F8F Bearcat vs Zero, ME109, FW 190 How would it have done?

[agent86]

Ever read about the Skyraiders that shot down Mig 17's in vietnam? i'm guessing the pilot over plane arguement might have some truth.And if you read about dogfighting.that basically went away in WWI.it became more or less who snuck up on who's tail while the other wasnt watching his 6. or you dove into a group of the enemy,shot him up before he could react and zoom up and do it again.I dont know about you,but being on the receiving end of a P-47 in a full,screaming dive with 8 50 caliber Brownings blazing away at you would not be fun to me.

Last edited by agent86 on Tue Jun 14, 2011 12:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Saville]

I was at an Order of Daedalians bbq several years (4, I think) ago in Ohio. There were WWII, and Korean pilots there. One Korean pilot started up his story......

He was flying Corsairs off a Carrier on a ground attack mission, way up North, loaded with a 1000lb bomb.

They were close to the target when one of them looks up and sights several Mig-15's in trail. There was a Mig base not far off, and somehow the assessment was made that this was a bunch of students with one pro in the lead. The lead dives down on them and the rest of the Migs disappear. The Mig selected the storyteller.

The Mig makes one diving attack after another but our storyteller was able to avoid each one. Though, strangely his a/c wasn't behaving as usual. Lots of unplanned "whifferdills'" is how he put it. Very odd.

Finally the Mig decides to try a much slower pass and somehow overshoots the Corsair just enough for the Corsair to get a shot in at fairly close range. The Mig crash lands, gear up, in a field, smoking.

Our storyteller flies away. On the way back he's joined by other Corsairs and they head back to the carrier. A wingie keeps giving him the "pickle" sign and our storyteller finally got it:

He never dropped the 1000lb bomb, and fought the entire engagement with it.

[agent86]

now thats a true fighter pilot.known a few,egos second to none.but rightly so

[Dudley Henriques]

Thank you - glad you agree

Could be. Accidents DO happen

DH

[k5083]

Besides Dudley's comments about the pilots all of which I agree with, there's another sense in which the 1-on-1 duel thought experiment does not tell you "how it would have done", which is more of a big picture sense. Much, if not most, of the reasons for the records each fighter compiled were the result of neither the aircraft's nor the pilots' intrinsic properties but circumstantial variables such as the conditions of production and maintenance, typical tactical situations, and sheer weight of numbers. If you take an aircraft out of this context, you can do a "fair" comparison but one that becomes abstracted from the real world. You can imagine an Me 262 with reliable engines, proper fuel, and no Mustangs buzzing around its base all the time. You can imagine a Ki-84 with decent quality control and adequate maintenance. But those aren't the real Me 262 and Ki-84 that actually existed. Postwar testing with pampered axis airframes tended to "show" that the idealized Ki-84 was better than the P-51 and possibly at least as good as a Bearcat, and the idealized Me 262 was better than a Meteor or P-80. But this has little real significance.

It is easy to think of planes that seemed excellent or terrible based mainly on the circumstances (P-39, Ju 87). There are aircraft that were very sound but never got a chance to be used under favorable conditions; and others that were used under conditions so favorable that it tended to mask the fact that they were dogs.

August

[agent86]

and the ME262 would have performed great burning zippo lighter fluid. The KI 84,not so much

[Rick65]

Flightpath vol 22 number 2 features "Heavy Metal Impressions", a comparison of P-51, P40 Bearcat Corsair La9 and Fury.
There is also an article by a certain James Kightly titled "the Utimate Piston fighters and another "Sea Fury v Bearcat".
No comparison with any of the Axis types (except an article on the Shinden) but a good read on the last of the piston fighters.

[whistlingdeath77]

if the bearcat was so great in all flight aspects, why didn't it take over for the corsair?

[The Inspector]

It came into service right at the end of WW2 and the dawn of the jet age, and about the time the navy's primary mission scope changed from A2A to 'move that mud' The USAF was more or less tasked with the 'boom and zoom' stuff, and the Corsair which the Navy had in abbondanza was a better bomb hauler and more flexible in mission adaptability than a very small point defense pure attack airframe that had very limited range and pretty small internal fuel capacity. I'm sure you've seen old photos of pickled F4U's being pulled out of storage containers and put back into service.

'I've got thousands of tons of 3/4 minus gravel to move, I need big trucks, not sports cars'. would be a good analogy

[agent86]

The Bearcat came into being due to the Navy's need to stop the Kamikazis.The war ended before it was in use .The Corsair was already available in large numbers and did what was needed at the time and after.The Bearcat wasnt built in large numbers because likeall military contracts at the end of the war,it was cancelled or cut short.The Corsair had more capabilities than the Bearcat.The Bearcat was designed to kill Kamikazi's.thats it.The Corsair could not only kill fighters,it could also drop bombs>The Bearcat was for killing Kamikazi's and nothing more

[Kyleb]

The Bearcat came into being due to the Navy's need to stop the Kamikazis.The war ended before it was in use .The Corsair was already available in large numbers and did what was needed at the time and after.The Bearcat wasnt built in large numbers because likeall military contracts at the end of the war,it was cancelled or cut short.The Corsair had more capabilities than the Bearcat.The Bearcat was designed to kill Kamikazi's.thats it.The Corsair could not only kill fighters,it could also drop bombs>The Bearcat was for killing Kamikazi's and nothing more

Not really true. Work on the Bearcat began in 1943, well before the threat of Kamakazies reared its ugly head.

[agent86]

I have read in more than one place it was mainly developed to fight kamikazis.already had Hellcats and Corsairs. thinking the damage and death might have been a great incentive to build the bearcat.It might have been started before the Kamikazi's but maybe the need for it and the navy's desire for a better kami killer might have greased the skids and provided the money to build it.maybe,maybe not. wutdoiknow?

[Saville]

The Bearcat came into being due to the Navy's need to stop the Kamikazis.The war ended before it was in use .The Corsair was already available in large numbers and did what was needed at the time and after.The Bearcat wasnt built in large numbers because likeall military contracts at the end of the war,it was cancelled or cut short.The Corsair had more capabilities than the Bearcat.The Bearcat was designed to kill Kamikazi's.thats it.The Corsair could not only kill fighters,it could also drop bombs>The Bearcat was for killing Kamikazi's and nothing more

Not really true. Work on the Bearcat began in 1943, well before the threat of Kamakazies reared its ugly head.

It's conceivable that after the kamikaze threat emerged, they altered their design trade-offs. But I don't know that for a fact.

[Kyleb]

It's conceivable that after the kamikaze threat emerged, they altered their design trade-offs. But I don't know that for a fact.

The bearcat's first flight was in August '44. Kamikaze attacks began in earnest later that fall. Production Bearcats began delivery in February '45. The timeline simply doesn't support the argument that the f8f was a response to the kamikaze threat. That seems to be an urban legend which has gained popularity over time, but is demonstrably inaccurate.

[JOMiller]

The F2G was built to defeat the kamikaze threat.