Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
From that the figure of 2128 is arrived at for the French 9to the beginning of June), which is consistent with Murray 9/39 to 6/40 and just about right also for Cornwell.
That's a little harsh on the Allison... P-38's seemed to do ok with them. The Soviets seemed to be happy with the P-39.
Maybe it wasn't a Merlin, but then again, only a Merlin was a Merlin. Except for a Packard of course.
The Allison v-1710 may not be "engine Uber Alles", but it was a solid engine and definitely not a POS. It needed to be used appropriately.
On Edit while thinking on this: IIRC, the Klimov was a lower powered engine forced into service on the P-40 as the VVS didn't have parts for the Allison. So if my memory is correct, why would you want the Klimov after what you just said about the Allison?
Yes because while the Klimov didn't have as high a top end what it DID have was a fast response time and acceleration, at least from every sim I have ever played that had the Klimov.
As for the P-38? It was an uber light body with twin engines, give me ANY engine with an uber light body and double the motors? it will kick some booty, just look at the FW 189 that used the lousy French captured engines but because the frame was so insanely light it often frustrated fighters despite being a recon bird simply by out turning them.
But when you look at how many birds got saddled with the Alison, despite having much better engines from other companies available? Yeah..I smell something, be it kickbacks or friends in high places, someone was pushing the Alison HARD.
Just FYI, the members of this forum don't use crap like War Thunder as any type of guide.Yes because while the Klimov didn't have as high a top end what it DID have was a fast response time and acceleration, at least from every sim I have ever played that had the Klimov.
As for the P-38? It was an uber light body with twin engines, give me ANY engine with an uber light body and double the motors? it will kick some booty, just look at the FW 189 that used the lousy French captured engines but because the frame was so insanely light it often frustrated fighters despite being a recon bird simply by out turning them.
Finally as for the Soviets and the P-39? The Soviets had a MAJOR boner for giant derp guns, heck they stuffed a 37mm tank gun into the LaGG 3 and ended up with a plane that literally ripped its own engine out just from firing the gun LOL. The Soviet pilots were incredible shots so it makes sense that they loved any plane that had a 1 shot kill capability and say what you will about the Airacobra if you hit a fighter with a 37mm HEF shell? That plane is confetti. It also helped that nearly all battles on the Eastern Front took place below 3500m, so you really didn't need much power to get a really small fighter (the P-39 is incredibly tiny, I got to run my hands down one at Lakland AFB and its smaller than my truck) to just 3000m.
But when you look at how many birds got saddled with the Alison, despite having much better engines from other companies available? Yeah..I smell something, be it kickbacks or friends in high places, someone was pushing the Alison HARD.
I agree. I'm sure that more than a few of us has, or had, an uncle or other male relation who flew any US fighter, especially the Mustang, who would regale us with stories about how the P51 pretty much single-handedly won the war. I admit that it was a very fine flying machine, good qualities for a fighter, and relatively easy to maintain(as a mechanic, I've heard such stories from older mechanics over the years), but while it was nice, there were other, comparable fighters which also helped "win the war", which have become overshadowed by the Mustang Mystique.P-51 Mustang.
Just a note on the P-39. It flew 30,547 sorties for the AAF in Europe. Lost 107 for a loss rate per sortie of .4%, the lowest of any Army fighter.
This is a difficult decision to make with any sort of subjectivity, because most people, including me, are not going to go evaluate both the public relations reputation of dozens of aircraft and compare those to the aircraft's actual combat record. There is also a few cases of outright propaganda being accepted as fact, such as cases probably being the supposed enemy nicknames for the P-38 Lightning, F4U Corsair, and Beaufighter, none of which are seen in writings from German or Japanese pilots.
I think one can readily make a case, though, for any of a half-dozen or more aircraft being over-rated, because these are aircraft that have reputations for effectiveness that are in excess of their actual effectiveness. I think German combat aircraft are especially prone to being over-rated, partly as there is a meme that German designers were so much better than anybody else (yeah, sure. That's why the Bf109 was barely faster than the P-40 despite being much lighter and smaller), partly as the Luftwaffe used better tactics, partly as Germany was dictating the strategic terms of engagement until at least late 1942, and partly as some advanced German aircraft, like the Me262 (overrated) got into service before comparable aircraft from the Allies.
