P-47s, the Bomber Mafia and More, Debate Questions Answered
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- Опубліковано 2 чер 2024
- This is the second video in which I answer questions from the debate.
Keep in mind, I'm entirely shooting from the hip on these, I'm reading the questions and answering them in real time, no script, no preparation just my immediate thoughts, so there may be minor errors and or omissions.
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It pains me to say I was unimpressed by Mr. Marshall. He didn't refute the points you are making, he just reiterated everything that's already been said before, the very things you are challenging. You and the moderator both seem to hold Mr. Marshall in some esteem so I'm withholding judgement about him as an author, but in the debate I found him totally unpersuasive.
Quoting a sign that hangs over a doorway at West Point is not some kind of proof that it's impossible for someone who went to West Point to lie, that was an absolutely absurd claim on his part, at one point during my time in the Army I was on a 16 man team run by a Lt that was a West Pointer that withheld some important information from all of us, he did it to benefit himself and those of us who were still around didn't find out about it until a year later, by that time he'd been reassigned to where he wanted to be which by the way was where his girlfriend was posted who also was an officer in the Army.
To this day I'd love nothing more than to meet him in a dark alley which is a sentiment shared with the other guys who'd been on that team that I've stayed in contact with over the year's, he pulled a slick one on us alright.
I've met a lot of officers , and saying they will not lie is not something I've ever thought.
@@dukecraig2402 There's this weird thing I have with people telling me about having a vow against lying: I nod and automatically treat everything they tell me as a lie.
It sounded to me like the facts didn't favour Marshall and unlike politicians in a debate Marshall had the integrity not to go outside of the facts. So dont be too unimpressed with Mr Marshall
@@jonathanpersson1205 I understand what you're saying and I agree. But there's integrity and there's stubbornly holding on to what you think you know.
If someone challenges the status quo and you want to refute that challenge, it doesn't do to just sing the status quo back at them. You'll have to go back to the facts that led to the status quo.
It gave the impression, and it may be completely in my head, that Mr. Marshall was more concerned with upholding the status quo because it favored his fathers legacy than with getting to the truth.
(It may have been better if the moderator had never said anything about Mr. Marshall's father (who I, as a Dutchman have lots of respect for) because it biased me slightly.)
There was an air show at Duxford on Sunday with a flying P-47. It was truly impressive seeing it fly in formation with two spitfires, very formidable fighter
Never change, you rock. And the reason you can tell this is cuz when someone tells you you're too intense, you actually listen and think about it. No: you rock.
I don’t think you were too intense at all… I thought the debate was respectful and interesting. I subbed to Patreon after seeing it. Some of the best content on UA-cam.
Agreed. Compared to the contemporary and highly embarrassing presidential debates it was perfectly civil.
Mr. Greg is just passionate about planes. I agree it was a civil discussion.
"Brisbane tanks" were built by Ford of Australia and used at Guadalcanal. Oz only had 6 million people and associated industrial capabilities, and they were instrumental in the Pacific campaign.
No P-47s were used in the Solomons. They were used in New Guinea.
It was RADAR that blew up the unescorted high altitude "high speed" bombers doctrin. In the mid-30's the bombers were relatively fast (relative to the time). It was thought that by the time a defender could detect, scramble and climb to high altitude, the bombers would be well on their way. With long range RADAR, the Germans could detect the raids forming and have fighters ready to pounce on the bombers at any point on their route (assuming they can correctly guess the intent of the raid).
That was a factor, however the increased altitude and speed of the enemy fighters was a big factor. Look at fighters from 1935 and it's clear why they thought the B-17's would be find on their own.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles I do not disagree that the evolution of fighters overtook the bombers and is a big factor. I think there is a bit of a generation problem here. We have a pre-war bomber design with little upside against war evolved fighters. A B-17 fighter peer is a P-36. The B-29 is more of a peer to the P-51 (or later models of axis interceptors). The development prior and life cycle of fighters ended up higher and shorter.
@@davidhanson8728I would hate to be in the B-29 found by a 262.
If I am not wrong it was a citizen of the USA who photographed long range direction RADAR in Berlin. Whilst still a Neutral.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles I've never understood why they took this idea seriously. Bombers designed with newer, more powerful engines and the most modern understanding of aerodynamics are faster than fighters designed several years earlier, sure. But the fighters coming into service the few years after that would benefit from even more powerful engines and newer aero data- it's an inherently iterative process going back to the Fokker scourge. A B-17 entering service looks like a spaceship compared to a P-26, but the same people who ordered the B-17 knew the P-38, P-47, etc were coming out soon, planes with enough performance to intercept a B-17, and they must have known other countries wouldn't rest on development either.
I suppose it's a point towards Bomber Mafia arrogance more than anything else. Although it might also point towards a serious mistake on the effectiveness of defensive guns, otherwise we wouldn't have the Boulton Paul Defiant.
Thanks so much for addressing my comments about the P-38. There was a lot wrong with that plane but I feel like it also got a bad rap for teething problems that were entirely resolved by the time the decision was made to switch to the P-51.
It had other issues, it was an older design that was rapidly becoming outdated, it was expensive, and it had some fairly significant ergonomic problems, even by the standards of the time.
On top of that, it was well proven through the war that single-engine fighters generally beat twin-engine heavy fighters in combat. That's a far more nuanced discussion but a broad rule of thumb.
The P-51 was a very modern plane by comparison, fairly affordable, and eventually highly capable in a variety of roles.
Anyway, the P-38 remaining relevant throughout the war is testament to the plane's incredible capability and versatility, even for an older design. It is often underrated, but its time was pretty much up by the end of the war.
One point in your favor, which I heard about recently in the book "A Taste of War" (and I believe backed up by a Navel War collage lecture or someone from the war collage) was the Active refusal to, and later interference in, wholesale mining of the waters off of Japan with special concentrations in Japanese ports. The USAAF (AKA Hap Arnold) wanted nothing to do with naval mine operations as he claimed it would reduce the operational tempo of bombing operations which he claimed would reduce the Japanese military to impotence and force a surrender without navel mines. it was only in early '45 that mining operations began and quickly reduced Japan to near starvation. Japanese studies after the war showed that mining operations had a larger effect on Japan's economy and war production in the space of 6 months than bombing operations had in the year previous.
The bomber Mafia wanted to show that THEY could win the war in Japan without messing with Japan's boats
"They felt they were doing the right thing". Everybody is biased, and the bias is always for their own personal benefit. When a high ranking officer or politician makes a decision that favors him at the expense of the group he is serving, he always convinces himself that what they are doing is the "right thing to do". In fact, all types of criminals convince themselves that they are doing "the right thing".
I am a retired Navy Wx forecaster. And one of the problems in the ETO was that Prevailing winds are generally from the west. Tail winds going to the target but head winds going home.!
Good point. It was the same over New Guinea.
Greg; it might strengthen your P47 range debate to do a short video on the escort range of the P51, with both internal fuel capacities, WITHOUT drop tanks. I got the impression that even the P51 could not escort to Berlin without additional external fuel.
Thanks for the great content.
I could, but in 1943 the P-51 with the Merlin engine wasn't an option anyway. It's not a question of P-47 or P-51, it was a question of P-47 with or without drop tanks. And if WITH drop tanks, which ones.
This is such a common issue these days - and I blame the flight sims. In WWII a matter of months sometimes completely changed the equipment used and therefore the composition and outcome of air battles. My pet peeve is people comparing a P-51D (which only arrived in theater mid-1944) to a Spitfire IX (June 1942) as if they fought the same battles against the same enemy!
