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Subject: How to judge what the best fighter plane is?
45-Shooter    1/3/2013 5:09:26 PM
I would list the following traits in the order of their importance; 1. Cruising speed under combat conditions. 2. Range/Persistence under combat conditions. 3. Flight qualities, specifically the ability to point the nose at the target easily and a very high rate of roll. 4. CL Guns with high MV/BC and rates of fire. 5. Pitch response, IE the rate at which you can load the plane. 6. Climb at Military Power. In WW-II terms, that means ~75-80% throttle, rich mixture and appropriate pitch on the prop.( A setting that can be held for at least 30 minutes!) 7. Top speed! To escape or run down the target. 8. Lastly the ability to turn in the so called "Dog Fight"! After you rate these choices, I'll mark the list with what I think is the strength of each atribute.
 
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45-Shooter       4/2/2013 9:25:04 PM
Shooter, instead of demanding that others do all the research, how about you start providing some links because so far you have provided nothing substantial to back up your claims. Lets start with the RAFs supposed difficulties of 43 and 44 in Europe. Put up or shut up.
Since several other besides myself have posted those links to the various claims of the RAF's gross troubles over France in '43-44, I made the asumption that those points were not in dispute! Those dificulties were well known and widely documented. If you want to back the argument up to that point, I am not really interested as it does nothing to advance the discussian of which traits does a great fighter plane need to be called great!
 
Your comments on rate of climb being over-rated are utter rubbish. Not really! If you want to learn about how important time to height is,  get yourself an account of how the Fw-190s beat the Spitfire MkVs over the Dieppe Raid. They climbed so quickly to 25,000 or above when the air cover for the raid was coming in that they managed to get above the Spitfire Vs and fought them into the ground. So, do you think it would have mattered if the Germans had had slower climbing lower powered, but still faster and more nimble planes in that narrowly defined instance? The fact that they could rapidly climb through the lower part of the climb allowed them to gain critical height, compensating the Fw-190s poorer performance at higher altitudes. Was entirely due to their very much better P/W! Not the things that traditionaly made a plane quick climbing! If the Spitfire had been reduced in size until it had the same surface and weight to power ratios as the Fw-190, it probably would have been able to match or exceed it's rate of climb, but only at great loss to it's ability to turn and burn! The trades are every where and they are criticle to the performance won.
You also should do some reading on how much the Aussie P-40 pilots didn't like the fact that virtually all of the Japanese fighters could climb above them in New Guinea and gain the advantage. That is why the RAAF got Spitfire MkVs (which were actually out of date by that time), there was no other fighter available at that time that could get to height in time to do the high altitude intercepts above Darwin, and even the Spits had to flog their engines to do it. 
But the battles over Darwin were at ~10,000'! An altitude certainly well with in the reach of the P-40. 
I meant that the aircraft needs to be able to overtake the cruising aircraft in the dive. It is academic for most WW2 types that we are talking about anyway because they were all more than fast enough to pull off a surprise bounce.
A much more rational idea than before, but still flawed. The IDEA is that the faster a plane cruises, the longer it takes the attacker to over take them. As you point out above, "All fighters of the time had this ability"! But if their dive speed leaves 30 seconds between the start of the attack at 2 miles range and the consumation of that attack at 300 yards range when he opens fire, then the target has a much larger chance to see it comming and change the dynamic into a dog fight where his chances are very much better of at least surviving, if not winning! On the other hand, if the differance in speeds is such that the attacker only takes 20 seconds to reach firing poss, then he is 50% more likely to win and the target 50% less likely to survive the initial attack! Since this dynamic is the fact of life between 80 and 93% of the time, why not maximize this factor?
 
 

 



 
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Jabberwocky       4/2/2013 10:55:25 PM
 
 
But the battles over Darwin were at ~10,000'! An altitude certainly well with in the reach of the P-40. 

 
 

 
Shooter, the Spitfire V dogfights over Darwin in 1943 were generally above 27,000 ft, and exceeded 32,000 ft on several occasions. Getting up that high in response to a raid was the primary situational difficulty that the Spitfires had.
 
Look up 'Darwin Spitfires' by Anthony Cooper for a very detailed and very fair account of each of the 1942/1943 raids.  
 
The early Darwin raids, defended by P-40s, were indeed lower. The first raid was at 14,000 ft, the second at 18,000 ft.
 
I repeat my plea of earlier: RESEARCH all your statements before. It will save us all time in correcting you, and you wouldn't be caught out coming up with such nonsense.
 
