Aerocobra!

[Shifty]

Originally posted by Krusty
Excuse me, mr. flame poster, but after 40 posts I don't think you know what the hell ANYbody's job is. You're starting off on the right foot, though, if you want to post like an arse.

You've not read even 1% of the posts I've made on these forums over the years, newbie, so don't PRESUME to know even a fraction of what I'm about. Thank you, good night.

You can't base the number of post skycaptn has read, by the number of post he's written. To state he has only read less than 1% of your post is an assumption and only adds fuel to the fire of those who accuse you of making inaccurate statements................ Just saying.

[Bruv119]

I would like to see this plane added also.  Kinda like a p40 with a spud gun dangerous!

Old screenie from FA eh rattfink.  

while we are it it   I16, yak3, clipped spit 5, tu-2, betty, B25 mitchell some of the planes i miss.


Bruv
~S~

[humble]

You all might want to do some searching before buying into humble's propoganda for the Soviet Uber Planes (TM). He's my squaddie and I'd wing with him any time, but he's been out-and-out dismissed by most of the folks on these forums that know what they're doing, and do this stuff for a living, on points from 109s to p39s and various things.

Krusty,

Hate to say it but the one "buying in" to the hype is you. The folks who've "dismissed" me are all narrowminded affecionado's of 1 particular plane or nation. They invariably hunt for all tidbits that vaguely support preconceived positions while discarding/demeaning all other 411.

I simply look at the facts available........

Specific to the P-39 is the following....

Stong negative accounts during the early stages of the war by inexperienced pilots flying in difficult scenarios vs seasoned enemy fighting in optimal contions. Please find me any other comments degrading the P-39.

Here is a bit of history on the P-39 experience from one of the milatary aviation newsgroups...

"An interesting book on the P-39 in Soviet Air Force service is "Eagles East" by
Richard Lukas.  Apparently, the Russians dumped the wing guns, which is what
the AAF boys in New Guinea did, in order to improve performance.  The Russians
also dumped radio equipment for the same reason.  And, apparently, they mostly
used the P-39 as a fighter.  The Germans, also apparently, chose to fly most of
their missions at low and medium altitudes, putting the P-39 right at its prime
fighting height.
Within its altitude envelope the Bell was, yet again apparently, competitive
with the 109, so using it as a fighter made sense.  Seventy-five percent of US
lend-lease fighters sent to the USSR were P-39s and P-63s, which the Soviets
specifically requested.  So they must have liked them.
In New Guinea, the AAF did not like the  P-39 because the Japanese bombers came
over at around 22,000 ft., sometimes higher, sometimes as low as 18,000 ft.,
but in any case well above the optimum fighting altitude of the P-39.  The P-39
also had to climb over high mountain ranges, not fight over Iowa-like terrain.
And to reach the enemy it had to fly to the very limit of its fuel
capacity--sometimes, as it would prove, beyond it.  Also, at any altitude the
P-39 was not competitive as a fighter with the Ki-43 or Zero. And the 37mm was
useless against such agile fighters, leaving the P-39 to fight with only its
two cowl .50s.
I also wonder about pilot skill.  The Soviets must have had a leavening of
Spanish Civil War veterans in their air units, while the AAF kids coming up
against veterans of the war in China and the Soviet border incident,  were
pretty green.
The P-39 pilots who went to Guadalcanal were pure green peas.  Their group, the
58th, had only been formed at the beginning of 1941.  It didn't get any pilots
until that fall, kids fresh out of flying school.  It had no veteran officers.
It was shipped overseas way understrength in Feb, 1942, to Australia, then sent
to New Caledonia.  It's 40 pilots had 45 P-400s delivered to them, all neatly
packed in crates, but with no manuals or assembly equipment, and no ground
crews.  The kids spend the next weeks unloading the planes, dragging them to
the airstrip, figuring out how to assemble them and doing that.  Only then
could they, for the very first time, fly a P-39.  About the time they had got
the planes put together, learned how to navigate the pattern with them and
land, they were sent to Guadalcanal, where the Japanese Navy's Zeros ate them
alive. Big surprise.".......

Now if we looked at the experience of the Flying Tigers flying the P-40B you'd see an "inferior" plane flown by seasoned pilots to great effect. The P-39 is clearly superior to the P-40B....

Now on the positive side of the ledger we can start with Bob Hoovers comments in "forever flying" on the P-39.  We'll follow that up with comments on the P-39 in US service elsewhere which were all positive....

