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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 1:46:49 PM   
Dixie


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Big B


quote:

ORIGINAL: mantill

I am sure someone brought this up already but didn't the Bf109 get more kills than any other a/c in WWII. Surely that must give it claim to the top spot. It's all very well being faster, more maneuverable and better gunned. But the question is which is the best fighter of WWII and in that competition points mean prizes.

Ask Erich Hartmann. His record must stand for something.



Not to rain on your parade - but wouldn't that line of logic also make the Bf109 "the most shot down plane of WWII" as well? ...Just thinking out loud

No offense here - the 109 is definitely one of the greats.


Also, how many of those kills were against the VVS in the early days of the war in the East? Or against the disorganised Allies in the early days of 1940?
I can see the point you are making, although I would disagree that more kills mean a better aircraft. The kills are only a truthful indication when flown against an equivalent opponent, such as the defence of the Reich.

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 1:49:43 PM   
Historiker


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Status: offline 		What is the best fighter?
The fighter with the best mixture of range, firepower, agility, price, max altitude, speed, etc? - or is it the fighter, that had the biggest advantege against is opponents in the time it arrived?
In the first case, there can only be the P-51, I guess. Perhaps when you consider firepower and speed, the Me 262 - but that would be unfair to earlier models, no?

In my eyes, the most superiour fighter of WW2 was the A6M2. It's range, speed, agility, firepower was the ultimate best mixture in late 41 and early 42. In Europe it was the Fw 190, but it's range was to short...
To compare a D.520 with a P-51 would be unfair, as a whole generation lies between this planes.


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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 2:04:56 PM   
Hortlund


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Dixie
The kills are only a truthful indication when flown against an equivalent opponent, such as the defence of the Reich.


How do you arrive to the conclusion that the "defence of the Reich" was against an equivalent opponent? Being outnumbered 10-1 doesnt realy strike me as being equivalent.

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 2:24:18 PM   
Apollo11


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund

quote:

ORIGINAL: BrucePowers
The engines in the ME262 were only good for 25 to 50 hours of operation before a tear down and complete rebuild were required. This means each aircraft would have had to have at least 4 engines to keep it in the air. The personnel and equipment costs would have been huge.


Actually the design of the engines was a councious desicion. By 43-44, Germany was sorely lacking strategic minerals (tungsten, zinck, etc) and therefore the desicion was made to build the engines of weaker materials (steel instead of tungsten etc). That way it was possible to build lots more of them and then just switch the entire engine when it had reached the end of its operational life. So, instead of having fewer engines with lifespans of thousands of hours, they had alot of engines with short lifespan.

I dont think that was a poor design desicion.


Also let us not forget that the Anselm Franz (chief designer of Junkers Jumo 004 engine that powered Me-262) later went to USA and and was chief designer for several decade lasting engines (like T53 turboshaft engine that powered powered UH-1 Huey helicopter and AGT-1500 for M1 Abrams tank).

Also, the F-86 Sabre of Korea fame fought with more-or-less similar design that Junkers Jumo 004 was based upon (the Rusian MiG-15 was powered by copy of RR Nene - funny how things are )...

Thus the Gemany's problem with jet engines was not design pre se - it was, in essence advanced production problem because good alloys were hard to produce in Germany by that time!


Leo "Apollo11"

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 3:34:31 PM   
juliet7bravo

 

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Status: offline 		The "Best Fighter" of WW2 was, of course, the Finnish B-239.

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 3:41:57 PM   
Dixie


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Panzerjaeger Hortlund


quote:

ORIGINAL: Dixie
The kills are only a truthful indication when flown against an equivalent opponent, such as the defence of the Reich.


How do you arrive to the conclusion that the "defence of the Reich" was against an equivalent opponent? Being outnumbered 10-1 doesnt realy strike me as being equivalent.


OK, maybe it wasn't an exactly equivelant exchange . How about the defence of the Low Countries? Or the battles over the Med? The point I am trying to make is that kills against the early war Soviet types would have been far easier to gain than shooting down Spitfires/Mustangs/P-38s and so on.

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 3:42:15 PM   
Historiker


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quote:

ORIGINAL: juliet7bravo

The "Best Fighter" of WW2 was, of course, the Finnish B-239.

considering the kill ratio, you are absolutly right!

