Maneuverability vs Speed

MIflyer · Jun 14, 2023

SaparotRob said:
Maybe a shotgun instead?

People who are hysterical over these mass shootings and want to ban all AR-15's never ever seem to realize it would have been far worse if the madman instead had a shotgun, pump action, semiauto, whatever. Shotguns would be good against small drones if you could get close enough. On the other hand, a guy told me they were flying an RC airplane one day, one that had a PVC pipe fuselage and found it to be very durable - you could not pull the wings off it. So one guy opened up with a shotgun and the RC airplane just jerked and sputtered a bit but still kept flying.

Actually I think lasers are perfect for shooting down drones. Having live rounds or even missiles zipping around your own area sounds very unwise. But a laser that could pick a drone out of the sky would be a good approach.

The Fulmar was assumed to only be up against naval aircraft and except for the Zero - or the F4F - there was not much in the way of eye-watering performance in that area. Fulmar versus Val, Kate, or Stuka was not much of a contest. Now, if it had to take on an SBD things might be different.

But compared to the F2A the F4F was not only a tougher aircraft, it was a genuine high altitude fighter, the first to see operational use with a two stage supercharger, using much the same engine as the Republic XP-41. The USN needed a high altitude interceptor to be able to credibly state it could intercept turbocharged B-17's and thus win The Battle of The Potomac.

GregP · Jun 14, 2023

SplitRz said:
I've double checked that - as far as I can see, it seems the 112 number is *just* those claimed against the Japanese. The number including Italian and German must be considerably more!

You mean things we find in the internet might not be true? Are you serious?

Wild_Bill_Kelso · Jun 14, 2023

GregP said:
The Fulmar was credited with 112 enemy aircraft against the loss of 40 Fulmars, which made the type the leading fighter type in terms of aircraft shot down to be operated by the Fleet Air Arm during the war. It might be a bit presumptuous saying the Fulmar couldn't cope with an early-war Japanese fighter.

Maybe, but maybe not. Would depend on tactics, I think. It had a LOT of guns and turned quite well.

Fulmar could not cope with A6M, as was made quite clear at Ceylon. In addition to being obvious comparing the performance statistics.

Fulmar's famous 112 (claims) - 40 record is largely because it was kept away from land based fighters on all but a few rare occasions, when it suffered badly. It had trouble even intercepting many Axis bombers in the Med. It was fine for an armed recon aircraft but inadequate as a fighter, that's why the FAA developed the Sea-Hurricane and Seafire, and got as many Martlets as they could get their hands on.

Wild_Bill_Kelso · Jun 14, 2023

SplitRz said:
You've got that the wrong way round. It was designed as a 'Carrier-based reconnaissance/fighter aircraft' to specification 0.9/38, but actually turned out in practice (and largely for the want of anything better) to be heavily employed as a carrier based fighter and VERY much in the front line. (Reconnaissance as a spec was built into many FAA aircraft as part of the role and operational doctrine - even the Swordfish was designated as the 'TSR' - standing for Torpedo Strike Reconnaissance).

Whether it could cope with an A6M (it clearly couldn't and didn't, so that's not in dispute!) is irrelevant to the point that it met the criteria of what Spindash felt qualified as a modern carrier based fighter. That said, its claimed it achieved 112 victories over Japanese aircraft, which I suspect might be a better result than the Buffalo managed.

Taken from 'pedia - Fairey Fulmar - Wikipedia

The Fulmar was one of several British aircraft to participate in the North African Campaign. During September 1940, the Fulmar first saw action while flying convoy protection patrols to and from the island of Malta. When reinforcements were being dispatched to Malta, Fulmars guided flights of carrier-launched Hurricane and Spitfire fighters.The relatively sturdy Fulmar was able to achieve dozens of victories against its Italian and German adversaries. The first recorded kill by a Fulmar was scored on 2 September 1940.[18] By October of that year, Fulmar pilots had claimed the shooting down of ten Italian bombers.[10] The type proved particularly effective against Italian reconnaissance aircraft.[21] Later on, thirteen Fulmars onboard the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable also participated in the Battle of Cape Matapan, strafing the battleship Vittorio Veneto whilst trying to draw fire away from the attacking Fairey Swordfish and Fairey Albacore torpedo bombers.[3][22]

The Fulmar was also deployed in other theatres, including the Eastern Front. The type was a common constituent of the numerous Arctic convoys of World War II. According to pilots, its flight characteristics were considered to be pleasant, while its widely spaced undercarriage provided good deck handling and it had excellent fuel capacity and range. Most Fleet Air Arm fighter aces scored at least some of their victories while flying Fulmars; the first pilot to score five kills while flying the type was Sub-Lieutenant Jackie Sewell.[33] Sub-Lieutenant Stanley Orr finished the war with twelve confirmed air victories, the third-highest scoring pilot in the FAA.

