Best American Fighter over Japan in 1945?

If we are looking at combat records, then all 4 listed fighters (P-51D, P-47N, F4U-4, or F6F-5) have one year or less in which to be considered.

The P-51 had a much smaller combat record in the PTO, with only P-51B/C models, and only in Burma… until the P-51D finally arrived in late 1944, which were first flown from re-captured Philippine bases. By that stage of the war, Japanese fighter opposition was rare, and Philippine-based Mustangs mostly performed close-support work. The only consistent fighter work the P-51D saw was during the B-29 escort missions (which it shared with the P-47N).

I agree with most of that, however P-51B/C’s were used a fair amount in China from 1944 (part of China-Burma-India theater but to distinguish from use of P-51A’s in Burma proper from 1943). And it met the Japanese Type 4 (aka Ki-84 Frank) there, the Japanese Army sent the Type 4 to China first in part to counter P-51’s.

Also PI based P-51’s did missions to Formosa, China coast etc at one way ranges up to ~800 miles. This is another point: range. The longest US fighter missions were flown by long range P-38’s up to ~900 mile radius, but 51’s and 47N’s came close (for example P-47N’s from Ie Shima to the Seoul area, that’s almost 800). There were remarkable ranges, however the Japanese themselves noted the greater persistence of USN fighters, especially over Japan, less of an eye on the fuel gauge (Iwo Jima based P-51’s were still ~600 over-water miles from home when they dropped tanks and started burning fuel at max throttle rate).

Also re: earlier comment P-38L’s flew some missions from Ie Shima/Okinawa base complexes to Japan proper in the final days of the war.

Another factor to consider is use by P-51D’s in very late war of very high octane fuel and high boost settings; they could considerably exceed the published P-51D stats or real performance experienced in ETO.

But as was said ‘best’ in WWII usually naturally focuses on ‘last’, what got in under the wire to fly a few missions at the end v what was just too late. It’s of limited meaning. Overall the P-38 was by far the most *important* USAAF fighter in the Pacific, and the F6F likewise for the USN, F4U for the USMC (USN F4U’s were also a quite late war thing, and even regular USMC F4U ops from carriers only began in January 1945).

Joe

If we are looking at combat records, then all 4 listed fighters (P-51D, P-47N, F4U-4, or F6F-5) have one year or less in which to be considered.

The vast majority of the Corsair air combat (and victories) were in the lower-performing F4U-1A & F4U-1D models (the F4U-4 squadrons were first deployed around April 1945).

Likewise were the Hellcat’s (the F6F-5 first flew April 1944, and entered squadron service a couple of months later), as F6F-3s continued in front-line service from late 1942 until the end of the war.

The Thunderbolts that saw most of the war in the PTO (June 1943 on) were also early models (P-47N first flew in July 1944, and entered the PTO at the end of 1944).

The P-51 had a much smaller combat record in the PTO, with only P-51B/C models, and only in Burma… until the P-51D finally arrived in late 1944, which were first flown from re-captured Philippine bases. By that stage of the war, Japanese fighter opposition was rare, and Philippine-based Mustangs mostly performed close-support work. The only consistent fighter work the P-51D saw was during the B-29 escort missions (which it shared with the P-47N).

On PTO Combat records, the P-38 is #1, F6F-3/5 #2, the F4U-1 #3, P-47D/N #4, F4F #5, and the P-51B/C/D rates a tie for #6… with the P-40 (which fought throughout the entire war).

At the moment of July/August 1945 however, I would have to rate the F4U-4 and P-47N as a clear tie for #1, with the P-51D just even with the F6F-5.

The Mustang fans must face the fact that even the USAF rated the P-47N above the P-51D… they had ordered a much-improved P-51H… which was working up in its first squadrons when the A-bombs were dropped, and this model was intended to fight beside the P-47Ns (replacing all the front-line PTO P-51Ds) in the invasion of the main Japanese islands.

As JDK said ,this type of thread is a little pointless (except perhaps for a little fun;) )

Perhaps another factor you could include would be accident rate.

The corsair was real beast and i love to see(hear) them fly but they had a very high accident rate especially with inexperienced pilots.Two of its nicknames were bent wing ba5tard and Ensign Eliminator !!
Ensign being the lowest officer rank in the USN.
The Fleet Air Arm had the corsair in service a couple of years before the USN because the US would not operate it until some of its problems were sorted,whereas we were desperate for good carrier fighters and i doubt that the corsair accident rate was any worse than the seafire.

cheers baz

Sure its all for the fun of it.

Accident rate would be a very good catagory.

