F5F or F4F. Did the U.S. Navy make the right choice?

[marathag]

Hawk 75... pfui.

It is not fast enough, does not have the service ceiling or firepower to meet an A6M on anywhere near equal terms. It does not even have corner turn to stay with a Zeke in the horizontal. Don't let the light wing loading fool you.

Yet Lt Rasmussen was able to shoot one on Val on Dec 7, got in an 11 on 4 furball, and I believe he took off with no ammo for his .50s and then had problems with anothe set running away on being charged.

He landed after being shotup, with over 500 holes.
Of the 29 Japanese aircraft shot down, 10 were from fighters and four were from the few P-36 that made it into the air. Percentage wise, more successful than the P-40B

 

[Errolwi]

... Even the RAF and RAAF had some pilots make ace in them. But nobody could dogfight a Zero and survive, even Spitfire pilots who tried learned the hard way you couldn't do it.

Most notably Geoff Fisken, a RNZAF pilot in an RAF squadron.

 

[Zheng He]

Note the Finns also ripped out a bunch of the armor THEY had specifically required to be built into the airframe in order to improve the performance and also replaced the 'standard' .30 cal machine gun, (again something they'd specifically requested) in favor of another .50 cal for more punch. The Navy and Marines never did anything like that so of course their performance was worse. Against the Japanese the difference would have been marginal at best but it would have been something.

The Finnish planes were also totally de-navalized - no hook, no life raft, and as you said, some of the armor taken out. Their mechanics also did field modifications on the engines to improve reliability and the design's tendency to overheat was not as big of a problem in Scandinavia as it was in the South Pacific and SE Asia for obvious reasons. Dutch pilots in the DEI also did okay with their Buffaloes by flying with half loads of fuel and ammunition. Ok for point defense missions but that's a heck of a compromise to ask a pilot to make.

 

[Driftless]

All of these points about the aircraft of that late 30's timeframe shows the short "sell by" date for their relative technologies. They went from being hot stuff to merely adequate to obsolescent to obsolete in the space of a year or two. Some planes, like the Buffalo and Seversky P-35 passed through the adequate to obsolete state in shorter times.

 

[Decatur]

Let me ask this: Would adopting the Skyrocket instead of the Wildcat have shortened the war, and if so, how? Since I'm not seeing how adopting the F5F would actually end the war earlier, I'd say the USN made the right call by going with the F4F.

 

[RanulfC]

Also, by the time the XB-36 was actually flying (much less by the time the B-36 entered service), the primary weapon type was nuclear weapons, which were at the time and for a while afterwards very large and heavy and so needed a very large and heavy aircraft to carry them. Building a ton of Mixmasters may just have ended up with the United States not really having a nuclear delivery mechanism (especially given how big and heavy the first-generation hydrogen bombs were). Nuclear weapons were also (not necessarily accurately) perceived to change the logic of strategic bombing to focus on an apocalyptic assault that destroys the enemy in a single blow rather than a series of attacks to gradually wear them down. Under this logic, attrition simply doesn't matter, because the first attack ends the war, and you just have to optimize for dealing the heaviest blow possible on the first strike. You can say that this is bad logic, but it's not really crazy logic.

Well the XB-36 was designed around and predicated on a large number of conventional bombs per bomber and hundreds of bombers flying directly from the US to Germany and back but yes, by the time it actually flew (1948) Atomic Weapons were the waver of the future. Thing was the 'logic' was actually still the same only using atomic bombs (one bomb, one city and no pretense of 'accuracy') but with fewer bombers needed to destroy the target. It was essentially still 'attrition' warfare on a more destructive scale and yes while everyone assumed that the enemy would surrender before too long those doing the actual planning assumed it would take more than one or two attacks at best. After all OTHER than being able to flatten a city with a single bomb we'd already found out that while such destruction reduces an enemies ability to fight it doesn't neccessarily reduce his WILL to do so and that's a problem.

It was rather public perception that even from early on a "nuclear" war would be quick and decisive but the people who had to plan and fight such a war still saw it as basically attritional till around the mid-70s or so. And if it could be kept 'limited' (which was admittedly highly doubtful as ICBMs came on-line) it would still be so just with higher stakes per mission/strike. Yes the large, early H-Bombs would be a problem but note they were rapidly down-sized to something a B-47, (a "medium" bomber) could carry so again it's not a clear need for a heavy bomber if you can get a medium one to do the job and grant (A2A refueling) it the range needed.

