HISTORY

The Wildcat

at Midway

British experience with the Martlet I in combat led the Admiralty making a request to Grumman for the addition of folding

wings to allow more Martlets to be carried aboard ship, and for

an increase in weight of fire. The primary opponent of the British

Martlets was the German Fw 200 Condor, and the weight of fire

of four .50-caliber machine guns was insufficient to give good

odds of a kill in the first pass, which was often the only pass

in the confrontation.

In answering the demand for folding wings

and increased weight of fire, Grumman was

faced with the problem that they would be

adding additional weight to a fighter whose

performance was already compromised by

lack of power, without an option to change

up to a more powerful engine. Thus, what

weight was added had to be minimized

to the extent possible.

In the end, this weight saving was found

in the armament. While two additional machine guns were added, the total ammunition load would remain the same; it was

the only place where any significant weight

could be saved. Thus, the redesign would

redistribute the ammunition from the 450

rounds per gun of the F4F-3 to 250 rounds

per gun in what became the F4F-4.

8

INFO Eduard

When more is not better

The F4F-3’s four .50 in (12.7 mm) guns and

450 rpg gave the pilot 34 seconds of firing time; the reduction to 240 rpg in the

F4F-4 gave a total firing time of 20 seconds. VF-3's Lt Cdr John S. Thach said of

this change: “A pilot who cannot hit with

four guns will miss with eight.”

Grumman used its newly-developed

“Sto-Wing” wing folding system, in which

the outer wing was folded to the rear while

being a rotated to a near-vertical position,

which allowed more of the wing to be folded than would be the case with a vertical-folding wing which would be limited by

the height of the hangar overhead aboard

an aircraft carrier. The system allowed five

F4F-4s to be parked in the same space

taken by two F4F-3s. In practice, this allo-

Text: Tom Cleaver

Photo: US Navy

wed a 50 percent increase in the number of

Wildcats carried in a fleet carrier. Squadrons were increased from 18 to 24, a useful increase that had been shown useful

in early combat when the limited number

of fighters meant that a strike force was

not effectively escorted while there were

insufficient defenders for the carrier.

The weight of additional guns and folding

wings without an increase in power reduced performance: the F4F-3's top speed

of 330 mph was reduced to 318 mph

in the F4F-4. Grumman optimistically claimed that rate of climb declined from the

F4F-3's 2,303 feet per minute to 1,950 fpm

in the F4F-4; however, in combat conditions, pilots found the F4F-4 only capable of

some 500 to 1,000 fpm depending on weather conditions. At Guadalcanal, the defenders were generally able to get a two-hour

warning of inbound attackers through the

coastwatchers in the Solomons; once

fighters were manned and airborne, there

was generally some 60-70 minutes before the Japanese arrived overhead. Marion

Carl recalled that “it took every minute”

to drag the F4F-4 to 24,000 feet, where the

Marines could initiate their attack on an

enemy formation flying between 18-20,000

feet. Carl compared the overall performance of the F4F-4 as similar to that of

the equally overweight and underpowered

October 2022