Best Fighter III

[Civettone]

Let me clarify what I said. The Corsair was considered to be unsuited for carrier operations until late 1943. In fact, the British were the first to operate them from carriers. But in general pilots preferred the Hellcat to fly from carriers. I can imagine that being an important issue to Brown.

Not sure though. Just a thought.
Kris

 

[renrich]

As I said in an earlier post, the USN determined, sometime in 1944, that the Corsair was superior to the Hellcat and recommended that the Hellcat be replaced by Corsairs on carriers ASAP and it was. My figures show a different picture as far as effectiveness of the two AC. In total they both flew about the same # of sorties. 66530 for the Hellcat and 64051 for the Corsair. Obviously the Hellcat had more carrier sorties and the Corsair more land based. The Hellcat had more operational losses, 340 to 230 for the Corsair. That would be because of the deck landing environment being more dangerous. The Hellcat had 553 losses to triple a and 270 to enemy air. The Corsair had 349 to aaa and 189 to enemy air. Now comes the interesting part. The Hellcat destroyed 1445 enemy bombers and 3718 enemy fighters and dropped 6503 tons of bombs. The Corsair destroyed 478 bombers and 1662 fighters and dropped 15621 tons of bombs. So the Corsair destroyed almost 4 times as many fighters, a more dangerous opponent, as bombers. The Hellcat destroyed only a little more than twice as many fighters as bombers. The Corsair was in action several months before the Hellcat and was used as an escort fighter in those early days when the Japanese pilot was perhaps more effective than later on in the war. The Corsair dropped well over twice the tonnage of bombs that the Hellcat did but had not quite half the losses from aaa. Is it any wonder that the USN picked the Corsair over the Hellcat given those stats and the big performance edge the Corsair had over the Hellcat?

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Let me clarify what I said. The Corsair was considered to be unsuited for carrier operations until late 1943. In fact, the British were the first to operate them from carriers. But in general pilots preferred the Hellcat to fly from carriers. I can imagine that being an important issue to Brown.

Not sure though. Just a thought.
Kris

I was not argueing with you on that. I dont think any of us will ever know what was going on in his head.

 

[Glider]

His list of greatest Naval fighters is: Hellcat,Zeke,Wildcat,Corsair, Sea Hurricane, Seafire. Guess the USN did not know about Brown's disdain for the Corsair.

I haven't read the book and this is just a guess but I think I can see where he was comming from. The key may well be in the use of the word Greatest, not Best.

Hellcat.
She turned the course of the naval war in the air, defeated the Japanese and had the Corsair not come along, the war would still have been won.

Zeke
She dominated the early war years. People can argue which was the best, the Zeke and the Wildcat but I see it as being similar to the P51. She may not have been better than the opposition, but she had the range to impose herself on the opposition, a key strategic advantage.

Wildcat
She held the corner until better planes came along and had an important role until the end.

Corsair
Certainly had the performance to beat all the other contenders on the list. However her service at sea was limited in length and the opposition was already beaten by the Hellcat. She may have been better, but was she greater?

Sea Hurricane and Seafire
No comment needed, apart from they were better than the Fulmar.

 

[renrich]

Very good points Glider. Your reasoning is probably close to that of Brown's. Where I have my quarrel with Brown is in at least two areas. In this book he sets up theoretical dogfights between various AC. In these dogfights, although there is no direct comparison, one would draw the conclusion, based on his judgment of who would beat who, that the Hellcat was a more worthy ACM fighter than the Corsair. We know this was not reality. All one needs to do is read a USN comparison report on the Hellcat or Corsair versus the FW190. It is somewhere on this website. The other argument I have with him is regarding the deck landing characteristics of the two fighters. Everyone knows that the early Corsairs had a number of defects as far as deck landings were concerned. However these were solved on production AC fairly quickly. As a matter of fact Blackburn's squadron of USN Corsairs had worked out the details and was ready to deploy on a carrier when it was decided by the Navy that, because the supply pipeline was already filled with Hellcat spares and other material to keep the planes operational, that the Hellcat would be the carrier fighter and The Jolly Rogers would go to the Solomon's as land based fighters. Of course the Marines had already enjoyed considerable success with early model Corsairs in the Solomons. At any rate, the Hellcat got all the glory and an enviable kill loss ratio against a growing number of Japanese pilots who were equipped in many cases with obselete AC and who were so inexperienced that it was problematical when ever they attempted a carrier landing. In fact, late in 1944 many of the IJN carriers had no air group because of crew shortages. The Corsair soldiered on flying more than twice the air to ground sorties than the Hellcats. Meanwhile the Navy realised the Corsair was superior to the Hellcat in most respects and the first official deployment of the Corsair was on the Enterprise as night fighters. Deck landing problems anyone? When the kamikaze threat became obvious a faster climbing and speedier fleet defense fighter was needed and Corsairs soon became ubiquitous in the fleet with many of the Corsairs being flown by Marines off of jeep carriers. Deck landing problems anyone? If Brown is going to downgrade the Corsair because of the early teething problems and ignore it's later sterling qualities and service, to me, it would be the same as saying the P51 was fine at low levels but ran out of wind above 17000 feet because the Allison engine did not have adequate supercharging, ignoring the Mustang's service with the Merlin engine.

