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I know the F4F production missed the time frame of the Battle Britain by 6 to 12 months for operational squadrons. But how would the F4F-3 Wildcat/Martlet 1 have fared alongside the Hurricane I and Spitfire II during the Battle?
P40's useless in the BOB ????? Really ???? Any plane was better than NO plane !!! Why the Brits in 1940 when they came to North American considered the P40 to be the BEST AVAILABLE fighter OF THAT TIME !!!!! The Brits damn well knew what they had in the P40 and they Damn well knew what they were getting when they were OFFERED the new Mustang by Dutch Kindelberger !!!!! I keep hearing the Brits were "disappointed in the Mustangs lack of service ceiling with the Allison !!! BULLSHIT !!!! They knew EXACTLY by having the P40 with the SAME Allison engine !!!! And the Mustang was faster, climbed Faster, as had just as high if not higher than the P40 !!!! IF the Brits were surprised then ALL were blind dumb and stupid to the facts. Remember AT THE TIME of ORDERING the Mustang the Merlin engine DID NOT YET have the 2 stage supercharger !!!!! Why the Brits were NOT too concerned about the single stage supercharged ALLISON !!! Them facts of history....again raising hell with the Brits BULLSHIT stories !!!Wouldn't matter were you put them, A&AEE rated their speed at 290mph and climb under 2,000fpm, they would be as useless as P40's in the BoB. Over England, as long as they stay above 200mph and 15,000ft the Luftwaffe bombers would almost be immune to attack.
You are really funny when you turn your mind to it. The Mustang Mk I was a great aircraft but used by the British for army cooperation and armed recon, for obvious reasons.P40's useless in the BOB ????? Really ???? Any plane was better than NO plane !!! Why the Brits in 1940 when they came to North American considered the P40 to be the BEST AVAILABLE fighter OF THAT TIME !!!!! The Brits damn well knew what they had in the P40 and they Damn well knew what they were getting when they were OFFERED the new Mustang by Dutch Kindelberger !!!!! I keep hearing the Brits were "disappointed in the Mustangs lack of service ceiling with the Allison !!! BULLSHIT !!!! They knew EXACTLY by having the P40 with the SAME Allison engine !!!! And the Mustang was faster, climbed Faster, as had just as high if not higher than the P40 !!!! IF the Brits were surprised then ALL were blind dumb and stupid to the facts. Remember AT THE TIME of ORDERING the Mustang the Merlin engine DID NOT YET have the 2 stage supercharger !!!!! Why the Brits were NOT too concerned about the single stage supercharged ALLISON !!! Them facts of history....again raising hell with the Brits BULLSHIT stories !!!
P40's useless in the BOB ????? Really ???? Any plane was better than NO plane !!! Why the Brits in 1940 when they came to North American considered the P40 to be the BEST AVAILABLE fighter OF THAT TIME !!!!! The Brits damn well knew what they had in the P40 and they Damn well knew what they were getting when they were OFFERED the new Mustang by Dutch Kindelberger !!!!! I keep hearing the Brits were "disappointed in the Mustangs lack of service ceiling with the Allison !!! BULLSHIT !!!! They knew EXACTLY by having the P40 with the SAME Allison engine !!!! And the Mustang was faster, climbed Faster, as had just as high if not higher than the P40 !!!! IF the Brits were surprised then ALL were blind dumb and stupid to the facts. Remember AT THE TIME of ORDERING the Mustang the Merlin engine DID NOT YET have the 2 stage supercharger !!!!! Why the Brits were NOT too concerned about the single stage supercharged ALLISON !!! Them facts of history....again raising hell with the Brits BULLSHIT stories !!!
Why the Brits in 1940 when they came to North American considered the P40 to be the BEST AVAILABLE fighter OF THAT TIME !!!!!
The Brits damn well knew what they had in the P40 and they Damn well knew what they were getting when they were OFFERED the new Mustang by Dutch Kindelberger !!!!!