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 4:37:26 PM   
juliet7bravo

 

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Status: offline 		"considering the kill ratio, you are absolutly right!"

For a fighter aircraft, all other considerations are just secondary prizes, like "Miss Congeniality".  Unless the question is actually "What was the prettiest fighter of WW2", or "What was the best performing fighter of WW2".

But if the question is "What fighter aircraft had the greatest impact on WW2"...it'd have to be the; Spitfire, Mustang, Bf-109, Wildcat, and Zero.  In no particular order.  The Spitfire won the BoB, the Bf-109 almost won the BoB, the Mustang gave the Allies air superiority, Wildcat turned the tide in the Pacific, and the Zero was the great boogeyman of the Pacific for a brief, short period.


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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 4:42:25 PM   
castor troy


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quote:

ORIGINAL: juliet7bravo

"considering the kill ratio, you are absolutly right!"

For a fighter aircraft, all other considerations are just secondary prizes, like "Miss Congeniality".  Unless the question is actually "What was the prettiest fighter of WW2", or "What was the best performing fighter of WW2".

But if the question is "What fighter aircraft had the greatest impact on WW2"...it'd have to be the; Spitfire, Mustang, Bf-109, Wildcat, and Zero.  In no particular order.  The Spitfire won the BoB, the Bf-109 almost won the BoB, the Mustang gave the Allies air superiority, Wildcat turned the tide in the Pacific, and the Zero was the great boogeyman of the Pacific for a brief, short period.





I would say the Hurricane won the BoB... the Spitfire is just the plane that shows up in films...

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 4:47:54 PM   
Yakface


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Status: offline 		Not sure you can put it down to either the Hurri or Spitfire on their own.  They were a team - smaller number of Spitfires engaging fighter escorts with the Hurris providing the bulk of the force to stop the bombers (in very simple terms).  Don't think either could have done it on their own - too few spitfires and Hurri being inferior in the dogfight. 

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 4:57:59 PM   
castor troy


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Status: offline 		IIRC the Hurricanes were credited for about 2/3 of German aircraft being shot down. And even if it was in theory the Spitfire who should tangle with the Messerschmitts, what I´ve read (a loooong time ago), whenever the pilots (no matter if Hurricane or Spitfire) had the chance they went after the bombers, often leaving the ordered tactic just behind them. Which often caused problems.

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 5:03:48 PM   
Historiker


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quote:

For a fighter aircraft, all other considerations are just secondary prizes, like "Miss Congeniality". Unless the question is actually "What was the prettiest fighter of WW2", or "What was the best performing fighter of WW2".

No. THe result from this data should be: "Finland had the best AF" and not that the Finnish Buffalo was the best plane.
The Buffalo was crap but the Finnish AF was able to amazingly perform with an obsolete aircraft.

Letting it depend on how the kill ratio is, a Super Sherman must be better than T-54 and T-62 as the Israelis smashed the arab armies equipped with them. But this isn't true, the Israels where trained much better while the Arabs already had problems to handle their military equipment even when there was no one shooting at them.

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 5:52:18 PM   
juliet7bravo

 

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Status: offline 		If I went back in time to WW2, and handed the US Army AF a squadron of F-16s, that sat in the hangars because they didn't know how to use them...would the F-16 be the "Best fighter of WW2"?  On paper, yes.  In reality, no.  The Super Sherman was a better tank than the T-54/62s, at that particular point in time, because the Israelis could use it effectively.  A slingshot, in capable hands, could often be classed as a "better weapon" than an assault rifle in the hands of an total incompetent.  The Zero is an another example...it was wildly successful (rhetorically speaking) right up until people quit trying to fight on the Zero's terms and used effective tactics against it.  Then they found out the King, while not exactly naked, was running around stripped to his boxers.  

Note I said "B-239", not the "Brewster Buffalo".  The Finns did serious work to make an effective combat AC out of the Buffalo, because that was what they had to work with.  They didn't load it down with a bunch of extraneous dead weight that killed its performance like everyone else did.  They were successful enough with it, and liked it well enough, that they were working toward making their totally homebuilt clone of the Buffalo, by choice.  IIRC, the Dutch had about a 2-1 kill/loss ratio against the Japanese, the Commonwealth lost most of theirs on the ground, and the USMC lost most of theirs at Midway fighting against a numerically superior enemy with an altitude advantage.  Not to mention the USMC tried to "dogfight" the Zero using the Buffalo.  IIRC, the Finns did a study of how the Buffalo was (mis)used in the Pacific, and wrote a manual discussing the proper tactics to use with it.  And followed it.  Successfully. 

