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Hard to say as I don't know who manufactured those hoses on that P-38. Many times fluid lines are color coded, and maked, sometimes on modern restorations they are just made "pretty" on the outside.The black ones, at least, seem to be oil lines?
Depends on the size of the bullet and tube. Welded steel tubing was made from mild steel (4130/ 4140) and was pretty durable and easily welded and repaired.And how well do bullets penetrate round steel when not hitting on the centreline?
Hard to say as I don't know who manufactured those hoses on that P-38. Many times fluid lines are color coded, and maked, sometimes on modern restorations they are just made "pretty" on the outside.
Depends on the size of the bullet and tube. Welded steel tubing was made from mild steel (4130/ 4140) and was pretty durable and easily welded and repaired.
For ground attack the Typhoon had a big advantage over the Tempest and P 47 because of it's ability to carry rockets to supplement it's guns. Though the success (and accuracy) of rocket attacks is debated, they offered an option other than guns or bombs and the Typhoon and Hurricane were the single engined planes that used them most in the ETO. Was the Tempest even equipped to carry them during the war?
I confess i dont know about this issue, and am really just thinking aloud.....I would think the chances of hitting a radiator or line so as to immediately seize the engine are not that high. In the outback, i dont know how many times ive hit a radiator line with a sharp rock, punctured the radiator or one of the lines. ive also put conrods through the water jacket once or twice. Puncturing the coolant lines or the radiator is a serious threat to the engine, but it seldom causes an immediate seizure. Depending on just how hot the engine is, and how hard its working, you might get 30 mins or an hour before the whole thing seizes. its bad, but its not as bad as a burst oil line. If oil pressure drops, youve literally got seconds before the whole engine seizes. i am sure that would apply equally to Radials as it does water cooled engines.
With that in mind, it then gets down to how many oil and coolant lines are in each generic type. are there more exposed lines in a radial or a water cooled engine?
In contrast many radial engines could continue to operate even after similar punisment had removed entire cylinders.
Why is everyone talking about radiators and coolant lines? They might be the most vulnerable part of a liquid cooled engine, but the last time I pulled and engine apart the water jacket ran right around the block, which was made of cast aluminium. I would have thought that any .50 hitting an aluminium engine block would have very likely breached the coolant channels, even without thinking what a 20mm would have done.
After all, enemy fire can deprive the liquid cooled motor of water/glycol, but it can hardly deprive the air cooled motor of air.
The more I hear that the more it sounds like an urban myth.
Do you have any examples of it happening?
Resonse: It was not a myth. I have a set of DVD concerning the P-47 were a couple of aviation historians mention it happening, and on the same DVD a pilot (named Clayton Gross, I think) talks of getting shot up in a thunderbolt, making it back to base and having the ground crew chase him pointing at his plane as he taxied. It turned out he had lost and entire cylinder and the pistog was still whipping up and down in thin air, but to quote him the P-47 still "ran fine"
Dan Whitney, Vees for Victory, has a picture of an Allison V-1710, from a P-40, that was shot full of holes and managed to enable the plane to return to base.
Just because you lose coolant doesn't mean the engine stops immediately.
Response: No it doesn't, but your time is limited. I believe in the incident Gross realated he made it right back across the channel. In contrast, he was also hit by rifle fire from German troops while performing a ground attack mission in a P-51 after D-day. He didn't even know he had been hit until the engine temperature started going through the roof on the way home. He was forced to bail out and was lucky enough to be picked up by American troops in a comandeered german vehicle, far in advance of where they were supposed to be
You certainly can deprive an air-cooled motor of air. If the control mechanism is damaged and the cowl flaps disabled in the closed position it could mean that full power cannot be used. Damage the cowling itself and disrupt the airflow and the cooling won't be as efficient.
Response: As you've said, you might not be able to use full power - but the engine will still run. Puncture the cooling system of a liquid cooled engine and it will stop - its just a matter of time.
