WWII air war history question

Rick H said:

The US was mainly hunting fighters.....and the 50 was plenty. The German's were shooting down bombers and wanted the canon to bust them up at extreme range and avoid some of those 50's on the "Flying Fortress. The RAF spent the Battle of Britain with rifle caliber machine guns and had to get right on top of whatever they were shooting at. The Japanese Zero had an odd arrangement of two rifle caliber machine guns and two 20mm canon. They usually tried to use the MG's when engaging fighters, much to the allies good fortune. The canon had very limited ammo capacity. The Oscars were initially armed with two rifle caliber MG's only, then one 7.7mm and one 50.....late in the war 2 50's.

The AVG (Flying Tigers) did good work against Japanese fighters with P-40's that were considered weak obsolete NON front line fighters by everyone but the Japanese. Those P-40's racked up a 40-1 kill ratio. Not too shabby! Once they learned slash and run tactics and stopped trying to dogfight the more nimble but fragile Japanese aircraft they did very well.

If the Japanese had not adopted the "fight to the last man" attitude the war would have ended a year and a half earlier. After Midway, Guadalcanal, and the destruction of Truk they were done......they could not win the war, could only prolong it.

I had a Jr HS teacher who flew P-51's in the second WW. He hated the plane, said it was an oil guzzling piece of .....(you get the idea). One hit in the oil tank and you ended up a POW or worse ditched at sea. It performed well but he thought it was a mechanical disaster. It is just my guess that he had to jump out of one of them and it left a permanent impression on him.

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Yes, the axis powers had, compared to the allies, small and fragile bombers and didn’t put them up 1000 at a time like we did. Thinking about this, I would compare Germany and Japan as a small, nimble fighter with a big chip on their shoulder. They could make small damaging strikes but didn’t have the stamina (or resources) to fight the wars they started. So, with that said, I think our 50’s were more than adequate against their bombers when we needed them as they weren’t the behemoths we were flying. The RAF fighters started with 303 British machine guns (up to 8 if I remember correctly). I have to wonder how much better they may have been had they been armed with 50 bmg’s during the Battle of Britain.

I had to think about your comment about “the war would have ended a year and half earlier”. I’m guessing you mean that they would have surrendered quicker and we wouldn’t have had to kill every one of them like the battle on Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Okinawa, and Iwo Jima. I don’t mean to leave other brutal island battles out, these are the ones I’m familiar with and readily come to mind. It’s an interesting discussion.

I haven’t read much about the P-40’s. 40-1! I had no idea!!! Sakai writes about battling them, and I do remember the P-40’s, like the Wildcats, were better diving down through the formations and slashing them with their 50’s and staying out of the dog fights. And all of the J planes were easy to set on fire so these attacks were very effective.

The only negative I’ve ever read about the P-51 was the guns in the early models had a habit of jamming. Never read anything otherwise. Guess I’ll have to start digging into that...

As a kid I enjoyed reading the WWI ace books. Stories about the Lightning say it was too complicated for combat, many lost to mechanical failure in the north. Freeze at altitude, too many engine controls to manipulate in actual combat. There was another night fighter in the same configuration, don't remember the designation. Had a tail gunner.

What becomes very important is what type of fighters / other aircraft were being encountered.
The Tigers were not up against the Zero or Zeke often but much slower Jap aircraft viewed as sufficient to be used against the regular Chinese pilots

By the time the Turkey shoot happened 75 % of the top Jap pilots were dead. The follow on pilots were very raw and most had no combat experience and few hours in the aircraft they flew into combat.

Joe Foss could make the old for the day F4F do wonders against the Zero and Zekes at Guadelcanal But then most other F4F pilots ccould not come near his abilities.

I just found this http://users.skynet.be/Emmanuel.Gustin/fgun/fgun-fi.html, which is a study of the gun and cannon carried by the fighters in WWII. Basically in order of the destructiveness of the planes. Very interesting, doesn’t try to label them as best or worst fighters, just their “gun power”.

Missionary said:

What becomes very important is what type of fighters / other aircraft were being encountered.
The Tigers were not up against the Zero or Zeke often but much slower Jap aircraft viewed as sufficient to be used against the regular Chinese pilots

By the time the Turkey shoot happened 75 % of the top Jap pilots were dead. The follow on pilots were very raw and most had no combat experience and few hours in the aircraft they flew into combat.

Joe Foss could make the old for the day F4F do wonders against the Zero and Zekes at Guadelcanal But then most other F4F pilots ccould not come near his abilities.

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I just read a book about Joe Foss, really good story!

As deadly as the kamakazis were, we were lucky that most of the pilots had very little flying experience.

I knew this was a tough question and there probably is no true answer, I’m very much enjoying the conversation though!

