Evil_Merlin

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Oh really?

The B-17 was in widespread construction by 1938, 155 B-17s of all variants had been delivered between 11 January 1937 and 30 November 1941.
There were 450 orders in for the P-51 before the end of 1940.
The P-38's inital contract for 66 units was signed in 1940 and all of the units delivered before 1941. 524 units were on order before 1941.

I will agree, that the US dumped lots of money after Pearl Harbor, but to say they wete not being built or just the prototype stage is not correct.

WhiteRook

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thats a goodpoint , , alot of it is the pilot , sometimes the faster airplane doesnt win. BUT the US just had more resources, planes
and more pilots , its a story of atrition more than anything.

p51f4f

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Evil Merlin

I do agree with you on the statement, we must all remember the day Pearl Habor was attacked the Newest verson of the B-17 that we would go to war with was being delived to Pearl was the B-17 E.

I had the privilage of meeting one of the pilots a few years ago and hearing of that day they flew into Pearl.

We were getting ready but again the funds were just not totally there until after that fateful day. If there were to ask which was the best fighter in an area or theather of war it would have been better

justified with the reponses that we are getting again, it is aircraft vs aircraft and pilot skills that determined the outcome of most conflicts . Not just the country aircraft. Pick a catagory of plane vs plane and

give the reason you think why one was better than the other and you would still have a heated discussion.

Les

JET FX

Best overall fighter design that had seen action was probably the Me-262. The best piston engine that will always be a topic for debate, although in my opinion the best overall "design" that actually gestated during the war years and did not see action although still was built and flown might just of been the CAC CA-15 Kangaroo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAC_CA-15

rmenke

My Feedback: (13)

Guys:

The military Channel recently did a two hour program on this subject. I found it interesting that the P-51 was a dog at first, then the RR engine was installed and it came to life. In the final determination, number of production units, and a lot of tec. detail was used to crown the P-51 as the champ, hands down. Part of the reasons were its long range, rugged airframe, pilot safety etc. They also showed the Germans lost more 109's go ground takeoff and landing accidents than destroyed in combat. I was fortunate to help restore a ME-109 in the 70's in Texas. When finished and ready for trial flight, would the dumbest pilot step forward for maden flight honers. Everyone stepped back leaving me all to myself. Being indestructable at that age, with lots of Swift and Funk stick time, (ground looping fools to those pilots never having the pleasure) I felt secure in doing a lot of taxi trials. Little did I know the 109's will fly at around 55-65 mph, so I was in the air without intending to do so. It felt very good, so what the heck. After close to two hours of flying around, without reservation, this thing was the best flying bird I have had the pleasure to be in. So solid at speed, around 300mph, light stick rolling and looping, just a real pleasure to fly, slow or fast. The stall horn was opperative corresponding to that red mark on the air speed indicator, flaps cofortable. Time to go home. Landing the thing was uneventful. I never felt that gonna swerve thing associated with, say the globe swift I have never had the pleasure of flying the P-51, so no pilot compairson here. The only other high performance aircraft I have a good amount of stick time in is the old F-86. I do not now, or never have ever liked the gutless underpowered F-86. Perhaps the AFROTC birds were a little different than on line military versions. A buddy loved them and has had combat time in Korea, so I think we got the old hags.

scalebirdman

My Feedback: (6)

All the modern warbird survivors fly like dreams compared to their wartime counterparts with out the extra ton of armor, self-sealing fuel tanks, guns, ammo and 1940's radios.

DeferredDefect

HOW ABOUT THIS?

NOBODY is right - all aircraft had their advantages and disadvantages. Some actually did suck.
We will NEVER agree on the best, and there is no point debating it. Ifyou go to the States, it's the P-51, UK the Spitfire or Hurricane,Russia the Yak-3, Germany the FW-190. (please don't trash me because Igot your nation's view wrong!)

This is going nowhere, and we are wasting our time. I for one, will notchange my view on the best fighter, nor would most people. I understandthis poll was to find the general consensus, but that would be biased,as 75% of people on here are American. If we all we Slovakian, we wouldbe saying the I.A.R 80 was the best, and Slovakia produced the bestfighters.

