Was Air Power decisive in the two battles of El Alamein?

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I know the Wikipedia lists 50-100 or so, but my understanding is that there were ~700 P-40Rs. There seems to be some confusion about the matter not surprisingly.

Curtiss P-40R

 

[Shortround6]

Right that was the policy, though it's questionable that was actually the case. I gather they made those engines for Hurricanes, Mosquitos and Lancasters, but that many of those stayed in Canada and some were re-engined in the UK. It's been a while since I read about it. But I know they produced an extra 700 P-40F or L airframes which they didn't have the V-1650s / Merlin 28 available for and they ended up being re-engined with Allisons, relabled P-40R (for 're-engined'?) and used stateside for training. Those 700 fighters probably could have equipped 2 or 3 Hurricane groups in the Middle East / Italy or the equivalent of Us or Australian P-40E or M units in the South Pacific or Burma. Or if the shipping arrangements were possible send them to India instead of those Mohawk units.

Specifically for the Middle East, I'd say in most of 1943 they could have definitely used a few hundred more P-40Ls, by the end of the year P-47s are starting to become available which are ultimately better, and then P-51s which are definitely much better. The British were still using Kittyhawk IV in some of those old DAF units I think until 1945 and an F/L type might have better (maybe not since they were using them so much as fighter bombers).

The whole re-engine thing is as I just described going by

The re-engined Fs and L s were stateside for training and had never left. In addition to more F/Ls that didn't make it to 1944 to be part of the re-engine program.

You really need to get your time line in order. There is no way without a time machine that shipments of P-40F/Ls were going to be ready to go when the Mohawks went to India.

 

[Shortround6]

I know the Wikipedia lists 50-100 or so, but my understanding is that there were ~700 P-40Rs. There seems to be some confusion about the matter not surprisingly.

Curtiss P-40R

There seems to be whole lobby of the "P-40 could have won WW II by itself"


edit. From the Web site listed.
The designation P-40R was assigned to P-40F and P-40L airframes that had their Packard Merlin engines replaced in service with Allison V-1710-81 engines. Converted P-40Fs were redesignated P-40R-1, converted P-40Ls as P-40R-2. These planes were used exclusively for training duties. US Army documents claim that over 600 such conversions were made, but only 70 P-40F and 53 P-40L conversions can be confirmed:

The Book I showed had serial numbers and which US training units they were assigned to. Doesn't mean that there weren't some errors, but almost 500????
And over a year off in timing?

 

[Shortround6]

We are getting side tracked again, P-40Ls, Ms, Ns and Rs had nothing to do with 2nd El Alamein or even the 2 months or so after it, no matter what they did in the Rest of the NA Campaign or Sicily and Italy.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

No I am not struggling, I am watching how the Shores loss list is too important to deal with its flaws.

Yes. You are struggling with verifiable data and some basic concepts simultaneously. I think you should pick a different hill to die on.

Thanks for a clear example of what is going on, the squadron says tail damage, Shores ups that to tail shot off, you now try and come up with a definition of how an aircraft can land with its tail shot off, the Shores list is that important. While the list includes lightly damaged it is problematical. So what is the Shores definition of landed at base after damage, versus crash landed? A record that says the aircraft took more damage when landing?

No. Wrong across the board. First "tail shot off" - you asked how could an aircraft land with it's tail shot off? As if Shores made it up. I posted a photograph of an aircraft of that same exact type, which had landed with it's tail (partly) shot off. This was a thing that happened, more than once. Hence the photograph.

Here it is again, look closely. That is battle damage almost certainly from 20mm cannon from a Bf 109.

When the crew chief or whoever it was made the note, he was almost certainly describing exactly the same kind of damage shown in the photograph (i.e mainly the cloth covered control surfaces shot away). Posting a photograph is not "trying to come up with a definition". I was trying to help you understand what the RAAF unit was reporting. For your benefit as I knew exactly what they meant and I suspect 99% of people reading the post already understood exactly what they meant.