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oldbutnotwise       4/3/2013 3:07:20 AM
As to the picture of a 2-1/2 Kilogram wrapper, several questions come to mind;
1. Was that Pkg sold in the UK? I doubt it!
No I doubt it to as we were imperial and would buty in pounds and long tons not someone elses measurements (say like US tons)
2. Was it net or Gross weight?
irrelavent dont you think?
3. Do you think that they would target their products to the market, or are then completely blind to location? IE, did they sell that Pkg in America and the British Empire that used Impirial units?
 
SO what you are saying is that they sold in the units that related to the country of sale, but wait a minute you said that they all explosives were sold in Short Tons, these tow statements seem to mutually exclusive
 
4. So that seems to be totally irrealivant to the past history?
 
something disagrees so you discount it as irrelavent typical shooter
 
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oldbutnotwise       4/3/2013 3:18:29 AM
Actually according to Spick not only was Hartman not the best, he wasnt even the best German Ace, he just encounted more target per sortee and flew more sorties than the rest, if you compare kills per contact hartman is only the 73 best german ace (and a number of british canadian, austrailian and american aces feature a lot higher) OK, I buy all of this, if it's true and I think it probably is. But, just for my own nowledge, where did you get those stats?
Oh how amusing, you ask where I get the facts from yet the source is (drum roll please) Shooter own source Mike Spick, I thought you had read his books, either you havent or you failed to understand his analysis
 

Shooter has a tendancy to fit facts to his vision of the world and ignore anything that does fit his world. No, in fact it is the exact oposite! I fit my idea to the facts first and formost!
|Either you dont or you fact finding skills are non existant, you have been proved wrong in just about every fact you have ever come up with, and as you have no quarms about inventing facts when it suits you you have no credibility here

A pure boom a zoom fighter will only be succssfull if you can control the fight, if you cant then you end up with a just a target somthing that once started will only get worse. Not true! A pure zoom and boom fighter will have those advantages, speed and pointability, that make it a very much more proliffic surprize killer and those same advantages also make escape from the dog fight much easier! So it is much more sucessful in those 80-93% of the fights that are surprise kills and very much more sucessful in escaping from those times when the sneak attack fails!
 
The ulitnate zoom and boom fighter of ww2 was the Me262 and just what did the P51 do to them?The Me 262 had every trait you regard as important and weaknesses in every area you say are unimportant yet were knocked down in droves by p51 and other piston engined fighters
 

a few points, first cl guns suffer though loss of rof (especially the .5 browning) unless you have a pusher or a twin (which both have its own problem) While it is true that the original M2HB .50 Caliber gun did suffer from a larger than normal loss of rate of fire when mounted behind the prop, that defect was largely cured in later versions of the basic gun in the M2 short barreled version of the gun
 
No you have been informed by experts in the field of just how bad the .5 browning suffered, a problem that was never cured.
 
 
. But when compaired to the Soviet guns of similar caliber and power, they are distinctly third best when shooting through the prop disk!But as a seperate point, what would you think of a plane with the airfraim of the P-51H with russian guns, say two .50s and two 23 MMs, in the nose under the cowl and with the Griffon 85 CR Prop engine, all suitably ballenced with trycycle gear?
 
it would be a joke
 
 persistance - one of his all time favorites, is a complete red herring, more range than you need is pointless, Not true! fuel is weight which is bad, True! the best fighter will only carry enough to do its job, No, the best fighter will not be hamstrung in those situations where it needs more fuel to RTB, or ammo to make the kill!
 
but when is that, and is it worth dragging that fuel around on 9 missions to have it for a tenth? most airforces would say no
 the mustang in RAF service only had a fraction of the range of the USAAF operated aircraft as the RAF had no need of the extream range.  rate of roll, nice but not hugely important the MKIX spit could be out rolled by the 190 but that did not give the 190 significant advantage Yes, as a mater of fact the Germans thought it was an important and significant advantage over the Spit.
 
