Worst aircraft of WW2?

[Marcel]

Originally Posted by parsifal

The Dutch did enjoy better success with the Buffalo than either the brits ofr the Americans, but more in the sense that the type was able to survive a little longer.....ther is little or no evidence to support any claim that the loss rates for the Japanese were much higher in the NEI than they were in any of the other campaigns....in other words, the Dutch got more time to shoot at the Japs, but faioled to make any appreciable difference. I believe this stems from the poor quality of the Buffalo, since it was impossible for the Japanese to "outflank" the Dutch, and the Dutch were able to generally dive on the Japanese (due to the better performance at altitude).

But while the Dutch Buffalo was "less bad" than the British version, it could not escape its fate as an outclassed and obsolete aircraft. The Dutch may have done better than anyone in the Far East, but this does not demonstrate the superiority of their equipment....

The Dutch only had 72 Brewsters ordered and less were on strength when the Japanese attacked. That is a very small number considering the huge land they had to defend. I would say that's the reason why they didn't make an impact, not the performance of the a/c. Furthermore, early-warning systems were non-existent in the Dutch EI, so the Dutch had very little warning and had no time to get altitude. I don't understand where you get the idea that they usually could dive on their opponent. This was no BoB with Radar posts.

As for the equipment being superior to the British version, British Brewsters were all fitted with the 1100 hp Cyclone G-105A. the majority of the ML-KNIL aircraft had 1200 hp and the British had also been fitted with additional equipment bringing the weight of the aircraft to 2955 kg, about 265 kg (10%) more than the Dutch aircraft. Because of this for instance the rate of climb (at sea level) of the British version was just 3000 ft/min, very poor compared to the 4700 ft/min of the Dutch aircraft.

[Juha]

Hello Parsifal
my points are
a) Hurricanes, which according to Shore’s et al’s Bloody Shambles were Mk IIBs, which can be checked from serials, BE-BM range which means sixth Hawker production group, produced from late 41 to early 42, and powered by RR Merlin XXs, so Mk IIs and new ones, did mot better than Buffalos. In fact if we take along the Ceylon debacle, Hurricanes did it worse than Buffalos against newer Japanese fighters, see Joe B’s message in this thread on 12 Sept 08, even if as later comer Hurri pilots at least have some truthful info on the capabilies of Japanese fighters and had not to rely on completely false beliefs of clear inferiority of Japanese equipment which were the base of early tactics of Commonwealth pilots in FE.
b) USN F4Fs clearly did better than Buffalos against Japanese fighters, but their pilots had lot more experience and they had the big advantage of proper early warning. IIRC Wake was the exception, it had not radar.
c) Buffalo Mk I and F2A-3 were probably the worst models of the Brewster fighter, being clearly overweight. F2A-1, B-239, F2A-2 and Dutch B339 were better and has to take in consideration when trying to value Buffalo.

Juha

[JoeB]

I agree with much of what's been said lately. In general Buffalo's did poorly against the Japanese air arms in 1941-1942. But, most Allied fighter types and units were doing poorly v the Japanese.

An exception to that is US experience where the Marine F2A's were badly defeated by Zeroes in their only air combat flying from Midway, where the F2A's stablemate in the US Naval air arms, the F4F, established the best record of any Allied fighter v the Zero in 1942. F4F's didn't consistently enjoy local numbers over Zeroes, that's not correct. Neither side enjoyed consistent numerical superiority. So it's understandable why the US Naval air arms' impression was of a big difference between those planes' combat effectivness, though the difference in result isn't provably all due to the planes, some of it was surely other factors.

In South East Asia theater the Buffalo generally did poorly against all Japanese opponents. Numbers posted earlier in this thread counting combat by combat showed that the Buffalo's record was actually worse v the Army Type 97 (later 'Nate') than v. the Zero and Type 1. The Buffalo did about as badly v Zero and Type 1 as the Hurricane did but worse than the Hurricane v the Type 97 (Hurricane v Type 97 was a little better than 1:1 in favor of Type 97, USAAF P-40's similarly, the Type 97's big problem was v. AVG P-40's where it went 1:3 in a pretty large sample of combats).

