LUFTWAFEE 1946 (Would Have Happened if ...)

Yes, but the reason they considered them OK during the war as evidenced in General Yeager's interview, is also why they did not like the Cannons. "Failure to penetrate deep into the structure and damage critical parts of the plane" more than a few inches from the point of burst. Also note that the average range of combat was 250 Yards in WW-II and 750 yards in Korea. Even then it was adequate to down hundreds of Mig-15s. The displeasure was one perceived, not actual. Like the M-16's 5.56X45 mm ammo and it's so called "failure to stop enemy combatants even after repeated hits in the torso" controversy. When after action inspections revealed either poor shooting yielding failure to make hits, or poor placement of the hits made, showed this to be a problem of perception, not in fact.

 

No, the required power was 750 HP, a figure the AAF thought should be easily attainable. See Wagoner's American Combat planes, IIRC to get the best story of the project?

 

Yes they did, but the pilots were not close to being competent. The original argument was stated between qualified pilots the plane made up 80 percent and the pilot 20%. In the conditions you posit, highly trained German vets of WW-I and those that they trained, Vs Russian amateurs, then it does not matter. Again I refer to the standard Victories distribution, 1% make 40% of kills, the next 4% make 25% and the next 5% make 15% and the next 40% make up the last 20% with the last 50% of fully trained combat pilots making up no kills what so ever! Given these facts, a better plane can make a huge difference and a worse plane very little at all.

 

True, but the bottom 50% never does anything regardless of the plane. But a better plane will give all of the better half of pilots a better chance to win and might elevate the marginal pilot to become an effective one. A great plane makes a huge difference to those pilots with the attributes necessary to become Aces, or even those pilots who shot down less planes than the required number to become aces.
Then there are those times when having a great plane can save the less expert pilot and convert his defeat into an escape to fight again.
There are only four planes in mass production during the war that made that much difference to all of the pilots who flew them. They were The P-38, P-47, P-51 and Me-109. The things that made each of those planes better than their peers were different in each case, but the differences were none the less there.

 

I've seen some dumb statements in this thread but that's a real prize winner.

And you just contradicted yourself. Adjoining sentences not quite a record.

Or not. It depends a lot on the situation. If the opposition isn't as well trained and has rather poor planes then the difference between a "decent" plane and a "great" one may be pretty marginal.

For some really warped definition of "much difference" perhaps but in general no.

 

In the western front, P-47s were usually launched with ground attack as their primary tasking. That means that the much lesser numbers of Spitfires, Hurricanes and others were taking a much smaller risk of loss. Gun camera film will show all of those effects to be easy to see.

 

Yeah...That's the point you don't get!

It does not matter what crate(good, bad, or inbetween)

the air forces are flying...The distribution of Aces will still roughly be the same.

Hence to put a twist a Bill Clintonism..."It's the pilot, stupid."

No, it won't. The better half will still be the better half, and the worse half will still be the worse half. A great plane will not suddenly turn marginal pilots in to aces...They are still only going to be marginal pilots.

Ummm...No. Otherwise, your author Spike or Spite or something, would not have been able to state what you are saying about Ace percentages. Said percentages would vary greatly across the board because of the many different types of fighters that are flying.

The their are the times that a great plane will kill him, because the less expert pilot will not know how to handle a high performance aircraft. High performance fighters have killed more inexperienced pilots than they have saved.

Of course, you forgot...F4F, F6F, F4U, A6M, Ki-43, Ki-61, Ki-84, Ki-100, Spitfire, etc.

 

Because those attributes are performance parameters, and not open to differing opinions. For instance, the P-51 is famous for it's aerodynamic features, Laminar flow wing and radiator ducting that gave it a roughly 40 MPH advantage over the smaller wetted area Mk-IX Spitfire with a similar but slightly more powerful engine. Or it's 50MPH edge over the even smaller wetted area of the even more powerful Fw-190A
You see, there are things of great import that make some planes much better than others.

 

No, I did not forget them, I ignored them as not relevant. While each of those planes have some great traits, they all also have some serious flaws that remove them from the qualifications. Of the planes on your short list, the closest to make the great list is the F6F, but it was a plane for top pilots only, like you mentioned before at more likely to kill it's pilot than other planes on the list.

