What would a "Best of the lot" 1943 fighter aircraft look like?

Wimble Toot

Banned
Which add up to how many aircraft?

Enough to make a difference, considering the large numbers of obsolete Voyska Protivovozdushnoy Oborony aircraft that had been destroyed in the air, and on the ground.

More kills than the Me262, Ta152, He219, He162 and FW190C put together.

And doubled.
 
Last edited:

Deleted member 1487

Enough to make a difference, considering the large numbers of obsolete Voyska Protivovozdushnoy Oborony aircraft that had been destroyed in the air, and on the ground.

More kills than the Me262, Ta152, He219, He162 and FW190C put together.

And doubled.
Not sure that is correct either. The Me262 did have substantial numbers of kills as did the He219. The He162 never finished development, while the Ta-152 was just entering combat trials at the end of the war. The Fw190C became the Fw190D minus the turbocharger and with a somewhat different, but performance analogous engine. So the airframe entered combat and got it's own substantial number of kills; that said all of the above probably got less kills than the Yak-1 just on virtue of entering the war far later in far fewer numbers.
 

Wimble Toot

Banned
Not sure that is correct either.

All variants of He219 and Me262 shot down between 600-700 Allied aircraft. The others barely made an impact

29 Soviet aces flying the P-39Q Airacobra alone were credited with shooting down fifteen or more enemy aircraft. The top sixteen aces shot down 456. The remaining aces were credited with 195. That totals to 651 WITHOUT EVEN COUNTING the P-39Q pilots who scored one to fourteen victories.

How many they actually shot is moot, as it is with all air combat - most underclaim, some overclaim. The cannon armament of the P-39Q meant a victory was more certain than a aircraft solely fitted with machine guns.

I'd sooner have a P-39Q or Bf109G today than a FW190C in 12-18 months.

If money and resources were unlimited I'd have a P-51B or Sea Fury FB.11 - perhaps the latter with a water-methanol injected R-2800.

What I would not have, is an overcomplicated aeroplane designed by Nazi sympathisers and built by slave labour. I don't have a death wish.

Please feel free to differ. ;)
 

Deleted member 1487

Please feel free to differ. ;)
If you insist.

All variants of He219 and Me262 shot down between 600-700 Allied aircraft. The others barely made an impact
Only because the Allies had absurd amounts more...which is outside the scope of this thread.

29 Soviet aces flying the P-39Q Airacobra alone were credited with shooting down fifteen or more enemy aircraft. The top sixteen aces shot down 456. The remaining aces were credited with 195. That totals to 651 WITHOUT EVEN COUNTING the P-39Q pilots who scored one to fourteen victories.
How many non-aces scored in the P-39? And how do we know that those claims were even verified?

How many they actually shot is moot, as it is with all air combat - most underclaim, some overclaim. The cannon armament of the P-39Q meant a victory was more certain than a aircraft solely fitted with machine guns.
I'd say how many were actually hit is important. As to the cannon armament it was very low velocity, so hitting with it was incredibly challenging, much more so than the rest of the aircraft's guns.

I'd sooner have a P-39Q or Bf109G today than a FW190C in 12-18 months.

If money and resources were unlimited I'd have a P-51B or Sea Fury FB.11 - perhaps the latter with a water-methanol injected R-2800.

What I would not have, is an overcomplicated aeroplane designed by Nazi sympathisers and built by slave labour. I don't have a death wish.
Again we're talking about a hypothetical aircraft buildable with 1943 technology, so it would be available today. I don't get what you think you're arguing here?
Also when did the P-39Q even enter service? I'm seeing 1944 on wikipedia, but it's pretty sparse on dates for individual variants.
In terms of build quality, OP says that is not a consideration here, so I'm not even factoring that in. If you're going to have to appeal to issues outside of the OP to make your case, then we're talking about different things.

In any event in terms of technology quality without material considerations there was a lot of quality options to pick from, you have your preference, so why not leave it at that rather than get all butt hurt about people making different technical choices than you?
 
We have no way of telling whether the FW190C was a good combat aircraft beyond its (alleged) performance statistics, which can be used to prove anything.

However, we have a wealth of evidence regarding the combat effectiveness of the FW190A, FW190D, Spitfire XIV, P-51B.....et al.

Because they were used in combat

Being good on paper, or on Wikipedia, or War Thunder, isn't good enough.

