Just a quick question.  How many days each week do you spend in a barber shop with Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall? [:D]

You guys have your engines all wrong.
700PSS, what made the P-51 so sucsessful WAS the fact that it had one of the most efficent superchargers on the Rolls-Royce engine.

The Allison was SIMILAR to the Rolls-Royce Merlin, but it was not the same.
Rolls-Royce gave the manufacturing rights to build the Merlin to Packard in the USA, and there was a slight difference between the engines.
The Allison was underpowered and unreliable compaired to the Rolls-Royce or Packard Merlin. The P-51 was built to Brit specs, and they rejected it due to the fact that the Allison was underpowered. When the P-51 was reengined with the Rolls-Royce Merlin then the true performance of the P-51 came through.


The Merlin was produced under licence in America by the Packard company. These engines were used in the Spitfire XVI, but they also found use as the powerplant that enabled the P51 Mustang to be transformed from a low altitude army cooperation fighter into the long range, high altitude nemesis of the Luftwaffe.


One thing that is often forgotten is that the capacity of the Merlin was quite small when compared to the opposition. The Merlin had a capacity of 27 litres, whereas the DB601 of the Messerschmitt was 39 litres and the BMW801 engine of the Focke-Wulf 190 had 42 litres. The superiority of the later Merlin engined Spitfires (ie Mk IX) over these Luftwaffe aircraft is all the more remarkable when this is remembered.
[url]http://www.marss.com/merlin.htm[/url]


The supercharged V-1710 endured a problem-plagued development period and numerous redesigns to become one of the most widely used and successful American engines of its time. It was often compared to the legendary Rolls Royce Merlin V-12, which was of similar size and developed along the same timeline as the Allison. In 1937, a V-1710-C8 became the first military engine to successfully pass its 150-hour test at over 1000 horsepower

[url]http://nasaui.ited.uidaho.edu/nasaspark/safety/history/rollsroyce.htm[/url]

The Allison engine was used in both the A-36 Apache (the US Army Air Force's derivative of the Mustang 1) and the P-51A.
The idea of a marriage of the P-51 airframe and the Rolls Royce Merlin engine began long before anyone had ever heard of a Mustang. And, contrary to popular belief, this was not exclusively a British idea. Why the Merlin? The answer to that question is simple expediency! The Rolls Royce Merlin engine was a proven design and available at the time.

[url]http://www.warplane.org/engines/A_V-1710-63.htm[url]

I think you'd better carefully re-read what I said, you are practically repeating it word for word.

Yup, I said that.

Never said it was the same, just that if the original specs called for a high altitude fighter, the P-51 would have been designed around the existing supercharged Allisons and the RR Merlin experiment the Brits performed never would have had to happen.

Yup, said that too.

The Packard plant began making Merlins under license during the summer of 1940. They were being used in the Curtiss P-40F series stateside.

The first 4 Mustangs with Merlin engines were converted in spring 1942 at the Rolls-Royce facility at Hucknall, first test flights were in October 1942.

In August 1942 word of the Brits experiments got out and US Army Air Corps officials contracted North American to build Merlin powered Mustangs, the first test flight for a US built Merlin Mustang was November 30, 1942. The US conversion experienced overheating problems, so the radiator was redesigned and the aircraft was tested successfully in December 1942.

What about the Yak's????????? I never hear much about the Russian's air power during ww2.

...and don't forget the sturmovik (sp) russian fighter, recon!

Russia's entire air force (1200 planes) was wiped out by the Luftwaffe in the first 9 hours of Operation Barbarossa, June 22, 1941.

The USSR wasn't able to rebuild it's aircraft industry until early 1942. From 1942-1944 the USSR received about 15,000 planes from the US and Brits to supplement it's production of capable aircraft.

Many of the planes produced during this time, the Lavochkin La-5 through -9, and the Yak-7 through -9 were very capable fighters and the Ilyushin Il-2 Surmovik was an outstanding ground attack aircraft.

Yeah and the Japanese called 'em forked tail devils. The Germans called 'em confirmed kill. They didn't do very good in colder climates, engine performance suffered. Not to mention the Germans liked to use heavy weapons on their planes, unlike the Japanese.

Correction OLY-M4gery,

Better do some more research.  I don't see how the the Germans called the P38 a "confirmed kill" when it was THE GERMANS that called the P38 "The Fork-tailed Devil". While the P38's performance wasn't as dominant in the "Northern" European Theatre as the P51, it WAS the dominant fighter in the N. African, Aleutian, Mediterranean and Pacific Theatres.

