Most Badass Plane of WW2
- Thread starter Emperor Palpatine
- Start date
They were hit by an out of control Bf-109. They continued on to the target (with the tail gunner voluntarily staying in the tail because moving him out caused a problem after the damage). Because parachutes had been used both in the attempt to get the tail gunner out and also to pull a waist gunner who blew into the tail when the bomb bay doors were opened back to the rest of the crew they decided that they'd stay together instead of only half of them jumping. 'All American' got home with none of her crew injured and the tail fell of as the crew were getting out back in the UK.
http://alcoopershomecountry.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/coming-in-on-wing-prayer-final-flight.html
Err, I think there are a few details missing. The mission happened in 1943 with the B17 flying from abase in Tunesia near Biskra against German port facilities in Bizerte and Tunis. The collision happened after they had bombed the target, not before; and they returned to their base in Tunesia, not the UK. The below link is to an interview with the bombardier Ralph Burbridge.
http://waterlandblog.com/2012/09/21...ing-and-a-prayer-mission-on-the-all-american/
Depends on the definition.
Able to do pretty much anything and do it damned near as well as specific type aircraft: Mosquito. People who designed it should have been awarded both the highest civilian honor the UK had and free beer and chips for life.
Bring you home when it had no damned business doing so: B-17
There was a fairly well document case of an aircraft that more ore less cut in half by AAA that was nursed home and landed more or less normally. When they unlatched the ventral crew hatch, the ship fell into two pieces. The hatch latch had supported the entire aircraft.
Stupidly tough:
P-47. Robert Johnson (27 kills) describes an entire series of insane accidents that the aircraft survived, including flying THROUGH a house and landing safely (well, relatively), and flying into an oak tree and returning to base (best part is that when the pilot was questioned about the crumpled up leading edge of the wing, his replay was "Must have hit a bird sir." CO's response, upon viewing all the limbs and branches physically sticking out of the wing, was class "Bird eh? Bastard must have been sitting in one hell of a nest."
)
Don't shoot at him, all you'll do is piss him off: Il-2 - Soviets designed it to take ground fire, did a really good job, scared the crap out of the Heer in the process. Close 2nd: B-25H - Took a good medium bomber and turned it into, hands down, the best strafing platform before the invention of the electrically spun mini-gun. Last thing thousands of IJA troops ever saw.
Pretty face that will kick your ass up between your shoulders: Spitfire. Maybe the most expandable airframe of the war (along with the Mossie). Less attractive, but just as nasty rival: Bf-109 - Just kept getting better as the war progressed.
Was throwing a perfect game until the big kids got out of school (aka: Most overrated by the casual observer/reader): A6M - Best low speed dogfighter of the war. Built a killer rep against minor league opposition. Fragile, undergunned, and kept in front line use for at least 2 years too long simply because the IJN couldn't get a replacement that would reliably operate.
Most underrated: SBD - All it did was carry the biggest bombload of any early war dive-bomber (close to double that of the Ju-87, D3A, & Skua, and did it WHILE flying off a carrier) with greater range and sink the Japanese Imperial Navy. Tough as an old boot.
Able to do pretty much anything and do it damned near as well as specific type aircraft: Mosquito. People who designed it should have been awarded both the highest civilian honor the UK had and free beer and chips for life.
Bring you home when it had no damned business doing so: B-17
There was a fairly well document case of an aircraft that more ore less cut in half by AAA that was nursed home and landed more or less normally. When they unlatched the ventral crew hatch, the ship fell into two pieces. The hatch latch had supported the entire aircraft.
Stupidly tough:
P-47. Robert Johnson (27 kills) describes an entire series of insane accidents that the aircraft survived, including flying THROUGH a house and landing safely (well, relatively), and flying into an oak tree and returning to base (best part is that when the pilot was questioned about the crumpled up leading edge of the wing, his replay was "Must have hit a bird sir." CO's response, upon viewing all the limbs and branches physically sticking out of the wing, was class "Bird eh? Bastard must have been sitting in one hell of a nest."