To be clear, both were important types, but you’d expect any 1944 fighter to outperform any 1942 fighter in just about every way!
@@aerotorc I agree, if we compare the P-51 D with a Spitfire, it should be the Mk XIV (14), with the griffon engine, that was as fast as the Mustang, also, the FW190 D-9 was introduced in similar dates than the Mustang, so they can be compare, but using early model of a aircraft is not correct, it must be use the model of the aircraft that is in close proximity to the date of introduction of the aircraft one is using as base line
I like your channel. Lots of good information. As a person with interest and skill in engines what do you think of: Patent pending combustion maximization.
Using recycled exhaust to throttle combustion not only allows optimal, stoichiometric ratio of fuel to air at all outputs, it allows the fuel to be mixed with the air far enough in advance to assure adequate vaporization for complete combustion. It also limits the heat of combustion while still maximizing the efficiency of fuel usage. By keeping the heat down the wastage of energy via exothermic production of thermal NOx pollutants is minimized or prevented. When this heat threshold is exceeded water (perhaps condensed from exhaust) injection can be used to supplement this cooling, giving additional power as it turns to steam.
Alex Koponen
Definitely do the Linbergh/P-38 range thing..🫡
It would have to cover his nazi sympathies and why despite being an army reserve officer he was not recalled.
It seemed to me that Mr. Marshall mainly wanted to refute that the Deceit and Treachery occurred BEFORE the fact (malicious intent) whereas Greg argues it was essentially an after-the-fact tactic to save reputations. There is no doubt that extending the range of the P-47 was possible, it was just poor planning and lack of foresight that prevented it being done in the European theater.
Greg, your recap and responses to the questions are very fair and a testament to your character. Well done!
Thank you.
Thanks for answering my question on whether P-47s had the necessary plumbing to carry drop tanks!
Greg thanks for the nerd happening :) Keep it up. I enjoy your videos, Dad was an aerospace engineer for Boeing back in the 747 days. I saw the initial flight from his shoulders. We never missed an airshow within 80 miles . He passed but caught a few videos of yours before he died. Thanks again. As an engineer, he laughed, (good hardheartedly) at how good you were at your projects explaining things.
Thanks I really appreciate this.
It sounded like an argument between a guy with facts vs a guy with some adjacent facts, some opinions, and a deep emotional investment who's unwilling to change, so they argue points in isolation... Very much of our time 🤦♂️.... and also timeless
In any organization, a major challenge is recognizing when change is needed. Then the questions are how much change is needed and how long will it take to see positive or negative effects of the change.
There's that OODA Loop again.
There's a picture of Gabreski's bubbletop P47 on the runway with him in it and underneath in the center is a Brisbane style tank, judging by the number of victories painted on the side of the fuselage under the canopy it couldn't have been long before he was shot down, the leading edge of the left wing just blocks out the bottom right of all the victories painted on it because of the angle but at most it's one or two short of his record if not showing all his victories so it's not hard to date the picture to within a few weeks.
What do you know about the 56th or at least just Gabreski having tanks like that? The guy who gave the presentation did it on P47's in the Pacific, but when talking about the Brisbane tanks he showed the picture of Gabreski's plane but why or how he had a drop tank like that was a mystery to him also, and it's the first time I've ever heard of it.
The source was that guy's presentation on P47's in the Pacific which I believe you recommended, I found it to be very good and obviously the guy did a lot of research on.
I would recommend a book called "Zemke's Wolfpack A Photographic Odyssey of the 56th Fighter Group" by Nigel Julian and Peter Randall.
The book has what tanks were used, when they were used, and in some cases how many were used.
Plus the various tanks and load outs are illustrated.
I’m obviously with you and your view on this Greg, after all I am British and have read into the subject along with the total failure of daylight bombing and of course without any fighter escort was pretty much what our history shows us all and respect for all Allied airmen and crews. #WW2 #LestWeForget 📚☘️🏴
#Lest we be forever content with a feel-good myth instead of seeking and accepting uncomfortable truths
After watching the debate and most of Greg’s comments on the comments, I have a couple of observations about the P-38. As a cutting-edge prewar design, the P-38 had numerous issues when it was first introduced into combat. The most serious of these were probably engine failures and inadequate pilot training. The general thought is that the engine failures were due to a malfunctioning turbocharger controllers. Lockheed test pilot Tony Levier lost an Allison during a high-altitude test flight in Britain. He landed at an RAF base where one of the ground serviceman commented when he saw the P-38 on one engine, he knew it was in trouble, as the common thought, even among P-38 pilots, was that a P-38 could not fly on one engine. Levier reacted by adding a full suite of one engine aerobatics to his demonstration flights. The thought that even P-38 pilots thought the plane could not fly on one engine reflects both a lack of training and a resultant lack of confidence in their aircraft. Robin Olds also comments in his book on his fellow P-38 pilot’s lack of confidence in their skills and aircraft (Olds himself as an exceptional fighter pilot suffered no such lack).
The net result of technical problems, lack of pilot training, and lack of confidence of pilots in the aircraft, meant that the initial use of P-38’s in the long-range escort role was less than stellar. One senses the Eight Air Force response was not to recognise the potential of escort fighters, address the problems and hone their tactics, but rather in an exercise of confirmation bias to more or less conclude that well, we knew escort fighters wouldn’t work and transfer the P-38’s to the Mediterranean.
From the standpoint of the Mediterranean commanders this was a God send. I recently read a history of the allied invasion of Sicily. Prior to the invasion of Sicily, German ground commanders in southern Italy, Sardinia, and Sicily complained bitterly about incessant raids by P-38 fight-bombers flying out of North Africa. I have not looked up the distances, but I doubt any other allied fighter could have flown these missions at that point of time with the same effectiveness.
The stratosphere is much higher over the Mediterranean, they flew in less cold air.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935Lockheed improved the cockpit heating and added the dive flap, and the engine reliability issues were fixed, so the P-38 could eventually operate at high altitude in cold climates just fine. My comments refer to the fact that rather than expedite the fixes, the Eighth Air Force sent the P-38's to the Mediterranean and the Pacific, where U.S. forces were happy to get them.
I too can be an intense person, but I don't think it's something we should shy away from. You were both courteous enough and didn't devolve into arguing, it just shows you're both passionate about the topic.
41:25 I've read that P-38 just have a hard time fighting single-engine fighters: rates of roll, etc. I'd like to see your analysis of that. Perhaps it couldn't mix it up but there might have been tactics that would let it work well as an escort? I'd like to see your speed vs. altitude graph vs. its likely competition.
Thank You for doing this session
My mom, Ginger, is 91 in 33 days. Born in 1933...something about that year...don't mess with my mom, she has a terrifying temper in addition to mom stuff. Fiery Ginger, indeed. Looking out for Neal Kearby. WWII kids...any left?
I think Bill's argument mentioned at 29:31, which I recall from the debate video, might be an example of the Rationalization Fallacy (aka The A Priori Argument). I think it boils down to something like 'we know my argument is self-evident, therefore it is true'. The argument is that the USAF brass would never act in a way that would be bad (which is self evident), therefore they didn't act in a way that's bad (such as fail to offer resources for fighter escorts)'.
Greg, how 'bout the premise that GPH rate AND different Luftwaffe tactics in '43 made P-47 escorts to Schweinfurt, and beyond, non-feasible.
In '43, Luftwaffe, being stronger, contested ALL incursions, and constantly hit formations at the coastline, forcing escorts to drop tanks.
Without drop tanks, fuel consumption, twice or more the rate of the later p-51D, precluded round trip escorts. P-47 internal tankage was NOT double of P-51D internal tankage.