The ol' Fulmar is something of a forgotten and underappreciated/maligned aircraft. This video from is a good and pretty in depth look at the aircraft, its development, history and pretty notable achievements: Fulmar - Rex's Hangar which I'd recommend.

I'm very familiar with the Fulmar's record both in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, and you can consider me one of the detractors. Actually, I kind of like the plane (I have a model of one right behind me) but it did not make the cut as a fighter, mainly due to the design specifications.

It was hopelessly vulnerable to Bf 109, MC 202 and of course, the A6M, and struggled to even intercept aircraft like the Ju 88 and SM.79 on many occasions. They did shoot down very slow recon planes, and occasionally got some victories over the faster bomber types when they caught them in the right relative situations.

For a two seat aircraft, it was a good fighter! I'll give you that! But as a fighter, it paled in comparison to the Beaufighter for example, or the Mosquito. And all modern single crew types.

My understanding was that the 112 claims was for all victories, most of which would mainly be Italian aircraft. I am very skeptical that they even claimed 20 Japanese aircraft with Fulmars, they only actually shot down maybe 3 or 4 Japanese planes at Ceylon that I'm aware of. At Ceylon the British lost 16 x Hurricanes, 4 x Fulmars and 6 x Swordfish (26 aircraft total) - the Japanese lost 7 aircraft, most probably to Hurricanes. What other engagements were Fulmar units involved in against the Japanese? I know there were some in Theater but I've never seen any details. Would love to see some!

Shortround6 · Jun 14, 2023

The F2A is a bit overblown as a carrier fighter.
Basically it was a failure, not against other aircraft, but because it couldn't land on carrier deck and survive long enough to last more than few weeks in the newer (combat capable) versions.
It was designed to be carrier fighter, it just couldn't do the job.
It was also rare, very rare. Only 163 were sold to the US Navy (who also bought planes for the US Marines, or gave them cast-offs)
Basically
XF2A-1...........................1
F2A-1...........................11*
XF2A-2...........................1**
F2A-2...........................43
F2A-3........................108

* they ordered 54, let the rest be sold to Finland.
** they rebuilt the XF2A-1 Prototype so it only counts as 1 airframe.
VF-3 operated the F2A-1s from the Saratoga. Started with 9 planes and used Grumman F3F-1 biplanes to fill out the squadron in Dec 1939.
VF-2 gets their first F2A-1s in Oct 1940
VF-3 reaches 15 aircraft using a mixture of F2A-2s and F2A-1s.
VF-2 goes aboard the Lexington in March of 1941 with 18 aircraft and 3 spares. The order for the 108 F2A-3 had been placed in Jan 1941 because Grumman deliveries were slow.
May of 1941 sees 9 of the old F2A-1s going back to the factory to be rebuilt as F2A-2s.
VF-2 gets off the Lexington and trades their F2A-2s for F2A-3 in Sept 1941. The F2A-2s go to training squadrons. Operational Training Units.
VF-2 in Sept 1941 has 18 F2A-3s and is the only US Navy Squadron to use F2A-3 on a carrier. ?

Dec 31st 1941.
1 F2A-1 & 1 XF2A-2 at Norfolk.
49 F2A-2s (3 at San Diego, 7 at Miami, others scattered)
107 F2A-3s (5 at San Diego, 37 at New York, 19 with VF-2 on the Lexington, 14 with VMF-221 at Midway, 7 at Pearl Harbor, 7 with the jeep carrier Long Island, 8 at Miami, 3 at Cape May NJ, the rest scattered.

Jan 27th 1942, VF-2s aircraft go back to Ewa, Hawaii and are transferred to VMF-211. VF-2 gets F4F-3As and that ends the Buffalo's career as a US Navy carrier based aircraft.
Some are relocated by carriers to Island bases but that is about it.
Regardless of what the Buffalo did or didn't do on land no carrier based Buffalo ever shot down an enemy plane.

