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Subject: Best All-Around Fighter of World War II
sentinel28a    10/13/2009 3:38:03 PM
Let's try a non-controversial topic, shall we? (Heh heh.) I'll submit the P-51 for consideration. BW and FS, if you come on here and say that the Rafale was the best fighter of WWII, I am going to fly over to France and personally beat you senseless with Obama's ego. (However, feel free to talk about the D.520.)
 
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45-Shooter    Missed the point entirely, again!   7/11/2011 9:07:02 PM

WOW Boelcke figured that out in WWI, it's how it's done...it's platform irrelevant....but thanks for revealing those "secrets".


 
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Hamilcar21       7/11/2011 11:47:52 PM


WOW Boelcke figured that out in WWI, it's how it's done...it's platform irrelevant....but thanks for revealing those "secrets".




You are ill informed and clueless.. Modern MISSILE tactics are not GUN tactics. Boyd supplants and replaces Boelke. Has since 1959, when Boyd figured out energy management, time management, and the three body problem.

Get a copy of this.   and LEARN. 

H.


. .    

 
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Hamilcar21       7/12/2011 12:28:20 AM

The Soviets concentrated the best pilots in special units with Lavochkin aircraft and let the rest fly Yaks.  They had the advantage that there was little high altitude combat so they could optimize the planes for low and medium altitudes.

That followed Russian land warfare experience and practice. Pool your scarce specialist talent. Most of the weather over Central Russia west of the Urals is horrible to grim for air combat at the mid-altitude bands. You stand a better chance in the lower altitude bands. High altitude bomber hunts were NOT going to be an Eastern Front problem as neither the Germans nor Russians had the resources or time locked as they were on a massive ground war to really waste on heavy bombers en masse like thr Western Allies did.

H.         


 
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JFKY    Yeah I got a copy...   7/12/2011 9:41:37 AM
Herald...you mean AMBUSHING YOUR EENEMY is not in the books any more?  I believe it's still true that most A2A "kills" occur where one opponent never saw the other.  So leave the high and mighty cr@p at home.
 
Aerail combat maneuvering is for when the ambush FAILS...it's important, yes, but the real key is STILL to wahck your opponent from an area s/he's not looking.
 
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phrank       7/12/2011 1:11:07 PM
Most accounts I have read about pre missile fights are like a assassin. You kill them before they even know there in a fight. But there are also a great many fight's that turn into furballs. Early missile fights also like gun fights as the sidewinder had such a restricted seeker cone. I am not sure that the plane matted more than the pilot. A great plane with a bad pilot will lose to a bad plane with a great pilot. One of the things that both Germany and Japan did was leave their best pilots out there until they died. In many cases losing that knowledge that was so hard won. These days it's more about the system that you operate in than the plane. Do you have airborne radar helping you, do you have a good ELINT system in place can you knock out their systems. But even in WW2 they had these issues as radar was used. Early fight's between German and UK radar made a huge difference. Growing up I watched ba ba black sheep and fell in love with the
Chance Vought F4U Corsair. And I know no one would argue it was the best fighter of the war. 
 
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Hamilcar21       7/12/2011 1:38:13 PM

Herald...you mean AMBUSHING YOUR EENEMY is not in the books any more?  I believe it's still true that most A2A "kills" occur where one opponent never saw the other.  So leave the high and mighty cr@p at home.

 

Aerail combat maneuvering is for when the ambush FAILS...it's important, yes, but the real key is STILL to wahck your opponent from an area s/he's not looking.

AMBUSH means winning the sensor battle today, JFKY. so you obtain the launch advantage, throw energy advantage and position lead aspect.   You know that thing that you said was unimportant...TECHNOLOGY?: You have to have first unanswered look. If you have the book, then READ IT AGAIN. You missed those parts.

High and mighty are not exactly the correct words, but close... more throw energy for missile reach (altitude equals more FALL) and lead pursuit angle, so the missile does not have to pursuit follow when it can lead drop into the basket.

MISSILE tactics are NOT gun tactics.

H.

             

 
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earlm       7/12/2011 4:03:49 PM
My point about the Russian fighters was that they can't contend for best fighter of WW2 because they weren't good above 20,000 feet.  This has also disqualified the radial 190 and the Corsair.
 
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LB    Define Fighter   7/12/2011 5:18:57 PM
If the definition of fighter includes not only air to air but air to ground and ability to operate from a carrier then one can certainly argue the F4U is the best fighter of the war and indeed has no peer.
 
 

Chance Vought F4U Corsair. And I know no one would argue it was the best fighter of the war. 

 
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Hamilcar21       7/12/2011 9:48:33 PM

FW-190 A5... 

US-op-eval

My point about the Russian fighters was that they can't contend for best fighter of WW2 because they weren't good above 20,000 feet.  This has also disqualified the radial 190 and the Corsair.

The Butcher Bird would have been most welcome in the US lineup in 1941 if we had that aircraft and its power egg tech rolling out of the Curtiss Wright assembly lines instead of the P-40. Makes me wish we had traded the WHOLE Curtiss design team for Kurt Tank and the BMW  engine design team.

Now with the Junkers Ju-213 liquid-cooled engine? Not a fan becauase I think the Allison is far superior, but unless Packarrd got a hold of it, its the third best engine supercharger package going in the world at the time. It can use low-grade aviation gas.

Marcel Albert-arguably the BEST pilot in the Russian Air Force (yes he was a French trained pilot and a French national),argued that the Yak-3 was better than the P-51 in the respective comparative altitude bands. Not a fan of the SHvAK cannon, but the plane, itself,  was deadly in the hands of a trained pilot.

Yak-3 pilot  (In Russian)

H.

         


 
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phrank       7/12/2011 11:08:39 PM
I think you have to say that the P-51 is if not the best has to be number 2. It changed the war in that it could escort the bombers all the way to their targets and back. With that said I think maybe had they just let the long range fighters roam free hitting what they found without the bombers the outcome most likely would have been the same. The bombers missed so much and intel was so bad that they may have been better off not building them.
 
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