Worst aircraft of WW2? (1 Viewer)

The initial test stats are what made the RAF so excited about the Airacobra, it was even designated the P-400 for the supposed 400 mph acheived in testing. However with full combat accessories (and nacessities) and without a turbo the craft dropped to around 360 mph (still significantly better than the P-40 of the same period though). She still should hve been capible of ~380 mph if the turbo had been retained... And still did far better than a "castrated P-38" (ie. Lightning Mk I). With the engine improvements of the P-39D-2's engine (1,300+ hp and even more in the N and Q models), 400 mph should have been possible. Hell, even the stock late-model P-39Q (without wing guns) could reach 395+ mph...

As said before, management and quality control were Brewster's biggest problems and are what ruined their aircrafts' development and destroyed the company...

Still, the basic Buccaneer Design would have made a good scout/patroll craft (somewhat similar to the Fw 189), these roles probably beeng the best for it as other US light bombers of equal size had much better bombloads and likely better survivability.

Wildcat said:

Not by a long shot...

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damn straight.

RAAF 11, 20 and 43 squadron did a fair bit of damage and got great reconnaissance against the Japanese.

All the thanks to the Cats long range.

Longest RAAF raid of the war was in the Cats, 18 hours and they could stay up their for 22.

Great aeroplane.

'Lil'tyger said:

it was just BIG and SLOOOW 8)

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What's your logic behind this? Big and slow-therefore the worst?

kool kitty89 said:

The initial test stats are what made the RAF so excited about the Airacobra, it was even designated the P-400 for the supposed 400 mph acheived in testing.

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Yes, the P-39/400 design showed great promise on paper. The UK soon found it unsuited for the ETO environment. The Soviets found good use for it though in their environment and in the PTO under similar terms of usage it found a 2nd life.

Still, the basic Buccaneer Design would have made a good scout/patroll craft (somewhat similar to the Fw 189), these roles probably beeng the best for it as other US light bombers of equal size had much better bombloads and likely better survivability.

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Would have is the key. The RL result was an aircraft so bad it was never flown in combat. Thats why I think it's a good nominee.

What's weird is that on the History channel's "Dogfights," they said that the P-400's had more trouble fighting zeros than the F4F... This was on the Guadalcanal episode. The only reason that made sence was that these P-400s had no Oxygen equipment so they stayed at 12,000 ft. Otherwise the P-400 (basicly the same as the P-39D-1 in performance) smoked the F4F-3 (and the P-40s of the same date) in all performance categories. (except if the F4F had a high-alt supercharger, still the performance drop-off at altitude would still have the P-400 favorable to ~20,000 ft, much better at 15,000 ft)

kool kitty89 said:

What's weird is that on the History channel's "Dogfights," they said that the P-400's had more trouble fighting zeros than the F4F... This was on the Guadalcanal episode. The only reason that made sence was that these P-400s had no Oxygen equipment so they stayed at 12,000 ft. Otherwise the P-400 (basicly the same as the P-39D-1 in performance) smoked the F4F-3 (and the P-40s of the same date) in all performance categories. (except if the F4F had a high-alt supercharger, still the performance drop-off at altitude would still have the P-400 favorable to ~20,000 ft, much better at 15,000 ft)

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They did. It's because they tried to use them in the same way the F4F's were used, only at low and medium altitude where the Zeros could more easily capture alt advantage or maneuver better in the thicker air. The action in question occured on 8/30/42 with the Americans attempting a three tier CAP; A low tier of P-400's hovering over the stranded transport Burrows. (below 10K). The 2nd Tier patrolled at 14,000 feet and consisted of 7 x P-400's and the high tier consisted of Wildcats patrolling at 28,000 feet.

The Japanese at this point had switched to using fighter sweeps in an attempt to clear the area of fighters and they came in and made a mess of the P-400 contingent, attacking the middle tier in a climbing attack out of the clouds and downing two P-400's. Two P-400's of the lower tier were bounced and shot down for a total of four x P-400's downed for the day. The Marines got revenge though, the high tier CAP bouncing the Zeros while they were playing with the P-400's and shooting down an estimated 8 of them in trade for two Wildcats written off on force landing.

Nevertheless, the battle severely impacted the morale of the P-400 drivers and from that point on they were used in the ground support role in which they excelled. According to Richard Frank, it's effective ceiling, limited by lack of supercharger and proper oxygen equipment made them unsuited to tackle high flying Japanese bombers and was sucicidally low for fighting Zeros.

