Best Fighter Plane Of The War?

(adamcotton @ Nov 9 2005, 03:26 PM) [post=41370]Despite the supposed performance advantage conferred by the DB 600 engines, the Mc202 & 205 were not the equal of the Me109. I would agree its performance was probably on a par with an early model Zero.

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My understanding is that both the 202 and the 205 were excellent fighters at low and medium altitude, though performance dropped off at high altitude.
The Mc 205 is often quoted as being able to take on the P-51 on equal terms, and the Germans were so impressed with the Mc 205 they equipped one of their own units with it until the end of the war.


In regard of Italian aces.
Of the top 3 Italian aces, 2 flew either the 202 and 205 for at least a number of their 'kills'.
Sergente Maggiore Teresio Martinoli with 22 victories, and Sottotenente Leonardo Ferrulli with 21 victories.

 

Wikipedia has a list of Italian aces of WWII

This website covers Italian biplane aces

There's more information in 3 books by Christopher Shore, Brian Cull & Nicola Malizia; Air War for Yugoslavia, Greece and Crete 1940-41, Malta; The Hurricane Years 1940-41 & Malta: The Spitfire Year 1942. I guess that these sources will be too early to cover the Mc205.

 

In view of the recent heated debate over the relative merits of P-47 and Spitfire, I thought I would add this comment which I discovered elsewhere on the net. I wish I could claim authorship, but I cannot. However, he expresses my thoughts perfectly!!! Thank you for some excellent posts.

"Taking Shooter’s laughable idea that the RAF pilots were particularly prone to over-claiming, you could level the same charge at American pilots with considerably more justice. The undisputed kings of over-claiming in WWII were the AVG, who sometimes over-claimed by a factor of 10:1 or more, and are rumoured to have ‘poached’ RAF kills. However, the USN gave them a run for their money in 1942-3. Talking about one of the carrier battles in 1942, some wag of a historian said: ‘The USN pilots claimed 70 of the 14 Japanese aircraft lost’. When looking at WWII kills, the crucial thing is to compare like with like. There is no point taking confirmed RAF kills and comparing them with woolly US claims.

The RAF must have claimed at least 15,000 kills in the ETO/MTO during the war, and the figure could be as high as 20,000. It has been suggested that the Hurricane alone shot down more German and Italian aircraft than the P38, P47 and P51 combined. The three US fighters claimed about 8,600 kills between them, while estimates of the number of Hurricane kills run as high as 9,000. Admittedly these are all just claims, but the evidence suggests that RAF claims were definitely more accurate than USAAF claims, so the point still holds true.

In many ways the Battle of Britain is a touchstone for the remainder of the air war. It is the only time throughout WWII that the British had the leisure and the ability to examine crashed German aircraft, and where shot-down German aircrew could not evade capture (naturally this doesn’t apply to aircraft and crews that came down in the sea, which is why there is such uncertainty about actual German losses). I believe that it is no coincidence that, in these circumstances, RAF claims proved remarkably accurate (less than 25% overclaims). For the rest of the war, the RAF was either fighting over enemy-held territory (France 1941-4), or over ‘debatable lands’ where it was either impossible (Malta) or difficult (Greece, Western Desert) to examine wrecks, and where shot-down Germans stood a good chance of being rescued. The result was that there was no chance to supplement the incomplete and inaccurate official Luftwaffe losses by investigation.

Turning to the question of Thunderbolt versus Spitfire, I guess most people would accept that the Jug was a better ground-attack aircraft (though not as good as the Fw190 or Corsair IMHO). However, it was no match for the Spitfire in A2A combat. Johnson’s story of out-climbing a Spitfire is just that: a story, with no corroborating evidence. The fastest-climbing variant of the P47 was the P47D-22-RE series, which could reach 20,000 feet in 7.6 minutes, with both the paddle-bladed prop and water-methanol injection (without either of these, the TTH dropped to about 10 minutes). The early Spitfire IX’s could reach the same height in 6 minutes, and later MkIX’s reduced this to 5.4 minutes. Thus the Spit still climbed 50% faster than the Jug, even with the modified prop and WM. Hell, even the MkII Spitfire of 1940 could do it in 7 minutes!

As for Larry’s scenario of how a P47 could get the better of a Spitfire by diving and then zoom-climbing, like all such scenarios it depends on the P47 pilot doing exactly the right thing, and the Spitfire pilot doing nothing at all. He assumes that the Thunderbolt will pull away in the dive and leave the Spitfire behind. However, what happens when the Jug begins to pull out? The Spitfire pilot is under no obligation to continue his dive: he could also pull out, and either zoom-climb to maintain his height advantage, or ‘cut the corner’ and shoot down the Thunderbolt as it climbed slowly upwards after having lost most of its KE. If a Thunderbolt fails to get a kill by surprise, then its dive characteristics are only good for getting away. In other words it’s a kind of ‘super P40’.

The point is that many fighters of WWII are capable of shooting down an opposing fighter if they are granted an initial height advantage (and preferably surprise as well). The crucial question is: how well do they do without an initial advantage? In this situation, a superior rate of climb becomes very important because it allows you to gain the high ground.

You also made a very good point that aircraft procurement depends on the perceived threat. Most Spitfire IX’s were of the LFIX version because this variant was optimised to deal with the FW190. If (for the sake of argument) the Luftwaffe had been equipped with P38’s and P47’s then a different variant would have been selected. For example, the Spit HFVIII/HFIX could do about 420 mph at 28,000 feet and completely outclassed both American fighters at high altitude."


View attachment 1251 View attachment 1252

 

Good post Adam.

