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

[Schweik]

Seems like they had to be protected by escorts and got wacked by P-51s, P-47s and Spits when they weren't...

 

[Kevin J]

It's funny, this entire thread and the comparison between P-40F and Typhoon originated with the notion that there was a valid niche for low and medium altitude fighters. I had mentioned the Typhoon as an example of a specialized low-altitude fighter which had a useful niche, then someone insisted that the Typhoon was way, way way beyond the P-40, so I thought to test it. And here we are 80 pages later.

It occurs to me the Spit V with clipped wings would be quite similar in many respects to a P-40F. Unless they changed the engine (which I know was also sometimes done at various points) it wouldn't be really a low altitude so much as a medium altitude optimized fighter. But the clipped wings and improved roll rate would help a lot down low as well.



Well, I may be missing something and admittedly the angle isn't as sharp but it seems to me if you squared off those wings you would get almost as much as on a clipped wing Spitfire. Certainly at least 12-16" inches on each wing there no? Or is that just the foreshortening on the drawing?

The Hurricane needed not just a shorter but a different wing, as in at least a bit thinner. Maybe not spitfire thin but perhaps P-40 thin. Sydney Camm seemed to have a thing for thick wings. I gather the original intent was to substitute for not being a biplane any more.

But even cutting 2 - 4 feet off of the wing tips, that alone would probably give you another 5-10 mph of speed. Might affect altitude performance though of course. But in places like Burma and Russia I am surprised nobody tried it. It was done on so many other aircraft.



I think because they knew it just had too much drag. Like the Firefly or one of those naval aircraft. Very powerful engine but still disappointingly slow. The main issue IMO was the wing, though they wanted it for the loiter time and range etc.



Two things about the Hurricane which are interesting to me - one the performance in terms of outcomes fell off very sharply. Hurricanes were doing serious damage to the Lufwaffe in the BoB. I'm sure the integrated air defense helped a lot, but there is no denying that Hurricanes were sawwing down fleets of bombers and knocking out a good number of fighters too, including Bf 109s.

Even later in the Desert, one of the things you notice reading Shores day by day accounts is that the Hurricanes were the best fighters for destroying bombers. The Stukas in particular seemed to have a surprisingly, (to me almost annoyingly since I admit I'm kind of rooting for the Allies) tendency to evade destruction. A squadron of Stukas gets jumped by Spitfires, 3 get shot down. They get jumped by P-40s, 2 get shot down and another 3 damaged. But when they get jumped by Hurricanes that is when they lose 6 or 8 planes, almost every time. I don't know what the difference is precisely but it seems to be real.

On the other hands Hurricanes seemed unable to get the Ju 88s a lot of the time, perhaps due to speed or altitude.


I would agree that 1942, the beginning of 1942, was probably the red-line for the Hurricane, certainly in the Med. At that point when used as a fighter they seemed to get really mauled almost every time. Every once in a while you find a day where the Hurricane pilots did some damage to the Germans. To be fair the Kittyhawks were only doing a little better but they usually shot down one or two enemy planes at least.

The problem with the Hurricane vs Ju 88 scenario was that once the Ju 88 had dropped its bombs it was nigh impossible to catch. A Ju 88 did 326 mph clean and could evade a Hurricane in a dive, the Hurricane only being capable of 410 mph. Even the Seafire IIc couldn't catch a Ju 88, and all an LIIc could do was to drive off but not shoot down Fw 190a's.

 

[Schweik]

Wow 326 mph? I didn't realize they were that fast.

Ju 88's show up in Shores a lot as doing some real damage as fighters, which is amazing because they don't seem to have had any forward firing guns. They even shot down some P-38s.

 

[Shortround6]

Using the old retrospectroscope what the British needed to do was figure out that the Germans were in no position to mount bombing raids or a Blitz in 1942 while tied up with the Russians, at least not on the same scale as they did in 1940/41 and perhaps a few squadrons of Spitfires more could be released for duties in the Mid east or far east earlier than was done historically.

as for use on the easter front

On the Eastern front, the Soviet Hurricane IIB, with two 20 mm cannon and two 0.5 in machine guns could successfully counter the Bf 109F by means of a frontal attack. It had twice the firepower of the Bf 109F which it could out turn although it couldn't break off contact at will. Once the Bf 109G comes along with its 30 mm cannon, that's the point it becomes obsolete as a day fighter.

Being restricted to using a head on pass as one of your few viable tactics is hardly an indication of being able to fight on near equal basis. If you can't break off and you have trouble initiating a fight (you have to wait for the 109s to decide to attack you) you don't actually have a very good fighter.

the 30mm gun was not the wonder cannon it is sometimes made out to be. It had a lower rate of fire and it's low velocity made deflection shooting more difficult (forget the nonsense about trajectory, the gun is pointed up to cross the line of sight and the trajectory arced a bit above before falling back down through the line of sight at a further distance). The G-6 with the two 13mm cowl guns was a useful increase in firepower even if not stupendous. The German 30mm was a better anti bomber gun.

