Worst Piston Monoplane Fighter of WWII

[FLYBOYJ]

Chuck yeager flew them in combat and was quite praiseworthy of the P-39.

Yeager never flew the P-39 in combat.

"General Yeager's first assignment was as a P-39 pilot with the 363d Fighter Squadron in Tonopah, Nev. As a member of the 363d he trained at various bases in the United States before going overseas to England in November 1943. While in England he flew P-51s in combat."

Charles E. Yeager Biography

 

[nuuumannn]

Yeager never flew the P-39 in combat

Oopsy.

 

[Juha]

...Juha, I may have a dim view of Soviet avation at the start of the war, but it comes from what I've read about it. It is quite likely that there were indivudual commanders out there who were solid and ran a good squadron or wing. Still, what I have read tells me that when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, most of the planes did not even get airborne without orders from Stalin to do same. Perhaps that was not the entire case, but a good many planes were shot down or destroyed on the ground due to bad leadership, poor dispersement, and the few that did get airborne were quickly dealt with.

I am open to a more positive view if it can be backed up historically, and will take an interest in that subject for awhile to see if what you are saying might be, in fact, the case.

One thing is certain, since you are from Finland, you are much closer to what was the front line that I am and, as I said above, you reached your opinion for SOME reason or reasons ... so it's worth investigating. I still wonder what the Fins might have done with, say, Spitfires or Me 109's instead of Buffalos ...

In fact many VVS fighters were scrambled when alarm came but it might be that some commanders hesitated fearing possible reprisals if their actions were seen as taken a bait of mere German provocations. And yes the force disposition was much too front oriented, too many planes near the demarcation line/frontiers based on too few a/fs. But one must remember that the German attack was a "sneak" attack just like the Japanese attack on PH. And LW was greatly helped by rapid advance of the Heer, that means chaos among ground echelons and command echelon of VVS, most of the damaged but repairable planes were lost because of hasty retreats etc.

One fairly good and cheap book on Khalkhin-Gol/Nomonhan conflict is Dimitar Nedialkov's In the Skies of Nomonhan, the translation isn't always first-class but understandable, the middle of the books is in places tedious to read but the first 50 pages give a good introduction to VVS and JAAF forces participating and the last 75 pages give good conclusions and exact info on the participating a/c even if, without checking, IMHO some of the info on I-153 is incorrect.

Juha

 

[Francis marliere]

I remember reading somewhere that the P-39 ahd hudge reliability with its 37 mm guns. In short, it almost always jammed afetr a few shots. Do you confirm ?

 

[vikingBerserker]

I thought the Supercharger was removed from the P-39 production aircraft?

 

[Denniss]

I thought the Supercharger was removed from the P-39 production aircraft?

The turbo, not the supercharger.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Gotcha, thanks for the education!

 

[Milosh]

vB, the only Allisons that didn't have a supercharger were those used on airships.

 

[JoeB]

One fairly good and cheap book on Khalkhin-Gol/Nomonhan conflict is Dimitar Nedialkov's In the Skies of Nomonhan,

I don't have that one yet, but here's a summary of other accounts of claim/loss in that war (quoting myself from another forum):
"The most common total for Soviet claims seems to be 660, (for example
Stepanov "Air Warfare in the Khalkin Gol", or Pages of Russian Military
History), though other estimates have appeared, (589 in Bergstrom/Mikhailov
"Black Cross Red Star").

Actual Japanese losses are given variously as: 164 of which 90 combat losses
(Stepanov, though mentions lack of detail and possibility of combat write
offs among the other 74 in his source, which he doesn't name, and he doesn't
mention AAA), "around 100" (Japanese Monographs No. 144, Military History
Section HQ AAF Far East), and by counting up individual incidents and
monthly statistics in "Nomonhan" by Coox, 115, with some mentioned instances
of AAA and combat/operational losses, though there's not a systematic break
out. It seems a large majority of the 115 were air combat losses. Coox's
sources are Japanese archives and interviews with Japanese participants and
his book is generally viewed as the definitive account, albeit focusing
heavily on the ground war."

