The airplane that did the most to turn the tide of the war.

pbehn said:

Not a bad idea, if you want to become president to be complimentary about the nations industry.

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To be fair he was also the one who issued the starkest warning of any of them over the US "Military Industrial Complex"

Kevin J said:

I never said 'over Germany', so don't misquote me. Spitfires and Thunderbolts did the heavy work wearing down the Luftwaffe over France and Benelux, the Mustangs simply cleaned up.

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Not much airwar being won over France when the LW was killing VIII BC over Germany.

Maybe you missed the memo about the LW leaving LF3 as primary resource to battle over France and Benelux while the LW high command built a ring defense to take advantage of P-47s having to turn back just past the German border - and continuously transferred re-enforcements from Ost and Sud fronts to central and eastern Germany. During the six months before D-Day, the Mustangs in less than 1/3 of the sorties, shot down more LW day fighters in the air than all the 8th and 9th AF P-47 FG's combined from day 1 Ops in April 1943. Oh, and twice as many on the ground.

Maybe your definition of 'heavy work' and 'simply cleaned' up are different from mine...

drgondog said:

Not much airwar being won over France when the LW was killing VIII BC over Germany.

Maybe you missed the memo about the LW leaving LF3 as primary resource to battle over France and Benelux while the LW high command built a ring defense to take advantage of P-47s having to turn back just past the German border - and continuously transferred re-enforcements from Ost and Sud fronts to central and eastern Germany. During the six months before D-Day, the Mustangs in less than 1/3 of the sorties, shot down more LW day fighters in the air than all the 8th and 9th AF P-47 FG's combined from day 1 Ops in April 1943. Oh, and twice as many on the ground.

Maybe your definition of 'heavy work' and 'simply cleaned' up are different from mine...

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So Spitfires and Thunderbolts pushed the LW defensive lines back to the borders of Germany. That sounds like a success story to me and that these two fighters wore down the LW and enabled the invasion at Normandy to take place.

Maybe it helps if we define some of the turning points or tide changes in the war.

First Blitzkrieg 1938 -40 - Early War, the initial "Blitzkrieg", the division of Poland and the Baltic states by the Germans and Soviets together, the German invasions and conquest of Belgium, Norway, Holland, and France, and the rapid domination of Manchuria and the Pacific Rim by the Japanese. The world is shocked by Axis successes.

The First High Water Mark 1940-41- the Battle of Britain, basically. At this point the Axis are still winning but they have hit their first check. The myth of invulnerability is pierced.

Second Blitzkrieg - 1941-42 rebounding from England, the German invasion of Russia, Japanese rapid conquest and destruction of US and British Colonial assets in the Pacific. The Axis are winning all over.

The Second High Water Mark Mid to late 1942- After the German / Italian and Japanese expansions reach their limits, defense stiffens and they finally start to lose some major battles. This starts with Coral Sea and Midway in the Pacific, the failure of the siege of Moscow, the failure of the German air offensive against the Baltic fleet near Leningrad and a general stiffening of the Soviet lines presaged Stalingrad. Mersa Matruh, though an Axis victory, showed the Desert Rats were learning how to fight. The War is reaching stalemate.

Allied Resurgence - Late 1942 to early 1943 - Stalingrad, Milne Bay, Guadalcanal, El Alamein. Now the Allies are winning.

Allied Juggernaut - Mid 1943 onward - Kursk, Kharkov, New Guinea, and Buna Goa, Solomons, Marshals, invasions of Sicily and Italy, and the beginning of the Strategic Bombing Campaigns. Allies are wreaking havoc and taking back the world.


My picks for the various phases:

First Blitzkrieg
Here I would say the Ju-87 was decisive for the Germans, it was such an important part of the German war machine and especially the early success of their offensives (but also defensive actions like stopping counter-attacks). I think the long range and effective hitting power of Japanese air forces was a shock and played a devastating role against Allied forces. I think the sinking of the Prince of Wales and the Repulse is a major milestone for Japanese air power - with more than twice the expected range and far greater lethality than anticipated. For that probably the lethal G4M "Betty" is the main hero for the Japanese, though they also used the G3M in that action. Elsewhere the Ki-21 and others were also showing these same capabilities of range and offensive lethality .... though they all had the same Achilles heel too this wasn't apparent until later.

