That is affirmative.

Please delete my post then.

It says here that the Allison reached 4,000 hp as
a racing engine, obviously at the expense of
very short engine lives. I think this version was apparently
developed from the late model 2,300 hp V-1710-145,
but it demonstrates the potential of the Allison. I don’t
believe the Merlin ever generated this amount of power,
even in any racing versions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_V-1710

http://www.unlimitedexcitement.com/Miss%20US/Allison%20V1710%20Engine.htm

Thus the earlier Allisons meant for the P-40 could easily
have reached above 2,000 hp by pushing it to racing
limits at the relatively paltry cost of engine life, and I
wonder why some direction towards this was never
taken, when Curtiss was desperately trying to improve
the P-40’s performance throughout the war years.

I remember this tradeoff was evident in the Bf109K, whose
Daimler-Benz DB605 ASCM engine with GM-1 and MW-1
boost took it to 2,200 hp, at the expense of horrendous fuel
consumption and an engine life of just 100 hours. The
German fighters had to land to refuel, while the P-51s were
still operating over their motherland. I think these penalties
were acceptable considering that the Germans were fighting
for their survival.

Very old and interesting newsgroup discussion about
the P-40’s fighting qualities by a former Flying Tiger,
Erik Shilling.

http://yarchive.net/mil/p40.html

You were right, Mr Mackay, the P-40 could not really
dogfight above 20,000 feet, even the F model, and had
trouble climbing above that height, the N model being the only
exception. Surprisingly, they were able to outroll and
outdive both the Bf109 and Zero, and outturn the Bf109
as well.

A Merlin 61/Packard V-1650-3 or Allison V-1710-119/121
with their two-speed, two-stage superchargers may
well have pushed its effective ceiling to 25,000 feet.

I wonder if it might have been possible to install the
Allison’s turbocharger used in the P-38 too.

Quoted from the link above :

” Performance of the P-40E and K fell off rapidly above 18,000 ft.;
above about 20,000 for the F and above about 22,000 ft or so for
the N. (The F had the Packard Merlin with a single-stage
two-speed mech. supercharger and the N was significantly lightened. The K had
more power than the E, but began pooping out at about the same altitude as the
E. However, it could carry a bigger bomb load–the E a 500 lber and the K and
1,000 lber over the same range.

On the E or K, 22,000 ft. could be achieved with reasonable performance, but
above that full throttle would barely manage to keep the airplane flying
slightly faster than stalling speed. Raising the nose ever so slightly–or even
firing the guns while straight and level–could knock it into a stall,
depending on how good the engine was running that day and how good the pilot’s
reactions were. It took some careful stick handling to wheeze up above 25,000
ft. It was done, too, with 49FG P-40s intercepting Japanese bombers above that
altitude. Pilots flying the N model were able to intercept and shoot down
Dinah recon planes flying at 31,000 ft., but only after long chases. But no
model P-40 was in its element at those altitudes. The 109 could at least
operate in the 25,000 to 28,000 ft. environment with some degree of performance margin.

The best the P-40 could do was hope to be above its foe and in
position to make a diving attack. Were it attacked at that altitude, if the
P-40 driver was not sufficiently quick to recognize the danger and dive away,
he was in serious trouble. On one raid over Darwin, P-40Es were at 26,000 ft.
positioning themselves to attack Japanese bombers at 22,000 ft. when they were hit by the Zero escort diving from above. The Curtiss machines were helpless
to counter a fighter threat at that altitude and three P-40s went down
immediately, the greatest single loss of the entire Darwin campaign. “/

I think Mr Alan Brooks above is correct.

The V-1650-1 Packard Merlin engine installed in
the P-40F was, I believe, a 1,280 hp Merlin 28.

The P-51B got the V-1650-3 Packard, a Merlin 61.

The P-40 was an obsolete design, but not that
hopelessly inferior. I remember reading, in a book
chronicalling the daily air combat during the war,
that P-40Fs did shoot down quite a few Bf-109Fs
in the North African campaign.

Thus a Merlin 61 or V-1650-3, which generated
some 1,700 hp at war emergency power, may well
have given the P-40 a fighting chance against the
Bf-109G. I think its performance might have been
even better had they retained the more streamlined
undernose of the P-40B/C used by Chennault’s Flying Tigers,
rather than that of the P-40D/E/F versions with the
bulky drag-inducing air intakes. This advantage was
evident in the Hawker Typhoon, in which one prototype
with the radiatiors moved to the wings, reached 450 mph
compared to a top speed of just over 400 mph in the
production version with the big radiator intake under
the nose, similar to that in the later P-40 versions.

P-40s, even with the Merlin 61 or V-1650-3 Packard,
may still have been outmatched and very likely suffer
far higher losses than the German fighters over
Europe, but I think that would have been acceptable
considering the fact that the B-17s and B-24s would not
have been left to fight it out alone most of the way to
and from the target, with their horrendous losses in
planes and lives (when one bomber goes down, ten men
go down, compared to just one in a fighter). In essence,
the P-40 would have served its purpose as an escort.

Finally, Saburo Sakai, when asked which Allied fighter
he considered his most dangerous opponent, mentioned
“…… a well-handled P-40.”

The .303 Browning simply doesn’t have enough
range – 400 yards, I think.

One ex-Bf 109E pilot wrote in his write-up that
during the Battle of Britain, he was being chased,
almost at sea level, all the way back across the
English Channel by a Spitfire, who kept firing his
.303s sporadically at him.

The German noted in his rear mirror that the British
bullets were not reaching him, but dropping into the
sea some distance behind. He waited until, on almost
reaching the French coast, when the Englishman gave up
and turned back, he immediately climbed and wheeled his
own fighter around in the tightest turn possible, got the
Spitfire in his sights and blasted him right into the sea.

I think it’s tragic that not flying skills, but weak
rifle-calibre weapons cost the British pilot his life.

While Dale Brown tries hard to write an entertaining
novel, his subject tends to be too fictitious and not
very authentic. For example, “Megafortress” does
not exist and he refers to the Standard as “Aegis”
missiles.

I would prefer to read books which depict aircraft
and equipment which currently exist in real life.

Here’s two relatively good books :

“Purpose of Evasion” by Greg Dinallo (1990)

“Arc Light” by Eric Harry (1994)