P-40 a bit under powered?

[Motherland]

I don't think he has that one anymore.

I laughed my bellybutton off the first time I read that. I couldn't even think of a response, I don't think.

[Larry]

Pay very close attention to what you watch on the History Channel and you will find that, often, their accuracy is.........suspect. 

Quick example...show on the AVG...said their P40b's were armed with 20mm.

The P-51 packed six 50mm guns.


Or the one show that had P51s fighting 109Es in 1943 but said the 109 packed two MGs and one cannon in the nose.

[Karnak]

They use gun camera footage from wherever and whenever.  I have seen shots of a Spitfire Mk I firing its guns, camera tight to the wing, on a show about P-47s that never mentioned the Spitfire.

[ColKLink]

YOU'RE KIDDING ME??????????? The p-40 has no power???? the p-40 is slow?????? Man my life is over.......kills in a p-40 must feel good though....although I cant recall one

[Boxboy]

Hmmm WideWing why not on a TV show?  I find nothing unusual in the utube video, the P-40's in that time frame were not going up against the zero but rather Mapes if I recall correctly.

TV often gets it right for the time frame discussed but then tends to make "general" statements which don't hold true over the course of the war.

I did find your info VERY interesting none the less.

[Shifty]

the P-40's in that time frame were not going up against the zero but rather Mapes if I recall correctly.

You mean KI-27 Nates I'm guessing?

[Widewing]

You mean KI-27 Nates I'm guessing?

(Image removed from quote.)

Yes, Ki-27s were the predominant fighters in China/Burma at the end of 1941. However, they fared very badly against the 80 mph faster AVG Tomahawks. First generation Ki-43s were soon introduced. However, they weren't much faster than the Nate and suffered the same problem. The Tomahawks could disengage at will. Zeros were never in combat against the AVG. Being Naval fighters, they were not deployed in that theater. Early examples of the Zero were combat tested against the Chinese, but this was many months before the AVG deployed. Besides, the AVG was undergoing training in Burma until the Pearl Harbor attack. They had to learn the Tomahawks and Chennault's tactics.


My regards,

Widewing

[RTHolmes]

the P-40 sounds like a hairdryer

*ducks*

[Boxboy]

LOL ok Nates at my age I forget why I went into a room in my house 

[toonces3]

I'm not a bigbobCH fan, but I'm going to throw in with him on this one.

I have absolutely no performance numbers to actually back up this statement.  But, I too feel that the P-40's performance is less than spectacular compared to what the 'history channels' say about it.

Yes, there are some folks in AH2 that can make the plane absolutely sing and dance.  Dedalos comes to mind, but there are plenty of others.  But for a normal, middle of the pack player, the P-40 doesn't do anything amazing compared to plenty of other planes in around the same timeframe in the planeset.

I've always chalked it up to the fact that after flying LW hotrods all the time, the P-40 will necessarily feel underpowered in comparison.

But, again, I have no evidence of how its numbers stack up to the real deal.

[Bronk]

I'm not a bigbobCH fan, but I'm going to throw in with him on this one.

I have absolutely no performance numbers to actually back up this statement. 

Compare it to the p-39 or the f4f/fm2.

[bj229r]

I'm not a bigbobCH fan, but I'm going to throw in with him on this one.

I have absolutely no performance numbers to actually back up this statement.  But, I too feel that the P-40's performance is less than spectacular compared to what the 'history channels' say about it.

Yes, there are some folks in AH2 that can make the plane absolutely sing and dance.  Dedalos comes to mind, but there are plenty of others.  But for a normal, middle of the pack player, the P-40 doesn't do anything amazing compared to plenty of other planes in around the same timeframe in the planeset.

I've always chalked it up to the fact that after flying LW hotrods all the time, the P-40 will necessarily feel underpowered in comparison.

But, again, I have no evidence of how its numbers stack up to the real deal.

When it flies against nada but D3a's (the equivalent of it's opposition) and Betty's, it does pretty well. There's a reason it was relegated to the back-water areas by '43, the same reason they built the P38....P47....P51

[Bubbajj]

A P40 with alt to work with is a dangerous machine. It can drop flaps at will and will stall turn with the best of em. It will turn on a dime if done right. That, added to the fact that every red icon within ID range will run at you with wild abandon expecting an easy kill makes it one sneaky bird. Like Mr. Eastwood said, "A man's gotta know his limitations". Well flown, a P40 can be a killer.

[Megalodon]

Pay very close attention to what you watch on the History Channel and you will find that, often, their accuracy is.........suspect. 

Quick example...show on the AVG...said their P40b's were armed with 20mm.

 I believe the C or D did have a mount for the 20mm's in the wings although never poroduced at the factory, it may be possible to have a few field modded? The mount was removed in the E model.

"The radiator was increased in size and moved forward, 175 pounds of armour was added, the fuselage guns were deleted, and two 0.50 inch machine guns with new hydraulic chargers were installed in each wing. There were additional provisions in the wings for two 20 mm cannon, but these were never actually used"

" An order dated February 18, 1941 increased the armament to six guns in the wings, and subsequent aircraft equipped with this armament were designated P-40E (Model 87-B2). The cannon mounts (which were never used in any case) were deleted."

?
H81: P-40/P-40A
H81B: P-40B and P-40C
H81A-1: Tomahawk I, Tomahawk IA, Tomahawk IB
H81A-2: Tomahawk IIA and Tomahawk IIB
H81A-3: AVG Tomahawks


"During 1941, 100 RAF Tomahawk IIBs were released and diverted to China and served with the American Volunteer Group (AVG), the famous "Flying Tigers". Curtiss company records list them as Model H81-A3. The Tomahawk IIB was more or less equivalent to the P-40C, but some sources list the Flying Tiger Tomahawks as being equivalent to the P-40B. As previously mentioned, there are some discrepancies between Curtiss records matching Tomahawk designations to RAF serials and to equivalent US Army P-40 models, so there is confusion on this point. Erik Shilling, who was a member of the AVG and who was also a flight leader and an engineering officer for the group, maintains that the aircraft with the AVG were actually export models of the P-40B and not the C (after all, he was there and he ought to know). He says that the aircraft did not have the equipment to carry the external 52 gallon drop tank, nor were they equipped with bomb shackles. In addition all of the fuel tanks had external self-sealing material, not internally mounted sealing material as in the "C" model. Also the Model "C" had armour plate in the front, ahead of the pilot, installed on the firewall between the two 50 calibre's, the AVG's planes did not."

[Krusty]

When discussing how the P-40E is modeled in-game, please consider it's actually OVER-powered, as-is. I think it was WW or somebody else that pointed out the power and climb curves for our in-game P-40E more closely match those of a P-40K (or was it L?), and that the real P-40E did not have WEP like ours does.