With a working rear area system the allied air forces had the option to reduce the workload on the unit maintenance people by removing a damaged aircraft from a combat unit and replacing it with a reserve, something the axis dd not have.

So what?

Actually I asked did you believe all 8 allied pilots totally missed on 8 February 1942, but thanks for yet again making me the problem. I have known the RAF was over claiming big time for quite a few years, the black smoke emitted when axis aircraft pushed the throttle wide open one reason. The British Intelligence history covers how Ultra enabled the true losses to be calculated and the claims system to be tightened. In response to my query you have told us if Shores records no damage to axis aircraft, there was no damage, even slight. You believe the axis records are that good and Shores has them all and for that matter the allied ones, and they are all in the book. No lightly damaged axis aircraft to compare with the Kittyhawk tail shot off, back in under 3 days. Eliminate the lightly damaged, that will give a better comparison.

You are definitely the problem here. 100%. Not Shores or his sources (basically the RAAF data, as the tail damaged aircraft was with 3 RAAF), and not me. I didn't make you the problem either, you made, and are for some reason continuing to make yourself the problem, very much stuck on this issue, and you picked a bad example to get obsessed with.

Here is a photo of the page in question from Shores. Please look at it carefully. I have helpfully underlined the aircraft I listed in my summary. These include two (2) categories: Shot Down, and "Crash Landed". I already explained my reasons for counting "crash landed" several times so I won't repeat that again. Shores does not say anything here about whether crash landing or shot down or FTR or MiA or KiA means anything in particular. He just lists what the unit histories themselves record. He does have a description of the action (also from the unit histories) up above but the list here is objective data. Note by the way that i did not count the 'damaged' Hurricane. Only the shot down and crash-landed.

The second fact that you are struggling with here is the idea that the Allies reported three confirmed and four probable victories, but didn't actually get any. For a variety of reasons, this happened a lot, on both sides. Early on the Allies were overclaiming more, but this shifted and by Oct 1942, the Germans actually seem to have overclaimed a bit more.

Shores is even handed on this. The two reasons I relied on Shores here is that his data is definitely the most accurate currently available, and his MAW and other books have been cited repeatedly in multiple discussions all over this specific forum and even in heated debates was seemingly deemed reliable enough by both sides (the arguments were usually about interpretation of his data rather than the data itself, which is basically just a pass-through from the unit data). I don't claim, however, that Shores made no mistakes, but I have not only his books but also several other books covering similar data and all of them, Russian Front, Pacific, CBI, and Med, show multiple cases where both sides thought they shot down several enemy planes but actually didn't get any. So rather than assume the Germans were hiding their losses here, I think the most likely answer is that the Allies just overclaimed that day.

Is it possible there were a few bullet holes that got patched without being noted in any records? Yes. That is possible. Is this the most likely reason we see no damage reported? Probably not. At this time the P-40D / Kittyhawk type was new to these RAF units and the day was a tragic one with multiple losses, KiA MiA, WiA and a PoW. It was a harrowing day and air victory confirmation is always very difficult. It was a common problem.

Shores does not shy away from reporting when J.G. 27 or the other German and Italian units take losses, as they did at an accelerating rate later in the year. Your assumption on error or conspiracy without even ever seeing the book seems very unfounded to me. Your persistence in insisting something is amiss is, while not unusual in such discussions, not very much to your credit here IMO.

The allied ground support doctrine ended up being a good thing, lots of people want their contribution noted and we have a Canadian historian highlighting the Canadian input. The "hated him" reminds me of Hitler's Mediterranean Gamble by Douglas Porch, every commander gets a character assessment with plenty of negatives, which makes me less charitable when it comes to overlooking claims in the book like the Germans had Tigers and Panthers in North Africa.


There was not a lot of ground offensive to support. What is the definition of defensive and offensive in this case?

I'd say watch the video. I'm not going to comment on possible Canadian bias, except to say that I feel it is very unlikely. Most Canadian WW2 enthusiasts I've met are very pro British and pro Commonwealth, not that my opinion carries any weight here. But I didn't pretend the video was 100% correct, I just summarized what the guy in the interview said (referring in part to the book also excerpted here previously). It's just another data point, not nearly as cut and dry as Shores aircraft loss data.

