# P-39 D Aircobra vs. Me-109



## lesofprimus (Aug 4, 2004)

Been reading alot about the Russian Pilots... Alot of interesting history there...

Anyways, I'm seeing alot of info that states that alot of 109's were shot down by this kinda lame duck aircraft...

Quotes:
"Fadieyev recorded 394 battle missions, 51 combats, 17 alone kills and other 3 group victories. While flying in a P-39 D-2 (from 9 April 1943, till 5 May 1943), he downed 14 Bf 109 and 1 Ju 87. *He was KIA on 5 May 1943 on a lone fight against group of 12 Bf 109's."*
1 vs 12 ??? Insane odds....

"But Klubov kept the machine in control and landed successfully without his landing gear down. Aviators, standing on the runway, rapidly ran to help him, but Klubov climbed as calm as ever out of his cockpit. He walked around his plane, wondering over all the many bullet holes and said to his aircraft, "You fought very well, my friend!" 

*Klubov said nothing about his duel with six Messerschmitts*, nor that he had shot down two of them. 

1-6 ??? And he got 2 of em???
(He flew 457 sorties and took part in 95 air combats. He scored 31 personal victories and another 19 were claimed as 'group' kills)

"The 16 GvIAP entered battle 9 April 1943 and by the end of that month, had been in 28 air battles, in which Soviet pilots downed 79 aircraft of the following types: 14 Bf 109E, 12 Bf 109F, *45 Bf 109G*, 2 FW 190, 4 Ju 88, 1 Do 217, and 1 Ju 87. The most successful pilots of this period were: Cpt. A. I. Pokryshkin - 10 Bf 109, Sen. Lt. V. I. Fadieyev - 12 Bf 109 and Sen. Lt. G.A. Rechkalov - 7 Bf 109 + 1 Ju 88"

Note: P-39 was a favourite weapon of Pokryshkin, he still flew on that type, when his all 9th Fighter Division was already all reequiped by La-7 fighters. In 1943 Pokryshkin made useful P-39 modifications, bound all armament fire into one stick button, so a wave of 37 mm cannon and 12.7 mm heavy gun shells can devestate any enemy plane in one moment. 

During the war Pokryshkin was 3 times awarded by Soviet Hero Title (Gold Star). He flew total of 550 sorties, participated in 139 air combats he scored officially 59 enemy planes. *But in opinion of some historicans his killboard list should be enlarged by next 13 victories*, scored in battles over Kuban. During free hunt over German territory he downed a row of enemy planes, *but in that period Soviet Command confirmed only planes destroyed over own area. *

Were the pilots that good??? Were the Germans that bad???

Was the Aircobra that superior to the Me-109 G???


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## Lightning Guy (Aug 5, 2004)

I don't really think the Airacobra was. The Americans who flew it called in the Iron Dog. In the Pacific, American P-39 pilots wished to be given trucks since "they were faster and had a higher ceiling!" But then I'm really not sure how to explain the Russians success. They were very addept and using what they have to full advantage.


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## plan_D (Aug 5, 2004)

But comparing a P-39 to a A6M is a bit different from a P-39 against a Bf-109


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## Lightning Guy (Aug 5, 2004)

Well, the P-39 had some performance advantages against the A6M. It would have had no advantages (except perhaps diving speed) over the 109.


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## plan_D (Aug 5, 2004)

I think the referance to the P-39 would be the handling, as the Zero would make almost anything look like its handling like a truck.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Aug 5, 2004)

actually you say that but trucks could proberly turn inside a plane..................


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## plan_D (Aug 5, 2004)

There was some prime GrG pickyness by Lanc there.


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## lesofprimus (Aug 5, 2004)

Im still trying to understand how a single Russian pilot flying a POS Aircobra, can not only hold off 6 109's, but shoot down 2 in the process....

Either an unbelievably skilled pilot, or the Luftwaffe had a bunch of rookies in the sky (doubtful)...

Guess it kinda proves the point that the pilots skill is more important than the aircraft...


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## Lightning Guy (Aug 6, 2004)

Probably. At at low-altitude the P-39 wasn't that bad. It was only above 15,000ft that it became a death trap.


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## GermansRGeniuses (Aug 6, 2004)

plan_D said:


> There was some prime GrG pickyness by Lanc there.





Darn you lanc, darn you...


*Shakes fist* 



Glad he didn't use my "man running around in circles like a retard" remark, though...

That was the best one!



   8)


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Aug 6, 2004)

> Guess it kinda proves the point that the pilots skill is more important than the aircraft...



i don't quite think that was the case with the sunderlands fighting off all the other fighters.....................


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## Gemhorse (Aug 31, 2004)

Luftwaffe Ace Helmut Lipfert [203 victories] apparently wrote 'the Airacobra was the best Russian fighter at the time...a close match for our Bf 109's'. - As LG states, they were a successful low-altitude fighter. - However, the P-63 Kingcobra was more formidable with it's two-stage Allison, equalling the Merlin Mustang, and Russian pilots reported it was a match for the Fw-190's and more than a match for 109's. If you're into reading about them, apparently the last word on them is a book called 'Cobra' by Birch Matthews, a former Bell engineer. It's a 416 page hard-cover [Schiffer, 1996]...


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## Lightning Guy (Aug 31, 2004)

By all accounts the P-63 was a very good aircraft. I imagine it could have been put to good use with the 9th AF over France had the Americans decided to employ it.


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Aug 31, 2004)

does anyone have a pic of a P-39 or P-63 that tailed over on landing??


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## Gemhorse (Aug 31, 2004)

That would be a very rare shot, being an aircraft with tricycle undercarriage....perhaps if there was a failure of the front wheel to come down. They were nick-named 'The Flying Battery' due to their having virtually all functions performed electrically, quite revolutionary at the time. - P.40 pilots used to tease Airacobra pilots during the early days of the Pacific conflict, when Airacobras were then called P-400's, as being ' P-40's with a Zero on their tail'...Within 20 weeks of the Pearl Harbour attack, USAAC P-39's were in service in Hawaii, Panama, the Aleutians and PNG - by late 1942, they were also operational in Europe and N.Africa. Of the 9,588 Airacobras built, in 1973 there were 7 surviving, but recently, with recoveries from their theatres of operations,restored survivors are passing 50 in number... The closest I can find to your 'tail-up' photo, Lanc, is a P.39N that's pole-mounted [diving-pose] at Goroka, Papua New Guinea, which was recovered in Tadji in 1967....


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## Lightning Guy (Aug 31, 2004)

The P-400 was the official designation of the P-39s that had been initially accepted by Britain and then returned to the US. They were notable for having a more useful 20mm gun in place of the P-39s 37mm weapon.


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## GermansRGeniuses (Sep 1, 2004)

"A P-400 is a P-40 with a Zero on its tail!"


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## Lightning Guy (Sep 2, 2004)

That was the wartime joke. But the returned versions of the P-39 were actually known as P-400s and nicknamed "Klunkers."


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 4, 2004)

when i said pictures of a P-39 or P-63 tailed over on landing, i meant that because of the high nose well and mid mounted engine, there was a chance that the tail would hit the ground like a plane with tail weel landing gear, i've read of a coup,e of accounts ofthat happening................


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## kiwimac (Sep 10, 2004)

Kiwimac,

Buffs chest and smirks as at least one more nail is put in the coffin of the " Its the Aeroplane that makes the pilot" argument.

Kiwimac


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## Gemhorse (Sep 10, 2004)

Well, the great thing is that it's highly probable that Airacobras and Bf-109's should have the oppurtunity sooner or later to try some combat manoevres...The international Warbird scene is seeing some of both aircraft types achieving full restoration, and meeting at Airshow events...There's P-39's coming out of Russia and the Pacific, and a few Bf-109's are coming together out of Europe...Personally, I think the jury's still out on the P-39, it's maligned by some, and praised by others....


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## lesofprimus (Sep 10, 2004)

Even still, the Aircobra was waaaaayyyyy outclassed by the -109... But yet some Russians had extremely good results in air to air combat...

Another example that pilot skill makes up for an airplanes lack of...


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## Gemhorse (Sep 13, 2004)

Yeah, but I still think the jury's out on that too...How come the Russians could turn a US 'pigs ear into a silk purse?' - There's a famous propaganda poster of Russian Captain Tshepinog in front of his P-39 with 24 victory stars above the exhausts - They used them right-up to the end of the War. Besides that, the Aussies had 22 of 'em in the Pacific, the Free French used 165 of 'em late in the War, as did the Italian Co-Belligerent AF from 1944...plus all those already in use....-Another factor we overlook too, is all that went into both the P-39 P-63 in their respective developments, became of great use to Bell after the War....all that ing around with shaft-drives etc. , went into the latter Helicopter development, so I find it very hard to dismiss the P-39 and all that was accomplished by them throughout the War...We could argue about all the radical German designs, and what became of them....I think the same applies here with the P-39...As a low-altitude fighter, I feel they acquitted themselves well, their main problem seemed to be the change in centre-of-gravity as they expended their ammo, which isn't much different from the effect fuel-depletion can have on some aircraft, just something a pilot has to take into account. One thing I've noticed about the Russians at that time, they made-do with what they got or had, be it Hurricanes, Lagg 3's or P-39's.....Rugged buggers, eh?


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## Lightning Guy (Sep 13, 2004)

Same thing could be said of the Finns . . .


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 13, 2004)

who interestingly used both british and german planes during the war...............


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## Lightning Guy (Sep 13, 2004)

Plus American, Russian, and I believe even some Italian planes.


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## lesofprimus (Sep 13, 2004)

The only countries that any sort of sucess witht he P-39 were the countries that got them for free, or lend-lease.... The Brits didnt want them, and neither did the Americans...

Beggars cant be choosey....


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 14, 2004)

well you know what the russains are like, "Rugged buggers"..............


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## lesofprimus (Sep 14, 2004)

Rugged beggars maybe....


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 14, 2004)

they made use of anything they had...................


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## lesofprimus (Sep 14, 2004)

Yup, or anything they could get their hands on....


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 14, 2004)

or anything close to hand....................


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## Gemhorse (Sep 15, 2004)

Well, one can look upon the P-39 as some kinda third-rate aerial wheelbarrow if y'like, but they are sure getting popular, expensive and sort-after these days...


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## lesofprimus (Sep 15, 2004)

ANY WW II aircraft nowadays is going to be popular, expensive and sought after.... 

I think the last cheap WW II aircraft were back in the late 60's, when a few Corsairs were bought for around $1,500 bucks by a guy who was planning on leasing them for an upcoming movie about the Black Sheep, which never materialized....


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## Lightning Guy (Sep 15, 2004)

But if I remember correctly those where the planes that where used in the TV series "Black Sheep Squadron."


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## lesofprimus (Sep 15, 2004)

Yes they were.. The original owner sold them for $5,000 a piece to the new owners, who in turn leased them to the studio for the filming of that totally non-accurate portrayal of Boyingtons Bastards, although Robert Conrad did a pretty decent job portraying Pappy, atleast according to Boyington himself..

I have a great deal of info and feelings concerning the Black Sheep, seeing how my Grandpa was one of em...


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Sep 15, 2004)

i'm a bit young to know what you're talking about...............


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## lesofprimus (Sep 15, 2004)

Baa Baa Black Sheep was a television show that came out in the 70's, detailing the exploits of the Black Sheep flying off a make believe island called Espritu Santo... All fiction, no realistic information or missions...

Loosely based on Pappy Boyington's autobiography, Baa Baa Black Sheep, which itself was loosely based on the facts... 

The Corsairs were real, but everything else, especially all those cute nurses that they had running around the runway... My Grandpa said if that were true, and there were nurses there, there woulda been no reason for R R...

The opening credits of the show characterized the Black Sheep pilots as "a collection of misfits and screwballs," which Frank Walton, the squadron's Air Combat Intelligence Officer, and other veterans of the squadron resented... Walton wrote an article for TV Guide, in attempt to set the record straight." This article became the springboard for him to write his fine book Once They Were Eagles: The Men of the Black Sheep Squadron...

Pappy himself was a consultant to the show, and got on well with its star, Robert Conrad... The producers located some pretty good aircraft: about 5 Corsairs, a DC-3/C-47, some Zeros, and the ubiquitous SNJ (North American Texan) trainer.... The Corsairs in the TV show were finished in overall dark glossy blue, with no identifying numbers. Perhaps it would have been easy (and inexpensive) to paint them authentically... Pappy's Corsair is well documented... But one correspondent noted that un-identified planes were easier to re-use and make appear to be more numerous than they really were. 

Baa Baa Black Sheep ran for one and a half seasons on NBC, 1976-77 and Spring 1978... There were 35 episodes: a two-part pilot entitled "The Misfits," 22 one-hour episodes in 1976-77, and 13 episodes first broadcast in 1978. The two-hour pilot was first telecast: on September 21, 1976... For the Spring 1978 season, the show was re-titled "Black Sheep Squadron;" the last episode aired on April 6, 1978. 
The History Channel still airs "Baa Baa Black Sheep" from time to time.... The telecasts of the show feature brief interviews with surviving Black Sheep - usually John Bolt, Ed Olander, and Bob McClurg.


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## Gemhorse (Sep 15, 2004)

Pappy wrote his autobiography titled 'Baa Baa Blacksheep'...He was the Marine Corps Top Ace with 28 victories, 6 of which he scored while flying P-40's with the 'Flying Tigers' in China. He took command of VMF-214 on 7th Sept. 1943 at age 30...IJN Petty Officer Masajiro 'Mike' Kawato shot Pappy down on 3rd Jan. 1944, who was POW until wars end. Kawato was shot down 3 times, eventually captured 14 March 1945 at Baien, having a total of 18 kills in 200 combat hrs., mostly Corsairs...his was apparently the last Zero shot down over Rabaul. He eventually settled in Seattle and wrote his autobiography, 'Bye Bye Blacksheep'!....He claimed a B-24 in his total, survived a collision with a P-38, and stated that they were easy to out-manoevre at low altitude but difficult beyond 5,000 m....I recall the TV series, we had it down here years ago....You would probably pay over $1.2 million today for a restored Corsair....


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## Lightning Guy (Sep 16, 2004)

Every now and then I can catch an episode of Black Sheep Squadron on the History Channel. It wasn't always the most accurate in its technical aspects but I liked it. There was one episode that featured a couple of P-38s.


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## Gemhorse (Sep 17, 2004)

Although there's up to 50 P-39 restorations going on now world-wide, there is a 2nd P-39 flying now, a P-39-Q6 belonging to The Fighter Collection. It's a veteran too, served with the 71st Tactical Reconnaissance Group in PNG. - Also, just to illustrate the high-art of the Restorers, former Astronaut Frank Borman, a Mustang owner, had a rare P-63 restored in such a manner as to be exactly as it would have left the factory with every piece of armour plate, every item of ordnance, every stencil to be precisely 1944 military specification. He had all this done at 'Square One Aviation' in Chino, LA., [Mustang specialists], and it won awards etc. ....Really warms the heart, what these guys do...they're like 'time capsules'.....You Americans are fortunate there is so much of this going on where it's accessible to you in Stateside....


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## delcyros (Mar 4, 2005)

Remember the russian did some nice "modifications" on the lend lease fighters, esspecially on the P-39. They often removed the heavy 37mm gun in favour to the much better 20 mm they used. That spared some weight, too. As did the removal of most of the armorplates (even cockpit armor was removed). Actually the russian modified P-39 was very much a succesful plane and a good contender for Bf-109 in low altitude (where most dogfights happen on the eastern front). Lowering the weight was a common method for the russians to improve the design. The P-39 (mod.) was a little bit faster tahn the US model, it did accelerate better and the reduced wingload together with more powerload made it an even better turnfighter. Check Jakovlevs statements about field modifications in his book! I do think it is underrated a bit. (and I like the design anyway..)


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## wmaxt (Mar 4, 2005)

delcyros said:


> Remember the russian did some nice "modifications" on the lend lease fighters, esspecially on the P-39. They often removed the heavy 37mm gun in favour to the much better 20 mm they used. That spared some weight, too. As did the removal of most of the armorplates (even cockpit armor was removed). Actually the russian modified P-39 was very much a succesful plane and a good contender for Bf-109 in low altitude (where most dogfights happen on the eastern front). Lowering the weight was a common method for the russians to improve the design. The P-39 (mod.) was a little bit faster tahn the US model, it did accelerate better and the reduced wingload together with more powerload made it an even better turnfighter. Check Jakovlevs statements about field modifications in his book! I do think it is underrated a bit. (and I like the design anyway..)



It has been stated that the P-39 really suffered from the Wright field engineers who made many unilateral changes that hurt the performance in the name of "stream lining" it. This was done without testing or imput from the designers. It slowed the plane by appx 50-65mph and limited altitude to 16,000ft for effective flight.

A modifided P-39 was actually a prime contender at various air races in the US after the war winning often. 

Ben Kelesy (AAF P-38 project manager) through Warren Bodie states the crash of the very first P-38 saved it from the same fate or it may have ended up like the "Castrated Lightnings".


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## Udet (Mar 4, 2005)

This is a very interesting thread.

I do think no one has ever come up with any sort of sufficient explanation on how some soviet pilots were succesful flying the P-39 against the Bf109s.

Pokryshkyn was of course a superb pilot -many say far better than Kozhedub- and since the P-39 was not that bad, he made the best out of the plane in combat against German fighters.

The soviet story on Vadim Fadeyev is another one of the soviet propaganda tales. While he made an excellent pilot, it was the soviet fashion to tell all of their aces who died in combat did so only against "overwhelming" odds.

You know, like if soviet heroes had not been humans, but kind of superior beings, that could only be defeated when the odds were totally overwhelming.

Vadim was a fine pilot, but the story is rather different: in a dogfight involving several German and soviet aircraft, he got shot down and killed by a single Bf109 that engaged him. The point is the soviet propaganda guys wanted to cover up as much as possible the real fate of many of their heroes.

A similar tale occured with one of the top soviet female aces, Lilya Lytvak, depicted by the soviet propaganda "as strikingly beautiful, smart, top pilot, warm person" and lots of blah, blah...it has been told she went down and got killed only when 8, 9 or 10 Bf109´s got her alone. Her end was not that complex: a colonel of the russian army told me that was propagana hogwash, she got shot down and killed in a one against one match against a Bf109.

Lev Shestakov, another ace, who got killed in combat with a single stuka was given a story that would as well cover up his end, fighting against a sole single engined enemy bomber.

Those are only a few cases guys.


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## CharlesBronson (Mar 4, 2005)

Those histories are completely crap, if you always have 6 o 7 Messer per Yak or Lagg, so the produccion of the bf-109 was not 33000, but 330000.

Anyway yes, there was a bunch of soviet aces in the Airacobra wich is not a bad aircraft. 







The sistem of comfirm the claims was also controversial, like many others.

A document about this particular issue.


