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There is absolutely no contradiction between those two statements. You are just having a failure of imagination. The Spitfire lacked the range to make a good fighter in the Pacific, and lacked a host of qualities necessary on the Russian front, but it too was obviously one of the best fighters of the war - (or maybe you could say it was 'several of the best fighter(s) of the war').
How about 'fighters' that couldn't fly 600 miles? Every fighter design had it's limitations. Do you even have a point?
What percentage of combat on the Russian Front was taking place at 20,000 feet?
Which Air Force specifically? The Martian Air Force? What you seem to have a tough time grasping is that the quality of a fighter is directly related to it's degree of success Where. It. Was. Fighting. Not it's degree of success in calculations you make on the back of an envelope, or in WarThunder, or in your imagination.
- Coulda woulda shoulda. If their factory hadn't been bombed the Yak 3 would have been flying in 1943 and who knows the outcome on the war.
- Yes, they should have - that is exactly the idea behind the Yak 3 - or the Spit for example. Specialization to excel at a particular task (in a specific environment)
The Yak-1m was the prototype small Yak flown in Feb/March of 1943. It is where a lot of the performance numbers come from. Others come from the 2nd prototype, sometimes known as the Yak-1M 'doubler'. Mass production was authorized in Oct 1943 as the Yak-3. First production plane completed March of 1944.Shortround- who are you arguing with here? What makes you think I'm taking that statement any way at all? I don't remember talking about a Yak 1M - do you mean the Yak 9M or the Yak 3?
What you can and cannot see, thankfully, is not my responsibility. All I can say is that the Yak 3 shot down many, many more German aircraft than it lost. It was still in production 7 years after the war ended. The Yak 3 was not clumsy, it was not slow, it was not undergunned. As far as I can see, the only thing it wasn't was English (or American).
Hmmm... in 1944 lets see the US had the P-51B/C, P-51D/H, P-40 (yes, still operating them right up to 1945), P-47, P-38, P-61 night fighter, P-70 (night fighter version of the A-20) [Army] plus the F4F-4 / FM2, F6F, and F4F / F2G Corsair, plus the Bearcat and F7F Tigercat waiting in the wings (Navy / USMC), the English had the Hurricane (still), Mosquito, Beaufighter, Gloster Meteor Jet, Tempest, Typhoon, and at least 6 operational variants of the Spitfire including .... wait
... 14 types.
In 1944 the Russians had the Yak 9, Yak 1B (a few left), Yak -3, La 5FN, La 7... and that's about it. By my count it's 5 types. What am I missing here?
War ended for the Germans which put an end to aircraft production. For the P-47, war ended in Aug 1945, P-47 production stopped in Dec 1945.That's 737 more than the Fw 190 or the Me 109 (not counting that odd looking thing made by Spain).
It's also 737 more than the P-47. I think any WW2 prop fighters still being produced after 1945 were probably pretty good.
War ended for the Germans which put an end to aircraft production. For the P-47, war ended in Aug 1945, P-47 production stopped in Dec 1945.
US had thousands of P-47s in stock and they continued in use until at least the Korean war (not used there) if not after in the Air National Guard.
What nations used for WW II aircraft after WW II has a lot more to do with money and availability than how good a particular aircraft was.
What could they get cheap (or for free) and how much money they had to spend and who their likely opponent/s were likely to be.
F8F didn't happen in 1944.
F7F didn't happen in 1944.
The Navy planes were, mainly, for aircraft carriers - which the Soviets did not have, so didn't need that class of aircraft.
When it went operational, there were only 5 squadrons on P-70s. Most of these changed to P-61s or Beaufighters before going into action. P-70s saw a little action in the PTO, but not for very long before being replaced by the P-61.
The Mosquito and Beaufighter performed roles other than night fighting - bombing, attack, PR, etc.
The Meteor was Britain's first jet service aircraft, and was used only over Britain in 1944.
The Typhoon and Tempest would be the closes British aircraft to a specialist low altitude fighter, and much of the time they operated as fighter-bombers.
The Allies did not need to fill the gaps with their variety of aircraft, but rather replacement aircraft arrived where they were needed to most, so Spitfire V squadrons took time to replace with IXs - as there were so many of them.
PS: How many P-40 variants were still in use in 1944?
Es? Fs? Ks? Ns? Ms?
The US and the British continued to build piston planes but they were not, for the most part, planes that had been in production in the middle of 1944.
A few contracts were run out to use up some parts but 1946/47 production used engines not available in 1944/45. Compare F4U-5 to F4U-1D for example.
I would note that the Russians spent a lot of time trying to develop high altitude engines and fighters but were hampered by both fuel and materials, so that few made it into service. German capability to put high flying aircraft (bombers and recon planes) over Russian cities, production centers, transport hubs declined as the war went on making the production of high flying interceptors less of a priority. Not that the Russians didn't want their own in order to reduce dependency on the west. Let's not mention the the high altitude interceptors provided under lend lease.
Or count lend lease aircraft in the types operated by the Russians or the operational flexibility they gave them.
Is May 10, 1942 late?
The Allison engine Mustang was a good fighter, the problem was getting anything to fight with it.If you are referring to the P-51, I believe the 'A' (Alllison engined / A-36 / Mustang I & II) versions were not really used as a fighter but rather as recon (with some fighter overlap) and as a dive bomber (with some fighter overlap). Why that is I'm not sure, on paper it looks like it would be a good fighter even with the Allison engine. I asked this question before in fact in this forum, maybe even earlier in this thread I think. But I don't think I got a very convincing answer.
