Posted on 09/25/2020 9:01:24 AM PDT by C19fan
The Army Air Corps/Army Air Force decision to eliminate the turbo supercharger from the engine “doomed” the P-39 as a high altitude fighter. That gave it a disadvantage of being able to get above Japanese Zero’s and bombers that were being used against Port Moresby, New Guinea, that came across the Owen-Stanley Mountains at high altitude. It was discovered its maneuverability was good at low altitudes against a Zero, whenever it had a chance to get at them below 10,000 feet.
As with the Soviets, it came into its own on Guadalcanal as a low altitude ground support (aka close air support) fighter-bomber and on other South Pacific islands until it was withdrawn from combat.
The USAAF squadrons that flew it in North Africa also focused on close air support.
Depending upon the model, it had either a 20mm or 37mm cannon firing through the engine hub as well as a pair of .50 cals firing through the propeller and 2 x .30 cal mgs in each wing.
Something like:
Don't give me a P39
With an engine mounted behind
It'll tumble and roll,
and dig a big hole –
don't give me a P-39.
“Uncle Joe” did the same thing with the masses sent to the Gulag.
Many of them were worked to death in the Kolyma goldfields, again to raise foreign cash to fund his industrialization program.
Yep.
Ain’t socialism great?
[I think that an important part of Soviet strategy was to just put out a lot of targets and try to overwhelm the Nazis or make them run out of ammunition.]
“Russians liked it in an anti-tank role.”
They deny that, claiming it was a bad interpretation. I don’t think the type of ammo was designed for that.
Apparently, Busting a tank from the air was very difficult. Finding it was hard and hitting it was even harder.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_P-39_Airacobra
We also sent the P-63 KingCobra to the Soviets which is an even better story
From what I read, the earlier versions of the P51 were dogs too.
Interesting side note: On Guadalcanal land-based F4F Wildcats flew top-cover for the P-39’s on a lot of anti-shipping strikes. The Wildcat HAD a 2-stage mechanical supercharger and so had some capability at altitude that the Airacobra lacked. But the Airacobra had that 37MM cannon in the nose that could tear through an invasion barge like nothing else. So the Navy pilots got to ‘entertain’ the Zeros while the P-39’s got down in the weeds with the enemy infantry.
“From what I read, the earlier versions of the P51 were dogs too.”
The Allison was a decent engine that lacked for a 2-stage, 2-speed mechanical supercharger like the Brits eventually packaged into their Merlin-equipped Spits. Stanley Hooker was able to keep the Merlin one-step-ahead of the German Luftwaffe by shoving higher & higher octane (American) aviation fuel into the Merlin at ever greater manifold pressures.
The US Army Air Corps is lucky they even had the single-state Allison. That was developed privately by a division of General Motors without any government development contract. They might have rushed an improved Allison, but why bother if Packard could be persuaded to build license copies of the Merlin to support both the USAF and the RAF?
In Soviet service, the P-39 also benefitted from liquid cooling that better retained heat so as to be able to start easier during the winter.
Yes. In the Solomons, the Japanese troops had a well founded fear of being attacked by P-39s.
It may not have been the best performing plane in an air to air role of any kind, but in the hands of a desperate and determined pilot who was flying the only plane he could get his hands on, our men made good use of it on Guadalcanal against shipping and Japanese ground troops.
[The Russians even made great use of Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes, with female pilots known as “the Night Witches”. They struck terror into Nazi soldiers when under cover of darkness, they cut their engines and glided in silently for the kill.]
On 17 June 1951, at 01:30 hours, Suwon Air Base was bombed by two Po-2s. Each biplane dropped a pair of fragmentation bombs. One scored a hit on the 802nd Engineer Aviation Battalion’s motor pool, damaging some equipment. Two bombs burst on the flightline of the 335th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. One F-86A Sabre (FU-334 / 49-1334) was struck on the wing and began burning. The fire took hold, gutting the aircraft. Prompt action by personnel who moved aircraft away from the burning Sabre prevented further loss. Eight other Sabres were damaged in the brief attack, four seriously. One F-86 pilot was among the wounded. The North Koreans subsequently credited Lt. La Woon Yung with this damaging attack.[12]
UN forces named the Po-2’s nighttime appearance Bedcheck Charlie and had great difficulty in shooting it down – even though night fighters had radar as standard equipment in the 1950s. The wood-and-fabric material of the Po-2 had only a small radar cross-section, making it hard for an opposing fighter pilot to acquire his target. As Korean war U.S. veteran Leo Fournier remarked about “Bedcheck Charlie” in his memoirs: “... no one could get at him. He just flew too low and too slow.” On 16 June 1953, a USMC AD-4 from VMC-1 piloted by Major George H. Linnemeier and CWO Vernon S. Kramer shot down a Soviet-built Polikarpov Po-2 biplane, the only documented Skyraider air victory of the war. The Po-2 is also the only biplane credited with a documented jet-kill, as one Lockheed F-94 Starfire was lost while slowing down to 161 km/h (100 mph) – below its stall speed – during an intercept in order to engage the low flying Po-2.[13] ]
Sometimes it's a pilot's skill and daring that wins the day, not necessarily the hardware. You might have heard that old expression, "It's not the pen you use, it's how you sign your name."
I've read many accounts of the daring of the Russian pilots on the Eastern Front, yes even with P-39s, which they didn't mind flying at all.
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