Corsair losses in the World War II were as follows:

* By combat: 189
* By enemy anti-aircraft artillery: 349
* Accidents during combat missions: 230
* Accidents during non-combat flights: 692
* Destroyed aboard ships or on the ground: 164.

If I remember right (fat chance), the Corsair problems were about US carrier operations specifications. The Corsair flew the majority of its WWII missions from land (again from memory).

As JDK said ,this type of thread is a little pointless (except perhaps for a little fun;) )

Perhaps another factor you could include would be accident rate.

The corsair was real beast and i love to see(hear) them fly but they had a very high accident rate especially with inexperienced pilots.Two of its nicknames were bent wing ba5tard and Ensign Eliminator !!
Ensign being the lowest officer rank in the USN.
The Fleet Air Arm had the corsair in service a couple of years before the USN because the US would not operate it until some of its problems were sorted,whereas we were desperate for good carrier fighters and i doubt that the corsair accident rate was any worse than the seafire.

cheers baz

Maybe the closest we can get, is listing the four aircraft under a number of headings.

Kill ratio: could give a figure for the effectiveness against enemy aircraft. Although airwar later in the war, was less fighter vs fighter than earlier. Nevertheless the job was to shoot down aircraft and they should be judged by that.

Rate of climb: I think AC performance can be compared here (as opposed to speed, which would involve comparing speed at various altitudes. Climbrate has its uses for a fighter aircraft.

Service life: The time an aircraft was used in its designed role (not moved to ground attack, or other roles, but used as a fighter), could give an indication of how the military considered its effectiveness.

These are just suggestions and hopefully people will post others, but unless we have a common ground to consider each aircraft, its pretty hard to pick a winner :p

Please post what you would consider a factor for deciding and we will make the list and add the numbers. Then we can always discuss the relevance of each entry.

According to your logic the US should have constructed only P-38’s……..

Not what I said. If I’d meant that, remarkably, I’d have said ‘the US should have built only P-38s’. :rolleyes:

As I stated, in most occasions, all the listed types, and the P-38 were more than adequate to do the job. Minor percentage differences (for instance, particular speeds at particular altitudes) are not as important as sheer numbers and quality of production and aircrew effectiveness. They are all, at the end of the day, tools, and it’s the quality (training, ability, experience fitness etc.) of the person operating it that counts. To answer your question, all of the types you chose were amply good enough for the task. The differences were minor, and utterly irrelevant in air combat in mid 1945 as the USA had overwhelming qualitative and quantitative superiority to Japan.

.Sorry, but your logic escapes me?:eek:

All too evidently.

Regardless, I don’t see any variant of the P-38 as being superior to 3 out of the 4 of the models I listed nonetheless! (if then) :diablo:

Again, not what I said. I stated that the P-38 was, on numerous occasions, the only type able, and available to undertake a task. The others were technically supirior but didn’t exist when needed. At no point were the others the only available type to do a job no other type could do; the only meaningful form of utter advantage, or if you prefer superiority. A ‘great’ type that isn’t available or a type that can’t be in the right place at the right time is useless.

The demise of McGuire is a tactical lesson, in thinking he could win a combat without dropping his tanks. Bear in mind that Bong and McGuire had, while flying a less powerful type (than any on your list) shot down more enemy aircraft that any of the pilots of the types you mention. Importantly, they achieved the result in practice, when the enemy had sufficient strength to be a real air threat, and to a degree helped win the Pacific war, rather than some theoretical discussion arguing about less than 5% performance advantage at a particular altitude – something inevitably lost by a poor pilot and used ruthlessly and effectively by a good one.

Badger, thanks for some very interesting points.

Regards,

Personally, I love when people quote top speeds…….. That is not to say the F4U-4 isn’t faster overall than the Mustang. (i.e. P-51D) Yet, that is not always the case! For example the USN compared a P-51B Mustang vs a F4U-1 and F4U-1A Corsair in 1943. What did it discover? Well, the P-51B was indeed faster @ 32,000 ft. (i.e. What a surprise!) Yet, above that they were close and below that the edge clearly went to the Corsairs! As a matter of fact the Corsairs were faster than the venerable Mustang at over 80% of the altitudes! So, in 1943-45 at what altitudes did most aircombat happen at? Above 30,000 feet or below? Yet, some how the Mustang is always “faster”? Really, what should be stated is the Mustang is overall faster at “one” given altitude. Not faster throughout the flight envelope. Regardless, my point here is not to knock down the Mustang nor to raise up the Corsair. The point is the overall performance of each at all altitudes and all speeds!