In '44, at time of Merlin P-51, Luftwaffe much weaker, is now selective about what it defends, and often does not attack, at least in force, at coastline. Mustang, lighter, with 6 fewer cylinders, 1150 fewer cubic inches, has half the p-47's fuel burn rate, AND, double rainbow, can often carry its drop tanks well into Reich territory.
It seems to me, this historical situation was due to timing (Luftwaffe tactics & strategy) and GPH/internal tankage of available escorts. And, NOT some combination of non-feasance, misfeasance or malfeasance.
In other words, in '43, it was just not possible for P-47's & P-38's to hang on to their drop tanks past the coastline, in order to make escorting possible deep into Germany.
The GPH rate is factored into the escort radius numbers. That radius is easily 450 miles with decent drop tanks, either a single 200 gallon centerline or dual tanks equaling that much or more.
IF the Luftwaffe fighters attacked the escorts early, forcing them to drop the tanks, that's a win for the P-47s because those Luftwaffe fighters are then not attacking the bombers. Job done. Another group of Thunderbolts would then take over the escort duty. This was the same with P-51s, after tacking enemy fighters they would not normally chase down and rejoin the bombers. Also, it wasn't long before the Luftwaffe didn't attack at the coast, they hung back and waited for the fighters to turn for home, they then went after the US bombers.
Well, my contention / possible idea is: Arnold and Eaker didn’t bother with Escort Fighters, because they felt they didn’t need to. They were content with bombing France. Their hands were forced at the Casablanca Conference. January 24th 1943. The British while not the big partner were still the senior more experienced partner. Churchill on January 4, 1943, sent a message to his secretary of state for air in which he wrote pointedly, “I note that the Americans have not yet succeeded in dropping a single bomb on Germany.” Because of this General H Arnold ordered General Eaker to the Casablanca Conference.
On Arriving Eaker was informed that Churchill was on the verge of convincing Roosevelt to switch the American bombing effort away from daylight raiding and into joining with the RAF in their night bombing missions over Germany. This would effectively mean the American Eighth would be subordinate to British Bomber Command. Eaker worked fast and wrote an elegant Memo for Churchill that could be the basis for a speech. “If the RAF continues night bombing and we bomb by day, we shall bomb them round the clock and the devil shall get no rest.” The erudite Churchill, delighting in this sentence, was won over and ceased his opposition to American daylight bombing.
From this point on the Americans were forced into something they were not trained, ready or equipped to do. Bombing Germany in broad daylight against the world’s best fighter pilots.
No, they weren't content with just bombing France, their plan all along was to start with France and work their way into Germany, you have to understand that when the 8th Air Force was formed in January of 1942 it had seven personnel and not one single aircraft, it had to be built up which is not something that happens overnight, throughout most of 1942 after the 8th Air Force arrived in England which still wasn't for months after it was formed in January it still didn't have it's own aircraft and spent a good part of the year riding along on mission's with the RAF, which were daylight mission's flown with smaller shorter range bombers like the Boston, then graduated to flying mission's in borrowed Boston's, B17's didn't start arriving in England until July and even then it took months to build up enough along with flying enough mission's practicing forming up and flying formation before they could go on their first actual bombing mission's, after that it took even more months to get groups over to England and train them, by January 1943 they were just starting to fly mission's in ernest which started out mostly with hitting targets on the French coast and working their way inland.
They were never content with just bombing France and at no time was turning them into a night bombing force ever a consideration, either you or someone else is taking things said by Churchill and any others involved out of context, trying to reorganize the 8th Air Force to be a night bombing force is an absurd idea, it would have taken at least six months to retrain crews and reequip all the US bombers to fly night mission's.
USAAF training and doctrine was completely done for daylight bombing, there was no way anyone was going to have it switched over to night bombing no matter how many memo's they wrote, it's an absurd thought.
@@dukecraig2402 A significant proportion of the Eighth Air Force's strength was redeployed for the Torch landings in late 1942, including all of the p-38s they had.
@@dukecraig2402 Thank you for your response. I try not to take anyone out of context and only refer to complaints and assertions that Eaker, Arnold, Churchill and others make in their memoirs. Are you disputing any or all of the following?
1. Churchill sent on January 4, 1943 a message to his secretary of state for air, in which he wrote pointedly, “I note that the Americans have not yet succeeded in dropping a single bomb on Germany.”
2. General H Arnold ordered General Eaker to the Casablanca Conference.
3. When arriving at Casablanca General Eaker was informed that Churchill was on the verge of convincing Roosevelt to switch the American bombing effort away from daylight raiding and into joining with the RAF in their night bombing missions over Germany.
4. General Eaker wrote the memo, which changed Churchills mind. “If the RAF continues night bombing and we bomb by day, we shall bomb them round the clock and the devil shall get no rest.”
If so, please take this up with the Library Of Congress, The British Museum, Churchills Archives Centre. United Airforce Academy Library and the relatives of General Eaker who I am sure would pursue legal action in calling him a liar.
Finally, I was military officer many years ago, so have an advantage, we always see past logic and follow orders. People who have not been in the military, tend to not understand the absolutes of an order. How would the Eighth Air Force bomb Germany in Daylight when ordered not to by Roosevelt?
We Won the war! Did you notice that? Targets selected is crucial ….. going after oil and synthetic oil seems to have been the coup de gras. Also key industries.
Oof. Churchill calling another human or nation 'the devil' is really something. If only most people knew the truth.
Hello Greg, “MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION OR MAKE THE DECISION RIGHT”. I heard this “saying” long ago and it popped into my head when you described the general’s attitude towards resisting escorts. I only got to watch about half of the live stream, unfortunately. I have a great amount of confidence that your information is factual. You always come with receipts, I wish all information was that reputable!
Take care, and stay well, J
More receipts inbound in the next video.
I used be able to use these type of videos to fall asleep. Tried this one last night and woke up to a mid roll HOUR LONG rap concert "ad". Most of the time I can sleep through a couple of reasonable sound volume one minute ads, but no way last night. Thinking it was a fluke I started the video over and sure enough there was a 55 minute long medical quackery infomercial. Fortunately there is at least one other history UA-camr that has learned how to turn off midroll ads for this very reason, am sure he takes a monetary hit, but his watch hours have got to be epic.
When ads get that obnoxious, I just quit youtube for a while. They know that I’m not using their platform, and why, and
I'll send an email to youtube and ask them to stop advertising rap concerts and medical quackery.
UA-cam really wants you to buy premium. I was getting 1.5 hour long sailing ads for a week while i was trying to listen to music playlists while doing house work (had to keep coming back to the computer to skip the confounded things), followed by a swarm for youtube premium ads.
I feel like the debate was you saying it was possible and then marshall was saying they didnt do it.
Lindbergh went to the Pacific in WW2 to determine how to increase the range of planes by determining best piloting fuel management and flight envelope.. Simply going faster or flying higher or both, may Not give best range. Leaning the fuel, at a "best" rpm at a certain airspeed and altitude Will give you longest range. And that is important to know. Distances in the Pacific to destinations can be a long way. Lindbergh had great experience in this.
That was the story that was pushed later on. Its more complicated. Apparently, Lindy was flying with the 475th , Satan's Angels on some long distance combat missions and he noticed that some pilots in the squadron cut missions short due to getting low on fuel. Because they didn't know how to manage fuel "profile" for maximum range.
What was Doolittle’s influence on the advancement of drop tanks. He was probably the only USAAF officer with the scientific training to understand any of the complications.
