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Subject: Best All-Around Fighter of World War II
sentinel28a    10/13/2009 3:38:03 PM
Let's try a non-controversial topic, shall we? (Heh heh.) I'll submit the P-51 for consideration. BW and FS, if you come on here and say that the Rafale was the best fighter of WWII, I am going to fly over to France and personally beat you senseless with Obama's ego. (However, feel free to talk about the D.520.)
 
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JFKY    Heorot   5/24/2011 3:33:09 PM
So being able to perform MULTIPLE roles is NOT a definition of best all-around fighter...the fact that you can fly straight A2A, bomber escort, and attack ground targets with a single platform doesn't make that platform a GREAT aircraft, a great fighter aircraft...so the F-16, the F-4, and the F-15 all don't count, because they are multi-role aircraft?
 
What numbers do you want?  The P-47 performed deep escort, the ETO leading ace flew it, it carried 500 pound bombs, rockets, and 8 12.7 BMG and the radial engine made it less vulnerable to Flak than the P-51.  Those are "numbers", irrefutable facts regarding the P-47...now you can talk models, horse power, turn radii, and the like on SPECIFIC aspects.  I'm not trying to do that.  I am making the case that a multi-role a/c is INHERENTLY the better, and in this case the better a/c was the P-47, over it's European counter-parts.  In the Pacific I'd go with the Corsair F4-U, for similar reasons, the capacity to perform multiple missions, A2A, A2G, night fighter, and reconnaissance roles.  I'd give the Corsair the edge over the Wildcat and the Hellcat.
 
As I say, it must be DEFINTIONAL...you only want to focus on the pure A2A aspects.  Why is beyond me....but I didn't see the thread being written or cast that way. 
 
Again P-47 over Spitfire, FW-190, Bf-109, because it does many things quite well.  The others only do a few or one thing well....the Luftwaffe needed more than an A2A platform, and however good, TECHNICALLY, the FW-190 was it did not perform the other roles well at all, that the trade-off for bomber or A2G firepower compromised it's A2A capacity.  So to me, the FW-190 is hardly the best all around aircraft.  In fact, I'd give the best all around a/c "nod", for the Luftwaffe, to the Ju-88, ground attack, maritime attack, night fighting, bomber destroyer...and hi-altitude reconnaissance.  The Ju-88 contributed more, longer to the German war effort than the FW-190. 
 
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earlm       5/24/2011 7:59:07 PM
The 190 was used in A2G and performed well.  Rudel flew it on some missions.  They were designated F or G models.  The fact remains they had less engine and wing than the P-47 so couldn't haul as much.  The assertion that a 110 or Ju-88 was as effective as a 190 in interception is incorrect as the 190 had the performance for a second pass while the others would struggle.
 
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45-Shooter       5/24/2011 8:01:05 PM




Your statement that 20mm fragment had little to no energy is a nonsense. I never said that, ever! why? because of conservation of energy. 



Quote from 45-Shooter 5/17/2011 12:13:45 AM:





"In the first case (hispano) the shell body broke up into 10-12 large fragments and in the second (mine shell), hundreds of smaller bits."
10-12 fragment you say?
Ok lets say 10.
If a 130g 20mm hisp split in 10 fragment it most likely make fragment of 11.9g(minus the explosive) on average right? NO! there are more than 10-12 total splinters! There are generally one huge one, 9-11 medium sized and a couple of hundred or so dust particles! The dust weighs 60-70 grams in total and can not damage anything! The base of the shell weighs 20-30 grams and the explosive pushes it backwards subtractin the energy or the explosive from the KE of the shell's forward velocity! The base is typically found laying at the bottom of the target barrel! The medium sized franments weigh between 1/2 and ONE gram! The 9-11 "Medium" sized frags are going on AVERAGE 900M/S and have 200-400J of energy each! Because of their LOW sectional dencity and odd shape, they have very little power to perforate anything substantial! TOO BAD, WHA WHA WHA! So each splinter have about 3808 joules of kinetic energy at muzzle velocity without the propulsive power of the explosive of the shell itself.

As highlighted in Yellow, the number of fragment is from you. I am using your own argument agaist you here. 
I note that your so called "medium sized frags" have a average weight of 0.6 to 1.25 gram... so the rest is dust right? I would be curious to see whats the weight of the hundreds of small bits produced by a mineshell given to your definition.
I find hard to believe that 6.5g of explosive
 
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45-Shooter       5/24/2011 8:15:00 PM





In artillery, caliber or calibre[nb 1] is the diameter of a barrel, or by extension a relative measure of the length. link />

Note that the word caliber is DIMENSIONLESS by itself and requires a type of unit to be appended to the number to mean anything! Does 14 caliber mean a 14"( the " symbol denoting the units in this case!) or .14" a micro-caliber varmint round? The fraise 14 by itself is meaningless with out further context!




