Most Overrated aircraft of WWII.....?

The most over-rated aircraft of WW2

  • Total voters
    409

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

I think you're taking this too seriously, but here's the link, there are both Aussie and Kiwi victory claims for WW2 in the Asia-Pacific. Pacific Victory Roll - Sep 43 - Jul 45
 
Why not be serious about statistics?

If we look at that victory list, we see that the claims are not balanced out, they were accrued in different areas, meaning that the enemy may not have been operating at strength, unescorted bombers may have been operating in one area while obsolete fighters were in others and in some sectors, fewer enemy types were encountered overall.

So if we want to just casually toss out numbers to support a point of view, one could say that the PB4Y was a better fighter than the ones listed (Spitfire, Beaufort, Beaufighter and P-40) because it downed over 300 enemy aircraft between late 1943 and 1945...
 
Following this thread, and the underrated thread as well, my idea of what is overrated has changed.

My original thoughts I cannot recall (they'd be here somewhere), but in recent times it has clearly been the P-39, which was then usurped by the P-40 and now, I am afraid, it has to be the Hurricane!
 
amrit said:
Ahh, Glider beat me to it. Yep the A6M Zero. No armour or self-sealing tanks!! Range and agility weren't everything - just sneeze on it and it fell down
Click to expand...
No armor or self sealing tanks, but that weight savings meant it had a fantastic range for a single engine fighter at that time. If the Germans had the Zero, it could have flown escort during the Battle of Britain, chased around Spitfires until THEY were out of fuel, and then head back to bases in Europe...easily. It's hard to fight if one can't make it to where the fight is.
 

Actually the main RAF fighter from late 1941 to the fall of 1942 was the Tomahawk and the Kittyhawk I, Ia, II and III (i.e. P-40). Hurricanes were generally diverted to fighter bomber role by 1942, Spitfires came in the middle of 1942 but initially in very low numbers.

S
 

Quite accurate, but here is the nuance - almost all the Hurricanes and most of the Kittyhawk I and IA were being used as fighter bombers / CAS almost all the time. The only time they were used to attack enemy aircraft offensively was when big Axis bomber missions were sent in (which was not typical).

The Kitthyawk II and III, and the US Warhawks (P-40 F/L) and the Spit V. were doing almost all of the CAP, fighter sweep and fighter escort missions, then joined by the P-38s when they arrived. Specifically the Spit V's were the ideal CAP / interceptors and given priority on those missions, as well as short range fighter sweeps. Kittyhawk II and III and Warhawks for medium range escort of medium bombers and fighter sweeps, and when the P-38's arrived they were used to escort the higher-flying / long range B-24s.

If you look at Shores Mediterranean Air War the rates of Hurricane victory claims are very low by that time.

For example, in the Month of October 1942, counting only confirmed victories, the breakdown was as follows:

Claims
RAF Spitfire Mk V --- 35.5 (31 x Bf 109, 3 x MC 202, and 1 x Ju 52)
RAF P-40* --- 57 (35.5 x Bf 109, 11 x MC 202, 9 x Ju 87, 1 x Ju 88)
US P-40 --- 29 (18 x Bf 109, 7 x MC 202, 4 x Cr 42)
RAF Hurricane** --- 12 (3 x Bf 109, 1 x CR 42, 7 x Ju 87, 1 X Ju 88)
Bf 109 --- 75 (20 x Spit, 43.5 x P40s, 12 x Hurricanes)

* includes Tomahawk, & Kittyhawk I, II and III
** includes both Hurricane Mk I and II

Total allied claims were Bf 109 x 85 victories, MC 202 x 21, Total 134

Actual Losses were:
34 x Bf 109 shot down plus x 7 crash landed
10 x MC 202 shot down plus x 8 crash landed
6 x Cr 42 shot down
11 x Ju 87 shot down
1 x Ju 88 shot down
1 x Ju 52 shot down
1 x He 111 shot down
10 x Spitfire Vs shot down plus x 1 crash-landed
1 x Spit IV (recon) shot down
3 x US P-40 F/L* shot down plus x 3 crash-landed
3 x RAF Tomahawk shot down plus 1 crash-landed
13 Kittyhawk Mk I shot down plus 5 crash-landed
13 Kittyhawk Mk III shot down plus 2 crash-landed
7 Kitthawk Mk II* shot down plus 1 crash-landed
17 Hurricanes shot down plus 2 crash-landed

* those are the Packard / Merlin XX engined P-40s

Total Allied losses were 57 Fighters shot down, 15 Crash landed (10 /1 x Spitfire Vs, 1 x Spit IV, 29 / 12 x P-40s, and 17/2 x Hurricanes)
Total Axis losses were 65 - 50 Fighters shot down, 15 crash landed, plus 14 Bombers shot down (I didn't count the damaged or crash landed bombers)

Worth noting that almost all of the German bombers lost were shot down by either Hurricanes, Tomahawks or Kittyhawk Mk I
Kittyahwk III also is a confusing mix of the relatively high performing P-40K with the relatively low performing (export only) P-40M
All the CR 42 losses were from one mission when they sent ~ 50 of them equipped with bombs as fighter bombers on a strike that was intercepted and mauled by P-40s and Hurricanes. Same thing happened in one of the Stuka missions.
Most missions (all but two) by the Tomahawks, Kittyhawk I and Hurricanes were fighter-bomber sorties.

