F4U Corsair vs. P-51 Mustang

The RAAF never flew P-38s in Europe. They only received 8 F-4-1-LO photo reconnaissance models, and they never left the Pacific.

Although it sounds like you are talking about the RAF Lightning Is. Turbos were not fitted because that was what the customers(British & French) wanted - Lockheed knew they would underperform without the turbos and referred to these P-38s as a "castrated P-38".

 

Ace

you are correct but limited

the Raf did not fly P38s operationally in Europe.
the French ordered 147 p38s and were happy to not have super turbo chargers to maintain compatibility with there p40s
the poms ordered 100 with 3 pre order for evaluation. Now not all of the USA was pom friendly add to that people like JFKs daddy saying the poms would surrender in two weeks. the yanks were not happy to let the NEW tech of super turbocharger out of there hands. the poms beggars an not be choosers had no choice.

any way the French were defeated so the poms took over the French ( undelivered ) order. this take the often quoted 250 aircraft.

only 3 of these airframes made it to pommyland, evaluated, found to be dogs and the order was handed back to the US army

"castrated P-38". yes thay were, worse than clipping the wings of a spifire

 

I believe late-war versions of the F4U was faster than any other allied or axis fighter.

 

piston fighter yes, post war it was surpassed by the bearcat and the sea fury, ---- and then ----- there ---- were the jets

 

As you say, you are correct, but limited.

You are forgetting that your "poms" also ordered Lightning IIs with the improved F-series engines, turbos, and left & right handed engines. But, they cancelled that order along with the original order after their introduction to the Castrated P-38.

Apparently the begger could choose and did have a choice.

 

Here is the link to the Football or Soccer Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_War

Also the F4U-1C had the 6 .50 cal machine guns replaced with 4 20 millimeter cannons

 

ACIG.info has this article on the Football War:
http://www.acig.info/CMS/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=88&Itemid=47

The Latin American Aviation Historical Society has a good 19 page article on the Football War:
http://www.laahs.com/content/10-The-100-Hour-War/view/1

 

??? If you look I was replying to a question about the difference between naval pilots vs air force pilots. As far as the US goes the USAAF in the prewar time frame did not concentrate on deflection shooting. Some accounts I've read stated that they were either the only service to do so or one of the few that did. Frankly I'm not sure what the practice was in other countries or indeed if what I read was correct even in us usage. How much effort pre war did the ones you mention put into deflection shooting?

Stating that the US played a relatively small part in WW1 is certainly correct at least if you are looking just at the combat portion of it. Saying so for WWII is simply nonsensical.

 

@ Ace, look every one knows that the USA was just one big factory. it was but it was not as big as people think. the only items that the US produced more than 50% of the allies war materials are as follows Trucks, fighter and bomber aircraft, aircraft carriers, and machine guns.
it also can lay claim to very little technicality development. or should i say a lot of development but little invention. the A bomb was eventually British in concept, early development and theory, the yanks were not interested until Enisine's letter to Roosevelt. Simla story with the jet, rada etc, all allied country's increased food production with the exception of occupied country's and the USA. which increased imports thus taking up shipping. IE for every 3 ships built 1 went to food transport. new Zealand and Australia was feeding the yanks in the pacific for a long time freeing up the yank transports for coke, rum and icecream. a topic that ended up being debated in the Kiwi Parliament.

things need to be put in perspective. the US contribution was great, and we all know that with out american involvement ww2 would probably still be going on today. with out Australian or new Zealand involvement it would have taken much longer, say at least 3-4 years.

but back onto this topic, during the occupation of Japan. allied pilots and just about all allied fighter aircraft got to play with each other. the F4U came out trumps. it could and did out fight every other fighter in mock dogfights. Having said that the majority of aircraft kills during ww2 were not as a result of a dog fight, unlike ww1 dog fights were avoided. height advantage being translated into a speed advantage. dive shoot run away maybe try again. the ability to survive a fur-ball is not the ability to kill but the ability to survive. most non millatery pilots are not aware of that fact! its the old adage," you are shoot down by the plane you never see"
the F4u was great because it could get away. it was fast it did have range and it was versatile.
the down side of the F4U was, it was expensive. it was complicated, it was big. and the high maintenance hours vers flying hours was extremely high. this is very true when comparing to the P51.
i will ad some thoughts here, land operations vers ship operations. if you compare the hurricane advantages over the spitfire during BoB. i.e. time on the ground between flight ( being one of them) this is not as a greater point on ship operations. in short you can not land a squadron and have it in the air again in 20minits. the logistics of a flight deck just do not accommodate for that. simple. so a ship squadron of F4U's is less hammperd but ship operations than say a ground operated F4u.
if you remove the ablity or requirment of haveing to be aircraft carrier compatable and then look at the air frames again. change the snaerio to say the BoB with the RAF only having F4u and P51's then the p51 is by far the greater aircraft. tghis is born out again in the pacfic. with the army securing land strips the P51 came into is own being Land + range. now a F4u is more than capable of Land + range. but it required more maintance personal. more shipping. just more of every thing.

