fubar57
General
Curious as to why you left out part of my post to make your point
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Kevin J
Banned
It was a great post fubar57. I expect the Spitfire pilots had to fly 2, 3 or 4 x the Mustang pilots' sorties just to fly the same distances and achieve the same flight hours. Divide the Spitfire sorties by 3 and they are flying twice the sorties and still achieving almost 2 x the Mustang's victories per accumulated sorties. Aren't stats amazing? Again, great post. meanwhile the Typhoons are being shot from the skies, most probably by Triple A.
Once Africa was taken by the allies the war was on many fronts but there was only one enemy. Typhoons were in South England. If you use Typhoons in Italy you need to have planes in South England doing what the Typhoons did. The Typhoon was a completely different air frame and engine from all others in the med.
Shortround6
Major General
As usual, you make at statement that is not accurate and when called on it you claim that is not what you meant or that I am being dishonest in calling out the mistake.
Nobody is saying the Italian campaign was not hard fought. But Anzio was not the Italian campaign or in any way is it "shorthand" for referring to the Italian campaign.
I could say that your mention of Sardinia in connection to Anzio is disingenuous. By the time Anzio started both Sardinia and Corsica had been in allied hands for 4 months.
Both were used as air bases for aircraft supporting Anzio but P-40s were NOT escorting B-25s and B-26s over Sardinia during Anzio (operation Shingle) unless the escorting then duing take-offs and Landings.
Eh? When was a battle decided by flight hours. Immediately after D-Day both USA and UK forces moved to France to shorten the distance. They continued to do this with escort groups moving to France. Flying six hours on one mission isn't an aim it is a worst case. For close support you want as any planes over the area as possible in something like the cab rank system.
Kevin J
Banned
I've got my bean counter hat on, oops, sorry.
There is a tendency to think range automatically wins every discussion and battle. Many conflicts were at very short range.
Shortround6
Major General
The last Merlin powered P-40 was delivered (at the factory in Buffalo NY) on April 28th, 1943. there were about 2260 Merlin powered P-40s built in total.
As noted above it took until May 1943 (a few weeks later) for 1200 Typhoons to be delivered (granted the factories were closer to the Med) and sometime in the late winter of 1943/44 or early spring of 1944 to reach a total of 2200 Typhoons. ( 1800 had been delivered by Dec 7th 1943 and 2600 by June 6th 1944).
This difference in when truly large numbers of Typhoons became available may help explain why it wasn't sent overseas. The fact that the Sabre engine was used in no other combat aircraft and would require a new supply chain might be another. There was a Merlin overhaul/rebuild facility in Cairo, Egypt for instance. I don't know if it handled only British engines but the provision of spare Sabres (in short supply in England) and spare parts plus suitable overhaul equipment might have been considered to large an investment for a limited amount of aircraft, just speculation on my part.
As noted above it took until May 1943 (a few weeks later) for 1200 Typhoons to be delivered (granted the factories were closer to the Med) and sometime in the late winter of 1943/44 or early spring of 1944 to reach a total of 2200 Typhoons. ( 1800 had been delivered by Dec 7th 1943 and 2600 by June 6th 1944).
This difference in when truly large numbers of Typhoons became available may help explain why it wasn't sent overseas. The fact that the Sabre engine was used in no other combat aircraft and would require a new supply chain might be another. There was a Merlin overhaul/rebuild facility in Cairo, Egypt for instance. I don't know if it handled only British engines but the provision of spare Sabres (in short supply in England) and spare parts plus suitable overhaul equipment might have been considered to large an investment for a limited amount of aircraft, just speculation on my part.
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- #1,369
Seriously? I just hit the f***n quote button! Did you edit it after you posted? WTF
fubar57
General
You will notice there is no edit in my post
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- #1,371
I think you are putting your own mentality on me. Not everybody thinks the way you do breh. You were just doing your usual (and typical internet) thing of trying to zero in on some part of a statement and pretend it was everything somebody said, as a 'gotcha', like you tried to do several times just in the last few pages of this very thread.
I wrote: "They needed all the help they could get invading Italy. Anzio was a close run thing or weren't you aware?"