To recap; The Finns worked the bugs out of the B-239, modified it heavily to fit the circumstances, developed proper tactics to use it, and employed it successfully against a numerically and technologically superior enemy.  Ending with the highest kill/loss ratio in the history of air combat.  That is the textbook definition (or should be) of a "dangerous weapon"...

Spitfire vs. Hurricane...you could be right.  I have no idea what the kill/loss ratio against sorties were for the two during the BoB.  Call it the "Spitfire/Hurricane in the BoB" combo party pac.  Either way, it was decisive.

< Message edited by juliet7bravo -- 11/27/2007 5:55:54 PM >

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 6:24:04 PM   
Yakface


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Status: offline 		2/3 is a bit high as an estimate - 1600 out of 2700 (IIRC).  Also they provided more fighters than their ratio of kills.

Taking the numbers of fighters involved and amking them all Spits or all Hurriies - I think the Sptifire would have performed equally to the mix, think the Hurricane on it's own would have struggled and with the RAF on the ragity edge a certain points, that may have been enough to tip the balance.

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 6:34:54 PM   
niceguy2005


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quote:

ORIGINAL: juliet7bravo

"considering the kill ratio, you are absolutly right!"

For a fighter aircraft, all other considerations are just secondary prizes, like "Miss Congeniality". Unless the question is actually "What was the prettiest fighter of WW2", or "What was the best performing fighter of WW2".

But if the question is "What fighter aircraft had the greatest impact on WW2"...it'd have to be the; Spitfire, Mustang, Bf-109, Wildcat, and Zero. In no particular order. The Spitfire won the BoB, the Bf-109 almost won the BoB, the Mustang gave the Allies air superiority, Wildcat turned the tide in the Pacific, and the Zero was the great boogeyman of the Pacific for a brief, short period.



I think the question is what was the best fighter and the Buf wasn't even close to it no matter what variant we're talking about. I would take a P-40 over a Buff any day. Had the Finns been flying Spits lord only knows what the kill ratio might have been. As an aside kill ratio is also a poor measure because the accuracy of reports is very much in question.To determine the best fighter you have to look at objective criteria such as performance, armor, range, guns, etc. All other criteria such as kills, impact on the war, etc are circumstantial, determined by such uncontrollable factors such as pilot training, tactics, etc.

I personally would rule out specialized fighters such as interceptors or true fighter bombers.

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 6:49:59 PM   
niceguy2005


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quote:

ORIGINAL: juliet7bravo

If I went back in time to WW2, and handed the US Army AF a squadron of F-16s, that sat in the hangars because they didn't know how to use them...would the F-16 be the "Best fighter of WW2"? On paper, yes. In reality, no. The Super Sherman was a better tank than the T-54/62s, at that particular point in time, because the Israelis could use it effectively. A slingshot, in capable hands, could often be classed as a "better weapon" than an assault rifle in the hands of an total incompetent. The Zero is an another example...it was wildly successful (rhetorically speaking) right up until people quit trying to fight on the Zero's terms and used effective tactics against it. Then they found out the King, while not exactly naked, was running around stripped to his boxers.

Note I said "B-239", not the "Brewster Buffalo". The Finns did serious work to make an effective combat AC out of the Buffalo, because that was what they had to work with. They didn't load it down with a bunch of extraneous dead weight that killed its performance like everyone else did. They were successful enough with it, and liked it well enough, that they were working toward making their totally homebuilt clone of the Buffalo, by choice. IIRC, the Dutch had about a 2-1 kill/loss ratio against the Japanese, the Commonwealth lost most of theirs on the ground, and the USMC lost most of theirs at Midway fighting against a numerically superior enemy with an altitude advantage. Not to mention the USMC tried to "dogfight" the Zero using the Buffalo. IIRC, the Finns did a study of how the Buffalo was (mis)used in the Pacific, and wrote a manual discussing the proper tactics to use with it. And followed it. Successfully.

