn't have done so. What I am saying is the following:

• Every nation decided how much money to allocate in their defense budget
• Some went to R&D, some to production, some training, some to logistics
• Of course the Soviets were working on better aircraft designs, better engines, things like rockets and so on.
• But I suspect the Soviets probably put a bit more emphasis on production than on R&D, across the board.
• They did support and push the design efforts, but by the time their factories were working, they got what they needed and didn't ramp it up to another level. This is what I mean by 'just enough'.

If you are arguing that they were at the absolute maximum investment they could have made in engine development in terms of money, logistical resources, people, infrastructure, political cover and so on, then I think you are mistaken.

You keep missing the point. The Soviets had engines of several hundred more horsepower than the M-105 in development in 1938-1940. The aircraft designers were planning on using these engines. The Soviet planners had already ordered these engines into production before the Germans attacked. The production orders for the engines were premature and the engines were on no way ready for service use (even by Soviet standards). This meant that the production aircraft of that generation of Russian aircraft had to make do with the lower powered M-105 series engines. In order to maintain the desired performance (or at least close to it) something/s had to be sacrificed and one of the things sacrificed was armament.

The Lagg was designed to use a 23mm gun. When it failed in testing the two designers were sent to prison and later shot. The 20mm ShVAK cannon was the fall back cannon (it entered service in 1936). I don't what was intended for the Yak prototype but it flew with one 20mm gun and four 7.62 guns, the 2nd prototype took out two of the machine guns to correct a CG problem. The Soviets showed every indication of wanting to use more or bigger guns in the design stage (or in later variants) than the majority of their production fighters carried.
The NS-37mm gun in the Yak-9T weighed about 4 times as much as the 20mm ShVAK.
They were caught between what they needed and what they wanted or what they desired to counter any future German improvements. This was always a problem with accepting weapons that just good enough.
The Russians were also constrained by manufacturing capability. Engineers were also a bit thin. Russian light tanks were pretty much a disaster but since they didn't have enough T-34s they built thousands of crappy light tanks just to make up numbers until the situation got better and they could get the factories to make something else (SU-76 SP guns).

The Soviets could be quite ruthless when it came to producing weapons and evaluating effectiveness but often this ruthlessness was because there was no "good" answer, but only a choice between bad and even worse. They often could not wait for the weapons/planes they wanted and had to settle for what they could make even knowing that due to performance shortfalls they are going to take large losses.

I am not trying to blame the Russians here,
The US was 'saved' by the Allison company finding new ways to make better and stronger parts for the Allison that allowed it to survive the extra power it could make using 100/130 fuel.
The US trying to rely on the US Army/Continental IV-1430 doesn't bear thinking about (even in 1943/44 it couldn't make the power claimed for it in 1941)

 

[jetcal1]

On the subject of Russian/Soviet engines.
For the US some weird notion of secrecy prevented Jet engines being developed at major engine companies.

The funny thing is Northrop/PWA were working turboprop concepts and Lockheed the L-1000 (XJ37) pre-war, I believe the Northrop engine was getting War Department funding.
The PWA effort did eventually become the T34.

 

[Dan Fahey]

Stalin was a sycophant!
He would send civilians armed with rocks and pitchforks en-mass along with his armed military to push back the Germans.
Germans would throw everything at them until munitions ran out and had to fall back to get more.
The Russian people were starving anyway. What food was available went to the army.
Not much different than the Japanese Kamikaze field and air units to push back the Allies.

Desperate people do desperate things..

 

[Schweik]

I don't really disagree with that a whole lot Dan but the word "sycophant" means something different than you appear to think it does.

 

[michael rauls]

I think he meant psychopath.

 

[Schweik]

You keep missing the point. The Soviets had engines of several hundred more horsepower than the M-105 in development in 1938-1940. The aircraft designers were planning on using these engines. The Soviet planners had already ordered these engines into production before the Germans attacked. The production orders for the engines were premature and the engines were on no way ready for service use (even by Soviet standards). This meant that the production aircraft of that generation of Russian aircraft had to make do with the lower powered M-105 series engines. In order to maintain the desired performance (or at least close to it) something/s had to be sacrificed and one of the things sacrificed was armament.

