Piece of Junk? Why the P-39 Was So Hated

for the most part what it's doing is intercepting high altitude bomber formations escorted by zeros they're fighting an elite zero unit at these altitudes um it's just not the recipe for success hello everybody and welcome back to military aviation history i'm your host chris and today i'm once again joined by our resident pacific theater expert justin pike welcome justin yeah always happy to be here today i thought we'd talk a little bit about the p49 specifically the early operations in the south pacific in 1942 and explain a little bit about why the aircraft has gotten such a poor reputation especially among american pilots and why that is relatively easy explainable if you look at both the aircraft in itself and the operational context and that doesn't mean that specifically the aircraft was bad or that the pilots were flying it were bad but the reputation that it garnered or got in the area makes sense when you actually look for the reasons for it and that also provides a little bit of a contrast to of course the soviet opinion on the aircraft which was fairly positive but who used the aircraft in a completely and entirely different context before we get started i want to take a quick moment to thank viewer and patreon errol cavett who has taken a lot of fantastic pictures of a p-46 restored at pioneer aero in new zealand he was so kind to allow me to use them in this video which was a great help in getting some visuals for this plane i've placed a link to his album in the description below so make sure to check it out there as well and if you have similar pictures of aircraft that you would like to give and allow me to use in future videos please don't hesitate to contact me via social media links are in the description below first we have to look at the p49 of course as a plane so i'll run down a couple of specs here and explain how the aircraft came to be as it is um it's a very atypical aircraft especially for sort of an american plane of the time and it actually had quite a few advantages and unoffered the docks design and design choices that made it into the aircraft that it was so early on there were a lot of hopes heaped on the p-49 it was going to be a very well-performing aircraft very fast very maneuverable uh very you know strong in terms of firepower but with time and as the aircraft was developed a lot of the hopes that were heaped on the aircraft essentially shrunk away now the aircraft in itself as it came out had excellent armor in fact it was one if not the best armored fighter aircraft uh especially single-engine fighter aircraft of the entire war um it had some good firepower with a 37 millimeter cannon there was also of course the p400 which had a 20 millimeter cannon but overall yes the fee for the the 37 millimeter cannon it had a low rate of fire generally pro ballistics and initially also there were some thieving problems with the weapon but overall it was actually rather well regarded once the weapons kings were worked out and it had a tricycle landing gear which is also very nice makes especially on rough terrain i think it's a lot easier and it had a reasonable top speed and also a very strong dive talking a little bit about the disadvantages here we'll have of course to talk about the performance of the aircraft i just said it had a reasonable top speed yes that is at low altitude going in a straight line but the allison v 1710 and different versions of that aircraft of that engine were of course used um didn't actually give the aircraft the performance that was needed but that is perhaps not so much down to the aircraft's engine although we'll have to talk about that specifically as well but about the stuff that was put on the aircraft because of the armor and the weaponry that was of course put on the aircraft weighed it down a lot um it had a rather poor climb especially compared to some of the japanese aircrafts of the time which could be done away with with a good early warning system which didn't always work in 1942 in new guinea the the main disadvantage however of the aircraft was that it lacked a proper um super turbocharger at altitude so when the aircraft was in its prototype stage there was a two-stage turbocharger proposed which was taken out of the aircraft instead it got a one-stage one-speed supercharger this essentially meant that the aircraft was limited to low to and medium altitudes because after 12 000 feet and that's a roughly 4000 meters the performance suffered a lot and beyond that another issue of the aircraft was it's very limited range so in the south pacific of course we're talking about ranges that are quite significant and aircraft like the zero were very well suited to the environment in that regard the p49 not so much so initially as a prototype it had internally 200 gallons of fuel and that went down to 120 with the p49d simply because the fuel tanks had to be made uh smaller especially because they were to be self-sealing and that just took away of the volume you can also not put any fuel tanks inside the fuselage of the aircraft because the fuselage has taken up up front by the cannon then in the middle of course by the pilots and in the rear by the engine and the oil tank i think the best way to illustrate this is to have a closer look at the plane's range and compare to other planes for this i am using the values given in the flight manuals let's start with the p39d which is representative of an early era cobra used by the allies in the pacific it is also very similar to the p400 borrow some changes for example to the armament it has an internal fuel load of 120 us gallons that's 450 liters and on maximum continuous power at 12 000 feet this gives it a range of 300 miles by leaning out the mixture you can extend that to a maximum of 640 miles these are one-way trips of course so to get a feel for the combat radios have the values and shave off an extra bit for warm-up taxi takeoff loiter and of course your reserve the manual actually omits 20 gallons itself which i assume is mainly for ground consumption with an auxiliary drop tank of 75 us gallons that's 280 liters range can then be increased to 435 and 840 miles respectively now let's compare that to the p40 because both planes used the same engine although slightly different variants it has an internal fuel load of 148 us gallons the manual emits 30 gallons here on max continues at 9 000 feet the p40 gets 325 miles and for max range it is set at 700 and then with the drop tank of 75 us gallons this increases to 420 and 895 miles the longer range of the p40 can mainly be explained with a slightly better fuel capacity but also what appears to be a better maximum range when using a lower power setting which is quite interesting both planes are still quite limited then in terms of range in the south eastern pacific theater i'll draw up a