I've got some notes on a short AH on the US having issues with the implosion design and deciding to build more gun-type bombs to use against Japan. Oddly enough they had problems with the B-29 as well and the workhorse of the Pacific is the B/A-42 with in-flight refueling and so the LIttleboy types are carried by specially modified B-42s on a raid on Rabaul to demonstrate the power of the US's atomic weapons. (Nuke versus the Yamato!)

Randy

 

[Zheng He]

All of these points about the aircraft of that late 30's timeframe shows the short "sell by" date for their relative technologies. They went from being hot stuff to merely adequate to obsolescent to obsolete in the space of a year or two. Some planes, like the Buffalo and Seversky P-35 passed through the adequate to obsolete state in shorter times.

Add to that the Fairey Battle, Bristol Blenheim, and TBD Devastator - planes that when first fielded were among the best but quickly fell behind. The other issue is the lack of growth potential in some of the airframes. The Buffalo had very little whereas even the Wildcat saw some improvements in performance with the later FM-2 variants.

 

[RanulfC]

Let me ask this: Would adopting the Skyrocket instead of the Wildcat have shortened the war, and if so, how? Since I'm not seeing how adopting the F5F would actually end the war earlier, I'd say the USN made the right call by going with the F4F.

Shorten? Probably not but it may have had some more local effects. Going back to the Wake example, 4 F4F's beat the heck out of the Japanese in the air and later during the invasion at sea. Imagine dropping some 500lb bombs instead of a couple of 100lbs on some of the transports and lighter ships. More damage to the initial raid would delay the second invasion so that the relief force might get there first. (And keep in mind they brought the reinforcments but the actual mission was to try and evacuate the island) And as noted the Marine squadron now has F5Fs instead of F2A's which would make a difference come that second invasion attempt. (Though frankly my read says the F2As were to cover the embarkation and evacuation and do as much damage as possible but they weren't going to 'bother' retriving the planes if it came down to it only the pilots and personnel. Being equiped with the F5F likely makes this a bit different proposition)

Part of me wants to explore the idea of using the F5F in more roles than just a fighter which quite frankly the F4F simply can't do no matter what. So imagine if Saratoga goes to Guadalcanal with 24 F5Fs in two "figher" squadrons, 24 F5F's configured as "fighter/bombers" capable of dive bombing in two squadrons and a single 12 aircraft F5F squadron configured for torpedo attack. Given proper time and training your 'real' numbers are vastly different depending on what the mission is called for. Incoming air attack? Put 48 fighers out to intercept and interdict, 12 fighters for close CAP. Supporting the ground troops? 12 fighters and 36 fighter/bombers. 12 fighters for CAP. Going hunting? 12 CAP fighters, 24 bombers and 24 torpedo aircraft outbound. And keep in mind once slicked up from the main mission these are as capable of defensive/offensive A2A as the dedicated fighters are. (Probably shy on ammo though)

Sure once the F6F makes an apperance you'd want to switch the 'dedicated' fighters over to using them and maybe the F4U but that still gives you around 36 "general purpose" aircraft that can be whatever you need for the stike package. What kind of a difference would that make at other battles of the Pacific?

Randy

 

[Workable Goblin]

After all OTHER than being able to flatten a city with a single bomb we'd already found out that while such destruction reduces an enemies ability to fight it doesn't neccessarily reduce his WILL to do so and that's a problem.

At a certain point it simply doesn't matter what the "will" is. That point is reached fairly quickly if you have enough nuclear weapons, which is why the Air Force always wanted enough nuclear weapons to just pulverize everything in the first attack, right from the 1940s onwards. The Soviets might "will" to attack the United States after that, but with no factories and all their transportation centers destroyed they aren't actually going to be able to do very much.

It was essentially still 'attrition' warfare on a more destructive scale and yes while everyone assumed that the enemy would surrender before too long those doing the actual planning assumed it would take more than one or two attacks at best.

