Three reasons why the P-40 was a better fighter in the PTO than the Spitfire

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I agree with pattle, the Warhawk was definitely more useful, but generally not a better 'fighter'.
*Looks at signature and profile picture* EDIT: I realize I may be slightly biased.
 
Procrastintor said:
I agree with pattle, the Warhawk was definitely more useful, but generally not a better 'fighter'.
*Looks at signature and profile picture* EDIT: I realize I may be slightly biased.
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I guess it largely comes down to semantics. When I say 'fighter'' I mean an aircraft primarily designed for air to air combat but required to fullfil whatever other roles are required of it. Others reserve the term fighter solely for the air to air role and therefore contend that the Spitfire, on the basis of performance, is the better fighter. When I say 'better' I am looking at the whole picture including ease of maintenance and the ability to operate in harsh conditions, whereas others are unconcerned with what happens on the ground and prefer to start in the air with a full tank of gas.
Ultimately I haven't seen much to sway me from my initial assessment of the strengths of the P-40 relative to the Spitfire. It would be very nice if we had a direct comparison to draw on, but lacking that we can only look at the preponderance of pilot reports and what we can see in design of the aircraft. No-one ever put a Spitfire and a P-40 side by side and fires bullets at them to see which would fall apart first, but the reputation of the P-40 amongst its pilots as a tough machine, coupled with the fact that it was a bigger, heavier fighter with more metal and a five spar wing, strongly supports the assertion that it was the more damage resistant of the two. I haven't seen a direct comparison between the P-40 and the Spitfire in terms of roll and dive, I can only point out that the primary factor in determining acceleration in the dive is weight and the P-40 was regularly lauded in these areas by it's pilots whereas the Spitfire, for all it's manifest virtues, was not. I cannot claim that the P-40 was the equal of the Spit as an air to air weapon because it wasn't, but I can claim that the P-40 could still make a fist of the task the Spitfire excelled in, and that its range, bombload and ruggedness gave it at least an equal measure of superiority in the similarly important role of ground attack and close support. By my definition of the term, that assertion that the P-40 was the 'better fighter' remains defensible.
 
Well, the historical achillies heel of both aircraft seem to dominate here. The Spitfire lacks range, the P-40 lacks performance at altitude.

The only way to settle this is a flight of Spits and a flight of P-40's take off, and fly 45 minutes to a point in which they battle, and then must return to their prospective airfields. The flight with the most returning aircraft wins!!!

( Regardless of outcome, I still love them both. And will still be in awe of the beauty of a Curtiss P-40!! lol )
 

And this is the crux of the matter regarding both types in the PTO. Your statement, Cobber is based on the perception of so called 'common memory', often in contrast to the facts about both types. Both the P-40 and Spitfire were subject to myth building during and post war, which means the perception we might have of each type does not necessarily meet reality. Lets look at the Spit first.

The Battle of Britain did much for the Spitfire's reputation abroad, even though we now know the Hurricane bore the brunt of the fighting. The public at the time in Australia did not see it that way, so the arrival of the Spitfire gave promise to the public that the Battle of Darwin would be won by the Spitfire, but first encounters were not promising; heavy losses, unserviceability, inadequate tactics all went against the Spitfire's reputation and the truth of the matter was not entirely obvious to the public.

The fact was the Spitfire did suffer its share of serviceability issues, constant speed governor failures, gun stoppages etc conspired against it, not to mention a supply issue that could not be met as easily as other types in proliferation in the region. As for its performance in the air - the biggest failing was not the aircraft itself, but the tactics used to combat the Japanese. Spitfire pilots attempting to tackle the Zero on its terms were failing because of the Zero's low speed manoeuvrability and the high fuel consumption resulting from hard manoeuvring chewed up the Spitfire's short endurance. Once the Aussie pilots learned to take advantage of the Spitfire's assets, high speed, good rate of climb and excellent ceiling, they could turn the tables on the Japanese and diving slashing attacks proved successful in defeating them.