They knew EXACTLY by having the P40 with the SAME Allison engine !!!!
IF the Brits were surprised then ALL were blind dumb and stupid to the facts. Remember AT THE TIME of ORDERING the Mustang the Merlin engine DID NOT YET have the 2 stage supercharger !!!!!
Remember AT THE TIME of ORDERING the Mustang the Merlin engine DID NOT YET have the 2 stage supercharger !!!!! Why the Brits were NOT too concerned about the single stage supercharged ALLISON !!!
P40's useless in the BOB ????? Really ???? Any plane was better than NO plane !!!
That's a whole other discussion that has been beaten to death a few times. I believe the P36/Hawk 75 could have served in the BoB and served well in the Pacific until the end of 1942 with the simple addition of a 2 speed P&W 1830. The US tested a single P36 with an 1830 rated for 950hp at 17,000 feet and it did 317 mph, 30 mph faster than the standard P36. A 2 speed P&W would have had 1200 hp up to 4900 ft giving it around 15 mph more speed at that altitude. 6 303's and some seat back armor (I think the French H75's already had armor behind the seat but that is yet another discussion) and I think it would have done as well as the Hurricane in the BoB. I know the P40 was faster, but it just gained too much weight killing its climb rate and I believe the extra weight out front badly affected maneuverability.* I have often wondered was there any more development left in the P36.
I agree that pilots were the problem, but the question was "how would the martlet/Wildcat do?" Not "was the martlet/Wildcat needed?"It might be worth remembering that the RAF shortfall was pilots not airframes. The Martlet would bring nothing useful to the BoB however one examines the possibilities. There was much of merit in the Martlet and it continued to serve over Norway to the end of the war but the BoB would not have need of Martlets.
All they really needed was to focus all machine guns on both fighters to a single point, say 200 yards and then give every single pilot a 2 week gunnery course with US Navy Commander John Thach.
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I said nothing about the Thach weave, i was talking about John Thach's idea and training for attacking bombers. You climb above and ahead of them off to one side, turn toward them, open fire in a 90 degree deflection shot. The fighter has the entire upper wing, engines and full length of the fuselage as a target, the gunners on the enemy planes, IF any of them can bear, have a 90 degree deflection shot head on at a small fighter, virtually impossible.Unfortunately the tactical situation in the BoB fighting, in which a couple of squadrons of British fighters might confront 20 or 30 bombers escorted by 150 fighters, very often above them, was rather different to that faced by US pilots in the Pacific.
Try a Thach weave when you are outnumbered by five or ten to one. I was just reading of an incident in which No 74 Squadron found itself in a scrap with 60 Bf 109s! All Malan's eminently sensible guidance for air combat went out the window as each man tried to save himself.
There was a reason that the eight guns on RAF fighters were synchronised in the way that they were. There was a reason that many pilots lacked gunnery training. None of your 'solutions' are really relevant to the Battle of Britain at all.
I'm just answering the original question of the thread. The very first Wildcat F4F-3 had the 2 stage P&W engine. If you read the post I said "replace the 4 50's with 8 303's". If you don't like the original post then don't comment. I also said in an earlier post that I know the F4F Wildcat couldn't have made it to the BoB. I also said they didn't need it, the Spitfire and Hurricane were just fine, they needed gunnery training and all the guns bore sighted to the same spot. The Hurricane with its guns concentrated into 2 tight banks of 4 guns each would have been especially devastating to a bomber if all guns were bore sighted to one spot and flown by a guy that could shoot like John Thach. Can you imagine 40 John Thach's flying Hurricanes with the guns all set at 200 yards in a single squadron making a head on pass at a group of HE111's? The Germans would have run out of bombers pretty quickIf we are allowed models of Wildcat that didn't exist in July 1940 then I am going to equip my RAF for the Battle with Spitfire MkIXs. Whadda ya mean that's crazy, why is a 1942 Wildcat with 1942 guns not crazy.