Most Overrated aircraft of WWII.....?

[GrauGeist]

Gee, maybe take the 20mm tail gun off of a G4M or an He 111. Give me a break.

First of all, I doubt that the British would have much success in acquiring a Type 99 for their Wellington.
Secondly, the He111 does not have a tail-gunner. The only 20mm cannon it had, was a single MG/FF mounted forward.

Just arbitrarily mounting equipment *may* work in some cases and in some cases, will not. They tried a 20mm canon in the nose of a B-17 and found out the hard way the nose was not designed for that sort of stress.

So no break given.

Actually they were. They were more than enough. You don't have to protect every single bomber every single time, you just have to do enough to keep the attrition rate reasonably low. If P-40s could do that for A-20s and B-25s in Tunisia in 1942 and 1943, then I suspect A6Ms could do it for Wellingtons in 1941. P-51s certainly did it for B-17s and B-24s in 1944.

Plenty of cases where the escorts were not able to fully protect their force. Even in a fantasy scenario.

In one day (April 26, 1943) in a single raid on Bari the DAF destroyed more than 50 Luftwaffe aircraft including 19 Bf 109s and 12 Fw 190s, with another 21 BF 109 and 42 Fw 10s damaged 40-60%. Thats almost 100 front line fighters you don't have to shoot down the hard way. Can you imagine how that might be useful or no?

Unless the aircraft is completely destroyed, it'll either be back in service soon or cannibalized. And how did that raid stop replacement parts from coming in as soon as that evening? And how did that raid stop the neighboring Staffels from providing coverage until they got back to strength?
It didn't.

However, the Luftwaffe's raid on Bari a little while later focused on the harbor and did far more damage for about the same effort.

No need to "imagine"...facts speak for themselves.

In Tunisia they were bombing the crap out of Axis airfields and destroyed a ton of aircraft on the ground. They were also hitting the communications links, not just in the forward areas but much further back - around the airfields. This in combination did a great deal of harm to the Luftwaffe and the Regia Aeronautica. If you were in the BoB and suffering from a sustained bombing campaign you might want this too.

Communications = infrastructure.

Tell that to Albert Speer bruh.

Speer was able to prop up the German's effort, but the attrition was crippling their efforts and limited their ability to wage war by a great deal. So no need to tell him, he already knew, brah.

 

[Shortround6]

Gee, maybe take the 20mm tail gun off of a G4M or an He 111. Give me a break.

Give us a break. Not everybody used the same 20mm cannon.
British 20mm Hispano was much longer and almost twice as heavy as the 20mm guns used by HE 111 or G4Ms. It won't fit where the short light 20mm MG/ff will.
The Hispano fired faster and used a much more powerful round.

Which is better, some poor gunner trying to heave a 20mm cannon around using muscles and the 20mm is slow firing and has a very small magazine (15-30 rounds?) or a power turret with two .303s that fire almost 3 times faster than the 20mm and have belt feeds? The power turrets had a much wider field of fire.

 

[KiwiBiggles]

Give us a break. Not everybody used the same 20mm cannon.
British 20mm Hispano was much longer and almost twice as heavy as the 20mm guns used by HE 111 or G4Ms. It won't fit where the short light 20mm MG/ff will.
The Hispano fired faster and used a much more powerful round.

Which is better, some poor gunner trying to heave a 20mm cannon around using muscles and the 20mm is slow firing and has a very small magazine (15-30 rounds?) or a power turret with two .303s that fire almost 3 times faster than the 20mm and have belt feeds? The power turrets had a much wider field of fire.

And of course the purpose of a gun turret on a bomber is primarily to deter attackers, and I reckon a hail of 303 will do that just fine, even if the attacker survives.

 

[Schweik]

First of all, I doubt that the British would have much success in acquiring a Type 99 for their Wellington.

1 If they had A6Ms in the imaginary scenario, they could also have the G4M (or the Type 99 gun)
2 If the G4M could handle a 20mm cannon in the rear turret I'm certain that the notoriously strong Wellington could as well.

So no break given.

You broke down in your own failed logic.

Plenty of cases where the escorts were not able to fully protect their force. Even in a fantasy scenario.

The point isn't whether they could or couldn't in a given case, it's whether they could in aggregate, which they clearly and did in the case of the P-51, or for that matter in the case of A6Ms escorting numerous types of bombers in 1941 and 1942, as they had little trouble hitting their targets.