Petrol & Powder said:

Lot of variables to consider.
What is a fighter plane? Does that include ground attack aircraft?
Over what time period? The Japanese were fighting in China long before America was in the war. The Germans had a shake down cruise in the Spanish Civil war where they tested a lot of equipment. The Germans invaded Poland in September of 1939 but it was significantly later when they came up against American fighters. The Soviets and Germans were allies before Operation Barbarossa.

What's your criteria for "the best"? Kill ratio? Pilot survival rate? Numbers produced verses numbers lost? Aerial kills only?

Then there's the problem of inaccurate kill counts. All sides lie about kills and it's only after the conflict that true numbers can be derived from careful study. Even then, it's always a bit fuzzy.

It is however, A very worthwhile endeavor to study the air war component of WWII.
One of the better books dealing with the air war in the Pacific theater is "Fire in the Sky, The air war in the South Pacific" by Eric M. Bergerud.
It is a long and highly technical book BUT it is also very well researched and truthful.

There are a few passages from that book that made a huge impression on me and stay solidly in my memory.
The author speaks about pilots going down over the ocean or over jungle. Of those two bad situations, the pilots far preferred ending up in the water. This seems incorrect and counter-intuitive at first glance but the jungle was a near death sentence.

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The more I discuss this the more I’m realizing, at least I think, there probably isn’t a definitive answer, at least not for the war. Or at least, I think its a question that only the fighter pilots could answer and to few of them flew enough planes to answer it. If you asked B17 crews, they’d probably say the P51 because they escorted them all they to targets in Berlin. In the China theater, it may have been the P-40. I suppose it’s like asking ”What is the best cartridge for whitetail deer?”

Maybe it’s better to look at how many aircraft were produced and how many survived the war but that’s kind of boring... Probably not accurate either.

"According to the Army Air Forces Statistical Digest published in December 1945, in the 13-month period from August 1944 to the war’s end in August 1945, B-29s were responsible for the destruction of 914 enemy aircraft in the air with a loss of just 72 of their own to enemy aircraft during more than 31,000 combat sorties flown."
Due to General Electric Company model 2CFR55B1 centralized fire-control system that dad worked on. Was first experimented on black widow night fighter but removed due to AC stability problems. 500 yd accuracy @ 250 mph.

Interesting read about that centralized fire control system. I wasn’t aware that they had that type of tech in use during WWII.

Very Interesting thread!
When I was a kid I built Plastic models of many of those planes!
Don't know anything to share but I'm learning a bunch!

When My wife's father was in WW II at the last few years of the war He was in the Army Air Corps ( I still have his uniform) He was an Electronics and Communication Specialist and worked on the B-29's ( sure wish I knew more!) I guess that branch of service evolved into the Air Force

Also we had an old family friend that was a tail gunner in a B-17...now he had stories!
I could listen to him for hours! Sure do miss him!
He actually saw Nazi Jets for the first time! They were all afraid.... because they came nearly straight down on the B17's and they moved so fast they could not even shot at them!

Then comes up the ruggedness and pilot protection built into each fighter.
Ours were generally well built with good armor for the pilots.. I spent time with a WW2 European theater fighter pilot. One of his memorable statements was "If you wanted a great picture to send home we stood by a Mustang. But if you wanted to come back from a tough mission he always wanted a P47 Thunderbolt. He called it the fighter tank in the sky."
Japs.. performance was their goal and they well succeeded at the cost of their first line pilots fate. One burst into the cockpit or wing root and the fight ended. No armor and no self sealing tanks until way to late in the war.. But the Zero could outclimb / out turn any fighter and flew farther than most..

Missionary said:

What becomes very important is what type of fighters / other aircraft were being encountered.
The Tigers were not up against the Zero or Zeke often but much slower Jap aircraft viewed as sufficient to be used against the regular Chinese pilots

By the time the Turkey shoot happened 75 % of the top Jap pilots were dead. The follow on pilots were very raw and most had no combat experience and few hours in the aircraft they flew into combat.

Joe Foss could make the old for the day F4F do wonders against the Zero and Zekes at Guadelcanal But then most other F4F pilots ccould not come near his abilities.

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Foss was also known for being a long range shoote, in his airplane I mean. I forget where I was reading it, but he had the eye to do it and could open up and hit at ranges way outside what most other guys could do. A real handy skill set to have in that environment.

I've done a lot of reading on WW2 and the aircraft used, but almost exclusively in the Pacific Theater. What can I say? I'm a Marine! My thought is that you really need to break things down into different groups centered around the specifics of the aircraft. Fighters (Pursuit back then) vs attack type aircraft vs light bombers vs heavy bombers vs land based vs carrier based. There were a LOT of different airplanes across the various powers back then and what worked in North Africa or the South Pacific might not have worked at all in Russia or India. I think we get into personal favorites based on bias after a while. I always had a thing for the B25. Really thought it was neat airplane. Some people go nuts of P51's, I like Corsairs, others like Spits. Back when Borders was still open I picked up a few of the "coffee table" type books on WW2 aircraft. I imagne they might still be available on line.

