Peter Gunn
Master Sergeant
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OTOH, they gave pilot jobs to unlikely specimens of airline pilotage like me, who wouldn't have a snowball's chance you know where of getting hired by a major airline. (Not military trained, too tall, too skinny, too unattractive, wearing THICK glasses, history of eye disease and other chronic conditions, and a little shy on multi engine time.) I just didn't fit the desired profile.
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Yep - two missions that confirmed the P-39s shortcomings for months to come. You can't "what if" history away, although he did have some complements for the P-39. Should we ignore those based on 2 missions?Two missions, right? One under 1000' and the other at 23000'. The performance above 18000' is probably with drop tank, this is what the performance charts in wwiiaircraftperformance.org show.
Exactly!It's awfully hard to boom and zoom when you can't get above your enemy. Not enough warning time plus a lackluster rate of climb makes for unpleasant interception geometry. And booming and zooming an opponent with the acceleration and initial climb rate of a Zero in your lead sled can be an unhealthy practice.
I believe the Russians pulled the .30s from the very first P-400s that the Brits gave them. And the IFF radio in the tail cone. Saved about 330lbs. Made them competitive with German planes.again, nose armor weight and balance/CG issues.
All three guns systems had issues in May of 1942.
Yanking the .30s may not have been good idea. Not all of the 30s are going to crap out at the same time.
Russians noted the 37mm (at least early ones) were unreliable. They got better later.
The "fix" for the .50 cal may have been relatively easy. Wagner says the firing solenoids weren't powerful enough. New (improved) solenoids could be fitted to existing guns. Please note that the recharging of the .50 cal guns was still a manual affair.
View attachment 597205
the .50 gun receivers are coming back into the cockpit. the red flags are attached to the cocking/recharging handles. the cylinders sticking back with the slot are the firing solenoids.
You are rearward projecting. Russians pulled .30 cal guns in late 1942 or in 1943 on later P-39s. How many fixes/modifications to the 37mm and .50 cal guns had been done?
Russians were used to light armament and had often resorted to using less than the designed armament to improve performance.
I don't know what the Russians got for a rate of fire out the .50s in most of their planes. The British were getting under 500rpm out of the .50s in the Airacobra I (P-400 and 212 to Russia)
which is about the only commonly known number.
If the 37 packs it in and you have no wing guns you have about 15 rps of .50 cal, assuming they stay working.
Again reliability of the gun installations in the spring/summer of 1942 may have been lower than at later times. Making the extra .30 cal guns more important.
In a later report Wagner criticized the reliability of the .30s.
Bell said in writing that the nose armor plate was not needed for ballast/balance on the P-39M
No, we should have lightened the plane by removing redundant or unnecessary items to make it climb faster and higher. It was already faster than the Zero. It's either remain way too heavy (as compared to other fighters) and skulk around under 20000' or get lean and climb up to and above where the Japanese are. Just like what the Russians did.Yep - two missions that confirmed the P-39s shortcomings for months to come. You can't "what if" history away, although he did have some complements for the P-39. Should we ignore those based on 2 missions?
"we should have"No, we should have lightened the plane by removing redundant or unnecessary items to make it climb faster and higher. It was already faster than the Zero. It's either remain way too heavy (as compared to other fighters) and skulk around under 20000' or get lean and climb up to and above where the Japanese are. Just like what the Russians did.
How did you come up with that number?Again, removing just these two items (nose armor and .30calMGs) would have saved 300lbs, increased climb rate by 360feet/minute and combat ceiling to 29000' (at 3000rpm). That climb increase would have made the early P-39s climb faster than the early Zeros. Speed advantage and climb advantage. P-39 could then attack from above.
And his Mustang's wheels were bright red, too!Whitewall tyre (tire!) P-51s look awesome!
And his Mustang's wheels were bright red, too!
In regards to technical aptitude by various populations, we have to consider the circumstances of each population leading up to the late 30's.
In the urban areas (pick any nation), people didn't need technical savvy to go about their daily lives - they could walk to their destination, catch a tram, trolley, bus or train.
