The greatest fighter that never made it

Which figher would have made the most difference if able to see widespread combat?

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I went for the Do335 it was faster then many allied aircraft with a top speed of over 480kph. Powered by two DB603 A-2 engines it would have been able to out run most allied and axis fighters. It is faster then the DH Hornet which was officially the fastest two engine aircraft in the world at the time.
 
I fail to see how Ta-152 or Do-335 could be better then He-162? The 1st two are well within the grips of P-51H, P-47M/N, Spitfire/Spiteful, dH Hornet...
 
The F7F was just ridiculous. Huge but fast, powerful, well armed. It would have terrorized the Japanese if it had come out earlier.
 
I would nominate the DH Vampire, it shared many of the characteristics that people have mentioned for the He 162 and although it didn't debut until 1946, it could have entered service much earlier if required as it was flying in 1943, even before the P-80. With the same sort of super priority that the P-80 had (or the lack of the Meteor) it could well have been going into combat in 1945, especially as its engine programme was less troubled than the Meteors (and the first XP-80 flew with a DH engine).

But its not on the list.
 
I notice that we tend to look at the new allied jets as a counter to the German jets, which is fair enough.
But we shouldn't overlook what the quicker development of those jets would have had on German piston fighters. They would have put the 190D, 109K and Ta152 at a serious disadvantage.
I voted for the Tempest II though.
 
Too bad there isn't a Ta-152 that is flyable. Then we could see it in action. But all we have right now are the records of it, and since it was rarely used in combat, it doesn't give a lot to go on.

The Ta-152 did shoot down a Tempest in a turning battle, but the Tempest had very poor turning abilities at low altitude. Even the Spitfire could outturn it.

As for speed, the Bearcat has the record for fastest Piston fighter at 528.33 mph.

I don't know if the Ta-152 could beat that speed in combat. With boost it could go 470 miles per hour, an impressive speed.

The P-51-H and P-47M Mustang also had speeds comparable to the Ta-152.


I think on this forum I have heard it said that the Ta-152 had such a high ceiling that all Allied fighters couldn't withstand it and would become sitting ducks, but that still is just speculation.

Even if in theory the Ta-152 could swoop down on bombers and blast them to pieces then zoom up again to high range, while the Allied fighters could barely get a shot at it, in reality often fighters with poor performance can still make suprisingly good kills.

Take the Brewster Buffalo by the Finns. It did magnificently against the Russians. Now maybe if the Russians were flying Ta-52's the outcome would have been different. It could have been slaughtered then, like it almost was against the Zero's at Midway.
 
For me, the P80. The massive industrial infrastructure of the US could have produced them by the thousands.

But wouldn't the carrier war be different with F7F's and F8F's on board!
 
Clay_Allison said:
I hate the P-80 for killing Richard Bong, I'm not open to reason on the subject.
Click to expand...

How old are you?

Not "open to reason" because Dick Bong failed to arm the emergency fuel pump (which was there to solve a known problem), lost the primary and then killed himself trying to time the ejection with his rolling P-80 - a la Kinchloe in the F-104A? You think his P-80 had it in for Bong and elected to 'piss him off by failing'??

How interesting..maybe the P-80 'hates you back' because you 'hate it'..
 
Since this is about a/c which didn't make it into the war, the Go-229 is definitely a candidate and the He-162C D were both really promising designs as-well. Another candidate would be the Jumo 004E equipped Me-262 which was very close to becoming a reality in WW2, the engine being ready by the time the war ended, and it would've easily outperformed any Allied project in the works by that time.

The MTT P.1011 FW Ta183 designs are also possible candidates, being the most advanced fighter designs of the war, but they weren't close to seeing service anytime soon when the war ended.
 
The Bearcat that holds the speed record was a specially prepared model, stripped out and super tuned plus some external aerodynamic mods too IIRC so is not fully representative of a fighter.

AFAIK, the fastest level speeds recorded by piston fighters, carrying guns, were 500mph+ for the CA-15 and P-47J and 494mph for the Spiteful.
 
The Bearcat climbed like "a bat out of h....." and was super maneuverable.My dad was on the team (USN) that evaluated new aircraft. on one flight, when
only one wing came off because of the explosive bolt failure,the pilot was still able to land safely.I once read ,but cannot verify,that in tests against a P-51 when the '51 reached altitude the Bearcat had already made two firing passes.It was finnally something that could beat the Japanese at thier own game.
Ed
 
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