Fw-190 Dora-9 vs P-51D Mustang

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Thanks for you excellent explaination!
 
davparlr said:
Thanks for you excellent explaination!
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It was pretty simplistic Dave.. the more esoteric discussion then leads to point by point comparisons along the spars, the skin shears,the torqu boxes, the wing/wing and wing/fuselage fasteners to look at the stresses on each component to make sure they are less than "Ultimate Stress (Failure)"

and the internal wing designs were different enough that one may not 'assume" same loading conditions and load paths.
 

I am appreciatative of complexitive stress analysis. As responsible for generating impacts to upgrades for the B-2, I learned quickly that structual analysis was always important for any penetration of the composite skin of the bomber, like antennas. Load stress was carried by this skin and once interrupted by a penetration, detailed design was required to reroute the stress around the penetration. Since Boeing built most of the fuselage and wing, any antenna intallation was expensive!
 
Hi,

wasnt this about the P51D vs the 190D-9 and how can this be 4 years old and still no result?? lol

Thats not very effective.

I saw so many different datas of the same plane, where the speeds did vary by 10-30km/h. How shal someone say what plane was better, if we even dont know the exact performence of one plane??

Specialy regarding the german planes we miss many datas. We even often dont know to what kind of "standard atmosphair" the measured or calculated TAS speeds relates to. Some tests are made with reduced weight and the different in the results with the same plane type indicate that also the test procedure must have been different. For example its a different how someone measure the speed. Is it dont out of a dive, or after the plane did accelerate?? Who ever did try to measure the Vmax in a simulation, without time acceleration, will know that it take a long time to find the exact Vmax and due to the shifting critical altitude(rated alt) due to a speed different, the Vmax and the related altitude tend to vary rather much. For example the Vmax records in the late 30th dont display the real Vmax of the planes. While this records the planes dive in as fast as they can and after a for that time much to short distance they zoom up dive dobe again and fly the short distance again(if i remeber right, just 2 miles). So swing is a important factor.
The particular big discrepancys between german/british and US tests on the other hand make me believe that german and british tests often was rather conservative(accelerated Vmax test??), while the US test often seems to be rather optimistic(decelerated Vmax test??).
How a optimistic german Vmax test can look like we see, if we look to the 109F4 tests, where the plane reach 670km/h (416mph) in 6,3km and the 109G1 made 700km/h in 7000m.

I got a 190D data sheet where the plane reach 401mph at sea level(Bodenmotor) and a test of the P51D from after the war, where just 67hg get used as WEP. There are other tests showing the P51 with 80 or 90HG and the FW with just 595km/h.

IMHO, and iam sure due to lack of datas we only can offer opinions here, both planes(like some other late war prop planes) touch the edges of what was possible with a propeller. Sure in highest alt the P51D is better, not cause its faster, but for the way the combat went in mid/late 1944 thats the most important factor. For sure their higher max ceilling wasnt the reason why they often was higher than the german planes. Also the mustangs seldom came in above 11000m hight.
The problem was that the german main targets did fly mainly between 7000 and 8500m altitude and the Doras should cover the heavy groups and to do this they had to stay rather close with them, specialy cause the FW190A8 and A9´s had real trouble above 6500m. Actually the so called german top cover rather did act as bait to lure the escort into combat before the heavy groups came. In early 1944 this perticular did work, later, with the extreme numerical allied advantage, this was hopeless.

Even the best pilot of the world have just two eye´s, while the numerical advantage at that time was extreme.

If we look in what way many of the german pilots at that time did die, we can get an idea how even the planes was in general. If we forget the rather number of sneaky kills, where no real comat took place and look to the fights where the german pilots saw their oponents, you will find that even the FW190A´s dont got outmanouvered by easy, in many cases the Mustangs and/or Jugs had to fight the enemy down, what wouldnt have been possible, if the number would have been even and still many pilots was able to escape, but not every day.
In early 1944, when the Luftwaffe still had some units and more good pilots(at least the disadvantage wasnt that big), even the 109G6 was good enough to counter the P51´s.
In Willi Reschkes book you can read how important the "Höhenstaffel" was and how important the as fighter pilot educated pilots was(most of the JG300, 301 and 302 dont had a dedicated fighter education, the "Höhenstaffel" of the JG302 specialy came from the JG51).
This "Höhenstaffel", flying 109G´s, dont got slaughtered, they lost their experienced pilots against a increasing number of enemys within three month.

The question is how could they stand this for so long, with the old 109G?? And was the FW190D9 less good??

I always see the Vmax datas and sometimes also the climb performence(ceilling), what imho get forgotten when it comes to compare the dofight performence is the handling in relation to the altitude.

As higher the planes get, as slower is the "middle IAS"(we dont always fly Vmax). When a combat start in high alt, the planes are very fast down to stall speed.