It actually had a decently high ceiling, though performance dropped above 15,000 ft, and above 20,000 ft it was only good for patrol and cruise, but at least it would have the alt advantage... The Brits considdered the opperational ceiling to be ~24,000 ft, though performance was poor, and this wasn't really possible w/out oxygen equipment.Though the true service ceiling of the P-39D (which was virtually the same a/c as the P-400) was ~32,000 ft. (though it had virtually no performance at this height and top speed would be below 200 mph)

kool kitty89 said:

It actually had a decently high ceiling, though performance dropped above 15,000 ft, and above 20,000 ft it was only good for patrol and cruise, but at least it would have the alt advantage... The Brits considdered the opperational ceiling to be ~24,000 ft, though performance was poor, and this wasn't really possible w/out oxygen equipment.Though the true service ceiling of the P-39D (which was virtually the same a/c as the P-400) was ~32,000 ft.

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Problem was the Japanese usually flew upwards around 25-30K. If not for the coastwatchers and radar, the Wildcats too would have been hard pressed to meet them but it gave them just enough time to reach altitude and go after the bombers.

But even if they [the P400's] flew lower, as they did on Aug 30, they were no match for the agile Zeros, hence the move to ground attack support.

Were the P-40s better matched to the zero in yout oppinion?

kool kitty89 said:

Were the P-40s better matched to the zero in yout oppinion?

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compared to the P-39/400? Most definately!

Technically the P-39 was higher performing than the P-40, but the P-40 had better stall characteristics and low-speed handeling, so that would be more important in this case aganst the Oscar and Zero. But the P-39 was probably better aganst Bf-109s than the P-40...

The P-40 wasn't good at altitude either though since it had the same single-stage single-speed supercharged V-1710 engine as the P-39. (though some P-39 models had more power, and some P-40s were refitted with single-stage supercharged Merlins iirc) And the P-40 was certainly easier to fly, and a better armament in this case too. (a larger number of machine guns better than the P-39's cannon+ fewer machine guns, especially the 37mm, though the Russians liked it and fount it useful aganst both air and ground targets, and the P-40B/C had the same MG armament, though the P-40 had more ammo, especially for the .50 cals)

Ith's weird though, I've read more about complaints of the P-39's altitude performance than the P-40's, though they should have been equally bad...

But I certainly agree, the P-40 was a better fighter for the PTO, and the P-39 was only realy useful in the Eastern front in the ETO where much more took place at low level...

Another thing was that the P-39 could and should have carried a turbocharger, while the P-40 couldn't practically do so. If the P-39 had been modified for under-wing tanks, it may have made a good escort fighter too, with a turbo. The P-76 Airacobra with 2-stage supercharged V-1710 (rated for ~1,300 hp at ~20,000 ft, though originally a Continental I-1430 had been planned) had decent high-alt performance too, with ~390 mph at ~22,000 ft.

4,000 were ordered buy the USAAF in early 1942, but it was later cancelled since the low-altitude performance and maneuverabillity were significantly less than the P-39D and to allow B-29 production at the intended factory.

Besides the P-47 (and the P-38 ) was already available by this time in considderable numbers and had the range for escort and excellent high-alt performance (and were considderably faster), so the only advantage over the P-47 would have been fuel efficiency (and low-alt maneuverabillity).

Though if the turbocharger hadn't been deleted in the first place, it may have been useful earlier, and likely better performing then with the still lower-altitude 2-stage supercharger. It may have had performance in the P-38's level, but with the agility of a single-engined fighter.


Plus most (early to mid war, and the majority of those available) Japanese planes' engine performance dropped off above ~15,000 ft as well, with the Oscar and Zero having top speeds around this level, and Japanese bombers often came in on target ~15,000 ft. The difference was that the Zero and Oscar had much better low speed maneuverabillity and wing loading than the P-39 (and to a lesser extent the P-40) so they fought much better at these altitudes than these American fighters. (the Hawker Hurricane Mk.IIB (also widely used in the PTO) also had similar advantages at altitude, albeit with a slight improvement in altitude power rating due to the 2-speed supercharger, wirth power dropping off around 20,000 ft instad of 13,000-15,000ft. Thogh the P-40 and P-39 were certainly faster than the Hurricane, even above 20,000 ft, (and were generaly better armmed) the Hurricane would accelerate better at most altitudes and would likely outmaneuver the P-39 (and probably the P-40) above 20,000 ft, as would the A6M and Ki-43 since speeds would be considderably limited to well below 300 mph in dogfights at these altitudes.