The fact still remains that the Spitfire did overcome the threat to the Australian north and successfully lived up to what was expected of it - contrary to the damning opinions of the aircraft after its early misadventures at the time and post war from authors not indulging in enough fact finding about it.

The P-40 has also been subject to much inaccurate post war assessment; from what I've read, none of the pilots of the RAAF and RNZAF (not read much about USAAF pilots, but not aware of too many who didn't like the P-40) believed that what they were operating was a second rate fighter. Its post war assessors have much to answer for bearing this in mind. The P-40 was highly regarded by the pilots that flew and fought in it and to be fair in terms of its performance not being as great as other types in theatre, it was based on a pre-war design. Despite the appearance of the likes of the F4U, P-38 and Mustang in theatre, the P-40 was still a usefully employed front line fighter and its disadvantages that are often highlighted since were never cause for questioning of its abilities at the time. No, it did not have the manoeuvrability of the Japanese fighters, or the ceiling of the Spitfire, but it was an excellent fighter/fighter bomber. The RNZAF used the P-40 exclusively as its wartime fighter, even once the F4U appeared with the RNZAF; it is interesting to note that despite the superior performance of the Corsair over the P-40, the former was primarily used in the ground attack role, although not always, but there were no RNZAF pilots that gained 'ace' status in the Corsair alone.

As for serviceability between the Spitfire and the P-40 in the Pacific, again there is some misinformation. Once in the islands, the Spitfire's serviceability was no worse than any other type in the region. This means that either the P-40's serviceability was not as great as we'd like to think or the Spit's was better than we are prepared to accept. One of those statements is more accurate than the other. One thing that is for certain is there were far fewer Spitfires than there were P-40s, which does even out any comparison between the two types in theatre.
 
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AS far as air to air combat goes, in both North Africa and in parts of the Pacific where there were both types, Spitfires were routinely used to fly top cover for P-40s. Which should tell us something about the P-40s ability to survive on it's own or to handle ALL the duties of an superiority fighter. The nickname "Kittybomber" should tell us something to.

AS far as the there being no RNZAF aces with the Corsair, in order to be an ace you have to shoot down enemy airplanes, if the enemy has NO airplanes in area it is more than a little difficult to become an ace regardless of how good your airplane and pilots are.

From wiki, open to correction,; "By the time the Corsairs arrived, there were virtually no Japanese aircraft left in New Zealand's allocated sectors of the Southern Pacific."

"The first squadrons to use the Corsair were 20 and 21 Squadrons on Espiritu Santo island, operational in May 1944"

" By late 1944, the F4U had equipped all 10 Pacific-based fighter squadrons of the RNZAF"

I would take exception to this sentence: "the P-40 was still a usefully employed front line fighter and its disadvantages that are often highlighted since were never cause for questioning of its abilities at the time." The P-40 was first ordered in 1939 as an interim fighter and none of the modifications in the next 4-5 years really changed that. The USAAC was issuing training manuals in 1943 on the P-40 telling student pilots training on the P-40 that they would fly something else in combat as the P-40 was no longer being issued to new fighter squadrons and existing squadrons were being changed over.
The bulk (all?) of the Merlin powered P-40s were sent to North Africa and the Med because they were useless for Europe (and the Allison versions were worse) the Merlin Versions at least had a chance against the Italian aircraft and small numbers of German aircraft in theater or so the theory went. Allison powered versions went to the Pacific (still under estimating the Japanese?) in additoin to amking up number in NA and going to the Soviet Union and other allies (got to give them something but NOT what our own squadrons really want) Please remember that it could take months for an aircraft to leave the factory in Buffalo NY before it saw action in a combat theater, allocations of aircraft were often made before combat experience could be acquired in theater.

The P-40 may be rugged, it may be pleasant/fun to fly, it may have a few tricks it can play on other airplanes. That doesn't mean it was a first class fighter at anytime in it's career. It's pilots and ground crewmen deserve a lot of credit for using it as well as they did.
 
