Do you want them for 1939, 1940,1941,1942, 1943, 1944 or 1945, would a summary do? Of course the purely PR Spitfires didn't shoot any down, but it was one of the best A/C in the role throughout the war.
Most Overrated aircraft of WWII.....? (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Lucky13
- Start date
Wow you can sense a little sparkle of malice there lol.
I do think that is true - the Spitfire was never replaced, though calling a Spit XIV the same aircraft as the Spit I is a bit of a stretch. But I wouldn't rate an aircraft by it's being great from beginning of the war through the end necessarily. For one thing, the changes that a plane goes through from beginning to end of the design life-cycle can be fairly extreme. Different guns, different engine, different fuselage, even different wings. Whether you still call it by the same model name or ID number is a bit arbitrary.
All of the aircraft from WW2 were ultimately replaced and / or are obsolete by today's standards but we still like them. Same for the WW1 aircraft before them. Just because a fighter was 'in the mix' for a while and then replaced by another doesn't make it inferior to me. Personally I really like some of the early-war WW2 fighters, even the Spanish Civil War era ones.
I am a big fan of the P-40 and appreciate most of the American kit but the P-40 did have a major issue with the performance ceiling and I don't think the Spit is overrated. It was a short range fighter and did best as an interceptor, but it's importance was real and critical to the War Effort. Even though the Hurricane shot down a lot of planes in the BoB, it was the parity or edge (depending on who you believe in the endless debates) that the Spitfire had over the Bf 109 that made the crucial difference in morale and gave the British planners a tool they could use to affect the outcomes (put the Spitfires where they most needed to blunt the enemy). The English needed a fighter that could best the opposition, that they could believe (rightly or wrongly) was superior to it. It just wasn't enough to have one that could win 2 out of 5 times.
There is also simply no denying that the Spitfire was one of the most beautiful aircraft designed during the war. It's lovely to behold. I forget who it was that said but the beautiful planes usually (not always but usually) were the ones that were the most successful. You look at a Firefly, a Helldiver or a Seamew, and you can just tell something major is wrong with the design. You look at a Spitfire, and you are looking at something that seems to be from nature, a soaring predator of the skies.
My off the cuff list of the most beautiful mainstream warplanes of WW2:
Spitfire (for me especially the earlier ones, Mk 1 - Mk IX)
Yak-3 (I like the whole Yak series but the Yak 3 is the beauty queen of them all)
La-5 / 7
Mosquito
Beaufighter
Lancaster
Pe-2 Peshka
Fw-190D
Do -17
He-219 Uhu
D3A "Val"
A6M Zero-Sen
Ki-43 Hayabusa
Ki-46 "Dinah" (especially the Ki-46-III with the streamlined nose)
Ki-61 Hien
Bf 109 (for me especially the F-4)
SM. 79 Sparvierro
Re-2005 - the whole Re 2000 series really.
Dewoitine D.520
P-40 (for me personally especially the long tailed 'F')
P-51 (for me personally the B and C models)
Corsair, especially the later ones
To me all those planes have a certain elegance to their design which is just captivating. And it did also translate into good quality.
S
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Both the P-51 and P-47 had recognition stripes added because they could be mistaken for Bf109s and Fw190s.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Not sure how you came to this conclusion.
The P-47's combat range was 800 miles without droptanks, which was almost twice that of the Spit. It was also nearly double that of contemporary Axis fighters.
There was no problem for it to cross the channel, get savage on Axis fighters and targets then return home.
Lets be real though AAA gunners could mistake a 747 for a Bf 109. Weren't all the Anglo-American aircraft from D-Day wearing those stripes?
I don't think it was unusual for higher performance fighters with newer high performance engines to have some engine issues (particularly overheating), which often partly depended on the season and the climate as well as the altitude, maintenance and other factors, and these were not necessarily debilitating certainly not with the Yak-9U.
Since the Soviets had multiple variants of Yak with different performance levels - by 1944 they could concentrate the faster ones like the Yak-3 and 9U (and even the Yak-1B) against what was left of the more elite Ostfront Luftwaffe fighters - I think they manufactured more than enough for that- while the less zippy ones could focus on destroying the second string units and the few remaining German bombers and ground attack aircraft, as well as attacking flak and other ground targets.
Kind of like the way the English in the same era used Spitfires and Mustangs to counter German fighters when most necessary / crucial and sent P-47s and Typhoons out to do a lot of strafing and rocket and bomb attacks.
By 1944 most Allied fighters in every Theater were actually flying more ground-attack missions than anything else.
S
Stripes added before D-Day. A single stripe, either yellow or white, on each wing and stab. Sometimes the fin/rudder.
Respectfully disagree on a couple of points.
1) The 51 was often mistake for 109s by BOTH sides.
2)P-47s did have the range all the way to parts of Germany with drop tanks. Not as far as 51s granted but still alot more that Spitfires.
3)the Zero wasn't so formidable after the basic built in flaws were discovered. A competant P-40/Wildcat pilot could beat it with the right tactics.
4) Flak shot at EVERTHING, even sometimes the German ones... They didn't pick and choose that way.
Have to agree about the survivabilty about the 47 though. A couple of 4th FG vets I knew wouldn't have survived otherwise.
Lastly, I didn't mean the 51 was crap, just not the be all and end all of WW2 fighters.
