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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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oldbutnotwise       2/12/2013 3:25:11 AM
because like the B17 not all mission were the same, however I can find reports that say the two raf bomber command groups one flew berlin missions with 14000lbs the other 12000lbs its your dime you find a report of < 12000lbs to berlin
Ancidotal accounts do not count!
why not they are the ONLY evidence you supply
How do you explain that lancasters only dropped 608,000 tons of bombs in 156,000 sories? Or that they took 3-1/2 years to drop less bomb tonnage than B-17s did in two years?
maybe just mabe your figures are rubbish, Bomber comand dropped 1,030,500 long tons of bombs in  364,514 operational sorties this is 62000lbs average for ALL of bomber command including those dropped by Mossies,Wellingtons, Whitneys, Hampdens, B25s Havocs, Battles, Stirlings, Halifax's, Venturas, Hudsons etc 
When you consider that Americans flew by far the most long range missions with longer ranged planes like the B-17 and B-24,
er, which targets did the usaaf bomb that the RAF didnt? Schweinfurt was one of the ussaf longest missions and what do you know the raf bombed it too with significantly heavier bomb loads (usaaf 3 x 1000lbs and 5 x100lbs, raf 1 x4000lbs + 8000lbs of incedaries)
Poland, Czhechoslovachia, Russian shuttle bombing runs, etc...
no a list of countries is not evidence name targets THAT WERE NOT ALSO BOMBED by the RAF, it should be easy (oh and dot include those for B24 ol the B17
it is easy to see why the Average bomb load in B-17s was less than 4,400 pounds. When you trade off bomb load for range and altitude you reduce bomb load and that is all there is to it.
and as the b17 didnt carry much bomb load to start with But the last 12,000 or so did!         
 no they didnt they still only carried a max of 9600 and a usual load of 6000lbs or less
 
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oldbutnotwise       2/12/2013 3:40:32 AM

But that is the rub! You say 80 HP when it is 80HP per each of the four engines! But wait, that was only the earlier planes, later planes had up to 1,710-1,720 HP in each of those four engines!
yes and was a lot faster than the B17 and carried an even heavier bomb load
Take off power of the B-17 never went above 1200 HP per engine! While weight and extra turrets were added. Standard operating weight of the E model was 56,000 pounds, not 54,000 as you state above. Over load was 63,000, then 65,000 pounds in the F model. But wait, the G model had a standard Take off weight of 65,500 pounds and a permissable over load of 72,000 pounds!
and a bomb load of 6000lbs wow
Now they built 3,405 Fs and over 8,000 Gs, but I have always comp'd late model Lancs Vs the B-17G. But you have comp'd specs from all sorts of B-17 mods. Wait there is more! The F model WO the chin turret is a 317 MPH plane! Page 124 of Wagner's That is 317 MPH Vs 282 MPH, for a 35 MPH differance!
yet my source has he B17F as 290mph 

and if we use the Lancaster IV 
we have 319 mph @75000lbs which I believe is FASTER than a B17
Which was only a "paper" air plane, because every single plane built under that program was plackarded as a "Lincoln" not a Lancaster!
no your wrong the name lincoln was adopted POST war all the MKIV that flew during the war were designated as MKIV (oh and they are the ones with the 1700hp engines you quote above)
So you want to compare a "Post War" modified Lanc fuse with much longer wings and Griffon engines of 2,450 HP Vs a B-17G with the chin turret and 1200 HP per engine? Right!
no actually the MkIV had the 1700hp not the 2450hp and the mk IV saw active service during ww2
 
A better bet would be to compare the "Post War" Lincoln with the B-29. The B-29 could cary more and heavier bombs than the Lincoln faster, farther and higher ALL while it had less power! Four engines of 2,200 HP in the B-29 and four 2,450 HP engines in the "Lanc MkIV"! Right again!
no wrong again the MKIV never had 2200hp engines that WAS the Lincoln
 
 But wait, that is not a fair comp, lets comp the "B-29D" to the Lanc Mk-IV?
fair enough but we werent
 