If, you still don’t get my point? The F-15C has a top speed of Mach 2.5 and the Raptor Mach 2.0+. So, which of the two types is faster? Funny, on how many people simply forget aircombat happen in three dimensions………:rolleyes:

Are you asking if I get your point, or was it a more general question?

If you read my poste (the one you quoted) then you will find, that we are saying the same thing (more or less).

I’m not suggesting you can claim a winner, by reading figures from a “Fighter performance sheet” in a book – far from it.

There are too many parameters involved, to judge which was actually the best service aircraft. You would need a group of pilots, who all fought in each of the four aircraft, but even then you would have a hard time finding a winner.

I picked the P-51D – because I like the Mustang.

By the end of the Pacific War, P-38s were flying from bases on Ie Shima and in the Philippines on sorties ranging as far as Formosa, Korea, and the Ryukyus.

They are credited with the destruction of more Japanese aircraft than any other type of US fighter… and the #1 & #2 scoring US pilots of the war flew P-38s almost exclusively [Richard I. Bong (40 kills) & Thomas B. McGuire, Jr. (38 kills)]. C. H. MacDonald (27 kills) was also a P-38 driver… and the #3 US pilot in the PTO.

On August 25, 1945, a pair of P-38s piloted by Colonel Clay Tice and his wingman were the first American aircraft to land in Japan after the surrender on August 15. They later claimed that this unauthorized landing was due to “engine difficulties”, a somewhat suspect explanation. Nevertheless, this was a fitting recognition for an aircraft which had contributed so much to victory.

So, how does the P-38 compare to those other aircraft in the PTO?

The F4U and F6F (and F4F) all could do something the P-38 couldn’t… operate from carriers… but then, neither could the P-51, P-47, P-40, or P-39.

The P-38 was a remarkable fighter. Yet, I don’t believe most would consider it superior to the Mustang or Corsair possibly even the Thunderbolt and Hellcat. As for the top two P-38 Pilots. Bong was killed flying a P-80 during a take-off accident late in war and McGuire was killed in low level combat against a japanese fighter. (i.e. not wise!)

By the end of the Pacific War, P-38s were flying from bases on Ie Shima and in the Philippines on sorties ranging as far as Formosa, Korea, and the Ryukyus.

They are credited with the destruction of more Japanese aircraft than any other type of US fighter… and the #1 & #2 scoring US pilots of the war flew P-38s almost exclusively [Richard I. Bong (40 kills) & Thomas B. McGuire, Jr. (38 kills)]. C. H. MacDonald (27 kills) was also a P-38 driver… and the #3 US pilot in the PTO.

On August 25, 1945, a pair of P-38s piloted by Colonel Clay Tice and his wingman were the first American aircraft to land in Japan after the surrender on August 15. They later claimed that this unauthorized landing was due to “engine difficulties”, a somewhat suspect explanation. Nevertheless, this was a fitting recognition for an aircraft which had contributed so much to victory.

So, how does the P-38 compare to those other aircraft in the PTO?

The F4U and F6F (and F4F) all could do something the P-38 couldn’t… operate from carriers… but then, neither could the P-51, P-47, P-40, or P-39.

I never really get these “superior aircraft” questions.

Surely its in the hands of the pilot. Good pilots have downed “superior” enemy aircraft.

Looking at kill-rate statistics would give more information on the level of pilot training, than the state of aircraft superiority. Of cause the actual pilots who flew back then, would have their favourite aircraft, but they might not agree between them.

A further snag on kill-rate statistics, is the case where (as in over Japan) the aircraft in question meet very few enemy fighters, or (as in Europe towards then end) meet enemy pilots with (mostly) a low standard of training.

Sidenote:
Didn’t the Russians have a fair amount of success with the P-39 and actually liked flying and fighting it, despite most other users considered it inferior even to their own inventory?

Maybe it just suited their training and flying style.

If the question is about performance, then its a simple question of research.

The F4U-4 outperforms the rest in max speed, service ceiling and rate of climb (it also had a high kill ratio 11:1, but F6F had an even higher kill-ratio 19:1 i think). Is it a better aircraft?

Was the cannons better, did it survive more hits, was it more agile, did the pilot have a better view?

In particular i find the choice between those four aircraft a very personal opinion. So for whats its worth, I vote for the P-51D :p

Personally, I love when people quote top speeds…….. That is not to say the F4U-4 isn’t faster overall than the Mustang. (i.e. P-51D) Yet, that is not always the case! For example the USN compared a P-51B Mustang vs a F4U-1 and F4U-1A Corsair in 1943. What did it discover? Well, the P-51B was indeed faster @ 32,000 ft. (i.e. What a surprise!) Yet, above that they were close and below that the edge clearly went to the Corsairs! As a matter of fact the Corsairs were faster than the venerable Mustang at over 80% of the altitudes! So, in 1943-45 at what altitudes did most aircombat happen at? Above 30,000 feet or below? Yet, some how the Mustang is always “faster”? Really, what should be stated is the Mustang is overall faster at “one” given altitude. Not faster throughout the flight envelope. Regardless, my point here is not to knock down the Mustang nor to raise up the Corsair. The point is the overall performance of each at all altitudes and all speeds!

