LUFTWAFEE 1946 (Would Have Happened if ...)

Guesstimates and a snapshot view are not useful.

Design and modification of combat aircraft is a fluid situation. The Wildcat gained weight and that changed performance adversely. Compare the trials of serial 1845 and 4058, and you'll see that the fast climbing F4F-3 of 1940 gave way to the slow climbing and overloaded F4F-4 of 1942, as it was 1,100 lb. heavier. At that point the engine was not up-rated to compensate.

F4F Performance Trials

Which skates right over a fact that Essex class ships were almost unchanged 20 years later, other than slightly enlarged, angled flight decks and improved sensors.

Parity is not a mission requirement.

The navy needs aircraft that meet changing demands of the government. There was no going back to low and slow, mono-planes and bi-planes just because they weighed less or were safer to land on a ship.

 

Well thought out questions and genuine skepticism. Replies in order of statement;
The original posit stated that they had huge problems qualifying the F4U for carrier ops. Then some one else stated that the 4U was in service with the Navy, before they were used by the Marine Corps. I just posted the Wiki article to set the record straight.
The F6F was heavier than the F4F and had a higher wing loading which made it harder to land because it had a higher stall speed and sink rate. These are critical facts to the success of the plane, that are almost never published in the common public works. These technical details are critically important, but almost unknown to the general public.
Synchronized guns are always slower than their un-synced guns. But this is much less of a problem than most people know. It was a big deal in WW-I, but the rates of fire have improved by roughly 100% by the start of WW-II. Of immensely more importance is the geometry of guns that fire along the LoS! This last effect is several times more important than the rate of fire.
If you were to check some of the more obscure works, you would find that the Spitfire's notorious flimsy wing was so flexible that the cone of fire from each .30 caliber Colt/Browning machinegun was 1.1 Meters in diameter at only 100 meters range! Those guns are zeroed at typically about 180 Meters range. At that range, the 1.98 meter wide =3.08^2 meter dispersion is such that a significant percentage 69% of perfectly aimed bullets will miss the .76 by 1.6 = 0.955^2 meter fuselage target. Saying this another way, you get less than one of every three perfectly aimed bullets to hit the target.
On the other hand, the P-47's wing skins are two to twelve times as thick as the several types of Spitfire and the wing torsion box-main spars mean that the wing is several times as strong in torsion as the Spitfire. The result is that the dispersion of the much more powerful and heavier .50 caliber guns have a 3.2 meters dispersion at 549 Meters range! In addition, the P-47's guns are mounted in a very tight and strongly re-enforced cluster. The Spitfire on the other hand has the four guns in each wing mounted in three widely spread points along most the wing's entire semi-span. The strength of the P-47 is legendary while the Spit was noted as a fragile kite that went down from the first burst to hit.

 

Yes, me too! The Germans were not the only folks who thought that a CL gun was worth two in the wings! The trouble with wing mounted guns is that the left and right side guns are pointed at the LoS at only one range! Short or long and the bullet streams miss a perfectly centered target! Then a missed target has only half the number of guns that might hit! While all CL guns follow the LoS from zero to +-800 meters of a nest of .50 Caliber guns!
That means trading shots in a head-on pass, the P-38 has two and a half times the effective range as the 20 mm cannon in the Messerschmitt-109!

 

You have zero clue who that "someone else" is, do you, Mr. "Weapons Analyst"? And you are using a "Wiki article to set the record straight" for him? Dear God, but I need to find the popcorn and beer.

Then please cite exactly which sources you are referring to that are "almost never published in the common public works". Wikipedia?

Please cite the "obscure works" you are using for this "analysis".

I'm also getting curious as to your bona fides as a "weapons analyst". Do you have an OR degree or just work experience? When did you last attend MORS; do we have mutual friends and acquaintances? Are you a contractor or a fed? Have I run into you before?

