With all respect to the rules of the forum i must say that shooting german pilots after paqachuting was a quite common practice for american pilots.
Trying to civilize war fighting is a mostly useless enterprise. Brutality occurs and to criticize one side or the other is usually a hypocritical effort by those who were not in the situation. As far as shooting airmen in parachutes, my thoughts are this, that airman in the parachute represents a deadly enemy asset who may climb into a plane tomorrow and shoot down a bomber or fighter and kill countrymen of mine, or me. I doubt anyone would blame a soldier for shooting a sniper in the back trying to flee a position because his gun jammed, he could get another gun. A pilot could do the same only be more deadly. He is not surrendering, only moving to another position. I am sure that most of the occurrences of shooting airmen in parachutes were over enemy territory where they could return to combat. In my opinion, it should be command policy if over enemy territory. If this sounds barbaric I am sorry, but war is barbaric.
This does not cover obvious atrocities that are even beyond the uncivilized nature of war like starving civilians to death or gassing them to eradicate a race, test chemicals or germs on civilians to determine effects, or to march POWs to collapse and then bayonet them because they fell. These had no contribution to the conclusion of the war. I won't tell you I don't have a problem with some of the fire bombings or the A-bomb, but I do believe they contributed to the shortening of the war, some more than others.
It bothers me that people sit back in an easy chair and pass judgment on events occurring sixty years ago in situations in the heat of battle where emotions and adrenalin generated from life-threatening battle may generate brutality. We've seen this with policemen in car chases. In the Pacific, there were no prisoners taken by the Japanese, or the Marines. That was the accepted nature of war there.
3)Generally speaking P51 and Dora are in the same performance class. P51 is superior as escort fighter. D9 is superior as general air superiority fighter up to 7000m
Based on test reports and German performance reports, the P-51B, at fighter weight, flies nose to nose with the Fw-190D-9 in airspeed and climb up to 4500m, but by 6000m, the P-51B was clearly superior in these areas, especially airspeed. The P-51D was slight less capable than the B, but not by a whole lot and slightly better than the Fw-190D-9 at 6000m and significantly so at 7600m.
(D13 with jumo 213f is superior at all altitudes, with 213EB ,db603L even challenges P51H performance without sacfificing armor ,armour, and structural strength as -H did (the reason that did not see Korea service)
You need to justify your comment about the armor, the P-51H was lightened by using the Spitfire load factors for design and the Spitfire was not noted for being a weak design. I have no data that indicates reduction of armor was not part of this lightening. As far as the D13 is concerned, being a bit facetious, was there more than one?
I'll comment on Korea later.
D9 has better power loading=better acceleretion+ wing loading (not much of a difference)+ ,wide blade propellers =better roc
Actually, the ROC of the Fw-190D-9 was only better than the P-51B at 3000m and then only about 200 f/m better (4134 f/m to 3900 f/m). Below that they were equal, above that the P-51 was increasing in advantage.
The P-51D had a larger disadvantage, only catching up to the Fw at 6000m.
In the subject of high boost pressures in late war allied fighters i fully adupt the arguments of Kurfust. In additon i say that is not that simple to increase piston engines output.Just bring improve fuel and raise the boost pressure in a ALREADY operating engine. There are technical points and limitations
I don't understand the rationale behind this comment. It is well documented, in engineering test by USAAF and RAF, that increased boost allowed by improved fuel significantly improved performance. As result of these tests, the P-51 was cleared by AAF Materiel Command to go to 75" Hg although there were some operational limitations to 72". So you are saying the testers really didn't know what they were doing? Sure, there were concerns, but apparently worth the effort.
If we accept your claims about 72" HG there was answer in form of C3+MW50 213A=2240ps, 213EB, 213F,DB603EC, DB603LA ,DB603L , 222E/F , all these engines ready for productin but the boys of B17s had other opinion .
It is interesting to note that the Merlin 1650-9, a contemporary of the above engines was capable of 2240 hp and was still two thirds the size of the DB603 and 77% the size of the Jumo 213 and was 300 lbs lighter than either.
Some other contemporary allied fighter engines were the awesome Pratt and Whitney R-2800-57 which produces 2800 hp at 10,000 m (33k ft) in the P-47M/N, the P&W 3460 (powering the XP-72 and the F2G) producing 3000 to 3450 hp, and various British engines. All these engines, including the Germans, were obsolete.
Finally i must say that i am very sceptical about the 487mph of P51H . But maybe i am wrong.
The 487 mph I believe is a North American calculation. I believe a more realistic number is between 470 to 480 mph.
But P51 is the winner in the most crusial way: Was in the wright place ,in THE WRIGHT TIME. The hesitation of luftwaffe to introduce new types in order no to interupt production meant that Dora never had the chance to face the mustang in somewhat better odds.
Just my thouhts
I agree with you completely. I have never understood why the Germans did not develop a dominating high altitude point defense fighter, a much easier job that a dominating escort fighter, in 1943 when they should have anticipated increasing American escorting aircraft. Even the P-47s and P-38s could have been expected to increase in performance and certainly in quantity, they already had very good high altitude performance. The Germans really needed a good high altitude fighter by early '44. I do not think the Dora would have been the answer. It still could not out perform the allied escorts at bomber altitude and above. Maybe an early Bf-109K.
2) Why P51H was not chosen for Korean war service?
In my opinion there are probably two main reasons, first was the proliferation of P-51Ds and parts, and second, the P-51H was designed specifically to be a high performing air-to-air fighter based on the proven lighter Spitfire load factors. By 1950, the AF had abandoned prop planes for air-to-air and thus needed better air-to-ground capability which the heavier built P-51D would be a better selection.
3) I have not the slightest respect for M.Williams and his site. The man is biased ,cooks up evidences and documents , compares aplles with oranges. Kurfust has exposed him many times , has proven his in purpose wrong statements .
All the data I use from this site is data from flight test or military/contractor documents and I suspect drgondog does the same. So, if you have proof that these have been altered to benefit a side, present it. Otherwise, this comment adds nothing to the discussion.