USA combat aircraft

Robert,

I have some sympathy with the position you're taking, and I agree that the vastness of the US has to be experienced to be understood (same is true for Australia, though, and it's far more desolate). Your point about North Africa is valid...but please remember that during the Battle of Britain timeframe, aside from the North African Campaign, there was also fighting in East Africa from June 1940 to November 1941 not to mention operations in the Middle East and Mediterranean, including the Taranto Raid. Also India, Burma, Malaya and Singapore are a lot further away from the UK than North Africa, and all those places were reinforced during the same timeframe.

To claim that the US and Japan were the only countries to move large numbers of men globally is simply not correct. Yes, the British used large numbers of soldiers from the Empire but they were not necessarily locally deployed. For example, Indian troops were deployed to Iraq, North Africa, East Africa and Malaya/Singapore, again during the period of the Battle of Britain and shortly thereafter. The Gurkhas served in Italy and Greece, as well as North Africa MalBritish troops served globally, too. The logistical and administrative challenges were massive, not least dealing with numerous different languages rather than the relative linguistic homogeneity of the US military. This is not "America bashing". I'm simply pointing out that the US wasn't the only nation with global reach during WWII, even early on in the summer of 1940.

My point about lack of numbers being the primary US lag is, I think, still valid notwithstanding the causal factors of interwar isolationism and the impact of the Great Depression. The latter was not a problem unique to America. It also impacted the rest of the world, particularly those countries, like the UK, that were recovering from the First World War. The UK was particularly hard hit in core "heavy" industries like coal mining, steel making and ship building. The textile industry also suffered. Despite all these issues, the UK did rearm in the latter quarter of the 1930s but largely because she had to. America had more breathing space but, even so, wasn't truly prepared for war when it came in December 1941.

Kind regards,
Mark

There seems to be some confusion as to lagging behind in design or technical ability or in production, let alone rushing the newest and best thousands of miles from the factories or supply centers.
Some countries were ahead in some areas and some in other areas.

Picking one or two aircraft at a particular point in time and disregarding some of the things that made them good aircraft or something that might make them a whole lot less valuable to another country doesn't paint an accurate picture.
To avoid picking on the Germans I will pick on the British. At one point the Spitfire was the fastest fighter in the world. Late 1938/39. Does this mean it was the most advanced? It was severely handicapped on climb by it's fixed pitch prop. Going back to the Germans, the 109s, after the first small batches, used a prop licenced from the backwards, lagging Americans.
Design and development cover a range of things like structures, airfoils, lift devices, landing gear, and more.
Try to figure out if one airplane can do the others full job (range/endurance/feild length,etc) before declaring plane x is more advanced than plane y.

buffnut453 said:

Robert,

I have some sympathy with the position you're taking, and I agree that the vastness of the US has to be experienced to be understood (same is true for Australia, though, and it's far more desolate). Your point about North Africa is valid...but please remember that during the Battle of Britain timeframe, aside from the North African Campaign, there was also fighting in East Africa from June 1940 to November 1941 not to mention operations in the Middle East and Mediterranean, including the Taranto Raid. Also India, Burma, Malaya and Singapore are a lot further away from the UK than North Africa, and all those places were reinforced during the same timeframe.

To claim that the US and Japan were the only countries to move large numbers of men globally is simply not correct. Yes, the British used large numbers of soldiers from the Empire but they were not necessarily locally deployed. For example, Indian troops were deployed to Iraq, North Africa, East Africa and Malaya/Singapore, again during the period of the Battle of Britain and shortly thereafter. The Gurkhas served in Italy and Greece, as well as North Africa MalBritish troops served globally, too. The logistical and administrative challenges were massive, not least dealing with numerous different languages rather than the relative linguistic homogeneity of the US military. This is not "America bashing". I'm simply pointing out that the US wasn't the only nation with global reach during WWII, even early on in the summer of 1940.