So according to those figures, the actual Soviet kills fall well below their own recorded combat losses in the Nomanhan war (around 200 IIRC) though through numerical superiority (Coox's account also agrees) they achieved air superiority over the battlefield; OTOH this wasn't so central to the Soviet success on the ground (as it usually wasn't). Likewise, though I can't offer comprehensive stats, Soviet piloted fighters on the Chinese side in Sino-Japanese War seemed to have an unfavorable real kill ratio v the JNAF, that being mainly Type 96 Fighters (the Soviets arrived mainly after the JNAF stopped using biplanes and Stalin shifted his policy against direct help for the Chinese Nationalists before the Zero appeared in China). I'm not aware of accurate statistics on Soviet air combat achievements in the Spanish Civil War.

Anyway I agree with your earlier point. Even if the Soviets suffered perhaps 1:2 fighter-fighter kill ratio v Japanese Army Type 97's at Nomohan, that's better than what the RAF achieved v Type 97's in Burma and Malaya. The Japanese also used Army Type 1 and Navy Zero fighters in Malaya (in lesser numbers), and the JAAF also used Type 95 fixed undercarriage biplanes in lesser numbers at Nomonhan. And of course all sorts of other factors differed, as always. But still it doesn't put the Soviets in such a bad light. Most fighter arms could be called 'just targets', at their worst moments, including the British, Americans, Japanese and Germans, in particular episodes. That's not to say I believe the Soviet AF(s) were on a par with Western ones in general in WWII, that's IMO questionable subject to learning more about real combat results, but Soviets fighters were not generally on par with USAF in the direct test in Korea a few years later. However the Soviets were not 'just targets' in many phases of WWII, or in Korea.

As far as worst monoplane fighter, when a/c like the Buffalo or P-39 are nominated the implication is that we're measuring air combat success. This was in fact quite poor for the Buffalo in US/British/Dutch service but not in Finnish service as we all know. The P-39's success had less variation but it was considered a good enough fighter by its biggest user, the Soviets, performed passably v the Japanese too in 1943, and didn't do particularly worse than a number of other Allied fighter types v the Japanese in 1942. The P-39 was generally viewed by the USAAF as the worst major fighter type they introduced into service during or on eve of WWII (ie not counting P-26 in WWII etc), but if in fact true, only marginally v the P-40. Any broader 'worst' label on the P-39 is not reasonable IMO. Again the Buffalo is a conundrum due to its so widely varied combat success, but again the USN and USMC generally considered it the worst of their fighters, though depending on version the F4F's advantage wouldn't be great, on paper at least.

If fighter combat success in WWII is to be the yardstick, we might have to nominate the I-16 as worst. It was arguably the best fighter in the world when introduced, was considered a credible opponent in conflicts like China, Nomonhan and Spain as mentioned, if perhaps not outright successful in those conflicts, but it took extremely heavy absolute losses to the Germans at a very unfavorable exchange rate, and helped create the huge cadre of German super-aces in the early stages of the Russo-German war.

Joe

 

[parsifal]

So according to those figures, the actual Soviet kills fall well below their own recorded combat losses in the Nomanhan war (around 200 IIRC) though through numerical superiority (Coox's account also agrees) they achieved air superiority over the battlefield; OTOH this wasn't so central to the Soviet success on the ground (as it usually wasn't). Likewise, though I can't offer comprehensive stats, Soviet piloted fighters on the Chinese side in Sino-Japanese War seemed to have an unfavorable real kill ratio v the JNAF, that being mainly Type 96 Fighters (the Soviets arrived mainly after the JNAF stopped using biplanes and Stalin shifted his policy against direct help for the Chinese Nationalists before the Zero appeared in China).

