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mdiehl -> RE: Air combat testing (9/29/2008 7:53:48 PM)
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Diehl is not the best person to debate Japanese aircraft with. The Ki-43 could, and did, hold its own against aircraft supposedly its superior, and this is well known to the AE team. I repeat, take our word for it
I may not be the best person to debate about it, because my knowledge of it is vastly greater than most. The Ki-43 did not repeat did NOT "hold it's own" against any contemporary a.c. (apart from the first few months of the war, largely for reasons having to do with things other than the a.c. and the pilots flying them), much less advanced late war a.c. Anyone who is "aware" of something otherwise has no evidence to support their claim of any kind at all. The Ki-43 did shoot down a.c. At no point was it a very capable performer, and by 1943 it was strategically useless other than as a suicide plane.
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Maybe. But not all the time. BTW Hayabusa was not such a bad plane as lot's of you think.
Yes it was. Its only forte was long range and a propensity, through March 1942, to show up at a considerable distance from it's base, over targets that were operating at the tail end of a logistical shoestring such that the supposedly "first line" Allied a.c. against which it fought were often deteriorated from extended use.
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experienced hayabusa pilots managed to down late war allied fighters.
That is true. But there was no central tendency of Ki-43 drivers, even experienced ones, WINNING against "average" late war allied pilots. Instead it was substantially, indeed GENERALLY, the case that "average" late war allied pilots with advanced a.c. usually defeated Ki-43s flown by anyone.
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The more advanced plane only helps pilot- it dosn'd give him more brains or experience or skill.
True to both. But good training makes a huge difference. That is, after all, the principle of current USN and USAF training. Mid-late WW2 Allied pilot training, especially US pilot training, was simply outstanding. While it is true that late war Japanese pilots were undertrained, and that this contributed to their horrid combat losses, it is also true that mid-late war US pilots were exceptionally well trained and capable of going against anyone's ace of aces.
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And i highly doubdt that average trained P-47 pilots coul'd achieve 20-1 kill ratio against experts flying Hayabusas (which happened regularly in old air combat model). Expert pilot knows exactly what are the strengths and weaknesess of their aircraft.
Adequately trained pilots also know the strengths and weaknesses of their a.c. There comes a point where "more experience" doesn't give you an edge against outstanding training, in which event the better plane (absent being taken by surprise) will control the fight.
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Average trained US pilots managed to shot down advanced Me-262s flown by both experten and undertrained pilots...
True that. And the point is that great training makes up for lack of expertise, although I will also note that the ME-262 is the most overrated a.c. of WW2. It had lousy acceleration, lousy air time, and extremely poor low speed handling characteristics. In many ways the late war picture for Germany in the ETO was similar to the early war picture for the Allies in the Malay barrier area -- enemy could project airpower in superior numbers at times and places of enemy's convenience such that no forward air base was ever safe from sudden attack during daylight hours. That condition, far more than any other factor, was the primary contributor to Japan's early successes with the Ki-43. That's not a knock on Japanese pilots, and it is attributable to Japan's very good operational plan, high tempo of ops, and preposition logistics and planes. Those were the only circumstances in which the Ki-43 was going to look good, and it's temporal window of adequacy was extremely brief.
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