My point about lack of numbers being the primary US lag is, I think, still valid notwithstanding the causal factors of interwar isolationism and the impact of the Great Depression. The latter was not a problem unique to America. It also impacted the rest of the world, particularly those countries, like the UK, that were recovering from the First World War. The UK was particularly hard hit in core "heavy" industries like coal mining, steel making and ship building. The textile industry also suffered. Despite all these issues, the UK did rearm in the latter quarter of the 1930s but largely because she had to. America had more breathing space but, even so, wasn't truly prepared for war when it came in December 1941.

Kind regards,
Mark

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You are quite correct, nor was I trying to bash the U.K. deployment of men and material. But in terms of sheer numbers I think the American involvement, especially in Asia and the Pacific rapidly outstripped anything the allies were able to bring to bear. My point being I suppose that from a standing start the US began fighting a global war with combatants already fully engaged and on a war time footing for production and recruiting and training. To say that we were not on a par at the very start of the war considering these facts and the sheer distances involved is mildly offensive at the least. We did have aircraft as pointed out that were at parity to a large extent at the same times. They were not actively involved in fighting except for a very small group in China, but they were actively involved in short order.

Probably more accurate to say America entered a global war and was forced to adapt to that circumstance. That America did so says much about the latent capacity, both numerical and qualitative, inherent in both industry and capacity. However, we shouldn't kid ourselves that it happened overnight. For example, the 8th Air Force only commenced regular operations on 17 August 1942 which is a long time, relatively speaking, after America entered the war. Again, I'm not dinging...simply pointing out that we shouldn't gloss over the huge logistical, recruiting, training and equipment challenges that had to be overcome, all of which imposed lag on delivering combat effect. Certainly, things happened faster in the Pacific Theater but that was, in part, because America had been preparing for the war against Japan, hence the positioning of the fleet in Pearl Harbor and the reinforcing of the Philippines.

buffnut453 said:

Probably more accurate to say America entered a global war and was forced to adapt to that circumstance. That America did so says much about the latent capacity, both numerical and qualitative, inherent in both industry and capacity. However, we shouldn't kid ourselves that it happened overnight. For example, the 8th Air Force only commenced regular operations on 17 August 1942 which is a long time, relatively speaking, after America entered the war. Again, I'm not dinging...simply pointing out that we shouldn't gloss over the huge logistical, recruiting, training and equipment challenges that had to be overcome, all of which imposed lag on delivering combat effect. Certainly, things happened faster in the Pacific Theater but that was, in part, because America had been preparing for the war against Japan, hence the positioning of the fleet in Pearl Harbor and the reinforcing of the Philippines.

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I agree entirely, that was my point, written more clearly by you than me and thanks! It most certainly did not happen overnight, hence comparing and contrasting combat aircraft at an early stage of the war (for the US) was illogical and flawed. It took years to ramp up production and then get the produced aircraft to multiple fronts and deployed, not to mention training thousands of pilots from scratch, especially when one considers the horrific loss rate of bomber crews when the 8th did enter the war in large numbers. It was not a case of any lag in technology, nor was it even lack of ability. It was simply the lag induced by ramping production up and switching from building cars to tanks and planes. Then moving all that hardware to where it was needed.

We were somewhat aided in the fact that while not actively fighting in the early stages we were supplying massive amounts of material and consumables such as oil to our future allies (and unfortunately to some of our future enemies) prior to entering the war itself. So to some degree planning was well under way prior to our entering the hostilities as a combatant. Manufacturing had already ramped up prior to Pearl Harbor and went literally into overdrive after.

With regard to the "neutrality" of the US prior to Pearl let's call it semi-neutral...
Five weeks before Pearl Harbor, the German U-boat U-522 torpedoed and sank the American destroyer USS Reuben James in the North Atlantic. The American vessel was steaming from Newfoundland towards Iceland on Oct. 31 1941 when the British convoy she was escorting came under attack by a pack of German subs. Just before dawn, the Reuben James was hit near the forward magazine by a torpedo. The ensuing blast tore the bow section right off the World War One Clemson-class destroyer. She sunk in minutes, taking 115 of her crew down with her. Forty-four survived the attack.