Shooter, in the context of an airman talking about a 30 cal round, along with a 20 mm round, he was clearly using the common colloquialsim for .30 inch rifle caliber ammunition. He clearly knew what a mm is because he used it in the same sentance. If he had meant 30mm he would have said it.

I actually think you are fairly well read on these topics, but when you come up with utter, utter rubbish like that to try and defend an undefendable patriotic position you just make a fool of yourself and stop people from taking any notice of what you say. It's a dumb thing to do.  



Again you have taken part of one sentence and part of a second and taken both parts out of context in relation to the statements that they were answering and then turned it into something entirely different.

1. The 30 MM was my comment, not related to the description of that picture in which you mention the bullet hole though the insignia. It was in reference to my OPINION that the damage looked more like that from a 30 mm shell than a 20 mm shell.

2. To then claim that I made the resulting idiotic statement that you pieced together out of fragments of two sentences that were related to other things entirely, is dishonest at the least and down right gutless girly-man at worst! Man up, make honest arguments related to specific posts and try to stay on topic!
 
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45-Shooter       5/24/2011 8:24:17 PM




As to the ball turret and it's gunner who survived missing a toe to frost bite, the shell hit the face of his armored glass just an inch or two from his gun sight near the middle, OR by the right edge. It's hard to tell. But none of that is important, what IS important is that the shell failed to perforate the glass and injure the gunner enough to make him a casualty. If you had gone to the site linked to in the prior post, you would have known that and seen dozens of pics, all showing much the same lack of serious effect!


He would have been incapacitated for the remainder of the flight Your unfounded assumption! though which is the effect that needed to be achieved and virtually guaranteed from such a 20mm hit. A 12.7mm AP round might just as easily have penetrated the glass, missed him Just why do you think the caption stated he lost a toe to frost bite instead of he was wounded and required treatment! How do you know a .50 slug going through the glass would have missed the gunner? A second unfounded assumption by you. You know what the word assume is an acronym for don't you? and left him to fire back at the attacking fighter ...What makes you think he did not continue firing back at the attacker? This is the third unfounded assumption you made in this paragraph! Does that say anything about your thought processes? which illustrates the point that people here are making.
Three unfounded and absurd assumptions in one PP? WOW!
 
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45-Shooter       5/24/2011 8:26:55 PM


I actually think you are fairly well read on these topics, but when you come up with utter, utter rubbish like that to try and defend an undefendable patriotic position you just make a fool of yourself and stop people from taking any notice of what you say. It's a dumb thing to do. 

I noticed that too. I would not nececerly say that "patriotic position" is  much to blame here. It is something i can live with. What is really annoying is the non-debating way of writing:

You tend to comment sentence by sentence while missing the point and meaning of the whole paragraph.
You bring out of subject comparison that doesn't really add anything to the debate.
You contradict your own argument and often on the same sentence.
You offen correct us on something we didn't said.
Thats a hard start when you joint a forum. Keep in mind that some around here (not me) are known and verified professional. They know, you don't. You might bring some intresting concept/idea but they are the one to prove these thing to be true or false.
 
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45-Shooter       5/24/2011 8:30:26 PM


I actually think you are fairly well read on these topics, but when you come up with utter, utter rubbish like that to try and defend an undefendable patriotic position you just make a fool of yourself and stop people from taking any notice of what you say. It's a dumb thing to do. 
I noticed that too. I would not nececerly say that "patriotic position" is  much to blame here. It is something i can live with. What is really annoying is the non-debating way of writing: 

You tend to comment sentence by sentence while missing the point and meaning of the whole paragraph.
You bring out of subject comparison that doesn't really add anything to the debate.
You contradict your own argument and often on the same sentence.
You offen correct us on something we didn't said.Talk about the kettle calling the pot black!
 
Thats a hard start when you joint a forum. Keep in mind that some around here (not me) are known and verified professional. They know, you don't. You might bring some intresting concept/idea but they are the one to prove these thing to be true or false.
I am not a new member of this forum.
 
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45-Shooter       5/24/2011 8:53:53 PM

I agree with you that below 20,000 ft the FW-190A models were very capable aircraft. If you were in a P-47 you wanted to keep your speed up and not get sucked into a low level low speed dogfight where they could chew you up. The problem with the A Models were that at high altitude the P-47's and 51's were much better performing. The FW-190D's and TA-152's were designed to be very capable at high altitude and were every bit as as good or even better than the 47's and 51's...but too few and too late. The bulk of the Luftwaffe had to face the 8th AF in 190A's and 109G's which were just not as good. The 109G and all other 109s had a fluid coupling between the crank and blower that gave it excellent high altitude performance! Depending on the model, better than any allied plane of the time frame! They just didn't have the performance to dictate the terms of the fight.