"Attritional" in the sense that McPherson was using it doesn't mean taking "more than one or two attacks," but rather the war lasting for years and ongoing loss replacements and available pilots becoming decisive factors, such that using fewer crew and smaller bombers can provide an advantage by making it easier to replace losses. Realistically, yes, in the 1940s that would have ended up being the case, but mostly because the United States didn't actually have enough weapons or bombers to do significant damage to the Soviet Union without a massive buildup that would have taken...well...years. By the mid '50s, though, that just wasn't the case. There were enough bombs and bombers (and later missiles) available that the first strike would have done a gargantuan amount of damage, and most likely ended the war. At that rate, only what you can produce before the war actually matters, and it's not clear that going to the "smaller, cheaper" strategy would have made any practical difference in the number of aircraft that the Air Force could have deployed (Congress may very well have just decided that instead of buying 5 squadrons of medium and 5 squadrons of heavy bombers, say, to buy 10 squadrons of medium bombers and pocketed the difference).

It was rather public perception that even from early on a "nuclear" war would be quick and decisive but the people who had to plan and fight such a war still saw it as basically attritional till around the mid-70s or so.

Public perception matters a pretty significant amount in procurement decisions, especially when you have a focus on cost-cutting and shrinking the military as in the 1940s. Also, the mid-70s is far beyond the point where attritional strategies in the sense expressed by McPherson were dominant, certainly massive retaliation by the '50s was more focused on, well, a massive first blow than anticipating years of war and having to continually produce more bombers and pilots to keep things going.

Oddly enough they had problems with the B-29 as well and the workhorse of the Pacific is the B/A-42 with in-flight refueling and so the LIttleboy types are carried by specially modified B-42s on a raid on Rabaul to demonstrate the power of the US's atomic weapons. (Nuke versus the Yamato!)

I suspect it would prove quite difficult to modify the B-42 to carry the Little Boy (it weighed about 10 000 pounds, or 25% beyond the B-42's target bomb load), especially considering that it had a lot less cruft (e.g., defensive armament) to cut out than the B-29 to begin with, i.e. there's not as much scope for Silverplating. The Silverplate program was also quite time-consuming and began nearly a year before the B-42 first flew, so I also very much suspect that they would either reserve whatever B-29s they had for nuclear work or use the Lancaster (as originally considered before they decided to stick with an American aircraft) before going to modifying the B-42. They also probably wouldn't have nuked Rabaul considering the very limited number of weapons they would have had if they couldn't build anything but Little Boys.

Anyway, this is getting pretty far afield from the F5F...

 

[marathag]

I'd never heard about this. I know the RAF took over some of the French order, I guess these were test-flown against the Hurricane and Spitfire?

"The Curtiss fighter was by no means an unknown quantity to the RAF, for as early as November 1939 a Hawk 75A-1 had been flown (in France) by Sqn Leader J F X McKenna on behalf of the A and AEE. His report had said that the Hawk was "exceptionally easy and pleasant to fly, the aileron control being particularly powerful" and that it was "more maneuverable at high speed than the Hurricane or Spitfire". This report naturally aroused considerable interest in official circles in Britain, and as a result arrangements were made for a Hawk 75 to be borrowed from l'Armee de l'Air for further evaluation in Britain. The 88th Hawk 75A-2 was used, in consequence, at the RAE from 29 December 1939 to 13 January 1940 for a 12-hr flight program covering handling in general, and specifically by comparison with the Spitfire, Hurricane and Gloster F.5/34; mock combats were staged between the Hawk and a production Spitfire I (K9944), fitted with the early two-pitch propeller .

"The Hawk 75A-2 was flown with aft tank empty at a loaded weight of 6,025 lb (2 733 kg) and the three RAF pilots participating in the evaluation were unanimous in their praise for the US fighter's exceptional handling characteristics and beautifully harmonised controls. In a diving attack at 400mph (644 km/h) the Hawk was far superior to the Spitfire, thanks to its lighter ailerons, and in a dogfight at 250 mph (402 km/h) the Hawk was again the superior machine because of its elevator control was not over-sensitive and all-around view was better; but the Spitfire could break off combat at will because of its very much higher maximum speed. In a dive at 400 mph (644km/h), the Spitfire pilot, exerting all his strength, could apply no more than one-fifth aileron because of high stick forces whereas the Curtiss pilot could apply three-quarter aileron.

