Which is the better fighter, P-40F or Typhoon?

P-40 or Typhoon

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My view is that you're making the wrong comparisons. The P-40 Warhawk in all its variants is operated in the same time frame as the Typhoons. The P-40Q, never built, would have been better than the Typhoon, even the P-40L could have been given Merlin 225's to make it a better low altitude fighter, maybe superior even to the Typhoon. Although the P-40F/L are slower they aren't slower significantly or to an extent that they would be disadvantaged in a dogfight. The only problem the P-40's have is their low altitude speed which would have hindered them in intercepting Fw 190A jabo's which the Typhoon could do effectively. Personally, I think the Warhawk is the better plane if only better engines which were available had been installed in them.
 
Here is my take on the ballistics argument.

And I suspect it does hinge in part on the "guns in the wings" vs "guns in the nose" issue.

In a nutshell, there is more to the guns than pure firepower, and there were different schools of thought on how to use guns which tended to utilize the traits of the guns at hand and also depended on the type of fight going on and the type of target.

British aircraft with wing guns from what I understand focused on shooting at the convergence distance set between the two guns - usually around 250 meters though that changed through the war. Cannons required a lot less time on target than the old .303s did - and could hit from further away. Later in the war there were different opinions on which secondary guns to use after the two Hispano 20mm. Some liked the .303s, some liked another pair of Hispano cannon, and some liked the American 0.50 cal - the latter seemed to gradually win out due to range. As someone mentioned upthread with different kinds of guns convergences were naturally harder to coordinate and often inevitably met at different ranges. Often with aircraft that had both cannon and rifle caliber machine guns (A6M, Spit, Bf 109G), the latter would be used first since they had more ammunition, and once they started registering hits the cannon would be engaged. Early cannon armed fighters like the Spit VB, A6M2, and Bf109E had as few as 60 cannon shells per gun so pilots had to be very economical when shooting their big guns.

American planes with wing mounted guns (all of them except the P-38, P-39 and early P-40B/C) also focused on convergence and used different strategies. Each pilot could set the guns differently. Some pilots set all their guns to converge at close range, and advocated getting within 200 or 150 meters of their target and shooting massive fusilades into them. Others set all their guns to converge at long (350-400 meter) or medium (250 meter) distance. And some went for a kind of funnel effect with one pair converging at 350, one at 250, and one at 150.

Spray and pray
The latter coincided with a 'spray and pray' strategy alluded to in one of Shortrounds earlier posts on this subject. You saw an enemy fighter coming into range, you pulled lead past it, started shooting, and kept shooting until the enemy fighter passed through your bullet stream, with usually at least a few striking the target. With cannons and heavy machine guns, even a handful of hits can be telling. This strategy could be attempted repeatedly with any guns that had a large amount of ammunition.

Boom and Zoom
Another strategy was to have very heavy armament, come up against the target often in a dive and preferably by surprise, and make one shooting pass but blasting all guns for a sustained volley, starting from distance and continuing until the target was passed, usually just a single pass. Bf 110, Fw 190, P-47 and others relied on this strategy.

Short range
A major difference in strategy was whether or not to use deflection shots. Deflection shooting was usually more common with wing mounted guns. Fighters, especially early fighters like the Soviet planes, often had very few cannon shells in particular. So the Soviet strategy was to get as close as possible, often up to 150 meters or less, sometimes down to 50 meters, and then shoot. Shooting from shorter range made the guns hit harder (more penetration) made it easier to hit and made it easier to hit specific parts of the plane, like the engine, wing root or cockpit.

Hans Joachim Marseilles famously made vertical attacks into RAF defensive / Lufberry circles (from above or from below) to better bypass pilot armor and got a lot of his victories by killing the pilot with one or two cannon shells. This appears however to have been an outlier strategy as several German pilots noted that nobody else could emulate his technique. Once he died that kind of went away at least in the Med.

Other Luftwaffe experten flying Bf 109F (with their nose mounted guns) said they got as close as they could and shot from point blank range. This made the guns more effective and allowed them to use fewer shells (3 or 4 well concentrated cannon shells could tear off a wing easily, even of a strongly made fighter). Many fighter pilots in fact emphasized shooting at closer range so as not to waste ammunition. This was actually drilled into RAF pilots in 1942.

Long range
However when shooting at bombers especially if coming up from behind, it was a good idea to shoot the defensive gunners from long distance. This was a common strategy with DAF Kittyhawks as pointed out by Billy Drake, Bobby Gibbes and others. Skill at deflection shooting was fairly rare, Australian Ace Clive Caldwell came up with a way to train the skill by shooting at aircraft shadows on the ground, which through his aggressive advocacy became a general DAF training method. He was very good at long range deflection shooting, including once shooting down Luftwaffe experten Hans Arnold Stahlschmidt from 800 meters behind and below.