The early P38's in the N. European Theatre had problems due to "bad" gas that fowled the spark plugs and caused supercharger problems rather than the plane itself. Plus early models had a problem with diving too fast from high altitude. The P38J and L models, plus getting better gas, corrected those problems.  The L model was especially good since it was the final model and had a sterling record in Europe and elsewhere.

In the mean time the P38 shot down more enemy planes in the Pacific theater than any other fighter. With counter-rotating props, good use of it's flaps, and a skilled pilot it could turn with most other fighters.  I wonder why such a BIG plane shot down so many ZEROs?

The P38 was in the war from start to finish, compared to the P47 and P51 which, albeit, great fighters were introduced after the war started. Both those fighters were "Johnny-come-lately's or had a smaller role in other Theatres.

If the P38 had been fitted with the same Merlin engines as the P51 it would have been the "ultimate" long-range fighter of WW2. But the govt. had to keep Allison in business.

The P51C was the "best" overall single engine fighter of the war (although the German TA-152 had better performance it was too late by the time it went into production).

The P38 was the "BEST" twin-engine fighter of WW2, and likely the best overall fighter of the war since it was everywhere from start to finish, and did everything. The P51, a GREAT fighter, was easiler to build in large numbers, and easier to maintain. That's why the 51 lasted longer, however, a couple of squadrons of P38's in Japan barely missed the Korean War.

Those are the facts!

Regards,

Talyn  {:D}

PS: There's an excellent book called "The Forked-tailed Devil" that lays out all the facts regarding the P38. It's a good read and available in paperback.

                                           B17`s could not carry 20,000 lbs of armament......you may be confusing explosive capability with wieght......AND who said skyraiders were in ww2?....I didn`t see that anywhere???????????.....[smoke]

Please name all the P-38 aces that flew in ETO.......I don't recall ANY. P-51's replaced P-38's and P-47's as the long range fighter. The P-40's were very briefly in ETO. Why were most of the P-38's in PTO?? Because they were better suited for the environment and the enemy.

Japanese planes mostly mounted 7.7 mm MG's, some 12.7 mg and a few 20 mm cannons. The P-38 was able to withstand the punishment PTO opponents would deliver. P-38's were far less able to withstand the 30mm, 20mm, 13mm and 7.92 mm guns of the ETO fighters.

The Japanese had a good 2 engine fighter, IIRC "Dragon". Of course a lot of Japanese planes were handbuilt no 2 really alike. They had everything up to 75mm cannon mounted in it more common were 20mm and 37mm guns. Wasn't able to withstand punishment like the P-38.

The British had the Mosquito that was also an excellent 2 engine fighter/bomber.

P-47 was a better ground attack plane than the P-38 and could withstand more damage, not so good as a fighter. P-51 was a better fighter than the P-38, it could do ground attack but was vulnerable due to its liquid cooled engine. P-38 could do both reasonably well.

                                           B17 avge bombload was 6000 lbs.....if you need to confirm, contact air force museum @ wright patterson, dayton ohio........[:)]....(skyraider variants could load 7500 lbs of various armament)

Hi OlyM4gery.

Another reason for the fewer numbers of aces in the '38 PERIOD is the weapon setup.

51s, 47s and most other fighters had wing mounted weapons, to fire outside the prop arc and eliminate the need for synchro.  Even the few planes that had inboard weapons, like the BF109, also had wing armament.

The 38, on the other hand, had a tight cluster of .50s arounf that .20.

Dick Bong, or somebody who flew them, said it was harder to hit anything from a 38 than a wing gun equipped platform, although nearly all aces I have studied were excellent rifle and or shotgun shots.  

Let me help you out.

These are ETO and MTO totals, courtesy of [url]www.p-38online.com[/url]

Twelfth Air Force:
William Sloan 12
Frank Hurlbut 9
Louis Curdes 8 (9)
Claude Kinsey 7
Ward Kuentzel 7
Lawrence Liebers 7
Meldrum Sears 7
Herbert Ross 7
Harley Vaughn 7
Edward Walters 7
Richard Campbell 6
Ray Crawford 6
James Griffiss 6
William Schmidt 6
Thomas White 6
Charles Zubarik 6
Jack Ilfrey 6 (8)
Paul Cochran 5
Rodney Fisher 5
Harry Hanna 5
Daniel Kennedy 5
John Mackay 5
T H McArthur 5
Ernest Osher 5
Joel Owens 5
Newell Roberts 5
Gerald Rounds  5
Virgil Smith 5
Sidney Weatherford 5
Darrel Welch 5
Lee Wiseman 5
John Wolford 5