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## cheddar cheese (Mar 5, 2005)

Nice info! 8)


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## delcyros (Mar 5, 2005)

Yeah, propaganda remains a problem if you want to compare both designs properly. Even with this in mind, russian ace pilots often prefered the P-39 until the Yak 3 and La 5 became operational in numbers. (..as the french pilots of Normandi Njiemen prefered the Yak 3 at a time, at which Spitfire IX and P-51 was avaiable, too.) However, german pilots didn´t feel inferior to the russian (even if they are clearly outnumbered in 1944) planes, technically. (From 1943 on they didn´t feel superior, too.)It was a matter of the pilots.


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## KraziKanuK (Mar 5, 2005)

> (..as the french pilots of Normandi Njiemen prefered the Yak 3 at a time, at which Spitfire IX and P-51 was avaiable, too.)



delcyros,

when did the Soviets get P-51s?

Afaik they received 10 from the Brits (Allison engines) and mayby had a few they salvaged that were left at Poltava.


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## Anonymous (Mar 6, 2005)

The P-39 performance below about 16,000 feet rivaled that of the Bf109. Even the Bf109G-6 barely outperforms it in terms of speed and climb. The P-39 was not liked by American pilots because of its sluggish medium-high altitude performance, but at low altitudes it was a very hot fighter. It was also had much more firepower than early Soviet fighters, which typically had two 7.7 mm, or one 7.7 and one 12.7mm. The 37mm gun was not much good for dogfighting, but it was excellent for killing German bombers. Also, the P-39 had a much better gunsight than Soviet figthers - a huge factor often not considered in matching up fighters (a huge disadvantage for Soviet and Japanese fighters in general).

Some info to consider:



> *Specification of Bell P-39D Airacobra:*
> 
> Engine: One 1150 hp Allison V-1710-35 twelve-cylinder liquid cooled engine. Performance: Maximum speed 309 mph at sea level, 335 mph at 5000 feet, 355 mph at 10,000 feet, 368 mph at 12,000 feet, and 360 mph at 15,000 feet. An altitude of 5000 feet could be reached in 1.9 minutes. It took 5.7 minutes to reach an altitude of 15,000 feet and 9.1 minutes to reach 20,000 feet. Service ceiling was 32,100 feet. Maximum range (clean) was 600 miles at 10,000 feet at 231 mph. Range with one 145.7 Imp gal drop tank was 1100 miles at 196 mph. Weights: 5462 pounds empty, 7500 pounds gross, and 8200 pounds maximum takeoff. Dimensions: Wingspan 34 feet 0 inches, length 30 feet 2 inches, height 11 feet 10 inches, and wing area 213 square feet. Armament: One 37-mm cannon in the nose with 30 rounds. Four wing-mounted 0.30-inch machine guns with 1000 rpg, two fuselage-mounted 0.50-inch machine guns with 200 rounds per gun. One 250 lb, 325-lb, or 500-lb bomb could be carried underneath the fuselage.
> http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p39_4.html





> *Specifications of the P-39Q-5-BE:*
> 
> One Allison V-1710-85 engine rated at 1200 hp at sea level and 1125 hp at 15,500 feet. Maximum speed 330 mph at 5000 feet, 357 mph at 10,000 feet, 376 mph at 15,000 feet. Climb to 5000 feet in 2.0 minutes. Climb to 20,000 feet in 8.5 minutes. Maximum range (clean) was 525 miles at 20,000 feet at 250 mph. With one 145.7 Imp gal drop tank, range was 1075 miles at 196 mph. Service ceiling was 35,000 feet. Weights were 5645 pounds empty, 7600 pounds normal loaded, 8300 pounds maximum loaded. Dimensions: Wingspan 34 feet 0 inches, length 30 feet 2 inches, height 12 feet 5 inches, wing area 213 square feet.
> http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p39_15.html





> *Bf 109G-6*
> 
> Maximum speed 623 kph (387 mph) at 7000 meters (22970 ft), 544 kph (338 mph) at sea level. Climb to 5791 meters (19000 ft) in 6 minutes. Service ceiling 11735 meters (38500 ft). Maximum ceiling 12116 meters (39750 ft). Range 724 km (450 miles) at 531 kph (330 mph) at 5791 meters (19000 ft), 990 km (615 miles) at 418 kph (260 mph) at 5791 meters (19000 ft).
> http://www.bf109.com/performance.html#G6





> The Airacobra was quite popular with its Russian pilots, who appreciated its heavy armament, its excellent low-altitude performance, and its ability to absorb an incredible amount of battle damage. When operating at low altitudes, the Airacobra was often able to hold its own against top-of-the-line German fighters. Some Soviet pilots felt that the P-39 outclassed even the Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke Wulf FW 190 at altitudes below 10,000 feet. Some of the users of the type were Guard (ie. elite) Fighter Regiments 16 GIAP, 19 GIAP, 21 GIAP, 72 GIAP, 100 GIAP, 213 GIAP (previously 508 IAP) and Fighter Regiments 196 IAP, 255 IAP, 508 IAP (later 213 GIAP).
> 
> Several Soviet Airacobra aces are known. Lieutenant Colonel of the Guards Alexander I. Pokryshin, a Soviet ace with 59 kills to his credit, scored 48 of these in a P-39. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by President Roosevelt. There are eight other P-39 pilots with at least 20 kills. Among top Airacobra aces were Grigorii A Rechkalov (44 kills) , Nikolai D Gulayev (36 kills), Ivan I Babak, Aleksandr F Klubov, Andrei I Trud, and the brothers Boris B Glinka and Dmitrii B Glinka
> 
> ...



=S=

Lunatic


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## delcyros (Mar 6, 2005)

The russians did not got any Mustangs in numbers,
but there was avaiability for the french pilots of Normandie Njiemen late in 1944/early 1945 to take over some P-51 /Spitfire (probably model IX, but I´m not sure in that, will check out). It was some kind of gift for de gaulle to deploy french troops against germans (including air forces). 
They voted for the Yak-3. (some of them are displayed in french museums)
That squadron really has an interesting story, we can discuss on another board.
However, the P-39 Q was really a good fighter, it could keep it´s energy during turns better than the Fw-190, making it an effictive weapon in the hands of skilled pilots. Acceleration and initially climb wasn´t that impressive (in comparison with Bf-109 models) but it was a stable weapon platform and the russian modifications made it a good turn-fighter, too. Very much a succesful design in low altitudes (where most kills happen over russia)in my 
eyes.


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## Anonymous (Mar 6, 2005)

To 8,000-10,000 feet the P-39 climbed as well as the 109's of the same time periods, which implies similar level acceleration.

Had the full supercharger (or a turbo-supercharger) been left on the plane, it would have been very competative with all enemy fighters. As has already been pointed out, it was gutted by beurocrats who did not understand aircraft design but thought they did.

=S=

Lunatic


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## CharlesBronson (Mar 6, 2005)

Some data referent to Airacobra P-39D.











Internal arrangement of gunsigth and winshield armour in P-39D.






The good caracteristics in turn are at list, dobtful, I wrote that is a good plane but the turn ability is not his strong point. The Bf-109G-2 and BF-109F-4 are both better dogfighters than any P-39 version. 

I have the Manual for the P-39Q, in wich is strongly recomended avoid any innecesary loop of quik turn, and when you carry a droptank or bomb, according to some pilots, you need velvet hands.

Anyway Airacobra is a more proficient bomber destroyer than the Messers and much better aircraft that Yak-1, mig-1 or I-16.


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## Anonymous (Mar 6, 2005)

Very good pilots were able to make the P-39 manuver very well. Lesser pilots had a lot of problems with it. The plane was inheriantly unstable, which can make it very manuverable or very dangerous, depending on the pilot. US pilots didn't like this, as learning to be good in it was dangerous. Soviet pilots... well either you learned to be very good or you were dead anyway.

=S=

Lunatic


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## wmaxt (Mar 6, 2005)

RG_Lunatic said:


> Very good pilots were able to make the P-39 manuver very well. Lesser pilots had a lot of problems with it. The plane was inheriantly unstable, which can make it very manuverable or very dangerous, depending on the pilot. US pilots didn't like this, as learning to be good in it was dangerous. Soviet pilots... well either you learned to be very good or you were dead anyway.
> 
> =S=
> 
> Lunatic



Sorry out of topic question - RG what was the site that quoted P-51 cruise speeds?


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## Anonymous (Mar 6, 2005)

wmaxt said:


> Sorry out of topic question - RG what was the site that quoted P-51 cruise speeds?



http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/p51_10.html <== 395 mph for 950 miles, clean.

http://www.seedwiki.com/wiki/Flight Gear/Mustang Manual.htm <== 363 mph

There are actually quite a few sources giving different cruising speeds. But, something between 360 and 395 mph at about 20-25 thousand feet was possible in "full auto-rich" mode, though at lower speeds longer range could be had. Optimal cruise speed for maximum range seems to have been around 275 mph clean, about 215 mph with drop tanks.

=S=

Lunatic


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## DAVIDICUS (Mar 7, 2005)

RG_Lunatic:

On an unrelated note, do you know what the cruising speed was for the P-47 for any given altitudes?


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## Anonymous (Mar 7, 2005)

DAVIDICUS said:


> RG_Lunatic:
> 
> On an unrelated note, do you know what the cruising speed was for the P-47 for any given altitudes?



I believe it was about 260 mph, but I don't have a lot of specifics on altitude (I'd imagine it was above 15K, probably above 20K). I've seen figures as high as 350 mph, but I don't believe this is true. The fast cruise speed for the P-47N was 300 mph, and it should be faster than the D because of the wing design and more robust C series engine.

http://www.hill.af.mil/museum/photos/wwii/p-47.htm <== quotes 260 mph.

http://usfighter.tripod.com/p47.htm <== quotes 260 mph.

http://www.americanairpowermuseum.com/htm/p47.htm <== P-47N = 300 mph

According to the JBaugher site:



> *Specifications of the P-47D-25-RE:*
> 
> One Pratt and Whitney R-2800-59 Double Wasp eighteen-cylinder air-cooled radial, war emergency power of 2535 hp. Maximum speed was 429 mph at 30,000 feet, 406 mph at 20,000 feet, 375 mph at 10,000 feet, 350 mph at sea level. Initial climb rate was 2780 feet per minute. Climb rate at 30,000 feet was 1575 feet per minute. Service ceiling was 40,000 feet, and range was 950 miles at 10,000 feet. Range with maximum external fuel was 1800 miles at 10,000 feet at 195 mph.



So it seems for the P-47D it was 260 mph clean cruise (at unknown altitude), 195 mph with tanks at 10K.

=S=

Lunatic


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## CharlesBronson (Mar 7, 2005)

Flight indications in manual for P-39Q-1


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## The Jug Rules! (Mar 7, 2005)

Lightning Guy said:


> Every now and then I can catch an episode of Black Sheep Squadron on the History Channel. It wasn't always the most accurate in its technical aspects but I liked it. There was one episode that featured a couple of P-38s.



I remember that one. One of the '38 pilots went nuts and put a few holes in Boyington's tail...

I wonder was it based on a true story?


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## DAVIDICUS (Mar 7, 2005)

Thanks RG_Lunatic. That's pretty slow. Sort of like a flying locomotive.


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## delcyros (Mar 7, 2005)

Yeah, the P-39 was surely a very advanced plane of it´s time 
(tricycle carriage, turbochargers, good vissiblity) in general. It made also impact on german designs (look at the Me-309 prototypes for example), thanks to the impressions it made in the hands of skilled russian pilots.
However, not all russian pilots were like Prokryshkin or Khozedub. As I pointed out above, the russian modifications made the handling (according to Yakolev) more forgiving to pilots (reducing the stall speed a little=better handling, increasing acelleration and speed, thanks to reduced weight). Without doubt it was the most popular plane of the land lease fighters for russian pilots. However it could barely match a Bf-109 F2/F4/G2 or G10 in acceleration and initial climb and dive (that was noticed by Luftwaffe Jaeger). The Bf-109 G6 is another story, it depends. Was it in a clear fighter configuration (without 2 MG151/20 wing gondolas) and what engine (the later Bf-109 G6 with DB 605 ASCM/ASCDM was much better) was fitted. Clear fighter configurations were, however, not very common on the eastern front (thanks partly to the IL-2, they simply need more firepower). That works for the P-39. Accelleration depends mostly on thrust(recalculate horsepower to thrust will make it easier)/weight ratio, screw and the aerodynamical drag of the airframe. I have lots of datas about that. (my books are packed however, I move from Fürstenwalde to Kreuzberg (Berlin) in the moment, will finish next weekend) The differences between Bf-109 and P-39 were in general not that decisive in the common dogfight altitudes over russia. And the P-39 (mod.) was even better in some parameters. It is an advanced design, it was credited with a lot of arial victories, it was liked by their russian pilots and it stayed in front line use over years, what a plane!


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## cheddar cheese (Mar 7, 2005)

I must admit I do like the P-39 very much, it never ceases to amaze me!


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## Udet (Mar 7, 2005)

This is all very interesting guys.

After reading a good deal of info, i am convinced the P-39 was not that bad (ugly as a hangover though).

Superb pilots such as Pokryshkyn were not available for the VVS in numbers, the bulk of soviet pilots got hastily trained and sent to the frontlines. Very few pilots had the luxury of having a Pokryshkyn training them. 

If the soviets indeed started producing very capable fighters such as the late Yaks and Las, i find it amazing the lendleased P-39s saw service in the VVS until the very last day of the war. The training of their pilots was mediocre and their losses continued to be prohibitive throughout the war.

Losses of VVS P-39s were extremely high; all you have to do is to gather as much information as you can on the airbattlers over the Kuban bridgehead of 1943, when the soviet airforce proved uncapable of gaining air superiority in the area. German reports showed P-39s and British fighters were being engaged in numbers.

The P-39 certainly continues to be sort of an enigma: i recall reading records on the little numbers of P-39s which saw action against the Luftwaffe in the west, and the majority of them died in combat.


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## delcyros (Mar 7, 2005)

Losses of russian units were high in general. The german Jagdgruppen used superior tactics to beat them badly. The russians also liked very light designs, such like Yak´s. They don´t prefered durability and therefore the rate of survivability isn´t very impressive. Kind of japanese doctrine or isn´t it? But still the germans suffered high losses, too. 1943 was a turning year in the curse of war in russia. The russian Air forces with mostly rookie pilots had bad losses, yes. But it was still the year Prokryshkin, Khozedub, Enlajev and others could develop useful fighter tatctics against the germans. That was possible because the P-39 was avaiable . They would have even more a bad time if they had to stay in their Yak 1,Yak 7, MiG-1, I-16 or LaGG-3. Prokryshkin wrote (years later I must admit) that the plane opened new tactics, made succesful boom ´n Zoom possible and made turn ´n burn obsolete. Compare a I-16 fighter pilot with one, sitting in a P-39. I would make my choice quickly...


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## Anonymous (Mar 7, 2005)

The Jug Rules! said:


> Lightning Guy said:
> 
> 
> > Every now and then I can catch an episode of Black Sheep Squadron on the History Channel. It wasn't always the most accurate in its technical aspects but I liked it. There was one episode that featured a couple of P-38s.
> ...



Hmmm... do you really think that Bong or McGuire were such treasonous idiots as described? I gaurantee you it was pure fiction - bad fiction at that!

=S=

Lunatic


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## Anonymous (Mar 7, 2005)

DAVIDICUS said:


> Thanks RG_Lunatic. That's pretty slow. Sort of like a flying locomotive.



Actually it was on the fast side of normal for WWII fighters. The P-51 is the exception, only a handful of WWII fighters could maintain speeds above 280 mph in cruising (lean) condition.

=S=

Lunatic


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## DJ_Dalton (Mar 7, 2005)

lesofprimus said:


> Quotes:
> "Fadieyev recorded 394 battle missions, 51 combats, 17 alone kills and other 3 group victories. While flying in a P-39 D-2 (from 9 April 1943, till 5 May 1943), he downed 14 Bf 109 and 1 Ju 87. *He was KIA on 5 May 1943 on a lone fight against group of 12 Bf 109's."*
> 1 vs 12 ??? Insane odds....
> 
> ...



First off it would be EXTREMELY unlikely for that many Bf-109E's to have remained in the field, even in Russia in such numbers as late as April 1943, but thats not the real issue. Everyone knows the Russians padded. If they did take them, they probably took them abandoned on the ground. They were getting spanked in 1943. Not as bad as the previous year, but bad. It really didnt' start going well for them until a about a year later and their pilots and aircraft were never that good and were always overrated. The Russian's love stories about being outnumbered 20-1 and prevailing. They had Lidya Litvak set upon by the whole Luftwaffe...lol

Klubov was lucky to get home that fight. I'm sure he took two down...lol


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## delcyros (Mar 10, 2005)

The P-39 also filled a needed role in the soviet air force. From late 1942 on, the red army was more and more advancing and it happens quite often that the tanks advanced beyond the range of their air cover, making them good food for the obsolete Stuka and Henschel Schlachtflieger. It was not before the introduction of the P-39 that the soviets had a comparable fighter with good range. (The Yak-7 did the job earlier but it was clearly outclassed by the Bf-109 F/G and Fw-190 A)


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## wmaxt (Mar 10, 2005)

RG_Lunatic said:


> DAVIDICUS said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks RG_Lunatic. That's pretty slow. Sort of like a flying locomotive.
> ...


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## Anonymous (Mar 11, 2005)

wmax,

I've spoken to real WWII P-51 pilots who say that they typically conducted their screening sweeps at speeds in excess of 250 IAS at 25,000-28,000 feet, in the lean power condition. That works out to about 360+ mph TAS.

What the cruising speed when "escorting" the bombers was is irrelevant, since P-51's didn't do this starting with Big Week. Typically, for a raid into Germany, four different sets of P-51's were staged to escort at different points along the route after the P-47's range was exceeded (they escorted first). Once they got into escort position, they conducted sweeping patrols across the front of the bomber formation. When the next group of escort planes arrived to releave them, they were freed to go down and hunt the Luftwaffe.

The P-38 speed you quote is in the rich condition, which greatly reduces range. Seriously, you are not saying the fuel consumption performance of the P-38 was anywhere near as good as that of the P-51 are you? The P-51 had far less drag even without the radiator thrust system being accounted for - with the radiator thrust system you have to remove the drag created by the cooling system entirely, which gives it a huge advantage when it comes to sustained speed and range over any other WWII plane.

=S=

Lunatic


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## Anonymous (Mar 11, 2005)

wmax - see http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=59144#59144

=S=

Lunatic


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## The Jug Rules! (Mar 11, 2005)

> Hmmm... do you really think that Bong or McGuire were such treasonous idiots as described? I gaurantee you it was pure fiction - bad fiction at that!
> 
> =S=
> 
> Lunatic


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## CharlesBronson (Mar 31, 2005)

It is surprising how many later USAAF aces opened their scores flying the Bell fighter. However, only one pilot William F. Fiedler Jr. managed to down five opponents flying the Airacobra, making him the only true ace on the type. Fiedler was fighting against Japanese over Guadalcanal with 347th Fighter Group. 

Bell P-39D-1 Airacobra
Ser. no 41-38359
8th Fighter (Pursuit) Group, New Guinea, 1942
pilot George Welch








Those times 8th Fighter Group pilots often used flamboyant white aircraft symbols to mark victories. George Welch was no exception. Note that his first victim downed over Ewa seemed to be quite large at least for him.









