Another one from the muck - this time a P39!
Bell P39Q-15BE 44-2911 Airacobra (More thorough) ....then the Russians used them against Finland !!!


http://lend-lease.airforce.ru/...eppard/p39/index.htm

The Reds loved their lend-lease Kobrushkas (little cobras), as they nicknamed their Airacobras.



Bell really did design an outstanding fighter. It may sound preposterous to say so, given the lousy reputation the P-39 earned in US and other allied nations' service.

But the plane Bell ended up building wasn't the plane Bell designed. The USAAC demanded changes that balled things up. The prototype was outstanding. It reached 390 mph in level flight in testing, a record for a single engined US fighter at the time.

Then the Army demanded Bell alter the design. The worst alteration was the removal of the GE turbocharger from the engine. That power-adder was reserved for priority aircraft such as bombers and P-38 Lightnings. Which meant the P-39 was underpowered at all altitudes, and near useless above 15,000 ft.

This didn't matter on the Russian front, as neither side did any high-altitude strategic bombing. During most of the fighting there was nothing of strategic value within range of either's air force worth bombing. So the bombers and their escorts were hunting troop formations, and this required them to operate at lower altitudes.

Altitudes within the Kobrushka's performance envelope, where it came into its own. And just one hit from its 37mm cannon could down a German bomber.

American pilots hated going against the Japanese in the things. The export version of the P-39 was designated the P-400. The Army commandeered a lot of these for our own use; the unfortunate pilots who had to fly them in New Guinea said that "P-400" stood for "P-40 with a Zero on its tail."

Still, it served well as a ground attack plane in US hands. The pic I posted of a P-39 firing at night is one of my all time favorites. A 37mm cannon in the prop hub, 2 .50 cals in the nose, and 4 .30 cals in the wings. That's some serious firepower. When you look at its overall record, including Soviet service, the overwhelming evidence is that it was an outstanding combat plane despite it's obvious shortcomings as a fighter in most theaters.

It could have been so much better if the Army didn't screw up Bell's design.

I was wondering about that 37MM the other day. I know the Russians used the P-39 as a ground attack aircraft. Could that cannon destroy a German main battle tank I wonder?

BTW

This one looks to be in GREAT shape.

quote:

Originally posted by surestrike:
I was wondering about that 37MM the other day. I know the Russians used the P-39 as a ground attack aircraft. Could that cannon destroy a German main battle tank I wonder?

BTW

This one looks to be in GREAT shape.

The top armor on most tanks of the period was very thin and could often be penetrated by 50cal AP rounds..

Once inside the tungsten penetrator would bounce around until it found something soft to stop in.

37mm HE rounds... if you find someone willing to sit in any WW2 armored vehicle while you fire a 37mm gun at the top of a tank Let me know... I won't hold my breath waiting.

that being said the engines weren't all that well protected and a "mobility kill" is still a "kill"

BTW the "export" P-400 was only equipped with a 20mm gun, (though with more rounds of ammo) not the 37mm that the P39 had.

"Main" battle tanks are relatively rare on most battlefields and aircrews tend to describe ANY vehicle they see as a turret as a "main battle tank" weather it is actually one or not, and the tendency of exaggeration increases if they shoot at and destroy said vehicle.

Human nature (no citation required

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quote:

could often be penetrated by 50cal AP rounds..

Source for this ...??

50cal ammunition designated as "Armor piercing" is required bby specification to penetrate 22mm of armor and will usually penetrate greater thicknesses from an aircraft attacking from above.

With 6 or 8 M2's... Do you want to be in the tank???

How thick do you think the top of the turret is on a Tiger Mark-I (Tigers were relatively rare on most battlefields regardless of it's "fame")?
Up until March of 1944 Tiger Mk Is were built with 25mm thick top armor, AFTER that They were built with 40mm plate. but since production of the Tiger-I ended in August 1944 for production to switch to the Tiger-II Most of the 1347 Tiger-1s that were built had only the 1" armored tops


A far more common"Panther" tank? Less. The Panthers rear top armor was only 16mm thick

The armor on a Panzer MkIV, argueably the most common German tank was a whopping 10mm.

Now tell me do you think 50calliber ammunition will penetrate 10mm of armor plate?
It certainly will....

I happen to know that 30caliber BALL ammunition will penetrate 10mm of armor fairly reliably....

So since a 50cal CAN kill a tank from above how about a 37mm? Any doubts?

Tanks of the period were fairly well protected against side and frontal impacting projectiles or projectiles impacting the SIDE of the turret, but their TOP armor only really protected them from airbursting shrapnel artillery projectiles
and infantry weapons like rifles, pistols & grenades.

Anything heavier actually landing on the tank...
Or an airburst delay fuse that delays a bit too long and explodes 10-15ft above a ww2 vintage tank will crush the turret top or top armor of most of those tanks (even a tiger I) like the tinfoil that seals a new jar of instant coffee.

And while the engine compartment had thick mesh over it there were essentially unprotected from above and as I said a "Mobility kill" is as good as any other kind of "kill"

a bunch of 50cal projectiles bouncing around the engine compartment can make a whole bunch of necissary parts into useless scrap

So even P-51's, P-47's and 50cal equipped British aircraft
(Hawker Typhoons and some Spitfire variants) had a good chance of wrecking a tank pretty thoroughly with only heavy machine gun fire.

Now... a 37mmHE projectile? Let alone any armor piercing projectiles...

Very Few WW2 armored vehicles could withstand a 37mm from the sides. many could not take them from the rear either the Top? I've already covered that...

the germans used pod mounted Flak37mm cannon
under the wings of Stukas and these were fairly effective at dispatching Russian T-34's which were better protected than most german tanks. though these guns did not use Explosive projectiles but Tungsten solid shot.

And with only 6rounds per gun on board they were still highly effect at killing multiple tanks on each mission.

The phrase "Target Rich Environment" comes to mind.... and there's really little that can be done against a manueverable rugged aircraft that comes in at tree TRUNK height slinging tungsten solid shot at the back or sides of your armored fighting vehicle...


Though in practice the russians used the aircraft as interceptors and only had High Explosive rounds.

they also typically removed the wing mounted machine guns to decrease the already low polar moment about it's longitudina axis and increase it's already relatively quick roll rate

And as noted above a single hit with a 37mmHE projectile would down most german aircraft.... or for that matter the vast majority of aircraft in the world... exceptions of B17's surviving heavy flack hits and even rammings
(unintentional or otherwise) by german fighters notwithstanding.

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