The Lagg was designed to use a 23mm gun. When it failed in testing the two designers were sent to prison and later shot. The 20mm ShVAK cannon was the fall back cannon (it entered service in 1936). I don't what was intended for the Yak prototype but it flew with one 20mm gun and four 7.62 guns, the 2nd prototype took out two of the machine guns to correct a CG problem. The Soviets showed every indication of wanting to use more or bigger guns in the design stage (or in later variants) than the majority of their production fighters carried.
The NS-37mm gun in the Yak-9T weighed about 4 times as much as the 20mm ShVAK.
They were caught between what they needed and what they wanted or what they desired to counter any future German improvements. This was always a problem with accepting weapons that just good enough.
The Russians were also constrained by manufacturing capability. Engineers were also a bit thin. Russian light tanks were pretty much a disaster but since they didn't have enough T-34s they built thousands of crappy light tanks just to make up numbers until the situation got better and they could get the factories to make something else (SU-76 SP guns).

The Soviets could be quite ruthless when it came to producing weapons and evaluating effectiveness but often this ruthlessness was because there was no "good" answer, but only a choice between bad and even worse. They often could not wait for the weapons/planes they wanted and had to settle for what they could make even knowing that due to performance shortfalls they are going to take large losses.

I am not trying to blame the Russians here,
The US was 'saved' by the Allison company finding new ways to make better and stronger parts for the Allison that allowed it to survive the extra power it could make using 100/130 fuel.
The US trying to rely on the US Army/Continental IV-1430 doesn't bear thinking about (even in 1943/44 it couldn't make the power claimed for it in 1941)

The story of aircraft designs all over the world is one of new engines not panning out. Every country (even England) had promising aircraft designs which never went anywhere because engines didn't pan out. Every country had promising engine designs they struggled with. Allison ultimately made 'adequate' engines for American needs, and they were probably better overall than most of the M-105 series, but they were hardly spectacular compared to say a Rolls Royce Merlin or DB.601 and they didn't produce spectacular power let alone high altitude performance (unless you connected them to a G.E. turbo).

We've talked about this before, the UK and Germany were way ahead of everyone else (and very lucky for it) in in-line engine development. Radials seemed to be a bit easier to make into performers (in part by doubling the number of cylinders with a second row) and both the US and the USSR had quite powerful ones by the mid-war. So did the Japanese.

Everything you posted above is quite familiar to me, I have read all those Wikis you've been quoting from and a few books too. The bottom line is the Soviets could have put more into aircraft (and engine) design and development: more people, more buildings, more materials, more money. I don't think they had literally every resource that could be stuffed into that task up there in Leningrad.

So if you can swallow that pill the next question is 'why'. Were they saying over shots of vodka "Comrade Tupolev! Comrade Yakovlev! I feel great sadness in my heart because Thunderbolts are so much better than our planes. If only we had the Seversky Design Bureau to save us, we could fly through the high clouds! ура приятель!"

Or did they decide what to do deliberately, with the same cold pragmatism with which they planned that masterful counterstoke, the cunning maskirovka we know as Operatsiya "Uran"? Did they carefully hoard every barrel of fuel, every ingot of aluminum, every bushel of sorghum they could use to solve their existential problems? Did they read the combat report summaries every day, convene a meeting and decide how much to push for and support this, and how much that. How many rubles to spend opening the new T-34 factory in Karkhov? How much on rebuilding factory number 31 at Tblisi so we can start cranking out more LaGG-3? How many more to retool it for Yak-7 production? Do we send Gorbunov the ASh-82s he's asking for? How much will it cost to repair 5 railroad bridges so we can get this 9 tons of carrots to Leningrad to postpone total starvation another few days? (and so on).

I think if you go through the war year by year, month by month from 1942, the Soviets had fighters that could, as designed, contend with the German fighters of that particular moment on a relatively equal basis (at the altitude and in the conditions of the front). A properly made, well piloted Yak-1 could cope with a Bf 109E. A Yak-1B or Yak-7B could handle a Bf 109F. A Yak-9 or La 5 could deal with early G models and so on. The problem was getting A) enough units of the best fighter of the moment to the front line units in time or the next battle, B) get the production quality high enough that they are performing at or near spec (that was a big one), and C) get enough farm boys trained to be pilots with enough skill to get the most out of them, and enough talented veterans put in the right places to lead them.

For that matter you might want to look at radio manufacturing as almost as important as guns or superchargers. Because in the early war it wasn't just the Japanese who had to rely on hand signals. Getting to full transmitter / receiver rigs in each fighter took a while for the Soviet war machine. How much does a full radio set improve the combat effectiveness of that same squadron of Yak-1Bs?

 

[Schweik]

I am not sure how you figure that one.
Yes there were Hispano factories in Spain (Neutral?) but there were also factories in France (and the gun factory in England) that Hispano had interests in.

