With the P-38K, was the P-51 and F4U even necessary?

[davebender]

IMO the U.S. Army didn't need half of their historical WWII aircraft models.

We could have opted for mass production of only two fighter types as Germany did. One type powered by a V12 engine and the second type powered by an air cooled radial engine.

We could have mass produced either the B-25 or B-26 medium bomber rather then producing smaller quantities of both aircraft.

We could have mass produced either the B-17 or B-24 heavy bomber rather then producing smaller quantities of both aircraft.

The USN followed the U.S. Army example, producing both the F6F and F4U CV fighter aircraft. They could have held a flight competition with the winner getting the entire contract.

Back to this discussion...
The P-38 existed long before the P-47. The U.S. Army could have fixed P-38 flaws early on, eliminating any need for the P-47.

The Mustang is a different story as it was originally a British aircraft. It could remain a British aircraft if the U.S. Army is happy with the P-38. But the Mustang will still be in production.

 

[gjs238]

But what about all the license production.
For example, ask Consolidated to build B-17's, they offer to build B-24's.
Ask North American to build P-40's, they offer to build P-51's.
Does one say, nah, we'll stick with the P-40's and B-17's?

 

[davebender]

During WWII the U.S. Government managed the American economy just as the German Government managed the German economy.

Order Consolidated to build B-17s. Just as RLM ordered Arado, Henschel and Heinkel to participate in the massive Ju-88 light bomber program during 1938. Otherwise Consolidated is cut off from government funding until they go bankrupt.

North American doesn't count as funding for development of the Mustang comes from Britain.

 

[drgondog]

Minor point Dave - the US Army essentially set Lockheed bac more than a year when the destroyed the prototype - so the discovery process to figure out compressibility, intercooler issues, buffeting, etc, etc, took much longer than it should have. Additionally the tooling strictly was 'on of' for the protoype and production tooling and plant space had to be developed.

 

[gjs238]

Order Consolidated to build B-17s. Just as RLM ordered Arado, Henschel and Heinkel to participate in the massive Ju-88 light bomber program during 1938. Otherwise Consolidated is cut off from government funding until they go bankrupt.

Yes, but would that have actually been better?
Would we want to not have B-24's?

 

[davebender]

B-17 first flight was 28 Jul 1935.
B-24 first flight was 29 Dec 1939.
B-29 first flight was 21 Sep 1942.
IMO the B-17 could get the job done until the much larger B-29 is ready.

It appears to me the 1941 B-17E was the last model to receive major design changes. After that it was a matter of cramming more gun turrets on the same airframe powered by the same rather small 1,200 hp engines.

Without the huge B-24 program the B-17 might receive additional development. Start by considering a more powerful engine to increase the payload. By 1942 1,200 hp was rather small compared to engines which powered British and German bombers.

 

[renrich]

We had this discussion a while back and I agree with TP, that the US could have gotten along very nicely with just the Corsair and Mustang. Just looking at the Corsair, if the US government had told Grumman to drop everything and help Vought develop the Corsair, the plane would have gotten through it's gestation period more quickly and if they had told Republic and perhaps Curtis to concentrate on a land based version of the Corsair, something good would have taken place. Likewise if Lockheed had focused their considerable talents on the Mustang as well as NA, no telling what would have happened. However, that would have meant that someone would have had foreknowledge that the Mustang and Corsair were going to be revolutionary and successful designs. The Navy always tried to have two different companies designing the latest, fighter, dive bomber or torpedo plane in case one was a failure The Wildcat beat out the Buffalo and Vought had a torpedo plane called the TBU which alledgedly was better than the Avenger but was behind the Avenger in development, timewise.

 

[renrich]

Just for reference from Dean, "America's Hundred Thousand" from the Fighter Conference 1944

Best all around fighter above 25000 feet-P47D,P51D,F4U1D,F6F5, F4U4,P38L
Best all around fighter below 25000 feet-P51D,F4U1D,F6F5,F4U4
Best fighter bomber-F4U1D,P47D-30,F6F5,P51D,P38L
Best strafer-P47D-30,F4U1D,P51D,F6F5,P38L,P63A

Those guys did not seem to hold the P38L in high esteem.

 

[Shortround6]

B-17 first flight was 28 Jul 1935.
B-24 first flight was 29 Dec 1939.
B-29 first flight was 21 Sep 1942.
IMO the B-17 could get the job done until the much larger B-29 is ready.

