Air Strikes

[Tux]

Ahhhh,... there is nothing like the sound of an R-2600 or R-2800 starting up.

Merlin.

Merlin, Merlin, Merlin.

If you want a sharper sound, then Packard-built Merlin. If you want sharp and a bit more grunt then indulge in a Griffon. For me, though, the smooth, rolling purr of a Rolls-Royce-built Merlin is beyond compare in terms of tear-to-the-eye beautiful.

Only the US had the resources to spam so many competing prototype designs for every given aircraft role as they did, so even when the US forces made contentious choices they usually ended up with something very competitive, at the very least. As regards the Vengeance and its contemporaries, specifically, I always find it hard to get worked up about it when I know the A-1 was so close to wrapping up the piston-engined CAS role once and for all...

[Baneman]

Merlin.

Merlin, Merlin, Merlin.

If you want a sharper sound, then Packard-built Merlin. If you want sharp and a bit more grunt then indulge in a Griffon. For me, though, the smooth, rolling purr of a Rolls-Royce-built Merlin is beyond compare in terms of tear-to-the-eye beautiful.

...

Pshaw, only the Daimler-Benz in the 109 can make the hair on your arms stand up when it "whistles" past

[YankeeDog]

Merlin.

Merlin, Merlin, Merlin.

If you want a sharper sound, then Packard-built Merlin. If you want sharp and a bit more grunt then indulge in a Griffon. For me, though, the smooth, rolling purr of a Rolls-Royce-built Merlin is beyond compare in terms of tear-to-the-eye beautiful.

Oh... don't get me wrong, I loves me some Merlin.

The Merlin is the girl who firmly meets your gaze, sidles up to you at the bar, puts her lips up to your ear, and instructs you to make passionate love to her all night long, after which you take her out for a brunch of omlettes and Bloody Marys.

But the R-2800 is the girl you have no memory of picking up at the bar, who bitch-slaps you awake at 3am, grabs you by the chin and tells you to f*ck her again, and again, all morning until both of you are exhausted, at which point you go out for burgers and tequila shots.

Personal preference which you prefer.

As for the Daimler-Benz...she's the girl you lured away from the drunk football captain and screwed at the prom after-party. Pretty and nice memories, and a fun ride in that frisky, I'm-in-my-experimental-phase kind of way, but high maintenance and lacking the depths of passion that came with your later conquests.

[JonS]

I've been coming across a lot of extended aircraft metaphors recently. Something in the water? o_O

[Michael Emrys]

When I was a kid in northern Maine one year several Grumman Avenger torpedo bombers converted to DDT(?) spraying were deployed to a local airfield. From miles away you could feel the ground shake beneath your feet when they fired up the engines. Its difficult to convey the feeling of raw power that emanated from these radial engine supercharged no-mufflered monsters. They made an F16 seem like a toy in comparison.

When I was a child, my family used to rent a cabin at Gulf Shores for a week or so most summers. This was not much more than a hop, skip, and a jump from Pensacola. I think it may have been the summer of 1947 we heard this awesome sound and looked out to see an entire squadron of Corsairs come roaring down the beach barely a hundred feet above the waterline. Very impressive all those R-2800 radials were.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Shades of the Corsair, there.

Not exactly. The Corsair at least didn't fall apart on landing. Or even in the air.

The problems with the Corsair were greatly exaggerated. Yes, it had some, but they were pretty quickly ironed out. But it was also a hot plane that took some getting used to. The Hellcat was more tractable if not as hot, so the powers that be chose to go with that. And mostly the Hellcat was "good enough", until it came to tangling with the Kamikaze threat and all the performance that could be mustered was called for and it was decided that the Corsair was now "tractable enough".* An interesting fact is that the Corsair was still flying off of decks and fighting enemies years after the Hellcat was phased out of combat duty.

*Another interesting fact is that in response to the Kamikaze Grumman designed and produced the F8F Bearcat that didn't quite make it into service in time to do any shooting but in many ways was indeed one of the hottest piston powered planes of the war. A possibly apocryphal anecdote that I came across several years ago illustrates the issue. It seems that a Bearcat pilot was visiting an Air Force base not long after the war where a wing of P-51s was based, and the after dinner talk soon got to debating who had the better plane. So a flyoff was arranged for the morning. Came the morning and the F8F and a P-51 were lined up on the runway side by side warmed up and engines roaring. At a signal they went tearing down the runway and into the air. Well, according to the story, the Bearcat got off the ground, got its wheels up, and made two firing passes on the Mustang before the latter even had its wheels entirely retracted. Now the story has likely gained some embellishment in the retellings, but it does make a valid point. It was designed and built to get off a deck and up to fighting altitude in a hurry. In a BIG hurry.

Michael

[YankeeDog]

Not exactly. The Corsair at least didn't fall apart on landing. Or even in the air.

