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

[buffnut453]

Perhaps I am missing something here.

In the battle of Coral Sea and again at Midway, the enemies engaged each other solely by aircraft alone and the opposing fleets suffered damage and destruction solely by aircraft alone.

And it was the action of these aircraft that altered the intentions of the fleets - in the case of Coral Sea, the planned invasion of Port Moresby was abandoned and in the case of Midway, the invasion of Midway island was abandoned.

There were no engagements by surface ships or actions by submarines that influenced the course of either battle. The order to abandon the Port Moresby invasion was mainly due to the fact that the Japanese suspected there were more Allied carriers in the area...in otherwords, for the fear of more air attacks.

Except for the fact that, except for land-based aircraft at Midway itself, all those air sorties were flown off ships. Ergo to say it was "only aircraft" is stretching things a little. It took a lot of naval resources, not just the carriers themselves, to get both sets of forces ready for action around Midway.

Strategic change occurs when your overall objectives are forced to change. That didn't happen due to fighters at the BoB, and it didn't happen solely because of coral sea or midway. They were big operational successes, but they were not overwhelming strategic victories 9as is so often touted for them0 because they did not lead to any change in Japanese objectives at the time, or allied objectives either 9well maybe watchtower was made possible I guess)

Again, 'fraid I disagree. The extent to which an action is or is not strategic is largely dependent on each side's primary strategic centre of gravity. It is entirely possible for a battle to have major strategic consequences even if an adversary's strategy doesn't change.

Take the Battle of Britain as an example. Until that time Hitler had the luxury of, for the most part, embarking on a sequential series of campaigns with a common objective. Everything was moving in one direction and he was never forced to fight a true 2-front effort. After the BoB, the entire strategic calculus had changed. Hitler had to face the prospect of a 2-front war which any good student of military history will tell you is a recipe for disaster. Fortunately for the Allies, Hitler's megalomania refused to concede that he could possibly lose and so he pressed ahead. His strategic objective remained unchanged but the context surrounding that strategy had shifted seismically against him...it's just that he refused to respond to that change. The ultimate result was disaster for his aspirations of global dominion.

Bottom line...you don't have to force a change of adversary objective to result in a strategic impact. If the enemy is too stupid to realize that the situation has changed, they may well press ahead with original plans, to their own detriment.

 

[Kevin J]

Except for the fact that, except for land-based aircraft at Midway itself, all those air sorties were flown off ships. Ergo to say it was "only aircraft" is stretching things a little. It took a lot of naval resources, not just the carriers themselves, to get both sets of forces ready for action around Midway.




Again, 'fraid I disagree. The extent to which an action is or is not strategic is largely dependent on each side's primary strategic centre of gravity. It is entirely possible for a battle to have major strategic consequences even if an adversary's strategy doesn't change.

Take the Battle of Britain as an example. Until that time Hitler had the luxury of, for the most part, embarking on a sequential series of campaigns with a common objective. Everything was moving in one direction and he was never forced to fight a true 2-front effort. After the BoB, the entire strategic calculus had changed. Hitler had to face the prospect of a 2-front war which any good student of military history will tell you is a recipe for disaster. Fortunately for the Allies, Hitler's megalomania refused to concede that he could possibly lose and so he pressed ahead. His strategic objective remained unchanged but the context surrounding that strategy had shifted seismically against him...it's just that he refused to respond to that change. The ultimate result was disaster for his aspirations of global dominion.

Bottom line...you don't have to force a change of adversary objective to result in a strategic impact. If the enemy is too stupid to realize that the situation has changed, they may well press ahead with original plans, to their own detriment.

Except for the fact that, except for land-based aircraft at Midway itself, all those air sorties were flown off ships. Ergo to say it was "only aircraft" is stretching things a little. It took a lot of naval resources, not just the carriers themselves, to get both sets of forces ready for action around Midway.




Again, 'fraid I disagree. The extent to which an action is or is not strategic is largely dependent on each side's primary strategic centre of gravity. It is entirely possible for a battle to have major strategic consequences even if an adversary's strategy doesn't change.

Take the Battle of Britain as an example. Until that time Hitler had the luxury of, for the most part, embarking on a sequential series of campaigns with a common objective. Everything was moving in one direction and he was never forced to fight a true 2-front effort. After the BoB, the entire strategic calculus had changed. Hitler had to face the prospect of a 2-front war which any good student of military history will tell you is a recipe for disaster. Fortunately for the Allies, Hitler's megalomania refused to concede that he could possibly lose and so he pressed ahead. His strategic objective remained unchanged but the context surrounding that strategy had shifted seismically against him...it's just that he refused to respond to that change. The ultimate result was disaster for his aspirations of global dominion.