That said, the P-39 and P-40 woud be good interceptors aganst Japanese Bombing raids and better armmed for this task than was the Hurricane IIB (except maby compared to the P-40B/C's armament) and with decent rares of climb to 15,000 ft, better than the Hurricane. And had considderably longer range than the Hurricane either when comparing drop-tank loaded or bomb loaded. Though the Hurricane was certainly an older design compared to the P-39, the P-40 Tomahawk was basically the same airframe as the P-36 which was at least as old as the Hurricane Mk.I.

Goering said that the war was even worse with the Me 210 troubles.

Hard to decide which aircraft of WW2 was the worst but I would venture that among US aircraft, one of the worst was the SB2C Helldiver dive bomber. As Capt. Eric Brown says in his book Wings of the Navy, "the handling chracteristics of the "Beast" were such that it would never have been allowed near a British carrier deck!"
Politics played a big part even in WW2 - how can one explain the long production run of the P-40 and the introduction of the SB2C by Curtiss unless that compnay had good friends in Washington? Nothing is new under the sun...

What do you think was wrong with the P-40? And the SB2C did become a good aircraft once the bugs were worked out of it.

I think I have a good candidate:

The Polikarpov I-153...

If I may make some suggestions about this topic:

1. If an aircraft wasn't used for the purpose for which it was designed, we can't blame it for being faulty. The P-40 wasn't designed to be a high-altitude fighter. The Army wanted pursuits to keep the bad guys off their backs whilst they fought the ground war. So, we can't blame it for being a lousy high-altitude fighter.

2. If the aircraft is used for the purpose for which it was designed, but the doctrine for using it is faulty, again, it isn't the aircraft's fault. Case in point is the Fairey Battle. When it was used in the Battle of France, it was slaughtered. I hold that the problem was not with the aircraft, but rather with the doctrine of unescorted bombers. After all, how well did unescorted B-17's do in '43? Rather than blame the Battles, we could blame the Hurricanes as being faulty because they failed to protect the Battles! Itr's a general rule that if you own the sky, you can fly anything you want. Look at the Germans shovelling incendiaries out of Ju-52's onto Warsaw.

3. If the plane was used for the purpose it was designed for, but was a failure because the pilots were undertrained, I'd lay that to doctrine, too.

4. If the plane was used for the purpose it was designed for, but was a failure because it was obsolete I'd lay that to doctrine, too. The Vindicator, TBD, and Swordfish both soldiered on long past when they should have been retired, because no replacement was available. In fact, IIRC, there were only a handful of TBD's left after Midway, so they had to be retired.

There were planes that succeeded because they admirably performed jobs they weren't designed to do. The P-38 was originally designed as a short-ranged, fast-climbing bomber interceptor, but it turned out to be great long-ranged fighter, a job it wasn't designed for.

So, how would I determine a truly bad aircraft as we're looking at them?

1. It failed to do the job it was designed for because of design flaws. Birds like the Me-163, Br-88 and, Blackburn Botha both come to mind.

2. It wasn't good for any other reasonable task that came up. I'd ping the Blackburn Botha for this, as it wasn't even a satisfactory trainer. At least the P-39 was able to be a successful low-level fighter and ground attack plane, even though it failed as an interceptor. I don't consider ground decoys to be a reasonable use of an expensive plane.

3. It had to serve in at least squadron strength. That leaves out planes like the Zubor.

Okay, my opinion of the worst operational WWII aircraft? The Br-88, closely followed by the Botha.

CD

Soren said:

I think I have a good candidate:

The Polikarpov I-153...

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Actually the I-153 was supposed to be a great aircraft from what I read. It was one of the most maneuverable bi-planes ever built and I believe a few of them made it to Spain prior to the end of the Spanish Civil War. Against the Luftwaffe it seems the little bi-plane was just overwhelmed by numbers, technology, tactics and training.

Captain Dunsel said:

So, how would I determine a truly bad aircraft as we're looking at them?

1. It failed to do the job it was designed for because of design flaws. Birds like the Me-163, Br-88 and, Blackburn Botha both come to mind.

Okay, my opinion of the worst operational WWII aircraft? The Br-88, closely followed by the Botha.

CD

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That was the premise of this thread - and agree with the Br 88.

The I-153 failed miserably as a fighter though, being massively outperformed by the 109.

The I153 was a generation before the Bf109, but not a bad airplane, better than the german biplanes which it fought in the spanish civil war.