During 1941 the Desert Air Force was rather struggling to do interdiction, the lack of suitable aircraft plus the need to base the longer range stuff mostly around the Nile Delta thanks to supply issues. After all Tobruk was friendly at the time. Similarly the needs of Ethiopia, Greece, Syria, Iran and Iraq made it hard to allocated aircraft for the desert fighting for extended periods, and again there were the supply issues when that did happen.

Apparently the shifting of multiple air units to help in the doomed defense of Greece was a big problem for a while for Collishaw.

As read this suggest the army should have stayed passive and let the air force win it. What reports of the ground combat have you read?

I just went up to my bookshelf to count. I have nine books on the ground war in North Africa, not counting Osprey Military books. These include both "The Rommel Papers" by B.H. Liddell-Hart, two different memoirs of Montgomery, and a biography of Auchileck, I also have a few of the old map and chits type wargames set in that Theater, including the imposing and fiendishly complex "Operation Crusader" which I only had the pleasure of attempting to play once, but kept for nostalgia purposes and as a reference, since it's so detailed.

On top of that I have probably another dozen or so books on the air war in North Africa and Malta, including four volumes of Mediterranean Air War, and the biographies, memoirs or autobiographies of quite a few of the Allied fighter pilots in the Desert War - Clive Caldwell, James 'Stocky Edwards (sorry to bring up another Canadian), Bobby Gibbes, Nicky Barr, Billy Drake, Neville Duke etc.

But I don't need any of this to recognize that neither Shores nor any of the other sources I used have a bias against the ground forces. That would be an outlier position to say the least.

The Baltimore and Boston versions used in the desert had about the same defensive armament as the Blenheim, with hand held machine guns against the dorsal turret of the Blenheim. They were about 40 mph faster, shorter ranged and could carry double the bomb load. The first Baltimores arrived in November 1941, first operational hours in May 1942, total of 312 arrivals to end September 1942. A total of 111 Bostons arrived in the Middle East September to December 1941, first operational hours in February but the numbers involved meant it played a bit part until September 1942. There were 76 Marylands imported in 1941, plus a few from Britain, again faster but weak defensive armament. Apart from the pre and early war shipments Britain sent 1,583 Blenheims to the Middle East August 1940 to end October 1942.

No. In 1942 the British were operating mainly Boston Mk III, with IV and V coming later, and Baltimore III (later IIIA, IV and V).

The Boston III was lightly armed with two dorsal and one ventral .303, but had a maximum speed of 338 mph at 12,500 ft., vs. Blenheim IV of 266 mph at 11,800 ft. That is over 70 mph faster than a Blenheim and trust me, that does make a difference.

As for the Baltimore, I can see in Shores (sorry) that 21 SAAF lost a Baltimore III AH141 on Oct 27, and 233 Sqn RAF lost a Baltimore III AG959 on Oct 28

This version of the Baltimore (version III) had a Boulton Paul power turret with quad .303 machine guns. These were ordered in 1940 I don't know when they arrived. But they were flying at the time of second El Alamein.

This is a IIIA with twin .50 caliber machine guns (sorry Shortround6) in a Martin powered turret on the back. Lower profile than the Boulton Paul so less drag.

This is a Mk IV with the same armament, in British Desert colors. These were basically identical to the IIIA and were all sent to the British.

 

[Shortround6]

We also need to

with twin .50 caliber machine guns (sorry Shortround6)

The .50 had a place or several of them, a pair of them in a power turret on a bomber was one of them.

I think some of us are also confusing Air Superiority with Air supremacy.
Ripped off from Wiki.

• Air supremacy is the highest level, where a side holds complete control of the skies. It is defined by NATO and the United States Department of Defense as the "degree of air superiority wherein the opposing air force is incapable of effective interference".[2][3][4]
• Air superiority is the second level, where a side is in a more favorable position than the opponent. It is defined in the NATO glossary as the "degree of dominance in [an] air battle ... that permits the conduct of operations by [one side] and its related land, sea and air forces at a given time and place without prohibitive interference by opposing air forces."[3]
• Favorable air situation is defined as "an air situation in which the extent of air effort applied by the enemy air forces is insufficient to prejudice the success of friendly land, sea or air operations."[2]
• Air parity is the lowest level of control, where no side holds any level of control of skies.

Obviously there are gray areas where one level blends into the next, not a hard and fast number of victories or completed bomb runs.
Wiki also notes asymmetrical warfare where a weak side may try to use ground attacks on air fields to increase losses of aircraft. The British were rather good at this with Major Stirling and his merry band claiming up to 350 Axis aircraft during the Campaign.

There is also a major problem with anybody claim the invention of ground support, aside from it being done in in WW I.
There was a huge difference between having the idea and implementing it.
In 1940 the British had either zero or 1-2 radars in Egypt?
They had a bunch in in 1942 and they were mobile (towed by trucks).
There was a huge increase in the number of radios at the different HQs. And the type/s of radios.
Getting the Army and Air Force Officers to actually occupy the same offices was a milestone.
Getting the equipment (trucks and stuff) to make the HQs mobile took a while.
Getting the equipment (trucks, stuff and ground crew) to allow the "tactical" forces to be based only 20-30 minutes from the front lines for fast response also took a few years.

Please note that the above changes had absolutely nothing to do with types of aircraft.
Also please note that it was nowhere near the "cab rank" system used in France and NW Europe with required even more investment in aircraft, fuel, communications and ground support.

Not saying the Canadian didn't have a good idea or a number of them. But saying later guys just copied him isn't right either.
It took Tedder several months to get the US to agree to use the British system and several rather rude surprises.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

There seems to be whole lobby of the "P-40 could have won WW II by itself"

it's funny because I have 10 -15 books on WW2 fighters or military aircraft which say different variations of "The P-40 was slow and unmaneuverable", "The P-40 was obsolete as soon as it was built", "Was good at absorbing damage and that's about it", "The P-40 was completely inferior to the Bf 109" (and / or A6M or MC 202). There precious few which mention anything comparing to what the data in Shores indicates regarding the USAAF P-40 units in North Africa and Italy.
Most online sources on the P-40 and pretty much all video games etc. also portray it in this manner.

I definitely don't think the P-40 was a perfect aircraft, in fact it was a deeply flawed design, with a slow rate of climb and a very limited performance ceiling. But it was of quite significant importance in the most active combat Theaters of the war (Middle East, South Pacific, Russia, China) in the middle part of the war, 1942-1943. It was a stop gap solution which through tweaking and adjustments by a lot of people, ultimately helped the Allied cause a lot more and for a lot longer than people tend to realize.

Ultimately though it was less important and not as good of a design as say, the F4U, F6F, P-38, Yak 9, P-51B, Spitfire VIII and IX and later, etc.

In the MTO, I'd also say the Baltimore, the Maryland, the A-36, the MC. 202, the Beaufighter and yes even the lowly Swordfish are somewhat under-recognized for what the emerging data indicates they actually accomplished.

Sometimes if you point out what the data shows instead of repeating what the old opinions said 30-50 years ago you are labeled a nut, a conspiracy theorist, evangelist, etc.

edit. From the Web site listed.
The designation P-40R was assigned to P-40F and P-40L airframes that had their Packard Merlin engines replaced in service with Allison V-1710-81 engines. Converted P-40Fs were redesignated P-40R-1, converted P-40Ls as P-40R-2. These planes were used exclusively for training duties. US Army documents claim that over 600 such conversions were made, but only 70 P-40F and 53 P-40L conversions can be confirmed:

The Book I showed had serial numbers and which US training units they were assigned to. Doesn't mean that there weren't some errors, but almost 500????
And over a year off in timing?

I have a bunch of sources on this, and the website I showed is just one of the few easily available online, and therefore easy to link here. I won't say it's impossible it was less than the 600 or 700, a lot of the data is contradictory and it seems difficult to trace what happened to some of these.