Bottom line...you don't have to force a change of adversary objective to result in a strategic impact. If the enemy is too stupid to realize that the situation has changed, they may well press ahead with original plans, to their own detriment.

To be more accurate, in Summer 1940, the Nazis are fighting on two fronts, an aerial campaign to their West, a naval campaign in the Atlantic and Arctic. By the Spring of 1941, they've added an extra front in the Mediterranean supporting their Italian allies and in the Summer they add a new one, the Eastern Front against the USSR. They're fighting a war on 4 fronts. They simply can't possibly expect to win.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

The Liberator definitely helped a lot but I heard it was a combination of things that won the battle of the Atlantic, and the Liberator was only one component of that?

The Battle of the Atlantic was won primarily by the surface escorts before the mid Atlantic gap was closed. Read the book Black May which tells the story of the pivotal convoy battle of the war, convoy ON5. Without any air support the 4 corvettes , 1 frigate and 1 destroyer of Escort Group B5 (reinforced sporadically by destroyers) fought off two wolfpacks totaling 43 U boats . The fighting was extraordinarily intense such that historians have difficulty in counting the numbers of attacks that were made. The final tally was 13 merchantman ships lost for 6 U boats sunk and 7 damaged, a exchange ratio the Germans could not afford. This was followed by the successful defense of 3 more convoys. Donitz called off the attacks on north Atlantic convoys on May 24, 1943. Air power certainly contributed but it was not the most important element. A convoy could be successfully defended by surface vessels alone but could not be defended by airpower alone.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

Right. And you think that USAAF 8th AF precision bombing was actually precise?

Their accuracy was probably not much different to the Lancasters at night.

Also, when Lancasters were sent against the German oil industry they needed fewer sorties to knock the facilities out than did B-17s.

In fact on average the RAF was more accurate at night than the USAAF was during the day. I posted several papers on american bombing accuracy (or lack there of) in this previous thread,
Aerial Bombing Question

 

[pinehilljoe]

The Battle of the Atlantic was won primarily by the surface escorts before the mid Atlantic gap was closed. .

Very true. Its like saying the War could have been won with bombing alone, in the end it took soldiers on the ground invading Germany for the War to end.

I think the Tipping Point for the Air War in the Battle of the Atlantic was when Coastal Command and supporting USAF units with Leigh Lights were finally directed to patrol the Bay of Biscay. A good book on the Battle is

Blackett's War: The Men Who Defeated the Nazi U-Boats and Brought Science to the Art of Warfare Warfare

Blackett basically invented what we now call Operational Research. He and his team showed by analysis patrolling the Bay of Biscay and thereby the routes every U-boat had to use when departing the sub pens in France would be far more productive then patrolling the Atlantic or bombing the sub pens.

 

[parsifal]

250 Uboats were sunk by aircraft, 264 were sunk by ships. there were some instances of co-operation between the surface escorts and a/c.

The following link provides information as to when and where losses were inflicted. According to this source, it wasn't until August 1941 that the first U-boat was lost to air attack. If it had solely or predominantly been aircraft in the battle, the allies would have lost the war.

German U-Boat Casualties in World War Two

The greatest contribution was not sinking U-Boats. It was preventing U-Boats from getting into position to attack allied shipping. They could scout ahead of the convoy and allow the Convoy commander to re-route his convoy to avoid a developing wolf pack . Since Uboats mostly travelled on the surface, A/C could force them to submerge, theeby allowing the convoy to get away from the U-Boat. Lastly, A/C could act as force multipliers, giving tactical information on location, course and speed to the escort, and thereby allow them the opportunity to sink or drive off more U-Boats than they might otherwise be able to.

 

[rochie]

The Boeing B-17, with Honorable Mention going to the Curtiss Hawk series. While the Lancaster, Halifax and Wellington were notable nocturnal bomb trucks, able to set fires in big cities causing lots of mayhem, it took daylight precision bombing, no matter how costly, to actually knock out the Nazi strategic targets. I mean, at least some of your bombs must hit in the intended target area to achieve the necessary effect. .

 

[Fighterguy]

Well, wars are won through logistics. With that, I'll go with the C-46 Commando and C-47 Skytrain.