The Germans thought that the Rate of roll was the fw190 ONLY advantage over the MkXIV there is a difference
 
 
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oldbutnotwise       4/3/2013 3:25:20 AM
Cont
 
  cl guns whilst nice to were less important than exploding cannons, which if cl mounted were the best but even wing cannons were superior to mg on the centerline, I would dispute this,
 
You do but have nothing to back up your claim and therefore it can be discounted
 
IF the MGs had the ability to shoot through the planes armor at longer range to kill the pilot. I state this because of the simple fact that HMGs have higher rates of fire than cannon and thus give you more chances to have that "Golden BB" effect of the "Critical hit"!
 
yet the higher rate of fire of the 303 was not an advantage, as the US navy proved a increase of 3mm in amour protection was sufficent to take the rifle caliber protection up to the level needed for HMGs, other wise a .5 just make a slightly bigger hole, the US spent a lot of time and effort on Cannons and exploding ammo for the .5 but failed to produce working examples of either
 
 and secondly the longest range confirmed kill in WW2 was by a MkV spit with 20mm wing mounted cannons As a counter point what was the "Average" range of Spitfire Victories? All the sorces I've seen list between 180 and 220 YARDs!
 
and what was the Average range of a .5 kill? well what do you know it was about the same! maybe that was more to do with hitting the target than what you hit it with? It is a fact that computing gun sights increased combat range far more than any other factor.
 
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oldbutnotwise       4/3/2013 7:45:39 AM
Shooter, if you want to prioritise a few characteristics then how about starting with visual signature and rate of climb. Seeing the enemy first in a fast climbing aircraft would give a WW2 pilot the opportunity to climb above him and attack from an advantageous position, preferably out of the sun. Get the height on your opponent and attack him by surprise and you only need to be able to dive as fast as he can cruise.
er no. you need to dive a lot faster than he can cruise, if you dive at the same speed you dont gain anyground at all, basics shooter basics
 
 
As for the Northern European “Turkey Shoot” of late 41 through to mid 42, that was all to do with theFw-190 being the best fighter in the World at the time and being able to outclass the
Spitfire Mk-V. Then how can you explain that Me-109s made the larger portion of the Victory claims,
 
Did it? becuase thats not what the history books say, during the this period the FW190 scored higher than the 109, oh unless you dont ajust for numbers in whichcase the 109 looks a lot better, but that would be dishonest, oops forgot who \i was talking to
 
 instead of the Fw-190? The best the Americans would have had to offer in any numbers during that period was the P-40 .... just saying. I would bet that the P-40 would have done a better job than the Spitfire because it could fly across the channel and make a 200 mile patrol at speeds the Spitfire could not match, and then return to base with gas in reserve.
funny that the RAF had P40s at this time and what did they do with then oh yes shunted them off to the dessert to combat the 109Es out there, why? someting to do with the p40 being completely outclassed by 109Fs and 190s

As for Hartmann, he was the best ace ever and therefore an atypical example. Irrelevant to the discussion.

What about the other 106 Germans with over 100 Victories? Are they "atypical" too? If we are to use "Typical" considerations of what makes a fighter plane great, how do we explain that the Me-109 was the preffered weapon of the vast majority of those 107 pilots who did so much more than their pears, even on a month to month bassis. IE, the first three/six, or twelve months of their career Vs those same periods of Western Pilots!
 
this is just bull, you claim to have Mike Spicks books - try reading them, if your not sure of what he saying many wll be happy to explane it, thier is no excuse for your ignorance.
 
 
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Maratabc       4/3/2013 10:22:55 AM
what would you think of a plane with the airfraim of the P-51H with russian guns, say two .50s and two 23 MMs, in the nose under the cowl and with the Griffon 85 CR Prop engine, all suitably ballenced with trycycle gear?
 
1. Spellchecker. I had to read that illiterate gibberish twice to understand the nonsense.
 
quotiing;
 
"
The P-51H Mustang

In July of 1943, U.S. Army approved a contract with North American Aviation to design and build a lightweight P-51. Designated NA-105, 5 aircraft were to be built and tested. Edgar Schmued, chief of design at NAA, began this design early in 1943. He, in February of 1943, left the U.S. on a two month trip to England. He was to visit the Supermarine factory and the Rolls Royce factory to work on his lightweight project.

Rolls Royce had designed a new version of the Merlin, the RM.14.SM, which was proposed to increase the manifold pressure to 120 (from 67 max) and thus improve horsepower to 2,200. Schmued was very eager to use this powerplant. The new Merlin was not heavier than the earlier models. Schmued visited with the engineers at Rolls Royce and they answered his many questions. Schmued left the Rolls Royce factory very satisfied with their cooperation.

Brittish fighters were lighter than U.S. fighters. Schmued ask for detailed weight statements from Supermarine on the Spitfire. Schmued wanted to know why the Spitfires were so much lighter than the P-51. Supermairne did not have such data on the Spitfire, so they started weighing all the parts they could get a hold of and made a report for Schmued. The Brittish had design standards that were not at strict in some areas of design as the U.S. Landing gear, angle of attack and side engine design loads were higher in the U.S.