But as you say, it starts to become a bit of a derail. My only point bringing it up was that I suspect they could have used them with Merlin engines, which matters only a little of it's 100 or 200 of them, but if you had say 700 that could probably have been 3 or 4 wings of Hurricanes re-equipped, which would have helped IMO.

 

[Shortround6]

There is certainly an ebb and flow to the tide on the P-40.
Like all the absolute BS about how it was designed to be a low altitude fighter or was designed for ground attack (really??? Prototype has two slow firing .50s (the .30s added later) an no, zero, nada, zilch bombs. But it was designed for ground attack????).

The P-40 was a much better design than it is given credit for. However the implementation (US Army requirements) quickly ruined things and the substitution of the -39 engine was nowhere near enough to salvage things with the massive increase in guns and ammo. A P-40E/F with 6 guns and full ammo was carrying over 250lbs more guns and ammo than a 12 gun Hurricane II. The P-40E sure didn't have the engine of a Hurricane II.
Allison tried to stick in the higher altitude gears in Dec of 1941, it took until Dec 42/Jan 43 for them to show up.
Curtiss could be blamed for some things, Allison not keeping up with engine development (they were trying like hell just to make the engines in quantity) and the Army's insistence that every single engine fighter carry a dump truck load of guns and ammo, were not those things.

pretty much all video games etc. also portray it in this manner.

Because that is what their customers expect.
Just like most cardboard or even computer war games. A bunch of stuff is biased in one way or another so suit the customers expectations.
If you have two guys of reasonable intelligence playing against each others the Germans are going to loose most games (they don't simulate command and control/radios etc) to point that nobody would play them, so things like rate of fire or accuracy or spotting or some other fudge factor/s are tweaked to give the gamers/customers what they expect.
And that reinforces the the superiority of the myth of German equipment.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

No I am not struggling, I am watching how the Shores loss list is too important to deal with its flaws.

By the way, I looked at that XLS sheet you posted a few pages back and there is some useful data in there, thanks for compiling and posting it.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

The whole re-engine thing is as I just described going by
View attachment 702864
The re-engined Fs and L s were stateside for training and had never left. In addition to more F/Ls that didn't make it to 1944 to be part of the re-engine program.

You really need to get your time line in order. There is no way without a time machine that shipments of P-40F/Ls were going to be ready to go when the Mohawks went to India.

That looks like a cool book, nice cover. I don't have that one, may need to look for it. I do have several others on the P-40 though...

 

[Shortround6]

Book starts in WW I and ends with the P-87 jet.
All fighters, no transports or dive bombers.
Hawk 75 section starts on page185 and the P-40 ends on page page 327.
There are over 30 pages of annexes listing what units In most countries) had a least a few planes.
Not saying it is perfect but since it is by Francis H. Dean of "America's Hundred Thousand" fame and Dan Hagedorn (finished it). It are going to have a go a long way to find anything better in one book.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

There is certainly an ebb and flow to the tide on the P-40.
Like all the absolute BS about how it was designed to be a low altitude fighter or was designed for ground attack (really??? Prototype has two slow firing .50s (the .30s added later) an no, zero, nada, zilch bombs. But it was designed for ground attack????).

The P-40 was a much better design than it is given credit for. However the implementation (US Army requirements) quickly ruined things and the substitution of the -39 engine was nowhere near enough to salvage things with the massive increase in guns and ammo. A P-40E/F with 6 guns and full ammo was carrying over 250lbs more guns and ammo than a 12 gun Hurricane II. The P-40E sure didn't have the engine of a Hurricane II.

Yeah there seems to be an ebb and flow with a lot of these things. Some subjects (such as, I think a lot of the Soviet aircraft, pilots and units) still hasn't gotten it's first real postwar reform in appreciation. Probably also true for Italian aircraft and pilots.

Somethings continually get oversold (P-51) and then the backlash comes a little too strong.

