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I hear ya', but the Gigant was a transport. It carried troops, armor and supplies as well as evacuated wounded. In those terms, it performed exceptionally well.
If you want to look at losses, check out the massacres of the Ju52 transports in the MTO. There were instances where unlikely adversaries like the Sunderlands and even B-25s were slaughtering them by the handfull.
I beg to differ. While the Lancaster and B-17 took terrific losses, they also inflicted much more damage than 323s. How many enemy aircraft were downed by Lancasters and B-17s compared to the Me-323?
The Battle, and even the Roc, were pretty good AIRPLANES, they just weren't very good WARPLANES. The Breda 88 was just plain lousy, it could barely fly, and Benito's bunch still put it into mass production. The last run of them went directly from the factory to the scrap heap!
As for limited production planes, I still vote for the Curtiss Caravan.
I realized that and edited my first postI think that River was just being sarcastic about Focke Wulf Meister's posts. I don't believe he seriously thinks that C-47 was useless...
Sure but that was an accident which had nothing to do with the design or concept of the aircraft/rocket. They just forgot to securely close the cockpit hood. Poor pilot was probably knocked unconscious...
Right. But what the nazi's didn't understand is that there is no value in a 'basically trained pilot'. At least not when used to perform combat in such a Volksjäger design.
Not only would the Volksjäger pilot have been hunted down and shot down by slower aircraft piloted by much more experienced pilots, the He 162 design was chosen based on a lie, that is that the design was already underway while the original design (P.1073 IIRC) was quite different from the later He 162. It seems to me that the original winner of the competition, the Blohm Voss P.211 project would have made a better aircraft for novice pilots. Best choice would have been the Lippisch P.20 though...
Kris
I think that River was just being sarcastic about Focke Wulf Meister's posts. I don't believe he seriously thinks that C-47 was useless...
The Me-323 was a powered variant of the Me-321 combat glider. It was the biggest aircraft of the war, and as such, one of the slowest. The aircraft was a virtual sitting duck in the air and could only be used with comprehensive air superiority. Even though the aircraft was known as the "Elastoplast Bomber" it was highly resiliant. Still, none of the 213 production aircraft survived past the summer of 1944. Multiple incidents of large formations of Me-323s being downed have been reported. In one incident 14 of the transports were destroyed resulting in 120 deaths. The loss of all 213 aircraft is one of the most complete destructions of one type of aircraft in history.
I beg to differ. While the Lancaster and B-17 took terrific losses, they also inflicted much more damage than 323s. How many enemy aircraft were downed by Lancasters and B-17s compared to the Me-323?
Focke Wulf Meister said:Did the enemy have to continually develop new aircraft to take on the waves of Lancasters and 17s? Yes. Granted, much of that was due to the advancement of their escorts. But, did the allies have to develop new aircraft to deal with the 323 threat? No. The 323s were six-engine target practice.
Were every one of the thousands of Lancasters and B-17s built destroyed during the war by enemy fire, as was the case for the hapless 323? No.
I would much rather take my chances in a formation of 17s or Lancasters than in a formation of 323s.8)
I'm just sayin'...
That doesn't surprise me, but it's still different and less intensive than a government driven program in rockets manned by the Hitler Youth. (They were crazy enough)Clay,
I beleive that tactic was actually touched on, in an episode of either "Dogfights" or "Battle 360", on the History Channel.
I also remember reading something about this tactic in a magazine some years ago ("Air Combat", maybe?).
The German's learned it from the Russians, who called the manuver "Turan" ("Turran"?).
In that episode, they used Me-109's as the "crash vehicle" of choice.
The idea was to fly into the tail or a wing, thus disabiling the controllability of the bomber, but to do it in such a way, where the pilot could still eject from the fighter, after crashing it.
Elvis
Hi,
Using that logic I guess the C47 would be another useless, defenseless transport that did less for the war than the bombers and fighters?
river
No. The C-47 was a much more useful aircraft than the 323. The 47 had a much more lengthy service life and saw action on multiple TOs and multiple wars. The same cannot be said for the 323.
And, unlike the 323, no where near all of the C-47s produced were lost in combat. 8)
No. The C-47 was a much more useful aircraft than the 323. The 47 had a much more lengthy service life and saw action on multiple TOs and multiple wars. The same cannot be said for the 323.
And, unlike the 323, no where near all of the C-47s produced were lost in combat. 8)
The fact that it was shot down in large numbers means nothing, that was an operational problem with the LW.
I'm surprised FlyboyJ didn't mention this in his prior post, as I believe he was the first poster in this thread to bring up this idea, but I believe we all agreed, early on in this thread, that the "worst" airplane of WWII (or any war) would be the one that DID NOT meet its design objective.Did the Gigant do its intended job or not? Yes it was a heavy transport.
I'll bet it meant something to the poor bastards who were in those 323s.
So, we're to judge "the worst plane of WWII" in a vacuum? What is the criteria of "worst" in this debate anyway? Flight characteristics, armament, flight worthiness, maneuverability, length of service, numbers manufactured vs. number destroyed, combat effectiveness, payload, etc.?
The question is so broad, it is open to wide interpretation.
Focke Wulf Meister said:Did the limited number of 323s employed do their job? To an extent, yes. But, every freakin' example of the aircraft was either blown out of the sky or destroyed on the ground. How effective is the platform if it can't survive to fight another day?
C-47
C-46
Ju 52
Ju 390
Fw 200
Ju 290
C-54
L-10
I'll bet it meant something to the poor bastards who were in those 323s.