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The P-40 certainly proved itself and excellent fighter bomber, well able to defend itself against the 190s and 109s it faced and excepionally resistant to battle damage
"Best" and "Significant" aren't the same thing.
Hawker Tempest may have been the best but not many made it into combat (aside from intercepting V1 cruise missiles).
Hawker Hurricane was marginal as a fighter aircraft (even during 1940). However the RAF did a fine job converting it into a ground attack aircraft and the Hurricane was produced in very large numbers.
Me-110 with 3cm Mk101 / Mk103 cannon was an outstanding ground attack aircraft. However most Me-110s were produced as night fighter aicraft. The number of ground attack Me-110s were too small to have a significant impact on the war.
Fw-190F/G was good and over 6,600 were produced. They had a significant effect.
P-47 and P-51 were poor ground attack aircraft but they are History Channel favorites. I guess that makes them significant.
In terms of both contribution and potency the VBF Squadrons didn't exactly do too badly with the F6Fs.Interdiction was the unrecognised air campaign of the Second World War. In all theatres the fighter bomber, barely considered as a concept before the outbreak of hostilities, became vital to the success of ground forces. Against armour, infantry and everything that moved, from the Pacific to the ETO, Mediterranean and Western Front, the fighter bomber made a vital contribution, always a compromise, required to deliver a heavy payload and still defend itself against the dedicated fighters of the enemy. Some designs excelled in ground attack potential at the expense of air to air potency, others attempted to retain parity with opposition fighters but still pack enough ordinance to take out enemy armour and infrastructure in the teeth of concentrated AA.
So what was the best fighter bomber of the war, firstly in historical contribution, secondly in outright potency?
Unfortunately the U.S. Army Air Corps built the Evansville, Indiana plant to produce P-47s rather then F4Us. Otherwise F4Us might have been providing CAS in Europe.
Looking at the ability to put hurt on enemy ground assets I would rate the my top contenders thus:
1 Tempest/Typhoon
2 P-47/F4U
5 Fw190F
And in the air to air role:
1 Tempest
2 P47/F4U/Fw190F
3 Typhoon
And finally significance:
1 P47/Typhoon
2 F4F/Fw190F
3 Tempest
The outright best withitout qualification? The Tempest.
I'd take the cumulative damage from 8,500 P-47's any day over the cumulative damage from 1,700 Tempests ....
What about the Mosquito FB.VI?
Perhaps not as good as a CAS aircraft as those listed above, but could, and did, "put a hurt" on German ground assets. Granted they usually weren't troops or tanks, but Gestapo headquarters, bridges, mobile v1 launchers and such like.
Or is it really CAS aircraft that you are after?
There were a lot more Tiffies built than Tempests, and post D-Day they were used almost exclusively in the fighter bomber role, whereas I think a good proportion of P 47s were still doing escort duty. Also, I believe the pace of operations with the RAF Typhoon squadrons was incredible.
I didn't include the Mossie because I didn't think it would really be able to hold its own against single engine interceptors.
And, of course, the FB.VI was at least fast enough to make make interception an issue so a lot of the time it didn't have to fight. I guess it all depends where you draw the line; did the Mossie tend far enough to the 'bomber' side of 'fighter bomber' so as to drop out of the catagory? If so, it can't have been by much, and it was an awesome aircraft any way you look at it. The P51 may have gone too far in the other direction - too much fighter and not enough bomber, maybe.I would say that the FB.VI could "hold its own" against s/e fighters, but no more than that. The Typhoon, Thunderbolt, Fw 190, et al, could do more than that, of course, and be more competitive air to air.
I guess this would have been particularly important for aircraft with liquid cooled engines that could disabled even by small arms fire.
The P 51 is often mentioned as being particularly vulnerable to small calibur ground fire due to it's liquid cooled engine, yet I've never heard the same critisism leveled at the Typhoon or Tempest - something to do with the positioning of the radiator, perhaps?