Some things have gone back and forth multiple times and there are mutually contradictory tropes kind of pro and con, for example with a lot of the German kit, which are both a bit off. The Japanese kit was once disparaged, then overhyped, then disparaged, then overhyped again, and now tends to be disparaged... in part because when looking at WW2 aircraft and other weapons and machines people seem to heavily lean toward the last year or two of the war, by which time things were basically a foregone conclusion even though it surely didn't feel that way for the troops on the front line.

Allison tried to stick in the higher altitude gears in Dec of 1941, it took until Dec 42/Jan 43 for them to show up.
Curtiss could be blamed for some things, Allison not keeping up with engine development (they were trying like hell just to make the engines in quantity) and the Army's insistence that every single engine fighter carry a dump truck load of guns and ammo, were not those things.

Well the dump truck load of guns and ammunition ultimately worked out very well on the Mustang, the Thunderbolt, the Hellcat. And it worked out pretty well on the P-40 and Wildcat as well, albeit with a little more tweaking of tactics and hardware.

pretty much all video games etc. also portray it in this manner.

Because that is what their customers expect.
Just like most cardboard or even computer war games. A bunch of stuff is biased in one way or another so suit the customers expectations.

Well that depends a lot on the game. Some were very well researched.

If you have two guys of reasonable intelligence playing against each others the Germans are going to loose most games (they don't simulate command and control/radios etc) to point that nobody would play them, so things like rate of fire or accuracy or spotting or some other fudge factor/s are tweaked to give the gamers/customers what they expect.

Like I said, depends on the game. Combat Mission (tactical tank and infantry game, up to brigade level) definitely does simulate command and control, radios and so on, to a frustrating degree as it makes it very hard to play.

And that reinforces the the superiority of the myth of German equipment.

As previously noted, I think that has gone back and forth, and now maybe is a bit understated. The German kit was not nearly as invincible as some people thought and still think (and there is the whole creepy issue of people who really buy the German propaganda sometimes due to books that came out in the 1950s and 60s from German soldiers), but sometimes the re-adjustment goes too far into an overcorrection. I don't think any Allied pilots was real eager to engage with a Bf 109F or G in 1942, and no Allied tanker driving a Crusader III, an M3 or Sherman was happy to face a Pz IVF2 or a Flak 18 around the time of second El Alamein.

Some of that German kit was damn good. Thankfully it did have it's flaws (as did their ideology and strategic thinking) and thankfully our ancestors figured out how to exploit them, but it was no easy task. And it wasn't just a matter of numbers.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

As far as airplane games, the last one I played was Il-2 1946 and WW2 Online both 10+ years ago. After many iterations of improvements and updates to flight models, Il-2 was pretty good for anything that had been involved in Russia, less so for other aircraft. WW2 Online was a little bit simpler but still pretty good for all the kit, but it was just France 1940 when I was playing around with it.

With more current generations of these games (including the newer version of Il-2 but also "War Thunder", "World of Warplanes", the Microsoft one etc.) when doing a search for a given type of aircraft online, you often come across data pages for these games instead, as well as forum discussions and videos.

The gist of these is that they seem to have regressed a bit and reflect basically what is in Wikipedia articles and what meets gamer expectations, which tropes are now entrenched in the minds of a lot of boys and young men, as in millions, and game companies know they'd rather not annoy legions of such people online, which requires flight models and so on adhere to their expectations.

 

[Shortround6]

Well the dump truck load of guns and ammunition ultimately worked out very well on the Mustang, the Thunderbolt, the Hellcat.

Well, backing up the dump truck to planes that had 2,000hp engines was a lot different than backing it up to an 1150-1200hp (F4F) plane.
P-51D carried about 150lbs less ammo than the F6F.

The MC 202 only had two 12.7mm guns in the first 500 planes and even the later planes that were supposed to have the 7.7mm guns in each wing they often didn't.

Most everything was a compromise and sometimes it is hard to say where the dividing line is but sometimes you just say "what the heck were they thinking!!!!"
Look at all the P-40 Stripper models. Trouble is you can't really take structural reinforcement back out once you put it in without retooling the production line.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Book starts in WW I and ends with the P-87 jet.
All fighters, no transports or dive bombers.
Hawk 75 section starts on page185 and the P-40 ends on page page 327.
There are over 30 pages of annexes listing what units In most countries) had a least a few planes.
Not saying it is perfect but since it is by Francis H. Dean of "America's Hundred Thousand" fame and Dan Hagedorn (finished it). It are going to have a go a long way to find anything better in one book.

