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As noted previously in this thread by others, the Merlin XX / V-1650 on the P-40F/L was not the same engine they put in the P-51 (V-1650-7) which had a 2 stage supercharger with an intercooler. I think a P-40 with that engine would have been even better than the P-40F, which was pretty good (I'd say more on par with a Spit V but with longer range).
And yet, not that much speed increase right? 20 - 25 mph with much more streamlining plus a ~ 200 hp more powerful engine ? That tells me that in spite of all the little protrusions the overall drag of the 109E was actually pretty low, and I named the culprit already, the small wings.
I never said it would be easy, nor was I proposing fighter bombers attack hardened german targets like Sub pens. I was talking about the tactical use of fighter bombers (i.e. against tanks and troops and AT / AA guns) and the operational / strategic use of Mosquitoes and the equivalent 'schnellbomber' you might call 'em.
And yes for example I definitely do think that if you cut production of B-24's, you could definitely accelerate the A-26 as well as making 25,000 or more Mosqutos. And make more even faster bombers as the Japanese did late in the war (too late for them).
Dive bombers was another argument, i was suggesting the Lufwtwaffe could have used some faster ones like the very fast Aicha B7A.
A two stage sueprcharged merlin could have allowed them to dump the turbo on the P-38 and allowed the P-38 to play at high altitude, where they faced limited competition that didn't fly that well up high. Then they could focus on the other (I agree, myriad) problems. But the P-38 was supposed to be a high altitude fighter from the get-go so it's major problems playing up above the clouds was a huge setback for it's value as a fighter.
The Corsair was well on it's way to being cancelled or at least phased out (I believe it had already been banned from carrier use) when the Marines success with the aircraft revived it's fortunes.
You two in particular have thoroughly convinced me of one thing - that you cannot be convinced of anything you did not already believe. This is a common trait online.
So I think it would be pointless for me to continue this particular discussion, having already made my points.
That is my last word in this thread. Good night.
There were two sample Merlin XX engines in the US during the summer of 1940 when talks were going on with Ford and Packard. This is before the -39 Allison goes into production. And over a year before Allison tries to make a production batch of engines with 9.60 gears. paying license fees at this point to get a much more effective engine should have no brainer.
Come on man, I don't think you are on the level here.
The Mosquito was flying bombing missions in early 1942. If they had moved some of the funding / energy / momentum from the 4 engined heavy bombers i'm sure they could have developed the Mosquito as a bomber a little faster. But you don't need to in order to pull off the Mosquito Ploesti raid.
I must admit that I do not know whether the mossie could carry a decent bomb load from Benghazi to Ploesti along the same route. The questions that arise are a.) what is the bomb load for that combat radius mission, b.) what would be the planned altitude, c.) what battle plan - squadron formation, each with very specific targets, d.) how well would they do if the Mossie force was detected early like the Tidal Wave B-24s?
B-24's don't bomb accurately from any level, and more importantly, they got slaughtered on that mission whereas the Mosquitoes probably wouldn't have. If you have more planes carrying a slightly smaller bomb load but bombing more accurately it will do the trick. I've worked in refineries they are quite delicate and it doesn't take that much to wreck one.
It actually takes a lot to 'wreck' one, beginning with the distillate/platformers - which are long lead time for critical components - and do take large bombs. This is where Tidal Wave fell short on the actual delivery. As to Mossie night fighter being much use as escort? Probably no need as the Rumanian/Hungarian night fighter capability was not much in 1943 - or 1944. IMO Mossie Night fighters do nothing for the night penetration and are not much use as daylight escort for the outbound leg.
There is a big difference between not liking an argument and actually proving there is something fallacious in it.
S
Douglas was making B-17s. Douglas was actually making a whole lot of stuff, and building new factories to do it.Allies were already attacking tactical targets, so I'mm not sure how much your proposal differs vs. what occured historically.
Douglas was not included in production of the B-24, factories making R-1830 cannot switch to production of R-2800 after someone just snapped the fingers. A woman will deliver a baby after 9 months, there is no way that 9 woman can deliver one complete baby after just one month.
I've already agreed with more Mosquitoes as idea. Unfortunately, The decision to go that route need to be put into effect by 1941, with factories churning them out by 1942. Factories other than the ones tooled up for B-24s.
I believe that most armies pretty much gave up on dive bombers as a type of aircraft around 1943?? At least against well equipped opponents.They certainly could. That those were much slower than contemporary Allied fighters might put a wrench to that plan, Allies were not using Hurricanes as 1st-line fighters by 1944.
Great post S/R but too specific, I edited it slightly to cover the last 6 experts.We have some people come in, put forth what they believe is a new theory, or somewhat new, then they ridicule objections.
