March until October of 1940: fighters' ranking

[Shortround6]

I don't think Green was as bad as Caiden, as a matter of fact I don't know if anyone was as bad as Caiden for tall tales and stretching the truth!

I think Green was trying to do a good job. Or at least trying not do a bad one.
I would say that well over 90% of his stuff is correct and he rarely included the really weird tales.
A few tales in a 5-8 page chapter of a few sentences each was usually the speed.

The bigger flubs seem to be the 109D and DB 600 thing and the Bf 109K with MG 151 cannon in the cowl (and MK 103 cannon?) that really gets the 109K fanboys wound up

 

[nuuumannn]

Was he a "Caiden" type?

No, definitely not. He brought together technical information and historical knowledge as it was at the time without embellishment. He laid the foundations of what we have come to know about these aircraft. These books were highly regarded as benchmarks at the time. Obviously they don't hold up today and have been responsible for perpetuating myths, but by accident owing to lack of more informative research that wasn't possible at the time they were written.

 

[Shortround6]

He did often repeat the enemy "nickname" stuff but you can find the "fork tailed devil" stuff in a USAAC training manual for the P-38 in 1944.

There wasn't much else out there that gave decent performance data, changes from one model/version to another, sometimes production numbers of different versions (not to say that modern research may not tweak the numbers a little bit.)
A lot of the US modifications after they left the factory tended to get over looked.

No longer a gold standard but one may find a good overview of many aircraft.
Even in the late 50s he was including Italian, Japanese and Russian aircraft in with the American, British and German stuff.

 

[nuuumannn]

Even in the late 50s he was including Italian, Japanese and Russian aircraft in with the American, British and German stuff.

That's right, no one else was doing that. He laid the foundation for our understanding of these aircraft; even if the texts carried fallacies and mistakes, his assertions generally rang true. This is the first line from his entry on the P-51 in his 1957 work Famous Fighters of the Second World War:

"Unquestionably the finest of all American wartime fighters and ranking in merit with the best of any other combatant, the North American P-51 Mustang was an inspired design evolved almost by accident."

Then there is the data that he put on print that had never been seen before; from the same volume under the P-47:

"The Thunderbolt dropped 132,000 tons of bombs, expended over 135 million rounds of ammunition, 60,000 rockets and several thousand gallons of napalm. The official figures also credit the Thunderbolt with the destruction of 4.6 enemy aircraft for each Thunderbolt lost in aerial combat. This effort required 1,934,000 flying hours and 204,504,000 gallons of fuel."

Then, of course, as stated above, the section on the P-38's opening sentence:

"Der Gabelschwanz Teufel" - The Fork-tailed Devil - was a sobriquet not lightly applied by the Luftwaffe to the Lockheed P-38 Lightning which gave considerable cause to be known to Japanese and German alike."

 

[PAT303]

And -- those Zeros would certainly have the range title

At the expense of plane and pilot survivability not too mention the range given for the A6M was done at very slow speeds over empty ocean or jungles, no A6M is going to escort anything over Europe at 10,000ft and 200mph.

 

[PAT303]

I think the Spitfire PR Mk.XI might have been the longest range version, but was also a recce aircraft. 84 gallons in the main tanks, 132 gallons in the wing tanks, and the option for a 170 gallon slipper tank.

Spitfires could have had 96G main tank, 25+25G leading edge tanks, 33+33G rear auxiliary and a 100G torpedo DT which would have got it well into Germany and back, trouble is wasn't until the 2 stage 2 speed Merlin appeared that there's was enough power to get it off the ground.

 

[Stig1207]

This may be of (surprising) interest, given that overclaiming on both sides was pretty even...
View attachment 655486

The claims of the Lw and FC during the BoB are least twice as high as the above in other sources; how does Bergström arrive at his claim totals?

 

[Admiral Beez]

I tried to find a Soviet contender, but to my eye all their fighters in service to October 1940 were at best not competitive and at worse, total rubbish.