 

The minor changes in the 20 year time span you mentioned were in fact tremendous in nature and their effect on the flight opps. You brought it up, please list the detailed changes.
You equate 1,100 pounds and plus 350 HP as being significant, but ignore the +-4,000 pounds and 900 HP differences between the two types. The F6F had the same 2,000-2,500 HP R-2800 engines as the Corsair and a huge prop with all it's attendant defects to the flight characteristics like they were no small thing. In reality, the two planes are worlds apart and can not be compared because of those differences. The newest and lightest of the F6Fs was +-4,000 pounds, or about 50% heavier with about the same increase in power. So the difference between the newest and oldest of the F4Fs was less than 9% heavier and more powerful. Do you really think the differences were no big thing?

 

I do not know what you are referring to in your first line.
Chen's 7, or 8 volumes on Machine guns, flying guns series by EG and TW and many volumes of Jane's and Mike Spick's "Aces" series.
Enlisted in the ASA in 1967 wore second hats and studied in the Ed Center where I got a free Associate's degree from Regent's College in New York state and OJT while working for Boeing Services International, McDonnell Douglas, Northrup, Goodyear Aerospace, Lockheed, the Peace Sun Program and several other programs, mostly out of the country for 16 of the 20 years I was either in the Army, or employed by the DoD, State Dept., or various foreign Governments. I also studied Game Theory and Statistical Analysis, but not enough to get a degree.
When you are part of a foreign contingents in places like Turkey and Saudi Arabia, you are part of a closed society and everyone knows most of everyone else's business.
Part of the problem is that so many people do not have a clue how most things really work and have preconceived ideas about what is or not great. They either concentrate on esoteric traits that have little or no value like how maneuverable the Zero and Spitfire were, or that the Me-109 was dirt because they lost the Battle of Britton, but never studied the RAF's Circuses where it was required to do the exact same mission into France, then lost 6-7 for every win they got. I would state that the conditions of the mission in both cases dictated that the aggressor lost, but not by how much. So over England, the exchange ratio was 1 to 1.2, but over France it was 6-7 Spits lost for every EA downed. How do you explain that?
The things most people, even knowledgeable people, think are important have very little to do with which fighter plane from WW-II is/was the best.
I state that the only true measure of combat effectiveness is combat, and that the single most important factor is the number of EA destroyed. You can make arguments over this plane or that, but in the end, the only thing that matters is EA downed! No other aircraft downed as many EA as the Me-109! It's not even close. All other planes are in a very distant second place!

 

Then perhaps you should have looked before you made your statement but wiki has the dimensions for all those.[/QUOTE]
I have done this in the past and have no ambition to do it again. I only made the request as a way to get you, collectively, to take a look at the rough numbers in relation to the rest. I am a firm believer in the simple adage that you do not learn anything you do not do yourself.
As a continuation of the on going argument, I would state that between 80 and 93% of all aircraft downed did not know they were under attack until the bullets started impacting the plane. Therefore, if one plane is significantly harder to see because of it's small size, then it will be more effective in combat, regardless of most of it's other traits!
When I first went to work with the many instructor pilots stationed in those foreign national enclaves, I believed like many of you, that many planes were better than others for a variety of reasons, but when you get you're very competitive butt handed to you again and again, you either learn the facts, or get disheartened and quit. I am not a quitter. It was at this point that I finally learned what's what and who is who.
The great teaching moment in my life was when we ran war games in the simulator domes. Twenty-four engagements half where you were targets and half were you were the shooter. The shooter entered the arena with the target ahead and at random target aspect angles. You did not know if you were the target, or the shooter. You had to keep a sharp eye pealed just like real life. People with sharp eyes won more than they lost, I had very good vision, 8-20, or is it 20-8? I can see at twenty feet what most can see at eight feet. (As long as I was wearing my thick lensed glasses!) The Me-109 was easily the hardest plane to see coming. This was where I also learned the virtues of the P-38.

 

Ignoring that an airplane cannot shoot down another all itself, a pilot is required . . .

In the real world of operational statistics analysis, this conclusion as you post is what we (operational statistics and analysis is what I do for a living) call "widget counting."

First, from a historic standpoint you are confusing claims with actual results which is sure to skew the results, and, second, even if true, these claims are by no means a measure of performance or capability.

I suppose one might call your widgets "measures of exposure," but that would beg some obvious questions: How much exposure? Where? When? By whom? Against whom? For how long?

For example, for all your widgets, how many encounters with enemy AC did it take to accumulate that many widgets? Or how many sorties were flown for each widget?

