Talk:Curtiss P-40 Warhawk/Archive 1

message: i don't agree with any of this information...wikipedia stinks - 
Bold Statement, Pitty this is not backed with some information of your own.....(Very Impressed P40 R/C Pilot)
*I don't see anything wrong with this information. Trust me I know I'm around p40s every weekend at least :) ---T0ny 01:41, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
Whoever continually re-adds the POV statement "The P-40 earned / deserved its reputation as a mediocre aircraft", I have removed it for the final time.  Please do not reintroduce it again.  Unit histories and a multitude of different combats show the P-40 performed variously, from exceptionally to dismally, commonly depending on the situation, tactics used, and opponents faced.  Branding it as having earned or deserving mediocrity is unnecessary POV. GarageBay9
:Upon careful re-reading of the article, I have found other instances of the 'mediocrity' label and allegation as well.  Someone has a prejudice or vendetta against this aircraft for some reason.  This is not the place for it.  GarageBay9
::You merely varied some peacock terms and weasel words to suit your own POV ("Bias need not be conscious"). These don't belong in the article in the first place. I admit I'm guilty of not kicking them out at sight. --172.182.212.113 21:54, 14 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Haha, my only experience of the P-40 comes from flying it online, which is always a short and nasty experience. It's slow, weakly armed, and if you try to dogfight Japanese planes with it, you'll inevitably put it into an irrecoverable flat spin. The undercarriage is also very narrow, which makes for very tricky and dangerous landings/take-offs. It has neither the manoverability of the Japanese fighters, nor the raw power of later American planes. Deathtrap. Bastie 00:37, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Haha. You hear that, boys? He's flown the plane on a computer. Let's hand him some wings, eh? How could we have doubted his qualifications? Deathtrap indeed. :p Guapovia 14:24, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Misc.

message: The early Merlin enined fighters were even more usuitable for use in North Africa, or anywhere more than 100 miles from the factory.  David R. Ingham 05:01, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point, the Spitfire Mk5C's used by the RAAF as air defence/interceptors in northern Australia during 1943, even though they were modified for the tropics, were notoriously unreliable. Combat performance aside, P-40s seem to have lasted much longer in desert and tropical conditions, especially when flown by experienced pilots. Grant65 | Talk 05:21, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: * P-40 lacked the high-altitude performance required for Western European combat. At lower altitudes of Asia and Eastern Europe (USSR) and in the hands of skilled pilots using sound tactics (AVG) it performed reasonably well even against A6M and Bf 109. In particular, the roll performance was quite good and the 6x 0.50 cal armament was certainly not inferior to other USAAF fighters. It pays well to remember that it was an evolution of an early 1930s design. It is historically illiterate to bunch Western and Eastern European air war under the heading "Europe" because the combat conditions were drastically different. - Emt147 Burninate! 20:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "unsuitable for use as a fighter in Europe" 

message: This article is currently in the "going to hell in a handbasket" state. I did some extensive copyediting but I don't have the time to rewrite it right now. The bit on P-40 vs Bf 109 and P-40 vs Zero is repeated about three times throughout the article. I will delete all of the "most pilots thought" claims soon unless someone provides references for them. As it stands now, the article is rather POV -- the P-40 was a mediocre airplane by all means (although as any fighter, more successful if used within its performance envelope and with sound tactics). The tone of the article is "P-40 was actually very good." Present the facts and let the reader make the judgement call.
So, anyone up for a rewrite? This may annoy me enough that I'll do it soon if no one else volunteers. - Emt147 Burninate! 05:39, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  State of the article 

message: I'm the guy who updatedd much of this article.  I've been researching WW II aircraft in General and the P-40 in particular for 20 years.   I can provide sources for everything I aded to the article.  Just as the P-39 has turned out to have been an excellent Air superiority fighter in Russian hands despite decades of US and British publications claiming incorrectly that it was only used for close air support.
The fact is that in many theaters the P-40 was not the mediocre dog that it is often accused of being.  It is also incorrect to claim that it was only used as a fighter bomber.  The aircraft WAS used a great deal as an air-superiority fighter and frequently with great success, according to many sources including the Osprey military books, and many recent interviews with Soviet pilots including the one I linked to above.  Did you read that article?
At any rate please post any specific challenges you may have to any specific claim and I will gladly cite my source.
I agree editing is incomplete, repetitions should be reduced.  I will try to edit further.
I would also like to discuss some standards.  For example I understand the use of Bf as a designation of Messerschmitt 109 and 110 is a pre-war anachronism and incorrect.  It also does not work as a link to the other articles on the given types.  Should every mention of another aircraft type be made into a link to the relevant Wikipedia page or not?
Should the word 'theater' be capitalized or not?
User:Drifter Bob
*I understand that P-40 was a reasonable aircraft but the current tone of the article is not neutral and it is very repetitive. Focus on the facts, avoid superlatives, cite your references, and let the reader draw conclusions.
*Every single time the article mentions that pilots claimed/believed/said something needs to be referenced. The same goes for any claims of superior/inferior combat performance. Again, Wikipedia is not a place for conjecture and speculation -- present the facts. The preferred format for references is Cite.php -- Wikipedia:Footnotes.
*Bf was the official RLM designation of all Messerschmitt aircraft. It wasn't until the end of the war that Willie Messerschmitt succeeded in offically putting the Me moniker on some of his products. Certainly the vast majority of aircraft faced by the P-40s were early-model Bf 109s and Bf 110s. These are also the page names in Wikipedia -- using the Me designation unnecessarily runs through a redirect.
*Theater should be capitalized if used in the title, e.g. Pacific Theater, but not if used in a sentence, e.g. theater of operations.
*By convention, Wikilinks are created only the first time something (an aircraft, a person) is mentioned. Subsequent linking is redundant.
:Thanks! - Emt147 Burninate! 21:19, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: State of the article 2

