Most Overrated aircraft of WWII.....?

The most over-rated aircraft of WW2

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Gents,

We seem to get completely focused on the performance aspects of these planes as if it can be boiled down to a winning formula. While one formula will give you better odds than another it's no guarantee due to the wild cards of the set up / situation, and the pilot.

The set up is who has the advantage of position or first tally and subsequent maneuvering to a position of advantage.

The pilot introduces the variables of knowledge, skill, and luck for better or worse.

If a pilot in a better plane approaches one in a lessor model, but fails to adhere to tactics designed to insure success he or she is asking to get their collective buttocal regions handed to them. Another way of saying this is you have to respect your adversary. He is out to win as well and may have some knowledge or skill you don't.

Trust me on this last point as I have lived it and took particular delight in delivering that lesson.

Cheers,
Biff
 
BiffF15 said:
Gents,

We seem to get completely focused on the performance aspects of these planes as if it can be boiled down to a winning formula. While one formula will give you better odds than another it's no guarantee due to the wild cards of the set up / situation, and the pilot.

The set up is who has the advantage of position or first tally and subsequent maneuvering to a position of advantage.

The pilot introduces the variables of knowledge, skill, and luck for better or worse.

If a pilot in a better plane approaches one in a lessor model, but fails to adhere to tactics designed to insure success he or she is asking to get their collective buttocal regions handed to them. Another way of saying this is you have to respect your adversary. He is out to win as well and may have some knowledge or skill you don't.

Trust me on this last point as I have lived it and took particular delight in delivering that lesson.

Cheers,
Biff
Click to expand...

Don't stop the F6F love fest...

We can make June Pride month for it.
 
P0KH4.jpg
 
As I've said before, "over-rated" is subjective, and has little to do with the aircraft's actual performance in combat; it's all about how people report its relative performance and contribution. Personally, I think the two main fighters of the Luftwaffe are over-rated because many people, a few (hopefully very few) of whom may have a political agenda favoring some of the nazi ideology, seem to assume every technological advance of the WW2 came out of Germany (see below). Statistics that I think are completely irrelevant to whether an aircraft is over- or under-rated include, incidentally, which ones the aces flew: that says more about opportunity, tactics, and pilots than about aircraft.

There are other fighters which may be considered over-rated, such as the P-51 (it was not as much better as other US fighters as some seem to believe; it was better than the others used in the ETO as a long-range escort, but was no better in other roles than its contemporaries, and was inferior in some aspects to them, including in air combat; see, for example, the comparative trials conducted by the US between the F4U and the P-51, where the Corsair was superior in a broad altitude range), but there are none which are no so consistently over-rated as the FW190 (which did not teach anybody how to produce a low-drag installation of a radial engine; the US and UK engineers already knew how to do so, and the fan was a crutch both groups eschewed) and the Bf109 (which actually had the worst zero-lift drag coefficient of any single-engine fighter to serve in significant numbers after 1941).

It's easier to agree on the aircraft of the Allies that are under-rated, mostly because these are actually the aircraft that did the heavy lifting before the next generation of fighters.
 
DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
Don't stop the F6F love fest...

We can make June Pride month for it.
Click to expand...

That's something I can get onboard with, seeing that June 26th will be the 76th anniversary of it's first flight. But let's not get too greedy here. We should definitely leave the other 11 months alone in order to drool over the two greatest Nazi killing machines of all time, the BF 109 and FW 190. God knows that will make certain folks here extremely giddy.... :rolleyes:
 
DarrenW said:
That's something I can get onboard with, seeing that June 26th will be the 76th anniversary of it's first flight. But let's not get too greedy here. We should definitely leave the other 11 months alone in order to drool over the two greatest Nazi killing machines of all time, the BF 109 and FW 190. God knows that will make certain folks here extremely giddy.... :rolleyes:
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C0CED03B-AD8B-4C89-8BFD-F99ADDEEACB9.gif


Good someone needs to balance you out...
 
swampyankee said:
As I've said before, "over-rated" is subjective, and has little to do with the aircraft's actual performance in combat; it's all about how people report its relative performance and contribution. Personally, I think the two main fighters of the Luftwaffe are over-rated because many people, a few (hopefully very few) of whom may have a political agenda favoring some of the nazi ideology, seem to assume every technological advance of the WW2 came out of Germany (see below). Statistics that I think are completely irrelevant to whether an aircraft is over- or under-rated include, incidentally, which ones the aces flew: that says more about opportunity, tactics, and pilots than about aircraft.