However, outside of urban areas is where things change. Prior to WWII, a great deal of populations still lived in the countryside and were farmers, fishermen, ranchers, loggers, miners and so on.
In the case of the U.S., mass production of cars, tractors, trucks and evennutility engines coupled with readily available (and inexpensive) fuel saw widespread use where many other nation's were still using teams as a primary means.
Americans could even order a Ford or Allstate (ford licensed) car through the Sears catalogue - which was delivered in a crate and required assembly (and you thought IKEA was the first!). Additionally, these car kits could be modified to operate saw mills, irrigation pumps and so on (the car would be partially assembled, raised off the ground and a leather belt ran the apperatus from a special "wheel" mounted to the rear axle).
So in the end, it wasn't that Americans were smarter than Soviets, British, Germans or anyone else, it's the abundance of available machines that put them in that position.
Not that I'm writing a doctoral thesis, but that is from Vees for Victory, book about the Allison V-1710.Could you provide these documents with references please
The Merlin P-38 would have taken how long to bring to production? A year maybe?"we should have"
The P-38 "should have" had Merlins.
The F4U "should have" been carrier qualified earlier.
The SB2C "should have" been in service a year earlier.
The P-38K "should have" been put into production.
Even with your wishful thinking the P-39 would not have been able to prevail as a front line fighter in the SWP, especially with the P-38 coming on line.
How did you come up with that number?
It's awfully hard to boom and zoom when you can't get above your enemy. Not enough warning time plus a lackluster rate of climb makes for unpleasant interception geometry. And booming and zooming an opponent with the acceleration and initial climb rate of a Zero in your lead sled can be an unhealthy practice.
A6M3 was not available until October 1942, this was in May.Hello XBe02Drvr,
From the first combat report with P-39Ds, The Zeros encountered were reported as having larger cowls.
That factor is quite noteworthy. If ever there was a "lead sled" version of the A6M fighter, they had just encountered it.
The reasoning is this:
The report only notes a cowl change and not a clipped and squared wing which meant that it was not the A6M3 Model 32 (AKA "Hap" / "Hamp"). It would have been the later A6M3 Model 22 which was one of the heaviest versions because of increased fuel capacity until the very late war versions got even heavier.
At low altitude, power is slightly greater. (Surprisingly little.) but the combination of significantly more weight and different propeller pitch ranges probably made this a little less quick in acceleration and definitely less maneuverable.
The Japanese note in their manual that at medium altitudes and below, the Mark I fighter (A6M2) is superior to the Mark II (A6M3 / A6M5) but above 8000 Meters, the performance of the Mark II becomes progressively better.
Maximum speed under "Normal Power" was substantially better in Mark II but actual maximum speed for the type is very hard to pin down. Sources don't seem to agree. My best guess is that the difference was no more than a 5 MPH advantage for the A6M3.
Neither combat described was above 8000 Meters.
- Ivan.
A6M3 was not available until October 1942, this was in May.
As we have discussed before, the engine compartment of the P-39 without the auxiliary stage supercharger was exactly the same size as the engine compartment of the later P-63 with the auxiliary stage supercharger. Exactly the same distance from the front of the engine section to the bulkhead at the rear. See the attached drawings. Now that is either an amazing coincidence or the P-39 was designed from the beginning to accommodate the auxiliary stage supercharger. All the Allisons had long lead/development periods. Bell knew that a two stage engine was coming, just like they new the -63 and the -85 were coming. Just like they knew larger, heavier propellers were coming. All designed in from the beginning.Planes fly better if they are slightly nose heavy compared to slightly tail heavy. Neither is ideal but nose heavy but nose heavy doesn't bring out the problems quite as quickly.
The P-39 was NOT designed to have auxiliary supercharger behind the engine. Where is this story coming from?
You had the XP-39 with turbo UNDER the engine.
XP-39B with turbo taken out and radiators/oil coolers under the engine.
Same airframe rebuilt.