Two weeks prior to the incident, another American destroyer operating from Reykjavik, Iceland, suffered damage from a German torpedo. On Oct. 17, the USS Kearny along with two other vessels left their anchorage to assist a squadron of Canadian warships struggling to defend a convoy from a concerted U-boat attack. In the ensuing action, the U-568 fired on the Kearny's starboard side, damaging the vessel and killing 11 crewmen. The ship limped back to port for repairs.

A month before the Kearny incident, a shore party from the U.S. Coast Guard vessel Northland knocked out an unmanned German weather station located on Greenland. It would be the first time in the war that American forces destroyed German military equipment. In April of 1941, the Northland very nearly was sunk. While patrolling off Greenland, the cutter strayed within six miles of the German battleship Bismarck. The British mistook the American vessel as an enemy escort and came dangerously close to firing on her.

The U.S. Navy's first clash with the Kriegsmarine occurred in April of 1941 when the USS Niblack attacked a Nazi U-boat off the coast of Iceland. After departing its base in Newfoundland as part of a mission that would see American troops occupy the mid-Atlantic island nation, the Niblack broke from formation to respond to a distress call from a torpedoed Dutch cargo vessel. While bringing aboard survivors, sonar operators aboard the warship detected an unidentified submarine moving in for the kill. The Niblack attacked the sub with depth charges. Although the weapons failed to damage the U-boat, the encounter represented America's first hostile action of the Second World War.

The first American military death of the Second World War didn't happen at sea, but during the Battle of Dombas, Norway in April of 1940. Following an unsuccessful airborne assault, the German high command ordered bombers to level the city. A military attaché with the American consulate was killed during the raid. Capt. Robert Losey, a U.S. Army meteorological officer, died while evacuating American diplomats and their staff to a railway tunnel.

Japan's first blow against the United States fell a full four years before Pearl Harbor and two years prior the outbreak of war in Europe. In late 1937, the U.S. Navy gunboat Panay was moored in Nanking harbor. Although Japan was at war in China at the time, the United States was officially neutral. Despite this, the 190-foot-long vessel was strafed and bombed by Japanese bi-planes for two hours on the afternoon of Dec. 12. A dozen Imperial fighters attacked even though the vessel flew several U.S. flags and had an enormous stars and stripes painted on the ship's deck. The USS Panay sank in the Yangtze River with the loss of three crew members. Forty-five were injured in the attack. Japan apologized for the incident and paid the United States $2 million, but relations between the two powers were strained after the bombing.

