Worst aircraft of WW2?

[Shortround6]

I don't believe you have come across that way.

I do enjoy finding out the actual facts of of an aircraft and it's use and I hope I can find a balance or reasons why the operational use of a plane may differ from it's "paper Spec's" or as someone reffered to it "what is in the brouchure" .

I thank you for your work in bringing the operational history of the Buffalo to our/my attention as the hard work and sacrifice of the pilots and ground crews sometimes is over shadowed by the combat results 'score card".

Any country that truely values it's soldiers (pilots and ground crew alike) should never be satsified with a plane that can just barely hold it's own or go one to one with the enemy. The country should be trying to provide it's pilots with a plane that can cause the most enemy losses while minimizing it's own losses. The Buffalo might never have been sent to Southeast Asia if the west had a better Idea of the Japanese aircraft's true ability. Or but a little more belief in the reports they did get

That the British, Australian and New Zealand units were able to do as well as they did is quite commendable. Bombings, withdrawals and such do tend to hamper proper maintaince (lack of spare parts).

[Marcel]

Originally Posted by JoeB

But the fighter v fighter combat results show British and Dutch Buffalo's were outmatched, by Army Type 97's and Type 1's as well as Zeroes.

While it's true the Buffalo didn't do very well against the Japanese, I still think these results don't say much about the technical quality of the Buffalo as a fighter. They were too much in a dis-advantage for any fighter to do well. As I am more familiar with the ML-KNIL than the RAF, I will take this as an example:
1: Dutch pilots were very inexperienced. Many of them were fresh from training and had only a few hours on the Buffalo. Many had never fired at an aerial target. Remember many Japanese in this phase of the war were experienced and battle-hardened.
2. There was no early warning system. Therefore Buffalo's usually had an altitude dis-advantage which is a bad position for any fighter.

Doesn't matter if the Dutch would have had F4F's or even Spitfires. In any way they would have had a hard time. Same counts for the British I suppose.

[buffnut453]

Thanks for the generous words, Shortrounds. Be careful or you might get me started on my favourite hobby-horse - the Malayan Campaign and its origins (cue Monty Pythonesque shouts of "Run away! Run away!!"

Britain was desperately seeking to avoid confrontation with Japan during late 1941 and was doing everything possible to not provoke Tokyo in hopes that a Far East war could be forestalled. The Buffalo was almost certainly seen by London as a stop-gap measure until more/better fighters could be delivered to the Far East during 1942. Unfortunately for the Commonwealth fighter pilots this policy ran out of time on 8 Dec 41. The intelligence issues surrounding these events have still not been fully explored by historians.

I think I'll leave it there for now because (a) it's getting off-topic, and (b) I'd end up writing all night when I have work I need to complete.

KR
Mark

[Elvis]

Originally Posted by buffnut453

I would never count the Buffalo as one of the best aircraft but nor does it deserve the reputation it has acquired.

KR
Mark H

My thoughts, EXACTLY.
----------------------------------------------

Shortround,

My apologies for omitting the other aircraft you mentioned.
My memory is nothing, if not infalable.


Elvis

[JoeB]

Originally Posted by buffnut453

1. However, did the USN fighters at Midway have much contact with Zeros? I know of 6 Zeros escorting the IJN bombers which sank Yorktown but how many other F4F-vs-Zero combats involving USN pilots were there during the Battle of Midway?

2. I had the privilege of meeting Bill Brooks a number of years ago. He was one of the surviving F2A-3 pilots at Midway and later flew the F4F and, in his view, both aircraft had broadly similar performance against the Zero.

3. As for the British and Dutch combats, I don't think we can say with any certainty that the losses for both sides are fully known. I think the RAF and Dutch losses are well documented but the IJAAF losses are certainly less clear (at least from the information I've seen).

1. Lundstrom estimated, from comparing US and Japanese records, 11 Zeroes downed by USN F4F's at Midway v 4 (or 5?) F4F's downed by Zeroes IIRC. That's not a huge sample either, and considerably better than the the all-1942 average, but the point remains that the all-1942 average of Zero v F4F, which consisted of 100+ losses on each side, was pretty even (apparently a bit in the F4F's favor). Most of the kills and losses were by the USMC at Guadalcanal, but again the results didn't vary all that much comparing Navy results in the carrier battles with USMC (and USN) results defending Guadalcanal, which itself included a wider variety of tactical situations than is sometimes implied. There seemed to be a quite robust tendency of USN/USMC F4F v IJN Zero to come out about even, over time (some particular combats went strongly one way or another of course). I think this somewhat undercuts the idea that poorer results by most other Allied fighter units depended on a quirk in circumstances. I think the most reasonable simple conclusion is most other Allied fighter units just weren't as effective as IJN Zero units, but USN and USMC F4F units tended to be more their equal. And I believe there's considerable room to believe intangible factors about the F4F as practical combat plane had something to do with that, though the extent is not provable.