First High Water Mark / BoB
I give equal credit to the Hurricane and the Spitfire for reasons already stated, but I think the Spitfire was more important in the BoB because it gave the British, and the Allies more generally, their first antidote to the notion of German superiority. On the other hand the Hurricane was not only crucial in the BoB it was also very important in this same time period and shortly after in action in France, Greece, North Africa, and the Far East. For the Allies the Hawk 75 did have some secondary importance as it was the most successful fighter for the French. The Bf 109 was a key aircraft for the Germans and kept the fight very close. Most of their bombers didn't perform that well in this role, partly due to the lethality of the Hurricane as a bomber killer and partly due to the highly effective British defensive organization, and radar.

Second Blitzkrieg
Here once again the Ju 87 did a lot of damage to Allied forces both in the Med and on the Russian Front. I think the Ju-87 is still very important, though the Ju 88 started to prove it's value such as in the anti-shipping role. The Italian SM 79 also caused Allied shipping a lot of harm in the Med. In Russia and the Med though where most of the action was the Bf 109 was really dominant in this period. In the Pacific it was the time of the A6M and the naval bombers - D3A and B5N - to shock the world once again with Japanese might at Pearl Harbor, the Philippines etc., as well as the less famous but apparently most lethal Ki-43. I give the A6M the nod here though because of it's utility as a carrier aircraft.

Second High Water Mark
In Russia I would say the Yak-1 and Yak-7 - even though some people don't like it, was a native design which was at least competitive with the Bf 109 in the hands of a good pilot, and it allowed the horrific bloodletting to slacken slightly. Some good Soviet pilots started figuring out how to beat the Luftwaffe. The Il-2s were there but they were suffering bad teething problems (most still had no defensive gunners) and horrific casualties, and some Lend-lease types like the A-20 probably mattered more. In the Pacific more than anything it was indeed the F4F Wildcat I think, that really stopped the Japanese, and started inflicting crippling attrition losses against Japanese aircrew. As the Martlet it also played an important role for the Royal Navy. However the SBD is the one that sunk the Japanese carriers and I agree with others that it was probably the single most important aircraft in the Pacific and certainly turned the tide directly with the sinking of all those ships. It also had the really important trait of high survivability and comparatively low attrition losses. The P-40 played a role too, especially defensively such as at Milne Bay, and was probably a bit better as a fighter than the Wildcat but the F4F could go where the CV's were sent, and this just made it matter more. In the CBI P-40s also won an important propaganda victory with the AVG as did the B-25 in the Doolittle Raid.

Allied Resurgence
This is when the Il-2 comes into it's own, with the help of a raft of Soviet and American fighter types especially Yak-9, La 5, and P-39 providing cover. Pe-2 is also quite lethal and survives better, delivering accurate dive bombing attacks. In the Pacific the P-38s were arriving on scene as well and despite their problems, in the Pacific anyway they gave the Allies a badly needed sense of superiority like the Spit did during the BoB. In the Med at Malta and in North Africa, it was the arrival of the Spitfire which helped turn the tide and hold the line crucially at Malta and helped break the Luftwaffe in North Africa and crush the Italian Air Force. P-40 was significant there too of course and both in Russia, the Pacific as well. In the CBI it was achieving dominance over the Japanese Army Air Force. The Beaufighter probably deserves honorable mention as it seems to have really done a lot of damage in both the Pacific and the Med.

Allied Juggernaut
Here the F6F, which destroyed more Japanese aircraft than any other type, the Corsair and P-38 were really mopping up on Japanese forces. The P-47 showed it's teeth, and the P-51 came into it's own as an escort fighter. The La-5FN and later La 7 arrived on the Russian front, as well as later model Yak -9s and Yak-3s, but it was the Il-2 that was really wreaking havoc on the German armored columns. The B-17 did have value mainly as an attrition weapon against the Luftwaffe. I'm less convinced that the bombing did much good except against oil assets and that wasn't until quite late in the game. The Lancaster proved to be useful for versatility, and the Mosquito was probably the single best Allied bomber of the war though I can't say where it played a tide turning role.


