fubar57
General
Curious as to why you left out part of my post to make your point
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Curious as to why you left out part of my post to make your pointTrue but Spits flying a little more than twice the number of Sorties, and claiming 306 enemy aircraft. Even the Mustangs claimed 85 with only 4,300 sorties.
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.Curious as to why you left out part of my post to make your point
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.They needed all the help they could get invading Italy. Anzio was a close run thing or weren't you aware?
Prior to that official test in 1943 Typhoons (or any purportedly superior aircraft) were even more badly needed as the Desert Air Force was suffering heavy casualties, especially before the arrival of the Americans with all the extra kit and manpower. However if the Typhoon was indeed suitable and deemed effective I would think they would have deployed at least some squadrons since allegedly (per the comments in this thread) they were not seeing a lot of action in England. Or were they? Which is it?
However, as usual your comment is disingenuous , I mentioned Anzio as one of the better known highlights and critical moments of the Italian campaign, but I was referring to the whole thing which was bitterly fought, from Pantelleria and Lampedusa to Sicily, Salerno and onto Italy. Anzio was not a red herring it was one of the most intense and bitterly contested air battles of the Mediterranean Campaign.
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.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.
I've got my bean counter hat on, oops, sorry.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.
There is a tendency to think range automatically wins every discussion and battle. Many conflicts were at very short range.I've got my bean counter hat on, oops, sorry.
Curious as to why you left out part of my post to make your point
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.
You will notice there is no edit in my post
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.
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.I should say Anzio was the "end of the invasion" in the sense that it opened up the larger land war which as we all know bogged down in Italy.
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.Your theory that the P-39 didn't fly as well in hot weather doesn't seem likely a complete answer to me. Do you have evidence of that? I can imagine some differences but I am doubtful tha
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.
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
Some reasons have been presented to you.
The fact that the Typhoon wasn't sent to the MTO does not prove that it was unsuitable or inferior to the P-40F.
- 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.