Portucale
Banned
I believe Halloween spirit continues on 1 November, All Saints' Day and today 2 November, All Souls' Day.It's a bit late for Halloween but if you watch this video you can almost feel the ghosts of the past.
I believe Halloween spirit continues on 1 November, All Saints' Day and today 2 November, All Souls' Day.It's a bit late for Halloween but if you watch this video you can almost feel the ghosts of the past.
The bomber interception role was not very important by 1944. Maybe intercepting V-1 flying bombs. The 37mm wasn't very effective against fighters. The 37mm gun in the MIG-15 wasn't as effective as the faster firing 23mm cannon was, and it was dropped in later MIG designsHere's a idea. Since the American 20mm cannons were unreliable through the war maybe Lockheed and the AAF should have stuck with using the 37mm cannon. One 37mm autocannon was part of one of the original armament plans for the P-38 in 1941. Rearranging things in the nose gun bay as described in my post #2890 may have allowed for two 37mm guns fitted in a similar manner as two 20mm. If a box type magazine holding at least 50 or 60 rounds had been developed for the M4 37mm gun in 1941.
The M4 37mm was about the same length at the HS 20mm. But weighed over 200 pounds. It only had a rate of fire of about 2.5 rounds a second. And the low muzzle velocity of only 2000 feet per second made the 37mm gun a poor choice to use with the .50 HMG at about 2900 fps as the shots would diverge too much so either one aims for the 37mm and its larger ballistic drop or one aims for the .50 HMG's more level trajectory.
But on the plus side only one hit with the HEI 37mm projectile is likely to destroy the e/a. So here's a more unusual idea. If a proper box magazine feed could have been developed for the M4 37mm gun then fit 3 of those guns into the P-38 and skip the HMGs altogether. The pilots would need be trained to aim the 37mm accurately allowing for the slower muzzle velocity. With three 37mm guns in the nose of the P-38 it could have fired about 7 to 8 rounds per second in a close pattern. Any one hit with the high explosive 37mm shell would have likely have been lethal irregardless of the low muzzle velocity. As long as one could get a hit.
This would have been an excellent armament for a bomber interceptor, which the P-38 was designed to be. But would having only three 37mm cannons been effective in combat against enemy fighters?
That makes it marginally acceptable, but honestly, the customizer & rodder in me thinks about all the perfectly good P-38s that could be kept flying by cannibalizing those "wrecks".OK, in digging in a little more I may have been wrong about where the picture was taken. It may have been Guam instead of the Philippines. The one fully visible tail number (center left) is 426549, which makes it a P-38L-5-LO (or possibly an F-5G-6-LO) produced between Oct and Dec of '44. I don't have records of that specific aircraft but a number of the aircraft in that range were transported to Guam for (outdoor) storage after the war and were subsequently destroyed in a typhoon on 20 Jun 1946. I suspect this pile may be the remains of the "clean up" after the storm.
It makes me believe in time travel. I know some Mustang puke went back and sabotaged that cross country flight just to allow the P-51 to be born.I believe most of the persistent problems and delayed fixes and refinements on the P-38 can be traced back to the unfortunate ending to that cross-country flight in February 1939.
Here is the link to the NACA document. http://contrails.free.fr/temp/naca-wr-l-489.pdf
It's an imaginative model but I don't think it would've done very well in the Langley wind tunnel.Just in case anyone wants a not-lego P-38 for Christmas
The F4U/AU-1 Corsair looks pretty sick also.
If your shroud and rockets are on the nose then where is the radar to be placed?It might be silly or not even possible but how many of these encounters were one shot only affairs? Would it have been possible to simply put some 2.75 rockets in a breakaway aerodynamic shroud that would allow the exhaust to exit along the fuselage. Once the missiles are gone it would be a "flow throw" shroud. 6 of these rockets at close range might be devastating. It would be a one punch and done but against bombers... It would more than likely require more engineering than I can currently envision.
More like thisIf your shroud and rockets are on the nose then where is the radar to be placed?
I wonder how close you'd have to get for an accurate shot with bazookas? The rockets were spin stabilized, weren't they?
They were on the AH-1G which was my last experience in the 70s.I wonder how close you'd have to get for an accurate shot with bazookas? The rockets were spin stabilized, weren't they?
I was actually picturing the smaller rocked inside the nose surrounding the radar but not sure how practical it would be flaring out the cowling.If your shroud and rockets are on the nose then where is the radar to be placed?
The later 2.75" FFAR was a lot better than the older 4.5" M8, that didn't have angled venturi, just tiny pop-out fins, unlike the FFAR. The M16 was spin stabilized improved version of the M8, that just missed the War. Had Proximity Fuzing, unlike the M8's contact fuze.They were on the AH-1G which was my last experience in the 70s.
For the M8 ( W2 vintage?) what would that mean firing at an airplane from about 200 yards away with a 300 MPH slipstream. Only one hit would suffice I would guess.The later 2.75" FFAR was a lot better than the older 4.5" M8, that didn't have angled venturi, just tiny pop-out fins, unlike the FFAR. The M16 was spin stabilized improved version of the M8, that just missed the War. Had Proximity Fuzing, unlike the M8's contact fuze.
The M8 was listed as having 4500 yard ground range, where the listed dispersion was a 65 by 130 yard beaten zone.
Copy the "no allowance" gun arrangement of the Gloster Reaper, firing above the pilot's head?This approach would require relocating the armament. And I think fitting a different armament set better suited for the night fighter and intruder missions. Sudden brief ambushes. Fitting cannon into the lower belly of the centre nacelle is the only practical location I think of. And likely there would be room for only two. One on each side. Whether with the OTL nacelle or the slightly longer ATL NACA nacelle. There are a lot of equipment and control lines situated in there already so rearranging things enough to fit the breaches along the inside of the lower skin and frames and placing large enough magazines for a sufficient ammunition load would be challenging.
Also there is the difficulty of keeping the gun barrels inside the nacelle at least for most of their length to reduce drag and over cooling. The barrels would reach past the nose gear bay just a foot or so on either side of the nose gear door.
There are some advantages to this arrangement. It eliminates the need for flash guards as the gun muzzles are not visible to the pilot. Whether are not tracer rounds should still be used with cannons I would guess that would be determined by tactical experience. And it allows use of more powerful guns.