Interesting Essay - Most Strategically Important Aircraft WW2

[NevadaK]

This is what author says:

By mating two V-12 Merlin equivalents belly-to-belly around a common crankshaft, [37] . . .

This is what footnote [37] says:
37
In fact, the Vulture was based on the earlier Rolls-Royce V-12 Kestrel engine, but with the blocks re-
bored to yield the same cylinder diameter as the Merlin; Victor Bingham, Major Piston Aero Engines of World
War II (Shrewsbury, England: Airlife Publishing, Ltd., 1998), 134-35.

( wrong - bore of Merlin was 5.4 in, bore of Vulture was 5 in - pg. 200 of 'British piston aero-engines' by Lumsden for Vulture)

Then, about mid-war Zero vs. Spitfire IX:
41
The empty weight of the A6M2 Zero was less than 4,000 pounds to 6,500 pounds for the Spitfire IX,
the most capable version of the Spitfire in operational service in 1943. Both were powered by engines of
about 1,300 horsepower. See Pierre Closterman, Flames in the Sky (London: Chatto and Windus, 1956), 49-
58, for a clinical evaluation by a top-scoring Allied World War II ace of the reasons for the Zero's
effectiveness.

So not true.
A6M2 Zero have had barely more than 1000 HP (easily verifiable from host of wartime data found on this site or at wwiiaircraftperformance.org), the SPitfire IX in 1943 have had 1580 HP for the 1942-vintage Merlin 61 (1700 HP for 1943-vintage 2-stage Merlins). Such merlins will do twice the power of Zero's engines at 25000 ft, not just because they sported the 2-stage supercharger - another fact that somehow was not mentioned in Spitfire article in the essay.
The most powerful engine on in-service Zeros were still under 1200 HP.

We have a thing where sources are wrong, and author made it worse by expanding on it. I'm not sure that books written in 1950s are useful anymore as sources, nor that Pierre Clostermann is enough well regarded as a source for cold facts about technical matters.

Let's recall the myth of Japanese carriers' flight decks being choke-full with aircraft (50+ years passed until that myth was busted), that was bought hook-line-and-sinker by Western authors without cross-checking that with US sources 1st. Or many other myths - no supercharger on V-1710 (that got also repeated on 'Decisive weapons' P-51 episode 30 years ago), or that XP-39 went 390-400 miles, or that P-39 was a good attack aircraft etc (we have whole threads devoted to myths in aviation), or that Bf 109G was so clunky that it went just 380 mph.
I don't hold any author above scrutiny, and in case this essay scrutiny is necessary.



No, I'm not commenting roman numerals, but the stuff that is factually wrong.

The point I will make is this:

The essay was first written as a lecture in 2000/2001. The lecture was given in 2001 and transcript provided as an essay. This is well before the internet was a valuable resource and the author would have had to rely written sources. For reference, the earliest posts on this forum are 2004/2005. Go back and read through them and you will be struck by the lack of data references that you see in today's posts. wwiiaircraftperformance oldest uploads are 2006, six years after the essay. Access to archives and other primary resources has increased on the order of several magnitudes in the intervening time from when this was authored. As someone who's academic career began in the 1980's I can appreciate how research has changed and the ability to verify certain amounts of data has grown. The author was a faculty member at The Ohio State University, which coincidentally is my alma mater. The University has an enormous library system, but I can tell you from experience it is not all comprehensive and one would be limited by the depth of the collection.

It is easy to be scrutinous, but we should also recognize when we are working from a resource advantage that simply didn't exist 20 years ago.

 

[tomo pauk]

N NevadaK - I certainly appreciate your assessment posted above.
We, or at least I, are becoming spoiled with abundance of data just a few keystrokes away, and rarely remember the times when we were eagerly waiting for a new issue of the favorite magazine, or a visit to the library, and believing what was written as a gospel.

 

[NevadaK]

N NevadaK - I certainly appreciate your assessment posted above.
We, or at least I, are becoming spoiled with abundance of data just a few keystrokes away, and rarely remember the times when we were eagerly waiting for a new issue of the favorite magazine, or a visit to the library, and believing what was written as a gospel.

Well said, Tomo.

 

[GrauGeist]

Actually, the internet was devised as a means of exchange of information and was used as such prior to becoming readily available to the public in the 90's.