Even the vaunted Hartmann flew some 1400 plus sorties to accumulate all his widgets . . . something like 0.25 widgets per sortie, or from another way, almost 4 sorties per widget. I seem to recall that his actual engagements, a much more important number than the number of times he simply nothing but bore holes in the sky, was reported at about 825. (Disclaimer . . . I don't go looking for data on the war in Europe, on Eastern or Western fronts; I'm only vaguely aware of a war in Europe unless you want to talk about USN or RN aircraft operating around the periphery, so my Hartmann engagement total might be a little off. I will take this opportunity, however, to point out that there was only one time Me109s tangled with naval type fighters, these being FAA operated FM-2s. The 109 drivers, who started with the upper hand, initiating the engagement from above, came out on the distinctly short end of the stick, by about 3 to1. I guess, by your way of analysis, that makes the FM-2 better than the Me109.) But, disclaimers aside, if the 825 engagements is in the ball park, that means Hartmann was getting about 0.42 widgets per engagement or about 2.3 engagements per widget claimed. Hmm, I bet it would not be all that difficult to find folks who had better widget-to-engagement rates even with, by widget comparison, some fairly low widget numbers. I can think of one aviator right off the top of my head who had exactly four engagement sorties with enemy AC and came away with six widgets . . . you can do the math.

Counting widgets is not statistics and they, the widgets, are just numbers in a vacuum. It is what you do with them or how you get them tell you a story that can compared to a matching story that is important. Here's an easy, greatly over simplified, basic calculation just to get you started:
How many total widgets were credited to Me109 drivers?
How many total Me109s were produced?
On the average, how many widgets would a single Me109 be credited?
Repeat as necessary for any type you may wish to consider.

Captain Brown was certainly an F4F booster and was an early FAA operator of the same. Nice fellow, got to meet him once in the 1970's; my father, a fellow F4F booster, knew him from his time at Pax River in the early 50's. Brown's good opinion not withstanding, you have presented naught but your opinion that the F6F was harder to land on a carrier (I presume that is what you are saying in the above since that was your claim). Just your opinion, no basis in fact that I have ever seen or that you have presented. Are you reading reports that I am not? Not a Wiki cut and paste job, mind you, the real banana, a real report or some evaluation or comparison of both aircraft, from someone who knew whereof he spoke, i.e., a real operator. Show me where you've found an official report decrying the handling of the F6F and I might consider it. Unfortunately, now, most of them are gone, but I spent some 30 years talking with US naval aviators about just such subjects. Never heard a one of them complain about the handling of the F6F, nor have I ever seen a report making a claim as your opinion. So, whatcha got besides your opinion?

I could give you some hints about working the math to see if yours is a valid theory, but you'd have to know an awful lot about carrier operations and operating tempos to even take a whack at it. Nothing you've written indicates you have that kind background. I could probably do it, fast and dirty, with gross numbers that would, if nothing else, point us in the right direction. Probably take about a week, maybe a little longer, working at nights as time and approaching hurricane weather allow. But, you know what? Were I interested in the answer, it might even be fun . . . but, alas, I am not interested in the answer. And when I've no real interest in the subject, I don't do that kind of work for free; so someone would have to break out their checkbook to pique my interest.

 

Anecdotal evidence and practical piloting knowledge. The heavier a plane is and the higher the wing loading, the harder it is to land. Or do you dispute that? Also the huge engine and bigger prop caused all sorts of bad manners near stall speed where the simplest mistake got you and some of the deck crew killed.On the other hand, the F4F was about half the weight and HP with much lower wing loading, stall speed and sink rate which in the famous British test pilot Winkle Brown's words made it the best plane to land on a carrier.
So on one hand, we have famous test pilot's testimony, and simple logic on the other? Which do you dispute and why?

 

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Nobody said the USN was using F4Us off carriers in combat before the USMC took them into combat. What was said was that the USN was operating F4Us in combat off carriers (VF(N)-101, a night fighter squadron operating F4U-2s) before the Royal Navy ever deployed a F4U equipped carrier.

You might want to read more carefully, or just read more before venturing into unfamiliar subject matter.

