Hum... I think I should have said who Eric is.
Eric Shilling, WWII and pre WWII combat fighter pilot, Flight Leader with the Flying Tigers.
What he said is from his view from the cockpit of the plane in combat, and through testing a lot of WWII birds.
He got to fly a bunch of aircraft, including one of my favorite obscure ones , the C.W. Daemon.
Quote from Karnak :
That ignores an awful lot of what is relevant in the pacific war.
1. 25,000 ft is a meaningless altitude to compare speeds at as the pacific war rarely saw combat altitudes about 10,000 or 15,000 ft.
End Quote.
Eric said:
An additional fact is that most combat, especially in the pacific,
was done below 20,000 ft, since the Japanese bomber usually flew
below this altitude. Therefore, for the Japanese to defend their
bomber against attacking fighter combat was actually around 15,000
ft.
So both of you agree. In another forum he gives
“ The AVG's H81A-2 was 355/360 mph at 14,500 feet compared to the H81-A2's speed of 340 mph.”
Quote from Karnak :
4. It ignores the typical tactic of turn fighting that was employed at first, a tactic that the Zero will dominate.
In short, if that piece of historical revisionism were accurate, we would have slaughtered the Zero without breaking a sweat.
End Quote
Eric said:
Japanese pilots were taught the antiquated importance of
Dogfighting, or turning combat as used in WW I. Unfortunately our
military pilots were taught the same thing, dogfighting. But the
Americans didn't have the equipment with which to be successful.
When the Japanese encountered Chennault's hit and run tactics, they
were at loss. It wasn't in their book, and they didn't know how to
handle the situation. Even Tokyo Rose complained bitterly on one
of her English language broadcast, saying that the Americans were
coward and afraid to stay and fight...
End Quote
Henning (HoHun) said:
Certainly the P-40 had regions at the fringe of the envelope where it was greatly superior to the Zero. However, the truth is that the location of these regions was unknown to both sides when the war began, and in the middle of the envelope, as well as on the slow and the high fringes, the Zero soundly beat the P-40. What's more, US tactics at the beginning of the war were obsolete and inadequate for modern fighter combat, and effectively, the P-40 was unable to win over the Zero before that latters weaknesses were discovered and the development of better tactics was accomplished.
End Quote.
In another posting Eric said:
It doesn't take combat experience to know your own airplane, nor
that of your enemies. This information was handed to us on a silver
platter by Chennault.
End Quote.
There was a lot known about the Zero, it's just that many did not believe it
From Eric in the same post:
These figures were obtained by numerous tests conducted by test
pilots who had tested flown both airplanes.
Examples of comparative roll rates.
Speed Zero's roll rate P-40B's roll rate
200 mph 55 degree/sec 95 degree/sec
240 mph 45 degree/sec 105 degrees/sec
280 mph 40 degree/sec 110 degree/sec
320 mph 38 degree/sec 105 degree/sec
360 mph 20 degree/sec 100 degree/sec
400 mph Zero can't roll 90 Degree/sec
Comment: The P-40B was 15 mph faster than the P-40C it also had a
higher roll rate than the "C."
End Quote.
I would not call the 200 to 400mph range "the fringe of the envelope"
bolillo_loco, GRUNHERZ, and Karnak ask about speed and climb in 1941/42.
At
http://www.p-40.com/ the powerplant of the A.V.G. P-40 is discussed.
Someone at Allison remembered that they had a warehouse of "off-dimension " parts, that didn't meet either US Army or British contract spec. but were otherwise sound. The proposal was that by hand fitting and matching and repairing these parts, suitably engines for the order could be provided.
When tested these engines developed more horse power and used less fuel than the standard US military , or British engines. This supplied the needed 100 engines and the balance came from a later production run. A follow up on these engines that were made out of hand fitted matched parts were later found to have a better field record than the standard engines.
These engines were built to Allison Specifications 145A, rather than Spec 120D and identified as the V-1710-C15A. There were no military designation for these engines.
It is estimated that in the heat of the battle or disengaging from enemy fighters, some engines had drawn between 1600 and 1700 Horse power. (This would give a power to weight ration of better than even the vaunted Zero had.)
At one time on a photo recon flight, while circling my objective, apparently I had run into my own prop wash, but at the moment thought it was A A fire. I pushed the throttle forward but when I settled down I saw that I pulling 50 in Hg, and quickly reduced it to 40 inches. According to the Horse power chart was 1380 HP.
The AVG's H81A-2 was 355/360 mph at 14,500 feet compared to the H81-A2's speed of 340 mph.
End Quote (some editing)