"When the Spitfire dived on the Hawk, both aircraft traveling at 350-400 mph (560-645 km/h), the Curtiss fighter's pilot could avoid his opponent by applying its ailerons quickly, banking and turning rapidly. The Spitfire could not follow the Hawk round in this manoeuvre and consequently overshot the target. In the reverse situation, however, the Hawk could easily follow the Spitfire until the latter's superior speed allowed it to pull away. The superior maneuverability of the Hawk was ascribed mainly to the over-sensitiveness of the Spitfire's elevator, which resulted in some difficulty in accurately controlling the 'g' in a tight turn; over-correction held the risk of an inadvertent stall being induced.

"Because of the difference in propellers, the Hawk displayed appreciably better take-off and climb characteristics. The swing on take-off was smaller and more easily corrected than on the British fighter and during the climb the Hawk's controls were more effective; but the Curtiss fighter proved to be rather slow in picking up speed in a dive, making the Spitfire the more suitable machine of the two for intercepting high-speed bombers.

""Notwithstanding the excellence of this report on the Hawk 75A-2's handling, the RAF found little use for the Mohawks that began to arrive in Britain a few months later. Upon arrival, they were modified to have British throttle movement, six Browning 0,303-in (7,7-mm) machine guns, British gun sight, instrumentation and radio and standard RAF day fighter finish. Apart form one or two assigned to the A & AEE Boscombe Down for the preparation of handling notes, they were then dispatched to various MUs for storage..."

US Army Air Force Fighters, Part 1, WW2 Aircraft Fact Files Arco Publishing

 

[marathag]

Going back to the Wake example, 4 F4F's beat the heck out of the Japanese in the air and later during the invasion at sea. Imagine dropping some 500lb bombs instead of a couple of 100lbs on some of the transports and lighter ships.

I believe the F5F had less range than the F4F, as well, with 700 mile range at slow cruise vs 900

 

[McPherson]

US aviation tech was behind?

Can't argue the US wasn't paying attention but the US aviation industry was behind too and even before you get into service bias' on things (Navy wanted radials, Army wanted liquid cooled, manufactureres tended to offer them what they knew the customer prefered) they had gotten rather used to low number buys and waiting to see specifications before prototyping. It wasn't till the mid-30 everyone got nervous enough to really push the advances. Actually it was a repeat of pre-WWI US aviation research and development for government aircraft.

The US aviation industry was fine, best in the world as of 1935. It was the USG that was not paying attention. Otherwise North American would not have been able to do in 90 days what it took Supermarine 10 years to do. P-51 was American research applied. (NACA helps here, so someone USG was doing their job.)

2 engines versus 1.

This is an important point since the F5F takes up more room than the F4F. As noted "Saratoga" was aimed at going into the battle for Wake with only 13 fighters which while 'technically' only three aircraft short but is still operationally disadvantaged. Operationally during WWII the Sara fluctuated with an offical complement of 78 aircraft her totals tended towards 90 during the war. The usual mix seems to be 36 fighters in two squadrons, 36 SBDs in two squadrons and a single squadron of TBFs with 18 aircraft. So if there are two squadrons of F5F fighters with a total of 24 aircraft, (12 per squadron) that meets the minimum stated for CAP and escort. There's another way to bolster the numbers if we can get the F5F used in a dive bombing role along the line but that's for later.

Did you watch Norman Friedman discuss naval aviation? Before radar it was recon followed by first strike to dedeck the enemy flattops. After radar, suddenly fighters as interceptors become urgent for fleet defense, especially as the IJN proves better at air recon than the USN.

Now about specific workloads, deck-parking spots and all the rigmarole that plane maintenance teams and flight deck crews have to figure out? That is two engines, two whirling airscrews, a nose gun pack, twice the oil, twice the mechanical fittings, twice the engines to turn over, 4x the electrical and hydraulics, and a pilot even more befuddled than the one who's trying to line a Brewster up for take-off?
----------------------------------------------------

The Buffalo as a piece of crap.

