The Most Cost-Effective Plane of WW2

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I've got another nomination for most cost-effective plane in ww2. The SBD Dauntless. Just finished reading "The Dauntless" by Barrett Tillman and, according to him,in its last and presumably most expensive incarnation SBD 6 it was 29,000 a copy. That's alot of shipping a the bottom of the sea for 29,000(or possibly less on average). Not sure if this is as good a pick as the c47 but certainly seems like it would be in the running.
 
Check the contracts. That might be for the airframe.
Engine, propeller, radios, guns and some other "stuff" might not be included.

Engines and propellers were often "GFE" (Government Furnished Equipment) and while many of us might assume that to be so with guns/radios it was true of the engines and propellers.

Not saying the SBD wasn't a good value (or a very good value) just that contracts and prices have to looked at carefully.
 
Yes that could make a fairly substantial difference in the total cost. However, even if that jacked the price up10 or even 20% the Dauntless would seem to be an exceptional value.
I may be going out on a limb here but in addition to looking at just raw tonnage of shipping sunk by the type if I had to pick just one type that turned the tide in the Pacific( a tuff thing to do) but if I had to pick just one, especially considering Midway, I would have to go with the Dauntless.
I'm fairly confident others may disagree with the extent of that assessment ))but I think most would agree there was alot of bang for the buck in the SBD.
 
One web site claims R-1820s averaged about $10,000 in WW II.
Propellers were a lot more expensive than you might think.

Late war production was often much cheaper than early war. Nash-Kelvinator is supposed to have cut the price of their R-2800s almost in 1/2 from 1942 to 1945.
Nash-Kelvinator made a fixed 6% profit.
 
This may be a little off topic but sort of relates as it would further the case of cost effectiveness. I just got done reading an article that states the Dauntless achieved a 3.2 to 1 kill ratio in air to air combat. As much as I would like to believe this as it is probably my favorite plane I find this a little suspect as many fighter types didn't even achieve this.
In his book The Dauntless Barrett Tillman says the ratio is 1.1 to 1. This is still quite impressive for a designated bomber/scout type and sounds a little more believable. Tillman also sounds like he did his research. Whenever discussing claims he always qualifies them with" records show actual Japanese losses were" and presume this is where he gets the 1.1 to 1 number although he never states this specifically.
Anybody know the acurate numbers here?
 
If this is the case, then I vote for the Gato class as being the most cost effective... uh, um aircraft???
 
You guys are forgetting the "Effectiveness" term.
F-6F Hellcat had the best cost x effective, since the unit cost was $35,000 in 1945 (Which was very cheap) and very easy and cheap to maintain, could do almost anything that was asked for, in terms of effectiveness it kills 5,163 at a recorded cost of 270 Hellcats in aerial combat, 553 lost to anti-aircraft ground and shipboard fire, and 341 were lost to operational cause. In the ground attack role, Hellcats dropped 6,503 tons (5,899 tonnes) of bombs. So historically it had a good price, cheap to maintain with a superb and legendary effectiveness.
 
$35,000 in 1945 got you an F6F airframe, no engine, no propeller, no guns, no radios, and a bunch of other little stuff left out.
This was all GFE (Government Furnished Equipment) as paid for to the suppliers by separate contracts and shipped to the air frame makers already paid for.
 
£8750 Sterling, so a bargain. Dearer than a Seafire but then over 2000 were built and they didn't even score 100 victories.
 
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It has to be the C47 but if we go for a plane for each airforce

USA. C47 obviously
UK. Vickers Wellington it was in service from 1938 to 1958 and could be built astonishingly quickly and cheaply.
Germany. Bf109 Cheap as chips and effective till the bitter end
SU. Yak 1 I think I could build a Yak airframe with a vice, a hammer and some scrap pallets
Japan. Ki43 Small cheap and probably the best pure single purpose dogfighter of the war
Italy. SM79 a high performance bomber made from wood
The rest of the world Fokker DXXI made with plywood and a cheap easily available commercial engine.
 
Well, to be cost-effective an aircraft has to be operationally effective and all too often some of the cheap aircraft that began the war didn't wind up very effective by the end of the war. They got left behind by changing conditions and pouring more money into producing large numbers of them may have been counterproductive.

The Ki 43 really comes to mind here because no matter how effective it was shooting down Buffaloes, Blenheims, Curtiss Demons and Martin 139/166s in 1941/42 by the middle of 1943 it was a very expensive way to get two 12.7mm machine guns and 500 rounds of ammo into the air.
Out of the just over 5900 built over 4450 were built from the 2nd half of 1943 on.
The Allies had stopped dog fighting to a large extent and B-24s needed repeated passes by multiple aircraft to bring down one bomber. As in 3 or more fighters picking one bomber out of a formation to attack and circling around to attacking the same one again and yet again if need be. The Ki 43s were using head on passes to avoid the tail guns and minimize exposure to the defensive guns and to try to hit the cockpit area of the B-24.
It worked but not often enough to stop the American raids.

Adequate firepower in 1939 was often inadequate in 1944.

I would also check on the idea that the Italian SM 79 was a high performance bomber in WW II.

Setting records in 1935-37 is all well and good but being shot down by Gladiators does tend to make it's "high-performance" questionable.
 
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