Three American, Three German, One British aircraft...

in your stead, I would be too embarrassed to boast about who dropped the biggest number of bombs over some other country. but that's just me..

 

now, on the point regarding the specific aircraft pickup, B17 (bomber boxes) + P51-D (escort) + BF109 (against escort fighters) + Me262 (against bomber boxes) are an accurate representation of the day raids for 44. 45. P47 (strafing Me262 at take-off/landing) + FW190D (flying CAP over Me262's airfields) are also fitting with the previous scenario.

 

It's the Spitfire the one which doesn't really fits in here, I guess added just as a carrot for the british market, and as the iconic plane which it really is.

 

For the future, as said in the KS initial presentation, the Ploiesti bombing scenario would be a really interesting one (not being too used lately), requiring (beside what we already have) B24s, P38s, BF109Gs and IAR80/81s (and maybe some P51Bs and FW190As)..

I hope somebodies going to give me a Lysander - I have to get agents in and out for la resistance!

 

Also - spotting!

 

And for my Axis missions - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieseler_Fi_156

The Spitfire certainly played a part in the Falaise Gap in August 1944, so it has a part to play :)

P-47's strafing ground objects.......oooooooooohhhh the excitemnrt rises! Anyone mention trains :) or ammo dumps ;)

??? the Spitfire doesn't fit?....the 1 and only British aircraft and you think it's 1 too many?

 

Yes, must not boast about RAF dropping bombs, the B-17 just flew pretty formations for the Germans to shoot at.

excuse me, boasting about dropping carpet phosphor bombs over german cities full of civilians?!! ahh, yes, you should definitely boast about that! please go on, and nevermind me..

excuse me, boasting about dropping carpet phosphor bombs over german cities full of civilians?!! ahh, yes, you should definitely boast about that! please go on, and nevermind me..

 

 

Oh no, don't start any of that crap, bombs are bombs and everybody dropped them on civillians not just the RAF.

Guys what the hell?More RAF planes will surely come, no need to get into this silly discussion, its completely off topic to begin with.

this project will surely have addons for more aircraft....they already mentioned in a few years starting a b-17 kickstarter....meaning a kickstarter for any other aircraft is not far fetched

 

 

hopefully other 3rd parties will have the ability to add airframes also....the way DCS works now, this doesn't sound far fetched either

 

Ah, but if one looks at the Il-2 series... it had two British bombers (Mosquito and Blenheim), with six American bombers (A-20, B-17, B-24, B-25, B-29, PBN).

 

It makes me wonder if we'd have to kickstart three American bombers before the first British one becomes available for kickstarting?

I hope somebodies going to give me a Lysander - I have to get agents in and out for la resistance!

 

Also - spotting!

 

And for my Axis missions - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieseler_Fi_156

 

I'd love a Lysander myself. It is too bad it didn't make it into CoD (it was in development).

Guys what the hell?More RAF planes will surely come, no need to get into this silly discussion, its completely off topic to begin with.

 

Roy, I agree that discussion is silly, but it evolved from the topic, this thread is simply to highlight the lack of commonwealth representation, clearly for some the commonwealth is best eradicated from history, it really does feel like we will have to see several more sub variants of 109's and 190's before somebody realises a major player in the conflict has been forgotten.

As I said earlier the P-51 would never had come to be, without the Brits going to NA corporation with their desired specification's...so the P-51 is sort of a Brit aircraft. :D

Certainly a Brit engine, the P-51 would have been floundering around in the weeds without the Merlin.

Yes, and it go's deeper, the P-51 was a British inspiration to begin with. Probably never would have been built without that inspiration and signed contract

True, but I don't think the Brits had any hand in the actual design, North American achieved something very impressive with the design and production of that airframe working simply to a Specification from the Brits.

Reality Check!

 

Pleeeeaaassse. The British Purchasing Commission approached North American asking them to build Kittyhawks on license from Curtiss, a job that required very little in terms of creativity or risk. They could have taken the money from the British and the drawings from Curtiss and pumped out borderline combat aircraft as long as the customer wanted them. That would have been the easy way out, and everyone would have been happy; the Brits would get their cantankerous trim hogs of marginal performance to hold place until enough Spitfires could be built to replace them, and North American Aircraft Company would get the (borrowed) money from the Crown, and already be in full war production mode when the US government finally came calling.

