When Hitler invaded Poland, France and Britain realized that their preparations were not enough to meet the needs of the German army, and Britain and France were not ready for the imminent outbreak of the big war, in order to arm the rapidly expanding army, especially after witnessing the wonderful performance of the Luftwaffe Messerschmitt Me-109 fighters, they coincidentally ordered fighter jets from the United States. At that time, the only thing that the United States could mass-produce and export in large quantities was the Curtiss P-40 Tomahawk fighter, although this fighter could not compete with the German Me-109 in terms of performance, but something was better than nothing.
Unfortunately, before the delivery, France had already surrendered, and the Royal Air Force after receiving these fighters, after testing that the P-40 was really difficult to fight against the high-speed and flexible ME109, for this reason, the main force of the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain was still the self-produced "Spitfire" and "Hurricane", and most of the P-40 fighters of the Royal Air Force were sent to the Mediterranean. North Africa and the Far East, even in these areas, were doing the dirty work of ground attack: in fact, the P-40 had no chance of winning against the German Me-109, the Japanese Army's One-Way Battle, or the Navy's Zero Battle.
The most famous user of the P-40 fighter is of course Chennault's "American Volunteer Air Force", which is also known as the "Flying Tigers". Chennault, who is not very mixed in American officialdom, is a real genius in air combat, good at using his strengths to attack the opponent's weaknesses, considering that the P-40 fighter is faster when diving than the fragile Zero Battle, the maximum dive speed of the P-40 is 800 km / h, and the Zero Battle is only 560 km / h, and the body is strong enough to withstand multiple blows from the Japanese 7.7 mm machine gun bullets, and the Zero War is difficult to withstand the dense hits of the 12.7 mm machine gun, "Flying Tigers" Invented the tactic of striking and running, and never got caught up in a grappling with Japanese planes, and playing with Japanese fighters, who were known for their maneuverability, was almost tantamount to suicide.
The Japanese fighters simply had no time to deal with the P-40 fighters that were diving down from a high altitude, and the rain of bullets from six 12.7 mm aviation machine guns was enough to shoot down any Japanese aircraft, and after the attack was over, the dive continued until it broke away, and the seeker climbed again to launch the next dive attack.
Frankly, the P-40 wasn't a good fighter in World War II, but the right tactics allowed it to create a high exchange ratio, thanks in large part to the creativity of Chennault and his gang of wild boys. In other theaters, including Europe, North Africa, the Pacific and the Soviet Union, the P-40 was on a ground attack mission, and even in China, when the P-47 and P-51 began to be heavily equipped, the P-40 also began to perform a large number of ground attack missions, and the air-cooled engine was more resistant to loss than the P-51's liquid-cooled engine. Not only in China, at the beginning of World War II, although the P-40 was inferior to its opponents, it was still usable, maintaining its size in numbers, so that it would not be completely defeated by its own opponents.