Wildcat during the Battle of Britain

PAT303 · Sep 4, 2020

pinsog said:
While far from perfect, I can assure you that a 750-800 grain 50 caliber ball round at 2500 FPS will do a lot of damage to fuel tanks, engines and pilots.

They didn't actually, the .50 cals didn't show any advantage over the .303's when tested against aircraft targets, a 2 second burst will see approx 160 ball, AP and incendiary .303's guided by tracer towards the target, the .50's will give you about 34 cup and core ball rounds, but only if you fly straight and level.

pinsog said:
Did you read what I typed? I said make Grumman fix the guns OR replace them with 8 303's.

And while you are retrofitting guns to Wildcats Spitfires and Hurricanes aren't getting constant speed props, armour kits or 20 other more important things. Adding Wildcats to the British arsenal adds nothing to the course.

pinsog · Sep 4, 2020

PAT303 said:
They didn't actually, the .50 cals didn't show any advantage over the .303's when tested against aircraft targets, a 2 second burst will see approx 160 ball, AP and incendiary .303's guided by tracer towards the target, the .50's will give you about 34 cup and core ball rounds, but only if you fly straight and level.

And while you are retrofitting guns to Wildcats Spitfires and Hurricanes aren't getting constant speed props, armour kits or 20 other more important things. Adding Wildcats to the British arsenal adds nothing to the course.

I mean have them fitted with 303's from Grumman before they are delivered, if Grumman can't get the 50's to work In testing, have them install 303's instead.
The 50 vs 303 vs 20mm has been beaten to death on here, but I think focusing all guns into a tight pattern and then teaching the pilots how to shoot would actually be more important than what caliber weapon they are using. An 8 gun Hurricane with all guns focused at 200 yards flown by US Navy Commander John Thach accurately hosing the all glass cockpit of an HE111 from a high side beam attack would do better than an untrained pilot missing with anything.

Shortround6 · Sep 4, 2020

It is not up to Grumman to fix the guns, it depends on what is the problem. Just as it is not up to Grumman to fix engine problems or faulty propeller operation.

The guns are government furnished equipment, or in the case of export planes (commercial sales) they are customer furnished equipment.

The .50 cal ammo used in 1940 used 750 grain projectiles. While undoubtedly destructive if they hit the rate of fire for four .50 cal wing guns in 1940 was 40 rounds per second at best.
The ,303 ammo used 174-175 grain ammo (for ball mmo) but the eight ,303 guns had a rate of fire of 160 rounds per second at best. weight of metal per second is in favor of the ,50 cal guns by about 8%. Hardly a decisive advantage. The ,303 guns actually fire a bit less weight of projectile because the tracer and incendiary bullets are a bit lighter.
in 1940 there were no .50 cal incendiary rounds, BoB eight gun fighters had one or two guns loaded exclusively with incendiaries depending on ammo supply. One gun was generally loaded with tracer and two guns had AP bullets. During the BoB 3 guns could be loaded with ball depending on supply, later in the war ball disappeared as did tracer (for fighters) and AP and incendiary became the standard bullets.

The Martlet/F4F doesn't bring any significant increase in firepower to the battle. we are talking + or -10% or under depending on how we rate the different bullets. This does not take into account gun problems or installation problems (heaters, feed rollers, long belt feeds, etc).

The Martlet I, II and F4F-3A all perform a bit worse than the Hurricane I. The F4F-3 does have a slight speed advantage (perhaps 15mph) at certain altitudes. It has a lower ceiling? or perhaps about equal.

Even if used it is hard to see any difference in combat effectiveness over the Hurricane I at the time of the BoB and it is easy to see several potential problems.

Shortround6 · Sep 4, 2020

PAT303 said:
, a 2 second burst will see approx 160 ball, AP and incendiary .303's guided by tracer towards the target, the .50's will give you about 34 cup and core ball rounds, if you fly straight and level.

1 second burst.

Shortround6 · Sep 4, 2020

pinsog said:
The 50 vs 303 vs 20mm has been beaten to death on here, but I think focusing all guns into a tight pattern and then teaching the pilots how to shoot would actually be more important than what caliber weapon they are using.

You are quite right on the last part.

