WesWorld

This has come up many many times on other aviation boards.

What was the "best" piston-engined fighter of WWII?

I'd be interested in hearing your opinions and arguments on this.

It depends on your definition of "best", of course.

The Spitfire overall, IMHO. Maybe not the best in performance, but a good, useful fighter through the whole war, and beautiful to boot.

The P-51B/C/D/K without a doubt. It was the plane that handed the keys to Europe. It had the range to take the fight to the Germans and the performance to beat them. It was also one of the most aerodynamiclly efficient aircrafts in the world, proof can be found that despite being considerably heavier than the vaunted Spitfire, a comparision of a P-51 to the equivalent Spitefire Mk (engine wise) shows the Mustang to be around 20 miles faster.

The Spitfire IMHO is overrated, England could have survived without it. The true hero of the BoB was the Hurricane, and the Spitfire never had the range to escort the bombers over Europe. Only the PR versions where actually useful.

Dornier Do 335. Powerful, fast, heavily armed. Its only flaw was it was on the losing side too late...

Darn ugly too. I prefer the Ta-152 to the Dornier monstrosity.

The P-51B/D was around 20mph faster than the Mk IX at altitude. This is in part due to the radiator using the Meredith effect to reduce radiator drag. Also the laminar flow wing, which was good for low drag, but bad for maneuverability and created a high landing speed. However speed isn't everything. The Spitfire has better rate of climb and better maneuverability at all altitudes, especially maneuverability.

On the range issue - the Spitfire didn't need long range because the RAF wasn't practising daylight bombing. The 8th AF got massacred before the arrival of the P51 and got massacred afterwards - just not to the same extent. As for the P51 having performance to beat the 109G and 190, it didn't, but having 4-5times as many planes helps to redress this balance.

Range of the Spitfire was insufficient? The Mk.47 had the longest range of the production Spitfires at some 2400miles. There would have been no problem in introducing more fuel tanks to the earlier marks if there was a need.

Dornier 335 is fast but not very maneuverable. Tends to porpoise at high speeds because of the different thrust lines. Massive armament makes it useful as a bomber destroyer. As a fighter its just a bit too big and heavy.

In the Best "Looking Damn cool" Plane Division, the Do 335 would indeed end up pretty low.

One could easily make a thread over the true meaning of the question : )
To me, for the best of the war, you need a plane with flexibility, superior performance, and made in sufficient numbers it could have an impact. Oddly, I think considering how useful the plane would have been in the hands of other powers should also be important, and the very late planes and variants all fall out of the equation.
The Mustang, to me, is a wonderful bird but is not "the best" as it basically was a mid-late war high altitude fighter. I happen to be partial to the P-38, but the second engine does ramp up the expense. I am not to familiar with the Russian, French and Italian planes.

So. The Spitfire is a very strong contender, as would be the FW-190. Superior basic platform, substantially developed, overall very good planes. But I am inclined towards the F-4U Corsair. Good speed, available early, good range, capable of a wide spectrum of tasks.

The fun one is tanker boards on "best tank" of WWII, with people passionately arguing for Jumbo Shermans, T-34/85s, Panthers, and Tigers, and specialized submakes thereof. I recall one poster arguing that the Sherman was the best because one version, of which something like 40 were made, had King Tiger level armor, while others argue quantity and T-34s, etc.

Give P-51Ds to Germany and Spitfires Mk IX to GB in the BoB and Ill tell you GB will lose. The Mustang did have the performance to take on the FW190s and Me 109s on more than equal terms. Early in the war the Mustangs where heavily outnumbered and still outfought the Luftwaffe. More ETO Aces flew the Mustang than any other allied aircraft.

Of all the fighters yet mentioned only the P-51 had a great impact on the war. It was the plane that broke the back of the Luftwaffe, meanwhile the short legger Spitfire sat back and looked pretty.

The Mustang was not a high altitude fighter, it could fight in the dirt just as well and the early Allison versions where more at home down under. It even fought with distinction in the Korean War and a turboprop version was offered in the 70s! to the USAF as a COIN plane.

The F4U while also a great plane (and a Korean War veteran) did not have the impact of the Mustang, it had to share the glory with the Hellcat.

You can't answer the question if you take into effect who won, the planes have to be judged on their own merits.
Most of the German and Japanese designs were effected by materiel shortages as a result of bombing.

Also, do you pick based on one merit, or overall?
If so, the Mustang LOSES on the basis of ground attack, the role it was originally designed for, where the Typhoon or Sturmovich were Kings.

This is a difficult decision to make, but if I'm forced.....
Best single engine.........FW190
Best twin engine.........Mosquito (by a whisker!!)

And the F4U was badlyt flawed, it claimed numerous lives until the British worked out the best way to land it on a carrier, again it's primarydesigned operating base. A great fighter, but only really safe off land strips.

Quoted

Of all the fighters yet mentioned only the P-51 had a great impact on the war. It was the plane that broke the back of the Luftwaffe,

The first five months of 1944, the Luftwaffe was getting 165,000 tons of avgas a month. In September 1944 it got 7000. Thus, as the Technical Subcommittee on Axis Oil reported:

"29. As a result of the fuel shortage in the Autumn of 1944, the Luftwaffe was unable to derive any advantage from the fact that its first-line fighter strength had reached a peak which had never before been attained during the course of the war. In the last quarter of 1944 the production of aircraft of all types had been averaging 3,100 a month. ...

30. By November the shortage of fuel in all operational areas was causing units to be grounded for long intervals. In the West the position was for a time even tighter as stocks were being assembled for operations associated with the Ardennes counter-offensive."