i guess, you have to decribe greatest first, what is the meening of greatest. the fasted thing a man makes is a rocket. use once and you get it back as a smoldering unsuable lump. but if you wish to round up stck in auatralia you use a chopper. not as fast but you can use it more than once.
again, most peaple think of air combat as a turning twisting ww1 dogfight. it is not! there may be examples of this but thay are few and far between in the big picture

so the answer to the question is, F4u vers P51. in the air simply its the f4u, what is the greates aircraft of the two, if you remove the requirments of ship operations then its the P51 hands down, in the pacfic at that time when both aire craft were used.

 

As a side answer to LWD - The Avatar im using is Clive Caldwell...he "invented" - Shadow Shooting...flying low to the deck, he'd get his flight to try and shoot his shadow on the ground, he wouldn't make it easy for them! This was proved to markedly improve deflection shooting. Not surprisingly he and his crew downed a number of squadrons worth of aircraft as a result...more than 28 for Clive himself.

 

So informative.
Do you have any thoughts on the merits of the Sherman, Iowas, M1s, etc?

 

Just off the top of my head, I would add battleships, cargo ships, landing craft, and railroad locomotives. If you are combining the totals of the UK & USSR, the aircraft production is iffy.

The A-Bomb wasn't British in concept - Several nations were working on A-Bomb programs in parallel.
The A-Bomb wasn't British in early development, nor theory - The Americans and British were each working on their own programs, ironically, much of the legwork was being done by nationals foreign to both countries.

The "Brits" were not interested until the Frisch–Peierls memorandum in March, 1940. Einstein's letter to Roosevelt was in August, 1939 - Also, it was far more the work of Leó Szilárd, with Einstein signing it for "oomph" effect.

As to radar, it was the British development of the cavity magnetron that allowed for short-wave radars to be viable.

Umm...The USA also increased it's food production.
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Agstat//1940s/1941/Agstat-04-23-1941.pdf
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Agstat//1940s/1942/Agstat-04-23-1942.pdf
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Agstat//1940s/1943/Agstat-04-23-1943.pdf
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Agstat//1940s/1944/Agstat-04-23-1944.pdf
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Agstat//1940s/1945/Agstat-04-23-1945.pdf
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Agstat//1940s/1946/Agstat-04-23-1946.pdf
Not to mention that the US was exporting far more than it was importing.
But, then again, you are do not seem interested in facts, only accusations.

Seems that the Kiwi Parliament was more concerned with getting their fair share of Coke, Rum, and Ice Cream, than prosecuting the war against the Japanese.


The only one that seems to be arguing about this is yourself, and with half-truths, you argue it badly, and convince no one. Nor does it have any bearing on the subject at hand. It would be far better to have this argument in a new thread rather than cluttering up other threads where it is nothing but a tangent.

 

For some reason I think arguing with this one will be a lost cause on the order of mjolnir, robdab/dabrob, 67th Tigers, et al...

 

Agreed. However, while I am well acquainted with the two...67th Tigers is a new one - I have never "crossed swords" with him.

 

67th Tigers (or Tigger) was involved in some monumental threads on TankNet a few years ago. He was a mendacious Brit that claimed expertise on the American Civil War when actually his level of knowledge was about equal to Paddy Griffith. Liked spurious references including the interesting one of referencing the "Little Green Men" website...which was his own wargaming site. Also liked to shift years for events, such as the launching and commissioning dates of warships. The best though was when he referenced the MA thesis of one of Joe Harsh's students to "prove" his lunacy about how Lee always outnumbered McClellan and how Mac was a genius. He acted like he had a copy...until I went to GMU's library and checked out the original. You see, I'm an alum and was an undergrad student of Joe's. He did the same with numerous other sources.

I remember he got banned at one website after he argued that black slavery was justified.

One of the worst I have ever run into on the internet. A liar, a troll, and a racist all rolled up into one.

 

Thanks, it might be interesting if this topic had a thread of its own. I'm wondering if the initial statements were something like the USN was the only US service that concentrated on deflection shooting and it just got shortened to the USN was the only service to do so. Of course the term "concentrated" can cover a considerable range of effort. I'm pretty sure the USAAF fighter pilots were at least introduced to the topic and firing at a towed target would involve some deflection shooting. The different training systems may have had some impact as well. I seam to recall reading that in the Luftwaffe for instance a lot of the training was conducted after the pilot reached his unit as opposed to in flight school.