There are other fighters which may be considered over-rated, such as the P-51 (it was not as much better as other US fighters as some seem to believe; it was better than the others used in the ETO as a long-range escort, but was no better in other roles than its contemporaries, and was inferior in some aspects to them, including in air combat; see, for example, the comparative trials conducted by the US between the F4U and the P-51, where the Corsair was superior in a broad altitude range), but there are none which are no so consistently over-rated as the FW190 (which did not teach anybody how to produce a low-drag installation of a radial engine; the US and UK engineers already knew how to do so, and the fan was a crutch both groups eschewed) and the Bf109 (which actually had the worst zero-lift drag coefficient of any single-engine fighter to serve in significant numbers after 1941).

It's easier to agree on the aircraft of the Allies that are under-rated, mostly because these are actually the aircraft that did the heavy lifting before the next generation of fighters.
Click to expand...

Quoting myself. How derivative. Or recursive.

But, "see below" requires some more.

The idea that the Me262 had wing sweep to deal with compressibility is a myth; it was swept because of center of gravity issues. In other words, it was swept because somebody did their sums wrong.

Swept wings for high speed flight were considered and analyzed well before WW2; investigation of high-speed flight, including design of wings for supersonic flight was quite active and quite international in the 1930s; Google the Fifth Volta Conference. While many of the leading aerodynamicists of the era were German, they were also British, American, Italian, French, Japanese Russian (in the extended sense of "subject to the Soviet state," not just ethnic Russians), and Japanese. It's rather telling, although I don't know telling of what, that many German aircraft used NACA airfoils.....

NACA and Townend had radically reduced the drag of radial engines (and liquid-cooled engines of the era also had quite high drag, as many used shell-and-tube radiators, not plate-fin ones; the former had much higher pressure losses; Stan Miley has reported that net cooling drag does not significantly differ between cowled air-cooled radials and liquid-cooled in-lines).
 
So I was in my local Hobby Shop (a real nice one I call "The Airplane Shrine" though it seems to be getting taken over lately by some strange Japanese robots and other odd modern innovations)

Anyway I saw a new Osprey book titled something like "Air Vanguard / Allison Engined P-51 units". Given that this specific type of aircraft came up in a few conversations in the last several pages here, I was curious enough to shell out $20 and buy the thing.

I noticed a few interesting facts in the book which I thought people here might find worthy of posting. Forgive me if I'm slightly vague, this is from memory since I'm at a rather boring meeting at work and don't have the book on hand, but it's not far and I can provide more specific references on demand.
  • There were a lot of them in use. I was surprised by the production and operational deployment numbers. They made about ~ 1,800 of them through the end of the War. About 500 were given to the British who used them as Mustang I or II for Army Cooperation Command and I'm not sure what other units.
  • Another 500 were used as A-36 or P-51A in the Med (mostly as A-36 dive bombers), but this didn't start until the raids on Pantelleria and Lampadusa in June of 43, which is why I didn't notice them much in Shores MAW yet because MAW III ends in May I think. MAW IV is coming at the end of the year.
  • Another 200 or so were used in the CBI as A-36 and P-51A.
  • They were pretty good as Dive Bombers. From the list of destroyed targets they seem to have been pretty effective at dive-bombing particularly in Italy, two FB (Fighter Bomber) groups were deployed with I think 3 squadrons each, destroying many enemy airfields / planes and gun positions (notably at Anzio) and even sinking a couple of warships. Bombing accuracy was considered very high. Casualties, mainly to Flak, were also high and eventually they were phased out from the Dive Bombing mission and reverted to strafing and 'glide bombing' whatever that means.
  • They described an interesting detail of flying DB missions, with flight leader of 4 watching terrain to navigate, his wingman on his port side but looking right (and only right for E/A), the second flight leader also watching terrain features in case he has to navigate back to base, and his wingman on his starboard side looking left (and only left) for E/A. Sounded pretty tense!
  • Apparently they weren't so great as fighters. The book mentioned that there was only one Ace. Maybe this means only among the Americans or only among A-36 pilots I'm not sure. They mentioned I think about 80 victories total in the Med but didn't get into too much detail about fights.
  • In Burma they mentioned several specific missions. P-51A were used on long range escort missions, in one case in 1943 or 1944 they were jumped by Ki-43s from the 64th Sentai near ling ling and lost 4 without scoring victories. They listed 3 or 4 other engagements in 1944 where the P-51As suffered similarly lopsided losses against Ki-43s and Ki-44s of 64 or 50 Sentai, the latter down near Hong Kong IIRC. This was attributed in the book to poor Tactics and it mentioned they were ordered not to engage in "dogfights" with Japanese fighters.

