Curtiss P-40, Part 2 | Why This “Mediocre” WW2 Fighter Was So Important 

foreign ly we looked at the origins and the early service life of the Curtis P40 an aircraft considered by some to be one of the most underrated fighters of the second world war and today we’re going to continue our exploration of its history additionally we’re also going to briefly touch on why the success of the P40 wasn’t exactly good for Curtis Wright in the long run this is of course part two of a single long video so if you haven’t seen part one I highly recommend you do so before watching this otherwise some things probably won’t

make a lot of sense so last time we looked at the Curtis Hawk 81 the early model of the P40 this was known in America as the Warhawk and pretty much everywhere else it inherited the British name of Tomahawk these early p-40s were built in modest numbers only 525 were built for the US Army and just under 1200 were exported as tomahawks built as a stop Gap simply to fill the ranks until more advanced Fighters arrived they saw little use at home the usp-40s LED a quiet life before being decimated at Pearl Harbor and in the

Philippines but the tomahawks saw far more active service and they quickly showed that the P40 was a far more promising design than originally thought they saw extensive use with Commonwealth forces in North Africa and the Middle East the American volunteer group in Burma and with the Soviet Air Force on the Eastern Front they were a much needed relief for many air units many of whom were using outdated aircraft that were little more than flying target practice for their enemies but there was room for improvement

this led to the development of the xp-46 a potential replacement for the P40 itself which ultimately failed something that we’ll get to in a later part of this video but at the same time the Air Force also asked Curtis to find ways to improve the current p40s as they were improving the P40 meant addressing its biggest weakness with the engine currently the p40s were powered by the C series of the Allison v1710 usually the dash 19 or the dash 33 variant these produced around 1090 horsepower which was enough to keep them competitive at

the start but only just almost all its Rivals had lighter airframes particularly the Germans and the P40 struggled at high altitude the Allison engine utilized a single stage supercharger and while most p-40s had a service ceiling of 29 000 feet on paper in reality they were woefully ineffective above 15 000.

 because of this they saw little or no service in Western Europe the only theater that saw widespread high altitude combat but to remain competitive elsewhere the P40 needed to increase power unfortunately this wasn’t as simple as beefing up the existing engine and its supercharger the c-series engine used an internal spur reduction gearbox and this was rated to handle just over 1100 horsepower the current engine was already pushing this limit and with Curtis asking for even more Alison was left with little choice but to redesign

it the result was the F series of the v1710 the D series was an experimental push of variants and the E-Series featured a remote gearbox for the P39 this new engine featured an external reduction gearbox that was bolted onto the crankcase it was sturdier than the previous units being able to handle up to 1150 horsepower from the engine and it significantly reduced to the overall size of the power plant now I’m not an expert at explaining mechanical things when it comes to engines understanding aerodynamics and astrophysics has always

been my strong suit but these illustrations do a good good job at explaining the size difference between the C and the F series these are taken from the official operating manuals which can be found on the air core Library I’ll put a link down below so if you want to dig a bit deeper into it I heartily recommend checking that website out but in a nutshell the new engine was 10 inches or 25 centimeters shorter than the previous model despite the reduction gearbox being mounted externally this was because the gearbox was mounted

between the cylinder Banks now this did come at the cost of raising the thrust line by a fair amount but the benefit of increased power and weight reduction was considered more than worth it though an improvement on the previous model there was one major problem the engine retained the single stage supercharger meaning its Peak Performance altitude was almost unchanged from the previous model being a mere 15 000 feet there were a number of reasons for this which probably go beyond the scope of this video as we’re focusing on the plane and

not its engine but two big ones were time and Manpower a two-stage supercharger could be done and indeed this was eventually tested in a small capacity later on but developing and testing it would take time and in 1940 time was a scarce commodity additionally Alison was not a huge company and they had their hands full with developing and mass producing the engine as it was and diverting resources away from the production line and such a critical juncture couldn’t really be countenanced as the new engine didn’t conform to the

existing nodes of the P40 thanks to its shorter length and race thrust line Curtis Engineers had to make some alterations and they took the opportunity to make some improvements to the p40s airframe this resulted in a completely redesigned nose and fuselage and the change was large enough to have the aircraft redesignated from the hawk 81 to the hawk 87.

 despite the changes the Army retained the military designation of P-40 and the new version would be ordered as the p40d it featured a number of improvements over the old model Not only was the fuselage shorter courtesy of the redesigned engine but it was also slightly shallower which improved its streamlining the radiator intakes were moved forward almost in line with the spinner with the installation of new radiators resulting in a further deepening of the aircraft’s chin and because the propeller was raised slightly higher the landing gear

was shortened which improved handling on the ground along with changes to the airframe the p40s protection and Armament was awesome improved to improve visibility for the pilot the cockpit opening was deepened with a larger sliding canopy and this had an enlarged windshield with flat bulletproof glass in the center the nose mounted guns were deleted with all armaments being moved to the wings initially this consisted of 450 caliber machine guns but for later models of the P40 this was increased to six there was

also a provision in the design for mounting two 20 millimeter cannons in the wings instead but this was never adapted the new guns were mounted in large bays in the wings and aimed so that they would fight outside the propeller Arc removing the need for an interrupter gear and the new P-40 could also carry a greater payload one 500 pound bomb or a 70 gallon drop tank under the belly and two 100 pound bombs or an equivalent in smaller bombs underneath the wings on paper the hawk 87 was an improvement over the hawk 80

