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The Hellcat's combat radius was 945 statute miles and that is long enough to stand in for the P-51's. I believe the air distance is something like 570 miles. I hadn't considered that, but it might work.
I'm not a big data guy, but I don't understand how the claim can be made that the F4U and the F6F had the same speed. The F4U-1 had a top speed of 417 mph (doesn't list an altitude), while the F6F-3 had a top speed of 376 mph at 23,400 ft. Both numbers are from Jane's. Pitot tube placement doesn't explain a difference in speed of 41 mph. And using the Planes of Fame's aircraft isn't exactly accurate either, seeing as it says on their website:
I don't know the effect of the weight difference on the top speed, but regardless using those two individual aircraft isn't accurate.
The Hellcat was certainly the safer aircraft to fly, but a better one? I'd say the US Navy choosing the F4U going forward into the post-war years is pretty telling.
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As for the particular subject at hand, it has been suggested in other threads that if the F4U had entered the European war, a version similar to the F4U-4 would likely have been seen sooner as it would have been prioritized, thus making a version that performed better above 20,000 ft.
As an observation, I would doubt that the F4U-4 would be less effective against any Axis airframe than the the P-51B/D. By extension I imagine I would rather fight in the F4U-4 than any P-38 and P-47 (any D model)
That may be. I never talked to anybody who flew these German fighters, and neither do we have any head-to-head track to go off of. I think both the F4U and the F6F would have given the Luftwaffe fighters some real problems, though, if, for nothing better, than for their dive-bombing aspect, and keeping them off their targets. These weren't makeshift dive-bombers, as were the Ps. They were closer to a JU and FW rolled into one.Somebody here actually posted copies of the test between the Fw 190 and the Corsair a while back. I think you are correct that overall the report considered them rather equal. Both having advantages and disadvantages over the other, but for the most part pretty close to one another.
On the F4Us post-war, I think that's kind of simple. There wasn't any real appreciable difference between the F4Us and the F6Fs in terms of their capacities, and, again, the F4Us were Marine planes, and the post-war was a Marine war.
As an observation, I would doubt that the F4U-4 would be less effective against any Axis airframe than the the P-51B/D. By extension I imagine I would rather fight in the F4U-4 than any P-38 and P-47 (any D model)
No, I'm afraid you're missing the point. The Marines are a branch of the Navy. The Marine pilots went through the Navy to be Marines. Do you see this big machine behind this handsome gentleman? This is NAS Glenview, October 1947. This is the fate of many of the Navy pilots and their Hellcats, post-war. They both went Reserve. The Corsairs got the nod in the post-war for much the same reasons the Hellcats got the nod on the carriers. The nature of the post-war was a ground war, a Marine war, and the Corsairs were the Marine machines. That's just how the cards fell. You're making this much more complicated than it is, I really think.You're completely missing the point of what I'm trying to say. The Korean war ended up, yes, being a heavily Marine war. But we're not talking about what ended up happening. We're talking about what the Navy thought would happen, and they weren't sure about the viability of early jets on carriers so they continued with the F4U line instead of the F6F. Not to mention that there were, at the end of WWII, numerous Navy (not even counting Marine) units using the F4U, such as VF-84, VF-10, VBF-83, VBF-6, VBF-88, VBF-10, VBF-86, VF-5, VF-6, and I'm certain others. I unfortunately cannot find an entire list. Why would the entire US Navy convert to a strictly Marine plane, replacing its "Navy" plane?
Yes indeed. Actually their British equivalent, Gannet Is (later Hellcat Is) and Corsair IIs. The F4U-1, although supplied to the FAA in the USA never saw combat with the FAA; the British equivalent to the F4U-1A, the Corsair II was the first to go into combat. British Corsairs were different to their US counterparts in that they had reduced wingspans to fit into British carrier hangars, which had lower ceilings.
Fair comment, which I would agree in. However, the F4U-4 appeared in combat squadrons only after VE-day (june 1945, IIRC) so it should be compared with P-51H / P-47N rather than P-38H/ P-47D/ P-51B, is that correct?
Fair enough. Let me just answer this way. Were the post-war a sea war, a carrier war, would the Corsairs have replaced the Hellcats on the carriers? Of course they wouldn't have. And there were a number of Navy Hellcat pilots who didn't go Reserve who went Marine and Corsair, post-war. But the way events played out, the Corsairs, especially by late 1944, throughout 1945, found their fit in the Marines, off the ground. And when the carriers and their aircraft were pushed to the background, the Corsairs naturally emerged front and center, in what (forgive me for repeating yet a fourth time, lol) was essentially a ground, land-based Marine war. Our boys in the Hellcats were still ready to go, that's why they were kept on, and kept sharp. The Corsair was a fantastic bombing and fighting aircraft, too, and I'm a complete and utter fool to take anything away from it. The post-war was just its time. The Marines had the experience in them. As our main hitter, they just made sense.I'm well aware of the fact the Marines are a branch of the Navy, and perhaps I am missing your point, but you have now posted the same sentence 3 times without elaborating on it. How is the Navy supposed to know going forward that everything is going to be a ground war, particularly with tensions with te USSR heating up? If WWIII had started, there would of course have been large amounts of air to air combat. We all know what happened in regards to Korea etc, but at the end of WWII when orders of F4Us kept coming and Hellcats stopped, the Navy had to keep both air to air and air to ground operations in mind.
But we're going in circles and are off topic. If you'd like to elaborate more on your point, by all means, but otherwise we should continue with the subject at hand.
The carrier war was all but over. The need for the perfect carrier-based bomber-fighter was all but over. Who by the Summer of 1945 didn't understand that?The "marine war" started in 1950. F6F production stopped in 1945. So the decision in 1945 was to take the "marine plane" to the "marine war" that was 5 years into the future?
They were training for their emerging role over land. The F4U unlike the F6F had serious track over land. They were the perfect fit for what was coming down the road.As Catch 22 said, there were a number of Navy squadrons operating the F4U from carriers by the end of WW2.