When Schmued returned, they began a new design of the P-51 Mustang that used Brittish design loads. They shaved weight on any part that could yield. They were able to reduce the empty weight of the P-51 by 600 pounds. This would translate into more performance.

The lightweight prototypes were designated XP-51F, XP-51G and XP-51J. After testing of these prototypes, the production version, NA-126 P-51H, was closest to the XP-51F. The project began in April of 1944 and the contract for 1,000 P-51Hs was approved on June 30, 1944.

The H model was a completely new design. Yes it looks like a P-51, but you can tell there is something not the same. I remember as a teenager when I saw my first P-51H in person. I asked my dad, "that's a Mustang ... isn't it?" as I looked at it and tilted my head slightly. He looked and my uncle looked, and then they paused and decided that yes it was a mustang and it must be the later H model (they were seldom stumped when I asked them aircraft ID questions).
=================================>
 
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Maratabc       4/3/2013 10:24:53 AM
The lightweight prototypes were designated XP-51F, XP-51G and XP-51J. After testing of these prototypes, the production version, NA-126 P-51H, was closest to the XP-51F. The project began in April of 1944 and the contract for 1,000 P-51Hs was approved on June 30, 1944.

The H model was a completely new design. Yes it looks like a P-51, but you can tell there is something not the same. I remember as a teenager when I saw my first P-51H in person. I asked my dad, "that's a Mustang ... isn't it?" as I looked at it and tilted my head slightly. He looked and my uncle looked, and then they paused and decided that yes it was a mustang and it must be the later H model (they were seldom stumped when I asked them aircraft ID questions).

Almost all the parts from the D line were not usable in the P-51H. This was the first production P-51 with a complete overhaul. The wing did not have that famous leading edge kink in it. The landing gear was visibly smaller. The profile shows new lines with a taller tail (later versions). The fuselage was a bit more slender and the length was increased to 33.33 feet. The wingspan stayed the same. The belly scoop inlet profile was not angled any longer but was http://www.mustangsmustangs.com/p-51/p51variants/P-51H.shtml#" style="text-decoration:underline" id="_GPLITA_1" title="Click to Continue > by Vid-Saver">now square again like the first P-51s. The chin scoop for the engine was decreased in size.

The wheels now had disk brakes. The oil cooler was moved from inside the belly scoop to in front of the http://www.mustangsmustangs.com/p-51/p51variants/P-51H.shtml#" style="text-decoration:underline" id="_GPLITA_0" title="Click to Continue > by Vid-Saver">oil tank ahead of the firewall. This eliminated the oil lines that ran from the engine to the old location in the scoop. The oil was now cooled by a heat exhanger mounted next to the engine intercooler.

The engine mounts were incorporated into the structural engine cradle, thus saving weight. The engine would not be the newer RS.14.SM Merlin as in some of the lightweight prototypes. The Rolls Royce Merlin V-1650-9 was chosen. Take-off horsepower was actually down from the -7 series to 1,380. But, the new -9 Merlin used water/alcohol injection and was able to up the war emergency power to 2,200 at 10,200 feet. This was the fastest production P-51 clocking 487 mph at 25,000 feet.
 
The propeller of the P-51H was the Aeroproducts 11'1" 4-blade Unimatic otherwise know as the "H prop". This prop is even lighter than the K model Aeroproducts but it looks much different. The blades are wider and keep approx. the same width almost the whole blade. The tips are rounded.

Armament was the same as in the P-51D. Removable ammo boxes and a redesign of the ammo doors were added. This saved time reloading and must have eased up on the laminar flow killing scratches and scuffs on the wings. The earlier models had to be loaded by hand out of portable ammo boxes. The top surfaces of the wings were taking a huge beating and disrupting the true laminar flow of the wing surface. I honestly doubt the crews in the field either knew or cared much about that.

Fuel in the fuselage tank was decreased to 55 gallons max. The fuselage skins were lighter and thinner, made from a new alloy. The cockpit panel was improved and simplified. The canopy was redesigned and the "hump" moved further forward. The pilot sat higher for a better angle using the gunsight.
=========================================>
 
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Maratabc       4/3/2013 11:15:04 AM

The first P-51H flew on Feb 3, 1945 with Bob Chilton at the controls. This P-51H-1NA, 44-64160 was wrecked three days later when the prop failed. Production continued and 221 P-51Hs were delivered by July 30 and 370 by VJ Day in early September.