Unless the aircraft is completely destroyed, ... providing coverage until they got back to strength? It didn't.

Actually it did, these kinds of raids are a major part of what broke the back of the Luftwaffe in Tunisia and then in Southern Italy. I don't think you know what you are talking about. Christopher Shores pointed this out himself - he was surprised how effective the bombing of airfields and associated infrastructure was in the Desert War were. It's one of the things which his research revealed quite plainly.

However, the Luftwaffe's raid on Bari a little while later focused on the harbor and did far more damage for about the same effort.

I included shipping as a viable operational target. Just like trains. Wellingtons carried torpedoes too.

Speer was able to prop up the German's effort, but the attrition was crippling their efforts and limited their ability to wage war by a great deal. So no need to tell him, he already knew, brah.

They produced as many or more planes tanks etc. at the end of 1944 as they did in 1941 so I would say it was pretty useless. The only Strategic target worth hitting was the oil, and that again is largely a question of range.

S

 

[Schweik]

Give us a break. Not everybody used the same 20mm cannon.
British 20mm Hispano was much longer and almost twice as heavy as the 20mm guns used by HE 111 or G4Ms. It won't fit where the short light 20mm MG/ff will. The Hispano fired faster and used a much more powerful round.

We were talking about a (ridiculous) hypothetical scenario of using A6Ms to escort Wellingtons ... and you are giving me grief about an offhand suggestion that they put a 20mm gun on the Wellingtons tail? Seriously bruh? So use G4MS if you can't figure it out. Or borrow some ShVak cannon from the Soviets in reverse lend-lease...

Which is better, some poor gunner trying to heave a 20mm cannon around using muscles and the 20mm is slow firing and has a very small magazine (15-30 rounds?) or a power turret with two .303s that fire almost 3 times faster than the 20mm and have belt feeds? The power turrets had a much wider field of fire.

A 20mm (or a HMG) is better because it has much longer effective range, especially for the tail gun. But the turrets on the Wellington did dish out some firepower.

S

 

[Shortround6]

Yes, because that was what actually happened in the real world. The A6M had a vastly, vastly longer range than any mark of the Spitfire and it didn't get an extra 1,000 miles range due to flying over water either. I don't think any of that is controversial. To say or even imply otherwise is intellectually dishonest.

Ignoring the laws of physics is also a bit dishonest. The Zero was not that much lower in drag than an early Spitfire (if as low).
A Spit I with a fixed pitch prop (hardly ideal) could fly 220mph true at 15,000ft on 27imp gallons an hour.
At 7000ft it could do 200mph true while burning 24.1 imp gallons an hour.
The Zero could run it's engine leaner, especially at low speeds which helped a lot but double or triple the range requires a bit of of swallowing.

The Drop tank helped an awful lot but trying to fight 109s with the drop tank still attached might be a problem?

From what I understand some of the aircraft in the BoB weren't that well protected either. Regardless, two 20mm cannon can wreck any 1941 plane.

55 rounds per 20mm cannon doesn't last long.

 

[Schweik]

Ignoring the laws of physics is also a bit dishonest. The Zero was not that much lower in drag than an early Spitfire (if as low).
A Spit I with a fixed pitch prop (hardly ideal) could fly 220mph true at 15,000ft on 27imp gallons an hour.
At 7000ft it could do 200mph true while burning 24.1 imp gallons an hour.
The Zero could run it's engine leaner, especially at low speeds which helped a lot but double or triple the range requires a bit of of swallowing.

What are you arguing exactly? That the Spitfire had the same range as the A6M ? If you are A) I am incredulous, and B) the problem with the theory is the entire wartime history of both planes. Are you just having a hard time getting your head around the history? It is what it is.

I can't tell you precisely what made the Zero have such phenomenal range (and to be honest, while I'm interested in aeronautical engineering I'm not that interested and frankly don't care exactly how it worked that much). I know it did have that phenomenal range and no amount of back of the envelope engineering math is ever going to convince me otherwise. Or anyone else. Zero fighters were routinely flying from Rabaul to Guadalcanal - that is over 1,000 km. They were able to fly that far, fight, and fly back to base. Saburo Sakai did it with one eye.

And it didn't require a drop tank on the whole time either!


S

 

[Shortround6]

G4M tail gun.
No power assist in aiming. Limited field of fire. Recoil is transmitted to the gunner.

G4M waist gunner. It's a Lewis gun.