Invasion of Italy was Sept 43. Anzio was January through June 1944. It's two separate things. Anzio was the end, Sicily (July 43) and Salerno (Sept 43) were actually the beginning. The context was whether Typhoons could be used in the Med, were they needed. The fact is that the Allied forces in general and the DAF in particular were in pretty serious trouble right up to Torch in November 42. They barely won El Alamein (with USAAF help) and that was a very close run thing.
Tunisia was taken after the Americans arrived in force, but then the Anglo-Americans together took on a much bigger challenge - Italy. My argument was that they definitely could have used more and better fighters, as the P-40s were limited, the P-39s all but useless, the Spit Vs were good but short ranged, the Spit IXs were great but also short ranged, the P-38s didn't do so well and the P-47s were good but pretty late to the game.
I mentioned Sardinia because they were having tons of air battles over that Island in the first half of 1943.
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- #1,372
That only comes into play if you edited it after some period of time like 2 or 3 minutes. I often edit mine due to a typo or something once or twice after I post. But if you say you didn't edit it I'll believe you, I just don't remember editing my response, in fact I was in a hurry because I had to leave the house (which is why I haven't posted in the thread for a couple of hours in spite of all the replies)
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Shortround6
Major General
I think you are the one that is playing "gotcha".
You make posts that are either incomplete or have confused timelines ( and let's face it, from Torch to the end of Anzio was over 1 1 /2 years let alone the NA campaign before Torch and the Italian campaign after Anzio). You take an outlier position and then get upset or accuse others of dishonesty when they ask for facts to back it up or question your version of events.
Guess what? that is what happens when you present an outlier position.
I have a few outlier positions myself (like the Defiant gets a lot more credit than it deserves) but it is up to me to try to prove it. Not complain that people are against me when they question what facts I do have. Or claim that others are being disingenuous when they present counter arguments or knock a hole in one of my arguments.
There are a lot of people on this site who have also done a lot reading over many years ( I have been reading about WW II aircraft for nearly 60 years and I am not an expert in all things).
You come across, whether intentionally or not, as being superior to many of us and we should accept your conclusions as fact.
Guess what? when a lot of your details don't add up, or are wrong, or are part of a distorted timeline, you loose credibility.
I have made a number of mistakes here on the Forum, some are typos, some are not remembering things correctly and some have been due to using either an out dated or mistaken source. I hope than when corrected I usually will thank somebody for the correction or at least double check with another source.
You make posts that are either incomplete or have confused timelines ( and let's face it, from Torch to the end of Anzio was over 1 1 /2 years let alone the NA campaign before Torch and the Italian campaign after Anzio). You take an outlier position and then get upset or accuse others of dishonesty when they ask for facts to back it up or question your version of events.
Guess what? that is what happens when you present an outlier position.
I have a few outlier positions myself (like the Defiant gets a lot more credit than it deserves) but it is up to me to try to prove it. Not complain that people are against me when they question what facts I do have. Or claim that others are being disingenuous when they present counter arguments or knock a hole in one of my arguments.
There are a lot of people on this site who have also done a lot reading over many years ( I have been reading about WW II aircraft for nearly 60 years and I am not an expert in all things).
You come across, whether intentionally or not, as being superior to many of us and we should accept your conclusions as fact.
Guess what? when a lot of your details don't add up, or are wrong, or are part of a distorted timeline, you loose credibility.
I have made a number of mistakes here on the Forum, some are typos, some are not remembering things correctly and some have been due to using either an out dated or mistaken source. I hope than when corrected I usually will thank somebody for the correction or at least double check with another source.
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- #1,375
So what? Are you deliberately losing the actual point of the discussion or did you just lose track of it? The Typhoon was around since 1941 right? About as long as the Merlin P-40 was surely. I still don't see a good reason why they couldn't have sent some to the Med, as throughout that long history and all the way back to the beginning, it was a struggle. The German opposition was good and the Italian Air opposition was pretty good too. That was the actual point I was trying to make, which you seemed to be trying to steer into some corner so you could pull of a 'gotcha' which is (from my perspective) totally pointless.
I would really like to see an example of where I got mad in the least at being asked for facts. If I post something 'outlier' it's because I have a bunch of facts handy to post, and would like to share them. Being asked about it is part of the process. I think you are once again, putting on me what is actually in your head.
