Second best fighter of World War II

[SaparotRob]

I'm bored.

 

[buffnut453]

I'm bored.

Get thee back to the naughty corner!

 

[PFVA63]

Get thee back to the naughty corner!

Well in 1941 Joe Louis won a controversial decision of Max Baer's brother Buddy Baer due to some controversy over a punch landed after the bell to end one round, so I guess you could argue over who was best and who was second best that year. ( Boxing in the 1940s - Wikipedia )

Ooops, wait. You weren't talking about that kind of fighters were you

 

[SaparotRob]

I never knew Max Baer had a brother.

 

[cammerjeff]

I'm being good and I not saying the P39 was the 2nd best fighter, beaten only by the P63 of course!

 

[Admiral Beez]

I'm going to throw in that least 10,000 units should be produced. You can't be even second best if you're a niche player like the 3,500 Nakajima Ki-84s or less than 2,000 Hawker Tempests.

A threshold of 10,000 leaves lots of top contenders. A6M (11k built), P-47 (>15k built), Fw190 (>20k built), Spitfire (>20k built, including postwar), Yak-9 (>16k, including postwar), F4U Corsair (12k).

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm going to throw in that least 10,000 units should be produced. You can't be even second best if you're a niche player like the 3,500 Nakajima Ki-84s or less than 2,000 Hawker Tempests.

A threshold of 10,000 leaves lots of top contenders. A6M (11k built), P-47 (>15k built), Fw190 (>20k built), Spitfire (>20k built, including postwar), Yak-9 (>16k, including postwar), F4U Corsair (12k).

America produced almost ten times as many P-40s as Germany did Me-262s, but I don't think there's any argument about which was the better fighter. Point being, "better" is not the same as "more numerical". "Best" is about quality, not quantity. If you wish to mount an argument about quantity, the superlative you want to use is "most useful", which is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Ford produced more Pintos than Ferrari did 348s. That doesn't mean the Pinto is a better auto.

 

[WARSPITER]

The second best fighter can be every fighter made as the second best fighter is the one the other one shot down on the day.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Ford produced more Pintos than Ferrari did 348s. That doesn't mean the Pinto is a better auto.

It depends on what an auto is for. For moving the most number of people at the least per unit cost, the Pinto beats the FerrarI, regardless of the former's incendiary nature. For its low cost per unit, your P-40 shot down far more enemy aircraft and I would argue had a greater impact on the war than the 262.

We have to be mindful of these "best of WW2" whatever category. Of course the easiest, low hanging fruit is to look at the closing months of the war and ignore all that came before. This is the obvious route, so I'm going to instead set a 10,000 unit threshold, asking which is the best fighter made in significant numbers.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

It depends on what an auto is for. For moving the most number of people at the least per unit cost, the Pinto beats the FerrarI, regardless of the former's incendiary nature. For its low cost per unit, your P-40 shot down far more enemy aircraft and I would argue had a greater impact on the war than the 262.

We have to be mindful of these "best of WW2" whatever category. Of course the easiest, low hanging fruit is to look at the closing months of the war and ignore all that came before. This is the obvious route, so I'm going to instead set a 10,000 unit threshold, asking which is the best fighter made in significant numbers.

All of this ignores the point that confusing quantity and quality is a category error. There could be a number of reasons why a plane didn't get built in numbers.

 

[special ed]

One could bend & leave a Pinto, not so with a Ferrari. The Rerrari had to be repaired.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I think it comes down to two aircraft, and each is interchangeable.

Bf 109 and Spitfire

They were prewar designs that were good enough to be relevant and deadly all the way to the end. Each had advantages and disadvantages over the other, but each could hold its own against any fighter built (pilot skill obviously a factor).

 

[manta22]

One could bend & leave a Pinto, not so with a Ferrari. The Rerrari had to be repaired.

... and it was an $$$$ repair, too!

 

[SaparotRob]

OUCH!

 

[Admiral Beez]

All of this ignores the point that confusing quantity and quality is a category error. There could be a number of reasons why a plane didn't get built in numbers.

Many fighter aircraft produced even in tiny numbers may be contenders for the overall 2nd best fighter of WW2, including the Ta 152 (69 built), Kawasaki Ki-100 (396 built), Grumman F8F Bearcat (a very few in service from May 1945) or the Macchi C.205 (262 built).

I am not positing that great fighters must be made in great quantity. I am instead deciding unto myself to consider a subcategory, those fighters where 10,000 units were produced. Someone in procurement and allocation saw something in these aircraft that warranted their mass production. Maybe it was ease of obtaining spares or components, or the manufacturer had a similar aircraft already in production to enable efficiencies, or the firm has spare capacity or political ties to the government, IDK. But when you're making 10,000 of a single fighter type, at least some decisions were hopefully driven by the performance of the aircraft.

 

[SaparotRob]

Nice choices.