Did Curtiss P-40 fighters have reflector gunsights?

Question

Whenever you see a picture of an old Warhawk, they seem to be equipped with a very primitive-looking nose-mounted crosshair arrangement not in keeping with most other WWII fighters. I just wondered why.

Answer 1

Later P-40's did have the reflective gunsights (see below for examples of both), but the earlier ones -- the more famous AVG "Flying Tiger" and RAF "Desert Tomahawk" versions had the ring-and-bead.

Answer 2

Actually the P40 had both. The ring-and-bead was a "manual back-up" in case the reflector sight failed. The Japanese, and Italians did the same thing.
Reflector sights were designed to ease the focal-length problem of: tracking your target, focusing on the sight, and aligning both.
The image was focused at infinity, and was aligned with the center axis of the aircraft. This meant that even if the pilot's head was moving, the sight stayed aligned (on target if there was a good tracking solution). Theoretically, when the target's wingspan/planform filled the circle you were in range. But larger aircraft would give a "false positive", and most experienced crews just used it to align the aircraft on target.
Very early ones just had a reticle, but later models had adjustable reticles for different wingspans: this helped remove the "false positive" issue. Later, they were gyro stabilized, which allowed a stable sightline even while maneuvering, and the ultimate version (which was used until the HUD in the early 1970s) had radar ranging, and different modes for guns, missiles and air/ground work.

Answer 3

Yes but not off initial manufacturing distributions.
WW2 emphasis in the early USA years was a focus on quantity and not quality. There were better plans and some wartime application but not all saw a large production run. Had the war continued another year in Japan, say with the invasion of the Japanese home islands, technology would have had more impact.
The Curtiss P-40 allowed USA a card to play. Japanese
are still ticked that production and their 'Way of The Warrior'
decided one on one in the Pacific. The next Pacific war to
thrust Asian production ability against American 'Way of the
Warrior' will probably reverse-engineer WW2 management .
Quality variants occur because war materials exist to see
production set-up, manufacture, and distribution. We refer to physical plant difference between 1942 and today as 'Rust Belt States'. It is a big stretch to return same infrastructure.

Answer 4

The P-40 was an earlier design, so the early variants would not have had the reflector sight. But just like every other fighter design of the war it received technology upgrades in later variants.