FROM WIKI; A development of the Lancaster was the Avro Lincoln......... bomber, initially known as the Lancaster IV and Lancaster V. These two marks became the Lincoln B1 and B2 respectively.
more aerodynamic yes a better heavy bomber no
  That is the root of the argument. The two planes LAST VERSIONS had the same MTO, about 72,000 pounds, and the same aproximate dimentions, but that is about all. The Lanc had a less efficient wing, poor fuse shape and a long bomb bay that was structually heavy and caused the fuse to be weaker and less tollerant of damage.
you claim but have NEVER supported this argument, all the Lancs were stessed for catapult launch and dive bombing, not something the B17 was, the B17 might (and I say MIGHT) have been able to survive hits better (and I can fin NO evidence of this) but that does not mean the lac was weak in any respect.I will but this down to your faulty memory and over active imagination
 
Given the number lost and the numbers claimed by the German Night Fighter Corpse, the main killer of Lancasters had to be Flack!
wrong according to the Luftwaffe the main cause of BC loses was Night fighters accounting for approx 81% of all combat losses
 
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oldbutnotwise       2/12/2013 3:45:00 AM
may be the 4000lbs mine laying missions or the food missions to europe or the fact that this figure doesnt include incendaries?
  The Food drops under the "Mana" missions were not counted as combat sorties!
 
rearly? and your source for this is?
    no it hasnt, to hit berlin it needed the bombbay tanks or the tokyo tanks, to go further required both
actually I found out that tokyo tanks fitted B17 had the bomb bay tank facility deleted so it was one OR the other not both
 
    but the point is that it couldnt carry it could it? the biggest load was 9600 and that was special missions with disney bombs, the land did 22000lbs special missions.
  The Disney bomb mission only carried two times 4,500 pounds for 9,000 pounds up. There are lots of ways that a B-17 could get more than 9,600 pound into the internal bomb bay!
 
no actuall only 1 6x1600lbs that was it and that was carried less time than was the disney

you equate the fact that the b17 had ONE advantage that being celing and then claim that this is the most important aspect, I say BOMB LOAD is the most important aspect of a heavy bomber and that the B17 could only carry a load

      to berlin a medium bomber could!
So witch Medium could carry 6,000 pounds to Berlin?
Avro Manchester
 
 
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Belisarius1234    It could do more.    2/12/2013 10:56:24 AM
and it could still compete when the Spitfire was obsolete? How many Spits served front-line anywhere until 1960?
 
Donald, David, ed. American Warplanes of World War II. London: Aerospace Publishing, 1995.
 
Plane has got to earn its keep. OBNW.
 
You are correct about the Bearcat. That plane would have chopped most opponents to ribbons-especially the later model Spits. Its reserve power was ridiculous.
 
Anyway, we were rather limited in the specific example comparison of the Spit IX directly to the F5F-5. That comparison  was what I addressed. Both flew in large numbers in '44, both came out of '42.  One (Hellcat) was descended from its Wildcat forebear which was directly tangent on point since the Wildcat WAS ON RECORD in its use, a better BF-109 killer than a Seafire in the hands of the same exact pilot class who flew both planes, (FAA, supposedly better trained then the RAF).  So; it is fair to compare such historied contemporaries directly to see who did the better technical job, Supermarine with its mainstay fighter, or Grumman with theirs. 
 
By the way, in my biased opinion, that might could be Grumman. 
  
Hellcat kill ratios against all enemies.
 
Tillman, Barrett. Hellcat Aces of World War 2. London: Osprey Aerospace, 1996 p-9.
 
Far in excess of 10-1. 
John Alcorn, 'Battle of Britain Top Guns Update', Aeroplane Monthly, July 2000, pp.24-29
 
I read Spitfire (all flying marks then current) had kill ratios of 1.5-1.7 to one for the BoB. Other KR numbers, for Spitfires for the entire war, (or better restricted to 42-45) would be helpful, so we can make an HONEST statistical comparison with all Hellcats.
 
For a similar argument (case of Wildcats in Solomons and Spitfires  against Zekes during the Darwin Fiasco where the Spit 5 did abominably [break even].) the F4F numbers were about 5.9-1 which I pull from 
Statistics— World War II (OPNAV-P-23V No. A129). Washington, D.C.: Air Branch, Office of Naval Intelligence, 1946. (Table II)
 
B.

thats fair, but how does this make the F6F the better plane, it matches the spit for a few years, prior to 42 the f6f didnt exist but the spit did and was doing the job it was designed for, after 43 the spit had moved on past the MkIX and yet the F6F 5 was the pinicle of the F6F development.