So we need to look much more to the slowspeed handlig then in low to medium alt, and here the FW190 most probably win, cause its advanced roll ratio, while the P51 suffer by its smal stall edge.
On the other hand the P51 can climb higher and is faster up there.

What i want to say is: If the enemys saw each other and if both enemys did know what they do and if it was a 1 vs 1, noone would have been able to shoot the other down until they did reach low level(appart from a lucky shot).

I cant see any good reason why someone would call one of this planes better than the other and its for sure nonsens to say one plane was better, cause the other got slaughtered, even the Me262 got slaughtered at that time.

The datas show very similar results, with a speed and climb advantage for the P51 in high alt, but at same time it must have had handling problems. In low alt the 190D had more power(best climb i saw is 1350m/min , 22,5m/s, 4428ft/min with 300km/h speed), on the other hand the speeds(IAS) was often higher and here the P51 also had a good handling, though close to the ground the FW190D had 400-500HP more power. btw, the typical combat weight of a P51D in combat area(after dropping the tanks) was 9600lbs(4360kg), cause the rear fueselage tank ALWAYS got used 1st, cause the plane was terrible unstable with this full tank.

Another btw, the german planes didnt look that good in the east cause the russian planes or pilots was that bad, it was rather the tactical situation, cause the russian bombers got mainly raped as "flying artillery". As such their fighters field of operation was also mainly in low alt, where their bombers was. This brought them into a same bad tactical position like the german pilots in the west and the russian HQ absolutly undervalue(or didnt care for) the need for a good high alt fighter performence, although in 1940/41 they had the best high alt fighter in the world(Mig 3). The realy bad habit to organisate all skilled pilots in elite squads, also didnt help to mass of the pilots.

I think the early rather high losses of the US fighters(also P51), against older planes than the FW190D9, show how important the pilot skill was. Still the US escort fighters always had the tactical advantage, cause the LW HQ commanded the LW fighters to attack the bombers, no matter how and they did split their forces all over germany, instead to of big mass attacks like Galland wanted them. As result the numerical advantage of the US fighters in combat area was bigger than is had to be.

The LW fought like Wavell and Auchinleck vs the DAK, when Galland had his "1000" fighters, they got wasted in Bodenplatte.

Would have been interesting to see, what would have happend, when 1000 german fighters would have attacked mainly the escort. Like its was, we have no good possibility to value the P51D vs the german 1944/45 planes.

Maybe in the future we will see a combat between the new FW´s and a old P51?? I guess that would help.

Greetings,

Knegel
 
just to point this out to you, JG 302 never had a high protection unit of any kind they flew on their own till dissolvement and the incorporation into the new III./JG 301in September of 44.

JG 301 only from November 44 when they received new A-9's did two staffeln of each the I. and II. gruppe provide high cover for their other two staffeln of each gruppe and in some ways when flying together as a whole Geschwader protect the Schwere gruppe the III. JG 301 many times did not fly entire ops together as a complete Geschwader. and just to back up a bit I./JG 300 really entered as the high squadron for it's 109G III gruppe and the ehavy Sturmgruppe the II.

even by December 44 with the 6./JG 301 having the inclusion of the Dora to the A-9 ranks it still could not keep up with speed, altitude and agility of the P-51D/K US escorts. nothing changed as the whole of II./JG 301 completed the transfer out of the A-9 to the Dora except for 8th staffel could they again keep pace with the P-51's. It just did not happen no matter whom wants to think otherwise. To make matters even more interesting Reschke states several times in his German/English work that their Doras really gave the P-51's trouble is a total mis-nomer. The only thing the Dora did for JG 301's pilots was give it a slight edge in the altitude department and then later meeting with Soviet fighters at mid range where it excelled.
 

Composites are a whole new world from sheet and stringer analysis - my ONLY experience was on tailbooms of Huey's..
 

Glad to see you join the forum..

Regards,

Bill
 
one of the biggest problems Bill and we have discussed this privately as well as here was the present LW tacticians. Several Geschwader C.O.'s had to come up or so they tried with their own vantage/views on how to handle the US escorts, none of it worked, the simplification of tired and true attacks from the rear and slightly below seemed to work if no escorts were about but in 45 that was not going to happen except by some strange miracle in the help of the LW.

nothing would have changed for the LW in 44-45 if they had the P-51 and the US the Dora
 
Erich said:
nothing would have changed for the LW in 44-45 if they had the P-51 and the US the Dora
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The Dora would have needed an internal extended range tank, but otherwise I agree assuming the time line is the same, i.e. the Dora was available to the Allies in Dec. '43, and the P-51 available to the Germans in Sep. '44.
 
