P40 trivia question

[talucah]

Why was the lowly P40 so effective against the 109s in North Africa and more effective then the Spitfire against the Zero in N. Australia. Hint: Think of the design parameters for the P40.
Bob
http://www.3squadron.org.au/history3.htm

[John Kepler]

Primarily it's diving speed.

[Bill]

The air war in Africa was mostly a low level affair, and the P-40s ability to turn well offset it's relatively low speed and inability to perform at high altitude.

As far as the Spitfire's problems agains the Japenese zero, this is mostly a bad reputation initiated by the problems of training, where the British pilots tried to fight as they did against the 109 in Europe. The zero's advantage as a "dog fighter" resulted in high loss rate for the Spitfires.

Once the British pilots got wise, the Spitfire performed very well against the zero.

[dave]

The Japs rated the P-40 as the best low level fighter that they ever incountered.

[Jim K.]

A fascinating story.

Jim

[jmoore]

It depended on which model P40 that was in the flight line. A P40k weighed more than twice what a P40b weighed what with the additional radio, armor, .50 cal guns and self-sealing fuel tanks. The Brits and the AVG men got the lightly gunned hot rods whilst most USAAC pilots had to suffer w/ overweight slugs. P40n's rectified quite a few problems, but it could never adapt to the long range role even if it had been fitted w/ the high altitude version of the Merlin (not enough fuel capacity for one).

As far as pure manouvering prowess, the same airframe w/ a radial engine (P36 or H75) would out turn most of the early spits, or Bf109's! No armor, lightly gunned and a tad slow though! Most of France's aerial victories were achieved w/ the H75, if I recall correctly.

[RCS]

This 1/4 scale model of a Curtiss Hawk 75A-3 of the 2nd Escadrille in 1942, shows the "Vichy" identification stripping

[PhillipM]

This 1/4 scale model of a Curtiss Hawk 75A-3 of the 2nd Escadrille in 1942, shows the "Vichy" identification stripping

Excellent modeling! Thanks for posting.

[jjrothWA]

but it all came down to innovative thinking.
The Wildcat couldn't hold its own against the Zero, but the "Thatch" weave, was devised to double-team the Zero.

Look at the Doolittle Raid, that caused the Imperial Japaneses to rethink home defense, pulling valued fighters away from the front.

[talucah]

In no way am I trying to suggest that the P40 was a better plane than the 190 or the Spitfire. However what would we and our allies have done without the P40 or the Wildcat when we went to war. As has been pointed out the P40 could outdive anything except the P47 and could turn inside the 109s (also the spitfires), but sadly not the zero. Many P40 pilots claimed that below 17,000' they were faster than all other planes in N. Africa. Getting back to the original question about N. Africa and N. Australia, I ran into this statement in Herschel Smith's “History of Aircraft Piston Engines”, “This led to an interesting result in N. Africa during World War II. Spitfires and Messerschmitts used in desert heat had to be “tropicalized” with larger radiators, and performance fell off to the point where P-40s could fight Messerschmitts with some chance of survival, something they could never do in northern Europe.” I do believe they had better then “some chance of survival.” I have to point out that the P40 was a beast to fly until the fuselage was lengthened as has been pointed out. As always add to this discussion or point out any mistakes.
Bob

[jon_norstog]

Talucah,

I agree with you on the P40. It wasn't much of a plane compared to the P51, P47, Spit, FW or ME, but we had them when we needed them. They were strong and could take a lot of punishment, and were a good plane at low altitude. We bult 13,000 of them - they were cheap.

The high-performance glamour planes didn't really start coming on util late '43, into 1944. The fighters that saved our bacon in the war's dark days were the P39, P40 and F4F.

Well, what was more important than the planes was we had lots of good pilots. We trained them faster than the enemy could kill them off, and gave them pretty decent planes to fly. And no pilot ever had to sit out a mission for lack of a plane. We built them faster than they could be destroyed.

jn

[jmoore]

The P40 fuselge was lengthened to add stability and reduce rudder and elevator control forces which grew worse as the wing loading grew worse w/ the weight increases. (The "big tail" early K models were stable, but still hard on the pilot.)

The platform as originally conceived was on par or a bit better than its contemporaries, but we're talking rather pre-war here with P36 and "long-nosed" early P40's. A forgiving aircraft to fly unlike the P39, w/ better range than either the Spitfire or Bf109. It, however couldn't out turn the Zero N1k1/2's (what could ?) or perform at high altitude (due to the lack of engine turbo or supercharging) and wasn't BIG enough to take( or designed around) a huge fuel capacity. A Stellar single purpose platform? No, but capable enough to stick around long after it was obsolete.

Both Spitfires and Bf109's were pure point defence platforms which barely had range enough to cross the English Channel, they would not have even been considered usable in the wide open spaces of the pre-war US.

The stupid thing is that for air show use (low altitude don't ya know) its more fun than a P51.