I don't think the Kiwi Corsairs shot down a single Japanese aircraft, let alone produced any aces. After the USN had been through there was nothing left to shoot down. I don't think the Spitfire was ever considered as an RNZAF fighter, perhaps because in recognition of some of the factors that later made the P-40 a good choice, or more probably because they couldn't get them even if they wanted to. The RNZAF started out with Buffalos, but unsurprisingly were keen to upgrade. I believe the first choice was actually Hurricanes. These were also unavailable, though from the stirling work done by RAF Hurricanes in Burma as jacks of all trades, they would have been a sound choice. Eventually it was P-40s, which the Kiwis liked and did well with, and maybe the experience of being on the end of US supply lines was a factor in sticking with American Iron thereafter; F4Us and, post-war - Mustangs.
 
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Well said. The reason I mentioned the 109s before was that the P-40 could only exist, mainly as a fighter bomber, in a permissible environment. If there were a lot of 109s or Zeros (or their successors and upgrades) it could not survive. If there were none it could do a fair job (though getting high flying bombers would be beyond it, it could take out Stukas), if there were a few around it could still do a fair job, albeit with (as per NA) with appalling losses.

Oh it could dive, but before you dive you have to climb, which was not a strength. It was not that great a plane to fly, therefore, even with a very good pilot, it was hard to get the best out of it (though its best was not all that great anyway). Oh, yes it could out turn a 109 on the deck, but then again anything could, if one was silly enough to try it. Its controls were poorly harmonised. Sluggish in acceleration, low speed, poor altitude performance, awful climb, draggy as a Mack truck, fairly miserable mach limit (though that was not often a problem).

As for tough, maybe, depends how you determine that, if it was G limit a Spit could pull things that would rip a P-40's wings off and/or break its fuselage. If you mean pilot survivability, that was a function of armour, can't see much difference in the diagrams I've seen. If it was hits, it had to be since it was going to take a lot more..... and I'd like so see the evidence.

The Allison Mustang was totally superior in every way and, if the US had been more sensible, they would have shut the P-40 assembly lines and forced them to make more Mustangs.

Makes you wonder about Caldwell. Imagine if he had a decent plane in NA and the Med, just how many victories he would have got?

So as for the PTO, it was the same as the ETO. If there was much opposition around it got slaughtered. If there was none it could straff and bomb away and do a fair sort of a job, that an Allison Mustang could do far better.

Edited to add: Thinking about this some more, the US made some bad mistakes (as did the Germans, British, Japanese, etc in their own ways).
NA was a small company, even though they went through massive expansion, forcing Curtiss to make Allison Mustangs would have been a real good idea. There is not a single measure that a P-40 is better than an Allison Mustang.
NA should have put a Merlin XX series into a Mustang ASAP and they also should have just put straight into reduction the Rolls Royce Mustang X, thus saving 6 months.

Therefore you would have had some numbers of Mustangs with better mid/high altitude performance very quickly (Merlin XXs). The very high performance Merlin 60 series Mustangs would have been available earlier.
And there would have been a lot of Allison Mustangs, red hot at low altitude with great range ... and doing a much better job than the P-40s from early 42 onwards.
Those, well documented, anti-Mustang Americans cost a lot of pilots lives (not theirs of course).

"Curtiss-Wright shut down its entire Aeroplane Division and sold the assets to North American Aviation."... would have been better for the Allies if it had happened sooner, much sooner, 1936 would have been a good year.
 
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Point taken SR, but what I meant was in RAAF and RNZAF service and what I stated about its reputation among its pilots stands. I have not found any that are disparaging about the aircraft. Point taken also about RNZAF Corsiars, too; not many Japanese fighters about, but they were in action against Japanese airfields, Rabaul in particular. There were 13 RNZAF Corsair squadrons during 1944 and 1945; No's 14 to 26, but not all of these reached the Pacific.


The RNZAF never operated Spitfires or Buffaloes. 485 and 488, which operated each type respectively were RAF units, not RNZAF, but you might be right about the Spitfire and difficulties of supply, Cobber. Part of the reason why the RNZAF went for P-40s was because of mutual agreements between New Zealand's Prime Minister Peter Fraser and Roosevelt; Fraser was smart enough to recognise that in time of war, this is prior to Pearl Harbour, America would be a better option for equipment purchases. The Kiwi P-40s were largely pulled from from RAF stocks.
 
