Best Fighter in the Pacific and CBI Theaters in 1942

[drgondog]

Henning, the Luftwaffe did have a whole 1943 to halt the daylight bomber offensive. Even though USAF suffered greatly, Luftwaffe failed. So it's fair to say that they struggled.

Plus four and 1/2 months in 1942, although those were 'raids' to occupied France and Holland mostly - and escorted by Spitfires.

As for the numbers statistics for A6M vs. B-17/B-24, I myself would love to see them

The Zero exploied the lack of firepower on the B-17D and many of the missions did not have enough formation strength to offset even 'in trai' attacks with cohesive defensive fire. The Luftwaffe experienced the 'combat box' formations in early 1943 in multiple group attacks in formation. In my mind this was a significant difference in defensive capability that the Luftwaffe faced.

I truly believe Zero vs B-17D and early E in PTO is a distinctly different air war than late model E/F/G in 1943 over Germany - and the Luftwaffe definitely punished the 8th AF (and 12th) for unescorted target attacks.

 

[syscom3]

I truly believe Zero vs B-17D and early E in PTO is a distinctly different air war than late model E/F/G in 1943 over Germany - and the Luftwaffe definitely punished the 8th AF (and 12th) for unescorted target attacks.

Considering the lack of armor and self sealing tanks of the Zero, and its reliance on a pair of low performing cannons ..... the B17 had a far better chance of defending against and surviving atatcks by 1 or 2 Zero's.

From what I recall, it was often massed attacks by the Zero's and Oscars that did the B17's in.

 

[renrich]

I think that the B17 was not the most commonly used bomber in the PTO after the initial months of the war but rather the B24 because of it's range and bombload. Seems like I recall most of the bombing raids out of Guadalcanal were B24s. B26s and B25s were heavily used in the Papua campaign(can't spell New G)

 

[drgondog]

Considering the lack of armor and self sealing tanks of the Zero, and its reliance on a pair of low performing cannons ..... the B17 had a far better chance of defending against and surviving atatcks by 1 or 2 Zero's.

From what I recall, it was often massed attacks by the Zero's and Oscars that did the B17's in.

Agreed on both points - ditto in the ETO although I suspect more fW 190s scored single on straggler than same situation with Zero against the E.

If we believe the Zeamer, Sarnoski MoH recon mission it was 15+ Zero/Dinah's attacking their B-17E repeatedly - and they brought most of it home.

 

[syscom3]

I think that the B17 was not the most commonly used bomber in the PTO after the initial months of the war but rather the B24 because of it's range and bombload. Seems like I recall most of the bombing raids out of Guadalcanal were B24s. B26s and B25s were heavily used in the Papua campaign(can't spell New G)

B17's were used throughout the PTO till middle 1943. The 5th, 11th and 43rd BG's used B17's untill B24's were made available.

 

[Lucky13]

Hi Lucky,

>Hey buddy! Would you mind tell my in what way the -4 were as worse performer than the -3 of the Wildcat? Slap me if I'm wrong here....

Hehe, no need to ... you're wrong but the question was a good one. I bet the Navy pilots asked it, too!

As you can see indicated on my diagram, the F4F-3 weighed in at 3204 kg in fighter trim, a figure confirmed as typical by the evaluation report Claidemore posted above. The F4F-4 according to the BuAer Airplane Characteristics Performance sheets weighed in at 3617 kg, a gain of more than 400 kg without any gain of power and while drag increased quite a bit, too.

(At least, the increase in drag is evident if you compare the early-production F4F-3 tested for performance with the data given in the BuAer sheet for the F4F-4. However, BuAer also shows a markedly lower full throttle height for what should be a virtually identical engine, so both sources appear to be not perfectly consistent. I just see that Mike has a lot of new data on F4F Performance Trials which I haven't checked yet - maybe it will help to explain the difference.)

The hefty increase in weight was due to the re-design of the wings to include a folding mechanism, which was of great operational value since it allowed the carriers to take a lot more fighters aboard, and early war experience had shown that fighters were more important in naval warfare than anticipated. However, the weight increase probably exceeded everything that had been expected when Navy ordered the F4F-4, so I'm sure there were a lot of people who were just as surprised as you about F4F-4 performance.

Note that the evaluation report Claidemore provided shows that the US Navy had been guaranteed a top speed of 350 mph for the F4F-3 when they were just achieving 331 mph in practice. 19 mph is a big difference for early-war fighter aircraft ... and the F4F-4 was down to 320 mph.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Hi Henning,
Forgot about the wingfold mechanism, my bad! So, the F-4 had to tangle with the extra weight of two more .50's AND heavier wings and not getting a more powerful engine? On the other hand, a more powerful engine would have likely given it shorter legs. Do you know if the F-4 had shorter range than the F-3, due to replacing some fuel tanks for the extra guns and wingfold mechanism?

 

[HoHun]

Hi Lucky,

>Do you know if the F-4 had shorter range than the F-3, due to replacing some fuel tanks for the extra guns and wingfold mechanism?

It seems that both models of the F4F had the fuel tanks in the lower fuselage so that the wing design did not affect the amount of fuel carried. However, looking at the detail specifications for the two aircraft, it appears that the F4F-3 held 147 gallons of fuel internally while the amount was slightly reduced to 144 gallons in the F4F-4.

