I agree. The post was just echoing the sentiment the Mustang pilots had toward the P-51 and it's liquid cooled motor and other associated technical problems they had flying over the "continent".
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I agree. The post was just echoing the sentiment the Mustang pilots had toward the P-51 and it's liquid cooled motor and other associated technical problems they had flying over the "continent".The Hellcat was undoubtedly generally more resiliant to ground fire
but 'a man with a rifle' could equally put one through the canopy of the Hellcat and kill the pilot; would one be considered a lack of resiliance to small-arms fire and the other pure luck?
I agree. The post was just echoing the sentiment the Mustang pilots had toward the P-51 and it's liquid cooled motor and other associated technical problems they had flying over the "continent".
Ok. Thats the bad thing about history, seperating fact from opinion. Hats off to your father; both of my grandfathers served in the PTO as well. I was mostly referring to the memoirs of "Bud" Fortier who also flew out of Steeple Morden with the 354th. He talked of some major growing pains with the P-51 and the vulnerability of it's engine, especially compared to the radial powered fighters. I assume that many people will figure the Mustang to be the best fighter in the American arsenal as well as the Hellcat for some of the same reasons.Amsel - my father flew two tours in the Mustang, crash landed his Mustang from 100mi behind enemy lines, then three more times progressively closer to Steeple Morden - all flak. He had zero problem with a merlin engine powered Mustang whichj took him all the way to Russia on September 18, 1944.
While he flew his share of Fighter Bomber Sweeps and Dive Bombing missions - the role of the 8th AF Mustang was to Kill The Luftwaffe. No other fighter did it better.
He much prefererred the 51 to the 47 and 38 as an ETO fighter.
Don't give too much credence to 'coolant damage fears' of Mustang pilots.
DRGONDOG,
But the F6F still topped the P-51 and that is what counts.
Trivial difference over inferior opposition and most over enemy territory against the best air force the axis had. So how do you want to proceed in comparison of Zero ve Fw 190/Me 109/Me 262 as opponents?
As for your comment on strafing; different geography, different war. Lots of water in the Pacific and lots of land in Europe. The F6F would have been a much better strafer in the ETO as it was much more rugged.
Ah, but would the F6F been strafing targets east of Berlin, East of Munich? What kind of airfield defenses was the F6f strafing against? Tell me you think the flak around Japanese airfirelds was the same as German airfields?
F6Fs tore up the Japanese aircraft and airfields when they found them. Just look at the carrier raids on Japan in the summer of 45 by F6Fs, they were deadly. P-51s were great strafers in 1944-45 because they were the predominant aircraft, not because they were better ground attack aircraft than the P-47, there were just more of them.
They were DOMINANT because they combined Performance and Range. The P-38 had the same range but had pitiful ground destruction statistics in the same timeframe - despite having Two engines for flak damage redundancy. The P-47 didn't compete because they were floundering on the Dummer Lake to Stuttgart axis while 51's were ranging 300 miles further in.
ask most ETO pilots and I'll bet they'd prefer to do ground attack in the Jug than the Mustang due to the ruggedness and engine toughness issues.
Ah, but the 8th AF role was escort - and the ground assault was After Escort duties - and the P-47s by that time were landing on their home fields or getting ready to provide withdrawal support at the German/Dutch/French borders
That was a big lesson from Korea. Mustangs went down in droves from single hits. I would also contend your comment about non-common opponents. German and Japanese pilots in 1944-45 were merely fodder for either opponent because of their lack of training, whether an F6F or P-51.
Bold claim - prove it.
It is hard to say that a 109 / 190 was superior to a Ki-84, J2M, or George.
It is very easy to extablish that in 1943 and 1944... as well as the number of Experten flying them. The George was produced in extremely small numbers (,400) - how many Hellcat kills (out of 5000+)? How many K-84 encounters for Hellcats (out of 5000+ total awards?) Ditto J2M? What were the dominant air to air awards for the Hellcat? Comparable to thr Fw 190/Me 109. How many hellcat kills against torpedo or level bombers in AIRCAP?
In fact the 109 would probably pale in comparison to any of these.
Well, in a word (or several) the Me 109G and K did not 'pale in comparison', neither were the Fw 190A-7 and A-9 and D-9 - if you think so - make your case?
The pilot would make all the difference and at that late date when the Mustang ran up its scores they were flying against pilots and planes that were hardly a match for them, much like the F6F against and Japanese opponents in the same timeframe.
Ok. Thats the bad thing about history, seperating fact from opinion. Hats off to your father; both of my grandfathers served in the PTO as well. I was mostly referring to the memoirs of "Bud" Fortier who also flew out of Steeple Morden with the 354th. He talked of some major growing pains with the P-51 and the vulnerability of it's engine, especially compared to the radial powered fighters. I assume that many people will figure the Mustang to be the best fighter in the American arsenal as well as the Hellcat for some of the same reasons.
That's a question I used to wonder about too. Part of it was the landing on Carriers thing, Carrier birds had to have good low speed handling. That usually translates into lots of lift and a big, wide wing. Also, the Navy liked radial engines because they saw them as more reliable. No pluming system to cool gave you one less problem to deal with and one less thing to fail.
The USN did prefer radial engines and never purchased an aircraft with an in-line engine AFAIK.
True about low speed handling characteristics being a critical part of USN design specifications - more attention paid to flaps as the wings weren't uncontrained as far as drag. The a/c still needed range and performance so, except for folding criteria for storage the wings were designed largely the same way a USAAF fighter would have been designed.
The Army liked inline engines because they lead to less draggy airframes and that translated into speed. Big thing for Army fighters, not so important for the bombers (where reliability was more important). However, as power increased, (and other aerodynamic changes) the down side of a blunt front mattered less and less. Hence the P47.
Remember the P-35 and P-43 were also radial engines. The USAAF specs in the mid to late 30's were for aitcraft more suited to close air support - only the P-38 and P-47 were designed to be high altitude performers, and of course the P-51 was not designed to a USAAF spec.
Remember the USAAF 'didn't need long range escort' so long range, high performance was deemed 'solved' by P-38.
But that doesn't explain the Corsair. Good leggs, far enough along in the development process to be a good, long range fighter when the USAAF needed one but never got there. With drop tanks, it could probably make it as far as Berlin (a guess there). But it never happend.
I used to know the answer, but forgot.
Neither would have been outstanding at the other's mission.