 

Like Lockheed, they might have ended up locked in to building a borderline aircraft (they had a big British Purchasing Commission contract for the Hudson that demanded a great deal of their company resources) instead of having the people and resources available to concentrate on the strategically important P-38 at the time when it was most needed.

 

Instead, Dutch Kindelberger, the head of North American, decided that his engineers were capable of creating (or had already created) a superior design using the same engine and armament; he undoubtedly knew that they were doodling design ideas on their own time anyway, and if he talked with them at all, he had to know that many of their design concepts were fairly complete. Kindelberger told the British that he didn’t want to build someone else’s designs when he could make a better airplane in less time that it would take to set up the jigs and production line and clear the legal paperwork for the other company’s aircraft. The British took the offer, knowing that if North American were unable to produce a better fighter in the proposed time, they would still be able to fall back to making license built P-40 variants.

 

The sum total of the British specifications were 1) Allison engines of the V-1710 class, 2) provision for at least four forward firing .50” and/or four .303”machine guns, and 3) performance and range equal or superior to the Curtiss Hawk 81/87 series fighters, all of which would have been a minimum baseline for any new inline fighter design built in the US in 1940/41. To be honest, according to all accounts, any specifications that exceeded those three would have been proposed by North American.

 

The British provided an opportunity and capital (once the prototype had been produced and proven) a bit earlier than the US Army Air Corps, not inspiration or any unique new design input. The design and risk were all on North American; they would have produced the Mustang design in the same amount of time for the US Army (or the Navy or Marines for that matter); their B-25 bomber and T-6 trainer were already in steadily increasing demand and well thought of, so a proposal for a fighter design from them would undoubtedly have been listened to with great interest by mid-1941, when the US was finally tooling up for the war on their own behalf.

 

The Mustang was the next best thing to inevitable; I believe that only the timing can be credited to the British, and that due to their desperation in the early months of the war; the men who signed that contract had no idea what they had accomplished.

 

However, I agree that the timing was absolutely critical.

 

cheers

 

horseback

Yeah, what I said but more what he said :thumbup:, I feel educated now, thanks Horseback :smartass:

Yep, what I said Brit inspired...3 German, 2 American, and 2 Brit now...lol

Some of you guys have some issues.This is a forum for aircraft simulation, not for expressing and discussing ones patriotism or lack of it for that matter.I say it again this is SILLY.

And just to throw fuel onto the fire, ;)

 

...what the British wanted was a stop gap fighter plane to fill in until they ramped up Spitfire production. They were after all under constant attack by German bombers.

 

No matter what is future potential, the Mustang I they were given was practically useless in this role and was relegated to army cooperation and ground attack. Still it did free up more capable interceptors for that role.

 

It took British desperation, ingenuity and drive to turn the Mustang into the snarling Merlin powered beast that it became. I'd put it in the "British" column.

 

To be fair the plane that they initially asked for, the P-40, was similarly outclassed by the time the Mustangs were delivered.

 

I'm just sad we won't have a Mustang III with a Malcolm hood. The "best" looking and fastest Mustang! :)

Edited October 7, 2013 by Skoshi Tiger

And just to throw fuel onto the fire,

Flame on.

...what the British wanted was a stop gap fighter plane to fill in until they ramped up Spitfire production. They were after all under constant attack by German bombers. No matter what is future potential, the Mustang I they were given was practically useless in this role and was relegated to army cooperation and ground attack. Still it did free up more capable interceptors for that role.

In early 1940, when the original proposals were made, the British were looking for any useful combat aircraft; bombers, fighters, patrol aircraft and trainers. At that time, the Spitfire had yet to see any serious combat and the Battle of Britain had not begun. American aircraft were sought in anticipation of the Luftwaffe achieving the sort of success over England that it had over France and the Low Countries, particularly against airfields and aircraft production facilities.

 

The Mustang I arrived in January of 1941, by which time the BoB had been won and the Spitfire Mk V was in full production. The Luftwaffe was not sending large daylight bomber formations into British airspace, and the RAF was in the process of 'leaning forward' across the Channel, where the combat was taking place at increasingly high altitudes.