SplitRz · Jun 14, 2023

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
I'm very familiar with the Fulmar's record both in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, and you can consider me one of the detractors. Actually, I kind of like the plane (I have a model of one right behind me) but it did not make the cut as a fighter, mainly due to the design specifications.

It was hopelessly vulnerable to Bf 109, MC 202 and of course, the A6M, and struggled to even intercept aircraft like the Ju 88 and SM.79 on many occasions. They did shoot down very slow recon planes, and occasionally got some victories over the faster bomber types when they caught them in the right relative situations.

For a two seat aircraft, it was a good fighter! I'll give you that! But as a fighter, it paled in comparison to the Beaufighter for example, or the Mosquito. And all modern single crew types.

My understanding was that the 112 claims was for all victories, most of which would mainly be Italian aircraft. I am very skeptical that they even claimed 20 Japanese aircraft with Fulmars, they only actually shot down maybe 3 or 4 Japanese planes at Ceylon that I'm aware of. At Ceylon the British lost 16 x Hurricanes, 4 x Fulmars and 6 x Swordfish (26 aircraft total) - the Japanese lost 7 aircraft, most probably to Hurricanes. What other engagements were Fulmar units involved in against the Japanese? I know there were some in Theater but I've never seen any details. Would love to see some!

If I get some spare time, I shall see what I can unearth. the 112 claims figure seems to vacillate according to source between being a total number for all theatres and for Asia - difficult to get clarity there. Have you watched the Rex's Hangar video link I posted?

Brace yourself though.

The Fulmar was Britain's highest scoring naval fighter of WW2 More kills than the Sea Hurricane, Martlet, Seafire, Corsair or Hellcat. Thats a claim made here which should be verifiable? -

Britain's top-scoring naval fighter of World War II was not what you think it was

GregP · Jun 14, 2023

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
Fulmar could not cope with A6M, as was made quite clear at Ceylon. In addition to being obvious comparing the performance statistics.

Fulmar's famous 112 (claims) - 40 record is largely because it was kept away from land based fighters on all but a few rare occasions, when it suffered badly. It had trouble even intercepting many Axis bombers in the Med. It was fine for an armed recon aircraft but inadequate as a fighter, that's why the FAA developed the Sea-Hurricane and Seafire, and got as many Martlets as they could get their hands on.

Your opinion.

Decently well-formed I admitf, but things don't always come out like people think they will. It's why we play sports ... the see how it really comes out. Upsets are not exactly rare.

Wild_Bill_Kelso · Jun 14, 2023

SplitRz said:
If I get some spare time, I shall see what I can unearth. the 112 claims figure seems to vacillate according to source between being a total number for all theatres and for Asia - difficult to get clarity there. Have you watched the Rex's Hangar video link I posted?

Brace yourself though.

The Fulmar was Britain's highest scoring naval fighter of WW2 More kills than the Sea Hurricane, Martlet, Seafire, Corsair or Hellcat. Thats a claim made here which should be verifiable? -

Britain's top-scoring naval fighter of World War II was not what you think it was

112 victory claims... is not a lot. I'm not shook lol.

For comparison: in US service, F6F pilots made 5,168 claims during the war.
F4F and FM2 pilots made 1,434 claims (1012 and 422 respectively)
F4U pilots made 2,140 claims.
Even the SBD made 138 claims - a number often challenged around here but I doubt that is more exaggerated than the 112 victories for the Fulmar.
Even the TBM / TBF made 98 claims.

However, in US service the F2A only made 10 claims, so you could indeed argue that the Fulmar was a better naval fighter than the Buffalo. It's just that that isn't saying much.

I think the FAA numbers has a lot to do with how the FAA was used, i.e. strategy. The European Axis powers did not have aircraft carriers and the Royal Navy was pretty well chased out of the Pacific in the opening weeks of the Pacific war and didn't return until near the end... when the Japanese Navy and Army air forces were basically already wiped out. The only air combat the FAA typically saw was mainly the defense of convoys, which is something we have gotten very deep into in detail in this forum so I'm pretty familiar with the details.

I'm still sticking with - Fulmar was a decent armed scout (I say decent, because it's range wasn't really that great). It was not qualified to be a fighter by 1942.

Wild_Bill_Kelso · Jun 14, 2023

GregP said:
Your opinion.