 

Adam

minor point:

</div><div class='quotemain'>a development of the biplane Fiat G-50 encountered by the RAF during the latter stages of the Battle of Britain.[/b]

Presumably you mean the CR42 - the G50 was a monoplane.

Major point: where do the F4U Corsair and the F6F Hellcat fit into all this? The Corsair's performance appears to have been as good as any fighter of the war (max speed 417 mph of the early F4U 1a version) and alledgedly had the 11:1 kill ratio over the Japanese. The Hellcat was slower but my source quotes that it accounted for 80% of the kills in the Pacific.
Was all this true? How would these two have faired in NW Europe? (the FAA used the Hellcat in Europe e.g. in the attack on the Tirpitz, but not the USN)

Adrian

 

Found this on the History channel, posted by Robert. Hope its of interest

The Chinese Government paid the Flying Tigers for
297 kills, but in reality they had about 115.

Dan Ford's excellent research in "Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group" cleared up most of the misconceptions about the Tigers' inflated victory claims. Ford offers the following comments:

"Some readers of 'Flying Tigers: Claire Chennault and the American Volunteer Group' are unhappy that I would pay attention to anything the Japanese said about their losses in 1941-1942. Rather than re-examine AVG claims, they prefer to believe that the Japanese lied then and are still lying today. I don't agree, for these reasons:

I've read the American, British, and Japanese accounts, and I find that they all have the kind of unambiguous detail that can't be faked. The pilots tell the truth about their losses -- it's only in claiming victories that they go wrong.

And why not? A commander can come close to 100% accuracy in counting friendly casualties, but he can't be nearly as certain about the losses he has inflicted on the enemy. Other things being equal, you would always be inclined to pay serious attention to what each side says about its own losses, while reserving judgment on its combat claims.

In almost every case I identified the units -- and often the individual pilots -- who flew against the AVG. For example, on Christmas Day over Rangoon, the only retractable-gear Japanese fighters in action were those of the army's 64th Sentai. If the AVG shot down five "Type 0" fighters that day, then not just Lieutenant Okuyuma and Sergeant Wakeyama but three other pilots from the 64th Sentai must have died. Who were they? How did their earlier victories and promotions vanish from the records of the groups?

A man knows when a friend is killed: there is an empty bunk in the barrack, and a empty seat in the mess, and there are personal effects to be disposed of. (Including, in the case of the Japanese, a lock of hair and a fingernail clipping to be sent home for cremation.) No soldier would trivialize the lives of his friend by denying that he ever existed -- and that's what he must do to conceal his loss in combat.

Even if Japanese officials wanted to fake the records, how did they manage to control the memories of the survivors? And how did they carry off this conspiracy through war and peace, victory and defeat, for half a century? In 1941, Major Kato wrote in his diary that two pilots failed to return from Rangoon on Christmas Day. In a book published in 1984, Lieutenant Hinoki identified them. Hinoki was in the hospital (wounded by R. T. Smith) when Kato was killed -- so when did they invent the lie?

The only country I know of that successfully minimized its combat losses was the Soviet Union -- and only until it fell apart. The Japanese Empire not only fell apart but was occupied for several years. Anyhow, Imperial Japan was the least likely country to attempt such a deception, since it taught that death in combat was a soldier's duty and privilege.

The 64th Sentai never had more than 25 fighters in any of its encounters with the AVG. I found that the AVG destroyed 14 (wastage of 50%). If we take AVG claims at face value, then 49 planes were lost (200% wastage). The 64th was also losing planes in Malaya and the Dutch Indies. How many times can a fighter group be wiped out and still turn up over the target?

Similarly with pilots. Of the 25 men who flew to Rangoon on Christmas, 9 were shot down by the AVG before the end of April; 10 were lost to accident or to combat elsewhere; and 3 transferred to other groups. That leaves 3 -- including Hinoki and Sergeant Yasuda, who were still alive when I wrote my book! The 64th Sentai simply didn't have enough pilots to fly all the planes claimed by the AVG, and the same is true of other fighter and bomber groups.

When there was an event unusual enough to be noted by both sides, the Allied and Japanese accounts confirm each other: Parker Dupouy's collision with Okuyuma over Martaban Bay; Neal Martin's death over Rangoon; the night raider exploded by an RAF pilot over Mingaladon airport; the heavy-bomber formation wiped out over South Burma; and on and on.

When Allied observers actually went out and counted wrecks, they confirmed the Japanese numbers. On December 20, Chinese observers reported 3 Japanese bombers shot down during the battle and 1 crashing later -- just what the Japanese say they lost. From December to March, British scavenger teams located 32 Japanese wrecks in South Burma -- about what would be expected from Japanese accounts. On April 8 at Loiwing, AVG ground crews located 3 wrecks near the airfield -- just what the Japanese said they lost.

I'd like to close with two points that tend to get lost in this argument:

First, both sides reported their aircraft losses with surprising accuracy, while wildly overestimating their kills -- the AVG by 150%, the Japanese by 400% This does not mean that anybody was lying. With the exception of the "Emperor's birthday" shoot-out of April 28, I have no trouble reconciling AVG and Japanese accounts where both survive.

(The same is probably true of all air forces in all wars. Do you really believe that Saburo Sakai shot down 64 Allied planes? I suspect that the actual figure was less than 20, to judge by the claiming habits of Japanese navy pilots as shown in John Lundstrom's book, THE FIRST TEAM. . . . Lundstrom, by the way, found that U.S. Navy and Marine pilots in 1941-1942 overclaimed by about the same amount as the AVG.)

