Best Pacific Fighter II

[Marcel]

No!

The P40's did well enough (ever hear of the AVG?). The Wildcats could also hold their own.

But it was the Buffalo that had the unique distinction to show so little accomplishments.

Wildcats were not fighting in the NEI, nor near Singapore.

This is for the Pacific, not Russian front.

It's still a Buffalo, shows that the a/c was capable of something.

Those who keep bringing up Buffalo performance in the ETO are beating a dead horse. The reason the Finns or Dutch had some success withe Buffalo is that "Ole ugly is better than ole nothing." The carrier war in the PTO was different than the air war in the ETO.

The Dutch didn't use the Buffalo in the ETO. It was in Nederlands Indie.
BTW, the Wildcat had their problems with undercarriage, too.

 

[renrich]

The Wildcat's soft, narrow tread landing gear made it tricky to land on a field. It was an ideal carrier landing aircraft and pilots praised it's carrier landing characteristics. The landing gear was rugged and time tested. Eric Brown said of the Wildcat II, "For deck landing the Wildcat was superlative. The Wildcat was a great asset to the FAA, bringing it to nearly the level of the fighter opposition. It was also an aircraft specifically designed for modern carrier operations, thereby setting new standards for British designers in that field." Brown said of the F2A, " Longitudinal stability was decidedly bad and would make instrument flying difficult. A dangerously high level of carbon monoxide leaked into the cockpit from engine fumes. The service ceiling was only 25000 feet-not very impressive. The Buffalo was a true anomaly for an airplane, with delightful maneuverability but poor fighter performance. Above 10000 feet, it labored badly. The oil and cylinder head temperatures were high in temperate climates and would obviously pose problems in tropicl conditions." Those kill statistics from the Finnish air force sound fishy. Keep beating that dead horse.

 

[Juha]

Hello Renrich
There is nothing fishy in Finnish claims, use the international average of .5 mean accuracy and you get a realistic figure of real kills. The accuracy of claiming varied from pilot to pilot but so it did in every AF. And .5 in FAF case means claims vs kills that can be verified from Soviet documents. So in reality figure might be a bit better because of some losses in Soviet docus and nowadays difficulties in access of the them by foreigners.

Juha

 

[renrich]

Thanks Juha. In looking at claims in WW2, I never know whether they have been authenticated or not. I was not implying that Finnish flyers were intentionally overclaiming but I am not sure that the 50% factor is enough for wartime claims especially if the Soviets are in the mix. Because of political issues and the disorganisation on the Eastern Front I distrust Soviet records. A similar situation, as far as being disorganised existed in the South during the American War Between the States. The casualty and strength of army figures of the CSA army in that war are all suspect because they themselves did not keep accurate records and those they did keep were often destroyed. In reading Lundstrom's "The First Team," about USN fighters in the PTO in 1941-42, discounting claims for both sides by 50% hardly is enough in many cases. The USN pilots were enthusiastic overclaimers and the IJN was even more so. In a given encounter both sides might claim perhaps 30 or so shoot downs but when Lundstrom reconciled the records in this recent book, and his research often defined the combat down to the names of the individual pilots on both sides, the true number might be less than 10 on either side. He resolved the number of USN Wildcats lost to Zekes and vice versa through November, 1942 and it was on the order of 30 on each side. The claims were way in excess of that.

 

[Juha]

Hello Renrich
.5 seems to be a fairly good for FAF. During Winter War FAF claim accuracy was very good, on the other hand in 42-43 over the Bay of Finland there seems to be cases of bad overclaims, also in some combats during summer 44 as one easily can guess when 4 Bf 109s fought against 100 Soviet planes in mediocare visibility. And as I wrote, individual claim accuracy varied wildy, fom 100% to under 15%. I'm just going through individual claim accuracy, necessary this incl certain amount of inaccuracy, even when giving fractions to participiants time to time.
And on Soviet recors, SU having based on "scientific socialism" and "planned economy" they had used to produce surprising amount of docus.

Juha

 

[JoeB]

Hello Renrich
...use the international average of .5 mean accuracy and you get a realistic figure of real kills.