Decently well-formed I admitf, but things don't always come out like people think they will. It's why we play sports ... the see how it really comes out. Upsets are not exactly rare.

No it's not my opinion - Fulmars did clash with A6Ms and came out chewed up.

Wild_Bill_Kelso · Jun 14, 2023

Shortround6 said:
The F2A is a bit overblown as a carrier fighter.
Basically it was a failure, not against other aircraft, but because it couldn't land on carrier deck and survive long enough to last more than few weeks in the newer (combat capable) versions.
It was designed to be carrier fighter, it just couldn't do the job.
It was also rare, very rare. Only 163 were sold to the US Navy (who also bought planes for the US Marines, or gave them cast-offs)
Basically
XF2A-1...........................1
F2A-1...........................11*
XF2A-2...........................1**
F2A-2...........................43
F2A-3........................108

* they ordered 54, let the rest be sold to Finland.
** they rebuilt the XF2A-1 Prototype so it only counts as 1 airframe.
VF-3 operated the F2A-1s from the Saratoga. Started with 9 planes and used Grumman F3F-1 biplanes to fill out the squadron in Dec 1939.
VF-2 gets their first F2A-1s in Oct 1940
VF-3 reaches 15 aircraft using a mixture of F2A-2s and F2A-1s.
VF-2 goes aboard the Lexington in March of 1941 with 18 aircraft and 3 spares. The order for the 108 F2A-3 had been placed in Jan 1941 because Grumman deliveries were slow.
May of 1941 sees 9 of the old F2A-1s going back to the factory to be rebuilt as F2A-2s.
VF-2 gets off the Lexington and trades their F2A-2s for F2A-3 in Sept 1941. The F2A-2s go to training squadrons. Operational Training Units.
VF-2 in Sept 1941 has 18 F2A-3s and is the only US Navy Squadron to use F2A-3 on a carrier. ?

Dec 31st 1941.
1 F2A-1 & 1 XF2A-2 at Norfolk.
49 F2A-2s (3 at San Diego, 7 at Miami, others scattered)
107 F2A-3s (5 at San Diego, 37 at New York, 19 with VF-2 on the Lexington, 14 with VMF-221 at Midway, 7 at Pearl Harbor, 7 with the jeep carrier Long Island, 8 at Miami, 3 at Cape May NJ, the rest scattered.

Jan 27th 1942, VF-2s aircraft go back to Ewa, Hawaii and are transferred to VMF-211. VF-2 gets F4F-3As and that ends the Buffalo's career as a US Navy carrier based aircraft.
Some are relocated by carriers to Island bases but that is about it.
Regardless of what the Buffalo did or didn't do on land no carrier based Buffalo ever shot down an enemy plane.

I never said Buffalo was a good naval fighter. British seemed to do ok with it in Malaya considering the odds they were up against. But only the Finns seem to have really done well with it. And yes, I know that the Finns didn't have aircraft carriers.

GregP · Jun 14, 2023

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
No it's not my opinion - Fulmars did clash with A6Ms and came out chewed up.

Still your opinion since you have no idea what the merge situation was. You're guessing. Sparklingly clear combat writeups wre a rare thing indeed.

Wild_Bill_Kelso · Jun 14, 2023

Well, it's a small sample, I'll give you that. I'm not convinced Fulmar could handle an A6M though, on average. If it comes up in Vegas I'll give you 10-1 on the Zero.

GrauGeist · Jun 15, 2023

To try and even out the Fulmar's performance between the PTO and ETO, how would a Fulmar hold up against an Fw190A?

That would be the European equivellant of an A6M.

Wild_Bill_Kelso · Jun 15, 2023

GrauGeist said:
To try and even out the Fulmar's performance between the PTO and ETO, how would a Fulmar hold up against an Fw190A?

That would be the European equivellant of an A6M.

It would be interesting indeed to see how a Fw 190, or a Bf 109 would fare in the Pacific. Nice performers, but unlike say the Corsair or the P-38, they had very short range.

If you had Fw 190s on various islands in the Solomons, you wouldn't be able to do much more than defend the airfield. Your bombers would have to fend for themselves if they wanted to try to sink ships or strike the enemy bases.

I'm not sure how well they coped with the extreme tropical conditions or the long supply chains. They had some trouble in Tunisia but Tunisia is paradise compared to New Guinea.