Can we please keep the arguments clean, and stop posting this kind of endless debate on here?

 This debate will NEVER end.

Thank you

Graeme

CorsairJock

My Feedback: (90)

Actually, some of us are more objective and open minded. Not ALL of us Americans are voting for the P-51, or ANY American fighter for that matter.

DeferredDefect

No, I understand that, but the original poll was not a specific aircraft, but a nation. The vast majority would vote for a home built aircraft.

Thank you

Graeme

DeferredDefect

My main point was that no matter what kind of evidence each one presents showcasing "their" best fighter, we won't agree on the best.

Thanks again

Graeme

Ram-bro

My Feedback: (101)

once again it was the nation with the best aircraft overall, in actual service and not prototypes and or one offs. This isnt that difficult just an emotional debate. If Slovakia wants to say the IAR 80 fine but that is just one aircraft. If the Americans were to go against the Brits or the bits against the French or the French against the Americans or the Germans or whoever , which nation had the best domestically produced aircraft?

DeferredDefect

Howabout Poland? The P.11 was pretty sweet...

JET FX

Sorry I was basing my vote on the thread name... maybe you should change the title if some opinions bothers you?

Nation wise- The Germans then especially if it comes down to simply 1 on 1 dogfighting they did consistently have the overall best fighter designs hands down throughout the conflict.... Design wise they were the best nation. The swept wing jet powered Me 262 was simply an outstanding concept and to the best of my knowledge "performance wise" never was bettered during WW2 by any other nations fighters.

The CA-15 in my opinion was the ultimate evolution of the "piston" engined fighter conceived during the war and worth a mention if just to be different from the ever popular Spitfire and P-51 voters. I think it would of seriously come close to being the ultimate inline piston powered fighter, And Iam sure very few people have even heard of it. ....

Michel

Hi
I have been following this thread from the start .

The all-most same question was asked on RCC . The question is NOT a good one at all . It MUST be narrowed down to a specific time period with-in WWII . Now there are many winners , and many losers . Not WHO won the war .

Good reading though , I,ve injoyed it . And learnt something . Thats what these forms are all about .

Michel

Ram-bro

My Feedback: (101)

hey I dont mind opinions, heck its either this or lets talk politics....your choice? The questio cant be worded any better. I is doing what it was designed for, to get people thinking , talking and yes yelling. To go by time period is just muddying the waters...... RCU rocks

Old Erkki

Greetings from Finland

We did also our own fighter design during WW II and it was definately not best fighter that time.

But anyway one point people have to consider is that complitely different demand for Axis home defence fighter than Allied escort fighter.

American fighters with six or eight .50 cal machine guns were quite succeesfull against relatively soft skinned German fighters an specially Japanese planes. But I have serious doubt about their capabilities with heavy four engined bombers. It might be, that total weight of lead with eigth machine guns is bigger than with four 20 mm guns but destructive power is much bigger with guns.

So, maybe P-51 was best escort fighter but maybe not best interceptor fighter against heavy bombers. There is different tools for different jobs


Old Erkki

psuguru

The round used in the Browning .50 cal was originally designed for use against armoured vehicles in an anti-tank rifle. If you look at it alongside the .30cal round used by the RAF, it's a monster.
It's the 8-gun fighter argument again. Yes, a 20mm cannon shell goes more damage than a .30 cal machine gun bullet if it hits the target. But with 8 guns, you have more chance of some bullets hitting the target (the pilot's head), you can carry more ammunition per gun and there is a greater chance that all your guns will not jam. (ie 1 gun = 12.5% of your armament rather than 33%). With a .50cal armed machine, all that applies but with bigger holes.The trajectory of the .50cal round was very flat and coupled with the high velocity, it made targeting easier than with cannon.

the A10 Thunderbolt still gets "Awesome" applied to it because of its big gun, but the Hawker Hunter had 4 x 30mm Aden cannon up the front, EACH capable of 1200 rounds per minute. The weight of fire was such that it would slow the aircraft and the expended cases had to be retained on-board because of the trim change. The Me262 had that weight of fire power in 1944! (as did the Mosquito, Beaufighter etc etc)

Whistling Death

You don't seem to know much about ballistics. It's laughable that you think a .50 caliber round was only successful against "relatively soft skinned German fighters an specially Japanese planes."