Hard to argue with that. Never let facts get in the way of a good theory.
No one would be a greater advocate of the Mosquito than myself, there is no doubt that the allies could have made use of many more of them than they had however, I make the following points...............You can only make a surprise raid once, after that it must be assumed the enemy will take action and stop you,
The success of bombing on Axis refineries increased as the war progressed but that was due to the offensive as a whole, the LW lost its capacity to repel such attacks long before from the start of "Big Week" onwards. Apart from hitting LW aircraft production which was never achieved by any other bombing the Mosquito doesn't do anything to challenge the LW 1944 when it has an escort with legs as long as it has.
Like the dambusters raid, you only get one chance, and after the dambusters raid the UK had to take steps to make sure Adolf didn't return the compliment.There had been a raid in June of 1942 by 12 B-24s, after which the Germans moved in several hundred 88mm and bigger guns and even more light AA. From wiki so corrections welcome
" Luftwaffe General Alfred Gerstenberg built one of the heaviest and best-integrated air defense networks in Europe. The defenses included several hundred large-caliber 88mm guns and 10.5 cm FlaK 38 anti-aircraft guns, and many more small-caliber guns. The latter were concealed in haystacks, railroad cars, and mock buildings.[12] The Luftwaffe had three fighter groups within flight range of Ploiești (52 Bf 109 fighters and Bf 110 night fighters, and some Romanian IAR-80 fighters).[4] Gerstenberg also counted on warnings from the Luftwaffe signals intelligence station in Athens, which monitored Allied preparations as far away as North Africa."
Just because you plan to attack at dawn doesn't mean you will catch the defenders asleep in bed. By the summer of 1943 that trick was getting a little tired. All it takes is a couple of phone calls about large numbers of aircraft flying in over the coast and the surprise is gone.
I do agree with much of your post in detail.There are several snags with this idea.
Given the above circumstances I don't think it was a "no brainier" at all. Really how is a fairly minor improvement, in comparison to the engines it was competing with, going to garner more order. So your "1000hp" class engine can now generate that power a few thousand feet higher. That's still a few thousand feet and a few hundred hp less than the 1500-2500hp engines the AAF was interested in could do. Well at least what they could do in theory.
For the Luftwaffe
For the Japanese
- Cancel the Me 110 in early 1941, use the engines for Me 109s, Ju 88 or put them in Italian fighters.
- Same with Do 17 and He 111
- Work with the Italians to develop a longer range fighter ASAP, Fiat G.55 is a good candidate or maybe Re 2005 if production can be simplified)
- Or in say 1942 license-build a Ki-61, N1K1, or Ki-84. The Germans could have ironed out the engine problems much quicker than the Japanese.
- In 1941 License build a bunch of A6M2-N fighter float planes for use in the Med / Malta zone early on.
- In 1942 license build as many as possible Aichi B7A Ryusei (top speed 352 mph, range 3,000 km) as replacements for the Ju 87 (put Jumo engines in)
- Develop a high speed transport aircraft (not sure what this would be though)
- Develop the He 219 night fighter much earlier once Mosquitos started to become a problem
- Develop the Me 262 only as a fighter (focus on the AR 234 if you want a bomber). I know this one is obvious / low-hanging fruit but come on.
- license-build a bunch of Fw 190's for the army, replace the Ki-43 and Ki-44 with these.
No one would be a greater advocate of the Mosquito than myself, there is no doubt that the allies could have made use of many more of them than they had however, I make the following points.
On the famous Mosquito raids
1. Carthage (Shell house raid) 18 Mosquito Bombers 30 Mustang escorts 2 Mosquito recon. Losses 4 mosquitos and two Mustangs. =22% bomber loss
2. Jericho (Amiens prison) 9 Mosquitos 12 Typhoons (escort) Losses 3 Mosquitos 2 typhoons = 30% bomber loss
3. Aarhus raid 24 Mosquitos, 1 destroyed = 4%
4. Oslo raid ( Gestapo HQ) 4 mosquitos 1 destroyed = 25%
5. Goering radio broadcast 6 mosquitos in two separate raids 1 loss = 33% or 17% ( how do you calculate).
All of these raids were complete surprise raids, no one marks out prisons or intelligence HQs as precision bomb targets in1940s warfare, despite that all raids suffered completely unacceptable loss rates. These raids had a massive amount of planning photo recon and even model building to prepare the crews. You cannot do that on a refinery complex, Ploesti had ten refineries each with many areas that must be hit, how do you sort out an order of significance, as previously stated refineries were surrounded in pollution one you hit them and cause a fire it hides everything for following bombers.