I think the idea of the C-47 is an interesting point, it probably helped a lot with airborne insertions and bringing supplies over the Hump. I don't know enough to evaluate it though.

I'd love to give the P-40 more credit because it was pretty important in a lot of places during the crucial middle part of the war but it never really quite rose to the level of Strategic asset. The Hurricane did do so during the BoB and around the same time in many other parts of the world, though it had faded in importance and usefulness. rapidly by the end of 1941. The P-39 does seem to be important for the Russians though I still don't have a sense precisely how important.

The Spitfire, aside from crucial roles in the BoB and the Med, provided highly valuable point defense / interceptor duties helping secure Allied airbases against attack and blunting German efforts to use their bombers effectively.

As for the four-engined bombers I'm definitely in the "Mosquitoes are better" camp. The B-29 was an amazing machine but I don't see how it had that much impact on the tide of the war until long after the ultimate outcome was no longer in doubt.

The Japanese planes were fantastic at 'blitzkrieg' (to make overly broad use of the term) but proved bad for attrition warfare. I still think the Zero tends to be underrated.

I also think the 'wine dark sea' warfare was important, ASW, convoy protection and so on - this is maybe where the B-24 was most useful, the PBY for it's effective rescue of Allied airmen being so valuable for the attrition side of air warfare, the Ju-88 and SM 79 as ship killers, the Fw 200 of course, and the Ar 196 more exotic planes like the He 115. The Sunderland and the Wellington helped hold the line. I just don't know how to quantify it all in terms of significance or key turning points.

That might be worth a thread all it's own.

I should add Fw 190 was important particularly in the "Second Blitzkrieg" era, it caused major problems for the British and eclipsed the Spitfire Mk V for a while, and continued to be a valuable asset for the Germans through the war but ultimately I don't think it rose to the level of a game changer, except temporarily and locally over the Channel for a while.

Kevin J said:

So Spitfires and Thunderbolts pushed the LW defensive lines back to the borders of Germany. That sounds like a success story to me and that these two fighters wore down the LW and enabled the invasion at Normandy to take place.

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Generals Arnold, Spaatz, Doolittle, Eisenhower and Kuter disagreed strongly with your point of view. Read the autobiographies of Arnold and Spaatz and Doolittle for a refreshing difference of opinion that they held in October-December 1943. Read Schmid's recount of the LW air war in the USAF Studies. Simply stated, without a.) the arrival of the Mustang, and as a result of that 'no show', b.) stripping every P-38 FG from every theatre by November 1943 in time for ARGUMENT, the losses during Big Week and beyond would probably been so disastrous that nobody would have been 'confused' about the threat from the LW to D-Day prospects.

Eaker believed that the VIII BC was shooting down far more German fighters than actually happened (despite the Spitfire and P-47 wearing the LW down) and Allied/AAF intelligence warned in December and January that the LW was getting stronger daily.

One of the reasons that Eaker was 'promoted' out of USSTAFE and Hunter fired is because they mistakenly believed that VIII BC would win the war of attrition by trading B-17s for Fw 190s on a ludicrous scale.

But what do I know? Howza bout you telling us how P-47 groups were going to make a difference over the critical targets of Merseberg, Munich, Berlin, Regensburg, Leipzig, Posnan, Stettin, Magdeburg, Oschersleben, etc from Jan 11 through June 5th. Maybe I missed the memo.

Thinking about the list above a bit, I had a few more thoughts.

Up until the BoB, the 1930's maxim that "the bomber will always get through" did in fact hold true, at least for the most effective bombers. The faster and more maneuverable ones basically.

But bombers in that period proved wildly uneven in terms of effectiveness. The ones which could actually sink ships, wreck tanks and breakup attacking army columns stood out. The Japanese bombers like the G4M and D3A could sink ships at a fairly high rate. So could a Ju 87 though at much shorter range. Many other bombers proved far less effective. The TBD Devastator didn't devastate much, partly due to defective torpedoes. The Blenheim was a notorious disaster both in terms of attrition rates and Tactical impact. The Swordfish could sink an enemy ship if it was safe from fighters but was dead meat against a Bf 109 or even an MC 200.

