In this video, we take a look at the Republic P-43 Lancer, an American fighter from World War II that was designed to succeed the Seversky P-35. We first talk about the fighter competition between the P-35 and the Curtiss P-36 Hawk, and how despite both of them being advanced (for American fighters at the time), they were pretty underwhelming compared to the fighters of Britain and Germany. We talk about Seversky's initial attempt to improve the P-35 in the XP-41, and the subsequent attempt Seversky, now named Republic, in the AP-4.
We talk about the moderate improvements from the P-35 to the AP-4, and how that boost in performance led to more interest in the design. We talk about Republic's attempt to further improve the design in the AP-4J and AP-4L, also known as the Republic P-44 Rocket, and how both of these designs amounted to very little due to knowledge gained from WW2. We talk about the temporary reversion back to the AP-4 / P-43, and how its production was meant to give Republic time to develop the XP-47B, later known as the P-47 Thunderbolt. We end by talking about how the P-43 didn't perform well in minor combat roles, but was nevertheless important.