The Yak-1 can be considered the best of the worst of the Soviet contribution. The LaGG-1 and MiG-1 were terrible.

 

[Shortround6]

I tried to find a Soviet contender, but to my eye all their fighters in service to October 1940 were at best not competitive and at worse, total rubbish.

The Yak-1 can be considered the best of the worst of the Soviet contribution. The LaGG-1 and MiG-1 were terrible.

depending on who's history you read the Yak was in limited production in October 1940 but under going service trials.

they flew 5 of them during the "October" revolution celebration of Nov 1940 but that doesn't mean much.

One history says that 64 of them were completed by the end of 1940 but most of them were being used to sort out the many flaws/problems.
The planes didn't officially pass it's acceptance tests until June of 1941. Not exactly unusual in the Soviet Union to order a plane (or other weapon) into production ahead of the compellation of tests.

 

[Admiral Beez]

depending on who's history you read the Yak was in limited production in October 1940 but under going service trials.

I saw that too, and thought it might be a stretch. The only one truly in service by October 1940 is the LaGG-1, which was apparently terrible.

 

[Shortround6]

I saw that too, and thought it might be a stretch. The only one truly in service by October 1940 is the LaGG-1, which was apparently terrible.

Debatable too. Not the "apparently terrible" part

Russian histories, especially the older ones, have major discrepancies from each other.

One book, by Gordon and Khazanov, says the 1st production Lagg-3 (there was no Lagg-1 built) was completed in Dec 1940

 

[Admiral Beez]

Debatable too. Not the "apparently terrible" part

It's quite remarkable how the Soviets went from rubbish fighters to the very competitive La-5, La-7 and Yak-3 in such short order. I suppose desperation breeds quick action.

 

[Clayton Magnet]

It's quite remarkable how the Soviet went from rubbish fighters to the very competitive La-5

The problem with the LaGG-3 was that it was underpowered. The terrible LaGG became the excellent La-5 basically by improving the powerplant with the fitment of the Shvetsov M-82, a relatively straight forward conversion.

 

[GrauGeist]

The La-5 was developed quickly, because Uncle Joe was not happy with Lavochkin.

He redeemed himself (along with Gorbunov's help) by mating the nose of a Su-2 (along with the Su-2's ASh-82 engine) to a LaGG-3.

So yes, there was desperation involved...

 

[tomo pauk]

Having a suitable engine helps a lot, too. Desperation or not.

 

[Vincenzo]

Soviet LaGG-3, mainly late lighter variant, and Yak-1 were not bad fighter; with that engine you can not have too much

 

[unkated]

Zero vs 109 is the perfect example for the question best fighter at what? The 109 would have been useless in the Zero's role and the opposite is also true. The planes were built to a purpose. Their success or failure is based on how close that aligned with the situations they actually faced.

A Zero certainly could have hung around over Britain and fought all day where the Bf109 could only linger a few minutes before needing to RTB.

Uncle Ted

 

[John Vasco]

The claims of the Lw and FC during the BoB are least twice as high as the above in other sources; how does Bergström arrive at his claim totals?

I don't know. I have never asked him. However, I think he would have probably sourced the same information that can now be found in the 'Battle of Britain Combat Archive' series by Simon Parry, published by Red Kite. This series lays no claim to the accuracy of the respective claims; instead it just sets them out for the reader. I would recommend this series of books highly to anyone with an interest in the Battle of Britain.

 

[Admiral Beez]

A Zero certainly could have hung around over Britain and fought all day where the Bf109 could only linger a few minutes before needing to RTB.

Indeed, but the poor chap's only got a few seconds of ammunition before he becomes purely a recon bird.

It would have made for an interesting radar report though. "Sir, this single engine fighter took off from Calais, flew over London, Coventry, Belfast and Edinburgh before flying onto Norway. He must have been wearing a diaper."

 

[Greg Boeser]

He's got the same amount of cannon ammo as the 109, and almost as much 7.7mm as the 109 has 7.92mm