one just while it’s boasted a more impressive Armament and better ground strike capability this came at the cost of added weight that impacted performance despite being more streamlined and having a more powerful engine if only by about 60 horsepower in the end the p40d was only 5 miles an hour faster than the old p40c still it was technically better and the first orders for the aircraft began to come in during the Spring of 1940 and now we get onto the long and sometimes complicated line of P40 variants that

followed the approval of the model 87. as there was such a large number of P40 variants developed over a fairly short period of time I’ll go over their details first and then cover their service history if I were to cover the p40d and its service history and then the p40e in its service history and so on it would get far too messy far too quickly as multiple versions 14 multiple theaters at the same time so to keep things simple let’s first get a rough overview of each variant the p40d was produced in the smallest numbers at least for the

United States with the Army taking delivery of just 23 in July of 1941. the British took over an old French order which eventually totaled 560 aircraft and they decided to rename their p40s as the Kitty Hawk to differentiate it from the old model 81 tomahawks the first 20 or so were delivered as standard however the rest of the order were delivered with six Wing mounted guns and this brought them much closer in specification to the p40e approximately 1500 of the p-40es were built with about a third being sent to Britain and her

allies as per part of the lendlies on the whole it was fairly similar to the p40d however it had a beefed up Wing structure to carry larger external bombs including 250 Pounders and the wings fixed Armament now consisted of 650 caliber machine guns as standard as they were produced using U.S funds the Lend Lease aircraft had to come with standard U.

S army designations but as they would have British equipment their designation was altered to become the p40e-1 their British name was also amended owing to the improved Armament and the new aircraft flew as the Kitty Hawk Mark 1A after this P40 production took an odd but promising turn with the p40f frustrated at the lack of progress in improving the performance of the Allison engine the US government had begun to seek out Alternatives in September 1940 they chose the Packard Motor Company to build a version of the Rolls-Royce Merlin under license and just under a

year later the Packard v1650-1 one was fired up for the first time the engine quickly proved itself to be superior to the Allison and as it was also very similar in size it was the perfect candidate for injecting some much needed performance into the P40 Curtis converted ap40d into the xp40f one of the rare times that a P40 was actually put through a prototyping phase the design team experimented with several locations for the radiator before settling on a layout almost identical to the allison-powered p40s because the

Merlin was fitted with an updraft carburettor the intake scoop was removed from the top of the cowling and the radiator opening was enlarged to provide room for an air duct this made the new P40 easy to distinguish from its siblings if it had a flat nose it was powered by a Merlin the Packard engine made a marked improvement to the warhawks performance the p40f was rated at 1240 horsepower which gave it a top speed of 364 miles an hour or 585 kilometers an hour the best yet for a P40 better still it could achieve the

speed at a higher altitude of 20 000 feet it wasn’t quite up to its European counterparts but it was much better than what it could do before impressed by the performance the US Army quickly placed an order for 699 p-40fs in the Autumn of 1941 and this eventually grew to a production run of 1311 units that were delivered in five versions between 1942 and 1943.

 the p40f could have become even better but it had its fate to prematurely cut short Packard eventually developed an excellent two-stage supercharger that would allow their Merlins to produce power at much higher altitudes but despite being the potential ultimate cure for the p40s woes it was never installed instead in the spring of 1943 the Army decided to allocate all further Merlin production to the P-51 Mustang and that was the end of that this also affected a later model the p40l which was a continuation of the F variants with a general aim of weight

reduction designed in five sub-variants they each featured attempts to combat the ever increasing weight of the P40 some had reduced Armament and armor for weight saving some had electrical trim tabs and engine controls and some had revised intakes and cooling systems approximately 700 were built with at least 100 going to the British as the Kitty Hawk Mark II but their production was also curtailed when Merlin production was diverted to the P-51 this left over 100 unfinished p40fs and L’s without an engine they were later

refitted with Allison engines but as they were a mixed bag of different versions many were converted to trainers as the p40rs the next production variant was the p40k essentially an improved p40e it was built in four major sub-variants the K1 K5 K10 and k-15 and Export models were known as the Kitty Hawk Mark III it featured a newer version of the Allison engine the v1710-73 this pumped out at 1325 horsepower and allowed it to almost match the top speed of the p40f which to its credit was an achievement unfortunately it came with the old

caveat of rapidly losing power once it reached altitudes above 15 000 feet but the demand for fighter aircraft was so great that 1300 of these were built with deliveries beginning in August of 1942. it was around this time that various models of the P40 began to appear with changes made to their fuselage and tail this was to address a problem that had only become apparent once the P40 had begun to see extensive combat service in a dive it suffered from poor directional stability often wanting to roll over this was obviously an undesirable trait

as it’s difficult to aim at a Target if your plane won’t stop gyrating and the risk of losing control was equally disconcerting this unhappy trait led many Pilots to comment that the speed and angle of a dive wasn’t decided by the airframe but rather the strength of the Pilot’s arms and legs at the controls Curtis designers tried several modifications to solve this problem the first was a dorsal fin that was attached to the vertical stabilizer of the p40k which did apparently improve things in a dive but not to the level expected one