I only call you disingenuous when you are doing just that, being inaccurate or misleading on purpose.
Yeah man, I'm old too, I've been around too. I've read a lot too. There are a lot of old well informed, well read dudes on here who love WW2 airplanes and have superb libraries and in some cases flight time or at least time around these cool old Warbirds. That's what is great about it and why the conversations are often so interesting, why we all learn things here even on subjects we thought we already knew enough about to write a book (as I know many here have). I just don't get why some people have to pretend that they know everything though, none of us do.
I don't know what you are trying to imply about a distorted timeline, but for the record I don't claim to know any more than anyone else on here. I just don't automatically accept that I know a lot less than anyone else on here in general. I can figure out that there are a few on here who know a lot more than me about specific things, we all have our areas of expertise. I tip my hat to you on engines and supercharges for example. But that doesn't make you god or give you special authority on a host of other subjects.
I do the same. I've made plenty of mistakes too even though i try to be accurate. You and I maybe just rub each other the wrong way, but if you are trying to 'School' somebody and shut down a line of speculation (usually when you and I clash it seems to be about some kind of "what if scenario" that you find irritating for some reason) dont' expect me to just knuckle under to that.
We don't all know anything as an absolute certainty, we all have our opinions. The war was against the Nazi Military which was in a state of controlled collapse. The Western allies could have gone into Germany via Italy if Germany put no effort into defending it. Or via Normandy, or was Normandy a distraction for the main force in Calais? Or across the med into Southern France? The process and strategy was to exhaust German resources on land sea and air in the whole of Europe in concert with Russia who was doing the same.
Fubar, note: I just highlighted the entire last paragraph in Sheik's post and hit reply; but did it copy the whole thing? No it presented the truncated quote you see above. This happens a lot on this site for some unknown reason. I spend a lot of time deleting and requoting. If somebody quotes me incompletely, I don't suspect them of disingenuousness, I blame the software.
Schweik, I didn't intend to claim that climate was the ENTIRE reason for the difference in effectiveness of the Cobra, as many of the other reasons cited by you and Kevin J were also in the picture. The Cobra definitely had a golden opportunity in Russia where the combat was at low level and at lower density altitudes. Add to that the Soviets' willingness to innovate in both airframe configuration and training doctrine, and their higher risk tolerance, and you have a situation that allows a new reputation to be forged, which has huge benefits in pilot morale and esprit de corps. Big contrast with the Med, where the plane's lackluster reputation and performance in the hot climate and the entire establishment's lack of confidence in it stacked the cards against it.
Cheers,
Wes
wuzak
Captain
Some reasons have been presented to you.
- There were very few Typhoons available in late 1941/early 1942
- Early Typhoons were unreliable
- Production was slow to ramp up - SR6 posted the production numbers - 1,200 Typhoons were built in the same time that 2,200 P-40Fs were built. Actually, the Typhoon was in production longer for those numbers.
- There were no other Sabre powered aircraft, so a completely new supply line would have to be created
- The Home front was still the RAF's No.1 priority. That is why the Spitfire was held back from overseas deployment - the V and IX arrived in the MTO later than they may have otherwise.
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- #1,379
Thanks for pointing that out about the quote feature, I hadn't really noticed. I may be a jerk sometimes but I'm not sneaky.
I hear you about the Cobra stuff. I gather hot humid weather has been brought up about the Solomons etc. too, I have to admit I don't grasp what the issue is precisely, why wouldn't affect P-40s as well for example. But I do get the idea from Russian sources that the P-39 seems to have had less problems in cold weather despite using basically the same engine. So maybe it was just in general more of a cold weather plane.
The altitude was definitely a thing, but a lot of the fighting in the Med was down low.
I think it mostly had to do with training. I think the Russians figured out how to fly the thing and get the most out of it, and we didn't. Clearly though it was a mix of issues so we can all take our pick so to speak.
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- #1,380
I didn't say it was inferior to the P-40F, not for that reason anyway. I was just asking why they never sent any to the Med. I think the strongest argument is the Saber engine supply chain thing. However I suspect it may have also had problems operating in that (pretty bad) environment.
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