To recap; The Finns worked the bugs out of the B-239, modified it heavily to fit the circumstances, developed proper tactics to use it, and employed it successfully against a numerically and technologically superior enemy. Ending with the highest kill/loss ratio in the history of air combat. That is the textbook definition (or should be) of a "dangerous weapon"...

Spitfire vs. Hurricane...you could be right. I have no idea what the kill/loss ratio against sorties were for the two during the BoB. Call it the "Spitfire/Hurricane in the BoB" combo party pac. Either way, it was decisive.

1. The planes the Finns flew against were inferior every other plane mentioned on this Thread.
2. A Corsair, Hellcat, or FW-190 would blow any Buff out of the sky. Their performance no matter what variant was so significantly below these AC it wouldn't be a contest.
3. "IIRC, the Dutch had about a 2-1 kill/loss ratio against the Japanese". Kill ratio is inaccurate at best, even now, years after it takes the most serious study to get close to the truth. However, I am certain the Dutch did NOT have a kill ratio larger than 1. Most reading I have done suggests it is well below 1. The Dutch flew one of the worst variants of the Buff, it was underpowered (due to lack of engines) and used sub standard parts. On top of that their pilot training was poor.

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 6:57:43 PM   
MarcA


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

quote:

ORIGINAL: mantill

... didn't the Bf109 get more kills than any other a/c in WWII. Surely that must give it claim to the top spot ...


Yes, but some of the high-scoring aircraft of WW II were simply around longer than the competition -- the 109 was shooting down planes in Spain before the world war officially started -- and were produced in greater numbers; Rainer said 30,000 Bf 109s (all versions) were made.

But I did give the 109 -- and the Zero -- honerable mention.





But the question was which is the best a/c in WWII, the whole of world war two. The La-7 may have been the best in 45 and the P38 in 43, so on and so forth, but the top performer across the whole war?

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 7:36:35 PM   
mdiehl

 

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quote:

Weren't almost all of those kills against Me-262's done during Me-262 take off or landing?


No. IIRC the bare majority of them were kills on ME-262s approaching combat or attempting to re-engage. A good chunk of them were destroyed taking off or landing, however, that is the point. The ME-262 had such crappy endurance and crappy acceleration that for any given mission, something like 1/4-1/3 of the ME-262s flight plan was taken up by landing or taking off or accelerating. That is one of the reasons why it really wasn't a first class fighter in comparison with anything, jet wise, piston wise, or otherwise. It had outstanding maximum airspeed, but it had nothing else going for it.

As for the Zero. Someone above suggested that it had great range great maneuverability and great armament. Uh, no. Two out of three of those are incorrect. It had lousy armament, lousy high-speed maneuverability (great low speed maneuverability) and great range (which came at the expense of any ability to sustain battle damage). The Zero was barely capable of holding its own against the F4F wildcat, and the Wildcat is on no-one's list of "best planes of WW2."

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 7:39:09 PM   
mdiehl

 

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quote:

but the top performer across the whole war?


In order to qualify, an a.c. would have to have been in service throughout the war. That gives you the P40, the P39, the ME-109, the Spitfire, and the Zero as candidates.

In that list, the Spitfire is the clear winner, the P-40 next best, and the ME-109 third best. The Zero and the Iron Dog don't even rate an honorable mention.

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 7:48:01 PM   
Historiker


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Status: offline 		Why should the P-40 be better than the Me 109?
Is the Spit really that superiour to the Me 109?


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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 7:56:25 PM   
Dixie


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Status: offline 		I would have put the Bf-109 above the P-40 in that list.

The Spit and Bf-109 were generally comparable during the early part of the war, but by 1944-45 the Spitfire variants were (IMO) better than the 109 types.


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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 8:02:34 PM   
niceguy2005


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Dixie

I would have put the Bf-109 above the P-40 in that list.

The Spit and Bf-109 were generally comparable during the early part of the war, but by 1944-45 the Spitfire variants were (IMO) better than the 109 types.


I think the N Africa campaign fairly well proved the 109 superior to the P-40. Although, I would admit that there's a lot of circumstantial factors at play there too. Pilot experience being one.

IMO the late war Spits were almost a different AC than the early war Spits. Late war Spits were definitely very formidable.

