Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
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
Don't stop the F6F love fest...
We can make June Pride month for it.
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....
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.
"OK pass, #3 wire, on speed, on glideslope ATW, 4.0!"
Another 500 were used as A-36 or P-51A in the Med (mostly as A-36 dive bombers)
Often referred to as "cheek guns".A-36 was NA97. Four wing guns and 2 fuselage guns. 500 built.
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.
Weren't they restricted to "close escort, no dogfighting"? Kinda like one hand tied behind?Like I said, a fairly dismal air to air combat record.
Weren't they restricted to "close escort, no dogfighting"? Kinda like one hand tied behind?
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.It is possible that this is just down to poor tactics, poor training or inexperience