YP-39s and P-39Cs with the same layout out as the XP-39B
When/where was the P-39 with an auxiliary supercharger behind the engine?
The XP-39E was designed to use the Continental ?-1430 engine which was much longer than the Allison, fuselage was almost 2 feet longer than standard P-39. This gave plenty of room for the Allison with the auxiliary supercharger behind it. Bell never tried to stick a two stage Allison in a normal P-39 airframe, if I am wrong please provide photo's. drawings, or memo, letter of it being done. Not somebody just suggesting it.
Bell said in writing that the nose armor plate was not needed for ballast/balance on the P-39M. The M was an early model with the same weight and weight distribution as previous and later models. They were able to balance the plane with larger (heavier) propellers and different nose cannons that differed in weight by 140lbs.
And his Mustang's wheels were bright red, too!
In regards to technical aptitude by various populations, we have to consider the circumstances of each population leading up to the late 30's.
In the urban areas (pick any nation), people didn't need technical savvy to go about their daily lives - they could walk to their destination, catch a tram, trolley, bus or train.
However, outside of urban areas is where things change. Prior to WWII, a great deal of populations still lived in the countryside and were farmers, fishermen, ranchers, loggers, miners and so on.
In the case of the U.S., mass production of cars, tractors, trucks and evennutility engines coupled with readily available (and inexpensive) fuel saw widespread use where many other nation's were still using teams as a primary means.
Americans could even order a Ford or Allstate (ford licensed) car through the Sears catalogue - which was delivered in a crate and required assembly (and you thought IKEA was the first!). Additionally, these car kits could be modified to operate saw mills, irrigation pumps and so on (the car would be partially assembled, raised off the ground and a leather belt ran the apperatus from a special "wheel" mounted to the rear axle).
So in the end, it wasn't that Americans were smarter than Soviets, British, Germans or anyone else, it's the abundance of available machines that put them in that position.
Sorry but that's utter tosh. You state that "Prior to WWII, a great deal of populations still lived in the countryside and were farmers, fishermen, ranchers, loggers, miners and so on." That may have been true in the US but it was NOT true in Europe. Most population lived in cities and large towns, and had done since the mid-1800s.
The urban areas were heavily industrialised. People may not have needed a car to get to work but they used and maintained machinery in every factory. To suggest that owning a car was somehow superior to being a trained technician maintaining milling machines, steam hammers, cotton mills, or any other number of the thousands of machines that came about in the 200 years following the industrial revolution is ridiculous.
It's precisely this sort of Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn-goes-to-war myth that drives me bonkers. If the greater part of a country's workforce is urbanised and working in manufacturing (as it was in the UK), are they less technically savvy than a farmer with a Model T? Almost all manufacturing in the 1930s still required human skill and ingenuity...but, of course, that doesn't fit the American mythology and so it gets ignored.
It has to be said that in Italy, expecially in the South, until 1960, practically all the farming was done with carts like these.
View attachment 597220
I remember perfectly well, when I was a young lad, the clinging of the bells of the oxen going to work at sunrise, when I spent my summer holidays in a tiny village of the inner part of Sardinia, and also remember that in Sicily, same period, fishermen went to sea by oar and sail. (Not joking...)
For the average Italian, outside public transport, until early-mid 50s, when Piaggio started the production of the famous "Vespa"
View attachment 597221
the only private transport available was the bicycle, and to have a car privately owned by practically every family we had to wait until early 60s, with the Fiat 600.
View attachment 597223
That, of course, does not mean that Italians could not master mechanics
View attachment 597224
but numbers were not at all comparable with those of U.S.
Wehrmacht used mainly horse drawn carts in the lands of Russia but, for propaganda purposes, just trucks appeared in the photos officially released.
My point is that applying the American situation to other countries is inappropriate. Equally, applying the situation in the UK to that in Italy is equally futile. The industrial revolution occurred at different times at different regions. Equally, levels of technical awareness varied greatly...but to suggest the US had greater technical savvy because farmers had Model Ts is taking things much too far (IMHO).