message: "As it stands now, the article is rather POV -- the P-40 was a mediocre airplane by all means (although as any fighter, more successful if used within its performance envelope and with sound tactics). The tone of the article is "P-40 was actually very good."
Basically, I believe this is incorrect.  The P-40 lacked high altitude performance.  This is the source of most of it's bad Rep.  In the primary theaters, ETO and PTO, good altitude performance was critical and the anemia of P-40 and P-39 above 16,000 feet made them virtually useless in these important theaters.  However, in those threaters suich as CBI, North Africa, and the Russian Front where the combat took place almost exclusively within the performance envelope of the type, the P-40 WAS a good fighter.  Many Axis pilots considered it the most dangerous Allied aircraft they faced in many Theaters in 1941 and 1942.  This is documented.  It could easily outrun most Japanese aircraft and could out-turn all German and Italian monoplanes, while keeping up in level speed with the early Me 109s, and superior in maximum Dive speed and high speed handling.
:: These are fine claims to make if you can provide NUMBERS (with references, of course). Roll rates, turn times, combat turn performance, maximum instantaneous and sustained turn rates, terminal dive speeds (and whether controls were still functional -- Zero could not dive because the controls would freeze, not because it was aerodynamically limited). Numbers are neutral, "many Axis pilots considered it the most dangerous Allied fighter" is an unacceptable generalization unless you have a primary source (an German document saying this was the case). This is the problem I have with the article as it stands, and I will remove such claims if they are not referenced. Let me be very clear -- this is not an attack on P-40 but rather on the contents of the article. Please familiarize yourself with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view before you make further edits. - Emt147 Burninate! 21:26, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please refrain from saving the page after making one tiny edit -- it's very difficult to trace the differences and it puts a significant load on the servers. Also, please proof-read before you save. And for Pete's sakes, the possessive form of "it" is "its." There is no apostrophe. - Emt147 Burninate! 21:57, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Edit requests

message: I will follow the conventions you suggest except for the Bf / Me issue which I'm researching further.
Numbers are always nicest but subjective analysis is part of the history as well.  Pilots did say various things and not just anecdotally.  For example in it's original state the article claimed that US pilots disliked the P-40 and were relieved by the arrival of the P-38.  This is a generalization which is certainly arguable though apparently not a problem for you in the original.
Please review references I posted in the entry on the 49th fighter group.  Let me know if these are adequate and I'll proceed to reference all my other material as quickly as I can.
Please note however at least half of the points you challenged are from the original form of the article beforee I changed anything.  You can verify this for yourself no doubt quite easily.  It's kind of absurd to expect me to go and backup the research for this.  For example, the Palm Sunday massacre, or the combat record of the 23rd FG.  These are fairly easy to research and should probably be referenced eventually but I don't see why I should be forced to do so now if the original article already contained this information.  I'm being careful only to cite points that I do have sources for readily at hand.
: Please use Cite.php described at Wikipedia:Footnotes for your references. This is not an attack against your or the P-40 -- biased non-neutral statements need to be removed or documented regardless of who wrote them. Statement that US pilots were relieved when P-38 is as biased as claims that Luftwaffe considered P-40 the most serious adversary. Both statements need to be removed or supported with primary sources. As I said in my original post, in its current state this is a rather poorly written and very biased article. Again, nothing against you or the P-40. - Emt147 Burninate! 22:18, 22 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Editing