I don't agree that KNIL fighter-fighter results were noticeably better than British/CW or USAAF units in the same theater same time. Their Buffalo results alone, counting same way as usual (each side's losses, only in combats where both side's accounts are known, no reliance on claims) were 1 Type 0 Fighter and 1 Type 0 Observation Seaplane (later 'Pete') acting as fighter downed by Dutch Buffalo's for the loss of 10 Dutch Buffalo's to Zero's and 2 to the 'Petes', in 5 combats. And overall KNIL Buffalo/CW-21/Hawk/Hurricane results v Japanese fighters were poor also, but so were those of the other Allied fighter arms operating alongside them in the Dutch East Indies at the time.

I don't think you can absolutely nail down some special inferiority of the Buffalo from the combat results. But OTOH statements like 'it didn't do so badly' are not in line with reality, v the Japanese. It did quite badly v Japanese fighters, almost without exception. But it was in a period where other Alllied fighter types were generally doing poorly v Japanese fighters too, though there were exceptions to that rule.

Joe

[Marcel]

Originally Posted by JoeB

I don't think you can absolutely nail down some special inferiority of the Buffalo from the combat results. But OTOH statements like 'it didn't do so badly' are not in line with reality, v the Japanese. It did quite badly v Japanese fighters, almost without exception. But it was in a period where other Alllied fighter types were generally doing poorly v Japanese fighters too, though there were exceptions to that rule.

Joe

I agree with you Joe. I didn't say they didn't do so badly, but I said the a/c itself was not as bad as most people think. The reasons for the a/c doing badly against the Japanese is much more complicated:
A> inexperienced crew
B> Bad tactics
C> The Japanese were the attacking one, having the initiative while:
D> there was no early warning, thus allied fighter pilots were late to react (altitude dis-advantage)
E> There were far to few to make up a good defence, especially since there was no early warning

In this case any a/c would have done bad.

I'm not so sure about your numbers though. I thought I had others. I'll come back to that later.

[Valo300]

Originally Posted by redcoat

Actually the TBD wasn't as bad as it is made out to be. In fact it was better than most torpedo bombers of the era.
It just gets a bad rep due to Midway ,when in fact any torpedo bomber attacking, against the odds they were facing, would have suffered the same fate.

I suspect that fast torpedo armed fighters like the P38 would've fared much better at Midway than the TBD.

Slow and lumbering is no way to fight a war.

Originally Posted by Lightning Guy

And the TBD was that bad. Consider that clean it's top speed was a mere 206mph. When carrying a torp it was hard pressed to make 125mph.

What ingress/egress speeds would a torpedo armed P38 manage in comparison in an operational approach?

Double? More? And probably a good deal longer range than the TBD on top of it?

I honestly never saw the USN's fascination with specialized torpedo and dive bombers. Multi-role single fighters just offer so much more.

So anyway, yeah, TBD is a good pick for worst plane IMO. Certainly among the worst of the US made planes anyway.

[Captain Dunsel]

1. We didn't have the engines to power the kinds of planes you're talking about at the beginning of the war. You need enough horsepower to lug that torpedo or heavy bomb, and do it fast enough to evade enemy fighters.
2. We didn't have carriers big enough to handle big planes like the P-38, with it's evil ARMY engines.

As I said before, the TBD was a good plane, fitting in with the doctrine of the day. It was near the end of it's service life, and it was slower than its SBD and F4F contemporaries. Amongst other things, that made it hard to provide proper escorts for both SBD and TBD formations at the same time. Early in the war, we thought we had enough F4F's (we didn't) and that the SBD could act as an anti-torpedo plane fighter (it was too slow to catch the Kates).

Don't blame the TBD; it was a good plane for its day. It just wasn't used as well as it could have been, and it was saddled with a lousy torpedo.

CD

[FLYBOYJ]

Well Said Captain Dunsel! There's a difference berween "bad" and "obsolete." The TBD actually did well in the Coral Sea, but make no doubt it was obsolete by 1942.

[Vassili Zaitzev]

Valo, don't forget six TBF Avengers from Midway attacked the IJN carriers, all but one were shot down, the last one having the gunner killed. The TBD was obsolete by the time Midway came, but the TBF would've fared little better.

[FLYBOYJ]

Also remember that dropping a torpedo from an airplane was no easy task and you had to limit your speed during the drop. Any torpedo bomber was a sitting duck during the run.