 

[Buster01]

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.

I believe the C-47/Dakota was the one aircraft that made victory possible. The true turning point of the war in Europe was D-Day and without the paras and gliders backing up the invasion, the invasion would have not been a success.

 

[Barrett]

It's far from certain that Germany intended to invade Britain. "Sea Lion" looks much like a staff study than a serious plan. For one thing, the Wehrmacht lacked the amphibious capability and for another (greater) reason, Hitler's focus was eastward, not west.

IMO we gotta remember that WW II was...a world war. One aircraft type did not do more to win "the war" than another across the globe. The Mustang is an obvious choice for the ETO/MTO, considering that daylight strategic bombing might have ended without long-range fighters.

Against Japan, nominations are closed with one mention: the Douglas SBD Dauntless, for all the obvious reasons. (Imagine 1942 only with SB2Us!) Other high finishers: the F6F, which destroyed Japanese airpower, and enabled many/most of the CentPac island victories. Next of course would be the B-29, but the Superforts couldn't have got to their Marianas bases absent the SBD and F6F.

 

[Dan Fahey]

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

Actually all had a key impact on the war in different ways.
One nomination for WORK HORSE is the P40.
It fought in every single Theater of War and to the end.
No other plane did that unless introduced later in the war.
If we count all the planes it shot down it should be number one and was used the longest.

None of the Combatants knew what to do when WW2 began.
Everyone built weaponry they could build well, use available engines, flew reasonably and competitively well.

IMHO it was the P51 that was that significant plane that tuned the tide of the war.
I call it the Straw (the Plane) that broke the Camels back.

Its number one key attributes was Range backed up with everyday reliability and very competitive performance.
Other than a few Japanese Fighters nothing came close including their late model fighters.
The P51 came first or near first in every competitive feature for an fighter aircraft and even used as a bomb delivery system.
Plus had all the required logistics and maintenance to keep the plane flying, reliable, competitive.

One untold story was the engineering, manufacturing, training processes that were well sorted out before being manufactured.
This cannot be said often enough.
The Mustang was the plane that could go all 12 rounds of a fight like a good Boxer.

 

[pinehilljoe]

I believe the C-47/Dakota was the one aircraft that made victory possible. The true turning point of the war in Europe was D-Day and without the paras and gliders backing up the invasion, the invasion would have not been a success.

The turning point in Europe was November 1942. November '42 was a global Waterloo. Torch, El Alamein, Stalingrad, and Guadalcanal. After November '42, the Germans and Japanese never had a strategic victory.

Overlord wasn't a turning point, it was the final step to victory in the West.

I agree the C-47 was critical, Eisenhower called it one of the most important weapons of the War.

 

[chipieal]

i think it is a generally accepted position that what really ended WWII was not the atomic bombs but Russia's entry into the was against Japan. Remember the firebombing of Tokyo killed and injured far more civilians that the Atomic bombs. I hate to admit it as I am as proud as any American my age of what our fathers accomplished but the idea that the atomic bombs ended WWII is pure propaganda. And as to the Superfortress, It made a massive contribution. Remember LeMay was running out of major targets prior to the atomic bomb drops.

 

[Big Jake]

The question was "which airplane did the most to turn the tide of war", not who finished it and whether the Lancaster could or couldn't carry the atom bomb!

So, in answer to the question:

For the RAF in Europe - the Hurricane (for obvious reasons - it and its pilots saved Britain); For the US in the Pacific - the SBD (finished off the Japanese carriers and thus directly influenced the course of the war); for the US in Europe - the duality of B-17 and B-24 (the war restarted in Europe when these two showed up and changed everything from 1943 as between 1941 and 1943 not much happened in that theatre).

 

[ykickamoocow]

The question was "which airplane did the most to turn the tide of war", not who finished it and whether the Lancaster could or couldn't carry the atom bomb!

So, in answer to the question:

For the RAF in Europe - the Hurricane (for obvious reasons - it and its pilots saved Britain); For the US in the Pacific - the SBD (finished off the Japanese carriers and thus directly influenced the course of the war); for the US in Europe - the duality of B-17 and B-24 (the war restarted in Europe when these two showed up and changed everything from 1943 as between 1941 and 1943 not much happened in that theatre).

I could be wrong but weren't the British essentially launching some massive bombing campaigns using Lancasters before the USAF turned up in force with the B-17's? From memory the American bombing campaign took a while to get going because it took so long to get all the equipment and personnel into the UK.