And second, that the Japanese Army Air Force lost approximately 115 planes and 400 airmen in seven months of fighting the AVG. The cost to the AVG was 14 pilots killed or missing on combat missions. By any standard, that was a victory without comparison in the annals of fighter operations, including those that astonished us over Kuwait and Iraq. AVG veterans should be proud to have their success confirmed in Japanese accounts. "

 

In his book "The Most Dangerous Enemy, a History of the Battle of Britain" ( a very good book )Stephen Bungay makes the following observations about overclaiming.

"Claims are usually used to show who got what. This may be of interest to the participants, but it is knowing the total losses inflicted on the enemy in the air, whoever caused them that matters, Because of its importance, both sides insisted on rigorous citeria for confirming claims, which had to to be independently witnessed by another pilot or verified through the location of the crash-site. Dispite this , it is an endemic feature of all air-fighting that claims are too high , by a factor of at LEAST two. There are good reasons for this.
The first is simple mistakes usually made by inexperienced pilots. If he was firing at an enemy machine and it dived steeply away, a new pilot might think he had a kill. In fact, engines usually emit smoke when an aircraft bunts, They can also get into spins, fall out of control and then recover low down out of sight.
The second is that verification is very difficult and also dangerous. To be accurate, the observing pilot, who is usually fighting for his life, rather than playind umpire, would have to follow the victim from the first bullet strikes on it, to its crashing into the ground. All he would usually be able to see would be several plane firing at each other, catch a glimpse of one spinning down a few seconds later, and then perhaps an explosion on the ground some time after that. All three impressions might be connected. On the other hand the spinning plane may have recovered in cloud and gone home and the crash be of an entirely different machine actually shot down in a different dog-fight. When moving at 200-300mph in three dimentions large distances are covered very quickly. Pilots who tried to follow down aircraft they had hit usually turned into victims themselves. Experienced pilots forgot about confirming claims and kept their precious height for better purposes.
Multiple claims were also a major reason for over claims, the same machine would be seen and attacked by different pilots at different altitudes and in different stages of disintergration and be identified as different machines."

 

Good opinion post of a rabid Spit fan, Adam. Not very factual, but he’s very good at stating his opinion (most people aren’t). Very, very unique. Never heard of anyone British thinking a Spitfire could out do every plane in the war, you certainly don’t see it everyday, especially not on a British WWII forum. Too bad the Americans were too stupid not to produce the Spitfires because the Jug was expensive. Oh, you know those Americans, no sense in flying, what would they know about aircraft anyway? And please…what does Robert Johnson know about a Jug or a Spit? He only became a 6 time ace in a Jug against FW190s and ME-109s that the Spitfire pilots claimed were better than their Spits and therefore would decimate the Yanks in their Jugs. Too bad the highest rated group in the USAAF with the top 7 aces weren't smart enough to scrap that old bomber for the new Mustangs for the entire war. Or maybe they could have obtained two Mustangs and traded them for an old worn out Spitfire, whose engine wouldn’t start. It would be a fair trade. But then again they are Americans and everyone knows that they are prone to exaggeration whereas the RAF had such staunch integrity simply because they were British and exaggeration is not the “English way”. Good observations. You can tell this guy knows what he is talking about.

As far as your question Adrian, the F4U and the F6F went against Zeros and Kates. The Zero was the only plane that stayed with its 1941 performance numbers throughout the war. Most of their kills came from the Marianas Turkey Shoot which is an illustration of the plane’s match up.

 

You too are right redcoat. I bet the Americans never even shot down a single plane in the war. They just flew around in circles hoping their heroes in the RAF would come and shoot down the Germans on their tails. The exaggerations had to be at least 100:1. I would have never known American pilots were such liars and RAF pilots speak only truth as the oracles of God unless I had seen that opinion posted here on a British forum. There is no insecure jealousy of the RAF today nor in that day. These reports are all true.

Man what a day of learning this has been. Let me see if I can summarize the fantastic unbiased material posted above. One time, 100 Jugs were jumped by 5 old Stukas (two of them already on fire), Monty saw it from the ground and jumped into the nearest Spitfire that happened to be down for maintenance with 10 of the 12 spark plugs removed, took off anyway, climb and ran down the Jugs, shot the Stukas down and returned seeing a whole SS Panzer Division of Tiger IIs got into a single Sherman tank with its turret blown off by a hand grenade, and destroyed the entire Panzer Division with the butt end of a rifle (a British rifle mind you). Man you can just glean so many “facts” you would never get anywhere else here. All one has to do is remember, American = bad, British = good, and you know it all.

Churchill and Roosevelt were good friends. I would have thought he would simply have said, "no thanks Franklin, we don't need your help, your boys would just be getting in the way of mine, but it was so nice for you to ask".


Those bloody American revisionists!

 

Adrian - thank you for correcting my error. You are of course quite right - the Fiat G50 was a monoplane; the CR 42 "Falco" was a biplane. I realised my error as soon as I posted, but didn't get around to correcting....I know the CR42 was encountered by the RAF in the BofB, not sure about the Fiat G-50.

Yes, it is interesting to speculate on how the Hellcat and Corsair would've fared in Europe. I think the Corsair was probably the better of the two, but the Hellcat was deployed in wider numbers. The USN viewed the Corsair as unsuitable for carrier operations (unlike the RN) and as a consequence it was used only by the USMC from airstrips hewn out of the Pacific islands. The Hellcat operated from the large US fleet carriers in greater numbers, and that is why it was responsible for the much greater proportion of kills.

