Regarding the Mustang

[davebender]

8th Air Force perceived the P-38 to be a failure as a bomber escort. That allowed the P-51 to get the star role within the U.S. Army Air Corps. If the P-38 problems had been fixed by 1943 there is a reasonable chance the U.S. Army Air Corps would never have purchased a P-51 version powered by the Merlin engine.

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by davebender

8th Air Force perceived the P-38 to be a failure as a bomber escort. That allowed the P-51 to get the star role within the U.S. Army Air Corps. If the P-38 problems had been fixed by 1943 there is a reasonable chance the U.S. Army Air Corps would never have purchased a P-51 version powered by the Merlin engine.

Dave - the Usaaf placed the first large order of P-51Bs in August, 1942 and converted an A contract to P-51Bs at the same time. This order started production even before the first NAA flight test of the merlin powered Mustang.

Had they discontinued all P-51B contract's just before the P-38 equipped the 20th and 55th - there would have been enough B's (~ 1500 by September1943) to equip approximatly 20-25 Fighter Groups - at one half the cost of the P-38.

[DAVIDICUS]

I don't know. It sounds awfully speculative to assign a "reasonable chance" to such an outcome. (perhaps there is some documentation supporting this?) The P-38 was much more expensive to produce, to maintain and much more difficult to fly on the edge.

The Mustang just makes sense. I think the Mustang was a winner for the allies because its range brought the fight to enemy and with US production capability and low production time, material costs and maintenance requirements, it was available in numbers that absolutely overwhelmed a Luftwaffe that was already relegated to defense, also known as the "just a matter of time" doctrine.

[Juha]

Hello Drgondog
Yes, Amadio’s book was the one I was talking on. I never even leafed it over, so I have no personal opinion on it but heard opinions of some others, which were rather negative. I bought the Rall/Braatz book, or to be exact the Finnish edition of it when it was published in 2005, the German edition was published in 2004. Have you see the latter one?

Juha

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by Juha

Hello Drgondog
Yes, Amadio’s book was the one I was talking on. I never even leafed it over, so I have no personal opinion on it but heard opinions of some others, which were rather negative. I bought the Rall/Braatz book, or to be exact the Finnish edition of it when it was published in 2005, the German edition was published in 2004. Have you see the latter one?

Juha

No Juha. I'll see if I can find an English version.

I found the Amadio book very informative, including post war Luftwaffe rebuilding as part of NATO.

Rall is one of my favorite people. I feel very fortunate to have met him through my father and found him to be self depricating in his humor and, while confident (as all fighter pilots are), he was also humble. He reminded me very much of my father.

[merlin]

According to Freeman's biography p.236
By February 1944 more than 100 9th Air Force Merlin mustangs were escorting 8th air Force bombers, destroying three to five times as many German fighters per sortie as the more numerous P-47s between January and March, Before the end of March Doolittle asked for all his p-47s and P-38s to be replaced by Mustangs as soon as possible.
P.239
the performance ofthe German twin-engined fighters was never adequate against day fighters, but the speed and manoeurability of the modified FW 190s an Me 109s had been impaired by the weight of their new guns and armour. Until the D-9 version of the former was available, belatedly re-engined with the Jumo 213, they could not compete with the Mustang.
And p.241
Monthly losses, which included most of the experienced German fighter pilots, averaged 450 in the first five months of 1944, only 246 of Germans's single-engined day fighters remained operational.

[drgondog]

Originally Posted by merlin

According to Freeman's biography p.236
By February 1944 more than 100 9th Air Force Merlin mustangs were escorting 8th air Force bombers, destroying three to five times as many German fighters per sortie as the more numerous P-47s between January and March, Before the end of March Doolittle asked for all his p-47s and P-38s to be replaced by Mustangs as soon as possible.
P.239
the performance ofthe German twin-engined fighters was never adequate against day fighters, but the speed and manoeurability of the modified FW 190s an Me 109s had been impaired by the weight of their new guns and armour. Until the D-9 version of the former was available, belatedly re-engined with the Jumo 213, they could not compete with the Mustang.
And p.241
Monthly losses, which included most of the experienced German fighter pilots, averaged 450 in the first five months of 1944, only 246 of Germans's single-engined day fighters remained operational.

The last comment is overstated (no. of S/e fighters remaining during May 1944 as an example) pretty significantlty.

LuftFlotte Reich alone stated ~450 s/e 'effectives' and the LW showed 1,063 serviceable s/e Day Fighters.

Having said this, the situation regarding experienced pilots was pretty severe relative to number of a/c available.

Jan-May, 1944 was the death knell for German air superiority over Germany.

[davebender]

The P-38 was much more expensive to produce, to maintain and much more difficult to fly on the edge.

Those things were true during 1941 also and yet the U.S. Army Air Corps persisted with the P-38 program. For that matter the P-47 was also expensive to produce. Aircraft cost was apparently not a major consideration for the WWII U.S. Army Air Corps.