The point about beating up on the 1940 .50 cal is that it was not the .50 cal of 1942-44. So any impressions or facts or anecdotes about how well the .50 cal did in the Pacific or North Africa (or 4 gun Mustangs in 1944) has to take into account the lower rate of fire and lower powered ammo. The later ammo was about 25% more powerful at the muzzle. Not that the 2500fps load was a pipsqueak but the later ammo did hit somewhat harder and was a bit easier to aim (required a bit less lead).
The fact that four of the later guns could fire around 56 bullets per second certainly didn't hurt. A reason the British asked for six guns on the later Martlets? to get the anticipated rate of fire up to 60rps for six guns?

pinsog · Sep 4, 2020

Shortround6 said:
It is not up to Grumman to fix the guns, it depends on what is the problem. Just as it is not up to Grumman to fix engine problems or faulty propeller operation.

The guns are government furnished equipment, or in the case of export planes (commercial sales) they are customer furnished equipment.

The .50 cal ammo used in 1940 used 750 grain projectiles. While undoubtedly destructive if they hit the rate of fire for four .50 cal wing guns in 1940 was 40 rounds per second at best.
The ,303 ammo used 174-175 grain ammo (for ball mmo) but the eight ,303 guns had a rate of fire of 160 rounds per second at best. weight of metal per second is in favor of the ,50 cal guns by about 8%. Hardly a decisive advantage. The ,303 guns actually fire a bit less weight of projectile because the tracer and incendiary bullets are a bit lighter.
in 1940 there were no .50 cal incendiary rounds, BoB eight gun fighters had one or two guns loaded exclusively with incendiaries depending on ammo supply. One gun was generally loaded with tracer and two guns had AP bullets. During the BoB 3 guns could be loaded with ball depending on supply, later in the war ball disappeared as did tracer (for fighters) and AP and incendiary became the standard bullets.

The Martlet/F4F doesn't bring any significant increase in firepower to the battle. we are talking + or -10% or under depending on how we rate the different bullets. This does not take into account gun problems or installation problems (heaters, feed rollers, long belt feeds, etc).

The Martlet I, II and F4F-3A all perform a bit worse than the Hurricane I. The F4F-3 does have a slight speed advantage (perhaps 15mph) at certain altitudes. It has a lower ceiling? or perhaps about equal.

Even if used it is hard to see any difference in combat effectiveness over the Hurricane I at the time of the BoB and it is easy to see several potential problems.

By "fix the guns" I mean it is Grumman's job to take a gun that fires on the ground without jamming and make it fire in the wing of a fighter without jamming. I don't mean it's their job to increase rate of fire etc

buffnut453 · Sep 4, 2020

pinsog said:
By "fix the guns" I mean it is Grumman's job to take a gun that fires on the ground without jamming and make it fire in the wing of a fighter without jamming. I don't mean it's their job to increase rate of fire etc

Alas, that's the entire problem with the timeline. The USN and USAAF didn't comprehend the problems with wing-mounted 50cals until the issue became apparent during combat after December 1941. How can Grumman resolve an issue that they don't know exists? Unless the UK obtains Martlets, puts them into combat, identifies the wing gun problem and THEN Grumman dives in to try and solve it. Either way the timeline doesn't line up to get an operational Martlet variant in RAF squadron service in time for the BoB.

Gen. MacArthur · Sep 4, 2020

Well overall I think that the F4F would have done decent against bombers. Against a bf 109E-4 it would stand no chance, unless the wildcat could bounce the 109. However, the British didn't need the F4F. The hurricane filled that role as a bomber destroyer.

Shortround6 · Sep 4, 2020

one of the things they did to "fix" the .50 cal was to change the cam track on the bolt and the feed lever to roughly double the amount of force the feed pawls exerted on the belt to pull it into the gun.

Picture of a .30 cal gun as it shows the cam track pretty well.

feed cover.

On part 1a the upper end in the drawing rides in the track on the bolt.
This may have been done when they increased the rate of fire, i don't know.

People are now used to the airframe maker being the "prime" contractor and being responsible for a weapons "system". One reason that system of purchase came into being was the government got tired of being the prime contractor and all the finger pointing that went on between the airframe makers, the weapons makers, the engine makers and so on when the GFE showed up at the airframe makers plants and either didn't fit or didn't work the way the government wanted and none of the contractors would take the blame. This also became more important when development times for an aircraft or program grew in years and the same officer/s that started with a program were long gone when the finished product went into service. Look at the F-35 program now, started back in 1993 (or before) 22 years from start of program to first service use.
However that was not case in WW II. The airframe maker put the guns, engines, props and other parts the government supplied into the airframe, whose fault it was when it didn't work well is certainly subject to question.

