Hardest plane to take down in WW2?

[JoeB]

BTW - those "rifle bullets" that were bringing down Corsairs were 7.62 x 39 and not the 8 x 57 rifle rounds that the Germans used in WWII (for reference sake).
...the rifle rounds used by the Japanese in WWII, 7.7 x 58, were significantly more powerful than the 7.62 x 39 as well.

How about another nitpick , the 7.62x39 round, (fired by SKS, AK-47 etc. for those interested strictly in planes not rifles) was hardly if at all used by the Communists in Korea. The predominant rifles in mid-late war were Moisin-Nagant bolt action types, rifle or carbine various models, which fired the relatively powerful 7.62x54 round. Moreover that's what was fired by rifle caliber MG's at planes.

Various secondary sources have vaguely claimed, without footnote, that SKS's were used in Korea but I've never seen any mention of this in primary US sources on intel about the enemy, or more detailed Soviet accounts of their aid to the NK's and Chinese, nor any photo. If so, it was only in small trial quantities.

Actually when the Chinese first entered the Korean War in October 1950, most of their troops had non-Soviet weapons, often Japanese Type 99's (7.7mm), or Type 38's (6.5mm); or various Chinese Mausers in the German caliber. Some NK units also had Japanese rifles, but they were more uniformly equipped with Soviet weapons from the beginning than the Chinese were.

Not that it really makes all that much difference what particular rifle round hits a plane, if it hits in exactly the right place.

Joe

 

[renrich]

I see your point Jank. I was not aware of the reports and statistics you pointed out. I wonder why the Navy sometime in 1944 decided that the Corsair was superior to the Hellcat as a ship board fighter and replaced the Hellcats with Corsairs as expeditously as possible. Do you know if the AU version of the Corsair addressed the issue of the oil cooler in Korea?

 

[Jank]

JoeBsaid, How about another nitpick , the 7.62x39 round, (fired by SKS, AK-47 etc. for those interested strictly in planes not rifles) was hardly if at all used by the Communists in Korea. The predominant rifles in mid-late war were Moisin-Nagant bolt action types, rifle or carbine various models, which fired the relatively powerful 7.62x54 round. Moreover that's what was fired by rifle caliber MG's at planes.

I didn't know that.

Renrich said, "Do you know if the AU version of the Corsair addressed the issue of the oil cooler in Korea?"

I think JoeB might know more about that. I think I read his post about that on another forum. There was another mention on another website about designing a different oil cooler set up as well.

Renrich said, I wonder why the Navy sometime in 1944 decided that the Corsair was superior to the Hellcat as a ship board fighter and replaced the Hellcats with Corsairs as expeditously as possible.

Well, the Corsair was far superior in probably every performance category (maybe not turn radius - I don't know) and the ability to carry ordinance. Kamikaze attacks began in 1944. I would rather be protected by Corsairs than Hellcats if only because of the Corsair's ability to intercept further out due to its higher speed. I think that ultimately, the focus ends up being on which aircraft can deliver the best punch. (No one seemed to be that concerned about the Mustang's vulnerability over the radial.) I think the Hellcat didn't have any evolutionary potential either. Also, there may have been economic / production considerations.

Why are such decisions made? Who knows. You yourself have argued a number of times that the Corsair ought to have been introduced into the European Theatre. Why wasn't that done?

 

[renrich]

I know at least one reason the Corsair was not considered for use in the European theatre by the AAF and that was that no ship board AC in those days was considered capable of equalling the performance of purpose designed AC particularly as a fighter or pursuit as they were known then. If I recall correctly the Phantom II, what became the F4, was designed originally as a ship board AC and the Air Force was reluctant to admit that it could outperform it's pet fighters but finally gave in and adopted it. Another example might be the F14 and F15. The F14 with it's Phoenix system was considered for the job of an interceptor that the F15 was designed for and probably could have done all the missions the F15 ultimately performed at a great savings in cost but the AF wanted it's own AC. Rivalry between the services can be a good thing but it has probably cost our country a great deal of money. Another example of rivalry costing money was that the RAF was tasked after WW1 with control of the Fleet Air Arm. As I recall the RN during WW1 had some pretty potent fighters, one being the Sopwith Tripe, but with the RAF being in control and possibly not wanting the RN to rival them in any way and also believing that no ship board AC could equal a ground based one, the RN had to fight WW2 with a bunch of duds except for what they were able to procure from the US. Thanks be that the USN has always had control of the procurement of it's AC.

