most manoeuvrable aircraft in ww2

Then the P-36 would have been expected to do better than it did against rookie USN pilots in F4Fs during operation Torch.

fliger747 said:

The Finn's did well with the "Buffalo". Initial testing of the F2A presented a very maneuverable aircraft with an OK climb rate, however as was commonly the case, especially for a Naval Aircraft, additional equipment (Crap?) was added till the performance declined significantly. The Finn's were quite good at adapting sow's ears into silk purses. I have several of their WWII rifles modified from Russian Mosin Nagants, with the new free floated Sako barrels, new sights, re worked trigger and whatnot, quite a nice, effective and reliable military rifle!

I expect for their mission profile they were able to simplicate and add lightness and develop good tactics.

Click to expand...

I keep reading about this "simplicate and add lightness: but nobody has a details. The F2A-1 was about as simple as a monoplane/retracting gear fighter was going to get.
A 2 blade propeller (constant speed), and engine without a reduction gear (prop turned the same speed as the crankshaft.) it did have a two speed supercharger.
No self sealing fuel tanks, no armor (Finns added behind the seat armor that weighed nothing?). It did have a radio and oxygen equipment? take those out? As delivered the planes had one .30 cal cowl gun and one .50 cal cowl gun with a single .50 in each wing. Finns were supposed to have changed the .30 to a .50 for no increase (or reduction) in weight?


Some of the "Crap" the US Navy added was a more powerful engine using a reduction gear and a larger Prop. The new engine offered around 150-200hp more than the original engine at most altitudes under 20,000ft. But the new engine and prop did add around 300lbs to the weight.

special ed said:

Then the P-36 would have been expected to do better than it did against rookie USN pilots in F4Fs during operation Torch.

Click to expand...

A lot ot that depends on the ability of the French pilots, Just how proficient were they after nearly 2 1/2 years under German/ Vichy rule? as in how many hours flown per month given the fuel and spare parts supply?

I think both the P-40 and P-36 were undervalued, especially by post-war writers looking for excuses for relatively poor Allied performance against the Japanese and, less so, against the Germans. Arguably, the P-40 and P-36 were as good as their contemporaries, such as the Bf109 and the A6M but the USAAC didn't have several years of live-fire practice in the Spanish Civil War, Poland, or China during which to perfect tactics. Put the Bf109 in the USAAC and the P-36 into the Luftwaffe, people would be writing about how great the P-36 was and how crappy was the Bf109. The same would happen were the A6M and P-40 swapped.

Unless the aircraft are massively mismatched, like a Gloster Meteor* and a Eurofighter Tycoon, tactics and training are at least as important as airframe and engine.


-------

* Obviously, one could not use the Me262, since all German aircraft must be written of in a hagiographic terms, and not compared adversely, even to aircraft decades newer.

There is a story that at least one USAAF fighter instructor in WWII used to challenge his students to a dogfight after they became reasonably proficient in the P-51D. He told the student to fly a Mustang and he would fly an L-4, a military version of the Piper J-3 Cub. The student would laugh in disbelief. No contest, right?

But the instructor in the L-4 would stay low and make a sharp turn every time the student would line up on him. With each failed pass the student grew more and more frustrated, and fly faster and faster in an attempt to score a kill before the Cub could turn, and thus overshoot his target by more distance each time.

The instructor would land the L-4 in a cow pasture and pull it under a tree as the student screamed back and forth overhead, baffled at how such a slow airplane could run away from him so fast that it flat out disappeared.

Obviously an L-4 could not beat any model of P-51 in a normal dogfight at 10,000 ft, but by using his airplane's advantages to negate the other guy's superiority he could at least force a draw.

Maneuverability is more of a defensive capability than anything else. Faster or even just faster climbing airplanes can engage and withdraw at will. As they said of the P-40 versus the BF-109, "We had to shoot the German down in order to get home." Either that, or run him out of gas and make him go home, which with the 109 was pretty feasible.

special ed said:

Then the P-36 would have been expected to do better than it did against rookie USN pilots in F4Fs during operation Torch.

Click to expand...

Also consider that the F4F was slightly newer than the P-36/Hawk 75 and the F4F had continued development where as the Curiss' development ended with the introduction of the P-40.
So by the time Operation Torch commenced, the Vichy aircraft were several years old (most likely four years old) and the Grummans were fresh (same can be said about the Pilot's preparedness, as SR pointed out).