The safe wing load factor for the Fw190-D was 6.20 for wing ( 6.50 for engine mounts) and somewhat more more for the fuselage, according to Hermann. So the ultimate load would be 1.8*6.2 =11.2g. About the same as the P-51D.

Jim's posts are quite painful to read, because of the spelling, paragraphs, etc. So I cannot comment further.
 

Timppa - was the German structural analysis design practice to use a 1.8 factor from Yield to Ultimate?

From your post I infer that the design limit load (for elastic yield stress) was 6.2G? at what gross weight?

BTW - all the techniques and analysis approaches should be very close - and the design limit loads should be close simply because 'stroger = heavier'
 
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German terms are simply "safe" (Sicher) load and "breaking limit" (Bruchgrenz):
"Die hierin aufgeführten 'Beanspruchungszustände' heißen 'sichere', weil bei ihnen noch kein Bruch auftreten darf, vielmehr noch ein vorgeschriebener Abstand von der Bruchgrenze eingehalten werden muss. Dieser Abstand ist die 'Sicherheit'. Die im Allgemeinen verlangte Sicherheit ist 1,8, das heißt erst beim 1,8 fachen der vorgeschriebenen 'sicheren' Belastung darf ein Teil der Konstruktion brechen."
LuftArchiv.de - Das Archiv der Deutschen Luftwaffe

See also "Leichtbau", page 31:
Leichtbau: Band 2: Konstruktion - Google Books

The designed gross weight for load factor of 6.20 was 4250kg.
For the Ta-152H the load factors were +5 to -2.5 at a design weight of 4500kg. (Hermann, p. 67)
 

Great link Timppa - it does appear that German design philosphy was either more conservative on yield or less conservative on failure than US and Brit counterparts.

The 'safe' for US and Brit was the stress level for which the material moved from 100% elastic to the 'yield point - (i.e the stress at the point where the material started to suffer permanent deformation).

I suspect German was the same - but the US and Brit used 1.5 from that stress value to attain the point at which the aircraft material under analysis was expected to fail entirely.

Thanks,

Bill
 

Hi,

if i remeber right, according to Reschke they had a high alt unit, comming from JG51. At that time they still flew 109´s mainly.

Greetings,

Knegel
 
Hello


Good enough means that the 109G with a good pilot could handle the P51B/D, specialy in altitudes around 6-8000m. I agree, the lost of initiative was the main problem. They had to attack the bombers and while attacking the bombers they often lost their wingis, as result they fought alone in a tactical bad position.
I think thats the reason why the P51 was that successsfull. When the P51 did arrive in bigger numbers, the german Airforce was already badly "thinned out", regarding the pilot skill.
There wasnt only Mustangs as escort, the P38 also ha da good range and later the P47 as well. With the tactical situation, the US planes dont had to be that good, as fighter in general. Due to the german tactic to attack mainly the bombers, speed what what they needed and thats what they had.
The big advantage of the US bomber and fighter groups was the possibility to communicate with each other. While it did need some time and skill for a german leader to bring the whole group into a good attacking position, the bombers could call the fighters. As result there was often a high number of US fighters in combat area. While seldom more than 1-2 JG´s did attack the Bomber stream at same time.
Of course sometimes they came through without to see the escort, but in many times latest after the 1st attack they came. The high number of tough 4Mots was the P51´s biggest advantage. If the USAAF would have had something like the Welli or He111, they woul have been slaughtered in the same way. But only with the heavy armned and tough bombers the german fighters had enough to do. Singe attacks was suecide and mass attacks was difficult and could get disturbed rather easy.

drgondog said:
probably zero difference in stall characteristics between the two aircraft
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Afaik the FW190A could get recovered very easy, while the P51 was a hand full.

drgondog said:
That probably accounts for 80-90% of successful encounters
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I did read that around 70% of all WWII kills was made without that the attacked one saw the attacker(or much to late to evade).

drgondog said:
What constitutes 'rather high losses in your opinion? And to the contrary, the LW controllers were VERY skillful at concentrating large numbers of fighters on smaller escort numbers all the way through 1944.
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With rather high losses i actually mean lossed due to careless pilots or due to pilots with to few combat experiences. Several times i did read that the USAAF initially had rather high losses, due to this. This must have changed fast. The Luftwaffe controllers wasnt bad, but there was seldom more then 2 JG´s invulved at same time and a big disadvantage of the germans was the missing communication between different JG´s. Like you say, they brought the JG´s to the Bombers thoughout the whole way from the channel coast to berlin and back, instead to bring them all to the same area at same time. Like i say, like the britisch troops in Africa and the US fighters and bombers fought concentrated and vital like Rommel. If the JG´s near the coast would have attacked ONLY the fighters to make them dropping their tanks and to fight on even terms(no gunpods, with GM1 etc), it most probably would have been different. But strangewise very long time the JG´s had the oder to attack mainly the Bombers.


drgondog said:
No, but there was EXCELLENT opportunity to evaluate during the Novemberr 1943 through June 1944 for the P-51B/C
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Imho not realy, cause there wasnt many situations, when the P51´s made sweeps and where the german fighters made sweeps, like it was common over russia.

