Warbird Information Exchange

Shay - I am going to dig when I get home from a trip. I like your explanation for the arrival of the RN Corsair via surface boat better than the story about the Japanese transporting one by sub.. a boat is a boat to some people.

The only two source I have (off hand) that would shed light on that subject is Strangers in a Strange Land and Luftwaffe Test Pilot.

Tho...you might temper that thought by remembering the Japanese had some pretty
large undersea cruisers quite capable of freighting loads with Europe...and did.

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I know that (large Japanese subs), which is why my first reaction to the account of how an F4U arrived at Rechlin was credible.. but Shay's find from RN is a simpler explanation.

Also if by some chance two actually made it it would seem to me that it would be one of the ships that would have some record of actual test results - by virtue of repair, yet I see no indication of that in Luftwaffe Test Pilot... but this is pure speculation on my part.

So it seems from the reports the Hellcat and Corasir would have pretty much mopped up the FW-190.
Still curious though, how do you think the Spitfire would have done against the Zero? Take the pilot out of the equation, assume great pilots in both.

I don't understand 'mopped up' conclusion.

The Fw 190D for example would be very equal all around to the F4U-4 and the latest F6Fs.. I suspect fights would be determined by pilot skill and tactical situations.

If the fight is on the deck to medium altitudes, even an Fw 190A7 would compete very well. Great acceleration and roll, good climb and turn in comparison.

The Mustang did well against the Fw 190, pilot skill about the same in ETO at bomber altitudes because the Fw performance tapered off where the 51 was coming into its own for the 1650-3 and 1650-7 Merlins - and thats where the Fw had to compete.. but in lower altitudes it was pretty equal all around except roll and nothing really out rolled a 190 below 15,000 feet and under 300 kts.

It would have been nice to see the F4U in the ETO as perhaps a better choice than the P-47 and P-38 in 1943..but we will never know.

Spit versus Zero should go to the Spit until it tries to engage in medium to low speed manuever - it was hurt in 1942 trying this with a Zero, and the Zero was still hurting USN and USAAF pilots to the end of war when they engaged in Zero strike zone.

drgondog wrote:



Granted, the F4U was a great airplane, BUT...

Better than the P-38? BLASPHEMY!!

Better than the P-47? You're kidding, right?

You need some quiet time to contemplate the error of your ways.

Mudge the outraged

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Mudge - Lol!

However - we ain't talking about the P-38L here, strictly the J and it had its problems... the 20th and 55th were tracking on 2:1 pure air to air combat ratios and worse when considering the operational losses due primarily to problems at high altitude in very cold Fall/Winter 1943-1944.

The 51 was far better than the J (and better than 47), even with its teething problems, in air to air combat with LW and 1/2 the cost.

Interestingly enough, the 38J had a terrible award to loss ratio for strafing during the same period, in comparison with the 51. Admittedly I have a hard time getting real precision on all losses while strafing, simply because you cant' always tell from a MACR whether a guy that hit the trees at the edge of the airfield was hit by flak or just misjudged, so I counted all losses to strafing (including unknown - last seen strafing) and weighed them against aircraft awards on ground.

Using the same criteria for 51s, the 51 ratios were about 4:1, and the 38s were .28 (55th), .84 (2oth) and 1.85 (364th) - which makes you wonder about twin versus single engine reliability in this mode.

I sent the stuff to Mike Williams site recently, and will publish the details in my next book.

IMO - Doolittle made the right decision to go Mustang for target escort but didn't have the benefit of the P-38L performance to change his mind. Conversely the 479th FG had great success with the 38L and the 55th and 364th and 20th did much better, with the P-38L, from May, 1944 forward, until they also converted to 51s..

Got to ask how much attrition of LW core in LuftFlotte Reich from January through May had to do with the ratios in May through September for the 479th, though.

I am unrepenetant on the comment about the P-38J.

It had the range over the 47 but the 47s were doing a far better job against the LW than the 38 in ETO (note - not MTO)..but until 51 was in theatre the 38J was only fighter available to go all the way to the target.

Regards,

Bill

HOLY MAK'l THERE WILLIAM...I was just funnin".