airframe was fitted with a large triangular dorsal strike but that made zero Improvement and was quickly abandoned and finally when modifying a P40 F1 they found a solution they added half a meter of length to the rear of the fuselage moving the fin back but leaving the horizontal stabilizer where it was and that seemed to mostly fix the problem the first production P40 to officially feature this new change was the p40k-10 and all others moving forward would do the same the last two variants of the P40 were the m and the N

series The p40m was a follow-up to the long fuselage P40 case it featured these slightly improved Dash 81 version of the Allison engine and could be visually identified by the addition of a cooling Grille ahead of its exhaust stubs unfortunately the improved engine though more reliable had less power which was a bit unfortunate as the M was the heaviest model of the P40 thus far even with a healthy 1125 horsepower it barely managed 360 miles an hour and this was considerably reduced when carrying Ordnance or drop tanks because of this

weight reduction was once again looked at in the penultimate version of the Warhawk the p40n like the earlier versions of the p40l the N1 only carried four machine guns and it had some of its fuel tanks removed but its weight loss program went even further the oil coolers and radiators were replaced by a lighter aluminum models and the internal engine starter and Battery was also removed this latter Choice was highly unpopular when the N1 was operated by Frontline squadrons especially in poor weather and many squadrons chose to

reinstall both the engine starter and the missing guns thus negating the supposed performance Improvement said Improvement was noticeable when the configuration was adhered to and the P40 could now reach 378 miles an hour or 608 kilometers an hour but many Pilots felt that the loss of range convenience and Firepower was too higher price to pay following this the P40 N5 featured the return of the Lost government and Equipment which increase the weight once more but it also included some improvements that made it much more

popular amongst Pilots than it had been previously forward visibility was significantly improved thanks to a new frameless canopy and revisibility was also made better with the installation of clear plastic above the decking in place of sheet metal other improvements included better radio equipment a new pilot seat and a lighter but stronger undercarriage which was especially useful in the rough airfields of the Pacific there were other sub-variants after the N5 but they were all variants on a theme and didn’t feature any

significant changes all in all Curtis built over 5200 p40ns making them the most numerous of the p40s by far it was a p40n that would mark an important milestone for Curtis in 1944. on November 22nd a P-40 rolled out of the Curtis Wright Factory in Buffalo with a very strange paint job completed as the company’s fifteen thousandth Hawk fighter it was adorned with the roundels of the 28 Nations that had operated the various Hawk Fighters since the 1920s additionally it had 20 German crosses and 18 Japanese flags to signify the

scores of the top P-40 aces in both the Army Air Force and the Royal Air Force it was both a symbol of Curtis Wright’s ability to churn out vast numbers of reliable aircraft and also a statement of the p-40s unexpectedly long service life something I had begun discussing in the previous video and will continue to do so now I’m going to start off with the p40s that served with the Soviet Union I didn’t mention them at all in the last video as the vast majority of Soviet p-40s were variants of the model 87 and I thought covering them together

would make more sense behind Britain the Soviet Union was the largest foreign operator of p-40s during the second world war though many would not know it when people think of Len lease aircraft fighting on the Eastern Front they usually think of the Bell P-39 which was beloved by pilots there but just under 2200 p40s would also find their way into the ranks of the VVS of these only 247 were old models of the P40 the tomahawk Mark 2B and the rest were were various models of the p40e all the way through to the p40n the first unit to receive

the tomahawks was the 126th fighter regiment and they did not have a good start on the 1st of October 1941 the regiment began their brief period of training and things on the p40s started to break fall off or otherwise misbehave almost immediately some of their early tomahawks and kitty Hawks had been delivered in a used State some were damaged in transit and some were even delivered without functioning engines or engines at all or guns actually yeah some of them were missing their guns some had no ammunition some had the

wrong ammunition honestly the first few batches of the p40s were pretty chaotic and it established a poor reputation with the Soviet Pilots one that never fully recovered unfortunately for the 126th regiment their training had barely begun before they were thrown into the defense of Moscow between October 1941 and April 42 they logged over 900 sorties and although most of these were to cover troop movements on the ground they did get in the occasional scrap with enemy fighters on paper the numbers looked pretty good they claimed 29 enemy

aircraft destroyed for just two of their own but that was only because their non-combat attrition rate was so high that the Germans never got a chance to do their job as with many things on the Eastern Front tanks trucks people the thing that brought the p-40s down was the Russian winter the oil hydraulic fluid and coolant froze Rock Solid causing the radiator Honeycombs to swell and crack the rubber tires shattered the batteries went flat and the engines often seized apparently the cooling systems of the p40s were so seriously affected that