GregP · Jun 15, 2023

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
Well, it's a small sample, I'll give you that. I'm not convinced Fulmar could handle an A6M though, on average. If it comes up in Vegas I'll give you 10-1 on the Zero.

I'm not convinced it could, either.

But, if a Fulmar pilot came up against a Zero, I'd hate for him to just give up, especially with 8 MG in the wings.

Cheers, Bill.

Wild_Bill_Kelso · Jun 15, 2023

GregP said:
I'm not convinced it could, either.

But, if a Fulmar pilot came up against a Zero, I'd hate for him to just give up, especially with 8 MG in the wings.

Cheers, Bill.

For sure. And the aircraft seemed to handle pretty well. The biggest issue was just speed. Eventually they made a kind of souped up variation with a much bigger engine which became the Firefly, and that was a pretty good aircraft by all accounts.

Shortround6 · Jun 15, 2023

Trouble with some of these accounts you get extra adjectives like this.

"he provided an account of the attack by his division of six elderly F2A-3 Buffalos and one relatively modern F4F-3 Wildcat:"

The last F4F-3 Wildcat rolled off the line in Dec 1941. 107 of them were built in 1941. 58 were built in 1940.
The first F2A-3 was built in July 1941. 11 delivered in July?
August = 26
Sept = 39
Oct = 23
Nov = 9
Dec = 9
Jan 42 =1

Odds are that the F2A-3s were 'newer' than the F4F-3s at least in time since leaving the factory. Perhaps the Marines at Midway did get the last F4F-3s that left the factory. They would have been only a few months newer than the F2A-3s. Or Perhaps the Marines got older F4F-3s as they were replaced by newer F4F-4s?

The F2A-3s were ordered after the F4F-3 had been in production for for well over 6 months. The F2A-3 aren't built until about 6 months after the order was placed ( Brewster was building the export Buffaloes) .

The Buffaloes may have looked older, less modern but it doesn't appear they were actually older aircraft.

GregP · Jun 15, 2023

I like the Firefly, but was surprised to learn how slow it is. Early Fireflys were just barely over 300 mph, actually 315 mph.

Later, they could remove underwing racks and shackles and heard it up to over 350 mph, but they diD so very rarely. Most of the service Fireflys were about as slow as the early ones just from crap hanging on them. I was also surprised to hear how loud they are. There is a small "shelf" sticking out from the cowling over the top of the exhaust stack to shield the pilot from exhaust fire, and it directs the sound horizontally out from the aircraft. It is LOUD!

You can see that shelf here, just above the exhaust stacks.

Shortround6 · Jun 15, 2023

Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
The biggest issue was just speed.

The Fulmar II was about 10-12mph slower than Ki-43 at about 6-7000ft.
They rarely (if ever?) ran into each other but a lot speed comparisons that don't take into account altitude can be misleading.
Now the Fulmar, even the MK II, needs help from a crane in order to climb but it's speed at 5-7,000ft isn't as bad as it looks.
Actually it is bad, it's just that nobody looks at the speed at 5-7,000ft of what they are comparing it against.
For instance.
C.R. 42.....................244mph at 6,560ft.

Many of the fighters and bombers in 1940-41 were 20mph or more slower at 5-7,000ft than they were at best altitude (12-16,000ft).

Wild_Bill_Kelso · Jun 15, 2023

GregP said:
I like the Firefly, but was surprised to learn how slow it is. Early Fireflys were just barely over 300 mph, actually 315 mph.

Later, they could remove underwing racks and shackles and heard it up to over 350 mph, but they diD so very rarely. Most of the service Fireflys were about as slow as the early ones just from crap hanging on them. I was also surprised to hear how loud they are. There is a small "shelf" sticking out from the cowling over the top of the exhaust stack to shield the pilot from exhaust fire, and it directs the sound horizontally out from the aircraft. It is LOUD!

You can see that shelf here, just above the exhaust stacks.

View attachment 725609

I would like to see verification of the speed. For a long time I saw 316 mph for the Firefly, but then later I saw top speed numbers in the 380s. That is what Wikipedia shows right now (not that it's worth very much). Can somebody confirm?

316 mph Firefly looks pretty bad, 367-386 mph is certainly viable in a naval context.

The other kind of disappointing thing about the firefly is that for a large plane the range isn't that great. Especially for the naval context. But they look kind of cool and they were still using them into the Korean War so they must have had some merits, I think mainly as a strike aircraft.

Maneuverability vs Speed

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