Ed Rotondaro
07-08-2008, 08:29 PM
Hi:
As most members of these forums know, I am a big fan of Osprey Publishing various series of military history books. They make up the bulk of my library in terms of numbers and I’m constantly adding to the collection. I recently finished two titles and have posted a review of them.
“P-40 Warhawk versus Ki-43 Oscar” by Carl Molesworth is part of the new series entitled Duel which compares two weapon systems against one another. So far the bulk of the titles have been either aircraft or armor related. This particular title follows the established format of detailing background on the design of each plane as well as performance specifications. It is interesting to note that while the P-40 was heavier than the Oscar, it had very good speed and a tremendous rate of dive. Its main drawback was sluggish performance at high altitude and an inferior rate of climb and turn compared to the nimble Ki-43. Essentially it was a typical pre-war American fighter design. Improvements to its armament and power plant helped keep it a valuable aircraft into 1944.
The Oscar was the Japanese Army’s main fighter in the early part of the war. If some authorities criticize the Zero for being unable to take damage, then the Oscar is downright flimsy by comparison. Due to a requirement to keep the weight down, the engineers pared away at the structural integrity to the point where the early planes were actually dangerous to fly. While the Zero would shed wing coverings in a fast dive, the Oscar’s wings actually would come off. Any Allied plane knew that it could out dive the Ki-43 if need be. Also whereas the Zero had twin 20mm cannons to supplement its two 7.7mm machine guns, the Oscar only sported two 12.7mm machine guns, a fraction of the firepower that the P-40 carried with its six .50 caliber weapons. While the Oscar could outmaneuver most of its foes, once the proper tactics were employed it proved highly vulnerable to Allied fighters.
The time period covered in this title is 1943 to early 1944 in China. The experiences of the 23rd Fighter Group (formerly the Flying Tigers) as well as the 51st and 80th FGs make up the bulk of the narrative. The missions were generally flow at medium to low altitude where the Warhawk’s performance was not sluggish. Pilots exploited its rate of roll and dive speed for “boom and zoom” tactics to counter the more nimble Oscar. The well armored P-40 stood up to combat damages whether air to air or in the ground support role. The two planes were quite well matched against each other with pilot skill or surprise being the final determiner. It speaks volumes that many experienced Warhawk pilots preferred it over the new P-51 Mustang which began to replace the P-40 in 1944. While the Oscar was eventually supplanted by the much more capable Ki-84 Hayate fighter, some units still flew it to the war’s end.
Overall this new edition to the Osprey Duel series is an interesting read and brings a lot of new information about the combat effectiveness of the P-40 Warhawk.
“Sherman Firefly” by David Fletcher is a new Osprey title in the New Vanguard series that covers armor, warships and artillery. There were some on-line reviews that felt this book duplicated the efforts of the Duel title covering the Firefly versus the Tiger tank, but this is not the case. It does a far better job of explaining the obstacles that had to be overcome in order to up gun the Sherman tank with the potent British 17lb anti-tank gun.
Since British tank development was running a bit slow and since the Americans showed no real interest in using the 17lb gun, the British decided to go it alone and find a way to mount the very large gun into the Sherman’s turret. There were many obstacles to overcome not the least of which was space. The main reason is that the 17lb was not designed as a tank gun, but as towed anti-tank gun. As tanks grew heavier nations found that the anti-tank had to grow larger as well in order to penetrate the thicker armor of the latest tanks. One of the reasons that anti-tank guns as a weapon system fell out of favor was this growth in the size, weight and bulkiness of the weapons. The British did eventually create a tank gun version of the 17lb which featured a cut-down breech and other changes including shorter rounds of ammunition. It was termed the 77mm in service to distinguish it from the actual 17lb weapon and it was almost as effective in service as the bigger gun.