I really like the P-38 but it just didn't do as well in Europe as in the PTO. Poor Cockpit heating and German planes that were close to it's performance meant that it had a harder time playing to its strengths. Much easier vs Zeros, Oscars, and Tonys where it had a much better speed, climb, and dive advantage. The P-38 did well in Africa and the Med but you didn't have to worry about your cockpit glass frosting over blocking vision because the heater was inadequate...that had to increase your pucker factor.


This is a common misconception. The P-38 was the most feared Allied fighter plane by the Luftwaffe! It did not get that reputation by not killing people! It had an excellent K/L ratio in Europe! It was just very much better in the PTO. It was faster than any contemporary plane in REAL terms! We go through this all the time. Placard figures have little or nothing to do with real life performance! Did you know that the widely published top speed of the P-38 at 414 MPH was 33 MPH below it's WEP speed? That number is made using MTO power. Note that the rest of the Allied planes were rated at WEP power ratings? Did you know that all German planes were also rated at WEP power settings? For instance, the P-51D could only go 410 MPH at MTO power! Crank it up, or shove the throttle all the way forward to WEP and it would go ~437 MPH! The Turbo-chargers in the P-38 and -47 made them much faster at higher altitude than they would appear if you only used the placard numbers. But much more important than that is the MAXIMUM CRUISING SPEED! MTO and WEP could only be used for FIVE MINUTES or LESS before the engine blew up! That's a guaranteed kill WO firing a shot! So it's how fast is the plane at the maximum throttle POS it could sustain and still reach the mission range! This is at best about 75% power and could often be as low as 50-55%.
 
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45-Shooter       5/24/2011 10:03:50 PM
So being able to perform MULTIPLE roles is NOT a definition of best all-around fighter...the fact that you can fly straight A2A, bomber escort, and attack ground targets with a single platform doesn't make that platform a GREAT aircraft, a great fighter aircraft...so the F-16, the F-4, and the F-15 all don't count, because they are multi-role aircraft? 
What numbers do you want?  The P-47 performed deep escort, the ETO leading ace flew it, it carried 500 pound bombs, rockets, and 8 12.7 BMG and the radial engine made it less vulnerable to Flak than the P-51.  Those are "numbers", irrefutable facts regarding the P-47...now you can talk models, horse power, turn radii, and the like on SPECIFIC aspects.  I'm not trying to do that.  I am making the case that a multi-role a/c is INHERENTLY the better, and in this case the better a/c was the P-47, over it's European counter-parts.  In the Pacific I'd go with the Corsair F4-U, for similar reasons, the capacity to perform multiple missions, A2A, A2G, night fighter, and reconnaissance roles.  I'd give the Corsair the edge over the Wildcat and the Hellcat. 

As I say, it must be DEFINTIONAL...you only want to focus on the pure A2A aspects.  Why is beyond me....but I didn't see the thread being written or cast that way.   

Again P-47 over Spitfire, FW-190, Bf-109, because it does many things quite well.  The others only do a few or one thing well....the Luftwaffe needed more than an A2A platform, and however good, TECHNICALLY, the FW-190 was it did not perform the other roles well at all, that the trade-off for bomber or A2G firepower compromised it's A2A capacity.  So to me, the FW-190 is hardly the best all around aircraft.  In fact, I'd give the best all around a/c "nod", for the Luftwaffe, to the Ju-88, ground attack, maritime attack, night fighting, bomber destroyer...and hi-altitude reconnaissance.  The Ju-88 contributed more, longer to the German war effort than the FW-190. 

I would dispute that there was that much difference between the two. The FW-190 could carry a larger bomb load than the P-47. It had more and more effective firepower. Depending on the model, it was faster at high and medium altitudes that the P-47. The short span version could out roll all European contemporaries and the P-47 and 51, but not the P-38 with hydraulic aileron actuation. The P-47 and 51 could both out turn the 190 at selected altitudes and speeds. Those rolls reversed at other altitudes, speeds and models. Which models are we talking about? What altitudes and speeds? Only the P-38 had a superior performance across the model range and time over it's then contemporary foes.

 

I would state that the only way to make this a real argument instead of a my 190D is better than your Spitfire-I, is to stipulate that only aircraft that had at LEAST 500, or 1,000 IN SERVICE (You choose!) at the same time during the actual war, and then that types be compared against their contemporary foes! under these rules the best Spit is the IX, the best 190 is the D, the best 51 is the any, the best 109 is any at their time!

Now to make my case for a single engined fighter plane is the TA-152H ( Mit

 
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Aussiegunneragain    Ignore Shooter button on ...   5/24/2011 10:43:31 PM
2. To then claim that I made the resulting idiotic statement that you pieced together out of fragments of two sentences that were related to other things entirely, is dishonest at the least and down right gutless girly-man at worst! Man up, make honest arguments related to specific posts and try to stay on topic!
 
... enjoy talking to yourself.
 
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