Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

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ORIGINAL: Ron James

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ORIGINAL: niceguy2005

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ORIGINAL: hawker

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The fw 190 probably could hold its own against any allied late war fighter. The bf 109 was simply outdated. Mustangs would chew them up. Of course, as with any comparrison, you have to consider carefully the role in which they are used.

I think you are wrong niceguy,
Bf-109 in later "K" version was match for Mustang.

Nope. You can say what you want about pure performance numbers, but no other fighter (allied or axis) was as well optimized as an air superiority fighter as was the Mustang. In terms of the overall package between performance (speed and handling), firepower, range, durability, it was the optimized air superiority fighter. You would have to step up to jet fighters to find something better. This is what I have been told from pilots of that era. Take it for what you will.

That is because unlike almost any other allied fighter of the time, it was designed and built from the ground up with one mission in mind and that was total dominance of the skies. Not ground attack, or interception, but to knock planes out of the sky.

How can you say that, that it was designed and built from the ground up to be have total dominance, the american engine didnt work, the mustang wasnt anything untill they shoved a rolls royce engine under the hood. And it was designed at british request anyways for photo recon and ground support untill the above happened.

Ron's got this right. It was designed in about 3 months because North American didn't want to build P-40's for the British. They used the originals as photo reccon planes. We converted the ones we recieved into the A-36 Dive Bomber. Then folks had the happy notion of dropping a Packard Merlin into the air frame. And got one of the greatest all-around fighter A/C of the war..., and the premier escort fighter.

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ORIGINAL: JeffK

And in addition I would query its position as the best fighter in the sky.

Its range, which was only available with hefty drop tanks shouldnt increase its rating.

PS, Where was the Griffon Mustang in WW2??

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ORIGINAL: Hipper

hmm

Ive read some blurb claiming that the Hurricane had the most kills of any allied WW 2 aircraft.

(how would you check !)

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I read somewhere that Me-109 had most kills in WW2. Gotta check.

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You are correct. The Me-109 had more kills credited than any other aircraft, allied or axis.

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The P-47 is my favorite all arounf fighter. And NOTHING built by any power could stand up to the 8x.50Cal the thing dished out.


That's the equivelant of an GMC M-16 "quad .50" half track...on each wing.

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The same applies to fighters. An Me-109 is probably not as good as a FW-190 and certainly not as good as a Corsair - yet it may have achieved more kills.

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I think niceguy2005 is still on target when he states the 'design' was superior, and was designed to be an air superiority fighter from the start.

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Nobody said it was as good as the FW-190 or Corsair. You are correct that the aircraft with more opportunities will generally have a higher score. The Me-109 was produced in greater numbers and fought on every front in the Western theater. It also fought during the Spanish Civil war and was still active during the early Arab-Israeli wars. In fact it was used to escort B-17s to protect them against Spitfires then. Does that make it the best fighter? Hell no. But it certainly ranks right up there as one of the most successful.

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no one has come up with the most kills for a allied plane in the ETO yet , I still say it was the P-51 .

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ORIGINAL: el cid again

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no one has come up with the most kills for a allied plane in the ETO yet , I still say it was the P-51 .

It might well be the B-17. If it was, fighter fans will cringe! But there were lots of planes shot down by bombers. They had gunner - aces.
My mother used to train bomber gunners and my father was one. We don't hear much about them - but in ETO they actually got to shoot at things!

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ORIGINAL: String

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ORIGINAL: el cid again

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no one has come up with the most kills for a allied plane in the ETO yet , I still say it was the P-51 .

It might well be the B-17. If it was, fighter fans will cringe! But there were lots of planes shot down by bombers. They had gunner - aces.
My mother used to train bomber gunners and my father was one. We don't hear much about them - but in ETO they actually got to shoot at things!

Ofcourse all bomber gunner kills are horrribly inflated. All claims were counted as kills. IIRC it was quite usual for a heavy raid to claim 200 fighters shot down while actually only 20 were.

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ORIGINAL: Demosthenes

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ORIGINAL: String

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ORIGINAL: el cid again

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no one has come up with the most kills for a allied plane in the ETO yet , I still say it was the P-51 .

It might well be the B-17. If it was, fighter fans will cringe! But there were lots of planes shot down by bombers. They had gunner - aces.
My mother used to train bomber gunners and my father was one. We don't hear much about them - but in ETO they actually got to shoot at things!

Ofcourse all bomber gunner kills are horrribly inflated. All claims were counted as kills. IIRC it was quite usual for a heavy raid to claim 200 fighters shot down while actually only 20 were.

I have to go with El Cid here. I remeber hearing about this in the 1980s. Evidently what broke the back of the Luftwaffe was the 'Mighty Eighth's' bombers (B-17s) - it appears that they did destroy more fighters than even the escorts did...inflated claims and all.

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ORIGINAL: String

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ORIGINAL: Demosthenes

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ORIGINAL: String

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ORIGINAL: el cid again

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no one has come up with the most kills for a allied plane in the ETO yet , I still say it was the P-51 .

It might well be the B-17. If it was, fighter fans will cringe! But there were lots of planes shot down by bombers. They had gunner - aces.
My mother used to train bomber gunners and my father was one. We don't hear much about them - but in ETO they actually got to shoot at things!