Also, the F4F's had the 1,200hp R-1830-76/86 while the early Hawk had the 900hp R-1830-SC, although some 75s had been upgraded to the 1,200hp R-1820 (Cyclone).

The Finn's received the F2A-1 which had an empty weight 3785 lbs, the USN F2A-2 had an empty weight of 4576 lbs, a 20% increase! Further the Finns could remove some of the naval equipment, life raft, tail hook etc. The F2A-3 weighed even more empty at 4732 lbs!

May I recommend the book "Vichy air force at war", Sutherland/Canwell, in particular the section on Torch. There were accounts of F4Fs against D.520s where the Navy held their own as well as an account of RN Skuas doing surprisingly well. The Vichy were well supplied and their pilots combat veterans. It's a good read and appears well researched.

There is also a book (can't remember which) that told of a USAAF commander in North Africa who would take the starch out of new 2nd Lt.s who arrived in their new P-51s and believed,as taught, they couldn't be beat. The CO scheduled a combat with each, the CO using his old long nose P-40, convinced each new pilot the airplane didn't assure victory.

Gerald Johnson, commander of one of the top-scoring P-38 units in the Pacific (Bong was one of his guys) , used to go fly with a P-40 outfit now and then, just for fun, I guess. It would seem he regarded the P-40 to be more than just an outclassed deathtrap.

The Mohawk IV, the R-1820 engined export model of the Hawk 75, was used by the RAF in India and Burma into 1943. Apparently Oscars and Nates were not too much better than it.

In reading the AVG accounts in several authors' books, the Nate pilots move when attacked from the rear was to pull up into an immediate loop. The AVG pilots said it appeared simply to start up and then vanish, seconds later on their tail shooting. That's why Chennault's defense was to dive away as soon as you fired on the target.

fliger747 said:

The Finn's received the F2A-1 which had an empty weight 3785 lbs, the USN F2A-2 had an empty weight of 4576 lbs, a 20% increase! Further the Finns could remove some of the naval equipment, life raft, tail hook etc. The F2A-3 weighed even more empty at 4732 lbs!

Click to expand...

True but for a carrier aircraft things like a life raft are hardly superfluous junk that the navy loaded into the aircraft not caring about performance which is how it sometimes comes across in criticizing the the later models of the Buffalo. I am not saying that you are doing this.

item...................................F2A-1/239...........................F2A-3
WING............................733-740lbs..........................811-870lbs (weights from different charts)
tail....................................107lb...................................105lbs
Fuselage.........................410lbs................................350lbs
landing gear.................384lbs................................451lbs
engine sec.....................143lbs................................237lbs
Engine W/A................1186lbs..............................1370lbs
Propeller........................262lbs.................................339lbs
Engine controls..............12lbs...................................12lbs
Starting system..............42lbs...................................40lbs
Oil system........................27lbs...................................87lbs
fuel system......................27lbs.................................286lbs
instruments.....................40lbs...................................55lbs
Surface controls............74lbs...................................80lbs
Hydraulic system............???.....................................36lbs
electrical system............139lbs.............................157lbs
radio (included in load)....................................................
Armament provisions..in Useful load................230lbs
Furnishings.....................144lbs...............................56lbs
Aux gear...........................10lbs........................................
other/misc...................................................................26lbs.

I rounded off to the nearest pound is some cases.

Some things, like the wing and landing gear, need to be beefed up to handle heavier weights.
The catagory "Armament provisions" includes things like brackets, ammo boxes, charging systems AND ARMOR in many cases.
On the F2A-3 the 286lbs of fuel system included two self sealing fuel tanks in the wings and one self sealing tank in the belly. On the F2A-1/239 the fuel system just included the fuel lines, valves, fillers and drains. The fuel tanks were the box spars in the wing.
There may have changes as to what was counted in the engine section and what is in the fuselage section. The two put together are within 34lbs of each other.

The engine and propeller change was good for 261lbs. I have no idea why the oil system gained 60lbs of weight.


Go through the list and see if you can find the unneeded "pork".

GrauGeist said:

They did ask about the "most maneuverable aircraft" while adding suggestions.