Then we'll look at US deployment which continued thruout 1944 in frontline combat roles with no negative comments I can find from ETO/MTO...

Finally look at the service record in russia where 75%+ of the P-39's ended up.

I support any comment I make with unbiased 411 from any and all sources I can find and when possible link said source. I find most take the course you have here. Comment without substance backed up by nothing but vaque recollections of what someone else "said" without regard to context or verification.

All you need to do in order to understand the P-39's potential is read the comments from Grislawski and match it with the units and operations he's talking about. The P-39 turned the tide of the airwar on the Eastern Front...thats simply a statistical and historical fact.

Since this is where the P-39 was actually flown as a fighter in numbers by experienced pilots it stands as the best point of reference. Are you saying the P-39 didnt actually score those victories? Or that the german pilots were 2nd rate? Or what....

Just totally disagree with you on this one buddy....

[humble]

The USAAF needed fighters with range, and the P-39 simply didn't carry enough
fuel internally to be useful for much of the war.
Also, the old axiom has it that the bombers deterimine the altitude at which
fighters must fight.  In the SWPA, the Japanese sent their bombers over
generally at between 18,000 and 22,000 ft., sometimes substantially higher.
While the P-39 could get that high, it took it a long time to do so, so the
opportunities for high altitude intercepts were few.  Effectively, it was all
done by about 17,000 ft. It was at its best below about 12,000 ft.  Considering
that the mountains in New Guinea rose to over 14,000 ft., and in the early days
of the conflict both sides were going back and forth over those mountains to
get at each other, the P-39 was at an instant disadvantage.  Fortunately for
P-39 drivers, the Japanese bombers had a habit of dropping into a shallow
descent as they approached their objective, so they could increase speed and
so, presumably, reduce the risks associated with AAA and also complicate
fighter intercept, as well as increase accuracy by bombing at a lower altitude.
 This practice, however, often put them and their escorts into prime 'Cobra
fighting space.
The Soviets fought over terrain much like that of Iowa, were based close to the
enemy, and the Germans chose to send their bombers over at medium and low
altitudes.  So none of the factors that worked against the P-39 in New Guinea
were present on the Eastern Front.
Also worth noting.  An RAF Duxford comparison test of a captured Me 109E and
P-39C showed the Bell outperforming the 109 in every category except rate of
climb when below 15,000 ft.  The P-39 could easily out-turn the 109--it took
the 'Cobra less than 720 degrees to get on the tail of an Me that was planted
on its tail.
So the P-39 should have had no trouble dealing with the 109 at the altitudes
common in the East.
In the SWPA, however, the P-39 not only had to fight at altitudes above where
it was best, it had to contend with fighters that were much, much more
maneuverable than it was.  P-39 squadrons routinely stripped off the wing guns
to get more performance, and some even ripped out the armor plating (which
weighed about 750 pounds) to get yet more performance, prefering to reduce
their susceptibility to battle damage (as the Japanese did) at the expense of
vulnerability to it.
That said, the P-39 was not a failure in New Guinea.  The two groups equipped
with it--the 8th and 35th--performed quite effectively.  The two squadrons of
the 8FG that relieved RAAF 75 Squadron at Port Moresby at the end of March,
1942, were the only fighter force available to stop the Japanese air onslaught.
 This they did, although at great cost.

[humble]

{As an aside,  Prof. Williamson Murray, who used to teach at the Air War
College, has said that the Luftwaffe had become a second-rate air force by the
end of 1943 at the latest, largely due to the atttrition warfare on the eastern
front.  The P-39 must have played a  part, perhaps a significant one, in
attriting the Luftwaffe; at least the Soviets, in negotiating the Third
Washington Protocol, which covered Lend-Lease to the USSR from Jan. thru June,
1943, asked for a staggering 500 P-39s a month to be delivered to them. They
had been using them (and P-400s) in combat for some time by then, and if the
airplane wasn't doing the job for them, they would have rejected it.  They
certainly rejected the P-40 (which plane the USAAF in the SWPA thought was a
much better airplane than the P-39--again, different air force, different
needs)}.