Soviet airpower doctrine for nearly all of the war never stressed or sought complete or front wide air superiority. Certainly not at kursk or even subsequent to that. Application of soviet airpower during the war was always wedded closely to battelfield support. This meant, they were intersted in disputing control of the skies over their over the land battle, but never sought control of the air per se. This was generally in recognition that such control was only of limited value to their style of warfare. They used their fighters to keep the enemy fighters off the backs of their own strike aircraft long enough to complete the mission and inflict enough losses on the enemy bombers to make completion of their missions difficult. they never showed a lot of interest in the war in defeating an enemy's fighters. Does not surprise me therefore that their losses of fighters or indeed total aircraft exceeded those of thir opponent. within limits, losses were not important to the Soviets.

 

[JoeB]

They used their fighters to keep the enemy fighters off the backs of their own strike aircraft long enough to complete the mission and inflict enough losses on the enemy bombers to make completion of their missions difficult. they never showed a lot of interest in the war in defeating an enemy's fighters. Does not surprise me therefore that their losses of fighters or indeed total aircraft exceeded those of thir opponent. within limits, losses were not important to the Soviets.

Familiar topic and point , the history of air warfare right from WWI onward shows that whatever your doctrine, if your fighters have a poor enough exchange ratio v enemy fighters they won't achieve other missions. 1:2 ratio might be good enough (when a fighter force suffered 1:4 or 5 or more and it's partisans still say 'it still accomplished its mission' that's when it gets a little silly IMO). In this case as I said, even if you quibbled with the term 'air superiority', the Soviets were able to bomb the Japanese forces and limit the degree of bombing of their own, what I meant. I think you may be thinking of what's termed air supremacy, but anyway the VVS wasn't particularly thwarted overall, we agree. Whether that made much difference in the outcome of the Nomonhan war is another question, reading Coox's detailed accounts from Japanese side I'd say not much, IJA force doomed anyway.

Still, a load of literature from the Soviet Union and Russia since has maintained that the Soviets scored a favorable kill ratio v Japanese fighters at Nomonhan. It certainly seemed to matter to them. So this might also quibble with particular wording but 'never showed a lot of interest in defeating enemy fighters' does seem not wholly accurate IMO. Soviet and later Russian history makes a big point of the improvement of relative combat performance of Soviet v German fighters over 1941-45; makes a big point of the claimed kill ratio at Nomonhan, and bridled bitterly under the self imposed secrecy about Korean air operations until the 1990's again mainly because only the US side of claimed ratio's were public, and their very different 'other side of the story' had to be kept secret. It wasn't as if the US claimed that MiG's didn't put a halt to daylight B-29 operations, which was always admitted. And it wasn't as if the Soviets could have believed that MiG's put a halt or even serious crimp in UN fighter bomber operations. The fighter bombers kept coming without respite as they could clearly see at the time. The relative losses were at the heart of how the Soviets measured their success in that conflict, and how they believed it was mistold in the West. And I don't see any evidence this consideration was ever unimportant to them in the previous air wars.

Joe

 

[parsifal]

The history of air warfare right from WWI onward shows that whatever your doctrine, if your fighters have a poor enough exchange ratio v enemy fighters they won't achieve other missions. 1:2 ratio might be good enough (when a fighter force suffered 1:4 or 5 or more and it's partisans still say 'it still accomplished its mission' that's when it gets a little silly IMO).

The soviets suffered far worse exchange rates than that until the very last months of the war, yet still genuinely considered they had achieved their air mission. This is because the air mision per se was not the important objective, it was the application of airpower as a force multiplier to their ground offensives. Typically Soviets would suffer loss rates 5-10 times those of thei opponents, and still consider such actioons a victory.