Fifteenth Air Force:
Michael Brezas 12
William Leverette 11
Walter Carroll 8
Thomas Maloney 8
Phillip Tovrea 8
Charles Adams 6
James Holloway 6
Donald Kienholz 6
Armour Miller 6
Leslie Anderson 5
Louis Benne 5
Herbert Hatch 5
Warren Jones 5
Carroll Knott 5
Franklin Lathrope 5
Richard Lee 5
Marlow Leikness 5
Jack Lenox 5
John McGuyrt 5
Everett Miller 5
Robert Seidman 5
Oliver Taylor 5
Herman Visscher 5
Paul Wilkins 5
Max Wright 5  

Eric Hartman, the top-scoring fighter pilot of all time. Fighter pilot for the German Luftwaffe with 352 victories.

                                               NOT!

The B-17G could carry a maximum bomb load of around 17,660lb. After fuel was topped off, and the ammo for all of the .50s was loaded, the normal bomb load was 6,000lb.

B17=single largest loss of american lives in ww2............

Well yeah, but what's your point? If the other countries best pilots were forced to serve for 5 or 6 years straight, instead of doing short tours, they would have racked up some pretty impressive totals too.

                                        I`d watch the name calling son.....lively discussion is the point here.........[:)]......by the way, do YOU work for boeing?

Just giving credit where credit is due.

Yup, you gotta be on your game if you can get 352 without the Grim Reaper catching up to you. IIRC, he was shot down something like 14 times though! [;)]

I just did a little research. Erich Hartmann served from October '42 until 5 May 1945. That averages out to around 142 kills per year, impressive, even if you take into account most of them were relatively unskilled Russians.

Well, 700PSS's excellent listing of the aces in the MTO and ETO sort of nixes the "lack of P38 aces theory".

The P51, while the most numerous LR fighter in the ETO did not replace ALL P47's and P38's in the escort role.

The ZERO had 2 20mm on it right from the start, just like the FW190. Several other later Japanese fighter models also had 20mm.The Me109 had only 1 20mm initially. The heavier armament later was done for hitting the bombers.

There are plenty of accounts of P38's withstanding heavy weapons fire, including a MID_AIR COLLISION with a german fighter and getting back.


The weapons configuation (wing-mounted)theory is baseless since the P38 didn't need synchronized guns since there was NO propeller on the nose of the P38.  The .50's and 20mm were grouped together as a "concentrated" cone of fire. Matter of fact the P38's guns were easier to bore-sight because they were concentrated where wing mounted guns had to be sighted to converge at a point in space. This made the P38 fire especially lethal in the air to air and air to ground attacks. Please give me a reference on the Dick Bong note.

The Mosquito was primarily used in the high altitude LR recon role, like the P38, and the light bomber/strike role (excellent in both roles). I don't recall any accounts (but please point them out to me) of any dogfighting between Mosquito's and FW190's and ME109's over Europe.  The Mosquito relied on it's speed to evade fighters.

Please read the BOOK on P38's so you can be better informed.

Talyn [:D]

Black Guns, B-17, single biggest loss of life? Where is your source for that? Even if it was/is truth you make it sound as if that is the planes fault???? What do you expect during daylight raids with minimal fighter cover for the first several years, not to mention the shear number of bombers that took part in raids.
Large #s = more mid-air collisions (not uncommon according to what I have read), more targets. Also consider the ammount of enemy held terrain they had to cross in big slow bombers before they even reached their targets, miricle we didn't lose more, even with fighter cover. Shear perseveriance, skill, and determination saved most of them.

The bomber I wouldn't have want to be in was the B-24. From pics and stories I've seen they had a habit of breaking off wings at the root when damaged in that area. Saw a pic of one that had its wings folded as if you held out your arms then raised them straight up! YIKES!![V]


Bryan

God my spelling sucks A$$!!
BrenLover

                                        B17 max bombload=12,800 lbs........skyraider max bombload= 8000 lbs..........so therefor, I retract my original statement.....(references available upon request)......O K hothead?

raf-

Check here:

[url]http://www.brooksart.com/[/url]

If you don't find it there, call Steve Shultz at (717) 337-0779.
I was recently at his shop in Gettysburg, PA. He had quite a selection of prints in stock, he may have what you are looking for. He has a website, but it's not up and running yet: [url]www.aceshighgallery.com[/url]