It's interesting to note that the rate of climb of the P-39, which everybody in
the USAAF pissed and moaned about, was actually not that bad.  The D and F
models (identical except for props, one electric, one hydraulic) could beat
both the P47C and P-51A to 25,000 ft.--and take *half* the time the P-40E took.
 A P-39Q could get to 25,000 ft. in about 10.5 minutes, almost six  minutes
quicker than the P-51D. (Of course, the Q couldn't fly from London to Berlin
and back.)
One of the reasons the P-39 got a bad rap in the SWPA was that when it was
initially deployed fairly early in 1942, what was desperately needed was a
super-fast climbing interceptor, because the best warning of an incoming air
raid was about five minutes.  What was needed was something like the CW-21
(something with its rate of climb, anyway).  The fact was that no fighter would
have been able to respond effectively under those circumstances. But since the
P-39 was what was on hand, it got damned by frustrated pilots struggling uphill
at 160 mph while the Japanese, thousands of feet above, winged over and howled
down on them.
It's worth noting that, despite the disadvantages they fought under, the 8FG,
which took over from RAAF 75 Squadron at Moresby, suffered fewer losses with
its P-39s than did 75 Squadron with its P-40s.  And it should not be forgotten
that the P-39 was, in fact, not a failure in those desperate early days in New
Guinea.  The 8th (and later the 35th) and its Airacobras gave the JNAF's Tainan
Air Wing (and later the 2AW) and its  Zeros a well-pulped and very bloody nose.
 Air raids on Morseby tapered off from two a day at the end of April to one or
two a week by the end of June.  Nobody else was shooting at the Japs, so it
must have been the P-39s that discouraged them.

[Major Biggles]

krusty, i hate to act like an arse like this, but perhaps it's best to leave this one alone for a while and cool off, you can't be, and aren't always right

[humble]

Here are two little excerpts on guys who flew the P-39....

Re the P-39 and the New Guinea P-39 pilots:  Sakai would have come up against
the 8th and 35th fighter groups.  The 8th was first in combat with Sakai and
his buddies, tangling with them from the end of March, 1942.  Among these boys
was  Charlie Falletta, assigned to the 36th fighter squadron,  who rose to
become a colonel.  He is credited with 16 air-to-air kills during the war, the
first six of these while flying the P-39.  The Bell boys had some rough fights
with the Tainan Kokutai in the April-May-June period, and had enough respect
for their foes to say they flew "Double Zeros"--each Japanese pilot was twice
as good as he had any right to be.  It's interesting to note, glancing at their
combat reports, that on numerous occasions Zeros dived away from them at speeds
in excess of 400 mph.  Apparently the Sakai and his pals had no fears about
diving the Zero.  It was still not a great tactic against the P-39, which was
an excellent diver, and should circumstances allow (no other Zeros making a
nuisance of themselves), a P-39 could pursue and overhaul any diving Zero.  The
problem, of course, came when the 'Cobra caught the Zero.  If he didn't nail
him with his first burst, the P-39 driver was in deep doo-doo, his best hope to
blow on by and keep going.
Col. Falletta liked the P-39 a great deal, and believed it more than a match
for a Zero at its prime fighting altitude, which he put at between 8,000 and
12,000 ft., which is a pretty limited envelope.
A combat report of John "Shady" Lane, 35FG 39FS, gives you a sense of the
airfighting going on in those days, and the attitude of the kids fighting it:
"One definite, one probable, one damaged, one possible, twenty impossible and
hell knows how many I didn't see."

Here comments by Welsh in some context...

Some pilots didn't mind the engine behind them at all. When asked by a
journalist what aspect of the P-39 he liked, 7 victory ace George Welch
said, "Well, it's got 12 hundred pounds of Allison armor plate." When Welch
inquired as to when his squadron (the 36th FS) would receive P-38's, he
was told, "When we run out of P-39's." The net result was that Welch would
bail out of or ditch every P-39 that so much as hinted of a mechanical
problem. Soon, this became the practice of the entire squadron. Any
excuse was used to get rid of an Airacobra. This drove the squadron
brass insane. Yet somehow, the 5th AF kept scrounging up more P-39's.
Finally, in mid May of 1943, Welch was transfered to the 80th FS who
flew the P-38G. Within 12 weeks, George shot down 9 enemy fighters
along with 2 probables and several more damaged. He was shipped
to Sydney with a serious case of malaria, never to return to combat.

Welch was discharged in early 1944 and went to work for North American
Aviation as a test pilot. It's too that bad George is no longer with us. He,
more than anyone else, could certainly compare the P-38 to the P-51.
We do know that he thought very highly of both types. I suspect that
he would be quite content to fly either type into combat.

