The P39 must have been a PITA with Cannon and two calibers of machine
guns.
But probably why it was so good as ground attack.
Your comment WW1 thinking in WW2 was one point I was trying to make about Korea. WW2 thinking in a different war. Much like the Sherman the P40 was the most widely used Allied aircraft. Repair and maintenance were key to getting ready for next battle.
Dug up one piece of information the addition of the Merlin Engine to the P40 made it a much better fighter, ceiling of 28k vs 35k. My earlier point that Allison did not make a decent two stage blower made the P40 and P39 easier to shoot down.
I have a couple books where this was a silent grind from Aircraft Companies forced to use the Allison. We had a great selection of aircooled engines. Continental and Chrysler developed some great pieces. In fact the V12 engine Chryser technology had helped develop the Chrysler, Desoto and Dodge Hemi engines (none of thier parts were interchangable BTW). Most famous was the 392 and 426 Hemi.
Back to the P40F, IMO it was far better then the Hurricane and closely matched the Spitfire with the same engine. Basic difference was that the P40 carried more fuel and was a little heavier. Spitfire had a range of about 400 miles the P40 800 miles.
Regarding the F86F..it was a good plane but still did not have the climb
of the Mig. However, high speed characteristics of the Mig 15 were
not solved until the Mig 17.
The Russian managed to design some of the high speed snaking and yaw
out. The F86F could run much closer to a sustained mach 1.
I would expect the Mig would develop a very scary high speed stall on any
sudden maneuver close to Mach 1.
I wondered if the Mig 15 and 17 had the same high speed turn problems the F101 Voodoo had? Where the rear horizontal stabalizer became ineffective after a sustained hard turn?
Dan Fahey
AMPSOne@aol.com wrote:
Dan,Whoa!
The USAF saw the .50 caliber as the best combined weapon in WWII as it was (a) relatively fast firing at 850-1100 rpm in the M3 aerial model (b) had more than enough hitting power against either German or Japanese aircraft and (c) most important had a massive advantage as a strafing weapon against ground targets. With the exception of special purpose German weapons like the BK 3.7 and BK 5 none of their guns were as effective in dual purpose situations.
The original idea behind the British .303 was its 1000-1200 rpm rate of fire, which put out 8000 to 14,400 rpm depending upon the fighter and installation, That worked out to 120 to 200+ bullets per second going downrange at the target. But the main problem was insufficient hitting power -- WWI thinking for WWII fighting didn't work.
The F-86F-2 GUNVAL aircraft had a massive learning curve in Korea, although they eventually did score victories over MiGs. Some of them had the same basic problem as the F-104 did -- gas buildup in the gun bays and blowouts. They were also "let's stick a set of these babies in here and see what happens" installations with next to no ammunition capacity -- something like 4 seconds of ammunition versus around 12-15 for the .50 installation.
The Sherman is loved and hated, but it was mechanically reliable and easy to fix and maintain, the same qualties it shared with the T-34. German tanks have often been described by no less an authority than Tom Jentz as overengineered, something like a Rolls Royce with attitude. The Panther is argueably the WORST tank of WWII, as it was so finicky and mechanically fragile it was nearly impossible to keep running correctly. They were virtually hand made and many parts were NOT interchangeable, which prevented field repairs.
The British excoriate the Sherman as every bad thing in the world rolled into one, but according to no less an authority than David Fletcher of the Tank Museum at Bovington Field Marshal Montgomery said it was the only universal tank they had during WWII and performed yeoman work at that task, something NO British tank achieved.
Cookie Sewell
AMPS