This is the way it should have been from the beginning....

Schweik said:

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).

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I know that V-1650-1 was not the same engine as the V-1650-7. However, you've suggested the Merlin XX (roughly V-1650-1) for the P-40 in the post #133:
Put Merlin XX engines in P-40's I think that would get you a long way to where you need to be. Either fix the turbos in the P-38 quicker or put Merlin XX's in those too. Again, better fighter a lot quicker. Merlin XX might even fix the P-39.

... and not the V-1650-7

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.

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With 150 PS more, the 109F1 and F2 were ~60 km/h faster. On same power, the difference was ~40 km/h. Ergo, the 109E was one draggy fighter.

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).

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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.

Dive bombers was another argument, i was suggesting the Lufwtwaffe could have used some faster ones like the very fast Aicha B7A.

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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.

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.

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A 2-stage supercharged Merlin also requires a good intecooler, that will not be any bit easier to retrofit on those P-38s vs. on the historical ones. Someone will also need to make a compete assesment of CoG changes and how to cure them, now that heavier engine is in the front, along with heavier prop, while there is no turbo behind the CoG to help with ballance. So people at Lockheed will need to compeltely rework the powerplant installation, along with different coolant and oil system, and after all of that is done, start working out other, more pressing needs. Hopefully no-one will notice that Lockheed is not delivering the P-38s for weeks in 1943, since new tooling need to be introduced. AAF declined the P-38K due to the expected loss of production, that was a small redesign of the legacy P-38, after all.
Then we enter the problem of actually not having the 2-stage Packard Merlins around, there were hundreds of P-51B airframes gathering dust in Inglewood during the summer of 1943 due to having no engines.

Schweik said:

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.

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We have someone come in, put forth what they believe is a new theory, or somewhat new, Mosquitos as the primary bomber for the bombing campaign having been discussed many times before. Then they ridicule objections to increase production of Mosquito by likening the harvest of trees growing in the wild at about 20 trees per square mile to the harvesting of coffee or sugar on established farms/plantations that can increase production drastically in one growing season by expanding planted areas to immediately adjacent land.
A confused and not chronologically correct timeline is used to justify/support the theory and yet those who question it are accused of being closed minded and not open to new ideas.
Hard to argue with that. Never let facts get in the way of a good theory.

Shortround6 said:

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.

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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.

Schweik said:

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

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B-24s and B-17s were quite accurate given good visibility and a substantial bomb run for the lead crews from the IP. The 8th and 15th AF fleet of B-24s and B-17s were abysmal for strategic bombing purposes when 7/10 to 9/10 cloud cover obscured the Target and worthless for blind bombing.

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.

IMO there are two issues with your thesis. First, to put together a Mossie force with sufficient squadrons to predict a good outcome with execution according to plan - were not available to AAF, and the RAF were not particularly interested. Second, the Mossie force must travel a VERY long way
'nekkid' with neither defensive fire nor any survival factors other than speed and dispersion to make the pursuing force task more difficult to find a target rich environment. The AAF tried to obtain Mossies for recon and special tasking but never squeezed a commitment to allocate sufficient production from Canada sources to plan any organization larger than squadron level deployment.

To match the B-24 deployment (entire 8th AF B-24 force) to add to 12th AF B-24s to make the critical mass deemed necessary for the mission, the Mossie force also need to have critical mass deployed to Benghazi in May 1943. Possible given other RAF priorities?

On the topic of Merlin powered P-38s. Only the two-stage proposals shown any improvement and this was with the assumption that drag would be identical to the shallow chin models. The radiator for the aftercooler needs to go somewhere and it's going to add drag. There is the issue of insufficient production capacity for air-to-liquid heat exchangers. This was a major reason for the absence of an intercooler in the P-63. I strongly suspect it is why Lockheed used that kludged together air-to-air unit in the J and L models.

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.

tomo pauk said:

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.

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Douglas was making B-17s. Douglas was actually making a whole lot of stuff, and building new factories to do it.

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.

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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.
Japanese army in the CBI theater not having an abundance of AA guns. While Dive bombers in a dive are not the easiest of targets they are also not that difficult for for fast firing weapons. The flight path is fairly predictable and so is the pull out. A large portion of the speed of the dive is lost in the pull out if the pullout is down at high Gs and low altitude. A higher pull out helps degrade the AA effectiveness but also degrades the accuracy of the dive bomber.

