Spitfire mk VB/Seafire vs Zero

[Glider]

I had to buy a second hand copy.

[John Davies]

“Paper comparisons”; HoHun, you are perfectly right, I should not have used the term. And you are also perfectly right in emphasising that comparing performance figures is only one tool in assessing an aircraft’s effectiveness, albeit a valuable one.

I suppose I was trying to make a more general point. It is easy, indeed very tempting, for us to concentrate on these figures, because they are objective, quantified and accessible. But other factors, some of which are intangible, and therefore very hard to quantify, may be just as important, or even more important, than performance figures. But precisely because they are intangible, they may not get all the attention they deserve.

For instance, there is the whole area of tactics, and good or poor leadership. This can make all the difference.

There are other figures, like combat reports, which even though they may be subject to distortion and overclaiming, can still give a useful indication of the “proof of the pudding”. And this can lead us to ask interesting questions, like just how did an aircraft like the Fulmar, with a very unprepossessing set of performance figures, rack up such a score, shooting down more enemy aircraft than any other FAA fighter?

There is also the question of the quality of the opposition. This brings in not only the performance figures of their aircraft, but their tactics, leadership, etc.

There is the question of where an aircraft stands historically. For instance, some of the early monoplane fighters gained a reputation for being “difficult”, because their pilots were used to flying biplanes, many of which were rather more docile. Of course, by the standards of what came later, these were not especially “difficult” aircraft, but the step up from biplane to monoplane was a big one.

Then there is the question of “what is the alternative”, a question which in the real world tends to dominate decisions. Consider the Typhoon. Its thick high-drag wing section restricted its performance. The tail tended to fall off in a fast dive. The engine tended to catch fire on starting, and to asphyxiate the pilot with exhaust fumes, necessitating full oxygen mask use at all times, even at low level. It was an aircraft that should never have been put into production, or at least should have been sent back for a very prolonged period of sorting out. In peacetime it would have been. But without it, the RAF would have been far less effective as a ground-attack force after D-Day, and that might have had a real effect on the course of the battle. And of course the Typhoon gave us the Tempest, which was a great aircraft, and was also the direct ancestor of the Sea Fury.

Or consider the Seafire, which is where we came in. By any reasonable standards, an aircraft with its deck-landing characteristics should never have been sent to sea. It was effective enough in the air, (its kill ratio against both Zeroes and other enemy aircraft shows that beyond any reasonable doubt) but this effectiveness was purchased at a very high cost in deck accidents. But what were the alternatives? Either to have no fighters that could combat enemy aircraft on equal terms, or to become totally dependent on USA production, with the possibility that if USN demand took up all US production capacity, the RN would be left without fighter cover. That was NOT an acceptable alternative; hence the Seafire, with all its problems.

So to understand what went on, we begin to get into politics, or even international relations! Tricky; but how can we avoid it?

Finally, there’s the most important factor, the men. In Hanson’s “Carrier Fighter”, there is a very memorable photo of him and three of his wingmen, walking away from their aircraft after a sortie. You don’t see guys like that these days. They have the most tremendous dash and swagger. A modern armed service today would almost certainly consider them a bit TOO dashing for today’s very expensive, computerised, procedures-driven mission profiles and aircraft. And a great many civilians would certainly see them as far too macho and politically incorrect! By today’s standards, they are an extinct species.

That’s why I’m so keen on biographies and, even better, autobiographies, of the men who fought. They give us a fascinating view into a world that has now vanished.

BTW something completely different. That book title, “They gave me a Seafire”…. (and yes, I must get a copy). It sounds suspiciously like a reference to the A25 song.

[HoHun]

Hi John,

>For instance, there is the whole area of tactics, and good or poor leadership. This can make all the difference.

Absolutely, it's really the combination of man and machine that counts - if one neglects the one, one can't learn much about the other :-)

>Or consider the Seafire, which is where we came in. By any reasonable standards, an aircraft with its deck-landing characteristics should never have been sent to sea. It was effective enough in the air, (its kill ratio against both Zeroes and other enemy aircraft shows that beyond any reasonable doubt) but this effectiveness was purchased at a very high cost in deck accidents. But what were the alternatives?