In late spring 1942 Wagner took two squadrons of Airacobra equipped 8th Fighter Group, and moved with them to New Guinea still being officially assigned to 5th FC. On April 30th 1942 he downed three Zeros while flying P-39, while Graham Greene of 35th PS destroyed another one. These four kills were first victories of the 8th Fighter Group. Because of his strange assignment status his three victories were not credited officially and thus they are not counted in USAF Historical Study, but now Mr. Frank Olynyk considers them as valid. On the other hand it is hard to prove fully their authenticity as far as survived Japanese loss reports show less than four downed Zeros claimed by 8th FG on that day. 

Bell P-39F Airacobra
Ser. no 41-7170
8th Fighter (Pursuit) Group, New Guinea, 1942
pilot Boyd Wagner







The Bell Airacobras rejected by the RAF was quickly put in service in the Pacific with the P-400 name. A funnie fact about this aircraft is that it lack of breathing O2 due incompatibilities between the US and British sistem.

Bell P-400 Airacobra
39th Fighter (Pursuit) Squadron, 35th Fighter (Pursuit) Group
Port Moresby, New Guinea, 1942
pilot Richard Suehr







The plane carried factory-applied camouflage to British standards and RAF insignia, although the latter were exchanged to US stars. In such form the aircraft was assigned to 39th FS, 35th FG, which headed to New Guinea to defend Port Moresby. 


Bell P-400 Airacobra
80th Fighter (Pursuit) Squadron, 8th Fighter (Pursuit) Group
Milne Bay, New Guinea, 1943
pilot Norb Ruff







The pilots also apreciated armor wich was superior to the P-39D and the 7 gun battery ( 4x.30 + 2x.50 + 1x20mm hispano) that can rip apart japaneses planes in air and ground. The speed was also superios than mostly jap fighters and it can outrun and outdive the ( at this time) temible Cero.

However they found it less agile in dogfight than P-40.


Images from http://www.ipmsstockholm.org


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Apr 1, 2005)

great profiles...............


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## CharlesBronson (Aug 2, 2005)

Alexander Pokryshkin tactics to defeat the Me-109.







Two vs one (attacker and cover):






Two vs two (attacker and cover):






Turn with a Me109:











Head on attack:






Evasive climb to turn






Evasive climb with attack


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## FLYBOYJ (Aug 3, 2005)

Very Cool!


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## evangilder (Aug 3, 2005)

Neat stuff!


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## Nonskimmer (Aug 3, 2005)

Agreed!


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## lesofprimus (Aug 3, 2005)

Have em saved on my computer already... Ive had em for a few years already... LOL..


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## FLYBOYJ (Aug 3, 2005)

lesofprimus said:


> Have em saved on my computer already... Ive had em for a few years already... LOL..



ewww - you sly dog you!


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## cheddar cheese (Aug 5, 2005)

Nice diagrams though! 8)


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## dinos7 (Aug 15, 2005)

some people might not agree with me put i believe the me109 wins


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## Soren (Aug 16, 2005)

There is no way the Aircobra is going to win this one.


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## evangilder (Aug 16, 2005)

I agree. The aircobra was not a match for a 109.


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## lesofprimus (Aug 16, 2005)

But then again, there were many Soviet Aces that flew the P-39.... These were not the superstars of the Russian Airforce either.... 

Yea there were a couple elite VVS guys flying them, but on the whole, they were still poorly trained and no match for the German Aces they flew against...

I feel that in certain combat situations, the Aircobra was on equal terms, or close to them, with the -109.... 

Pilot skill alone only counts for part of the kill... The platform on which u score the kill also counts...

That being said, I dont think the P-39 was anywhere near a match for the Bf-109...


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## wmaxt (Aug 16, 2005)

The air war in the East was primarily below 15,000ft where the P-39 was best and the Bf-109 wasn't at its peak. The P-39 was also one of the fastest fighters down low for most of the war, and still an effective racer for years after the war. It may not have been one sided at all.

wmaxt


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## Udet (Aug 16, 2005)

I will bring up the issue of soviet pilots deliberatedly overclaiming.

Not that they lusted about the idea of becoming communist super heroes; it was also a matter of personal safety to them.

I have met several experts seriously doubting the claims of Kozhedub, Rechkalov and at least of one dozen more of soviet aces. Pokryshkyn is not included in such club though.

Upon landing after a combat mission, soviet pilots were frequently greeted by a committee of soviet bureaucrats which weren´t less aggressive than the guys flying Bf-109s and Fw190s. It was a process of acute harrassment: "how many fascist snakes did you kill?", "where is your contribution to the motherland?".

By answering "I did not shoot down any" they risked being called cowards and why not traitors letting the nation down.


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## lesofprimus (Aug 16, 2005)

Seeing how many Soviet airbases were within a few miles of the German lines, I seriously doubt there were many "soviet bureaucrats" around...

I have read a great deal on Kozhedub, and have talked to several people that knew him, as well as one fellow who flew with him.... They all discount the "padding" of kills that Kozhedub claimed... He was a respectable man of high moral standards and conviction... 

Call him a liar to his face like u just did, and he'd shove a handful of broken glass up ur ass......

Fact is, even US airmen overclaimed... The Germans did, as well as the Japanese and Italians and the Finns and the British....


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## Udet (Aug 16, 2005)

So we are going to measure how accurate our opinions are based upon how much people close to matter we´ve met in person?

Game accepted: I can assure you you will be left way way behind mister.


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## lesofprimus (Aug 17, 2005)

Go tell it to someone who gives a rats ass........ Ur always slamming the Soviets.... 

I have met several experts......... Yea experts in whose eyes??? Yours????

Ha!

Ive been around the Fighter Ace community since I was a small child, and forgotten more about this WWII Ace crap than ull ever know......

But debating with u is like masturbating..... Hardly any pleasure at all...


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Aug 18, 2005)

i really wouldn't advise fighting with les, he knows his stuff, i'd only enter into an argument with him if it was about the lanc, it which case i would crush him.........


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## CharlesBronson (Nov 11, 2005)

Soviet cobras:

*P-39L-1 "White 13" 
100 GIAP verano1943*








*P-39Q"White 119" 196 IAP 
1944*







* Bell P-400 with 20mm gun ex-British in white camo. winter 1942/43*







*P-39N "Krasnoyarskiy Komsomolets" 21 GIAP 
Pilot leutenat Sobolev mid 1943*












profiles from:

http://vvs.hobbyvista.com/


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 11, 2005)

Nice Charlie, I like white 79!


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## CharlesBronson (Nov 11, 2005)

Here is some more:

By the way:



> P-39L-1 "White 13"
> 100 GIAP verano 1943



Hmmm..humm....I mean P-39L-1 White 13 100 GIAP *Summer 1943*...the bilingual thing.... you know  .


*P-39D-2 "White 39" 
ca. Oct. 1942*







*Airacobra I ( Bell P-400) "Withe 34" 19 IAP ca. Dec. 1942*







*Airacobra I (P-400) 
19 GIAP pilot Pavel Kutakhov 
Sept. 1942*







*P-39N "White 50" 
16 GIAP pilot Konstantin Sukhov 
ca. 1945*







*P39Q-15 "White 67" ,72 GIAP, summer 1944*


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Nov 12, 2005)

Nice profiles.


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## trackend (Nov 12, 2005)

I agree that the 109 is a much better aircraft. 
The Aircobra looks really great. 
I have talked to one of the engineers at Duxford who looks after one, he said it's a nightmare especially the drive train.(not very reliable and in constant need of work) . It must be one of the wierdest sounding planes around sort of a whining whistle.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Nov 12, 2005)

I have never been a fan of the P-39. Never liked the fact that I would be sitting on a drive shaft.


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## cheddar cheese (Nov 13, 2005)

Nice profiles, I've always loved the P-39...a plane id love to fly...


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## the lancaster kicks ass (Nov 13, 2005)

a profile doesn't show how good a plane is though


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 13, 2005)

the lancaster kicks ass said:


> a profile doesn't show how good a plane is though



Unless you're flying a PC Sim!


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Nov 13, 2005)

And thats all another thread.....  

Nice siggy there CC, I like the Torp.


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## cheddar cheese (Nov 13, 2005)

Cheers 8)


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## CharlesBronson (Feb 28, 2006)

P-39 versions and his engines.


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## Neto (Nov 4, 2007)

well bf 109 was completely superior against the p 39 . at least it is what i read.


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## drgondog (Nov 4, 2007)

Anonymous said:


> wmax,
> 
> I've spoken to real WWII P-51 pilots who say that they typically conducted their screening sweeps at speeds in excess of 250 IAS at 25,000-28,000 feet, in the lean power condition. That works out to about 360+ mph TAS.
> 
> ...



Forgot to mention - The Escort squadrons were frequently broken up into 8 plane sections - each covering the other in the S turns, one of which was also higher by 500 to 1000 feet... 

The best single compilation I have ever seen is titled "The Long Reach- Deep Fighter Escort Tactics" collected by 8th Fighter Command 29 May 1944. 

It is a series of interviews with Blakeslee, Zemke, Stewart, Dregne, Beeson, Brown, Preddy, etc - damn good reading including strengths weaknesses of Mustang/Jug vs 109 and 190, evasion tactics, etc

Regards,

Bill


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## renrich (Nov 5, 2007)

The P39 was very altitude limited as well as short ranged. It did pretty good work in the Pacific in ground support as it did on the Russian front. The P63 had better high altitude performance than the P39 but was still range limited.


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## JoeB (Nov 5, 2007)

renrich said:


> The P39 was very altitude limited as well as short ranged. It did pretty good work in the Pacific in ground support as it did on the Russian front.


P-39's typically operated at fairly low altitude on the East front, but were *not* mainly ground support planes there, they were mainly used as air superiority fighters. It's just that low altitude was where the action was, either intercepting German ground attack a/c or protecting their own. Soviet P-39's were sometimes used for ground attack, but so were P-51's by the USAAF, so was almost every other fighter in WWII; it was not their main mission.



Neto said:


> well bf 109 was completely superior against the p 39 . at least it is what i read.


As was common in WWII the perception of this differed between sides. The Germans believed their fighters were successful against Soviet ones in most cases even pretty late in the war, certainly including P-39's. The Soviet view was quite different, and their more successful P-39 units in particular believed they had the advantage over German fighters. There were a large number of Soviet P-39 aces, some with official scores higher than any Western ace. 

As always, the objective operational truth is a matter of accurately tallying actual German and Soviet fighter losses in P-39 v 109 combats, and discounting what either side claimed, but it's still hard to do. I doubt the P-39 really had an exchange ratio >1 against German fighters, since evidence of total German and Soviet losses in 1944 suggests Soviet fighters as a whole didn't achieve >1 ratio even by then. But comparatively among types the Soviets used, the P-39 had a good reputation as an air to air fighter among those who flew it, situation similar to USAAF where successful P-38, P-47 and P-51 pilots all insisted their type was best of the three. Successful Soviet P-39 units swore by the plane, only acknowledging the superiority of much more advanced late war indigenous types (La-5FN, late model Yak-9's etc).

Joe


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## Soundbreaker Welch? (Nov 6, 2007)

Pardon my asking, but is that plane a mosquito?

Edit: I think it is. It looked a lot like a P-38, or perhaps a doubled engined P-39? 

That would have been interesting.....how about a triple engine.........


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## Soren (Nov 6, 2007)

Yup, its a Mossie


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## AL Schlageter (Nov 6, 2007)

Soundbreaker Welch? said:


> Pardon my asking, but is that plane a mosquito?
> 
> Edit: I think it is. It looked a lot like a P-38, or perhaps a doubled engined P-39?
> 
> That would have been interesting.....how about a triple engine.........


No nose wheel, so not a P-38. 

Side entrance door, leading edge radiators inlets, canopy, shrouded exhausts all say Mosquito.


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## renrich (Nov 6, 2007)

Joe B, good post, and I agree. Kill-loss ratios are always suspect as well as # of kills. I have found that if one takes the number of claims by pilots in wartime reports and divides by two a more useful number is obtained. I would suspect that the Soviet claims should be divided at least by four. The best souce of realistic claims I have seen is by John Lundstrom in his books about the Pacific War where he reconciles claims by researching records on both sides.


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## AL Schlageter (Nov 6, 2007)

Why should the Soviet claims be divided by at least 4? Their claim system was almost as strong as the LW.


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## lesofprimus (Nov 6, 2007)

HA!


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## renrich (Nov 6, 2007)

I believe that the veracity of the Soviets is in great question. My disbelief in the veracity of the Soviet government is not meant to denigrate the fighting qualities of the Russian people especially when they are well led.


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## JoeB (Nov 6, 2007)

AL Schlageter said:


> Why should the Soviet claims be divided by at least 4? Their claim system was almost as strong as the LW.


Even if so, the Luftwaffe's claim accuracy varied all over the map during WWII. Some LW nightfighter units over Germany made almost 100% accurate claims, but Me-262 claims against USAAF fighters appear to have been overstated by a factor of several, probably more than 4. 

I don't think you can pick a particular factor by which to discount credited victories, without a fair size sample from the same air arm in the same period under similar conditions. As I mentioned above, I don't know what factor to apply to Soviet P-39 credits in WWII. The author Christer Bergstrom (Black Cross Red Star series of books) has said he has examples of Soviet WWII victory credits only around 3 times German losses. I've personally researched Soviet victory credits in Korea and those were much more overstated, [6-]8 times. Soviet credits in the Nomonhan War with Japan in 1939 were around 6 times overstated, that's pretty well documented (and Japanese ones about equally so). So I'm not sure I accept Bergstrom's result without more detail, but I don't think one can assume that 1939 or Korean War ratio's necessarily prevailed in the Great Patriotic War either.

Likewise LW claiming in the East was pretty accurate early on but apparently declined pretty markedly later in the war as it did elsewhere. 2:1 is probably reasonable for some periods for German day fighters in the East, but 4:1 ca. 1944 isn't out of the question AFAIK.

The formal process of claim verification on paper and in theory is one factor in all this, but only one factor, and not necessarily the key factor.

Joe


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## AL Schlageter (Nov 7, 2007)

Is that Soviet or a communist claims in Korea Joe? The NK and Chinese certainly over claimed. The American Sabre certainly over claimed with the usual seen claiming of 10-14:1 being lowered to less than 5:1.

As the GPW went on, the German claim verification got worse but the Soviet claim verification got better. Iirc not only was another pilot required but also the wreckage of the shot down plane was required for the awarding of a kill.


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## renrich (Nov 7, 2007)

The other factor which I believe comes into play when discussing claims by Soviet pilots flying P39s is that the P39 had a less than stellar record against the Japanese in the Pacific war and then we are supposed to believe they were effective against LW fighters in Russia. I don't believe the Soviet pilots were better trained than US pilots so how did that happen. It may be that the Soviets inflated the claims of their pilots as a morale boosting method. The British allowed obviously inflated claims to be published during the BOB and so did the US at times. I just believe the Soviets excelled in that behavior.


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## drgondog (Nov 7, 2007)

renrich said:


> The other factor which I believe comes into play when discussing claims by Soviet pilots flying P39s is that the P39 had a less than stellar record against the Japanese in the Pacific war and then we are supposed to believe they were effective against LW fighters in Russia. I don't believe the Soviet pilots were better trained than US pilots so how did that happen. It may be that the Soviets inflated the claims of their pilots as a morale boosting method. The British allowed obviously inflated claims to be published during the BOB and so did the US at times. I just believe the Soviets excelled in that behavior.



The iron dog in PTO was largely fighting a defensive battle right in the strike zone of one of the best WWII dogfighters at low altitude at that time. The Zero was whipping Spits that chose to fight in Horizontal as well as P-40s and P-39s and to lesser extent, the F4F. Until Midway the IJNAF pilot was also as good as there was

Even a Guadalcanal, the P-40s and F4Fs tried for altitude early and the P-39/P-400 were 'middle guard'.. we only had one p-39 ace in the war and that is where he 'survived'

Corsairs and Mustangs and Lightnings and P-47s and F6Fs that decided to fight in the horizontal at medium to low altitudes didn't have great days against equal Zero pilots either.

We achieved parity in the early days by using altitude and trading energy for speed then climbing back again.


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## JoeB (Nov 7, 2007)

AL Schlageter said:


> 1. Is that Soviet or a communist claims in Korea Joe? The NK and Chinese certainly over claimed. The American Sabre certainly over claimed with the usual seen claiming of 10-14:1 being lowered to less than 5:1.
> 
> 2. As the GPW went on, the German claim verification got worse but the Soviet claim verification got better. Iirc not only was another pilot required but also the wreckage of the shot down plane was required for the awarding of a kill.


1. ~3/4 of all MiG claims in Korea were Soviet so there's no major distinction there, and from Nov 1 '50 when the MiG's appeared until fall 1951 almost all the MiG's were Soviet AF, and we can study that subperiod without worrying much about non-Soviet claims.

For example Nov 1 1950-May 20 1951 (the day both US and Soviets, coincidentally, crowned the 'first jet ace') US fighters were credited with 34 MiG's and 27 were lost to them (a few were Chinese, 14 by F-86's); the Soviets were officially credited with 152 UN a/c of all types in that period and actually downed 20 (2 were F-86's). That's from analysis of each combat in the period in each side's records, with a bit of question remaining about a plane here and there, but it's not just playing with totals in books, is my point. But it's fairly consistent with the whole-war result (except that kills by and against F-86's were a larger % later on). Anyway US claim accuracy in Korea has no relevance to Soviet claim accuracy in GPW but Soviet claim accuracy in Korea might. See thread in 'postwar' for more on overall F-86/MiG ratio.

2. Do you have specific figures for Soviet claim accuracy in GPW verified in German sources? The verification methods you mention (other pilots, wrecks) were in theory enforced in Korea too, but didn't prevent a high overclaim ratio. That's my point, following a particular methodology in theory didn't necessarily result in accurate claiming in practice, for the Soviets or others.

Joe


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## renrich (Nov 7, 2007)

Bill, of course you are right about trying to fight an "angles" fight against an A6M in any US fighter much less a P39, as altitude limited as it was, but would not it be true that a P39 would be at great disadvantage against a BF109 in both an "angles" as well "energy" fight and that disadvantage would increase above 12000 feet? My reference states that the P39 was slightly less maneuverable than a P40. Not a great formula for dogfighting a BF or A6M.


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 7, 2007)

renrich said:


> My reference states that the P39 was slightly less maneuverable than a P40. Not a great formula for dogfighting a BF or A6M.


True, but then you had this guy - I think he would of been the top American ace.


LT. COL. BOYD D. "BUZZ" WAGNER, USAAF


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## Hunter368 (Nov 7, 2007)

FLYBOYJ said:


> True, but then you had this guy - I think he would of been the top American ace.
> 
> 
> LT. COL. BOYD D. "BUZZ" WAGNER, USAAF



The P39 was not a great plane but it was not garbage either. At low altitudes it was .......ok.

Look at how the Russians used them, used them down low and very well. They used them for ground attack, but also as a fighter at lower levels. Turned into a good find for them.


