Quote:
Originally Posted by Birgir Thorisson
From what limited information I have, It seems that the USAAF primarily used the Merlin engined P-40 in North Africa. It doesn´t seem to have been a great success there.
On the other hand, when it became available in the spring of 1942, the USAAF really needed better altitude capacity in the Pacific, where the Allison engined version was struggling against the Zero. With Europe-first policy giving that theater a priority for P-38, the logical solution would have been to deploy the P-40F in the Pacific.
Every indication is that it would have done well over Port Moresby and Guadalcanal, where defending fighters had plenty of time to gain altitude, so the P-40F weakness (low climb rate) would not have mattered.
So the question is why wasn´t the P-40F used in the Pacific (assuming I am right that it wasn´t)?
Birgir Thorisson
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Hi Birgir
The P-40F did actually see service in the Pacific with the 44 FS / 18
FG from January 1943 in the Solomon Islands area.
Best regards
gian paolo