Most Overrated Fighter Of WWII (2005 Zombie)

To add a few pence/cents to this tired discussion, in all these cases of aircraft mentioned here, their ‘over’ or ‘under rating’ has come about from post war analysis, by experts and not-so-experts of the types, rather than by meaningful analysis of the aircraft and their impact at the time by those involved, which wasn’t always possible, admittedly. The Mitsubishi Zero is a case in point; at the time it became known in late 1941 and immediately after, seemingly living up to its ‘myth of invincibility’, it was indeed the best carrier based fighter in terms of range, manoeuvrability and general performance and could, in the hands of a determined and competent pilot, defeat anything the Allies chose to throw at it in theatre. A year or so on and the Zero is decidedly out gunned and out performed, yet even at the end of the war, there were no other aircraft in the Pacific theatre that could out manoeuvre the Zero and Ki-43 in slow speed combat; not a Corsair, not a Mustang, nor a Spitfire. The problem with the Zero was that when the Americans got the measure of it, there was a tendency to disregard its qualities, and indeed even today there is, among US authors and writers a tendency to forget its inherent ability and how good it was in late 1941, so the opposite is the case there – it’s under rated by them. It was a superb design for its time; well engineered, robust for its job, yet light weight – contrary to the claim that it was structurally weak, which it was not; it was a carrier aircraft and there has never been any claims of Zeros breaking apart owing to structural weakness, apart from if the aircraft has been hit by heavy fire. Read Saburo Sakai’s book Samurai for indication of the battle damage that Zeros could actually tolerate.

As for the Bf 109, firstly, it’s narrow tracked undercarriage is far too often claimed to be the cause of mishaps, but it’s more than that. It’s undercarriage track is in fact wider than the Spitfire’s; the issues were as follows. The legs start at the fuselage, to which they are attached, not the wing, so their angle out and forwards are greater than the Spitfire’s, they are also longer. The wheels themselves are toed outwards where they ride on the ground and slope inwards at their top side. Combine these main gear issues with a heavy tail and during taxiing you have the rear fuselage tending to ‘lead’; with gyroscopic forces being generated by the mass of the prop and its thrust means the pilot is in for a tricky ride, especially since there is little vertical tail surface to speak of and the rudder is ineffectual on the ground owing to its small size, to counter the thrust output. Taxiing is done with judicious use of brakes, but the caveat here is that heavy braking can and did cause the aircraft to tip onto its nose, creating what the Germans called a ‘fliegerdenkmal’ or Flier’s Memorial! As for it being over rated; it was again, like the Zero and Spitfire an excellent design; it was first designed in the mid 1930s and was the first all-metal fighter with retractable gear, landing flaps, enclosed canopy, variable pitch prop etc; state of the art in 1935 (although VP prop came later, earlier than the British fighters, though) and easy to manufacture and maintain, perhaps the reason it was produced in as great numbers as it was? like the Zero however, it had a sell-by date and had exceeded that after the ‘Friedrich’, which exemplified the best qualities of the Bf 109. The ‘Gustav’ was too heavy and overladen to be competitive, besides, the Luftwaffe also had the superlative Fw 190.

The Mustang is always a difficult one to quantify as it was indeed as good as many make it out to be, but, there are caveats; it was the most advanced and aerodynamically sophisticated piston engine fighter when it first flew, the designers taking advantage of the most up-to-date information at NACA and the RAE (most notably F.W Meredith’s paper – which had a greater effect on the Mustang’s high speed than its ‘laminar flow’ wing, actually), and indeed its range was outstanding. Once fitted with a 60 series Merlin it was faster in a straight line and had a greater range than the Spitfire IX, despite being physically larger and heavier, but, the Spit could still out climb out turn and out accelerate the Mustang, also, once the 60 series Griffon was fitted, the Spit XIV restored the balance; the Spit was faster, had better altitude performance and could still out turn and accelerate past the Mustang. And it was nicer to fly according to pilots who flew both. Also, F4U pilots will testify that at height they could easily leave a Mustang in their wake, as one once told me he had done in a friendly encounter with a Mustang after the war had ended!

I do feel that post-war the American media has probably made much more of the Mustang than was necessary (perhaps the British do the same with the Spitfire, particularly with regards to the Hurricane?), despite its qualities, but one important factor that eludes many in these discussions is that the Mustang was available in large numbers toward the end of 1944 and 1945 that the Germans just could not counter. The worm had most definitely turned and the Mustang was indeed as visible evidence of Allied air superiority as any other type over war ravaged Europe.