A trait endemic to carrier-borne aircraft - and the Corsair was initially designed as such - is that by necessity they have to be that much more "beefy" in order to withstand the additional stress imposed by carrier deck landings - and that translates into additional weight, the arrestor hook being one example of a weight adding component. Consequently, they will always be at a theoretical disadvantage against lighter land-based aircraft (and weight is the reason I still maintain that the heaviest and largest single seat fighter of WW2 - the P-47 - couldn't compete on equal terms in the air-to-air arena with other land based fighters). Maybe some software developer will provide a simulation so we can test the theory someday? Actually, I did import a Hellcat into the original Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator programme a while back, and took it out on dogfights over Europe with Me109s and Fw190s, and we did ok - but I'm not sure how representative of the true experience that would have been! (I also took an He177 "Greif" island hopping in the Pacific on CFS2, but that's another story...)

 

Jimbo, I want to say I genuinely found your last post - Monty cimbing into a Spitfire and attacking Stukas, etc - very funny indeed. I am not mocking you - I mean it. You have a wonderful sense of humour - I'll give you that!

But, to task: are you now implying that Spitfires generally suffered poor serviceability? That the RR Merlin engine - widely acknowleged as one of the most reliable engines in the world - was in fact anything but?

Also, regarding your assessment of the Zero: it is not true that it retained its 1941 numbers throughout the war. It is true that it was outclassed by American fighters later in the conflict, but it went through stages of development just like any other fighter, the latest version - the A6M-5 - which was designed in response to the ascendancy of the Hellcat, by which it was nonetheless still outclassed, being built in the greatest numbers. Some figures below:


A6M2 - Model 21 A6M5 - Model 52
Dimensions:
Wing span: 39 ft 4 7/16 in ) 46 ft 1 1/16 in (11 m)
Length: 29 ft 8 11/16 in (9.06 m) 29 ft 11 3/32 in (9.121 m)
Height: 10 ft 0 1/16 in (3.05 m) 11 ft 6 5/32 in (3.509 m)
Weights:
Empty: 3,704 lb. (1,680 kg) 4,136 lb. (1,876 kg)
Loaded: 5,313 lb (2,410 kg) 6,025 lb (2,733 kg)
Performance:
Maximum Speed: 331.5 mph (288 kt) 351 mph (305 kt) @19,685 ft (6000 m)
@ 14,930 ft (4,550 m)

Service Ceiling: 32,810 ft. (10,000 m) 38,520 ft. (11,740 m)
Maximum Range: 1,930 miles (3,107 km) 1,194 miles (1,922 km)


By the way, I believe it wasn't just "Kates" and "Zeros" the Hellcat and Corsair encountered - there was also the IJA's "Oscar".

By the way again, if the person I quoted extolling the superiority of the Spitfire really is rabid in his fanaticism for the type, might not the same accusation be levelled at you with regard to the P-47? In either case, that rabid fanaticism does nothing for getting at the objective truth.

 

Jimbo - yes, Robert Johnson did get 27 victories before being shipped home to the US in June, 1944, and no one would doubt - certainly not I - his credentials or ability as a fighter pilot! However, you are quite wrong in saying the Thunderbolt equipped 56th Fighter Group boasted the top 7 American aces of the ETO. For instance, there is P-51 Mustang exponent George Preddy with 27.5 victories (plus 5 victories over ground targets in strafing attacks) who ranks as the third highest scoring ace in the ETO, the seventh highest scoring American ace, and the top scoring P-51 ace. Indeed, historians - that word again! - have opined that, had he not been tragically shot down and killed by friendly AA fire while pursuing an Fw190 at treetop height on Christmas day, 1944, he may well have eclipsed "Gabby" Gabreski (P-47 Pilot) and even Dick Bong of Pacific fame.

My point here is that you obviously believe that the fact the 56th fielded so many aces was directly attributable to them flying P-47s. In fact, so long as a pilot flew with the right spirit, it mattered little if he was flying Thunderbolt, Mustang, or Spitfire. Not my assertion, but that of "Chuck" Yeager. As Preddy once remarked of himself: "I'm sure as hell not a killer, but combat flying is like a game, and a guy likes to come out on top."

I would suggest that the 56th's reluctance to dispense with its P-47s and re-equip with P-51s was due more to a prosaic interest in survivability. The P-47 could dive like a plummet - a very useful evasive manouevere, except at low level, where turning performance and climb ability assume paramount significance. The "Jug" could also absorb the hits in engine and airframe and still bring its pilot home. What kid with his whole life ahead of him wouldn't wed himself to such a machine, particularly one that could pack a mighty punch?

They were behaving no differently to Hurricane pilots who fought in the Battle of France in 1940, then were re-assigned to Spifires just prior to the Battle of Britain. Every fighter pilot knew the Spitfire was the superior fighter, but veterans of the fighting in France had come to value the Hurricane's sheer ruggedness and ability to absorb damage and keep flying. Paul Richey, a veteran of both the battles of France and Britain, and an experienced pilot on both Hurricane and Spitfire, waxed eloquent on his reluctance to swap mounts in his sequel to his classic book, Fighter Pilot.

Similarly, when the Me109F was introduced at the end of 1940, Luftwaffe pilots preferred to retain their old "Emils" - not, in this case, because they were particulary toughter than the "F" variant, but because they flew better and had a heavier armament, even though they were slower and had a relatively inferior rate of climb. The point is this: pilots don't always chose the fighter for sheer performance. Other factors influence their decisions.