That is a bit odd to me seeing as that tactic dated back to 1941 and should have been known, also P-40's were still doing quite well at that point in the same Theater. I have Ospreys 23rd Fighter Group book, P-40 Aces of the CBI book, and Ki-43 vs. P-40 in 1944 book. P-40s seem to have been doing quite well by then.

Osprey doesn't give loss results from both sides though, so to find some other sources I googled and found an old thread from this very forum which among other things mentions a fight between 5 P-40s facing a raid by 32 A6M5s piloted by flight school instructors and experienced veterans, in which 9 A6M were shot down for the loss of 1 P-40. Apparently the P-40s pilots were warned and had plenty of time to prepare for the raid and used very good tactics while the Japanese pilots, in spite of their experience, did not.

That thread also mentions incidents (comparing claims and losses on both sides) in which P-40s were shooting down plenty of Ki-43, Ki-44 and Ki-84s in various engagements. It was an interesting read.


I don't really understand why Allison engined P-51s were not doing so well in air to air combat. Regular Packard Merlin engined ones did quite well obviously including in Burma (I think... I mean I haven't looked deep into it but 23rd FG book makes it seem so). P-51A had the altitude limitation but so did the P-40... and P-51A could hit 400 mph. It may boil down to tactics, leadership and training... but even that seems odd if the low number of combat victories is seen in the Med, in British service and in Burma.

S
 
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Also shows you how deadly that Ki-43 was, even in 1944. Don't need tons of guns or 450 mph speed to kill enemy fighters.

Imagine what the Finns could have done with 100 of those lol.

S
 
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The A-36 first saw action in North Africa (April '43), attached to the 27th FBG, from there, it participated in the MTO and Lt. Russo became an Ace in that theater against German and Italian fighters.

The A-36 arrived in the CBI (September '43) attached to the 311th FBG - unfortunately, the altitudes involved in the Burma area did put the A-36 at a disadvantage against Japanese fighters.

It appears that of the 500 A-36s built, their numbers were almost equally divided between Europe and the Pacific.
 
Milosh said:
P-51A was NA99. Four wing guns only. No dive brakes. 310 built.
A-36 was NA97. Four wing guns and 2 fuselage guns. 500 built.
Click to expand...

So impatient. I told y'all I was posting from work. I'm at home now with the book in my hand. This is the book.

What you posted is a partial list. Total production of this plane was 1720 units not counting prototypes.

England ordered 320 NA 73 and 300 NA 83 (all as Mk I), and 92 NA-91 (as Mk 1A) and 50 NA 99 (as Mk II) for a total of 762 Allison Engined P-51s.
The US ordered 458 P-51s of various subtypes (see below) plus the 500 A-36 for a total of 958 Allison Engined P-51s.

Total production was therefore 1720 not counting 3 prototypes. It was not clear to me initially if the 86 recon versions were made originally for that purpose (this is why I originally thought total production run was ~1800). But I checked and read it a bit more carefully - they were apparently diverted from British orders, converted into recon planes and used in Tunisia and from England including over D-Day. These are the production numbers:

320 x Mk I (NA-73) Nov 41 to May 42. Serial Nos AG345 to AG664
200 x Mk I (NA-83) Apr to Aug 42. Serial Nos AL 958 to AM257
100 x Mk I (NA-83) Jul to Aug 42. Serial Nos AP164 to AP 263
92 x Mk IA (NA-91) Sept 42 to Jan 43 Serial Nos FD438 to FD 567
148 x P-51 (NA-91) Serial Nos 41-37320 to 41-37469
500 x A-36 (NA-97) Serial Nos 42-83663 to 42-84162
100 x P-51A-1 (NA -99) Serial Nos 43-6003 to 43-6102
55 x P-51A-5 (NA-99) Serial Nos 43-6103 to 43-6157
155 x P-51A-10 (NA-99) Serial Nos 43-6158 to 43-6312

Of the English models 51 were converted to F-6A and 35 converted to F-6B recon planes.

Allison Engined Mustangs in Combat
According to the book, page 42, the A-36 arrived at operational units (27th and 86th FBG) in March 1943 but did not fly a combat mission until 6 June 1943 against Pantelleria and Lampedusa. It may be possible however that some of the recon (F-6) birds may have been used before that.

Michael T Russo was an ace flying A-36s with the 16th Bomb Squadron in Italy. Apparently he was the only Ace with the type which is surprising considering ~1,600 of them were fairly heavily engaged over a long period of time. Does not compare well with say, the P-40F or the P-40K. Or the say, Yak-7.

