What was wrong with the F4F Wildcat? (1 Viewer)

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I think that I have read that it was even worse for the IJN in that the Zeros had to (or chose to) retain their drop tanks for combat over Guadalcanal.
In some cases Zeroes definitely dropped their tanks, as in early war operations when the tanks were seen on the ground by the Allies. In the early missions of Tainan Air Group from Rabaul to Guadalcanal they apparently didn't, not sure why, shortage? USN F6F's sometimes didn't drop their tanks in air combat either, in that case it was limited supply of them on a carrier.

On range it's true the Zeroes were flying at very long range on the early missions to Guadalcanal, from Vunakanau field at Rabaul almost 650 statue miles one way to Henderson Field. However later on they were flying from, or could divert to, Buin, around 345 statue miles, far for most 1942 fighters but not for a Zero (Model 32's, aka 'Hamps', could only reach Henderson from Buin, not from Rabaul). And some combats between F4F's and Zeroes were between carrier based ones, a few Japanese carrier strikes on Guadalcanal, or F4F's escorting attack a/c against Japanese convoys well north of Guadalcanal, yet the results didn't seem to change dramatically.

And mainly, we're compared the results of Zero v F4F in 1942 to performance of other Allied fighters facing Zeroes in the same period. In many of those other cases the Zeroes were also flying from far away, as Formosa to Philippines, northern DEI to Java, Timor to Darwin: 500+ mile one way missions where Zeroes were more successful against other Allied types than against F4F's.

Also the other side of coin of campaigns were the Zero and Allied bases were close was that in latter case the Allied fighters could apply direct pressure against the Zero bases, destroying a/c on the ground and possibly catching them taking off: the RAAF and USAAF P-40/P-39 units in New Guinea in '42 operating from Port Moresby against Zeroes based at Lae, within their short range, were able to do this on occasion.

Joe
 
Rich, that was a good post and really enjoyed. Much of it was reflected in Lundstrom, "The First Team." Interesting to hear the pilot relate effectiveness of 50 BMGs on DDs. That was also reflected in Lundstrom and was debunked by some "experts" on this forum during a discussion on AC armament. Sometimes all pilots were not really adept at identifying ships so the "DD" might have been a lesser ship, but the 50 cal can do a lot. One point which has nothing to do with the F4F but does illustrate problems of preparedness is that, before Midway, the pilots had no survival apparatus so they often trooped to the galley for meat cleavers or butcher knives for survival knives. One point that us "armchair pilots" often don't understand is that the range of AC we read about online or in books is often "yardstick" range which is only good(sometimes) for comparison. It is basically the number of miles an AC can cover at best cruise with full tanks, internal or external. For instance, the F4U4 is often given a range of 1005 miles(that is on internal fuel and where does the five come from?) That means it has a combat radius of around 500 miles, right? Wrong! That 1005 miles does not take into account, warm up, take off, climb out, cruise to target, combat for a few minutes, cruise back and reserve. Around 75% of the yardstick range is more accurate for a combat mission and that varies a lot according to land based, carrier based and other factors, so the combat radius of an F4U4 might be 350 to 375 miles. Lundstrom said that the A6M had a combat radius of around 300 miles from a carrier to 500 miles from a landbase. The Wildcat could get about 175 miles from a carrier. Another factor to remember is that a 150 gallon drop tank would not give you the extra range you would expect because of increased drag and weight especially during climb out. I have heard that a 150 gallon tank would only give about 75 gallons extra range. Don't know if that is true and suspect it depends on the shape of the tank. Some of the early drop tanks were shaped like bathtubs.
 
I have seen stories from pilots on different occasions use .50 fire to deter ships. The strafing runs kill crew, blow up ordnance, damage weapons, and start fires. strafing the bridge can be an effective way to deter ships for a vital minute or two as seen in the Battle off Samar with Wildcats strafing 'ships of the line'.
 
Good points, Renrich.

I wonder how many of those experts would, if they were told their car got 25 MPG (average) and had a 20 gallon tank, expect that they could wait until the odometer said 495 miles had elapsed before they'd start looking for a gas station?

CD
 
Rich, that was a good post and really enjoyed. Much of it was reflected in Lundstrom, "The First Team." Interesting to hear the pilot relate effectiveness of 50 BMGs on DDs. That was also reflected in Lundstrom and was debunked by some "experts" on this forum during a discussion on AC armament. Sometimes all pilots were not really adept at identifying ships so the "DD" might have been a lesser ship, but the 50 cal can do a lot.
In the particular case mentioned above, during the strike on Tulagi May 4 1942, one of the targets of strafing was a real DD, Yuzuki, whose physical damage is variously described as heavy (in Lundstrom) or light (some Japanese sources) but the CO was killed along with 9 others by all accounts. The ship didn't run aground and survived. Her sister Kikuzuki was struck by a TBD's torpedo and beached (mostly picked away by scrap scavengers over the decades but some of it is still visible today), and strafing by F4F's also caused the smaller vessel Tama Maru (confusion exists as to its exact type) to be beached, sank later, wreck is within recreational diving depth.

Another well documented case of highly effective F4F strafing was by a mixed formation of VF-9 and -41 v the French 2nd Light Sdn as it sortied from Casablanca Nov 8 1942. The French DD's and super-DD's were outgunned already by the US surface force but the strafing caused heavy casualties among command, fire control and communications personnel on several of the ships, greatly reducing their effectiveness thereafter; the steering gear on one was also disabled temporarily. They downed one F4F in return.

Both the Japanese and French increased protective plating on the bridges of their DD's as a direct result of such incidents.

