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

[Kevin J]

Once again, this is not valid comparison. There is no way of knowing whether P-40F/L would manage to achieve 260 victories in the ETO, deployed in the same numbers and flying the same missions as the Typhoon, and vice versa.

Not all sources agree that 592 is the number of victories scored by USAAF P-40's in the MTO; it is the highest number being bantied about. However, whatever number of victories they got, they were shared by 16 squadrons.

I don't know how many Typhoon squadrons shared the 260 victories?

IIRC by 1943, when the Typhoon squadrons were split between ADGB and 2nd TAF, there were 9 squadrons for Air Defence and 18 for ground attack. The P-40F/L would certainly not be flying the same missions as the Typhoon, but the missions assigned to the Spitfire Vc. I certainly wouldn't want to use them for Air Defence as they're slow climbing. Like in the MTO, I'd want to use them in an Air Superiority role.

 

[wuzak]

IIRC by 1943, when the Typhoon squadrons were split between ADGB and 2nd TAF, there were 9 squadrons for Air Defence and 18 for ground attack. The P-40F/L would certainly not be flying the same missions as the Typhoon, but the missions assigned to the Spitfire Vc. I certainly wouldn't want to use them for Air Defence as they're slow climbing. Like in the MTO, I'd want to use them in an Air Superiority role.

Air defence and air superiority would be roles taken by the Spitfire IX and XII in early 1943. No P-40 would be superseding those.

And, of course, a few Typhoons squadrons.

 

[Kevin J]

Air defence and air superiority would be roles taken by the Spitfire IX and XII in early 1943. No P-40 would be superseding those.

And, of course, a few Typhoons squadrons.

Spitfire FVc/LFVb's as their useful for close escort. In rear areas the Vc for air defence.

 

[Shortround6]

The two theaters are not directly comparable because the tactical situations were different.

The Germans were operating very few bombers (as opposed to Jabos) and transports in the ETO. In 1942 and early 1943 the daylight bombing had yet to get started in really big numbers. The German daylight fighters only came up to "play" when they thought they had an advantage. One of the actions described earlier in this thread had something like 3 squadrons of fighters escorting either 4 or 6 bombers, There was no upside to the Germans making a determined attack on formations like that.

 

[pbehn]

The Typhoon and Tornado were supposed to be the next generation of RAF fighters but events overtook them. They Tornado was dropped with its vulture engine, the Spitfire Mk IV (first Griffon)first flew in November 1941, the Spitfire Mk IX first flew 26 Feb 1942, The first Tempest prototype flew on 2 Sept 1942. The first production Tempests appeared in June 1943 from which date the Typhoon wasn't even the best fighter made by Hawkers let alone in service with the RAF or allies.

 

[Ivan1GFP]

Is anyone else here getting a serious sense of Deja Vu?

I don't believe either of these two fighters was really that good or even the best for its time.
Both had a kind of character to them though. Both are attractive in their way but had their problems.
"De gustibus non disputandum est."

- Ivan.

 

[Glider]

C an I ask where the 260 victories for the Typhoons come from?

 

[Ivan1GFP]

C an I ask where the 260 victories for the Typhoons come from?

The Luftwaffe?

 

[Shortround6]

Another chart.

One can see how the activity varied in different theaters and how the activity in the ETO was different than in the MTO.

 

[Navalwarrior]

Hello Stona,
I am not disputing that the Typhoon had superior performance to a Merlin P-40.
What I am disputing is whether 417 MPH and 427 MPH are representative maximum speeds for a typical Typhoon.
I believe you are cherry picking your data to prove a point.

If you look at the tests here (done by the same people):
Typhoon IB Performance Data
I believe you will see the reason.
I believe 400 MPH plus or minus 5 mph is a pretty good summary of these tests.
That also matches up pretty well with most references that list the maximum speed as 405-410 MPH even though quite a few of those tested aircraft could not break 400 MPH.

I don't argue that the Typhoon was faster than a P-40F by a fairly large margin.
What I do not agree with is your conclusion that the speed difference is 40-50 MPH at 20,000 feet.
I believe that 25-40 MPH is a more realistic difference.
Now if you had stated that the speed difference was over 50 MPH at sea level, you would get no argument from me.

The Typhoon was not a slow aircraft but it wasn't particularly fast for the amount of installed power that it had.

- Ivan.

Resp:
Max speeds of 417 and 427 were likely calculated on a 'clean' aircraft. However, a few mph over 400 was realistic for the Typhoon. I am a big fan of the P-40 but I believe it was totally unsuited for the ETO, particularly as a fighter. I know Allisons were capable of speeds exceeding 400 (note the P-82 Twin Mustang in the 1950s) but they required a more advanced carburetors/super chargers.

 

[Navalwarrior]

View attachment 534158

The two theaters are not directly comparable because the tactical situations were different.

