MOST UNDERRATED AIRCRAFT OF WWII?

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Yeah, I would say the Ju 87D is pretty dangerous with those 20mm guns, earlier models though I'd probably give it to the SBD - as we know they did pretty well in air to air combat.

Other than armament it should be pretty even really, both have about the same speed. Anyone know or care to figure out wing loading without bombs? And power to mass? Climb rate? never to exceed speed?

Stuka is a bit bigger and has fixed landing gear so probably has more drag. SBD empty weight is a bit lower too.

Slight edge to the SBD unless the Ju-87 has the 20mm cannon, then I'd give a slight edge to the Ju-87.

But I'm definitely totally guessing. I will have to resolve this in Il2 tonight... lol (sorry just kidding don't fling slings and arrows at me)

Actually I'm not kidding. Definitely going to try that.

S
 
Stig1207 said:
I am left with the impression, reading this and the sister thread, that just about every plane that flew was either:
a) underrated
b) overrated
C) or in some cases, all of the above!
:)
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I apreciate the humor in that but in all seriousness there are some planes that tend to be verry much under or over rated, IMHO, depending on who's doing the rating. The p38 would be my pick for plane that gets it from both directions.
I've read articles that claim it was by far the greatest fighter of the war and others claiming it was generaly a failure.
By my estamation it was a good, and versitile plane. Maybe not great at one thing but good at alot of things.
It seams however, to me at least, that the p38 seems to attract extreme assessments both good and bad like no other plane.
 
Schweik said:
So again, somewhat grudgingly, and I know as a bit of an outlier from the consensus in this forum as usual, I would continue to assert that the Stuka was in fact an underrated aircraft, at least for the majority of the war that took place after the Battle of Britain. I have yet to see any argument that convinces me otherwise.
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I still don't think it was underrated or underappreciated.

Saying that the Ju 87 needed to operate with effective fighter cover or in areas with little or no fighter opposition does not make it underrated.
 
michael rauls said:
By my estamation it was a good, and versitile plane. Maybe not great at one thing but good at alot of things.
Click to expand...

I agree, and probably no aircraft is flawless anyway. The P-38 is one of those machines that it's difficult to understand that it should be regarded as either under- or overrated.
 
Maybe the reason threads about over and under-rated aircraft are so popular here, and the reason why some planes might even qualify as both - is that so many people tend to oversimplify the stories about these aircraft, apply broad-brush, crude analysis and make hyperbolic claims. So there is plenty of BS out there to debunk. The P-38 is a good example, it was a remarkable and successful fighter design that also had a lot of serious flaws.

Few major aircraft in WW2 don't have at least some completely bogus trope or legend attached to them in the popular imagination.

Exaggerated claims as to how bad this or that fighter was or how good it was tend to nudge the story way beyond the reality. So in some ways these discussions help flesh out a clearer picture of these aircraft.

I deal with many other historical subjects, including conducting research on an academic level. One constant is that modern people seem to inevitably want to simplify and kind of radicalize stories about every historical phenomena that they have heard of. In part I think it's due to the nature of our media, moderate nuanced stories don't sell or entertain as well as extreme claims, or at least so the thinking goes.

S
 
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Schweik said:
My point was that in the early battles, as well as later on, it was in fact air assets, and specifically the Ju 87, that helped the German army solve the problem of larger and heavier allied tanks, the type that you could not easily destroy or disable with a 37mm or even 50mm AT gun, let alone with a 75mm howitzer. The Matilda, SOMUA, Char-B1, and KV-1 tanks in the early years. As I pointed out previously, if you read accounts of many of the key battles of the early years of the war, the Ju 87 was indeed the key factor at many crucial points.

Nor did that end with the Battle of Britain. As I pointed out, the Stuka was still playing a very important role in North Africa and Russia in 1942 and 1943, again as I noted, including at Kasserine Pass, as well as during many of the campaigns by Rommel against the British Commonwealth forces. The USAAF changed fighter tactics in part to better prevent German CAS missions from wreaking havoc on American armored formations and artillery parks.
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The Stukas did perform a lot of good work for the Germans but there were only 340-355 Ju 87 available at the start of the Polish campaign. How many were serviceable on any given day, especially after the first few days, is somewhat less. The Germans used just under 60 divisions during the attack on Poland,
including 5 Panzer divisions, 4 light divisions (sort of a motor rifle/ motor cavalry ) and 4 motor rifle/infantry divisions. Plus a few odds and sods with the majority being foot infantry divisions. There just aren't enough JU-87s to go around. Yes they could be concentrated at specific points but they could not be everywhere. They flew about 6000 sorties during the Polish campaign,

In France there were only 370-380 Char-B1/bis tanks total ( and 187 of them were delivered in 1940 meaning the crews were not well trained) and over 1/2 of the ones lost in combat (267?)were due to mechanical breakdown and running out of gas. I am sure that Ju-87s killed some but they were spread out into 8 Battalions and rarely mustered more than about 70 per division. While they did perform a few heroic actions and delayed some German units for a day or two their presence was not enough to make a marked difference to the French 1940 campaign. There were only 23 Matilda IIs in France in 1940 and aside from the Battle of Arras they had little impact on the campaign.

