Hawk 75 fighter!

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PanzerKing
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Hawk 75 fighter!

#1

Post by PanzerKing » 29 Oct 2003, 05:19

Does anyone have any information on the this plane when it was used by the Dutch or the Americans? Was it an good plane? Any onfo is appreciated!

Thanks

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Tim Smith
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#2

Post by Tim Smith » 29 Oct 2003, 10:13

The Americans called the Curtiss Hawk 75 the P-36. Main model in USAAF service was the P-36A, with 1 .50 cal and 1 .30 cal MG's. The only combat this aircraft saw in USAAF service was at Pearl Harbour, where four P-36A's managed to take off and attack nine Japanese Nakajima B5N1 carrier-borne level bombers. Two B5N1's were shot down. After Pearl Harbour, the remaining US P-36s were transferred to training units.

The main user of the Hawk 75 in combat was the French Armee-de'l'Air in 1939-40. It was the main French fighter after the Morane MS406, and up until 25 May 1940 had scored two-thirds of all French fighter victories.

The French Hawk 75A was armed with either 4 or 6 7.5mm MG's, depending on the version. This compared well with the 4 7.9mm MG's of the Messerschmitt Bf109D and early Bf109E-1. It wasn't as fast as the 109 at only 311 mph (comparable with the Hurricane I) but was extremely maneuverable, actually slightly better than the Spitfire I in that respect. The Hawk75A had a very quick rate of roll, much better than the 109, which made it a formidable opponent if the Germans tried dogfighting with it.

In one combat on 8 September 1939, 30 Bf109D's attacked nine Hawk75A's escorting a Potez 637. In the ensuing WWI-style turning dogfight, the Germans had four Bf109D's shot down and another four had to crash-land. The only French loss was a single Hawk75A which had to belly land. This experience led the Germans to adopt dive and zoom tactics for the 109.

After the French surrender, the Germans sold some 44 captured Hawk 75A's to Finland, where they served well against the Soviets throughout the Continuation War of 1941-44.

Other Hawk75's served with the Vichy French forces in North Africa, and fought against the Allies during Operation Torch. There was one combat between Vichy Hawk 75A's and US Navy F4F Wildcats, in which 15 Hawks and 7 Wildcats were shot down. One of the few occassions where American-built planes fought against each other.

The Dutch had about 20 Hawk 75A's which fought against the Japanese in the Netherlands East Indies in 1941-1942. They were outmatched by the A6M2 Zero in every respect, and by 1 Feb 1942 all had been destroyed.


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#3

Post by Yngwie J. » 29 Oct 2003, 10:43

The Finns even produced a few aces on the Hawk. Kyösti Karhila scored 13 victories with the Hawk-75, Kalevi Tervo scored 15.5 victories, Niilo Erkinheimo scored at least 5 of his 11 victories in the Hawk-75. And I´m sure the list is longer.

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Aufklarung
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#4

Post by Aufklarung » 29 Oct 2003, 11:39

Panzerking

Dutch Hawks 75A-7
Image

http://users.belgacom.net/aircraft2/avion2/401.html

regards
A :)

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Harri
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#5

Post by Harri » 30 Oct 2003, 00:33

Curtiss Hawk 75A was an import version of USAF Curtiss P-36. French versions were called A-1, -2, -3 and -4. French models were equipped to meet French standards and planes had metric gauges. Models A-1, -2 and -3 had Pratt & Whitney R-1830-SC-G or R-1830-SC3-G Twin Wasp (1065 hp) 14-cylinder air-cooled twin radial engines and A-4s had Wright GR-1820-G205A Cyclone (1200 hp) 9-cylinder air-cooled radial engine. A-1 had two 7.5 mm FN-Browning MGs in fuselage and one in each wing while other models had two MGs in each wing. Their maximum speed was about 460 km/h but the more powerful engine of A-4 made it much faster: 520 km/h. It was also slightly lighter and had much longer range.

Also Norway had ordered Curtiss Hawk 75A-6 fighters but I think they were never used and Germans captured all of them. A-6 was externally similar to A-2 but was armed in a way like A-1: two 7.9 mm Colt MGs in fuselage and one in each wing.

Germans sold these models (of which some were re-equipped in German standards) to Finnish Air Force which used them since June 1941. Finns had a total of 44 Hawk 75As of which 6 planes was model A-1, 9 A-2, 9 A-3, 7 A-4 and 13 A-6.

Since 1942 all Finnish planes were armed with one or two 12.7 mm Colt HMG in fuselage and two 7.7 mm Browning MGs in each wing. In place of Colt HMGs also Soviet 12.7 mm Berezina UB and Finnish VKT LKk/42 HMGs (Finnish Colt copy) were used. Finns also replaced the troublesome engines of A-4s with Twin Wasps since autumn 1941 although they were far inferior to Cyclones. Gun sight in Finnish Hawks was Revi 3D or C/12D reflector sight. Hawks could also drop bombs. They had bomb racks for 10x 12.5 kg or 6x 25 kg bombs.

Finnish Capt.(res.) K. Karhila is still alive and in good condition. He was the most succesful Finnish reserve fighter pilot during the war (IIRC 32 kills) and he is probably also one of the most succesful reserve pilots in the whole world.

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#6

Post by PanzerKing » 31 Oct 2003, 21:44

Thanks for all the great info. I was wondering, is their a reason the allies didn't try to improve it or upgrade it any after it became outdated or was it just easier to build newer fighters like the P-40?

Also, did the Finnish versions go any faster with the newer Twin Wasp engines or did they remain the same speed?