If, you still don’t get my point? The F-15C has a top speed of Mach 2.5 and the Raptor Mach 2.0+. So, which of the two types is faster? Funny, on how many people simply forget aircombat happen in three dimensions………:rolleyes:

probably the f4u4 iirc faster than the p51 and hellcat and being the newast kid on the block with all the latest devolpment and the corsairs rugged structure a pretty tough customer.

Really, I believe the later model Corsair (F4U-4) and Thunderbolt (P-47N) are the clear front runners in this contest! With the former holding the edge…..:rolleyes:

I didn’t answer the question, as IMHO, there’s not much point. All four of the types you listed were amply adequate to do the job. ‘Proving’ one was ‘better’ than another is fine, in a Top Trumps snap-card kind of world, if you like.

The P-38 was the only type, as I said, in the Pacific campaign, that could (and did) do jobs that other types could not do or were not available to do. In that sense there’s something to learn from the question, as in that context, there is some point in asking the ‘best’ question, as the P-38 was the only fighter able to achieve a result.

Even then, it’s about the people, not the tools.

(BTW, the death of Yamamoto is the question.)

Regards,

According to your logic the US should have constructed only P-38’s………Sorry, but your logic escapes me?:eek: Regardless, I don’t see any variant of the P-38 as being superior to 3 out of the 4 of the models I listed nonetheless! (if then) :diablo:

probably the f4u4 iirc faster than the p51 and hellcat and being the newast kid on the block with all the latest devolpment and the corsairs rugged structure a pretty tough customer.

(BTW, the death of Yamamoto is the question.)

Regards,

Not Prince Phillip and MI6 again surely? 😮

Moggy

I don’t believe P-38’s flew missions over Japan? Even so how would it be superior to the four types I listed?:confused:

I didn’t answer the question, as IMHO, there’s not much point. All four of the types you listed were amply adequate to do the job. ‘Proving’ one was ‘better’ than another is fine, in a Top Trumps snap-card kind of world, if you like.

The P-38 was the only type, as I said, in the Pacific campaign, that could (and did) do jobs that other types could not do or were not available to do. In that sense there’s something to learn from the question, as in that context, there is some point in asking the ‘best’ question, as the P-38 was the only fighter able to achieve a result.

Even then, it’s about the people, not the tools.

(BTW, the death of Yamamoto is the question.)

Regards,

I never really get these “superior aircraft” questions.

Surely its in the hands of the pilot. Good pilots have downed “superior” enemy aircraft.

Looking at kill-rate statistics would give more information on the level of pilot training, than the state of aircraft superiority. Of cause the actual pilots who flew back then, would have their favourite aircraft, but they might not agree between them.

A further snag on kill-rate statistics, is the case where (as in over Japan) the aircraft in question meet very few enemy fighters, or (as in Europe towards then end) meet enemy pilots with (mostly) a low standard of training.

Sidenote:
Didn’t the Russians have a fair amount of success with the P-39 and actually liked flying and fighting it, despite most other users considered it inferior even to their own inventory?

Maybe it just suited their training and flying style.

If the question is about performance, then its a simple question of research.

The F4U-4 outperforms the rest in max speed, service ceiling and rate of climb (it also had a high kill ratio 11:1, but F6F had an even higher kill-ratio 19:1 i think). Is it a better aircraft?

Was the cannons better, did it survive more hits, was it more agile, did the pilot have a better view?

In particular i find the choice between those four aircraft a very personal opinion. So for whats its worth, I vote for the P-51D :p

Only the P-38 was decisive as a fighter type in the Pacific war (i.e. it did things no other available aircraft could do, on several occasions.) I doubt there were any P-40s or P-39s over Tokyo, but without them (particularly the P-40) it would have taken a lot longer to arrive at that victory flyover.

I don’t believe P-38’s flew missions over Japan? Even so how would it be superior to the four types I listed?:confused:

Only the P-38 was decisive as a fighter type in the Pacific war (i.e. it did things no other available aircraft could do, on several occasions.) I doubt there were any P-40s or P-39s over Tokyo, but without them (particularly the P-40) it would have taken a lot longer to arrive at that victory flyover.