Which night fighter would you fly?

What night fighter from the war would you fly in combat?

Consider theatre, nation, and also the situation.

For me, I'd personally prefer either the He. 219 "Uhu" against enemy bombers or a P-61 Black Widow against German Fighters.

 

I'd fly the Nakajima J1N1-S Gekko against American B-24 bombers in the South Pacific.

 

I would also fly the P-61 and let the cannon, machine guns do the talking.
I'd take the Beaufighter Mk VIF as my backup choice and unleash hell!

 

Which nightfighter?
The most beautiful twin engined fighter ever:

De Haviland Mosquito (any model!)
Extremely efficent and very attractive looks

 

Me 262 B night fighter

 

I'd try the UHU

 

German JU-88 and ME-110 both served superbly as night fighters. Dont forget the ME 110 with its "Schrage music" two 20 mm canon angled forward and up at 30 degrees, the pilot would slip in often unseen, directly under and behind the british bomber and let them have a burst, end of bomber.
The JU-88 had tremendous range and long loiter time and fairly good speed and was also a good choice in this role.

 

Mosquito NF XXX

 

That would be my choice, the best NF of the war.

 

I would choose to fly the UHU fitted with the Jazz Music gun layout upon further consideration. I love the P-61 and the Mosquito, but the He-219 just kills me.

 

I guess I´d go for the Mosquito version, or then the Me 262 version for nachtjagd.

 

Did the Germans ever produce a Bf-109 night fighter version? That would have been interesting...

 

The Mosquito, BF-110, or the P-61 Black Widow.

 

The P 61 is just plain ugly and it's performance is suspect a mossie would be the logical choice. But it's the He 219 for me despite the mixed reports about it, I like too much the idea of having all that firepower and it's a great looking plane.

 

I'd go with the Mosquito

 

Ugly, maybe. But I like it because of it's strange looks. Hard to beat the Mosquito though.



Sure is prettier than the Black Widow, or many others for that matter.

 

The P-61. It is one of very few aircraft in WW 2 that was designed as a nightfighter. One of the most unique features of the aircraft was its prodigious ability to shed speed. The aircraft was equipped with large wing mounted speed brakes (these are mounted about 2/3rds of the way out on the wing above and below it). This feature allowed the P-61 to rapidly close with a slower target (like a bomber) and then essentlally come to a halt at short range, match the target's speed and blast it.
A common problem for nightfighters of this era was this speed mismatch. The Germans got around it in part by the Schrage Musik upward firing cannon arrangement. But, nightfighters, that still relied on visual targetting, were always in some danger closing rapidly on a target in the dark and colliding with it.
The cockpit arrangement was also very well thought out with the pilot and radar operator having a virtual greenhouse of glass to see out of.

 

Ju 88G-6 or the Me 262A-1a, for the Allies the Mossie XXX, forget the P-61 A and B. according to the ETO ops micorfishce and interviewing vets it was not the cats meow for the US as claimed, but it was the US by ownership.

 

I agree with Terry. The Black Widow was one bad assed aircraft. I would also add the Mosquito to the list as well.