Rockets for the P-40N

[Devil 505]

Seems rockets were available and used.

https://www.worldwarphotos.info/gallery/usa/aircrafts-2-3/p-40-warhawk/p-40n-is-indicative-of-the-26th-fs-51st-fg/

[oboe]

+1 absolutely.   Maybe more people will fly it and learn what a sweet ship it is.

[Ciaphas]

+1


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[EagleDNY]

+1 why not?

[JimmyD3]

+1

[Krusty]

So where's the proof that it was used?

I've done a fair bit of P-40 research over the years and especially some for some AH skins that got wiped with the 3D model upgrade. In all my 10+ years of looking at P-40s for historical references and general aviation history, this is the FIRST and ONLY picture I've ever seen of a P-40 carrying rocket tubes.

All I see is a picture. An interesting picture, no doubt. Where's the context? Where's any text describing its use? How often was it used? Not often, from all the other non-rocket-carrying P-40s I've seen.

You can't take 1 picture and say "They were available and used!!" because there's nothing else with it. Was it just a mockup? Did it ever fly? Was it flown in non-combat practice runs then discarded? I know that those tubes were hated on just about every plane that ever carried them and that P-40Ns are only ever shown flying combat sorties with bombs under the wings (so far).


Need more info.

[bustr]

Here is a crumb to start following.

'Rockets for Tengchong' by Roy Grinnell -
1st Lt. Clifford Long's ferocious September, 1944 support of Chinese forces in the liberation of Tengchong. This artwork illustrates his critical rocket attack in his P-40N fighter/bomber against the heavily fortified former British Customs House that Japanese forces had turned into a strategic strong point.

http://www.aviationarthangar.com/avartharofor.html
http://teamtruth.org/worldwarii/rockets-tengchong

[Krusty]

I saw that too, but didn't really count an artist's painting as a reference especially when it didn't elaborate much on the details. I did expand some search words to include china and 1944, though. I came across this:



https://books.google.com/books?id=WcWnCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=P-40+rocket+use+in+china+1944&source=bl&ots=lgVRcwFe7B&sig=oWQ3BURD-p11-a8cGsOH-nM_nQM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjur5f-tPbXAhXoQpoKHeM8A0UQ6AEINzAF#v=onepage&q=P-40%20rocket%20use%20in%20china%201944&f=false


Though it is only a brief blurb and it's only a training loadout with dummy bombs.

[bustr]

If this is that important to you, contact Roy Grinnell, he has too many associations to honorable associations to be selling lies. The pilot in question has been interviewed recently and you can find that interview. So maybe that influenced Grinnell to do some research about an otherwise lost unique moment in history. If you look around there appears to be a screen shot from IL2 with Lt. Clifford's P-40N with rocket tubes so I suspect it did take place in China 1944.
 
Contact info from Grinnell's gallery. 866-208-0888 Call Us Toll Free OR Email us at buywrbonds@aol.com

Roy has won numerous art awards in both aviation art and western/Native American art. As a western artist, he was invited to join the Cowboy Artists of America. Roy's original paintings are displayed in museums and private collections including The Museum of Flight - Kenneth H. Dahlberg Center for Military Aviation History, Seattle, WA; CAF Airpower Museum - Roy Grinnell Art Gallery, Midland, TX; The George Lucas Collection, The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation; National Museum of the US Air Force - The National Aviation Hall of Fame, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH; National Naval Aviation Museum, NAS Pensacola, FL (where Roy was the proud recipient of the R. G. Smith Award for Excellence in Naval Aviation Art in 1999); The Pearce Museum at Navarro College, Corsicana, TX; Normandie-Niemen Memorial Museum, Les Andelys, France; Polish Military Museum, Warsaw, Poland; Sangre de Cristo Arts and Conference Center, Pueblo, CO; Booth Western Art Museum, Cartersville, GA; Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum, Cheyenne, WY; Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, Albuquerque, NM and others.

[Krusty]

It's about context. There currently isn't any. It's not about the artist's integrity, whether well intended or not many artists make mistakes. It's not a photograph. It never existed like that, it's just a piece of artwork. I actually do have a bit of a background in history and the retelling of it. Schama's Dead Certainties was a required reading for me.

I think the fact that they were running a training run to practice with them means they intended to use them. On the other hand, one use in the entire war doesn't really indicate that it was regular, or available, or used anywhere.

That, ultimately, is the important part to me. The scope of their use. A training mockup? A few practice runs on a target field? Actual combat missions? Repeated sorties? Surely it was as rare a loadout for the P-40 as they come. My questions revolve around their use, not on how one was painted. The photo is a better resource. All my searching from today only yields that one. And IL2's fanciful and unhistoric loadouts don't really enter into the equation IMO.

[bustr]

You are quibbling to avoid contacting that source. Send him an e-mail, it will probably be a story along the lines of a field mod during a desperate moment in that theater of WW2. And he will be able to give you sources. From his awards list, he has probably become highly proficient in accessing WW2 documents and interviewed Lt. Clifford. Anything else, by the size of the hammer you just pulled out, you want to stomp everyone in this conversation into conformity and show who knows best.

[Ack-Ack]

That, ultimately, is the important part to me. The scope of their use. A training mockup? A few practice runs on a target field? Actual combat missions? Repeated sorties? Surely it was as rare a loadout for the P-40 as they come. My questions revolve around their use, not on how one was painted. The photo is a better resource. All my searching from today only yields that one. And IL2's fanciful and unhistoric loadouts don't really enter into the equation IMO.

Not sure about regular operational combat use, but the P-40N was used in the CBI to test the 4.5" rockets in combat operations.  In 1943, the USAAF sent 4.5" rockets and launchers to the CBI.  After months of training, the first operational combat use of the 4.5" rocket on the P-40N took place on March 4, 1944 on Hainan Island.  P-40Ns from the 74th FS/23rd FG (8 planes) attacked the Japanese airfield, causing considerable damage to the airfield and planes/vehicles on the base.  Out of the 8 P-40Ns using the 4.5" rockets, only 4 of the planes were able to fire off the rockets, the other four suffered either mechanical difficulties or pilot error.

Rocket Test Program

I'm guessing the tests were a success as the program then expanded to putting the 4.5 rockets on the B-25, though a Popular Mechanics article on the use of rockets on planes ("The Rockets Red Glare", September 1944 issue) claimed the tests on the P-40 were considered a failure.

Popular Mechanices - Sept 1944

Whether or not the use of rockets (either 4.5" or 5" HVARS) on the P-40N was widespread and continued after the combat operational tests with the 74th FS, I have no idea, I couldn't find anything that really mentioned that.  All I could find were mentions of the tests back on the States and those conducted by the 74th FS.

This is a picture of one of the 74th FS planes having the 4.5" launcher tubes installed under the wings.


As for using art work as proof, well, not such a good idea as a lot of those paintings aren't the most accurate portrayals of events and tend to be over embellished or inaccurate.

[Krusty]

Ack-Ack, most informative! Thank you.

I read of the testing and that other planes adopted it much more readily, but this has satisfied my curiousity as to the scope of their use.

Very limited, but actually used a few times.

[Vraciu]

Now everybody shake hands.   

[bustr]

Looks like enough info to place this one down near the bottom of the Hitech consider list about 1000 entries below the G.55, Beau and Whirlwind.