quick example here take port moresby for example the distance here to the japanese landing zones at lae and salamawa is 180 miles give and take this means that on paper both planes have just enough fuel to fly there and double back straight away and you better be praying for a tailwind or both stretches of your journey as well this limits the use of the planes as escorts but furthermore this is just a clinical example you know if factoring in weather conditions reserve fuel loiter time both the p-40 and p-49 are essentially becoming a point defense aircraft in the region the more the japanese advance the more the aircraft could be used in an air superiority role but even then range will still be an issue also the p-49 was conceptualized as a bomber intercept or at least meant to be used as a high-altitude interceptor meaning that it was supposed to climb which cuts away precious fuel and its performance at altitude really wasn't all that great it is still better it is still a better climber than the p40 however for example comparing here to the time that it takes to go to uh 15 000 feet the p-49 takes between 5.9 to 7.4 minutes depending on the load that you're carrying and the p40 takes 9.2 to 10.8 minutes these times are still in favor of the p49 but it is still about 1 to 1.5 minutes slower in a climb than some very similar aircraft of the time and this slow climb its intended role as an interceptor and the limitations of range and flight time paired with a limited early warning system prevents some real limitations to this aircraft and at this point it might also serve to compare the plane to one of its adversaries yeah so the zero of course known for its operational range it's probably it's one outstanding characteristic um so the model 21 that's the e6 m2 the famous zero people think of when you say zero um it had on internal fuel a a range of 1 162 miles with a drop tank that went out to 1927 miles uh it's just huge um i threw in as well the a6m3 and the model 32 because that gets a reputation as being short ranged in the japanese navy air service um and they would complain about it um it had with a drop tank a range of 1477 miles and some people might say well you know it's comparing apples to oranges here a little bit the one thing is sort of a navy fighter the other thing is a uh well yeah a land-based uh interceptor you might say or ground attacker depending on how you look at the aircraft that is true but you have to look at the fact that these aircraft were used in the same area and they were facing the same conditions and in that and that constellation the range issue becomes quite tricky and it sort of restricts what the aircraft can do so justin why don't you go ahead with that yeah so because of the theater um more range is not necessarily about all about combat radius i mean of course we were listing basically ferrying ranges but that converts into a combat radius it's also about safety margins um like you need to have fuel to climb over the owen stanley's or to get around the owen stanley's or to get around bad weather um and since this isn't say uh somewhere like europe like or in france or something like that where you might be able to limp back to um an airfield that is relatively nearby or maybe even just dump it in a field or something like that um this is new guinea you're looking at shark-infested waters or jungle with not too much in between so safety margins and things like that were really important it could restrict the type of operations that you could conduct um and there are lots of different examples of this i mean even to pick like a an example that's slightly outside the area but very similar the japanese operations against darwin when they were fighting spitfires there was literally one action where the zeros flew several hundred miles in conducted the mission and flew 700 miles out and instead of fighting the spitfires they just ran the spitfires that had just taken off out of fuel um so it's a huge factor in this in this region so then we also have to of course talk about operators because a machine is always a machine and you know how a machine is going to operate provided that you of course have experience with it and you have to be aware of its advantages and also of course of its limitations but one of the things that we should also say perhaps is that early on in the war uh this was the same with the u.s navy as also with the army air force which had of course just become the army air force it was the army air corps in 1941 um it was a very sort of dogfight-centric approach to air combat it was sort of reminiscent not entirely reminiscent but sort of still inspired by that first world war experience where it's very much one against one um of course flying in formations taking care of your wingmen and so on and so forth but it was very much dogfight-centric and the american experience was both in the navy in the air force that that doesn't really work in the south pacific especially against japanese aircraft but you still have to have a learning experience before you can actually implement the lessons that you learn and the p49 early on with the pilots that are flying these machines they are the first americans to be essentially pulled into this war and um they they are the ones that are actually living through this experience which means that they are also going to be the ones that are suffering by the limitations of for example their their approach or their the training in the doctrine that has been hammered into them ever since they've become pilots and i think you also mentioned to me earlier that the p-49s on new guinea they have specifically bad luck in the way of who they are actually facing in new guinea of course in in the dark days in 1942 it was thrust into this fighter basically interceptor role because the broader context that i guess we didn't really mention is that for the most part what it's doing is intercepting high altitude bomber formations escorted by zeros so already we're talking about high altitude which is already going to be a struggle they're fighting an elite zero unit at these altitudes um it's just not the recipe for success these unfortunate p-39s are facing one of if not the most elite fighter unit in the japanese navy the tainan kokatai uh many of their pilots are very experienced um and they've gained this experience very recently because they had been heavily involved in uh ripping allied air power to shreds in the dutch east indies and of course many of the pilots had china experience before that um they exhibited consistently excellent teamwork and situational awareness they were they were basically a crack unit um so it was not uh they weren't fighting um some a unit that was like maybe a little bit further down the rungs they were fighting kind of the best of the best um and to i guess to drive this point home really is before