I'll continue to advocate that the FW190 or Bf109 was most over-rated, not that either wasn't an effective, even great, warplane, but that neither was the invincible magical thing that it seems to have become in the eyes of some fanboys. Another aircraft that I think was clearly over-rated was the Me262, as its contribution to Germany's war effort is, in my opinion, vastly overblown.
Well, as the most produced aircraft of all time, and one of the longest serving in all of its iterations, it's certainly a challenge to summarize.Bf 109 is a difficult one. On the one hand, on claims data at least, it was the most successful fighter of all time. on the other hand, and in the same breath almost, it lost more aircraft of that type than any other fighter during the war......how to process that????? I have no idea.
Yes because while the Klimov didn't have as high a top end what it DID have was a fast response time and acceleration, at least from every sim I have ever played that had the Klimov.
As for the P-38? It was an uber light body with twin engines, give me ANY engine with an uber light body and double the motors? it will kick some booty, just look at the FW 189 that used the lousy French captured engines but because the frame was so insanely light it often frustrated fighters despite being a recon bird simply by out turning them.
Finally as for the Soviets and the P-39? The Soviets had a MAJOR boner for giant derp guns, heck they stuffed a 37mm tank gun into the LaGG 3 and ended up with a plane that literally ripped its own engine out just from firing the gun LOL. The Soviet pilots were incredible shots so it makes sense that they loved any plane that had a 1 shot kill capability and say what you will about the Airacobra if you hit a fighter with a 37mm HEF shell? That plane is confetti. It also helped that nearly all battles on the Eastern Front took place below 3500m, so you really didn't need much power to get a really small fighter (the P-39 is incredibly tiny, I got to run my hands down one at Lakland AFB and its smaller than my truck) to just 3000m.
But when you look at how many birds got saddled with the Alison, despite having much better engines from other companies available? Yeah..I smell something, be it kickbacks or friends in high places, someone was pushing the Alison HARD.
You took the words out of my own mouth amigo. Well said.
I voted for the Bf 109, not because it's a bad plane, but because the reputation it has with some people is akin to what an F-16 would have in a WW2 context. it was good but it wasn't anywhere near that good. Depending on the version it was probably not as good as a Spit and barely better than a Yak-1, P-40 or a MC 202.
The main reason for German "superiority", and Axis superiority in general in the early months of the war, is that the other countries were not expecting to be attacked and it took them a while to get ready and reorient to the new reality. Because in the wake of the mass-catastrophe of WW1, most people thought it was crazy to start off another general war. Which it was, and we tend to forget that the leadership of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were in fact, crazy, even if many of their fighter pilots were skilled aviators and generally normal, decent people.
S
Bf 109 was a far better performer than Yak-1 (and longer ranged) and P-40. As a fighter, the 109 was about as close to Spitfire as possible, bar the Spitfire XIV.
I agree than there was much more to the German initial successes than just the Bf 109.
It doesn't make the Bf 109 the best fighter, but it did, or rather the pilots that flew it, have more opportunity to rack up a higher number of victories than any other fighter.
Well the devil is in the details when it comes to all these types, and it varied year by year, sometimes month by month. Assuming a decent build quality (which could vary by factory and by batch) Yak-1 or Yak-7 were pretty closely matched to Bf 109E, (as was the Tomahawk for that matter, as the Russian pilots themselves noted) - Yak 1B or Yak 7B could take the Bf 109F or early G models (as could the later model P-40s).
Spit I and II were roughly equal to Bf 109E, Spit Vb was a bit worse than Bf 109F, Spit Vc was a bit better - all versions of the Spit V were vulnerable to the Fw 190A.
Spit IX was clearly significantly better than any model Bf 109 E -1 through the G-10 and was also superior to the Fw 190A series.
After that it gets less interesting for me because the outcome of the war was really no longer in question.
...