Ohogain, I hadn't though of the P-51. Not only the laminar flow wing, the Mustang heralded a revolution in WW2 aerial warfare as the first high-performance single engine fighter with the range and endurance to escort bombers all the way to their most distant targets and back. But in a way this was only a minor or ephemeral revolution, because within 10 years all piston-engined fighters were obsolete and bombers now flew half-way round the world to their targets
Revolutionary aircraft of World war 2?
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Shortround6
Major General
Or to show how revolutionary the Mustang was one can look at the schemes tried out to replace it given that big bombers can almost always out range fighters.
Inflight refueling solved a lot of problems
Inflight refueling solved a lot of problems
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
How is the range of the Mustang revolutionary when the A6M had a longer range and escorted the equally long range Betty before the Mustang assumed the role of long range escort?
Good post. Just a nit-pick - when introduced, the I-16 also had the high performance altitude-rated engine. Radial it was, though.
Damn good question and I'm not sure there is a good answer. I guess it might come down to the opponent (the Luftwaffe at the top of its game) vs obsolescent Chinese and Allied aircraft. The other thing to note about the Mustang is that it did not achieve its range by sacrificing protection like the A6M did. The Mustang was technologically less of a compromise and more of an actual advance. But your point is well taken. As I noted in my posts neither the Zero or the Mustang probably rank with the truly revolutionary WW2 planes.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Well, there's certain levels of "damned good ideas" out there, and the A6M and the Mustang both qualify near the top of the list.
To say that the Mustang is revolutionary in any way is probably going outside the realm of "damned good ideas". As a whole, it was the result of technical innovation and enjoyed successes based on the evolution of flight. However, the Mustang as a whole, didn't turn aviation design on it's ear, piston powered aircraft continued to evolve after the Mustang came and went.
The one truly revolutionary aspect of the Mustang, however, is the raised radiator intake that is a design in use on modern jet fighters to this day.
To say that the Mustang is revolutionary in any way is probably going outside the realm of "damned good ideas". As a whole, it was the result of technical innovation and enjoyed successes based on the evolution of flight. However, the Mustang as a whole, didn't turn aviation design on it's ear, piston powered aircraft continued to evolve after the Mustang came and went.
The one truly revolutionary aspect of the Mustang, however, is the raised radiator intake that is a design in use on modern jet fighters to this day.
Sorry, neither the P-51 nor the Zero were revolutionary. Neither brought about a sudden change in the way fighter and bomber operations were carried out and neither had such influence that every other air force or operator changed their tactics to emulate what both aircraft could do. They were game changers, but not revolutionary.
For clairification, look at the battleship Dreadnought as suggested earlier and its example on its peers. Navies were further more classifed by whether they were equipped with dreadnoughts or not, every other capital warship was rendered obsolete by fleets of them. Can't say the same impact was held by either aeroplane types.
As for the Swordfish, Parsifal, no, the idea that battleships could be rendered obsolete did not arise with the Swordfish demonstrating an old concept that had been around since the Great War. Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty before WW1 broke out was having meetings in the Admiralty discussing that very thing using torpedoplanes. Sir Percy Scott was publicly a big critic of the dreadnought and claimed in a series of articles that were published in newspapers post war that the torpedoplane would signal the end of the dreadnought, so the idea that battlefleets were coming to an end because of torpedoplanes had been around for longer thn the Swordfish, also, every post WW1 aircraft carrier navy had fleets of them, if not to sink capital warships, then what?
The revolution in the case of the Swordfish was the torpedo itself and even then its threat and far reaching influence goes right back to Victorian navies, who developed new classes of warship to introduce it into service, warships carried extra protection against them and it suddenly became a very real threat to the existence of surface fleets. At the outbreak of war the Royal Navy suffered bouts of what was described as 'Periscope-itis' - panic sightings of pericopes where there were none as a result of early successes of German U boats against naval vessels. The torpedo had considerable impact on naval fleets during the Great War - during Jutland it caused Jellicoe to turn away from the High Seas Fleet he was hotly pursuing at a cruicial moment, thus losing the initiative, and even before the war broke out, Fred T. Jane, him of the Jane's series of benchmark military libraries wrote questioning the future of dreadnoughts owing to the impact of the torpedo. Murray Sueter wrote that the impact of the torpedo, mine and submarine would render battlefleets obsolete in his previously mentioned book Airmen or Noahs.
For clairification, look at the battleship Dreadnought as suggested earlier and its example on its peers. Navies were further more classifed by whether they were equipped with dreadnoughts or not, every other capital warship was rendered obsolete by fleets of them. Can't say the same impact was held by either aeroplane types.
As for the Swordfish, Parsifal, no, the idea that battleships could be rendered obsolete did not arise with the Swordfish demonstrating an old concept that had been around since the Great War. Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty before WW1 broke out was having meetings in the Admiralty discussing that very thing using torpedoplanes. Sir Percy Scott was publicly a big critic of the dreadnought and claimed in a series of articles that were published in newspapers post war that the torpedoplane would signal the end of the dreadnought, so the idea that battlefleets were coming to an end because of torpedoplanes had been around for longer thn the Swordfish, also, every post WW1 aircraft carrier navy had fleets of them, if not to sink capital warships, then what?
The revolution in the case of the Swordfish was the torpedo itself and even then its threat and far reaching influence goes right back to Victorian navies, who developed new classes of warship to introduce it into service, warships carried extra protection against them and it suddenly became a very real threat to the existence of surface fleets. At the outbreak of war the Royal Navy suffered bouts of what was described as 'Periscope-itis' - panic sightings of pericopes where there were none as a result of early successes of German U boats against naval vessels. The torpedo had considerable impact on naval fleets during the Great War - during Jutland it caused Jellicoe to turn away from the High Seas Fleet he was hotly pursuing at a cruicial moment, thus losing the initiative, and even before the war broke out, Fred T. Jane, him of the Jane's series of benchmark military libraries wrote questioning the future of dreadnoughts owing to the impact of the torpedo. Murray Sueter wrote that the impact of the torpedo, mine and submarine would render battlefleets obsolete in his previously mentioned book Airmen or Noahs.
