fastmongrel
1st Sergeant
You know Karl, the Spitfire is both the best and the worst aircraft of WW2 and everything in between
If only the RAF had used the P39 the war would have been over before it started in December 1941
Most Overrated aircraft of WWII.....? (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Lucky13
- Start date
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If only the RAF had used the P39 the war would have been over before it started in December 1941
True !
soulezoo
Senior Airman
And the Germans would start calling it the "Rear Engined Devil" or something like that.
Shortround6
Major General
Flugzeug mit Motor im hinteren Teufel
Now say that twice over the radio in combat
Or how do you say, "I got another one because he ran out of gas" in German...
Just Schmidt
Senior Airman
You can just say +Motorschwanzteufel+. Shows how far superior to English the German language is, especially with added balkencreutzen.Flugzeug mit Motor im hinteren Teufel
Now say that twice over the radio in combat
Thumpalumpacus
Major
Flugzeug mit Motor im hinteren Teufel
Now say that twice over the radio in combat
I have a larynx to think about, 'kay?
Currently I would say that the Mitsubishi A6M Zero is the most overrated fighter of world war two. Indeed, in Japan, it's reputation has risen to the level of a cult status. The Zero was a very good airplane for what it was supposed to do. The thinking amongst the Military's of Japan and Italy during the years leading up to world war two was that fighters were meant to be used in 'Dogfighting' meaning horizontal combat. At the same time the rest of the world was designing aircraft more suited for 'Boom and Zoom' or vertical combat. Curiously enough, with the exception of Germany, the rest of the worlds military's didn't get the memo and were still training their pilots in horizontal combat. This is why the Zero did so well during the first part of the war. The best known of the very few people pushing vertical combat was Claire Chennault and he was considered an 'outsider' by the US military at that time. Curiously it was the German Air Service in the final months of world war one that came to the conclusion that vertical combat had clear advantages over dogfighting. There is anecdotal evidence from WWI of individual pilots who discovered the advantage of boom and zoom on their own. Werner Voss thought the Pfalz DIII, that other pilots thought too slow and unwieldy, was a excellent fighter for diving attacks and for trading off the energy generated by the dive into altitude after the firing pass. Erik Shilling of the Flying Tigers speaks of a British pilot he refers to a Squadron Commander Brandt who was able to survive against the Zero while flying the Brewster Buffalo by using vertical combat tactics. Think of it this way; if allied fighter pilots had been given training in the type of tactics they eventually adopted, the Zero would not be considered as good as it is currently thought of.
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buffnut453
Captain
Unfortunately the anecdote about Brandt is incorrect. Firstly he was a flight commander not a squadron CO. Secondly, neither the Brits not the AVG encountered the Zero in Burma - only the Ki-43 and Ki-27 fought in Burma.
I re-read the article and Shilling refers to Brandt as 'Squadron leader' so it's probably a mix up of designations. You are correct in that the article does not specify Zero but instead refers to 'the Japanese' when speaking of their airplanes. The point is that Brandt was using tactics that would have been appropriate against the Zero as well as the Oscar and Nate.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
I don't think the Zero was overrated. It was given plenty of respect in the first few years of the Pacific war. Once the Akutan Zero was tested and other pilot reports came in, the Zero wasn't given quite the respect it once had even during WW 2. Its mystique was gone. It did, however, give the IJN tactical air projection that the Allies couldn't match over the Pacific for a long time. Most of the stuff I come across about the Zero usually says the Zero would burst into flames or come apart with a few hits. That doesn't sound like overrating.
In the first months of the war all allied pilots were advised to "Run" when encountering the Zero. Later on, posters appeared in pilots crew quarters basically saying "If you meet a Zero at medium speed and medium altitude, run, you are outnumbered" while other posters said "Don't Dogfight The Zero!" I guess fear can be referred to as a form of respect. The Akutan zero (Koga's Zero) was captured practically intact in July 1942 while the Liuchow Peninsula Zero (Inoue's Zero) was captured on November 26, 1941 in flyable and intact condition. Apparently capturing a Zero was not important enough for some serious 'forget about proper channels, Let's get the thing' attitudes. Inoue's Zero was finally gotten ahold of by Chennault who had Gerhard Neumann put the machine back in flyable condition (it had been damaged in transport). It was this Zero that was first flown and evaluated by US pilots. Also there was a fairly detailed report on the Zero submitted to the war department by a US Naval Attache who was stationed in Japan before the war. To get an idea of how many western historians have written in the past about the Zero as well as what the Japanese currently think of it, take a look at the Japanese film 'The Eternal Zero' or the book on which the film is based. There is another animated film 'The Wind Rises' which is a highly fictionalized, romanticized story that revolves around Jiro Horikoshi and how he came to design 'the worlds best fighter'. Until the the full evaluation of Koga's Zero, after it had been rebuilt and thoroughly tested, the US fighter pilot tactical training emphasized dogfighting as the proper method in meeting engagements. However there were isolated cases where US Army and Navy pilots were 'spreading the word from Chennault' about the best way to take on Japanese fighters including the Zero. It was only towards the end that US fighter pilots were being trained in 'Boom and Zoom' tactics. Saburo Sakai reported that the top speed of the Zero in level flight was right around 310 mph. while it's max diving speed was 350 mph. Above 350 the aluminum skin on the wings and fuselage would deform and ripple. At speeds above 370 there were cases of pilots losing sections of the Airframe including the occasional wing. The most accurate tests performed on the Zero towards the end of and after the war bear out what Sakai reported. Within it's limits the Zero was a good sturdy aircraft capable of handling the flight loads and G forces that all airplanes must withstand. It's light but sturdy construction came at the cost of not being able to sustain even relatively light amounts of damage. As far as self sealing fuel tanks is concerned, at the beginning of the war everybody did not have them. When they came into use it was at the cost of increased weight and decreased fuel capacity. The very word 'Armor' is not correctly applied in reference to aircraft. People think of armor as the armor on a tank or warship or a knight. Those types of armor are more akin to a shield that can be used to advance against the enemy while warding off his blows. The best way to think of armor on an airplane is in the same vein as a parachute; a last chance to keep the pilot alive so that he can get out of the situation in relative safety. Later model Zeros were equipped with armor and self sealing fuel tanks at a slight cost to maneuverability and to a greater cost in range.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
Provide your reference for this! Earlier Zeros had dive limitations but this was improved on the A6M3 and A6M5 which was able to dive in excess of 400 mph. Also the Zero's wing was one unit so losing a wing was very unlikely unless there was structural failure elsewhere
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
I did say I thought the Zero wasn't overrated. Romanticized and fictionalized are something else again.
