I think that record goes to the Bf-109 unless you mean more than any other *American* fighter.
IIRC the Mustang shot down the most aircraft of US types, though the F6F is definitely up there. Hellcat has the all-time top spot for carrier-based fighters though.
I know I haven't been here in awhile, but talking about Hellcat vs. Corsair production rate and subcontracting...my point was not about any supposed inferiority of sub-contracted airframes (FM-2 and TBM Avenger worked just fine.) My point was:
12,571 Corsairs produced total, 12,275 Hellcats...
Hmmm...
I guess I'd vote for the Mosquito, as the P-61 didn't see enough action IMHO. Hellcat was basically a typical fighter type and they stuck a radar pod on the wing, early on the USN used a team of one radar equipped Avenger acting as a sort of fighter controller for two Hellcats, but...
The F6F was notoriously rugged, and hard for a Zero to bring down, and the Zero had double the cannon armament of the 109. The P-51, which had the same firepower as the F6F, had no trouble bringing down the Messerschmitt. So since we're comparing two aircraft in a hypothetical combat it's...
My point being the Hellcat was easy to produce quickly in large numbers. The # of Hellcats and Corsairs built is very close, with a slight margin to the Corsairs, but the Hellcat was made over a much shorter period in a single factory by a single company. From what I understand the gull wing...
Grrr! I had a long post going but then I lost it because I got logged out while typing.
The short version:
In response to your post, the Hellcat was mainly a carrier based fighter so I'd imagine ops losses would be higher for carrier aircraft for obvious reasons. Do you have a...
Interestingly a month later the carriers went to the Marianas equipped with Hellcats and utterly annihilated Japanese airpower....would Corsairs have made any real, noticeable, appreciable difference in the kill/loss ratio in that battle to justify the time, effort, and expense involved in...
HEh. To be honest I was sort of in a bad mood earlier today as I had downloaded and installed a supposedly uber-realistic mod for a PTO wargame I play, where they had included every F4U variant ever seen and for some reason only an F6F-3 and an F6F-5N, but no -5 day fighter or -3N night fighter...
Gaah!! I swear the F6F is the Rodney Dangerfield of WWII fighters..."No respect, no respect I tell ya..."
Hellcat essentially won the Battle of the Marianas single-handedly, few planes can claim to have won a battle, but that's just not good enough for Corsair fanboys, is it?
Keep in...
OK, that makes no sense at all. The FM-2 was just a late-model F4F with a different manufacturer designation, should not be listed as a seperate type.
I've heard the Finnish Buffaloes edge out the Hellcat, but I've never heard the Buffalo's ratio when the kill/loss ratio for Buffaloes in the...