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Best fighter of WWII? (oldtimers poll)
Posted on 04/09/2009 2:29:15 PM PDT by mikeus_maximus
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To: Tallguy
221
posted on
04/10/2009 7:20:34 AM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
(https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/____________________ Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
To: PzLdr
222
posted on
04/10/2009 9:44:46 AM PDT
by
MattinNJ
(Sanford/Palin in 2012)
To: calex59
One plane worth mentioning because of its versatility was the British Mosquito, it was a good fighter, an excellent ground and ship attack plane and a light bomberBecause the Mosquito was made primarily of wood, it was a lousy radar reflector as well, with radar being more primitive than what we now know.
223
posted on
04/10/2009 10:01:27 AM PDT
by
Smokin' Joe
(How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
To: mikeus_maximus
Recently I heard that the F8F Bearcat was undoubtedly the best plane. Grumman took apart a captured FW 190 and made it better. The Bearcat was a plane deisgned from scratch around a huge radial engine, rather than vice versa. It was smaller, faster and more agile than any of the above. It had a production speed of 455 mph, a rate of climb twice that of a Mustang, and a ceiling almost as high. Is was delviered to the Navy in the Pacific theatre, but the war ended before it saw action, or it would have made its own legend. A few years later a modifed version set the airspeed record for piston planes at 528+ mph.
The FW-190 angle is more legend than fact. The development of the F8F was already well underway when Leroy Grumman and his boys got to take a look at a captured -190.
It's more accurate to say that the Bearcat and -190 had a similar engineering (in principle, if not practice) ancestry in the 1920s and 1930s air-racers. Especially the Gee Bee. Take the largest possible engine (radial variety) and cram it into the smallest possible airframe.
Couple additional points about the F8F. Early versions had exploding wingtips ... by design. The engineers were so concerned about the G-stresses on the wings that they designed the outer tips to shear off (ok, not *quite* explode) at high g-loads lest the wing fall off.
The F8F was also the first USN fighter designed with cantilevered landing gear. This allowed a wide-track landing gear optimized for carrier operations while also allowing a VERY big propeller, without having to go the route of the inverted seagull wings of the F4U.
The FW-190 was later evolved into the superlative Ta-152 series. (The "Ta" was in honor of the FW-series' designer, Kurt Tank). Any discussion of the FW-190 series as the "best" (from a performance perspective, vice operational) should really start with the -152s.
Also, any discussion of "best" should definitely include a discussion of the Do-335 Arrow.
To: alfa6
Well gotta run and take care of business, have a great day
Just for reference, that last picture is not of an A6M, but of the Harvard/Texans viz-modded to look like Zeros for Tora Tora Tora (and used extensively in later WWII movies).
To: Eye of Unk
What would the lack of said aircraft have upon the effect of the war and redefining an alternate history?The Fairey Swordfish that torpedoed the Bismark's rudder was a game changer.
226
posted on
04/10/2009 10:16:30 AM PDT
by
Smokin' Joe
(How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
To: tanknetter
Assuming common use in Europe.
The best Brit plane was probably the Typhoon/Tempest
The best German plane was the FW-190
Best American plane was the P-47
The best Russian plane was an IL-2.
227
posted on
04/10/2009 10:26:04 AM PDT
by
AppyPappy
(If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem.)
To: Smokin' Joe
Yep, a plywood plane when everyone thought that metal was the only way to go. Plywood was cheap and available so that was what was used, and be weight factor figured in. Germany tried to build their own mosquito, calling it the Moskito I believe, but their glue factory was bombed and that dried up their supply of plywood, the substitute glue they tried to use actually ate up the wood.
The mosquito was a great success and was used by several nations for years after WWII ended.
228
posted on
04/10/2009 10:27:22 AM PDT
by
calex59
To: MattinNJ
Zman516 gave me the correct name for the Japanese Ace. It’s Nishizawa.
229
posted on
04/10/2009 11:15:56 AM PDT
by
PzLdr
("The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am" - Darth Vader)
To: alfa6
230
posted on
04/10/2009 2:44:43 PM PDT
by
edzo4
(NoBama 2012)
To: tanknetter
The FW-190 was later evolved into the superlative Ta-152 series. (The "Ta" was in honor of the FW-series' designer, Kurt Tank). Any discussion of the FW-190 series as the "best" (from a performance perspective, vice operational) should really start with the -152s. Interesting how the radial engine type cowl was retained with the inline engine. Was the radiator right upfront?
To: mikeus_maximus
My Dad was killed in Vietnam, so I can’t ask him. He flew both the P-47 & P-51.
I’ll toss in a vote for the P-47, based on one of my Dad’s first sorties. He was Blue 4, and was shot up by a German. He lost control, went into a spin into the clouds. He recovered below the clouds, found the target area and dropped his bomb. He joined up with the other wingman, who had also become separated.
On the way home, they were jumped by Germans again. He never talked about it, but in the paperwork I found after he died, he said, ‘I’m not sure what happened. Suddenly one of the Germans was in front of me, and I fired. His wing came off. Moments later, another German flew right in front of me. It was only a couple hundred feet. I pulled the trigger, his plane exploded and I flew thru the fireball.’
He noted in a letter at the time, ‘When the crew chief saw how badly the rear was shot up, he was angry. Then he saw all the burn marks on the front, he really got mad. Then I told him I had shot down 2 Germans after first nearly getting shot down myself. He looked at me and said, I’ll have her ready to fly tomorrow...’
232
posted on
04/10/2009 3:05:57 PM PDT
by
Mr Rogers
(Obama - Making Jimmy Carter look like a giant!)
To: tanknetter
When I posted the pics I wondered about that one, but we have all seen so many T-6 Zeros that most of us think that that is what a real Zero looks like:-)
Have great weekend
Regards
alfa6 ;>}
233
posted on
04/11/2009 5:40:30 AM PDT
by
alfa6
To: Blueflag
t leave out the Corsair. ... Since my dad flew Corsairs, Ill put one vote in for it." I'm beginning to see it your way: http://home.att.net/~historyzone/F4U-4.html
Faster and more nimble than a P-51 D; tougher than a P-47; almost as maneuverable as the Sitpfire and P-38 (which were great planes for what they did).
To: mikeus_maximus
My dad tells the story of one of his Corsair-flying buds being up in the air one day towards the end of the war, and he encountered a couple AAC hotshots in their P-51-Ds. They went zooming past him like a high speed firing pass, high to low. Then they parked themselves alongside him to ‘communicate.’
Being in level flight at fairly high altitude, my Dad’s bud hit the water injection and proceeded to rapidly leave the Mustangs behind.
Point made. So the story goes.
I love the Mustang, but the Corsair persisted well into the next war, and as you say, it was a freaking DURABLE beast.
235
posted on
04/15/2009 11:57:54 AM PDT
by
Blueflag
(Res ipsa loquitur)
To: mikeus_maximus
Best fighter of WWII?
This debate will never end.
In my opinion there is no one best design, since all aircraft designs are compromises of competing/contradicting design parameters. And then you must add in the times and environments they flew and were manufactured in.
As far as the US goes, in WW2 we had a ‘Big Three’ and that was the P38, P47 and the P51.
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