best fighter of ww II

[a finn]

I saw that here was some time ago discussion about the best fighter of WW II. My contribution to that discussion :

Best kill ratio : Brewster B-239 (Used by Finnish Air Force) and the whopping kill ratio was 26:1

[cheddar cheese]

i was just going to mention that - i think thats a pretty amazing kill ratio for only about 49 planes to acheive, i think throughout the war they only lost about 12 of them?

[plan_D]

It looks pretty good on paper but it was against Soviet pilots. The Finnish were good pilots and had some pretty inventive tactics for air warfare. It certainly doesn't qualify the B-239 as the best fighter.

[cheddar cheese]

It was effective in the early years but throught out the years it got out classed in the engine department, but the handling and manoeverability were brilliant

[Lightning Guy]

Maneuverability brilliant? I don't think so. Or maybe you would like to ask the Marines of VMF-221 who lost 13 of the 19 Buffaloes committed to the battle of Midway. One of the pilots who survived the battle, Captain Philip R. White, later wrote, “It is my belief that any commander who orders pilots out for combat in an F2A should consider the pilot as lost before leaving the ground.”

[a finn]

Well, here's a comment about B-239, it was said by Ilmari Juutilainen, leading finnish ace (97.5 victories) : "I started my Brewster flights in the beginning of April 1940, doing all the aerobatics maneuvers, stall and dive tests. I was happy with my Brewster. It was agile, it had 4,5 hours endurance, good weaponry - one 7,62 mm and three 12,7 machine guns - and an armored pilot's seat. It was so much better than the Fokker that it was in another category. If we had had Brewsters during the Winter War, the Russians would have been unable to fly over Finland."

So, remember that Finnish Brewsters were F2A-1 models, which was much lighter and more agile than later F2A-2's

I'm still not saying it was the best fighter, but pretty good in the circumstances

[cheddar cheese]

97.5 victories, how do you get a half?

[the lancaster kicks ass]

but as was said, it was against the soviots...............

[cheddar cheese]

its still impressive

[a finn]

Well, I don't know how you get a half-victory. It must be shared with someone else. But it can get even more strange than that. In some sources the number of his victories is 94 and a sixth of a kill. I don't know which is the correct number, but strange numbers still

[cheddar cheese]

[plan_D]

It was all against the Soviets though.

To get a fraction of a kill you either share the kill with a wingman, or several wingmen. Or you shoot up the plane but never see it go down.

[Lightning Guy]

Typically shooting up an aircraft that wasn't seen to crash would only be ruled as a probable and not as half-kill. Different air forces had different methods of calculating scores with some counting half kills and even probables as whole kills for propaganda. One country even awarded extra kills based on the size of the plane, three kills for downing a 4 engine bomber for example.

[cheddar cheese]

probably the french, to make em look better

[a finn]

C.C. you're probably right. Or how about germans, how do you get over 300 victories without cheating somehow. (Although I have heard that german aces got their kills so that the wingman "almost" made it, and then the ace finished the job.)