Essential and Dispensible WW2 aircraft.

On 8 Oct, 15:23, " wrote:
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.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

agreed

guy

In article . com, WaltBJ
wrote:

snip

P38 - I had an instructor who flew F5s in the Pacific. 8010 hours and
a couple times - 12 hours. Awkward if the GIs showed up in flight - he
had a couple tales about that involving the jettison of maps, etc.


Walt
would you expand on this a bit? I'm not sure I follow.
thx

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

Harry Andreas wrote:

In article . com, WaltBJ
wrote:

snip

P38 - I had an instructor who flew F5s in the Pacific. 8010 hours and
a couple times - 12 hours. Awkward if the GIs showed up in flight - he
had a couple tales about that involving the jettison of maps, etc.


Walt
would you expand on this a bit? I'm not sure I follow.

The F-5 of teh WW 2 era was the Photo Recon flavor of the late-model
P-38. Put a full set of drop tanks on it, and the frugal Allison
(With a higher compression ratio than the Merlin, the V1710 got good milage,
for a big V-12) meant long range and high endurance. 12 hour flights in a
fighter cockpit are not relaxing joyrides. 8010 hours in fighter-type
airplanes is a lot of takeoffs and landings.
GIs. in this case, I'd expect to be one of the Various and Sundry Tropical
Bugs that like residing in the Human Digestive Tract in hot, wet climates.
(Pound for pound, the most voracious predator is the Amoeba. Been There,
Done That, you don't want to see the T-Shirt). These conditions are
generaally accompanied by such effects as explosive Diarrhea that
registers on seismographs across the planet.
Paper items such as charts, notebooks, and tech manuals come in handy for
cleanup, but make poor cockpit companions afterward.

--
Pete Stickney
Without data, all you have is an opinion

In article , Mike Williamson
wrote:

Harry Andreas wrote:
In article . com, WaltBJ
wrote:

snip


P38 - I had an instructor who flew F5s in the Pacific. 8010 hours and
a couple times - 12 hours. Awkward if the GIs showed up in flight - he
had a couple tales about that involving the jettison of maps, etc.



Walt
would you expand on this a bit? I'm not sure I follow.
thx


I'm going to guess that GIs were Gastro-intestinal... "distress,"
and that jettisoning of the maps was due to them no longer being
serviceable as maps and being rather unpleasant to have in the
cockpit, having found other uses in the mean time.

Aha. That answers my question. No need to say more.
PLEASE don't say more....
:-/

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

On Oct 6, 4:09 am, Bill Shatzer wrote:
Daryl Hunt wrote:

-snip-

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.

Dunno. The Merlin equipped P-40F was only about 10 mph faster than the
earlier Allison-fitted P-40E - although obviously better at altitute.

But it still was more than 50 mph short of the P-51B/C's top speed.

I doubt a "super-Allison" would have produced markedly superior results
or placed the P-40 in the P-51's performance class.

The P-40 was, after all, basically an up-engined Hawk 75 (P-36), a 1934
design and a full generation earlier than the P-51 airframe design.

Cheers

As far as I can tell the Merlin engined P-40's used a single stage two
speed
supercharged Merlin equivalent to that used in the Spitfire Mk.V.
Both were 375 mph (approx) aicraft.

The Two stage 66 and 70 merlins added an intercooler and it was these
engines
that transformed both the P-51A to the 440mph P-51B/C/D and the
Spitfire
Mk.IX to a 408-412 mph aircraft.

Had the P-40 gotten the two stage Merlin it might have matched the
Spitfire
Mk IX in speed?

The modification would have required a lengtened nose to and
additional
radiator area to deal with the extra head and to dump heat from the
intercooler.

On Oct 6, 12:36 pm, Bob Matthews wrote:
Daryl Hunt wrote:
"The Amaurotean Capitalist" wrote in
messagenews:bkg7g3952ul9la8qpgnmaathtktjd6jp3u@4ax .com...
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.

US doctrine required a fighter with a large fuel capacity for long
range. This
produced a rather large aircraft with a lower power to weight ratio
than the
little european fighters and therefore a lower climb rate and
acceleration.

Having said that the aircaft was very pleasant to fly and a good
turning circle
and excellent pre stall buffet warning. If given a single stage
Merlin it matched
the Spitifire Mk.V in speed. It never got the Two stage Merlin 66 or
70 (packard 266)
but with it probably would have been the same speed as a Mk.IX spit
but with
longer range, less climb rate and less dive speed.

The Mustang had the laminar flow wing and only it could crack the
440mph barrier
with the Merlin. The P-51 was also a heavy aircraft but the laminar
flow wing made
up for it. The P-51's laminar flow wings were laminar becuase of
dimples, bugs and
scratches but one property of the laminar flow wings design is a very
gradual
pressure profile that prevents 'compression' of the air and other
transonic effects
that cause drag and also stiffen airlerons.

