Essential and Dispensible WW2 aircraft.

Bob Matthews wrote:

Daryl Hunt wrote:
"The Amaurotean Capitalist" wrote

The critical point is that the P-51 would not have been sustained in
production without the RAF championing the type on the basis of the
Merlin installation in mid-1942. It was never a part of USAAF
procurement until October 1942, and it took substantive British
efforts to get the USAAF to accept it as a major production type.

So it's certainly a US aircraft, but it wouldn't have existed without
substantial British input both in technological terms, and production
advocacy from the initial Allison-engined British purchase contracts
to the Merlin conversion.

Gavin Bailey

Keeping it in the whatif department. Whatif they had installed decent
Turbos and Supers on the Allisons. What would that have done for even the
P-40. Afterall, later productions on the P-38 and the P-47 would have had
equal or more range and speed of the P-51C and the P-40 would have had near
identical performance and speed.

Really? Seems like the P40's wing and overall aerodynamics made it less
efficient therefore slower with the same power.

Indeed. The Mustang used a laminar flow wing design.

The P-40 seems more like the British Hurricane (both older designs) and the
Mustang more like the Spitfire.

Graham

In article .com,
Seven wrote:

On Oct 5, 6:31 pm, Steve Hix wrote:
In article . com,

Seven wrote:
On Oct 4, 11:00 pm, WaltBJ wrote:

Nobody mentioned the B32. I saw a whole ramp full of them at Pyote AFB
in 1951 on the way to USAF basic.

Walt, I hate to do this, but the NMUSAF says you didn't. According to
their records, the last of the B-32s was scrapped in 1949. Which is a
shame, really. I *love* WWII-era aircraft, and would dearly love to be
able to see one of these in person. Here's the link either way.

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/fac...et.asp?id=2535

Maybe PB4Y's at Pyote?

The B-32 is a little larger, but the ratio sounds about the same. I
haven't had any luck finding records online records of PB4Ys (-1 or
-2) at Pyote, but the absence of proof is not the proof of absence, as
they say. I found a few records for PB4Y-1s being retired to
Litchfield in the early 50s, but the year wasn't specified. The same
source said that the PB4Y-2s remained in inventory until the 60s, when
they were relegated to desert storage and presumably scrapped.

Some of them ended up fighting fires. Watching one come rumbling low
over my house, and diving into the canyon between there and St. Helena
above the Napa Valley to dump retardant was pretty impressive, back in
1977.

In article ,
Eeyore wrote:


It wasn't a question of 'making the effort'. Britain didn't have the
manufacturing CAPACITY. That was recognised very early on and was
why NA was asked to design the Mustang in the first place.

North American initiated the P-51 design on their own.

The British got it when they came to ask NAA to make P-40's for them,
and Edgar Schmued's team said they could do better; it had been in the
works for quite a while.

On Fri, 05 Oct 2007 16:33:25 -0700, "Scott M. Kozel"
wrote:

Well, the British apparently didn't want to make the effort to fund
and build almost 15,000 Mustangs along with with over 16,000 units of
that engine designed for that aircraft. The U.S. did.

Only after the British pursuaded them to. Meanwhile the British did
consider assembling Mustangs in Britain and prioritising the supply of
Rolls-Royce Merlin 60-engines for them if two-stage Packard Merlins
were unavailable. This willigness to disrupt production and
procurement plans of their premier engine and aircraft type (the
Spitfire IX) demonstrated a considerably higher interest in the Merlin
Mustang than the USAAF originally had.

Gavin Bailey

--
Solution elegant. Yes. Minor problem, use 25000 CPU cycle for 1
instruction, this why all need overclock Pentium. Dumbass.
- Bart Kwan En

Eeyore wrote:

"Scott M. Kozel" wrote:
Eeyore wrote:

If they thought they could have done better as you seem to suggest, they could
have designed a brand new engine but they didn't.