BoB established that with a sufficiently well organized defense and good fighters, bombers of that day (1940) were in serious trouble. Some of them might still get through but at heavy loss, and when the targets were Operational or Strategic - factories, railheads, radars or airfields (which required repeated strikes) instead of aircraft carriers or tank columns (which could be destroyed decisively much more quickly), the results were not substantial enough to make a sustained bombing campaign cost effective. Operational and Strategic bombing switches to night time, and becomes in effect terror bombing.

In the "Second Blizkrieg" period Axis fighters provided the cover needed for the bombers of the day to get through in daylight. The Bf 109 and the A6M (and MC 202 and Ki 43) were dominant enough in the early days to establish Air Superiority in many regions and enable Tactical bombers like the Ju 87, Ju 88, G4M and D3A to get through and damage the key enemy assets they needed to. This enabled the Axis advances around the world. Some bombers at least in some Theaters were able to operate more on their own - the Ju 88 to some extent and especially the Mosquito proved to have this knack.

The next phase "Second High Water Mark" saw the stiffening of Allied resistance and their ability to challenge if not break the Air Superiority dominance of the elite Axis fighter units - if not totally, enough that Allied bombers could get through and Allied Tactical assets could survive. The F4F, P-40, P-39. Yak-1 and Spitfire, with the right training and tactics, could defeat Bf 109s and A6Ms, allowing the bombers of the day to do increasing damage. Japanese bombers in particular proved vulnerable in attrition warfare.

After that we begin to see (Anglo-American) Allied fighters that can out-reach the Axis fighters in Europe, and which could reliably hit and run against the A6M. Again in this era fighters really matter, Allied fighters are enabling bombers to get through.

Only in the last two phases of the war, from 1943, do Strategic and Operational bombers return to daylight bombing on a large scale, and the wisdom of this strategy is still debated. There is no doubt however that these big bombers became increasingly the focus of Axis Air Forces, soon reaching desperation levels.

On the Russian Front it's more attritional - the Il2 can wreak havoc if Air Superiority can be achieved, even for a few minutes. The Stuka, conversely, can no longer enable breakthroughs and break up counter-attacks because it's vulnerable to Yaks and La-5s. The Fw 190 Jabo is a more dangerous and survivable tool but it's not effective enough to reverse the accelerating trends.

As soon as you fit a radio to an aeroplane it becomes part of something bigger. Whatever the merits of (for example) the Hurricane and Spitfire in the BoB were they would have been much worse without RADAR the ROC, telephones Dowdings control system and radios.

No argument there.

ykickamoocow said:

But had the B-29 not existed I am sure the Americans would have been able to find some other bomber that would have done the job. I mean if necessary the Americans could have always borrowed a Lancaster and modified it since Little Boy was under the Lancaster's bomb load capacity and the British had been dropping Grand Slams and Tallboys from Lancasters for years, both of whom were bigger than the atomic bomb.

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But no matter where you come from, the fundamental point remains. IF the RAF had lost the Battle of Britain, there would have been No D-Day, so no defeat of the Nazis. As there would have been nowhere for the USAAF 8th Army Air Force to land and mount the bombing campaign over Germany, alongside Bomber Command, and nowhere for the thousands of GIs to land, to prepare for D-Day...

The upshot would have then gone one of two ways. The US would have sued for peace with Germany, or Germany would have continued to develop a nuclear weapon, and used their vastly superior delivery systems (V2, VX) to deliver them to Washington or New York...before the US had a means to deliver their certainly advanced bomb to Germany...

Bottom line. If the Hurricane (and to some extent) the Spitfire had not stopped the German invasion of England, anything beyond 1940 would have been Vastly different. So no other aircraft can be said to have more contribution...