The first unit that got mauled in Burma was the 311 FB group operating out of Kyurmitola India. They had 40 A-36s plus some P-51As. November 25 8 Mustangs flew escort to B-25s to Mingaladon Iarfield in Rangoon. They were bounced by four Ki-43s from the 64th Sentai. Two Mustangs were shot down for no claims. Shortly after another escort mission for B-24s was jumped again by 64th Sentai Ki-43s, losing 4 Mustangs including the 311 FG commanding officer, Colonel Harry Melton. One Ki-43 was shot down and one made a forced landing.

On Dec 1 1943 311 FBG escorted Liberators to Rangoon, got jumped again losing 1 P-51.

On Feb 14, 1944 13 P-51As were escorting B-25s to a raid at Zaundiaing. While strafing the target they were bounced by Ki-43s from the 50th Sentai. Two P-51s were lost and 3 damaged. No Japanese losses are mentioned.

They mention two more combats in March and April 1944 in which "several" Ki-43s of 50th Sentai were shot down, and one on March 16 where 50th Sentai Ki-43s "bounced" P-51As on takeoff and one was shot down with the pilot badly burned.

Like I said, a fairly dismal air to air combat record. You'll be happy to know though the book says several times that the P-51A was way better than the P-40 and even claims it was better in combat than the P-38. Better no doubt in many ways except in the sense of shooting down enemy aircraft while not getting shot down...

It does seem like it was a good dive bomber though and that changes my understanding of the DAF a bit, the existence of a good high speed dive bomber on the Allied side definitely puts an interesting twist on the whole war in that area. The USAAF had their own Stuka and it went 400 mph and had a ~1200 mile range.

S
 
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XBe02Drvr said:
Weren't they restricted to "close escort, no dogfighting"? Kinda like one hand tied behind?
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After one of the encounters with 64 Sentai they were given orders for "no dogfighting" in the sense of do not get into a low speed turn fight with the Japanese fighters. This was SOP in the CBI since 1941 for I think all Allied fighters.

I'm not sure about the close escort rule but I can't imagine why their tactics would be any different from the P-40, P-47, P-38 or Merlin engined P-51 Squadrons operating in the same Theater.

It is possible that this is just down to poor tactics, poor training or inexperience, but that would mean English / Commonwealth pilots, US pilots in the Med, and in the CBI all having the same problems. I'm not sure how many squadrons you get out of 1600 planes but it's a fair amount. Maybe 20 or 30. I would expect more Aces especially that late in the war. They may not have been encountering that many enemy aircraft though due to the nature of the missions most of them were flying and the lack of enemy planes that late in the war, especially in the Med and CBI.

But just by comparison, they only made about 2000 P-40F & L, and they had 16 pilots make Ace while flying just on those types in USAAF units in the Med (including one double Ace, Levi Chase), plus at least two in the Pacific (1Lt Henry E. Matson and 1Lt Jack Bade) and 3 Commonwealth pilots who made ace while flying the type with 260 RAF and 3 RAAF, all in about 6 -8 months mostly in the first half of 1943. So 19 Aces.

There were at least twenty pilots who made Ace while flying the P-40K (if you count US - especially 23rd FG, Commonwealth and Russia) including at least 4 Double Aces (John Hampshire and Bruce Holloway with 23FG, Earnest Hariss with 49 FG, and Konstantin Dmitrievich in Russia) plus one quadruple Ace (Kuznetzov) and there were only 1300 of those built, though it was in deployment for a bit longer (mid 42-late 44). One double Ace Denisov Konstantin Dmitrievich scored all of his 13 victories while flying the P-40K. M.V. Kuznetzov also got most of his 22 P-40 kills while flying P-40K.

Note I didn't count pilots who were Aces and scored victories in those types but who got some of their victories while flying other subtypes. There were a large number of Commonwealth Aces in particular who flew P-40K, F or L at some point in their career, and many Russian aces who flew the P-40K at some point. Most of the P-40 victories in WW2 were made while flying P-40B/C (Tomahawk II and IIB) and P-40E (Kittyhawk I and Ia) types earlier in the war when the air combat was more intense.

According to Carl Moleseworth P-40's shot down 64% of the Japanese planes destroyed in the CBI.

S
 
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Schweik said:
It is possible that this is just down to poor tactics, poor training or inexperience
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Or maybe a different mission? The A-36 was primarily an attack plane with its performance optimized for the lower levels, and training probably emphasized that role, with the plane's performance dedicated to escape rather than ACM. The other planes you're comparing it to are dedicated fighters with the training and attitudes to match. How many kills did Marine bomber-configured F-4s make in 'Nam compared to Navy and Air Force Phantoms flying in the fighter role? And any commander who sends non turbo Allison fighters to escort bombers over the hump deserves to be relieved.
Cheers,
Wes
 
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