This is a matter of unusual skill but also taking advantage of the long range and sustained hard-hitting impact of 0.5 inch guns.

A much more common strategy for long range shooting was during a long chase. At high dive speeds aircraft got more difficult to control, and moved less. Some fighters like the P-40 or the Fw 190 could still roll a lot which helped immensely in defense and avoiding being shot. But many couldn't roll so much at high speed like the Bf 109. So when a fighter was trying to disengage, and involved in a long chase, you had a lot longer to line up a shot, and therefore they did get some kills from very long distances 600-800 meters this way, especially with HMGs. This was also necessary when using a slower aircraft as you may not have the luxury of getting close.

Deflection and the gyro sight
Deflection shooting remained a fairly rare skill. The introduction of the gyro gunsight - I forget the exact percentages but the difference was striking. Until that happened IIRC sometime in 1944, pilots good at deflection shooting tended to stand out and were often high scoring aces, since there were many more opportunities for deflection shots than close range shots.

Ultimately, the strategy boiled down to shooting often with a low percentage of hits - say you make 10 shots in a combat each with a 2-3% chance of hitting, versus making few shots with a higher percentage chance - say 2 or 3 shots with an 8% chance of hitting. Planes made with heavier guns in the nose, like the Bf 109 and MC202, the Yak 1 and the La 5, tended to emphasize the latter.
 
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Shortround6 said:
No, it was combination, but ignoring the losses from flak so you can claim there were plenty of German fighters in the area/s at the time being considered is hardly fair or accurate.
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I pointed out there were plenty of German fighters shooting down incoming bombers as I happen to remember several specific raids, one of which involved a family member of mine, in which many Allied aircraft were shot down by fighters.

I never said German Flak wasn't very dangerous - it certainly was! However it is disingenuous to imply that there weren't plenty of fighters ready to intercept any intruder over German controlled airspace since we both know there were. Typhoon units wouldn't have had any trouble finding enemy fighters.

But we are going round and round here, what we really need is an operational history of the Typhoon units so we can get some idea of a comparative number of sorties.



By the way this is Stahlschmidts description of getting shot down by Caldwell - he thought the 0.50s were cannons.

"saw the Curtiss planes approximately 300 meters below us and falling away below. These aircraft were no threat to us whatsoever! Now I just wanted to level out of my turning bank, since my colleagues were already at a substantially higher altitude. Keppler (his wingman), overshot me. Once again, I saw the Curtiss planes 300 meters directly below me and counted eleven aircraft.

Not suspecting anything untoward, I continued my level climb. All of a sudden there was a loud noise in my cockpit — I'd taken cannon [sic] fire. The crate immediately flipped uncontrollably onto its back. Fuel gushed into the cockpit; it began smoking and then I completely lost control of the Bf 109, spiraling down on my back through the Curtisses. Over the intercom I heard the angry voice of Homuth: "Which of you idiots just let himself get shot down?"

Trailing a long column from my radiator I fell earthward. The water temperature climbed to 140 degrees. At an altitude of 1,000 meters I again regained control of the crate. With a bit of flair and fortune I managed to fly the 100 km to our own lines, during which I would only switch the engine [on] for short periods, in order to gain altitude for the long glide home.[17][18]"
 
pbehn said:
If they were there in force they chose not to show up on D-Day.
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As an example of what I'm referring to (since you chaps don't seem to neet me halfway with anything I say), consider "Operation Oyster" in Dec 1942. A large force of 93 RAF bombers (including 47 Venturas, 36 Bostons, and 10 Mosquitos) attempted a low level raid on the Phillips works in Endoven Holland.

Despite numerous diversionary raids to distract the fighters, the mission was intercepted by no less than 3 German fighter groups JG-1, JG-26 and JG-2. One of the bomber pilots, observing enemy fighters taking off noted "They looked so normal, just like Spitfires taking off in England, that it was hard to realize they were coming up to kill you. "

The raid suffered 15 aircraft lost and 56 heavily damaged. I'm sure some from flak but many from the fighters, for example the wing commander of the raid and 4 other bombers were shot down by fighters during the withdrawal alone.

Now I think Typhoons (or P-40s) could have been useful here at some point, assuming they had sufficient range.


Another point is that RAF Allison engined Mustang I and II fighters were getting chased by enemy fighters on almost intruder / recon flight they made. That is why they were using 70" WEP so much.
 