Well, the British apparently didn't want to make the effort to fund
and build almost 15,000 Mustangs along with with over 16,000 units of
that engine designed for that aircraft. The U.S. did.

It wasn't a question of 'making the effort'. Britain didn't have the manufacturing
CAPACITY. That was recognised very early on and was why NA was asked to design the
Mustang in the first place.

Do you seriously think that Britain was in any position to win the war alone ?

None of the Allies were in any position to win the war alone. It took
a total effort from a whole assembledge of nations for several years
to defeat the Axis.

"Bob Matthews" wrote in message
news:bEBNi.119918$Xa3.77553@attbi_s22...
Daryl Hunt wrote:
"The Amaurotean Capitalist" wrote in
message ...
On Wed, 03 Oct 2007 08:31:19 -0700, "Scott M. Kozel"
wrote:

The critical improvement to the Mustang was the fitting of the RR
Merlin engine
which was an RAF idea.
Given that over 15,000 P-51s were built by North American Aviation in
the U.S. and paid for by the U.S. government, it was predominently a
U.S. aircraft. Like you said, the later models did use the Merlin
engine.
The critical point is that the P-51 would not have been sustained in
production without the RAF championing the type on the basis of the
Merlin installation in mid-1942. It was never a part of USAAF
procurement until October 1942, and it took substantive British
efforts to get the USAAF to accept it as a major production type.

So it's certainly a US aircraft, but it wouldn't have existed without
substantial British input both in technological terms, and production
advocacy from the initial Allison-engined British purchase contracts
to the Merlin conversion.

Gavin Bailey

Keeping it in the whatif department. Whatif they had installed decent
Turbos and Supers on the Allisons. What would that have done for even
the
P-40. Afterall, later productions on the P-38 and the P-47 would have
had
equal or more range and speed of the P-51C and the P-40 would have had
near
identical performance and speed.

Really? Seems like the P40's wing and overall aerodynamics made it less
efficient therefore slower with the same power.

And the P-40 was a winner near the ground even as it was.

An F-5 camera ship was jumped by an FW-190. The pilot did all the things
that made the 38 real hard to follow including dropping to about 20 feet on
the deck and power out. The FW followed the F-5 knowing he had a kill. He
spread his airplane all over the countryside because he had one hell of a
torque factor near the ground. Just using ONE small flight characteristic
to say that X is better than Y never has made sense. But we are in the
What-ifs and not the how it was.

wrote in message
g.com...
And on the horizon? Yes, the mighty P-75....

Well, perhaps the Bell P-63 Kingcobra, which didn't have the P-51's
performance, but did have the two stage supercharger that was originally
intended for the P-39, and might have performed well under combat
conditions. It was capagle of carrying two large external fuel tanks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-63_Kingcobra

Brian

The 63 was in bad need of the Packard but it was denied it and it goes on to
be an also ran used primarily by the Soviet Union on the Lend Lease Program.

Just what the devil were those people thinking when they didn't produce more
Packard/merlins.

Steve Hix wrote:
In article .com,
Seven wrote:

On Oct 5, 6:31 pm, Steve Hix wrote:
In article . com,

Seven wrote:
On Oct 4, 11:00 pm, WaltBJ wrote:
Nobody mentioned the B32. I saw a whole ramp full of them at Pyote AFB
in 1951 on the way to USAF basic.
Walt, I hate to do this, but the NMUSAF says you didn't. According to
their records, the last of the B-32s was scrapped in 1949. Which is a
shame, really. I *love* WWII-era aircraft, and would dearly love to be
able to see one of these in person. Here's the link either way.
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/fac...et.asp?id=2535
Maybe PB4Y's at Pyote?
The B-32 is a little larger, but the ratio sounds about the same. I
haven't had any luck finding records online records of PB4Ys (-1 or
-2) at Pyote, but the absence of proof is not the proof of absence, as
they say. I found a few records for PB4Y-1s being retired to
Litchfield in the early 50s, but the year wasn't specified. The same
source said that the PB4Y-2s remained in inventory until the 60s, when
they were relegated to desert storage and presumably scrapped.