Once France surrendered Hispano's influence on designs of either engines or guns stopped for the duration of the war. Hispano had been heavily involved with France's war effort.
The Hispano V-12 engine was slamming into a wall in 1940 and needed considerable modification to even stay remotely competitive.

Hispano Suiza was based in Spain, in Catalonia. The chief engineer and designer who created the main gun in the Spitfire and the Hurricane (and a lot of other planes) was Swiss -hence the name but they were a Spanish company. They also had a branch in Paris and a branch in Argentina, but beyond that I think they mostly just sold their designs for things like inline engines and guns. And inline engines which worked with guns in the middle

 

[Dan Fahey]

Looking at all the liquid cooled combat engines.
IMHO the Allision was the best platform.
Had the better more efficient single speed single stage Supercharger.
It was more rugged easier to rebuild and good stretch with better cranks.

The P40Q should have been built.
Even if it was only for the Bubble Canopy helping SA.

A second Supercharger on the Allison would have opened up its flight envelop and still keep its low altitude performance.
Not using the P63 was also short sighted.
Would have been our best ground attack and fighter.
Able to fight its was out of the target area.

We didn't shoot Engineers like Stalin did.
But had a way of shooting our own foot off.

Stalin was desperate and violent history of being attacked by China, Europe and Asia.
US was a bit player in WW2 in comparison...
Just not the same sense of urgency.

 

[Ivan1GFP]

Well I'm certainly not suggesting that if they could have doubled horsepower in 1942 they wouldn't have done so. What I am saying is the following:

• Every nation decided how much money to allocate in their defense budget
• Some went to R&D, some to production, some training, some to logistics
• Of course the Soviets were working on better aircraft designs, better engines, things like rockets and so on.
• But I suspect the Soviets probably put a bit more emphasis on production than on R&D, across the board.
• They did support and push the design efforts, but by the time their factories were working, they got what they needed and didn't ramp it up to another level. This is what I mean by 'just enough'.

If you are arguing that they were at the absolute maximum investment they could have made in engine development in terms of money, logistical resources, people, infrastructure, political cover and so on, then I think you are mistaken.

Hello Schweik,

I believe you are underestimating the sheer amount of effort required to develop an aircraft engine.
Consider the case of the Packard Merlin. They STARTED with a proven design with proven performance which the Soviets did not have. They had all the drawings supplied to them by Rolls Royce and working examples of the Merlin XX and it still took them about a year to get things straight. Remember that this was before the days of computers, calculators and photocopying.

The story of aircraft designs all over the world is one of new engines not panning out. Every country (even England) had promising aircraft designs which never went anywhere because engines didn't pan out. Every country had promising engine designs they struggled with. Allison ultimately made 'adequate' engines for American needs, and they were probably better overall than most of the M-105 series, but they were hardly spectacular compared to say a Rolls Royce Merlin or DB.601 and they didn't produce spectacular power let alone high altitude performance (unless you connected them to a G.E. turbo).

I am very surprised you are saying this considering our recent discussion about the P-40K. The Allison had no trouble making the power and had excellent durability and flexibility. It just didn't have the supercharger for really good altitude performance. If you look at what these engines are capable of when run to their limits, you will find that the Allison in very high power applications seems to be superior in durability to the Merlin.

For that matter you might want to look at radio manufacturing as almost as important as guns or superchargers. Because in the early war it wasn't just the Japanese who had to rely on hand signals. Getting to full transmitter / receiver rigs in each fighter took a while for the Soviet war machine. How much does a full radio set improve the combat effectiveness of that same squadron of Yak-1Bs?

Whether airborne communications helps depends a lot on whether the pilots are trained to fight as a team. It also helps when someone beyond visual range has information which significantly affects the tactical situation.
Imagine a radio message coming in that says: "Stop chasing the Torpedo Planes! There is an incoming raid at high altitude that is 20 miles out."
How do you coordinate with your wingman or the rest of your squadron in the middle of a dogfight?

The Soviet Klimov M-100 series was itself derived from the famous and highly influential Hispano-Suiza 12Y, around which the whole Klimov "Design Bureau" was organized, though admittedly they took them farther than Packard did the RR Merlin.

You need to remember that Packard was not taking the Merlin as a baseline and manufacturing new models of engines. They were adapting existing engine designs and changes had to be shared and approved by Rolls Royce. THAT was the contract. They did make some adaptations but that was mostly in terms of measuring standards (Decimal versus Fractions of an inch). Packard wasn't even allowed to use SAE thread standards and had to stick with Whitworth threads and ended up having to make their own screws and bolts in house because they could not buy them on this side of the pond.

