Hellcat vs Zero

GregP said:

When US Navy claims were vetted after the war, they were found to be mostly a LOT more reliable than claims over Europe. The reasons were obvious. Most Naval aircraft fighters were of the 4 - 8 vs. 4 - 8 variety and not the 1,000 plane raids that could be seen over Europe. Thus it was MUCH easier to keep track of what happened because there were many fewer planes involved. Some of the largest Pacific encounters involved only some 25 - 30 planes for each side. The accuracy of claims for ALL sides was MUCH better when the numbers of combatants were small.

Some of the very early Naval encounters were inflated, but they settled down rapidly and, by the time the Hellcats got there, the type of claims versus actuals inaccuracy in Parsifal's post above should have been largely a thing of the past.

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Half right, but also the "vetting process had the enormous advantage that a lot of japanese records were lost or destroyed before the end of the war. This meant that the USN Claims had to be accepted as "confirmed", even though they werent. on those occasions that they can be vetted properly against known Japanese records, they generally come up considerably worse. One author believes that this arose because there were so few targets. two or three or ten pilots all shooting at the same target, all get awaqrded a kill, even though there was only one kill.

The overall USN claims appear to be over-claiming out by somewhere between 25 and 40% which is pretty consistent with the ETO.

Not from what I have read, Parsifal. Perhaps we've simply read different accounts of it. I wouldn't be surprised if that is the case.

The USA probably has the best data I have found for any air arms of WWII. If we can't agree on THAT data, there is no hope at all for Axis data and we might as well compare claims and be done with it. I've also never seen a vetted list of British victories matched against reported German (rather, Axis) losses. If I can't find those in years of looking, I've no chance at all of finding anything remotely like a vetted list of Axis victories ... only claims.

Again, we might as well compare claims and move on.

I have a fairly complete spreadsheet of claims except for 4 smaller air forces, but only have what is purported to be "official victories" for the USAAF and USN.

So ... and again ... if anyone wants to help to try to settle some WWII aerial scores and knows where we can get the information to DO it, I'd be interested in helping out as part of the team. I can supply most claims, with sources. We can start anywhere and, when we finish, it would be preferable to what we now have, which is endless guessing and argument.

You didn't look hard enough Greg.

2nd Tactical Air Force: Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3

It is more than 30 years since the original and highly-acclaimed history of 2nd Tactical Air Force was first published, and this book has long been out of print. Now at last a completely rewritten and greatly expanded account of this important command's vital contribution to the invasion of Normandy and the defeat of the forces of the Third Reich in Western Europe has been prepared. The 2nd TAF which, equipped with rocket- and bomb-carrying Typhoons and Tempests, Spitfires, Mosquitos, Mustangs and medium bombers, flew ground attack and tank-busting missions in support of Montgomery's 21st Army Group as it advanced through Normandy and north-west Europe in 1944-45. The medium bomber units struck at enemy transport, ammunition dumps and communication targets. The 2nd TAF comprised British, Canadian, Polish, Czech, Norwegian, French, South African, Australian and New Zealand crews. Produced in three volumes, the first deals with the formation and expansion of 2nd TAF from its inception in June 1943 for the next 12 months, and with the initial critical month of the invasion. Volume Two - From Breakout to Bodenplatte - covers the breakout from Normandy, the advance across the Low Countries and the German ripostes in the Ardennes and with Operation 'Bodenplatte' in the winter which followed. In Volume Three - From the Rhine to Victory - are details of the final months of conflict, including the crossings of the Rhine and Elbe rivers. This volume also includes comprehensive appendices and a personnel index relating to the whole series. Each volume is not only profusely illustrated with many little known photographs, and with Chris Thomas' masterly artwork, but also contains daily listings of all claims made against enemy aircraft, and all losses, damage and casualties suffered by 2nd TAF aircraft and aircrews in carrying out their arduous duties.