the p-39s really become heavily engaged uh royal australian air force number 75 squadron um which was equipped with p40es uh in the words of michael clearing bold quote fought itself into oblivion end quote uh in just 40 uh 44 days against fourth uh and tainan kokutai zeros um one thing one little thing i do want to note is that it was almost mutual because the tainan kokutai zeros uh or the tidal kokuta is actually badly down on strength um in the aftermath of this so again this this broader context of i mean both sides basically fought each other to a standstill briefly and had to sit around for reinforcements on the allied side the reinforcements were these p-39 equipped formations so as far as overclaiming again rears its head versus actual results um in 1942 44 era cobras were lost in combat to 15 zeros so that's a loss ratio about three to one uh eric cobras were credited with 95 zero kills which was a claim to kill ratio of six point three to one um the japanese don't get to laugh either because their over claiming was similar um but it's still a conv very convincing uh victory for the japanese at least as far as pure air-to-air fighter combat is concerned and this leads into the poor reputation that the p-39 began to develop i mean it started picking up lots of nicknames the p400 is my favorite little saying is um the p400 was a p40 with a zero on its tail which i think is one of the cleverest things yeah related to aircraft i've seen um the p39 also picked up like a nickname like iron dog um other things like that and he that that really we should really have a look at that as well because once a plane or a a piece of equipment has a certain reputation even if that aircraft or if that piece of equipment improves over time it still has to essentially overcome that reputation that it has gathered over the years and that is very hard to come that's very hard to go against especially as new aircraft start to appear and of course pilots always want to fly the newest models so there's there's probably also a certain element of these p-39 squadrons being stuck with the aircraft they're starting to see more modern more capable aircraft coming out and they want to transition to those rather than being stuck in the aircraft in the end of the day though i think the reputation of the plane at least when it comes to the american side is more based on sort of the context of its use in new guinea rather than the plane's abilities or even the pilots abilities um but this really goes for almost any aircraft if not all aircraft in any sort of combat environment you know context is essential you always have to look at that beyond sort of the technical characteristics that nowadays we like to emphasize what did the americans do with their p-49s once they sort of started getting a grip with the aircraft of what they can do with it yeah so it started to actually become useful primarily for ground support i mean it was a pretty capable strafer and it could carry a respectable bomb load as well when it transitions into more of a low-level ground attack role it performs much better and even as a fighter uh when the americans start bringing in newer models like the p-38 and things like that they are performed higher up the p-39 could you know uh be skimming tree tops happily um and in that area even if they came up against some fighters the plane was going to give a much better account of itself than it did trying to intercept formation bomber formation definitely yeah right awesome so thanks very much justin if people are interested now about you know the p-39 especially in the south pacific what are sort of the reasoning recommendations you would give to or what people can turn to yeah so there's actually a few excellent books there's eric broker good fighter in the sky for overall context um specifically for p39 400 if you're if you want something really small pretty much you can read it in one sitting p39 p40 air cobra versus a67230 same new guinea 1942 uh it's an osprey uh by michael claringbold so it's kind of a basically a short summation of his work um if you're looking for something that's a bit thicker but yeah south pacific air war vol 3 specifically is when the p-39 has become involved although i would recommend because as we've been driving home context is so important just start right at volume one and go through and you get a much better feel for the the dynamics um within the theater um and that'll give you a very good idea of how a plane like the p-39 in this very specific operational environment can develop the reputation that it did right excellent thanks very much i will pop those reading recommendations also in the description if you guys want to have a look um i will very quickly go over uh why the soviets fought you know the p-49 was good compared to what you just heard about americans again it it it's the context that matters did the planes uh yes they also got later models that were more powerful and of course they also got the p uh 63 the king cobra but what the soviets did is a couple of things first of all the operational context the engagements that were on the eastern front were on more short range were fought on the short range so they didn't really meet the range that was problematic in new guinea for example a lot more low altitude action which the aircraft was better suited for um lots of systems that were inside the p-39 were new to soviet pilots so and we're very appreciated like for example a proper heating system or a working radio some quality of life improvements that that were really well liked of course the armament was also something that they appreciated but specifically also they do something that the americans pilots don't do the american sword and should do and they say they are way more aggressive in the way they modify the aircraft so and on a lot of these aircraft they also take some of the guns out to lighten them they take some of the armor out to lighten them and then of course the plane is going to be performing somewhat better um so that gives you sort of an introduction into why the soviets like the aircraft compared to the americans but of course you can go into more detail and when it comes to that but for that we'll we'll point you to the literature of course that is in the description as always so yeah justin thanks very much for joining and as always i hope you guys have a great day and see you in the sky and oh and justin where can people find you on twitter if they have questions oh uh at cbi underscore pto underscore history the best twitter handle in the history of twitter alright take care thank you very much as always justin is our man to go [Laughter] all right one last time

Channel: Military Aviation History

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Length: 21min 44sec (1304 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 08 2021