                                          The B17 raids over europe resulted in the largest loss of american lives than any single action of the war.....if you need me to research this fact for you I will......NOWHERE did I make ANY reference to this being the fault of the aircraft, in fact, as EVERONE knows, the B17 was capable of absorbing large amounts of battle damage.....what I wonder, is why the hell you people are so damned DEFENSIVE and want to start throwing accusations/names and HATE around evertime someone brings up a fact (true or not) that does not fit your personal perception of a wonderful little world.....everyone thinks the B17 was such a glorious and advanced piece of warfare....IT WAS NOT...it was antiquated and costly in money and lives, and it in fact was the B17 that got the shit shot out of it, NOT the P51`s.............

Also, a fair amount of them we're kills on the ground, IIRC.  The Germans counted total aircraft destroyed, in the air or ground, while we just counted those destroyed in the air.

Hi Talyn.

I am as familiar with the setup of the 38 as you appear to be.

The wing mounted theory is ABSOLUTELY not baseless, although perhaps I didn't explain it well.

My point IS that the 38 had a cluster of weaps in the nose of the "pod", UNLIKE conventional, ie SINGLE engine fighters of the day.  It was the single engine fighter that had wing mounted weaps to get around the need for synchro.

It has NOTHING to do with ease of boresighting, except that the narrow tube of projectiles from the 38s setup necessitated excellent marksmanship.

In a fighter with wing mounted weapons, the pilot had the option of concentrating all weaps on a single point, or staggering them, ie, pairs ranged to converge together, but each pair converging at a different range.  

As you know, after the projectiles converge on a point, they DIVERGE thereafter.  The wing mounted weap equipped planes weapon pattern was only as small as the 38s pattern at a single point a certain distance from the plane.  At all other distances, the pattern of projectiles from a conventional setup was larger than that from the 38s clustered weapons.

While shooting down a plane from another plane is very difficult, it is easier when the pattern of projectiles is larger.

The 38 simply could not provide this spread of projectiles.

Sorry, can't remember where I read it, I'll give some books a whirl this weekend, but I don't recall the source.

Hope I covered it better.

Oh, and ColonelKlink, what's with the nonsequitor?  My grandfather worked at Boeing, so I know what I'm talking about.  No disrespect meant to your grandfather, but my dad was a career Air Force pilot, that doesn't mean I know what I'm talking about here, although I do. [;)]

Edited to add, I agree that IF the 38's tube of projectiles hit something, it was a heck of a wallop, and the divergent cones of projectiles from wing mounted weaps I mention above would provide fewer actual projectiles to hit something with at other than the boresighted range, but I stand by the reference.  As I think I stated earlier, not sure it was Bong, his name lept to mind as we're talking 38s.      

Mmmmmmmmm, tasting shoe leather, hey why is my foot in my mouth. OK no as well informed as I thought I was.

I still don't think the Germans were particuarly impressed with the P-38's. They were far more effective in th PTO. I think there were more aces there flying P-38's and they had higher "scores". (Richard Bong - 40)

The Japanese planes didn't have anywhere near the armament or armor of planes of other combatants. Yes the Me-109 was lighty armed to start with, but not lightly armored, but ended up with a combo of 30mm, 20mm cannons and mg's. Plus the Germans rescued downed fliers, so their experinced pilots survived longer. The Japanese didn't/couldn't reclaim downed pilots as easily, so many of their pilots were "newbies".

The P-38, like most US planes, was durable. It was able to take damage that most PTO opponents could dish out.

Early Me-109's has 2-20 mm cannons and 2-7.92 mgs. Later models had 1-30mm cannon, 1-20 mm cannon and 2-13mm mg's. The Zeroes has 2-20 mm cannons and 2-7.7 mg's. I believe the 7.92 mg's fired a more powerful round than the 7.7 mg's.

Not to mention the FW-190's with 2-13 mm mg's and up to 4-20 mm cannons. Or the Me-262 with 4-30 mm cannons.

The mounting of the P-38's guns is a wash. Yes they gave less of a "beaten path" But if you hit, it was all your weapons on target.

The Japanese planes were great because they had good fuel economy, excellent climb rates, and great manuaverabilty, for the most part. The Japanese also had low horsepower engines. They managed the performance by not putting "extras" on their planes, like armor, self sealing tanks, or heavy weapons.  

