Best twin engine fighter, attack bomber, piston WW2 aircraft

[Ploesti]

With all the Mosse threads going on. A few questions for ya:

fastest, most kills, most made, allied or axis, longest in theater, longest used after the war. Can't think of anything else.

Best I streamline this a bit, I wasn't thinking C-47 or other similar types. Mosse, P-38, A-26 etc. types was my thought. Sorry about that.

Last edited by Ploesti on Fri Dec 23, 2011 11:09 am, edited 2 times in total.

[Fearless Tower]

Definitely not the fastest or most kills, but I'd bet the C-47/DC-3 is a contender for most made, longest in theater and longest used after the war.

[Jeff Hunt]

Very broad question here and as asked very nearly impossible to answer. To overfly enemy territory I would take the Mossie. In terms of "greatest"I would agree with Fearless Tower on the DC-3/C-47 as she did just about everything for everyone at some point.

Cheers,

Jeff

[L2Driver]

+1 for the C-47. Depending on how you measure 'kills', the gunship version certainly had its share of ground kills. Meets all of your criteria with the exception of fastest.

[Scott Rose]

A-26 Invader. It can give the C-47/AC-47 a run for longevity (about the only aircraft that could and it's still not really that close) and it's definitely faster.

[Project Warbird]

Mine would be the Beech 18 series. Used in every theater by all services, and longest used. Not the fastest, and kills (?), maybe the AT-11 used by other countries.

[RickH]

Mosquito/A-26

[PJ]

Lockheed Pv-1 Ventura and PV-2 Harpoon.



PJ
PV-2 Harpoon "Hot Stuff"
www.amhf.org

[old iron]

I would guess that the He.219 had the most kills in comparison to the number built, perhaps for any production aircraft, and that one or another of the German nightfighter types (Ju.88, Do.217, Me.110/210) would have a higher number of kills than the Mossie. The Me.110/210 in particular because of its long service in both day and nighttime.

[maxum96]

Fighter: P-38

Sexy looking, unique design, fast, awesome sound from it's Allison engines

Bomber: B-25

Beautiful design, sleek, many different variants made, used in virtually every theater of the war

Transport: C-47

What can I say? First produced over 75 years ago and many of them are still in daily service around the world.

[Mudge]

As you probably could have predicted, I vote for the P-38 with the Mosquito a close second.

Mudge the predictable

[cooper9411]

Definitely not the fastest or most kills, but I'd bet the C-47/DC-3 is a contender for most made, longest in theater and longest used after the war.

Definately would have to agree. The C-47 is still in use to this day. Wasn't a very pretty aircraft but got the job done.

[Dan K]

Was Dornier's Do 335 considered the fastest piston twin in production (from a production of what--maybe a dozen?)?

[Dan Johnson II]

Beaufighter. Every theater of the war. Bombs,. rockets, torpedoes to go with the cannon and mgs. Night fighter, anti shipping bird, interdiction bird, ground attack. You name it and the Beau did it from the beginning of the war to the end.

Amazing how 'forgotten' her roll was in the war.

[old iron]

Was Dornier's Do 335 considered the fastest piston twin in production (from a production of what--maybe a dozen?)?

Others might beg to differ, but I would say that Do.335 never reached full production. Most if not all of the circa 25 aircraft built would count as prototypes and pre-production; if some were to be counted as "production" they were so few that the type could not be considered a major enough design for comparisons being made here. None were ever used offensively in combat, though a few were seen in flight by Allied aircraft.

For the air-kills category, does anybody have thoughts on the comparative kills between the Mosquitos and Me.110? I would guess that the Me.110 saw more offensive air-to-air combat, and achieved more kills. The Mossie as an air-to-air fighter was primarily used as a night-fighter against other night-fighters, and so had relatively few prey, while Me.110 had much more numerous bombers to shoot at.

The Me.110 also saw a lot of use early in the war, while the Mosquito was pretty much a late-war fighter. In one-on-one combat I would much rather be in the Mossie, but they really belong to different generations and so direct comparison is not really fair to the Me.110, which for all its deficiencies vis-a-vis single engine aircraft, was probably the best - surely the most used - twin-engine fighter of its time. It was also the first twin-engine night fighter to see major use and teh design of all subsequent night-fighters benefitted from study of the Me.110.