Japanese type 99 cannon may have been much better than a Lewis gun for defense. How much of an improvement over power operated belt fed machine guns with twice the cycle rate of a Lewis gun is a different story.

 

[wuzak]

What are you arguing exactly? That the Spitfire had the same range as the A6M ? If you are A) I am incredulous, and B) the problem with the theory is the entire wartime history of both planes. Are you just having a hard time getting your head around the history? It is what it is.

I can't tell you precisely what made the Zero have such phenomenal range (and to be honest, while I'm interested in aeronautical engineering I'm not that interested and frankly don't care exactly how it worked that much). I know it did have that phenomenal range and no amount of back of the envelope engineering math is ever going to convince me otherwise. Or anyone else. Zero fighters were routinely flying from Rabaul to Guadalcanal - that is over 1,000 km. They were able to fly that far, fight, and fly back to base. Saburo Sakai did it with one eye.

And it didn't require a drop tank on the whole time either!


S

He is telling you that the Zero could achieve that range because it flew largely over undefended airspace and so could fly at slow speeds and altitudes to maximise range. It didn't have to climb rapidly to altitude after take-off.

Flying from Britain to escort Wellingtons, the Zero would be picked up on German radar over their home base.

To avoid being detected entering German controlled airspace, they would have to fly at just above ground level. Which is not a good place to escort Wellingtons, unless they are also at 0ft (which is not good either).

 

[wuzak]

We were talking about a (ridiculous) hypothetical scenario of using A6Ms to escort Wellingtons ... and you are giving me grief about an offhand suggestion that they put a 20mm gun on the Wellingtons tail? Seriously bruh? So use G4MS if you can't figure it out. Or borrow some ShVak cannon from the Soviets in reverse lend-lease...

The Britis didn't want to put a 20mm cannon in the Wellington's tail turret (even if it could fit).

Instead they trialed a 40mm cannon in a upper turret installation!
http://aviadejavu.ru/Images6/MY/MY86-10/5-2.jpg
Aeroplane Monthly 1986-10

 

[Schweik]

He is telling you that the Zero could achieve that range because it flew largely over undefended airspace and so could fly at slow speeds and altitudes to maximise range.

And I'm telling you both that is a load of B.S.

S

 

[wuzak]

Actually they were. They were more than enough. You don't have to protect every single bomber every single time, you just have to do enough to keep the attrition rate reasonably low. If P-40s could do that for A-20s and B-25s in Tunisia in 1942 and 1943, then I suspect A6Ms could do it for Wellingtons in 1941. P-51s certainly did it for B-17s and B-24s in 1944.

P-51s really didn't make much difference to the loss rates* of B-17s and B-24s in the ETO by escorting them. What they did do is destroy the Luftwaffe day fighter arm. More specifically they caused great attrition in the ranks of experienced Luftwaffe pilots - the experten.

As the Luftwaffe lost its ability to fight the 8thAF loss rates* did decline.

*In terms of numbers of bombers shot down. The loss rate in percentage terms went down dramatically as the 8th AF grew in strength over the winter of 1943/44 so that instead of sending 300 bombers and losing 60, they would send 1,000 and still lose 60.

 

[wuzak]

And I'm telling you both that is a load of B.S.

S

Ok, so what speed would the Zero cruise at on long flights?

300mph TAS?

Or more like 200mph TAS?

 

[Schweik]

Ok, so what speed would the Zero cruise at on long flights?

300mph TAS?

Or more like 200mph TAS?

200 TAS is probably about right, so what? I show for A6M2 207 mph cruise speed

Bf 109E had a cruise speed of 240 mph... again, so what? And a range of 410 miles. I know the P-51 had a very high cruise speed but that was 3 years later.

I also show A6M with 1,625 'typical' range and 1,929 'max'. Plus initial climb of 4,517 fpm which is nothing short of phenomenal for 1941, and climb to 19,685 in 7 minutes 27 seconds. Also excellent. Both far better than the Bf 109E (or the G-6 for that matter)

I think just about every fighter I ever heard of had a pretty low cruise speed in long flights. I know the comparison to the Spitfire was extremely disingenuous of him to make to begin with and of you to entertain. Like I said, I don't buy it. We have had these kinds of debates before on this forum and I don't think you to are on the level.

S

 

[GrauGeist]

My God, we've gotten so far off topic, I doubt the thread can be salvaged at this point.

