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But from what I can gather fewer blades with the same surface area give a better climb rate but more blades increase level fight speed.
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The wider -- wooden -- blades gave a better climb, and the narrower -- metal -- blades gave a better level top speed. RR and Dehavilland had a discussion about this for the Mosquito. And, in the report on Fw 190 V17 -- the prototype for the 190 D-9 -- FW noted that amongst the several losses in top speed would be -6 km/h for the wide, wooden-bladed props.
Sorry, that doesn't answer your basic question about the use of 4-bladed, metal props. For what it's worth, they were testing them on the 109 K-4.