The P40Q should have been built.
Even if it was only for the Bubble Canopy helping SA.

A second Supercharger on the Allison would have opened up its flight envelop and still keep its low altitude performance.
Not using the P63 was also short sighted.
Would have been our best ground attack and fighter.
Able to fight its was out of the target area.

Hello Dan Fahey,

The P-40Q was better than earlier P-40s but it still didn't have what was wanted and that was Speed.
It was still about 25-30 MPH slower than the P-51 that was already in production.

The P-63 didn't have a lot of range and still wasn't particularly fast by late war standards.
Is there any reason to believe that the P-63 was superior to a P-47 for ground attack?
What was its ability to carry ordnance?

- Ivan.

 

[michael rauls]

Hello Schweik,

I believe you are underestimating the sheer amount of effort required to develop an aircraft engine.
Consider the case of the Packard Merlin. They STARTED with a proven design with proven performance which the Soviets did not have. They had all the drawings supplied to them by Rolls Royce and working examples of the Merlin XX and it still took them about a year to get things straight. Remember that this was before the days of computers, calculators and photocopying.



I am very surprised you are saying this considering our recent discussion about the P-40K. The Allison had no trouble making the power and had excellent durability and flexibility. It just didn't have the supercharger for really good altitude performance. If you look at what these engines are capable of when run to their limits, you will find that the Allison in very high power applications seems to be superior in durability to the Merlin.



Whether airborne communications helps depends a lot on whether the pilots are trained to fight as a team. It also helps when someone beyond visual range has information which significantly affects the tactical situation.
Imagine a radio message coming in that says: "Stop chasing the Torpedo Planes! There is an incoming raid at high altitude that is 20 miles out."
How do you coordinate with your wingman or the rest of your squadron in the middle of a dogfight?



You need to remember that Packard was not taking the Merlin as a baseline and manufacturing new models of engines. They were adapting existing engine designs and changes had to be shared and approved by Rolls Royce. THAT was the contract. They did make some adaptations but that was mostly in terms of measuring standards (Decimal versus Fractions of an inch). Packard wasn't even allowed to use SAE thread standards and had to stick with Whitworth threads and ended up having to make their own screws and bolts in house because they could not buy them on this side of the pond.



Hello Dan Fahey,

The P-40Q was better than earlier P-40s but it still didn't have what was wanted and that was Speed.
It was still about 25-30 MPH slower than the P-51 that was already in production.

The P-63 didn't have a lot of range and still wasn't particularly fast by late war standards.
Is there any reason to believe that the P-63 was superior to a P-47 for ground attack?
What was its ability to carry ordnance?

- Ivan.

Very cool post and I agree with most of that but just to quibble a bit about the p40q, yes it was slower straight and level than the p51 but was still fast(well over 400) and had an astounding rate of climb over 4000 fpm although I can't remember exactly right now. To me, if I can give up 20 mph but gain an aditional 1000 to 1500 fpm climb that seems worthwhile.
Also it was, from what ive read at least, a fair amount more maneuverable.
I certainly wouldn't want to build p40Qs INSTEAD of p51s but they certainly had some advantages and as such would seem to have been a useful adition especially if we were going to continue continue building p40 right up until almost the end of 44 anyway.
Not to mention they were one beautiful airplane.

 

[Schweik]

Hello Schweik,

I believe you are underestimating the sheer amount of effort required to develop an aircraft engine.
Consider the case of the Packard Merlin. They STARTED with a proven design with proven performance which the Soviets did not have. They had all the drawings supplied to them by Rolls Royce and working examples of the Merlin XX and it still took them about a year to get things straight. Remember that this was before the days of computers, calculators and photocopying.



I am very surprised you are saying this considering our recent discussion about the P-40K. The Allison had no trouble making the power and had excellent durability and flexibility. It just didn't have the supercharger for really good altitude performance. If you look at what these engines are capable of when run to their limits, you will find that the Allison in very high power applications seems to be superior in durability to the Merlin.