But in response to the ineffectiveness of bombing German factories - yes, they produced more aircraft in 1944 than any other year.

BUT, what you're not understanding, is that many of these airframes never made it to the front. Additionally, how many aircraft could Germany have fielded IF their factories were not bombed?

The attacking of airfields are an immediate way to relieve pressure on a forward area, especially if the enemy has a precarious supply line. This is why it was effective in areas of the PTO and MTO, because the enemy's Supply Line was vulnerable. Solely focusing on airfields instead of infrastructure or source is folly. One of the reasons why the Allies worked so hard to take Ploesti out of commission as well as the Edersee and Mohne dams in the Ruhr River valley.

When you bomb a factory, you damage the machinery, tooling, dies and jigs - which all have to be replaced. You damage the building and it's confines, the inventory and essentials - this too, has to be rebuilt or replaced. There may have been skilled workers who perished in the attack, this means that the manufacturer has to replace them and skilled or experiences workers were becoming few and far between. All of this creates a costly interruption to production and can (and did) lead to a dramatic decline in quality.

A perfect example of the effects of bombing a factory, would be the Tego plant at Wuppertal. Tego film was crucial in the process of laminate wood used in several German aircraft, like the Ta154, He162 and the Ho.IX (Ho229). But with the loss of Goldmand's only factory, the Germans had to use an alternate which was too acidic and led to catastrophic failures of the aircraft.

 

[Tieleader]

The other, regrding flak, is emphasized by the disaster the Luftwaffe suffered during Operation Bodenplatt in January 1945. Several German flak units did not receive information about the operation and ended up downing several Luftwaffe aircraft as well as creating panic among the inexperienced pilots in the flights.[/QUOTE]
Hell, the D-9s flown by the Sachenberg protection flight of JV44 had the ENTIRE underside of their birds painted bright red with white stripes and I think they still they got shot at. To the average German flak gunner at that time every airplane flying had to be an enemy bird...

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

200 TAS is probably about right, so what? I show for A6M2 207 mph cruise speed

Bf 109E had a cruise speed of 240 mph... again, so what? And a range of 410 miles. I know the P-51 had a very high cruise speed but that was 3 years later.

I also show A6M with 1,625 'typical' range and 1,929 'max'. Plus initial climb of 4,517 fpm which is nothing short of phenomenal for 1941, and climb to 19,685 in 7 minutes 27 seconds. Also excellent. Both far better than the Bf 109E (or the G-6 for that matter)

I think just about every fighter I ever heard of had a pretty low cruise speed in long flights. I know the comparison to the Spitfire was extremely disingenuous of him to make to begin with and of you to entertain. Like I said, I don't buy it. We have had these kinds of debates before on this forum and I don't think you to are on the level.

S

So who were you before becoming Schweik on March 15, 2018?

 

[wuzak]

When you bomb a factory, you damage the machinery, tooling, dies and jigs - which all have to be replaced. You damage the building and it's confines, the inventory and essentials - this too, has to be rebuilt or replaced. There may have been skilled workers who perished in the attack, this means that the manufacturer has to replace them and skilled or experiences workers were becoming few and far between. All of this creates a costly interruption to production and can (and did) lead to a dramatic decline in quality.

Not only that, but resources had to be expended to defend these industries. That is men and equipment that could have been used elsewhere.

 

[wuzak]

200 TAS is probably about right, so what? I show for A6M2 207 mph cruise speed

Bf 109E had a cruise speed of 240 mph... again, so what? And a range of 410 miles. I know the P-51 had a very high cruise speed but that was 3 years later.

The P-51 could also cruise at slower speeds, and its maximum range could be achieved at lower speeds than they usually operated at.

A Spitfire V had a cruise speed for maximum range of around 220-230mph TAS, but they would not dare do that over France, particularly once the Fw 190 came into service.

Aircraft usually have a range of cruise speeds. Most economical (engine setting) cruise is much slower than maximum continuous (engine setting). They could cruise anywhere between them, and slower than most economical, if they wanted.

 

[GrauGeist]

Not only that, but resources had to be expended to defend these industries. That is men and equipment that could have been used elsewhere.

Absolutely!
Establishing flak batteries required a tremendous resource of men, equipment and logistics that was desperately needed on the fronts.
Add to the flak defenses, the point-defense airfield Staffels that were also drawing upon precious resources that were desperately needed elsewhere, too.