Old Erkki

Dear Blake

It was so nice of you start with insult of my knowledge, but I try to make my meaning very simple for you.

1. I did not say that.50 machine gun is bad weapon. Actually it is very effective, over 70 years of active service and maybe 0,5 millions examples built.

2. I have not seen any document that is telling that Zeros, Vals, Bettys, Nells etc were extremely well armoured. Usual comments were that couple hits made them burn. Also ME 109 or FW-190 were not able to sustain as much damage as B-17. So that is my meaning with "soft skinned".

3. I did not say that those planes were easy to shoot down, but that is completely different thing

4. Even if dont know anything about ballistic, thruth is that 20 mm or 30 mm gun have more destructive power than .50 cal machine gun.

5. American or any other allied fighter pilot did not have to approach fleet of heavy bombers with same weapon as those had for defensive armnament. Maybe that was one reason why Germans and Japanese tried to find some advantage with 20 or 30 mm guns.

But I am ready to open my mind so please tell me

1. Where did you find information that Japanese planes had strong structure and were well armoured to be extremely hard skinned.

2.What planes had American fighter pilots against them in Europe or Pacific. Which of those were hard skinned.

3.How many four engined fighting planes did Allied pilots shoot down

4 How many B-24, B-17 and B-29s were shoot down with only .50 cal machine gun armed fighter.

5 On the other hand how many did Axis shoot down with more heavily armed fighters, Me 109 1x30mm+ 2x 20mm+2x13mm. FW 190 2x 20 mm +2x 13mm.

Just to make it simple .50 cal machine gun is good weapon but it did not have to fight against well armoured heavy bombers.

Old Erkki

at-6 texan

I hope to not wrong, 'but I think which these are the real planes leading to the second world war !....

G-Pete

Best fighter planes in WW2 hmmmmm......??

Germany clearly!

Sure discovery Channel and History Channel will always point to the "Made in America".

Anyhow, the first 50 German Aces shot down 8190 airplanes combined. The first 50 American Aces scored 987.75 (I don't know how you can have a 0.33 or a 0.5)

The 190 was a very good ship, but the 109 was the Ferrari. The 109 could easy out climb the Mustang, make tighter turns and closer loops. With less wing weight and the most of the mass concentrated in the fuse the 109 rolled hard very controllable.

So, the best fighters had Germany - hands down. But the war was won by the B-17 and the P-47...with assistance of the P-51.

wingspar

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Here is an interesting story I ran across.......




American P-51 pilot Lawence Thompson flies into his first dogfight and begins to chase a German ME-109, he soon wishes he had picked a different German...

".... This was my first major dogfight I had in the war, in January 1945. I was flying a P-51D and we were supposed to meet with bombers over Romania. Well, the bombers never showed up! And we kept circling and wasting our fuel. When we were low on fuel the squadron leader orders us back to base, with the top group at 24,000 feet and the four bait Mustangs ordered to 15,000 feet. Now you might not really think about it, but the difference in altitude, 9,000 feet, is almost two miles, and assuming that the top flight could dive and rescue the 'bait' airplanes, it might take a full sixty seconds or more for the top group to come to the rescue. A heck of a lot can happen in sixty seconds. Earlier, I requested to fly in the bait section believing that I'd have a better chance to get some scores (at that time I had no victories either) and this was my seventh mission.