 

[Kevin J]

Using the old retrospectroscope what the British needed to do was figure out that the Germans were in no position to mount bombing raids or a Blitz in 1942 while tied up with the Russians, at least not on the same scale as they did in 1940/41 and perhaps a few squadrons of Spitfires more could be released for duties in the Mid east or far east earlier than was done historically.

as for use on the easter front


Being restricted to using a head on pass as one of your few viable tactics is hardly an indication of being able to fight on near equal basis. If you can't break off and you have trouble initiating a fight (you have to wait for the 109s to decide to attack you) you don't actually have a very good fighter.

the 30mm gun was not the wonder cannon it is sometimes made out to be. It had a lower rate of fire and it's low velocity made deflection shooting more difficult (forget the nonsense about trajectory, the gun is pointed up to cross the line of sight and the trajectory arced a bit above before falling back down through the line of sight at a further distance). The G-6 with the two 13mm cowl guns was a useful increase in firepower even if not stupendous. The German 30mm was a better anti bomber gun.

You're forgetting that the Russians had a kamikaze attitude to aerial combat. If they couldn't shoot their target down then they rammed it.

 

[Shortround6]

Wow 326 mph? I didn't realize they were that fast.

Ju 88's show up in Shores a lot as doing some real damage as fighters, which is amazing because they don't seem to have had any forward firing guns. They even shot down some P-38s.

Don't forget that Avro Ansons scored some of the first kills of the war against 109s (or claimed to) which hardly makes the Anson a first rate fighter plane.
When you have hundreds of engagements there are always going to be some outliers on the spectrum. The outliers get mentioned because they are outliers/strange/interesting.

 

[Schweik]

Well yeah, "interesting" is why I mentioned it. And one of the P-38 incidents was a squadron of lost planes that were being ferried across the Med ultra long range and they only had 50 rounds of ammunition on them. Still, it's impressive that the Ju 88 pilots attacked because they had no way of knowing that. And while a Ju 88 downing a P-38 is certainly an oddity and an outlier, it was not at all unusual for them to shoot down planes like Blenheims, Botha's, Walruses, Swordfish, Hudsons, and so on... and in daylight. Quite often! Which was my real point: those Ju 88s were predatory. I think they even got a couple of Sunderlands.

Seems like it might have been a good idea to mount a fixed 13mm mg or two on them they might have done even more damage.

Avro Anson shooting down a Bf 109 seems very unlikely... would love to know the details of that.... off to google!

 

[Shortround6]

Uh, those were Ju-88A bombers right?
And not JU-88C fighters?

There were over 1000 JU-88C series heavy day fighters built before they built one with radar to use as a night fighter.
Some had the solid noses painted to look like regular bombers.

one 20mm gun (usually a MG/FFM) and three 7.9mm guns.

 

[Schweik]

Wow, that explains it! I had no idea! Awesome... crap now I must find a model of that in 1/72 scale...

 

[Schweik]

Uh, those were Ju-88A bombers right?
And not JU-88C fighters?

There were over 1000 JU-88C series heavy day fighters built before they built one with radar to use as a night fighter.
Some had the solid noses painted to look like regular bombers.
View attachment 543391
one 20mm gun (usually a MG/FFM) and three 7.9mm guns.

So they painted fake nose cone markings to make it look like a bomber? I love it

 

[gordonm1]

My 2 cents, the P 40 bailed the British out of protecting their colonies which, could not produce enough enough biplanes and monoplanes to affect the German and Japanese offense. The Typhoon was a nice plane but it only was used near England, where it could be serviced and babied while it protected England, not the holy shit Empire.

 

[Schweik]

Interesting take on it, they certainly did still have an Empire that I'm sure they hoped to keep, but more importantly for the war effort, a lot of their supplies and raw materials were coming from India via the Middle East so there were big Strategic / war -effort reasons to keep that area open and out of German control. They also needed to send arms to India to keep the Japanese from taking it over...

 

[pbehn]

My 2 cents, the P 40 bailed the British out of protecting their colonies which, could not produce enough enough biplanes and monoplanes to affect the German and Japanese offense. The Typhoon was a nice plane but it only was used near England, where it could be serviced and babied while it protected England, not the holy shit Empire.

A whole 2 cents? I will use the ignore function.

 

[Simon Thomas]

The Hurricane needed not just a shorter but a different wing, as in at least a bit thinner. Maybe not spitfire thin but perhaps P-40 thin. Sydney Camm seemed to have a thing for thick wings. I gather the original intent was to substitute for not being a biplane any more. .

From the Royal Aeronautical Society / https://www.aerosociety.com/media/4953/the-aerodynamics-of-the-spitfire.pdf

Alan Clifton remarks that this choice went against the advice of the NPL, advice to the effect that "there was no advantage in going below a thickness chord ratio of 15%". It appears that similar advice was given to Sydney Camm at Hawker during the design of the Hurricane. Roy Chaplin, a senior member of Camm's team at that time, recalls in his contribution to Reference 32 that wind tunnel tests at the NPL on a Hurricane model produced the advice that "no improvement in drag would be obtained by reducing the thickness-chord ratio of the wing below 20%." As mentioned in Reference 1, it appears that this advice arose from measurements obtained in the NPL's Compressed Air Tunnel (CAT), running since 1932, which, it was later realised, could produce misleading results.

