Posted on 06/02/2013 1:37:47 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
But with the P51 vs. the Zero, inexperienced pilots were beating experienced Japanese pilots.
I wasn't aware of females having a history of success in air combat that justified the inclusion of them as a sex.
I was watching the Military Channel and one of the great historical “what ifs” that never took place. That of jet to jet fighter combat in World War II.
The British Gloster Meteor was never in a dog fight with a German ME-262. The British viewed them as too strategic an asset to lose over occupied territory and they were used exclusively to intercept V weapons.
The most important attribute of a fighter is speed. The P51D was at least 25MPH faster than the Zero at all altitudes. In WW2 air combat terms that is a phenomenal difference, implying obsolescence in the slower fighter. All you need to do in a P51 is climb above the zero and dive down on it, shooting as you go. If you get him, good. If you dont, you do not stop to dogfight (the zero is much better at that - easily more manoeverable than a P51) you just simply continue the dive and accelerate away. The zero will be lucky to even get a short innacurate burst in. Then you climb, and dive down again. Repeat, until no zeroes left. It doesnt require a very experienced pilot to do that, once you know the trick.
It was worse than that. The zeros had an engine that pushed their machine to turn right. They also had no maneuverability at high altitude, much like the FW109. There are several instances of P51’s meeting their opponents at high altitude, only to have their opponents fall into uncontrolled flight, while the P51 pilots simply picked them off.
In some ways, it wasn’t very ‘sporting’.
The most important attribute of a fighter is speed. The P51D was at least 25MPH faster than the Zero at all altitudes. In WW2 air combat terms that is a phenomenal difference, implying obsolescence in the slower fighter. All you need to do in a P51 is climb above the zero and dive down on it, shooting as you go. If you get him, good. If you dont, you do not stop to dogfight (the zero is much better at that - easily more manoeverable than a P51) you just simply continue the dive and accelerate away. The zero will be lucky to even get a short innacurate burst in. Then you climb, and dive down again. Repeat, until no zeroes left. It doesnt require a very experienced pilot to do that, once you know the trick.
Thanks for the posting
Sukhoi’s thesis is correct, it’s the pilot that makes the difference (this same principle applies to tank and armored vehicle crews). The best example of this is the two highest scoring squadrons of the Battle of Britain. Those squadrons were 301 and 303 (the Kosciusko Squadron). The Polish pilots made up 10% of the force for the RAF and were flying the older Hurricane Hawkers vice the Spitfire during this period. They scored 40% of the kills against the Luftwaffe. If you want a really good read, check out the book “A Question of Honor” by Lynn Olsen and Stanley Cloud.
Another simple comparison of aircraft would have had the Japanese Zeros making mincemeat of the Flying Tiger P-40s.
Didn’t turn out that way in real life.
Exactly. Once American pilots learned to use their fighters’ generally superior speed against Zeroes, they became easy kills. Mustangs, Corsairs, and Hellcats still couldn’t out-turn a Zero in a classic dogfight, but they didn’t need to. They dove in at speed, fired quick shots, and extended away, or used that speed to maneuver in the vertical plane to cut inside the Zero’s turn. Or Fw 190s would use their phenomenal rate of roll to quickly change direction against Spitfires and Thunderbolts and get into attack position.
It’s not just all about which fighter could simply out-turn the other in a circling dogfight. That’s just one part of the performance envelope. Look at what the Flying Tigers did with supposedly-inferior P-40s against Zeros at the height of Japanese power in 1942. They played to the Warhawk’s strength—speed, firepower, diving ability—instead of doing what most other American pilots tried at the time, which was to dogfight the Zero on its terms.
}:-)4
CC
There was still Adolph Galland’s reply to Göring during the Battle of Britain when der Dicke asked if there was anything he could do to help the Luftwaffe fighter arm. Gallandly famous replied, “Ja, get me a squadron of Spitfires!”
During the Battle of Britain the Messerschmidts were disadvantaged because of limited flying range. They only had about five minuted of fuel to fight over London, and many experienced Luftwaffe pilots were lost in the Channel. By the end of the War many raw Luftwaffe pilots entered combat with fewer hours air time than a U.S. pilot would be required to have to solo. Hitler anticipated a short war and the Luftwaffe did not establish a pipeline to train more new pilots to sustain it through the War. The Japanese had the same problem.
The U.S. Eighth Air Force specifically had the task of defeating the fighter arm of the Luftwaffe. The Luftwaffe had stopped sending up fighters to defend against bombing raids against cities or other targets except Berlin and oil fields, in order to preserve their limited strength to repel the coming invasion of Europe. The Eighth Air Force attacked Berlin, using B-17’s as live bait to force the Luftwaffe to respond. Almost 60,000 Americans were killed in the air war over Europe, but in the end, the Luftwaffe was defeated.
Thank you for the recc.
I’m sure it will sharpen my distaste for FDR...
I will get it, as well as “The Peasant Prince: Thaddeus Kosciuszko and the Age of Revolution”.
The Zero was obsolete by the time the P-51 arrived, it truly never got much better from 1941 onward. There were many Japanese fighters that were superior to the Zero.
Absolutely agree.
Also- by the time the P51 arrived ,the real expierienced
Jap pilots were dead- training was minimal- U.S.
subs had crippled the Jap economy.
And as for the battle of Britain- imagine flying
escort to London and having only 10 minutes to fight
before heading back- big mistake made by the Nazi’s.
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