I knew a ball turret gunner on one of the first chin turreted B-17’s, unescorted on their first mission over Holland they were targeted and shot down. A little controversy on it as documented as an early G model but my friend called it a late F. He probably read the manufacturer’s plate. Bomber crews had heated flight suits so a fix was there.
Doolittle's main impact was training pilots how to get the maximum range out of their planes by running low revs high manifold pressure and leaning the engine heavily. It was thought that these power settings would damage the engine but Doolittle had the experience to know how close to the limit was safe to go. He spent a lot of time training pilots in the pacific how to get the best out of their engines.
@@jonathanpersson1205 I have also read that he did push the use of drop tanks including the paper ones. He was probably the only one with the credentials as having both a PhD in Aeronautical Engineering as well as his pre war experience with NACA when the USAAC couldn’t pay his salary.
@@jonathanpersson1205Charles Lindbergh is generally credited with those things in the Pacific theater, not Jimmy Doolittle
@@jimrankin2583 USAAF or USN? Multi-engine bombers or single-engine Corsairs or transport planes? The story I heard was that Lindbergh worked with the Marines by flying Corsairs deliberately overloaded on airstrikes. And that he was also a master of long routes for transport planes, which would help both the USAAF and USN. But I haven't heard about bomber routes.
@@jonathanpersson1205
Isn't that what Lindbergh did? Did Doolittle work him on extending range?
Greg, your well researched, fact driven approach that goes beyond armchair, superficial "hangar talk" is much appreciated. I love how many experts there are out there with really no facts backing them up. While I have nothing against the P-51 and consider it a fine airplane, it nonetheless has been whipped up as the "savior of WWII", and just hearing that over and over again gives me severe heartburn.... It was a good design with very good aerodynamics and fuel efficiency, but other important flight characteristics were mediocre at best....
Threatening their lives, the lives of their men, or the security of the United States does not terrify an officer in the US military. However, threatening their careers will make most of them fold like a cheap suit. The officers that don't act like this tend to not last very long or make it very far (O-5 at best).
That truly depends on your experience. Joseph Heller who wrote catch 22 one of the most brilliant dissections of idiot middle management like officers said that it is world war II experience he didn't run across a bad one in the United States army. So life is complex huh?
In his WWII experience... Fixing voice recognition
Suspect this is hardly unique to the US. Just a particularly egregious example
Different contaminants and characteristics in kerosene were a huge problem in the early space program. They finally used a very specific formulation with high quality control. RP-1, rocket propellent dash one.
@ Greg - another pilot in the warbird community, like Chris Fahey, is Rick Sharpe. He is out of Houston and is very active flying warbirds. He has a UA-cam channel as well has has some fantastic cockpit video with great audio as well
I'll check that out, thanks.
Greg, I appreciate you going over the comments. I just wanted to comment on something you mentioned. You brought up the question what if the 8th had switched to night bombing, would the Normandy invasion still occurred?
I read that by mid 1943 the primary intent of the USAAF daylight bombing campaign was the destruction of the Luftwaffe. This included escort fighters. I believe it was called the “Pointblank Directive”. It basically stated that without complete air superiority, the invasion of Europe could not be attempted. The P-47 was the only fighter in position to do this. Targets in Germany were selected based on getting the largest reaction from the Luftwaffe, to draw them out. So from around August to December ‘43, (when the P-51 started showing up), it was the P-47 that dealt the death blow to the cream of the Luftwaffe, enabling the invasion to commence.
Yup, I covered this in my P-47 series.
Wow, I’ve been a student of WWII for 60 years, am some of my favorite subjects early on was the 8th Air Force over Europe. I never thought about the question until now about why they didn’t try to design long-range escort fighters. I guess I always assumed it was impossible at the time to make smaller planes with the same range as the four engine bombers.
Couple of things. 1. To understand the Maxwell gang you have to refer to the court martial of Billy Mitchell - this was a trauma inside the then Air Corps. Mitchell's basic thesis - that bombers could win wars without armies - was believed by many air forces (including the Luftwaffe) but nobody had a clue as to what sort of effort it would take - on the job learning needed. And when the Maxwell gang was taking over the Air Corps in the mid-30s they talked Congress into building a handful of early model B-17s - which at that time could out run fighters, especially in a world without radar. Well, that didn't work, so they tried again with the B-29, and although the plane gave good service, it proved unable to out run Mig 15s in Korea. 2. When writing Fire in the Sky I came across an internal document written by the top brass at Lockheed and published in one of the short run aviation journals active in the 90s. The report claimed that Lockheed, almost broke in 1939, shoved development of the P-38 aside so they could ramp up manufacture of the light bomber the Brits called the Hudson (a militarized version of the Super Electra airliner .) The Brits would buy as many as Lockheed could make and the plane did okay service for the RAF and Commonwealth forces. The result however was to delay the release of the P-38E (the Yamamoto mission plane) by nearly a year. In short, Cactus could have been using P-38s instead of P-39s at Guadalcanal in fall of 1942 and I suppose the Army would have had more 38s to use in the ETO. As it was, 5th AF got some of the first 38s and it was a splendid plane for the PTO. For a couple of months the USAAF decided to swap out 5th AF 38s for Jugs and that caused something of a riot. (In late 42 the USAAF decided the 38 was the on the right side of history and decided - briefly - to allocate the lot to the MED and ETO. They changed their mind quickly - much to the relief of most 5th AF pilots.) Group Leader Neel Kerby liked the plane and ended up with a CMH, 22 victories and being killed in action. Kerby's FG was one of the unfortunate units involved with "Black Sunday" in April 1944 when an air raid on Hollandia went badly wrong when a huge weather front dropped in between the attacking planes and the various home strips - 31 aircraft - mostly fighters and A-20 light bombers - and 32 airmen were lost - the worst day of the war for 5th AF. Life was incredibly cheap during WWII.
When you said you wrote "Fire in the Sky" for just a moment I though you were Travis Walton. Anyway, good post, and I wish I knew about your book earlier, it probably would have helped with the two videos on making on the S.W. Pacific Thunderbolt range and stuff.
That bit about Lockheed shelving the P-38 for the Hudson is new to me. It really helps make my point. If even the P-38 wasn't getting love and Lockheed had to sell bombers to the Brits to stay afloat that really says a lot about the USAAF's interest in fighters.
One point I made in Fire/Sky is that it was in a way fortunate that Congress was so reluctant to spend money during the Isolationist period in the mid-30s - it prevented the Maxwell gang from blowing the wad on lots of heavy bombers and neglecting everything else. (The early B17 was built as a weapon for coastal defense - the one thing it was very bad at - which we proved when we sent about half of them to the PI in late 1941.) As it was, when American rearmament really began as war clouds began to grow and especially after the fall of France in 1940 (that put the fear of God into Washington) the scene had cleared a bit and the US began a much more balanced process of aircraft acquisition. As it was, only the Hellcat was first ordered after Pearl Harbor - all of the other planes had been at least in prototype since 1940 and the P38 was in the air - barely.
I interviewed two P47 PTO pilots - one got his only kill in it - he said it blew an Oscar "sideways" - the other said it was like flying a Cadillac.
Lord Hardthrasher on youtube has an excellent (and occasionally irreverent) take on life and the air war.
It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but his point hit home - hard.
Incidentally don’t go and visit if you think the Norden bomb sight was a war winning triumph of engineering genius.
I think he is wrong about the B-17, but others are already on top of that, so I don't really feel the need to tackle it.