While the US was late to WWII, once war was declared the US effort was massive:
According to the AAF Statistical Digest, in less than four years (December 1941- August 1945), the US Army Air Forces lost 14,903 pilots, aircrew and assorted personnel plus 13,873 airplanes — inside the continental United States. They were the result of 52,651 aircraft accidents (6,039 involving fatalities) in 45 months.
That's an average of 1,170 aircraft accidents per month—- nearly 40 a day. (Less than one accident in four resulted in totaled aircraft, however.)
Almost 1,000 Army planes disappeared en route from the US to the war zones. Once there it get even worse, 43,581 aircraft were lost overseas including 22,948 on combat missions (18,418 against the Western Axis) and 20,633 attributed to non-combat causes overseas.
In a single 376 plane raid in August 1943, 60 B-17s were shot down. That was a 16 percent loss rate and meant 600 empty bunks in England. In 1942-43 it was statistically impossible for bomber crews to complete a 25-mission tour over Europe .
Pacific theatre losses were far less (4,530 in combat) owing to smaller forces committed. The worst B-29 mission, against Tokyo on May 25, 1945, cost 26 Superfortresses or 5.6 percent of the 464 dispatched from the Marianas .
On average, 6,600 American servicemen died per month during WWII, about 220 a day. By the end of the war, over 40,000 airmen were killed in combat theatres and another 18,000 wounded. Some 12,000 missing men were declared dead, including a number "liberated" by the Soviets but never returned. More than 41,000 were captured, half of the 5,400 held by the Japanese died in captivity, compared with one-tenth in German hands. Total combat casualties were pegged at 121,867.
US manpower made up the deficit. The AAF's peak strength was reached in 1944 with 2,372,000 personnel, nearly twice the previous year's figure.
While the manpower losses were huge, so were production totals. From 1941 through 1945, American industry delivered more than 276,000 military aircraft. That number was enough not only for US Army, Navy and Marine Corps, but for allies as diverse as Britain , Australia, China and Russia . In fact, from 1943 onward, America produced more planes than Britain and Russia combined. And more than Germany and Japan together during 1941-45.
The Axis powers also took massive losses. Through much of 1944, the Luftwaffe sustained uncontrolled hemorrhaging, reaching 25 percent of aircrews and 40 planes a month. And in late 1944 into 1945, nearly half the pilots in Japanese squadrons had flown fewer than 200 hours. The disparity of two years before had been completely reversed.
As to combat training, most US crews went to war with absolute minimums of training. Some fighter pilots entered combat in 1942 with less than one hour in their assigned aircraft.
The 357th Fighter Group (often known as The Yoxford Boys) went to England in late 1943 having trained on P-39s. The group never saw a Mustang until shortly before its first combat mission. A high-time P-51 pilot had 30 hours in type. Many had fewer than five hours. Some had one hour.
With arrival of new aircraft, many combat units transitioned in combat. The attitude was, "They all have a stick and a throttle. Go fly `em." When the famed 4th Fighter Group converted from P-47s to P-51s in February 1944, there was no time to stand down for an orderly transition. The Group commander, Col. Donald Blakeslee, said, "You can learn to fly `51s on the way to the target.
A future P-47 ace said, "I was sent to England to die." He was not alone. Some fighter pilots left on their first combat mission with one previous flight in the aircraft. Meanwhile, many bomber crews were still learning their trade: of Jimmy Doolittle's 15 pilots on the April 1942 Tokyo raid, only five had won their wings before 1941. All but one of the 16 copilots were less than a year out of flight school.
In WWII flying safety took a back seat to combat. The AAF's worst accident rate was recorded by the A-36 Invader version of the P-51: a staggering 274 accidents per 100,000 flying hours. Next worst were the P-39 at 245, the P-40 at 188, and the P-38 at 139. All were Allison powered.
Bomber wrecks were fewer but more expensive. The B-17 and B-24 averaged 30 and 35 accidents per 100,000 flight hours, respectively. Compare that to more recent times, from 1980 to 2000 the Air Force's major mishap rate was less than 2.
The B-29 was even worse at 40; the world's most sophisticated, most capable and most expensive bomber was too urgently needed to stand down for mere safety reasons. The AAF set a reasonably high standard for B-29 pilots, but the desired figures were seldom attained.