After reading through this thread, if you HAD TO PICK ONE type that turned the tide, I keep going back to the SBD. The Battle of Midway is about as clear a "turn of the tide" battle as you are going to get. Although the Dauntless was just part of a carrier air wing including TBDs and F4Fs, the fact is, the American victory was only possible because of the high rate of hits scored by the experienced aviators from the Yorktown and Enterprise. In the carrier battles of 1942, the experienced American dive bomber pilots in the SBDs who made it to the target weren't any more accurate than the experienced Japanese dive bomber pilots in their D3A "Val"s, but the American pilots turned the tide, and that's what we're talking about in this thread. The F4F barely had an effect on the war up through the Battle of Midway, the F4F proved itself to be competitive when well-flown, but it did not dominate in any fashion. The SBDs were able to get through not because the F4Fs fought to get them through, but because they simply were missed thanks to Japan's poor air search capability, with no effective radar. The F4Fs couldn't save the Yorktown, and the other two US carriers were lucky not to get attacked.

As to the other theaters of the war, I am not diminishing their importance, but I haven't read any compelling arguments of a single aircaft type turning the tide in those theaters.

I agree with that for the most part though I would say that the severe losses suffered by IJN aircraft (both fighters and bombers) mostly at the hands of the F4F, and in part thanks to the nature of the planes (lacking armor etc.) and lack of an effective (any?) Japanese air sea rescue program, were possibly even more important in terms of impact on the war than the loss of the Carriers. I.e. due to the loss of their highly trained and as it turned out, almost irreplacable aircrew.

Also, while the Wildcats were unable to prevent IJN strike aircraft from sinking ships, they were capable (with some help) of protecting Henderson field well enough from IJN and IJA bombers to keep the Cactus Air Force (and their SBD's) flying and that too was pretty crucial to the 'turning of the tide' in the Pacific.

Henderson Field being much harder to 'sink' required repeated sorties / strikes to put out of action so it meant the Japanese air armada was more vulnerable to attrition losses.

Phil Froom said:

Germany would have continued to develop a nuclear weapon, and used their vastly superior delivery systems (V2, VX) to deliver them to Washington or New York...before the US had a means to deliver their certainly advanced bomb to Germany...
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Wow there is a chilling scenario to think about right there. I wonder how many devices the Germans could have produced assuming they could pull it off ... and could they create something that could fit on a V-2 (or V-3?) that could make it across the Atlantic sooner than the US could put a B-29 raid together.

ykickamoocow said:

I imagine it would have to be the Hurricane and Spitfire considering that the German loss in the Battle of Britain caused Hitler to turn his attention east. Had the Battle of Britain been lost then WW2 would have been very different.

I mean as good as the P51-D is, if it did not exist, sure the bomber casualties would have been higher but the end result of the war would have been the same. Had the Spitfire and Hurricane not existed the war would have been very different.

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If you're going to take that tac, then it would've been a device that turned the tide of the war, not so much any aircraft.
As good as the Spitfires and Hurricanes were at turning back the German opposition, they would've been sitting ducks had RADAR not been in use on the east coast of England.
It was the warnings from the Radar sites of the impending raids, that gave the fighters enough time to get up and take the fight to the enemy, rather than waiting for the enemy to bring it to the island.


Elvis

drgondog said:

Generals Arnold, Spaatz, Doolittle, Eisenhower and Kuter disagreed strongly with your point of view. Read the autobiographies of Arnold and Spaatz and Doolittle for a refreshing difference of opinion that they held in October-December 1943. Read Schmid's recount of the LW air war in the USAF Studies. Simply stated, without a.) the arrival of the Mustang, and as a result of that 'no show', b.) stripping every P-38 FG from every theatre by November 1943 in time for ARGUMENT, the losses during Big Week and beyond would probably been so disastrous that nobody would have been 'confused' about the threat from the LW to D-Day prospects.

Eaker believed that the VIII BC was shooting down far more German fighters than actually happened (despite the Spitfire and P-47 wearing the LW down) and Allied/AAF intelligence warned in December and January that the LW was getting stronger daily.

One of the reasons that Eaker was 'promoted' out of USSTAFE and Hunter fired is because they mistakenly believed that VIII BC would win the war of attrition by trading B-17s for Fw 190s on a ludicrous scale.