I will note however that I don't believe ANY U.S. fighter/aircraft carried more than 200rpg of .50 cal ammo from the 1920s until 1938/39 so US experience with trying to move long heavy belts of ammo was rather limited. Many of the 1930s aircraft may not have carried max ammo even on gunnery training missions.

The guns are not trying to move the entire belt at one time but just a layer of belt in the ammo box/tray. But longer ammo belts are going to cause problems at some point.
Also please note that the Navy was using a lower number of rounds per gun as a "normal" load and the full over 400 round capacity per gun on the four gun fighters was considered "overload." At least until the shooting started for the US

pinsog · Sep 4, 2020

buffnut453 said:
Alas, that's the entire problem with the timeline. The USN and USAAF didn't comprehend the problems with wing-mounted 50cals until the issue became apparent during combat after December 1941. How can Grumman resolve an issue that they don't know exists? Unless the UK obtains Martlets, puts them into combat, identifies the wing gun problem and THEN Grumman dives in to try and solve it. Either way the timeline doesn't line up to get an operational Martlet variant in RAF squadron service in time for the BoB.

Because the entire timeline has been moved by the original question at the beginning of the post. "I know it couldn't have made it but how would the Wildcat have done in the BoB?" If it showed up with no guns it probably wouldn't have done well. I'm just going along with the original question. If you took the F4F-3 number 1848 with the 2 stage P&W top speed of 330 mph at around 21,000 feet, it should have done fine. Remove 50+ pounds of naval gear, spec it with 8 303 machine guns from the factory saving another 250 pounds or more and it should do fine. It was tough, maneuverable, somewhat faster than a Hurricane and not affected by negative G.

pbehn · Sep 4, 2020

Shortround6 said:
People are now used to the airframe maker being the "prime" contractor and being responsible for a weapons "system". One reason that system of purchase came into being was the government got tired of being the prime contractor and all the finger pointing that went on between the airframe makers, the weapons makers, the engine makers and so on when the GFE showed up at the airframe makers plants and either didn't fit or didn't work the way the government wanted and none of the contractors would take the blame. This also became more important when development times for an aircraft or program grew in years and the same officer/s that started with a program were long gone when the finished product went into service. Look at the F-35 program now, started back in 1993 (or before) 22 years from start of program to first service use.

This is also the case in the oil industry. The government is always the customer in some respects because it will be the government that has to answer for a few million gallons of oil spilled. But where do the government get the experts to speak with the contractors experts, who don't actually want to tell them what they have invested millions or billions of research into. A gun in a wing has to work, whether that means changes to the gun, to the wing, to the feeding system or lubrication and heating system depends on "stuff" and an engineering solution must be found, whether some bod from the government helps or hinders is debatable.

PAT303 · Sep 5, 2020

pinsog said:
If you took the F4F-3 number 1848 with the 2 stage P&W top speed of 330 mph at around 21,000 feet,

Your posting the speed of one aircraft, the British took 5 in squadron service aircraft and took the average speed across the 5, all the other data have found has the F4F-3 max speed under 320mph.

GrauGeist · Sep 5, 2020

I find it interesting how everyone is putting a great deal of effort into proving the Market/Wilcat was a pile of crap.

Yes, the early F4F mark maxed at 331 mph, but the A6M2 had a max. speed of 331mph at 14,900 and the Bf109E had a max. speed of 290mph at sea level and 348mph at 14,500 feet.

So if the early F4F's virtues are based on it's max. of 331mph, then we should also put the early A6M under the same scrutiny, right?

PAT303 · Sep 5, 2020

GrauGeist said:
I find it interesting how everyone is putting a great deal of effort into proving the Market/Wilcat was a pile of crap.

People are comparing the F4F to the Spitfire and Hurricane as used in the BoB as per the original question, in that situation it wouldn't fair well, doesn't mean it's a pile of crap and no one said anything of the sort.

PAT303 · Sep 5, 2020

GrauGeist said:
Yes, the early F4F mark maxed at 331 mph, but the A6M2 had a max. speed of 331mph at 14,900 and the Bf109E had a max. speed of 290mph at sea level and 348mph at 14,500 feet.