Good point, and it highlights an aspect that occasionally is overlooked in discussions here: restrictions that limit the choice an air force may have regarding the type to be used in a specific role.

For example, one important restriction for the FAA's choice of a fighter aircraft for the North Atlantic convoy duty was the requirement to be able to take off from an escort carrier. The F4F-3 made it, the heavier F4F-4 (which according to Brown with its folding wings was what the Admiralty really had wanted) just barely made it, and the Fulmar with a take-off run of 960 ft in calm conditions compared to the F4F-4's 640 ft could hardly make it. It's long endurance might have been of excellent use over the North Atlantic, and it wouldn't have encountered superior land-based fighters there, but whatever its qualities, it was "out" due to the restrictions for the role.

>That’s why I’m so keen on biographies and, even better, autobiographies, of the men who fought.

Roger on autobiographies! :-) I really enjoy the personal perspective conveyed by these - not only because it's more vivid, but also because often the hopes and difficulties at a specific point in the war are much better captured than by more general books that tend to be "tainted by hindsight".

>BTW something completely different. That book title, “They gave me a Seafire”…. (and yes, I must get a copy). It sounds suspiciously like a reference to the A25 song.

Hm, I hadn't been aware of this before ...

The A25 Song

But it's a genuine treasure! :-)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[John Davies]

Sorry, finger trouble....

[John Davies]

Henning fyi the A25 was the FAA's Accident Report Form. The Royal Navy loves slightly archaic language, and in characteristic style it began something like "To my Lords Comisioners of the Admiralty, I have the honour and duty to report......

There was then a blank space, in which the luckless pilot would have to fill in something like... "that on the third of July 1944, I totally misjudged my landing approach to HMS "Victorious", bounced my Corsair over both barriers and destroyed seven of His Majesty's aircraft in the forward deck-park".

There are many different versions of the song. The one you found seems to be the only one that exisits on-line. There probably isn't a single authorised text, because no doubt people made up their own verses to commemorate especially spectacular incidents aboard their own carrier.

Hanson, in "Carrier Fighter", has a telling observation to make. Carrier ops were unusually stressful, not only because you did not have a whopping great airfield to land on, but because there was absolutely no relief, no way of getting away from it. You could not walk out of the gates of the airfield and spend a free afternoon strolling in the countryside. You were crammed in a poorly-ventilated steel hull with over a thousand other guys. Even in your free time, you knew your Corsair was witing for you on the next deck up. And that was the life, no getting away from it for weeks at a time.

So they did what they could to amuse themselves, gathered around the wardroom piano, drank beer and sang. Some of the songs have been collected. Others have not. My feeling is that the ones we still have carry a wonderful flavour of those long-ago lost days.

My personal favourite line is "I get my commission from Supermarine"; a neat double-meaning. Commission as in Commissioned Officer, or as in the commission on a sale? Because of course whenever a young officer bent a Seafire beyond repair, the government had to buy another one from the manufacturers.

Maybe we should start a new thread on surviving aircrew songs! There were quite a lot of them.

[renrich]

HoHun, I have Shaw's book. Still trying to understand the high yo yo in ACM between a high wing loaded AC versus a low. A book which puts the paper performance question in perspective and has shaped my opinions quite a lot is Linnekin's "80 Knots to Mach 2" Dean in his book actually uses it as a reference. Linnekin is an aero engineer, test pilot and flew props and jets operationally in the USN. If he is still alive, it would be a hoot to have him on this forum. The British certainly contributed a great deal to the F4F4 being a dog in performance by their insistence on 6 guns. There were actually some F4F4s late in the production run which reverted to 4 guns.

[HoHun]

Hi Renrich,

>The British certainly contributed a great deal to the F4F4 being a dog in performance by their insistence on 6 guns. There were actually some F4F4s late in the production run which reverted to 4 guns.

Hm, I admit that I thought the same, and was surprised that Brown didn't mention it as he actually served as a squadron's armament officer, too.

However, with regard to the weight comparison, the Bureau of Aeronautics Standard Aircraft Characteristics for the F4F-4 point out:

"Model FM-1 has 4-.50 cal. guns and 1720 rds. ammunition, with gross weight 75 lbs greater than F4F-4. The performance is based on the F4F-4 weights."