As I noted it wasn't that clear for the Buffalo and no the Navy specifically originally wanted it for carrier operations. Once Grumman offered the F4F they jumped on it, but that wasn't the case in 1935 so the went with what they could get at the time.

And as I noted, by 1939 the USN knew it was a piece of crap. By 1940 they were being cheated by the Brewster Aeronautical Company and they knew it. By 1940 if Grumman had shown up with the F4F (They did, at least on paper.) and guaranteed a fixed contract with 500 planes delivered, the USN would have jumped at it. They didn't because: (reiterated);

a. Towers muffed the detail work.
b. New York had "pull".

2 engines vs. 1.

Yes but it's doable if you choose to go that route. Leaps of a similar nature happen all the time and were in fact rather constant during the time period. It's a trade off.

But the USN did not want 2 engines (see above.). Not until Grumman had proved concept. And proved THEY were a company that produced results.

Tradeoffs and requirments, everything else feeds into those of course but sometimes the "needs" can outweight the outside factors. As I noted the requirements for the quoted Army Air Corps circular were pretty fantastic, (on purpose mind you) and industry stepped up to the challenge. But that was the late-30s and everyone KNEW war was around the corner when in the early-30s it wasn't so clear and the budget limits meant being conservative was safer.

The AAC was well aware where the ultimate problem lay and it was not solvable by 2 engines versus 1. It was solved by making a better engine period. WHY do you think I spent so much time on the hyper-engine? Your technical bottleneck is kilowatts, not air frames with 1 or 2 engines. It is just that instead of telling private industry you want an engine that can do ~ 2 kw/kg/cm^3 displacement (JET engine BTW) in 1935, you have idiots at Wright Patterson puttering around with their bench model proof of concept "toy" for ten years that does not really get serious until 1938. I might tell you THIS and make your blood really boil.

That is before Mr. Whittle. Might point out sourly that the leader in turbo-superchargers on the planet was the United States. Hop, skip and a jump. Who are the opie-dopes who missed that one?

Allan Haines Lockheed

And THAT guy. I could just cry.

Finns and the F2A

Note the Finns also ripped out a bunch of the armor THEY had specifically required to be built into the airframe in order to improve the performance and also replaced the 'standard' .30 cal machine gun, (again something they'd specifically requested) in favor of another .50 cal for more punch. The Navy and Marines never did anything like that so of course their performance was worse. Against the Japanese the difference would have been marginal at best but it would have been something.

I think I mentioned that the Finns were able aircraft operators?

Not sure how you mean that first part as only ONE small segment of the USAAC was responsible for the circular note and it was specifically to get a long-range, high performance heavy fighter which the main (bomber mafia) part of the USAAC were dead set against seeing developed. If on the other hand you mean they were both fighting their own services and well as each other... Well yes that was a thing too though the US was clearly less bloody about it in reality.

Really?

Hollyweird noticed it.

Service requirements.

The USNAS had a bunch of conflicting requirements, (especially when you added in the Marine needs) which oddly enough were also very gray in areas that had only been gamed and not really operationally developed. (Dive bombers were seen as the carriers 'guns' while torpedo planes were, well the torpedo launchers and then the fighters were needed to not only prevent the enemy from "doing unto me" but also needed to escort the DBs and torpedo planes. And since it wasn't clear yet how effective either DB's or Torpedo planes were going to be some effort was aimed at making them third-line fighters if need be which worked about as well as you'd think that would. It wasn't till very late in the war that the idea of combining jobs into a single airframe began to coalesce and in fact that's still not really the optimum but does make efficient use of the available space.

Dive bombers were seen as mission killers for flattops and as means to precision rub out a fixed enemy positions on land. Torpedo planes were supposed to sink ships and gas enemy airfields with mustard. Both were supposed to scout. Dive bombers were given limited air to air (forward guns) because it was expected they would have suppress AAA. NWC stuff figured out and proved in the fleet problems.

Bridge loads.

Yes but most of the load is 'center-line' loading shared between fuselage and wing which COULD take a heavier loading. The numbers are based on that from the F7F with a mix of the F6F and other standard WWII fighter load outs as assumed. As I understand it the loading limit you're quoting is, (in this case) outside the engine nacelle loading. I'd be VERY surprised if the F5F couldn't carry at least the load of the P-38 on the center-line.