To briefly address the issue of Johnson supposedly outclimbing a Spitfire: I have no doubt Johnson believed he was doing so, but as a fellow pilot Jimbo you should be aware there is a difference between rate of climb and angle of climb, and for every aircraft there is one speed for best rate of climb, and a slower speed for best angle of climb. Moreover, those speeds are different for each and every aircraft. The P-51 and earlier Spitfires, for instance, generated their best rate of climb at a relatively shallow climbing angle; the Me109 at a relatively high angle and low forward speed. Without access to pilot's notes for either P-47 or Spitfire, I have no idea what those speeds/angles were, but it is not difficult to imagine - let's say - Johnson's P-47 and a Spitfire climbing side by side, each at its best rate of climb speed which, in the case of the Thunderbolt, put it at a steeper angle and therefore created the illusion it was climbing faster, even though the Spitfire was in fact gaining height more swiftly. Surely you can concede that might have been what happened? Johnson would have been aware of all the various speeds for his P-47, but it's unlikely he'd have been similarly familiar with the numbers for a Spitfire, so it reflects no discredit upon him if he merely jumped to the natural conclusion....

Jimbo, your defence of the P-47, despite all the evidence to contradict you, is bordering on the visceral!

Anyway, picture of Preddy's Mustang attached.... View attachment 1258

 

(adamcotton @ Nov 17 2005, 04:05 AM) [post=41659]
By the way again, if the person I quoted extolling the superiority of the Spitfire really is rabid in his fanaticism for the type, might not the same accusation be levelled at you with regard to the P-47? In either case, that rabid fanaticism does nothing for getting at the objective truth.

Over to you....
[/b]
Uh...Adam...I think that was the very point I was making. His assertion was that Johnson was a rabid T-Bolt fanatic and exaggerated his claims did something to get at the objective truth? The whole premise was absurd. The idea that a British is some kind of higher class being than an American and is not subject to the same vanities, prides, and exaggerations that the Yanks are is reprehensible and comical. I do hear it a lot here in the states too, but always consider the sources, but I never use their rhetoric and biases to make points of my own (that was bold).

Spitfire, Mustang? What’s up with that?
The bottom line is that the benefit of one plane over the other is both subjective and highly susceptible to the dubious nature of sources of the assumed facts that support it. This I can understand and a national bias I too can understand. In the US WWII culture, the Mustang was “all that and a bag of chips” and the Spitfire was “not a bad plane, but the best the Brits could do”. Not surprisingly I see the same thing here. Take a look at the poll of this thread. If it were taken on a forum that had a majority of Americans, do you think the distribution would be the same? Not very likely. So we see that the opinions tend to be less factual, the urban legends and claims dubious themselves.

What Happened To The Pilot?
The fact is that all planes of the dogfighter class are virtually the same and I would expect the differences to be negligible with the only distinctions strictly limited to the skills of the pilots themselves. A pilot in a Brewster Buffalo that knew what he was doing could take out a pilot that didn’t in anyone of the others. But that was never really my bone of contention with the Jug, that was simply the issue I found myself defending on the grounds of common sense.

History Of The Jug: A Travesty In Motion.
To me, the issue with the Jug is that its reputation is somewhat of a travesty. What I mean by this is that the Jug is a relatively unknown quantity in WWII other than you see it. It seems as commonplace as a C-47 in the photos and has about as daunting a reputation as a fighter as the C-47 had. Because I get my understanding from the usual suspects, Army loving historians, of which there is a plethora, I too had lived in the same delusion of how WWII was fought as everyone else. These historians are like the pied pipers of history. I too thought the Jug was unimpressive. After looking at one up close, I marveled because it went against every aerodynamic principle I had ever been learned and in an area of where aeronautical advantages mean the difference between life or death, I could not understand the purpose for such a fighter in the first place. What I had read about the Jug was about it as a fighter.

That Thing Was Nicknamed After The Term “Juggernaut”????
The first time I walked up to a Jug, I was shocked. It was absolutely huge, just like an F-15. How could a WWII fighter be this big? It was two and a third times as tall as I was and had a wingspan that took of the area of twice that of other fighters I had seen at air shows. It challenged my instincts of what a fighter would have consisted of in WWII. I thought, those poor b*****ds that had to fly that thing. It is a wonder any made it back to be shown in air shows (about the same thing the experienced Spitfire pilots assumed about the Jug when they saw it for the first time). No wonder I have heard little about it. In the US it was always Mustang, Mustang, Mustang. So I decided out of morbid curiosity to go revisit stories I had read about the Jug when I was a kid. I started doing research on the Jug. I found that I had to read between the lines because it almost seems that everyone wanted to talk Mustang or Spitfire. But the story that emerged was where I began to realize there is an ongoing “travesty”. At first I looked at the stats of the plane. With a 7.5 ton weight, no way it was as fast as a Mustang. But much to my surprise, it was faster even in straight and level flight.

