Again it may be DEFINITONAL, but my focus is ALL-AROUND, not FIGHTER...and the purpose of an airplane, fighter or otherwise, is to win the war , via the air...to the extent that the Luftwaffe was no threat in 1944/45 the role of a fighter WAS Ground Attack. Please note the Light Bomber went missing by the end of the war, it's place taken by the FIGHTER-Bomber...and now the Medium Bomber is going away, replaced by the FIGHTER-Bomber.  I'll quote another pilot, "Fighter Pilots make Headlines, Bomber Pilots make History"  Aerial Combat is a byproduct of the REAL "air war" the destruction of the enemy's ground infrastructure and the provision of intelligence.  Fighters exist, ONLY, to facilitate or obstruct those missions.  Fighters do many things, one of which is down enemy aircraft.

 

And NO, you don't need a 3cm cannon to destroy armour....the 12.7 BMG has the capacity to penetrate the rear deck armour of the Panther and the Tiger, IIRC.  Meaning that the P-47 or ANY fighter with at least a 12.7mm HMG was a threat to tanks.  As evidence I point out the slaughter in the Falaise Gap and elsewhere, caused by Western Aircraft, none of whom, carried a 3cm weapon...and beyond the direct attack, the soft transport element of an armoured unit is also EXTREMELY vulnerable to aerial attack.  I don't care if you're in a "Maus", rest assured once the Opel "Blitz" transporting your fuel is gone, you won't be an armoured threat.

 

Finally, the K-100 may or may not be the equal of the F4U, but did it do as much, could it be land AND Sea-based?  Could it strike F4/6's, B-17/24/25/26/29's, could it attack pill boxes, and heavy warships? Lastly, was it produced in the thousands?

 

I was wrong, I'd say the best ALL-AROUND fighter, in the Pacific, would be the F6 Hellcat.  The Corsair, was not available for CVA's until 1944, and it was NOT a good night fighter or photo-reconnaissance "bird"....the Hellcat did everything the F4U did, plus the supplemental roles of reconnaissance and night combat.  So whilst the F4U might or might not be the TECHNICAL equivalent or superior to the F6F, in many roles, that fact is the Hellcat did more things than the Corsair.  And its performance and battle record are better than its Japanese counter-parts....who cares if a Tony could out-turn an F6F, overall the USN slaughtered its Japanese opponents, post-1943, no matter how TECHNICALLY or THEORETICALLY proficient their a/c might have been.

MVR Said Paraphrasing; "The fighter pilot's job is to see the enemy and shoot him down. Anything else is rubbish!"
If you read his book, he is very specific about what he thinks is required of a fighter plane and pilot and exactly how to do the best job at it. Very few members of this board would qualify under his rules! Under his rules, the ideal match up would be the F-104 Starfighter Vs the Avro Gunbus, IF he was in the Starfighter! EBH, aka The Blond Knight of Germany thought exactly the same thing! Funny thing, but all of the top Aces agreed! I wonder why that was? Now there's a topic for a new thread; Why was that and what type of plane would best fill their criteria starting in 1936? Any takers?

Who won the Second World War?  The Blonde Knight or someone else?  And IF, and that's a big IF, you think the F-104 is the Epitome of "fighter" you have a big another "Think" coming...it was fairly poor aircraft, good for only one thing, fast, high altitude interception at visual ranges.  Again, please note which a/c F-4 or F-104 served longest, did more, and oddly enough, downed more enemy a/c, F-4 or F-104?  Fighter or Fighter-BOMBER?  I believe the answer is clear, the multi-role F-4 dominated its era....in the West, at least.

It was not my idea, but I wish it was! It was EBH's and the context was that the fastest most hevily armed cold war fighter was the best possible match against the WW-I Avro Gunbus! Also, EBH flew the F-104 and must have had some ideas about what it could do Vs the Gunbus. Don't you think? Norman Lockard also liked the F-104.

but more than all that were his ideas of how to fight a war in the air;

Look first, take in the entire situation. Analyse the situation and geomitry! Then, if and only if it looks like you can go down and kill him with out the chance of him or his friends shooting back, do it! Then use the speed of your dive to zoom up and re-analyse the situation and choose what to do next. Escape, maneuver to a better possition or attack again as required to stay alive and kill the other guy!

 

I'd recomend that you read his book, "The Blond Knight of Germany" and several of the orther works on EBH.

Hartmann OPPOSED the Luftwaffe procuring the F-104, so much so it ended his career...just thought you should know.