The B-17 didn't win the war in the air single handedly despite the movies and TV shows like 12 O'clock High, Memphis Belle (either one). The Spitfire didn't single handedly save Civilization from Darkness. I can only imagine what kind of press the Sturmovik or MiG 15 got behind the Iron Curtain. If an Allied fighter pilot came upon a Zero he probably WAS outnumbered. Slapped-together clapped-out Buffalos, Hurricanes and P-Something Elses piloted by undertrained pilots with their first familiarization flight in type up against Saburo Sakai and his friends. Yeah, one on one, they'd have been outnumbered. At least during the first few years. Then, not so much.
I found it far easier to list underrated planes but we have a thread for that.
By the way, that was a great post, Akuma.
The B-17 didn't win the war in the air single handedly despite the movies and TV shows like 12 O'clock High, Memphis Belle (either one). The Spitfire didn't single handedly save Civilization from Darkness. I can only imagine what kind of press the Sturmovik or MiG 15 got behind the Iron Curtain. If an Allied fighter pilot came upon a Zero he probably WAS outnumbered. Slapped-together clapped-out Buffalos, Hurricanes and P-Something Elses piloted by undertrained pilots with their first familiarization flight in type up against Saburo Sakai and his friends. Yeah, one on one, they'd have been outnumbered. At least during the first few years. Then, not so much.
I found it far easier to list underrated planes but we have a thread for that.
By the way, that was a great post, Akuma.
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A couple of books come to mind; Samurai an autobiography by Saburo Sakai with Martin Caidin. Zero Fighter published by Ballantine books. There was also an article I read a very long time ago that was part of a study done by US Naval Intelligence on the various aircraft used in Japanese Kamikaze operations which went into the the performance figures and limitations of the machines used for those operations. I too have come across those 400 mph figures and found that they were estimated figures based on extrapolations from the perfomance figures of the late model Zeros. I'm sure with a little digging you can come across that info. The G forces involved in trying to recover from a terminal dive have easily caused structural failure in the wings as well as other structural parts of aircraft that were far more ruggedly built than the Zero. I know of one case where a P 51B Mustang was able to surprise a Messerschmitt 262 and the P51 pilot, knowing he had the German, went into a very steep power dive accelerating well past the never exceed speed (VNE). The German pilot spotted the P 51 just after he had initiated the dive and spooled up as quickly as the Jumo's could at that time. The upshot was that the 262 accelerated away leaving the American pilot with the choice of either auguring into the ground or pulling out of the dive. He succeeded in pulling out at the cost of permanently distorting both wings, which made the plane just barely flyable, and by hearing a very loud sound as if a giant piece of fabric was being torn in two. Upon landing he found that the tearing sound had been caused by a line of rivets, starting just aft of the canopy and extending all the way back to the tail, that had literally been popped out from the bending forces that the fuselage had sustained in the recovery.
SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
So you're saying the P-51 B is overrated?
Something you may not have heard of. In 1945 the RAAF (Australian Air Force) were still using the Buffalo along with P 40s, P 51s, Spits and Hurris. The Buffalos were properly maintained but were pretty much the same model as those with which the war began. Those Buffalos were not only scoring well against Japanese Bombers and Reconnaissance but were even managing to shoot down Zeros. True, they didn't get many, but they did get them and did so while suffering much lower and in some cases no losses against their enemies. It can be fairly argued that the Japanese pilots by the end of the war were of much poorer quality than those at the beginning, but it should be remembered that the allied pilots had been learning to use their strengths while denying the Japanese their aircraft's weaknesses.
No, no. I'm saying that every man made machine is subject to the laws of God and Nature. Physics does not take a hike just because man figures out how to fly. Gravity is a killer, although when properly used can be an excellent help.
buffnut453
Captain
Sorry but, no, the RAAF was NOT using the Buffalo in 1945. They were all pretty much out of service by early 1944 and they did not participate in a single interception of Japanese forces. Only one RAAF fighter squadron was equipped with the Buffalo in Australia and it provided air defence for Perth. Another 6 airframes were used by 1 PRU but they had no guns and never flew outside Aussie airspace.