Ofcourse all bomber gunner kills are horrribly inflated. All claims were counted as kills. IIRC it was quite usual for a heavy raid to claim 200 fighters shot down while actually only 20 were.

I have to go with El Cid here. I remeber hearing about this in the 1980s. Evidently what broke the back of the Luftwaffe was the 'Mighty Eighth's' bombers (B-17s) - it appears that they did destroy more fighters than even the escorts did...inflated claims and all.

Well this isn't really the subject of this thread, but the bomber gunner killcount subject has been beaten to death many a times in the various b-17 over or underpowered threads in this forum. And afaik most people agree that the bomber kill counts were HORRIBLY overrated.

What broke the back of the Luftwaffe were the overwhelming requierments of the eastern front.

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ORIGINAL: String

The thing is, to keep the morale up, the 8th airforce (and possibly the bomber command) didn't require any proof for any gunners claims. If he claimed that he had shot down 8 Fw190's then it counted as 8 Fw190 kills. Usually the same fighter downed was claimed by several gunners from different planes, and quite often the fighter was just damaged or even totally undamaged.

Fighter pilots atleast had to have someone to witness the kills or have wrecks on the ground if it took place over friendly territory.



EDITED:

Added a helpful link for you. *Click here*

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ORIGINAL: String

Okay, another link then *Click here*

an extract from the webpage:
Even the best all-round armament was never enough. Deep penetrations in German territory turned out to be extremely costly. The most famous examples are the attacks on Regensburg and Schweinfurt: The first attack, on 17 August, resulted in the loss of 60 bombers out of a force of 363. Some consolation was found in the claims by the gunners, which amounted to a total of 228 enemy fighters shot down; even after careful evaluation of claims the 8th AF estimated the German losses to be between 148 and 100. In fact the Luftwaffe had lost only 25 fighters. A repeat attack on 14 October gave a confirmation, if any was necessary: 65 more B-17s were lost. The initial claim of enemy fighters downed was even higher than in the first attack, 288; but even the official figure of 104 was way above the real German loss: 35.

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ORIGINAL: Demosthenes

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ORIGINAL: String

Okay, another link then *Click here*

an extract from the webpage:
Even the best all-round armament was never enough. Deep penetrations in German territory turned out to be extremely costly. The most famous examples are the attacks on Regensburg and Schweinfurt: The first attack, on 17 August, resulted in the loss of 60 bombers out of a force of 363. Some consolation was found in the claims by the gunners, which amounted to a total of 228 enemy fighters shot down; even after careful evaluation of claims the 8th AF estimated the German losses to be between 148 and 100. In fact the Luftwaffe had lost only 25 fighters. A repeat attack on 14 October gave a confirmation, if any was necessary: 65 more B-17s were lost. The initial claim of enemy fighters downed was even higher than in the first attack, 288; but even the official figure of 104 was way above the real German loss: 35.

Yes Schweinfurt/Regensberg was a particularly rough raid. And of course gunners claimed planes destroyed that:
A) Were also claimed by other gunners, and
B) Aircraft that actually survived.

I'm not saying they didn't overclaim - everyone does. But what I am saying is that the AAF did not accept claims on face value for morale reasons, and we are talking about the accumulated total of aircraft actually destroyed by 8th AF over their two year war over Europe.

The Schweinfurt/Regebsburg double strike, which became known as Black Thursday, was the 8th's worst encounter in in it's history. It was not typical of the air war in general.

Also note that the AAF did indeed adjust down the claims that gunners made in the evidence sited above.

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Ofcourse all bomber gunner kills are horrribly inflated. All claims were counted as kills. IIRC it was quite usual for a heavy raid to claim 200 fighters shot down while actually only 20 were.

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EDIT: String, I see you are from Estonia. I know from friends I have had over the years who were born and raised in Eastern Europe that WWII history is taught differently from how it's taught in the West (both sides stress their contribution and downplay the other sides...ie - West Front / East Front).
Be that as it may, I believe the strategic air war over Europe, particularly over Germany, has always been regarded being decided by USAF and RAF, even though a large portion of the Luftwaffe was in the East along side the Whermacht.

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I don't know, the Army was never into fooling itself. They wanted to know as sure as could be known what was actually happening. And in debriefings they did their best to reduce overclaiming so as to get an accurate picture of what they were accomplishing.

And claims did have to confirmed ie..whitnessed by others, I don't know where the guy in that link is coming from saying they just accepted them on face value.

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Okay, another link then *Click here*

an extract from the webpage:
Even the best all-round armament was never enough. Deep penetrations in German territory turned out to be extremely costly. The most famous examples are the attacks on Regensburg and Schweinfurt: The first attack, on 17 August, resulted in the loss of 60 bombers out of a force of 363. Some consolation was found in the claims by the gunners, which amounted to a total of 228 enemy fighters shot down; even after careful evaluation of claims the 8th AF estimated the German losses to be between 148 and 100. In fact the Luftwaffe had lost only 25 fighters. A repeat attack on 14 October gave a confirmation, if any was necessary: 65 more B-17s were lost. The initial claim of enemy fighters downed was even higher than in the first attack, 288; but even the official figure of 104 was way above the real German loss: 35.