If Your Plane Weighs Twice As Much, Double The Horsepower.
Ok, so it’s faster, how could it out maneuver other planes to fight them? Surprisingly the Jug turns out to be quite nimble. The use of anti-G suits and combat flaps allowed it to take advantage of its huge wings. Its rate of roll was incredible. But still, small nimble planes? So I started purchasing books by pilots to find out what they liked and didn’t like about it. At first they didn’t like it because (as expected) it would often lose in a dogfight. Then Zemke, developed the techniques for the use of the Jug and the stories about buddies being shot down began to disappear from the books’ story lines and be replaced by claims of sometimes getting two planes on dives. The different pilots seemed to tell the same story. Zemke, Fortier, Johnson, all aces seem to think the Jug was untouchable. Exciting, possibly hyperbole, but not enough for me to be convincing, so I purchased a couple books on the Ninth Air Force including one that was a analysis of TAC operations with the Jug and the other one about how this TAC produced a "slew" of aces in this plane. They told the same story as these other pilots. Ok, so maybe there is some level of exaggeration, not too hard to imagine, but strange how they collaborated on the scandal and even got the USAAF involved. The stories of climbing to altitudes that the FW190s and ME-109s could not climb to and diving on them to where they could not maneuver away, were uncanny. The almost unanimous claim that when German pilots dove to get away that they were virtually considered lost because of the Jugs remarkable ability to dive fast and remain in control or the ability to recover control if they had pushed it too far. Jugs operated in groups of 8 and would dive one right after the other such that even if one plane managed to escape, the next one would certainly get it made them unstoppable. Turning radius is useless when someone has altitude on you. They have the angles and you can't elude that diving would be your only hope, and as stated before that was not a good idea against a Jug. The fact that the Jugs were shooting bullets from 50s (eight of them, giving 4 convergence points) throwing a lot of lead out and lead that does not drop trajectory like cannon rounds made them deadly. The K-14 gunsight allowd the Jugs to do "deflection shooting" where it compensates for distance and altitude. Jug pilots claimed that the FW190 could not out turn it but regulations forbid them to get into conventional dogfights. The reason a Jug could employ an effective dive and climb technique (despite your friends contempt for the Jug’s ability to do that better than a Spit) is the fact that its efficient wing design allowed it to retain most of its energy from the dive back into the climb. You should know what that means Adam, I don’t expect others to know, but any pilot knows that the ability to trade off the air speed in a dive for the recovery of altitude is an asset for planes that can do it well. To come out of a high speed dive and pitch a plane back to Vy exerts an incredible G-force on the pilot and would normally black him out. Remember, the Jug didn’t have a Vne.

History Of WWII: A Travesty At Rest.
Despite the claims of dominance of the Jug as a fighter by pilots and USAAF personnel, even claming it broke the Luftwaffe’s back (as Zemke put it), it was how it was used as a Fighter/Bomber that tells what its dominant role was and why it seems to be type cast. The contempt for the real war by most fans of WWII is most evident in the gratuitous and patronizing comments that “the Jug was a good Fighter/Bomber”. Well that’s certainly true, but this simply means they believe it is a zero-sum game where one must detract from its role as a fighter to boost its role as a tactical bomber. But that is still just a part of the first travesty I found. The second travesty is even more insidious. It was that WWII on the western front was an Army vs Army war. If you read historians, those are the “facts” by the “experts” (themselves of course). But if you get your history from the enemy, you find it was not a war of Army vs Army but rather a war of virtual Fighter/Bomber vs Army. You get this from no historians I have ever read. If it is the #1 issue of the western front, why is it not worth mentioning by these supposed experts? This to me, has become the real bone of contention, the Jug disdain is just part and partial of the propagation of WWII ignorance.

Achtung Jabos!
If you believe the Tempest’s design had nothing to do with the successes of the Jug in WWII, you are beyond reason. To me, the Tempest was the #2 biggest factor in the destruction of the German Army. I do believe the Jug had some advantages over the Tempest but most of those were in its ability to climb high and fight as a fighter, not as a fighter/bomber. As a fighter/bomber or “Jabo” as the Germans called them, they both meant one and only one thing to Rommel. Then end of Germany’s chance to win WWII when the first boot hit the beaches at Normandy. Unlike the allied army personnel and their historians, Rommel was well aware of what beat him and his superior armies. There was not even the slightest iota of question in his mind. Read any German soldiers biography and they have little to say about fear of the Allies on the ground but much to say about fear of Allies in the air.

So Why Make A Big Deal Over The Jug?
Well, what has impressed me the most about studying the Jug was that the real objective in air superiority is tactical advantages rather than aeronautical advantages. There is no better case for this than the P-47 itself. None. It is a flying contradiction to the “laws” of aerodynamic advantages. The Tempest would be too but it rarely assumed the role of a dog fighter and rarely met experienced enemy fighter pilots by the time it was in service. It too might have utilized the same advantages as the Jug but it never got that chance. But that’s a good thing. So it is not about the “Jug” or it being an “American” plane. It’s about the understanding of what it means to dominate an enemy (be it in air-to-air combat or ground support) using advantages and the overestimation of aerodynamic advantages. If you had a choice to fly a “Hurricane” in combat or a “Spitfire” which would you choose? What if I told you that the Hurricane could turn well inside a Spit? Its not about aerodynamics, it’s about tactical advantages which is a composite of the plane’s individual strengths and weaknesses.

Can Anyone Make A Case…?
Can anyone make a case that it was NOT tactical air that won WWII? That ground forces, though necessary were not the advantage the allies had over the Germans? If you remove tactical support from the western front (both sides) what would have been the outcome? Is there anyone that thinks Patton would have chased the Germans across Normandy? A better question would be “would Patton have had forces in Normandy in the first place”? Air can win without the ground but it cannot reap the victory. The ground cannot reap victory on the without first winning in the air.

 

(adamcotton @ Nov 17 2005, 10:19 AM) [post=41677]For instance, there is P-51 Mustang exponent George Preddy with 27.5 victories (plus 5 victories over ground targets in strafing missions) who ranks as the third highest scoring ace in the ETO, the seventh highest scoring American ace, and the top scoring P-51 ace. Indeed, historians - that word again! - have opined that, had he not been tragically shot down and killed by friendly AA fire while pursuing an Fw190 at treetop height on Christmas day, 1944, he may well have eclipsed "Gabby" Gabreski and even Dick Bong of Pacific fame.

I would suggest that the 56th's reluctance to dispense with its P-47s re-equip with P-51s was due more to a prosaic interest in survivability. The P-47 could dive like a plummet - a very useful evasive manouevere, except at low level, where turning performance and climb ability assume paramount significance. The "Jug" could also absorb the hits in engine and airframe and still bring its pilot home. What kid with his whole life ahead of him wouldn't wed himself to such a machine, particularly one that could pack a mighty punch?