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 8:07:06 PM   
niceguy2005


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quote:

ORIGINAL: mdiehl
In order to qualify, an a.c. would have to have been in service throughout the war.

I don't know that I would agree with that. Why would they have to be in service through out the entire war. For that matter the P-40 really wasn't, as it didn't really see combat until 1942. The war was 2.5 years old by then.

I think that the criteria should be a plane saw enough combat to show that it wasn't just a paper tiger, as you suggest is the case for the ME262. I don't think late war fighters should be ruled out just because they were late war fighters. Most of the best WWII planes were late war planes.

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 8:15:39 PM   
Dixie


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quote:

ORIGINAL: niceguy2005


quote:

ORIGINAL: Dixie

I would have put the Bf-109 above the P-40 in that list.

The Spit and Bf-109 were generally comparable during the early part of the war, but by 1944-45 the Spitfire variants were (IMO) better than the 109 types.


I think the N Africa campaign fairly well proved the 109 superior to the P-40. Although, I would admit that there's a lot of circumstantial factors at play there too. Pilot experience being one.

IMO the late war Spits were almost a different AC than the early war Spits. Late war Spits were definitely very formidable.


Which is why I would say the later ones were better than the equivalent Messerschmitt. The Spitfire was a newer airframe design which gave it an advantage as the upgrades progressed. The early Spits (up to and including the MkV) were roughly equal to the Bf-109s in service, then from the MkIX onwards the Spit began to outstrip the 109 in terms of performance.

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 8:19:25 PM   
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quote:

ORIGINAL: juliet7bravo

Spitfire vs. Hurricane...you could be right.  I have no idea what the kill/loss ratio against sorties were for the two during the BoB.  Call it the "Spitfire/Hurricane in the BoB" combo party pac.  Either way, it was decisive.


The Spitfire got the glory.....the Hurricane did a majority of the actual work. It would seem too, that from the German side, the Hurricane was the victim of what was coined "Spitfire Snobbery" i.e. many a German fighter pilot who got shot down would tend to insist that it must have been at the hands of the respected Spitfire when on more than one occasion it was the workhorse Hurricane that did the deed.



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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 8:28:00 PM   
juliet7bravo

 

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Status: offline 		A fighter aircrafts reason for existence is to shoot down enemy aircraft, by this standard, the B-239 is hands down the "best" fighter of WW2, even if "questionable" kills are discounted.  Like it, disagree, or not, it's a purely objective fact.  And no, I really don't think it's the "best" fighter of WW2...by any other standard than "highest kill/loss ratio". Or "most bang for the buck"...I think everyone would have to agree, that was probably the best money the Finns have ever spent.  And it was in service (more or less) for the entire war...and probably shot down P-40s, ME-109s, P-39s, and Spitfires.

The Wildcat, incidentally, is most definitely on my own list of "best" planes.  It earned it.  By the time the other fighters appeared, the Wildcat had already taken care of business, and dispelled the myth of the "invincible" Zero.


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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 8:30:57 PM   
mdiehl

 

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quote:

I don't know that I would agree with that. Why would they have to be in service through out the entire war.


I was just playing by the rules set forth by the other poster. His point was that in essence all of the late-war fighters are going to be short listed on the "best" list because, after all, being much more advanced in the tech cycle, they were technologically superior. He wanted candidates that in essence aren't privileged by the tech cycle and sort of "round out" through the whole war. That's where my list comes from.

quote:

For that matter the P-40 really wasn't, as it didn't really see combat until 1942.


It was in production in 1939 and saw combat (lend lease) in the UK in, IIRC, 1940. It seems to meet the standards of a plane developed just prior to the war, in service fairly early, and in production and service right through the end.

quote:

I think that the criteria should be a plane saw enough combat to show that it wasn't just a paper tiger, as you suggest is the case for the ME262. I don't think late war fighters should be ruled out just because they were late war fighters. Most of the best WWII planes were late war planes.


I agree. I was just making a list of candidates factoring out those privileged by lateness in the tech cycle.

BTW IMO the P-40 was better than the ME-109 because it did quite well against the ME-109 (I don't agree that the North Africa campaign makes the ME-109 look good the kill ratios fluctuated as alternatively better ME-109s and then better P-40s entered service, and the P-40s were for much of that campaign operating from hasty airstrips in logisticaly circumstances that would have grounded ME-109s) and it happens also to be the ONLY model of aircraft that served in EVERY theater and environmental condition of the war. It served from arctic to tropical pacific, in the dust of N.Africa, in the UK, in the SWPAC, southeast Asia, &c. And the final variant, the P-40N was a better peformer than the last production models of the ME-109.