My 2 cents, not so sure there is a clear winner here. The Typhoon certainly has better performance stats but the later modles Hawk have some advantages that don't show up in performance stats.
Someone said that having a tighter turn is not that big a deal. Granted but I would submit that having a faster roll rate AND tighter turn becomes much more of an advantage. How much so will of course be disputed by each individual in accordance with there pre-existing position I'm sure.
Also, in my opinion at least,( I know this will be a point of contention by some and thats certainly o.k.) , these aircraft are not contemporaries. The p40l/ f is an evolution of a 1935 design, the original Hawk, the same as say an fw190d is an evolution of an earlier form but is still an Fw190 dispite an engine change. I think the Typhoon first flew 4 or 5 years later than the first Hawk, a lifetime of aircraft development considering the accelerated pace of development at the time. That the p40f/l can even be considered in the same ballpark speaks well of it.
In the end as a combat aircraft in general I would give the edge to the Typhoon. It brings more firepower to the ground attack role and enough speed th chase down V-1s which is very important but in a vacuum, in the low to mid level fighter roll I would say it's pretty close.
 

Casualties[edit]


The Dutch in Eindhoven celebrate their liberation, 18 September 1944

Aircrew losses were 62 men; fifteen aircraft were lost, including one in the sea and another crashed in England, a loss rate of 16 per cent; fifty-three bombers were damaged, 57 per cent of the force, seven seriously. Nine Venturas, four Bostons and a Mosquito were lost and 37 Venturas, 13 Bostons and three Mosquitoes were damaged. The Venturas had a 20 per cent loss rate and three crash-landings in England, an unsustainable loss rate.[74][75][21] Few of the losses and damages were caused by German fighters, the bombers proving difficult targets at low level; one Mosquito was intercepted by a Fw 190 as it approached Eindhoven and abandoned its bombing run after evading the FW for fifteen minutes, the FW gave up the chase near Flushing. A minimum of 31 aircraft had bird strikes, some hit trees and several Venturas probably hit houses when bombing through smoke; light flak damaged some aircraft and possibly shot down others.[76] The Group had to stand down for ten days while their aircraft were repaired and losses replaced.[77] A B-17 and one B-24 were lost in the two diversionary raids, along with one of the escorting Spitfires; a Fw 190 had also been shot down.[78]

When were these RAF Allison Mustangs being chased by Luftwaffe fighters?
 
As an example of what I am referring to I specifically said 1943/44 and to prove that wrong you quote something from 1942 which doesn't mention Typhoons. Eindhoven is in Netherlands just down the road from Duisburg on the edge of the Ruhr industrial area BTW.
 
The Luftwaffe did have air superiority over continental Europe by late '42 and with that air superiority, the need at the time for heavy concentrations of AA batteries wasn't considered a priority.

This would soon change with the Allied heavy bombing effort along with long-range escorts, so the environment in late 1942 was nothing like early 1944.
 
Funny thing, The P-40 got into the war well before the Typhoon did and while the Typhoon must have been phased out very quickly after the end of the war, the P-40 continued to serve, the Dutch using them against insurgents in the East Indies until 1947.

Just ran across something I did not know in the book "P-40 Hawks at War." The Japanese captured so many intact in Java, many even still in their shipping crates, that they formed a fighter unit equipped with P-40's to defend Rangoon in 1943. I suppose that some of those used by the Dutch after the war were recaptured in Java.
 
Schweik said:
I pointed out there were plenty of German fighters shooting down incoming bombers as I happen to remember several specific raids, one of which involved a family member of mine, in which many Allied aircraft were shot down by fighters.
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and here we have a problem with "german controlled airspace" and the operational radius of a Typhoon. Typhoons were not penetrating very far into German controlled airspace, they couldn't. Data card for the Typhoon http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/typhoon/typhoon-ads.jpg

says that it needed 32 gallons to start, warm up, take off and climb to 15,000ft. on a low level raid we can eliminate most of the climb but you do need some fuel to form up your unit and rendezvous with another units involved which often were coming from other air bases. The card says the plane can do 450 miles range(225 miles radius) at max weak mixture (330mph at 15,000ft) but flying at low level will increase fuel consumption and or decrease speed. . card also says that 5 minutes at max power is worth 60 miles at max weak mixture. so that 225 mile radius starts shrinking rapidly.

there were only a small number of German fighter units near the coast with more the further you went in. And the Germans were pretty cagy about intercepting anything that flew over the occupied land near the coast. They were doing their version of what Dowding did, They learned pretty quick not to send a 1-2 squadrons of fighters to intercept 4 Blenheims being escorted by 40-60 Spitfires.
On the Philips radio tube factory raid the British sent 93 bombers and lost 15 with 57 damaged, From Wiki " Few of the losses and damages were caused by German fighters, the bombers proving difficult targets at low level; one Mosquito was intercepted by a Fw 190 as it approached Eindhoven and abandoned its bombing run after evading the FW for fifteen minutes, the FW gave up the chase near Flushing. A minimum of 31 aircraft had bird strikes, some hit trees and several Venturas probably hit houses when bombing through smoke; light flak damaged some aircraft and possibly shot down others"