The Bell P-39 originally came equipped with a turbocharger that gave the fighter spectacular performance at 20,000ft and increased range, but the leadership at the time forced bell to throw the turbo out of the aircraft because they thought they only needed ground attack airplanes that could dogfight and not solely fighters. This is from Thomas McKelvey Cleaver's Clean sweep. We WOULD have had an escort fighter but everytime one was made or presented it was shunned and shelved
I've seen that the performance numbers for the P-39 suffered quite a bit when all the combat equipment was added- weapons, ammunition, self sealing tanks, etc. I've never seen anyone address how much of that would be mitigated had they kept the turbo. Power goes a long way to countering weight, but can't necessarily restore agility.
Congress imposed its own doctrines on the Air Corps too. The Bomber Mafia was working against a Congressional belief that the Air Corps was there to defend US soil. Enemy bombers flying from Europe at high altitude were unlikely, but an enemy Navy offshore was a threat they could imagine. The coming of the war changed minds rapidly.
Thanks for this.
Risk management...I argued with someone about the long lance oxygen torpedo and he was adamant that the oxygen was to dangerous and though it was not good when, for example, strafed with incendiaries, or hit with gunfire, it sank many allied ships.
First: the drop tanks were aluminum or impregnated paper (cardboard). Second: the newer pilots were not fully trained in cruise control (prop speed, blade angle and engine fuel control). Third: the Navy had a pissing contest with the Air Corp as to who would protect the US coastlines with battleships or bombers.
There were many drop tanks made out of steel.
If I remember correctly there was the belief, at least in the early part of the "In-between the wars", that ,"The Bomber Would Always Get Through".
The ones in charge "didn't need no stinking escorts".
Unfortunately they didn't realize their mistakes until just before the war started when it was too late to introduce a dedicated escort. They had to rely on what was available. Much like having the Curtis's P-40 variants in production before and during the war, it was inferior to the P-51 even in its final variant, the P-40Q, which resembled the Mustang but couldn't keep up with it.
Making do is what it is all about.
I feel you are passionate about the topic, Greg
You are also factual. If that's intense, please remain so.
The only thing I have gotten from Mr. Marshall so far is that he accepts the offical narrative because it is complimentary to his own viewpoint and supports his love of P-51's, which someone he thought highly of flew.
*I absolutely love the M18 Hellcat tank destroyer, but can fully accept that a better armored more powerful tank (like M26 Pershing) would have been a superior alternative. *
P-47's with drop tanks could have been available long before the P-51, and could have done the job sufficiently had the P-51 NEVER been developed as an escort fighter. And there is ample evidence that the only thing stopping the USAAF from developing drop tanks was the USAAF.
As such, I can't see how Mr. Marshall's arguments hold any water.
His contention that the Bomber Mafia wouldn't intentionally do something counterproductive fails to take into account the fact that they BELIEVED they were right, and arrogantly refused to look at evidence that what they were doing wasn't working.
PS-Much thanks to Andrew for his time, effort, and dedication to the work being done! :)
Quote from a B-17 pilot in some book I forget where I read it now. I used to watch some of the p-47 guys go straight down past us and make a smoking hole in the ground and I wondered what that was.
Was not just the lightning that couldn't pull up
If you can find that actual quote from a B-17 pilot in a book I promise to be impressed. Normally this is a quote from Eric Brown, a British test pilot who is giving second or third hand information.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Glad to help if I can: nice!
OK: Upon reflection, that quote is from either a book or [more likely] a filmed interview in some documentary I saw probably after 2000. I'll do what I can to back this up, but I don't make things up. This P-47 pilot interview is a start: "He ended 50 feet below the top of the tallest mountain."
ua-cam.com/video/hZ42HhxRlPA/v-deo.html
Thanks for the info on the state of the art on air to air refueling.
Thanks for all your participation.
Re Andrew as a moderator - I commented on the original debate video rather harshly about him, and seeing some other complaints prompts to me to clarify that it wasn't his technical approach to moderation; rather his stumbling, jumbled and sometimes erroneous speaking parts. The technical aspects (Bill's obvious sound/video issues aside which were out of his control) were fine. Maybe he was just having a bad day, but jeez it was jarring every time he spoke.
After Stalingrad and the Guadalcanal campaign, the rest was just epilogue.
In response to the throwing away bodies comment... At the time a war had to be fought, especially in the late '42 - early '43 period. there were limited ways to prosecute it. The RAF, including Canadians flew at night and still suffered terrible loses. That doesn't excuse however, the short-sightedness or deliberate obfuscation of Allied Commanders, including, Arnold, Harris et. al.
Greg I'll check some of my old books, see if I can find any pacific pictures. I have some old books from the late 40's and early 50's, some official histories and such. You mentioned at 1:05 that pictures were hard to find. hopefully we can all do some digging and help you out.
Thanks. specifically, it's pictures of Pacific Theater Thunderbolts that are fairly rare. Even more difficult is dating them or figuring out locations. For example, Thunderbolts at the base on Saidor in 1943 are something I really want.
Hehe, internal fuel is ,"combat radius" on my dual sport bike. The strap on buddy tank tops up the internal fuel and monitored amount used so I can still get out of the bush.😀
Okay, but how's your radius if you have to drop your buddy tank whenever you encounter a Suzuki?
@@Deipnosophist_the_Gastronomer lol, fortunately, it being bolted to the rear rack it doesn't impair my combat manoeuvrability that much....kinda like that aero-molded tank Greg showed us.
@@EffequalsMA 😁 I was, a little bit, hoping you would say 'I ride a Suzuki, so it would hurt my range a lot'
@@Deipnosophist_the_Gastronomer Well, it's a Honda so, it'll likely make it there and back on no gas...or oil, for that matter. it's the R2800 of motorcycles. :)
I am currently reading Marshall's excellent book on the P-51. According to the book (p62), General Arnold eventually admitted some mistakes. Marshall writes: " Post war, Gen Arnold wrote in his memoirs of the lessons that the USAAC failed to learn following its study of the Spanish Civil War: "The escort of bomber formations proceeding to and from their objectives, by double or more than double their number of fighters has been found on both sides to be a necessity, notwithstanding the ability of the fighter to shoot down fighters. Yet, we in the United States were still debating the need for fighter escort for bombers." "
Even though Arnold talks about the "debating the need for fighter escort" in 1943, he had been told on numerous occasions over five years that the fighter support was crucial:
On page 60, Marshall mentions one such study, a 1937 Air Corps Tactical School Report "Aerial Warfare in Spain" that stated the "need for escort fighters to protect the bombers against attacking fighters".
A couple years later, in November 1939, Gen Arnold held a conference with the Air Staff, "The stated purpose was to review intelligence reports from Europe regarding heavy loses of bomber-type aircraft to single-engined pursuit aircraft..." (p61). In response to this, Gen Emmons wrote to Arnold in December 1939: "There is no question in my mind that American bombardment units could not defend themselves against American pursuit units". Indeed, in September 1940, FM 1-15 was issued stating that one of the roles of pursuit aircraft was "Provide Bombardment Escort into Hostile Skies", but it seems that this pre-war insight was ignored by those in charge for in the European theater.
I have of course heard all of this before. The proof is in what they did, not in what they said.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles That is the point. The argument for long-range escort fighters was made, but it was ignored by those who mattered. My post just documents several of the times, as far back as 1937, that leaders like Arnold had been told about the need for escort fighters.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Right, and what they did was ask for long range escort fighters. What they did not do was withhold the available fighters back from escorting bombers in order to prove the bombers didn't need escort.