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## drgondog (Nov 7, 2007)

FLYBOYJ said:


> True, but then you had this guy - I think he would of been the top American ace.
> 
> 
> LT. COL. BOYD D. "BUZZ" WAGNER, USAAF



As I recall, Buzz was first US ace (O'Hare second) and Bill Fiedler was ONLY US P-39 ace. Both KIFA not combat.

But the first AMERICAN Ace I believe was WC Lance Wade who scored five for RAF by end of November 1941? and scored 22 by Nov 1943 when killed in accident?


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## FLYBOYJ (Nov 7, 2007)

Yep!

I read somewhere that one of Wagner's last missions was a strike against a Japanese airbase. So devastating was the strike that many airmen realized that even in this early and miserable period of the war that they were going to beat the Japanese. I'll try to find that story....


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## pinsog (Jan 20, 2008)

I've read that the P40 was very manueverable in the desert campaign against Rommel, much more so than an me109. If the P39 was close to the P40, then outperforming a 109 down on the deck isn't much of a stretch. The Russians were also given P47's and they disliked them very much, while we used it very successfully.


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## pinsog (Jan 20, 2008)

I had always thought the P40 turned like a truck because everything I had read was it fighting Japenese zeros and I was very suprised to read that it was slightly slower than the 109 and spit but could actually outturn both of them. I guess compared to a zero at low speed anything other than a Fokker triplane probably turned like a 747.


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## Soren (Jan 20, 2008)

Marseilles wasn't very impressed with their turn performance though, esp. seeig thats how he shot them down..


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## davparlr (Jan 21, 2008)

Soren said:


> Marseilles wasn't very impressed with their turn performance though, esp. seeig thats how he shot them down..



An exceptional pilot's opinion is often not a great source. I could see Wagner making a similar comment about the Zero while flying the P-40 and P-39.


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## Soren (Jan 21, 2008)

Davparlr I sincerely doubt that! 

No'one doubted the superior turn performance of the Zero, esp. not anyone who flew the P-40 6 P-39. The Flying Tigers used B&Z tactics to dispose of the Zero, they NEVER turn fought it, and that is made exceedingly clear!

The Bf-109 F-4 should be able to out-turn the P-40, and so should the Spitfire.


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## JoeB (Jan 21, 2008)

Soren said:


> No'one doubted the superior turn performance of the Zero, esp. not anyone who flew the P-40 6 P-39. The Flying Tigers used B&Z tactics to dispose of the Zero, they NEVER turn fought it, and that is made exceedingly clear!
> 
> The Bf-109 F-4 should be able to out-turn the P-40, and so should the Spitfire.


I agree we'd be off on a tangent with P-40 v Zero; even successful P-40 pilots didn't think it could outturn the Zero, sustained low speed turn (although the Flying Tigers proper, the AVG, never fought Zeroes by any method,  their opponents were strictly JAAF, mostly Type 97's, though some Type 1's which wasn't so different from the Zero).

However on *pilot opinion* of P-39/40 v Bf 109 turning ability I don't agree with you. Lots of Allied and Soviet pilots believed the P-40 and P-39 could out turn the 109. Allied trials found the P-51B could outturn the 109G, and AFAIK all P-40 pilots were convinced they could handily outturn a P-51. Another indirect measure was Japanese trials of their Type 3 (Ki-61 Tony) v Bf-109E and P-40E, they found the Tony superior to either in turn, but the US 5th AF believed the P-40 *could* outturn the Tony (in contrast to other Japanese types). The standard belief and tactic in USAAF 325th FG was that P-40's flying at a certain altitude a little below 10k ft could split ess away from a 109's and recover but too low for a 109 to recover, IOW an 'angles' advantage if not specifically sustained low speed turn advantage.

More on topic in P-39's case Loza in "Attack of the Airacobra's", fullest account of Soviet P-39 ops in WWII AFAIK, though just from their side, says on p.26: "In horizontal manueverability the P-39 was superior at all altitudes to the German fighters...Not once in countless air battles did the Germans attempt to conduct an engagement in a turn". It's previously made clear that the initial comparison is 109F and G, and the intial P-39's were D's and P-400's.

Again this is opinion. It doesn't mean a particular German pilot, or German pilots in general, couldn't have a different opinion. Actual answer in totally non-biased trials would be another issue. Theoretical estimates are not tremendously reliable for turn in the context of real WWII fighter manuevering, IMO.

Joe


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## Soren (Jan 22, 2008)

JoeB, the P-51 could NOT outturn the Bf-109G, it wasn't even close. The British trials are useless really as the pilots didn't dare go beyond the deployment of the slats, being scared wittless of the loud bang slight notch given on deployment. This is not only made clear by the statements made in those tests, statements such as, "The 109 being embarrased by the opening of its slats" etc etc, but also by several German test pilots and aces, as-well as a Spitfire pilot. This has been discussed many times before though, so no need going any further.

Also a Fw-190 Jabo managed to turn with the P-51B in those very same trials. And one thing is clear from every German comparative trial, the Bf-109 always out-turned the Fw-190, and very easily at that.

As to the P-40 being able to Split-S away from an attacking 109, well that relies very much upon roll rate in which the P-40 is excellent, and it also relies on the closing speed of the attacker. The Fw-190 relied on split-S maneuvers to shake off spitfires, and it always worked, the Spitfire being completely unable to follow the wild maneuver. That having been said neither the Fw-190 or P-40 could outturn the Bf-109 or Spitfire.

Also the myth of the Spitfire being a better turnfighter than the Bf-109 stems from the BoB, where the Emil was in service. The Emil had frequent problems with its slats jamming, making pilots unwilling to enter a tight turn with it, as it could spell certain death from an uncontrollable spin caused by one of the slats jamming. This problem was solved with the introduction of the F series introducing a new operating mechanism, and the Bf-109 could now be thrown into hard turns without having to worry about one slat suddenly jamming. Many of the pilots who had flown the Emil were however still wary about the slats and relied mostly on the B&Z tactics they had perfected in the BoB, but by far the majority took full advantage of extra turn performance added by the slats to out-turn Spitfires in combat.

*Erwin Leykauf, German fighter pilot, 33 victories:*

_"The Bf 109s also had leading edge slats. When the 109 was flown, advertently or inadvertently, too slow, the slats shot forward out of the wing, sometimes with a loud bang which could be heard above the noise of the engine. Many times the slats coming out frightenened young pilots when they flew the Bf 109 for the first time in combat. One often flew near the stalling speed in combat, not only when flying straight and level but especially when turning and climbing. Sometimes the slats would suddenly fly out with a bang as if one had been hit, especially when one had throttled back to bank steeply. Indeed many fresh young pilots thought they were pulling very tight turns even when the slats were still closed against the wing. For us, the more experienced pilots, real manoeuvring only started when the slats were out. For this reason it is possible to find pilots from that period (1940) who will tell you that the Spitfire turned better than the Bf 109. That is not true. I myself had many dogfights with Spitfires and I could always out-turn them. 
One had to enter the turn correctly, then open up the engine. It was a matter of feel. When one noticed the speed becoming critical - the aircraft vibrated - one had to ease up a bit, then pull back again, so that in plan the best turn would have looked like an egg or a horizontal ellipse rather than a circle. In this way one could out-turn the Spitfire - *and I shot down six of them doing it*." _

*Walter Wolfrum, German fighter ace. 137 victories:*

_"Unexperienced pilots hesitated to turn tight, bacause the plane shook violently when the slats deployed. I realised, though, that because of the slats the plane's stalling characteristics were much better than in comparable Allied planes that I got to fly. Even though you may doubt it, I knew the Bf109 could manouver better in turnfight than LaGG, Yak or even Spitfire."_


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## JoeB (Jan 22, 2008)

Soren said:


> JoeB, the P-51 could NOT outturn the Bf-109G, it wasn't even close. ."[/I]


But you're not answering my post. Your talking about possible bias in trials, which I already said could be true (but there are no gteed unbiased trials to compare to), and differing opinions of German pilots v Allied, which I also already said could be true.

My point is simply that there were *lots* of opinions that the P-39 and P-40 *could* out turn the 109. See Loza's description from Soviet view, very categorical, that the P-39 was superior and that book is based on lots of Soviet pilot accounts.

Now, with disagreeing German and Allied opinions, why should we just accept German ones? Maybe if we take a strictly German-biased view of everything, but otherwise I don't see why we'd do that. Note, I'm not saying we treat the Allied opinion as fact either.

Joe


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## Soren (Jan 23, 2008)

Joe, Allied Spitfire pilot Pierre Closterman notes the superior turn performance of the Bf-109 as-well, and so does several Soviet pilots, but most crucially so does aerodynamics and modern day pilots.

These guys fly the birds:

_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFl8X4y9-94_

As to possible bias in trials, well I don't believe this very much in this case, esp. considering that Fw-190 Jabo, a heavily armored ground attack version of the Fw-190, managed to turn with the P-51B. 

The Fw-190 in question:


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## JoeB (Jan 23, 2008)

Soren said:


> 1. Allied Spitfire pilot Pierre Closterman notes the superior turn performance of the Bf-109 as-well,
> 2. and so does several Soviet pilots, but most crucially so does aerodynamics and modern day pilots.
> 3. As to possible bias in trials, well I don't believe this very much in this case,


1. I wasn't talking about Spitfires, and I think it goes on a tangent to then compare Spitires with P-39's and P-40's
2. Which Soviet pilots? I gave a specific source.
3. Then why do you conclude the P-51 trial was wrong (I know, slats etc but what alternative trial result do you have?), and Japanese were wrong their Type 3 out turned the 109 (USAAF believed the P-40 out turned the Type 3).

Joe


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## davparlr (Jan 23, 2008)

Soren said:


> Also the myth of the Spitfire being a better turnfighter than the Bf-109 stems from the BoB, where the Emil was in service. The Emil had frequent problems with its slats jamming, making pilots unwilling to enter a tight turn with it, as it could spell certain death from an uncontrollable spin caused by one of the slats jamming.



Soren, I was just watching an article on the Bf-109 on the History Channel and they were interviewing Gunther Rall on the weaknesses of the Bf-109 and he addressed the slats. He said that, under high speed maneuvering, the slats could extend due to gravity, causing a stall. This seems different than jamming. Have you heard of this before?


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## davparlr (Jan 23, 2008)

Soren said:


> Davparlr I sincerely doubt that!
> 
> No'one doubted the superior turn performance of the Zero, esp. not anyone who flew the P-40 6 P-39. The Flying Tigers used B&Z tactics to dispose of the Zero, they NEVER turn fought it, and that is made exceedingly clear!
> 
> The Bf-109 F-4 should be able to out-turn the P-40, and so should the Spitfire.



I think I poorly stated my point. I don't think that Wagner thought that the P-40 would out turn a Zero (I did say similar comment, not the same). I think very capable pilots associate their own ability with that of the aircraft. You can put a very capable pilot in the cockpit of a less performing aircraft and he can be very successful. In doing so, he will tend to think highly on his aircraft and have some disdain for the opposing aircraft. I suspect that Wagner was very good at energy managment in the P-40 and P-39 such that he was able to shoot down Zeros. In his mind I am sure he felt the P-40 and maybe the p-39 were superior to the Zero because they did allow him to use this energy management to his advantage. So when you quote a pilots opinion of their aircraft, you have to take into account the ability of the pilot himself, which may taint his opinion of his aircraft and the opposing aircraft.


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## FLYBOYJ (Jan 23, 2008)

Dave and JoeB - I think all pilots will form opinions based on their environment and experience. I have to agree with Soren in a turning comparison with a Bf 109 and P-40. With that said, did a P-40 ever out turn a 109 in combat? Possibly - and that's where pilot skill goes into the equation. And Dave - discussing Buzz Wagner - I think he was a notch above his peers, if not more....

Not to go off subject here but you'll find many Soviet pilots who swear the MiG-15 was far superior to the F-86 and in some situations it was - at the same time these folks were never given a chance to fly an F-86....


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## drgondog (Jan 23, 2008)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Dave and JoeB - I think all pilots will form opinions based on their environment and experience. I have to agree with Soren in a turning comparison with a Bf 109 and P-40. With that said, did a P-40 ever out turn a 109 in combat? Possibly - and that's where pilot skill goes into the equation. And Dave - discussing Buzz Wagner - I think he was a notch above his peers, if not more....
> 
> Not to go off subject here but you'll find many Soviet pilots who swear the MiG-15 was far superior to the F-86 and in some situations it was - at the same time these folks were never given a chance to fly an F-86....



General Momyer (33rd) was awarded four (of 8 total) scores over 109s. All in Africa, all in P40's including P40L. He felt the P-40 was superior to both the Mustang and the Me 109F at low altitude in the horizontal.

Ditto for Hershel Green (325th) who scored 11 Me 109s, four in P-40FL over Italy, 3 in P-47 and 4 in P-51, out of his 18.

It was conversations with both that I formed my own opinions that perhaps the P-40 was not so badly outclassed by the Me 109.

Having said this we must remember we are talking about two pretty damn good fighter pilots.

I hesitate to bring up Yeager, who did fly both the 86 and Mig 15 (in rigorous flight tests at Eglin and Edwards) - but he felt both were evenly matched with advantages one way or another, particularly climb rateangle going to MiG. So, One opinion from one who had a lot of time in both. Admittedly his MiG time was in 1953 time frame with the defection MiG. 

Not well publicized but he also whacked 3 or 4 MiG's while assigned as air attached to Pakistan in mid 50's while flying the 86 as an 'observer' in their unpleasant disourse..


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## renrich (Jan 23, 2008)

My source states that the P40 could out maneuver any other US Army fighter below 15000 feet and had a particularly good rate of roll, probably better at high speeds than all other US Army fighters.


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## JoeB (Jan 23, 2008)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Not to go off subject here but you'll find many Soviet pilots who swear the MiG-15 was far superior to the F-86 and in some situations it was - at the same time these folks were never given a chance to fly an F-86....


Well that's my favorite tangent  Actually when you look at specific Soviet and US statements about particular strengths and weaknesses of the F-86 and MiG-15, they pretty much agree: F-86 turned better, dove better; MiG climbed better and had a higher ceiling. Speed advantage depended more on version and altitude but wasn't great either way. Overall I agree there was the usual tendency on each side for successful pilots to rate their plane better overall, but the US and Soviets didn't actually disagree which plane turned better in general: the F-86. And btw simple 'aerodynamics' of wingloading and thrust-weight said the MiG's sustained turn should have been better.

Back on topic, the solid consensus on Soviet side AFAIK was the P-39 turned better than the Bf 109. I wouldn't rule out that an extensive modern day trial with all factors totally fair, might not overturn that conclusion, but it was what the Soviets thought, at least mostly, and I don't know of any such trial that disproves it. 

Joe


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## Koty Owen (Jan 23, 2008)

Nice Photos Joeb.


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## Glider (Jan 23, 2008)

drgondog said:


> I hesitate to bring up Yeager, who did fly both the 86 and Mig 15 (in rigorous flight tests at Eglin and Edwards) - but he felt both were evenly matched with advantages one way or another, particularly climb rateangle going to MiG. So, One opinion from one who had a lot of time in both. Admittedly his MiG time was in 1953 time frame with the defection MiG.
> 
> Not well publicized but he also whacked 3 or 4 MiG's while assigned as air attached to Pakistan in mid 50's while flying the 86 as an 'observer' in their unpleasant disourse..



I would be very suprised if this was the case seeing as the only Migs the IAF had were Mig21's.


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## drgondog (Jan 23, 2008)

Glider said:


> I would be very suprised if this was the case seeing as the only Migs the IAF had were Mig21's.



In 1956 timeframe? Not very likely but I will go check I may have the dates wrong


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## drgondog (Jan 23, 2008)

drgondog said:


> In 1956 timeframe? Not very likely but I will go check I may have the dates wrong



I stand corrected Glider it was in the 70's after VietNam for him and the IAF were flying MiG-21s, Pakistani AF flying 86's..I thought he had shot down MiG-15s but they were MiG-21J's apparently.

The Pakistani Air Force was flyin 86's, Chinese built MiG 19's and F-104's.

Yeager, according to the back channel, was flying flight lead in an F-86 wing when bounced by IAF MiG's which chose to fight in the horizontal.


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## FLYBOYJ (Jan 23, 2008)

drgondog said:


> I stand corrected Glider it was in the 70's after VietNam for him and the IAF were flying MiG-21s, Pakistani AF flying 86's..



I read a few articles from Pakistan about a few MiG-21 vs Saber dogfights. Short on details but it was stated the MiG-21s were dealt with accordingly.


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## drgondog (Jan 23, 2008)

FLYBOYJ said:


> I read a few articles from Pakistan about a few MiG-21 vs Saber dogfights. Short on details but it was stated the MiG-21s were dealt with accordingly.



IIRC it was about 3:1 Pakistani over IAF.


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## FLYBOYJ (Jan 23, 2008)

drgondog said:


> IIRC it was about 3:1 Pakistani over IAF.


Pretty interesting. They also did well with the MiG-19. Chinese built with a MB seat and armed with Sidewinders. In the 1980s I read it was the 2nd most cost effective fighter to operated behind the F-16!


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## Soren (Jan 24, 2008)

davparlr said:


> Soren, I was just watching an article on the Bf-109 on the History Channel and they were interviewing Gunther Rall on the weaknesses of the Bf-109 and he addressed the slats. He said that, under high speed maneuvering, the slats could extend due to gravity, causing a stall. This seems different than jamming. Have you heard of this before?



Hehe, the slats only extend when the AoA increases, so this is probably what Rall was refering to. Rall is often qouted on the slats by certain people, but he hardly understood them, his comments being disputed by the other 109 pilots. Modern day 109 pilots have questioned his remarks about the slats many times, knowing the slats operate flawlessly on the currently restored F G models, and thus are curious as to what made the Emil so different (Rall refers to the Emil about the G-load deployment issue). However fact is that Rall's near death experience in the Emil made him very wary about the slats, and so he never tried turning that hard in a 109 again, but he didn't need to either having perfected his own B&Z tactics as a result of this incident in the Emil.

Rall in the end downed 275 Allied a/c utilizing his own B&Z tactics, very effective.


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## davparlr (Jan 24, 2008)

FLYBOYJ said:


> And Dave - discussing Buzz Wagner - I think he was a notch above his peers, if not more....



That was exactly my point. Soren had said " Marseilles wasn't very impressed with their turn performance though, esp. seeig thats how he shot them down..". My point was that Marseilles was also a notch above his peers and that comments by such talented pilots on aircraft performance can be tainted by their own exceptional capability, i.e. they can make lesser performing aircraft successful, therefore they think the plane is better than it actually is.


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## fly boy (Jan 24, 2008)

go p-39 flown by russins man that sweet cus i herd the p-39 sucked with americans so this a surpies


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 24, 2008)

fly boy said:


> go p-39 flown by russins man that sweet cus i herd the p-39 sucked with americans so this a surpies



Huh?


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## FLYBOYJ (Jan 24, 2008)

fly boy said:


> go p-39 flown by russins man that sweet cus i herd the p-39 sucked with americans so this a surpies



Did you come up with that all by yourself?


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## Hunter368 (Jan 24, 2008)

Such insightful words from a newbie.


