The Best Fw-190 Variant...?

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The Dora9 was faster, but I think the A6 was the best turning of the 190's. The A's also rolled better than the Dora or TA.

As for looks, that's just a matter of personal taste. I have a model of a 190A4 that I think looks awsome 8)

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Lunatic
 

It's painted (as close as I could get) in a pattern they used to hide them under trees, a skyblue cover coat with a forest green pattern on top.
 

RG, the "Dora" was the tightest turning FW-190, and this is a commonly known fact for those who have studied the plane or read detailed books about it.
 

Hmmm... I've never actually read that. I've read comparisons of its performance to contemporary Allied fighters, all very sketchy on actual details. But I've yet to see a single source that actually says that the Dora was able to turn tighter than the Anton. It was faster and able to pull itself through a high speed turn better, but that is a different thing.

Care to give a specific source?

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Lunatic
 
To elaborate a bit further on Soren´s last comment:

I have read thoroughly on most fighters of WWII, however it was not until i had a series of informal conversations with people with vast knowledge that i got enlightened on the following -meaning what i am going to comment here is not on any book i´d put my hands on so far-:

It was Kurt Tank´s creation, the Fw 190s, beginning with the A series, followed by the D version "Long Nose", ending with the Ta152s, that made the most brilliant line of evolution observed on any fighter which saw service in world war II, of any combatant nation.

The A´s had excellent medium and low altitude performance, having a not so wonderful high altitude performance. A radial engine and powerful cannon armament were other features.

The D and the final sample of the evolution in Tanks work, the Ta 152, while not having radial engines, had superior high altitude performance, and superb low altitude performance -proved by the records of the boys of JG301, who dealt with the dreaded Yaks accordingly-.

Of all other fighters which saw service, you name them, Spitfire, Bf109, P-51, P-47, Yaks, La´s, etc., no one had such a clear ascending line on most aspects like the Fw190s gained.

Yes, most fighters became faster and heavily armed, but saw their manouvering affected to one degree or another (Spitfire, Bf109, P-47). Not the case with Kurt Tank´s work: his Fw190 chain of evolution not only became faster -faster than most enemy fighters-, they also became easier to handle for rookie pilots, extremely manouverable, in other words: they were going ahead.

It was kind of a consistent opinion to see even the latest P-47 versions of the war at serious disadvantage had the war been protracted and more 190Ds and Ta152s had become available for the jagdwaffe.

After hearing such opinions, i realized it is coherent with what i ve read.

Therefore it is impossible for me to tell which Fw190 version was better.

Like no other plane of the war, the Fw190s were simply seeing its line of evolution improving and improving, that is, rising on the chart like no other plane, friend or foe alike.
 
The F4U Corsair started good and got better with each evolution. So did the P-51, ending with the H model which was probably the single best high performance prop fighter developed in WWII. Likewise, the P-47 went through improvment after improvement, ending with the M and N models which were superb.

The Dora and Ta lines however, were somewhat compromized. For a variety of reasons, Tank's options were limited - he had to use the 190A as a basis of his design. This resulted in a less than optimal cooling system design for the Jumo engine.

Despite all the German hype of the Dora9, I've never seen any sign that Allied pilots were much aware of it. They had heard of the long nose FW, but that's about it. It is hard to know how competative it really was given all the late war German propoganda and Tank's self promotions.

And the idea that the Dora9 could out-turn the Anton seems outright silly. The higher weight and same wings, and the longer rear fuselage with no significant increase in elevator area implies a reduced rate of turn. It seems more likely it was able to out turn the Anton at high speeds, where the increase in leverage would be more important than the actual maximum rate of rotation about the horizontal axis.

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Lunatic
 
You need to expand your reading RG.

Many Allied pilots have commented on that the only late war a/c that gave them any real trouble was the Dora. It is a wonder that any have heard of the Spit XIV since there was less than 1/2 the war time number (~750) produced than for the Dora(~1800).

What was not so optimal aboutf the Dora's coolant system?
 
Everything I have read confirms what Udet is saying about the evolution of the Fw-190 culminating in the Ta-152. I am not convinced that the P-51H was the greatest high alltitude aircraft produced in WW2 because it did not match up against a Ta-152H. The Dora was a magnificent aircraft and so was the Ta-152. Everything I have read about it says so and everything about the 152 leads to saying that it was the best high alltitude fighter to hit service during WW2.
 
As for the G that someone asking about earlier. Here is some info on it and other varients. Most of these below never made it into production or service.