There was also the RAF with power driven turrets on their bombers telling the USAAF that escorts were absolutely necessary and the example of the fairly heavy looses the Luftwaffe experienced in the Battle of Britain when its bombers were out of escort range. The Me 109E1, E2, E3 and E4 that made up the bulk of the Luftwaffe fighter force did not have plumbing for drop tanks. The Me 109E1B had a rack for carrying a bomb but no plumbing. Drop tanks were introduced towards the end of the Battle of Britain on Me 109E7B and modified Me 109E4B as well as the Me 109F1 to late to have an effect. Oddly He 112 and He 51 had 50 gallon drop tanks in the Spanish civil war but there seems to have been no hurry to fit the Me 109 force. In fact the Germans had invented the drop tank on the Siemens-Schuckert D.VI of WW1.
@@gort8203 re: "What they did not do was withhold the available fighters back from escorting bombers in order to prove the bombers didn't need escort"
That is debatable. In fact, the P-38s, the fighters with the longest range, were withdrawn from the ETO in October 1942 and sent to the MTO. They were not recalled until after the heavy losses in summer of 1943.
The P-38 could have been the most famous plane in history by dominating the skies over Germany from the start....but it had problems. Alot of problems. It is one of my favorite what-ifs....how many and which of those problems would have had to be solved? In my view, first it needed a pressurized cockpit to always be above the Luftwaffe, and to get down into the fight without going into an uncontrollable dive meant dive brakes. Third would have been boosted ailerons to improve the roll rate. Would those three have done it? There were many other problems- as Greg has detailed the props were not big enough, and the cockpit and engine management was a mess. And...it needed a heater, which is ridiculous it did not even have a decent heater.
It would have needed wind tunnel time and a complete redesign of the cockpit nacelle behind the pilot. The local venturi acceleration never occurred to its 1930s designers who largely drew it up by eye, they were just unlucky. It never got the extensive development that its contemporaries benefited from. Not giving it paddle blade propellers and more sophisticated radiators was very strange.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 Redesign for what?
@@GaryChurch-hi8kb A shallower taper to avoid the fierce venturi between the centre pod and the booms, that brought on the premature shock waves.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 They fixed that with dive recovery flaps.
@@GaryChurch-hi8kb But still out of control well before the opposition fighters, a low Mach limit. Cure the fault.
Just as I realized that I loved the P-47 for reasons, after 60 years, Greg issues his deceit and treachery video (plus tech values) and UA-cam explodes with the Jug's unique charms. It would take a couple of years for WWII warbird channels to tentatively explore the Bomber Command crimes. 80 years, now. I am restraining myself, pardon my intensity. TJ3 was not shy.
A very good history of the "bomber mafia" is in the book "Black Snow " by James M. Scott. However is over looks the British contribution, and it was heavy, about bombing civilian targets. See about British General (Viscount) Hugh Trenchard.
If you can find a copy of AWPD-1 many of your questions will be answered. Pursuits (fighters) were seen as ground support or local air defense of the bomber bases. In late 1942 when the p-38s were sent to N.Africa there were no P-47s available. In Spring 1943 P-47s were available but the 78th FG, a P-38 unit had all its's airplanes sent to N.Africa and converted to P-47s.Lockheed developed its's 165 gallon tanks during late 1941/early 1942. The P-38F/G/H/early J only had 300 gallons internal. J-15s on had 75 gallon tanks installed in the leading edge of each wing increasing internal tankage to 425/450 which increased range considerably.
M14 torpedo. similar gov road blocks . as escort fighters.. happened in the same time frame.
Thanks Greg
I had to go and find the "ruben chronicles". It's worth a watch.
I'm impressed that you found it.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles had only 140 views when I found it.
Around late 56 min mark you have a question about unit cost of aircraft and go over the axiom - Corsair, Lightning, Jug were costly and the P51 and Hellcat far more economical at unit cost, a big thing in my estimation. This is, of course, not the goal of the debate or the channel, but I see more and more discussion and video coverage of the economics and production aspects of this war ("War of the Factories"). I'd also point out that there is a concept which was a devotion of the Reich - "Autarky". This is the idea that your nation can cover all the economic bases, no need to have robust outside sources of economic elements, if you don't have it you can acquire some nearby nation to get it (Norway was the Reich's source of steel). The opposite approach is to maintain foreign trade, and employ it to provide basic economic needs to the extent possible. This kind of discussion often seems to go nowhere, but it's still important. It's an unfortunate truth, that many people seem to forget where the supplies, parts and raw materials in their "stuff" actually comes from (EV and their need for cobalt, and lithium, sources of high quality steels, who dominates in "Nickel", sources of radioactive materials or rare earths). It's harder to get into the details and include that in your analysis.
I agree with you. I’m a big P 47 fan, but you can get five P 51 Mustang three P 47 thunderbolts.
Calculations have to be made. Material and manpower cost to maintain these aircraft per hour of flight. Also, the loss of the aircraft based on their intrinsic weaknesses, such as the more vulnerable P 51, and the loss of pilots accordingly. I don’t know how it all adds up, but I’m pretty sure that you don’t want to just depend on one type of aircraft. I think the mix was fairly appropriate. Economics matters.
Survivability is a big factor also, not looked into deeply enough since most combat was initiated by sneak attack. I think the radial engine airplane I have a big advantage here because they are more likely to survive a pounce.
Given any mission, any mission of World War II, I will take the radial engine aircraft over the liquid cooled alternative …. If I am onboard
@@steveperreira5850 Yes, and I assume there were reams and reams of write ups and analysis upon just this issue, of how to allocate choices, and especially money. My comment even goes a bit beyond that into wider strategy aspects. Economically it really matters if all resources can be had and put together in an efficient manner. And we learn in economics study that certain approaches will be more efficient than others. The approaches to resource handling of the Allies was a more sound approach than the Axis. That was my other point. And it's not just about capitalism and free trade vs. socialism or other non-liberal economies, but more around obtaining resources from free flowing international trade, as opposed to far narrower methods of obtaining resources. This is partly also shown in how Japan reacted to raw material embargo actions.
@@steveperreira5850 I suspect that, in the end, when looking at fuel cost, etc, that the P-47 would have saved more pilots and the P-51 would have saved more money.
Are we finally ready for a debate about the whole bombing campaign? I want to hear someone arguing, that it was a huge waste of life, on both sides, against someone who says it kinda worked.
Because nobody's gonna really defend it, I don't think so.
Like the comments chat reviews.
The suggestion that the USAAC might have promoted the development of dedicated 'escort fighters' early on, like before WWII,
makes me think of every 'escort fighter' design I know of being heavier and less maneuverable than point defense fighters like the Bf-109's and FW-190's that the Allied bombers faced. IOW, you could have designed a long-range aircraft to escort bombers and called it a fighter, but would it have been competitive with German aircraft? Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that the USAAC defaulted to equipping real fighters with drop tanks instead, even if late to the party, so they could be more effective defenders.
Noseart paint, airman? This ain't no art colony!
greg honestly u won that debate hands down marshall never refuted any of ur points or offered a reasonable alterative i cant see how a common sense logical person could argue anything but ur point
What I got out of the debate was that Mr. Marshall's defense or belief was that no military officer would put their own reputation or agenda above everything else when history is full of instances of the exact opposite. These are people after all with only too human traits, good and bad.
Love the P-47 content
Often the software enabling a video chat takes over the computer and you can't change it.
The American continents provide a wide range of temperatures and pressures to test the fuel in automobiles.
Jesus that Ruben Chronicles thing was savage AF.
I'll tell Toby you like his work. I was pretty annoyed.
@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Yeah wow I could tell. I thought I was pretty annoyed earlier today for a way less large incident, but I see now I was merely a bit disagreeable.
