one engine / one pilot (prop)… TA152H
Major props to Germany’s aircraft designer Kurt Tank. The only German designer to be honored with his initials on aircraft designation. Many German aircraft influenced design for decades after the conflict, a fitting tribute to the brilliant men who became legendary for their work as aircraft engineers and designers.
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The only real way to settle it would be to figure up kill-to-loss ratios by aircraft type for fighters… Or by weight of fire, meaning the amount of lead that a particular aircraft could place on a target in a set amount of time, ie: a three-second burst from it’s primary armament…
Of course, then you’d have to differentiate between cannon-armed aircraft and machinegun-armed aircraft, and aircraft that had a mix of cannons and machine guns…
You mean besides Willy Messerschmitt (Me), Ernst Heinkel (He), Hugo Junkers (Ju), Walter and Riemar Horten (Ho), Claude Dornier (Do) among others…
Also might want to consider efficiency, i.e. is eight 50 cals better than two cannons.
If memory serves, the standard Me 262 was capable of delivering 96lb of lead in a 3 second burst.
My vote would be the 6 gun 262 flown by Heinz Bar at the end of the war.
That’s 6 x 30mm cannon!
Which equates to 144lb of lead in a 3 second burst.
Karl
Just to be a troublemaker (who me?), wouldn’t the most lethal be the Kamikaze attacks of the Japanese? One Zero took out the USS St. Lo carrier with 143 dead, another killed 327 on the USS Bunker Hill. Sounds pretty lethal to me.
actually there’s a lot more to that. You can also take into fact what the fact finding folks found out when they evaluated captured equipment. The best single engined prop planes tested were not Mustangs. It’s also a well known fact that an He219 was pretty hard on Misquitos. Yet a good old Invader was capable of turning right with the best fighters out there (really hard on the air frame by the way). And a Ki 84 wasn’t exactly a slouch either. Watching film footage of an Me262 shredding a B17 sorta makes you wonder why they even thought about air to air rockets! It was like flying thru a scrap heap!
just rambeling
gary
I’d like to throw my hat into the ring and say that it had to have been the P-61 Black Widow. The major deciding factor would simply have to be it’s ultimate coolness factor. Nothing was cooler than the Black Widow.
Eric
The Beaufighter also had 4 x 20mm cannon in the nose with 6 x 7.7mm mg’s in the wings. Its stable mate the Mosquito had the 4 x 20mm’s and 4 x 7.7 mm’s in the nose for concentrated killing power
Then there is the P-39 with the nose mounted 37mm cannon and two nose mounted .50cal’s and 4 wing mounted .30 cal’s. Later versions ommitted the .30’s and had .50 cal’s in wing mounted pods. Firing the big gun was considered like throwing a grapefruit as it had a distinctive arc trajectory.
The Invader was a late war addition coming into its own in later conflicts (Korea, etc.). The Me-262’s concentrated nose firepower did see action and may have been one of the top in the firepower department.
Many of the big gun aircraft (40mm or better) had limited use and hard fling characteristics. The Hurricane with underwing 40mm cannon used in North Africa (two 7.7’s were kept to range the gun to target.), Me-410 with 50mm gun, B-25 with the 75mm cannon (firing it was said to stop the aircraft in flight) and the Stuka with the under wing 37mm guns (limited ammo, made the aircraft always fly as heavily laden) were never known for their handling characteristics.
Mike T.
Taking a little different tact, I’d propose that a good pilot with a computing gunsight is more lethal than just throwing a bunch of lead in the general direction of an intended target. Once well-placed shot is more effective than a bunch of near misses.
Mark
If you wanted to look at in in depth you would have to start factoring in things like suitability & stability as a gun platform, durability, reliability - to much like hard work.
Mossie or Beau any day for me - irrespective;
My first thought was the Gun nose B-25 and A-26, but as has been mentioned they were not the only ones, the anti-shipping versions of the Mosquito and Beaufighter had noses packed full of guns too.
For ground attack the cannon armed HS-129 and Ju-87 seem like they at least deserve a mention as they had 30mm, 37mm and 75mm cannon (HS-129) available.
Indeed,
There was one unique difference that set Kurt Tank apart from his peers, was he the only aircraft designer who didn’t have a manufacture in his name all ready? All the aircraft manufactures listed existed before WWII and many of their were in production before the conflict. Agreed they started as one man’s work and vision, hence the names.
I do recall Kurt Tank being unique and that must be he was the only independent designer, not established manufacture the be honored with his initials on a aircraft type.
Nobody mentioned the P-38 with 1 20mm and 4 .50’s in a very small area of the nose plus later versions having 12 rockets under the wings.
As far as kill to loss ratio. Nothing beats the F6F Hellcat. By the time the war was over it had a 19:1 ratio. Over 5,000 aircraft shot down with the air to air loss of less then 300.
JOHN
How about the JU87D with the AA guns?
Heh…Depends on yer perspective… It wasn’t all that lethal unless you were a Soviet tanker…
My favorite fighter planes specialized in ground attack so I can’t mention just one. I would not want to be in an infantry unit with the floowing bearing down on us.
Mosquito
Beaufighter
Typhoon
P-38
P-47
Stormovik