Granted, dialing your destination server's phone number and then placing the handset into the Hays 300bps modem was tedious as was searching through files with a Gopher browser on a 286 computer.

But the information was out there and available.

 

[NevadaK]

Actually, the internet was devised as a means of exchange of information and was used as such prior to becoming readily available to the public in the 90's.

Granted, dialing your destination server's phone number and then placing the handset into the Hays 300bps modem was tedious as was searching through files with a Gopher browser on a 286 computer.

But the information was out there and available.

It is true that the internet had been created for information sharing, but we should recognize what the internet was in the late 90's. For starters, less than 5% of the world population accessed the internet and the amount of data available was quite minuscule when compared to today's multiple exaflops of data. For reference something like 75% of the world's population accesses the internet today. More pertinent to this conversation, online access to books and archives was almost non-existent. Large scale scanning of documents and the creation of digital libraries doesn't really begin until the mid to late 2000's especially when the PDF format was released into public domain.

The information may have been out there, but it was not available.

 

[GrauGeist]

It is true that the internet had been created for information sharing, but we should recognize what the internet was in the late 90's. For starters, less than 5% of the world population accessed the internet and the amount of data available was quite minuscule when compared to today's multiple exaflops of data. For reference something like 75% of the world's population accesses the internet today. More pertinent to this conversation, online access to books and archives was almost non-existent. Large scale scanning of documents and the creation of digital libraries doesn't really begin until the mid to late 2000's especially when the PDF format was released into public domain.

The information may have been out there, but it was not available.

Before the internet, there was ARPAnet and you could access any .EDU archive and publication that had been published. You also access archives via peer to peer.

A great deal of the information was out there in the early days and that along with publications and visits to institutions provided good research material.
Granted, more information has become available online since the late 80's/ early 90's but conversely, the internet has also made it easy for propagation of revisionism and misinformation.

And I'm familiar with how the "web" has grown - I still have an internet "yellow pages" from 1995, which was the size of an old city phone directory, but contained every web address on earth.

 

[Conslaw]

I think a lot of our members will take issue with this paragraph about the B-24. In my view he takes a kernel of truth and overstates its significance.

A direct product of the B-17's ability to penetrate German airspace in massed formations, hit its targets with useful accuracy, and do so without prohibitive losses forced the Luftwaffe to meet that fatal challenge. Ultimately the provision of long range fighter escort enabled strategic bombers to accomplish their designed mission--high altitude daylight precision bombing. The only available substitute, the B-24, was a useful supplement to the B-17, but had to be employed with circumspection in a high threat environment. With a service ceiling some 5,000 feet lower than that of the B-17,13 the B-24 was considerably more exposed to anti-aircraft artillery, a liability multiplied by the B-24's greater vulnerability to battle damage.14 Moreover, the B-24 was significantly more difficult to fly. The problem was particularly acute in the earlier versions and made the assembly of large formations above the undercast after individual instrument takeoffs difficult and at times impossible. As a concrete example, the B-24 equipped 2nd Bombardment Division tasked to participate in the 14 October 1943 Schweinfurt raid, managed to assemble only 21 of 58 bombers launched, too small a formation to be tactically viable, and the force diverted to a diversionary raid.15 In short, the B-17 could have done the job alone. The B-24 could not have.

My biggest complaint with the Harmon article is the omission of the F6F Hellcat. No fighter in the war was more effective at achieving air supremacy in its operational area than the F6F. The author says the F6F and F4U would have been outclassed by the bF-109 and FW-190 at high altitude and fight "little better than par" at lower altitudes. (Little better than par is still better.) The thing is, these Navy planes weren't built to fight German fighters and weren't optimized to fight at high altitude, as bombers flying at high altitude probably couldn't hit an aircraft carrier even if they flew right over it. These planes were optimized to fight Japanese planes and operate off of aircraft carriers. Both did so excellently, and the F6F was practically perfectly suited to its role.

If it had been necessary, I think the F4U in particular could have been adapted (with significant modifications) successfully to serve as a bomber escort over Europe, maybe not quite as well as the P-47, but well enough to get the job done. Conversely, no other aircraft could have been adapted to serve nearly as well as a carrier fighter as either the F6F or F4U.