That is not how airplanes work. Bridge load means too much concentrated weight hanging from a point along a length of span of lift and... SNAP. Center off the barrel makes no difference in this at all. The load limit for an XF5F centerline was about 400 kgs, that was it.

See above.

P-38 was a bigger plane with a much stronger wing.

Same was done with the P-38 as the quote is pretty much a direct rip-off from wiki. It is redesigned and rebuilt much as the P-38 was over time.

You don't have time to Mickey Mouse, and as I noted, the P-38 is a much bigger plane.

So using Mixmasters would have been more efficent than using B-29s or B-17s?

Oh hello yes. Even gives you the option for drogue refueling.

It's kind of a given that as the F8F, (should be F6F Hellcat) arrived the F5F was taken out of front line service and that's what I note in the piece. It takes a bit because they are doing is replacing it as a fighter but using it for other duties which I don't go into detail about but considering it can carry bombs and torpedoes I thought was obvious.

It might be able to dive bomb, but it won't be carrying any torpedo.

You could actually argue they did and then ignored it After all they built the B-47 in large numbers but wanted bigger and more bombs so built the B-52. Here's where further development of in-flight refueling during the war would have changed quite a bit but as it was aircraft like the B-36 were driven by the idea that ONE bomber would have to carry both a large payload a great distance but also all the fuel needed to do the entire mission.

1. The B-36 came before the B-47, so the USAF went; "We goofed!"
2. Aerial refueling is a thing. Without it, the B-52 is a 1 way suicide mission.
3. Aerial refueling even with the B-36 would have been a thing.
4. The B-36 by 1944 is a 1 way suicide mission. Thank Murphy the B-29 did not have to face the Luftwaffe!

More colorful, live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse and all that compared to quietly getting the actual job done. On the other hand there's a reason fighter pilots today still learn how to turn-n-burn and pay attention to your energy state so its not clear cut.

Meet Rene' Fonck's favorite modern fighter...

"Get in unseen/undetected/unacquired, launch, and GET OUT." System of systems, not harem scarem "lookie as I turn onto your tail and sparrow your behind!"

McP.

 

[eltf177]

Yet Lt Rasmussen was able to shoot one on Val on Dec 7, got in an 11 on 4 furball, and I believe he took off with no ammo for his .50s and then had problems with anothe set running away on being charged.

He landed after being shotup, with over 500 holes.
Of the 29 Japanese aircraft shot down, 10 were from fighters and four were from the few P-36 that made it into the air. Percentage wise, more successful than the P-40B

From what I understand he didn't even have a 0.50-caliber, it (along with others from other airframes) had been removed to arm P-40's being sent to the Philippines. He just had the one 0.30-caliber, and taking off with just that in the middle of a major attack took a lot of guts...

 

[Zheng He]

From what I understand he didn't even have a 0.50-caliber, it (along with others from other airframes) had been removed to arm P-40's being sent to the Philippines. He just had the one 0.30-caliber, and taking off with just that in the middle of a major attack took a lot of guts...

Taylor and Welch only had ammunition on the wing mounted .30s in their P-40s.

 

[McPherson]

At a certain point it simply doesn't matter what the "will" is. That point is reached fairly quickly if you have enough nuclear weapons, which is why the Air Force always wanted enough nuclear weapons to just pulverize everything in the first attack, right from the 1940s onwards. The Soviets might "will" to attack the United States after that, but with no factories and all their transportation centers destroyed they aren't actually going to be able to do very much.

"Attritional" in the sense that McPherson was using it doesn't mean taking "more than one or two attacks," but rather the war lasting for years and ongoing loss replacements and available pilots becoming decisive factors, such that using fewer crew and smaller bombers can provide an advantage by making it easier to replace losses. Realistically, yes, in the 1940s that would have ended up being the case, but mostly because the United States didn't actually have enough weapons or bombers to do significant damage to the Soviet Union without a massive buildup that would have taken...well...years. By the mid '50s, though, that just wasn't the case. There were enough bombs and bombers (and later missiles) available that the first strike would have done a gargantuan amount of damage, and most likely ended the war. At that rate, only what you can produce before the war actually matters, and it's not clear that going to the "smaller, cheaper" strategy would have made any practical difference in the number of aircraft that the Air Force could have deployed (Congress may very well have just decided that instead of buying 5 squadrons of medium and 5 squadrons of heavy bombers, say, to buy 10 squadrons of medium bombers and pocketed the difference).