I've read widely differing opinions as to which was better in terms of reliability in the MTO, Merlin or Allison, but I don't think Allisons were perfect. For one thing the highest amount of horsepower they ever delivered in an actual deployed combat aircraft was roughly 1,600 hp in the V-1710-111/113 of the P-38, at 1,600 hp (WEP) using a turbo. Second best is probably the 1,550 / 1580 hp delivered by the P-40K at low altitude, again at WEP. That is good but not great. Most deployed engines were producing more like 1,200-1,300 hp at military power and ~ 1,400 for WEP. Yes they could be overboosted but that did not always correlate with a long engine life or great reliability.

And they didn't get there overnight because there was a long series of improvements and internal strengthening that had to be done to crankshafts, crank case and other components before that became safe to use. Later war experiments with Allison engined aircraft, particularly when flying at altitude, indicated possible quality control problems.

RR Merlins by contrast in addition to multi-speed and two stage superchargers got comfortably into the 1,700 hp range and were able to operate for long periods of time at high RPMs and boost (for example enabling the high speed cruise on Mosquitos). Merlin 130 and 133 got up to 2,000 hp.

Ultimately the supercharger is part of the whole engine package. Allison never developed good high altitude versions of their engines, except with the turbo and that ended up being extremely temperamental and fraught implementation, delaying the realization of the potential of the P-38 by probably at least a year. Ultimately for that reason especially I would judge it as adequate and not exceptional.

Whether airborne communications helps depends a lot on whether the pilots are trained to fight as a team. It also helps when someone beyond visual range has information which significantly affects the tactical situation.
Imagine a radio message coming in that says: "Stop chasing the Torpedo Planes! There is an incoming raid at high altitude that is 20 miles out."
How do you coordinate with your wingman or the rest of your squadron in the middle of a dogfight?

This is one of the areas in which it really helps to read a little operational history. We were talking about the P-39 earlier, for the Soviets the radios in the P-39 (it had two although they sometimes removed one of the receivers) were it's number one asset. They built their fighting tactics (flying in echelon at two altitudes, and with wingmen) around the radios. Yes I can imagine that trying to grasp how a radio made a big difference could be difficult if you had no idea of operational details, but it most certainly did make an enormous difference. There is a good reason why the Americans, British, Germans and eventually Japanese put good radio sets in all their military aircraft. You yourself brought this up as a major problem for the Japanese (early on) which is why it's baffling that you seem to argue the opposite here.

I'm not an expert on this, but from what I understand most American fighters used SCR-274 or SCR-522 radios, often one transmitter / receiver in the HF band, and a second receiver only on the VF band, and sometimes also navigation and IFF sets. The American radios were preferred over the British ones in North Africa because they had four preset (programmable) channels that you could change with a button like in the old AM radios in cars back in the day, vs. a knob that you had to tune in. For fighter units, one channel on the transmitter / receiver was tuned to a squadron band, that way you didn't hear chatter from miles away on the coast. Another channel might be base, another might be tuned to communicate with other friendly units. The second (receiver only) radio would be for communication from the squadron leader or from base / ground controllers (the Soviets made heavy use of ground controllers). Once you were tuned into the right channel it was easy to use the radio in combat, the P-39 had a transmit button on the throttle handle and a mute / talk switch on the O2 mask.

From what I have read the number one message you would need to hear in the middle of a dogfight would be "break!" for the whole squadron, or "Number 51, Break!!!" for a specific aircraft, which definitely saved many lives. Another example would be "ten miles north of Gamut heading toward base two 109s chasing" which could help a lot if you were in a bind outside of the chaotic melee. Use of the radio however was risky when facing the Germans as they had excellent countermeasures and could use radio chatter and signals to plan unpleasant surprises, so chatter was kept to a minimum especially before combat started. When many of the Australian veterans of the MTO moved to the Pacific they were amazed at the amount of free radio chatter. Apparently the Japanese didn't have as sophisticated of a system. But I wouldn't want you to naively and trustingly take my word for it. Read up on what the Soviets said themselves.

You need to remember that Packard was not taking the Merlin as a baseline and manufacturing new models of engines. They were adapting existing engine designs and changes had to be shared and approved by Rolls Royce. THAT was the contract. They did make some adaptations but that was mostly in terms of measuring standards (Decimal versus Fractions of an inch). Packard wasn't even allowed to use SAE thread standards and had to stick with Whitworth threads and ended up having to make their own screws and bolts in house because they could not buy them on this side of the pond.

Actually you are overstating the case here a bit, Packard made a lot of changes for example changing the coatings of the bearings to use indium. It's true they didn't make their own variants of RR engines but as you note, just to produce good quality merlins required a pretty high state of organization, the only thing preventing them from making their own variants was the contract I believe.