The original cadre of the 58th Bomb Wing was to have 400 hours of multi-engine time, but there were not enough experienced pilots to meet the criterion. Only ten percent had overseas experience. Conversely, when a $2.1 billion B-2 crashed in 2008, the Air Force initiated a two-month "safety pause" rather than declare a "stand down", let alone grounding.
The B-29 was no better for maintenance. Though the R3350 was known as a complicated, troublesome power-plant, no more than half the mechanics had previous experience with the Duplex Cyclone.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt the US had withdrawn from the international community and isolationism ruled. As far as the US public were concerned the Great Depression was all it could handle and Europe's problems were Europe's problems. There was no interest or need for a first class Air Corps or Army though the need for sea power did fare better.
Prior to 1939 the Air Corps, like the rest of the U.S. Army, had suffered the neglect which was then the usual lot of our armed forces in peacetime. Although the Air Corps Act of 1926 had established a maximum strength of 1,800 serviceable planes for the Army, to be attained in 5 years, the number actually on hand 10 years later was only 946.1 In June 1936, Congress accepted the recommendations of the latest of the many boards which periodically examined the mission and needs of the Air Corps and sanctioned a maximum Air Corps strength of 2,320 planes, which the Air Corps hoped to attain by 30 June 1940. As a result of this legislation, congressional appropriations for the Air Corps during fiscal years 1937-39 were almost double those of the preceding three years, reaching over $70,000,000 in 1939, as compared with barely $30,000,000 in 1935. But in the face of events in Europe and the Far East it became apparent to many people, and especially to President Roosevelt, that much more would be required. On 30 June 1938, the year in which the President launched a new program of expansion, our total Army air strength was only 1,401 planes, of which fewer than 900, many of them obsolescent, could be classed as combat planes. The existence of a comparable situation in the Navy had been noted in time to make a 3,000-plane program a significant feature of the Naval Expansion Act of May 1938. By fall it had become apparent that the Air Corps too must be re-equipped and greatly expanded.
Of all the models of aircraft on hand in the Air Corps in September 1939, only one--the B-17--actually flew as a first-line plane during World War II. In 1939 the B-18 was the standard bombardment plane, the A-17 the standard attack plane, and the P-36 the standard fighter; almost 700 of the 800 first-line combat aircraft of the Air Corps consisted of these three models. By the time of America's entry into the war two years later, all of them would be obsolete.
The Air Corps planes had been described by President Roosevelt in January 1939 as "antiquated weapons." The latest model of the P-36 had an operating speed of 270 miles per hour, a ceiling of 32,000 feet, and a maximum armament of three .30-caliber and one .50-caliber machine guns. The chief British fighters--the Spitfire and the Hurricane--were both far ahead of the P-36 in performance. The Spitfire had an operating speed of 312 miles per hour, a ceiling of 35,000 feet, and an armament of eight .303-caliber machine guns. The Me-109, had an operating speed of 298 miles per hour, a service ceiling of 36,000 feet, and it carried two machine guns and two 20-mm. guns. The contrast was all the more significant because the P-36 was at the height of its performance potential in 1939, while the German and British fighters were still capable of further developments and would show significant improvement in performance during the course of the war.
In its attack bombers, the United States was even more outclassed. The German Heinkel 111, Dornier 17, Junkers 87, and especially the Junkers 88, were all superior to the American attack bombers. The highly over-rated Ju-87, a single-engine monoplane, the dread Stuuka dive bomber in 1940, had a maximum speed of 245 miles per hour and a cruising speed just under 200 miles. The Ju-88 had a top speed of nearly 300 miles per hour and a cruising speed of 260. It could carry a bomb load of 2,200 pounds and was armed with three machine guns. The American A-17, by contrast, was a single-engine monoplane with a maximum speed of 220 miles per hour and a cruising speed of 170; it carried five .30-caliber machine guns and a normal bomb load of 654 pounds. It had a service ceiling of 19,400 feet.
Only in the field of heavy bombers did the Air Corps hold first rank. The B-17 was superior to the Focke-Wulf of the Germans and the Manchester of the British, but in September 1939 the Air Corps had only twenty-three (including three experimental B-17A's) Flying Fortresses.