 

Let's see if I can separate your comments from mine.

It is most certainly not.

When you say "the bottom 50% never does anything regardless of the plane." then follow with "
might elevate the marginal pilot to become an effective one." It's a pretty obvious contradiction which pretty clearly eliminates the possibility of at least one of the statements being a fact.

??? No assumptions just a statement of fact. Of course this is the first mention I've seen of "whole war performance".

Wrong. Some performance characteristics are readily determinable within reasonable bounds by fairly small numbers. Many of the ones that help determine what makes a good fighter plane are included in the above.

Let's see if I can fix this

The quote of mine was dealt with at the top of this message and dealt with a different statement of yours. Check back to my posting.

Completely irrelevant to my statement and not particularly meaningful or accurate in and of itself.

???? That parses like you ran it through google translator a half dozen times. A clue, in general if you use superlatives you are wrong. Thus if we examine the statement:

There were for instance a considerable number of US pilots that never saw an opposing aircraft did it really make much difference whether or not they were flying P-39s, P-38's, P-40's, P-47s, P-51s, Spitfires, F4F's, F4U's, etc? Obviously it didn't. Of course you haven't defined "much difference" but you've also left out a fair number of planes that were quite significant as already mentioned by others.

 

I'd like to see your sources on that.

You think the ones on your list didn't have some serious flaws as well? All fighters were compromises of some sort which means that they had flaws. How serious depended a lot on how and where they were used. There is a case for the F4U being at least on a par with your favorite fighters as well as the F6F.
I'd also like to see your documentation for the F^F being a pilot killer.

 

What "700 HP version" of the Fairchild Ranger inverted V12 engine are you referring to?

What "test"? Where is the data? I have looked at the FAA Type Certificate Data Sheets for them and cannot find a single one that is rated at more than 550 HP a takeoff. See ATC84 for the V-770-SG, ATC184 for the V-770B4/B-4A, ATC185 for the SGV-770B-5, TC207 for the SGV-770B-3/B-4/B-6/B-7, and TC232 for the SGV-770C-1/C-1B/C-1CC-2A/C-2C.

What successful projects were those? Which engine? Which other XP-77 program was there? I only know of the one and it was unsuccessful.

I have not taken a dislike to you Stewart, I have taken a dislike to your persistent failure to provide some evidence for your claims or to provide some evidence that is not your opinion that the facts I have provided are incorrect. That may not be your fault, since exploring "what ifs" usually are an exercise in going down the rabbit hole of wishful thinking as opposed to real world evidence. This hasn't gotten to the level of the classic SNL "what if Napoleon had a B-52 at Waterloo" yet, but it is edging closer. If I am a tad impatient, it is because I find such exercises time-wasters of the worst sort.

Cheers! Rich

 

Er, no, sorry, but Ray Wagner's American Combat Planes of the 20th Century, remarks that "the Bell Model 32 specification dated April 1, 1942, planned to use a 520-hp air-cooled, inline Ranger, modified to a supercharged XV-770-17 version with 670 hp." The problem is the XV-770-17 was never built as a production engine and insofar as I can find after extensive search was never even completed as the eXperimental engine that it was. Nor can I find any evidence from Wagner or any other source that indicates the "AAF thought [750 HP] should be easily attainable". However, I have found and posted evidence for exactly the opposite, the AAF thought the 670 HP supercharged XV-770-17 would never achieve anything close to that, which is why they cancelled its development. Note, yet again, the NACA test evidence pointing at the problematic nature of the Ranger engine design.

Nor do I see that Wagner's one-page, four paragraph summary is the "best story of the project". Joe Baugher's is much more extensive and comprehensive.

Yet again, unless you can come up with something better...like a single shred of evidence to support your opinions, we are done here.

 

Dear lord let me be done with this!