Soviet Personnel had to raid nearby Villages for silverware so that they could sold the broken radiators back together along with grounding mini aircraft the harsh conditions also led to a number of fatal crashes engines would suddenly seize mid-flight or the wings would ice over in poor weather and they would fall from the sky like frozen coffins the winter was so brutal on the Soviet p-40s that only nine were airworthy in mid-January after this horrific start it’s not surprising that many Soviet Pilots viewed the p-40s with

suspicion if not dread but by the time of the spring Thor the next batches were arriving usually in better condition Engineers had figured out how to somewhat winterize the P40 against the elements and their luck began to improve at the beginning much like with the RAF many Pilots were not impressed with the 40s handling they valued speed and maneuverability over the P40 strengths of steadiness of Firepower and range and the fight is required some getting used to but after a time and a change of habits most Pilots grew to like their

p-40s though many admitted that they could not love them as a fighter it was viewed as superior to the I-16 and the Hawker hurricane but inferior to the P-39 or their own Yaks or lavotchkins because of this the P40 served most of its time as an interim or training fighter a pilot’s performance in the P40 was often used to determine whether they were sharp enough to progress to the more advanced Fighters as the war progressed or whether they had to stay back for more training of course most famously the Soviet p-40s eventually

proved themselves useful in-ground attack and long-range escort missions their durability serving well in the former and their range in the latter they were used to strike bogged down tank columns forward Supply done and trenches some p-40s returned to base with considerable damage often missing entire sections of wing but sadly little photos of Soviet p40s survived today and we have to rely on pilot reports if we want to learn about its durability One Pilot who certainly valued the p40s toughness was Alexi klobustoff I think

I’ve pronounced that right apologies if I haven’t flying a tomahawk in 1942 he was able to Ram not one but two aircraft in the same sortie the first was a bf-110 and the second was a bf-109 both times he used the starboard wing of his P40 as the impromptu bludgeon and enough of said wing remained after the aerial melee for Alexi to safely land in one piece he supposedly rammed a third enemy later on this time in a Kitty Hawk but various Source material seems to widely conflict on the circumstances some say he rammed

a bf-109 intentionally others say it was a collision during a head-on pass one declares he was bodily thrown from his cockpit by the impact another states that he bailed out a few say he sustained injuries from shrapnel and an engine fire yet others say he parachuted into a tree because of this I’m inclined to give Alexi two confirmed rammings and and a probable owing to the dubious reports but either way it serves as both an excellent demonstration of the p40s airframe and the tendency for Soviet Pilots to engage in ramming Maneuvers

something that could almost be classified as a national sport for them the p40s ruggedness served it equally well as a training aircraft many in inexperienced Pilots was preserved from hard Landings ground loops and the occasional collision with a parked truck or even their own hangar thanks to the ruggedness of the airframe the P40 proved easy to learn which was just as well as many units were rushed into combat on minimal training often with incorrect information courtesy of poor translation during the course of the war

Soviet p40s Saw Service patrolling convoys over Norway and the Arctic defending the cities of Moscow Stalingrad and Leningrad and Performing countless strike missions in Cuban and during the offensive around Kursk on the whole though their performance was mixed the they were sturdy but they suffered terribly in the winter months and many burned through their engines before their time was done though this wasn’t helped by the tendency of Soviet Pilots to run them on emergency power for long periods of time they never got the love that the P-39

received and their reputation soured even more when they were moved to more defensive roles when they became obsolete many were stationed as interceptors but most of the German bombing raids came by night and the p-40s lacked the night fighting equipment and high altitude performance to be truly effective because of this most of the p40s were phased out in 1944 being replaced by various Soviets and lindley’s Fighters and the kitty Hawk’s time in this theater was mostly forgotten while the Soviets dealt with the teething problems of their aircraft

the p-40s operated by the Allies in Africa and the Mediterranean afterwards were having much better luck the Desert Air Force began taking delivery of its first Kitty Hawks in December of 1941. number three Squadron of the South African Air Force was the first to receive them and thanks to the many similarities with the tomahawk it only took them 11 days to complete the transition they quickly got their combat debut on New Year’s Day 1942 shooting down four stickers and one bf-109 in a rare case where they actually held the

altitude Advantage the pilots of the Desert Air Force were disappointed that the kitty Hawk’s performance barely exceeded that of its predecessor but on the other hand they were proving to be just as sturdy as ever and this led to the Kitty Hawk into one of its most famous roles of the war the Kitty Hawk could carry a much heavier bomb load compared to its predecessor a 500 pounder under the belly and up to 650 Pounders under the wings this quickly led to its use as a fighter bomber and it was something that it did so well

that it was soon given a new nickname the kitty bomber Clive Caldwell p40a sent a newly appointed commander of 112 Squadron made the first test drop from a Kitty Hawk in March of 1942. two months later the Squadron was fully operational in this new role and the kitty bombers would quickly find themselves at work on the 26th of May General Irwin Rommel began his new offensive and for the next six weeks Kitty bombers of 112 Squadron were heavily involved in attacking the advancing axis forces dive bombing was

usually done from altitudes between 6000 and 8 000 feet often followed by low altitude strafing runs on soft targets such as trucks and Supply dumps the p-40s effectiveness in this role soon endeared it to two pilots and commanders alike and the number of operational Kitty bombers quickly grew by the end of the summer the Desert Air Force had eight squadrons of kitty bombers on strength and some of these were used to train the new American squadrons that were starting to appear on the scene the first of these part of the 57th fighter

group became operational in October 1942 just in time for the major Allied offensive at El Alamein within two days of being operational they had scored their first victories this was an interesting time for the p-40s in Africa with their fortunes changing on any given day on the one hand they were proving themselves to be thoroughly effective in the ground attack role their pilots were becoming more accurate with their bombs and the larger number of p-40s being delivered provided an ample supply of replacement