There were also many air cooled installations that were marginal for coling at the best of times. Throw in some blockage, damage to the cooling fins and that could tip them over the edge.
Response: Air cooled motors that gave trouble generally did so because aircraft designers were tying overcome one of the major diasvantages of such engines - poor aerodynamics resulting from the need to expose the engine to sufficient airflow for cooling - by fitting tight cowls and the like. It was a balancing act - you want the engine to have sufficient airflow, but you also want to minimise drag overall. The Fw190 introduced a fan behind the prop, running at 3x engine speed, as a novel way of maximising both outcomes
Lop off a cylinder and you will pump all your oil to atmosphere and you'll be on borrowd time. That is providing the rest of th eengine isn't damaged by the cylinder removal.
Oil in a sump is also pressurised, but even if damage causes deprerisation the oil is not going to evaporate. As long as enough remains in the sump to circulate the engine will run
There is lots of footage of P47s shooting up various ground targets in the ETO but I haven't seen any where they used rockets - can any one provide a link?
The J variants were where most of these issues were solved. The Js were used in the ETO (I definitely should've re-worded "the P-38s used in the ETO we're far from the sturdiest"!), but how often were they used for ground support compared to Ds-Hs? I'd imagine there'd be less Js (and the rare Ls; in the ETO at least) available for ground attack than the Ds-Hs. I don't have any statistics to back this up though. As for the aircraft count, they don't tell near the whole story. How many flak positions did each aircraft suppress? How much resistance did each aircraft encounter? I'm not saying the P-38 was better than the P-47 in the fighter-bomber role in the ETO (I honestly think the P-47 is the better choice in this area), but I think it's pretty safe to say that both the P-38 and P-47 were plenty better fighter-bombers than the P-51. But for what was needed by the USAAF in the PTO, the P-38 is very tough to beat (long range, very heavy payload for a fighter-bomber, nose mounted mgs/cannons, twin engines, etc)What models (The Sturdy ones) are you assuming were not used in ETO? *The ground strafing of airfields, marshalling yards, rail and barge traffic started when Doolittle told 8th FC to 'go sic em' in February 1944. *The P-38 inventory for the 20th, 55th and soon to be operational 354th had P-38J-10s and continuously upgraded until they transitioned to Mustangs in July. *The last 8th AF P-38 FG was the 479th. Its sister group the 474th went to 9th AF. Both had J-25s in late July and the 474th ultimately had P-38L-1's. *Were they 'Sturdy' or 'Weak' in your opinion.
Given this, the P-38 had the worst record of a.) destruction of German aircraft per fighter lost in the air, and b.) the destruction of German aircraft on the ground.
The latter environment was the most hazardous light flak concentration fighter encountered in WWII. Why did the single engine Mustang achieve far superior ratios?
The 8th AF P-38 destroyed ~161 a/c for the loss of ~ 109 P-38s while strafing at low altituded
The 8th AF P-47 destroyed ~740 a/c for the loss of ~ 200 P-47s " " " " "
The 8th AF P-51 destroyed ~ 4106 a/c for the loss of
Cobber
"Tempest Mk. V was tested and cleared to carry 8 zero length 60 lb ground attack rockets. But it was never used operationally during the war. After the war, when used on Mk. IIs, the rockets were often mounted on zero length hooks."
The Hawker Tempest Page
I've seen photos of Tempest IIs (Centaurus) with rockets but not on the Sabre powered versions.
The ground attack rockets always make me think of the Typhoon and Beaufighter, Mosquito in an anti shipping role.
There is lots of footage of P47s shooting up various ground targets in the ETO but I haven't seen any where they used rockets - can any one provide a link?
There is a reference in "Angels 20" to author Ted Park's P47 making it home with fairly catastrophic engine damage. "The plane was fine except for a hole in the cowling. A piece of the cylinder head had blown right through it when the engine surged..... It's an indication of the Jug's legendary toughness that mine got me home that day even though a useless piston was slatting around in a ruptured cylinder , deep in its innards."