What if the Allies only had one fighter during the war?

[Jerry W. Loper]

You want to use a P40 for the USAAF and US Navy right up to the end of the war? A P-40 with two stage Merlin would problaby have a top speed of no more than 410 mph because of more drag relative to the P-51. I don't think range would be the only issue. Upgradability would be hard with regard to trying to reach speeds in excess of 422 mph (P-40 Q).

There were definitely fighters superior to the P-40, but a lot of them were not in service at the beginning, which the P-40 was, and the original question asked for just one fighter for the whole war. The Spitfire seems an obvious choice because it was in service from start to finish and was a great dogfighter, but something would definitely need to be done to improve its range for escort duty.

 

[Jerry W. Loper]

The aircraft needs to be in service by 1939. Otherwise Germany will win the Battle of Britain by default. I vote for the Spitfire. It was operational in 1938.

Contenders.
Hurricane. Operational Dec 1937. Inferior to Spitfire.
D.520. Operational 1940. Too late.
Yak1. Operational 1941. Too late.
P-40. Operational late 1939. Too late. Inferior to Spitfire.
P-36. Operational 1938. Inexpensive. Performance inferior to Spitfire.
P-38. Operational 1941 (Barely. Lots of bugs.). Too late.

Maybe Hawker could have gotten away with continuing to use the name "Hurricane" for its fighters that historically were named the Typhoon and the Tempest. After all, Supermarine used the name "Spitfire" for a series of air frames in which the later ones bore scarcely any resemblance to the earlier ones.

 

[renrich]

The P40 as a carrier fighter? It was a dog as to rate of climb. Modify it for carrier landings with all the additional weight and it would have been hopeless. The Navy would have lost every carrier battle with the P40. Don't know where the numbers for the "long range" of the P39 came from. Aside from poor high altitude performance, it's short range was always an achilles heel. It could only carry 120 gallons of internal fuel. If the allies could only have one fighter then it had to be one operational in 1939 so it could only be the Spitfire.

 

[BombTaxi]

Jerry,

The P-40 still wasn't combat ready in time for the BoB, which is the big problem with all the US aircraft suggested thus far. The P-36 was ( I think ), but was an inferior type to the Spit.

Like your idea about Hawkers naming policy, I don't think you could stretch that far though. The Spits were evolutionary developments of the same basic concept, and the physical resemblance was there between the Mk 1 and even the late Griffon-engined models, even if the engineering was far removed. On the other hand, the Hurricane marked the end of a developmental line which had begun with the Fury (indeed, the original Hurri design was referred to as the 'Fury monoplane'), and the Typhoon was intended as a radical break in terms of design and engineering - which it was. As such, I think stretching the Hurricane name to the Tiffy/Tempest might well be a leap to far, IMHO.

 

[Colin1]

A P-40 with two stage Merlin would problaby have a top speed of no more than 410 mph... ...speeds in excess of 422 mph (P-40Q).

You'd be lucky
the P-40Q would indeed exceed 420mph - just. As history has shown, that wasn't enough to tear everybody's gaze away from the P-51. A standard P-40 with two-stage Merlin might nudge 380mph.

 

[Colin1]

Maybe I've read this what-if wrongly
but I thought the premise was 'if we could only have one fighter'

We seem to have constrained ourselves to 'if we could only have the fighter that was available at the outbreak of war' which is no choice at all - it was the Spitfire. Unless you want to fight WWII with the Hurricane.

The what-if seems to have one end flapping around in the realms of informed fantasy (where you'd expect to find a what-if) and the other end locked down in reality.

Can you just re-iterate what we're allowed to contemplate here?

 

[BombTaxi]

Which one would it be? The P51? Hellcat? Corsair? Spitfire? Lets forget the fact that the P51 was not carrier based...im sure it would of been able to handle the japanese fighters if it was the only fighter we had. What about the Hellcat or Corsair as the only fighter in Europe? How would they have done in the battle of britian? Or escorting bombers to Germany?

This suggests that the a/c has to available for the BoB, which still rules the majority of American types out. If you start ignoring the historical in-service dates of the machines, you start moving from informed fantasy to pure fantasy, IMHO, and we could discuss JSF fighting Eurofighters over Dunkirk...

 

[davebender]

I don't consider that to be a realistic requirement. Land based aircraft like the Spitfire and Me-109 can be adapted to CV use. But I suspect these jury rigged aircraft are inferior over the long term.

If the Spitfire is not selected then I would probably pick the P-36. You will be at a serious disadvantage vs German aircraft. On the plus side the P-36 can dog fight with Japanese A6Ms and Ki-43s.

