Worst warplane of WWII ?

The later marks of the Me 109 were quite deadly in the hands of an expert, but such had become rare by the latter part of 1944.

 

That's correct. And many of the leading "experten" of Luftwaffe prefered Bf 109 over Fw 190. Someone said that Bf 109 was easier to fly at the extreme limits, it behaved logically when doing extreme manoveurs etc. And if I remember correctly, Bf 109 was much, much cheaper to produce than Fw 190.

 

Well, with expert pilots it was great. But Germany lacked pilots, let alone expert pilots. It needed a plane that was outstanding in itself and could cope with Allied fighters even with green pilots. The Fw190 is more of such a plane than the Bf109.

 

I thinking that Polikarpov was worsest.

 

The Me 110 in its original bomber escort role was a total failure when it went up against modern British fighters. The Me 210, its intended replacement, was a total dog of an aircraft which shows the idiocy of mass ordering a plane before it is even built and tested for political reasons.

 

True, but the 410 (a 210 with relatively minor modifications) was good.

 

Yes, the Hornisse was an excellent plane.

 

The british Defiant Bomber.

 

I though the Bolton-Paul Defiant was a fighter? It was a single engined 2 seater with a rotating gun turret.

 

Yeah, there was no Defiant Bomber, the Defiant didn't even have bomb racks, there was the Defiant Fighter or the nearest actual bomber around the time was the Battle.

The Defiant whilst a failure as a day interceptor, enjoyed a very successful secondary career as a night fighter and a trainer, it was actually a very useful aircraft for the RAF!

 

The Boulton-Paul Defiant was a fighter, a 'turret fighter' but a fighter nonetheless. And it was far from the worst aircraft of WWII.

 

It could even be debated if it really was such a failure as a day fighter. It was more complicated than a single seat fighter in the sense that it required more of its crew to work at its best, but it could be a dangerous adversary to a Bf 109. It proved to be excellent on those few occations it was used in the role it was desgined for, as a bomber interceptor, and was probably the last aircraft you would want to meet if you were a Stuka pilot in 1940.

Me likes the Defiant. Me think it looks nice.

 

Defiant looks nice. Blackbourn Roc is one of the contendors in my book. And its ugly too.

 

The ROC was, after all, essentially a Defiant that was 100mph slower... :roll:

 

Roc was a Skua (skua please forgive me) with BP turret.

 

Sorry, to clarify my post - the Roc had the capabilities of the Defiant, but was 100mph slower. The Roc is indeed based on the Skua

Skua


Roc


Apologies for any confusion.

 

I want to change my username !

 

The Roc was a real piece of crap. I believe it lacked more than speed on the Defiant. Here´s an amusing little report from a staged dogfight between a Spitfire ( Tuck ) and a Defiant ( Hunter ) btw : 'During the dogfight Hunter´s gunner expended all his cine gun film; he was often able to fire at the Spitfire across the arc of the turning circle, whereas Tuck, on the other hand, never had the chance to bring his guns to bear, and did not expend any cine gun film. One one occasion, Hunter even managed to get on the tail of the Spitfire and slightly below, so that his gunner could fire'.¹

¹From 'The Turret Fighters' by Alec Brew

 

Simonr1978 has a good piece on info on how one British airfield got the best use of their Rocs...

 

Interesting point is that Skuas made more fighter that bomber sorties ( at least in the Med).
OK this was a consolation for SKUA

How about Brewster Bermuda. Totaly usless. They served as trainers in Caribeen. Brits bought them only after Americans said that they have to take on French orders if they want to get anything in the future ( that is a good US marketing or how to get rid of usless junk ).