Fw 190G-0 Pre-production Jabo
Fw 190G-1 Jabo with Junkers bomb-rack
Fw 190G-1/Trop Tropicalised Jabo
Fw 190G-2 Jabo with Messerschmitt bomb-rack
Fw 190G-2/Trop Tropicalised Jabo
Fw 190G-2/N Nacht Jabo
Fw 190G-3 Jabo with Focke-Wulf bomb-rack
Fw 190G-3/Trop Tropicalised Jabo
Fw 190G-3/R5 4 Fragmentation bombs carried under wings
Fw 190G-3/N Nacht Jabo
Fw 190G-4 Jabo with 3 ETC 503 bomb-racks
Fw 190G-4/Trop Tropicalised Jabo
Fw 190G-5 Planned Jabo
Fw 190G-6 Planned Jabo
Fw 190G-7 Jabo with drop tank? (NB. All G variants had drop tanks)
Fw 190G-8 Jabo based on A-8
Fw 190G-8/R4 GM 1 nitrous-oxide power-boost system
Fw 190G-8/R5 BMW 801TU
Fw 190G-9 Planned Jabo with BMW 801F
Fw 190G-10 Planned Jabo with BMW 801F
Fw 190H-1 Proposed high-altitude fighter
Fw 190S-5 Two-seat trainer
Fw 190S-8 Two-seat trainer

 

Where do you get that 1800 figure for the Dora. I've reaseached the plane a few years ago, especially the cooling system, and I could only find evidence of less than 900 Dora models of all types delivered and fewer than that deployed (perhaps 600-750?). 440 mph performance was with GM1 boost, which there is no credible evidence was ever installed on a combat unit. Maximum speed using MW50 boost was 426 mph, and MW50 could not be used above 16,500 feet (though maximum speed was still achieved at just over 20,000 feet).

About 900 Spit XIV's were delivered to front line units before the end of the war.

As for the Dora cooling system...

1) It sits centered behind the prop (as do radial engines) which means a minimum 20% reduction in airflow over free stream air. Because the air is slowed down by 20+%, it is not sufficiently fast for climb cooling. To overcome this, a large bullet spinner is used, the air flowing around the spinnner is sped up. But this in turn is not optimal for high-speed cooling. A compromise had to be made in high speed cooling to provide sufficient climb speed cooling.

2) The annular design is fitted parallel to the airflow rather than perpendicular to it. This is not optimal because air passing through the forward part of the radiator gets hot and cannot pick up as much heat from the rear of the radiator.

There were actually two radiator systems for the Dora series. One was called the "segmented ring radiator", which was one of the most efficient radiator systems of the war and probably overcame most of the deficits. However, it was extremely expensive to produce, as each ring had to be hand fitted and built onto the engine block, and it was nearly impossible to repair in the field and was only used on prototypes and perhaps a few combat aircraft. Almost all the production Dora's had the annular radiator, which was much cheaper to produce and could be serviced in the field, but was no where near as efficient as the segmented ring design.

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Lunatic
 

Well, who put the "extreme high altitude" requirement on the P-51H?

Well, we really don't know about the TA. It didn't see enough action, especially at high altitude, to have much of an evaluation on it. It was really just a combat prototype, rushed into service because of Germany's desperate position.

As for the Dora9, I agree it was a very fine fighter and competitive with its rivals, but there is nothing to indicate it was "superior". It seems to me this plane was really tuned for combat in the sea level to 28,000 foot range.

Everything I see indicates the F4U-4 was superior in just about every critical aspect - it was faster, climbed better, had at least as much firepower and more trigger time, was more durable, and turned better.

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Lunatic
 
Oh for christs sake RG, would you stop that Pro-U.S. attitude !!

Every U.S. plane is a "WINNER" in your eyes, and you have a very hard time seeing their shortcomings ! While you have very easy time seeing bad things about Axis aircraft !

If the Fw-190's and 109's were so bad compared to the Allied fighters, then how come they did so well considdering their situation ?

Germany had so many pilots flying the 190's and 109's who scored over 50 kills on the W-front, that it if they were flying "Inferior" planes these scores would have been TOTALLY impossible !

As for the Reference on the FW-190's and their seperate abilities; Go read every detailed book about it, and I will almost Garantee you that it is mentioned !

and the longer rear fuselage with no significant increase in elevator area implies a reduced rate of turn.

I hope after re-reading this comment made by you, you will realize how stupid it was !

First of all the elevator area on the 190 wasnt that small, as it was very wide, but narrow. And secondly this elevator area has nothing to do with the 190's ability to turn !

Think about it, if all you needed for a better turn-rate was to increase the elevator area then it most certainly would have been made large on every fighter ! It just aint that easy !

The A6M "Zero" had a very small elevator area, but it outturned every Allied fighter it met !
 
No RG, only ~750 Spit XIVs were delivered before VE-Day as I just resently had to go through StH and had a look at the serial numbers. A goodly proportion of those 750 were on ships going to other theatres.

Well you had better revise your Dora data base as the number produced was 1826.

