The Most Cost-Effective Plane of WW2

[renrich]

PB, good point. If one talks about the number of aircraft deployed, their cost and the overall impact on the outcome of the war, it might be a tie between the Swordfish and the Dauntless.

 

[red admiral]

Flyboy what the hell is that?

Its the Bell XP-77.

It was cheap but poor in every other respect. Things look even worse when you know the published figures are the predicted ones, in fact the prototype didn't make it over 300mph.

 

[Soren]

KrazyKraut,

The He-162's problem could've been cured if more attention was given to the quality in some of the production plants (Slave labor doesn't yield too good results without consistent quality checks). There were however some good quality batches delivered to the LW, and these well made a/c featured very good durability. The design was sound, but in 45 it sometimes suffered from the shabby worksmanship of slave labor which wasn't caught because of less less production line quality checks.

 

[KrazyKraut]

I agree. How reliable were the production 003s compared to the Jumos btw?

I gotta disagree about the B-29. I have read that it cost more to develop and build the 3500 B-29s than it did to develop, and build the 19000 B-24s. B-24s could do a lot of things like ASW, mining, and of course strategic bombing at a reasonable cost,

The B-29 was a better aircraft, but I really doubt it was more cost effective

The B-24s life (as a bomber) ended right with the end of the war though, the B-29 served throughout Korea and beyond. Overall they dropped a considerable amount of ordinance for, compared to the other heavies, minimal losses. They also consumed less fuel per ton of bombs dropped etc... all things to consider when speaking of cost-effective.

 

[ppopsie]

Sorry to be late.

Avro Lancaster

 

[Kruska]

PB, good point. If one talks about the number of aircraft deployed, their cost and the overall impact on the outcome of the war, it might be a tie between the Swordfish and the Dauntless.

No, it would be obviously a C-47

Regards
Kruska

 

[renrich]

I see your point, Kruska but there were thousands of C47s and not nearly that many SBDs or Stringbags. Still the C47 is a more than legitimate choice. Those four squadrons of SBDs did change the course of the Pacific War in a few minutes, however.

 

[comiso90]

How about the Zero?
It seems like it would be easy to mass produce

.

 

[parsifal]

I dont think it was that cheap to build actually

The Zeke was a fairly difficult plane to manufacture actually. The wing construction was complex, because the wing spar was built as an integral part of the fuselage. By doing this, Mitsubishi was able to reduce to a bare minimum the numbers of fasteners needed to hold the whole thing together, and thereby achieve such lightness in the design. It was, at once, both a measure of the aircrafts brilliance, and also the basis for its failure. A cruel irony really.

Also for its time the Zero was revolutionary, because it was the the first airframe to make extensive use extra Super-Duralumin, in the airframe and spar caps. This was new technology, and it cost money to develop the correct techniques to use it properly.

 

[Flyboy2]

I would vote for the C-47 because it was inexpensive and easy to produce yet a great aircraft. You can see this by how it was used by so many countries during and after World War II

 

[Waynos]

I'm not sure that any stressed skin aeroplane was easy or cheap to build at that time. I'm thinking that the most cost effective planes were such as the Swordfish, for its antics against the Italian fleet, Bismarck etc or the Tiger Moth or Stearman because of the role they played in keeping us supplied with pilots, but thats just a random thought off the top of my head, I can't quantify it with reams of data.

 

[Waynos]

Sorry to be late.

Avro Lancaster

Actually thats not a bad call if you take it that most of the development costs were spent on the Manchester and the actual costs of the Lancaster were about extending the wing and sticking on Merlins you get a remarkably capable aeroplane for very little outlay, or is that cheating?

 

[Marcel]

What about the Hurricane? That wasn't an expensive A/C either, was it? And it did great in the BoB

 

[proton45]

What about the Hurricane? That wasn't an expensive A/C either, was it? And it did great in the BoB

I was going to bring that one up too...

 

[Kruska]

I see your point, Kruska but there were thousands of C47s and not nearly that many SBDs or Stringbags. Still the C47 is a more than legitimate choice. Those four squadrons of SBDs did change the course of the Pacific War in a few minutes, however.

Hm.. I know what you mean. I am not very knowledgeable about the PTO, but it might have been the non operational Japanese radios that made Midway an USN success, rather then the SBD's.

Regards
Kruska

 

[kool kitty89]

Hurricane was mentioned a couple times previously in the thread but hasn't been discussed much.

 

[eddie_brunette]

I'm going for Mosquito, but busy researching. I'm sure they were cheaper than the B17's and could:
Carry the same bomb load
Much, much faster
Could probably defend itself easier/better
Less crew...

But let me research further

edd

 

[renrich]

The Japanese had plenty of operational radios at Midway but those SBD pilots sure made some hay. An interesting study recently published that is based on Japanese sources state that the IJN carriers were so busy launching and recovering the CAPs in the short time before the SBDs arrived that they could not get an offensive strike on the flight deck and ready to launch. Because of the closed in hangar decks of the IJN carriers the AC could not start their engines and warm up until on the flight deck. It would take around one hour to launch the AC in a strike once it was decided to do so.

 

[starling]

i shall once again go for the wellington .starling.p.s beaufighter too.

 

[Haztoys]

I guess Japan had only one radio and the hard fighting US flyer's had nothing to do with it... ...Great..Thanks Kruska for the respecting are flyer's who gave there lives at Midway...Of the torpedo planes only one made it back.. Now that take nuts ...

The Japanese changed there minds and tried to change from bombs to torpedoes and back to bombs...Thats what lost Midway ..Some time your better off using the tools at hand then take time to go fine the one you "think" will be better..And the Japanese ego as to this will be a EZ fight did them in..How "I" read it ..The high level bombers showed up right after the torpedo bombers had started there run in on the ships ..So they held off until the torpedo bombers were done..And the key was the Japanese never look up for high level bombers ..They were looking low for more torpedo bombers until it was to late..The Japanese ego as some here on the forum here had felt the US had no nuts and would never put up a fight..And the Japanese had never been in a fight..They had just steam rolled all comers..And had never had to fight toe to toe with somone at the same level as they were...And just knew they never would have too..

And the float plane that was to scout the area the US fleet was had problems and did not take off for an hour...Then once it did see the fleet it told the Japanese fleet that there was a fleet ...But took a nother hour to say what ships were in said fleet...The Japanese did not get there planes moving to the US fleet in that hour they tried to change armament.. Bad move ..They were so sure this was going to be a cake walk ..As were the Germans in the ETO.. And why should Japanese or the German think other wise.. Japan had taken Asia with little fight ...And German had gotten most of Europe in do time .. I could see were there thinking was coming from..

One of the biggest down falls of people and countrys ..Is thinking you know and this is going to be EZ.. Like the US in Iraq... .. .. ..

You would think time would has proved other wise...But man keeps on thinking he has it all covered..Ego before the fall..