I shall refrain from unkind comment on setting records straight with cut and paste jobs from Wiki.

 

The first one was one of God knows how many flight deck accidents by God knows how many planes. The second stalled out on approach, not a flight deck crash. The third and fourth are the interesting ones. Those were taken in the VF-17 original carrier quals, note the birdcage canopies and plain, no bars, star-in-circle national insignia. What was happening was defective arrestor hooks. The hooks were striking the deck, snagging on the tie-down channels and snapping off before hitting the arrestor cables, resulting in barrier crashes. Notice, however, the approach, from the side crabbing in to keep the LSO in view. VF-17 was the first USN equipped F4U squadron and long before the FAA ever got their first model.

 

In 1943 the Seafire had the highest accident rate of any fighter in the British Navy. At Salerno there were 50 crashes out of 500 deck landings, this according to Mike Crosley who flew Seafires with the British Pacific Fleet. The Seafire II weighed less than a Wildcat II, so there was more to worry about than load capacity when flying a ship board aircraft.

Unless you can produce landing accident statistics for the Wildcat and Hellcat, there is no point in continuing this line of discussion.

 

I love this post! Very well thought out and detailed. But your posit on widget counting is a statistical side show? The larger the population, the more likely the statistics are accurate. If you want the largest population, then the only valid answer is to count all of WW-II! While you are absolutely correct that Victory claims and actual numbers might be way off, the resulting numbers are just so huge as to make any other conclusion a fantasy. The top 100, or so, German pilots shot down about 15,000 or 25,000 EAs! It is late and my faulty mind can not remember which it was, but in either case, the numbers are so large and the plane's in second, third, forth, etc are so small in comparison that any disputation of same is not rational, or it's pulling my leg for the fun of it? Now that I think on it, the top 1% shot down the 25,000 and the next 4% an other 15,000 and the next 5% 10,000 more claims! We know that the Allies lost about ~18-20,000 on the western front and twice to three times that number on the Eastern front. No mater what numbers you use, they are always in some variation of those ratios, we got our butts kicked. How do you explain the vast disparity of those numbers? The simplest answer is that we provided them with the so called "Target Rich Environment" were they could easily run up the numbers, and we had to find our targets the hard way.

 

As noted above, you are guessing. Practical piloting knowlege, huh? Are you a naval aviator, I am not, so I don't presume to make my opinion theirs . . . have you ever landed an airplane on a carrier? You understand that specifically designed carrier aircraft are designed with that landing in mind, do you not? Stop guessing and show us where someone in the USN reported that the F6F was hard to land on a carrier.

 

What you mean "we" Kimosabe? You were there?

 

I like watching films! The second one where the plane stalls out and goes in the drink is caused by the pilot applying a large throttle opening and stalling only one wing from the prop wash and "P" factor rolling the plane over into the drink! This is one of the classic defects of the F6F with the same engine and huge prop.
All I can say is that most references state the Navy did not use the F4U on carriers until after the Marines had them on land for most of the early part of the war. I posted the Wiki link because it was so easy to find, not like it was the holey grail. It has an extensive explanation of who, what and why.

 

Not guessing at all. have several hundred hours behind the stick, but never in a Navy plane. I am not a Naval Aviator. And yes, I do understand the requirements you mention. But the design skills of WW-II era engineers were not even close to gifted amateurs today and they made many mistakes. A list of changes to the F6F would prove the point. It was not ready for prime time as we say today until they learned how to cope with the quirks, P factor and differential stall induced by a single prop loading the two sides of the wing at different angles, causing the stall and dunking in the F4U film above!
Finally, I do not claim to have good Google-foo skills to find the reports and data you desire. But I do have almost 50 hours toward an Aeronautical Engineering degree! Enough KNOWLEDGE TO UNDERSTAND THE DEFECTS I SEE IN OLD FILMS LIKE THE ONE ABOVE! DBOTBBTDCLM! I only ask you one series of questions, all on the same subject. If you double the weight and power of the plane while keeping the wing to about half again as large, Do you think the low speed characteristics would get better or worse in the low and slow landing envelope?

 

Black Sheep Squadron...

And sorry I cant help myself...

 

Where?