Strange that the V21 exhibited low coolant temperatures during testing, dispite being, according to, not being very efficient.
 

The F4U-4 never served in the ETO. The P-47M and N's only served in tiny numbers. The P-51 and P-47D had already beaten the Germans, there was no need to post the best new fighters to the ETO in 1945.

Defense is easier than offense. The Germans were defending against allied aircraft that had flown hundreds of miles into enemy territory. The advantage lay entirely with the Germans.


My point is there was no difference between the elevator on the 190A vs the 190D. The size is not important, only that it is the same on both planes.

Soren said:
Think about it, if all you needed for a better turn-rate was to increase the elevator area then it most certainly would have been made large on every fighter ! It just aint that easy !

Of course there is more too it. Making the elevator too large means the pilot will not be able to work it at high speeds. There is an optimal size for a given aircraft, and this must also take into acount the leverage rations involved in the controls.

Soren said:
The A6M "Zero" had a very small elevator area, but it outturned every Allied fighter it met !

Says who? W.r.t. the size and geometry used, the Zero elevator was large.

But anyway, that is beside the point. The issue is that the Dora and Anton elevators were the same size.
 
KraziKanuK said:
No RG, only ~750 Spit XIVs were delivered before VE-Day as I just resently had to go through StH and had a look at the serial numbers. A goodly proportion of those 750 were on ships going to other theatres.

Something like 956 were produced during the war. Perhaps only 750 were deployed before VE day.

KraziKanuK said:
Well you had better revise your Dora data base as the number produced was 1826.

Care to give a source? And don't give the number of assigned werknumbers, as we know that is not a reliable method of counting. Every source I've seen says less than 900 were delivered, and not all that were delivered saw combat.

KraziKanuK said:
Strange that the V21 exhibited low coolant temperatures during testing, dispite being, according to, not being very efficient.

Under what conditions? Low coolant temp problems during cruise don't matter.

Also, the V21 was a prototype, so it probably used the segmented ring radiators. Many of the prototypes used this radiator.
 
The F4U-4 never served in the ETO. The P-47M and N's only served in tiny numbers. The P-51 and P-47D had already beaten the Germans, there was no need to post the best new fighters to the ETO in 1945.

Errr... where did this come from ? I never stated the F4U-4 being available in the ETO !

Defense is easier than offense.

Yeah on the ground, but it really doesnt matter much in the air, there the numbers count !

The Germans were defending against allied aircraft that had flown hundreds of miles into enemy territory. The advantage lay entirely with the Germans.

You crack me up RG !

What your saying is that the TOTALLY outnumbered and fuel starving German Luftwaffe had the advantage !

RG there are "Finnish" 109 aces who have higher scores than the highest scoring Allied ace !

My point is there was no difference between the elevator on the 190A vs the 190D. The size is not important, only that it is the same on both planes.

And your point is ?

The "Dora" has a longer tail section optimizing its center of gravity, giving it the Advantage over the "Anton" in a T&B fight.

Says who? W.r.t. the size and geometry used, the Zero elevator was large.

RG the elevators on the Zero werent at all big ! The stabilizers were huge though.
 
The V21 had the same rad as the D-9. The D-13 had the other type.

Well you can go through StH and count the number of Spit XIVs produced, for I am not.

As for you references on Dora production, they are out of date. It was a posted on another board, taken from a German book, pg 438.
 
Further down my previous idea:

All of Kurt Tank´s machines were superb.

The Fw190 A´s, the A8 for instance, made a superior plane to the P-51.
It was only at high altitude where the Mustangs could experience less trouble fighting the Butcher Bird.

The bulk of the victories of the Mustangs over the Butcher Bird and the Bf 109 were by conducting the classical bouncing. A totally valid method to defeat your enemy.

Ever heard the famous phrase: "in love, as well as in war, absolutely everything is valid"?

Valid. Absolutely. You are there to beat your enemy with complete disregard of the means.

But an entirely different story is to affirm the Mustangs defeated the Fw190 by means of technical superiority. That, you can not have it, for it was not true.

The versions which followed, Long Nose and the Ta152, simply filled the high altitude gap of their preceding relative, and continued to maintain clear superiority over the Mustang.

The most solid argument the allies display in sort of a desperate attempt to minimize the Ta 152 is that there are no recorded facts or evidence to confirm the 152s ever engaged the Mustangs.

The Ta 152 was properly tested; tests which got documented and the outcome was as transparent as Caribbean sea water: it was a superior plane to even the Long Nose.

Saw combat in limited numbers and a plane with superb high altitude performance chewed the soviet Yaks at tree top level dogfïghts, an altitude where the Yaks are frequently considered as the best.

It is quite clear in my case. The most brilliant evolution belongs to Herr Tank creations.
 

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