Hurricane vs P-40

[Marshall_Stack]

I was kind of surprised at the following statement in Wikipedia (or should I not be) in regards to the Hurricane...

"Hurricanes served with several British Commonwealth squadrons in the Desert Air Force. They suffered heavy losses over North Africa after the arrival of Bf 109E and F-variants and were progressively replaced in the air superiority role from June 1941 by Curtiss Tomahawks/Kittyhawks. "

I figured that the Hurricane and P-40 were about equal in terms of abilities. Is the Wikipedia statement true about P-40s being the replacement for the Hurricane?

[Jerry W. Loper]

Originally Posted by Marshall_Stack

I was kind of surprised at the following statement in Wikipedia (or should I not be) in regards to the Hurricane...

"Hurricanes served with several British Commonwealth squadrons in the Desert Air Force. They suffered heavy losses over North Africa after the arrival of Bf 109E and F-variants and were progressively replaced in the air superiority role from June 1941 by Curtiss Tomahawks/Kittyhawks. "

I figured that the Hurricane and P-40 were about equal in terms of abilities. Is the Wikipedia statement true about P-40s being the replacement for the Hurricane?

Hurricanes in the desert probably actually had poorer performance than they had had in the Battle of Britain, especially if they were fitted with Volkes filters. While the F model of the Bf-109 was certainly far superior to the Hurricane, the E model was the same plane the Hurricane had faced in the summer of 1940; why would the E model have more of an advantage than it had had a year or two before? In another thread, somebody wrote that speed topped the list of important things for a fighter, and a Hurricane with a Volkes filter was probably 40 or 50 m.p.h. slower than a P-40B Tomahawk (352 m.p.h.).

[claidemore]

My understanding is that the Volkes filters on the Hurricanes had much less of an impact on performance than they did on the Spitfire Mk V. I remember this being pointed out in another thread about the performance of Hurricanes in PTO.

Performance degradation from tropical filters notwithstanding, the Hurricane would still be slower than any model of P40. Hence the preferance for P40 and Spitfire MkV for fighter vs fighter roles in North Africa. Hurricanes were still used in fighter/bomber and ground attack roles though, right up to the end of the desert campaign.

The E models of 109 in North Africa would of course be the later ones, (E4s & E7s, including some DB601N high alt engine versions) which would be higher performing than the E1s, E3s and some E4s which were the primary types the Hurris faced in BoB.

[Vincenzo]

and i add the tropicalized emil loss less

[kool kitty89]

Why didn't the P-40 (or other US aircraft for that matter) use tropical/sand filters?

[Vincenzo]

afaik the p-40 used filters

[claidemore]

British and German planes were designed for the climtes in those countries, while US planes tended to be designed to meet the various climate conditions which exist in the continental US, which includes tropical (Florida) and desert (Southwest & California).
With the MkVIII and MkIX Spitfires, a good filter design was finally found which worked in all climates.
Basically the Volkes filter was just a poor design, many desert Spitfire MkVs had Aboukir filters installed, which Egyption RAF maintenance units designed and produced. While it did not add the terrible performance reduction of the Volkes filter it also did not give as much protection to the engine. A better solution from the pilots POV, not as good from the POV of the British government paying for new engines!

The Merlin is so often stated as an engine with tight tolerences, yet my Uncle, who was a Merlin tech with RCAF (411 Squadron) maintained that he was always amazed at how "loose" the tolerences were for the Merlin. (Mind you, before and after the war he worked on diesel engines, so he was comparing the Merlin to them.)