Chris Thomas and Christopher Shores are recognised as the UK's leading authorities on British and Commonwealth air power during World War 2 and are authors of several leading works on the subject including landmark studies of the Hawker Typhoon and Tempest and works on the air war over North Africa and the Mediterranean. Christopher Shores' 1970 study of 2nd TAF is now a highly collectable and sought after volume and is the only work of its kind.

The USA probably has the best data I have found for any air arms of WWII.

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I'd agree. Though I still think comparing "claimed" kills for the axis vs true losses for our own planes is hardly fair or accurate.

I'd think coming up with a factor of "over claims" and applying it to any claimed kills makes sense.

And In the cases where we have claimed kills and also knowledge of true Japanese losses, looking at the ratio on these would put us on the right track from an accuracy standpoint.

parsifal said:

If we are talking getting the numbers out early , the Grumman is one hell of a success story. if we are talking cutting edge technology and performance to boot. then the hellcat is just another garden variety late war aircraft.....a bit slow, very tough, good at what it was designed for. This was a thread about Hellcat and A6M performance last time I looked.

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Global-scale industrial wars are won by making a whole hell of a lot of "pretty good" airplanes, handing them over to scared, green kids, and throwing them at the enemy in huge numbers. They are not won by comparing performance data line by line and declaring a winner.

If the F6F is truly such a mediocre design, it is well to remember that its kill ratio is still higher than its contemporaries, so Grumman must have done something right.

paladin24 said:

If the F6F is truly such a mediocre design, it is well to remember that its kill ratio is still higher than its contemporaries, so Grumman must have done something right.

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Did they? The F-86 dominated the MiG-15 in Korea but was it purely on design alone? Soviet pilots did much better vs the F-86 than did Chinese and N Korean pilots.

paladin24 said:

Global-scale industrial wars are won by making a whole hell of a lot of "pretty good" airplanes, handing them over to scared, green kids, and throwing them at the enemy in huge numbers. They are not won by comparing performance data line by line and declaring a winner.

If the F6F is truly such a mediocre design, it is well to remember that its kill ratio is still higher than its contemporaries, so Grumman must have done something right.

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I have to agree with this. I heard it summed up once as If my average pilot plane combination, is better than your average pilot plane combination, I win.

Found some interesting information of flight training time in WW2 by the various countries. It's interesting to see the required hours of training actually spelled out. I also think this is very pertinent when we discuss the performance of aircraft - as they are only as good as the pilots flying them.

"The importance of flight hours should be a no-brainer. During World War II, when some nations simply didn't have the fuel available for pilot training, they saw combat (and non-combat) losses increase as training-hours-in-the-air went down. Nazi Germany's warplanes began losing, big time, when they could no longer produce enough fuel to allow their trainee pilots sufficient time in the air. This was a trend that had been ongoing since 1942. Up until that time, new pilots got 240 hours of flying time before entering combat. By comparison, British pilots only received 200 hours and Soviet pilots even less. Germany ruled the skies. But in late 1942, Germany reduced training time to 205 hours. The British now had the fuel, and increased theirs to 340 hours, while the US was providing 270 hours. In the Summer of 1943, the British increased flying time to 335 hours and the US went to 320 hours. At the same time, the Germans reduced it to 170 hours. A year later, the Germans were down to 110 hours, while the British were at 340 hours and the Americans at 360.



The situation was the same in the Pacific, where increasingly effective U.S. submarine attacks sank so many Japanese tankers that there was not enough fuel available to train pilots. In 1941, a Japanese pilot trainee 700 hours of flight time to qualify as a full fledged pilot in the Imperial Navy, while his American counterpart needed only 305 hours. About half of the active duty pilots in the U.S. Navy in late 1941 had between 300 and 600 hours flying experience, a quarter between 600 and 1000 hours, and the balance more than 1000 hours. Most of these flight hours had been acquired in the last few years. But at the beginning of the war nearly 75 percent of the U.S. Navy's pilots had fewer flying hours than did the least qualified of the Japanese Navy's pilots.