[Soren]

The Messerschmitt 109 Emil's slats snatched and sometimes even jammed, and this almost killed Rall once, hence he was quite vary of them from that point on. But a new slat design introduced with the Friedrich series and onwards solved the problem and these a/c experienced no snatching or disturbance to the flight path in any way during hard maneuvering turns. This is made clear by both verteran LW pilots as-well as modern pilots.

[MikeGazdik]

The Mustang solved many problems in one nice package. It had range, it performed equal to or better than most, it was quicker to build, cheaper to build, and easier to learn to fly and fight. And on top of all of those its timing was almost perfect, maybe a bit late.

The USAAC needed a plane that could do all of those things, and the Mustang provided it in spades!

If you have 3 planes in the inventory (P-38, P-47, P-51) that can all perform the same mission. (only speaking of the needs in the European theatre) It only makes sense to go with the Mustang. And in reality, the P-47, at that time, did not have the range to match the Mustang or Lightning. So it was either Mustang or Lightning. I love the big Lockheed, but the choice to go with the P-51 was obvious.

[Soren]

The Mustang was indeed what the Allies needed, and at the time of its introduction into service it was actually the fastest fighter in the skies at most altitudes. The Mustang was fast, rolled & turned well, had good control forces at most speeds and most importantly it had a very long operating range.

Now the Mustang wasn't without disadvantages to enemy fighters ofcourse, the Bf-109 could mostly outturn and outclimb the P-51 Mustang pretty effortlessly, and the FW190 generally turned & climbed a little bit better as-well at low to medium alts while it was the other way around at high altitudes (And thats where the bombers flew). But overall I'd have to say that by the time of its introduction the P-51 was one of the hottest birds in the sky, and it remained so until the end of the war. The Dora-9 was the P-51's equal in many ways, featuring slightly better performance at low to medium altitudes while the Mustang was superior from 20kft and upwards, and this while having almost double the range.

In short the P-51 is one of the greats within the history of fighters, and it certainly helped save the Allied airforces from utter defeat. The P-51 levelled the playing fields for the Allies in many respects while it gave them the advantage in others. The Spitfire was being mauled pretty badly by LW fighters, esp. by the FW190, at the time the P-51 showed up; The P-51 changed this and took the fight to the Germans, and you gotta give some credit for that.

[Milosh]

Originally Posted by Soren

....But a new slat design introduced with the Friedrich series and onwards solved the problem.... .

How did the design differ from earlier 109s?

[davebender]

The Mustang solved many problems in one nice package. It had range, it performed equal to or better than most, it was quicker to build, cheaper to build, and easier to learn to fly and fight.

I agree with all of this. But the fact remains that the U.S. Army Air Corps took their time adopting the P51. They were betting the P-38 and P-47 would be war winners. Only when the P-38 and P-47 fell short of the mark was the P-51 pushed to the front of the pack.

[Shortround6]

I think you are forgetting the amount of time needed to tool-up and start producing aircraft in large numbers. And the amount of time it took to design and develop certain aspects of engine performance.

WHile it is ceratinly true that the P-51 was designed in the Spring of 1940, it took until the end of Oct 1941 to get the first one to fly in England. Just about ONE month after the TWO-stage Merlin first flew in a Spitfire and that was the converted MK III protoype. ANd this was around 15 months After Stanley Hooker started working on the TWO-stage project. THE PRODUCTION TWO-stage Merlins didn't enter service until June of 1942. At this time around 612 Allison powered Mustangs had been built with more to come.

But Allison powered Mustangs won't do the USAAF any good. Or at least they can't replace P-38s and P-47s. THE USAAF wants fighters than can Fly at high altitude. While they may still believe that unescorted bombers can operate over Europe in 1942 at least the P-38 and P-47 can operate at the same altitude as the bombers.

British built two-stage Merlins are in short supply, initial production is around one per day until ALL development problems are sorted out. THE US starts manufacture of the two-stage engine at the Packard plant. 5 are produced in 1942.

Contract for the First Merlin powered Mustang protoypes is given at the end of July 1942. By the end of August 1942 a contract is placed for 400 P-51Bs, please note that this about 3 months before the first protoype P-51B actually flies. By Jan of 43 somewhere around 4700 Merlin Mustangs are on order according to the account I am reading. Packard is only able to Deliever 2792 Two stage engines in 1943 and a fair number of them were to British contracts.

Without re-writting history the Merlin powered Mustang wasn't going to show up in combat much before it did.

[davebender]

Packard V-1650 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In June 1940, Henry Ford had offered to manufacture 1,000 aircraft a day if the Government would let him do it his way, and during a discussion with Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. regarding what the Ford company might produce, Ford's son Edsel tentatively agreed to make 6,000 Rolls-Royce liquid-cooled engines for Great Britain and 3,000 for the U.S.[2] However, at the beginning of July Henry Ford stated that he would manufacture only for Defense, not for Britain, and the entire deal was declared off.

I am under the impression the Packard Merlin engine was a British program. The American government turned down a July 1940 offer by Ford Motor Company to produce the Merlin engine for American use.