well I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on this subject, and the more I think the more it becomes a bag of worms. At the moment I think it’s pretty much a toss up between the Mark 21/24 Spitfires and the TA152H series plus one of the very late Mustangs along with the K4 BF109 in the mix as well. But here evolves another problem: when you get below 15,000 feet there are some other planes that are actually slightly better! Also if you take into fact the whole bag (including jets) things really change. There were three 480 mph Corsairs built (never saw any combat and never left the states), and there were three TA183’s out there that never flew either. You are correct in the facts about the early Meteor (I never knew this), and doubt the P80 would have been as good as the ME262 as it was still in development stages in 1945. The one snake in this woodpile is the HE162, and it has some advantages that are hard to ignor.
One really needs to divide this into two or maybe even three catagories. High altitude, low altitude, and then maybe fighter bombers. I’m still exercising my little brain on this, and I’m not done by a long shot.
The Germans sure had some mighty versions of the tried and true at the end of the war… plus, some incredible exotics too. Twas a shame they were recruiting wee lads and cub scouts to fly them though. That’s all that was left for the most part. And no luxury of fuel for training flights. The endgame was ugly for the Luftwaffe. …piles of equipment sitting around being blasted to smithereens on the factory floors.
Youngest kid I’ve found so far in a 190 was 19 years old and I might add was an ace.
Now here’s the top of the heap (note I’ve purposely left out the two jets & the Bearcat)
TA-152H
ME-109K4, and somewhere between the K4 and the Spitfire / Mustang you gotta place the FW190D-9
tie between that MK 21/24 Spitfire and The last model of the Mustang. Each had advantages over the other, and one had much better range than any of the others except maybe the Zero
Corsair and believe it or not one Japanese fighter that I’m still hunting for (Ki 84 Frank?)
Quite an interesting qqestion you have posed here!
The best that I can do is agree with previous posts and say that the Corsair would hold it’s own with Luftwaffe fighters. The difficult (and fun) part of such hypothetical comparrisons is that performance specs don’t tell the entire story. The best example of this is the P-40’s of the AVG. While reality doesn’t quite match legend, it is very clear that Chennault and his boys had surprising success against the Zero, flying an aircraft that, on paper, should have been little more than a target against the best the Japanese had to offer.
There are also isolated examples of Buffalos and Aircobras being used to their best advantage and having limited success against the Zero.
Would the Corsair’s air cooled radial have made a difference against liquid cooled opponents such as the BF109 or Fw190 D-9?
What manuver characteristics could the Corsair pilot have taken advantage of against various Luftwaffe foes?
Did the Corsair have some dive qualities that could be used to gain an advantage?
These three are just what came off the top of my head. I just wanted to throw these out there to generate some thought and discussion about what advantages could be found through combat experience. To return to the AVG, at first they had a very tough time agaisnt the Zero but they learned, through combat against it, how they could increase their odds when faced with a superrior opponent.
To sum up my point, performance specifications are only the frist chapter of the story. The rest is written by those men who flew the plane in combat, sometimes introducing interesting plot twists.
Saburu Sakai raved about the Kawanishi N1K1 Shiden “George”.
I’ve heard it said that the Imperial Army’s Nakajima Ki84 Hayate “Frank” was the best Japanese fighter of the war and was slightly faster than the Navy’s Shiden, but with its automatic combat flaps, the N1K1 may have had the edge in manauverability. Plus it is said that the quality control was worse with the Ki84, leading to some performance problems.
Chennault was a master tactician and apparently a good teacher. He was able to train the Tigers to use the strengths of the P40 (dive speed, firepower and durability) against the weaknesess of the Japanese aircraft(light armament, light construction, light weight). These techniques were used later by many aces flying Wildcats, P-38s, and Corsairs.
This was the only way to beat the Japanese in the air. Until the Hellcat came around, getting in a turning dogfight with the Japanese was death. The Japanese were experts in acrobatics and their aircraft were expressly built for it, sacrificing weight, speed and even firepower for it.
The German’s on the other hand did not favor manuverability as much, at least not to the extent that speed and durability were sacrificed. The German’s also saw the need for a lot of firepower in a fighter even though it added weight. So there wasn’t as great a disparity in design and tactics in the ETO.