)Don't shoot at him, all you'll do is piss him off: Il-2 - Soviets designed it to take ground fire, did a really good job, scared the crap out of the Heer in the process. Close 2nd: B-25H - Took a good medium bomber and turned it into, hands down, the best strafing platform before the invention of the electrically spun mini-gun. Last thing thousands of IJA troops ever saw.
Pretty face that will kick your ass up between your shoulders: Spitfire. Maybe the most expandable airframe of the war (along with the Mossie). Less attractive, but just as nasty rival: Bf-109 - Just kept getting better as the war progressed.
Was throwing a perfect game until the big kids got out of school (aka: Most overrated by the casual observer/reader): A6M - Best low speed dogfighter of the war. Built a killer rep against minor league opposition. Fragile, undergunned, and kept in front line use for at least 2 years too long simply because the IJN couldn't get a replacement that would reliably operate.
Most underrated: SBD - All it did was carry the biggest bombload of any early war dive-bomber (close to double that of the Ju-87, D3A, & Skua, and did it WHILE flying off a carrier) with greater range and sink the Japanese Imperial Navy. Tough as an old boot.
I do not warrant this to be true
The birdstrike story reminds me of one I heard from an 80's RAF pilot who got felt a bump while flying over Germany.
And then received a dire bollocking from the CO for failure to report a birdstrike.
He visited the maintenance section and went back to the CO demanding an apology.
Holding the mortal remains of the rabbit extracted from his plane.
The birdstrike story reminds me of one I heard from an 80's RAF pilot who got felt a bump while flying over Germany.
And then received a dire bollocking from the CO for failure to report a birdstrike.
He visited the maintenance section and went back to the CO demanding an apology.
Holding the mortal remains of the rabbit extracted from his plane.
Admiral Beez
Banned
Whirlwind, for its day few had the fire power and speed, and just look at the clean aerodynamic lines.
Petter, the Whirlwind's designer's lines can be seen in his later Camberra.
Petter, the Whirlwind's designer's lines can be seen in his later Camberra.
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I'll second the vote for the B-17, but I'm taking it a step further.
Proved to be totally worthless in actual combat, but for sheer awesomness, I've got to go with the gunship version of the B-17, the YB-40.
First, you take the already awesome and indestructible frame of the B-17. Get rid of all that silly bomb carrying stuff.
Then, you slap on more .50cal turrets, loading the thing up with: "...18 (or more) × .50 in (12.7 mm) Browning M2 machine guns."
A B-17, looking like a friggen porcupine of death is about the most badass thing I can image.
Ah, the failed YB-40 escort gunship. It could keep up with the bomber stream as long as they were loaded, but after bomb release, the B-17s were faster than the gunship. The B-24 counterpart was the YB-41, which also had the same limitation.
Positive being that they did get the Bendix chin turret out of the experiment and the decision to stagger the waist gunner positions came from one of the many modifications tried on the series.
Admiral Beez
Banned
Just needed bigger engines. Swap out the Cyclones for four P&W R-2800 Double Wasp and you'll get your needed speed.
Il-2 Sturmovik, hands down. Bf 109 gets an honorable mention.
The I-16 was kinda badass too for such a little guy, I especially like how it could compete with the early jets.
The I-16 was kinda badass too for such a little guy, I especially like how it could compete with the early jets.
The idea of a B-17 with close to double the horsepower is sort of scary. Of course the R-2800 weighed better than twice as much and was dual bank design to boot, and more than a foot longer than the R-1820. Need an entirely new nacelle and cowling design & it would stand out like a sore thumb.
Still, imagine an entire bomber group of B-40s. With the added 4,400-HP you could probably still loft the same bomb load, along with all the ammo, and be faster in the bargain. You could also change to a different propeller, with the additional HP a four blade paddle becomes usable, so you get much greater range for the same amount of fuel (more efficient paddle should allow lower RPM for equal or better performance).
Be a pain in the neck to redesign the aircraft and then get it into series production. Better to get the B-29 flying sooner without the engine fires.
Admiral Beez
Banned
I think an error with the YB-40 was adding more indepedant mounts, resulting in more lads firing at the same target, each trying to sort out in their heads the best firing solution. Instead, eliminate the waist gunners, and up gun the rear, dorsal, vental and nose turrets with considerably greater firepower, while also adopting the latest tech in fire control to ensure each gunner can laydown a ton of fire power accurately.