message: My source is a comment by Erik Shilling, a former AVG 3rd Squadron pilot, on an electronic copy of a Tomahawk pilot manual I have.
19. The maximum permissible diving speed is 470 m.p.h. indicated. [ES: An indicated speed of 470 mph at 20,000 feet was a true airspeed of 658 mph ... or well into compressibility. A speed at which the controls became useless, and the plane could not recover from the dive.... This is what happened to Pete Atkinson over Toungoo.] 
- Emt147 Burninate! 00:13, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Funny how this information makes a full circle, doesn't it? :) It's interesting to compare the Tomahawk manual to the P-40E manual I also have. For example the dive speed in the Tomahawk manual is 10 mph slower. - Emt147 Burninate! 00:47, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dive speed 

message: I notice your source, Erik Shilling, says 'Some of our [P-40] pilots reached 510 mph in a dive' 
http://home.att.net/~C.C.Jordan/Shilling2.html
:TAS or IAS? There is a big difference. Pressure buildup the pitot tube at high speeds can also produce falsely high IAS.
:Also, signing as Drifter Bob does not make you a Wikipedia user. If you plan to contribute, I encourage you to create a user account and not edit as an anonymous IP address. - Emt147 Burninate! 04:33, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting read but with a strong (understable) bias. It really does not reveal anything new -- the P-40 was an energy fighter compared to the Zero. It's obvious to anyone who examines the performance of the two aircraft. That's no reason why this cannot be an objective and well referenced article written in good English. - Emt147 Burninate! 03:46, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Diving Again

message: As for the writing, they say a camel was a horse designed by commitee.  I'm not sure it always necessarily works out that way but definately, when you have semi-anonymous individuals who seem to rub each other the wrong way and may have hidden agendas, it can end up a bit sticky in the short term.  I cannot call the current environment cooperative.  I have enough faith in Wikipedia however that over the long term 'the truth will out', however gradually.  Hopefully once some of the basic concepts are worked out the writing will gradually improve as well.  Given the huge amount of resistance I have encountered in trying to add a few facts to this page I'm not personally willing to try a general rewrite.
Generally speaking, I'm interested in knowing the truth about the P-40, and really all WW II aviation and major military kit.  If I thought it was the dog it was portrayed as in books from the 60's-80's, I would have never contributed to this article to begin with.  But I'm not satisfied with going along with opinions which don't seem to match the evidence, good or bad, popular or otherwise.  On the contrary, I'm very interested in finding out the details about what really happened in WW II and how these aircraft really performed, good bad or ugly, and I think it's amazing how much propaganda, prejudice, and mistaken journalistic assumptions we have retained from the War era.  In the last ten years however a great deal of new evidence has emerged about aviation in WW II, due to more comparisons of records between researchers in different nations, more pilot testimonials being published, and the increasing availability of records from the former Soviet Union.
I believe the P-40 is a big part of the puzzle of Aviation in WW II, it played a crucial role in several key fronts, a role which has still not been clearly assessed in my opinion for a variety of reasons, mostly very silly ones.  A mass produced weapon from the arsenal of Democracy, it was not always a perfect fit everywhere that it was used, but what its actual effect was remains to be seen IMO.  My only goal for this Wikipedia article is that it actually reflect the best current evidence about the aircraft, so it can serve as a tool to learn still more.  A better understanding of the P-40 will lead to a more nuanced understanding of the Bf 109, A6M, and a fuller appreciation of less well known types suchas the Ki 27, Ki 43, Ki 44, Ki 61, Macchi 200 / 202 /205, Fiat G.50 / 55 etc. etc. etc.
Drifter bob 16:51, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I certainly agree with your general approach. My concern was with the neutrality of the article -- read Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. As it stands now, I find the article to lack a fair assessment of P-40's strengths and weaknesses. All military aircraft have a lot of idiosyncracies and P-40, being a child of the 1930s, was no exception. Its power/weight ratio was poor compared to any of its contemporaries, Soviet, German, or Japanese. It utilized electrical systems for everything -- were they reliable? The Allison V-1710 engine never had a reputation for being particularly good or liked. And so on... For an example of a more balanced combat assessment, look at "Flying the... " sections in F-4 Phantom II or F-105 Thunderchief. Plusses AND minuses. - Emt147 Burninate! 04:32, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Balance and Bias

message: :: The Wikipedia help links are just that -- help. You didn't understand my concerns with neutrality so I referenced the Wikipedia policy on the issue. You still don't understand what NPOV means. I spent a considerable amount of time helping you write a better Wikipedia article and yet again you are taking things very personally without good reason and accusing me of ignorance even though you know nothing about me. Given these actions, I'm not suprised that you are unwilling to give the reader of the article any credit and intend to spoon-feed them opinions rather than present facts and let them draw educated conclusions. I regret making another attempt to reason with you. Good day. - Emt147 Burninate! 04:39, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Spoon feeding and other concepts