On the down side, the Japanese pilot training program was so rigorous that only about 100 men a year were being graduated, in a program that required 4-5 years. In 1940, it was proposed that the pilot training program be made shorter, less rigorous, and more productive, in order to build up the pool of available pilots to about 15,000. This was rejected. Japan believed it could not win a long war, and needed the best pilots possible in order to win a short one.



Naturally, once the war began, the Imperial Navy started losing pilots faster than they could be replaced. For example, the 29 pilots lost at Pearl Harbor represented more than a quarter of the annual crop. The battles of the next year led to the loss of hundreds of superb pilots. This finally forced the Japanese to reform their pilot training programs. Time to train a pilot, and hours in the air spiraled downward. By 1945 men were being certified fit for combat duty with less than four months training. In contrast, the U.S. Navy was actually increasing its flight time, while keeping pilot training programs to about 18 months. In 1943, the U.S. Navy increased flight hours for trainees to 500, while Japan cut its hours to 500. In 1944, the U.S. hours went up to 525, while Japan cut it to 275 hour. In 1945, a shortage of fuel had Japanese trainee pilots flying on 90 hours before entering combat. In the air, this produced lopsided American victories, with ten or more Japanese aircraft being lost for each U.S. one.



This experience was remembered after World War II, and reinforced when, in campaign after campaign, the side with the fewer training hours per pilot, suffered the greatest losses. Now, unable to afford fuel for training, flight simulators are being used more frequently. These devices are becoming cheaper and more realistic, but research (mostly from training exercises, not actual combat) shows that each hour of simulator time is worth only about half or two-thirds of an hour in the air."

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Hi Milosh,

From earlier, I'm looking for overall war victories and losses, not Normandy plus 1 year, but I'm sure it helps ... thanks for the tip on the book. I'll look into it.

Reference post #60 Milosh,

The Soviets claim they're a LOT better than the Chinese, but their claims add up to more Sabres than we deployed to Korea. We know the tail numbers that went over and the tail numbers that came back, and their claims add up to WAY more than the actual losses. Most of the tail numbers that DID come back wound up in National Guard or Reserve units for some period, so their histories after Korea are pretty well known.

About using claims in general, Naval claims are head and shoulders more accurate than claims in big air battles over land, especially when gunners in bombers are thrown into the fray, so one "adjustment factor" for all claims would be inaccurate and unjust, particularly to the Navy.

The real issue is getting actual victories and losses and deciding what to do with them.

There are people in here who are adamant that if a plane got shot out of a battle and went down, the very REASON for escorts, but was salvaged or partially salvaged at some later time ... then the pilot didn't get a victory. In my book that is just incorrect. If a pilot shoots down an enemy, he removed that enemy from endangering his mission, and that is his task, so it very certainly IS a victory for the pilot. If not, then you put the morale of the pilots at the mercy of the enemy's recovery crews, which makes less sense than the US Congress these days.

We'd almost have to agree that forcing an enemy plane to land or crash in almost any manner would be called a victory. You very certainly would not want to tie your definition of a "victory" to the survival of the enemy pilot or you'd have both sides machine gunning guys in parachutes as the normal procedure.

It has to make sense and still give credit where credit is due.

Now the crux of the matter ... where do we propose to get the real victories and losses for the Germans, Soviets, Italians, and Japanese, etc. air forces of WWII? Who is to say the data would be accurate?

We could also calculate an "air combat kill-to-loss ratio" as well as an "overall kill-to-loss ratio," but we'd have to agree on whether or not ground kills have any place in the scoring. I say emphatically "No." It has to be manned, armed, and airborne to be called a victory. If not, it could be a "kill," but not a victory. Same for V-1's. Shooting them down was necessary, but it isn't a victory because it was unmanned.

Naturally there will be those who have their own beliefs other than what is written above.