Thanks

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#7

Post by Jack Nisley » 31 Oct 2003, 23:29

P-40 was a development of P-36 airframe with the inline Allison engine (V-1710). Some more power, a little more streamlining, and a little more speed.

Jack Nisley

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Juha Tompuri
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#8

Post by Juha Tompuri » 01 Nov 2003, 01:42

PanzerKing wrote:Also, did the Finnish versions go any faster with the newer Twin Wasp engines or did they remain the same speed?
Thanks
The Cyclone powered planes were the fastest ones we had:
http://www.sci.fi/~ambush/faf/fighters.html#kurtissi
http://www.sci.fi/~ambush/faf/fighters.html#speed

Regards, Juha

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#9

Post by Harri » 01 Nov 2003, 01:58

PanzerKing wrote:Also, did the Finnish versions go any faster with the newer Twin Wasp engines or did they remain the same speed?
I didn't quite understand your question. Specify if this don't answer to it.

Aircraft engines were are major problem in Finland during the war. We had licence only for building Bristol Mercury engines for Fokker D.XXI fighters and Bristol Blenheim bombers. We could although overhaul all other engine models used in our aircraft including American P & W and Wright radial engines. We also bought new and second-hand spare engines from Germany during the war, for example P & W Twin Wasps which were used also in our own VL Myrsky II [Storm II] design.

Soviet engines were copies of either Wright Cyclone (radial Shvetsov M-nn) or French Hispano-Suiza (inline Klimov M-nnn) engines. We tried to use captured Soviet engines during the war but although they were more powerful they were also more unreliable. Probably the best "updates" with Soviet engines Finns could do during the war were the Ghost-Morane conversion (with Klimov M-105P engine, 1100 hp [original H-S had only 860 hp], max speed 525 km/h) and captured SB bombers (Klimov M-103) which were rebuilt in Finland to the latest standard and armed even with revolving MG turrets.

During the war the performance of most engines dropped gradually because of wearing and the lack of spare parts. So although we had overhauled engines they had become inferior by 1944 causing significant drop in performance (max speed). During the war it was not possible to solve this problem. The max speed I have said is the average figure measured in Finland. There were quite big differences in performance between the individual planes but they were mainly due to engines and different armament. Curtiss Hawk 75A with new or overhauled Twin Wasp was naturally slightly faster.

Finnish VL Myrsky II fighter was much faster: about 525 km/h with the same Twin Wasp engine but the plane was also nearly 200 kg lighter.
Last edited by Harri on 05 Nov 2003, 01:22, edited 1 time in total.

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#10

Post by PanzerKing » 03 Nov 2003, 03:01

Thanks, you understood the question!

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#11

Post by nublu » 03 Nov 2003, 15:58

Soviet engines were copies of either Wright Cyclone (radial Shvetsov M-nn) or French Hispano-Suiza (inline Klimov M-nnn) engines.
Small correction. Actually there were more than 2 lines of soviet engines

M-25 was Wright Cyclone licenced version and M-62, M-63 were it's modified successors.

M-80 radial engine was licenced version of Gnome-Rhone 14 (don't remember which subversion), and M-82 it's modiefied successor. It's constructor was Shvetsov.

And M-100 was licence built Hispano-Suiza Ydrs, and M-1xx it's modiefied successors. And their constructor was Klimov.

rgrds

Toomas

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Juha Tompuri
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#12

Post by Juha Tompuri » 04 Nov 2003, 01:33

...and Mikulin (MiG 1 & 3, Il 2)...and the others:
http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/misc/ram/engine.html

Regards, Juha

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#13

Post by Harri » 05 Nov 2003, 01:28

nublu wrote:Actually there were more than 2 lines of soviet engines
Yes of course, I didn't remember that because I used my files on Finnish aircraft which used these types I mentioned. Thank you for correction and clarification.

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#14

Post by nublu » 05 Nov 2003, 13:26

M-80 radial engine was licenced version of Gnome-Rhone 14 (don't remember which subversion), and M-82 it's modiefied successor. It's constructor was Shvetsov.
hm, must correct my own mistake. Soviets never built Gnome_Rhone 14 series engines under licence. They bought some 14 Kdrs engines and used them on some prototype planes. And probably Shvetsov used some of those for his M-82 prototype.

Soviets bought licence for Gnome-Rhone Mistral Major , built it under serial M-85, used on DB-3 bombers (and perhaps on some other planes). And also made some modified versions of it, like M-86, M-87, M-88...

rgrds

Toomas

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Re:

#15

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 07 Apr 2020, 23:54

PanzerKing wrote:
31 Oct 2003, 21:44
Thanks for all the great info. I was wondering, is their a reason the allies didn't try to improve it or upgrade it any after it became outdated or was it just easier to build newer fighters like the P-40?

Also, did the Finnish versions go any faster with the newer Twin Wasp engines or did they remain the same speed?

Thanks
Jack Nisley wrote:
31 Oct 2003, 23:29
P-40 was a development of P-36 airframe with the inline Allison engine (V-1710). Some more power, a little more streamlining, and a little more speed.

Jack Nisley
The first XP40 was a airframe taken from the first test production batch of the P36. Airframe #10 in 1938 if my information is correct. The airframe was modified to accept a inline engine vs the radial specified for the P36. Subsequent modifications were made to the forward fuselage & wings/landing gear, but the rear fuselage & tail remained identical in the early production of the P40. The early tests of the XP40 model attained speeds 30-40 mph faster than the rated speed for the P36.

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