ORIGINAL: skull1971
To hold it to the letter of the law,,
1. Speed, Me-262 Germany
2. Firepower, again Germany, 30mm cannon. ( only"Gun" bigger 75mm smooth bore B-25)
3. Tactics, HISTORY shows, The Allies
4. Innovation, Germany, Me-262, Me-163. Britt's a CLOSE second for the Meteor.
5. Manuverability, well this is a toss up, I'd say, EVEN
6. Availability, Allies, hands down. More over the U.S.
Let's see, out of 6, 3 and a tie for Germany, and 2 and a tie for the Allies. Plus I NEVER gave a thought about the Russian's which would make it a tie with the U.S. on item #6.
Russian WWII aircraft had many flaws... one bullet in the radiator of a Yak and down she went. The Russian planes were very heavy, and some used wood or Bakelite which would become brittle at high altittudes.
Oleg (The founder or IL2 Simulator Game) and I... have gone toe to toe on this subject. He had the Russian planes almost unbeatable and the Spit terrible... and the P-51 was a nightmare!
The Germans ate the Russian planes for dinner... from what I've studied. It was after the war when they captured the German aircraft that they started to get better with thier aircraft design.
Heck, they stole the B-29... reversed engineered it and rebuilt it as there own because all thier bombers sucked.