 

Head to head tests of the new fighter revealed that it was superior in many ways to the Spit V (including top speed and range), but that the single stage supercharger of the Allison engine provided inadequate performance at altitudes over 12-15,000 ft (depending upon the engine's generation). The Mustang replaced Lysanders, Tomahawks and Kittyhawks (not 'more capable interceptors') in the Army cooperation role, and was instantly favored for the high speed low altitude recon role, being easily the fastest aircraft available below 15,000 ft with an exceptionally useful range. It might have been applied against the 'tip and run' raiders, given its tremendous performance at lower alts, but I suspect that it was already 'slotted' by Higher Ranks as an air to ground weapon as well as being tainted by the 'not made here' syndrome (apparently this was not limited to the USAAF).

It took British desperation, ingenuity and drive to turn the Mustang into the snarling Merlin powered beast that it became. I'd put it in the "British" column.

Huh? The idea for putting a Merlin 60 series engine into the Mustang airframe was taken up practically simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic in mid 1942, shortly after the first Spitfire IXs were deployed and Packard had received licenses for building 40 series Merlins for various British aircraft and the P-40F/L; if North American's first prototypes of their Merlin powered Mustang flew a month later than the Rolls Royce effort, it was because they had to jump through a lot of extra hoops to obtain the necessary legal permissions and the engine(s) and transport them from England to Los Angeles. RR's Mustang X (an effort that may not have been entirely legal--some sources at NAA thought that it was a veiled attempt to take control of the Mustang design) was considerably less capable than the 'numbers' indicated it should have been and it was ugly (bordering on vandalism, IMHO). North American's effort not only looked better, it performed significantly better from the start and soon added further improvements that showed up in production models, including the more efficient Hamilton Standard props.

 

When all was said and done, the only thing about the Mustang that belonged in the 'British' column was the basic engine design, since the Packard Merlins varied somewhat from the RR Merlins in several ways.

To be fair the plane that they initially asked for, the P-40, was similarly outclassed by the time the Mustangs were delivered.

How patronizing. The Allison powered Mustang was a significantly superior aircraft to every variant of the Hawk 81/87 series in every measurable way except the turning circle--and it took a much more experienced Kittyhawk driver to achieve a tighter turn than could be attained by a 'novice' in a Mustang. The wartime consensus was that the maneuverability of the Mustang in the hands of an equally experienced pilot was neck and neck with the P-40 (and the P-40 had a very good reputation for maneuverability as long as Japanese fighters were excluded from the conversation).

 

The P-40 series were harder to takeoff, land and taxi than the Mustang and in flight required constant trim adjustment in both elevator and rudder in order to keep stick and rudder pedal forces manageable, while the Mustang was considered to be exceptionally easy to control and rarely needed trim adjustment by the standards of WWII era fighter aircraft. Below 15,000 ft, the Mustang II/P-51A was considered to be the best Allied fighter available in most regards and preferable to the Spit V if range was any consideration at all. The only reason that the Allison Mustang didn't replace the P-40 in the Allied inventory was that it was quickly replaced on the production lines by the P-51B/C and the whole of that production was committed to the ETO until the middle of 1944. The P-51A variants became vanishingly rare very quickly, despite being considered the 'sweetest' Mustangs of them all in many ways.

 

Below 10K ft, the Allison Mustangs were faster and better handling than the Merlin Mustangs; the only advantage the Merlin ponies had at those heights was rate of climb (and it wasn't as great an edge as you'd think).

I'm just sad we won't have a Mustang III with a Malcolm hood. The "best" looking and fastest Mustang!

This I agree with; razorback Mustangs with the blown Malcolm hood were generally preferred to the D models by combat pilots once the ammo feed issues were solved, especially the ones that had the fin fillet kits applied. Many of these models soldiered on into early 1945 before they were forced into 'retirement' due to accumulated stress and wear on the airframes.

 

Hang in there though; if this sim prospers and continues to develop, we still might see a razorback Mustang before I get too old and blind to fly it.

 

cheers

 

horseback

They have the model in the shapes folder.

Horseback,

Huh? The idea for putting a Merlin 60 series engine into the Mustang airframe was taken up practically simultaneously on both sides of the Atlantic in mid 1942

 

Source? Who exactly in the good 'ol USA are you talking about?