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"Curtiss-Wright shut down its entire Aeroplane Division and sold the assets to North American Aviation."... would have been better for the Allies if it had happened sooner, much sooner, 1936 would have been a good year.
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Hard to see anything a P-40 could do better than an P-51A, except maybe take bullets, which is not much of a recommendation when its performance deficit meant it would be taking more anyway. Ditto to a lesser degree for the Spitfire below 10000ft, but it had attitude capability of course. Maybe Hawker should have been ordered to scrap the Hurricane and start making Spits! But then, they had the Typhoon in the wings, which was supposed to complement the Spit but ended up as a sort of super-P51A. The vagaries of war...
 
nuuumannn said:
Fraser was smart enough to recognise that in time of war, this is prior to Pearl Harbour, America would be a better option for equipment purchases. The Kiwi P-40s were largely pulled from from RAF stocks.
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Was that part of Lend-Lease?

The RAF giving the RNZAF and RAAF aircraft it didn't want for itself.
 
Yes, people are funny, doctrine and dogma and self interest always seem to rule the day. The numbers that can actually examine evidence and change their minds quickly are miniscule. The numbers that can do that and also care about the people in the front line can be counted on one hand.

Yes, Hawker. Old Camm was quite a political player, not quite as bad as Messerschmitt, but he got his way pretty often. Very good at promising the earth and not delivering and denigrating the 'other' manufacturers' products. He even once promised a 430mph Hurricane .. but even MAP by that time had got wise to his nonsense (hint: you could strap a V2 rocket on a Hurricane and not get to 430mph).

Again, loke all his type, got a lot of pilots killed by wasting Merlin XXs in a vain attempt to wring more speed out of a Hurricane, still slugs whatever you did.

And stuck in his ways. The Typhoon actually used fabric and tubes for part of its construction (and a thick wing) just like the Hurricane ... and the previous bi-plane Fury. All that 'monocoque' and thin wings nonsense, he didn't like it. Finally extracted the digit with the Tempest series (also late) and did something he almost never did .. listen to some of his younger and more talented experts. Not that they got any credit.
Very modern manager, all praise went upwards, all blame downwards, only when facing disaster did he change.
You have guessed I am not a big fan of Camm, must have been terrible to work for him, but he knew how to play the game ....just like the Curtiss management, who were quite happy to keep producing rubbish for ages, paid the bills after all.

Now think about it, after the Mustang came along, with all their resources Curtiss could have done a crash program to improve the P-40 significantly (ah lah a Typhoon to Tempest like job). Maybe not quite as good as the Mustang, but still far better than what it was.
Did they? Not a chance. I'm sure, for some of the senior management, the awful losses, in their minds ... meant more orders. Cynical, sure, but I'd bet heaps that some of them thought that way.

We tend to see on this forum people arguing about the technicalities .. without examining the doctrines, the ideologies, the dogma, the self interests and of course the people ... that created the technicalities.

Why did Supermarine and North American produce such great designs, while Hawker and Curtiss didn't ... and more especially didn't change them very quickly after they got the evidence in?

This applies to all sides of course. Just been reading a book and the 109G's ailerons were actually worse than the 109E's, elevator still horrible and even then no rudder trimmer and also made the visibility even worse????? Now how can you pull that one off.....
 
CobberKane said:
Hard to see anything a P-40 could do better than an P-51A
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It had availability. P-51As not becoming available before 1942?


CobberKane said:
Maybe Hawker should have been ordered to scrap the Hurricane and start making Spits!
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The problem was the loss of production that would have caused. The RAF needed aircraft, and switching from the Hurricane to the Spitfire would have cost too much production.


CobberKane said:
But then, they had the Typhoon in the wings, which was supposed to complement the Spit but ended up as a sort of super-P51A. The vagaries of war...
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The Tornado/Typhon were intended to replace the Spitfire and Hurricane. As it tunred out, the Typhoon was unable to do that.
 