Juha, I haven't closely studied Finnish claims, .5 might be representative on average, but claim accuracy varied too much from case to case across all air arms times and situations for there to be any meaningful 'international average' IMO, even for fighters' claims (needless to say bomber claims were typically far less accurate than fighter claims). And whatever the overall average was in WWII, IMO it was almost surely significantly less than 50% (I can't prove that, but rates above 50 were the exception to the rule as far as I can tell). And among many variables, claim accuracy also varied with type of opponent, fur balls v opposing fighters typically among the less accurate situations, and we're often most interested in fighter v. fighter results.

As far as using NASC to estimate USN fighter effectiveness, this is valid IMO *only* to compare the *relative* performance of different USN/USMC types operating alongside one another in the same period. There is no validity to comparing Buffalo claims in their single combat for the USMC to big samples of combats later in the war side by side for F6F and F4U in NASC. I posted each side's results of that one F2A combat, at Midway, in the 'worst a/c' thread, using USMC accounts and the tactical action records of the 4 Japanese carriers. The US claims were not in fact so exaggerated (in a big wipe out a lot of the pilots on one side are killed and can't make claims, a lot of the others too focused on surviving to even think about making claims). The official USMC victories one by one were 6 'Aichi 99, 1 'bomber' and 4 Zeroes, of which 5, including 3 of the Zeroes, were credited to the few F4F-3's engaged, only 6 including 1 Zero to the F2A-3's. The Japanese actually lost 1 Type 99 carrier bombers, 6 Type 97 carrier attack planes, and 2 Zeroes, with one other Zero holed 30 times (of course all the Japanese a/c were lost later since their carriers were sunk). But the tactical action recs clearly show at least 2 Type 97's as due to AA (Marine AA made many claims) probably more were. 13 F2A's and 2 F4F's were lost. This was just one combat, but historically important as it rendered the final US naval services verdict on the F2A: POS (correct or not, that was the firm verdict).

On Buffalo and other 1942 fighters in Brit/CW/Dutch service in 1942, the results were almost invariably poor. That's clear based on many combats with well documented Japanese sides: the contrary view has no factual leg to stand on, period. Counting bombers does not change it. It really only makes it worse relatively, because then we have to count the numerous victories of Japanese fighters and USN/USMC ones over non-fighters, and they had many more opportunities, whereas the Brit/CW/Dutch fighters were almost always fighting for their lives against Japanese fighters. Brit and Dutch Buffaloes downed only a handful Japanese non-fighters. Fighters which can't cope with enemy fighters will seldom accomplish much against non-fighters, unless there are no enemy fighters around at all, and then it's pointless to compare such a situation with a situation where one side's fighters have to deal with the other side's.

Joe

 

[Juha]

Hello Joe
Big part of FAF combats were over own territory and because FAF used many war-booty a/c and needed Soviet engines, dials etc also for other a/c and for its own limited capacity a/c industry, Finns actively searched for wrecks. That in part might have kept overclaiming in bay to certain extent. And as I wrote, the claim accuracy was clearly poorer over Bay of Finland in 42-43, over water combats, personal rivalry among pilots in its highest (who had most kills) also during summer 44 when greatly outnumbered and everyone tried hard to relieve the pressure on ground troops, so wingmen also activively tried to shoot enemy a/c and were not so keen to protect the leaders and pairs often got separated. But even in big, in Finnish Front scale at the time, air combats over land in 42 ca 50% of Finnish claims can be verified from Soviet loss reports. Of course in smaller fights the accuracy was better.

Juha

 

[vikingBerserker]

On Buffalo and other 1942 fighters in Brit/CW/Dutch service in 1942, the results were almost invariably poor. That's clear based on many combats with well documented Japanese sides: the contrary view has no factual leg to stand on, period.

Brit and Dutch Buffaloes downed only a handful Japanese non-fighters.Joe

Do you have any real data or sources to back this up?

 

[JoeB]

Do you have any real data or sources to back this up?

See "Bloody Shambles" by Shores et al. The great majority of combats in the Southeast Asia (Malaya, DEI, Burma, Philippines) campaigns of 1941-42 are well documented in Japanese accounts and records, and covered combat by combat in that book. In further direct research in Japanese sources, such as the official history (Senshi Sosho) and the actual records (almost all JNAF records for that period are online now at JACAR.go.jp) I've found "Shambles" to be generally reliable about the Japanese side, and it also agrees with other published works about the Allied side. Counting up each side's losses in two-side documented combats by Buffalo's v Japanese fighters, Brit and Dutch (not including USMC, for which see above), as already posted a number of times:

Buffalo v Type Zero Fighter:12.5 Buffalo's lost for 4 Zeroes in 7 combats
Buffalo v Type 1 Fighter ('Oscar'): 14 Buffalo's lost for 4 Type 1's in 7 combats
Buffalo v Type 97 Fighter ('Nate'): 13.5 Buffalo's lost for 1-1/3 Type 97's in 6 combats
Buffalo v Type 0 Observation Seaplane ('Pete') acting as fighter: 2 Buffalo's lost for no Type 0, 1 combat
Overall 1:4.5 against the Buffalo in fighter-fighter combat in 21 two side documented combats, of 28 total combats. Fractions are prorated kills and losses when multiple types were present.

There were 5 kills by Brit and Dutch Buffaloes against non-fighters which are confirmed in Japanese accounts: 2 Type 99 Twin Engine Light Bombers ('Lily'), 2 Type 99 Army Recon Planes ('Sonia'), and 1 Type 100 Hq. Recon Plane ('Dinah').

Any source which fundamentally disagrees is going by Allied claims, which were seriously exaggerated (as were Japanese claims but they are less likely to be quoted as if facts, in English at least).

Joe

 

[Juha]

BTW
While claim accuracy of FAF Bf 109 pilots suffered during the hectic days of June 44 that didn't have much effect on accuracy of claims made by FAF Brewster pilot at that time. Their operational area was a bit more quiet. There were 18 B-239s in strengt on the eve of the Soviet summer offensive.
Checked time frame from 9 June (the beginning of the big Soviet summer offensive against Finland) to 17 June 44. Brewster pilots got 7 confirmed kills of which 5 can be verified from Soviet documents to be real Soviet losses plus one which was allowed only as damaged was in fact a real kill.

Juha

 

[vikingBerserker]

See "Bloody Shambles" by Shores et al. The great majority of combats in the Southeast Asia (Malaya, DEI, Burma, Philippines) campaigns of 1941-42 are well documented in Japanese accounts and records, and covered combat by combat in that book. In further direct research in Japanese sources, such as the official history (Senshi Sosho) and the actual records (almost all JNAF records for that period are online now at JACAR.go.jp) I've found "Shambles" to be generally reliable about the Japanese side, and it also agrees with other published works about the Allied side. Counting up each side's losses in two-side documented combats by Buffalo's v Japanese fighters, Brit and Dutch (not including USMC, for which see above), as already posted a number of times:

Buffalo v Type Zero Fighter:12.5 Buffalo's lost for 4 Zeroes in 7 combats
Buffalo v Type 1 Fighter ('Oscar'): 14 Buffalo's lost for 4 Type 1's in 7 combats
Buffalo v Type 97 Fighter ('Nate'): 13.5 Buffalo's lost for 1-1/3 Type 97's in 6 combats
Buffalo v Type 0 Observation Seaplane ('Pete') acting as fighter: 2 Buffalo's lost for no Type 0, 1 combat
Overall 1:4.5 against the Buffalo in fighter-fighter combat in 21 two side documented combats, of 28 total combats. Fractions are prorated kills and losses when multiple types were present.

There were 5 kills by Brit and Dutch Buffaloes against non-fighters which are confirmed in Japanese accounts: 2 Type 99 Twin Engine Light Bombers ('Lily'), 2 Type 99 Army Recon Planes ('Sonia'), and 1 Type 100 Hq. Recon Plane ('Dinah').

Any source which fundamentally disagrees is going by Allied claims, which were seriously exaggerated (as were Japanese claims but they are less likely to be quoted as if facts, in English at least).

Joe

I just read an excert from this book, and it talks about the 67th Sqd of the RAF shooting down 4 x Ki21's on 12/23 and another 6 on 1/24 - all of which were confirmed.

Any source that disagrees is going to be based on Allied claims which were exaggerated like the Japanese claims??????? Huh?

 

[snafud1]

Which puts into perspective, who do you want to believe about combat records and was any a/c better than any other.

 

[88l71]

Gaah!! I swear the F6F is the Rodney Dangerfield of WWII fighters..."No respect, no respect I tell ya..."

Hellcat essentially won the Battle of the Marianas single-handedly, few planes can claim to have won a battle, but that's just not good enough for Corsair fanboys, is it?

Keep in mind we are talking about WARTIME aircraft and not who we would bet on in an air race here, okay?