Seems Hawkers were sold a pup when told that the thick wing had the same drag as the thin wing. It was too late for the Typhoon, but it appears by the time they got around to the Tempest they were on the right path.

 

[Glider]

Well yeah, "interesting" is why I mentioned it. And one of the P-38 incidents was a squadron of lost planes that were being ferried across the Med ultra long range and they only had 50 rounds of ammunition on them. Still, it's impressive that the Ju 88 pilots attacked because they had no way of knowing that. And while a Ju 88 downing a P-38 is certainly an oddity and an outlier, it was not at all unusual for them to shoot down planes like Blenheims, Botha's, Walruses, Swordfish, Hudsons, and so on... and in daylight. Quite often! Which was my real point: those Ju 88s were predatory. I think they even got a couple of Sunderlands.

Seems like it might have been a good idea to mount a fixed 13mm mg or two on them they might have done even more damage.

Avro Anson shooting down a Bf 109 seems very unlikely... would love to know the details of that.... off to google!

The Ju88's used in combat over the Bay of Biscay were Ju88c the fighter version. They operated with some success but couldn't compare with the Beaufighters and later the Mosquito's that were deployed to deal counter their threat.

 

[Milosh]

Wow, that explains it! I had no idea! Awesome... crap now I must find a model of that in 1/72 scale...

That seems to a recurring theme.

 

[Schweik]

That seems to a recurring theme.

You are right, I'm one of the few people who admit when I don't know something

 

[Schweik]

From the Royal Aeronautical Society / https://www.aerosociety.com/media/4953/the-aerodynamics-of-the-spitfire.pdf

Alan Clifton remarks that this choice went against the advice of the NPL, advice to the effect that "there was no advantage in going below a thickness chord ratio of 15%". It appears that similar advice was given to Sydney Camm at Hawker during the design of the Hurricane. Roy Chaplin, a senior member of Camm's team at that time, recalls in his contribution to Reference 32 that wind tunnel tests at the NPL on a Hurricane model produced the advice that "no improvement in drag would be obtained by reducing the thickness-chord ratio of the wing below 20%." As mentioned in Reference 1, it appears that this advice arose from measurements obtained in the NPL's Compressed Air Tunnel (CAT), running since 1932, which, it was later realised, could produce misleading results.

Seems Hawkers were sold a pup when told that the thick wing had the same drag as the thin wing. It was too late for the Typhoon, but it appears by the time they got around to the Tempest they were on the right path.

Wow, I definitely didn't know that, all these years I'd been blaming Sydney Camm. What a difference a wind tunnel makes...

 

[Schweik]

The Ju88's used in combat over the Bay of Biscay were Ju88c the fighter version. They operated with some success but couldn't compare with the Beaufighters and later the Mosquito's that were deployed to deal counter their threat.

Yeah the Beaufighter definitely seemed to be a Ju 88 "antidote" in the Med, at least when they were operating at low enough altitude. Shores points it out as one of the emerging surprises from his data, those Beaufighters were death-dealing machines.

Now I am wondering could the Ju 88C also carry out dive bombing?

 

[pbehn]

Wow, I definitely didn't know that, all these years I'd been blaming Sydney Camm. What a difference a wind tunnel makes...

Its a discussion with a long history and many facets. Going back to even whether bi planes were better than monoplanes and how important turn performance was compared to top speed, thick wings versus thin wings is part of that. Camm designed the plane he wanted in the Hurricane it was a compromise as all are, not as good as the Spitfire but in September 1939 we didn't have many Spitfires but had so many Hurricanes, Hawkers had been exporting them. Thick wings on the Typhoon were possibly the wrong route for a pure fighter, but possibly an advantage on a fighter bomber. Its easy to say use a laminar flow wing in hind sight, the Typhoon/Tornado was flying before the P-51 was ordered AND Hawkers were investigating a thinner wing, from wiki "In March 1940, engineers were assigned to investigate the new low–drag laminar flow wing developed by NACA in the United States, which had been used in the new North American P-51 Mustang. A laminar flow wing adopted for the Tempest series had a maximum thickness-to-chord ratio of 14.5 per cent at the root, tapering to 10 per cent at the tip.[5][8] The maximum thickness of the Tempest wing was set further back at 37.5 per cent of the chord versus 30 per cent for the Typhoon's wing, reducing the thickness of the wing root by five inches on the new design.[5][8] The wingspan was originally greater than that of the Typhoon at 43 ft (13.1 m), but the wingtips were later "clipped" and the wing became shorter; 41 ft (12.5 m) versus 41 ft 7 in (12.7 m).[5]"