 

[drgondog]

Why are such decisions made? Who knows. You yourself have argued a number of times that the Corsair ought to have been introduced into the European Theatre. Why wasn't that done?

Jank - I suspect two reasons, maybe three.

first, political. USAAF then USAF did not 'buy' a USN airframe until the F4 pre Viet Nam, then the A7D. The USN has never bought a USAAF or USAF fighter even when mandated by Congress (i.e killed the F111B, refused the VFAX (F-16) after it won the flyoff with F-18).

During WWII, the USAAF or USN project manager that recommended the other's a/c in a competing line would be next studying clap incidence of Penguins in Antartica!

The USN didn't have a choice with B-25 or B-24 - they just didn't have that capability in the fleet or in USMC and they needed them

second, the F4U never made it to Wright Pat for a serious eval - therefore had no chance to display great performance which could have led to orders.

third, Vought didn't have the capacity to build more even if the orders came because of time to build factories and duplicate production lines.

Vought was small when the Corsair came into life as was Lockheed when the Xp-38 won its competition - neither were equipped in context of facilty, manufacturing engineers or design engineers to move either airframe from prototype to production version in short period of time.

Republic was well established as was NAA and Grumman and had financing, early orders to start production (either USA or Lend Lease), Bell and Curtis and Martin and Douglas also.

The above are opinions only..

Regards,

Bill

 

[drgondog]

Was it not less manouverable than the B-25 or Ju88?

I would say yes, the Marauder was less manueverable. I suspect that would have zero effect on relative survivabilty between the three ships. The B-26 had the lowest per 1000 sortie loss rate of any USAAF bomber

 

[AL Schlageter]

Mosquito bomber losses for the time period shown

That works out to 1 Mossie lost for every 249 missions flown.

 

[magnocain]

fighter-f4u
ground attack-Il2/10
bomber-b17
carrier plane-f4u

the USAAF said that the f4u was tougher than the p47

 

[JoeB]

Re: AU-1, the oil coolers were moved inboard from the wings to fuselage behind the engine, and fuselage underside forward had armor protection. A first hand account book of somebody who flew both F4U-4B and AU-1 is "Short Straw" by Bernard W. Peterson. His unit, VMF-212, liked the AU-1's they recieved in 1952 for the improvements in payload and survivability, as well as just having brand new planes, not beaten to hell F4U-4B's.

Re: Navy and Army using same fighter, the Boeing F4B and P-12 were basically the same plane, back in the '30's.

Joe

 

[Civettone]

Yep, it would be hard to shoot one down as it likely went up in smoke before you could get close by

Dag Marcel

that would have been true for the earlier He 177s but by 1944 the engine problems were mainly solved and the He 177 turned out to be more reliable than all other German bombers!
The aircraft took a long time to mature and when it was fully operational, the fuel shortages grounded them. At that point about five hundred had been delivered to operational units. The same amount was not used operationally and many stayed without engines. The story on them is quite unclear though.

Kris

 

[Jank]

I just happened across Page 79, Note (e) to Table 29 of Naval Aviation Combat Statistics, WWII:

(e) The F6F appears to have had considerable advantage over the F4U when flown under the same conditions. Receiving about the same number of hits per sortie in comparable operations, the F6F had a far lower rate of loss per plane hit.

 

[renrich]

Joe B, did the F4U7 have the same armor additions as the AU?

