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

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The whys and why-nots of the way the U.S. produced aircraft designs in spades will quickly turn political, as it is a function of capitalism. That being said, I certainly enjoy the fact that the U.S. had "too many" designs. Besides the advantages that gives to the military, it sure makes it more interesting for us some 60 years later. IF we only had 2 airplanes to argue about this would be real boring!! LOL.
 
Not only political issues, but what the military was ASKING for in the first place. The American fighter program was in some ways a lot like the procuring of tanks, which is why we ended up with the Sherman-a pretty good tank in 1942-43 with the upgrades, but failed to look down the road to what the enemy was doing with their designs. The Tiger and Panther were around in very small numbers, but the main foe was the MKIV, which the Sherman did okay against.

So it also goes with the Army Air Corps, saddled with outmoded ideas that bombers would defend themselves and always get thru. The B29 wasn't a truly effective bomber until Curtis Lemay stripped most of the guns off them and brought them down to low levels at night to burn out the enemy.
Fighter design was mostly for a critical altitude of 15,000 feet and they were primarily to support ground troops, with a few exceptions. The AAC bought and paid for a program they designed, and they were flat wrong about the war they were about to fight. All the basic technology was there to produce higher flying and faster fighters at the beginning of America's involvement, but working out the bugs after the basic design takes time. I think overall, America did better than it had a right to expect.
 
Yep, Dobbie, I agree; I think it was difficult for private firms to be able to produce exactly what the military want and the political bias that was prevalent in the USA was by no means confined to there. In many countries it was a preferred way of getting decisions madeio. I read once that the biggest deals get made out of the office, like in the 19th Hole or the pub down the road from parliament. The building of many different aircraft to the same requirement was also not unique to the United States; Britain and Germany also did the same, although in some examples a new type evolved from a different requirement ended up competing with an existing fulfilled requirement, such as the Stirling, Halifax and eventually Lancaster, or even the Bf 109 and the Fw 190 - "A Second Iron in the Fire" is how the Fw 190 was described somewhere that I've read.
 

This is a persistent myth but it is still a myth.

1. The P-38 and P-39 were being developed before the P-40. The Turbo was about 2 years from being squadron ready and the installation in the XP-39 was lousy.
2. NOBODY in 1938/39 had an engine with a critical altitude much above 16,000ft.
3. Both initial P-39s and P-40s had either ZERO for bomb load or the overwhelming load of SIX 20lb bombs (P-35 could carry 350lbs) and TWO .50 cal machine guns firing through the prop on the initial P-40 was a terrible strafing armament.
4. P-40s, being a re-engined P-36 could be gotten into production and squadron service about 1 year sooner than a turbo-fighter. It was either low altitude P-40s or no fighters at all.
 

Call it whatever you like.
Fighter aircraft design, particularly fighter engine design got the short end of the funding in America, and that's a cold, hard fact however you wish to color it. Homegrown effective multispeed supercharging didn't show its face until much later in the war. Wasn't like we didn't have the capability of developing it sooner-the people in charge decided we didn't need it.
The P-40 with the single stage Merlin did a bit better than the low altitude Allisons it was saddled with-one has to wonder what might have been if the two stage Merlins or Allisons had been tried. The Army just wasn't interested in development of a high altitude fighter plane, and if it weren't for folks like Ben Kelsey who knew how to get around a few rules, we wouldn't have had either the 38 or the 39 at all.

From what I can find, Lockheed got the contract in 1937, but the prototype didn't fly until 1939, well after the P40. The P40 flew 1938 as did the P39. IIRC, the P38 being designed as an interceptor in order to get around the rules set for single engine pursuits in effect at that time-one of the requirements of the P38 was that it attain 20K in 6 minutes or less. Youre saying it did not meet that requirement when it flew? Was not aware of that fact.
 
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Do you have any PROOF of any of this?
Or do you even know what you are talking about?

" Homegrown effective multispeed supercharging didn't show its face until much later in the war. Wasn't like we didn't have the capability of developing it sooner-the people in charge decided we didn't need it."

Strange, Wright was building 2 speed supercharged engines in 1938. P&W was selling 2 speed R-1830s in 1940. First B-24s used 2 speed R-1830s with no turbos.

multispeed is NOT the same as multi-speed stage.

"The Army just wasn't interested in development of a high altitude fighter plane"

And yet by 1940 they had taken delivery of around 100 fighter planes with turbo charged engines over the last 10 YEARS.
See the P-30A for one example. 50 built, last delivered in Aug 1936.

They Army knew what it wanted, it also knew that what it wanted could not be supplied at the current state of technology in 1938 or 39.

You may also want to look at the YP-37. They ordered 13 service test YP-37s on December 11, 1937, first flew June of 1939. with turbo chargers in a multi stage set up, of course this indicates NO INTEREST in high altitude aircraft, right?