It probably just didn't make sense to waste effort upgrading the P-40
with a two
stage Merlin when the Mustang could already do so much better.

This is my whole point. If you waste resource building aircraft that
prevent
you from building ones that do work better.

A few turbo-supercharged Allisons that were made, were allocated to
P-38s, making the high-altitude performance of that plane its best
feature. All 14,000 P-40s got gear-driven superchargers, and as a
result, were never first-class fighter planes. Donaldson R. Berlin,
the P-40's designer, has said that P-40s experimentally equipped
with turbo-superchargers outperformed Spitfires and Messerschmitts
and that if it had been given the engine it was designed for, the
P-40 would have been the greatest fighter of its era. This may be to
some extent the bias of a proud parent, but there is no doubt that the
deletion of the turbo-supercharger ruined the P-39 and in one case
ruined the british turboless P-38s

Had Allison's engineers been able to put the effort into gear-driven
superchargers that Pratt and Whitney and Rolls-Royce did, it might
have been a different story. As it was, there can be little doubt that
the V-1710 had more potential than was actually exploited.

I think the refractory metals were required for the bombers which
needed them more.

On Wed, 3 Oct 2007 15:34:25 -0600, "Daryl Hunt"
wrote:

Keeping it in the whatif department. Whatif they had installed decent
Turbos and Supers on the Allisons.

The turbo required a large amount of plumbing that was accomodated in
the tail booms of the P-38 and the enormous fuselage of the P-47.
There wasn't room for it in the P-39 or P-40.

Improving the supercharger efficiency of the Allison would have been
the feasable alternative, as the better supercharger largely explained
the contemporary single-stage Merlin's advantage over the Allison.
Having said that, Allison didn't manage to do what Hooker did with the
Merlin 20/45 series Merlins despite the need to do so; the closest
they seem to have come was adapting the supercharger gearing on the
V-1710-E4 used in the P-39 to raise the full-throttle height by a
couple of thousand feet, which was too little too late.

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.

The P-40 was marginally slower than the Spitfire with a similar
engine, and relative aerodynamic efficiency (largely down to wing
thickness) and weight meant that the Spitfire outperformed it above
full-throttle height. The P-39 and P-40 were the most obsolete
airframes in the US single-engined fighter inventory by 1942, when
two-stage Merlin production was being mooted for Packard and the P-38
was in production with the P-47 to follow shortly. It made more sense
to put the engine with the best potential in the fighter with the best
potential. Out of the three options of the P-39, P-40 and P-51 the
Mustang was clearly the best airframe.

Improving the altitude performance of the Allison in 1941 - in time to
be relevant for 1942 - would have been more useful if you wanted a
better P-39 or P-40. But even then the available engines (the Packard
Merlin 20 series in the P-40F and L) still couldn't overcome the
constraints upon high altitude performance which made the P-40
inferior to the Spitfire at altitude, so unless Allison could out-do
the Merlin 20 series without turbocharging there wasn't much prospect
of them achieving anything better.

Now imagine instead if the US had agreed to begin production of the
Spitfire in 1940 when the British originally raised the issue....

Gavin Bailey

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

On Oct 12, 10:21 pm, The Amaurotean Capitalist
wrote:
On Wed, 3 Oct 2007 15:34:25 -0600, "Daryl Hunt"

wrote:
Keeping it in the whatif department. What if they had installed decent
Turbos and Supers on the Allisons.

The turbo required a large amount of plumbing that was accomodated in
the tail booms of the P-38 and the enormous fuselage of the P-47.
There wasn't room for it in the P-39 or P-40.

Improving the supercharger efficiency of the Allison would have been
the feasable alternative, as the better supercharger largely explained
the contemporary single-stage Merlin's advantage over the Allison.
It totally explained it. The basic Allison block was superior and
smaller.

The solution Allison came up with was turbo compounding; far superior
to
either supercharging on its own or turbo-supercharging.

"The Amaurotean Capitalist" wrote in
message ...
On Wed, 3 Oct 2007 15:34:25 -0600, "Daryl Hunt"
wrote:

Keeping it in the whatif department. Whatif they had installed decent
Turbos and Supers on the Allisons.

The turbo required a large amount of plumbing that was accomodated in
the tail booms of the P-38 and the enormous fuselage of the P-47.
There wasn't room for it in the P-39 or P-40.

Improving the supercharger efficiency of the Allison would have been
the feasable alternative, as the better supercharger largely explained
the contemporary single-stage Merlin's advantage over the Allison.
Having said that, Allison didn't manage to do what Hooker did with the
Merlin 20/45 series Merlins despite the need to do so; the closest
they seem to have come was adapting the supercharger gearing on the
V-1710-E4 used in the P-39 to raise the full-throttle height by a
couple of thousand feet, which was too little too late.