 

[Glider]

As I said I hadn't read the book and was thinking of buying it. Now I can see where you are coming from and will save my money.

 

[renrich]

I was disappointed in the book. Just reading it again and in a theoretical dogfight between a FW190A4 and a Corsair II, he says the FW is a clear winner. Whereas the fight between F6F3 and the FW is so finely balanced that the pilot will determine the outcome. Clearly at odds with the USN report earlier mentioned and clearly at odds with any pirep I ever heard comparing the two US planes.

 

[Neto]

hey people! I only now post in this thread, i like that someone tell me if the bf 109 (any version) was discuted here ...? he is on the top 5 ?? ;P

 

[evangilder]

And with that Der gangster ist banned. Insulting a moderator is your ticket out.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I go away for the weekend and I miss all the fun!

 

[Sgt. Pappy]

With the Zero near the front, I still can't really justify the whole list.
Then again, people define 'good fighters' as different things a lot of the time.
If we were talking pure interceptor or overall fighter (including things like carrier operations abilities) or just the performance in the air, lists would change quite dramatically.

As of even late 1943, when F4U-1A's were being installed with water-injection, they were getting even more dominant in fighter-fighter combat sorties against Japanese a/c. Rating the plane on its crashes rather than its victories is probably not the best way to rate an a/c on performance, but if you're thinking about how planes perform towards the war effort, it's pretty imortant to consider. The Zeke never really was a plane to screw up on the deck, and it did dominate for a while, so in terms of its value in the war effort, its carrier deck abilities were invaluable.

Brain fart: what number would the Seafire be on the list if a Spitfire Mk.IX was converted into a Seafire? It just needs an arrester and folding wings... about 570 lbs. in weight. Big, but it would still be ok.. especially fitted with a Merlin 66. Anyone know of tests like this?

 

[wingnuts]

I think the Spitfire landing gear was a bit too flimsy for carrier landings, a more widely spaced and toughend gear would be needed.... also fitting a hook also requires a stonger fuselage frame.....

The Seafire was a Spitfire converted for carrier landings... originally called a Sea Spitfire.

Supermarine Seafire

 

[Sgt. Pappy]

That's why the Seafire really wasn't much of a success. I was just wondering about the adaptability of a Spitfire IX into a Seafire... may have been thrice the aircraft the Seafire III was.

Then again, the F4U Corsair would probably have bested even that. In fact there are accounts of Corsairs able to outturn Ki-84s thanks to the oh-so wonderful slotted flaps. As an overall combat machine, I still vote for the F4U.

 

[magnocain]

i am f4u crazy. it gets my vote several times over.

 

[Sgt. Pappy]

Then again it also depends what people mean as fighter.
Do they mean interceptor or which fighter was the best in terms of its multi-role capability? Indeed the F4U was more versatile in combat than the Spitfire as it could be used as a jabo machine launched from a carrier, but one could argue the Spitfire's high climb rate and high maneuverability made it a better recon and interceptor aircraft. Also, its frame accepted bigger, badder engines without much loss of maneuverability.

Heheh, that's why I can't seem to choose between the two, as both the Spit and Hog are great.

 

[Soren]

1. Me-262A-1a for sure, nothing matches it.

2. Ta-152H-1, by far the best piston engined fighter of WW2

3. Fw-190 Dora-9, the best piston engined fighter to be produced in quantity during WW2. It possessed better maneuverability in all aspects of flight compared to virtually every late war Allied fighter except for the Spitfire Mk.XIV.

 

[Sgt. Pappy]

Well, the F4U-4 did well, and it turned better than the Spitfire XIV (and so did the other F4U's), given flap usage. I'd have the 262 up top for sure as well, now that i think about it.

 

[Soren]

No the F4U-4 would not out-turn the Spitfire Mk.XIV, not even with flaps deployed. The F4U-4's slotted flaps weren't more effective than the FW-190's flaps.

The Bf-109 featured slotted flaps as-well btw.

 

[Sgt. Pappy]

Not to be a burden but why wouldn't the F4U flaps allow it to turn tighter?
I think I posted this link on another thread as well: The Math Behind Turning

According to that data which calculates every factor determining turn rate due to proven physical data, the Corsair easily turns very tightly. I know I can't be considered credible, but the Aces High II game shows the Corsair turning much tighter than the 109 and Spitfire XIV with flaps. Just ask the guys down at the Aces High II forums, or at least check it out. They've got some hard data concerning real-life mathematical theories based on the F4U's turning ability. Welcome to Aces High II

I could be mistaken, but with the data they've got, I highly doubt they're wrong.

Also, how could the 190's split flaps possibly be more effective than a slotted flap? Sorry for my ignorance, I still need to learn more, but from what I know now, that can be possible unless they're some kind of split-slot hybrid.

 

[Civettone]

It possessed better maneuverability in all aspects of flight compared to virtually every late war Allied fighter except for the Spitfire Mk.XIV.

Also more manoeuvrable than the Russian fighters??

Kris