The Wildcat and A6M2 would struggle in the BoB, your not getting the F4 up to altitude in time and it's guns don't work, Likewise the A6M2 would find fighting Mk I-II Spitfires over England a magnitude harder than clapped out MkV's over Darwin. The BoB was a medium to high altitude fight, Zero's Wildcats P40's etc etc aren't going to cut it, simple.

slaterat · Sep 5, 2020

pinsog said:
Because the entire timeline has been moved by the original question at the beginning of the post. "I know it couldn't have made it but how would the Wildcat have done in the BoB?" If it showed up with no guns it probably wouldn't have done well. I'm just going along with the original question. If you took the F4F-3 number 1848 with the 2 stage P&W top speed of 330 mph at around 21,000 feet, it should have done fine. Remove 50+ pounds of naval gear, spec it with 8 303 machine guns from the factory saving another 250 pounds or more and it should do fine. It was tough, maneuverable, somewhat faster than a Hurricane and not affected by negative G.

When you compare both aircraft with 100 oct fuel, the Hurricane is faster all the way to 18, 000 ft, after that the Wildcat(1848) has a speed advantage. At most altitudes these aircraft are within 10 mph of each other.

The Hurricane has a faster climb than 1848( carrying 4 x.50s), being 2 minutes faster to 20, 000 ft ( 8 mins to 10 minutes).

I am not sure how much the the difference in the gun package is, the guns , boxes and ammo for the 8 x .303 weigh in at 405 lbs., the one report on the F4F-3 mentions " fixed gun installation (4 x .50)" as 524.5 lbs, but I am not sure what that includes.

Overall I agree with you, in terms of combat capability these two aircraft are pretty close.

GrauGeist · Sep 5, 2020

PAT303 said:
The Wildcat and A6M2 would struggle in the BoB, your not getting the F4 up to altitude in time and it's guns don't work, Likewise the A6M2 would find fighting Mk I-II Spitfires over England a magnitude harder than clapped out MkV's over Darwin. The BoB was a medium to high altitude fight, Zero's Wildcats P40's etc etc aren't going to cut it, simple.

It's not that "simple".

Not all raids into England were high altitude. Plenty of photographs from Do17 crews showing the bomber over their target in the hundreds of feet, not thousands.
With Great Britain strapped for fighters, the Martlet would have been a boost to interception numbers.
And I beg to differ regarding the A6M being at a disadvantage in the Bob - when the Fw190 debuted, it was a terror down low, where it's speed an maneuverability were unmatched.
There was no rule saying all combat had to be over 15,000 feet - it was at all altitudes.

PAT303 · Sep 6, 2020

GrauGeist said:
Not all raids into England were high altitude. Plenty of photographs from Do17 crews showing the bomber over their target in the hundreds of feet, not thousands.

Fighters need excess performance to allow them to change their height or direction to combat incoming raids, the F4F didn't have it, it's that simple. As far as the Do17 raids, as already discussed they were diversionary raids to keep the defending fighters on the ground so the main raid that came in at 15,000ft had a clear run. Spitfire pilots, as per combat reports often increased their height to try and get level or above the 109's because the Luftwaffe always used top cover.

PAT303 · Sep 6, 2020

GrauGeist said:
And I beg to differ regarding the A6M being at a disadvantage in the Bob - when the Fw190 debuted, it was a terror down low, where it's speed an maneuverability were unmatched.

The A6M2's will be facing brand new Spitfires used in an integrated air defence system, that is totally different to what they faced over Darwin. The FW190 was a terror because the RAF got the MkV instead of the MkIII, and that's not taking anything away from the 190, it was a brilliant aircraft below 20,000ft.

Glider · Sep 6, 2020

How many times does it have it be said the Spits wouldn't have any problems with the Zero in the BOB, for the simple reason that only a handful existed at the time. They were more akin to pre production prototypes and production of the Zero if I remember correctly, was only ordered whilst the BOB was underway in July/August 1940 which is a long way from full production let alone introduction into service.

Its worth noting that the Japanese Air Attaché in London considered the Spitfire to be the perfect interceptor of the time and he had full knowledge of the Me109.

Wildcat during the Battle of Britain

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