From what I have read, the Hawk 75 (US P-36) was more agile than the Spitfires & Bf-109s of the time.

I think there were other aircraft the US Operated in September 39 that also saw front line service. The Douglas Devastator comes to mind as well as the Curtiss P-36.

Great posts Mike. Can't argue with any of it. We often forget the number of aircraft and personnel lost in training accidents. By modern standards, the "acceptable" training loss rate in peacetime was extremely high . Adding wartime imperatives (eg cutting training hours and pushing personnel through the system as fast as possible) and the training loss rate was bound to increase. It was a mindset that continued long after the war was over. The story goes that the minimum size of a conversion course onto Meteors in the postwar period was 8 pilots because it was expected that 2 of them would likely be killed in training and there was a need for 6 pallbearers. Dunno how true it is but given the wartime loss rates, 2 per course probably seemed pretty tame.

I had no concept of the number of aircraft and personnel losses in training and non combat related accidents. That is truly terrible in any time frame. I know in my own training we lost 2 guys to training accidents and thought that was horrific. But that was from an entire training squadron. My particular flight suffered no fatalities and few injuries in training. Unless you consider loss of dignity an injury, in that case we were at 100%! I never realized how effective the english language is as a tool to terrify and belittle until I met my first T.I.

pinehilljoe said:

please this is the one forum i can escape to and not be blasted with contemporary politics

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Your right and I was wrong, apologies to one and all

parsifal said:

The US refused to join the League of Nations. Although President Wilson pushed hard for US membership, opposition in the US Senate was significant

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Thread-drift. But I thought this interesting. Author Andrew Roberts (History of the English Speaking Peoples since 1900) puts a lot of the blame for the failure on Wilson himself...

P-40 doesnt have the performance of a 109 Emil or Spitfire.
When was the first P-40s delivered? June 1940?
The French ordered P-40s but war was over for them before getting a single one.
So not ready for battle of Britain.
So in real terms the only modern performance fighter available for combat in numbers made by USA in 1940 which was readily available was the P-36 or Hawk 75.

P-40s were not in combat until 1941, with the Desert air force, however its predecessor, the hawk 75 was in action from the first day of the war, writing a glorious chapter in an otherwise dismal effort by the allies in France


The French Hawks were in action from almost the first day that the war began in Europe. On September 8, 1939, the Groupe de Chasse II/4, operating Hawk 75As succeeded in destroying two Messerschmitt Bf 109Es, the first Allied aerial victories of World War 2. The Hawk 75A served with Armee de l'Air Groupes de Chasse III/2, I/4, II/4, I/5 and II/5, these units claiming 230 confirmed kills and 80 "probables", as against losses totaling only 29 aircraft destroyed in aerial combat. Not bad for an aircraft not considered front line material. French Hawks gave better than they got. The Hawk 75A was neither as fast nor as well-armed as the Messerschmitt Bf 109E, but it was more maneuverable and could take more punishment. The leading French ace of 1939/40 was Lt Marin La Meslee, who scored 20 "kills" while flying the Hawk.

Only 291 Hawk 75A fighters were actually taken on strength by the Armee de l'Air before the collapse of French resistance, but a number were lost en route to French ports.


After the collapse of French resistance, those Armee de l'Air Hawks which had not escaped to unoccupied French territory or flown to England were taken over by the Luftwaffe. Some of the Armee de l'Air Hawk 75As were captured while still in their delivery crates. These were transported to Germany, whey they were overhauled and assembled by the Espenlaub Flugzeugbau, fitted with German instrumentation, and then sold to Finland. Finland received 36 former Armee de l'Air Hawk 75A-1s, A-2s and A-3s, along with eight former Norwegian Hawk 75A-6s. These Finnish Hawks participated in the war on the Axis side when Finland entered the war against the Soviet Union on June 25, 1941 and by all accounts acquitted themselves excellently. These Hawks gave a good account of themselves in Finnish service, and some Hawks remained in service in Finland until 1948.


After the Armistice, Armee de l'Air Groupes de Chasse I/4 and I/5 continued flying their Hawks with the Vichy Air Force, the former unit based at Dakar and the latter at Rabat. These Vichy Hawk 75As were to fight against other American planes when the Allies made the Operation Torch landings in North Africa in November 1942. In an air battle between these Hawks and carrier-based Grumman F4F Wildcats, 10 Vichy planes were shot down versus the loss of seven Wildcats. This is one of the few occasions during the Second World War in which American-built planes fought against each other.