Public perception matters a pretty significant amount in procurement decisions, especially when you have a focus on cost-cutting and shrinking the military as in the 1940s. Also, the mid-70s is far beyond the point where attritional strategies in the sense expressed by McPherson were dominant, certainly massive retaliation by the '50s was more focused on, well, a massive first blow than anticipating years of war and having to continually produce more bombers and pilots to keep things going.

I suspect it would prove quite difficult to modify the B-42 to carry the Little Boy (it weighed about 10 000 pounds, or 25% beyond the B-42's target bomb load), especially considering that it had a lot less cruft (e.g., defensive armament) to cut out than the B-29 to begin with, i.e. there's not as much scope for Silverplating. The Silverplate program was also quite time-consuming and began nearly a year before the B-42 first flew, so I also very much suspect that they would either reserve whatever B-29s they had for nuclear work or use the Lancaster (as originally considered before they decided to stick with an American aircraft) before going to modifying the B-42. They also probably wouldn't have nuked Rabaul considering the very limited number of weapons they would have had if they couldn't build anything but Little Boys.

Anyway, this is getting pretty far afield from the F5F...

The B-36 was designed before the A-bomb and all the 1950s shenanigans about first strike and out that was the USAF [insane] thinking. It was a "conventional war" bomber. The Mixmaster was along the same lines. By the B-47 the atom bombs were small enough for a Mixmaster, but then of course you had the B-47, so "We goofed." still applies.

As to attritional warfare, turns out in the end the USN was right and the army and USAF were wrong. Take THAT "Bomber Barons".

 

[eltf177]

Taylor and Welch only had ammunition on the wing mounted .30s in their P-40s.

0.50-caliber ammo was being sent to the Philippines causing a shortage in Hawaii. And even so the Philippines ended up running short once war broke out and it was being used at a huge. One of the things blockade running subs brought in was more 0.50-caliber ammo...

 

[Draconis]

US aviation tech was behind?

The AAC was well aware where the ultimate problem lay and it was not solvable by 2 engines versus 1. It was solved by making a better engine period. WHY do you think I spent so much time on the hyper-engine? Your technical bottleneck is kilowatts, not air frames with 1 or 2 engines. It is just that instead of telling private industry you want an engine that can do ~ 2 kw/kg/cm^3 displacement (JET engine BTW) in 1935, you have idiots at Wright Patterson puttering around with their bench model proof of concept "toy" for ten years that does not really get serious until 1938. I might tell you THIS and make your blood really boil.

That is before Mr. Whittle. Might point out sourly that the leader in turbo-superchargers on the planet was the United States. Hop, skip and a jump. Who are the opie-dopes who missed that one? McP.

@McPherson Here is a link to a thread about the Lockheed L-133 and more importantly the L1000 engine. Since it was posted before you joined the Alternate History forum you may have missed this. Some interesting comments.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...its-l-1000-engines-premature-ambition.428262/

If anyone has comments about my L-133/L1000 thread please post them in this thread.

 

[McPherson]

If the L-133 had actually been built would anybody care to hazard a guess on what its range would have been? It should have been capable of carrying large drop tanks. What might have been the fuel burn rate for the two L-1000 engines?

Air endurance with this?

About 2 hours at cruise assuming 45,000 newtons from those 2 L1000 engines. There are problems with the fixed canard. It has terrible roll control as represented above and I suspect the vertical stabilizer is too small. It is a HUGE massive plane with rather weak jet engines; maybe 200 m/s? (388 knots).

One thing is certain. The inlets are too small for the air ducting to the jet tunnels. It will never break 400 knots or have a useful combat tactical radius greater than 300 km.

McP.

 

[marathag]

Wouldn't be the last time a prototype needed a redesign to be more successful

 

[McPherson]

If anyone has comments about my L-133/L1000 thread please post them in this thread.

The thread is more than 1 year old and is so bannered.

Why I answered your question here.