Sold! Putting that on my Amazon queue right now

 

[Buz101]

There's a few errors in the book, however most were corrected (may or may not have my name in that one, along with a few photos). It's actually a good read and gives the project numbers for the aircraft, as well as quite a bit of goodness on the Hawks (all types) in general, although limited operational data

 

[Buz101]

Bill

Are the photos you have for the 79th, the ones that appear in most books, or are they ones not normally seen?. Only ask as there's a FB and Webpafe for the 79th that has some great photos and info in for the 79th FG and they are always looking for extras (that's if you're able to share them).

Buz

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Well, backing up the dump truck to planes that had 2,000hp engines was a lot different than backing it up to an 1150-1200hp (F4F) plane.
P-51D carried about 150lbs less ammo than the F6F.

P-51D was a heavy bird. With about a (max) 1,500 hp engine. Six guns with 380 rounds each. That's not lightly armed. 2,000 lbs heavier than a Spitfire Mk IX or a Bf 109G-6.

But was it a less effective fighter?

The MC 202 only had two 12.7mm guns in the first 500 planes and even the later planes that were supposed to have the 7.7mm guns in each wing they often didn't.

As you know, because I've seen you refer to this, the Alfa Romeo DB 601 knock off used in the MC 202 was a limited variant which did not have the HP potential of the one on the F-4, let alone that of a DB 605 powered BF 109G. It was basically a 1,200 hp aircraft. So they worked with what they had. Two slow firing 12.7mm plus maybe two 7.7mm guns in the wing was enough to shoot down quite a few Allied aircraft.

Later, when they did put a DB 605 in it (giving 1,500 hp), they called it a MC.205, and it carried a fairly heavy armament of two 12.7mm mg plus two 20mm cannon.

Most everything was a compromise and sometimes it is hard to say where the dividing line is but sometimes you just say "what the heck were they thinking!!!!"

Most everything was a compromise bears repeating and it's definitely true with aircraft design. And yes sometimes you do wonder. Putting the .50 cals in the US planes probably wasn't such a head-scratcher, though the inability of the Americans to make a reliable 20mm, even when they had the Hispano plans to copy essentially, is indeed a head-scratcher for me.

Look at all the P-40 Stripper models. Trouble is you can't really take structural reinforcement back out once you put it in without retooling the production line.

The P-40 was right on the edge of being overloaded, largely depending on the engine power. At 1,000 or 1,100 HP and 8,500 lbs, it was too heavy with the six guns. When they adjusted the power rating to more like 1,300 or 1,400 hp, six guns wasn't such a burden, though they still had the performance ceiling problem above a bout 12,000 ft. The 'Stripper' versions (I like what you did there) with four guns at around 8,000 lbs especially the ones with a Merlin engine were fairly 'hot'. Enough to definitely pose a challenge even to very good German pilots in the latest Bf 109s and Fw 190s.

 

[33k in the air]

P-51D was a heavy bird. With about a (max) 1,500 hp engine. Six guns with 380 rounds each.

1,880 rounds total (400 for the inboard gun in each wing, 270 rounds for each of the outboard pair of guns in each wing). That's a 313 rpg average.

Although I have seen some P-51D manuals which say early versions had a maximum of 500 rounds for the inboard gun in each wing, which would raise the total rounds to 2,080.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Which is a good bit more than the ammunition carried in a P-40.

I think for fighter vs. fighter combat, a bit less guns is better. Four gun P-51 or four gun P-40 or four gun F4F were probably better against Axis fighters. But War Dept thought in terms of aggregates. For shooting down bombers and for strafing (which did more damage than is usually recognized) six guns are better. Eight even more so.

It's also true that guns did jam or have stoppages, so sometimes more is better for that reason as well.