My conclusions
Results were about even, if slightly in favor of the Allies
Most allied losses were among the older aircraft (33 out of 57)
Spitfires had the best record, followed by the American P-40s (which were late model)
In general P40 units took the heaviest losses but also inflicted the most casualties.
The Italians didn't take (or inflict) that many combat losses in spite of having more planes in action than the Luftwaffe. This seems to be a common pattern in Shores records.
Hurricane pilots only claimed 1 Italian aircraft in Oct 1942, and 4 fighters
 
Last edited:
Agreed, but just because you're the main offensive fighter from 1941 to 1942 doesn't mean you're scoring the most victories, there were just as many Hurricane as P-40 squadrons in the RAF in the Western Desert. If the Tomahawk, 77 from three out of five squadrons, and the Kittyhawk (420), scored this many victories in the Western desert then how many did the Hurricane score? In the BoB, the Hurricane scored twice as many victories as the Spitfire. The Hurricane scored about 500 victories over Malta before the Spitfire arrived and shot down 800. I'm not disputing that the P-40 was better than the Hurricane, let alone the Spitfire, I'm just curious as to how many victories the Hurricane scored (claimed) in the rear or as bomber escorts.The Italians lost an awful lot of aircraft, so who shot them down and when?
 
I think I already gave you your answer above, per Christopher Shores only 1 Italian fighter (a Cr 42) was claimed by Hurricanes in Oct 1942

But here is a further breakdown which should make it clearer:

Available Fighters for the DAF Oct 1942 - 411
Total Claims - 134
Total Losses - 57 / 15

128 x RAF P-40 (32 Kitty II [3 RAAF and 260 RAF], 16 Tomahawk, 80 x mosty Kitty I with a few Mk III)
31% of the force / Claims 57.5 (44%) / losses 26 (45%)

128 x Hurricane I and II (96 Hurri IIC, 48 x IIB or Mk I)
31% of the force / Claims 12 (8%) / Losses 17 (29%)

32 x Hurricane IID (tank busters not really used in fighter to fighter combat)
7% of the force (no claims or losses as far as I know)

75 x USAAF P-40 F/L (I think all these were 57th FG but I haven't double-checked yet)
18% of the force / Claims 29 (21%) / Losses 3 (5%)

48 x Spitfire Mk V (Vb and VC, not counting the recon planes which I think were Mk IV)
11.5% of the force / Claims 35.5 (26%) / Losses 10 (17%)

P-40 combined (RAF and USAAF) are 65% of the claims vs. 50% of the losses
 
Do you have victory scores for Hurricanes, P-40's and Spitfires for the entire North African campaign?
 
Kevin J said:
Do you have victory scores for Hurricanes, P-40's and Spitfires for the entire North African campaign?
Click to expand...

No not yet.... I would like to but that would be a BIG job adding those all up. I happened to have the stats for Oct 1942 already written down as the result of a discussion in another thread in here a few months ago.

but I can tell you that:
  • October 1942 is fairly typical as far as the ratios go, though later on you also get P-38s and American Spitfires, then eventually Spit IXs
  • Spit IXs were the dominant fighter type once they arrived in Theater
  • And I'm pretty sure there weren't any months where the Hurricanes got the majority of victories or more victories than losses after 1941, in fact that would be rare even in the second half of 1941.
  • The Italians also pretty consistently took and dished out fairly low losses. Less claims and less losses than the Germans.
In my opinion, the Hurricane pilots were consistently scoring less than 10% of the victories, probably more like 5% in most of 1942 and early 1943. In other words, it wasn't the Battle of Britain. The Italians also consistently took pretty low losses after 1941, occasionally they came out in force with the MC 202s & MC 200s.

I think a lot of their losses were due to flak and accidents. Flak is probably the cause of somewhere between 1/4 to 1/2 of casualties, the ratio being much higher in bombing missions. USAAF P-40 pilots for example lost much more to Flak than enemy fighters. German AAA was very good. Similarly most of the Bf 110 and Bf 109 "Jabo" losses were to Flak. Accident rates were also always very high, almost every day there were losses to accidents even when there was no enemy contact. Rough airfields, maintenance problems, desert conditions (dust) and relatively high landing speeds are mostly to blame.