airframes and spare parts but on the other hand as a fighter they were showing their age the P40 scored many victories between the Summers of 1942 and 1943 but many of these were the result of circumstances and luck rather than the merits of the P-40 as a fighting machine the earlier tomahawks had mostly been equal to the early German and Italian Fighters they faced but the kitty Hawks were heavier and this hurt their maneuverability that being said the German bf-109 was suffering the same problem the Gustav

series was more powerful than the old free drinks but they were also heavier which made them more difficult to handle at low speeds and low altitudes if the kitty Hawks caught them in the situation the odds were in their favor but if the 109s had the altitude Advantage it was a different story technically the old bf-109fs were a bigger threat as they were lighter and more Nimble but this threat was slowly being offset by the overwhelming number of Allied aircraft that would be being funneled into the African theater

following The Landings of Operation Torch in West Africa the kitty Hawks enjoyed a high degree of air superiority which did much to offset their shrinking performance against enemy aircraft during the first half of 1943 especially in the spring months they completed a series of missions where this superiority allowed them to rack up huge tallies against the retreating axis forces one of the most notable was the so-called Palm Sunday Massacre this event involved p40s from all three squadrons of the 57th Fighter Group

along with elements of the 324th group and those of raf-92 Squadron on the evening of the 18th of April 1943 they were performing one of many anti-transport patrols part of a larger operation to prevent The Retreat of axis forces and supplies from Tunisia to Italy Just Before Sunset they cited a massive formation of low-flying enemy aircraft at least 60 ju-52 transports that were escorted by about 21 Fighters 46 p40s and 11 Spitfires descended upon them coming in from the Sun and by the coming of Darkness 59 transports and 16

Fighters had been sent into the Mediterranean Sea after the axis surrender in North Africa the p-40s found themselves as part of the aerial Vanguard in the push towards Italy before The Landings much of their time was spent in keeping enemy Fighters across the Mediterranean occupied so that they could not be used for the defense of Sicily because of this p-40s were deployed across a vast area of Coastline and saw extensive use throughout the summer of all the units involved it was the p-40s of the 325th fighter group that became the most

notorious during this period in June they had begun painting the tail surfaces of their p-40s with distinctive black and yellow Checkers and by the end of the summer the Checker Tales had established a strong reputation through a string of stunning aerial victories between May and September they claimed to no fewer than 102 aerial victories in 37 missions for the loss of just 16 of their own they also developed a talent for finding new ways of blowing up or setting things on fire captain Joe blumer and his ground crew of The 318th

Fighter Squadron turned his drop tank into a makeshift incendiary bomb by adding on a set of fins a hand grenade and a Detonator when the tank ran dry he’d find a target of opportunity drop the tank and the remaining bit of fuel and the grenade would do the rest unsurprisingly this tactic did not go on for too long and it was ordered to be stopped for safety reasons apparently commanders weren’t too keen on the idea of somebody just sellotaping a grenade onto a fuel tank when they weren’t dropping Dollar Store fuel bombs on the

enemy the p40s carried on with conventional explosives after The Landings at Sicily and Mainland Italy but by this point they were starting to have their Thunder stolen literally near the end of 1943 the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt began to appear in growing numbers it quickly started to replace the p40s in U.

S squadrons and by the following summer the only ones in service were those operated by the Commonwealth forces it was in service to these forces that the P-40 saw the most success outside of Africa where Kitty Hawks were flown by Australia South African and New Zealand squadrons their other big theater of operations was in the Pacific most of the action was focused in the Southwest Pacific and so naturally most of their use would be with pilots from Australia and to New Zealand Canada did operate the P-40 with 13 squadrons operating various models of

tomahawks or Kitty Hawks but their service was either uneventful or short-lived Canada’s proximity to Britain and to the United States meant it was easier to ship newer and more advanced Fighters over and most squadrons had converted to Spitfires on Mustangs by 1943 however some kitty Hawks did see a brief bit of service during the invasion of the Aleutian Islands and often forgotten campaign where Alaska found some of its territory being invaded by Japanese forces but overall the p-40s time with Canada was brief whereas with Australia and to New

Zealand it was extensive and long-lasting at the start of 1942 many veteran pilots from Africa were returning to Australia they were desperately needed to bring the lessons of real Combat experience to flight schools schools that were hastily expanding their training following the outbreak of war with Japan things quickly grew dire following the first Japanese strikes on Darwin in February these attacks followed by those on Broome and the fall of java stirred a wave of invasion Panic throughout the country the rate of the Japanese Advance

was shocking and Australia had few modern fighters to defend itself should The Invasion come but at the critical Moment Like a knight in vaguely camouflaged armor the P-40 came to save the day the U.S Army Air Force transferred the first of many batches of p-40s to the Royal Australian Air Force on the 8th of March 1942.