So we're all heading back to Italy when, all of a sudden, a dozen or so Me109's bounce us. From one moment it's a clear blue sky, next moment there are dozens' of tracers passing my cockpit. I'm hit several times and I roll over to the right, and below me is an P-51, heading for the deck, with an Me109 chasing him. I begin to chase the Me109. All this time I believe there was another Me109 chasing me! It was a racetrack, all four of us were racing for the finish line! Eventually I caught up with the first Me109 and I fired a long burst at about 1,000 yards, to no effect. Then I waited until about 600 yards, I fired two very long bursts, probably five seconds each (P-51 has ammo for about 18 seconds of continuous bursts for four machine guns, the remaining two machine guns will shoot for about 24 seconds). I noticed that part of his engine cowling flew off and he immediately broke off his attack on the lead P-51. I check my rear view mirrors and there's nothing behind me now; somehow, I have managed to lose the Me109 following me, probably because the diving speed of the P-51 is sixty mph faster than the Me109. So I pull up on the yoke and level out; suddenly a Me109 looms about as large as a barn door
right in front of me! And he fires his guns at me, and he rolls to the right, in a Lufbery circle. I peel off, following this Me109. I can see silver P-51s and black nosed camouflaged painted Me109s everywhere I look. At this time I cannot get on the
transmitter and talk, everyone else in the squadron is yelling and talking, and there's nothing but yelling, screaming, and incoherent interference as everyone presses their mike buttons at the same time. I can smell something in the cockpit. Hydraulic fluid! I knew I got hit earlier..... I'm still following this Me109. I just got my first confirmed kill of my tour, and now I'm really hot. I believe that I am the hottest pilot in the USAAF! And now I'm thinking to myself: am I going to shoot this Me109 down too?! He rolls and we turn, and turn; somehow, I cannot catch up with him in the Lufbery circle, we just keep circling. About the third 360 degree turn he and I must have spotted two Mustangs flying below us, about 2,000 feet below, and he dives for the two P-51s.

Now I'm about 150 yards from him, and I get my gun sight on his tail, but I cannot shoot, because if I shoot wide, or my bullets pass through him, I might shoot down one or both P-51s, so I get a front seat, watching, fearful that this guy will shoot down a P-51. We're approaching at about 390 mph. There's so much interference on the R/T I cannot warn the two Mustangs, I fire one very long burst of about seven or eight seconds purposely wide, so it misses the Mustangs, and the Me109 pilot can see the tracers. None of the Mustang pilots see the tracers either! I was half hoping that they'd see my tracers and turn out of the way of the diving Me109. But no such luck. I quit firing. The Me109 still dives, and as he approaches the two P-51s he holds his fire, and as the gap closes, two hundred yards, one hundred yards, fifty yards the Hun does not fire a shot. No tracers, nothing! At less than ten yards the Hun fires one single shot from his 20mm cannon! And Bang! Engine parts, white smoke, glycol, what not from the lead P-51 is everywhere, and that unfortunate Mustang begins a gentle roll to the right (he was taken POW).

I try to watch the Mustang down, but cannot; now my full attention is on the Hun! Zoom. We fly through the two Mustangs, now the advantage of the P-51 is really apparent, as in a dive I am catching up to the Me109 faster than a runaway freight train. I press the trigger for only a second then let up, I believe at that time I was about 250 yards distant, but the Hun was really pulling lots' of negative and positive g's and pulling up to
the horizon. He levels out and then does a vertical tail stand! And next thing I know, he's using his built up velocity from the dive to make a vertical ninety degree climb. This guy is really an experienced pilot. I'm in a vertical climb, and my P-51 begins to roll clockwise violently, only by pushing my left rudder almost through the floor can I stop my P-51 from turning. We climb for altitude; in the straight climb that Me109 begins to out distance me, though my built up diving speed makes us about equal in the climb. We climb one thousand fifteen hundred feet, and at eighteen hundred feet, the Hun levels his aircraft out. A vertical climb of 1,800 feet! I've never heard of a piston aircraft climbing more than 1,000 feet in a tail stand. At this time we're both down to stall speed, and he levels out. My airspeed indicator reads less than 90 mph! I'm really close now to the Me109, less than twenty five yards! Now if I can get my guns on him.........

