AHC: Worst possible large airforce for WW2?

tonycat77

tonycat77

Banned
Something i thought about it last night, i've always lurked here and seem those "improve x by y year" or "best possible equipment for x", but how about the worst?
Since i basically know nothing on logistics or doctrine, let's focus on equipment.
Axis or Allies
Bonus if either one gets to fight each other.
 

Post

You don't have to look very far. The airforces of countries like Poland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Yugoslavia were pretty bad.
 
tonycat77

tonycat77

Banned
oboro said:
Might need some ground rules here, or else my Mighty Eighth will be flying Lend Lease Ilya Mourmets…
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Ok, can't be the worst design in the competiton, should be realistically chosen for one or other reason (Misguided economy or ease of production argument, political preference, pet project of someone)
Thoresby said:
Fairey Battle's, Stuka's and Brewster Buffalo's as far as the eye can see.
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If the Battle get's the crécy or the sabre...
And wasn't the brewster a good design until it got bogged down by weight?, The finns did a good job with them until 1943.
 
Aghasverov

Aghasverov

Thoresby said:
Fairey Battle's, Stuka's and Brewster Buffalo's as far as the eye can see.
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Not sure if the Stuka belongs on this list. It was an amazing aircraft, in the dive-bomber role it was intended for, and was turned into a credible tank-buster as well. In the hands of an experienced pilot (see below), a Stuka could do a lot of damage, particularly in areas of local Axis air superiority. Thing is, as the war dragged on, the areas of local air superiority evaporated rapidly for the Germans...

en.m.wikipedia.org

Hans-Ulrich Rudel - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
 

Peg Leg Pom

The French Armee de l'air in the Phoney War. It's not just the over abundance of obsolescent and obsolete aircraft but the p*** poor commanders and command and control systems.
 

cardcarrier

Banned
some of the initial italian airforce probably falls under this with their large numbers of CR42 BA65 etc which were pretty obsolete

overshadowed maybe by their late war fighters, with German engines being fine aircraft; SM79 and some of their other bombers where pretty good
 
Aghasverov

Aghasverov

Peg Leg Pom said:
The French Armee de l'air in the Phoney War. It's not just the over abundance of obsolescent and obsolete aircraft but the p*** poor commanders and command and control systems.
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The status of the Armee de l'air going into WWII was as disgraceful as that of the MN going into WWI... or worse...
No excuse for a nation like France to have let its air arm fall so far behind relative to, well, every other major power of the time.
 

Thoresby

Aghasverov said:
Not sure if the Stuka belongs on this list. It was an amazing aircraft, in the dive-bomber role it was intended for, and was turned into a credible tank-buster as well. In the hands of an experienced pilot (see below), a Stuka could do a lot of damage, particularly in areas of local Axis air superiority. Thing is, as the war dragged on, the areas of local air superiority evaporated rapidly for the Germans...
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The Stuka got an enormous number of German pilots killed. While it was effective in conditions of total air superiority in remotely contested airspace it was a obsolete deathtrap and even as a ground attack aircraft it was much less effective than say a Typhoon with a rack of 3 inch rockets.
 
Aghasverov

Aghasverov

Thoresby said:
The Stuka got an enormous number of German pilots killed. While it was effective in conditions of total air superiority in remotely contested airspace it was a obsolete deathtrap and even as a ground attack aircraft it was much less effective than say a Typhoon with a rack of 3 inch rockets.
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I'll agree with that... the Germans would've been better off developing a heavy single-engine fighter-bomber with good low-altitude performance along the lines of a Typhoon, Tempest, P-47 rather than continuing to produce the Ju 87 for as long as they did...
But, it was sort of the German stock-in-trade to just keep on producing endless new marginally-improved variants of aircraft that should've been relegated to second-line service (or retired completely) a couple years previously...
 

The History Man

My selections are aeroplanes which were poor designs from the start and where their shortcomings were found out in combat rather than those which were effective in their heyday but were kept in production for too long and became outmoded against newer opposition.

RAF - the Fairey Battle (too slow and lacked adequate defensive armament), the Boulton Paul Defiant (no forward-firing guns on a fighter!) and the Avro Manchester (unreliable engines).

Luftwaffe - the Junkers Ju87 (found wanting in the Battle of Britain but kept in production for the rest of the war), the Focke-Wulf Fw200 (too slow and easy to intercept and insufficiently robust for military combat - it was prone to breaking up on hard landings) and the Messerschmitt Me323 (large and painfully slow, a sitting duck for Allied fighters).

US Navy - the Brewster Buffalo, slow, insufficient armament and lacking in manoueverability.
 
Driftless

Driftless

Donor
Aghasverov said:
I'll agree with that... the Germans would've been better off developing a heavy single-engine fighter-bomber with good low-altitude performance along the lines of a Typhoon, Tempest, P-47 rather than continuing to produce the Ju 87 for as long as they did...
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An earlier incarnation of the FW-190? Or, a slightly larger version?
 
Aghasverov

Aghasverov

Driftless said:
An earlier incarnation of the FW-190? Or, a slightly larger version?
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The 190 was an excellent multi-role aircraft, but I was thinking something possibly larger and more heavily-built, more payload capacity, of course with an appropriate engine (the ever-problematic Jumo 222 maybe?)... I can't really think of anything right off-hand that the Germans even had on paper to fit the low-altitude single-engine fighter-bomber model... by late war their priorities were elsewhere....
 
Driftless

Driftless

Donor
To the OP, as a general thought,commit your nation's air budget to the best of 1937-38 existing technology and run with that till '43. (Hey, it's only five-six years, right?) A steady diet of P-35's, Ju-87A's, Martin B10's, He.111's, CR.42's. MS-406's, and for the real cutting edge Hurricane Mk1's
 

Caledon

I'm not sure where the bounds of "possible" might be, but how about the US building an all-dirigible air force? Hundreds and hundreds of airships majestically gliding over the oceans headed for battle could present a very impressive image, right up until they run into the enemy.
 
Driftless

Driftless

Donor
Caledon said:
I'm not sure where the bounds of "possible" might be, but how about the US building an all-dirigible air force? Hundreds and hundreds of airships majestically gliding over the oceans headed for battle could present a very impressive image, right up until they run into the enemy.
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Or, ocean storms....
 
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