P W were flying a mechanical two stage R-1830 in 1939, two planes powered by that engine took part in the 1939 Army fighter trials. Results are not available but but a similar engine was not fully sorted out in the F4F two years later.

BTW this puts P&W about 2-3 years ahead of Rolls-Royce.

"particularly fighter engine design got the short end of the funding in America"

Prove that one, fighter engines got about ALL the developmental funding money before the war, granted there wasn't a lot of it. And a lot of what there was went into rat hole projects like the Continental (actually army) 0/V-1430 and the Lycoming O-1230.

Bombers on the other hand made do with commercial engines, at least until the B-29 and the Wright R-3350.

BTW the P-36/40 went though 7 different engines or engine set ups, how many more do you want to try?
It may be a record for most different engines in a single engine fighter airframe.
 
The Army bought P-43 (the development of the plane that didn't make it to the fighter competition where the P-40 won), ordered the XP-44, and in June 1940 ordered the P-47B - all of them were high altitude fighters.
 
The Air Corps issued its first doctrine publication in 1926, after spending almost eight years working on the problem of describing what aviation could be expected to do in war.11 The War Department, understandably dominated by ground combat arms officers, oversaw the preparation of this publication, which appeared as Training Regulation (TR) 440-15, Fundamental Principles for the Employment of the Air Service, on 26 January 1926.12 In the view of Alfred Hurley, one interpreter of the main thrust of this doc-trine: " 'The fundamental doctrine' permitted the air-men was 'to aid the ground forces to gain decisive success,' with some recognition of the need for special missions at a great distance from the ground forces." 13 Revised in 1935, this was the doctrine of Army Aviation from 1926 to 1940.

That doctrine is what got Foulois, Maxwell and nearly Arnold in trouble in the late 1930s for their efforts on long range high altitude bomber aircraft. I still stand by my original premise which is that until the AAF began taking huge losses in their bomber formations that the development of high altitude long range fighter aircraft was not adequately funded or pursued.
 
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Obviously, the P36/40 airframe was near the end of its speed range but until the XP40Q never got a successful high altitude engine
 
tomo pauk said:
The Army bought P-43 (the development of the plane that didn't make it to the fighter competition where the P-40 won), ordered the XP-44, and in June 1940 ordered the P-47B - all of them were high altitude fighters.
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The P43 was an interesting idea, but they had a lot of issues with it which I suppose is why the design wasn't pressed further. No armor or self sealing fuel tanks, and the maneuverability wasn't what they hoped.
 
wuzak said:
The YP-38s reached 18.000ft in 6 minutes.

It does not appear that any P-38 was capable of getting to 20,000ft in 6 minutes until the J.

P-38 Performance Tests
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Thanks for the link Wuzak. Good read. I had read that the early P38s had a lot of issues with the leading edge intercoolers which seems to be borne out in the performance tests.
 
Hmm, I've listed 3 high-altitude fighter designs that should show the USAF was thinking about high-altitude combat, yet the P-43 is the only one worth a comment?

We can list USAF fighters and look at theis fuel systems:
-P-40: 180 USG in unprotected, non-self-sealing tanks; P-40B introduces externally-protected tanks (fuel down to 160 USG); P40C introduces self-sealing fuel tanks (fuel down to 135 USG); later models have 140-160 USG mostly
-XP-39, XP-39-B: 200 USG in unprotected tanks, YP-39, P-39C: 170 USG in unprotected tanks; P-39D: 120 USG in self-sealing tanks
-the P-38 received s-s tanks from -D model onwards. 45 examples built prior that were without s-s tanks.

P-40 got armor with the -B, the P-38 received subsequent armor upgrades in early models, P-39 received more and more armor from -C on.

So the P-43 is as good/bad protected as other US fighters of the time, and I'm sure we can toss many a European fighter here. The USAF wanted the Republic to produce, after the P-43, 1st the (X)P-44 and P-47, and later both were canceled because the superb P-47B was recognized as such.
 

Sorry about that Tomo-It is true that none of the early models you mentioned had self sealing fuel tanks or armor, and with both, range was necessarily sacrificed. Add to that the prohibition of external fuel tanks and the early P38 is the only one with any hope of being an escort fighter, and it had a lot of development ahead of it due to the new systems it employed-some, such as the leading edge intercoolers were never worked out but the change to the intercooler system eventually used made it a more effective fighter. The P39 never did have a true high altitude capability as a production model. Neither did the P40 at the beginning of the war. The P-43 apparently had a reputation for leaking fuel, not a great trait to have in any aircraft. Even the P-47, excellent as it was, didn't have the necessary range to escort bombers until the N model which came about near the end of the war.
 
