Guys and Gals,
Could use your help here. Wife is in the publishing industry and is doing a promotional piece for a WWII Aircraft Encyclopedia she is going to run. Her compnay is making FOUR figurines of the ‘Greatest WWII Aircraft.’ Not a historian, so I’ll need your help in figuring that out. Welcome your input.
Please give you top 4 in no particular order. Include specific model/paintjob she should get, if possible (ex: P-38 night fighter vs P-38)
THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!
From my point of view four greatest fighter planes of WWII are:
P-51 Mustang (D) USA
Spitfire Mk…? GB
Bf-109 G (K?) Germany
La-7 Russia
Andy
Right off the bat, In no particular order or markings( you can make those decisions after you pick your subjects. I’ll stick with fighters to keep the size down. IMHO, the Hellcat, Corsair, Mustang and Spitfire.[:)] I’m sure you’ll get many other opinions as well. Good luck.
Eddie
I would vote for the P-51D Mustang from the US, The Spitfire Mk XIV from Britain, the Bf-109G from Germany and the A6M5 Zero from Japan
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
SBD Dauntless
F4F Wildcat
P-40B Warhawk
Spitfire MK 2
Other aircraft may have won the war but it was these four that held the tide until newer aircraft could be developed. Without them, the war mighty have gone different.
United States: P51D in either Anderson’s “Old” Crow or the “Big Beautiful Doll”
Great Britian: Spitfire MKI, great aircraft but the Battle of Britian birds…wow, truly heroic!
Japan: Mitsubishi Zero fighter, any variant, but the Type 22’s in a naval scheme would be good…
Germany: Focke Wulf, again like the Spit any variant, but a Langnasse, like the Dora 13 model in the airfield defense scheme with the red bottom with white stripes, very dramatic.
Define “Greatest”.[:D]
P-51D
P-47N
B-29A
Me-109
Spitfire Mk XIV
Focke-Wulf Ta-152-The ultimate piston engine Aircraft to see service in WW2
Douglas DC-3-Where would the Chindits,the Paras and just about all ground troops be without them!
Messerchmitt Me-262-First Jet fighter in service in WW2,the birth of a new era.
Avro Lancaster-Mass bombing raids helped bring industrial Germany to its knees.And busted a couple of dams in the process!!
Well I would go for, an ME 262, a P-51D, A B-24 Liberator, I don’t want to say a zero but maybe. That or V1 if that counts as an aircraft.
Well I would go for, an ME 262, a P-51D, A B-24 Liberator, I don’t want to say a zero but maybe. That or V1 if that counts as an aircraft.
In order:
1- Junkers Ju-88 Bomber
2- North American P-51d Mustang Fighter
3- Hawker Hurricane 1 Fighter
4- Douglas DC-3 Transport
I think this single post and contentious question is a nug but here’s the deal…
You don;t need a historian. You need a maketer to pick your planes. Your wife should know that. The question is not which are the best 4 aircraft of the era - who cares? - but rather - which 4 aircraft are going to do the best job of promoting the follow-on complete product. “Best” is relative. Targeted marketing is not. These promotional figurines - what target demographic are they for? Who buys aircraft encyclopaedias? Are the figurines designed to be toys or display pieces? Do you want a strong brand for the general public? Then Mustang is #1 on your list. Stuka and P-38 immediately recognizable. And so on and so on…It sounds like the encyclopaedia is printed already - perhaps select 4 specific types from the book and choose, 2 fighters, one bomber, one transport - each from a different nation…All depends on who you are promoting to and why…
I wish your wife luck with the WW2 aircraft product - the market is awash with them and that is good and bad. Good because if there are so many, there must be a market. There is. A big one. Bad because there are so many. Would be nice to see a new take on the “big coffee table book of color airplane photos from WW2” - with the modeling angle worked into it…
what is the name of your wife’s company and have they published other aircraft related books we may have heard of?
You can’t just arbitrarily list the four greatest WWII aircraft. The War was much longer than just the four years + that we participated, and there were so many types and styles of aircraft used in many different roles and to accomplish a seemingly never-ending variety of missions.