The relocation of ammunition was another problem as the 17lb rounds were very long compared to the 75mm rounds of a Sherman tank. One crew member had to be sacrificed in order to accommodate ammunition storage, so the radio operator was deleted and the loader had to double in this task, something he was not trained for. The radio itself was relocated to the rear or the turret in an armored box. The gun had to be mounted sideways and took up so much space that it practically cut off the gunner from the loader. The driver had the unenviable task of trying to hand up rounds of ammo once the ready ammo was used up.
Not every model of the Sherman could be converted into a Firefly. Diesel versions couldn’t nor could some of the newer marks. This also impacted the number of conversions that could be made.
Despite these challenges, the Firefly came into being and amazingly worked well in service. This title doesn’t give as much combat details as the Duel title does, but it does cover operational experiences and numbers produced. It was usually found that one tank in a troop would be the Firefly while the rest were ordinary Shermans. German armor crews took pains to try and single out the Fireflys for targeting, a fact that speaks volumes for how effective these tanks were. Firefly crews took to camouflaging their tank gun barrels with paint schemes to make them look shorter at a distance.
The author notes how while the big 17 pounder had excellent penetration of armor, there were some accuracy issues. The best round to use was APDS with a tungsten sub penetrator. The problem was this type of shot was relatively new and some of the kinks had not been worked out in the design of the discarding sabot. After 500 yards, the effect of the sabot separating from the sub projectile caused the round to lose accuracy. And while the Firefly had a big gun, it was still armored like a Sherman which meant it was dead meat to any German tank at 500 yards. The APDS round would still need a few more years to become the preeminent tank killer that it is today. Another issue was the HE round for the 17lb gun. It lacked the amount of filler that the older 75mm gun did (the US 76mm gun also had this problem) and since tanks fired far more HE than AP, this was considered a drawback. That and it fired the rounds at very high velocity leaving lots of smoke and dust to obscure the fall of the shot.
The author concludes with the fact that the Firefly was being extensively evaluated just about the time the war was ending and more purpose built tanks with better guns were coming into service. Overall this is a nice companion piece to the Duel title and will appeal to anyone interested in WWII armor.
As most members of these forums know, I am a big fan of Osprey Publishing various series of military history books. They make up the bulk of my library in terms of numbers and I’m constantly adding to the collection. I recently finished two titles and have posted a review of them.
“P-40 Warhawk versus Ki-43 Oscar” by Carl Molesworth is part of the new series entitled Duel which compares two weapon systems against one another. So far the bulk of the titles have been either aircraft or armor related. This particular title follows the established format of detailing background on the design of each plane as well as performance specifications. It is interesting to note that while the P-40 was heavier than the Oscar, it had very good speed and a tremendous rate of dive. Its main drawback was sluggish performance at high altitude and an inferior rate of climb and turn compared to the nimble Ki-43. Essentially it was a typical pre-war American fighter design. Improvements to its armament and power plant helped keep it a valuable aircraft into 1944.
The Oscar was the Japanese Army’s main fighter in the early part of the war. If some authorities criticize the Zero for being unable to take damage, then the Oscar is downright flimsy by comparison. Due to a requirement to keep the weight down, the engineers pared away at the structural integrity to the point where the early planes were actually dangerous to fly. While the Zero would shed wing coverings in a fast dive, the Oscar’s wings actually would come off. Any Allied plane knew that it could out dive the Ki-43 if need be. Also whereas the Zero had twin 20mm cannons to supplement its two 7.7mm machine guns, the Oscar only sported two 12.7mm machine guns, a fraction of the firepower that the P-40 carried with its six .50 caliber weapons. While the Oscar could outmaneuver most of its foes, once the proper tactics were employed it proved highly vulnerable to Allied fighters.
