Not at all dissing you Corsair, but these discussions about which was better than the other are sh!ts of things and and often enough retreat into entrenched positions.

I think your observation that none of these aircraft were the ultimate models is pertinent. Wartime leads to significant funding and enthusiasm for technological advancement and no sooner than one party improves something (speed, armament, climb, manouverabilty, etc., etc.) than the other would respond and exceed whatever it was. So there’s a constant lead/lag development going on and no real stable state at which a comparison is useful. As a case in point, the FW190 when it first appeared operationally immediately outclassed the Spitfire (was it the MkV?) but then the Spit was improved … and so it goes. And the last FW190’s, the D series, were generally accepted to be the best German piston engined fighters in front-line service (the Dornier 335 not really being operational to any degree) easily able to mix it with P51s and late model Spitfires – but Germany had bugger all gasoline available, with what there was being low octane!

Given the US Marine and Navy fighters didn’t feature in the European theatre (I believe), one way of assessing this might be to see how F4U’s and F6F’s compared with the P51 – then extend that to the competition.

cheers, Gnome

edit Galdri, we posted at the same time more or less – same point re. the MkV I see

Guys – I’m finding this a really interesting thread – and also continue to be amazed at the sheer volume of knowledge available on this forum.

I note various comments in posts above that suggest interchangeabilty, but this may only be in one-off non-operational circumstances (eg: post war racing).

Christer in post 7 says
“Roll-Royce maintained parts interchangability between different marks which necessitated the use of adapters. When Packard redesigned the engine, they adapted it for the use of american accessories and completely broke the interchangability.”
TempestNut says in post 11
“If you read any of the authoritative accounts of the RR Merlin it is obvious there were very few differences between a Packard Merlin and a RR Merlin.”
and
“The racing Merlin’s in the US are incredible engines. They use a Packard bottom end based on the 100 series Merlin, with 500 or 600 series Transport blocks and heads. They use Allison connecting rods from the Allison that powered the P82 …”
and again in post 26
“…companies such as Ford and Packard need to ensure that each part was identical, and completely interchangeable. This work benefited RR no end.”

So I’m left with a question – to what degree were engines and/or parts exchangable between the different manufacturers at operational level? I’ve heard of Lancs being fitted with mixtures of the two engines (3 of one, 1 of the other, etc.) – can anyone confirm that? But I also wonder whether you could swap parts between the engines, external parts like manifolds etc., and perhaps even internals?

many thanks, Gnome

(edit) Thinking about this, of course the living relatives (wife & brothers) would presumably have known all about this at the time and been able to pass the knowledge along – so it stands to reason that the original questioner (see Moggy’s earlier posts) was not one of them. I wonder who.

Moggy, my point above (made in an edit so you might not have noted it) is that it seems to me that by definition the family did know as much as we do. In other words, there “should” be family who are up to speed on all this. So I wonder who it was doing the asking? It’s as much a mystery as the original quest was.

Somewhere around here I have an excellent tome on the Lancaster, but we’re in mid-renovations so it can’t be found. I remember a discussion about this in the book, may or may not have had something to do with being a BI or BIII. But anyway one thing I do remember clearly is the comment that the Packard engines came complete with a magnificent toolkit that was much appreciated by the erks – who therefore preferred the Packard engine!

Great photo – and that’s no small facility – I note a second Sunderland behind the first.
And for those of us in faraway places, where is Pembroke Dock?

What were they thinking 50 years ago? Without condoning these actions, but by way of passing comment …
I wonder when I read these sorts of stories (and God knows there were plenty of them) what was the mindset of military and other commanders that would allow these sorts of things. And I think of the effect the recent war must have had. The experience of military servicemen (and I daresay women) was undoutedly that being in the military was/is a hazardous occupation – often enough, you got killed. I speculate that the mindset was a lot more fatalistic than today’s. Because if it wasn’t, then it’s inexplicable.