NO! On the "western front" (i.e., the ETO) the P-47 was by far the most numerous escort fighter from February 1943 through about July 1944 when large numbers of P-51 were available. It wasn't until near the end of 1944 that the VIII Fighter Command transitioned almost completely to the P-51, with the P-47 relegated to the IX Fighter Command for escort of the light and medium bomber effort by IX BC and in its fighter-bomber role.

 

The F-100, F-5, and F-8 Crusader had 20-mm guns. Many pilots were not satisfied with any kind of gun until they tried the 20-mm Vulcan. But the point is, too many failures to bring down enemy jets in Korea assured that the .50 cal. was retired as the main battery for fighters.

The higher speeds of jet fighters meant that it was more dangerous to fly closely behind a target aircraft. Chunks of twisted metal could hit the windscreen, or went through the engine intake with very bad results.

 

Of those planes, which shot down more than the P-38? P-39s, P-51s, Spitfires, F6Fs,? Then there are the other reasons why many of those planes were left out of the "Great Planes" list. While P-39s shot down more planes in Russian hands than Spits in RAF hands, they are not included because of the same reasons as the Spitfire is not a great plane. The F6F is not included because it was un-opposed by effective fighter planes. Then there is the P-47. It had some great traits but failed to down more planes than the P-38. So take the numbers downed and divide by the number of planes manufactured and put in the field. 3,750 downed by <10,000 P-38s, Vs 3,300 downed by 15,700 P-47s. Why the P-47 is included is that it strafed on the ground as many as it destroyed in the air and came back with so much damage as to become legendary! Then there are the 4,000 Victories by >20,000 Spitfires.
And lastly, I have suffered with Dyslexia my whole life and I often write sentences and paragraphs that seem like they were written by someone with English as a second language, or run through the Google translator before posting. I also have only two good fingers to try to type as fast as I think. So, all in all, I write like a schizophrenic Geek, or foreign national using a translator.

 

Then I can not remember where I saw that item. Maybe in "America's hundred thousand? I do not know where I got it and can not defend that item. It is part and parcel of my Agent Orange defective brain.
PS. Where can I get a copy of Joe Baugher's work? And what is it's title?

 

Found this quote:


The Focke-Wulf FW-190 was widely believed to be the best fighter aircraft of World War II. As the war went on the FW-190 was manufactured in no fewer than 40 different models. The appearance of the new aircraft over France in 1941 was a rude surprise to the Allied air forces. The FW-190 was in service for the entire war, replacing a number of other aircraft including the Junkers Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber. Possibly the plane’s biggest influence on the Allies was that it served to spur on greater advances in technology and aircraft design to counter the threat of the FW-190.
The Focke-Wulf FW-190 not only was a superb daytime fighter but was also used extensively as a night fighter, interceptor, and ground attack aircraft on the Eastern, Western, and Italian Fronts. The introduction of the FW-190 changed the capability of the Luftwaffe’s combat operations. This was especially the case with the introduction of the FW-190D in 1944. This new model offered superior handling with a top speed of more than 400 miles per hour.

During the first two years of World War II, the Messerschmitt Me-109 was the preeminent German fighter plane, there was simply nothing else. But in 1941, during cross-Channel aerial warfare between the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe, a new challenger entered the fight on the German side. The Me-109 from that point forward would have a new partner in the air war. - The National Interest.

Bold mine.

 

The biggest single mover of the gun vs cannon argument was the appearance of the Ruskies long range strategic bombers. How do you determine the numbers of failures to down? In addition to the ones you mention, there was also the F4D and several other Navy planes.
You are also right that the Vulcan's performance was head and shoulders above all other guns of the time.

 

The parts in red require debate. I do not think the 190 was in service during the entire war. The Fw-190 was in fact three different types of plane, the air cooled radial engined, small winged one, the long nosed Dora with a Liquid cooled in line with the small wing and stretched fuse and the Ta-152H with the big wing stretched fuse and reduced weight. The Dora was good for about 428 MPH which was about a year behind the P-51D and at least 9 MPH slower. The Ta-152H does not count since they only made ~48, or so and they had no significant effect on the war. This point could be made for the Dora too, as too few too late? The vast majority of 190s were the air cooled radial type and not effective vs almost any Allied plane of 1942 or later.