Of course, it would have been possible to reduce the number of rounds carried for an actual reduction in weight, but at least for the FM-1, this appears not to have been the goal when changing to the four-barrel battery. Things might have been different for the FM-2, for which I don't have data handy at the moment.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[renrich]

Dean shows empty weight of F4F3, F4F4 and FM2 respectively as 5426, 5778 and 5328.

[HoHun]

Hi Joe,

Well, this was my offer:

"So make your choice now - if you decide to start over, I'll gladly consider your above post to never have been written."

No answer is an answer too - you're on my ignore list now.

Kind regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[HoHun]

Hi everyone,

Since Joe decided not to accept my offer to consider his post never written, I'll go into a bit more detail of what I found flawed in what he has actually written ...

>Back to a common theme, 'markedly inferior' isn't well grounded in fact when it comes to *combat effectiveness v the Zero* which is what we're talking about.

I've already pointed out that Joe truncated my quote "markedly inferior performance" so that he could play his favourite card, the combat record of the USN, and pretend it contradicted my statement. In reality, the markedly inferior performance of the F4F vs. the A6M is a well-documented fact, and the good combat record of the USN was achieved in spite of that inferior performance.

Note that Joe uses the term "combat effectiveness" as if it were a property of the aircraft on the same level that performance is a property of an aircraft. As the results of combat - the only way to measure "combat effectiveness" - are dependend both on men and machines, and on the men and machines of the opposing side as well -, this is a misconception, and Joe has been using this misconception in many threads to downplay the importance both of performance and of tactics.

>your 'calculated' graphs showed IIRC P-40 and F4F as similar, both much inferior to Zero, but that's at odds with tests v captured Zeroes which showed the F4F's turn performance closer to the Zeroes than other US fighters, though still inferior

Note the insidious use of quotation marks around 'calculated'. I could tell you that I consider Joe a honest guy, or I could tell you that I consider him a 'honest' guy ... and you'll know exactly that I think he is a liar if I use the version with quotation marks.

So how comes he thinks he can get away with a poorly-hidden insult on my honesty here? No idea - he certainly did not ask if he could see my calculations before he put the quotation marks up there.

In fact, he has tried to bad-mouth my calculations before, sight unseen ... this is what I wrote back then:

>>My advice is to ask "May I see your math, please?" the next time you're about to launch a post that tries to downplay the significance of a quantative analysis.<<

Though that shut him up for the moment, it's obvious that he did not take the advice. He certainly did not ask for my math, whether to learn anything from it or to find a mistake, and I'm fed up with being sniped at by a guy who deliberately chose to preserve his ignorance regarding the very thing he's "criticizing".

With regard to possibly contradicting data ... those who have actually sorted through different data sets while analyzing performance are aware that there is much conflicting data around, and that it is a routine occurrence to have something contradicting something else. Quantitative analysis is an excellent tool to sort out such contradictions.

That much just as to provide the background for readers who have not followed the discussion in other threads and might wonder what's going on here - I don't intend to spend any more time on this, but I thought I'd provide at least this brief explanation for those who migth have been surprised by the course this thread took.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[parsifal]

what were the performance differences between the F4F-3 and the F4F-4? I have always thought that despite the extra armament, the F4F-4 had some performance increases over its predecessor?

[HoHun]

Hi Parsifal,

>what were the performance differences between the F4F-3 and the F4F-4? I have always thought that despite the extra armament, the F4F-4 had some performance increases over its predecessor?

It appears that the F4F-3 was equipped with either the R-1830-76 or the R-1830-86, while the F4F-4 was equipped with the R-1830 exclusively. (The FM-1 had the R-1830-76, too.)

The R-1830-76 and -86 seem to have had identical ratings, so it really comes down to flying weight, with the lighter version performing better.