 

[PAT303]

Let's recall the myth of Japanese carriers' flight decks being choke-full with aircraft (50+ years passed until that myth was busted), that was bought hook-line-and-sinker by Western authors without cross-checking that with US sources 1st.

There is a clear photo taken during the battle of one of the carriers that proved beyond doubt this myth is just that, a myth.

 

[GrauGeist]

Now If they had said the Japanese carrier's hangar decks were crammed full of aircraft, swapped bombs laying aside and fuel hoses everywhere, then they would have been spot-on.

One of the carriers (don't recall which) did have A6Ms on the flight deck and in the process of launching, but a far cry from being "crammed full".

 

[Ovod]

The empty weight of the A6M2 Zero was less than 4,000 pounds to 6,500 pounds for the Spitfire IX,
the most capable version of the Spitfire in operational service in 1943. Both were powered by engines of
about 1,300 horsepower. See Pierre Closterman, Flames in the Sky (London: Chatto and Windus, 1956), 49-
58, for a clinical evaluation by a top-scoring Allied World War II ace of the reasons for the Zero's
effectiveness.

Hi, newly registered here...

Surely 6,500 pounds is not the empty weight for a IX - that sounds more the max. loaded weight? Empty weight for Spitfire IX should be around 5,000 pounds?

 

[tomo pauk]

Hi, newly registered here...

Surely 6,500 pounds is not the empty weight for a IX - that sounds more the max. loaded weight? Empty weight for Spitfire IX should be around 5,000 pounds?

I've quoted the footnote from the essay we're discussing here. IOW - not my numbers.
But at any rate, the 'tare weight' (?; = no guns, radios, armor?) for the Mk.IX seem to be ~5750 lbs; 'empty weight (= no fuel, ammo, pilot) around 6500 lbs?
data sheet

 

[Ovod]

I've quoted the footnote from the essay we're discussing here. IOW - not my numbers.
But at any rate, the 'tare weight' (?; = no guns, radios, armor?) for the Mk.IX seem to be ~5750 lbs; 'empty weight (= no fuel, ammo, pilot) around 6500 lbs?
data sheet

Of course - you made it clear that you were quoting the essay - I didn't for one moment believe these were your figures. Maybe the 4,000 pounds quoted for the Zero is also some sort of tare weight as weight? Although tare weight for a Zero wouldn't include the weight of the armour been subtracted - it never carried any in the first place?

Just found this online:

Spitfire Mk IX Weights and Loading

6,500 Ib does seem to be the empty weight.

 

[macguba]

My biggest complaint with the Harmon article is the omission of the F6F Hellcat.

Really? The Hellcat was a good fighter but its strategic impact was nil. Tactically, sure, it really helped. But no Hellcat and what happens? Nothing. The Wildcat gets an extra round of improvements and the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot becomes the Great Marianas Solid But Unremarkable Victory.

To suggest that the Hellcat was strategically significant (and therefore should have been included in the article) is to suggest that, had the US had to make do with [improved] Wildcats, Japan might well have won.

 

[Conslaw]

Really? The Hellcat was a good fighter but its strategic impact was nil. Tactically, sure, it really helped. But no Hellcat and what happens? Nothing. The Wildcat gets an extra round of improvements and the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot becomes the Great Marianas Solid But Unremarkable Victory.

To suggest that the Hellcat was strategically significant (and therefore should have been included in the article) is to suggest that, had the US had to make do with [improved] Wildcats, Japan might well have won.

Well, if you apply this standard, maybe the only strategic aircraft in the whole war was the B-29. Let's take the war in Europe. If you threw enough P-38s at the problem, you could have replaced the P-47 and the P-51. The P-38 wouldn't have done the escort or ground attack job as efficiently, but eventually it would have gotten done. Heck, you could even take an F4U, put 100-120 gallons of extra gas in the wings, take off the tail hook revise the supercharger gearing, and if necessary, remove two machine guns, and it could have escorted bombers into Germany.

 

[GregP]

I thought it was interesting that he chose the Bf 109 and Ju 87 first seeing as how the Axis lost the war. Strategically, the Bf 109 and Ju 87 WERE very important to Germany, but the victors had aircraft that were every bit as important to their respective countries, and these aircraft carried the day in the end.