 

[ghensgen]

Has anyone modeled the YB-17 or Boeing Model 299 in 1/48 scale? This aircraft was the progenitor of the B-17 most people speak of, but many features do not seem modelled in this scale at all.

Any help you all can provide is greatly appreciated

 

[JoeB]

did the F4U7 have the same armor additions as the AU?

Yes, the F4U-7 was essentially the AU-1 with the engine of the F4U-4, R2800-18W. The French used both, 69 ex-USMC AU-1's and 94 F4U-7's they ordered new. Per "Ailes de Gloire No.12 Vought Corsair F4U-7 and AU-1".

Another interesting statistic in that book is quoted max speed for the AU-1, 705km/hr at 2900m (~437mph at ~9500ft), much higher than the 238mph speed quoted in other sources. But Peterson in his book also says the AU-1 outperformed the F4U-4B below 15,000 ft. The low speed number always srtuck me as strange, since the AU was only several 100 lbs heavier clean, had a few 100 more hp down low, and no big drag addition, again assuming clean.

Joe

 

[renrich]

Thanks Joe B for your info on AU and F4U7. I always had a question about performance data of the AU. Interesting statistics in the data on Navy and Marine AC combat. The official statistics show no action sorties for land based Corsairs until April, 1943, when it is common knowledge that the first combat for the Corsair took place on a landbased mission on Feb. 14(valentines day) 1943 and the Corsairs were in action steadily from that date. In the notes it is stated that action sorties are highly understated for F4Fs and to a lesser degree the F4U in early 1943 because of disorganisation. Wonder how many Wildcat and Corsair kills and losses went unreported. Oh well, there are lies, damn lies and statistics.

 

[Marcel]

Dag Marcel

that would have been true for the earlier He 177s but by 1944 the engine problems were mainly solved and the He 177 turned out to be more reliable than all other German bombers!
The aircraft took a long time to mature and when it was fully operational, the fuel shortages grounded them. At that point about five hundred had been delivered to operational units. The same amount was not used operationally and many stayed without engines. The story on them is quite unclear though.

Kris

Thanks, Kris, I always thought the engine trouble was only solved with the He 277. Guess I have to read up some more on this bomber

 

[Jank]

"Oh well, there are lies, damn lies and statistics."

And conclusions that some would prefer not to accept.

The saying, "there are lies, damn lies and statistics" is commonly used to imply that the statistical data underpinning conclusions drawn therefrom is caca and/or that the conclusions drawn from the statistical data are caca.

With respect to the Naval Aviation Combat Statistics, which camp are you in? Alternatively, did you intend an uncommon meaning when you declared, "Oh well, there are lies, damn lies and statistics".?

More to the point, tell me Renrich, do you personally believe that the Corsair was a more survivable plane than the Hellcat?

 

[renrich]

Jank, don't misunderstand me. The information you posted seems to me to be clear. The oil cooler vulnerability would give the edge in suvivability to the Hellcat. I seem to remember that the Wildcat had it's oil cooler in the wing also and that was possibly the reason the "Iron Works" relocated it on the Hellcat. Also as Joe B stated that oil cooler was relocated in the AU but that was well into the Korean War. My only reason for quoting the statistics "saying" was that raw statistics often don't tell the whole story but it is no wonder that statistics during the early part of the war might be lacking because the campaign in the Solomons was so chaotic. Speaking of how statistcs can be misleading, I drew the conclusion that the Corsair was more survivable in air to ground because it dropped a lot more bombs than the Hellcat and had less losses to AA. Obviously my conclusion was in error because of the factors you have pointed out. However the Corsair had a great reputation for air to ground both in WW2 and Korea. Perhaps that reputation came about because of the close cooperation btween Marine Air and Marine ground forces and the majority of the Corsair action sorties at least in WW2 were flown by Marines.

 

[magnocain]

I think the Corsair was hit less often, so more survived
Still i vote for the corsair.

 

[Jank]

The Corsair was a great air superiority and ground attack aircraft. Of that there can be no disagreement.