[Vassili Zaitzev]

That's true, if I can recall, when the Yorktown was attacked, a lot of Kates were shot down from the American CAP and AA guns.

[Valo300]

Originally Posted by Captain Dunsel

1. We didn't have the engines to power the kinds of planes you're talking about at the beginning of the war. You need enough horsepower to lug that torpedo or heavy bomb, and do it fast enough to evade enemy fighters.

Incorrect, the early P38s could be torpedo armed.

Originally Posted by Captain Dunsel

2. We didn't have carriers big enough to handle big planes like the P-38, with it's evil ARMY engines.

But we had the deck space to handle much larger single role obsolete torpedo bombers?

Hmmm.

Originally Posted by Captain Dunsel

As I said before, the TBD was a good plane, fitting in with the doctrine of the day.
CD

It was a piece of junk, really.

[Vassili Zaitzev]

Actually Valo, the P-38 wasn't smaller then the TBD. The P-38's wingspan is 52 ft, while the TBD is 50 feet. The lenght of the P-38 is 37 ft, and the TBD is 35 feet. The P-38 was also heavier the TBD, operational at 17,500 pounds to the TBD's 9,444 pounds. If you want the proof to my claims, here are the links.
Lockheed P-38 Lightning - USA
USN Aircraft--Douglas TBD-1

That said, the TBD did well at Coral Sea, any torpedo bomber would've gotten chewed up at Midway, the TBF did.

[parsifal]

Were p-38s even operational in early 1942? It would have been necessary for them to be ready by about January or February 1942, in order for them to be deployed at Midway. The reason is that as a new type, it would take time to work the type up to operational readiness.

Personally I am extremely doubtful of the P-38s performance and capability as a torpedo bomber. It was done with the beaufighter, but these aircraft were never as accurate as dedicated torpedo bombers and used torpedoes far superior to anything the US developed during the war. Its not quite true to say that torp bombers were limited in their approach speeds, more it was a function of the torpedo design. Later war Japanese torpedo bombers (eg the B7 Grace) had approach speeds at least 50 knots faster than their American counterparts, this wasnt so much because of the superior performance of the japanese aircraft, as the superior design of their torpedoes. the Jap aerial torps could , in a pinch withstand launch speeds of up to 300 knots for their main torpedo type and much higher for their later war types(for example, the type 4 - a further modification of the Type 91 Mod 3 Strong. This version was strengthened to permit a launch speed of 400 knots. By comparison, the Bliss-Levitt Mk XIII torpedo in service at the outbreak of the war was prone to problems and often failed in combat. It had to be released from under 100 feet and less than 120knots airspeed - and even then was as likely to disintegrate or dive to the bottom as it was to go where aimed. Even the later war designs by the Us were nowhere near as capable as the Japanese torpedoes in service. Having a P-38 as the launch vehicle would not alter that restriction…..

[FLYBOYJ]

The P-38 started flying operational sorties in the PTO December 1942. And agree about the American torpedoes, especially early in the war, putting it bluntly, they were junk.

[Captain Dunsel]

1. The TBD also had folding wings, so it took up a lot less hangar space.
2. Torpedo-carrying P-38's would have had to really slow down to drop their fish, otherwise the Bliss-Leavitt's would have broken up on hitting the water.
3. Don't underestimate the rivalry between the Army and the Navy. The Navy wanted nothing to do with the Army's liquid-cooled Allisons. Instead, the Navy preferred the lighter, more reliable radials. It was hard, too, to get the Army to accept the R2800 for the P-47, because it was pushing the Allison so much.
4. Could our industry have spooled up quickly enough to build enough Allisons, assuming we could get the Navy to use them?
5. Doctrine called for simultaneous attacks by accurate divebombers at the same time as coordinated hammer-and-anvil attacks from at least two directions by torpedo planes. Dive bombers have to be able to dive slowly, lest the plane be unable to pull out because of excessive speed.

We don't know how well the P-38 would have done with arresting gear, too. It also wouldn't have worked on the smaller and jeep carriers, where even F4U's and F6F's didn't fit.

I'm not claiming the TBD was a great airplane; it was ahead of it's time and modern when built, but by Midway, it was obsolescent. Had the squadrons at Midway had proper air cover, more might have survived to be quietly retired later.

CD