Generally, more drag and more weight are bad for range, so everything else considered equal, the F4F-4 must have had a shorter range than the F4F-3.

However, the look at the detail specification showed that the fighter weight for the F4F-3 was considered to be for just 110 gallons of fuel, while the BuAer sheet for the F4F-4 show this variant fully fueled to 144 gallons, so the direct comparison appears slightly biased in favour of the F4F-3.

The engine ratings listed in the F4F-3 detail specification file are not quite the same as the engine ratings in the F4F-4 BuAer sheet, and the F4F-4 detail specification points to an external rating definition that is not included on Mike's site. However, US engine ratings really are a mess, and it does not surprise me to see differing ratings for a basically identical engine in two sources.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[Lucky13]

Cheers Henning!

What was it that gave the F-4 more drag then?

 

[HoHun]

Hi Lucky,

>What was it that gave the F-4 more drag then?

I'm not entirely sure (and the new reports Mike put up on his site don't all perfectly agree with the BuAer chart, so this looks like a complex picture).

Some stuff I already listed above: "the extra gun barrel opening is an obvious source of some of that drag, and the small gaps in the wing skinning necessary for the folding wings are another".

However, the difference might be too large to be covered by these two items alone ...

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[syscom3]

Its kind of hard to see the chart .... but it looks like the F4F (any model) is quite slower than the P40 and Zero.

 

[Lucky13]

Thanks Henning! How would it affect the Zero, if you added the same amount of protection as you could find on the Wildcat, would they more evenly matched?

 

[HoHun]

Hi Syscom,

>Its kind of hard to see the chart .... but it looks like the F4F (any model) is quite slower than the P40 and Zero.

Compared to the A6M3, the F4F-3 is in fact inferior in every aspect of performance!

Compared to the P-40E however, the F4F-3 is superior in climb and turn at all altitudes, and from about 7 km up it's also faster. A pilot trying to intercept a Japanese formation at 25000 ft would find the F4F-3 to be markedly superior to the P-40 in every respect.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[syscom3]

Didn't the Japanese bomb from much lower altitudes?

Most of the fighting in the PTO was at middle and lower altitudes. So while the Wildcat gets the credit for being effective up there, the P40 gets credit in the lower altitudes.

As for fighter bombers .... the P40 is definitely better than either the Zero or Wildcat.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Syscom,

>Didn't the Japanese bomb from much lower altitudes?

Maybe - but it seems at Singapore and at Guadalcanal, their bombers often came in very high, and I've also heard from P-400 pilot MF Kirby that his unit was sent to intercept Japanese bombers which simply flew too high for their altitude-limited fighters to intercept.

It might be different if we're talking about carrier strike forces - which would be sort of ironic

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[syscom3]

Ive been under the impression that most "high altitude" bombing in the PTO was around the 20,000 ft. level.

Anyone else have other impressions?

 

[syscom3]

Since the Zero is dominating the "best" catagory, perhaps we should look at whos #2 and #3.

My vote is the P40 for #2 and the Wildcat for #3.

 

[Vincenzo]

my vote for 2nd maybe Hurricane, for 3rd too hard many planes have different strenghtness and weakness

 

[HoHun]

Hi Vincenzo,

>my vote for 2nd maybe Hurricane, for 3rd too hard many planes have different strenghtness and weakness

My vote for second place (if I accept the A6M3 as first place) is the Ki-44.

It's the best below 5.5 km, and if I discount the A6M3, it's even the best below 8 km.

Above 8 km, only the Hurricane II and the F4F-3 are better, but due to its light weight the Ki-44 still has fairly good performance even up there.

If I take into account that combat will happen at all altitudes from the deck to 10 km, the Ki-44 enjoys the greatest superiority in 80 % of the altitude range, is outperformed only slightly by just two types in another 10 %, and clearly inferior to only these two in merely the top 10 %.

The Hurricane II might be ranked third if one consider the faster P-39 and P-40 too limited in their climb rate, unless one considers the low and medium altitude speed to be more important.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[Vincenzo]

True Type 2 was good, but i'm, relatively, a fan of dogfighter and it's have a so slow turn rate.
Type 2 is fastest under 5.5 km but in climbing it's best only within 3-4.2 km

 

[HoHun]

Hi Vincenzo,

>True Type 2 was good, but i'm, relatively, a fan of dogfighter and it's have a so slow turn rate.

Well, sustained turn rate just doesn't have much combat value.

>Type 2 is fastest under 5.5 km but in climbing it's best only within 3-4.2 km

If you leave aside the A6M3, which Syscom not only acknowledged to be superior anyway but which also is a friendly type the Ki-44 wouldn't realistically have to fight, the Ki-44 is the best climber up to 4.8 km, and second best up to 6 km, where it also enjoys a large speed advantage that might be used for an initial zoom climb to even the odds.

In any case, the degree of superiority it enjoys in most of the altitude band really makes up for the much less pronounced inferiority it has above 8 km.

(As long as it holds the speed advantage, a slight climb rate disadvantage is nothing serious.)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)