The bomber mafia looked at air war different. Their enemy was not the fighter plane, it was the traditional army and navy. From their perspective war had changed, or was on the cusp of changing. You don't need battleships when you have bombers. It can be sunk easily, see Mitchel's early SinkX post WW1. The same was true of armies, in their view. They can destroy factories and rail yards without expending entire divisions of men and material.
Fighters were a defensive tool to protect against that destruction. They were not a tool to protect the bombers. The bombers had speed, altitude, and firepower to protect themselves. You don't use battleships or carriers as mine sweepers. It doesn't make sense. You can do it, but that is an ineffective and inefficient use of resources. Fighters to escort bombers? Why? Its an ineffective and inefficient use of resources. It became a doctrinal blindspot that led them to make a bad decision.
That bad decision got papered over with wartime propaganda, "We were unprepared for this war, but look what we can do when we set our minds to it! Mustang!" And after the war the introduction of the Atomic Bomb all but cinches a victory for the mafia, as it renders traditional warfare moot. Or so everyone was led to believe.
Could the disagreement turn on the use of the phrase "deceit and treachery"? I see the deceit in Eaker et al hiding their blunder, but "treachery" isn't the word for actions that were mistakenly believed to advance the allied cause, nor for a coverup, it seems to me, although to be sure, dishonesty undermines the functioning of the overall system. Deceit can reflect weak character, while treachery is more of a deliberate choice. This might sound like niggling over words, but I can't otherwise understand why Mr Marshall and Greg aren't in complete agreement.
It's Range, Deceit, and Treachery, in that order. Mr. Marshall and I disagree about each of those words.
So 450miles is a good distance for the P47 to be able to drop its tanks have a dog fight then get home. From Margate in the south east of England to Berlin is 517 miles. If one group escorted them out and another escorted them home they would be less than an hour without escort. The Germans wouldn't have been able to hit them on the way in, rearm and then hit them again on the way out like they did historically. Most Targets in Germany would allow the bombers to be fully escorted.
Exactly.
The Germans would probably have hit them when they were still escorted because the wouldnt know what times they would be going outside of escort range and they wouldn't want to let the bombing happen before they attacked.
It's important to realize the amount of fuel required for form-up, climb, and then realize the route to target was rarely a straight line. You can see the route that was taken to Schweinfurt, for example.
Straight line distance London to Berlin, 581 miles or 935 kilometers.
I have to disagree with the sentiment expressed by mpeugot at 59:40 that the US "had zero problem throwing bodies away"; that's just not supported by the evidence. The most obvious example is the way defensive armament grew over the course of the war - if the USAAF just didn't care about aircrew lives at all, why did succeeding variants of the B-17 and B-24 sprout more and more defensive machine guns (and machine gunners!) at the cost of speed, range, and payload? Reducing the bombers' defensive armament would have (arguably) made them better bombers, if USAAF brass _really_ didn't care how many men died to execute their doctrine. And by the same token, why would the callous USAAF assumed by the comment have bothered trying to create "escort" versions of the B-17 and B-24, and eventually authorized the use of fighters to escort bombers on deep penetration raids? It is possible to be too cynical.
In many ways they didn't care. Largely they serve the purpose of being bait.
@@WALTERBROADDUS But it was a blanket statement against the US military. It can't explain why the USN was so good at pilot recovery, for instance.. Aviators are a valuable resource.
@@warheadsnation blankets are too broad.
A follow-up question of limited escorts by Spitfires and Thunderbolts: why didn't Bomber Mafia assigned most ETO Fighter Squadrons to 9th AF?
P-47 had drop tank plumbing because the British specifications required it. The manufacturer simply fitted every Thunderbolt with the plumbing. That allowed USA to quickly go to tanks when the bomber mafia eventually allowed their use.
Those tanks were also used to ferry the aircraft to remote bases. The British were more concerned about this than the Americans. Early Mustangs delivered to the British were sent with rubber fuel bladders that could be installed in the wings in place of the machineguns and ammo to increase fuel a total of 108 gallons to permit longer ferry distances. The guns would be sent on a transport to meet back up with the aircraft.
Were fighter escorts used on heavy missions in early 1943 to targets in the range of clean P-47s like Mortsel (Antwerp,) i.e. the Erla Motor works or any others in the low country?
@ Greg - you made reference to lacking reliability of aero piston engines compared to those of today. You may have heard about the recent BBMF Spitfire that lost power on takeoff and tragically crashed 30 May killing the pilot, Mark Long. Could you do a segment discussing historic engine reliability of these piston warbirds versus what is commonplace and expected today? Were maintenance procedures more lax back then? Were the engines simply not as reliable in general? Was it improper training?
I suppose I could, but I was really talking about high powered aero piston engines back then vs. aircraft engines now. Today engine failure in a modern aircraft engine is a rare thing. Back in the WW2 era is was VERY common. If you were flying all the time it was a once or twice a year thing. Today most pilots will go their entire career and never have an engine failure.
Greg, is there something inherently less reliable about WW2 piston engines vs modern piston engines? Metallurgy? The incremental boosting for additional power? I guess the only engines around today that generate that kind of power are turboprops or jet engines, which I imagine have been refined to be much more reliable?
Greg, could you do some videos on the experimental/high performance variants of prewar US fighters like the XP-40Q?
Could airframes like the P-39, P-40, been pushed as far as the Spitfire,109,190, were if the US was not able to develop as many new clean sheet designs and had to keep improving existing designs?
Would be interestingly to see how far an F4F could be pushed if forced to keep using them in front line service like the Japanese were forced with the late war Zero variants.
F4F fought until the end of the war, see Greg's wildcat video.
@@GeneralJackRipper I am aware, that's not the relevant to the question. I am asking about how it might have hypothetically developed further either with the designs following it not existing, or not produced in sufficient to actually replace it as the front line fleet carrier fighter. Forcing them to upgrade it further than done with the FM-2, like what the Japanese had to do with the A6M.
One thing makes no sence. If the leaders of the AAC were so convinced that large bombers required no fighter escort, why did they put together all the European fighter commands, with hundreds of fighters, hundreds of pilots, thousands in personnel and millions of dollars in running cost, if it had no actual necessity?
Every time a bomber mission over the continent was planned, any number of squadrons were activated and attached top that bombing mission to cover every leg of the bomber's journey, out to the limits of the fighter's combat radius, often having to have 2 to 3 escort groups leapfrogging each other to always have the bombers escorted, out the the fighter's combat limit, and then doing the same thing again on the way back.
If I were convinced this enormous effort and millions of dollars of cost, were without any effect, I would have fought tooth and nail to get those planes and pilots and ground support put to better use.
I have talked about this before. I can't really do this justice in the comment section. It takes much less space to ask a question than to completely answer it, but here goes. There are a number of reasons. First, fighters had many uses other than escort work. For example, the P-39 and P-40 are obviously of no use for escorting B-17s, they would also be of no use for intercepting bombers with similar high altitude performance. Yet many P-39s and P-40s were built.
Second, there were forces opposing the Bomber Mafia, I have talked about some of them before, but the RAF wasn't drinking that Kool-Aid and a lot of US pilots and leaders learned from the RAF, some, like Zemke learned from the Soviets and he wasn't drinking it either. Many USAAF Generals opposed the Bomber Mafia, and let's not forget it was the US ARMY Air Force, there were Army forces involved as well. These forces were not as strong, but they still had some effect.
Most significantly, the Bomber Mafia slowly changed their tune over time. They ideas went from we don't need escorts at all, to they might be beneficial, to we need them only to go through the "fighter belt", and ultimately to escorts are essential. It was not as simple as going from we don't need them to we do.
