Sounds like the same situation the Mark V Spitfire was in when it first faced the 190, although I'm not sure if the 190 could outdive a Hellcat or if it could outroll it significantly, but the 190 would surely outrun and outclimb it.
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I agree
It was a FW 190 A5-U3 what was definitive a fighter bomber and the prequel to the FW 190 F-2 serie.
So in reality it would be a FW 190 A-6 clean fighter with 4x 151/20, 2 x 131 or 2 x 151/20, 2 x 131.
To my opinion the FW 190A had an advantage against the Hellcat because it could outclimb, outdive, outrun and outroll the Hellcat and we all know that the FW 190A wasn't a turn fighter in all it's career and the pilots don't fly her as turnfighter.
If the Hellcat's pilot can keep the game above 25000 ft, he is likely to come off 1st v. the Fw-190As. Since the usage of any US fighter in ETO almost automatically points into the bomber escort job, that would most likely be the case. The Fw-190A-5/A-6 are fastest at 20300 ft (410 mph), F6F-3 at 23000 ft (385 mph). In 1944 Hellcat gets another 10 mph there, plus water injection, Fw-190A-8 gets more weight drag (= 400 mph at 20160 ft), some receiving MW kit (less usable than for F6F because of some 5000 ft of altitude difference).
In other words, if the combat is taking place in 1943, under 25000 Fw should be better. Above that, or in 1944, the Fw-190 is at disadvantage. The Focke Wulf able to beat Hellcat is the 190D.
Rudel once flew a Ju-87 back to base after it was hit with six 37mm AA rounds. I would hazard a guess six 37mm rounds would normally bring down a Ju-87. Rudel simply got lucky.
Hence the reason for official damage statistics. How many 20mm rounds can an average (i.e. not lucky) P-47 or F6F absorb and still limp back to base?
Thanks, I've seen the report. The Fw-190 from that test lacks the (outer, I presume) cannons their ammo, while the US fighters are flown with full armament ammo. That skews the results in favor of the 190, in speed, climb and roll rate.
Hmm didn't know there were two tests from the Navy, but would love to read it. But the results from the test I read which got pretty much the same results were definetly flown with an F4U-1D (it's mentioned several times in the report). As for factory fresh: "The comparisons were made with new production models of the F4U-1D(Corsair) and F6F-3(Hellcat) airplanes". True meaning debatable, probably. But I read that the birds were new.Actually riacrato, the comparison test I am referring to has the standard F4U1, not an F4U1D and neither Navy plane has WEP. The Corsair and the FW were actually pretty close in performance with the F6F being the laggard. According to the comparison the Navy planes were much more maneverable than the FW. The FW could not follow either in a loop. One edge the FW had was that it was much easier to get full power since the throttle, prop pitch control and mixture are all combined. Correction, both Navy planes had WEP but I could not see where both Navy planes were factory fresh. In fact the Corsair engine was overheating at times. Those high powered birds could be troublesome.
Hmm didn't know there were two tests from the Navy, but would love to read it. But the results from the test I read which got pretty much the same results were definetly flown with an F4U-1D (it's mentioned several times in the report). As for factory fresh: "The comparisons were made with new production models of the F4U-1D(Corsair) and F6F-3(Hellcat) airplanes". True meaning debatable, probably. But I read that the birds were new.
As for tomo's comment: True, the Fw was stripped and repainted, still it is specifically mentioned that the previous flight time is unknown. The outer cannons make up for only a small portion of weight and it was not unusual for them to be removed if the Fw was used in the air superiority role. Even with just the 2 MG151 and 2 MG17 it was potent versus any contemporary fighter.
Note that the max boost setting they used is 1.42ata, contemporary (it's february 1944) Fw 190 A-5s usually could use C3-injection which enabled a boost setting of 1.65ata, significantly increasing climb, acceleration and level speed. This should more than level out the 4% weight decrease this Fw had over a standard production model.
Had they flown longer time spans to determine level speed, the F4U-1D would've likely pulled away at some point. But they tested, what they thought was realistic for a combat evaluation and the two aircraft were shown to be on par.
The reasaon the U3 doesn't have the outer cannons was to make sure it could take off with a 500kg bomb. For the role this aircraft was modified for (fighter-bomber) the extra 2 MG/FF simply weren't neccessary.Hi,
I can readily agree that the best cards for Fw-109A-7 and earlier were their roll rate, climb rate under 20000 ft and speed under 25000 ft (even if we don't look just at USN birds), IIRC the test are pretty clear about that anyway. Since/if the outer guns ammo were being removed, I'd say the main purpose of that is to increase all of those 3 attributes - the conclusion is that weight and drag penalty of those cannons was considered as not negligible.
I don't claim the 1.58 / 1.65 ata improve performance across the whole envelope but they do so in some (all?) of the altitudes that were measured here. I'm just saying I don't think the Fw had any sort of significant advantage because it was a bit lighter than normal, for me it seems the results could be considered representative for the type, not just this particular example.The quirk is the altitude where the 1,65 ata pressure can be attained.
The 'Notleistung' setting was increasing both the RPM and manifold pressure, hence both the power AND the full throttle height were increased.
The C3 injection increases only the manifold pressure, NOT rpm. That means that (in Fw-190A-8's case) the full throttle height is some 750m (2420 ft) under the FTH of the Notleistung. So in pre A-8 planes that could mean that FTH is just under 18000 ft, instead at 18400 ft - no doubt good for some short time climbs under the FTH altitude, or to chase some pesky Tempests down low. However, not the greatest help if the enemy's fighters are incoming at 25000-30000 ft.