I also suspect a lot of the Italian combat losses were early in the Desert Air War when they were bearing the brunt of it, before the Bf 109s and MC 202s showed up (IIRC toward the end of 1941). Before that it was Cr 42s, MC 200s and Bf 110s fighting the Tomahawks and Hurricanes and not doing so well.

I should add a few comments per the stats above -
  • I did not count claims for "probables" or "damaged" enemy aircraft since those are almost always bogus (maybe 2% of the time they mean a loss)
  • I did not count losses attributed (by the side losing the plane) to flak - I would say 95% of the time those were indeed caused by flak as reported.
  • In distinguishing between "shot down" and "crash landed", the former included planes with 70% damage or more, bailed out, MIA / "Failed to Return" or pilot KIA, the latter meant the plane was set down on their own field or at least within friendly lines with a chance of recovery.
  • A lot of P-40s and Hurricanes crash landed and even more were damaged cat 1 or damaged cat II but still landed at a friendly base.
  • Same for Italian planes in general and Bf 109s.
If you can think of another day, week or month for me to check where you believe the Hurricane pilots got a lot of victories I can check it - With the three Christopher Shores books on the Med I have the DAF victories and losses for all of 1941 and 1942, and up to April 1943. You'll have to give me a few days to add up another whole month though as much as I like forum discussions I have limited time for that kind of thing.

S
 
I'll skim through Vols I and II tonight though and see if I can find anything interesting, I do believe the Hurricane pilots did have some "good days" particularly earlier on.

S
 
Schweik said:
I'll skim through Vols I and II tonight though and see if I can find anything interesting, I do believe the Hurricane pilots did have some "good days" particularly earlier on.

S
Click to expand...
Thanks, I don't find the idea of the Hurricane scoring 55% of the RAF fighter Command's victories against their European enemies impossible, versus 33% for the Spitfire. The question would be, where did they occur? I can't come up with a figure greater than 3000 for the ETO, so maybe the MTO. It certainly won't be in the CBI, they did appallingly there.Also, we kept on building them so they couldn't have been that bad.
 
They definitely were still getting kills in the Med for a long time, and probably had a few hundred claims at least in 1941.

I think by the middle of 1942 though the role for the Hurricane was basically as a bomber, it was the Allied Stuka if you will. To a slightly lesser extent so was the P-40 of course.

In many sectors of the war in North Africa Axis aircraft were rare at any given moment, the Germans in particular tended to concentrate their forces so they could achieve local numerical superiority and rack up kills, often neglecting other whole sectors of the front and leaving Rommels Afrika Korps to defend itself with AAA. So the DAF fighters were dropping bombs, and trying to fight off Luftwaffe and Regia interceptors that jumped them.

The Allies didn't have a great Tactical bomber in the Med. Beaufighters were good in the Maritime role, but in the land war it was basically Blenheims, Marylands, and Baltimores, which were all pretty vulnerable (especially Blenheims) and not that great at hitting targets. Bostons (A-20's) were a bit better on both fronts, and when they got there in late 1942 and 1943 the American B-25s and B-24s proved to be pretty effective, but from 1941 the most important Allied Tactical bombers were fighters, and that continued to the end of the War with P-47s, P-51s and Typhoons.

That is what the Hurricane mainly did I think in the later years of it's career - that was (I think) why they kept building them.

S
 
Last edited:
I voted Spitfire - simply because that in British and Scandinavian literature one ALWAYS gets the impression that the Spitfire won the war alone.
Seems to me that many writers, journalists and laymen simply don't know the names of any other fighters - or they are just unaware that other airplanes existed.
 
They were using FAA Fairey Albacores as they had skilled personnel able to navigate at night by the stars.
 
fastmongrel said:
What have all these MTO statistics got to do with Fighter Command claims. Fighter Command didn't operate outside of Britain.
Click to expand...
Someone has posted in the internet on one of the forums that 55% of Fighter Command's victories were by Hurricanes, 33% by Spitfires. I can only get to 3000 in Fighter Command so I am looking else where for the remaining victories.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Similar threads

S
"Generations" of fighter aircraft
2
Replies
32
Views
1K
Barrett
B
T
Early records of UK preparation for WWII
Replies
3
Views
778
yulzari
M
USAAF aircraft lost through transport sinkings during Battle of the Atlantic?
Replies
7
Views
696
Frog
F
Aircraft in Battle of Păuliș? Hungary vs Romania 1944
Replies
0
Views
658
CHen10
WWI Aces Flying WWII Planes
Replies
17
Views
2K
Admiral Beez
A
Menu
Log in
Register