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## fly boy (Jan 25, 2008)

well the p-39 was use less to the u.s so when i learned the russins had a better deal with it i was surpiesed


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 25, 2008)

Please tell me guys that this is not a product of the US education system anymore. If it is...

Damn it has gone downhill since I went to school in the US.


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## renrich (Jan 25, 2008)

Perhaps he will stay on this forum, emulate some of it's members and learn spelling, punctuation and sentence structure.


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## Soren (Jan 25, 2008)

He's obviously a kid, which is all fine, this is a good place to learn. Whether he learns the correct form of spellings here or in school is irrelevant, as long as it's correct


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## Marshall_Stack (Jan 25, 2008)

I find his avatar a little disturbing.....


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## Soren (Jan 25, 2008)

Me too Marshall, esp. seeing that I love cats.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 25, 2008)

renrich said:


> Perhaps he will stay on this forum, emulate some of it's members and learn spelling, punctuation and sentence structure.



He better not learn from me. I type really fast and do not pay all that much attention to that stuff. I also hardly ever go back and correct things...


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## joy17782 (Jan 25, 2008)

the aircobra was a dog in alot of areas, but us pilots and russain had some good kills ,and the russians only got them because we didnt want them , we upgrated are aircobra sqdrns, and the aircobra was only good in low levels , and not that much of a stable gun platform as the russians go would you rather fly a aircobra or a rata, me i would take the aircobra in a heart beat, but the me count is not that impressive, as far as russian pilots go, im not that impressed either, they only got good scores after the bulk of german units were pulled back too defend germany, and there pilots were tierd and mostly gone, and i would put a german pilot up agianst a russian one anytime and if the planes were the same and so on the german would flame his ass fast, 

my spelling sucks but you can get the content, and my grammer sucks too but beinga airborne infantry man from 1986 2 1998 they didnt ask if i could spell all they wanted 2 know is if i could jump, shot, and throw a gernade and well i passed so stay of the grammer kick hell i might have a d d lol


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## timshatz (Jan 25, 2008)

Soren said:


> He's obviously a kid, which is all fine, this is a good place to learn. Whether he learns the correct form of spellings here or in school is irrelevant, as long as it's correct



Good point. Most guys learn by emulating others. Sometimes a good thing, sometimes a bad thing. Decent spellling, punctuation and sentence structure on this forum. Plus, there are standards that will get you kicked out if you get out of hand. Good place to learn.

Kid could do a lot worse.


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## fly boy (Jan 25, 2008)

just to tell you i in 5th grade and i just used texting for it


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## Njaco (Jan 25, 2008)

Texting! Now I understand!

and that avatar is real disurbing, especially for me.



> go p-39 flown by russins man that sweet cus i herd the p-39 sucked with americans so this a surpies


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 26, 2008)

Ah that just made my day.


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## Nikademus (Jan 26, 2008)

Soren said:


> Davparlr I sincerely doubt that!
> 
> No'one doubted the superior turn performance of the Zero, esp. not anyone who flew the P-40 6 P-39. The Flying Tigers used B&Z tactics to dispose of the Zero, they NEVER turn fought it, and that is made exceedingly clear!
> 
> The Bf-109 F-4 should be able to out-turn the P-40, and so should the Spitfire.



Hello,

Just an FYI, the Flying Tigers never faced Zeros. They did use ambush tactics and B&Z to good effect.

On the issue of turning. Shores considered men like Marseilles the "exception" rather than the rule. A fighter pilot so gifted that he could on occasion outmaneuver his opponents despite their technical superiority in that dept. On one or more occasions he accomplished such a feat vs. a Luftberry type defensive circle.

The general rule of Thumb for the 109 pilots during fighting in 42 was to never dogfight "Curtiss" aircraft, especially at low altitude. Vertical maneuvers and slashing attacks ruled the day. This was primarily when using the Emil though there were a few -F's as well. That latter's arrival didn't seem to bring any major change in tactics that I noticed.


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## Soren (Jan 26, 2008)

> Just an FYI, the Flying Tigers never faced Zeros.



Are you kidding me ??


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## timshatz (Jan 26, 2008)

Texting. Ok, I got it now. 

Suddenly, I feel old.


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## JoeB (Jan 26, 2008)

Soren said:


> Are you kidding me ??


No he's not, and I mentioned it too in my response to that post a few pages back  . The AVG proper, which flew combat from December 1941 thru June 1942 before being subsumed into the USAAF, met strictly Japanese Army Air Force fighters, mostly Type 97 (Ki-27, later codename 'Nate'), though also some Type 1's (Ki-43 'Oscar') against whom the AVG did about as well, (around 3:1 real exchange ratio) though in a smaller sample. They also met a few pre-production Type 2's (Ki-44 'Tojo') undergoing combat evaluation with no known victories or losses, and a few early Type 2, 2 seaters (Ki-45 'Nick'), also with success.

Pre-AVG Chinese AF units met Zeroes from 1940 until JNAF units were withdrawn from China in the fall of '41 to prepare for the Pac War; and the USAAF 14th AF units post AVG sometimes called themselves 'Flying Tigers', much to the annoyance of AVG veterans down to this day, but even they met Zeroes in China on only a small handful of occasions later in the war; USAAF P-40 opposition in China was also overwhelmingly JAAF.

Joe


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## FLYBOYJ (Jan 26, 2008)

JoeB is 100% correct....


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## joy17782 (Jan 26, 2008)

i hears the the torgue from the engines gave it problems and it had a bad habit of turning on its back is this correct , and also the book stuka pilot has a few words about russian pilots in there p-40


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## Soren (Jan 27, 2008)

Hmmm, so it wasn't the fliyng tigers who gave the warning to USAAF USN of the Zero and its flying characteristics as-well as the advice on how to defeat it? I know they didn't listen though and ended up having real troubles defeating the Zero in the beginning.


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## FLYBOYJ (Jan 27, 2008)

Soren said:


> Hmmm, so it wasn't the fliyng tigers who gave the warning to USAAF USN of the Zero and its flying characteristics as-well as the advice on how to defeat it?


Chenault gave that information based on what the Chinese encountered. The same intelligence covered information on the "Oscar."


Soren said:


> I know they didn't listen though and ended up having real troubles defeating the Zero in the beginning.


Depends where, when and who. In the very beginning there were problems dealing with the Zero over all but then you have some pilots who quickly figured out how to use their aircraft to the best of its ability (we keep bringing up Buzz Wagner). I think by the end of 1942 it was well figured out.


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## renrich (Jan 27, 2008)

Actually, before June of 42, (Midway) Jimmy Thach had figured out the Thach Weave to use against the A6M and used it during the battle. During that battle the Wildcats gave about as good as they got. Thach also gave the pilots of the VTs some good advice about surviving against the Zero and some of the few who got back used his advice to save their lives.


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## Nikademus (Jan 27, 2008)

Soren said:


> Hmmm, so it wasn't the fliyng tigers who gave the warning to USAAF USN of the Zero and its flying characteristics as-well as the advice on how to defeat it? I know they didn't listen though and ended up having real troubles defeating the Zero in the beginning.



As mentioned, Chenault received intel regarding the new "Zero" from Chinese sources. Unlike most other westerners, Chenault took the information very seriously and tried to warn Washington that the Japanese had developed a formidable new airplane. Noone listened. At the time, the West considered Japanese aviation to be sub-par....essentially a bunch of copycats who produced inferior versions of their current planes. (hence the idea that "Buffalos.....considered inadequate for ETO ops, would work "fine" in Asia")

Worse still were the opinions of Japanese airmen. Basically it was felt they coudn't fly worth beans or even see well. Racism was very prevalent in shaping views in that area of the world at the time.


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## Nikademus (Jan 27, 2008)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Depends where, when and who. In the very beginning there were problems dealing with the Zero over all but then you have some pilots who quickly figured out how to use their aircraft to the best of its ability (we keep bringing up Buzz Wagner). I think by the end of 1942 it was well figured out.



I'd also say it depends on the level of rotation of the pilots and the impact on the overall level of experience. The Commonwealth suffered a similar problem in the Western Desert in 42. With tours expiring and experienced pilots leaving to be replaced by greenies, often the same mistakes were made and/or tactics that proved less than optimal for the plane types continued to be used. The Luftwaffe "experten" were able to run up their scores big time due in part to this as they continued to fight and refine the tactics that best utilized their 109's.


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## FLYBOYJ (Jan 27, 2008)

Nikademus said:


> I'd also say it depends on the level of rotation of the pilots and the impact on the overall level of experience. The Commonwealth suffered a similar problem in the Western Desert in 42. With tours expiring and experienced pilots leaving to be replaced by greenies, often the same mistakes were made and/or tactics that proved less than optimal for the plane types continued to be used. The Luftwaffe "experten" were able to run up their scores big time due in part to this as they continued to fight and refine the tactics that best utilized their 109's.


If you look at the number of kills/ losses in the South Pacific things really started to change at the latter end of 1942. I know JoeB may chime in here with info on "overclaims" by both sides, but the fact remains that the Japanese started loosing large amounts of fighters and most of them were Zeros. I don't think pilot rotation had anything to do with it, at least on the USAAF side....

Army Air Forces in World War II

Army Air Forces in World War II


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## JoeB (Jan 27, 2008)

FLYBOYJ said:


> If you look at the number of kills/ losses in the South Pacific things really started to change at the latter end of 1942. I know JoeB may chime in here with info on "overclaims" by both sides, but the fact remains that the Japanese started loosing large amounts of fighters and most of them were Zeros.


They lost more fighters as '42 went on but I'll repeat, I you like  , the Stats Digest while a good source for many topics, and easy to access on web, is just not meaningful measure of how many Japanese planes were really downed. The fact that 'the other side' overclaimed is not really relevant. The problem is in the unknown and highly variable degree of overclaim in the claims you're looking at. In a previous thread we went bottom up on the Feb '42 numbers and found they didn't really agree with US losses (too low if including the planes sunk with USS Langely, too high for just air combat), and the actual number of JNAF fighter victims was a fairly small fraction of what was claimed. Just not a very good indicator. You need Japanese losses to make a statement about...Japanese losses, IMO.

Leaving aside Allied losses and ratio's, here's an approximate count of Japanese Navy fighter pilot losses by campaign in 1942, from the listings in "Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units of WWII" by Hata and Izawa:
Pearl Harbor: 9
Philippines: 14
Malaya: 2
DEI/Bismarks/raids Australia through Feb: 19
New Guinea/raids Australia March-up to Coral Sea: 16
Ceylon: 6
Coral Sea: 7
Midway/Aleutians raids: 24
NG/Aus after Coral Sea>end '42:39
G'canal (including carrier battles) to end '42: 122

So Guadalcanal was where fighter pilot attrition became a big problem, and overall the USN and USMC F4F's were the big problem, accounting for virtually all the carrier battle losses and great bulk of G'canal/Solomons losses in '42. The Midway number may surprise, but it's well documented the Japanese lost relatively few aircrew of all kinds on the sunk carriers, almost half the Midway fighter pilot losses were air combat.

Joe


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## FLYBOYJ (Jan 27, 2008)

you're missing something there Joe - you're showing losses by campaign - what about the day-to-day operations, patrols, sweeps etc. out side the major campaigns - I know "Bloody Shambles" documents a good parts of that (I haven't really looked at Japanese Naval Aces and Fighter Units of WWII) but I think there's a lot of daily operations that was not included in any of this. The Zeros went somewhere, and while there was attrition - weather and losses to ground fire, the obvious fact remains at the end of the day the Japanese suffered more aerial losses than the allies...

Oh and BTW, I don't think pilot rotation had anything to do with this...


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## renrich (Jan 27, 2008)

According to Lundstrom, between 7 August, 42 and 15 November, 42, VF kills and losses both land based and carrier based, there were 31 Wildcats lost versus 25 Zeros lost. On 7 August, there were 9 Wildcats lost to 2 Zeros lost. After that it was pretty even. These were all US Navy Wildcats.


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## JoeB (Jan 27, 2008)

FLYBOYJ said:


> 1. you're missing something there Joe - you're showing losses by campaign - what about the day-to-day operations, patrols, sweeps etc. out side the major campaigns
> 
> 2. Oh and BTW, I don't think pilot rotation had anything to do with this...


1. No that's everything, just grouped by period and area, minus a few killed in accidents in Japan. The scale of the 1942 Pacific air war just wasn't that big. It also includes fighter pilots killed outside their a/c (dozen or so at Midway, others here and there), though doesn't include Zeroes destroyed in air combat but whose pilots survived, which wasn't very common early on, but became somewhat more common in the second half of '42. Anyway the critical Japanese problem was pilots. It's also not necessarily 100% exhaustive but probably close (for example if checked against day to day ops in "Bloody Shambles" it will agree for those areas/periods).

To give more context, the JNAF was estimated to have had a total of around 3,500 pilots Dec 7 '41, (Peattie, "Sunburst") so probably well over 500 qualified fighter pilots. Their training system graduated 389 new fighter pilots in 1942 (again Hata/Izawa lists). So that ~258 fighter pilot loss given above was quite signficant, though statements sometimes seen that 'most' JNAF fighter pilots were killed by the end of '42 are exaggerated.

2. Well that was somebody else's point, and seemed like he was referring to Med/North Africa campaigns v Luftwaffe. There are cases though in Pac War where lack of 'institutional memory' played a role too, though it wasn't the major explanation of anything IMO.

Joe


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## fly boy (Jan 28, 2008)

how do i post fourms?


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 28, 2008)

What the hell are you talking about? You are posting in a forum. 

If you have a problem with how to do something, send a PM to a moderator and we will help you.


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## Marshall_Stack (Jan 28, 2008)

Maybe he really is wanting to know is how to post a new thread. If so, just go to the main page (under aviation), go to the bottom where there is a "button" to post a new thread. Push and go....


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## FLYBOYJ (Jan 28, 2008)

Great info JoeB, thanks!


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## fly boy (Jan 28, 2008)

thanks joe


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## claidemore (Feb 1, 2008)

For a first hand account on a Soviet pilot who flew P40 and P39 in combat:

Conversations with N.Golodnikov

I would also like to address the supposition that the Soviet pilots grossly exageratted their kills. (it is also mentioned in the above linked interview)

Up till late1942, a soviet pilot would not be awarded with a kill unless the crash site was positively identified. All awarded kills had to be in friendly territory, anything shot down behind the lines simply was not counted, under any circumstance. Evidence of this is found when looking at early war kill records, by the fact that individual models are listed very accurately ie 109E7 rather than just 109. This is because they were recovering the serial number plates off the downed aircraft. 

Later in the war they used a variety of methods to determine kills; and the requirements were not as strict. 

I also find in interesting that the P39 is so often stated to be a low altitude plane. The Soviets considered it to be a high alt fighter, (high being a relative term). 
During IL2 escort missions, the P39's had top cover, La5's were next, and Yaks on the bottom. When escorting higher flying Pe2's, they tried to use P39's. This may have been partly due to the P39 having longer range than Soviet built fighters.


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## JoeB (Feb 1, 2008)

claidemore said:


> I would also like to address the supposition that the Soviet pilots grossly exageratted their kills. (it is also mentioned in the above linked interview)
> 
> Up till late1942, a soviet pilot would not be awarded with a kill unless the crash site was positively identified. All awarded kills had to be in friendly territory, anything shot down behind the lines simply was not counted, under any circumstance. Evidence of this is found when looking at early war kill records, by the fact that individual models are listed very accurately ie 109E7 rather than just 109. This is because they were recovering the serial number plates off the downed aircraft.
> 
> Later in the war they used a variety of methods to determine kills; and the requirements were not as strict.


Claidemore, I've never seen a complete analysis of Soviet claims and German losses in WWII, even for a sub period, but I've looked pretty carefully at the same question in the Korean War. In that case the Soviets used nominally quite strict claim verfication procedures including later (in that war) requiring their own wreck evidence (earlier they used their allies' statements), as well gun camera evidence used throughout, and it still didn't prevent serious overclaiming: official credits to their pilots were several times the actual UN air combat losses. In fact, there's little discernable difference in accuracy between the period using allied statements and the period using Soviet wreck inspection teams in North Korea. So I start out tending to doubt the situation was dramatically different in WWII, especially considering the ratio of credits to enemy losses was about the same in the war immediately preceding WWII (Soviet-Japanese war of 1939, though I don't know if the procedures were nominally strict in that case). 

Also at times and in theaters of WWII Allied units were said to verify claims with wrecks, and overclaiming didn't always seem to be affected in those cases either (AVG claims for example were said to be verified by wrecks but Japanese losses were about 40% of their claims, no more accurate than Allied units of the same period which didn't claim to have counted wrecks).

When you think about it, there's really no way to tell if nominally tight claim standards were really being followed, except to examine opposing records, which of course one side couldn't generally do during a war (and as we know, partisans of claims of particular countries' airmen claim, and often seem to thoroughly convince themselves, that the opposing loss records are understated, even decades later, even with usually no real evidence besides 'their' side's claims and *theoretically* tight verification standards).

Joe


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## claidemore (Feb 2, 2008)

Joe,
Couldn't agree more, I'm definately not trying to say that the Soviets didn't have overclaim problems. 
I just wanted to point out that a climate of intentional overclaiming did not exist, and that in fact they tried to keep accurate records. 
It just seems to me that too many people tend to dismiss so many things about the Soviet war effort, either due to left over feelings from the Cold War, or due to lack of accurate information (so much info has only come out in the last 10-15 years). 
Since they lost about 28 million people during WWII, and contributed so much to the final victory, I just like to see them get a fair shake. 
Ok, I'll get off my soap box now! lol


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## Soren (Feb 2, 2008)

Claidemore,

You've got your facts screwed, the VVS would often rely on partizans to confirm their kills. The VVS was NOT very thurough when it came to the confirmation of kills, and they weren't very accurate when it came to reporting the exact chain of events leading up to the kill of an enemy a/c or the loss of a friendly a/c. When an ace was shot down the VVS often claimed that they were completely outnumbered, 7 to 1, solo against masses of German fighters, and that this was the only reason they were shot down. German records tell otherwise however, and often there werent even 1/10th of the German a/c in the area the VVS claimed, sometimes there were none even in the vicinity what so ever, and the VVS fighter shot down certainly was never alone. The Soviets more than anyone else made extensive use of such propoganda, another example being the Battle of Kursk where thousands of Tigers were claimed destroyed, however in actual fact only 10 Tigers were actually present during the entire struggle for Kursk.


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## claidemore (Feb 2, 2008)

Soren:

hehe, I don't agree that my 'facts' are screwed up, though I will agree that our opinions differ. 

Read some of the VVS pilot interviews, you can find them online or in books. 

As for the 7 to 1 and 8 to 1 stories, why not go higher? Billy Bishop attacked 70 german fighters in WWI, shot down 5, and escaped. This story is accepted, but if he had been a soviet flyer? It would be dismissed as propoganda. 

Cases of one pilot engaging superior numbers are not unusual, and the general outcome isn't hard to guess. 