It appears to me the 1941 B-17E was the last model to receive major design changes. After that it was a matter of cramming more gun turrets on the same airframe powered by the same rather small 1,200 hp engines.

Without the huge B-24 program the B-17 might receive additional development. Start by considering a more powerful engine to increase the payload. By 1942 1,200 hp was rather small compared to engines which powered British and German bombers.

The only more powerful engine that will really fit without major redesign is the Allison. Some later B-17s had models of the Cyclone that were rated at 1350hp for brief periods of time. For a real jump in power you need the R-2600 which means a total redesign of the airplane.

No B-24s also means no long range range patrol planes of the battle of the Atlantic, diminished airborne logistic ability and diminished bombing capability in the far east for several years.

You might also want to check the dates these planes went into actual squadron service. While the B-17 went into squadron service in the summer/fall of 1939 these were not combat capable aircraft. First B-17Es to reach a squadron don't do so until Nov 1941, a few B-17Es are at Pearl Harbor. USAAC had accepted it' first production B-24 back in June of 1941, the same month that the British put theirs into squadron service flying from Belfast. As if Jan 1st 1940 the USSAAC had ordered 7 YB-24s and 36 B-24As while the French had 120 on order and in 1940 the British not only took over the French order but added another 164, paid for in cash, not lend lease.

Considering the US paid for the B-32 as a back up to the B-29 it seems depending on the B-17 alone (basically a 1935 design) until the B-29 was ready would not have been a smart thing to do without at least SOME combat experience to go on.
The Ford plant at Willow run was under construction by April of 1941, well before combat experience was gained with either type of aircraft.

 

[davebender]

The P-38 had probably the longest development period of any WWII fighter aircraft. By the time serious flaws were fixed there were all sorts of P-38 horror stories floating around the U.S. Army Air Corps. I think those stories influenced leadership confidence in the P-38 during 1944 even though the aircraft now functioned as well as the P-47 and P-51.

 

[renrich]

The 1944 Fighter Conference took place in October and if one looks at the way the P38 placed in the different categories it is apparent that the pilots, not the leadership, overall were not impressed with it.

 

[davparlr]

The 1944 Fighter Conference took place in October and if one looks at the way the P38 placed in the different categories it is apparent that the pilots, not the leadership, overall were not impressed with it.

Some caveats are needed here, I think. First is that most of the reviewers are Navy and almost all military pilots are highly bias for one, their aircraft, and two, their service. Second, I am sure all the reviewers were single engine pilots. As such, the plane is big, complex, and they were unfamiliar with two engine idiosyncrasies like, maybe, asymmetric thrust.

Overall, I think the P-38 had potential to be an effective fighter, it was certainly deadly in the PTO. However, I suspect it took some time for a pilot to learn how to handle the uniqueness of the aircraft. Also, two engines adds cost, reduces mission reliability and increases maintainability requirements. Faced with the simplicity, cost, ease of flying and performance of the P-51, it was difficult to justify.

 

[Shortround6]

Which is almost as it should be. How many fighters in 1944 conference were as old as the P-38?

Did newer fighters have improved or modified control panel layouts?

Did newer fighters have improved control layouts (not instrument layouts) but trimmer controls, landing gear controls,etc.

How many fighters at the conference had bubble canopy's that didn't have them 2 years earlier?

Aside from the powered ailerons, increased power and dive flaps what improvements did the P-38 get over the last two years to make life easier for the pilot?

And being a twin the work load was higher to begin with.

while the fighter conference does have a lot of interesting information, not all pilots flew all the planes, Not all the pilots who flew a certain type of aircraft filled out an evaluation card, Not all evaluation cards had all questions checked or marked.

Even if stricter procedures had been followed the P-38 might still have come out near the bottom in some categories, again hardly surprising considering the age of the design and it should not be considered a reflection of it's capabilities in 1942 or 43 when many it's competitors at the 1944 conference either didn't exist at all or or existed only on paper.

 

[Shortround6]

Also, two engines adds cost, reduces mission reliability and increases maintainability requirements. Faced with the simplicity, cost, ease of flying and performance of the P-51, it was difficult to justify.

On the other hand,in either the South Pacific or the Indo-China theater they were known to return home flying on one engine for 600 miles. I am not sure about mission reliability but any pilot who made it back to base flying hundreds of miles across open water or SE asia jungles probably wasn't complaining about cost or maintenance requirements
The number of planes involved is probably too small to be statistically accurate but they did claim much fewer losses for ground strafing missions than either P-51s or P-47s if I remember right.