DarrenW
Staff Sergeant
Great post Schweik. I think there are a lot of people out there that don't expect an "average" looking aircraft to do well. I also believe that's why it's hard for some to accept the success of aircraft such as the Grumman Hellcat and Brewster Buffalo. And although I personally find the Hellcat attractive in it's own special way, neither of these two aircraft possessed the grace and beauty of a Mustang or Spitfire. But they were very successful designs and accomplished much during the war. These would be two great examples of exceptions to the rule....
A picture is worth a thounsand words!
What I had in mind. Just didn't state it very well...
DarrenW
Staff Sergeant
I was thinking of putting (darling) as I wrote that.I'll have to take my wife flying more often!!!!
Great post Schweik, as you say all aircraft are superseded, however the Spitfire was a frontline competitive aircraft at the start of WW2 Sept 1939 and at the end Aug 1945. There were times when it was down against the opposition but not by much. Wars are won by crucial battles, the Spitfire won two, the BoB and the Malta, and played a major part in many others if not to win then to avert disaster. I am constantly perplexed by the argument about range. Apparently being able to fight 200 miles away is much more important than being able to fight at 20,000 ft. That is an attitude of someone who certainly wasn't a resident of Kent's airfields in 1940. From first to last the Spitfire series were almost completely changed, but so were the P-51 and P-47. Some events like the Spitfire intercepting German recon planes above 40,000 ft may seem inconsequential. However in the run up to D-Day German Recon could only be allowed where the allies wanted.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Two very good points among several.
The first one, brings to mind an encounter of the Royal Bulgarian Air Force on 30 March 1944. Up to this point, they had successfully intercepted Allied bombers and P-38s in defense of their territory, particularly thier capitol, Sofia. On this day, however, P-51Bs were first used to escort Allied bombers and in the meleé that ensued, the Bulgarian pilots mistook the P-51s for their own Bf109Gs and allowed them to close, only realising too late that they were the enemy and losing 9 of their fighters in the process. This was the single highest loss suffered by the RBAF in a day.
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.
Nothing about the Spit is inconsequential, trust me. I am certainly not one of the people who thinks its overrated. They had a problem in 1942 with the deadly Fw 190, but they fixed that pretty much for good in my opinion, with the Spit IX. One of those brilliant "Stop Gap" design measures that ends up being a fantastic home run.
Do I think altitude limitations are more important than range limitations? I don't know, I think they are both limitations.
The altitude one seems to be more widespread, I'm learning, than I had originally known. The fighter best known for altitude limits was arguably the P-40, then the P-39, and then the various Soviet fighters. But I have learned that these issues affected many others. Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought one of the issues with the Spit V as it faced the Fw 190 was that it's performance declined a bit at altitude whereas the Spit IX with the ingenious Merlin 60 series and two stage supercharger drove like a Lion up to a much greater height, which helped (along with the sheer increase in horsepower) improve speed and overall performance up high. This is my understanding anyway.
The Fw 190 itself also eventually faced altitude limitations as the Allied fighters with turbos and two stage superchargers spread, and it too suffered from that deficit, requiring the development of the elegant 190D but a bit too late.
Range does matter IMO, if you can't get to the fight you can't affect the outcome. I think this was the reason why the A6M was so good, or more precisely the combination of range, performance (esp. climb) and maneuverability. But yes I do think range is a very important feature for a fighter.
Which one matters more depends on the Theater doesn't it? On the Russian Front, altitude capability made little difference. If it did the MiG 3 would have been the hero. Range didn't matter that much either. In the BoB altitude mattered but range didn't as much (better range would have helped though particularly for the Germans). In the Pacific range was much more important and is the main reason the Spit didn't really excel there and a big part of why the A6M did. Over the heart of Germany again, range mattered. And I object to the dismissal of the P-51 as a flying gas tank, that is a bit absurd.
I think fighters with different capabilities are also better or worse for certain roles. The Spit was the best allied interceptor, bar none. The Mustang was the best escort fighter, though it came late and that matters too.
I like what you did by pointing out that the Spitfire won two key battles, BoB and Malta. Here are a few which occur to me:
The A6M, the D3A won Pearl Harbor, and (with the G4M etc.), the first Battle of the Philippines, the Battle of Singapore and so on.
The Bf 109 and the Stuka won the Battle of Poland and the Battle of France.
I would say that the F4F and the Dauntless won Midway, Coral Sea, and Guadalcanal.
The F6F won the second Battle of the Philippines.
The P-40 won the (air) Battle of Burma and China
The P-40 won Milne Bay and Darwin and the Kokoda trail, (which together form the BoB of Australia.)
I would say the P-40 also helped win El Alamein and Tunisia but not alone.
I think the Yak-1, the P-40 and the P-39 helped save Leningrad and Moscow for the Russians. Credit for that also goes to the Il-2 for the battle after Stalingrad. The Il-2 certainly helped win Kursk.
S
The P-47 and the Typhoon helped win the Battle of D-Day
Another thought on this.
I was reading recently (as the result of another conversation here) about the Japanese air attack on the Philippines, and was shocked to notice that they flew their raid from Formosa (Taiwan - can you still say that?). 950 km from Taiwan to Clark Field! Paris to London is 344 km by comparison. London to Hamburg is 720 km. Imagine if the Allies had a (really good) fighter that could fly that distance in 1941. Imagine if the Spitfire could do it!? Would that have helped the war effort?
S
Of course it would, but the allies in 1941 were officially UK and Russia and primarily concerned with defence. Nice to think about flying to Hamburg and Paris but you will meet Bf109s