Most of the P-40s lost in North Africa to ME-109s were caught because the P-40s were being used in tactical ground support roles. Was the shoe on the other foot (dedicated P-40s to air superiority attacking ME-109s directed largely at ground support) the 109s would have demonstrated worse loss ratios.

< Message edited by mdiehl -- 11/27/2007 8:35:19 PM >

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RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 8:37:32 PM   
Nikademus


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quote:

ORIGINAL: Apollo11

Weren't almost all of those kills against Me-262's done during Me-262 take off or landing?

If Me-262 (with, and I emphasize, reliable engine) would have been available in 1943 the things might have been different for Germany for a while and it would give them few months (or perhaps a year) of "breathing space" although the end result would be the same - Germany actually lost war the second it attacked Russia - not to mention the UK and USA on the other side...


Leo "Apollo11"



The majority of the "kills" were operational.....losses due to accidents and training, followed by losses caused while vulnerable during the takeoff and landing stage. The Me-262 could not be "reliably" killed if it was up to speed and flown with competancy which was what worried Spaatz and co. so much, hence the tactic of patrolling the known or suspected jet airfields. However that said, losses occured all around which brings up the central point. Whether one is talking Me-262's or 190's, Germany's biggest issues by late 44 was lack of trained pilots, just like with Japan and numerical disadvantage. For either airframe type to be effective you need trained pilots (fuel being an important 2nd) By the time Germany was able to mass the Jets (45) in any meaningful way, the Luftwaffe was on it's last gasp and once that small cadre of remaining experten, such as in JV-44, had been burned up through attritional combat, all of the plane types became less and less effective. The numerical odds were just too great. So great that jets or no.....the Luftwaffe began using ramming tactics to try to bring down the bombers and by April 45, only 200 of a theroetical 1200 available Me-262's were operating with combat units. It was as author Donald Miller put it, "a battle of attrition, one that the Germans could not win.",This was also due to the destruction of Germany's infrastructure resulting in manufactured planes sitting on the ground, undelivered to combat units. (most of them manned by green pilots)

The 1943 argument is a great "what if", but recent literature casts doubt on war-course changing even had it been technically possible to have jets by 43. Luftwaffe chief Karl Koller believed that a fleet of 500-600 jets by autumn of 44 would have "broken" the USAAF daylight attacks. Miller doubts this due in part to oft mentioned technical issues and Hitler's occasional interference. Even had the 500 been available he believes that it would, as in earlier times, have only temporarily halted the offensive till the USAAF could re-equip with B-29's which he suggests would have been able to fly high and fast enough for the bombing to continue. He rates this against the first generation German jets which, like other piston fighters had more erratic preformance at very high alt, coupled with the growing inexperience of German pilots, the difficulty of flying the 262, and fuel consumption limiting the 262 to an operating radius of 25 miles or so from their bases.

but it remains one of the what if's of what ifs and will be endlessly debated. Personally, I don't see it as ever going down. It was simply too late.

< Message edited by Nikademus -- 11/27/2007 8:50:44 PM >

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Post #: 118
RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 8:39:49 PM   
mdiehl

 

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quote:

Like it, disagree, or not, it's a purely objective fact.


It is also a selectively chosen fact. The 229 doesn't even make it remotely to the list, nor does the Finnish AF come off looking particularly good, because the Finnish AF got clobbered when the Soviet Union stopped fielding the worst aircraft flown in WW2 and started putting trained pilots in them.

The Finnish AF never went up against anyone's "A- Team" until 1943, right about the time they started looking for an "exit strategy."

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Post #: 119
RE: Best fighter in WW2??? - 11/27/2007 9:04:38 PM   
niceguy2005


Posts: 12523
Joined: 7/4/2005
From: Super secret hidden base
Status: offline 		So after considerable discussion here is my top 5...carved in stone, until I change my mind.

1. P-47 Thunderbolt
2. P-51 Mustang
3. La-7 Lavochkin
4. FW-190
5. Supermarine Spitfire.


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