The Typhoon units weren't looking for enemy fighters for much of the period in question. If they were doing low level raids across the channel they were often done in less than squadron strength. flights of 4 aircraft or some times pairs would be tasked with certain targets or areas in order to confuse enemy defenses and many times the targets were whatever trains or barges could be found. The covering fighters would be a number of miles (several minutes) behind or at a predetermined location to try to bounce any German fighters as the low level raiders tried to escape back the channel and England.
Large groups of British fighters fighters flying in formation over the coast made a pretty spectacle for the Germans to watch but they had no need to risk German planes and German pilots to defend Dutch, Belgian and French civilians.





By the way this is Stahlschmidts description of getting shot down by Caldwell - he thought the 0.50s were cannons.
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couple of problems with this anecdote.
Had Stahlschmidt been in a plane that had been hit by cannon fire in order to make a comparison?
As mentioned earlier, the American (or as used by the British/commonwealth) .50 cal used much heavier bullets than the Italian 12.7mm and hit harder, although I doubt Stahlschmidt had been on the receiving end of the italian guns (possible friendly fire incident?)
 
From Wiki From early 1943 the wings were plumbed and adapted to carry cylindrical 45 imp gal (200 l; 54 US gal) drop tanks,[nb 15] increasing the Typhoon's range from 690 miles (1,110 km) to up to 1,090 miles (1,750 km). This enabled Typhoons to range deep into France, the Netherlands and Belgium. Some units, such as 609 Squadron and 198 Squadron, were able to achieve notable success in air combat and ground attack operations using these long-range Typhoons.
 


To further this from the provided link to Wiki
"From March 1943 198 Squadron joined 609 Squadron at Manston where it provided fighter-escorts to the twin-engined Westland Whirlwind fighter bomber on sorties into continental Europe. Over the next nine months 198 Squadron and 609 Squadron were the only Typhoon units to operate full-time on escort duties for RAF and USAAF bombers and long-range fighter sweeps (code-named "Ramrods") over France, Belgium and the Netherlands; during these operations the squadron used long-range Typhoons each equipped with a cigar-shaped 45 gallon fuel tank mounted below each wing. In these roles the unit was very successful, becoming one of the top scoring Typhoon units."

Two squadrons operating for 9 months with how many squadrons "part time?

The disparity in numbers of Typhoons flying in the early years vs the number of P-40F&Ls might be pretty high.

more information Here. John Robert Baldwin - Wikipedia

who is credited with "15 and 1 shared aerial victories destroyed, 4 damaged, and 5 damaged on the ground as well as many ground vehicles"
 

The LF.IX used the Merlin 66. The HF.IX used the Merlin 70 (though not many built).
 
Resp:
There are several sources that state that the RAF got @1500 hrs on the Allison engined Mustang, while only 400 hrs on the Merlin Mustangs, before the engine required a major overhaul. So the above statement seems to fit.
 
Navalwarrior said:
Resp:
There are several sources that state that the RAF got @1500 hrs on the Allison engined Mustang, while only 400 hrs on the Merlin Mustangs, before the engine required a major overhaul. So the above statement seems to fit.
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1500 hrs equates to 9 months of 6 hr escort missions doing one every day.
 
I am very aware of the difference between the turn and the roll. Having considerable experience flying gliders I would defy anyone to match me in a turn but the roll rate of a large glider is more akin to that of a 747. However the Hurricane didn't lose its ability to compete with later fighters because of what you say. It was simply outclassed in speed, climb acceleration and so on. Personally I prefer to use the term agility.
Pilot after pilot (both Axis and Allied) noted that the dive speed of the P-40 was an advantage in combat.
Correct if and only if your aircraft can dive faster than the opposition. We are comparing that dive of the P40 against the Typhoon and there is only one winner there, the Typhoon. A number of the people you quote fought the Japanese, whose planes were known for their poor dive speed. The Russian said in his quote up to 1943 the P40 could hold their own against the Germans. No one you quote say that the P40 was better than the 109 or 190 or that the P40 was excellent. The best that can be said for the pilots you quote was that if flown correctly the P40 was good but the initiative was with the Luftwaffe.
An aside but I think valid, is that the Russians were continually asking the allies for two types of aircraft the P39 and the Spitfire. They never asked for more P40's, they got them but didn't ask for them, in a similar manner they never asked for Valentine tanks, but got them by the thousand. Which incidentally knocks a hole in another of your postings where you mention that the P51 and Spitfire wouldn't be suitable for Russia, as they certainly asked for more Spitfires.
 
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