Joshua said:

Interesting read about that centralized fire control system. I wasn’t aware that they had that type of tech in use during WWII.

The Cannons on the B-29 Bomber Were a Mid-Century Engineering Masterpiece

Five remote-controlled cannons with computer-aided aiming made the Superfortress way, way ahead of its time.

www.popularmechanics.com

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I had an uncle who was a waist gunner on a B-29. His kids setup a Facebook page about it. https://www.facebook.com/GhostPlaneOverIwo/

Some of the me109 had cannon in the nose. Me 262 typically would wait for bomber flights to be seen on radar, scramble and go to 35-45K' to wait for the bombers, then dive - strafing. decend and LAND. according to thunderbolt pilots I knew as a kid. B29 could fly higher than attacking fighters so was not an easy target. B17 & 24 were not heated so long term high altitude fighting was real nasty. Dog-fight pilots always tried to get on the inside of a turn (why they are called dog fights) so they could hit the enemy with as FEW rnds as possible. They didn't carry much ammo!

Bret4207 said:

I've done a lot of reading on WW2 and the aircraft used, but almost exclusively in the Pacific Theater. What can I say? I'm a Marine! My thought is that you really need to break things down into different groups centered around the specifics of the aircraft. Fighters (Pursuit back then) vs attack type aircraft vs light bombers vs heavy bombers vs land based vs carrier based. There were a LOT of different airplanes across the various powers back then and what worked in North Africa or the South Pacific might not have worked at all in Russia or India. I think we get into personal favorites based on bias after a while. I always had a thing for the B25. Really thought it was neat airplane. Some people go nuts of P51's, I like Corsairs, others like Spits. Back when Borders was still open I picked up a few of the "coffee table" type books on WW2 aircraft. I imagne they might still be available on line.

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I agree, the war was so large involving so many different countries, in a huge part of world over a long period of time and so many fighter planes... I have one of those “coffee table” books on the P-47. I think I’ll get it out and read it... My favorite chapter is titled “Achtung Jobos”, which is what the Germans would yell when the P-47s were coming. Translation: Danger, fighter bomber!

popper said:

As a kid I enjoyed reading the WWI ace books. Stories about the Lightning say it was too complicated for combat, many lost to mechanical failure in the north. Freeze at altitude, too many engine controls to manipulate in actual combat. There was another night fighter in the same configuration, don't remember the designation. Had a tail gunner.

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P61 Black Widow. Three of the top 10 U.S. WWII fighter aces flew P38s, Dick Bong, Thomas McGuire, and Charlie MacDonald. Two flew the "Jug", The P-47 Bob Johnson, and Francis Gabreski. The P-47 jocks were in the same unit together in England.

BBerguson said:

I agree, the war was so large involving so many different countries, in a huge part of world over a long period of time and so many fighter planes... I have one of those “coffee table” books on the P-47. I think I’ll get it out and read it... My favorite chapter is titled “Achtung Jobos”, which is what the Germans would yell when the P-47s were coming. Translation: Danger, fighter bomber!

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You'd also have to differentiate the day light fighters from the night fighters and what not. That time period had everything from bi-wing fabric airframes that were old before Hitler came to power to early jets. There's some real good studies on You Tube. I spend hours watching stuff like that.

The P-51 was a good airplane when introduced. It became a great airplane after the Brits replaced the turbocharged Allison with the supercharged Rolls-Merlin.

I have my biases when it comes to the planes of WW II. The Corsair (AKA Bent-wing). They employed the gull-wing geometry to shorten the landing gear, but still keep the nose high enough that the 13' diameter prop that was bolted on the front of the P&W Double Wasp didn't strike the carrier deck on landing.

Loved the P-38. Supposedly called "that Fork-Tailed Devil" by the Luftwaffe pilots. My father worked for Lockheed during early '50s and serviced the occasional P-38. Said the hot-shot pilots would take off down the runway and at about 80' off the ground, retract the gear, rotate to vertical and start a slow roll.
Cool plane, but dangerous if you lost an engine on takeoff.

Not as sexy as the P-51, the P-47 Republic Thunderbolt (AKA "The Jug" (short for juggernaut) was the real single engine heavy lifter/workhorse of WW II. 50% bigger than the Mustang, same power plant as the Corsair, best survivability for plane and pilot and eight, count 'em, eight 50 cal. machine guns. Carried 3,400 rounds to a Mustang's 1,800 and could carry a payload about half that of a B-17 Flying Fortress.
I remember reading a story of a Thunderbolt pilot trying to bring his wounded Jug home and being spotted by a Luftwaffe plane (don't remember if it was a BF 109 or a FW 190). His victim unable to fight back, the Luftwaffe pilot emptied his guns into the Thunderbolt and still was unable to down it. The Luftwaffe pilot flew up alongside the Thunderbolt, saluted him and flew off. Back at the base, they tried to count the bullet holes in the Jug, but kept losing track.
Some interesting reading...