The Germans were operating very few bombers (as opposed to Jabos) and transports in the ETO. In 1942 and early 1943 the daylight bombing had yet to get started in really big numbers. The German daylight fighters only came up to "play" when they thought they had an advantage. One of the actions described earlier in this thread had something like 3 squadrons of fighters escorting either 4 or 6 bombers, There was no upside to the Germans making a determined attack on formations like that.

Resp:
Keep in mind (at least in the MTO) that axis targets were more mobile than those in the ETO where more were fixed positions (as in factories in Germany) for the Allies especially in to 1944. And fixed positions for the Axis forces in the early years with targets in England and to some degree Russia.

 

[Dan Fahey]

Resp:
Keep in mind (at least in the MTO) that axis targets were more mobile than those in the ETO where more were fixed positions (as in factories in Germany) for the Allies especially in to 1944. And fixed positions for the Axis forces in the early years with targets in England and to some degree Russia.

Key feature of the P40 it had a lot more range than the Axis Fighters. It was a more effective combat plane than anything the Germans had. It appears the P40 did more attacking than defending. Germans did a bit more defending then attacking. We have a lot of data on shootdowns. P40 did a credible job defending itself. Hardly see anything about ground operations where the P40 spent a good bit as a Ground Attack plane or bombing vessels at sea. The Tempest Typhoon Series were not sorted out enough in time. Wondering if the engine mechanics struggled to keep the planes Flying. They do not look easy to work on.

 

[Milosh]

A nice book on the air war in North Africa, Focke-Wulf in North Africa by Arthy/Jenssen. Besides the normal text has tables for claims and losses.

 

[Ivan1GFP]

Key feature of the P40 it had a lot more range than the Axis Fighters. It was a more effective combat plane than anything the Germans had. It appears the P40 did more attacking than defending. Germans did a bit more defending then attacking. We have a lot of data on shootdowns. P40 did a credible job defending itself. Hardly see anything about ground operations where the P40 spent a good bit as a Ground Attack plane or bombing vessels at sea. The Tempest Typhoon Series were not sorted out enough in time. Wondering if the engine mechanics struggled to keep the planes Flying. They do not look easy to work on.

Hello Dan Fahey,
Your conclusions regarding relative merits of the P-40 versus German fighters is "interesting".
In comparison against the FW 190 in its various versions, I don't see how the P-40 can be seen to be a "more effective combat plane".
There never was a production version of the P-40 which would have been a competitive air superiority fighter in the ETO. Even the fastest versions never could beat 380 MPH and while that might do in the Pacific, that was 1941-1942 era performance in the ETO. Various versions of the FW 190 were clearly competitive to the end of the war.
The FW 190 was a much superior load lifter and ground attack aircraft and some versions actually had pretty good range (Jabo-Rei).

I am not saying that the P-40 did not do very good work, but that is really a credit to its pilots and not to the superiority of the aircraft over its opposition.

- Ivan.

 

[Dan Fahey]

Hello Dan Fahey,
Your conclusions regarding relative merits of the P-40 versus German fighters is "interesting".
In comparison against the FW 190 in its various versions, I don't see how the P-40 can be seen to be a "more effective combat plane".
There never was a production version of the P-40 which would have been a competitive air superiority fighter in the ETO. Even the fastest versions never could beat 380 MPH and while that might do in the Pacific, that was 1941-1942 era performance in the ETO. Various versions of the FW 190 were clearly competitive to the end of the war.
The FW 190 was a much superior load lifter and ground attack aircraft and some versions actually had pretty good range (Jabo-Rei).

I am not saying that the P-40 did not do very good work, but that is really a credit to its pilots and not to the superiority of the aircraft over its opposition.

- Ivan.

The Fw190 was not used much in the Mediterranean. At least not as much as in Italy. Africa was the Italians and German Me 109. Fw190 was not used for ground attack until the later models. It was predominantly used as air superiority until the FW 190 F designed to replace the Stuka. Still down mid-low level fights the P40 was a better dogfighter than the FW 190. Especially considering grind crews figured out how to over boost the Allison. Interestingly the FW190 did not have that much height advantage over the later model P40s.

When I read the history..the Allies did a lot more attacking of Axis Bases than the other way around. The P40 had a third more range with a bomb than the Me109 the P40s main opponent. Most of the P40s shot down were carrying bombs. Fighter to Fighter is was a more even exchange.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Fw190 was not used much in the Mediterranean. At least not as much as in Italy. Africa was the Italians and German Me 109. Fw190 was not used for ground attack until the later models. It was predominantly used as air superiority until the FW 190 F designed to replace the Stuka. Still down mid-low level fights the P40 was a better dogfighter than the FW 190. Especially considering grind crews figured out how to over boost the Allison. Interestingly the FW190 did not have that much height advantage over the later model P40s.