Anyhoo, time for lunch and a cuppa.

😀

This may interest you.
http://www.hortenwings.com/

Wake me when they stop dreaming.

JE1957

As you imply; a very remarkable and potent ‘beastie’. I can imagine bits of you twitching rather rapidly, when you looked in your rear view mirror and saw what was lining up on your tail !

Hi All,
Stepwilk,
This may interest you.
http://www.hortenwings.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Horten-Wings/123481931141146

Looks like history repeating itself as this idea also hit the rails by the looks of the sites, would have been good to see how it would have performed say with a pair of modern jets similar to what powers the replica 262’s.

Geoff.

My nomination: the mythic Horten 229. Which in fact never existed, despite the NASM calling its Horten IX V3 a “Horten 229.”

Quite probably the man who knew about these matters; Eric Brown, should have the last word on this subject. It appears that he didn’t think much of the Mustang, tho’ which mark I do not know.

He did tho’ I understand, rate the Spitfire Mk X1V as the best.

He also considers the Tempest mkV as the best WW2 fighter below 20,000ft, the fighter the Me262 pilots feared most.
I’ve gota thing about the Typhoon and Tempest, people might notice? My uncle was a Tempest 2 pilot and loved it.Painted by Neil Higgs of Soaring Scenes: [ATTACH=CONFIG]244777[/ATTACH]

Quite probably the man who knew about these matters; Eric Brown, should have the last word on this subject. It appears that he didn’t think much of the Mustang, tho’ which mark I do not know.

He did tho’ I understand, rate the Spitfire Mk X1V as the best.

The first prototype 109 had noting more than 600+ hp.

And it had an empty weight of only 3000 lbs so was able to do a vertical climb from the ground up to 10,000 ft with that engine. By the end of the war the 109 had an empty weight of 6000 lbs.

Now let me see ask a question which I’ll gladly concede I don’t have the answer to…by late 1943 (when the Mustang was introduced) was the Spitfire capable of doing bomber escort over Germany? If it (or the Thunderbolt or P-38) was then we can say that it’s appearance did not “win the war”…the war would have been won using other fighters.

This pre-supposes that the strategic long-range bombing of Germany by the USAAF was in fact a war-winning strategy, and not a colossal waste of men and materiel that would have been better employed elsewhere, certainly after June 1944. Not saying it was, but focussing on the P-51’s ability to make each long-range mission a little less dangerous for the bomber crews might be taking the eye off the ball when it comes to effective ways to win wars, and might lend more weight to the ‘war winning aircraft’ claim than is strictly due.

Still, the P-38 with drop tanks could reach Berlin by November 43. Not sure if that helps.

Hmm but when you read the testflights between Spitfire XIV’s and the Tempest (or other contemporary) fighters, the Tempest was fast, but not faster, had a
good roll rate and a better zoom-climb. Not bad for a mid 1930’s design (albeit developed beyond designers belief).
Cees

The Typhoon was by far the best interceptor AND dogfighter at low level in 1943! Look at 609 Squadron’s engagements on 20th January and 14th February 1943! It’s issues with both the airframe and engine were teething troubles from rushed introduction – elevator mass balance for the tails, sleeve valve wear 9I think from memory) and yes, the pilots had to go onto oxygen for the fumes (no hangovers by the time they were airborne).

Then, superb ground attack gun/rocket platform able to withstand a lot of damage and then came the Tempest which was by far the best fighter below 20000ft of the war (according to Roland Beamont when I chatted with him about it).

Each aircraft type needs a certain development time to achieve it’s full potential. The Spitfire and 109 were always close to each other regarding performance in
the first two years of the war. The first prototype 109 had noting more than 600+ hp.
You cannot compare certain types at a specific development process and apart from that the pilot is also a decisive factor.
But regarding the Mustang and Spitfire, I wonder how the Spitfire would have looked with a Mustang-type radiator housing. And the Mustang with the two
Spitfire underslung radiators. In the latter case there would be very much less room for fuel.
Anyone with photoshop skills?
Cees

Hi
My vote would go to the typhoon, as a fighter well over rated , and yes I am a tiffie fan, but the tails fell off, and the only good bit was the engine , which frequently stopped, and many good pilots were lost in tiffies.
It’s main claim to fame was the fact it was fast and could catch a 190, now a 190 I would never claim over rated, and I am not a fan of it, But after all didn’t the RAF develop the tiffie into a 190 copy , ( the tempest ) and then further refine it into a fury.
Just my opinion.
I was told once by a spitfire pilot, that the Mk V was a very nice plane & the IX was nice also, but all those that came after were beasts to fly.
Cheers
Jerry

The Typhoon!! This is sacrilege!Yes, it was pretty lousyas an interceptor,pilots passed out and the tails fell off, but otherwise it was immensely strong, able to take huge punishment, well-armed and devastating in attack. Plus it led to the best fighter of WW2,:love-struck: the Tempest. The Tempest, the allied fighter that the Me262 pilots feared the most. If only one of these was still flying, I’d be extremely happy.

