Burjegol,

 

Had you said "the P-40 could out roll the Zero for a quick shot during a diving attack" I would have agreed with you. That is a far more specific set of circumstances than is suggested by your claim that it could out-turn the Zero in the hands of a good pilot. The capability was a useful adjunct to the P-40 ambushes tactics, but that was all. Had the USAAC pilots been stupid enough to engage in any other type of turning fight, they would have been cactus. Fortunately most had more brains than that, and they were also assisted by fanaticism induced stupidity on the part of the Japanese who thought that the American tactics were cowardly and wouldn't engage in anything similar.

 

Cromwell,

 

I specifically referred to the kill ratio of the Fw-190 over the Spit Mk V. The British pilots were terrified of the latter, it was hard to catch in the bounce and impossible to get away from if it bounced them.  That is why the Spit Mk-9 was so important.

 

Earl,

 

The Germans didn't just conduct fighter sweeps. Remember that the Fw-190's used to do "tip and run" raids against England with bombs and the only thing that could catch them was the Typhoon, when it's tail wasn't falling off that is!

 

 

 

 

According to AG Williams 3X M2 .50cal = 1X Hispano 20mm so give the MG151 the same credit and the 190D = the P-47's firepower.

I dispute Tony's and the USN who's point of view was the source fior Tony's idea for several different reasons. The 20 MM Hisso has less MV/BC and thus a longer time of flight to the target and as a consequence, requires more lead, making hits harder to get. Secondly, it has a lower rate of fire thus preventing maximum damage. I believe that the origional USN report was flawed because of it's ancidotal nature. If you had ever seen the damage up close and personal from the 20 MM Hisso, you would never think it was three times as good as the .50 Cal. Finally, If you read the after action reports of the four 20 MM Hissos in the RN's Seafurries in Korea, you would have to conclude that it was hardly any better than the 6X50s in the Sabre. That is not that hard as the 6X50s were not that well thought of and the Brits went to a 30 MM high rate gun to over come the Hisso's defects.
As to your assertion that the Mg-151/20 is the equal of the Hisso and thus as good as 3X50s. I believe that the MG-151/20 is better than the Hisso, but still not equal to 3X50s! More later if you really want to know.

5. The Me-109 is a stable and smooth gun platform. Just read about the troubles with the Mk-XIV snaking and how long between the first flight, squadron service and first kill of that plane to understand how important that is, or ask which plane the Germans most feared. ( The Forked Tailed Devil! Also a great gun platform!)

The 109 had the following issues which I may have cited earlier.

 

1.  Short range

2.  Inability to carry a load.  Somewhat made up for by concentrating guns in the nose

3.  No rudder trim tab so the pilot pushes the rudder bar all flight long.  That's too much to ask.

4.  Weakly built structure, not as bad as Japanese planes but nowhere near the US.

5.  Poor cockpit vision.

6.  Narrow track landing gear that cost up to one third of the planes built in accidents on landing and takeoff

7.  Inflated production figures where bombs damaged a completed 109 at the factory, it was written off and rebuilt so they could charge twice for 1 and a fraction worth of work

8.  1v1 it simply didn't hold up against equivalent enemy planes after 1940.  The F vs the Spit V was the exception.

9.  Without wing guns it took a good pilot to score, with them it was too heavy.

 

In its favor it was competitive in speed and rate of climb throughout the war and was producible.

The 109 had the following issues which I may have cited earlier. The lines that also apply to the Spitfire have the word Spit in red after them!

 

1.  Short rangeSpit

 

2.  Inability to carry a load.Spit  Somewhat made up for by concentrating guns in the nose The Spit had wing mounted guns with SIX seperate lines of fire, none of which coinsided with the line of sight!

3.  No rudder trim tab so the pilot pushes the rudder bar all flight long.  That's too much to ask.

4.  Weakly built structure, not as bad as Japanese planes but nowhere near the US.
The Spit was not as strong as the Me-109!

 

5.  Poor cockpit vision.

6.  Narrow track landing gear that cost up to one third of the planes built in accidents on landing and takeoffSpit

7.  Inflated production figures where bombs damaged a completed 109 at the factory, it was written off and rebuilt so they could charge twice for 1 and a fraction worth of work
8.  1v1 it simply didn't hold up against equivalent enemy planes after 1940.  The F vs the Spit V was the exception. The Spit was the plane that failed to hold up under like conditions! Over England, it could use more throttle than the Me-109 which had to fly home. But over france where the rolls were reversed, the Me-109 takes the spit more than 4-1!
 

9.  Without wing guns it took a good pilot to score, with them it was too heavy.
Wrong on all counts! In its favor it was competitive in speed and rate of climb throughout the war and was producible.

Earl,

 

Fair enough, you can favour radials if you like. As we Australians like to say, there are no sheep stations being bet on this debate :-). Incidentaly, the Germans were working on high altitude radial 190's in the B and C but the inline D came along and could do the job.

 

Shooter,

 

On guns I think your point about the rate of fire and velocity advantages of HMG over cannon are valid in the fighter to fighter fight. However, in the fighter to bomber fight where most rounds fired hit the target, I think the cannon has the advantage. Anyway for the purposes of comparison between the US fighters and the FW-190D I think the armament of the types was within the same order of magnitude, so it isn't a key issue.

 

Earl and Shooter,

 

I'm of the view that the '109 was better than the Spit until the Mk V, because of the oxygen starvation issue in the dive for the Spit Mk's I and II and because they didn't have cannon. The Mk V and the 109F were pretty evenly matched and until the advent of the Fw-190 they were on the top shelf despite their faults, though at that time the Zero was a close match too. The beauty of the Spit really became apparent in the later versions, when it showed how it could suck up extra engine power and still maintain it's agility. The 109 wasn't quite as good in that regard, but then again it was an older design which had fought pre WW2 so it's reletive longevity was still impressive.

I'm not a fan of either the 109 or the Spit.  I would put the P-40 way ahead of either if it had any altitude performance.  All of the early war aircraft had major issues.  The P-38 was a bit later and a lot better but more expensive.  I think it boils down to:

 

P-47

P-51

190D

Should have added this to the above post.  I would have, if I could edit the post, which I cannot but I can edit posts on every other forum.

 

You are very wrong on this. German experts found that it only took two or three 20 MM shells in the cockpit to knock down a heavy bomber, but more than twenty random hits to do that. The Germans determined that they were hitting between 0.2% and 2% depending on what angle they were shooting from. That means that a minimum of 200 rounds needed to be fired to get more than three hits. Since they typically carried less than 200 rounds, the Me 109 should be less effective than the F-190. But since that was not true, they concluded that there must be other reasons. What they determined was that the 109 was both easier to fly and a better gun platform. Both used guns closely grooped to the line of sight.

If you look at many of the pictures of damaged planes it is easy to see which hits were made by the 130 gram Hisso shell and which were made by the 109 gram German mine shell. In the first case the shell body broke up into 10-12 large fragments and in the second, hundreds of smaller bits. But in both cases, none of those fragments would perforate the thin skin of the plane more than 2-3 feet from the point of detonation.

On the other hand, a .50 caliber or 20 mm AP bullet will perforate everything in it's path untill it expends all of it's energy. That means that a single bullet could hit the skin, go through the radio, pilot's armored seat, the pilot, the instrument pannel and the back water jacket or oil pan of the engine! In that respect the two projectiles are equal! So which weapon system puts more hits on the target to get that one hit that knocks down the target?