Best Bomber Killing Aircraft......

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Actually, I'm sure many of you know that a bomber-interceptor variant of the Il2 was actually built and experimented with. It was a failure.
 
I too have read about something like that, but that it was a failure because it could not keep up with the faster more modern bombers therefore making it difficult to intercept them. Never left prototype stage.

The exact variant name and when this prototype was developed I am not sure of though.
 
tomo pauk said:
Care to shed some light on that?
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I believe it was designated the Il-2I. Essentially it was a single seat variant with armor arranged to be more suitable for head on attacks against other aircraft. It carried the same cannon the ground attack versions used. I believe a few were tested operationally in 1941-42. It was intended as a bomber destroyer, but its performance was so poor it could rarely intercept most German twin engined bombers. This is based largely on memory, but I did check my memory against Wikipedia and it also describes this variant as a bomber interceptor. One reason I believe the Soviets went this route was because most of their standard early war single seat fighters with one MG and one cannon were chronically under armed.
 
Vincenzo said:
there was a Il-1 idk if it's same Il-1, S.V.Ilyushin
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I believe the IL-1 was a completely different design from the Il-2 (including the IL-2I), allthough it did employ some of the same basic Ilyushin concepts as in the Il-2. BTW, the "1" would not indicate it was an earlier design, or that it somehow led to the Il2 design. In Soviet nomenclature of the period, fighters received odd numbers while bombers/ground attackers had even numbers.
 
This is my first post so hello to all and goof morning.

I went through the thread and I could see that the Me 262 and the Focke-Wulf 190 are the best bomber killers of WWII.

But you did not mention that both AC are the best bomber killer team of WWII.

The US daylight bombing over Germany started in spring 1943

In 1943 the 190 was the best bomber killer that the Luftwaffe had. The air cooled double radial engine was a good protection for the pilot and the setup of weapons was deadly for a heavy bomber.

In 1944 the mustang came to europe as a long range fighter and she was the best long range bomber escorter of WWII. She gave the 190 a very hard time.

With the Me 262 the german Luftwaffe again had the upper hand in fighting against the heavies. The Me 262 only was in service in small numbers.

You have to see it a little bit more tactically:

The Me 262 could have been the first wave of an attack. With its 4 x 30mm or the R4M rockets she could split the bomber boxes. The P-51 could not follow the 262. With an high speed attack of an 262 you sometimes can not knock down a heavy bomber in the first run. But the damaged bombers can not stay in the formation and they fall out of the formation more and more, loosing altitude. As a pilot of a 190 such damaged planes are like breakfast in the morning.

The mustangs now could attack the 190s but they mainly should protect the bomber boxes. Secondly the mustang is not that much better in lower alt against 190 and 109.

I personally prefer the 190-A as a bomber killer. Better protection.


Have a nice day

Waggel
 
Perhaps the Germans should have designated the 262s as primarily escort killers and sent the 109s and 190s after the bombers.
 
Clay_Allison said:
Perhaps the Germans should have designated the 262s as primarily escort killers and sent the 109s and 190s after the bombers.
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Actually, I believe that would be misuing their assets. The Me262 had devastating firepower best used in straight on attacks against large targets (bombers) able to shrug off lighter cannon and MG hits. The Fw190s and Bf109s would be better used to distract the escort fighters. It is frankly an arguable point if the Me262 was even superior to the Fw190D and Bf109K in fighter vs fighter combat against experienced USAAF pilots. Finally, to acheive the overall mission (which in 1945 Germany was bomber destruction, not acheiving overall air superiority), the piston engined fighters don't even have to shoot down any P-51s and P-47s to be successful. If they distract them to the point that the Me-262s can takeoff, make their interceptions, and land relatively unmolested. They have done their job.
 
I had considered that as well, my only concern was that there weren't enough 262s to beat off the bombers alone.
 
the Hs 129 with the Bordkanone BK 7.5 model would have been interesting to see trying to take down bombers (even though it wasn't made for that)
And i'm not saying that it would have been the best just interesting to see

and if the Ta 152 got into mass production it would have done some serious damage in my opinion
 
well with what actually happened your right
but what i'm saying is that if they had mass produced
the Ta 152 it would have been unlikely they would
have only used it to take out P51s and some might
have been transferred to the role of bomber
destroyer, in which case in my opinion they would
have done very well
 
just about every aircraft Germany made was at some point transferred to some other role
you can't say that they would have not tried it as a bomber destroyer
 
That may be, and I am sure that one or two Ta-152's would have tried to attack the bombers, but as Les and Eric said, it wasnt needed. They had the 262 for bomber destroyers, the Ta-152's were to deal with the Mustangs.
 
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