 

Much of this is subjective as to what heights the mock dogfights were carried out, quality of the pilots, quality of the aircraft, etc.. Further, it will depend on the specific model of F4U and P-51/F-51. At least early on, the F4U-1 was the superior performer up to about 25,000 feet against the P-51B at which point the -51B was the better aircraft. http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f4u/p-51b-f4u-1-navycomp.pdf However, it would not be until the advent of the F4U-4 that the Corsair achieved high altitude advantage.

Yes, this was the basic building block of fighter tactics and was taught early on in training.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_iW1T3yg80
Of course, this implies that you are flying an aircraft that has the ability to climb higher than the enemy's, and implies that one is not limited in altitude by their mission duties.

Situational awareness is a must. Goes along with "Don't be stupid."

Still, this could be said for several aircraft, with each having it's adherents as to which was better.

Depends how you define expensive. In 1945, a P-51 cost around $50,000, and in 1944, an F4U cost $61,000.

What were the maintenance hours vs flying hours for the F4U & P-51? as I have not been able to find a reliable source.

Not exactly sure why you are bringing this up? Why bother with the Spits and Hawkers during the Battle of Britain when both the P-51 & F4U were operated from land bases during WW2, and both operated from land bases in the Pacific.

That being said the Navy did have an interest in getting the Mustang aboard carriers, it was called Project Seahorse
http://mustang.gaetanmarie.com/articles/naval/naval.htm

Well, it is debatable that the P-51 was the greatest land-based plane in the Pacific. But, then again, the -51 came to the Pacific late in the game. It was intended to be the B-29 escort, but as things worked out, they only flew 10 escort missions. Further, maintenance and logistical data is necessary to come to a conclusion, and this is lacking. Finally, 221 victories to 114 combat losses and 43 operational losses is not much for the P-51 to crow about.

I would add that, depending on when & where in the Pacific War, the Battle of Britain is a very poor comparison. More often than not, the battles were fought over long distances and over enemy controlled territory - This was hardly the case with the British and BoB. The closest approximation to the BoB, would be the early defensive air battles over Guadalcanal.

I would disagree. All things being equal, the F4U, or more to the point, the F4U-4 was the superior aircraft, land-based or carrier-based.

 

[SIZE=10.5pt]not really my thing, i know the Sherman was out classed in all but speed. but no i do not know about them at all.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]your question did raise a thought, 28 Maori battalion had at least 1 company that was armed with captive German weapons. there was quite a nice letter from WC asking then to please not use German Kit. the thought was, did they do that because it was better kit? better than British or American kit, was there supply problems? or was it for a tactical advantage?[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]at cactus. its well written that the marines dropped there small arms and pinched army stuff.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]i also know of stories first hand of the kiwi saw millers who were very early on cactus. well early enough to see the hand over to the army from the marines and the subsequent army stuff ups. ( they all had a lot of respect for the marines) dropping there English weapons and pinching American Kit. What that means i do not know, just interesting.[/SIZE]

 

Umm...The USA also increased it's food production.
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Agstat//1940s/1941/Agstat-04-23-1941.pdf
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Agstat//1940s/1942/Agstat-04-23-1942.pdf
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Agstat//1940s/1943/Agstat-04-23-1943.pdf
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Agstat//1940s/1944/Agstat-04-23-1944.pdf
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Agstat//1940s/1945/Agstat-04-23-1945.pdf
http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/usda/nass/Agstat//1940s/1946/Agstat-04-23-1946.pdf
Not to mention that the US was exporting far more than it was importing.
But, then again, you are do not seem interested in facts, only accusations.

Seems that the Kiwi Parliament was more concerned with getting their fair share of Coke, Rum, and Ice Cream, than prosecuting the war against the Japanese.


The only one that seems to be arguing about this is yourself, and with half-truths, you argue it badly, and convince no one. Nor does it have any bearing on the subject at hand. It would be far better to have this argument in a new thread rather than cluttering up other threads where it is nothing but a tangent.


[SIZE=10.5pt]Thanks for posting the links, confirms what i have been writing. also had a bit of a look deeper. the export stats include stuff sent to American forces, the poms on the other hand do not declare this as an export. not important just something you need to know if you ever actually read this stuff. [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt] [/SIZE]
[SIZE=10.5pt]Mate, no half truths, and no rose colored patriotic distorted glasses either.[/SIZE]