At this range, the gun sight is more of nuisance than a help. Next thing, he dumps his flaps fast and I begin to overshoot him! That's not what I want to do, because then he can bear his guns on me. The P-51 has good armor, but not good enough to stop 20mm cannon hits. This Luftwaffe pilot must be one heck of a marksman, I just witnessed him shoot down a P-51 with a single 20mm cannon shot! So I do the same thing, I dump my flaps, and as I start to overshoot him, I pull my nose up, this really slows me down; S-T-A-L-L warning comes on! And I can't see anything ahead of me nor in the rear view mirror. Now I'm sweating everywhere. My eyes are burning because salty sweat keeps blinding me: 'Where is He!?!' I shout to myself. I level out to prevent from stalling. And there he is, flying on my right side. We are flying side to side, less than twenty feet separates our wingtips. He's smiling and laughing at himself. I notice that he has
a red heart painted on his aircraft, just below the cockpit. The nose and spinner are painted black.

It's my guess that he's a very experienced ace from the Russian front. His tail has a number painted on it: "200". I wonder: what the "two hundred" means!? Now I began to examine his airplane for any bullet hits, after all, I estimate that I just fired 1,600 rounds at the Hun. I cannot see a single bullet hole in his aircraft! I could swear that I must have gotten at least a dozen hits! I keep inspecting his aircraft for any damage. One time, he even lifts his left wing about 15 degrees, to let me see the underside, still no hits! That's impossible I tell myself. Totally impossible. Then I turn my attention back to the "200" which is painted on the tail rudder. German aces normally paint a marker for each victory on their tail. It dawns on me that quick: TWO HUNDRED KILLS !! We fly side by side for five minutes. Those five minutes take centuries to pass. Less than twenty five feet away from me is a Luftwaffe ace, with over two hundred kills. We had been in a slow gradual dive now, and my altitude indicates 8,000 feet. I'm panicking now, even my socks are soaked in sweat. The German pilot points at his tail, obviously meaning the "200" victories, and then very slowly and dramatically makes a knife cutting motion across his throat, and points at me. He's telling me in sign language that I'm going to be his 201 kill! Panic! I'm breathing so hard, it sounds like a wind tunnel with my mask on. My heart rate must have doubled to 170 beats per minute; I can feel my chest, thump-thump and so this goes on for centuries, and centuries. The two of us flying at stall speed, wingtip to wingtip. I think more than once of simply ramming him. He keeps watching my ailerons; maybe that's what he expects me to do. We had heard of desperate pilots who, after running out of ammunition, would commit suicide by ramming an enemy plane. Then I decide that I can Immelmann out of the situation, and I began to climb, but because my flaps are down, my Mustang only climbs about one hundred feet, pitches over violently to the right and stalls. The next instant I'm dangerously spinning, heading ninety degrees vertically down! And the IAS reads 300 mph! My P-51 just falls like a rock to the earth! I hold the yoke in the lower left corner and sit on the left rudder, flaps up, and apply FULL POWER! I pull out of the dive at about 500 feet, level out, (I began to black out so with my left hand I pinch my veins in my neck to stop blackout). I scan the sky for anything! There's not a plane in the sky, I dive to about fifty feet elevation, heading towards Italy. I fly at maximum power for about ten minutes, and then reduce my rpm (to save gasoline), otherwise the P-51 has very limited range at full power. I fly like this for maybe an hour, no planes in the vicinity; all the time I scan the sky, check my rear view mirrors.

I never saw the Me109 with the red heart again. At the mess I mention the Me109 with the red heart and "200" written on the tail. That's when the whole room, I mean everybody, gets instantly quiet. Like you could hear a pin drop. Two weeks later the base commander shows me a telex: "....according to intelligence, the German pilot with a red heart is Erich Hartmann who has downed 250 aircraft and there is a reward of fifty thousand dollars offered by Stalin for shooting him down. I’ve never before heard of a cash reward for shooting down an enemy ace ...

Experten109/40

My Feedback: (-1)

mabey so, but the 109 (and the Spitfire & Hurricanefor that matter)could not out turn or out roll a P-40. also, it could not out dive the P-40 either.
so where does that leave the 109?

ZERO-322

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Wingspar great story thanks for sharing I very much enjoyed it !

P40 answer me a questions or two

If the P40 was such a successful fighter a zero killer as you state , then why was it phased out for other designs ? why didn't they just put a stronger engine in it because it was clear the allison wasn't cut out for it or the merlin engine they put into the mustang and call it a day ? why was an entire aircraft designed (mustang) instead ?

psuguru

Going upwards?