Another point, We have people who are fanatical about the General Motors FM-2 but, to me, it was and IS just a Wildcat. These is way greater disparity in horsepower from an early Corsair to a late model Corsair, but you don't see anybody trying to find out the kill-to-loss ratio for the F4U-4 alone, separate from all the other Corsairs. Sorry, a Wildcat is a Wildcat. That one seems to strike a note with the FM-2 fans and would have to be dealt with as well.

This is a complex subject ... especially if one wants a consensus agreement.

Where will be find Soviet victories and losses that are anywhere CLOSE to the truth. Stalin didn't even have a passing knowledge of what "the truth" meant. To him, the truth was whatever he said is was. If he needed to raise morale of some unit and called the leader a "Hero of the Soviet Union" and said he had ... maybe ... 40 victories, then that is what the Soviet reports will say ... or else the authors would disappear into Siberia, never to be heard from again.

Maybe that is why the subject is so hard to research ... national pride is at stake and the truth is nothing compared with national pride.

So, does anyone have any confirmed losses from some country for the entire war other than the USA? I have those already. Anybody have confirmed victories for the war for other than the USA? If so, maybe we could swap some information and at least make a start at it.

Global-scale industrial wars are won by making a whole hell of a lot of "pretty good" airplanes, handing them over to scared, green kids, and throwing them at the enemy in huge numbers. They are not won by comparing performance data line by line and declaring a winner.

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The US won, not only because of its far superior production. It applied TQM principals across the board, including its pilot training and logistics systems. In the final boiling down of the reasons for victory, the US won because of

1) superior numbers of aircraft
2) superior numbers and quality of pilots
3) superior logistics and support, allowing such things as unit and pilot rotation
4) Good tactics worked out for a particulalr purpose
5) Good solid designs, not outstanding, but better than their main opponents, that could exploit and utilise all of the above

Hellcat was not a revolutionary design, more evolutionary in which everything was safe, predicatable, pedestrian. But it was a design approach that worked.

By compoarison, the Zeke WAS revolutionary, pioneering and bold. It was without a doubt outclassed by the hellcat, but this was not its reason, or more correctly its main reason, for its nemesis. A point i often make, is, all other things being equal, if the USN was the one with the Zeke, and the Japanese were equipped with the Hellcat, in the same time frames, the US would still win, with virtually no changes to the loss ratios. We would now be singing the praises of how the American Zeke, despite its light construction, was able to fly rings around the Japanese hellcat, and achieve kill loss ratios of 10 or 20 or 30:1. as the winning side, in which our opponents records are systematically and comprehensively destroyed or lost, we could make upo whatever figures we wanted and claim them as gospel truth. More than a little cockeyed in my opinion.

If the F6F is truly such a mediocre design, it is well to remember that its kill ratio is still higher than its contemporaries, so
Grumman must have done something right.

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It did a lot right. The Grumman was a very successful design. it reaped the benefits of a lot of hard work done earlier, and happened to be a design suited to the purpose for which it was created. In my book, that makes it a good design, even a very good design, but not a great design. The Zeke, despite being outclassed by a full generationally different design, was a great design, because it did things that the hellcat never did, and did things never before achieved.

According to real-life history, the F6F was not anywhere CLOSE to a mediocre design, judging from the results it achieved. It did VERY well wherever it went, regardless of who was flying it.

"Naturally, once the war began, the Imperial Navy started losing pilots faster than they could be replaced. For example, the 29 pilots lost at Pearl Harbor represented more than a quarter of the annual crop. The battles of the next year led to the loss of hundreds of superb pilots."

Based on that I think no matter how good a fighter aircraft the IJN were able to operate, they doomed themselves from the start.

Based on that I think no matter how good a fighter aircraft the IJN were able to operate, they doomed themselves from the start.

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Yeah, I found that to be rather shocking/enlightening regarding the 29 pilots lost at Pearl were 1/4 of a years crop of new pilots. I see they changed their training program and shortened it, but if in a very successful surprise attack upon you enemy where you take minimal losses, losing 1/4 of a year of pilots shows how ill prepared you are for the upcoming war. You are not even remotely in the right league with your training program.