The B17s that devastated Hitlers industrial and manfacturing base, the B29s that effectively burned down dozens of Japanese cities, the TBF/M Avengers, Corsairs, and Dauntlesses that allowed the B29s to attack Japan. Jimmy Doolittles B25s that took off from a carrier deck in the Pacific to attack the Japanese homeland on a no return mission just months after the Pearl Harbor attack. The Redtail fighters of the Tuskegee Airman that never lost a bomber under their escort (Incidentally, the Tuskegee Airman flew at least three different aircraft - P-47s, P-51 B or Cs, and P-51Ds). The P-40s of the Flying Tigers in China and Burma. The Spitfires, Hurricanes, Messerschmits, and Junkers of the Battle of Britain. And these are just a few of the greatest aircraft of the War. I didn’t even mention the transports, courier planes, or the gliders that successfully landed thousands of troops in France and the Netherlands during the airborne invasions there, or the dozens of axis aircraft that were the formidable enemy we faced throughout the war.
Your encylopedia can list all of these aircraft and more, but listing or labeling the four greatest aircraft of WWII would be a great injustice to all of the other aircraft that played hugely significant or decisive roles during the War.
Mmmm…greatest is a matter of opinion rather than historical fact, however if I had to give a straight answer It would be these four.
P-51D Mustang
MkVb Spitfire
Bf-109G Mess.
FW 190-A3
You cannot cook it down to Four, period.
Especially when you say the four greatest aircraft and do not even attempt to sererate the fighters, bombers, transports or obsevation aircraft.
The Queen of the skies in Europe, the B17, couldn’t hack it in the Aleutian campaign or the Pacific becasue the B24 had more capacity and greater range. Does that make it a “greater” aircraft?
As said by berny, the P40 was produced in great numbers, had to hold the line, and in fact beat the Zero when flown by pilots that used it’s advantages to great effect.
Might be easier to ask for the four greatest pilots of WWII. That way you’d only have to pick between fighter pilots and Naval pilots, as no one knows many bomber pilots.
Don
Every one has thier fav’s but I think it’s generaly accepted that the 4 greatest fighters were the
P-51D
Spitfire MK IV
ME-109
Zero
These were the ones that tended to steal the lime light so to speak… but as its been said there were many great aircraft and to label these as the “BEST” does the others injustice.
Berny, I have to disagree with ya on your list of “held the tide” aircraft I cant speak for the whole list as I just dont know, But as for the spitfire holding the tide… If you check I think you’ll see it was the Hurricane that held the tide. More air to air kills were accredited to the Hurricane during the Battle of Brittan and it was available in larger numbers. The Spitfire (an awsome aircraft to be sure) just happened to steal the show 
Probably because its a much more attractive aircraft.
for me, my most favorte aircraft (let’s put it in this way, because I agree to the fact that there are more aircraft that had a great influence in winning the war or holding the tide) of the second world war are :
P51D
Me109G
Ilyushin Il2
Me262 A1
There are many others like B17, B29, Catalina, Focke wulf, He111, He129, Stuka, … that each had their role in a certain period, but these four are my personal favorites
I think some of you guys are looking into this thing a bit too much. I don’t think you can choose a best aircraft of WW2. What I’ll give you are the four aircraft that I think are the most iconic of that era in aviation. That might be because they were the best, or just because they are the most famous.
My top four would be:
P-51D Mustang (A huge help in the allies victory in Europe),
Spitfire Mk-I to Mk-IX (The best British fighter from beginning to end),
Messerschmitt Me-109F (You need a 109 in the collection, and this was probably the best of a long line),
B-17G flying fortress (Devastated the the German industrial might and their war making ability).
I’ll skip P-51 since it has been said enough already.
I’d have to agree with Quagmyre…you need some sort of measurable…most kills, longest service period, greatest number produced, etc.
You could easily pick four great warplanes and not get any argument, but the four “greatest”? Wow![:)]
Out of curiosity…what has inspired your wife to select four? What has brought along the idea of the article?