Some of them ended up fighting fires. Watching one come rumbling low
over my house, and diving into the canyon between there and St. Helena
above the Napa Valley to dump retardant was pretty impressive, back in
1977.

Yep, that is just about the time that I saw one at the airport in
Winters just off of I-505, IIRC. The crew was kind enough to let a buddy
and I climb around it. The guys that fly these old borate bombers are
true heroes.

--
Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs Italian, the mechanics
German, the lovers French and it is all organized by the Swiss.

Hell is where the police are German, the chefs British, the mechanics
French, the lovers Swiss and it is all organized by Italians.

http://new.photos.yahoo.com/paul1cart/albums/

On 2 Oct, 13:06, Eunometic wrote:
Essential and Dispensible WW2 aircraft.
***********************************************
I've created a list of aircraft of WW2 that were essential to that
side and also others that were dispensible in the sense that their
place could easily have been taken by other aircraft or that were so
ineffective that they were not needed at all.

A great deal of effort was spent on aircraft that did not perform and
were 'war loosers' while there was also a great deal of duplication of
effort on aircraft that added nothing special and detracted from gains
in production.

United Kingdom

Essential:
Hurricane; had to be avialable in numbers for battle of britain
Spitfire; had to provide quality fighter throughout the war an
amenable to all rolls.
Mosquito; night bomber, night fighter, fast day bomber and most
importanty reconaisance aircraft par excellance.
Lancaster; easy to fly, devastating war load.
Wellington: Britains Medium bomber and an important coastal command
aircraft.

Non Essential:
Beaufighter; not a useless aircraft as it could take damage but its
roll could have been taken by others. It kept bristol busy.
Hampden;
Halifax; a good aircraft but Lancaster was better.
Stirling; a waste of time although a saluatory lesson.
Tempest and Typhoon: These aicraft had very poor high altitude
performance and the typhoon had handling difficulties, was not
particularly fast due to its thick wing and its airframe tended to
snap of at the tail
By 1942 Supermarine was producing the Spitifre Mk XII which had a
single stage Griffon engine and could outrun the Tempest. Although
the mk XII also had poor altitude performance its handling was better.
It would be early 1944 before the Mk XIX entered service which had a
two stage Griffon.

Germany:

Since Germany lost the war I found it hard to determine what to put in
non essential so I've added the column 'might have'

Essential:
Me 109: Hurricane vintage aircraft but remained competitive untill
1945 when Me 109K-4's were capable of 455mph and 48000ft service
ceiling and even then there were versions such as the Me 109K-14 with
a two stage supercharged DB603L engine starting production but not
delivered as well as the DB603DSCM engine touching on 2000hp at 1.98
atm boost there were test of 2.3 and 2.4 atm going on at DB which
suggests a power of 2400hp and speed of 470-480mph.
The aircraft should have been replaced far earlier with something that
had lighter contol forces and better speed. It would have performed
better with superior fuel.

Fw 190: this aircraft filled in many of the Me 109's weaknesses.

ju 88: night fighter, high speed bomber, dive or slant bomber,
maritime patrol etc.

Ju 87: Devastating in combined arms breakthrough warfare and deadly
accurate. When its days were over it lived on as a night bomber and
ground attack aircraft with one of the lowest per mission loss rates
of any Luftwaffe aircraft.

He 111: early bombing workhorse
Do 217 Only 1200 produced but still effective as a night bomber and
guided missile carrier.
Arado 234: the jet aircraft provided essential reconaisance: it was
the first and only aircraft to survey the Normandy beach-head. Two
prototypes flew about 36 missions with their engines being reliable
during this process. They were both shot down by their own German
FLAK.
Fi 103 or V1. Extremely cheap to produce consumed massive allied
resources.

Non essential:
Do 17
Me 110: its role as a night fighter could have been taken by the Ju
88, I am aware of its success in the Early Polish and Soviet Campaigns
but I don't think these were decisive.

