Bearcat Vs Seafury

[Soundbreaker Welch?]

It's a close one Comiso.

Good pick.

 

[Marcel]

I didn't know the Dutch ever had a carrier...

great photo

You'd be surptised, we even had two, both build by the British It was a time that the Dutch still pretended to be a major colonial power. Sadly they were mistaken. By the time the realised this, they sold the Karel Doorman to Argentina, where it became involved in the Falkland war, fighting the British who build her in the first place.

 

[Stitch]

So did a Skyraider..

.

I think that was in Vietnam.

 

[Catch22]

According to Wiki they shot down two MiGs in Vietnam.

 

[comiso90]

It's a close one Comiso.

Good pick.

Thx but it may be the most useless poll this forum has ever done!

i was just curious to see if there was a clear winner..

 

[pbfoot]

Iraqi Furies were doing ground support against the Kurds in 64 and remained on strength til about 80 when they became airfield decoys for the Iraqi AF in their war against Iran

 

[Gnomey]

I think I will go for the Sea Fury here. Both are excellent aircraft but I think the versatility of the Sea Fury is key here. It is almost as good as the Bearcat in the pure fighter role whilst also being a very good fighter bomber.

 

[JoeB]

The Bearcat and Corsair fought for the French in Indo-China and the Corsair fought in Algeria and Suez, I believe. The last Corsairs manufactured were F4U7s for the French Navy. I may be wrong but the infamous oil cooler in the Corsair was either protected or relocated in the F4U7. Did the Sea Fury ever have any significant service in wartime?

The F4U-7 was essentially the AU-1 (F4U-6) with the F4U-4's medium/high altitude optimized engine substituted for the AU-1's low altitude optimized one. So it had the same location of oil cooler behind the engine as AU-1. The Aeronavale also operated surplus USMC AU-1's in Indochina after the Korean War.

The Sea Fury was used by every RN and RAN carrier group in Korea except the first deployment by HMS Triumph whose 800 sdn operated Seafire Mk.47's (Griffon powered, counter-rotating props). The Sea Fury is probably best know for its credited victory against a MiG-15 August 9 1952 (the PLAAF credited several victories over Sea Furies that day, and one Sea Fury was forced to belly land on a UN island after being hit by a MiG, they mention no MiG losses). But, the overwhelming majority of missions were mundane interdiction strikes in southwestern NK, exactly the same type missions flown by USMC F4U's in their operations from CVE's and CVL's off the west coast of Korea. The US and RN/RAN light carriers would usually alternate operating one at a time in that area, while the bigger US carriers operated off the east coast for the most part. The Marine sdns would also rotate between carrier deployments and land based operations from SK; the Sea Furies just operated from their carriers. I don't know of figures comparing the loss rate per sorties to the F4U, but it would presumably have been lower due to the F4U's well known elevated loss rate to AA, for a radial piston fighter. Two whole books on this are "With the Carriers in Korea" by Landsdowne (the better one) and "Furies and Fireflies over Korea" by Thomas (not as good), but neither give total sortie or loss statistics. It seems a few dozen Sea Furies were lost in Korea, compared to few 100 F4U's lost in Korea; but of course there were a lot more F4U's so there's no direct comparison there.

The figures given in Landsdowne's books for individual patrols show that Sea Furies generally carried a pair of 500# bombs off the light carriers, though theoretically capable of carrying 1000#'ers. F4U's also often carried only 500#'ers off small carriers.

Joe

 

[tomo pauk]

Joe, your posts are the example for all of us how to make a post

Sea Fury gets my vote.

 

[Yerger]

both great designs, these days both seen in unlimited air racing.

But always had a spot for the Sea Fury so she got my vote