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Originally posted by Swamphen
One thing I find interesting about that chart is the surprisingly good roll performance of the Kingcobra. A most undervalued aircraft...
They had lower frontal area but the Mustang was the cleaner plane with less surface drag.Quoted
Not on general terms. A Bf109 had better aerodinamic efficiency. Which is the frontal area of the plane multiplied by the Aerodinamic coefficient.Then at high speeds induced drag also play a big part: the larger the wing is the higher the drag it produces. And the P51 had a quite bigger wing than many other fighter planes.
What the P-51 had was a very low drag for its size thanks to having a very low aerodinamic coefficient.
But as aerodinamic efficience go, smaller planes as the 190, 109, yak and La series were better because they had a much less frontal area even while some of them had a bigger aerodinamic coefficient. And tiny wings in comparison with the Mustang.
Results from Europe showed otherwise, 1,680 Mustangs lost vs Ground, 840 lost vs Air. Which was why the USAAF gave pilots credit for ground kills.Quoted
in comparison, attacking an immobile target, even protected by Flak, is much much easier.
But it was the Mustangs who bore the brunt of the fighting, the Germans where pretty skilled in bouncing the bombers as soon as the escorting P-47s had to break of for refuling.Quoted
Well the early berlin raid happened on march 1944 and there were a relatively small ammount of P51B involved. You fail to mention that out of the 700-strong fighter cover for the strike (12 fighter squadrons) only three flow Mustangs (around 130 machines).
The numbers did seem quite high. But also remember that most of the Mustangs in that occasion where carrying bombs.Quoted
Another thing you have wrong is the number of german losses. By all accounts the Luftwaffe lost 68 machines that day, and of that number, around the half were twin engined night fighter used in the pulk-zërstorer role in which they were easy meat for the allied escorts.
Yet those few Mustangs where critical, since the P-47Ds didn't have the range to go all the way.Quoted
The german fighter cohesion at that time was at the very edge of the limit. What really destroyed the Jagdwaffe's abilty to fight back was the "big week" bombings on Luftwaffe and oil processing targets. The Luftwaffe lost three months worth of fighter production, an immense quantity of experienced fighter pilots, and almost 55% of the jagdwaffe's fuel production.
That offensive happened at the end of February, while there were only a handful of P-51Bs in england, and no -D version.
Probably as a result of the mid mounted engine. It reduces roll inertia considerably, and given a decent engine the Cobras would have made great dogfighters. We might be discussing the P-63H vs Ta152 instead!Quoted
One thing I find interesting about that chart is the surprisingly good roll performance of the Kingcobra. A most undervalued aircraft...
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They had lower frontal area but the Mustang was the cleaner plane with less surface drag.
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Induce drag is a related to the aspect ratio of the[ wings, higher aspect wings (ie longer) have lower induced drag. Hence I would expect the Mustang to have lower induced drag. Also induced drag only plays a part at low speeds, at higher speeds surface drag plays a more important role.
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One of the things I always point out is that per HP the Mustang was always the faster plane.
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Take the Ta-152 for example, with a more powerful engine it was slower than the P-51H. Even smaller planes like the BF-109 and F8F, are slower per HP than the Mustang.
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Results from Europe showed otherwise, 1,680 Mustangs lost vs Ground, 840 lost vs Air. Which was why the USAAF gave pilots credit for ground kills.
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But it was the Mustangs who bore the brunt of the fighting, the Germans where pretty skilled in bouncing the bombers as soon as the escorting P-47s had to break of for refuling.
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The numbers did seem quite high. But also remember that most of the Mustangs in that occasion where carrying bombs.
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Yet those few Mustangs where critical, since the P-47Ds didn't have the range to go all the way.
This post has been edited 4 times, last edit by "RAM" (Jul 25th 2007, 3:15am)
Not the Berlin raids, on the November '44 battle where 200 Mustangs ran into 750 German fighters. I can't remember the target but it was in norther Germany near Poland (or maybe it was in Poland?)Quoted
During the berlin raid? bombs? the Mustang?...I'd like to see the documentation that says that. The P51B wasn't able to fly over berlin without using droptanks. The internal fuel didn't allow them to go all the way there and back to England.
But it was over Berlin where the back of the Luftwaffe was broken, and only there could the Mustang go.Quoted
No, not to berlin, not at that moment. But they already could reach most of the industrial cities of Germany. By march 1944 the P47s were perfectly able to reach and escort bombers all the way to the Hamburg-Magdeburg-Erfurt line. And indeed, they did it during the Big Week bombing offensive.
Yet the Mustang was prefered by pilots for escort missions, only Zemke's Wolfpack (56th) kept their Jugs, and even Zemke criticised this move.Quoted
Three months later with the introduction of bigger drop tanks the P47s were potentially able to escort any raid up to the polish frontier. Meaning: it had the same range as the P51D. The air war against germany would've been won anyway. The jagdwaffe was mortally wounded in the last weeks of February an since then it was bleeding to death. The P51D did nothing the P47 wouldn't have done anyway in the same lapse of time.
Maybe so, but a delay could have been expensive, a few more Me-262 might not have change the course of the war but would have given the 8th AF a bigger headache and some more losses.Quoted
as I said, had the Mustang never existed, the history of the air war offensive over Germany would've been almost identic.
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Originally posted by Desertfox
I have a good sized Aircraft library but unfortunately it's mainly general information. Is there a good website with all the Ta-152 variants?
This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "Hrolf Hakonson" (Jul 25th 2007, 4:09am)
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Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson
There weren't many: the C-1 and C-3 mid-altitude fighters
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and the H-1 high-altitude fighter. The Ta-152H had very long wings, and GM-1 nitrous oxide boost, and could operate at well over 40,000+ feet.
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The C-1 had the same propellor hub armament as the H-1, but had MG-151/20s (2 on the nose deck and 2 more in the wing roots), while the C-3 replaced the Mk-108 in the engine with a 30mm MK-103 (same projectiles, just going almost twice as fast from a much heavier gun)
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Both the H and the C models were fitted with MW-50 methanol-water injection systems for low-to-mid-altitude power boosts.
This post has been edited 3 times, last edit by "RAM" (Jul 25th 2007, 10:21am)
This post has been edited 1 times, last edit by "Ithekro" (Jul 25th 2007, 10:24am)
This post has been edited 3 times, last edit by "RAM" (Jul 25th 2007, 10:34am)
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