Why would the Soviets consider such a poor exchange rate a success? There are a number of reasons for that. in no particular order of imporstance I think the following are relevant

1) As a percentage of the total force structure the losses were always quite small for the soviets. Conversely as a percentage of their Force Structure the losses suffered by the Axis were far more serious and un-replaceable
2) Related to the above, it was relatively cheap and easy for the Soviets to replace their lost aircrew. At Kursk, the average flight experience of Soviet pilots were about 40 hours. They generally received about 20 additional hours in OTUs before being assigned. Their pilots were undertrained, but cheap to replace. By comparison German rookies were receiving about 250 hours of training with about 60 hours in the OTUs. Their experten were basically unreplaceable.
3) In the same vein as their aircrews, their airframes were also very cheap. I don't know the exact cost, but common sense at least suggest their main types were low cost. Unarmoured, made of wood, with just a basic armament and often even without radios or basic equipment, Russian airframes had to cost just a fraction of their german counterparts to replace.
4) With one or two significant exceptions, Soviet airpower was all about providing direct support to their ground offensives. And by all accounts they were very successful in achieving that objective. On the Eastern Front there isn't the concentration of effort that we see in other TOs. This means that fighters are less important than on other fronts….they cannot achieve the necessary concentration to rack up the loss rates achieved in other TOs.

The Russians began to develop these theories during the Spanish Civil War though there remained more western ideas of achieving air superiority and conducting deep penetration "strategic strikes" right through to the end of the war. Im unsure what the priority was over Nomonhan, but I would expect that support of the land battle would have been the main focus. There is ample evidence to support that. The Russians thoroughly defeated the Japanese forces, despite the numbers of ground troops being committed being near parity at the very end (during the battle it swung from one to the other but at the end, with massive defeat staring them in the face, the numbers of troops were about the same).

In this case as I said, even if you quibbled with the term 'air superiority', the Soviets were able to bomb the Japanese forces and limit the degree of bombing of their own, what I meant. I think you may be thinking of what's termed air supremacy, but anyway the VVS wasn't particularly thwarted overall, we agree. Whether that made much difference in the outcome of the Nomonhan war is another question, reading Coox's detailed accounts from Japanese side I'd say not much, IJA force doomed anyway.

I don't know, but I would be surprised to think the Soviets had won anything like air superiority (I do understand the theory incidentally). But I agree, whether they won air superiority or simply were successful in applying their theories on tactical air power the fact remains that they got more out of their air mission than the Japanese got from theirs. The Japanese air resistance weas essentially a strategic blind alley….

Still, a load of literature from the Soviet Union and Russia since has maintained that the Soviets scored a favorable kill ratio v Japanese fighters at Nomonhan. It certainly seemed to matter to them. So this might also quibble with particular wording but 'never showed a lot of interest in defeating enemy fighters' does seem not wholly accurate IMO. Soviet and later Russian history makes a big point of the improvement of relative combat performance of Soviet v German fighters over 1941-45.

I do agree that the heavy and one sided losses being suffered up to the middle of 1943 were cause for concern to the Soviets. The losses they were enduring, whilst survivable were too heavy for comfort. Moreover their experiences in the Kuban offensive showed that losses and exchange ratios could be massively affected by even a modest improvement in training and equipment. From their experiences in Kuban and over Kursk, they realize d that quality did count for something. By the end of 1943, according to Krivosheev (I think) Soviet pilots were upt to about 100 hours of training which dramatically improved their survivability.

So losses are of course important, but the loss rates suffered over Nomonhan and after 1942 were not significant enough to matter. By improving their aircrew survivability they were simply enhancing the numbers game by reducing the attrition rate. This in turn exponentially affected the expansion rates of the VVS.

 

[Juha]

Hello JoeB
according to Nedialkov's book, at Nomonhan VVS suffered at first very lopsided negative exchange rate against JAAF, but in every phase exchange rate became less disastrous to VVS and during the last phase, in Sept, it was already positive. If I recall correctly, Coox in his Nomonhan book, it was over 2 decades ago when I read the book, indicates same sort of development.