[/b]
Adam, above are two statements you used to somehow diminish the benefit of using a Jug? On one hand you say that Preddy was limited because his plane was not able to take a AAA hit that he might have very well survived in a Jug as so many did. In the other you say that aces were foolish for wanting to survive to continue shooting down planes and this bias toward the Jug was purely emotional attachment? That seems a little contradictory. (by the way, Gabby was taken out strafing an airfield so low he had a prop strike and was captured after a crash landing at high speed and low altitude thanks to the fact he was in a Jug) imagine how many more he would have gotten if he had not gotten greedy and flown so low? BTW: Preddy started out in a Jug. Go look at the top 11 US Aces. They all flew Jugs. Some converted for the escort missions some didn't. Only the 56th was given a choice because it was a darling dear with all its aces.

The Mustang had two distinct advantages over the mid-war Jugs, it had more range (this greatly inverted when the N models came out) and they were cheaper to manufacture. Far more pilots died in Mustangs when the enemy pilots were less experienced (by attrition) than died in Jugs. The survivability rate disparities were remarkable and certainly more than trivial. Is there a more important factor to a fighter? If so, could you please tell me what it is? Second, the Jug could take a beating and a good one from flak and this is why it was put into a role as a tactical Fighter/Bomber. Go look at the number of aces in the Ninth TAC. What are you doing with a crap load of aces in a tactical air group? To think that it was dominant over the German fighters desperate to stop it’s destruction of the German army is laughable from that stat alone. The Jug in the Fighter bomber role over anything else in the US inventory was much more an advantage (what it could carry and how it can take a beating) than the advantages of the Jug over the Mustang in bomber escort and TOT runs.

Correct me if I am wrong here. Isn't the idea of a "fighter" to shoot down the enemy planes and return alive so you can do it again tomorrow? Or is it to be able to do beautiful barrel rolls and get into tight turning dogfights for the sake of giving the enemy a fair chance even if it costs you your life? This is a prosaic aim? Am I missing something here? Talk about bordering on visceral...

Your claims about Johnson being full of it have no merit. Neither of us have any reason to believe him or doubt him. Adam, you can mock anyone including these pilots because talk is cheap.

Your claims about Bong, you fail to mention that he was going against Zeros. A 350 mph plane made of thin metal with no self-sealing tanks is not known for its dogfighting prowess. I think that stat deserves a big asterisk beside it.

You said I attributed the success of the 56th to the Jug. No, Adam, I believe Robert Johnson and Hub Zemke attributed those claims, I merely told you what they think.

You have a real thing about the Jug don't you? I mean you would never come out and say that but I think it is a bit obvious. The idea of a dominant fighter/bomber also being a dominant fighter just sticks in your craw doesn't it?

 

side twist..........

Ta 152H-1

 

(Erich @ Nov 17 2005, 04:04 PM) [post=41685]side twist..........

Ta 152H-1
[/b]

 

(jimbotosome @ Nov 17 2005, 01:33 AM) [post=41647]You too are right redcoat. I bet the Americans never even shot down a single plane in the war. They just flew around in circles hoping their heroes in the RAF would come and shoot down the Germans on their tails. The exaggerations had to be at least 100:1. I would have never known American pilots were such liars and RAF pilots speak only truth as the oracles of God unless I had seen that opinion posted here on a British forum. There is no insecure jealousy of the RAF today nor in that day. These reports are all true.
[/b]
Please point out where I have ever stated that RAF claims were more accurate than those of the USAAF
images/smilies/default/mad.gif

 

Adam:

your point in my mentioning of the TA 152H-1 ? do not see a reply but a blank.

Erich

 

(jimbotosome @ Nov 17 2005, 03:51 PM) [post=41684](adamcotton @ Nov 17 2005, 10:19 AM) [post=41677]For instance, there is P-51 Mustang exponent George Preddy with 27.5 victories (plus 5 victories over ground targets in strafing missions) who ranks as the third highest scoring ace in the ETO, the seventh highest scoring American ace, and the top scoring P-51 ace. Indeed, historians - that word again! - have opined that, had he not been tragically shot down and killed by friendly AA fire while pursuing an Fw190 at treetop height on Christmas day, 1944, he may well have eclipsed "Gabby" Gabreski and even Dick Bong of Pacific fame.

I would suggest that the 56th's reluctance to dispense with its P-47s re-equip with P-51s was due more to a prosaic interest in survivability. The P-47 could dive like a plummet - a very useful evasive manouevere, except at low level, where turning performance and climb ability assume paramount significance. The "Jug" could also absorb the hits in engine and airframe and still bring its pilot home. What kid with his whole life ahead of him wouldn't wed himself to such a machine, particularly one that could pack a mighty punch?

[/b]
Adam, above are two statements you used to somehow diminish the benefit of using a Jug? On one hand you say that Preddy was limited because his plane was not able to take a AAA hit that he might have very well survived in a Jug as so many did. In the other you say that aces were foolish for wanting to survive to continue shooting down planes and this bias toward the Jug was purely emotional attachment? That seems a little contradictory. (by the way, Gabby was taken out strafing an airfield so low he had a prop strike and was captured after a crash landing at high speed and low altitude thanks to the fact he was in a Jug) imagine how many more he would have gotten if he had not gotten greedy and flown so low? BTW: Preddy started out in a Jug. Go look at the top 11 US Aces. They all flew Jugs. Some converted for the escort missions some didn't. Only the 56th was given a choice because it was a darling dear with all its aces.

