• There seems to be an uptick in Political comments in recent months. Those of us who are long time members of the site know that Political and Religious content has been banned for years. Nothing has changed. Please leave all political and religious comments out of the forums.

    If you recently joined the forums you were not presented with this restriction in the terms of service. This was due to a conversion error when we went from vBulletin to Xenforo. We have updated our terms of service to reflect these corrections.

    Please note any post refering to a politician will be considered political even if it is intended to be humor. Our experience is these topics have a way of dividing the forums and causing deep resentment among members. It is a poison to the community. We appreciate compliance with the rules.

    The Staff of SOH

  • Server side Maintenance is done. We still have an update to the forum software to run but that one will have to wait for a better time.

AW Ki-84 Ver 2 is now finished

A lot of "what if" talk here. Facts are facts and truth is truth. The Ki-84 was too little and too late to make a big difference in the outcome of the war. We were the victors,and that is the fact. The Japanese put up a fierce fight though,and we paid a terrible price for victory. Let us not forget that awesome and somber fact. Regards,Scott
 
Captain Kurt said:
It's interesting comparing the performance specifications of these aircraft, but the one thing mostly missing from this conversation is fighting tactics and pilot skill in employing them. All fighter pilots worth their salt learned to exploit the best performance features of their aircraft and avoid getting into situations where an enemy aircraft had better performance.

For example, Allied pilots learned early not to get into a turning fight with any Japanese fighter as almost all of them could out turn the Allied fighters. Among many other things, the speed maintained during a fight (energy) also plays a factor in any fight, as it effects the overall capability of any aircraft - such as the performance of the control surfaces, turning radius, structural strength or weaknesses, roll rate, stall, climb and dive, etc.

Clearly the Zero was a superior fighter compared to the F4F and P-40 based on specification to specification, yet the combat record shows those two were able to hold their own once their pilots learned the best tactics to use and which to avoid given their own aircraft capabilities. The same would be true regarding the Ki.84. One of the USAAF's best aces Thomas McGuire died because he let himself get sucked into a low, slow turning fight with one, stalled out and crashed. The Ki.84 won without firing a shot. Had he used the p-38 strengths instead, it may have had a totally different outcome.
Click to expand...

Hello Captain Kurt,
McGuire died because of arrogance. He refused to lose his drop tanks because he figured he could beat the Japanese fighters and continue hunting for more of them afterwards. IIRC His flight of 4 met 3 Japanese fighters including at least one Ki 43-III and ended up losing 2 while downing 1. The other problem was that the Japanese were not novices. At least one was an instructor pilot.

- Ivan.
 
Hi Ivan,

My point exactly. McGuire ignored the weak points of the P-38 - including trying to turn low, slow, and with drop tanks. The Japanese pilots obviously out flew the Americans in a flight regime where their fighters were superior, a low altitude turning dogfight.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top