 

[Shortround6]

I could be wrong but weren't the British essentially launching some massive bombing campaigns using Lancasters before the USAF turned up in force with the B-17's? From memory the American bombing campaign took a while to get going because it took so long to get all the equipment and personnel into the UK.

This is mostly true, however the bit about massive bombing campaigns using Lancasters before the USAF turned up in force with the B-17's needs a little clarification. The British only built 693 Lancasters in 1942. They used Lancasters in large number of raids in 1942 but the large numbers of aircraft per raid were made up of other bombers than the Lancaster.

The Americans don't show up to bomb Germany until Jan of 1943 (they did bomb targets in france and low countries in late 1942) so the British do beat them on that score no matter how many or how few Lancasters were used.

I don't have the production of B-17s by month but they built 512 B-17Es from late 1941 to the end of May 1942 at which point they started building B-17Fs. 3,405 Of the "F"s were built starting at the end of May/beginning of June 1942 and running to July of 1943 at which point production changed to the G. (each of the 3 factories was bit different) It usually took the US several months to get planes form the US factories to combat zones/missions. However even with the diversion of several hundred B-17s to the Pacific (a guess) the US handley out produced the Lancaster with B-17s in 1942/43. Lancasters only became available in truly large numbers in 1944 (1847 built in 1943 and 2933 in 1944) so I guess it depends on what one means buy large numbers and when.
The British built 5428 medium and heavy bombers in 1942 (that includes Albemarles, Hampdens and Warwicks) of which almost exactly half ( 2702) were Wellingtons.
The British did stage a number of large raids or campaigns before the Americans showed up, But the majority of the crews that flew those dangerous missions were flying planes other than Lancasters.

Please note I am not saying anything about how good the Lancaster was, just remarking on the timing.

 

[wuzak]

The Americans don't show up to bomb Germany until Jan of 1943 (they did bomb targets in france and low countries in late 1942) so the British do beat them on that score no matter how many or how few Lancasters were used.

The first 8th AF raid into Germany was on the 27th January 1943. It was an attack on the naval base at Wilhelmshaven, not far into Germany. And possibly still within escort fighter range.

This massive raid consisted of 11 B-17s.

27th January 1943: US 8th Airforce's first raid on Germany – 'U.S. bombs, from U.S. airplanes, with U.S. crews'

By the time the 8th AF could send 100 B-17s and B-24s the RAF was regularly sending similar numbers of Lancasters.

 

[ktank]

At the outbreak of the war the UK had about 130 Spitfires in service. At the fall of France there were approximately equal numbers of Spitfires and Hurricanes 250 each. All losses inflicted by the RAF in France up to Dunkerque were by Hurricanes, and other forces used Hurricanes too, Hawkers could make them faster than the RAF could take them into service. Without the Hurricane we would have had no real numbers of pilots experienced on monoplane fighters. Of course if there wasn't a "Hurricane" much more effort would have been put into other things, but that is "what if".

The Hurricane was also cheaper to build, easier to repair, needed less skill to pilot (in particular with the wide undercart) and was a steadier gun platform.

IMHO if in the Battle of Britain the UK had only Hurricanes, it could still have won but it would have taken longer.

If it had had only Spitfires, especially taking into account the earlier service entry of the Hurricane increasing the number of monoplane pilots, it could well have lost.

Luckily the British had both. Fascinating contrast - last of the old generation of tube design (started as the Fury Monoplane - look how similar the Hurricane and Fury rear fuselages are in profile) - vs the new stressed-skin monocoque.

Back to aircraft that won the war - looking at Europe the C-47/Dakota, the Merlin-P51 for making daylight raids covering the whole of Germany (notably the oil industry) possible, and on the Eastern Front the IL-2. In the Pacific - SBD and Hellcat.

 

[Conslaw]

In Season 3, Episode 4 of Grand Tour television show, James May echoes the argument that the hurricane won the Battle of Britain. He also asserts that the Battle of Britain was actually a draw. That would be so interesting argument.

 

[ykickamoocow]

In Season 3, Episode 4 of Grand Tour television show, James May echoes the argument that the hurricane won the Battle of Britain. He also asserts that the Battle of Britain was actually a draw. That would be so interesting argument.

I actually saw that argument as well and I am not sure I agree as while the Hurricane was obviously very important, it was the plane that took on the bombers more often than not, so on average the Hurricane's kills were easier than the Spitfire's who almost exclusively focused on the 109's.