 

[BombTaxi]

You're right about about jury-rigged naval fighters Dave, the Seafire (and Sea Hurricane and Sea Gladiator for that matter), were far from satisfactory.

But if you look at Allied carrier-ready fighters at the outbreak of the war, or even around the BoB, you are left with a bunch of largely obsolescent types. Skua and Roc anyone?

Having said that, if you are only allowed one fighter, and you choose anything other than the Spit, you face the possibility of type proving unsuitable (look at the trouble the Corsair had), and then the US faces having no carrier fighters pre-1943/44, if at all...

 

[claidemore]

I thought the P36 did pretty good against 109s in France.

 

[davebender]

Yes, in 1940 vs the Me-109D and Me-109E. But the P-36 will be in trouble when Me-109Fs and Fw-190As appear during 1941.

 

[Jerry W. Loper]

Yes, in 1940 vs the Me-109D and Me-109E. But the P-36 will be in trouble when Me-109Fs and Fw-190As appear during 1941.

The Curtiss fighter's usefulness could be prolonged if the P-36 and P-40 are considered basically the same airframe behind the firewall. I don't think that P-36s and late model P-40s are any different from each other than the early Bf-109B and the late model Bf-109K. If the last P-40 model, the P-40Q, had gone into service, its speed and ceiling wouldn't have been much inferior to the P-51D (422 m.p.h. vs. 437 m.p.h. and 39,000 ft. vs. 41,900 ft. respectively).

 

[TheMustangRider]

This a very hard question because certainly it would had been extremely hard for the allies to win the war with only one fighter, its advantages and disadvantages. In my opinion the allies would had needed at least two types, a high altitude escort fighter and a mid-to-low altitude fighter for ground support, the two fighters that I can think of for these roles are the P-51 Mustang and the F4U Corsair, both being used extensively in all theatres of the war.

 

[Waynos]

The P-36 and P-40 are, I think, as closely related to each other as the Merlin and Griffon Spitfires so you could make that case. However I would still choose the Spitfire as it was better than both of them. If you don't need to have a fighter that was in service in 1939 we should start with the Gloster Meteor and start developing like mad

 

[MikeGazdik]

Waynos and Loper stole my thunder. The P-40 is a P-36 with a new engine. If we must look at all Marks of the Spit as one aircraft, so we should the Hawk fighters from Curtiss.

That being said, still the Spitfire is the overall better aircraft. Wait a minute, now I want to make a Griffon powered P-40 !

 

[renrich]

The F4U did not have any problems initially that would have precluded it from serving as a land based fighter. In fact, by the time the Hellcat was ready to be deployed, most of the problems that hindered the F4U as a shipboard fighter were eliminated and it was ready to go to sea. However, the Hellcat support personnel, spare parts, etc. had been deployed and pilots trained in the Hellcat so the Hellcat went to sea until the performance disparity forced the USN to substitute the Corsair. However, no production Corsairs were available in 39, 40 or 41, so we are back to either the Hurricane or Spitfire.

 

[MacArther]

While it was not as good performance wise as its contemporaries, I think it had quite a bit of potential. It never reached anywhere near that potential because Curtiss wanted to make money, and probably cared little about the pilots who would suffer because of Curtiss's piecemeal upgrades to their planes that where introduced with each new model. That being said, it would be good in the sense that it was for the most part easy to produce, and if the US or other governments stepped in, the piecemeal upgrades would have been changed to large improvements. Yes, the P40 was not the top performer, but how much of that was because Curtiss wanted to make more money, rather than save lives by building a better aircraft? Anyway, that's my two bits. I'm a toss up between the P40 because of how much it could be improved, and the M.20 (for sheer simplicity, range, and modification ability).

 

[dragonandhistail]

I would no doubt select the Hellcat or P-47. The Hellcat was versatile and great from carriers. With slight modifications it could have been used in the ETO. The Jug was a fantastic multi-role aircraft both for escort and ground attack although carrier use would be problematic without longer flight decks. I think the radial vs inline argument should play a part from those of you with knowledge in that area. The F6F-5 in its final form or the P-47N would have carried us all the way at the end. The P-51 is a strong third but came on a little bit later for early consideration as did the F4U with its intial teething problems. Great discussion.

 

[TheMustangRider]

I made my selections without taking in considerations the time lines for the fighters I selected, however I am well aware that the P-47 could had taken succesfully the P-51 place in the escort role and the F6F the place of the F4U, however if we take the discussion to the direction of which of these fighters was available at the outbreak of the war, none of them would had been.

 

[renrich]

The overall question needs to be rephrased unless we are going to be limited to fighters in operation in 1939, when the war began. If the one fighter for the allies did not have to be available in 39-40, then there is only one choice. The F4U.