Click to expand...

I was reffering to this

GregP said:

Let's say we mean first-line fighters in 1942. No biplanes or trainers. Real, front-line fighters.

Click to expand...

I know, Geo, but narrowing it down to 1942 doesn't help identify the best overall performing fighter of the war.

If looking at fighters, they tended towards bigger, faster, heavier as the war progressed which in turn trends towards a lesser rather than more "maneuverable " aircraft. It might be viable to break it down by years, ie 40-41, 42-43, 44-45.

Just a suggestion, and realize there will be no decisive winner. However some good learning/ knowledge exchange will occur.

Cheers,
Biff

As far as the F2A-1, the Finns didn't need the beefed up gear, life raft etc for their mission. I expect that the mission range may not have been huge which would help as well.

Ed Heinneman designer of some notably successful aircraft estimated that one pound saved in detail design ultimately saved ten pounds in the aircrafts gross weight. Add a pound, you need a stronger structure, more power (all of which add more weight) needs more fuel and on and on.

Glad they served them well!

I would note that even the US navy only listed 110 gallons of fuel as the "normal" load for the F2A-1 and 2 even though the tanks would hold 160 gallons when full.

The US Navy did need the beefed up gear for carrier landings, but the Finns didn't take out heavy landing gear and replace it with lighter gear, they used the lighter gear the original planes were built with. I am curious as to what kind of lead cloth the navy used for their life rafts that a one man life raft could be the difference between success or failure for fighter that grossed 52-5300lbs with guns, ammo and 110 gallons of fuel.

Please note the navy ordered the XF2A-1 prototype to be converted to the XF2A-2 standard on March 22nd 1939 but didn't receive a single F2A-1 production airplane until June 11th. 1939
The Navy must have been unhappy with something about the XF2A-1. The Modified aircraft is rolled out as the XF2A-2 in July of 1939.
Of the 54 production F2A-1 aircraft 43/44 are sold to the Finns. Not only does the Navy take later delivery of another 43 aircraft to replace them (of the F2A-2 model) but the 11 F2A-1 production aircraft they did have (in squadron VF-3) are sent back to the factory to be rebuilt as F2A-2s in the Spring of of 1941 A rather extraordinary step if these planes were satisfactory they way they were. Grumman had already built about 230-260 F4F Wildcats for the navy and export at this time.

BiffF15 said:

If looking at fighters, they tended towards bigger, faster, heavier as the war progressed which in turn trends towards a lesser rather than more "maneuverable " aircraft. It might be viable to break it down by years, ie 40-41, 42-43, 44-45.

Just a suggestion, and realize there will be no decisive winner. However some good learning/ knowledge exchange will occur.

Cheers,
Biff

Click to expand...

There was quite a leap in aircraft technology between 1937 and 1945 - I mean quite a leap, honestly, when there were Biplanes at the onset and Jets at the end, but it seems to me, that the best "overall fighter" would have to be able to have superior maneuverability across the board.

As I mentioned earlier, there were some that excelled at low speeds, some that excelled at high speeds, some excelled at low altitudes and some that excelled at higher altitudes.

But very few spanned that range. This thread is a good opportunity to bring that one (or more to light).

To touch on some types (again):
The Me262 was a good turner at high speeds and moderate altitudes, the A6M was a good turner at low speeds and moderate altitudes, the Fw190A and Typhoon were a good turners at low altitudes, the P-51 (later variants) and Fw190D were a good turners at higher altitudes, the IAR 80 was a good turner at moderate altitudes and the list goes on.

So let's get this figured out.

special ed said:

Then the P-36 would have been expected to do better than it did against rookie USN pilots in F4Fs during operation Torch.

Click to expand...

The USN aviators had been at war, and it's likely the USN aviators flying F4Fs in North Africa had been briefed and trained by USN and RAF combat veterans. Indeed, it's possible that some Pacific veterans had been sent to USN squadrons in the Atlantic, either to do the training or as squadron members.

Also, while the source (Caida) may be dubious, Sakai was reportedly quite impressed with the USN rookies when he first met them in combat.

Operation Torch began 8 Nov 1942. No USN veterans from the Pacific to spare. A very few naval aviators launched into the water and broke their planes coming aboard. Many just out of Pensacola and still performed well.