Best in class probably. But there are some enduring myths. That wing, for example. Used with the aim of delaying separation and thus reducing the effects of compressibility, it proved comprehensively less capable at high transonic speeds than the Spitfire wing. For the theory to have worked the wing would have needed to be glassy-smooth. It showed you could put the thickest part further aft and the thing would still fly, but gained the P-51 nothing.

Hype is perhaps undeserved by definition? Not criticising, not my place to – I haven’t designed any high-performance piston engined fighters. But sometimes hype gets in the way of fact. The P-51 proved the right design at the right time – no argument there!

P-38 – most accounts give equal credit to both, I guess my comment was prompted by the claim that Johnson could ‘see air’. Now there is an example of unqualified myth-making. If he could see air he wouldn’t have let the P-38 out of the hangar door until it looked the way NACA remodelled it two years later.

The P-51 totally deserves its hype, it was best of class high altitude late-war fighter. The russian Yak’s and La’s might have been the best low level fighters, but that was a different kind of war. The P-51 had an airfoil built for high speed and high altitude and was a lead-in to the jet age. It was a very heavy durable fighter, not something the overweight Me-109s would ever want to come up against. Hot pilots in the P-51 would purposely leave fuel in the rear fuselage tank to give the P-51 extreme AoA yawing ability, but this is something that was never needed for the kind of fighting it would do.

Werner Mölders ( the most succesful ace of that era) called the Spitfire unreliable as fighter due to its two-pitch propeller and the inability of its carburettor to handle negative g-forces. the g-forces on the carburetor would starve RR Merlin engine of fuel and the Spitfire could not keep up.

Werner Mölders (with a tally of 54 claimed victories) became the most successful ace of that era after Helmut Wick (with a tally of 56 claimed victories) was shot down on 28th November 1940…(by a former journalist of the Yorkshire Post which is just as irrelevant to the conversation)

…who happened to be flying a Spitfire…

The Mustang helped out the Americans by providing daylight fighter escort.
Without it (or other escort) the 8th AF might have had to switch to night area bombing like the RAF. To know if that would have been a bad thing we’d have to compare loss rates and overall effectiveness of the respective bombing campaigns, and that isn’t likely to be answered here.

Only the most rabid nationalist fan boy would call it OVER rated. True, it’s received some bombastic praise from the general media, but by any objective view, so had the Spitfire. Remember the Mustang gave valuable service elsewhere, even to the Comenwealth. If there were enough Spitfires available, I’m guessing that the RAF wouldn’t have taken any. It was a good aircraft…but with faults, like any other.

Now let me see ask a question which I’ll gladly concede I don’t have the answer to…by late 1943 (when the Mustang was introduced) was the Spitfire capable of doing bomber escort over Germany? If it (or the Thunderbolt or P-38) was then we can say that it’s appearance did not “win the war”…the war would have been won using other fighters.
In the same vein, we can say the same about any aircraft…even the Spitfire. If it wasn’t available during the BoB, there would have been more Hurricanes…not to mention the long-standing argument from Hawker fans, that the Hurricane shot down the bombers which was the whole point of the affair.

I think the problem here was a designer was overrated.. (takes cover)

Actually, I think Hall Hibbard had more to do with the design of the P-38 than did Kelly Johnson…

I see that someone has said that the Spitfire was ‘not a war-winning’ aircraft. Of course it wasn’t. With the exception of the A-bomb (and even that needed to be transported by a B-29) no single artefact was a ‘war winner’. The war was won bay a combination of many weapons and, above all, by the men and women who used them. By itself, the Spitfire wouldn’t have won the BoB, let alone the war – not enough of them and ‘by itself’ would deny it the force multiplier of the command and control system of Fighter Command.
On the other hand, it has also been posted that the BoB would have been won without the Spitfire = a bit nearer the truth but be realistic. Without the Spitfires, Fighter Command would have been reduced to 2/3 of the strength that it actually had during the battle and its fighters – the Hurricane and the Defiant – and there were still some Gladiators in squadron service – would all have been of inferior performance to the 109s opposing them – not a happy picture.
Mike