Let us not forget, the P-51D was used as a combat aircraft for forty years.


AGAIN LET ME REMIND OF THE OP

IE, a fighter that uses only existing technology but can use said technology without any care for nationality or procurement politics or anything like that. What would the best possible fighter, either single or double engined look like at the time? IE what engine, armament, etc

Since most of this is hypothetical, none of these could have been flown , let alone in battle. You do understand this concept?????
 

Wimble Toot

Banned
Since most of this is hypothetical, none of these could have been flown , let alone in battle. You do understand this concept?????

I do yes.

And the best fighter available in 1943 is still the P-51B Merlin-Mustang, with four 20mm cannon (Berezin B20s, or Hispano Mk V, not fussy which)

All the best aircraft of WW2 were American and British. The B-17, the Mosquito, the Mustang. But don't take my word for it.

I have asked three Luftwaffe aces (two day fighter aces, one night fighter) and they all said the same.

I trust their judgement.


They also said the Third Reich had only two aircraft designs of comparable quality.

Care to guess which?
 
Have we touched the obvious choice - Griffon Mustang?

Also for the Fw 190 - there was a proposal for the jet engine in the nose, with extra fuel between the engine and pilot. Jet engine was to be made by Fw, feturing a radial (diagonal?) compressor, attached to barely changed rest of the aircraft. More than 800 km/h was expected by the manufacturer:

190jet.jpg
 

FBKampfer

Banned
I'd wager that a standard Bf 109K (which you could absolutely make in 1943) could kick the snot out of a P-51B at any altitude below 25K.

The P-51 was a fantastic escort. But it was a mediocre dogfighter.
 

Wimble Toot

Banned
I'd wager that a standard Bf 109K (which you could absolutely make in 1943) could kick the snot out of a P-51B at any altitude below 25K.

You'd lose. The 109K was knocked out the sky by P-51Ds just like the 109G was. I don't think the 109K was anything special. Except on paper.

The P-51 was a fantastic escort. But it was a mediocre dogfighter.

Air to air the 8th AF Mustang had 3313 vs 322 losses, and 4179 vs 402 for 9th and 8th AF combined. Just over 10 A/C shot down for each one lost.

If that's mediocrity, I'll have a 1000 mediocre Mustangs.
 
Capt Eric Winkle Brown held the Spitfire Mk XiV as the best allied piston engined fighter. The guy flew pretty much everything allied and axis (and I mean everything and still has the World record to prove it) so he would know.
 

Deleted member 1487

Capt Eric Winkle Brown held the Spitfire Mk XiV as the best allied piston engined fighter. The guy flew pretty much everything allied and axis (and I mean everything and still has the World record to prove it) so he would know.
Sure, best Allied fighter. What did he say was the best overall fighter?
 
This thing???
Heinkel_He_162_Freeman_Field_IN_1945.jpg
Yup. He said the He-162's only fault was that you couldn't give hard rudder but that it wasn't necessary to so with a jet aircraft but most fighter and test pilots were accustom to giving planes a lot of hard rudder during tight turns and that this was the result of so many crashes involving the He-162.

He also said that he believed that with time and further development the He-162 would have been an excellent aircraft.
The problem with the He-162 was that it was only a baby, it went from conception to combat in only seven months! Most planes spend more time than that in the development stage.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
By 1944 the Luftwaffe was on its last legs, outnumbered, low on fuel for training, and low on instructors. You can't compare simple kill rates and expect a comparison on the aircraft's capabilities.

Not to mention that the Luftwaffe was primarily focused on the bombers, and were actively told to ignore the fighters when they could.

The P-51 was a mediocre dogfighter flown by very well-trained pilots fighting from an extreme advantage. Historically that's almost always been a winning combination.
 
I do yes.

And the best fighter available in 1943 is still the P-51B Merlin-Mustang, with four 20mm cannon (Berezin B20s, or Hispano Mk V, not fussy which)

All the best aircraft of WW2 were American and British. The B-17, the Mosquito, the Mustang. But don't take my word for it.

I have asked three Luftwaffe aces (two day fighter aces, one night fighter) and they all said the same.

I trust their judgement.


They also said the Third Reich had only two aircraft designs of comparable quality.

Care to guess which?


maybe you should start your own thread....just to hear yourself

The best plane has the best trained pilots, nothing to do with plane tech....like the good old days with A-4 beating the F-15/16 in the 1980s
 
Top