That said, the pilot who can discover the weakness in his enemy’s weapons or tactics and leverage his/her own strengths against them will surely be victorious, regardless of how they compared on paper. That is true in any theatre, of any war. Some are very adept at that and most of those end up becoming aces.
Individual marksmanship skills are also very important. As you read the stories and recollections of ace fighter pilots, you start to notice that they refer to themselves and others in the squadrons as having excellent marksmanship, and good eyes to spot their enemy before they themselves are spotted. Fighter aircraft are really just a set of anti-aircraft guns steered around the sky. Everything in that aircraft is there to bring those guns to bear on the enemy. If you can’t hit anything with your guns, then it doesn’t matter how good your aircraft is.
Unless I am reading history wrong, the AVG (not the 23rd of the USAAF) did not face the Zero, but the Ki-27 as fighters. Still a contest of speed and guns vs agility, but not P-40 vs Mitsubishi Type Zero.
It is also my understanding that the AVG did not meet the Zero. Also don’t forget that the A6M Zero and A5M Claude were Navy aircraft. The Ki-27 “Nate” and Ki-43 “Oscar” were Army aircraft. I believe the AVG was seeing Army aircraft, at least mostly.
I wonder if they ever fought A5M Claudes though? A5Ms were in China, but I think were operating farther North, where the AVG was operating in the south covering the Burma road supply routes.
I’m not sure about the Oscar, but the Zero was still a fairly new aircraft at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. There were still more A5M Claudes in service than Zeros at that time.
which ever plane it was there is a story about a complete wing of Hellcats jumping five or six of these planes, and getting ate alive. When all was said and done there were about five Hellcats left. The one problem that was corrected with the Frank was the addition of self sealing tanks and cockpit armor.
While doing some more research on the 190/Corsair subject I learned that the TA-152H also performed very well on the deck, and was probably the single fastest climbing propeller driven plane of the war. There is one story about a Ta-152 that jumped a Typhoon at about 150 meters off the ground. He shot the back of the plane up, but didn’t get good enough hits to bring it down (speaks well for Hawker). He then had his guns jam, and just kept comming after the Typhoon, and finally the Typhoon stalled out due to the very tight turns.
This is a great subject but one that can never properly be bought to an acceptable conclusion. In my meagre opinion, i reckon its the pilot, not the machine, who makes an ace. Superior tactics and marksmanship would make even an average plane look special.
For example the 109 F’s were a pretty reasonable fighter albeit slightly under gunned. In the hands of Joachim Marseille it was the most feared fighter in Africa. I think on one day alone he shot down 7 allied planes. He also returned to base on many occasions with ammo still in his guns, using only his superior judgement to bring a plane down and not, as seen in a lot of B+W footage, hundreds of rounds.
Hartman is another good example. He used ambush tactics with his 109’s to an art form. With most of his attacks coming from a hieght advantage, and diving on his prey with the poor soul only realising he was being attacked when it was too late. This tactic could have been utilised by him in any number of ‘Fair’ planes to great success.
So to sum up, in my humble opinion, Stick the likes of any of the great aces of WW2 in an average plane and your in for a seriously hard time. A lot of planes look great on paper but its in the hands of a competant pilot in combat that raises that plane to a ‘Higher plane’ so to speak.
I agree. Take the incident in the pacific theatre with Wildcats and the Thach weave tactic. An poor plane turned into a winner by tactic only.
Don’t blow me off on this one: What if a corsair or other late war allied fighter were to come up against a DO-335? That would be something to see…
To the Do-335’s credit it had speed and maneuverability. No one-sided torque problem to deal with. With all it’s fuel, it could probably outlast an allied fighter in a duel. Speed, however, has to be it’s greatest attribute. And assuming we are dealing with the heavily armed version with wing cannons; I would not like to be on the receiving end of that aircraft.
There is a story of a couple of Hawker Temptests coming up against a lone Do-335 that was on a test flight. The Hawkers flew in for a closer look. The Do-335 pilot saw them; they exchanged salutes at a distance; then the Dornier pilot waved and simply accelerated. The Hawkers were not able to keep up at full throttle.
If I were a pilot, that would be my plane of choice…
you’ve got the right idea! The pilot and his training have more todo with it than all the gazillion miles per hour it’ll go. The advantage of surprise is critical. But I still think making the other guy (no pun intended) fight the battle in your best relm is more an answer than anything else. You got an RAF pilot in a P51A, and somebody jumps him at about five hundred feet off the ground. He keeps the game on the deck and goes home alive while the other guy’s taking his plane to the body shop.
This is why I picked a Spitfire (I’d loved to have picked a MK IX by the way). It was reasonably fast, turned better than most, and also had a good rate of climb. This alone made it a real good all around plane to fly. You then add in the 20mm cannon and an excellent pilot (most all RAF guys that survived six months were good), and bingo we got something here! But if it’s the same guy in two planes just seeing what’s out there we got an all new ball game. This is what happened down at Freeman Field in southern Indiana, and I was lucky enough to hear about it first hand. I wish Raymond was still alive (died in a car wreck close to ten years ago) cause he’d wear your ears out with what he saw. My favorite to this very day is the one he told me about first seeing those planes that didn’t have propellers, and trying to figure how they flew!
who were the guys in the Mustangs that jumped the lone DO-335 flying level flight, and the guy just flew away from them without even taking an evasive manuver? This was documented by both sides
You guys beat me too it. The AVG didn’t go against the type zero fighter. this was a carrier based navy fighter. The AVG had such a good record due to what has already been said, tactics. They had strict rules they followed. If the pilot broke the rules he walked home. Also once the japanese learned what was happening things changes and the flying tigers kills started to fall off.
I agree the pilot IS the primary factor in any engagment. But when compairing aircraft I take this out and use 3 things. good accurate specs on the aircraft. Evulation of the aircraft from as many good sources as possible. and finally the combat record the of the aircraft. Using these you can get a real good idea of how well or not so well an aircraft performed.
Heres my opinion on the corsair based on everthing I know of it. I think the corsair is the best fighter the US fielded in WWII. I believe it could hold it’s own against anything in the sky in 1945, between the deck and 25K. The corsair has all around better performance over the P-51 up to 25K. Bar the Ta 152 I think the corsair would have really put the hurt to the luftwaffe. unlike the P-51 the corsair could have played with the luftwaffe at there own game on even terms. It was able to turn, dive and roll with most of the lufty mechines and do it at alitiudes below 30K. Gone is the need for a diving in slasher attacks or pack attacks. Those pacific pilots were use to fighting highly maneuverable fighters and knew how to get the corsair to perform against such. The corsair was the equal of even late war aircraft like the G-10 and D-9. I think that the D-11/13 and K-4’s might have a slight edge in some areas (firepower rate of climb) but I know of no other piston fighter tha can beat the 109’s rate of climb.
The corsair proved not only to be a great fighter, but night fighter, fighter/bomber, and close support aircraft in WWII and later conflicts. It’s airframe was also much stronger then the P-51 and could handle battle damage better. Not too shabby for a aircraft with a empty weight twice that of a 109. The corsair fall into my top 5 WWII fighters. along with the Ta 152, spitfire mk 21, Bf109K-4, and the tempest mk V.
That is the bush I was beating around. Still, the original question is still an interesting one. Now that the Do-335 has been mentioned, it really gets interesting. No matter what the consensus is, it is not going to change the price of tea in China. The best thing we can do here is kick it around for a while, talk about some awesome airplanes, some superb pilots and have a good time.
In the end, the superior pilot will usually beat a superior plane.
As for the AVG and Zeros, they did tangle on a number of occasions. Although the Zeros got the better of them at first, the Flying Tigers did develop tactics that leveled the playing field considerably.
what you said was fairly close to what I’ve found, but with a couple exceptions. The TA-152H has the highest climb rate of any piston engined fighter of WWII, but it’s a little known fact that the very late Spitfires were easilly the fastest planes in a power dive (they were actually the first planes to get close to breaking the speed of sound). The one thing that a Corsair has going for it that most have overlooked was durability. Short of ripping it up with 30mm cannon nothing would really stop it. Yes it had it’s own demons just like every other plane ever built, but still it was just a damned good all around plane. I would not conside it tobe the top of the line aircraft in a dog fight (pilots being equal), but was able to get the job done in a fine fashion. Yet as good as it was the Bearcat was that much better. The Bearcat was one of those few planes that can actually accelerate in a vertical climb. Anybody here know what the other ones are? (most are jets)