To be fair, Curtiss tried.

They either failed (XP-46) or had the program cancelled (XP-53/XP-60).

The also developed the XP-40Q - too little, too late, however.
 
On January 1942, Curtiss have had the contract in their pockets to build P-47s (designated P-47G), and built only ~350 pieces in 1.5 years! They lost a contract for 4220 of P-47s on May 1944.
Contrary to that, Republic have had the brand new factory from ground-up in mere 6 months in Evansville, Indiana, 1st P-47s rolling out a few days before the factory was completed. Seems to me that they should've opted for two birds in the hand (P-47G), rather to go for two birds on the roof (P-46/P-60).

To be honest, the P-40 with 2-stage V-1710 looks to me as a better bet than P-63.
 

While I agree on your post, it must be said that the Me109G required much less manpower hours to be assembled than Me109E......
 
The XP-53/XP-60 programe pre-dated the P-47G program.

The XP-53 was cancelled because its engine (the IV-1430) was not going to be ready when needed. The XP-60 was the XP-53 with a V-1650-1 Merlin. Two other XP-60 versiosn were to have turbocharged Allisons. One with the GE type, on with a different type. The installtion of the former was deemed poor and not flight worthy, and the second type was experimental and didn't go into production.

Curtiss were allowed to contune devlopment, culminating in the XP-60E, powered by an R-2800.
 
The XP-53 indeed pre-dated the P-47G contract. The early XP-60 was also earlier, the later ones (eg. the XP-60A, the one with turbo V-1710, or especially the XP-60s with 2-stage R-2800) were running late vs. P-47G. Curtiss also continued the work on the XP-62 even after the initial contract was cancelled; quote from Joe Baugher's excellent site:


We could put some blame to the USAF here, too, for encouraging the Curtiss to mess with their own 390-420 mph fighters (XP-60A/C/D/E), plus the XP-55 (pusher), instead of ordering them to channel more effort to sort out the P-47 production.
 
The RAF was replacing it's Hurricanes with P47s towards the end of the war in Burma and I think from what we saw of the P47 in Burma it was the best choice.
 
tomo pauk said:
We could put some blame to the USAF here, too, for encouraging the Curtiss to mess with their own 390-420 mph fighters (XP-60A/C/D/E), plus the XP-55 (pusher), instead of ordering them to channel more effort to sort out the P-47 production.
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This seems to be a persistent myth that Curtiss was content to sit back fat, dumb and happy and try to rake in profits in the 1940s from a 1935 design. Curtiss ( or Curtiss-Wright) had 14 different airframe Projects (not counting engine swaps) between the P-40 and 1945. Fighters, dive bombers, trainers, transports, float planes. Seems like a lot of effort for company that was fat, dumb and happy
Now management may have been less than the best and maybe they were spread too thin or other problems But lack of effort or lack of trying new things doesn't seem to be the problem.
As far as the engine division goes they were trying to maximize profits, they didn't want to licence other companies to build C-W products but wanted the new satellite plants to build parts to be assembled in C-W shops. P&W on the other hand was more than willing to licence production to factories owned or operated by car companies and take a dollar an engine royalty ( and waived that at times). However the US did have limited resources in some areas and one of them was in the number of competent management teams for such projects. Several car companies declining to open (staff) government funded factories because they were running out of managers. I don't know if this was a Curtiss-Wright problem or not. There was an awful lot of turn over in the aircraft industry in WW II. The US did NOT order workers to stay at one factory and if you had your choice of working in Buffalo NY in the winter (sometimes outside) (Curtiss and Bell) or in Southern California ( North American, Douglas, Lockheed-Vega) where would you go?

BTW on XP-62 " Because it would be an effective testbed for dual-rotation propellers and a pressurized cabin, it was decided on 18 July 1942 to proceed with a sole airframe, the remaining machines on order being cancelled." So Curtiss was not proceeding on their own after the production series was canceled.
 
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