The problems with the Corsair were greatly exaggerated...

For the most part, I agree. But it's its important not to discount the advantages offered by the ease and simplicity of the Hellcat.

Landing a plane on a carrier is really f'n hard, same in WWII as today. If you look up interviews with WWII Navy Aces, usually the first stat they bring up is the number of carrier landings they achieved. Only secondarily do they note many enemy planes they shot down.

So anything that makes the pilot's job easier on landing is a good thing. And the Hellcat was most definitely easier to land. Eventually, they got the hang of landing the Corsair on the carrier decks, but it was never as easy on final approach as the Hellcat. If Corsairs, on average, shoot down a few more enemy planes, but lose a comparable number of additional airframes and pilots on bad landings, it's a wash from a logistical viewpoint.

The Hellcat also has a reputation of being extremely easy to maintain and repair, which was important given the fast tempo and logistical constraints of carrier air ops.

But it's definitely true that late war against the Kamikazes, when they needed an airframe that could get off the deck and up to altitude *fast*, they began to lean increasingly on the Corsair, which had a measurable advantage in top speed and climb rate. It also was superior in the ground attack role, being able to carry around twice the ordnance. And if the war had gone on another 6 months, I'm sure the Hellcat would have been almost completely supplanted by the Bearcat, which AFAIK actually had the fastest climb rate of any piston-engine plane of the war. That thing could climb like, well... a scared cat.

[JasonC]

Michael E - I call utter bullpucky on that story.

[LUCASWILLEN05]

Some Stuka Footage

To be fair this next oneis German propaganda footage but still instructive as evidence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRZ_7lZ5erM

[LongLeftFlank]

Taking extra cranky pills lately, JC?

[YankeeDog]

Michael E - I call utter bullpucky on that story.

The story is doubtless tall-tale hyperbole; I don't believe "2 firing passes" for a second. But it is true the Bearcat out-climbed a P-51, and not just by a little bit -- by about 1,300 ft./min! The Bearcat could jump off the deck in 115 ft. and reach 10,000 ft. in 94 seconds, a performance record that stood well into the Jet age.

So the Bearcat would indeed be well off the runway and several hundred feet in the air before the Mustang even got its wheels off the ground. Not enough to "make 2 firing passes", but enough to easily put itself in the catbird seat, at 6 O'Clock high on the Mustang before the Mustang even had its wheels up.

It was a specialized interceptor, designed from the ground up to be able to jump off a carrier deck and get up to 20,000 ft.+ in a hurry so that it would have altitude advantage on incoming enemy bombers. Not as good a multi-role airframe as the Corsair, but probably the best piston-engine Naval interceptor to be see service in substantial numbers with any nationality, and IMHO a contender for best piston-engine interceptor ever built, period.

[Michael Emrys]

The story is doubtless tall-tale hyperbole; I don't believe "2 firing passes" for a second.

As I said, the story doubtlessly received some embellishment in several decades of retelling. But depending on the relative abilities of the pilots and any number of other factors, it just touches the limits of possibility. Consider: Navy and Marine pilots were extensively trained in deflection shooting, so he's not going to need to get into the other guy's 6. So say that the first pass comes from the Mustang's 10:00, then the Bearcat does a high wingover making his second pass from 4:00 to 6:00. Not saying it would be easy or the kind of thing one could pull off every time, but he might have had a bit of luck and caught the Mustang pilot by overconfident surprise on this occasion.

Michael

[YankeeDog]

So say that the first pass comes from the Mustang's 10:00...

That's not going to work because he can't get ahead of the Mustang and get set up to make a first pass from the Mustang's 10:00 that quickly. Remember, the Bearcat's advantage is in vertical speed, not horizontal.

So if the two start rolling down the runway at the same time, the Bearcat jumps off the deck faster, and starts climbing quickly, but his horizontal speed is still not faster than the Mustang's; he's just doing it in the air in a steep climb while the Mustang is still rolling along the runway. So he's above and if anything slightly behind the Mustang.

At this point, he might be able to nose over and make a quick snap pass from the rear quarter just as the Mustang is pulling off the tarmac, but he's got to be careful because he's still pretty low to the ground and has low airspeed; he has poor energy. So he's going to need to pull up quickly to re-establish altitude, which will destroy his gun solution. No way he sets himself up for a second pass before the Mustang is airborne, wheels up, and flaps retracted.

The Mustang is no Bearcat, but it's got a lot of power and without a bomb load it can still get off the deck pretty quickly.

[Michael Emrys]

Remember, the Bearcat's advantage is in vertical speed, not horizontal.

While the Bearcats top speed was nothing special, its acceleration was phenomenal. Grumman reduced it weight in every way that would not compromised safety or performance and that acceleration was one of the reasons it got off the deck so quickly. It also meant that the pilot could hang it on the prop at even slow speeds and maneuver adequately.