Most of the P51´s oponents was ordered and/or equipped to hunt 4Mots. Many overloaded FW´s and 109´s. Of course, vs the Heavy loaded 109 or FW190 the P51 had a "easy game", even when the initial situation was even. The D9 normaly wasnt loaded like that. Vs the clean 109G1 or G6AS it was different. But there was just to few units to fight the escort. At best they was enough to keep the escort buisy until the other group was able to make their attack, but that was far away from a even fight, regarding the numbers.

I believe that the P51, same like the other escorting allied fighters, only could be that successfull cause the bombers could stand for its own rather good. If they got losses, the enemys as well. If the He111 in BoB would have had a sencefull firepower and even better protection, and the 109´s droptanks, the Spitfires and Hurris would have been in same trouble. Then even the 110 would have been good enough to escort the bombers.
The Luftwaffe just had no good tactics and material for strategical air combat, not for the attack and not for the defence. Like the russian airforce the german airforce was full organized and trained for Blitzkrieg(close support).

drgondog said:
Glad to see you join the forum..

Regards,

Bill
Click to expand...

Thank you for the welcome.

Greetings,

Knegel
 
My thoughts on the Mustang are that it was a very energy efficient aircraft with low drag characteristics. Its surprising to me to see that its power plant was only producing a mere 1695hp at the peak of the war, which tells me that much of its speed took some time build up and accumulate.

By comparison, the Dora pushes 2100 hp with boost and normally i would think of German designs as very efficient.

whats interesting, though, is that Germany, apart from being ahead or on par with most of their aircraft technology, was trailing the successes found with American propellor innovations. Much of even the late war German prop planes still retained the three bladed coned shape props from the beginning of the war. Of course they had made some improvements and from what it seems the shape offers lower drag at higher speeds.

American propellors had actually gone from paddle blades to maximize climb to a sort of hybrid with the needle blades to allow for the best acceleration and retaining most of the top speed. In this light, its quite possible the lower powered Merlin produced more thrust than the Jumo, but even the Mustang took a lot of time to build up its top speed.

I guess my point to readers is to not be decieved by horsepower because prop blades and other factors can actually determine how fast an aircraft actually ends up going. If the contrast in propellor type were not so different, then i would say more power generally translates to more acceleration, and a better top speed.


Bill
 
Knegel the high Alt. staffel from JG 51 was incorporated as a 4 staffel into one of JG 302's gruppen. nothing to do with JG 301

JG 301 flying Bf 109G-6's was so separated and did not function as a whole Geschwader till it's transformation in September of 44 when it received the Fw 190
 

Bill - the 51 had excellent acceleration and compared well with the P-38 and F-4U on the US side despite their much higher horsepower (and gross weight). Reduced drag and perhaps combined exhaust thrust and Meridith effect may have contibuted significanty to its acceleration performance to other fighters with better Hp/weight ratios.

Additionally drag comparisons must be looked at very closely as this is one of the key reasons the 51 was so fast, particularly at altitude..
 
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Bill - the 51 had excellent acceleration and compared well with the P-38 and F-4U on the US side despite their much higher horsepower (and gross weight). Reduced drag and perhaps combined exhaust thrust and Meridith effect may have contibuted significanty to its acceleration performance to other fighters with better Hp/weight ratios.
 


Yes, 302, a part of , thats what i wrote.

I dont want to seak the whole book now, but this is from page 45, 25. Feb 1944:
"For both JG´s this time period was the conversion from the single engined night fight to the day fight. Both JG´s (301 + 302) now was completely equipped with own planes of the Type 109G-6, only a few Fw 190A-6 got flown in some Gruppenstäben and Staffeln."

Page 70, 9.Juni 1944:
"In this mission 1st time the Staffel, former 12./JG51 Mölders, flew as Topcover"
No losses in this mission, 6 4-Mots, 1 Mustang, 10 "Herrausschüsse"(badly damaged, leavng the formation).
According to Reschke this was due to the dogfight combat experienced Topcover.
He repeat this some times in his book.

The JG302 only flew the 109G6 till they got a part of the JG301(1./JG302 was then III./JG301) on 29th August 1944.

The seperation of the german JG´s to different frontiers was absolut common and just backup what i say. They fought splitted, if more than one JG took part in a battle, it was in most cases just one "Gruppe".
Three complete JG´s already would have been more than 500 planes. But that just didnt happen at once.


Greetings,

Knegel
 
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