 they were immediately assigned to number 75 Squadron which had been formed a few days earlier while two more Kitty Hawk squadrons would come together over the next week as Australian Kitty Hawks would not wait long before they saw action Japan launched its invasion of New Guinea on the 11th of March and one week later number 75 Squadron began moving its equipment up to Port Moresby on the southern coast the first Kitty Hawks arrived there on the 21st and just two hours after officially becoming operational a pair of them were sent to

intercept and shoot down a Japanese reconnaissance aircraft their first aerial victory of the campaign at the beginning of fighting around Port Moresby 75 Squadron was the sole air units available to defend against Japanese air attacks though led by a veteran of the Africa campaign Squadron leader John F Jackson they were mostly inexperienced only four of the 21 Pilots had seen combat including Jackson and they had only completed nine days of training before being deployed from the 21st of March onward the Squadron saw

action almost every day until the end of April often against Superior numbers and the inexperience took its toll three aircraft crashed on the second day of operations and the rookie Pilots were shocked by the aggressiveness and skill of their opponents they often encountered the dreaded A6 M20 and some of their best Pilots were veterans from combat over China the Philippines and Java the instincts of an inexperienced pilot did not play well to the p-40s strengths a desire to outmaneuver rather than outrun gave the advantage to the

zero and led to a sharp rise in casualties this was further exacerbated by this spread of disease which combined with everything else became a real hit to morale this was then made even worse when Squadron leader Jackson himself was shot down and killed on April the 28th with command passing to his younger brother Squadron leader Les Jackson when the Squadron was finally relieved at the end of the month they had just three serviceable aircraft left and seven more were an urgent need of repairs in this first Tour of Duty T the Squadron had 35

confirmed victories another four probables and had damaged a further 44 Japanese aircraft but they had paid a high price the Squadron had lost 22 aircraft and 12 Pilots taking his brother’s place Les Jackson helped to reform the Squadron during its two-month refitting period back in Australia many lessons had to be taken to heart as well as an appreciation for the P-40 strengths this respite allowed the Squadron to complete the training that had been cut short in March and this combined with their harrowing combat

experience led to the development of new tactics maintenance procedures and flying habits after that two-month respite was finished 75 Squadron went back to New Guinea for Frontline duties once again but this time they were far more confident with their aircraft joined by the kitty Hawks of number 76 Squadron they redeployed to Milne Bay at the end of July it was during the Battle of Milne Bay and those that followed that the Australian Kitty Hawks and those flown elsewhere by new zealanders would accomplish some of their highest

Achievements not only did they fend off the Japanese air attacks that threatened Allied troops and their limited supplies but in turn they conducted multiple strikes against Japanese ground troops and this had a significant impact on the battle Japanese troops had limited anti-air defenses and the kitty Hawks were able to absorb large amounts of small lamps fire as they completed numerous bombing and strafing runs they also had the range and endurance to conduct multiple missions a day with minimal service work needed between

sorties unless something managed to fall off this meant that the kitty Hawks were in an almost constant state of action providing much needed support to The Defenders and putting extreme pressure on the invading Japanese unlike their previous outing the Australian Kitty Hawks fared far better against Japanese Fighters when the combats resumed especially against the zeros this was not due to any serious upgrade or modifications but rather due to a correction of Doctrine veteran Kitty Hawk Pilots had often complained that

the aircraft was rarely allowed to be used to its strengths in Africa the training given to Pilots had never been fully suitable for the P40 being more suitable for a Spitfire or a hurricane the P40 was a high-speed low altitude Six-Gun Sledgehammer of a plane and the Desert Air Force had tried to wield it to like a fine saber the Royal Australian Air Force had no sort of Illusions and after 75 squadrons a disastrous beginning they soon learned to fly the Kitty Hawk in the ways that suited it best the result was not a

complete tipping of the scales with the P40 reigning supreme but rather a balancing of forces the kitty Hawks continued to take fairly heavy losses but they also inflicted an equal amount of loss on their opponents it was often a question of pilot discipline as as the strengths and weaknesses of the two aircraft were often their Polar Opposites the P40 turned better at high speeds the zero at slow speeds the P40 was slower in a climb but faster in a dive and the zero was lighter and considered easier to handle but often

lacked Firepower and sturdiness basically if the P40 was strictly used for boom and zoom attacks diving on its opponent squeezing off a burst of machine gun fire and zooming away they’d be fine if they got dragged into a slow dockfight they’d lose Milne Bay ended with victory for the allies and to the first time that the Japanese forces were driven into a total withdrawal the use of p-40s in ground attacks made a decisive impact on the first day of the invasion the kitty Hawks of 75 and 76 Squadron did much to blunt the initial

Advance denying air superiority to the enemy and buying critical time for The Defenders afterwards their daily strafing runs made up for the local deficit in Manpower until more reinforcements could be funneled in and at the same time they assisted in denying the same reinforcements to the enemy Milne Bay was a major chapter in the history of the Australian Air Force but the p-40s work was far from over air combat over New Guinea would continue for almost two years with multiple sorties over Port Moresby Milne Bay and

other parts of the island though the Spitfires did begin to make an appearance most of the action was fought with the kitty Hawks they were the most numerous fighter operated by the Australians and they were generally very popular with their pilots Kitty Hawks would end up flying with eight Australian squadrons in total seeing action mostly over New Guinea and Borneo and they would remain in service for the entirety of the war but it was those early actions during the invasion of New Guinea that would establish its

long-lasting Prestige with the Australian Air Force and the kitty Hawks over Milne Bay are treated with the same reverence as the Spitfires in hurricane canes that fought in the Battle of Britain that’s how important the P-40 was eventually the Japanese were pushed back farther north and most of the Australian squadrons settled down for a life of Home Defense and patrols over the Southwest Pacific though it was an Australian Kitty Hawk that would score the aircraft’s last victory for the Commonwealth forces shooting down a key

