Corsair and Hellcat in Europe

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So perhaps, 'None except the P-51" did better in combat?
 
davparlr said:
According to America's Hundred Thousand, the British Hellcat I entered service on July 1st, 1943..
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Fair enough, though whether we take the date of our theoretical introduction of the F6F as mid or late 43 makes little difference to the opposition it would have faced - still late war 109s and 190s, which held a performance advantage against it. Remembering too that the Hellcat saw remarkably little in the way of upgrades throughout its career, so unless we speculate as to what might have been done to it in order to match the likes of the 190 A-8 and D as they were introduced (not much, I think) it would have had to face these challenges in largely unchanged form.
 
probably the multitude of combat reports and stories i have heard from ww2 vets included the line "then he split-S'ed and headed towrds the deck. i gave chase and followed him down...". if your plane is 50-60 mph slower you are 1) what they called meat on the table for the EA following you down and 2) SOL trying to score a kill on a faster enemy. you only have a limited amount of ammo....and if you are deep over europe your "get-away" speed is what gets you home. if it is true and the f6f and f4u are that much slower i dont see them being as successful in the eto. you had planes in the eto chasing each other into compressibility....did that happen in the PTO??
 
The Hellcat could probably have given a pretty good account of itself.

That doesn't make it a game changer however. It shows up after the P-47, it is shorter ranged, it is slower at altitude, and once the P-47 is given wing racks the bomb load is about the same.

Doing "OK" or "holding it's own" is no reason to deploy a new type of fighter in the ETO in the Fall/Winter of 1943/44.
 
OK, let's just get this clear. If you're looking for somebody to short-change the contributions of these P47s and their pilots, you're looking to the wrong person. Those contributions, however, weren't due to any precision-bombing capacity, and, it's really as simple as that. Now, maybe one may suggest that doesn't amount to a hill of beans. However, I believe, that would be naive. All these fighter-type aircraft were limited in their bomb loads. That meant, they miss the bulls-eye, that's it, there's no second chance. That's where the F6Fs, I believe, outperform these P47s. The F6Fs are dropping on what they're going in to drop on. In most cases, they're hitting what they're aiming at. The P47s, if they were anything, were make-shift dive-bombers. They could bomb. They just weren't constituted to be all that precise. And, let's be clear on this, they weren't bombing moving trains and motor vehicles. Heck, not even a precision dive-bomber could do that. But, they were otherwise utilized with bomb loads. Why? Well, isn't it obvious? What better bomber-fighters did we have? I'm talking about precision-bombing, while taking on the Luftwaffe fighters, at the same time. We had one or the other, but not really both rolled into one.
 
Why is it assumed that the 109 and 190 can outdive a Hellcat? There is a combat report buried somewhere on this website from a German ace in a 109 saying he rolled over and tried to dive away from an F4F, confident he could escape this way like he did from Spitfires and Hurricanes, when he looked over his shoulder in horror as the Wildcat followed him down shooting the whole time. He said the only thing that saved him was that the guy in the Wildcat couldn't shoot. He couldn't escape from a Wildcat in a dive, why would he be able to escape from a Hellcat in a dive?

The Hellcat as it sits would not have been my 1st choice as a fighter against 109's and 190's. But it could have been improved. It wasn't improved historically because it didn't need to be. It crushed the Japanese without needing any or many modifications. The US tested a higher performing F6F, but it simply wasn't needed. If it had been deployed in Europe I'm sure the US would have put the new modifications, 4 blade prop etc, into production.

Personally, I think the F4U would have done just fine against the 109 and 190.
 
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Drgondog,

I don't have to point you to anything. You have all the references. The F6F was the best air-to-air fighter in kill-to-loss ratio the allies had. What? It's suddenly going to go bad just because it moves to Europe? In this what if, that won't wash in my living room. If it does in yours, that's fine.

The facts to real combat are pretty clear to me, as are the official US Navy victory lists and loss lists. If they aren't to you, then OK ... we disagree like I've been saying all along. That's never happened before, huh?

For me the F6F would do just fine in the ETO ... for you, less well. We can't exactly go back and fight it, can we?
 
drgondog said:
Dave - the P-51D was ranked 1 below 25K and the P-47 1 above 25K. Page 606 The F8F wasn't included in the survey.
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Boy, I'm confused. I was referencing the "Report of Joint Fighter Conference", dated 16-23 Oct., 1944. It is a hardback book and only has 356 pages and on page 319, it definitely compares the F8F to the others.
 
You noticed , huh? He has a lot of knowledge, but doesn't like other opinions, only his own ... anything else is utter nonsense.

I've tended toward that myself (sorry for past indiscretions), but have tried to mellow and have found moderation to be much more fun. All the WWII fighers were thought by SOMEONE to be pretty damned good or they would never have been produced. I tend to think they all have their good points these days, now that I'm up close and personal with them every week. Most are quite innovative, even if in not the same ways. Some are more efficient than others, but they all have some good fighting qualities. They didn't make the ones that didn't have good qualities ...

The closest I've come to flying them is 25+ hours in a T-6 ... but the T-6 and P-51 owners say that's close enough to be realistic. Also went dogfighting in a Beech T-34 and won ... 2 of 3.

Drgondog has flown a P-51 for some hours (good on you, DG, I wish I had!) but unless he has time in other fighters, he has no basis for comparison other than the same reports we read. I respect his opinion greatly until and unless it conflicts with the facts as stated in government reports. I read the reports and see if his opinon could fit with within the report. Many times it can, sometimes I think not ... could be wrong. But hey, my own opinions, despite 30 years as a pilot and 8+ as a volunteer on warbirds, aren't exactly unimpeachable fact either, so the truth is probably somehwhere in between.