Everything I've read on the subject combined with over thirty years working as a defense contractor tells me that this was a case of spontaneous combustion. It is a classic example of the Obvious Thing To Do, like inventing Rock and Roll to go with electric guitars, matches for firecrackers or plunging necklines for women's clothing.

 

First, let's look at the timing; the first Merlin 60 series equipped Spitfire took to the air on 27 September, 1941, and the first production Spitfire Mk IXs entered service in June 1942, the first squadron (64, out of Hornchurch) becoming operational in late July of that year. By that time, the Mustang Mk I had been in combat operations for about three months, the A-36 had entered production in order to keep the lines going until funding for the USAAF fighter versions could be authorized, and the first P-51A contract was signed in June. The following month, the last Mustang I was built.

 

According to most British sources, Rolls Royce test pilot Ronnie Harker was the primary motivator for the British effort to place the Merlin 60 series in a Mustang airframe after test flying a Mk I in late April of '42, but no one on the British side seems to cite dates and times until the first flights of the Mustang Mk X on October 13, 1942.

 

According to America's Hundred-Thousand, by Francis Dean, Rolls Royce made a preliminary study of installing a Merlin 61 in a Mustang airframe on July 14th. On July 25th (only nine days later, in an age before the modern instantaneous communications we take for granted today) "... a contract was given to North American for the conversion of two Lend-Lease P-51 aircraft to XP-78s using Packard Merlin engines with two stage superchargers (later to be XP-51B aircraft)."

 

Mustang: The Operational Record by Robert Jackson mentions that this was a US Army contract, not an RAF contract. Jackson also mentions that Dutch Kindelberger was on record as being unhappy with the Allison as a powerplant for the Mustang almost from its first flight tests. There are also mentions of visits to the various Eagle Squadrons by the Canadian Squadrons that were flying the new Mustangs in several books covering those units' histories before and after their absorption into the US Eight Air Force, and several notables in those squadronss were quoted in contemporary accounts (including squadron diaries) asking what the Mustang might do if a Merlin (presumably a 40 series, as in their Squadrons' Spit Vbs) were put in it. Yank pilots in RAF service were bound to share their impressions with their fellow Americans in the Eighth Air Force (especially if the 'American' Americans were paying for the drinks).

 

Remember, this was also during the same period of time that the first single stage Packard Merlin powered P-40s were being produced, and this had improved the altitude performance of the P-40F significantly over the P-40E or -K. Anyone who had flown both came to the conclusion that the Mustang was a better fighter, so putting a Merlin into it was the next logical step.

 

The idea seems to have been universal among people 'in the know', given the acknowledged failings of the Allison above 12000 ft. If you knew anything about the Mustang and had heard of the new two stage engines going into the new Spitfires in the summer of 1942, you were going to speculate what the American design would do if they put an R-2800 and a GE turbosupercharger--ummm--I mean, a Merlin 60 series in it. Too many highly placed persons took a personal interest in the project for it to be attributed to one person's stroke of genius. It was just too obviously the thing to do.

 

For all intents and purposes, the cutting of metal and installation of the new model Merlin engines was nearly simultaneous at both Long Beach and at Rolls Royce's facilities in England. The cruder and more improvised Rolls Royce conversion flew in October and the North American version, which photos reveal to be very similar to the final production versions, flew November 30th. Hap Arnold, the Commanding General of the US Army Air Forces, had already placed a (verbal) order for 2,000 of the new aircraft before the first North American flights, signing the contract in January of 1943.

 

That means that events took place much too fast for everything to have been done by one side or another, given the timing and distances involved; it literally had to be a cooperative venture almost from the start, and that means that once you knew about the new airplane and the new engine, you had an unavoidable impulse to want to put them together. Government and business bureaucracies just don't work that fast without Divine Intervention.

 

cheers

 

horseback

Guys......lets just be thankful the 2 sides both had something to put on the table to bring about this super aircraft, it's an American aircraft powered by a British engine.

Who thought of putting the Merlin in the Mustang ?? probably worth reading this before expounding theories and putting foot in mouth :)

 

In the end it was a Match made in heaven, Stunning Aerodynamic design by North American, Stunning power plant design by Rolls Royce.

Edited October 8, 2013 by IvanK