I think the order might be:
For the U.K. ir would be: 1) Lancaster, 2) Hurricane, 3)Spitfire
For the U.S.A. it would be: 1) B-17, 2) B-24, 3) P-51, 4) F6F
For the USSR it would be: 1) Yak-3, 2) La-5, 3) IL-2, 4) Il-4
For Germany it would be: 1) Bf 109, 2) Ju 87, 3) Ju 88
For Japan it would be: 1) A6M, 2) Ki-43, 3) G4M

But I am not the "authority" for picking the most strategic airplane for a country, much less for the total war. Surely, picking the MOST strategic is a task.

If not for the Russians, the Allies would have likely lost in Europe. So, it's probably safe to say that whatever aircraft THEY would pick as their top 3 were the most strategic to the Allies. After that, it would likely be the aircraft of the U.K., followed by the U.S.A. .

For the Axis, it would likely be Germany followed by Japan. Saying that, we might remember that Japan was still fighting after Germany had surrendered. So, maybe Japan should be in front of Germany.

I don't think I can answer the question unless I pick a side, Allied or Axis first. The Ju 87 started WWII when they attacked Poland in 1939. The Bf 109 took over as the main aircraft of local air superiority during Blitzkreig. The Hurricane and Spitfire stopped the German invasion of Great Britain. The Russians lost many thousands of troops and airplanes as the Germans advanced through Russian, but firmed up and counterattacked with modern airplanes and well-trained pilots to beat the Germans back combined with the Russian Winter onslaught. The U.S.A. pushed for and advanced daylight bombing that eventually stopped the German war machine's production.

Which one is the MOST important is tough to call and likely to get a lot of pushback from all sides.

 

[GrauGeist]

I'd say that it was the F4F and SBD who bore the brunt of the might of Japan (who had also been at war before Germany) and held the line until newer types became available.

 

[Conslaw]

I'd say that it was the F4F and SBD who bore the brunt of the might of Japan (who had also been at war before Germany) and held the line until newer types became available.

it's hard to argue that the F4F and SBD weren't crucial to arresting the Japanese advance in 1942. It is also true that the A6M and D3A were crucial to enabling the Japanese advance in the first place. Looking at it with the benefit of hindsight, maybe the a Japanese shouldn't have tried to hold Guadslcanal at all. I don't think there is anything Japan could have done to change the ultimate outcome. Guadalcanal was too far from Rabaul for Japan to give its best fight.

 

[GrauGeist]

The idea behind Japan holding the Island chains in the South Pacific was to both restrict supply to Australia while creating a buffer for the South East Asian territories.

While that might have seemed like a great idea on paper, it wasn't going to work unless the U.S. was out of the equation.

 

[DarrenW]

A superior design, the Hellcat added significantly to Japanese losses and lessened American casualties, but entered service only after the Japanese naval air arm had been effectively destroyed.

I disagree that the Japanese Naval Air Service had effectively been destroyed by the time the Hellcat entered service. There were still plenty action to be had between allied air units and the IJNAS. And while I can fully appreciate the argument that the Japanese Navy was no longer the threat that it was during the first year of the war, this doesn't equate to the destruction of it's air arm overall. For sure, Japanese carrier operations were curtailed after Midway but many units were operating from land bases when not at sea and they were still a serious threat to allied forces during the island hoping campaigns which followed.

Remember that it took two full years after the introduction of the F6F to secure a Japanese surrender. During this time the allies had many tough contests in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands, the Marianas, the Philippines, Iwo, Okinawa, and the home islands. The way the author implies that it was basically a clean-up operation from the summer of 1943 onward with little showing from the IJNAS is both misleading and incorrect.

 

[macguba]

I can't speak to the contribution of the IJNAS after summer 1943, but the Pacific war from then on was most certainly a clean-up operation in strategic terms. To be sure, there were many very tough fights. But the decisive moment had past: Japan had lost.

If you want to claim the contrary, you must explain what Japan could and should have done in 1943/4 to obtain victory. Given the US industrial advantage, that means you must have a coherent and reasonable suggestion as to how Japan could have captured and held Hawaii. If Japan can't do this, it has lost. (US industrial strength + Pearl Harbor = Japanese defeat.) And if Japan has already lost, it doesn't matter what equipment the Allies field as long as it is vaguely appropriate. Therefore any particular equipment introduced after this date cannot be strategically significant.