Might Have
Me 210/410 Quite a good aircraft that was to replace the Ju 88 and
Me 110. Fast, advanced armament, bomb bay, efficient etc but simply
too late due to programm mismanagment to survive in allied skies.
Me 262; probably was effective in staving of defeat by a few weeks.
He 219; succombed to political problems; an excellent night fighter
and unlike the Me 110 and early Ju 88 it had the speed to chase down
British bombers once diversionary raids and feints had been
ascertained.
He 177: engine problems were not tackled agressively. The B series
with 4 seperate engines could have made up the bulk of production and
provided the Luftwaffe with a reliable long range bomber of
exceptional performance
had courage preceded arse covering.

USA:

Essential:

P-40 USAAF effective fighter of excellent quality; it was quite
effective with appropriate tactics.
P-38 Had the range and performance to protect US bombers. It
prevented the German Airforce from fielding heavy aircraft firing
rockets, or impunely attacking bombers under the protection of heavy
armour.
B-17 Hightly survivable high altitude bomber.
B-24 Longer ranged then the B-17; its only virtue.
B-29 Defeat of japan almost impossible
B-25 Versatile and easy to fly in all theatres of war.
Wildcat, Hellcat, dauntless, avenger
P-47 Ready far earlier than the P-51.

Non Essential
B-26 not as versatile as the B-25 and for a medium bomber too
demanding of runway conditions.
Helldiver: too many handling problems.
P-51; the P-38 had sufficient range to cover untill the P-47M with a
wett wing which actually
could excede the range of the P-51.

Vought corsair: took to long to perfect for carrier opperations;
Hellcat did a good enough job. Had the Ki 84 been available in
numbers and supplied with 100/130 octane fuel the corsair would have
been essential

Japan:

Essential:

Mitsubishi A6M zero and Betty.
Dinah, Ki 84

Non essential
All army types apart from the dinah and Ki 84

Soviet Union

Essential

Illushian Sturmovik, Pekelatov Pe2, Tupolev Tu 4, I-16

Unsure; Yakalove, LaGG, MiG series of fighters seemed to overlap in
function. The MiG 3 only failing to secure production because its
engine was needed.

I think the concept of essential and non essential is absurd to be
honest - sorry,

Guy

On Oct 8, 9:33 am, guy wrote:
On 2 Oct, 13:06, Eunometic wrote:





Essential and Dispensible WW2 aircraft.
***********************************************
I've created a list of aircraft of WW2 that were essential to that
side and also others that were dispensible in the sense that their
place could easily have been taken by other aircraft or that were so
ineffective that they were not needed at all.

A great deal of effort was spent on aircraft that did not perform and
were 'war loosers' while there was also a great deal of duplication of
effort on aircraft that added nothing special and detracted from gains
in production.

United Kingdom

Essential:
Hurricane; had to be avialable in numbers for battle of britain
Spitfire; had to provide quality fighter throughout the war an
amenable to all rolls.
Mosquito; night bomber, night fighter, fast day bomber and most
importanty reconaisance aircraft par excellance.
Lancaster; easy to fly, devastating war load.
Wellington: Britains Medium bomber and an important coastal command
aircraft.

Non Essential:
Beaufighter; not a useless aircraft as it could take damage but its
roll could have been taken by others. It kept bristol busy.
Hampden;
Halifax; a good aircraft but Lancaster was better.
Stirling; a waste of time although a saluatory lesson.
Tempest and Typhoon: These aicraft had very poor high altitude
performance and the typhoon had handling difficulties, was not
particularly fast due to its thick wing and its airframe tended to
snap of at the tail
By 1942 Supermarine was producing the Spitifre Mk XII which had a
single stage Griffon engine and could outrun the Tempest. Although
the mk XII also had poor altitude performance its handling was better.
It would be early 1944 before the Mk XIX entered service which had a
two stage Griffon.