As one of the founding fathers of the U.S.A. said, I might not agree with what you are saying, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

He is a very productive and knowledgeable member of the forum and I'd hate to be enemies. All we really disagree on are some rather different opinions of some WWII fighers. In the relative scheme of things, that's mouse nuts since it is 70 years past. I bet we'd get along just fine in a face-to-face discussion instead of internet banter back and forth. Sometimes talking it back and forth is MUCH better than letters, email, texting, or fourm chat. In fact, ALL the time ...

And, in the end, he might be right ... and I might be wrong. Unless we get rich, become friends, buy fighters of our choice, and dogfight one another ... we'll never really know. And if HE wins, he might just be a better pilot than me instead of the plane being better. I'm trained ... but not by the military as a fighter pilot.

It's MUCH more likely we'll meet, have a good steak and drink some beer ... and continue to banter about these neat aircraft from so long ago.

Hey Drgondog, cheers to you, really. I'm glad you are both interested and a participant. Hope we can swap some stories sometime and maybe meet. If you are inclinded to travel, our airshow is May 4-5 at Chiino, CA. I'll be cooking at the volunteer tent both days. Welcome ... I'll feed you even if you aren't a volunteer. Hope to see you there, no kidding. Warbird flying is always neat, and dedicated warbird aerobatics is WAY fun to watch. The theme this year is "Lightning Strikes" and we hope to have 5 P-38's there ... assuming no mechanical gremlins. But there'll be lots of other warbirds ... we usually have 28 - 35 WWII birds there plus 3 - 4 korean war and SOME modern figher or two flying a demo. With the sequester, maybe nothing official from DOD ... too bad. An F-22 would be wonderful ... but unlikely in the extreme this year.
 
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I would wager that 2 or maybe 3 of that 11:1 were late war Japanese a/c.

Wasn't there a Japanese pilot (Muto??) in a George that kicked some F6F butt.

Not hard to be the best when it is basically the only a/c in large numbers in the PTO.
 
The F6F was the best air-to-air fighter in kill-to-loss ratio the allies had. What? It's suddenly going to go bad just because it moves to Europe? In this what if, that won't wash in my living room.
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I'm going to pull you up on this Greg. That's a couple of times you've tendered the Hellcat's kill/loss ratio in the Pacific as support for an assertion that it would do well in the ETO. Sorry, but as has been pointed out the Hellcat would be moving from a situation where it enjoyed a performance advantage over its oppononents to one where the advantage was with the enemy. Extrapolating the Hellcats results against Zeros and Oscars in the PTO to similar results against 109s and 190s in the ETO doesn't make sense. While the Hellcat was racking up its formidable record against Japanese aircraft the RNZAF was getting similar kill ratios against the same aircraft using the P40. Does that mean the P40 could have done well in late war Europe? Much as I love the Kittyhawk, oF course not- the figures show it would have been at a major disadvantage to the German fighters. The Hellcat would not have been giving that much away, but no amount of shouting "11:1 in the PTO!" is going to dissolve the fact that the advantages it had in the Pacific - being able to outrun, outdive and fly higher than the opposition - would no longer exist if it were transposed to Europe.
 
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Well put, Cobber.

The LW fighters have enjoyed about the same performance advantage vs. the VVS fighters, and racked impressive kill ratios at the eastern front. Similar thing happened at the 'Kanalfront' in 1941/42 - RAF loosed far more planes than LW. In all the cases the LW was fighting out-numbered - contrary to that, Hellcat units were outnumbering their opponent most of the times.
However, once LW was pitted vs. the enemy that was able to out-perform their fighters, while denying them breathing space in the same time, the writing was at the wall. Hellcat, no matter how good it was (and it was good), was never able to outperform LW fighters, let alone deny them airspace in Germany proper.
 
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davparlr said:
Boy, I'm confused. I was referencing the "Report of Joint Fighter Conference", dated 16-23 Oct., 1944. It is a hardback book and only has 356 pages and on page 319, it definitely compares the F8F to the others.
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You don't have to be confused - you are right. I was referencing America's One Hundred Thousand line up extracted from the Fighter Conference - which ignored the Fighter Conference results on page 319 of the XF8F-1 because it was not yet deployed?

The Bearcat flown at Patuxent River Fighter Conference, on Pg 262-264, has the write ups for the XF8F-1 which was the only one (of 2) at Patuxent River. The first production version rolled out four months later and operational in first squadron in late May 1945.
 
Cobber,
The Hellcat DID fight against Zeros and Oscars, but it also fought against Ki-84's, Ki-100's, and N1KJ's. Didn't seem to have much trouble with any of them. You're not going to try to tell me these Japanese planes were "low performance" are you? They matched up well against the best we had at the end of the war in all the anaysses I have read.

Sorry, we disagree here, but that's OK. Consensus is not required ... it is just a what if. There are no real data to fall back on for the Hellcat in the ETO.
 
VBF-13 said:
I'll clear that up for you. It's the same ratio every other aircraft is rated on.
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Nah, no clearing up here.
Attaching the claim ratio to the type of the aircraft makes great injustice to the US pilots, ground/CV crews, command control officers etc. Especially if the main opponent cannot bring to the table anything like (in terms of those neglected attributes of an air force). And, no, every other aircraft is not rated by claim ratio.
 
The official US Navy victory list are awards by the U.S.A., not claims. The claims have been gone through and vetted. It isn't a claim ratio, it is a victory ratio recognized by the Department of Defense, and the victories have been carefullty scrutinized.

If you disagree with it, then there is no list or document in the world that will satisfy you ... so there wouldn't be anything for you to fall back on for comparison. Hey, you have to start somewhere and the original documents are not an easy thing to find or gain access to.

But, if you have copies of the original documents, maybe you could share them in here and we could come up with a list of our own.
 
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