But as a fighter, it was not until the Merlin engine was added that it came into it's own. This was done in late 1942 experimentally, but from what I gather production started in Summer 1943 and these planes started hitting operational units in Winter of 1943. So that is on the edge of being late. Still in the game but a little late.
The great conquests of the Mustang were later in 1944, with the D and later versions. And that is definitely late. Personally I like the B / C and Mustang III versions best. But the D and K and H are the ones that did the real damage. They just wrecked a Luftwaffe (and IJN and IJA air force) which were already at least partly broken in my opinion. Admittedly - just my opinion.
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The Allison engine Mustang was a good fighter, the problem was getting anything to fight with it.
The Allison engine Mustang was a good fighter, the problem was getting anything to fight with it.
A couple of fairly obvious points.
The Yak 3 was a low altitude, short range air superiority fighter variant of the larger Yak family. It still had a ceiling of 35,000 feet so it wasn't quite the submarine some people imply, and it was also used for ground attack so it's not the 'special snowflake' others imply either. But it was specialized, somewhat for that specific job - shoot down German fighters over the Front. But in the "Yak Family" they also had Yak 1B, Yak 7B, Yak 9K (CAS), Yak 9D (long range), Yak 9U (high speed - 435 mph - / high altitude) etc.
Though the Soviets did have some problems initially developing engines in the early parts of the war, the narrative or Trope that they were still using 1100 hp Hispano Suiza variants even late in the war is false. The VK 107 in the Yak-9U may have had it's serious issues but it generated 1,600 hp.
You may have "problems" understanding how the Yak 3 performed as it did, as you have mentioned before many times with many other aircraft in threads here that I have been part of, but this really doesn't mean anything. Occam's razor tells me it's far more likely that you are simply leaving something out in your calculations. Your repeatedly demonstrated lack of imagination in discussions like this in several threads makes this seem much more likely to me. If you start with an assumption and try to find data to fit, you are always going to be a bit perplexed.
I agree completely Milosh, my point was how much did Germany put into stopping them. They weren't much bothered about French locos.Tactical reports from RAF army cooperation units were laudatory. The Mustang I and IAs were able to take an incredible amount of battle damage. The long range of the Mustang made it an excellent tactical reconnaissance aircraft and its heavy armament made it effective against most ground targets. In 18 months of operation 200 locomotives and 200 barges were destroyed or severely damaged, and an undetermined number of enemy aircraft were destroyed on the ground. This was accomplished at the expense of only one Mustang being shot down by enemy fighters, five lost to flak, and two vanishing with no record of their fate. At low altitudes, the Mustang was faster than either the Bf 109 or the Fw 190. At sea level, the Mustang could run away from any enemy aircraft. The flaps were very useful in combat to reduce the turning radius.
Mustang Is and IAs served with the RAF up until 1944. It knew few equals in the role of low-altitude interdiction and reconnaissance.
Mustang Is and IAs served with the RAF up until 1944. It knew few equals in the role of low-altitude interdiction and reconnaissance.
With determining the most overrated aircraft of WW2 how much do we need to take into account that in the latter half of the war the Western Allies were not really fighting the cream of the Luftwaffe? I mean most of the Luftwaffe was heavily engaged in Eastern Europe and you can't even compare the training a new Luftwaffe pilot received in 1943 and onwards compared to the training they got in 1939 and 1940. Would it be fair to say that the new Luftwaffe pilots in 43 onwards were no where near as well trained as the pilots from 4 years earlier?
Should we then also take into account that the Luftwaffe for the first year or so of the was frequently fighting unprepared opponents?
If you are going to be pedantic, at least read what you are replying to. I said "waiting in the wings". F8F first flight was August 1944, F7F first flight November 1943. I also didn't count the night fighters by the way.
Like the Brewster Buffalo in Finnish hands, or even the Gladiator on Malta, the 'Carrier aircraft' designation didn't necessarily affect a given fighters capabilities from a land base. Certainly not with the Corsair. (Maybe Fairey Fulmar...)
- I don't see why that matters even if it was true but
- ... it's not true, obviously. F4Us and F4Fs were used quite a bit from land. F4Us were in wide use by the USMC and some land based USN squadrons, plus replacing P-40s for the New Zealanders in 1944.
So what? I didn't even count night fighters anyway. I just mentioned them to make a point.
So did every other fighter in 1944.
As far as I know, Yaks were only used over Russia and Eastern Europe in 1944...
Again, why would you think this was unique? Every air force in the world was replacing older types with newer types (and also introducing more specialized types like the Spit IX LF and so on)
What does that have to do with anything? The answer is all of the above plus Ls.
With determining the most overrated aircraft of WW2 how much do we need to take into account that in the latter half of the war the Western Allies were not really fighting the cream of the Luftwaffe? I mean most of the Luftwaffe was heavily engaged in Eastern Europe and you can't even compare the training a new Luftwaffe pilot received in 1943 and onwards compared to the training they got in 1939 and 1940. Would it be fair to say that the new Luftwaffe pilots in 43 onwards were no where near as well trained as the pilots from 4 years earlier?