A point i often make, is, all other things being equal, if the USN was the one with the Zeke, and the Japanese were equipped with the Hellcat, in the same time frames, the US would still win, with virtually no changes to the loss ratios. We would now be singing the praises of how the American Zeke, despite its light construction, was able to fly rings around the Japanese hellcat, and achieve kill loss ratios of 10 or 20 or 30:1.

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I pretty much agree here. The only issue - a more rugged plane like the Hellcat could have helped slow down the initial bleeding from pilot losses, helping the Japanese hold on a bit longer in regards to pilot equality.

According to real-life history, the F6F was not anywhere CLOSE to a mediocre design, judging from the results it achieved. It did VERY well wherever it went, regardless of who was flying it.

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Let's look at real life history indeed. Two of the Hellcats contemporaries, the Corsair and the P-51 saw a fair amount of use in Korea. The Hellcat did not. Look at the British - the Hellcats were quickly replaced by British aircraft at the end of World War II. Apparently others found the Hellcat somewhat pedestrian as well.

I look at the Hellcat as somewhat equivalent to the US Sherman - Reliable, easy to mass produce, but not a truly striking vehicle as far as performance is concerned. But the A6M5 was indeed a lesser plane, just not by a huge margin. Now, if you compare the Hellcat to Japanese planes that saw combat beginning in about 1944, I think it is outclassed. Look to the KI-84 or the A7 Reppu's performance stats. The KI-84 just kills it numbers wise, and the A7 is a bit similar, by 200 more hp with 2000 pounds less weight, better wing loading, armed as well or better, with the armor and self sealing fuel tanks. I know the Reppu did not really see much activity, but that had much to do with earthquakes and B-29 bombings.

Let's compare the Hellcat against what was really it's "contemporary", we can use the KI-84.

F6F5 vs (KI-84)

Altitude/Speed/Climb
Meters...mph/fpm
S.L......335/3500 (362/4275)
1,000..339/3440 (379/4350)
2,000..348/3380 (389/3890)
3,000..360/3180 (389/3570)
4,000..373/2955 (388/3590)
5,000..379/2605 (414/3610)
6,000..392/2225 (426/3350)
7,000..391/1835 (426/2870)
8,000..383/1435 (416/2280)
9,000..374/1070 (403/1720)
10,000.N.G./ 685 (387/1175)

Maximums: 392 mph.@ 19,500 ft. and 3,500 fpm.(427 mph. @ 20,000 ft. and 4,400 fpm).

It also was armed better IMO, 2 x20mm + 2 x12.7mm, had self sealing fuel tanks, pilot armor. It also as with Japanese fighters in general, would turn better than the F6F5. It did not suffer from the same diving problems the earlier Zekes did, and apparently did not have the high speed rolling problems either. It's only issue I know of was that it has some compressibility issues, not being as stable in a dive as one would want it to be, though I think that was not uncommon among many planes.

What I did really like about the Hellcat was it's versatility. It could carry a 1000 lb bomb, it could carry a torpedo. I'm not sure how well it functioned as a strike aircraft as it was a single seater, but if it performed at least as well as strike aircraft, one could easily make the argument a carrier should carry almost all multi-purpose Hellcats with few strike craft. And it was rather durable as we all know which made it good for strike purposes.

GregP said:

......
So ... and again ... if anyone wants to help to try to settle some WWII aerial scores and knows where we can get the information to DO it, I'd be interested in helping out as part of the team. I can supply most claims, with sources. We can start anywhere and, when we finish, it would be preferable to what we now have, which is endless guessing and argument.

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http://lesliesawyer.com/claims/tonywood.htm

Thanks, Njaco!

And I seriously doubt that if the Hellcats and Zeros were reversed, we'd have an easy time of it. Let's say we have to agree to disagree on that one.