 

as I say compairing a snapshot of the spits lifecycle against another aircraft is slightly unfair, we can do the same for the F6F and compair the f6f 5 against a F8f as both were in service together, the F6F does not come off well

 
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45-Shooter       2/12/2013 2:42:44 PM


thats fair, but how does this make the F6F the better plane, it matches the spit for a few years, prior to 42 the f6f didnt exist but the spit did and was doing the job it was designed for, after 43 the spit had moved on past the MkIX and yet the F6F 5 was the pinicle of the F6F development.
as I say compairing a snapshot of the spits lifecycle against another aircraft is slightly unfair, we can do the same for the F6F and compair the f6f 5 against a F8f as both were in service together, the F6F does not come off well

But the point is valid. The late model Spitfires were dogs. They had great performance on paper, but had handling issues not fully resolved until the last large tail variants with the new wing. The M-IX was marginal and did a pretty good job over home ground. But the Mk-XIV took more than a year between first flight and first kill. They were trying to get the handling straightened out. Many aces back then considered the Mk-V to be the best of the bunch. If we were to confine our consideration to those Spits which they made more than 1,000 during the war, IE the Mk-V ~ 6,500 the Mk-VIII ~ 1,200 and the Mk-IX >8,000, again IIRC, then we should have a fair compairison of types which actuall shot down a significant number of enemy air craft!

The first batch of aircraft to fly with the Griffon 60 series engines were six converted Mk VIIIs JF316 to JF321 which were designated Mk VIIIG. The first one of these was flown by Jeffrey Quill on 20 January 1943:

"Changes to the aircraft were restricted to those essential to enable it to accept the new engine...I found that it had a spectacular performance doing 445 mph at 25,000 ft, with a sea-level rate of climb of over 5,000 ft per minute.[23]... I remember being greatly delighted with it; it seemed to me that from this relatively simple conversion, carried out with a minimum of fuss and bother, had come up with something quite outstanding...The MK VIIIG, with virtually the same tail surfaces both vertical and horizontal as the Merlin MK VIII, was very much over-powered and the handling in the air was unacceptable for an operational type...I soon realised that a new throttle box would be needed giving a much greater angular travel for the hand lever...The next essential...was an improvement in the directional stability and control and a new fin was drawn out with a substantial increase in area (7.42 sq. ft) and a much larger rudder and fitted to the second aircraft JF317. This, though not ideal, produced a very marked improvement in directional characteristics and we were able to introduce minor changes thereafter and by various degrees of trimmer tab and balance tab to reach an acceptable degree of directional stability and control. The enlarged fin of JF317 had a straight leading edge but for production a more elegant curved line was introduced."[24]...

I make the point to high light the word "Acceptable" above because it is a far cry from the word "Delightful" used to describe the Mk-V by the same pilot!
 
 
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Skylark       2/12/2013 2:58:50 PM

thats fair, but how does this make the F6F the better plane, it matches the spit for a few years, prior to 42 the f6f didnt exist but the spit did and was doing the job it was designed for, after 43 the spit had moved on past the MkIX and yet the F6F 5 was the pinicle of the F6F development.

as I say compairing a snapshot of the spits lifecycle against another aircraft is slightly unfair, we can do the same for the F6F and compair the f6f 5 against a F8f as both were in service together, the F6F does not come off well
My measurement of great planes is based on an overall score, and the F6F had the highest average.  If I were to pick the best fighter based on ignoring one major flaw, then I would have selected the P-51 Mustang, which is superior to the Hellcat on every level but one: the ability to absorb damage.  The Spitfire had that same flaw, PLUS, it had poor range.  The Spitfire was a brilliant plane, but it must be remembered that it was a defensive fighter.  Over Britain,  attacking mediocre German bombers and hapless German fighters low on fuel,  it did great.  When it crossed the channel and operated over Europe, it was a non-contender.  If you have some evidence that Spitfires were responsible for sweeping the Luftwaffe from the skies over Germany, I'l like to hear it, but the history I read says otherwise.  The Hellcat was capable of defending its carrier, AND taking the fight to the enemy, in the air and on the ground because (Unlike the Spitfire)  it could be tasked to carry a respectable war load of bombs and rockets.  The F6F had some flaws, like a poor roll rate and a rearward blind spot, but the Spitfires range issue could not be overcome with tactics or an airframe capable of shrugging off damage if it got in trouble.  The F6F was so good that it did not need to be constantly revised and updated, like the Spitfire, to overcome deficiencies that surfaced over the life of the plane.  The F6F was brilliant the moment it first lifted off of a carrier deck, and it was so good, it took an entirely new plane, the Bearcat, to replace it.  The Hellcat was so efficient, it was scary, and so vice-free and trouble-free that it was boring.  It was so good, the F6F made the entire Japanese air force look bad, while it racked up the highest kill tally of any single fighter concept in WWII.  There were fighters in WWII that were faster, could climb higher, fly higher, dive faster, turn tighter, had better range, had more fire power, had a better roll rate and any other statistic you may want to add, but NONE of them had fewer flaws, and function equally well on offense as well as defense.  If you want to base the discussion on the greatness of a plane, but ignore that plane's flaws, I'll offer up the P51 Mustang as my substitute best, but from a strictly analytical perspective, the Hellcat was the best overall single fighter concept of WWII. 
 