61 on June the 10th 1944 it would be the p-40s in service with New Zealand and the US that saw out some of its last major operations the Solomon Islands was the last Pacific Campaign that saw the P-40 used in large numbers the 44th Fighter Squadron of the Army Air Force arrived on January the 20th 1943 racking up 117 and a half confirmed kills they became the highest scoring P-40 Squadron of the year just under half of these victories were scored over a two-month period during the invasions of rendover Island and to

new Georgia not far behind them were the new zealanders p-40s from number 14 and 15 Squadron claimed 99 kills between mid to 1943 and 1944 with over half of these being Mitsubishi zeros despite these stunning results particularly against newer and more advanced Japanese Fighters the p-40s major service was pretty much done by the end of the year the New Zealand Kitty Hawks were being swapped out for vort F4U corsairs the Australians were replacing theirs with the P-38 Lightnings as were the Americans and in the ground attack role

the P-47 and the p-51s now reign supreme the transition was mostly complete by the summer of 1944 and by September no p-40s were operated by dedicated fighter squadrons in the Pacific Theater they continued to see Frontline use until the end of the war though but this was mostly in the service of reconnaissance or training squadrons some did see action during the retaking of the Philippines scoring the p-40s last aerial victories in January of 1945 but their numbers were few and their usage was brief despite this mild anti-climax

it did mean that the P40 had remained in Frontline service for the entirety of the Pacific War the only other U.S fighter to match this achievement was the Grumman F4F wildcat following the war a huge number of p-40s still survived but their post-war service was brief and mostly boring the only USP 40s stolen service were with training units and these were all struck off charge and placed into storage the p40s in Australia and to New Zealand were put into storage or auctioned off with a few being retained by collectors

and the same happened over in Canada in smaller air forces the p-40s found post-war use as trainers or Reserve aircraft and the last military p-40s remained in service all the way into the mid to 1950s these were the p-40s of the Brazilian Air Force and when the last unit was officially retired it brought an end to a long varied and surprisingly successful service history over 13 700 p40s had been built they had served with over a dozen different nations and between them over 200 pilots from these nations had become Aces flying the P40

it had proven it itself to be a competent fighter when flown to its strengths and its sturdiness allowed many inexperienced Pilots to make mistakes that would have killed them in other aircraft but even more importantly it’s performed its role as a fighter bomber so well that in many operations it had a significant impact on the outcome of battle El Alamein Burma New Guinea Borneo all of these battles saw warhawks and kitty Hawks hitting the enemy on the ground blunting their advance and often bringing much needed

relief but putting aside the physical impact of the P40 be that as a fighter or a fighter bomber its biggest impact on any front was the psychological change it brought to the Pacific the first six months following Pearl Harbor had been a low point for Allied pilots in that theater Japanese Fighters and bombers reigned Supreme the zero was practically a flying Boogeyman and they always seemed to outnumber and out fight their untrained and under prepared opponents the kitty Hawks over New Guinea did much to dispel this illusion

of invulnerability and its exploits there and in subsequent campaigns brought a much needed morale boost this was perhaps most true for the pilots of the royal Australian Air Force whose small numbers had been decimated by the Japanese at the start of the conflict in fact it’s probably not a huge stretch to say that the Australian Pilots loved their p-40s far more than any others and there’s good reason for that the P40 was the first mass-produced fighter to see extensive service with Australia and it was sorely needed they were short on

Fighters when the Pacific War Began promised shipments of British aircraft were being absorbed by the needs in Europe and their Air Forces would have been completely overwhelmed if not for the timely arrival of the Kitty Hawk it came just in time to make just enough of a difference to tip the balance in the Allies favor and in many ways that is a good summary for the P40 success it wasn’t the best aircraft of the war it was flawed its engine was underpowered it didn’t like high altitudes the early models had stability

problems and the later models were a bit fat but they were good enough they weren’t amazing but they weren’t bad either they were good a solid 7 out of 10 at B average they were what was needed at The crucial hour but was that also a bad thing just a few weeks after Curtis Wright rolled out its 15 000th fighter in 1944 production of the P40 would cease despite their best efforts they would never win a contract to produce a fighter ever again and just four years later the company walked away from aircraft production for good in a

cruel sense of irony the long lasting success of the P40 had its part to play in the company’s downfall from the outset the effectiveness of the P40 as a Frontline fighter was expected to be brief and as early as 1939 before the first production model had even left the factory Curtis was already considering its replacement the company had two choices they could radically improve the design of the P40 or come up with a new aircraft to replace it with the outbreak of the war in Europe and further funding from Congress they had the luxury of

pursuing both options but in the long run this would actually do more harm than good the p40s success as an export model far exceeded the expectations of both Curtis Wright and the Army because of this attempts to either improve or replace it were hampered by the pressing needs to keep the existing production line going this in turn had a knock-on effect on engine development Alison fully appreciated the drawbacks of the v1710 but any attempts to improve the design had to be done in a way that wouldn’t interfere with P40 production