Germany:

Since Germany lost the war I found it hard to determine what to put in
non essential so I've added the column 'might have'

Essential:
Me 109: Hurricane vintage aircraft but remained competitive untill
1945 when Me 109K-4's were capable of 455mph and 48000ft service
ceiling and even then there were versions such as the Me 109K-14 with
a two stage supercharged DB603L engine starting production but not
delivered as well as the DB603DSCM engine touching on 2000hp at 1.98
atm boost there were test of 2.3 and 2.4 atm going on at DB which
suggests a power of 2400hp and speed of 470-480mph.
The aircraft should have been replaced far earlier with something that
had lighter contol forces and better speed. It would have performed
better with superior fuel.

Fw 190: this aircraft filled in many of the Me 109's weaknesses.

ju 88: night fighter, high speed bomber, dive or slant bomber,
maritime patrol etc.

Ju 87: Devastating in combined arms breakthrough warfare and deadly
accurate. When its days were over it lived on as a night bomber and
ground attack aircraft with one of the lowest per mission loss rates
of any Luftwaffe aircraft.

He 111: early bombing workhorse
Do 217 Only 1200 produced but still effective as a night bomber and
guided missile carrier.
Arado 234: the jet aircraft provided essential reconaisance: it was
the first and only aircraft to survey the Normandy beach-head. Two
prototypes flew about 36 missions with their engines being reliable
during this process. They were both shot down by their own German
FLAK.
Fi 103 or V1. Extremely cheap to produce consumed massive allied
resources.

Non essential:
Do 17
Me 110: its role as a night fighter could have been taken by the Ju
88, I am aware of its success in the Early Polish and Soviet Campaigns
but I don't think these were decisive.

Might Have
Me 210/410 Quite a good aircraft that was to replace the Ju 88 and
Me 110. Fast, advanced armament, bomb bay, efficient etc but simply
too late due to programm mismanagment to survive in allied skies.
Me 262; probably was effective in staving of defeat by a few weeks.
He 219; succombed to political problems; an excellent night fighter
and unlike the Me 110 and early Ju 88 it had the speed to chase down
British bombers once diversionary raids and feints had been
ascertained.
He 177: engine problems were not tackled agressively. The B series
with 4 seperate engines could have made up the bulk of production and
provided the Luftwaffe with a reliable long range bomber of
exceptional performance
had courage preceded arse covering.

USA:

Essential:

P-40 USAAF effective fighter of excellent quality; it was quite
effective with appropriate tactics.
P-38 Had the range and performance to protect US bombers. It
prevented the German Airforce from fielding heavy aircraft firing
rockets, or impunely attacking bombers under the protection of heavy
armour.
B-17 Hightly survivable high altitude bomber.
B-24 Longer ranged then the B-17; its only virtue.
B-29 Defeat of japan almost impossible
B-25 Versatile and easy to fly in all theatres of war.
Wildcat, Hellcat, dauntless, avenger
P-47 Ready far earlier than the P-51.

Non Essential
B-26 not as versatile as the B-25 and for a medium bomber too
demanding of runway conditions.
Helldiver: too many handling problems.
P-51; the P-38 had sufficient range to cover untill the P-47M with a
wett wing which actually
could excede the range of the P-51.

Vought corsair: took to long to perfect for carrier opperations;
Hellcat did a good enough job. Had the Ki 84 been available in
numbers and supplied with 100/130 octane fuel the corsair would have
been essential

Japan:

Essential:

Mitsubishi A6M zero and Betty.
Dinah, Ki 84

Non essential
All army types apart from the dinah and Ki 84

Soviet Union

Essential

Illushian Sturmovik, Pekelatov Pe2, Tupolev Tu 4, I-16

Unsure; Yakalove, LaGG, MiG series of fighters seemed to overlap in
function. The MiG 3 only failing to secure production because its
engine was needed.

I think the concept of essential and non essential is absurd to be
honest - sorry,

Guy

I don't disagree, but it has resulted in an interesting, on-topic
thread.