We also get internet articles like this one "The Sirens of Death – 11 Amazing Facts About the Ju 87 Stuka"
With claims like " During the Norwegian campaign for example, Ju 87 formations sunk two destroyers, crippled a pair of cruisers and posed a deadly threat to Royal Navy surface operations in the region."
Perhaps they did sink two destroyers, They did sink one cruiser, an old WW I 4200 tonner that had been converted to an AA ship. This ship, The HMS Curlew was in action a number of times against aircraft in the campaign before being hit. it had returned to Scapa flow twice for refueling and re-arming before being hit.
The British ran another cruiser aground and the The Germans did hit a French cruiser on April 19th but it returned to France for repair and then sailed to Nova Scotia twice before the French Armistice was signed. There is also some dispute about the AA cruiser, some sources say it was sunk by JU-88s.
another article about the Norwegian campaign says "The French cruiser Emile Bertin was damaged by bombing during the disembarkation (no casualties) and was replaced by the Montcalm. "

SO the Ju-87s score in the Norway campaign was ?

and we get stuff like this (from wiki) " Later that month she (the Marat) had her bow blown off and sank in shallow water after two hits by 1,000-kilogram (2,200 lb) bombs (dropped from a Ju-87 Stuka, piloted by Hans Ulrich Rudel) that detonated her forward magazine. She was refloated several months later and became a stationary battery, providing gunfire support during the Siege of Leningrad."

Now this is a pretty amazing feat. Rudel flying a JU-87B (or R) with two 1000kg bombs is pretty amazing all by it self. The unnamed 2nd pilot (and aircraft) doesn't seem to get any credit.

Yes the JU-87 sank a number of ships but many accounts tend to exaggerate it's accomplishments.
 
michael rauls said:
I apreciate the humor in that but in all seriousness there are some planes that tend to be verry much under or over rated, IMHO, depending on who's doing the rating. The p38 would be my pick for plane that gets it from both directions.
I've read articles that claim it was by far the greatest fighter of the war and others claiming it was generaly a failure.
By my estamation it was a good, and versitile plane. Maybe not great at one thing but good at alot of things.
It seams however, to me at least, that the p38 seems to attract extreme assessments both good and bad like no other plane.
Click to expand...
Interesting how those assessments are usually tied to its propulsion.
Counter rotating propellers neutralizes the plane's want to turn in one direction better than another - a "plus".
The General Electric superchargers didn't work well in colder climates, thus limited performance in certain situations - a "minus".
It was good plane in its day, not to mention an incredibly forward thinking design for the time, and I think we all agree on that. I guess its just how you look at it, that effects your argument.

Elvis
 
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Shortround6 said:
The superchargers worked fine in cold weather, the intercoolers (and poor cruise technique ) were the problem, a subtle difference.
The P-47 (and the B-17/B-24) didn't seem to have anywhere near the same troubles.
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There were some wastegate control issues early on. But I don't know if that was a peculiar setup to the P-38, but it was rectified.
 
you are correct, early on there were troubles with the turbo controllers freezing. This was part of the problem with debugging the systems. The airframes were from one company (or a different company/group for each airframe) the engines were from 3 different companies, the turbos were from another company altogether and the turbo controls came from ????? but were to USAAC specification/design and were supplied to the airframe and engine makers by the USAAC. SO there was plenty of room for finger pointing when things went wrong.
The early turbo controls measured the exhaust back pressure and adjusted the waste gate accordingly. But moisture in the exhaust could freeze on the sensor. The later turbo controls measure the pressure in the intake system and used that value to adjust the exhaust wastegate. Freezing problem solved. P-38 issue with cold temperature cruise in 1943 was unrelated.
 
.........and now it becomes clearer as to why I was having difficulty following this thread(s)

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Elvis said:
:banghead:GENERAL](*,) Electric Superchargers!....Electric Superchargers:arcade: #-o:laughing6:...LOL! sorry about that. Didn't even see it until you posted that.
Click to expand...
Wasn't that General Electric TURBOchargers? Wasn't the SUPERcharger integral to the engine and gear driven?
Wasn't GE at the forefront of turbocharging because of their experience with electrical generating turbines?
Cheers,
Wes
 
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