My regards,
C.C. Jordan

[Kweassa]

Damn those Welsh!

 
 

[Yoshimbo]

f34r t3h "Iron Dog"!



I liek t3h p39D in AOTP, rly good fun fights between me(in p30D) and the ki84.
37mm = bane of bombers
4x.30cal + .50cal =  paper shredder

piece o' watermelon above 15k, though we managed;)

[Debonair]

krusty characteristic has made the otherwise tedious weekly P-39 wishlist thread interesting & informative, so it is possible that maybe you should [/b]not actually pick up and read a history book someday instead of making incorrect statements and unsubstantiated opinions all the time. [/I]

[Bronk]

Originally posted by Debonair
krusty characteristic has made the otherwise tedious weekly P-39 wishlist thread interesting & informative, so it is possible that maybe you should not actually pick up and read a history book someday instead of making incorrect statements and unsubstantiated opinions all the time. [/I] [/B]

Bronk

[B@tfinkV]

so what if krusty is wrong.


i don't see many of you others who know any thing worth knowing.



and bronk, your sig alone shows you have a fetish for jumping on krusty whenever the chance arises.


You bunch of 'gang tough talkers' could have just plainly said ' youre wrong krusty' but you have to take it to the next level and try to make him into the village idiot, simply becuase he is incorrect about something he thinks he knew.



why don't you all grow up and go find a small baby to take some candy from?

[TimRas]

Some VVS speed curves by Tilt. P-39 was not exactly a "Monster" when compared to Soviets' own midwar fighters, the Yak-9 and La-5F.



As for claims that the "German units were often under orders to avoid combat with P-39 equipped units", I would like to see some substantial evidence. (And also for similar claims about Yak-3.)

The armor plating of the P-39 did not weight even near 750lb, it was less than 200lb.

[humble]

All you need to do is look for it, you can read between the lines in accounts like Grislawski's and find "official" mention elsewhere. As mentioned in one of the clips above the prevailing line of thought amonst most military historians is that the luftwaffe "died" over the eastern front in 1943. THe attrition rate amongst seasoned pilots grew expodentially. Comments like Grislawskis support this pretty clearly. I dont think the orders were just specific to the P-39. They were a comination of the plane and units that had them which were the best in the VVS.

The Yak9D&T would be the best yaks available and the evidence clearly suggests the russians viewed the p-39 as superior. Otherwise they would have equipped guards units with the yaks or La-5's. The la-5FN was roughly a mid 43 plane from what I can tell. Yet at that time the russians single biggest demand (lend lease)was for more P-39's....which many top aces (and units) flew thru 1944. your numbers on the armour are just wrong. The P-39D had 245 lbs of additional armour. This was in addition to the original amount. This is pretty typical of what I see here with regard to inaccurate "statements of fact".

[Bronk]

Originally posted by B@tfinkV
so what if krusty is wrong.

Absolutely nothing wrong with it. But try telling him he is wrong and see what you get.


i don't see many of you others who know any thing worth knowing.





and bronk, your sig alone shows you have a fetish for jumping on krusty whenever the chance arises.

OMG if jumped on Krusty's post as much as he jumps in others I'd have a full time job on my hands. So please batty do a little search before posting this tripe. Ohh and my sig  is a little reminder that no one is  correct all the time.  Seeing how someone didn't head that warning maybe it should be a bigger warning.


You bunch of 'gang tough talkers' could have just plainly said ' youre wrong krusty' but you have to take it to the next level and try to make him into the village idiot, simply becuase he is incorrect about something he thinks he knew.


Sorry What happened was he was told he was incorrect and couldn't let it go. So he kept the argument going and took it to the "next level". I don't think Krusty is an idiot far from it. He is probably one of the most book smart people who post on this BBS. He is also a very fun person to fight with and against in game.

why don't you all grow up and go find a small baby to take some candy from?

 


WOW you think that little of him comparing him to a defenseless, uneducated baby?

Cmon bat.. AC stats were posted humble commented on Russian use of it and the K man jumped on it faster than flies on ... well you know.  This while not backing up his critique of Humbles post. He got called on it and couldn't let it go. Thats it end of story.

For the record, if I didn't look stuff up. How could have I have added to the P-63 usage that Krusty asked about. As a matter of fact it was from the same article as humble found. Finding the P-39 articles is not that much harder once again cuz i looked for em.

Lesson to all, look before you leap.



Bronk