The Mustang had two distinct advantages over the mid-war Jugs, it had more range (this greatly inverted when the N models came out) and they were cheaper to manufacture. Far more pilots died in Mustangs when the enemy pilots were less experienced (by attrition) than died in Jugs. The survivability rate disparities were remarkable and certainly more than trivial. Is there a more important factor to a fighter? If so, could you please tell me what it is? Second, the Jug could take a beating and a good one from flak and this is why it was put into a role as a tactical Fighter/Bomber. Go look at the number of aces in the Ninth TAC. What are you doing with a crap load of aces in a tactical air group? To think that it was dominant over the German fighters desperate to stop it?s destruction of the German army is laughable from that stat alone. The Jug in the Fighter bomber role over anything else in the US inventory was much more an advantage (what it could carry and how it can take a beating) than the advantages of the Jug over the Mustang in bomber escort and TOT runs.

Correct me if I am wrong here. Isn't the idea of a "fighter" to shoot down the enemy planes and return alive so you can do it again tomorrow? Or is it to be able to do beautiful barrel rolls and get into tight turning dogfights for the sake of giving the enemy a fair chance even if it costs you your life? This is a prosaic aim? Am I missing something here? Talk about bordering on visceral...

Your claims about Johnson being full of it have no merit. Neither of us have any reason to believe him or doubt him. Adam, you can mock anyone including these pilots because talk is cheap.

Your claims about Bong, you fail to mention that he was going against Zeros. A 350 mph plane made of thin metal with no self-sealing tanks is not known for its dogfighting prowess. I think that stat deserves a big asterisk beside it.

You said I attributed the success of the 56th to the Jug. No, Adam, I believe Robert Johnson and Hub Zemke attributed those claims, I merely told you what they think.

You have a real thing about the Jug don't you? I mean you would never come out and say that but I think it is a bit obvious. The idea of a dominant fighter/bomber also being a dominant fighter just sticks in your craw doesn't it?
[/b]
Jimbo, you are getting all hot under the collar again! Look, these are matters of purely academic interest to me - it's not the holy grail! No suggestion of yours or anyone else's has ever "stuck in my craw" - I don't generally get that emotional about these issues....

However, you are very selective about the elements of my posts to which you choose to respond. You also seem to deliberately mis-interpret and mis-quote me to advance your own theories, but I shall try to refrain from doing you a similar dis-service and respond to each of your points in turn....

I never said aces were "foolish" for wanting to survive and continue shooting down planes.....I merely meant that any pilot will develop an attachment for a machine that has seen him through countless times of danger. Wouldn't you? Pilots loved the Hurricane for the same reason, even though it was clearly inferior to the opposition.

As for Preddy's rank as an ace, I suppose it depends which list you consult. Mine ranked him the 7th highest scoring American ace. Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't. It's not really important. The point is he illustrates that you didn't have to be flying a P-47 to be highly successful.

I have never argued against you as regards the Jug's merits as a tactical fighter-bomber, and agree it was the best of the best in this role. So why are you using it as a stick to beat me round the head with?

Of course the aim of a fighter is to shoot down others and survive so as to be able to go out and do it the following day. But to dismiss manouverability simply as the ability to do pretty barrell rolls and turn tightly so as to give your enemy a chance to shoot you down is a puerile statement! It was precisely that manouverability, that ability to turn tightly, that saved the lives of so many Spitfire and Hurricane pilots in 1940, and meant they too could go out and do it again tomorrow!!! Even when the later, more powerful marques of Spitfire came along, its manouverability - its tight turning circle - was its chief evasive manouvere. (together with climbing turns and, downward, barrelled aileron turns). Come on, Jimbo - this is not worthy of you!

And at what point did I "mock" Robert Johnson? What I actually said was that, given the scenario I outlined, it was eminiently possible he genuinely believed he was outclimbing a Spitfire, and that very natural conclusion in no way reflected discredit upon him. That is a long, long way from calling him a liar!

Furthermore, I cannot believe that you actually maintain that the Zero was not noted for its dogfighting prowess!! Is this another attempt by you to insert an "original" thought into the telling of history? It was precisely because of the Zero's lack of armour and self-sealing fuel tanks that it was such a phenomenal dogfighter, so much so that the pilots of Seafires (navalised Spitfire, THE dogfighter by anyone's standards - except maybe yours) in the Pacific were issued strict orders never to "dogfight with the Zeke 52 (Zero). It is too manouverable."! They were exhorted to instead use the dive and slashing tactics favoured by the US P-47 groups and the Luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain. There are also well documented accounts of Zero pilots flying unheard of aerobatics round formations of allied fighters who, with their extra weight, were unable to replicate the manouveres or draw close to a firing position.

So, the fact that Dick Bong scored 40 victories against these aircraft (actually, they weren't ALL against Zeros, but a fair proportion were) only makes his achievement all the greater, especially when one remembers he was mounted on twin engined, twin boom P-38 Lightnings - most certainly NOT a dogfighter, and not even possessing the P-47s advantages in dive and climb....

If Preddy had survived and eclipsed Bong, he would have had Bong's crown as the American "ace of aces", yet Bong's achievement would still have been the greater as he was flying against an adversary at least as good as Preddy's, and in many ways better, in an aircraft somewhat inferior to the Mustang.

If Bob Johnson and Hub Zemke attribute the success of the 56th to the Jug then I am not going to argue against them, but I wonder what Don Blakeslee would attribute the success of the 4th Fighter Group to?

 

Erich - the TA152? An interesting muse. A development of the long nosed Fw 190 "Dora", I believe its main purpose was to get as high as possible as quickly as possible to pounce on American bomber formations and their escorts. Mighty fast, no doubt, but with those long, relatively high aspect ratio wings its roll rate would have been very slow - though, as turn radius is a function of wing loading, it may have redeemed itself in the manouvering fight by having a reasonable turning circle.