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45-Shooter       2/12/2013 3:08:19 PM
But that is the rub! You say 80 HP when it is 80HP per each of the four engines! But wait, that was only the earlier planes, later planes had up to 1,710-1,720 HP in each of those four engines!
yes and was a lot faster than the B17 and carried an even heavier bomb load
No it was never faster and the total average bomb load was still under 8,000 pounds per sortie!
   

Take off power of the B-17 never went above 1200 HP per engine! While weight and extra turrets were added. Standard operating weight of the E model was 56,000 pounds, not 54,000 as you state above. Over load was 63,000, then 65,000 pounds in the F model. But wait, the G model had a standard Take off weight of 65,500 pounds and a permissable over load of 72,000 pounds!

and a bomb load of 6000lbs wow
Bomb load was fungable as the under 8,000 pound average of all Lancaster missions shows!
   




Now they built 3,405 Fs and over 8,000 Gs, but I have always comp'd late model Lancs Vs the B-17G. But you have comp'd specs from all sorts of B-17 mods. Wait there is more! The F model WO the chin turret is a 317 MPH plane! Page 124 of Wagner's That is 317 MPH Vs 282 MPH, for a 35 MPH differance!

yet my source has he B17F as 290mph 
What is your source and what are the conditions?
 

and if we use the Lancaster IV, we have 319 mph @75000lbs which I believe is FASTER than a B17
Which was only a "paper" air plane, because every single plane built under that program was plackarded as a "Lincoln" not a Lancaster!


no your wrong the name lincoln was adopted POST war all the MKIV that flew during the war were designated as MKIV (oh and they are the ones with the 1700hp engines you quote above)
They were not the only planes to be re-engined with two stage Merlins. But note that they were still by ALL acounts post war air craft! ( After April 1945.) 
B IV
The B IV featured an increased wingspan and lengthened fuselage and new Boulton Paul... F turret (two X 0.5in Browning machine guns...) with re-configured framed "bay window" nose glazing. The prototypes (PW925, PW929 and PW932) were powered by two-stage Merlin 85s inboard and later, Merlin 68s on the outboard mounts. Because of the major redesign, the aircraft was quickly renamed Lincoln B 1....

So you want to compare a "Post War" modified Lanc fuse with much longer wings and Griffon engines of 2,450 HP Vs a B-17G with the chin turret and 1200 HP per engine? Right!
no actually the MkIV had the 1700hp not the 2450hp and the mk IV saw active service during ww2
 
B VI
Nine aircraft converted from B IIIs.
 Used only by pathfinder units! yah-right!
 

