Subject: Survivability in Combat
From: Ed Rasimus
Date: 12/7/03 9:59 AM Pacific Standard Time

Let's take two planes going on low level support missions. They will have
to
fly through heavy ground fire including small arms fire. One plane is
equipped
with a radial engine,. let's say an R-2800. The other with a jet engine.
Which
plane would have a better chance of survival inder these conditions?.
Opinions?

My gut feeling is the jet, if only because it's faster and spends less
time being shot at (and the higher deflection makes it harder to hit).
Also, jet aircraft can be pretty tough; stories around about them
surviving assorted insults (going as far as F-105s flying with destroyed
engines, using the afterburner as a sort-of-ramjet) so the survivability
between a jet and a radial recip isn't as pronounced.

After all, either aircraft is equally at risk from hits to pilot,
control surfaces, fuel tanks et cetera... superior survivability of the
engine is a factor, but not the only one (vice the use of P-51s rather
than P-47s in Korea)

Seems to me that you need to define a lot of additional parameters
before you can reduce the discussion to whether a radial is more
survivable than a jet.

If you say same speed, same profile, same airframe, same tactics, same
thrust(power) to weight, same performance, then I'd go to the radial
engine as being one that sustains a bit more insult.

My inquiry was only about engines. Thanks.


But, we've not
added the factor (significant in my mind) about the volatility of
AvGas over JP-4 (JP-8). Wet wing airplane taking a hit in the fuel
tanks? Not pretty.


I had not included wing design in my orignal question.


But, if you let your jet go faster, pull more G, maneuver more
aggressively, build a tactics package that suppresses the defenses,

Tactics packages that supress defenses vary in their effectiveness and there
are never any guarantees.

etc. then you come up with the undebatable conclusion that the jet
does better.

No issue is undebateable.

Have I ever mentioned that FAST is better?


Yes Fast is better has merit, But there are no gaurantees. There are never
gaurantees, Thanks for the input.

Regards,



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer