• 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.

What do think is the most underrated Aircraft of Wrold War II

Status
Not open for further replies.
Cowboy1968 said:
In an experenced hand the Buffalo was deadly, It could turn with the Zero. And when they weren't out numbered to the point of chasing one and having two on your tail the Buffalo did a good job. Yes it was at the end of its career, just as the F4F was drawing near obsolescence. The only thing that really saved the Wildcat was that the US needed a fighter that was small enough to be carried in numbers aboard the escort carriers and the Wildcat had the fortune of still being in production and was just the right size.

IN an honest evaluation of the Wildcat you discover it really wasn't that much faster or that much more nimble then the Buffalo, Both the Buffalo and Wildcat faced the same problem, the Zero could out climb them both, and the Oscar could out turn and out climb them both. But when both were used in an even fight, and using the team tactics figured out by the US Navy and USMC pilots they both could take their Japanese opponents. The Buffalo was a victim of its circumstances....out numbered and maned by inexperience of its pilots. And being a plane that was already going out of production in favor of more modern equipment the Buffalo was regulated to training duties in the USA. For an airplane that was so bad, many army and navy pilots hated having to face it in training exercises of mock combat. It was used this way tell spares started to run short and about four o fthem were still being used as squadron hacks even into 1947

Would you call the A6M5 Zero\Zeke a bad plane. In 1944, it was facing the same problems that Burralo faced. It was out numbered and facing more nimble planes then it was. If you aply the opinions applied to the Buffalo to the A6M, then i guess it was a bad plane.
Click to expand...

The Buffalo used over Asia was an overweighted plane and this conspire against it success. The British even tried to remove its armour to get some performance. The Zero can turn inside of ANY American 1940/41 plane.

Pepe
 
At Guadalcanal the F4F-4 held its own and did a real good job.Durring a period between Aug 20th 1942 and Oct 11th 1942 62 F4Fs took out over 127 enemy aircraft.This doesn`t include another 75 to 100 enemy planes that were so damaged that they didn`t make it home.The 127 enemy aircraft were counted kills.When the F4Fs attacked they preformed a high side pass and then headed toward a cloud.There was no such thing as a nice tight attack formation,they went in one ,twos,theres or what ever formation they could form durring the time alloted.The F4F pilots formed up the best they could while climbing to attack altitude.Durring the high side pass it was not uncommon for the leader to lose his wing man or the wingman to lose his leader.The rule then was to head for a cloud and/or if you were lucky enough to see another F4F the two of you join up and head for a cloud and then home.The F4Fs were outnumbered two to three to one and still were able to come out on top and take out some if the best of the IJN pilots that were left after the battle Of Midway and also top IJA pilots as well.You have got to consider the conditions thies pilots were flying under.Bad food,cramps because of the food,very bad runway and conditions,being bombed and shelled every night and shot at by snipers when you landed or tookoff or just walked around as wellas flying to to three combat missions almost every day,illness,note: most of the pilots usually flew with a temp. of 102* or a little less,not being able to hit the enemy in force but ones,twos or threes, most of the time. Thies UNMC and USN pilots just did, if they were lucky, have enough time to climb to attack altitude.Now, lets consider the flight training which was hit or miss at the time.Most of the pilots only had about 270 hours of training before they went to a fleet fighter squadrons while most IJN pilots had 800 hours and most of that was combat.Now lets take Aug 30th 1942. While flying at 15000FT Maj. Smith heard calls for help from the P-400 pilots bellow.Maj Smith with 8 F4Fs dove into the fight. When it was all over the P-400 got 4 kills lost 4 of its aircraft and 7 others would never fly again.The F4Fs on the other hand had no losses and got 14 kills.All this being said I think The F4F was one tough little bird that was flown by some hot pilots and the two were able to hold there own and give it back in spades.:typing:
 
peperez said:
... The Zero can turn inside of ANY American 1940/41 plane.
Click to expand...

Depended on which way it had to turn....its reported to have had a nasty mechanical deficiency that hampered its ability to make a quick hard right and hold it. It wasn't a glaring problem, but just enought to give a smart attacker/defender a small window of opportunity.

Plus, you might wanna read this for another perspective: http://www.chuckhawks.com/p-40_vs_zero.htm
 
I've read that too. In fact, as I recall, the tactic to get away from a Zero was to dive and spiral to the right.

The Zero had very large ailerons to give the pilots the maneuverability that they demanded and of course like all planes of the period, they were not power boosted but depended on the pilot's muscles to operate. At high air speeds, those large ailerons became difficult to move and thus gave allied pilots an advantage at higher air speeds and thus the tactic of diving and turning to the right.
 
I saw this artical or one like it some place about a year ago.It stated that above 200kts the zero lost its high rate of turn.I thought I would try it in CFS2 just to see if it had been moded in.I took one of my moded up Zero AIs and put it at 225kts.and went up to fight,sure enough if you could get close enough you had about one sec. to lead and fire on the Zero in a turn I then did a split S and ran like hell.I flew the same mission again but this time I slowed the Zero down to 180KTS.I found I could not turn inside of him and within two to two and a half turns he was on me.:typing:
 
Bobhegf,

Just a point. The US fighter pilots counted with a great asset: they were normally warned beforehand of the approach of the Japanese planes thanks to the network of coastal observers hidden on the islands of the "Slot" (a brilliant piece of foresight the Australians made even before the fall of Guadalcanal in May 1942). This translated into early warning that the fighter defence used to place at higher altitude than the attackers. And you know: altitude advantage is a great asset in fighter combat. I recall John Lundstrom's evaluation of fighter combats at "The first team and the Guadalcanal campaign" where he states that results were decided mostly by that early warning and altitude advantage. Also, Japanese pilots were very tired before entering combat because of the long flight they had to take (and this was a serious consecuence of the IJN Command on accepting to fight at such long distances). Of course, all the above does not diminish an inch the level of professionality that displayed both the Japanese and American pilots, who were simply great.

bobhegf said:
At Guadalcanal the F4F-4 held its own and did a real good job.Durring a period between Aug 20th 1942 and Oct 11th 1942 62 F4Fs took out over 127 enemy aircraft.This doesn`t include another 75 to 100 enemy planes that were so damaged that they didn`t make it home.The 127 enemy aircraft were counted kills.When the F4Fs attacked they preformed a high side pass and then headed toward a cloud.There was no such thing as a nice tight attack formation,they went in one ,twos,theres or what ever formation they could form durring the time alloted.The F4F pilots formed up the best they could while climbing to attack altitude.Durring the high side pass it was not uncommon for the leader to lose his wing man or the wingman to lose his leader.The rule then was to head for a cloud and/or if you were lucky enough to see another F4F the two of you join up and head for a cloud and then home.The F4Fs were outnumbered two to three to one and still were able to come out on top and take out some if the best of the IJN pilots that were left after the battle Of Midway and also top IJA pilots as well.You have got to consider the conditions thies pilots were flying under.Bad food,cramps because of the food,very bad runway and conditions,being bombed and shelled every night and shot at by snipers when you landed or tookoff or just walked around as wellas flying to to three combat missions almost every day,illness,note: most of the pilots usually flew with a temp. of 102* or a little less,not being able to hit the enemy in force but ones,twos or threes, most of the time. Thies UNMC and USN pilots just did, if they were lucky, have enough time to climb to attack altitude.Now, lets consider the flight training which was hit or miss at the time.Most of the pilots only had about 270 hours of training before they went to a fleet fighter squadrons while most IJN pilots had 800 hours and most of that was combat.Now lets take Aug 30th 1942. While flying at 15000FT Maj. Smith heard calls for help from the P-400 pilots bellow.Maj Smith with 8 F4Fs dove into the fight. When it was all over the P-400 got 4 kills lost 4 of its aircraft and 7 others would never fly again.The F4Fs on the other hand had no losses and got 14 kills.All this being said I think The F4F was one tough little bird that was flown by some hot pilots and the two were able to hold there own and give it back in spades.:typing:
Click to expand...
 
F4F Wildcat

I always disagree when I here stories about how the Japanese Zero totally outclassed everything in the sky in the first years of world war 2. The Wildcat held the fort down and it should be proud of a job well done.:amen:
 
examples of planes that kept with the Zero........

P-36 Mohawk
P-40 Warhawk
F4F Wildcat
Hurricane
Spitfire

and on technical terms even the
F2A Buffalo (in an even fight)
P-39 Airacobra (used in limited numbers, man army fighter of the period were the P-38 and P-40)

What gave the Zero and even the Oscar in the first year of the Pacific war was the pilots had more experience in combat. As the experienced Japanese pilots were lost, so their machines lost their reputation for being the best.

BTW the Ki-43 was a much better plane then the A6M
 
Like the Wildcat there were others that soldiered on and kept delivering:-

How about something like the Fairey Swordfish then or the Stuka?

Both in the thick of fighting from 1936 to 1945. Very successful at what they did best i.e Taranto/Bismark, Blitz Krieg in Europe and the Eastern Front.
Ok so the Stuka was relegated to night level-bombing by '45, but the Swordfish was still patroling the Channel in '45 and even outlasted it's replacement the Albacore.

Shessi
 
Certainly with you on the Swordfish. Not only did it outlast it's replacement, but could still do the job better than it's next descendant, the Barracuda which was stopped from being used as a torpedo bomber because of stability issues.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top