But what do I know? Howza bout you telling us how P-47 groups were going to make a difference over the critical targets of Merseberg, Munich, Berlin, Regensburg, Leipzig, Posnan, Stettin, Magdeburg, Oschersleben, etc from Jan 11 through June 5th. Maybe I missed the memo.

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Resp:
You are correct about Eaker and Hunter. Hunter was in command of fighters, but gave no thought or support in their use as a major player in assisting Bomber Command's mission. Gen Hap Arnold knew that early theories about air warfare were evolving and that commanders in the various Theaters needed to make adjustments. This he did not see in either Eaker or Hunter; hence, their firing. Eaker was an old friend, likely interfered with his discision in firing him later rather than sooner. If you read anything regarding Eaker's mission planner, you will see that Eaker offered no assistance in this area as well. When the then LTC approached Eaker for advice, he was basically told, "you handle it!"
Eaker met with British officials in mid 1943 to get them to produce drop tanks for his fighters, but failed to follow-up on the order/process . . . only to learn that the British thought the meeting was only to see 'If' they could produce them. By the time Eaker realized his mistake, it was too late. He had cancelled a US production request for drop tanks, shortly after meeting with British authorities. A lot of men paid for this mistake.

michael rauls said:

I thought this would be interesting because it's a bit different from the usual which aircraft is best at a particular mission or in general. Alot of this had to do with factors other than performance such as oportunity( being in the right place at the right time) , numbers produced, and maybe even just plain luck.
Lots of possible good picks here. A couple obvious ones are of course the Spitfire and Hurricane. For me though I think I would have to go with the SBD, the caviaght being that it by far mostly affected the Pacific theater. The difference it made in that theater however was huge.
Would love to hear everyones picks and I'll bet there's a few good ones I haven't even thought of.
So which aircraft would you credit most for turning the tide.

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Many years ago I had the distinct pleasure to meet and work with Corky Meyers, Grumman Aircraft Corp's outstanding test pilot. We developed a friendship as a result of him helping me understand the finite characteristics of one of Grumman's fighter airplanes that made it into civilian hands.

During one of our chat sessions about our favorite subject (airplanes) I asked him what was the best airplane that was used during WWII. He told me the F6F Hellcat because they designed it so a 200-hour Pilot could safely fly it and survive. I'll take his word since he was the primary developmental test pilot on the airplane. He told me it had a 20:1 kill/loss ratio... pretty good. So, based on my conversations with the guy who was a major player I'd go with the F6F for the Pacific Theater of Operations.

European war zone? P-51 and the Yak-3 (?).

Elvis said:

If you're going to take that tac, then it would've been a device that turned the tide of the war, not so much any aircraft.
As good as the Spitfires and Hurricanes were at turning back the German opposition, they would've been sitting ducks had RADAR not been in use on the east coast of England.
It was the warnings from the Radar sites of the impending raids, that gave the fighters enough time to get up and take the fight to the enemy, rather than waiting for the enemy to bring it to the island.
Elvis

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Whilst Hitler was grabbing countries in the West, Stalin was busy gobbling up the East, and looking hungrily at the Balkans, especially Hungary and Roumania. With the oilfields in these countries gone, it would have been all over the Master Race and their Third Reich.

The thread title isn't worded particularly well but I do think "turn the tide" basically means the winner has to be the Spitfire and/or Hurricane because had the British lost the Battle of Britain then Germany would not have invaded the Soviet Union like they did. The invasion of the Soviet Union only happened because the British won the Battle of Britain, and I think most people would agree that the invasion of the Soviet Union was the point where Germany losing WW2 began, a decision that would not have happened if not for the Spitfire and Hurricane.

Spitfires and Hurricanes were magnificent along with the RADAR that directed them, but even had they lost the air portion of the Battle of Britain there is no way the Germans were getting past the Royal Navy to actually invade.

P-39 Expert said:

Spitfires and Hurricanes were magnificent along with the RADAR that directed them, but even had they lost the air portion of the Battle of Britain there is no way the Germans were getting past the Royal Navy to actually invade.

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Agreed, the RN would have made Operation Sea Lion, make attempting to take Leningrad, being driven back at Odessa, or eventually taking Sevastopol after 9 months, look like 'a walk in the park'.