Contrary to what many believe, the P-51H did not start out as "the tall tail Mustang". The first 20 P-51H-1NA were built with the lower D model height tail. These units were later retrofitted with the taller tail. The taller tail and smaller fuselage fuel tank of 55 gallons, rid the P-51 of the annoying directional stability problem.

Production was cut short by the end of the war. All P-51H versions were built at Inglewood, Ca. The Dallas, Tx version of the P-51H, NA-129 P-51L with the newest Merlin, the V-1650-11, would not finish any models. The last P-51 off the Texas production line was an NA-124 order which included the newer P-51M which was an improved P-51D-30 with the V-1650-9A Merlin and a Hamilton Standard Prop. The -9A Merlin did not have water injection. One production M model was completed. The 63 partially built units were scrapped.

The last P-15H-10NA rolled out of the Inglewood factory in November of 1945. In all, a total of 555 P-51H models were completed: 20 P-51H-1NA, 280 P-51H-5NA and 255 P-51H-10NA were finished and accepted in the USAAF.

Even though some units in the pacific received the P-51H before VJ Day, they did not see any action. Ironically, when the start of the the Korea War broke out, the earlier version of the P-51, the P-51D was chosen to do the fighting, not the P-51H. In the years to follow, the H was used in many Air National Guard units around the U.S.

Only 5 P-51Hs survived, 2 are display quality only, 2 are airworthy and the last is in restoration to be airworthy. One of the XP-51G prototypes does exist and is in a long term restoration with John Morgan in California. This G model was saved by chance and fast action while on its way to the scrapper.
 
Marat speaks:
 
As usual, the one called shooter, relies on deviousness, what he thinks are other people's ignorance of the question, and assumes his own fantasies wiuld be accepted as facts.
 
The P-51H owes much to Supermarine engineering practices om weight savings. I knew this.   More importantly, I knew why the Americans did not use the P-51H in any significant numbers. The parts supply chain for the plane was so different from the P-51D that it was almost impossible to do a wartime conversion over for the by then minimal late war gain to justify the supply disruption  and  expense.
 
The one called shooter asks if this plane could have carried the Russian 23mm cannon in the nose along with the Griffon engine.
 
As the likely cannon the Americans would have stolen was the utterly unreliable Volkov-Yartsev VYa-23, this makes me laugh. The cannon was 67.7 kg weight and almost 2.15 meters long. Two of them in the nose? Where would you fit the motor?
 
I note that VYa-23 cannons were fitted in wing gondolas clear of the propeller arc in the most common armed aircraft to use this cannon, the Il-2 Sturmovik. The cannon was intended for ground attack.
 
The only other suitable Russian candidate by weight and size was the NS-23 which was equipped for synchronization but which exist in few numbers at the time, (less than 1000 made before 1945 and then for the Il-10) as a ground attack cannon.
 
Perhaps in the fantasy land where Shooter lives, the P-51H carries the type of cannons used by the Mig 15? 
 
The Berezin UB is a good weapon. In overall performance size and weight it is comparable, but not superior to the US made Browning as a wing mounted weapon. As a cowl gun in a P-51? again I laugh in derision at the idea.   
 
 
 
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45-Shooter       4/8/2013 8:15:43 PM

But the battles over Darwin were at ~10,000'! An altitude certainly well with in the reach of the P-40. 
Shooter, the Spitfire V dogfights over Darwin in 1943 were generally above 27,000 ft, and exceeded 32,000 ft on several occasions. Getting up that high in response to a raid was the primary situational difficulty that the Spitfires had.
Given the enormous loads impossed on the aircrew at those altitudes, even sucking O2, I doubt this very much and since the absolute ceiling of many Japanese planes did not exceed these numbers at those times, I doubt it even more. But lets say that you are right. Then How long does it take for the Mk-V Spit to climb to 32,000' or higher? 
Look up 'Darwin Spitfires' by Anthony Cooper for a very detailed and very fair account of each of the 1942/1943 raids.  
 
The
early Darwin raids, defended by P-40s, were indeed lower. The first raid was at 14,000 ft, the second at 18,000 ft.
 
I repeat my plea of earlier: RESEARCH all your statements before. It will save us all time in correcting you, and you wouldn't be caught out coming up with such nonsense.
I just spend ten minutes looking up the Darwin raids and could not find a single refferance to any altitude above 18,000'. But I was able to find two sources for IJN/IJA aircraft ceilings! The early Zero of that time had a service ceiling of barely over 32,800', but that of course would not be true if gas for RTB over 200 miles away was up. The G-4M had a ceiling well under 30K', so why bother going higher? CANT FIND THE BOOK YET, but will keep looking.

 
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