Joe
 
Joe B, one can always rely on you to come up with informative posts. Very many thanks. Hope the skeptics about the 50 BMG read your post. When I said that the Wildcats disabled some IJN ships by strafing, there was scoffing. The fact is that I don't believe that DDs of any description had much armor plate anywhere. An interesting point is that after being on board the BB, Alabama, I observed single mount 20 mm Oerlikons almost everywhere on deck that was unobstructed, yet modern light USN vessels don't seem to mount any 20 mms at all except in the CIWSs. There are always 50 bmgs though. Saw a picture of a vessel just launched the other day, of which this was the first of many. This ship looks like a combination of a stealth AC and the USS Moniter and is to operate in the littoral. The only guns visible were a 57mm in a gun house near the bow and two single 50 BMGs on the stern. Wonder why the 50s rather than 20 mms as they are about the same size?
 
Joe B, one can always rely on you to come up with informative posts. Very many thanks. Hope the skeptics about the 50 BMG read your post. When I said that the Wildcats disabled some IJN ships by strafing, there was scoffing. The fact is that I don't believe that DDs of any description had much armor plate anywhere. An interesting point is that after being on board the BB, Alabama, I observed single mount 20 mm Oerlikons almost everywhere on deck that was unobstructed, yet modern light USN vessels don't seem to mount any 20 mms at all except in the CIWSs. There are always 50 bmgs though. Saw a picture of a vessel just launched the other day, of which this was the first of many. This ship looks like a combination of a stealth AC and the USS Moniter and is to operate in the littoral. The only guns visible were a 57mm in a gun house near the bow and two single 50 BMGs on the stern. Wonder why the 50s rather than 20 mms as they are about the same size?
.50s are cheap, easy to maintain, and on modern Navy ships their mission is still to provide protection against suicide bombing, not by kamikaze pilots, but boats like the USS Cole.
 
A 20mm (with correct ammunition) will be equally or more effective against lightly armored ships. The F4U-1C shows very well that, for ground attack purposes, even the US acknowledged the overall superiority of the cannon.

Modern destroyers today still use cannons for close air defense, like AK-630, Mauser MLG, Phalanx etc. The CIWS is the primary anti air defense on the destroyers not the .50 cal. The 50 is still used because it's available, cheap and against unarmored "suicide boats", it doesn't take more, like Clay mentioned.
 
Another factor to consider when discussing the range of WW2 fighters is that essentially the combat radius was determined by the amount of internal fuel carried. No matter how much external fuel could be carried the fighter had to perform ACM and return to base on the internal fuel, since few pilots wanted to start combat with external drop tanks attached. One of the weaknesses of the P39 was that it could carry only 120 gallons of internal fuel, which essentially determined the combat radius. It had a 1710 CI, 12 cylinder engine which burned fuel quickly, especially at military power. My brother has a 300 HP Saratoga that carries 100 gallons of internal fuel. Imagine the difference. The F4U4 could carry two 150 gallon drop tanks but when entering combat, it had to rely on the 234 gallons in the fuselage tank to fight on and then go home. Another factor involved was in, for instance, the Merlin P51s there was an 85 gallon internal fuel tank that sat behind the pilot, well aft of the CG. Violent maneuvers were not a good idea with that tank full so it needed to be empty or nearly so before combat which meant the P51 had to fight and go home on the other internal fuel which was around 185 gallons, even though it too could carry 300 gallons of external fuel.
 
Another factor to consider when discussing the range of WW2 fighters is that essentially the combat radius was determined by the amount of internal fuel carried. No matter how much external fuel could be carried the fighter had to perform ACM and return to base on the internal fuel, since few pilots wanted to start combat with external drop tanks attached. One of the weaknesses of the P39 was that it could carry only 120 gallons of internal fuel, which essentially determined the combat radius. It had a 1710 CI, 12 cylinder engine which burned fuel quickly, especially at military power. My brother has a 300 HP Saratoga that carries 100 gallons of internal fuel. Imagine the difference. The F4U4 could carry two 150 gallon drop tanks but when entering combat, it had to rely on the 234 gallons in the fuselage tank to fight on and then go home. Another factor involved was in, for instance, the Merlin P51s there was an 85 gallon internal fuel tank that sat behind the pilot, well aft of the CG. Violent maneuvers were not a good idea with that tank full so it needed to be empty or nearly so before combat which meant the P51 had to fight and go home on the other internal fuel which was around 185 gallons, even though it too could carry 300 gallons of external fuel.

Another factor in determining range was fuel efficiency. While the P-51D only had 185 gallons internal, it used only about 80 gallons to go 400 miles, leaving about 105 gallons for combat at this range. Similarly, the F4U-4 would use an estimated 144 gallons to fly 400 miles leaving 90 gallons for combat at this range. With better fuel efficiency, the p-51D would have about 20 minutes more combat time at normal rated power at this distance.
 
Right on. I forgot to mention that because of it's "cleaness" the P51 could get very good gas mileage. That 180 gallons could go a long way. I think that the very best a Corsair could do was about 42 gallons per hour at most economical cruise.
 
True the F4F And the F6F are simaliar. Also true the Tatch weave helped even the odds. However the F6F and F4U had a biger armement, A beter Engine(A PratandWhitneyR2800 to be exact), longer range,Climb rate was terrible,guns weren't always working properly,and was more manueverable. Also the F6F had a kill ratio of 18 to 1 to the Wildcat's 9 to 1.
I am not trying to criticize the F4F. It was a good little plane. Just not the right plane for the job.
 
What was wrong with the F4F?
Not much, and what was, was fixed with the FM-2.
If I had to fight using the Wildcat, that's the version I'd choose.

Oddly enough, tests on the F4F using a more powerful engine (R-2000) and information based on performance of the Japanese fighter combined to create the F6F.
An experimental version of the F6F eventually led to the development of the F8F.



Elvis
 

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