P-40s were also used extensively before the entry of the US. Known in the RAF as the Tomahawk, the first Tomahawk fighter to see combat belonged to the No. 112 Squadron of the British Royal Air Force over North Africa; they noted the Tomahawk fighters' ability to absorb battle damage. On 29 Aug 1941, Australian pilot Clive Caldwell was engaged by two German Bf 109 fighters, including one piloted by hit by ace Werner Schroer; Caldwell downed Schroer and forced the wingman to disengage by heavily damaging his fighter, then made it safely back to base with damage from over 100 7.9mm bullets and five 20mm cannon shells.


In June 1941, there was a notable combat for Tomahawk fighters when with 9 Tommahawks from No. 3 Squadron RAAF attacked 16 German Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers escorted by 6 Bf 109 fighters. The RAAF Tomahawks would shoot down four Ju 87 and one Bf 109 aircraft for no loss.


In general, Tomahawks were able to fly competively against the 109E subtype, but struggled somewhat against the newer 109 F.

The Basket said:

P-40 doesnt have the performance of a 109 Emil or Spitfire.

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The 357 mph speed figure is equaly worth in USA, UK or Germany, if I'm not mistaking it badly.

When was the first P-40s delivered? June 1940?
The French ordered P-40s but war was over for them before getting a single one.
So not ready for battle of Britain.
So in real terms the only modern performance fighter available for combat in numbers made by USA in 1940 which was readily available was the P-36 or Hawk 75.

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Why did you moved the goal post? In the post # 15 you asked:
"So did the USA in 1940 have a fighter that matched the latest 109 Emil in performance and production and numbers in service?
If the answer is no then America is behind. Simple as that."

What America has or has not in 1940 has no bearing on BoB or what French ordered or not. Any month in 1940 is still in 1940, whether it is October or May.
So yes - USA have had a fighter in 1940 that vould match the performance of 109 Emil, and it was in volume production and in service.

109 had better altitude ceiling and climb so did the P-40 match the 109? No.
So the P-40 not been available for French export is very important...To the French.

France was not USA.
Rate of climb for the 109 Emil is at ~2650 fpm per graph on this web page (scroll down a bit) up until ~12000 ft, while the P-40 makes 3080 fpm (same pdf as previously linked to). Emil is better above 15000 ft.

Do remember that the P-40 did quite well against the Luftwaffe. See P-40 and Zero (read past the first few paragraphs).


I think many USAAF and USN aircraft were under-rated. I'm sure that no Lufftwaffe pilot would underestimate a decently flown Hellcat or Corsair twice.

I'm quite happy to accept that the 109 was superior to any US fighter but its advantages were far from decisive, and its weaknesses were.

The 109 in my opinion enjoyed the edge in terms of firepower and climb. it had problems in a high speed dive, and was not particularly outstanding in turn. Early marks until the E4 were not armoured . Against the Allison Ponwered p-40 the DB601 gave huge benefits at altitude, but much less so low down.

Its glaring weaknesses were range and endurance. With only 60 rpg for main armament and an effective combat radius of about 120 miles, it suffered and was unable to complete its vital purposes in the BoB.

If the Luftwaffe had been magically able to exchange some of its Me109s for H-75 A4 or better, or the armoured versions of the P-40c, it would have had to accept downgraded overall performance and firepower in exchange for range and better ammunition supplies. obviously its a matter of opinion but my thoughts on this are that the Luftwaffe with an SE fighter with better range and ammunition supply and better able to take punishment, for at least some of its fighter forces, would have been in better shape to challenge the RAF.

So, I would describe the LW SE fighter as superior technically to the US but inferior to them from an operational needs point of view.

I should probably also point out that the 109 was not the entire suite of LW development. They had streams of development for every other type, and in these areas I don't think they were enjoying much of a lead at all.

Where the LW could be argued as being ahead were in the fields of rocket and jet propulsion and probably even electronics, at least until the tech exchanges with the UK.