An article by Leo J. Kohn that prefaces my FM-2 manual reprint includes a table with the following gross weight figures:

F4F-3: 7065 lbs
F4F-4: 7964 lbs
FM-1: 7404 lbs

According to a quick calculation, the lighter weight should result in the following performance advantages for the F4F-3 over the F4F-4:

Top speed: +5 km/h
Inital climb rate: +2.3 m/s
Sea level turn rate: +2.8 deg/s

It doesn't look like there is anything the F4F-4 gained over the F4F-3 with regard to performance, unless you include firepower and deck space area in the comparison.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[kool kitty89]

The F4F-3A used the single stage R-1830-90 (of 1,200 hp) due to shortages of the 2-stage engines, and thus had poorer altitude performance.

The Martlet I used a Wright Cyclone 9 R-1820-G205 of 1,200 hp with a single-stage 2-speed supercharger. (same as used on the Brewster B-339D with the Dutch)

Export version of the F4F-4 (the Martlet IV) used the R-1820-40 of 1,200 hp with single-stage 2-speed supercharger, which was tuned for higher altitudes than the -G205 iirc. (same engine as the F2A-2/3)

WW2 Warbirds: the Grumman F4F Wildcat - Frans Bonn

[parsifal]

I have several book references to report

1. Hamlyn Concise Guide to American Aircaft Of WWII, Chancellor Press, first published 1982 my version 2002
2. Encyclopedia Of World Aircraft, Paul Eden & Sof Moeng, Silverdale Books 2002
F4F-4
Powerplant: 1200 HP P&W R-1830-86, source 2 says R-1830-36
Max Speed: 318 @ 19400 ft
Service Ceiing 39400 (yeah right), range 770 nm
Initial Climb : 1950 ft per min
Weights: Max T/O weight 7952 lb
Armament 6 x 0.5", and 2 x 100 lb bombs

F4F-3
Powerplant: 1200 HP P&W R-1830-76
Max Speed: 328 mph (528 kph) at 21,000 ft (6,400 m).
Service Ceiing 37,500 ft (11,278 m)
range : 845 miles
Initial Climb :2,265 ft/min
Weights: : 8,152 lb (seems wrong to me)
Armament : 4x Browning M2 0.5" (12.7mm) machine guns with 430 rpg in wings, 2x 100 lb (45 kg) bombs

So according to these sources, I think you are right, the performance is better in the older mark. The exceptions appear to be max ceiling.

However the performance differences are so minor, I would have thought the extra firepowe more than offset that. If it didnt, why would people simply remove the extra two guns, like the RAAF did with some of its Buffaloes in Malaya??

[John Davies]

Originally Posted by renrich

The British certainly contributed a great deal to the F4F4 being a dog in performance by their insistence on 6 guns. There were actually some F4F4s late in the production run which reverted to 4 guns.

It depends on the projected mission profile, or in plain language who you think you will be shooting at. If you are a USN pilot fighting Zeroes, you don’t need too much firepower, because the Zero is quite lightly built, lacks armour and self-sealing fuel tanks, and tends to come apart fairly easily when hit. But you most certainly do need all the manoeverability you can squeeze out of the airframe. So four guns are the choice for you.

On the other hand, if you are an FAA pilot keeping the Fw200 Condors off the North Atlantic convoys in winter, manoerverability doesn’t matter so much. Firepower, however, does. You are attacking a large, sturdy, Teutonic aircraft. Your job is to inflict terminal damage on the enemy’s pilots, airframe or engines, and you may only have time for one firing pass before he vanishes into the murk. So the more lead you can sling the better. This is why the Admiralty specified six guns.

The performance figures people have researched do not seem to show a great difference between four and six gun versions of the Wildcat. I’d suggest there is one figure which is not accessible, but is probably very important indeed. The rate of roll. This is of great importance in fighter-vs-fighter combat.

Adding an extra gun and its ammunition, on each side, in effect increasing the weight devoted to armament by 50%, will greatly increase the roll inertia that a control input from the ailerons has to overcome in order to initiate or stop a roll. This is colloquially called “flywheel effect”. Increasing the mass of the wings and their contents either reduces the roll rate, or increases stick forces, or both.

This would not be of great importance when fighting a Condor, but could be life or death when fighting a Zero. This may be the reason why the six-gun Wildcat had the reputation of being a “dog”, even when figures for top speed and rate of climb are not that different.