GregP said:

According to real-life history, the F6F was not anywhere CLOSE to a mediocre design, judging from the results it achieved. It did VERY well wherever it went, regardless of who was flying it.

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ive no idea what "real life history" might mean, but i do know that its no argument to support the case one way of the other. The key assumption here, of course is that the Tubbycat was solely responsible for its success. no other factors are considered in the successes lain at its feet. to what extent pilot quality, or numbers, or logistics, or tactics contributed to the overall victory is never discussed or acknowledged. This sort of uncritical analysis merely confirms the one eyed nature of its supported. No amount of logical argument will cause its entrepid supporters to critically assess whether it, the tubbycat, was solely responsible for its runaway success, or whether there may have been other factors at work.

My comments about being a mediocre design have nothing to with its level of success. The aircraft enjoyed huge success during its service. But i dont attribute that success solely to the technology, and when i look at the design and the technology I see an aircraft evolutionary rather than revolutionary. Hence, it is a mediocre design, rather than an exceptional one

FLYBOYJ said:

"Naturally, once the war began, the Imperial Navy started losing pilots faster than they could be replaced. For example, the 29 pilots lost at Pearl Harbor represented more than a quarter of the annual crop. The battles of the next year led to the loss of hundreds of superb pilots."

Based on that I think no matter how good a fighter aircraft the IJN were able to operate, they doomed themselves from the start.

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Absolutely correct. The IJN banked all their eggs on the war being a short war. Before the war they stripped out their Training Schools to provide crews for all their land based air units, and their carriers. Just before the war a decision was made to actually cut back on training programs. the japanese were banking on a short, sharp war followed by a favourable peace. They miscalculated the US response and the inevitable drive to a long war.

After midway, the Japanese began to ramp up their training programs. Carrier Quals remained fairly low however, gradually increasing from around 16 per month in the midle of 1942, to about 35 per month mid '43. You can add a 0 to the back end of that number to compare to US carrier quals, and the numbers of hours per pilot was vastly greater for the USN. an average of about 400 hours in 1943, compared to about 150 hours dropping to about 100 hours in early 1944. moreover, the USN went extraordinary lengths to keep and maintain their pilots, the Japanese were rather frivolous with their aircrew....Ive read average combat hours for V fleet aviators was about 5-600 hours by 1944, compared to about 50 (which is also part of their training times) for the IJN.

One of the reasons I am so down on the claims about the hellcat. They were shooting rookies down, like rats in a barrel

GregP said:

The Soviets claim they're a LOT better than the Chinese, but their claims add up to more Sabres than we deployed to Korea. We know the tail numbers that went over and the tail numbers that came back, and their claims add up to WAY more than the actual losses. Most of the tail numbers that DID come back wound up in National Guard or Reserve units for some period, so their histories after Korea are pretty well known.

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If you go here Greg, Korean War Database you will find that it was the Chinese who over claimed.

For WW2, try here, http://users.accesscomm.ca/magnusfamily/ww2.htm Please notice the reference sources with C. Shores as the co-author of 'Aces High'.

GregP said:

Maybe that is why the subject is so hard to research ... national pride is at stake and the truth is nothing compared with national pride.

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View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FnO3igOkOk

Garyt said:

Found some interesting information of flight training time in WW2 by the various countries. It's interesting to see the required hours of training actually spelled out. I also think this is very pertinent when we discuss the performance of aircraft - as they are only as good as the pilots flying them.

On the down side, the Japanese pilot training program was so rigorous that only about 100 men a year were being graduated, in a program that required 4-5 years. In 1940, it was proposed that the pilot training program be made shorter, less rigorous, and more productive, in order to build up the pool of available pilots to about 15,000. This was rejected. Japan believed it could not win a long war, and needed the best pilots possible in order to win a short one.

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Good points but, for IJN only, total pilots were 241,463 from 1930 to 1945.
Roughly 16,000 a year. Combined with the army's, it would have been almost double.

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