In the case of the VVS, their radios didn't work much of the time, if they even had them. 90% of the fighters didn't have transmitters in at least the first half of the war, if one of them spots enemy fighters bouncing them, he has no way to warn everyone else, he has to turn and engage them. Hence the 8-1 fight. (btw, this is one of the reasons for the success of the P39, it had good radios, the unit was able to fight in coordination)

Robert Johnson was all alone when his P47 had a FW190 flown by Hermann Graf? empty it's guns into him without shooting him down. So, yeah, pilots, even aces were alone sometimes. Pappy Boyington was alone when he got shot down. 

I'll use two stories that I am most familiar with, Budanova and Litvyak. 

Budanova was escorting Il2's, turned to engage 3 german fighters, got one, and was shot down and killed. I beleive this story, no reason not to. 

Litvyak, escorting Il2's, turned and engaged eight german fighters. Disappears in clouds MIA. Her wingman, who stayed with the IL2's is the source of the story. This story is a little tougher to sell, so let's examine it. 

-Could there have been eight 109's flying together? Yes.
-Could a single Yak spot and engage attacking fighters alone? Yes (no radios)
-Would 8 109's rather attack a single Yak, or a formation of IL2's? Yes. 
-Would they all have attacked at once? No. 
-Would 6 cover the leader and his wingman while they attacked? Yes. (usual Luft tactic)
-Could the Yak wingman count eight 109's aginst 1 Yak? Yes. (assuming he could count that high, he was a subhuman soviet after all!)

So...the story could be basically true, just the details of it might be skewed. To dismiss it as soviet propoganda, would be presumptuous.

To look at the other side of the equation: here's one example; a Luftwaffe fighter unit in the north claimed 17 planes shot down on one mission, 3 by their 'ace' commander. Turns out there were only 9 Soviet planes on the mission, two of them made it back to base intact, 3 more crash landed at the base. That means the much vaunted Luftwaffe unit actually shot down 4 planes that could realistically be confirmed. But they claimed and were awarded 17. 

Once again, it is not my claim that the soviet pilot kill claims were 100% accurate, I do however maintain that they were no worse than any other nation, and given the political climate, they were actually fearful to make claims that couldn't be substantiated. 

Btw, what's wrong with partisans? I like partisans, would be one myself if the situation called for it.


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## Soren (Feb 2, 2008)

You need to read up on the aerial conflict in the east.

Like I said many times there weren't even 1/10th of aircraft present that the Soviets would claim, and this is documented fact. A similar example is the outrages Soviet claims at the battle of Kursk.

Sorry but the Soviets were the record holders when it came to outrages propoganda claims, and there are plenty of examples, infact let me present another quicky: The famous duel between Vasili Zaitsev and Major König/Thorvald, well it just so happens that there never was any Major König or Thorvald in Stalingrad, infact there wasn't a single scharfschütze in the city let alone a Major.

PS: The story about Budanova and Litvyak is complete hogwash as-well, read LW records and you'll realize this quickly.


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## JoeB (Feb 2, 2008)

claidemore said:


> Once again, it is not my claim that the soviet pilot kill claims were 100% accurate, I do however maintain that they were no worse than any other nation...


To clarify my previous post in Korea the Soviet claim accuracy *was* lower than most fighter arms in WWII, opposing losses ca. 15+% of credited victories. Whereas US/UN fighter claims in Korea were good by WWII stds (MiG losses=70+% of credited victories), which isn't directly relevant except insofar as it indicates it wasn't a matter of jet combat inherently leading to less accurate claiming than prop combat in WWII. So, Soviet KW claim accuracy might suggest something about their WWII accuracy. And as mentioned their claim accuracy in the Nomomhan War with Japan was similar, probably less than 20%.

Note, I'm comparing *fighter* claims; *bomber* defensive gunner claims were inherently a lot less accurate, 15% wouldn't be that low. But 15-20% was pretty low for WWII fighters: 25-40% was typically in a lot of cases, but some fighters arms in some periods were 50% or more, and again the 70+% or so UN Korean level was sometimes achieved or surpassed in WWII. 

Another important point is that there was no 'typical claim accuracy of other nations': it varied a lot, even within a given AF in different periods of the war. Both the Brits and Germans had periods of quite accurate claims, and quite inaccurate claims, with changes in the situation (the harder pressed AF would generally claim less accurately, for one thing). The Soviet level of accuracy in Korea was relatively stable over the war, but then again the basic combat situation was relatively stable. It might have varied more in WWII.

In sum I see no evidence on which to conclude Soviet claim accuracy in WWII was typical of other AF's and anyway, which other AF, in what period of WWII?, there's a wide range.

Also I'd distinguish issues wrt to something Soren said. "Propaganda" properly refers to *publicly* claimed successes, typically *during* the war. Nobody should use WWII press releases of any country as a source for true victories or losses. I'm talking about the variance between official records of victories and losses recorded, in the unit records of each side, so 'propaganda' doesn't enter into it.

Joe


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## Soren (Feb 2, 2008)

The Germans had the strictest and most thurough confirmation system of all throughout the war, the OKL demanding atleast two pilots seeing the a/c crash, gun-cam footage or confirmation by German military ground personnel. 

For this reason many actual kills weren't confirmed by the OKL.


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## JoeB (Feb 2, 2008)

Soren said:


> The Germans had the strictest and most thurough confirmation system of all throughout the war, the OKL demanding atleast two pilots seeing the a/c crash, gun-cam footage or confirmation by German military ground personnel.
> 
> For this reason many actual kills weren't confirmed by the OKL.


Again that was the nominal rule, and LW claims in many periods of the war were good, but actual German claim accuracy still varied considerably over WWII. Nominal procedure was not the key factor.

In some periods German nightfighter claims over the Reich were ~100% accurate. Another random example is Fw190 units in North Africa (since the book, "Fw190 in North Africa" nicely lays out each claim v Allied records); about 50% accurate, still good but considerably lower. On the big one day loss of USAAF P-39's to JG77 Bf109's in Tunisia, there were 20 credits, 7 P-39's actually lost; that's a pretty typical WWII result in a furball fight, not especially good or bad. Then in 2nd half '44-end of war in West German claims were often quite inaccurate; the procedures were probably not closely followed in that highly stressed situation.

LW claims were probably considerably more accurate than Soviet on average on East front, maybe most accurate on average in West too (I'm not sure that could be proved though). But the point is though that the claim accuracy varied considerably in different circumstances as it did in other AF's, and the nominal claim procedure was only one factor in the overall accuracy.

Joe


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## Soren (Feb 3, 2008)

Some valid points JoeB, no doubt, but I'm not talking about claims, I'm talking about confirmed kills. The confirmation criteria layed down by the OKL was followed strictly until the very end, hence many actual kills stayed claims and weren't confirmed, esp. near the end.

When it comes to being accurate no'one is quite as thurough as the Germans, they're perfectionists.


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## drgondog (Feb 4, 2008)

Soren said:


> Some valid points JoeB, no doubt, but I'm not talking about claims, I'm talking about confirmed kills. The confirmation criteria layed down by the OKL was followed strictly until the very end, hence many actual kills stayed claims and weren't confirmed, esp. near the end.
> 
> When it comes to being accurate no'one is quite as thurough as the Germans, they're perfectionists.



Soren, meticulous they were - no question. Having said that I have spent a lot of time cross referencing 'kills vs losses' for the 355th and the 8th AF.

I would offer one case for thought. If we believe in the thoroughness of Dr. Prien's work (which I do) and by extrapolation Tony Wood's recounting of LW awards then the mission of April 24, 1944 is an example where the LW awards were nearly 50% in error -despite the rigor of the process.

They 'overawarded' the Mustang scores by nearly 3:1 in total and 4:1 with respect to fighter vs fighter scores. I'm not yet sure what the 8th AF overclaim ratio is because Dr. Prien's works don't break out losses to fighters vs bombers. The LW process 'overawarded' the bombers losses 27 by about 2:1 and that includes the 9 ships that landed in Switzerland, landed in Sweden, ditched in Channel and went down to flak.

Interestingly enough the JG11 claims of three Mustangs in Mannheim area matches exactly what the actual losses were in that area.

But take the 11 Mustangs awarded to III./JG26, JG3 and JG27 for the Augsburg Muhldorf, Oberpfaffenhoffen area for example. 8 were awarded on basis of film, three more with no reference, presumably witness, but only four were lost to fighters. Two were lost to mid air collisions with Me 110s that they shot down - but those claims are not even on the rolls, presumably because there were no surviving witnesses?

I have the details, thanks to help from Eric, and I presented the 355th awards and 357th awards as well as the 1st BD actual losses for all causes on Mike Williams site if you want to look at them.

To summarize - I KNOW the LW claims process was a good one, so was 8th AF, and I know that both awards systems produced more awards by some considerable margin than actaul losses experienced by the other side. 

I found one of the root causes via Dr Prien, who confirmed that if a Germand aircraft crash landed due to an air battle, it wasn't on the rolls as 'destroyed' unless it was in fact salvaged on the spot. More likely it wouldn't show up as anything but '60% damaged' and might or might not reference whether it was flak or air damage. 

I know another source of a faulty award was the dreaded example of 'The Fw was last seen spinning out of control and he could not have recovered" - well some did. etc, etc so the 8th AF awards systems were faulty in that respect as well as awarding a 'destroyed' for an a/c they forced to crash land - but later repaired by Germans.

At any rate neither was close to infallible.

Regards,

Bill


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## JoeB (Feb 4, 2008)

Soren said:


> but I'm not talking about claims, I'm talking about confirmed kills..


So I am, pardon any inprecision on my part between the term 'claim' and 'confirmed kill'; but both in the final analysis are the perception of *one side* of its successes, to be distinguished from victories actually cross referenced in the other side's loss records. When I say 'claim accuracy' I mean 'confirmed victory accuracy', if you prefer that term.

See drgondog's post, but another example is victories awarded to Me-262 pilots against Allied fighters in '44-45: highly overstated according to Allied records, as apparent in published sources, apparently more than in the cases drgondog mentions. And note, my previous example of the 1943 P-39 case (7 real losses, 20 victories) is also based on the Tony Woods lists.

Also while we could quibble about what exactly *was* a 'confirmed kill' in the dying days of the Luftwaffe, many books and other sources quote these quite overstated German fighter pilot accounts of victories in '44-45, so they were not 'raw claims' which were simply disallowed and forgotten: people still draw (sometimes misguided) conclusions based on them even today.

But again, this contrasts sharply with remarkable German claim ('confirmed victory') accuracy at times in the war, and at other times their accuracy was neither especially accurate nor inaccurate: it varied. 

And the key point again is that the nominal procedure of confirming claims did not determine the claim accuracy. Again, the Soviets in Korea on paper followed a procedure similar to the Luftwaffe's in WWII: required two pilots testimony, gun camera, and statement of allies (1950-51) or own wreck team results ('52-53) of the crash and still their 'cofirmed victories' exceeded UN air combat losses by a factor of around 6; and that's based on pretty extensive examination of particular Soviet credits, knowing the places and times, v. original US records, which almost always show a combat *did* happen at that place and time, but pretty consistently fewer losses, and corroborated in all kinds of other records (those of individual a/c, sdn maintenance records, etc etc) so not much doubt about it. I'm not directly comparing the Soviet and German claim accuracies, I'm just saying the procedure on paper didn't entirely determine the accuracy, for *any* AF.

Joe


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## claidemore (Feb 7, 2008)

On the topic of P39s. 

Here is an interesting site that gives some clues as to why the Soviets might have liked the P39. 

Airacobra I for RAF, P-400

One advantage the 109 and 190 had over all Soviet fighters, was dive speed. Soviet pilots complained that the German pilots could always disengage and dive away, and there wasn't a lot they could do about it. 

P39's could dive. 836 kmh(535 mph) according to the pilots handbook for the P39Q. Max dive speed for 109G2 (according to Finnish manual) is 750 kph.


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## Soren (Feb 7, 2008)

One other advantage the BF109 FW190 also enjoyed was much better performance over the whole height band. Additionally the FW190 enjoyed a huge advantage in agility at high speed, being able to pull excruciatingly high G pull outs. (But this was true against all other Allied fighters as-well)


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## claidemore (Feb 7, 2008)

Was looking at some P39D stats. Never gave this plane a lot of thought before, but it seems like it wasn't quite the turkey it was often made out to be. 

Climb time to 5000 meters, 5 minutes, about the same as a 109G6. 
Wingloading of 36.72 lbs/sq ft, compared to 42 lbs/sq ft in a 109G6. 
Thrust to weight is much less than a G6, the 109 is much better in that regard. 6.8 lbs/hp compared to 5lbs/hp for the 109G6. 
P39D dive speed, 836 compared to 750 in the 109
The roll rate was 75 degrees per second at 380 kmh.(according to Wikpedia, which I am finding has some surprisingly accurate information on WWII planes) Roll rate on 109's was about 1.5 second for 45 degrees at that speed (according to RAE tests). I have not found figures on how P39 would compare to FW190 roll rate. (I'm sure someone will assure us that the FW was superior.  )
It's also noted that high speed controls were very light, enabling high speed pullout in a dive. 
Can't remember where I saw it, but one source indicated a turning circle of 1000 ft. 
Deceleration was poor as it was an aerodynamically 'clean' design. 

Most of this info comes from the P39D pilots manual, some from various online sources.


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## drgondog (Feb 7, 2008)

claidemore said:


> Was looking at some P39D stats. Never gave this plane a lot of thought before, but it seems like it wasn't quite the turkey it was often made out to be.
> 
> Climb time to 5000 meters, 5 minutes, about the same as a 109G6.
> Wingloading of 36.72 lbs/sq ft, compared to 42 lbs/sq ft in a 109G6.
> ...



The P-39D, and ultimately the P-63 were great improvements over the early Iron Dogs.. It is hard to conceive any nationality pilot other than Russia that pick a P-39 over a 109 from F through K in a fight.. maybe the 63 had an edge somewhere but still doubt the equivalency to a comparable stage 109 like a G-10 or K-4 or even a 109G-6/AS

As to roll rate for Fw 190A-4 versus 51B vs P-38L here is aniteresting source - I can not vouch for root source data


P-38L Roll Chart

Briefly at 280 Mph at 400mph
Fw 190A-4 140/sec 80/sec
P51B 80/sec 85/sec
P-38L 90/sec 90/sec

This is for boosted ailerons on the 38

Take what you want out of this. IIRC the P-40 had a faster roll rate than the 51B and C but closer to P38L so not much real difference.. P-39 slightly lower which your figure seems to agree with. The 109 roll rate you posted seems too low even for 400mph where they were really stiff


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## claidemore (Feb 7, 2008)

Here is a link with measurement of 109 roll rate. 

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/bank45.gif

I know the Luft guys will say that is wrong, and that the 109 actually rolled much faster than anything but a 190, and the test is biased, etc etc, but i haven't seen any reports or charts that show that. That is the only actual measurement I have seen, but I'd love to see another one if anybody has one.


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## Soren (Feb 7, 2008)

Bill,

The 190A-4 used to acquire those results suffered from improper aileron adjustment, the roll rate suffered and because of the premature stalling in turns this caused esp. the turn rate suffered badly. 

The real roll rate of the FW-190A is at those speeds is 180 degree's pr. sec, VERY fast.


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## Soren (Feb 7, 2008)

claidemore said:


> Here is a link with measurement of 109 roll rate.
> 
> http://www.spitfireperformance.com/bank45.gif
> 
> I know the Luft guys will say that is wrong, and that the 109 actually rolled much faster than anything but a 190, and the test is biased, etc etc, but i haven't seen any reports or charts that show that. That is the only actual measurement I have seen, but I'd love to see another one if anybody has one.



Oh give me a break! 

The Bf-109 didn't pocess any exceptional roll rate, infact most Allied fighters pocessed an equal or better roll rate at high speed. Roll rate wasn't the BF109's advantage over its opponents, turn climb performance was.


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## Glider (Feb 7, 2008)

Soren said:


> Bill,
> 
> The 190A-4 used to acquire those results suffered from improper aileron adjustment, the roll rate suffered and because of the premature stalling in turns this caused esp. the turn rate suffered badly.



Can I ask how you know this?


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## Soren (Feb 7, 2008)

Yes you can Glider. You can read the whole report somewhere on the net, in this report it is clearly mentioned.

I have it on my stationary at home as-well though, so if you wait while I can present it instead.


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## renrich (Feb 7, 2008)

Soren, don't know where your figures come from but I have a hard time believing a roll rate of 180 degrees per second for an FW.


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## drgondog (Feb 7, 2008)

Soren said:


> Bill,
> 
> The 190A-4 used to acquire those results suffered from improper aileron adjustment, the roll rate suffered and because of the premature stalling in turns this caused esp. the turn rate suffered badly.
> 
> The real roll rate of the FW-190A is at those speeds is 180 degree's pr. sec, VERY fast.



Soren - I recall that the Fw 190 (unspecified version) rolled close to 180, and in the same breath that was at medium speed and altitude and degraded as speed increased. My father's recollection was 'lot faster than 51', '51 better than 109' - all anecdotal with no rigor, just fly it.

Having said that I have yet to see a LW Flight test report performed by LW which has any documented Fw 190 Roll rates or Me 109s... other than the stuff in Mike Williams website from both RAF and USAAF documents. Futher, one of the references I recall was on the Fw 190A-3 in comparison with the P-51B, The Spitfire, The P-47C (and D-2) plus P-38F. I can't recall whether Kurfurst has such on his site (I know he has volumes of data regarding airspeed and climb for many versions)

I posted that website that had the roll rate versus airspeed above but I have not verified the source other than Lockheed (i.e where and what version of Fw 190).. but the relationship of the dramatic slowdown as function of airspeed is consistent with all test results I have seen on the Fw 190, so it seems reasonable.

Having said that it still exceeds all (the 51 and the 38L) at 250-280 TAS by very significant margin. Period.

What references do you draw on?


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## Glider (Feb 7, 2008)

Soren said:


> Yes you can Glider. You can read the whole report somewhere on the net, in this report it is clearly mentioned.
> 
> I have it on my stationary at home as-well though, so if you wait while I can present it instead.



I look forward to it. I have been digging around and turned this one up that might be of interest. It gives the 190 a 160 deg/sec which is pretty impressive.
Flight Performance of Fixed and ... - Google Book Search


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## drgondog (Feb 7, 2008)

Glider said:


> I look forward to it. I have been digging around and turned this one up that might be of interest. It gives the 190 a 160 deg/sec which is pretty impressive.
> Flight Performance of Fixed and ... - Google Book Search



Great presentation - interesting that the 51 roll rate steadily increases with speed to point where it crosses over (exceeds) the clipped wing Spit, the Fw 190 and the P-47 at top speeds... but is chewed up in roll rates against all those at 250 kts.

I wonder why the 51 continually gets better as function of airspeed - not just better relatively but better quantitatively?

And does anyone want to do max rolls in an A-4 two or three times at 300 degrees/sec?


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## Soren (Feb 8, 2008)

drgondog said:


> Great presentation - interesting that the 51 roll rate steadily increases with speed to point where it crosses over (exceeds) the clipped wing Spit, the Fw 190 and the P-47 at top speeds... but is chewed up in roll rates against all those at 250 kts.
> 
> I wonder why the 51 continually gets better as function of airspeed - not just better relatively but better quantitatively?