@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Hi Greg! Thanks for the reply.
I think what it really came down to, was what I read about why the Navy had highly defective torpedoes until mid-war, and leadership refused to listen to the men at sea, who were using them. During the inter-war period, higher officers who were being promoted and held onto, were because of political influences, but not on merits. "Merits" were doled out as political favors. Keep your nose clean, don't make waves, and support the right leadership, and the leadership will pull you up in their wake.
So when at the outset of the war in the Pacific, when every single submarine commander complained that the torpedoes were defective, they were labeled as cowards and incompetent, because leadership per definition can't be wrong, and leadership signed off on the defective torpedoes, and refused to listen to experience. I think the same thing happened with the bomber mafia.
I've heard it said over and over, the first two years of the war was less learning to organize and fight, but weeding out incompetent leadership, and finding officers who could actually achieve something.
It doesn't take a year of horrendous losses to realize that you're doing something wrong, unless you are incapable of admitting to being wrong.
"After some disastrous raids in 1944 with B-17s escorted by P-38s and Republic P-47 Thunderbolts, Doolittle, then head of the U.S. Eighth Air Force, went to the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, asking for an evaluation of the various American fighters. Test pilot Captain Eric Brown, Fleet Air Arm, recalled:
We had found out that the Bf 109 and the FW 190 could fight up to a Mach of 0.75, three-quarters the speed of sound. We checked the Lightning and it couldn't fly in combat faster than 0.68. So, it was useless. We told Doolittle that all it was good for was photoreconnaissance and had to be withdrawn from escort duties."
Wikipedia
"The Luftwaffe quickly learned to position the bulk of their fighters just beyond the range of the Thunderbolts and repeatedly flew aggressive small unit ambushes against the handful of P-38s tied to close escort and thus denied the freedom to engage at will."
AIR POWER AUSTRALIA P38 page
Nah. Don't ease up on him... it's a mark of respect that you bring your full game to the table. Kid gloves just imply your opponent is dumb.
I'd much prefer to be completely destroyed than to learn my opponent deliberately backed off
Anyone have a link to the video Greg was talking about where he got a little rowdy!😂
ua-cam.com/video/WRy2rFd5tr8/v-deo.html
Should be this one. Shame on you Ruben 😂
Hell hath no fury like a Greg scorned
Yup, that was it, I'm impressed you found it.
Haha! I came here for the same reason. Awesome! Go, Greg, go! 🤣
It is late, but:
I remember that the Romanian IAR-80 was converted with a bomb rack, and later converted without a bomb rack for reasons of loss of speed.
While the IAR-80 was slow for late war standards (and the P-47 was not), did this loss of maximum speed due to bomb racks, rocket racks, external fuel tank fittings was considered a significant issue for the P-47 versions?
Gregg's a Hoot
Not a question tonight. Have you been seeing those AI enhanced videos here on UA-cam shorts that are of dogfights between WWII fighters? Also a few strafes and fighter-bomber action. Lots of cool videos if you ever care to look them up.
Greta video as always! 👍
54:25 Bureau of Ordnance and the MK14 team might be a bit of an illustrative example :-/
I have a new thing to discuss: if "bomber mafia" stuck much to their doctrine, then how much did they know about Luftwaffe's escort issues during the Battle of Britain as this was a good case study for their bomber offensive? However Luftwaffe had only medium bombers available, they utilized point defence fighters instead of proper heavy escort fighters. Their prewar doctrine dictated use of Bf-110 and Bf-109 received drop tanks shortly after BoB ended.
BoB was different ball of worms. RAF fighters v bombers was done at rifle caliber distance. One on one 8 Browning MG's against one MG if that MG happened to have a gunner at that moment.
Bombers flew in loose formation and usually all at the same alt.
An interesting debate . To me if crews on islands with nothing but coconuts can put together a workable drop tank , Then what possible excuse can exist for those in the ETO not to. ???? General Kenny was a man of ,To hell with the book ! Just get it done . Accomplished much with left overs he was given .
After watching some naval history channels and such, could it also have been the issues we had with the British at times?
I mean wasn't the whole idea of the bomber always getting through a big international idea in the 30s that really tripped up the French and ended up making their air force very ineffective when they actually began to see combat
21:27 the B-17 bomber formation gunners were so deadly, that allied fighters were no allowed within effective range of the bomber formations, otherwise they would get shot down, since the gunners couldn't tell friend from foe at those speeds and distances. Sounds like pretty effective fire to me. Not good enough, but better than people want to claim.
Also, a great many of the bombers lost in those early unescorted missions were lost to Flak, for which escorts would have changed nothing. As the war progressed, teh anti-flak bomber tactics improved a lot, which helped cut down on bomber losses from flak. a post-war report also found that bombers kept deviating from the flak-avoidance mission routes they were assigned, and that had the bombers followed the routes as planned, a full 25% of bomber losses due to flak could have been avoided.
Is it possible the people in command thought having a single pilot aircraft fly 3 hours out, dogfight then 3 hours back was not a good idea ?
Saburo Sakai says hi. Pity, (maybe not much), Japanese naval fighters flying from Rabaul to Guadalcanal and back.
@@111doomer Correct, however that does not mean it was a smart play. Early on Japanese pilots were a breed apart. They often had the radio removed to save weight and did not wear a parachute to save weight and wearing a chute would be "cowardly".
If you have a flight sim I invite you to fly for 3 hours without getting out of your chair, not eating or drinking anything and with something like a Stadium Buddy strapped to your leg and no sound except a Packard Merlin. Dogfight for up to 30 minutes and 3 hours back to base.
Then land in one piece.
@@nickdanger3802 I'm not defending it, but it is a whole other level of endurance. Something you can respect but at the same time shake your head at the process that makes someone do it.
I have a couple videos on the Pacific theater. The second one explains how they did the super long missions in fighters.
“A Repo Man’s always intense!”
Greg's argument came across as much more logical to me and he backed up everything he said with facts, data and even dates. I don't mean to be rude or disrespectful to Bill but his argument came across as a bit repetitive and a little childish at times, he just didn't want to accept the facts thrown at him because it didn't suit his argument.
The B-17G carried 11 fifty caliber machine guns. Wikipedia says a M2 machine gun weights 84 pounds. 84 x 11 = 924 pounds of gun. Six of the guns were mounted in turrets but they all had mountings of some sort. I’d guess that would double the weight to say and even ton. Then there are the ammo boxes, chutes and the ammunition itself. Maybe another ton. Then there is crew. If the average guy back then weighed 160 pounds that is 1600 pounds of crew before equipping then with electric suits, electric gloves, insulated clothing, armor plate, steel helmets and parachutes. So all geared up maybe 2200 pounds of crew. There was also armor plate installed in the plane to protect the crew. So, maybe another 600 pounds. Then you have to figure in all the electrical wiring, intercom and oxygen for 10 crewmen and that is probably another 1000 pounds. With a bomb load and fuel you have to wonder how a B-17 ever got off of the ground. That they squeezed this many people and this much equipment into the plane goes to show how determined the bomber mafia was to make unescorted bombing work.
About 2,000 hp class fighter bombers operating off forward bases made a lot of sense.
84lb is for the M2HB, the more common variant used on the ground, on tripods and vehicles. You want the AN/M2, which is the aircraft version with a shorter and lighter barrel. Wikipedia lists the AN/M2 weight as 62lb.
I think I’ll pass on this based on the comments. A West Pointer never lie? Sounds like someone who has smoked too many joints.