1938-42 VVS wasn't anywhere near LW but it tended to learn fast, and against smaller enemies its huge resources allowed it easily withstand early trashing and use its numerical superiority to wear down weaker enemies. And being rather fast learner it became fairly dangerous opponent after its initial fumbling. That was seen at Nomonhan and also during the Winter War, during latter in late Dec 39 it had became clear that war against Finland wasn't a walkover in spite of earlier expectations, so Soviet leadership put in action energic measurements to improve the Red Army's (incl. VVS's) effectiveness, and already at the beginning of Feb 40 they had introduced drop tanks to VVS fighters which allowed them to make fighter sweeps and escort missions much deeper in Finland.

Juha

 

[buffnut453]

Next, the Defiant; with all intents and purposes, an excellent aircraft that performed superbly in the role it was designed for - as a specialised bomber interceptor. Unlike the P-39 and Buffalo, the Defiant was not stricken with unreliability issues and very few of the pilots that flew it did not enjoy the experience. Of course in combat against enemy fighters they changed their perspective, but somewhat unfairly, it was placed into an arena it was not designed for nor for which could it adequately cope.

Actually, the Defiant did rather well but it depended heavily on pilots employing the correct tactics. Sqn Ldr Hunter who led 264 Sqn, the first Defiant unit, is largely forgotten but, IMHO, was something of a master-tactician. He took a fighter that wasn't competitive in air-to-air combat against other single-engine fighters and developed tactics that provided mutual for a formation while enabling his gunners to get good shots at any attacking fighters. When engaging Stukas, he took his squadron down to low level where the German dive bombers were at their most vulnerable - and a number of kills were attained by the Defiant crews.

Reading accounts of 264 Sqn's engagements with the Defiant and one gets the sense that Hunter really knew how to fight his aircraft and, more importantly, his squadron. Sadly, Hunter and his gunner disappeared chasing a Ju-88, and shortly thereafter 141 Sqn, which didn't use Hunter's tactics, was massacred by Bf109s which led to the Defiant being removed from the day fighter role.

Was the Defiant a great aircraft? Absolutely not but Boulton Paul did a great job meeting a flawed requirement with an aircraft that actually beat Hawker's offering. One-on-one against a Bf109, the Defiant was pretty much dead meat but Hunter proved that when used in squadron-sized numbers employing the correct tactics, it could be a formidable adversary.

For those who haven't read it, I heartily recommend Andrew Thomas's book from Osprey about Defiant, Blenheim and Boston/Havoc aces which has more detail on 264 Sqn's exploits.

 

[buffnut453]

Similar to "We don't need more guns on the bomber as it will fly faster than any fighter!" mentality.

Errr...you mean like the Mosquito?

Sorry for joining late - been out of power for 6 days.

 

[buffnut453]

The people who say the losses in the pacific were due to circumstances and poor training seem to conveniently forget the very similar but opposite circumstances that occurred during the Finnish experience with the Buffalo. If they had come up against good planes flown by veteran pilots, they might not like the Buffalo so well and might well be losses instead of Aces. If circumstance work against you sometimes, then they also almost certainly sometimes work FOR you, as in the case of the Finnish Buffalos.

But by that logic, the A6M should also be on the list as one of the worst fighters of WWII. It succeeded well against inferior aircraft flown by inexperienced pilots but, per the Marianas Turkey Shoot, didn't do so well against higher-performance Allied fighters. Methinks you're presenting a rather specious argument.

 

[buffnut453]

But in 1940, it was like shooting sitting ducks, and the Fins DID, even with Buffalos.

Err...first Finnish combat in a Buffalo was 25 June 1941.

 

[buffnut453]

Blackburn Roc would get my vote. Slow (even a Stuka could outrun it), underarmed, miserable climb, heavy and I don't know if they shot anything down.

One Roc did damage a German floatplane. The Roc in question was serving in a second-line unit and flown by a RAF pilot.

 

[Glider]

With the obvious exception of the Italian the Roc still gets my vote for being the worst (or should that be, second worst)

Thanks for the info. In terms of financial cost, it must be the most expensive damage claim ever

 

[Marcel]

Another candidate: Caudron-Renault C714. Even the Finns grounded it.