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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.
Spitfire FVc/LFVb's as their useful for close escort. In rear areas the Vc for air defence.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.
C an I ask where the 260 victories for the Typhoons come from?
Resp: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: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.
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.
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.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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Most of the P40s shot down were carrying bombs. Fighter to Fighter is was a more even exchange.