The P-51 featured great aileron control at high speeds, no doubt about it. The P-51's only problem at high speed was its elevators stiffening up considerably, making it feel like your driving a truck some -51 jocks say. This is one of the reasons that 109's sometimes succesfully pulled out of dives far earlier than the chasing -51 could. Now as to the FW190, well according to the pilots who flew it its controls were feather like completely harmonized at all speeds, even at max dive speed, infact the controls were so light than one had to take care not to overstress the airframe at high speeds, esp. in pull outs.

However like I said the NACA chart isn't a valid source on the 190's roll rate as the a/c in question suffered from ill adjusted ailerons, something which causes permature stalling in turns and has a negative effect on roll rate, esp. as speed increases.



> And does anyone want to do max rolls in an A-4 two or three times at 300 degrees/sec?



Very good point Bill, infact anything above 120 degree's pr. sec is way faster than needed and extremely disorientating.


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## Glider (Feb 8, 2008)

I have done some rolls in a Hunter (360 deg/sec) and can assure you the first time around I was pretty confident that my brain was about 180 degrees behind the rest of my head.


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## renrich (Feb 8, 2008)

The reason I question the 180 degree per second rate of roll in the FW is that in a test of the FW190A4 versus the F4U1 and F6F3 it was said that the rate of roll for the FW and F4U was equal. The F4U was a good rolling AC but I can't find any figures to justify a 2 second roll.


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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 8, 2008)

Soren said:


> However like I said the NACA chart isn't a valid source on the 190's roll rate as the a/c in question suffered from ill adjusted ailerons, something which causes permature stalling in turns and has a negative effect on roll rate, esp. as speed increases.


Soren, any information on how the ailerons were out of adjustment? - Looking at some schematics of the 190, aileron adjustment is a simple process, usually done at a turnbuckle or terminal eye, and if I remember weren't the 190's ailerons actuated with push tubes?


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## davparlr (Feb 8, 2008)

Soren said:


> The P-51 featured great aileron control at high speeds, no doubt about it. The P-51's only problem at high speed was its elevators stiffening up considerably, making it feel like your driving a truck some -51 jocks say. This is one of the reasons that 109's sometimes succesfully pulled out of dives far earlier than the chasing -51 could.



The Joint Fighter Conference gave the P-51 elevator control 5 out of 8 "good" vote (highest vote level) for force and 16 out of 19 voting "light" pressure. Effectiveness was rated "good" (again, the highest rating) by 19 out of 26 pilots (mostly Navy). There was also comments about the P-51 having good diving characteristics. There was no mention of elevator stiffening. Now they may not have tested the P-51 at extremely high diving speed, but I suspect they did a good job of yanking and banking and diving. Apparently the P-51 had very good elevator control over the great majority of the operational envelope (otherwise, I am sure the Navy would have loved to point it out).


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## drgondog (Feb 8, 2008)

davparlr said:


> The Joint Fighter Conference gave the P-51 elevator control 5 out of 8 "good" vote (highest vote level) for force and 16 out of 19 voting "light" pressure. Effectiveness was rated "good" (again, the highest rating) by 19 out of 26 pilots (mostly Navy). There was also comments about the P-51 having good diving characteristics. There was no mention of elevator stiffening. Now they may not have tested the P-51 at extremely high diving speed, but I suspect they did a good job of yanking and banking and diving. Apparently the P-51 had very good elevator control over the great majority of the operational envelope (otherwise, I am sure the Navy would have loved to point it out).



51 elevator was only stiff in same regime as 109 and 190 and 47 and 38 and, and... namely in the initial compressibility range. Allegedly the 51 had lighter control forces than both the Fw and Me 109 at high speed, which may have contributed to perception of out turning both ships at high speed and altitude, and maybe reality based on stick forces contrasted with Lift Co-efficient.

The huge 'no-no' for recovering from a compressibility dive was keepa the han offa the trim wheel... it was ready to recover when you could move the stick.

What 51 piloys should absolutely not do is fast roll in the high speed dive - or pullout - that yaw force on the tail plus the wheel door uplock failure in the B/C is what broke the few Mustangs lost to Structural failure.

Roger on the Navy gleefully pick fun on Air Force


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## renrich (Feb 8, 2008)

My source shows best elevators: F4U1D,F6F5,P51D,P47D. This is the 1944 fighter conference.


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## Nikademus (Feb 8, 2008)

FLYBOYJ said:


> If you look at the number of kills/ losses in the South Pacific things really started to change at the latter end of 1942. I know JoeB may chime in here with info on "overclaims" by both sides, but the fact remains that the Japanese started loosing large amounts of fighters and most of them were Zeros. I don't think pilot rotation had anything to do with it, at least on the USAAF side....



The factor would be less apparant in the Pacific due to the smaller scale of the fighting, but it was still there. For example the battle of 7 Aug, 42 in which Tainen Air Group spanked the 3 CV CAP over Lunga can in part be attributed to recent rotations after the big Midway battle. In other words, some hard lessons had to be relearned the hard way as oft happened in the Desert.

After the campaign ramped up, yes, losses increased greatly but this was due more to the debilitating circumstances by which the Japanese accepted battle over the singular base of Lunga. Rotation on the US/USN side would have had less impact because they were fighting defensively over their own base and the scale of combat and losses did not see a mass of conscripts coming into the cockpits in multiple squadrons as in the larger scale battles/campaigns of the Western Desert. For the Japanese.....lack of rotation of key "Experten" would be felt more keenly in 43 once the pilot training system broke down under the stress.


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## JoeB (Feb 8, 2008)

Nikademus said:


> The factor would be less apparant in the Pacific due to the smaller scale of the fighting, but it was still there. For example the battle of 7 Aug, 42 in which Tainen Air Group spanked the 3 CV CAP over Lunga can in part be attributed to recent rotations after the big Midway battle. In other words, some hard lessons had to be relearned the hard way as oft happened in the Desert.
> 
> After the campaign ramped up, yes, losses increased greatly but this was due more to the debilitating circumstances by which the Japanese accepted battle over the singular base of Lunga. Rotation on the US/USN side would have had less impact because they were fighting defensively over their own base and the scale of combat and losses did not see a mass of conscripts coming into the cockpits in multiple squadrons as in the larger scale battles/campaigns of the Western Desert.


As I said in a previous post we might find examples of rotational policies affecting Pacific campaigns but that particular example is doubtful. Of the two USN squadrons losing planes in the Aug 7 '42 battle, VF-5: 5, VF-6: 4, (VF-71 didn't suffer any losses) VF-6 had been at Midway, the other sdn that had seen any real action at Midway, VF-3, had had its carrier sunk and the other two carriers hadn't been available for Midway. But anyway the Tainan Air Group, though it had never met USN fighters before, had seen more air combat in the Pacific War than any of the Zero carrier sdns and far more than any USN fighter squadron at that time. 

But that combat also ended up mainly a one off statistical outlier. USN F4F combats v Zeroes before that, ie. Coral Sea and Midway, went 14:10 in favor of the F4F's, that one 2:9 in favor of the Tainan, but after that through the climax of Guadalcanal campaign (mid Nov '42) 23:22; in a mixture of carrier battles, G'canal defence, and convoy attack actions (see Lundstrom "First Team" s vols). Marine F4F's did somewhat better than that in a larger number of mainly G'canal defence missions (approx 90:70 see tables in Frank "Guadalcanal", air combat losses only but includes a few Zeroes downed by non-F4F's and vice versa). And no single combat before or after was as decisive for either side as that Aug 7 one.

The results don't actually vary that much from the typical Guadalcanal high altitude defence scenario to other scenario's, nor very noticeably after the Zeroes got bases closer to Guadalcanal, a lot of things were always changing. But rotational issues can largely be ruled out as an effect in the main defence of Guadacanal simply because the F4F force was an agglomeration of Marine units on considerably overlapping tours plus Navy units sent in ad hoc when their carriers were disabled; there wasn't any complete switchout of experienced units once there *was* much real experience. Likewise the Zero OOB was constantly changing and overlapping with analogous components: the prewar Tainan, newly activated units, carrier sdns detached to shore bases, plus a few carrier strikes met by landbased planes from Guadalcanal.

One definite and important Pacific War rotation policy in 1942 was most very high hour US naval pilots were rotated to training commands right after the war started, *before* seeing any combat, to jump start a huge expansion of the force. The average hours in USN F4F sdns dropped substantially in the first few months of the war, before they saw any combat with Zeroes at all. But it wasn't a matter of combat experience being rotated out since the USN had virtually none, in contrast to JNAF which had a lot from 1937-41 in China even when the Pac War started.

Joe


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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 8, 2008)

Nikademus said:


> The factor would be less apparant in the Pacific due to the smaller scale of the fighting, but it was still there. For example the battle of 7 Aug, 42 in which Tainen Air Group spanked the 3 CV CAP over Lunga can in part be attributed to recent rotations after the big Midway battle. In other words, some hard lessons had to be relearned the hard way as oft happened in the Desert.



You're citing one situation which I don't believe was the norm of the Pacific War. Look at some of the confrontations with the 9th 39th FS in Dec 1942 when practically the whole group were newbies, let alone transitioning into a new aircraft...


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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 8, 2008)

FLYBOYJ said:


> Soren, any information on how the ailerons were out of adjustment? - Looking at some schematics of the 190, aileron adjustment is a simple process, usually done at a turnbuckle or terminal eye, and if I remember weren't the 190's ailerons actuated with push tubes?



I checked out a cut away of an Fw - it seems that ailerons were actuated with push tubes. Again I'd like to find out about this aileron misadjustment - if it was true it was an easy fix.


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## Soren (Feb 9, 2008)

FLYBOYJ said:


> I checked out a cut away of an Fw - it seems that ailerons were actuated with push tubes. Again I'd like to find out about this aileron misadjustment - if it was true it was an easy fix.



Nope, it was actually a real pain in the a** to adjust correctly, go ask Crumpp he has all the details on this, and has experienced this pain in the a** procedure himself.

In the NAVY report the improper adjusted ailerons are mentioned as-well as that they had very negative effect on the turn performance and roll rate of the a/c.

Renrich,

The Navy tested their FW190 with ill adjusted ailerons, hence the results against the F4U F6F.

___________________________


Will sure be a blast when the newly flying FW190's will be compared to other WW2 fighters


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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 9, 2008)

Soren said:


> Nope, it was actually a real pain in the a** to adjust correctly, go ask Crumpp he has all the details on this, and has experienced this pain in the a** procedure himself.


Again in what way? The process is basically the same on a number of aircraft - you might have to use rig boards to get the right deflection but I'm telling you we are not talking about something that would of been complicated so mechanics in the field would have a hard time doing it - I have my doubts about this - there are only so many ways to adjust a push rod and torque tube.


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## Soren (Feb 9, 2008)

There's a reason for the Navy report mentioning this problem FLYBOYJ, and Crumpp has all the details, I'll sent him a message.

Read the following posts here:
TotalSims.com Forums :: View topic - RAE 1231 and FW-190 Roll Rates Examined


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## Soren (Feb 9, 2008)

Found the German report on my harddrive, here we go:


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## Soren (Feb 9, 2008)

The adjustment of the ailerons was a problem plagueing the early FW190 especially, not that it couldn't be done, it was just a very sensitive procedure.


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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 9, 2008)

Soren said:


> The adjustment of the ailerons was a problem plagueing the early FW190 especially, not that it couldn't be done, it was just a very sensitive procedure.


I went to the link you gave me but none of the photos showed up - again I'd like to see the procedure on adjusting the Fw 190s ailerons. Not saying that mis-adjusted ailerons would not cause a problem, I question how difficult the process could actually be. Even with a series of pushtubes, push-rods and bell cranks "solid rigging" is the easiest flight control system to maintain and adjust. Many times the factory will give dimensions on specific push-rods that should provide the specified control surface deflection. In my experience (and this includes warbirds) if you have all the push-rods and push tubes set correctly and cannot get the proper surface deflection, that usually means you have something bent or mis-aligned - a control surface bracket, part of the airframe or even the control surface it self. If this procedure is that difficult I would also look at the precision of the airframe and the actually parts that make up the control system.


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## renrich (Feb 10, 2008)

I have read the report ot the flight tests of the FW190A4 versus the F4U1 and F6F3 three or four times and I can find no mention of misadjusted ailerons. In fact the report mentioned how easy it was to roll the FW and there was no mention of any vibration of the controls except at very high speeds. One would think if the FW was not performing in a manner typical for the German AC, the Navy would either note that like they did another couple of problems or they would have fixed the problem. As it was the Navy concluded that the Corsair and Hellcat were both superior in combat. Of course nothing was said about the fact that both Navy AC carried approx 100 gallons more fuel so in extremis all the had to do was keep turning or looping until the FW ran out of fuel and then dispose of it at their leisure. One wonders if that 600 pounds of extra weight the US planes carried had any effect on their performance.

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## drgondog (Feb 10, 2008)

renrich said:


> I have read the report ot the flight tests of the FW190A4 versus the F4U1 and F6F3 three or four times and I can find no mention of misadjusted ailerons. In fact the report mentioned how easy it was to roll the FW and there was no mention of any vibration of the controls except at very high speeds. One would think if the FW was not performing in a manner typical for the German AC, the Navy would either note that like they did another couple of problems or they would have fixed the problem. As it was the Navy concluded that the Corsair and Hellcat were both superior in combat. Of course nothing was said about the fact that both Navy AC carried approx 100 gallons more fuel so in extremis all the had to do was keep turning or looping until the FW ran out of fuel and then dispose of it at their leisure. One wonders if that 600 pounds of extra weight the US planes carried had any effect on their performance.



Gene (Crumpp) is rebuilding an Fw 190 with his restoration group in Florida. As I recall he says a.) easy to spot if out of rig, and b.) easy to adjust (pre-flight) so I don't think this represents much of a test 'distraction' or operational issue.


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## Soren (Feb 10, 2008)

The high speed vibration of the controls is the key, this doesn't happen in a FW-190 with properly adjusted ailerons as explained in the German report. The German report also notes how difficult it is to adjust the ailerons correctly on the FW-190. It was a very real problem.

Also Crumpp is the one who has pointed this problem with the NAVY tests out, and he works on an actual FW-190. The NAVY report notes ailerons vibrations at various speeds, clearly indicating improperly adjusted ailerons. This also explains the FW-190 poor turn performance in those tests.


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## renrich (Feb 10, 2008)

The Navy report I read did not mention any aileron problems or vibrations except at speeds approaching the dive limits which I believe they attributed to compressibility. As I mentioned the Corsair was one of the best rolling AC in the US inventory and very high roll rates have been attributed to it so it is no slur to be equated with it in the roll category. I do wonder about 2 second 360 rolls.


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## Mitya (Jun 7, 2008)

Soren said:


> You need to read up on the aerial conflict in the east.
> 
> Like I said many times there weren't even 1/10th of aircraft present that the Soviets would claim, and this is documented fact. A similar example is the outrages Soviet claims at the battle of Kursk.
> 
> ...


And you read about war on the Soviet-German front not only to German sources? And Soviet and Russian did not read? A question for the sake of curiosity... I think, that, чотбы normally to know a history of the conflict it is necessary to esteem not only one side, but also another. Whether not so?
Example p-39:
Any propogand...


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## kool kitty89 (Jun 7, 2008)

What do the top 2 pictures have to do with the P-39?


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## kool kitty89 (Jun 8, 2008)

2 other things to note, the P-39 featured the NACA 23000 airfoil on the outer portions of the wing. (0015 at root)

And that take-off ratings and military power ratings don't necessarily equate to the max output, or WEP.

The only models that were rated for 1150 hp max were ther early ones (-D/D-1 and P-400) with the -35 engine.

On the D-2 take-off was rated at 1,325 hp with it's -63 engine. Similar engines were used on most models up to the N variant -and some refitted M's-. (which featured a higher blower ratio which limited max boost due to higher air temperatures, but allowed a significantly higher critical altitude of ~17,500 ft for 1125 hp mil power with high speed level flight ram air. similar engines were used on the P-47M/N ans P-51A, and could produce 1,480 hp at 10,400 ft with ram, but were limited to 1,200 hp take-off by carb air temp and 57" Hg limit)

Except for the early allisons of the P-39D/D-1/P-400 (-35) which were limited due to strucural limits of the spur gear iirc (same for the P-40B/C's -33), all 8.8 rato blowe allison engines were rated for a WEP of 60" hg which resulted in 1,570 hp. Albeit with a relatively low crit alt for these power levels.
These included the P-39D-2's -63 engine (and all other P-39's up to the M model) and the P-40D/E/K.

As mentioned earlier the more powerful 9.6: 1 blower was limited to 57" Hg due to risk of detonation (the 8.8 could go up to 70" w/out problems, though there were risks of structural failure due to the high power levels). This allowed a crit alt of 10,400 ft for 1,480 hp in level flight, and 1,125 at 17,500 ft. (lower alts for climb) These engines were the -81, -83, and -85. (and -99) in USAAF designations. And were used on the P-39N/Q (-85) and some M's, as well as the P-40M/N and P-51A (-81)

This gave the late model P-39Q (with no wing guns and a 4-blade prop) a top speed of ~396 mph at ~12,000 ft at WEP. (the P-51A could manage 415 mph, and the P-47M 378 mph) with initial climb of 


See: http://www.raafwarbirds.org.au/targetvraaf/p40_archive/pdfs/Allison 1710-39 abuse.pdf
Perils P40 Archive Data
Bell P-39 Airacobra


note these take-off ratings and how they drop at the P-39N/Q






And also:

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## kool kitty89 (Jun 8, 2008)

Also as far as performance is concerned the P-39 was superior to the contemporary P-40 in all but roll-rate and range, being ~equal in sustained turn, depending on configuration. 

Another thing though was that the P-40 was easier to fly and had a larger cockpit. (the P-39's short canopy limited pilot height to ~5'8" -thanks to the USAAC's redesign to the low profile canopy -which also limited view)

The 2-other harmfull changes made at Wright field (besides the turbo) was clipping the wings quite a bit (thus increasing wing loading and possibly limiting space for internal stores) And lengthening the P-39's rear fusalage, shifting the CoG aft and worsening the already mediocre stability. (the only positive changes were the improved nose streamlining, enlarged tail fin, and ellimination of the fusalage radiator/oil-cooler intakes and adding the wing root ones)


The P-40 Tomahawk had a max fuel capacity of 157 US gall (may have changed on late models, the P-40N's was 122 gal) while the P-39's max internal load was 120 US gal -limited to 87 (variable to mod back to 120) or 92 US gal (fixed N/Q) on late models. Both the P-40 and P-39 could carry up to a 170 US gal drop tank (more on the P-40N with 3x racks).

But the limiting factor for radius is max clean range which was ~850 mi for the P-40 (over 1,000 mi at minimum cruise), later limited to ~660 mi with the P-40N; and ~720 mi for the P-39 (120 gal) or 522 mi with 87 gal. (both cruising at ~200 mph)

The P-63 carried only 100 gal internal, so despite an impressive "yardstick" range of nearly 2,500 mi (with 2x 75 and 1x 175 US gal drops) the max combat radius was under 600 mi.