Mosquito's were also configured as night fighters, and were supposed to be good in that role. There was also an aniti-shipping variant with a 57mm gun mounted in the nose. The were also "cloth and wood" construction, that made them somewhat more difficult to detect using radar, yes the engines were metal.

Black Guns...

HATE??... HATE?? Are you serious? Because I questioned your post I HATE YOU??? I dont even know you. Why dont we get to know one another first, then we can decide whether to hate one another. What names?? Did I call you a name? Uhhmm.. nope.

You are right you did not outrightly say it was the planes fault BUT that is the impression it made, to me anyway. IF that was the case I was prepared to defend the aircraft. YOU seen to be the defensive one.

Your right, for the most part the plane was outdated in design at the wars outbreak. A series of updated models kept it viable in a n era when we needed more planes and couldn't wait for a replacement.

Of course it was expensive in $ and lives, it was like what 5-7 times the size and had like what..12-14 crewman so when one was lost of course it was costly. I think you would have to admit for its job, age, and mission it was among the best of WWII.

Are you connecting something about the P-51 with my previous response to you? If so, how? I never brought it up. But since it SEEMS you are, of course there are going to be fewer P-51s shot up, they were faster and more manuverable, they could take the fight to the enemy fighters one on one.

Sir, it sounds like YOU are the DEFENSIVE one. Is your intake of sugar and caffine high?? If so maybe you should cut back and put your tinfoil hat back on since you're so paranoid as to think everyone who questions you is out to get you.[rolleyes]

BrenLover

gunther rall gave some of the credit to a target rich environment- every time ve vent up, dere vass ze enemy. not zo much for ze americenzs and ze british in ze vest. especially late in ze vor.

i'm getting the bbq sauce ready...
remember: arguing on the internet is like running in the special olympics- even if you win, your still retarded.

ps. thanks usnjoe! i've got the sound of that merlin fly-by blasting through my stereo! aaaaah...

PBRSTREETGANG... That special olympics saying is so true! [:)] My I quote you on that?
BrenLover

How fast are some of the other planes talked about here.

The P-51 did about 300mph I think

Actually, the Germans explained why the got such high kill numbers; different types of planes had different values. Bombers were worth like 5 or more points. Also, German pilots flew the entire war or they died. They didn't fly X number of missions and then get sent home to sell war bonds. Same thing with the Japanese pilots. No rest when you're hard pressed to survive.

----------------------------------------------------------

Where did I get my info? Documentaries like everyone else. IIRC, one of the surviving German aces was being interviewed and explained it. The notion of a valued point system was inspired by Hitler. I'm not saying those guys weren't great pilots. They had to have been phenominal to fly that many missions against increasing numbers of enemy who themselves were getting better and better. And they did it with no rest, inadequate supplies/maintenance, and declining fuel supply and quality.

Uhhh... Okay, I have never heard this one. Where did you get this info?

P-51D      437mph
P-47D      428mph
F4U-1A     395mph
P-38G      410mph
F4F-3      325mph
F6F-5      376mph
Fw190D-9   440mph
Bf 109G    428mph
Me 262A-1a 540mph

How about the F8F Bearcat? Too late for the war but no less noteworthy.

                                    Rule #1.........Read ALL POSTS before opening mouth.........that one was primarily aimed at someone else.....HOWEVER you did the exact same in reffering to a point that I simply DID NOT STATE......I am not defensive...just pissed since the attitude on this board is to fly-off and call names etc. (if you`ve been around you know what I`m talking about) we`re supposed to be here to learn from uor mistakes/questions AND  DISCUSSIONS (not arguements) it appears to be more in line with many here to criticize, not organize!..If you want to think the whole post was meant for just you...go ahead....as far as getting to know anyone..it seems that most would rather not...........bye-bye

Since your reply was aimed at what I had replied to you about and quoted only me, I did believe it was all aimed at me because you seem to be unable to post a message correctly. Rule 1B should be -If you are going to take multiple people to task over what they say break up the post with your individual points aimed to the recipients by name, not by a single, bunched together run-on point.

You might even want to quote each of them as nicely as you did me when commenting on past posts. Doing that probably would have kept this snippy little disagreement between us from even starting. Now that I know that whole garbled mess wasn't meant for me I no longer think you're a mental case. See, we're making progress already!

BTW, I did read ALL the posts, but over the last couple of days, my fault for not remembering every single word I guess. If there was name calling and hate it must have been so insignificant as to not even make notice of it.

Oh the humanity...
BrenLover