P51 Mustangs

I would have been trying to find out if they were British spec'd with Rolls Royce Merlins or Allison's doing the screaming?? For the old brain archives.

He was NAVAIR Pacific WWII, saw some horrors on Guam, Eniwetok and Kwajalein.  NOT EVER did he explain more than that.

Could NOT be better said...   There's many who will pit the Allison V12 against the RR and Packard Merlin, and there's places where each outshine.  Being able to run variable stages of boost was extremely important when dealing with varying altitude.  Study the power/altitude/fuel consumption curves and one will find that a horsepower number, all by itself, means nothing.  Some suggest that putting a pair of Merlins in the P38 would have resulted in a better performing aircraft... but look at the boost management and power profiles, you'll find that there would be no improvement.  The A36 Apache was a case-in-point, as a ground-attack platform, the Allison was at NO disadvantage.

The circumstance, and the application in which it was used, determines what the end result IS for a given theatre application.  The P51's greatest strength in the mid-era European theatre, was it's ability to extend bomber escort far beyond the length of it's performance contemporaries.  In it's early Allison configuration it had a performance envelope that disfavored high-altitude operation, but liquid cooling and the low mounted radiator made it a poor choice for ground-support, where it's air-cooled counterparts would swallow ground-fire, spit out damaged cylinders, and just keep flying.

I love 'em all... I even love the BAD ones, as they were lessons-learned.

As for build, there's nothing wrong with hand-fitment techniques, when you're building them in a one-at-a-time philosophy, but when there's a war to be fought, one has to accept that there's a combat life-expectancy of a weapon, and that life expectancy can be counted in seconds, minutes, or single-digit hours... and if it exceeds that timeframe, it is most fortunate.  Frequently, that life expectancy comes to it's end when the crew aboard experiences the limits of their life-expectancy.  When the machine protects the crew well, both survive longer...  But the short reality, is that if the platform expires but the crew survives and returns safely, the crew's experience has increased... and at that point, a new airframe for them will return them to the fight.

New airframes then become the focus of combat success-  it makes the war an industrial-economics exercise, where manufacturing, logistics, and forward-operations support are every bit part of the battle.  In that respect, it was the employment of what the Brits referred to as 'The American System', that made such a huge difference.   They fought HARD to persevere amidst arial attacks (aircraft and V-weapons), and accompished some amazing things with their tenacious grit.  We chipped in our industrial capacity, which wasn't just building stuff... it was the entirety of our industrial sphere, from raw materials to finished equipment, to technological development, and conjoining our efforts with those of our allies.  The British invented some really fantastic things, but couldn't PRODUCE them under their circumstances, but WE could... and for many things WE produced that OUR armed forces thought little of, THEY took them, modified and polished them into something really spectacular, and showed US how to IMPROVE them.  The combination teamwork, pooling of resources, and melding of technology was ultimately the superlative force.