additionally and as mentioned earlier Alison wasn’t a huge company they didn’t have the manpower to spare on adventurous design projects and as it was they were barely expanding fast enough to keep up with the growing demand for existing engines the fact that the last p40s to be built were only somewhat better performing than the first speaks volumes to this particular problem things were then further complicated following the attack on Pearl Harbor not only did Curtis Wright have to continue supplying tomahawks and

kitty Hawks to overseas customers but they now had the US Army breathing down their neck with a blank check and a desire for superhuman production levels this had a direct impact on the development of the p40s replacement between 1939 and 1942 three aircraft were designed as potential replacement of the P40 the xp-46 the xp-53 and the XP60 the xp-46 was an attempt to make do with the limited power of the Allison engine by reducing the size and weight of the airframe the result was a small agile looking aircraft that initially

held much promise in fact the British purchasing commission placed an order for the xp-46 and were originally going to give it the name of Kitty Hawk things changed when the aircraft was actually put through testing and its low Firepower short range and lack of armor protection made it totally unsuitable as a Frontline Fighter the final nail in the coffin was the fact that it couldn’t exceed the current speed of the existing p40s and the project was abandoned the xp-53 was another failed attempt it was larger than the xp-46 was meant to have

as Superior range to the P40 and with its laminar flow Wings it was hoped to handle better as well but this time it was let down by a new engine the Continental 1430. following this came the xp-60 combining the wing design of the xp-53 with the fuselage of ap40d and a Packard Merlin engine this aircraft looked promising but it was deemed too heavy to make efficient use of the Merlin engine and the solution was to fit a turbocharged version of the Allison v1710 Instead This required a major redesign of the fuselage but it

could be done and the concept was sound though this is where the P40 success does come back to haunt it Alison had made some progress in the development of turbocharged engines but it was still an emerging technology for them and most of their resources were put into producing the current supercharged engines for the P40 the result was a mostly untried and untested power plant that had an alarming tendency to catch fire equipped with this temperamental engine the xp-60 became the xb60a and although it was a

flying fire hazard it did fly faster and higher than the existing p40s additionally another p60 was built with a pratt and Whitney r2800 cyclone and this became the xp60c by the time the xp-60a had flown the US Army was losing interest in the project Curtis quickly provided them with estimated performance figures for the xp-60c and this was enough to renew their interest which even resulted in an order for 500 aircraft as the p60 following a series of experiments this version was selected in favor of the Merlin powered variant though there was

a concern about the supply of Contour rotating propellers because of this another prototype was developed known as the xp60e unfortunately a string of bad luck delays and other engineering problems would stop the p60 from ever entering production eventually the order for 500 was canceled and only five prototypes were ever built I’m only providing a quick history on this aircraft as it will be getting its own video in the future though I do want to mention that if Curtis could have spared more manpower on this project it

could have had a brighter future one last attempt to breathe a new life into the P40 itself was the xp-40q and even though this was technically successful it was too little too late it was a heavily modified p40k it had a thinner nose with the cooling system relocated into the wing Roots it had a new bubble canopy its wings were eventually clipped and further modifications to the fuselage and intake system gave it a strong resemblance to the P-51 Mustang with a vastly more powerful engine the 1800 horsepower-121 version of the Allison it

was much faster than the old p40s but this experiment took place in mid 1943. by now the P-38 p47 and P5 51 were all entering service the P-38 could fly further the P-47 could carry more bombs and the P-51 was faster and so the xp-40q like the rest failed the P40 was not the direct cause for the failure of Curtis indeed poor management decisions and some Highly Questionable design choices in other aircraft did most of the work for them but it is ironic that the company’s most successful aircraft had a hand in its departure from the

world of Aviation thankfully this Factor does little to Tar the reputation of the P40 in the grand scale of things though that’s being said that the P40 has often been treated more harshly than it deserves today that seems to be changing the more reflective research that is done on the P40 the more it’s appreciated that it was in fact a very capable aircraft just one that was often let down by outdated or unsuitable combat Doctrine after all if you don’t fly a fighter to its strengths how can you write for fully judge its

performance a lot of the p40s early heavy losses have since been put down to a combination of poor training and poor combat tactics something that makes even more sense when you compare the Victory and loss ratios of the p-40s later in the war despite being more outclassed in 1943 than ever before the p-40s over the Mediterranean and the Pacific brought down far more enemy aircraft per loss than at any other period thankfully the p40s huge production run meant that despite their heavy losses a good number of them do survive today a surviving

example of most major P-40 variants can be found including the sole surviving p4db that was present during the attack on Pearl Harbor because of this they are often a regular and popular sighted air shows big and small thus continuing the 80-year legacy of a plane that did far more than it was ever expected to achieve and that concludes today’s look at the P40 as always thank you all so much for watching and a big thank you of course to the patrons this video was a bit of a challenge to finish as I had a lot of other things going on so I’ve had

to record this in about four or five segments so I apologize if my voice is a bit all over the place but at least I got it released in the same month as part one a special shout out of course to the wing Commander patrons the highest tier supporters and a big welcome to Robert Hedges and Brooks Martin who are the newest members of this special group I’ve already started working on next month’s q a video so all your questions will be answered then and you guys should be getting some sneak peeks at some very special stuff very

soon but as always thank you all so much and I’ll catch you all next time goodbye