Hello Dan Fahey,

The P-40Q was better than earlier P-40s but it still didn't have what was wanted and that was Speed.
It was still about 25-30 MPH slower than the P-51 that was already in production.
.

The F6F was much slower than the P-51 but it certainly proved useful, wouldn't you say?

 

[Schweik]

I should add that the Japanese overcame the setback of their lack of radios initially through superb training and excellent discipline. As you are no doubt aware the Japanese pilots in the early war had a lot more flying hours and went through a far stricter training regime than Allied pilots. They were particularly well trained in group tactics and coordination with their flight leaders.

Later they received transmitters, and finally transmitter-recievers. This was the usual pattern. It also represented a shift from strict unit cohesion to a more semi-autonomous mindset.

There were also serious challenges to getting a radio to work reliably in an airplane beyond just the radio set itself. The antenna masts and wires could adversely affect speed and where they were placed could make a big difference on the range of the radio. Even after sufficient number were being manufactured, the Soviets faced serious problems with grounding their radios so that they could operate properly without interference.

And once the radios were working, specific tactics and discipline standards had to be worked out for their use. But this was done, and when it was in place, it did indeed make an enormous difference, warning colleagues about to be bounced, spotting enemy aircraft, coordinating with escorted 'friendlies' and ground units such as forward air controllers, and helping to achieve local numerical superiority (gang up on smaller units of enemy aircraft).

One thing that was often done for ground communication in the field was to take a radio out of one of the airplanes and put it in a tank or a car, so that they knew they were communicating on the same frequency etc. It was often quite dicey to get everything coordinated especially between friendly Allies from different nations (Anglo-American for example, and German-Italian or German-Romanian).

 

[Schweik]

This interview gets into some details about the Soviet use of the radio with P-40s. Some excerpts:

"How good was the visibility from a Kittyhawk?

Oh! It was great.

And what about the radios?

The radio was excellent. It was the main thing that saved us in combat.

What were your main missions?

We were assigned to PVO of Leningrad, 7th IAK PVO, and our main task was to repel bombers from Leningrad. But due to lack of forces, we were given tasks not well coordinated with PVO. We had to fly escorts for reconnaissance aircraft, forward air controllers, shturmoviks [ground-attack aircraft], and bombers. We had to strafe ground forces, although without bombs, and we had to fight for air superiority.

Which planes flew as forward air controllers?

Humpback—the Il-2.

You escorted Ils from a different regiment?

From a regiment stationed in Kasimovo. We were given an order to escort them very early in the morning, so we flew to Kasimovo in the evening and took off in the morning. There were six of us covering Ils during the strafing of Siverskaya airbase.

Were you communicating with the Il pilots in flight?

Our flight leader had a radio connection with the Il leader; the rest were connected only to each other."

So you see here, this echoes what I was saying - only the flight leader has a radio that communicates with the other unit, the Sturmoviks, the rest of the squadron are on a band in which they only hear each other.

 

[michael rauls]

A thought on radios. After the basic necessities of a military aircraft( i.e. propeler, engine,guns,) you definitely need stuff like that, I can think of no other adition that dollar for dollar, pound for pound would be better at increasing the effectiveness on an aircraft than a radio.

 

[Schweik]

Hello Schweik,

- Ivan.

So nothing on the Italian TO&E? Did I waste my time transcribing all that?

 

[michael rauls]

So nothing on the Italian TO&E? Did I waste my time transcribing all that?

You didn't waste your time. I found it fascinating.

 

[Schweik]

A little bit more from that interview:

"Can you talk to us about radio discipline? Normally they write that radio discipline was bad—too much chatter over the radio.

I would not say that. Of course, it happened, along with cursing. But they said only what was necessary: course such-and-such, altitude so-and-so. You responded with "Roger!" And you shut up. Then, sometimes you gave warnings: "Look, over there, Fokker," or "Someone is coming at your back."

How did you converse? By call sign, by nickname, by last name?

There was a call sign. Mine was "21."

By your aircraft number, or what?

In accordance with the squadron number. Arkadiy Morozov was "20," and I—the deputy—was "21." More than that I don't remember. But those were our call signs."

and

"Did the work on Lend-lease equipment influence the tactics and organization of the equipment's combat employment?

The combat employment was just the same as for our own aircraft. Well, the radio equipment was better, and as I have already told you, the radio saved us. The radio alone helped us to avoid many losses. You could talk through it just the same as you and I are talking here now. And the Kittyhawk had excellent visibility. One had only to turn his neck."