Mudge the chastised

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Land of the free because of the brave

No need for that.. it just happens to be a subject I feel pretty comfortable about. I have studied 8th AF ops for most of my relatively long life and it must be looked at in phases to make definitive statements about air superiority, relative strengths and experience of Luftwaffe Fighter arm versus RAF, 8th and 8th AF and where the short range Spits and 47s dropped off and where the 38s and 51s took over.

There are a lot of opinions about 'overwhelming' numbers of USAAF Fighter Escort in the period December 1943 through May 1944, and a lot of authors on this subject will refer to "900 US Fighters escorting 1,200 bombers" or words to that effect - but what this means is that 6 Fighter groups escorted to Dummer Lake, maybe 3 more took them from east of Koblenz back to the coast -

In reality only 1-2 Fighter groups of P-38s and P-51s were providing Target Support to each of the Three Bomb Divisions of 8th AF after the Penetration Support of Spits and P-47s turned back. If each bomb division split up to attack different targets then those 1-2 groups were maybe 50-100 fighters to cover 30 miles of bombers.

The LuftFlotte Reich at any day had 400-550 s/e day fighters with up to 30+ Gruppes to direct anywhere they chose to fight.

Bottom line is that 8th AF Mustangs and Lightnings were often outnumbered at the point of attack for at least 6-8 months. It was only at the end of July that the 8th AF had 10 of its 15 Groups converted to the 51, with four P-47 and one P-38 groups remaining of the 'old stuff'.

It was only then that say, 150 fighters could cover 30 miles+ of bomb groups from mid Germany to Poland or SE Germany and back to where the remaining P-47s could pick up.

No more (or much less) long winded talk about this subject..

Regards,

Bill

Bill...I don't find it long winded at all. I appreciate that kind of info. I've seen many documentaries regarding the fighter escort logistics and find them fascinating. It's difficult to comprehend the scale of the planning and split second coordination that it took to accomplish successful escort missions.

We were in Normandy last year and I was totally blown away by the size of the D-Day invasion area and the logistics it took to accomplish that.

I guess most people don't appreciate the enormous amount of planning required for a successful mission.

Mudge the educable

ps. It's just that the P-38 is my favorite warbird.

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Land of the free because of the brave

Mudge - the logistics for just one bomb group are staggering.

Comprehension of the R/V planning back to Time to Take Off, back through mission planning, then forward to ground crew wake up, ops personnel preparing briefing, through pilot wake up, breakfast, briefing, engine start and take off for the Fighters-

- as well as all the things that can go wrong with weather, bomb groups slow to form, etc make it easy to understand how LW were able to find vacuums and really hurt a bombe group, even when we had air superiority.

I went to Normandy in '94. I can't ever go to the Normany memorial/cemetary as well as Liege and in Holland without getting teary eyed, and the darn things are all over Europe. We have shed an enormous amount of blood all over the world.

Here is one link to the write up I did on 8th AF FC. It has detailed break outs by each fighter group, the relevant statistics by fighter type, etc. About five years of research with a lot of help.

http://www.luftwaffe-experten.org/forum ... entry25799

Bill,
"Mop up" may have been a poor choice of words to describe the impression of air superiority that I gathered after reading about the testing done on the Hellcat, F4U and the FW-190. It seemed the conclusion was the FW-190 was a wonderful plane to fly but the two American fighters were superior overall. The report stated "Not equal to the F4U or the F6F in combat".
It did not say "mop up". I stand corrected.
You obviously know your stuff and I love hearing what you have to say, which leads me to my next theoretical question.
If you could rate the single engine fighters of WW2 in a 'top 9' format, with air to air combat, ie dogfighting, being the sole criteria, how would these planes rate?
P-51
Zero
ME-109
F6F Hellcat
P-47
P-38
FW-190
Spitfire
Hurricane

Thanks!

Seem to be missing 'Corsair' from that list.....

M

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Mark Morris

I wondered why my top 10 list turned into a top 9..
Egad..
Of course the F4U as well needs to be included.

What about the Yakovlev Yak-3. Did the Luftwaffe not issue an order not to fight this aircraft under 5000m? It was designed as a purebred dogfighter and I beleive it deserves a mention. What do you think?

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