Can we put a boffers piano pom pom onto a plane?
Can we put a boffers piano pom pom onto a plane?
trurle
Banned
The closest thing i can find about H8K fighting quality is:
1943年11月にはP-38ライトニング双発戦闘機3機と40分交戦した玉利義男大尉機が米軍機1機を撃退・エンジン2基停止・230箇所被弾・1名負傷という状態で帰還、その後日本本土に戻された
In translation, it mean:
"In November 1943, the patrol H8K was attacked by 3 P-38. After a 40 minutes fight, being hit 230 times (resulting in 1 injury aboard) and downing a 1 P-38, the aircraft has returned to base"
No data about encounters with A-20. Given small number of H8K produced, may be none has happened.
But given smaller speed and shorter-range armament of A-20 (12.7mm MG vs 20mm cannons on H8K or P-38) the attack of A-20 on H8K would be a suicide. Unless for very rare P-70 or A-20G models with quadruple 20mm Hispano-Suiza cannons - which had severe reliability problems anyway.
Also, i think the story of Short Sunderland downing 6 Ju-88C is simply not true.
The reasons to doubt:
1) No mention of awards for action
2) Single post-war survivor
3) Survivor is recognized fiction writer
4) According to www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cornwall-22746173
, only 3 fighters were shot
5) The general tendency to count damaged aircraft as shot down. Before introduction of gun cameras, the average ratio of claims to actually downed aircraft was 10:1.
The range of the Japanese Type 99 20mm cannon was 800-1,000 meters. The range of a Browning M-2 .50 cal is ~2,000 meters. 20mm do more damage, heavy MG have more range (and the Japanese Type 99 was one of the weaker 20mm used in WW II, with both a low muzzle velocity (600 mps) and slow rate of fire (490 rpg), the Model 1, which was the version used on the H8K, was also fed from a relatively small capacity drum (originally 60 rounds, later increased to 100 rounds in some applications). By comparison the Luftwaffe's MG 151/20 fired had a muzzle velocity of 750 mps and cycle rate of 785 mps and HS-404 (used by the UK and the U.S.) came in at 870 mps and 700 RPM and could be belt fed.
Regarding attacks by "heavy fighters" or at least the potential for them
You may have missed the A-20 nightfighter variant (sometimes called the P-70) Either 4x20mm + two .50 cals or a eight .50 cal solid nose + two .50 under the chin. Both had a top turret with two .50 cals that could fire forward. Since the guns were bore sighted in the nose (no need to have them converge) they could open fire at double the distance that a regular fighter could. That would give an A-20 about double the firepower of a P-38.
The A-20 was replaced by the A-26 1943. The A-26 was a fairly scary beast (both for the enemy and the plane's crew, she was tough to fly)
355 MPH top speed and 16 forward firing .50 cals. Pretty much the firepower of an entire flight of P-38s in a single aircraft's nose.
There is also at least one case of a H8K being caught by a PB4Y (the USN version of the B-24) and being chopped into little H8K bits (Action took place on 7/2/1944 and there are camera images of the aircraft being shot down. Interestingly another PB4Y shot down a H6K a couple months earlier). There was also one shot down by USMC Buffaloes during a recon over Midway about a weeks after Pearl was attacks. Neither the PB4Y nor the Buffalo was considered to be prime interceptors.
The Emily was robust by IJN standards, possibly the most survivable bomber they produced during the entire war, but that isn't saying a lot. That a B-24 derivative was able to catch one in a meeting engagement and then shoot it out of the sky says a lot more.
The A-26 entered combat service Nov 1944 in Europe and Jan 1945 in the Pac. My uncle Ed's B-25 Sweet Adeline was replaced by the Invader in Italy.
If you want to compare the B-17 with Cyclone and R-2800, you could compare the DC4 and the DC-6.
North American had a plan to build a B-25 powered by R-2800, and were told there was not enough production. They jury-rigged one up anyway, and told the pilot not to exceed a certain amount of Gs because the R-2800s had more power and weight than the R-2600s and the wing wasn't strengthened. It was such fun to fly that it inspired excess. There's words for his tombstone.