2. That wasn't the majority view, and again has few actual combat examples to demonstrate it.

3. My count leaves out combats where the source (Bloody Shambles, which basically uses Senshi Sosho as Japanese source) isn't clear on Japanese losses. It's combat by combat not counting losses of the Allies in combats where the source doesn't definitively state losses for the Japanese. So the only bias would come if Bloody Shambles/SS definitely states a Japanese loss in a particular combat but it's wrong. This is provably virtually never the case when it comes to the IJN, because the original 'tactical action records' of the IJN are now available on-line and the book is an accurate reflection of them to within a reasonable tolerance. And if we doubt what's in those handwritten records, that applies equally to the F4F's who basically only faced the JNAF in 1942, and where the source for saying 'they came out even' traces back to the same records as far as Zero losses. IOW if the Brit/CW or USAAF units really shot down a lot more Zeroes than IJN records say, then the F4F's probably did too, but I just don't think that's a plausible line of argument to begin with. Then by comparison, the kill ratio of both Buffalo and Hurricane v Army Type 1 fighters or Zeroes was about the same. This implies IMO that counting the combats in Bloody Shambles where a definitive result is given gives the approximately correct result for combats with the Army Type 1 as well as Zeroes. When it comes to the Type 97, the Buffalo did much worse than the Hurricane v Type 97 by the counting method, and also worse than Buffalo v Type 1 or Zero. So perhaps there's an anomaly there (or not, maybe it just did worse), but seems to me mainly a footnote, if the basic discussion is comparing ability to meet the Zero, for which Type 1 might be a limited proxy, but where Type 97 is pretty irrelevant.

Joe

[buffnut453]

Joe,

Thanks for the additional info on the F4F -vs- Zero engagements at Midway and Guadalcanal. What I'm unclear on is what early warning capability was present on Guadalcanal and other, as you put it, intangible factors. Guess I'll have to do some reading!

As for the Malayan campaign, the origin of this whole discussion started with Parsifal's contention that Japanese air superiority during the Malayan campaign was obtained by 25 Zeros plus a roughly equal number of Ki-43s. My contention is that there were far more Japanese fighters available, and in this sense the Type 97 question is far from irrelevant.

I remain concerned about the lack of detail on IJAAF fighter operations in December 1941 and discrepancies between the documented actions. For example, during the combat over Kuala Lumpur on 22nd December, the 64th Sentai reportedly lost just one Ki-43 when the wings failed as it was pulling out of a dive. However, 453 Sqn pilots reported the loss of one of their mates, Sgt Mac Read, when his Buffalo collided with an enemy fighter. These 2 events are difficult to reconcile as being the same incident so were 2 Ki-43s lost or just one? Again, the gap in documentation of Type 97 and 59th Sentai activities is of importance here.

Kind regards,
Mark

[Shortround6]

Originally Posted by Elvis

Shortround,

My apologies for omitting the other aircraft you mentioned.
My memory is nothing, if not infalable.


Elvis

Besides the engine situation, I think that there at least two other problems that hurt the Buffalo.
One was the intergal fuel tank. This may have been "cutting edge" at the time and saved somewhere on the order of 100-200lbs over convetional unprotected tanks. This would have been a very good thing on a raceplane or transport or even a long range reconnaissance plane. And considering that NOBODY had protected tanks when the Buffalo was designed one can't really fault the designers for going with it. Once protected tanks became a requirement the Buffalo was in trouble.
THe other probelm was the armament. While the American .50 was a pretty good gun both it and it's ammunition are heavy. Even the Early Buffalo with three .50s and one .30 carried a heavier weight of guns and ammo than ANY 109 did that didn't use gun pods. It was also heavier than the Eight .303s with 350rpg on a MK II Spitfire.

[Josh64]

Probably the Me-163. Despite it's incredible technological/performance superiority over everything else, it did not have much success in combat. Plus it's fuel would melt flesh if it came in contact with a person, and it killed more pilots in training/operational accidents than in combat.

[Civettone]

Haha Josh, if I was a mod, I would have had you banned just for that !!



Kris

[Josh64]

Originally Posted by Civettone

Haha Josh, if I was a mod, I would have had you banned just for that !!



Kris

Ha Ha

[stuka1940]

my pick would have to be the Blackburn Skua, and the the Botha.

[tomo pauk]

Would you please explain why would Skua be the worst?

[stuka1940]

the Skua was a 200mph 2 seat heavy fighter with 4 303MG.

I should not be so hard on the Skua. They manage to sink a German cruiser, and the first english plane shoot down a german plane in WW@ a Do18.

[Clay_Allison]

Originally Posted by stuka1940

the Skua was a 200mph 2 seat heavy fighter with 4 303MG.

I should not be so hard on the Skua. They manage to sink a German cruiser, and the first english plane shoot down a german plane in WW@ a Do18.

point a finger at the Skua and it will point one directly at the Roc.

[tomo pauk]

Originally Posted by stuka1940

the Skua was a 200mph 2 seat heavy fighter with 4 303MG.

I should not be so hard on the Skua. They manage to sink a German cruiser, and the first english plane shoot down a german plane in WW@ a Do18.

Skua was 1st a dive bomber (and a decent one) and after that a fighter. When the brass went to make a turret-fighter out of that (=Roc), while almost deleting the dive-bomb ability, they blew it.