When I read the history..the Allies did a lot more attacking of Axis Bases than the other way around. The P40 had a third more range with a bomb than the Me109 the P40s main opponent. Most of the P40s shot down were carrying bombs. Fighter to Fighter is was a more even exchange.

However, the fact is, that the Fw190 debuted in North Africa in late 1942 with III./ZG2, II./JG2 and II./Sch.G2 with the Fw190A-4/Trop and Fw190A-5/Trop. The Fw190s attached to ZG2 and Sch.G2 inflicted a great many losses against Allied targets in ground attack.
The Fw190s of II./JG2 account for a considerable amount of Allied fighters during 1943 - Bühligen and Rudorffer were the top Fw190 combat Experten in North Afrika.

I know this fact paints a contrary picture to the previous statement, but there it is, like it or not.

 

[Stig1207]

The Fw190 was not used much in the Mediterranean. At least not as much as in Italy. Africa was the Italians and German Me 109. Fw190 was not used for ground attack until the later models. It was predominantly used as air superiority until the FW 190 F designed to replace the Stuka. Still down mid-low level fights the P40 was a better dogfighter than the FW 190. Especially considering grind crews figured out how to over boost the Allison. Interestingly the FW190 did not have that much height advantage over the later model P40s.

When I read the history..the Allies did a lot more attacking of Axis Bases than the other way around. The P40 had a third more range with a bomb than the Me109 the P40s main opponent. Most of the P40s shot down were carrying bombs. Fighter to Fighter is was a more even exchange.

See Milosh's post and the suggested Fw190 in North Africa; you might just get a few more facts to base your opinions on

 

[Milosh]

Here can be found the Luftwaffe claims.

http://don-caldwell.we.bs/jg26/claims/tonywood.htm

 

[Ivan1GFP]

The Fw190 was not used much in the Mediterranean. At least not as much as in Italy. Africa was the Italians and German Me 109. Fw190 was not used for ground attack until the later models. It was predominantly used as air superiority until the FW 190 F designed to replace the Stuka.
.

Hello Dan Fahey,
You have already gotten comments about where the FW 190 was used, so I won't bother repeating.
Keep in mind that your original comment was that the P-40 was superior to ANYTHING the Germans flew and that is clearly not the case. The FW 190F/G were not always later models but actually started life as specialized variants I believe of the A-4 and A-5 series, so the ground attack versions came along much earlier than you might have thought.

Still down mid-low level fights the P40 was a better dogfighter than the FW 190. Especially considering grind crews figured out how to over boost the Allison. Interestingly the FW190 did not have that much height advantage over the later model P40s.
.

An early P-40E or P-40K with less supercharger would have been able to run in the neighbourhood of 60 inches of boost down near Sea Level. The problem is that this is not "mid-low level". It is distinctly LOW level. Note that in the testing against the Aleutian Zero, the P-39D with the same supercharger could not maintain this level of boost past 4,000 feet. In other words, a little TINY zoom climb and the P-40 can't maintain this WEP rating any more.
Even at this maximum boost, the engine output of the P-40 would only be equal to the MILITARY rating of the FW 190 and isn't that much difference in weight. With any kind of Emergency Power available, the FW 190 gains about 200-300 extra HP and a much larger advantage.
The Focke Wulf has the firepower, speed, climb, and roll rate advantage over the P-40 in just about every model. About the only thing the P-40 can do better is pull a tighter turn and only an idiot plays that game if they already have every other advantage.

Regarding Height Advantage, you might be correct if you try to match up the best P-40 against the worst FW 190, but keep in mind that the FW 190 also got a few improvements and there is no version of the P-40 that ever could keep up with a FW 190D or the late FW 190A/F/G.

When I read the history..the Allies did a lot more attacking of Axis Bases than the other way around. The P40 had a third more range with a bomb than the Me109 the P40s main opponent. Most of the P40s shot down were carrying bombs. Fighter to Fighter is was a more even exchange.

As I commented before, the achievements of the P-40 do not appear to be because of superiority of the aircraft. There is no argument that the 109 simply had no range nor did it have that much load carrying capacity, but.....
The only model of the Me 109 that was reliably slower than even the fastest P-40 was the 109E. Even against the sad-sack Me109G-6/R6 that everyone uses for a speed comparison, the 109 is about 10 MPH faster and that is with a pair of cannon pods under the wings along with the weakest engine in the G series.
With the later G series and K series, the 109 was 50-65 MPH faster and again, there is no way any P-40 could keep up.

- Ivan.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Most of the P40s shot down were carrying bombs. Fighter to Fighter is was a more even exchange.

And once again Dan, do you have documented evidence to back this up or is this your biased (and probably delusional) opinion