FROM WIKI; A development of the Lancaster was the Avro Lincoln............ bomber, initially known as the Lancaster IV and Lancaster V. These two marks became the Lincoln B1 and B2 respectively.
  That is the root of the argument. The two planes LAST VERSIONS had the same MTO, about 72,000 pounds, and the same aproximate dimentions, but that is about all. The Lanc had a less efficient wing, poor fuse shape and a long bomb bay that was structually heavy and caused the fuse to be weaker and less tollerant of damage.
you claim but have NEVER supported this argument, the B17 might (and I say MIGHT) have been able to survive hits
How about the fact that Lancaster crews were very much more likely to die in them than B-17 crew? 
Given the number lost and the numbers claimed by the German Night Fighter Corpse, the main killer of Lancasters had to be Flack!
wrong according to the Luftwaffe the main cause of BC loses was Night fighters accounting for approx 81% of all combat losses            A source for this claim?
Given well over 3,000 Lancs lost and much less than 1,000 claimed by night fighters, I bet we would all like to see a source on this W.A.G!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_German_World_War_II_night_fighter_aceslink />
 
 
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45-Shooter    Itemised and resoned argument in favor of the P-38.   2/12/2013 3:26:29 PM
I would posit that the P-38 was the best all around fighter of WW-II because;
1. IT was faster than it's peers, both in cruise and top speed. ( If you selected the right altitude!)
2. It was the SINGLE most pointable fighter in mass production during the entire war! This is the second most desirable trait as it makes shooting other planes down easier. You do agree that shooting other planes down is better if it is easier?
3. It had persistence in both long range and large ammo count in seconds and weight of fire.
4. The CL guns were much more effective than the wing mounted guns of most other planes.
5. Later Mods with hydraulic ailerons were very high rate of roll air craft!
6. Because of the CR Props, it could turn inside all other fighters at low speeds, IF the fur ball devolved to that.
 
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Skylark       2/12/2013 5:13:42 PM


2. It was the SINGLE most pointable fighter in mass production during the entire war! This is the second most desirable trait as it makes shooting other planes down easier. You do agree that shooting other planes down is better if it is easier?

3. It had persistence in both long range and large ammo count in seconds and weight of fire.

4. The CL guns were much more effective than the wing mounted guns of most other planes.

5. Later Mods with hydraulic ailerons were very high rate of roll air craft!

6. Because of the CR Props, it could turn inside all other fighters at low speeds, IF the fur ball devolved to that.

The P-38 was really an interceptor, not a fighter.  It was expensive to build, difficult to maintain and not all that easy to fly.  It did have awesome firepower and accuracy, (Thanks to its nose-mounted weapons) so it did have a first-pass attack that maybe only the ME-262 could top, but that just emphasizes the interceptor aspect.  As a dog fighter, the P-38 was out of its element.  The controls were more like that of a bomber, it's water-cooled engines vulnerable to damage, and it had a tendency to catch fire. (As related by a Luftwaffe pilot who gained a reputation as a Lightning killer)  If it was capable of taking on fighters, we would have sent them in escorting our bombers over Germany and Japan, but we didn't, even before the P-51 was available.  The very fact that the Lightning wasn't used, even though it was certainly available, and had the range necessary, is all the evidence I need to know that the air force had no faith in it.  Best interceptor?  Maybe, but the Lightning was not a fighter.
 
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45-Shooter       2/12/2013 5:49:09 PM

The P-38 was really an interceptor, not a fighter.  It was expensive to build, difficult to maintain and not all that easy to fly. All true!  It did have awesome firepower and accuracy, (Thanks to its nose-mounted weapons) so it did have a first-pass attack that maybe only the ME-262 could top, All true! but that just emphasizes the interceptor aspect. An intercepter with a 2,000 mile range or fighter with heavy fire power and speed.  As a dog fighter, the P-38 was out of its element. All true, but the idea and fact of the matter is that very few planes were shot down out of the dog fight and the vast majority were killed from ambush! The controls were more like that of a bomber, While they did resemble those of the bomber, they were in fact lite and powerful. it's water-cooled engines vulnerable to damage, All true! and it had a tendency to catch fire. No more so than any plane with 100 gallons of high octane Avgas. (As related by a Luftwaffe pilot who gained a reputation as a Lightning killer)  If it was capable of taking on fighters, we would have sent them in escorting our bombers over Germany and Japan, but we didn't, Yes we did send them over Germany. even before the P-51 was available.  The very fact that the Lightning wasn't used, even though it was certainly available, and had the range necessary, is all the evidence I need to know that the air force had no faith in it.  Best interceptor?  Maybe, but the Lightning was not a fighter.

What we have here is a argument based on historical opinions, Vs the knowledge gained in the decades since!
If we had known then what we do know now, the P-38L would be at the very top of the list, with the one certain cravat; It had LC engines with ALL of their attendant vulnerabilities.
 
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