The time period covered in this title is 1943 to early 1944 in China. The experiences of the 23rd Fighter Group (formerly the Flying Tigers) as well as the 51st and 80th FGs make up the bulk of the narrative. The missions were generally flow at medium to low altitude where the Warhawk’s performance was not sluggish. Pilots exploited its rate of roll and dive speed for “boom and zoom” tactics to counter the more nimble Oscar. The well armored P-40 stood up to combat damages whether air to air or in the ground support role. The two planes were quite well matched against each other with pilot skill or surprise being the final determiner. It speaks volumes that many experienced Warhawk pilots preferred it over the new P-51 Mustang which began to replace the P-40 in 1944. While the Oscar was eventually supplanted by the much more capable Ki-84 Hayate fighter, some units still flew it to the war’s end.
Overall this new edition to the Osprey Duel series is an interesting read and brings a lot of new information about the combat effectiveness of the P-40 Warhawk.
“Sherman Firefly” by David Fletcher is a new Osprey title in the New Vanguard series that covers armor, warships and artillery. There were some on-line reviews that felt this book duplicated the efforts of the Duel title covering the Firefly versus the Tiger tank, but this is not the case. It does a far better job of explaining the obstacles that had to be overcome in order to up gun the Sherman tank with the potent British 17lb anti-tank gun.
Since British tank development was running a bit slow and since the Americans showed no real interest in using the 17lb gun, the British decided to go it alone and find a way to mount the very large gun into the Sherman’s turret. There were many obstacles to overcome not the least of which was space. The main reason is that the 17lb was not designed as a tank gun, but as towed anti-tank gun. As tanks grew heavier nations found that the anti-tank had to grow larger as well in order to penetrate the thicker armor of the latest tanks. One of the reasons that anti-tank guns as a weapon system fell out of favor was this growth in the size, weight and bulkiness of the weapons. The British did eventually create a tank gun version of the 17lb which featured a cut-down breech and other changes including shorter rounds of ammunition. It was termed the 77mm in service to distinguish it from the actual 17lb weapon and it was almost as effective in service as the bigger gun.
The relocation of ammunition was another problem as the 17lb rounds were very long compared to the 75mm rounds of a Sherman tank. One crew member had to be sacrificed in order to accommodate ammunition storage, so the radio operator was deleted and the loader had to double in this task, something he was not trained for. The radio itself was relocated to the rear or the turret in an armored box. The gun had to be mounted sideways and took up so much space that it practically cut off the gunner from the loader. The driver had the unenviable task of trying to hand up rounds of ammo once the ready ammo was used up.
Not every model of the Sherman could be converted into a Firefly. Diesel versions couldn’t nor could some of the newer marks. This also impacted the number of conversions that could be made.
Despite these challenges, the Firefly came into being and amazingly worked well in service. This title doesn’t give as much combat details as the Duel title does, but it does cover operational experiences and numbers produced. It was usually found that one tank in a troop would be the Firefly while the rest were ordinary Shermans. German armor crews took pains to try and single out the Fireflys for targeting, a fact that speaks volumes for how effective these tanks were. Firefly crews took to camouflaging their tank gun barrels with paint schemes to make them look shorter at a distance.
The author notes how while the big 17 pounder had excellent penetration of armor, there were some accuracy issues. The best round to use was APDS with a tungsten sub penetrator. The problem was this type of shot was relatively new and some of the kinks had not been worked out in the design of the discarding sabot. After 500 yards, the effect of the sabot separating from the sub projectile caused the round to lose accuracy. And while the Firefly had a big gun, it was still armored like a Sherman which meant it was dead meat to any German tank at 500 yards. The APDS round would still need a few more years to become the preeminent tank killer that it is today. Another issue was the HE round for the 17lb gun. It lacked the amount of filler that the older 75mm gun did (the US 76mm gun also had this problem) and since tanks fired far more HE than AP, this was considered a drawback. That and it fired the rounds at very high velocity leaving lots of smoke and dust to obscure the fall of the shot.
The author concludes with the fact that the Firefly was being extensively evaluated just about the time the war was ending and more purpose built tanks with better guns were coming into service. Overall this is a nice companion piece to the Duel title and will appeal to anyone interested in WWII armor.