Look, I'm not trying to defend the story in question. I don't know whether it actually happened or was just dreamed up. I do feel assured that it was illustrative of things the plane could actually do. And it's a little sad that it never got to fulfill its intended role.

Michael

[YankeeDog]

While the Bearcats top speed was nothing special, its acceleration was phenomenal. Grumman reduced it weight in every way that would not compromised safety or performance and that acceleration was one of the reasons it got off the deck so quickly. I

Absolutely, but remember it has to give up all that horizontal acceleration advantage if it wants to climb quickly. The Bearcat can have one or the other; it can use its superior power-weight ratio to accelerate and get out ahead of the Mustang (at least for a while, until the Mustang's slightly superior level flight top speed allows it to catch up), or it can use it to get above the Mustang. It can't do both simultaneously; altitude costs airspeed.

Tactically, the latter is the better choice.

[JasonC]

"I'm not trying to defend the story in question..."

Yes, you are. And it is flaming nonsense.

Take off distance for the P-51D is 1185 feet. I've watched the footage, and time from wheels lifting off to fully retracted is 7 seconds. It's crap. Shorter runway, faster climb one can say - the rest is just Baron Munchausen level crap.

[Skwabie]

Tricky to land, F4U!

[Michael Emrys]

Whaddaya mean, he's on the boat, ain't he?

Michael

[Skwabie]

yup, plus i'm sure the pattern he flew was great!

[Apocal]

I'm still running through the air strike tests guys, I just had a somewhat busy weekend.

edit:

Flak Undefended

1. 2 tank KO

2. 4 tank KO

3. 1 tank KO

4. 2 tank KO

5. 5 tank KO

Flak 2AA

1. 1 tank KO, 2 AA KO

2. 5 tank KO, 1 AA KO

3. 5 tank KO, 1 AA KO

4. 1 tank KO, 0 AA KO

5. 5 tank KO, 1 AA KO (literal last second)

Flak 4AA

1. 5 tank KO, 1 AA KO

2. 2 tank KO, 1 AA KO

3. 3 tank KO, 1 AA KO

4. 0 tank KO, 0 AA KO

5. 1 tank KO, 2 AA KO

Flak 6AA

1. 2 tank KO, 3 AA KO

2. 4 tank KO, 0 AA KO

3. 1 tank KO, 1 AA KO

4. 3 tank KO, 1 AA KO

5. 2 tank KO, 2 AA KO

Flak Max AA

1. 3 tank KO, 1 AA KO

2. 5 tank KO, 2 AA KO

3. 3 tank KO, 1 AA KO

4. 1 tank KO, 0 AA KO

5. 4 tank KO, 1 AA KO

Extremely effective support isn't terribly uncommon. Judging from this, I don't think the presence of flak affects the accuracy or availability of aircraft. Flak is completely unable to defend even itself, let alone other forces. A single strafing run wipes out the 37mm flak gun crews, even with eleven other 37mm guns blazing away at the strafing aircraft.

[JasonC]

Apocal - thanks, yes, this is an Issue, otherwise known as "broken, BTS fix or do somefink".

[LukeFF]

What was that ?

First Russian test of a hand thrown nuclear grenade, dropped from Pe-2 planes by Night Withes squadron ?

Well, the Pe-2 could carry a pair of 500 kg bombs, and those aren't exactly firecrackers. That said, the bomb crater does look to be a bit big.

[Lanzfeld]

Wow.

Looks like the tanks are better off undefended!

[sburke]

Out of curiosity because I have barely messed with air support in any of the WW 2 releases I decided to see what flak at least looks like.

I set up 3 Panthers, a kubelwagen FO and 9 AA units of different types and 3 flights of Sturmoviks - 2 bombing, 1 strafing.

They did 8 bomb runs and I think 5 - 6 strafing runs. The first flight was shot down (I assume that is what knocked out means in the UI).

The bomb runs accounted for the kublwagen with a near miss. The strafing runs took out 3 flak units but in all fairness all but 2 of them were out of ammo now. No Panthers were hit.

Not sure what the expected result would be as I rarely ever use them. The map was flat and devoid of cover.

[JasonC]

LukeFF - actually the normal load of a Pe-2 was 4 or 6 100 kg bombs, which actually weighed a little under 250 lbs. the central bomb bay had racks for 4 of those, and there were 2 additional single 100 kg racks in small bays under each engine. They could carry heavier bombs externally on hardpoints as a overloaded condition, but range and especially speed suffered if they did. A normal Pe-2 strike would have just those 100 kg bombs but lots of them, released by a whole squadron, in separate dive bombing runs for a point target, or glide bombing for pretty low altitude for larger area ones.