 

[Lighthunmust]

Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
Don't spread yourself too thin.

Which aphorism should a country follow in the midst of national peril? Risk everything on a few choices with the consequences of those choices being disastrous or make many choices of which only a few are good but not enough because of resources spread to thin?

I think much of what happened was due to the United States having the luxury of having so much surplus of resources it could never spread itself too thin. We had a few winners and could afford the more numerous rejects. Our opponents had a few winners and could not afford the more numerous rejects because of their fewer resources.

Given the choice of starting the war with either operationally ready B-17s or B-24s, the B-24 is the obvious choice because it could do more farther and faster than the B-17. It just wasn't the better of the two to be in if under individual attack.

Without the P-38 we would have been far less successful at the beginning of the war. Without the Mustang we would have successfully made due with the P-47 and P-38, it just would have taken more time to do so. The P-51 was serendipitous and fortuitous. The P-38 was timely and vital.

 

[davparlr]

On the other hand,in either the South Pacific or the Indo-China theater they were known to return home flying on one engine for 600 miles. I am not sure about mission reliability but any pilot who made it back to base flying hundreds of miles across open water or SE asia jungles probably wasn't complaining about cost or maintenance requirements

What you say is true, but I get the feeling the PTO was on the back burner for Army considerations. I think their focus on ETO success overshadowed success in the Pacific.

Mission reliability and safety of flight reliability often drive each other in opposite directions. For mission reliability, enough equipment must be available to complete the mission. For a twin engine aircraft, the probability of losing an engine, or reduced engine performance, is twice that of an single engine aircraft, therefore the probability of a mission critical failure occurring is higher for the twin engine aircraft. For safety of flight, one must have only the equipment to successfully recover the aircraft. The twin engine aircraft's probability of safely recovering with an engine failure is significantly higher than the single engine aircraft, which is roughly, zero, although reduced power may provide return capability. So, this is a case where safety of flight reliability goes up, but mission reliability goes down.

 

[davebender]

The P-38 received a bunch of reliability and ergonomic improvements between 1941 and 1944. They add up to a much more effective combat aircraft even without considering more powerful engines and power assisted ailerons.

Improved cockpit heater.
Improved intercoolers.
Improved turbocharger controls.
More efficient radiators.
Improved electrical system.
"Combat Maneuver" setting added to the Fowler flaps.
Drop tank supply caught up with demand.
Improved radio.
Improved 20mm cannon.
Improved hard points for mounting bombs and drop tanks.
Internal fuel increased by adding tanks in wing leading edge.

 

[gjs238]

Or, if there had been more than one protype built.

The subsequent USAAF history might have turned out quite different.

 

[davebender]

I'm under the impression multiple prototypes were standard practise when designing fighter aircraft.

Why didn't they build more than one P-38 prototype?

 

[Shortround6]

The P-38 received a bunch of reliability and ergonomic improvements between 1941 and 1944. They add up to a much more effective combat aircraft even without considering more powerful engines and power assisted ailerons.

Improved cockpit heater.
Improved intercoolers.
Improved turbocharger controls.
More efficient radiators.
Improved electrical system.
"Combat Maneuver" setting added to the Fowler flaps.
Drop tank supply caught up with demand.
Improved radio.
Improved 20mm cannon.
Improved hard points for mounting bombs and drop tanks.
Internal fuel increased by adding tanks in wing leading edge.

All quite true but rather misses the point.

Most of those improvements, valuable though they were, were either "invisible' to a pilot in combat or irrelevant to fighter vs fighter combat. Size and availability of drop tanks make no difference to a planes fighter vs fighter performance once they are dropped. Unless the electrical system stops working in the middle of a dog fight any "improvements" to the system are invisible to the pilot in combat and would be unrated in the fighter conference.

and so on.

A revamped or new layout instrument panel with easier to read instruments or closer grouping of the important ones would get a higher rating than an old awkward layout. A better layout of the hand controls that the pilot would have to reach (without take eyes from outside the cockpit) would rate higher.
The less the pilot has to do to "fly" the plane and more time his eyes are outside the cockpit the more attention he can pay to "fighting" the plane vs 'flying' it.
The more time a pilot has in a particular 'type' the more instinctive some of his cockpit moves get. The more standardized cockpits got the easier it was to transition from one plane to another.

In a group evaluation the planes with the most complicated cockpits are going to end up at the bottom of the list and the twins are going to have the most complicated panels.