The Military wouldn't pay for them to do it. Like the P-38 getting
re-engined with the Packard motor. They would have had to shut down for 2
weeks to a month on production. The Military wouldn't hear of it. They
felt the need for the existing version more than the slight delay of
production for a much better AC. The US could have had a Fighter with 2000
mile range and speeds aproaching 500 mph as early as late 1941 since Packard
got the nod to begin production on the Merlin in 1940. And that may have
hurt the go ahead on building the P-51. One of the big reasons for building
the P-51 was the cost of even the bone stock P-38 and P-47 were much higher.
Smaller means cheaper, not necessarily better. Those two did most of the
heavy lifting until the P-51D was introduced as fighters. And they did most
of the heavy lifting when you needed to send in a Fighter/Bomber. The 51
was extremely fragile near the ground with ground fire but a very good
Bomber escort. Just remember, in the North African and Italian Front, it
was the P-38 that completely dominated the skies. JU-88s were not something
anything with short range ordinance wanted to tangle with as a fighter but
you dance with the one that brung ya.



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.

The P-40 was marginally slower than the Spitfire with a similar
engine, and relative aerodynamic efficiency (largely down to wing
thickness) and weight meant that the Spitfire outperformed it above
full-throttle height.

Except, the P-40 manufacturing line was unimcombered the the Spit had some
real problems when it came to air attacks, shortage of material, etc. This
is why the Mesquito was even considered being made of wood. The P-40, even
with it's enimic engine and old style design still made a very good showing
against the Zero and the ME109 over and over again. From 1940 to sometime
in 1942, the P-40 was the most plentiful Fighter outside of Germany. I
believe it was being used by 19 Countries including the Soviet Union.



The P-39 and P-40 were the most obsolete
airframes in the US single-engined fighter inventory by 1942, when
two-stage Merlin production was being mooted for Packard and the P-38
was in production with the P-47 to follow shortly. It made more sense
to put the engine with the best potential in the fighter with the best
potential. Out of the three options of the P-39, P-40 and P-51 the
Mustang was clearly the best airframe.

Cost was the factor. And why the 51 was still in production for a short
time after WWII. It cost less to build than the P-38 or the P-47, not that
it was a better overall AC.



Improving the altitude performance of the Allison in 1941 - in time to
be relevant for 1942 - would have been more useful if you wanted a
better P-39 or P-40. But even then the available engines (the Packard
Merlin 20 series in the P-40F and L) still couldn't overcome the
constraints upon high altitude performance which made the P-40
inferior to the Spitfire at altitude, so unless Allison could out-do
the Merlin 20 series without turbocharging there wasn't much prospect
of them achieving anything better.

The spit didn't have and couldn't have the production numbers needed.


Now imagine instead if the US had agreed to begin production of the
Spitfire in 1940 when the British originally raised the issue....

Gavin Bailey

In 1940, the Spit was "Equal" to the ME109 while the P-38 was superior.
Then the P-47 entered as well as the P-51D later. Remember, the P-51A was
largely used as a camera ship and flew unarmed. The P-51A was largely equal
to the spit and the ME109. Something better had to be developed. And the
P-38E and the P-47 were both superior for the time to both the Spit and the
ME109. The Spit had a severe problem with range as did the 109. The reason
the Spit is considered the winner in the Battle Britain had nothing to do
with the Aircraft. It was the fact it was fought over Britain and if an
English Pilot were to suvive being shot down, he might be flying another
mission in a different Spit or Hurricane later that afternoon. Meanwhile,
the German Pilot is captured and his war is over. Funny thing, there were
more German AC shot down during the Battle of Britain by the Hurricanes than
the Spits.

The Spit grew into a class Fighter but still had such a short range, they
had problems operating much further than just the Coastal Regions much like
the German 109 and 190. After D-Day, the Spits had Air Fields in France to
operate from. The P-47, P-40, P-38 and P-51 gained total fighter
superiority outside the coastal regions in France, Germany, North Africa and
Italy.

On Sat, 13 Oct 2007 00:17:41 -0700, Eunometic
wrote:

Improving the supercharger efficiency of the Allison would have been
the feasable alternative, as the better supercharger largely explained
the contemporary single-stage Merlin's advantage over the Allison.

It totally explained it. The basic Allison block was superior and
smaller.

And yet this was never translated into overcoming the Allison's
performance inferiority on operational service.

The solution Allison came up with was turbo compounding; far superior
to
either supercharging on its own or turbo-supercharging.

AFAIK the only serviceable variant of the V-1710-F featuring anything
other than mechanical supercharging used mechanical supercharging plus
turbocharging, and even then wasn't available until mid-1942 and even
then was not as reliable as mechanical supercharging alone. This
wasn't a lot of use in 1940-42, and was of limited utility in 1943.

Gavin Bailey


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