No problems.
It is true that none of the early models you mentioned had self sealing fuel tanks or armor, and with both, range was necessarily sacrificed. Add to that the prohibition of external fuel tanks
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There was no prohibition of fuel tanks - when the P-39D received s-s tanks (along with reduction of internal fuel tankage), it also received the belly rack, capable to carry the fuel tanks up to 175 gals (that, ugly one, for ferry flights; the usual one was 75 gals). The P-40C received the similar alteration to the fuel system. So there was no prohibition; the P-43 with drop tank was the P-43A-1.


Agreed that P-38, out of all the early USAF fighters, have had the capability to perform as a viable escort fighter, but escort fighters was not something with a place in the early war USAF doctrine.

The P39 never did have a true high altitude capability as a production model. Neither did the P40 at the beginning of the war.
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Agreed pretty much, both were dogs above 15000 ft.

The P-43 apparently had a reputation for leaking fuel, not a great trait to have in any aircraft.
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+1 on that. The drive towards design production of the P-47B made the P-43 an orphan.

Even the P-47, excellent as it was, didn't have the necessary range to escort bombers until the N model which came about near the end of the war.
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The P-47 was initially provided with an external drop tank that could not be pressurized (and that for an 30000 ft fighter!), plus it was troublesome to drop once emptied; that 205 gal tank, ugly 'cow udder', was designed as a ferry tank. The 5th Air Force (Gen Kenney) quickly took the things in their hands, and soon the Ford in Brisbane, Australia, was producing the 200 gal combat drop tank. The people in ETO were not that 'hard' on the subject, 1st installing the 75 gal DT, and soon after that the 108 gal DT. The ferry flights (via Island) were conducted with 2 x 150/165 wing DTs, from P-38, in August 1943. The P-47 with 500-600 gals of fuel (= 400-500 miles of combat radius) would be such an asset in ETO in 1943, however it was not to be until 1944.
 
I cant recall exactly where I saw it, Tomo pauk, but early on there was some sort of restriction against drop tanks on fighter aircraft which I found baffling to say the least.

I suppose that at least some of the belief in "the bomber will always get through" might stem from the fact that the B-9 and B-10 outperformed most of the fighter aircraft in speed as well as range in their day, so the thinking was that escort fighters were unnecessary.

I think its sad that the P51, which because it was designed for the RAF and didn't have to go through the normal channels, had to be fitted with a British engine in order to become the fine escort fighter it became.

To the positive, the development of turbo supercharging helped a lot of bombers and the P-47 become a force to be reckoned with, especially at high altitude.
Might not be considered the ultimate fighter but the P-47, once they replaced the fabric control surfaces and made the ignition system reliable is my sentimental favorite.
 
dobbie said:
So we are going to use B24s as fighter aircraft?
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No but it shows that home grown multi-superchargers existed at the beginning of the war.

dobbie said:
And the P-30 is of course equal to its task at the beginning of WWII
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No but it shows that the USAAC WAS interested in high altitude flight and spent more money and effort on it than any other 2-3 nations put together, or at least they built 2-3 times the number of "high-altitude aircraft.

dobbie said:
I notice the P37 wasn't built as a standard fighter due to a number of problems-cool looking aircraft though
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and that is the heart of the matter isn't it. The USAAC KNEW what they WANTED. They also KNEW it wasn't available in the near future in SERVICE form. SO they had a choice. Wait and build NO planes until what they wanted was ready. OR build a plane that was LESS than what was really wanted so they would have SOMETHING to fly.

dobbie said:
Prove it, as you say
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Look early troubles with the F4F, rumbling in the intake ducts due to mismatched supercharger impellers/airflow.

dobbie said:
Precisely my point. There wasn't a lot of money being tossed at reliable high altitude aircraft engines
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Strange point. There was NO reliable high altitude aircraft engine in existence in 1935-41. ANYWHERE, so where were they supposed to toss the money?
And where was the money to come from?



dobbie said:
Obviously, the P36/40 airframe was near the end of its speed range but until the XP40Q never got a successful high altitude engine[/B]
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XP40Q was actually the 8th engine configuration. And just WHAT successful high altitude engine did you have in mind?

There were turbo Wright R-1820s, Turbo P &W R-1830s, Turbo Allison V-1710s and two stage P W R-1830s. The trouble is the turbo and associated inter-cooler didn't fit very well. P W did fairly well With a a TWO stage R-1830 but that wasn't until the fall of 1942 in an unarmed test airframe.
 
Once again, where were all the high altitude long ranged fighters? Turbosupercharging is a good system for high altitude, but you end up with something the size of the Thunderbolt in single engine form-no range, or the Lightning in twin engine form, which was not ready to take on the Luftwaffe until the later models, and is the question of the OP in case you hadn't noticed
 
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