Technical Sub-Committee on Axis Oil, Chiefs of Staff Committee, Oil as a Factor in the German War Effort, 1933-1945, Offices of the Cabinet and Minister of Defense, 1946, pg. 83.

And the big driver in the decline in avgas supply was the loss of Ploiesti in August 1944. 'Tweren't the P-51D that did that...

I picked the Mustang based on its overall performance. The Mustang was not designed for Ground Attack, yet performed admirably in that role in Italy as the A-36, and later on in Korea.

The Mustang in the hands of the Germans (especially in the BoB) or Japanese would hav had a great effect on the war, no Axis plane can say the same thing. The FW-190 was a good multirole plane (probably the best) but was outclassed in other respects.

Avgas can be replaced, trained pilots cannot, the Mustang force the Luftwaffe to fight and it was this loss of trained experienced pilots which broke the Luftwaffe's back. And the fuel could not have been targeted if the mustang ahd not been present to escort the bombers to their targets.

Going from 165000 tons/month to 7000 means no more training, and precious little in the way of flight ops.

And it wasn't bombers that took out Ploiesti in August 1944.

It was T-34s.

Though various MiGs, Yaks, Lavochkins, Tupelovs, and Petlyakovs helped some.

Quoted

Originally posted by Red Admiral
This has come up many many times on other aviation boards.

What was the "best" piston-engined fighter of WWII?

I'd be interested in hearing your opinions and arguments on this.

Hm, i think i will stick my jaw out a bit and say Lavochkin La-7, armed with three 20mm guns in the nose it had excellent firepower, as well as superior manoeuvrability to almost everything, and a speed that was equal or superior to almost all other aircrafts at normal combat altitudes.

But i would like to give a special word to one of my favourite aircrafts of the war, the P-39.
It was after all the aircraft flown by most of the allied high scoring aces, and i am fascinated by the fact that it was the by far most liked British/US aircraft that soviet pilots flew.
For the middle part of that war, i would definitely consider the P-39 for the top spot.

The P51 is only good for speed and range. It can't turn, climb or accelerate well and it suffers for this in a fight. This is a result of emphasizing range.

P38 isn't a good choice. Twice as expensive. Didn't do well at all in the ETO or MTO from reliability and other problems. Generally too large to mix it with smaller fighters. The loss ratio of the P38 is 2nd only to the P51.

Fw190 and Bf109 definitely have a good look in.

La-9 seems good. Wing loading maybe a bit high. Performance at altitude questionable.

The P-39 is like a tractor rather than a fighter. It was good down low for ground attack. Loses out on altitude performance.

Best tank of the war easy; the A41 Centurion.

Quoted

Originally posted by Red Admiral
The P-39 is like a tractor rather than a fighter. It was good down low for ground attack. Loses out on altitude performance.

Ground attack? When were the Aircobra used in that role (hint, not by the Sovjets)?

True, it was not a good fighter att higher altitudes, but at low and medium altitude it were equal or superior to most of its german opponents. After all, it was the aircraft flown by several of the most sucessfull allied figher pilots!

Are you sure? In the MTO when they were flying P-400s(P39) they got cut up extremely bad by C.202s/205s and Bf109s

The P39 was used for ground attack in the Pacific Island hopping and North Africa.

Quoted

Originally posted by Red Admiral
Are you sure? In the MTO when they were flying P-400s(P39) they got cut up extremely bad by C.202s/205s and Bf109s

The P39 was used for ground attack in the Pacific Island hopping and North Africa.

Hm, i do not think the P-39 did suffer extremely in the MTO, not worse then any other US fighter at least.
With some risk i will use a Osprey book as a source: The P-40 had a loss rate 0f 0.8 per sortie, the P-39 0,4, and both aircrafts had about equal kill/loss statistics. But i got to admit, the MTO is not a theatre i studied much.

But the fighting in the east was really in favour of the P-39, of the top five allied aces (Kozhedub, Pokryshkin Reschkalow, Shestakov and Gulyayev) four did fly the P-39 and scored most of their victories in it.

Well, of course the P-39 did some ground attack in the east, just as i am certain that the Spitfire or P-51 did in the west.But that not make it any more a ground attack aircraft then the spitfire.

Quoted

The P51 is only good for speed and range. It can't turn, climb or accelerate well and it suffers for this in a fight. This is a result of emphasizing range.

The P-51 was never designed to emphasize range. It was just a well designed, clean aircraft, with a good economical engine, and plenty of space for fuel.

On November 1944, a force of around 200 Mustangs attacked Poznan, Poland. The Luftwaffe mistook them for a formation of unescorted bombers and threw everything it had at them. A massive air battle broke out between 750 ME-109s and FW-190s, and 200 P-51 Mustangs, most of them carrying bombs. Losses 98 Germans, 11 Mustangs.

"The day I saw Mustangs over Berlin, I knew the jig was up." Hermann Goering

Stats for the P-51:
4,950 aircraft shot down (about half of all USAAF claims in the European theater), 4,131 destroyed on the ground.
840 Mustangs lost
Kill to Loss Ratio, 11:1

You can remove any fighter from the war and it won cause much of a difference. But remove the Mustang and the entire Round the Clock Bombing Campaign falls down. No other fighter had such an impact on the war as the Mighty Mustang.

Nuff said.

Remove the P-51 and it will only delay the 'serious' bomber offensive for about six months - the long-range P-47 projects (P-47M?) will get done much faster. And, more importantly, the P-72 would become available - there were a number of projects that had they been given higher priority might have done something, but were back-burnered because there were plenty of Mustangs to go 'round.

*continues waving Dornier flag*