The F4U was an impressive plane but wouldn't it be important for a carrier-based fighter, to, you know, actually be able to operate off carriers without design modifications or radically altering landing techniques?

Weird, isn't it, that the Hellcat didn't have teething problems? Maybe because it was designed to be easy to fly for inexperienced pilots, easy to produce, easy to keep operational in combat conditions, and to be rugged enough to get an inexperienced pilot back to the CV if he makes a mistake and catches some hits... and maybe such "irrelevant" or "unglamorous" qualities might just have been desirable, if, say, one had a naval force which was rapidly expanding in size over a short period of time, which, not coincidentally, would apply to the US Navy in late 43-44....

Oh ,yeah, and it was also 2/3 the price of the Corsair...and it was a good enough design initially that it was only produced in two major variants with relatively small changes between them.

Oh, and it was still plenty good enough performance-wise to shoot down the enemy in droves...

Maybe the F4U could have racked up huge kills in Marianas/Leyte Gulf if Chance-Vought designers might have thought about carrier handling characteristics, etc, instead of obsessing over squeezing out the last MPH from the airframe?

Sure, they eventually got F4U's on carriers and they did well but by that time the major naval-air battles of 1944 in Marianas/Leyte had been won...by Hellcat pilots.

But who cares? Looking cool, having your own TV show, and having awesome on-paper performance is far more important, right?

The Corsair did serve much longer but don't kid yourselves...it was for its bomb-trucking abilities rather than anything else once jet fighters came around. Grumman had an XF6F-6, which was an upgraded Hellcat, in the works, but decided to opt for the Bearcat, which wasn't as good a bomb-truck as the Corsair because the Bearcat was all about stuffing the biggest possible engine in the smallest possible airframe to get mega-performance, rather than being able to haul ordinance.

Not saying the Corsair wasn't a good aircraft, just saying that IMHO way too many people dismiss the Hellcat with the casual wave of the hand because the F6F's truly outstanding qualities aren't in the "sexy"
categories.

I can't vote for the late-war Japanese entries for the simple reason that if you ask me, they are vastly overrated, too little, too late, and what's the point of great airplanes when you have no functioning pilot-training program or can't produce reliable engines?

 

[snafud1]

Hmm....why don't you just really say what's on your mind?

 

[renrich]

Perhaps you will explain why, on May 16, 1944, well before the war is over, the Navy concludes that the F4U1D is the best available all round Navy fighter available and recommends that carrier fighter and fighter bomber units be converted to that type.

 

[88l71]

HEh. To be honest I was sort of in a bad mood earlier today as I had downloaded and installed a supposedly uber-realistic mod for a PTO wargame I play, where they had included every F4U variant ever seen and for some reason only an F6F-3 and an F6F-5N, but no -5 day fighter or -3N night fighter and the P-51 Mustang had, somehow, a higher rating for ruggedness than either, and I sort of drifted into a rant about overrated/underrated fighters.

 

[snafud1]

That's quite alright. I couldn't resist the jab. Besides, it's great to see people have passion for ANY WWII warbird.

 

[88l71]

Perhaps you will explain why, on May 16, 1944, well before the war is over, the Navy concludes that the F4U1D is the best available all round Navy fighter available and recommends that carrier fighter and fighter bomber units be converted to that type.

Interestingly a month later the carriers went to the Marianas equipped with Hellcats and utterly annihilated Japanese airpower....would Corsairs have made any real, noticeable, appreciable difference in the kill/loss ratio in that battle to justify the time, effort, and expense involved in switching out Corsairs for Hellcats, not to mention the higher non-combat losses that would have occurred operating F4U's off carriers?

Experts also said in the 60's fighters didn't need guns anymore, how'd that one work out in Vietnam?

 

[syscom3]

88l7, perhaps you can also explain why the USN started pushing for F8F's and F4U's to counter the Kamikazi threat. If the Hellcat was up to the task then there would be no need to replace it, yes?

BTW, when it came to reducing IJN and IJA airpower in NG, Solomons and the NEI, the Hellcat was noticably absent.

 

[Doughboy]

88l7, perhaps you can also explain why the USN started pushing for F8F's and F4U's to counter the Kamikazi threat. If the Hellcat was up to the task then there would be no need to replace it, yes?

BTW, when it came to reducing IJN and IJA airpower in NG, Solomons and the NEI, the Hellcat was noticably absent.

Ditto.