Which popular WW2 aircraft and air combat "histories" are simply not true?

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M

monstrok

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Jun 23, 2014
Seattle
I am looking for ideas about popular "history" items about WW II aircraft and air combat that are actually urban legends and need an historical update. Example: The Brewster Buffalo's combat career started and ended with the US Marine Corps' interception of Japanese Naval Air Forces during the Battle of Midway.

Based on past experience from reading comments on this platform, I know I can count on ww2aircraft forum members for well-informed input!

Many thanks in advance!
 
People think the P-40 was a bad aircraft. It wasn't.

It was generally reliable, had decent performance below about 15,000 feet, and was judged about equal to a Bf 109 below 12,000 feet or so. It wasn't often the best-performing fighter in the fray, but it also wasn't nearly as much of a dog as is popularly believed today. Using its strengths, you could almost always make good an attack and get the better of the opponents.

It wasn't as good at getting away when it was bounced, but that can be said for most fighters, not just the P-40. If you're not ready for combat, then suddenly finding yourself in combat is often fraught with panic, fast action, and a few shot-down friends. Most pilots who were shot down never saw their attacker.
 
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Well, one very common one is that the Flying Tigers fought the Japanese over China long before Pearl Harbor. Now, Chennault himself was over in China, flying missions against the Japanese before Pearl Harbor, and there was a rag tag bunch of pilots flying Curtiss Hawks and Russian fighters against the Japanese well before the Flying tigers got there. But the Flying Tigers' first combat in China was 20 Dec 1941, almost 2 weeks after Pearl Harbor.
 
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Greg's Planes and Automobiles covers another good one: that the main reason bombers flew unescorted over Europe was because of a lack of range, and it wasn't until the P-51B that a suitable escort was available. This is a half truth: the Mustangs equipped with rear fuel tanks had much greater range than early P-47, and Mustangs DID show up en masse around the time the US bombers got escorts round trip, but the problem was that the USAAF didn't bother bringing proper Drop tanks to the theater. With Drops, the P-47s would have plenty of fuel to follow the bombers in, engage in combat after dropping externals, and then fly all the way home. Without those tanks, such a mission was impossible, and a Mustang with no drops and no Aux tank wasn't quite going to cut it, either.


On that note, the idea that the Allison P-51s were total dogs. This one's rooted in another myth, that the Allison itself was a piece of crap, which I don't have time to get into. As for the Mustang specifically, the Allison models were among the fastest planes in service below 10,000ft at the time of introduction (spring of 1942). A few of them were also equipped with, for the time, a staggering amount of firepower for a single engine fighter, with 4 Hispano Mk II. Keep in mind that some of these cannon armed Mustangs were in USAAF service, not just with the RAF
 
Spindash64 said:
Greg's Planes and Automobiles covers another good one: that the main reason bombers flew unescorted over Europe was because of a lack of range, and it wasn't until the P-51B that a suitable escort was available. This is a half truth: the Mustangs equipped with rear fuel tanks had much greater range than early P-47, and Mustangs DID show up en masse around the time the US bombers got escorts round trip, but the problem was that the USAAF didn't bother bringing proper Drop tanks to the theater. With Drops, the P-47s would have plenty of fuel to follow the bombers in, engage in combat after dropping externals, and then fly all the way home. Without those tanks, such a mission was impossible, and a Mustang with no drops and no Aux tank wasn't quite going to cut it, either.


On that note, the idea that the Allison P-51s were total dogs. This one's rooted in another myth, that the Allison itself was a piece of crap, which I don't have time to get into. As for the Mustang specifically, the Allison models were among the fastest planes in service below 10,000ft at the time of introduction (spring of 1942). A few of them were also equipped with, for the time, a staggering amount of firepower for a single engine fighter, with 4 Hispano Mk II. Keep in mind that some of these cannon armed Mustangs were in USAAF service, not just with the RAF
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Greg's view of drop tanks and range have nothing to do with facts. You need drop tanks, and you need aircraft with the hard points and plumbing to carry the drop tanks. It is a bit disconcerting that "Greg" is now seen as a historical source when he is debunked on his own forum and refuses to change anything.
 
The P-47 already had those fuel lines, if I recall.

I also recall that the US did not use drop tanks in Europe during the summer of 43. If the P-47 could use them, and it gave them the range needed for escort, why not use them?
 
Spindash64 said:
The P-47 already had those fuel lines, if I recall.

I also recall that the US did not use drop tanks in Europe during the summer of 43. If the P-47 could use them, and it gave them the range needed for escort, why not use them?
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They didnt use them, because they didnt have them. Until the internal fuel was increased, increasing external fuel just gets you to a place you cant get back from. Greg concedes this if you listen closely to what he says. It is tiresome fan boy nonsense.
 
Kind of doesn't matter if you have them or not if you're going to run out of gas anyways because your plane doesn't have the range on internal fuel to make it back on its own after you drop the drop tanks and engage in combat. Drop tanks are good for getting you to the target area, useless afterwards.

The P-47 didn't have the range on internal fuel that the Merlin P-51s did until after the P-47D-20 production block range.
 
Spindash64 said:
And why didn't they have them?
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Because Republic, the makers of the P-47 were useless, is my carefully considered opinion. The P-51 had them, the P-38 had them, the P-40 had them, in fact every S/E US aircraft had them except the P-47. The P-47 did have an unpressurised tank that couldnt be fully filled but did give a slight increase in range. If you are alluding to Gregs nonsense about the "bomber mafia" even as a Brit his comments are a disgrace and would surely be slander and libel if Hap Arnold were alive today, they have zero basis in fact.
 
BarnOwlLover said:
Kind of doesn't matter if you have them or not if you're going to run out of gas anyways because your plane doesn't have the range on internal fuel to make it back on its own after you drop the drop tanks and engage in combat. Drop tanks are good for getting you to the target area, useless afterwards.

The P-47 didn't have the range on internal fuel that the Merlin P-51s did until after the P-47D-20 production block range.
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Yes, you need to drop tanks in combat. But that doesn't mean it can't increase combat range: you seem to forget that this allows your fighter to be carrying a full tank of gas at the start of combat. It won't help if you want to go further than what Internal fuel can get you on the return trip, but a significant portion of the unescorted Bombing missions were to targets that a P-47 with drop tanks COULD reach, engage in combat over, and have enough internal fuel remaining to make it home
 
Spindash64 said:
Yes, you need to drop tanks in combat. But that doesn't mean it can't increase combat range: you seem to forget that this allows your fighter to be carrying a full tank of gas at the start of combat. It won't help if you want to go further than what Internal fuel can get you on the return trip, but a significant portion of the unescorted Bombing missions were to targets that a P-47 with drop tanks COULD reach, engage in combat over, and have enough internal fuel remaining to make it home
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I seem to forget nothing, the topic has been done to death here. You seem to not know that the escort has to warm up, take off and climb on its internal tanks. Then it has to form up with its squadron, then fly to the RDV then escort the bombers. There is an allowance for combat, typically 20 mins n max power. How far you can escort depends on what is left in your internal tanks after all that, and on an early P-47 it wasnt much.
 
If that's the case, then shouldn't the vapor return make up for some of that difference anyway?
 
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