Ther armaments are another issue and changed somewhat on both a/c and could be a matter of circumstance, use, and pilot prefrence. (Tomahawk carried ~50% more .50's but 1/2 the .30's and the P-39 had the cannon as well. comparing the early models. the tomhawk would run out of .30's first the P-39 out of .50's and the 20 mm carried only 60 rounds while the 37 mm carried 30-33 rounds -usually a 1-hit kill if you could hit a fighter)

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## Mitya (Jun 8, 2008)

kool kitty89 said:


> What do the top 2 pictures have to do with the P-39?



"Or at you Alission works out 100...150 hours, or 30 hours, and even it is less, but you force down Bf-109 and FW-190..." For what 2 upper books you ask? Here go: ß Ïîìíþ -- I Remember - Ãëàâíàÿ
If I am not mistaken, the most successful ace on P-39 has brought down on Pacific ocean 5 airplanes of the opponent, then flight on F6F... In the USSR on it many aces completed war...
In the USSR removed a part of inventory, for example oxygen bottles. And what for they are necessary, if battles do not go above 4000 m? From Cobras removed wing to machine gun - weight much, and to sense hardly. A part of armouring removed...What performances of the Cobra after such will be? On your digits, unfortunately, it to not find...  
P-39Q10 it is already possible to consider as the Soviet fighter.  Him have made on wishes of the Soviet pilots and recommendations TSAGI.
P-63 especially.


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## kool kitty89 (Jun 8, 2008)

Ok, so those are books on the topic.


Did they remove the 4x .30 inch wing guns as well, or just the 2x .50 wing guns of the P-39Q? (removing the Q .50's added ~15 mph I think)

The under-wing mounted .50's had a lot more of an effect on performance than the internal .30's. 



One thing to note as well is that the Il-2 Sturmovik computer game Ð˜Ð»-2 Ð¨Ñ‚ÑƒÑ€Ð¼Ð¾Ð²Ð¸Ðº (Ð¸Ð³Ñ€Ð°) â€” Ð’Ð¸ÐºÐ¸Ð¿ÐµÐ´Ð¸Ñ has a fairly comprehensive limrary on the aircraft featured in it. Particularly the Russian (or Lend-lease) planes. One interesting point is that turn times are listed for many planes as well (at 1,000 metres).


I was also aware that the Russians tended to "abuse" theis Allison engines of lend-lease aircraft (runing them at high sustained power levels and RPM) to give them a performance advantage when entering the fight. That, of course, severely limited engine life. (this was particularly common with the P-40 due to its lower performance)



Here's a similar discussion: http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/p-40-vs-me-109-a-12342-3.html


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## Mitya (Jun 8, 2008)

kool kitty89 said:


> Ok, so those are books on the topic.
> 
> 
> Did they remove the 4x .30 inch wing guns as well, or just the 2x .50 wing guns of the P-39Q? (removing the Q .50's added ~15 mph I think)
> ...



Yes! You are absolutely right in use of technics. Therefore results on Pacific ocean and somewhere on Kuban so differ from action P-39...
Russian cheater's.  )))
OFFTOP: and you in IL-2 play?


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## Soren (Jun 8, 2008)

Let us not use a game as reference plz, it is after-all a game.

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## kool kitty89 (Jun 8, 2008)

And the in the colder climate there were less problems with overheating. 

On Il-2,
I hvaen't played online yet (waiting to get data the transfer to my new computer) I've only had it (1946 DVD) for about a year.

If you have more comments PM me. (also there's some interesting news on 1-C's developments in Aircraft of World War II - Warbird Forums - Search Results if you haven't checked it recently)

And back on topic.


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## kool kitty89 (Jun 8, 2008)

And soren, I agree, but also the historical a/c library (in the game) does seem to match most of your figures, including maneuverability, and turn rate of the 109 and 190. (most are based on historical records, many Russian, and figures which were calculated are listed as such)


Of course, performance in actual game-play is another story. (though it's probably the most accurate and complex for a recreational PC simulater currently out there; though there are some strange things missing) But certainly not admisable as actual evidence in this type of discussion. (fun to try out the scenarios though  )


And back on topic again.


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## Mitya (Jun 9, 2008)

Soren said:


> Let us not use a game as reference plz, it is after-all a game.



And who does not compare game to life.
I have written: OFFTOP.


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## kool kitty89 (Jun 9, 2008)

I believe Soren's comment was in response to my comment about the technical library in the game. (which I adressed above)


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## XBe02Drvr (Feb 10, 2018)

drgondog said:


> And does anyone want to do max rolls in an A-4 two or three times at 300 degrees/sec?


Don't try it!! Three continuous max rate rolls in an A-4 will diverge you into an ass-over-teakettle tumble with compressor stalls, flameout, and 15K altitude loss if you manage to recover it. It's called roll divergence. This according to a training film we had at the NAS, which had some pretty impressive footage from testing at Pax River, both cockpit view and air to air.
I can vouch for an awesome roll rate. When my TA-4 pilot asked if I wanted to try some gentle maneuvering and suggested a gradual roll into a 60° bank, I took the stick and tried to comply. At the slightest nudge, we did a helmet-banging snap that was past inverted and reached 270° before he got it stopped. "You've never flown boosted controls, have you? You've got to get used to having no aerodynamic feedback. The controls on this thing feel the same at 150 knots as at 450. Takes a little getting used to."
Cheers,
Wes

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## swampyankee (Feb 10, 2018)

Well-thought out, well-designed sims _should_ get the relative performance right but a) most game designers don't have a significant aero background and b) it's difficult, if not impossible, to get sufficient accurate information on all the factors much beyond wing and power loading to consider game comparisons reliable.

Were somebody like Dave Lednicer and his former co-workers at AMI write an air combat sim, you may be able to trust the results, but you'd also be talking about several tens of thousands of hours of research, steady and unsteady CFD and aerostructural analysis, and several tens of thousands of hours writing and debugging code.

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## grampi (Feb 10, 2018)

Gemhorse said:


> Luftwaffe Ace Helmut Lipfert [203 victories] apparently wrote 'the Airacobra was the best Russian fighter at the time...a close match for our Bf 109's'. - As LG states, they were a successful low-altitude fighter. - However, the P-63 Kingcobra was more formidable with it's two-stage Allison, equalling the Merlin Mustang, and Russian pilots reported it was a match for the Fw-190's and more than a match for 109's. If you're into reading about them, apparently the last word on them is a book called 'Cobra' by Birch Matthews, a former Bell engineer. It's a 416 page hard-cover [Schiffer, 1996]...



I highly doubt the P-63 "equaled" the Merlin Mustang...

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## swampyankee (Feb 10, 2018)

grampi said:


> I highly doubt the P-63 "equaled" the Merlin Mustang...



Since one can't argue with one who was there....

One can, however, always argue with memoirs. Lipfert fought, primarily, in the East, and it's quite possible that he met too few Mustangs in combat to have a good estimate of their capabilities.

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## drgondog (Feb 11, 2018)

The primary advantage the Mustang had over the P-63 was speed and acceleration at medium to high speed because of relative drag. For low to medium altitude performance/maneuverability the P-63 does out climb, out turn and out roll the P-51B/D. That said the two stage/two speed Allison version in the P-63 was outclassed by the Merlin 1650-3 and -7 at escort altitudes for US and not even worth discussing external range and payload. It was ideal for VVS operations.

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## swampyankee (Feb 11, 2018)

drgondog said:


> The primary advantage the Mustang had over the P-63 was speed and acceleration at medium to high speed because of relative drag. For low to medium altitude performance/maneuverability the P-63 does out climb, out turn and out roll the P-51B/D. That said the two stage/two speed Allison version in the P-63 was outclassed by the Merlin 1650-3 and -7 at escort altitudes for US and not even worth discussing external range and payload. It was ideal for VVS operations.



I think quite a few people tend to forget that the _*relative *_performance of piston-engined aircraft is heavily dependent on altitude. It's really somewhat counter-intuitive as tuition is based on everyday life, and not many people are pilots or aerospace engineers.

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## XBe02Drvr (Feb 11, 2018)

FLYBOYJ said:


> I checked out a cut away of an Fw - it seems that ailerons were actuated with push tubes. Again I'd like to find out about this aileron misadjustment - if it was true it was an easy fix.





Soren said:


> Nope, it was actually a real pain in the a** to adjust correctly, go ask Crumpp he has all the details on this, and has experienced this pain in the a** procedure himself.
> 
> In the NAVY report the improper adjusted ailerons are mentioned as-well as that they had very negative effect on the turn performance and roll rate of the a/c.
> 
> ...


You don't suppose the "difficulty" might have been lack of documentation, special tools, or test jigs? Or a conceptually simple task made difficult by poor access or visibility?
Ever change the O-ring seals on Dunlop vs Goodyear pneumatic disc brake assemblies used on F-27s? Conceptually simple, and Dunlops are a piece of cake, but Goodyears are an unholy PITA! For those of you who haven't done this, (FBJ, SR6, Adler, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about), the Dunlops have separate simple round O-rings for each piston cylinder that drop right into their grooves and then you bolt the two HEAVY halves of the assembly together, torque, safety wire and you're done. Goodyears, on the other hand, use a single large serpentine gasket ring that snakes its way around the perimeter of the entire assembly following a too shallow groove which it refuses to stay in. The specs prohibit using any type of "goop" to anchor it in place and require that it be installed and under compression within one hour of coming out of the package, or be discarded. To top it off, the assembly halves don't even have alignment pins, specifying the use of a particular oddball size extra long drift tool in each bolt hole to align the (even heavier than Dunlop) halves together. If the gasket jumps the track while you're aligning the halves, it's considered pinched and you have to go get a new one and start over. (And get woken up tomorrow during your rest period by the Purchasing Manager wanting to know why you expended two gaskets on one job!)
"Simple" but not so easy. You all out there who haven't worked in aircraft maintenance get the picture?
Cheers,
Wes

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## FLYBOYJ (Feb 12, 2018)

XBe02Drvr said:


> You don't suppose the "difficulty" might have been lack of documentation, special tools, or test jigs? Or a conceptually simple task made difficult by poor access or visibility?
> Wes


This would not surprise me but without the benefit of a manual in front of use, we'd just be speculating. It's funny though, I work with German built gliders (DG and Shemp-Hirth). Great aircraft but their maintenance and parts manuals leave a lot to be desired, a lot of guessing and missing items. I've found this with other German manufacturers as well. It seems that they assume the maintainer with "assume" certain tasks


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## XBe02Drvr (Feb 12, 2018)

FLYBOYJ said:


> This would not surprise me but without the benefit of a manual in front of use, we'd just be speculating. It's funny though, I work with German built gliders (DG and Shemp-Hirth). Great aircraft but their maintenance and parts manuals leave a lot to be desired, a lot of guessing and missing items. I've found this with other German manufacturers as well. It seems that they assume the maintainer with "assume" certain tasks


BINGO! No wonder the "grunts in the field" cuss and fume over some of these procedures! I think the product support people in a lot of European, and especially German outfits assume their products will be maintained by factory trained specialists in white lab coats working in spotless well equipped shops. If they saw a bunch of filthy, exhausted, hungry, Corporals and Sergeants working under a bedsheet in the Russian steppes in winter, they'd be as aghast as the similarly dressed Dutch guys were who came over to NDT inspect the wing bolt pins when we D checked a couple of our Fokkers. We thought we had a clean shop, but they called it a pigpen, and insisted we enclose and (attempt to) climate condition their working area. They actually did work in white lab coats and insisted on short turn around laundry, since they only brought three suits each with them. They were aghast at our blue work uniforms which only got laundered once a week, and asked our DOM if he had any "real" certificated aircraft maintenance engineers onboard.
Turns out there was nothing special about the NDT process they used, and any local contractor could have done it. It's just that Fokker wouldn't certify any outside vendors except in Europe to do it. Apparently that's one of the issues that led to the split between Fokker and Fairchild. They could build the airplane, but they weren't allowed to do the wing bolts. (In addition to the infamous APU issue.)
Those Dutch guys kept asking where the "maintenance engineers" were. "You mean the mechanics?" "No, mechanics work on cars and motorbikes. You have to be a certificated Aircraft Maintenance Engineer to work on planes. We don't see any of those here. How do you get away with this?"
Culture clash, anyone?
Cheers,
Wes

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## swampyankee (Feb 12, 2018)

XBe02Drvr said:


> BINGO! No wonder the "grunts in the field" cuss and fume over some of these procedures! I think the product support people in a lot of European, and especially German outfits assume their products will be maintained by factory trained specialists in white lab coats working in spotless well equipped shops. If they saw a bunch of filthy, exhausted, hungry, Corporals and Sergeants working under a bedsheet in the Russian steppes in winter, they'd be as aghast as the similarly dressed Dutch guys were who came over to NDT inspect the wing bolt pins when we D checked a couple of our Fokkers. We thought we had a clean shop, but they called it a pigpen, and insisted we enclose and (attempt to) climate condition their working area. They actually did work in white lab coats and insisted on short turn around laundry, since they only brought three suits each with them. They were aghast at our blue work uniforms which only got laundered once a week, and asked our DOM if he had any "real" certificated aircraft maintenance engineers onboard.
> Turns out there was nothing special about the NDT process they used, and any local contractor could have done it. It's just that Fokker wouldn't certify any outside vendors except in Europe to do it. Apparently that's one of the issues that led to the split between Fokker and Fairchild. They could build the airplane, but they weren't allowed to do the wing bolts. (In addition to the infamous APU issue.)
> Those Dutch guys kept asking where the "maintenance engineers" were. "You mean the mechanics?" "No, mechanics work on cars and motorbikes. You have to be a certificated Aircraft Maintenance Engineer to work on planes. We don't see any of those here. How do you get away with this?"
> Culture clash, anyone?
> ...




Difference in language. One of the major problems with the Anglo-French Concord[e] was creating an Anglo-French glossary.


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## P-39 Expert (May 21, 2018)

renrich said:


> The other factor which I believe comes into play when discussing claims by Soviet pilots flying P39s is that the P39 had a less than stellar record against the Japanese in the Pacific war and then we are supposed to believe they were effective against LW fighters in Russia. I don't believe the Soviet pilots were better trained than US pilots so how did that happen. It may be that the Soviets inflated the claims of their pilots as a morale boosting method. The British allowed obviously inflated claims to be published during the BOB and so did the US at times. I just believe the Soviets excelled in that behavior.


The P-39s that the Russians got (N&Q) were much superior to the D, F, K, L and P-400 that fought in the Pacific. Check the P-39N in wwiiaircraftperformance, especially climb. And the Russians lightened these planes by removing the wing guns and the IFF radio even further increasing the climb rate. The N and Q differed only in wing armament, so after the Russians removed that they were the same plane. Fully capable at all altitudes against the LW.

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## wuzak (May 21, 2018)

P-39 Expert said:


> The P-39s that the Russians got (N&Q) were much superior to the D, F, K, L and P-400 that fought in the Pacific. Check the P-39N in wwiiaircraftperformance, especially climb. And the Russians lightened these planes by removing the wing guns and the IFF radio even further increasing the climb rate. The N and Q differed only in wing armament, so after the Russians removed that they were the same plane. Fully capable at all altitudes against the LW.



You do realise you are replying to an 11 year old post?


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## Glider (May 21, 2018)

P-39 Expert said:


> The P-39s that the Russians got (N&Q) were much superior to the D, F, K, L and P-400 that fought in the Pacific. Check the P-39N in wwiiaircraftperformance, especially climb. And the Russians lightened these planes by removing the wing guns and the IFF radio even further increasing the climb rate. The N and Q differed only in wing armament, so after the Russians removed that they were the same plane. Fully capable at all altitudes against the LW.



Just a thought. Pilots only take things out of aircraft if they need to, which if you think of the posting you made, say's rather a lot. Can you seriously think of any other airforce taking out the radios with all the advantages they give, unless they really had to.


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## Shortround6 (May 21, 2018)

The IFF was the transponder that identified the aircraft to ground based radar. The Russians not having a ground based radar _network_ with plotting rooms this gear did little good (most Russian built aircraft not having IFF gear) so telling the P-39s from other Russian aircraft and German aircraft would have not simplified things much.


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## swampyankee (May 21, 2018)

renrich said:


> The other factor which I believe comes into play when discussing claims by Soviet pilots flying P39s is that the P39 had a less than stellar record against the Japanese in the Pacific war and then we are supposed to believe they were effective against LW fighters in Russia. I don't believe the Soviet pilots were better trained than US pilots so how did that happen. It may be that the Soviets inflated the claims of their pilots as a morale boosting method. The British allowed obviously inflated claims to be published during the BOB and so did the US at times. I just believe the Soviets excelled in that behavior.




It is also quite possible that, in 1941 and 1942, Japan's air forces were better, in air-air combat than the Luftwaffe. Indeed, I think there is evidence that this is true: the Spitfire, P-39, and P-40 were more successful against the Luftwaffe than against the Japanese.

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## Shortround6 (May 21, 2018)

The Japanese had, until Dec 1941, been pretty much engaged in China (The Nomonhan incident being a bit over two years earlier) which gave the Japanese time to re-equip and rotate units. This allowed them to go to war with a well trained force and things went fairly well for them in the first few months so losses were not great, once losses exceeded the ability of the Japanese to train replacements the Japanese capability dropped quickly. 

The Germans on the other hand had suffered losses in Poland, in France and the low countries and then the BoB. Granted it gave a lot of pilots experience but it also cost many more pilots than the Japanese had lost in China. German _overall _pilot quality may have been declining even before the North African and Russian campaign. Russian pilot quality being pretty poor in general. As always you have wide variations which make it hard to generalize but some accounts speak of Soviet pilots, even of long service, only getting 30 or so hours of flying per year in peace time. 
The BoB/lean into France, North Africa and Russia also having different tactical situations. With fewer mass bomber attacks flying in the upper teens/low twenties for altitude there wasn't quite the race to 30,000ft there had been over Europe. Tactical mission were much more the order of the day (but certainly not exclusive)
and low/medium altitude planes could be used to advantage (although there was still an element of high cover on many occasions in NA).
The Japanese went to bombing from the hi teens and low twenties again with escorting fighters even higher and so altitude performance became more important in some areas. 

Just some ideas, feel free to poke holes.


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## Stig1207 (May 22, 2018)

In 1941-42 the P-39 wouldn't have met the Luftwaffe, at least not in the West; Spitfires were having a torrid time against the LW over the Channel (and probably hadn't been up against the Japanese) Not sure that the P-40 was doing any better against the Luftwaffe than it was against the Japanese either in 41-42.


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## P-39 Expert (May 22, 2018)

Shortround6 said:


> The IFF was the transponder that identified the aircraft to ground based radar. The Russians not having a ground based radar _network_ with plotting rooms this gear did little good (most Russian built aircraft not having IFF gear) so telling the P-39s from other Russian aircraft and German aircraft would have not simplified things much.


Thanks.


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## P-39 Expert (May 22, 2018)

wuzak said:


> You do realise you are replying to an 11 year old post?


Late to the party.

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