Shortround6 said:

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.

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Great post S/R but too specific, I edited it slightly to cover the last 6 experts.

pbehn said:

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.

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There had been a raid in June of 1942 by 13 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.

Shortround6 said:

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.

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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.

Jugman said:

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.

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I do agree with much of your post in detail.
However the difference was not as small as you suggest. In the Summer of 1940 Allison was delivering engines (and superchargers) capable of around 1090hp at 13,200ft (this early Allison ratings bounced around a bit) and was promising 1150hp at 12,000ft for the engines to be delivered in 1941 (P-39s and P-40D & E)exact altitude depending on backfires screens. Merlin supercharger was offering enough airflow to make 1175hp at 21,000ft which is 50hp more at 6,000ft higher than the Allison got with the 9.60 gears.

Even if the supercharger is not copied bolt for bolt it should have been a wake-up call that American superchargers were falling behind. The P & W R-1830 needed a two stage supercharger and intercoolers and still couldn't match it.

Allison may not have been the Armies prefered engine (that was the IV-1410) but a better supercharger (or the difference between the american superchargers and the Merlin XX) should have been a no brainer to investigate as soon as possible.
Packard promised engines sooner than they could actually make them but the Army had around 1 1/2 to two years to work on a better single stage supercharger for the Allison before things really went to pot.

Schweik said:

For the Luftwaffe

• 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.

For the Japanese

• license-build a bunch of Fw 190's for the army, replace the Ki-43 and Ki-44 with these.

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My opinion:
License the Mitsubishi Kinsei and Kasei engines. Put the BMW 801 on the back burner. Use the Kinsei instead of the Bramo 323 /BMW 132 and the Kasei instead of the BMW801. You have reliable 1500 HP in 1939 instead of in 1942. Mitsubishi brought the Kasei up to 1875 HP in 1943 without fuel injection. BTW, the Mitsubishi MK9 would have fitted in a FW190, too, almost the same size as the '801.

The Jumo 211 in the Ju88 were more powerful than the DB601 early in 1941 and more reliable to boot. More Me109 would have been good even earlier in the war, but you would have needed a number of retirements with extreme prejudice in the Luftwaffe and RLM higher echelons to achieve that.

The Luftwaffe evaluated the newest crop of Italian fighters early in 1943 and came to the conclusion that they would like to license-produce the FIAT G55, but preferably the G56 variant with the DB603. That came to nothing for some reason. I don't think earlier models would have been attractive for the Luftwaffe.

As for the Japanese aircraft, the problem would have been the engines (not the Ki-61, of course), as the Nakajima Homare was quite a bit smaller and lighter than the BMW801, as well as being just as unreliable as the early '801s.

The Aichi Ryusei first flight was in March of 1942 and the plane was nowhere near production maturity then. Again, engine trouble - needs an air-cooled radial - only the BMW801 available - at that time only 1600 hp, which is insufficient for the aircraft. Perhaps you meant the Yokosuka D4Y, which was certainly fast enough but also had totally unprotected tanks and hardly any protection for the crew.

Concerning the He219, according to "Winkle" Brown who tested it, the aircraft was nastily underpowered with two DB603s. It would probably have needed the Jumo222 to become a performer.

As I said above, get your air-cooled radials from the Japanese, because they are better at it, especially Mitsubishi. And a lot of promising higher-powered liquid-cooled engines were cancelled or suffered from official vacillation. DB603 development was stopped and the engine almost sold abroad because it was a private venture and "not wanted" by the RLM, so about a year was lost. The Jumo222 was off-again, on-again for the whole war although a factory was built just t o produce that engine. That factory produced almost nothing - wasted effort that was unaffordable.

I concur concerning the Fw190 for the IJAAF - especially as a fighter-bomber - the Japanese had decent engines for it. But they tested several FW190 A-3 and didn't want it - perhaps unsuitable for Japanese production.

pbehn said:

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.

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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.

drgondog said:

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.

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The first Schweinfurt attack was with 1000lb GP bombs. 230 bombers carrying 5 or 6 1000lb bombs each, 80 of which hit the target.

wuzak said:

The first Schweinfurt attack was with 1000lb GP bombs. 230 bombers carrying 5 or 6 1000lb bombs each, 80 of which hit the target.