You can only make a surprise raid once, after that it must be assumed the enemy will take action and stop you,
The success of bombing on Axis refineries increased as the war progressed but that was due to the offensive as a whole, the LW lost its capacity to repel such attacks long before from the start of "Big Week" onwards. Apart from hitting LW aircraft production which was never achieved by any other bombing the Mosquito doesn't do anything to challenge the LW 1944 when it has an escort with legs as long as it has.
More repeat targeting for refineries were due to not enough 1000 and 2000 GP use (same issue with the Schweinfurt attacks which were efficient but would have better with bigger bombs.
Wuzak - the Mission FO 84 Summary affirms 1000 pound bombs (235) but the majority were a mix of 250 and 500 pounders (1776). 183 effectives for the Schweinfurt Task force, 120 effective with only mix of 25/500 pound bombs.The first Schweinfurt attack was with 1000lb GP bombs. 230 bombers carrying 5 or 6 1000lb bombs each, 80 of which hit the target.
There are several snags with this idea.
1. RR had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the Packard deal. That's why the British government ( and I believe the US government after taking over the contracts) payed RR a whopping three to four thousand dollar per engine royalty.
2. It wasn't designing the superchanger but redesigning the accessory section to accommodate a larger, and preferably, two speed superchanger that was the major herdle. The magnesium alloy accessory section was an important structural part of the engine. Any changes need to be thought out carefully.
3. The Allison was never the favored engine of the AAF. The interest in it largely revolved around the fact that it was a high temperature liquid cooled engine designed with turbo supercharging in mind. It's dominance in fighter designs at the end of the 1930s was largely because it was the only available liquid cooled engine.
4. As it was, the last AAF clean sheet fighter design intended to be V-1710 powered was the P-47 and the last intended production model up to this time ( summer 1940 ) was the stopgap P-40D. It was expected that production of the would be over by the end of 1941. Now of course this didn't happen but the point is that their prospects for future orders looked bleak at the time.
5. 1940 was a whole mess of technical, operational, and organizational problems brought about by the extremely rapid growth in size of both the armed services and the aircraft industry.
6. There was political controversy over the Allison at this time. Partly do to the delays in getting the V1710-33 into production and the perceived lack of power in comparison to foreign types.
Given the above circumstances I don't think it was a "no brainier" at all. Really how is a fairly minor improvement, in comparison to the engines it was competing with, going to garner more order. So your "1000hp" class engine can now generate that power a few thousand feet higher. That's still a few thousand feet and a few hundred hp less than the 1500-2500hp engines the AAF was interested in could do. Well at least what they could do in theory.
For the Luftwaffe
For the Japanese
- Cancel the Me 110 in early 1941, use the engines for Me 109s, Ju 88 or put them in Italian fighters.
- Same with Do 17 and He 111
- Work with the Italians to develop a longer range fighter ASAP, Fiat G.55 is a good candidate or maybe Re 2005 if production can be simplified)
- Or in say 1942 license-build a Ki-61, N1K1, or Ki-84. The Germans could have ironed out the engine problems much quicker than the Japanese.
- In 1941 License build a bunch of A6M2-N fighter float planes for use in the Med / Malta zone early on.
- In 1942 license build as many as possible Aichi B7A Ryusei (top speed 352 mph, range 3,000 km) as replacements for the Ju 87 (put Jumo engines in)
- Develop a high speed transport aircraft (not sure what this would be though)
- Develop the He 219 night fighter much earlier once Mosquitos started to become a problem
- Develop the Me 262 only as a fighter (focus on the AR 234 if you want a bomber). I know this one is obvious / low-hanging fruit but come on.
- license-build a bunch of Fw 190's for the army, replace the Ki-43 and Ki-44 with these.
I agree Wuzak I was just pointing out that although these missions were hailed as a great success the losses in most cases were on par with Schweinfurt Regensburg which were considered a disaster, the same applies to the dambusters raid with 8 from 19 Lancasters lost. An increased use of Mosquitos would use different strategies, their is no defensive field of fire so no need to be in a big group. As a what if, what if 600 mosquitos with 600 mustangs went in pairs to 600 different destinations, but all change direction twice when in range of radar?I would argue that low numbers of aircraft lost on small missions make for big loss rates. It doesn't necessarily follow that a 100 Mosquito bomber raid will have the same loss rate.
Having said that, the loss rates are similar to the loss rates of the Schweinfurt/Regensburg mission in August 1943 (60 aircraft from about 300). And those planes had guns.
The easiest way to reduce loss rates is to send more aircraft. In early 1944, even with fighter escort, some missions were still losing about 50-60 bombers. But when the number sent is ~1000, the loss rate is a more acceptable 5-6%, rather than 20%.
Interestingly, for the Ploesti raid in August 1943, there was no air recon before the raid. Presumably to avoid tipping off the defenders.