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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.

That said I did forget that the first Schweinfurt mission DiD carry some 1000 pound bombs.

The Mosquito was an excellent aircraft.
However many people only look at some of the performance specifications and/or the results of a few rather specialized raids and try to change the policy/strategy.
The Mosquito was later in timing than the B-17/B-24/British heavies and would require much work in building/tooling up factories to be thrown out and redone. The American bombers also stayed almost frozen in time, once you had the late 1941/early 42 versions improvements came at a glacial pace and mostly consisted of hanging more guns/turrets on them. The engines were essentially unchanged for most of the war. The Mosquito got engines that were uprated from time to time, first with higher boost limits and then with the 2 stage superchargers. SOmewhere around 2/3ds of Mosquito bombers got 2 stage superchargers and that started in 1943 when The US had 8 factories making the two 4 engine bombers.
Mosquitos were, especially in the beginning, flown by elite crews on special missions that had lots of preparation. They weren't being used on a schedule of flying a raid every decent flying day there was. Open to correction on that (1942 early 43). Granted with European weather even the big bombers had numerous and sometimes long gaps between missions. But they weren't being used the same way.

Both the big bombers and the Mosquitos alos changed in capability over the years in navigation and in accuracy. When making suggestions as to what plane the Powers That Be should have picked please don't compare pathfinder mosquitos of late 1944 to the nearly blind heavy bombers of 1942.

Please note it took until 1944 for really large and effective raids to happen using the 4 engine bombers even though the planing started back in 1940.

In some cases the PTB did make mistakes or follow a path a bit too long. But using data/information from a year or two in the future was not a luxury they had.

My personal get it right would be the Me210. If that had been right the first time, it would have been very dangerous in the Middle East and Russia.

Jugman said:

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.

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Pt.1 - any proof that RR was so andamantly against the deal with Packard? Any proof that British or US governments, during the ww2, paid any royalty to the RR for the engines made by Packard?
Pt.2 - yes, for example Allison was of opinion in 1938 that it would've need 2 years to redesign the rear section in order to incorporate a bigger S/C.
Pt.3. again yes, we can wonder how much of improvement to the V-1710 would've been possible to design & produce faster if that engine was favored by the Army and backed up financially.
Pt.4. there was no bleak future for the V-1710 in any time in 1940, since plenty of the engines were ordered for the P-40s, P-39s, P-38s, both for somestic use and export, plus Mustangs for export, plus V-3420 as the perspective 2000+ HP engine. P-40B was just just a gleam in the eyes in the Curtiss designers by 1940.
Pt.5 - yes, not just in the US military.
Pt.6. perceived it might've been, real it was not vs. any V12 that is not a Merlin XX in 1940.

The Merlin XX was making ~1150 HP at ~18000 ft (not at 21000 ft, that will do the Merlin 46 with bigger S/C). Or, 6000 ft up vs. V-1710-33.
Granted, AAF by 1940 was trying to cover it's bases with regard to the fighter engines, thus their positive stance towards the RR-Packard deal, as well as going with turboed R-2800. Along with several attempts with engines that ended up as a footnote in ww2 aircraft engineering (IV-2220, plus 'residuals' from the 'hi-per' engine program).

Schweik said:

For the Luftwaffe

• 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.

For the Japanese

• license-build a bunch of Fw 190's for the army, replace the Ki-43 and Ki-44 with these.

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Since the discussion is moving close to alternate history, let me suggest the best scenario for Berlin. Make peace with USSR in 1942, help Soviets to improve rail network and to create real Transsib rail link, send Speer and Milch to Tokyo to agree on cooperation and to devise joint development strategy. (Optional: send Goering as well and drop him from the train somewhere in Siberia). Jet engines and airframes are shipped by Transsib eastbound, crates with frames and wings of Aichi B7A (nicknamed Sternschnuppe or just JapanStuka) and of Ki-67 (Drachen?) are shipped westbound...

Sorry, just could not resist.

wuzak said:

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.

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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?

In fact that in a way was one use of the Mosquito, the raids on Berlin with single aircraft were purely to make the sirens sound the alarm and for a huge explosion to be heard somewhere in the city, I have no doubt they did some material damage but most of it was psychological and physical.