Favourite Aircraft of WWII

And as we all know, every Bf109 pilot shot down during the BofB was - of course - shot down by a Schpitfeuer .....

 

TA

Please don't forget that around 60% of the kills during the BofB were credit to Hurricanes, so some of your Bf109 must have fail the shots!

Thanks for your warm welcome

Regards,
Clausewitz

 

The one! the Typhoon....The cab rank of rocket firing typhoons
Sapper

 

Favorite Fighter: FW Ta 152

Bomber: Lancaster Mk. II

Attack/Support Aircraft: Ju87G/G1 or the Il2m3

 

Hello and welcome to the forums, Ernst Barkmann !

Interesting to see someone specify the Hercules-Lanc Mk II....

 

The Lancaster with the Bristol Hercules Radial Engines, my Great Uncle flew one on these, I think. He didn't talk much about it, but I know he was a Lancaster pilot and my dad told me something about stories of him (my Great uncle) talking about specialize radar in the under belly of his bomber.

 

That is interesting indeed.

The Lancaster II was used for trials of the secret G-H radar ( which was introduced in an effort to achieve more precise bombing of smaller targets - something for which the earlier 'H2S system was unsuitable ).

After trials in June 1943, G-H was adopted for use with priority being given to Lancaster units operating with 8,000lb bomb-bay doors. This meant Mk IIs. First installation was completed during October 1943 and first operational use was when 38 Lanc IIs joined a Main Force attack on Dusseldorf 3/4 November. After successful use against the Mannesmann steelworks there, the crews were dismayed when the G-H equipment fitted the previous month, was immediately stripped out.

The reason -secret at the time - was that the 'Bomber Battle of Berlin' was about to begin, for which G-H was superfluous.

 

I would personally be interested in hearing about your Uncles war-time experiences if this would be available during the night time war over the Reich ? others here as well I can assure you.

v/r

Erich ▼

 

Truth is Erich, so would I, I would love to have heard some of his stories, but I can't for two reasons:

1) He died a few years ago

2) He never hardly talked about it, even to his own wife, not even to his own kids! He talked a little about his crew, a little about his aircraft, but nothing about his missions whatsoever.

Its a damn shame to, because I am sure he had a few amazing experiences. For some reason though, I guess he didn't want to re-live the memories of the war.

 

If only the USAAF hadn't taken out the supercharger, 390+ at altitude in 1940 - 41. The P-39 might have been written into history as a true winner among WW II aircraft.

 

indeed. The P-63 I once read was only really good up to 25.000 ft. Is that true?

 

I thought that the P-63 had a very good altitude performance - the Soviets used theirs as high-altitude interceptors, IIRC.

The best of the breed was the single P-63D prototype. It's instantly recognisable by the bubble canopy, but less obvious is that the fact that it carried the high-velocity M9 37mm cannon instead of the low-velocity M4. That would have been in the same class as the Yak-9T with the N-37 - capable of devastating long-range fire against aircraft, or of going down to knock over tanks if required.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion
forum

 

The P40 Warhawk is my favorite.

 

The 37 mil cannon was not good at longe range. Too heavy. So said Yeager.

 

depends on ownership.

The 3.7cm in the Bf 110G-2 was an excllent US bomber killer, I have the cine films to prove it.........

 

The BK 3,7 was a far more powerful weapon than the M4 fitted to the P-39; it had a much higher muzzle velocity which gave it a longer effective range.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

 

If you say so then I won't bother to check but what about aerial gunnery practical range? Having a gun with higher MV is better for accuracy, obviously, but I imagine the rate of fire would remain low which wouldn't help large calibre guns being very useful on air to air gunnery.

Although with a 37mm round you didn't need to hit with many rounds, one would be enough...

 

The practical range for aerial gunnery did of course depend very much on the nature of the target - I big bomber flying straight and level could usefully be fired on at a much longer range than a fighter. It also depended on the quality of the gunsights, and of course the training and skill of the pilot. You are also correct that with a 37mm shell, one hit was usually enough.

Having said that, the shorter the time of flight of the shell to the target, the better the hit probability. This is partly because a short flight time means a flat trajectory, but also because the target won't have time to move much before the shell reaches it. Both of these factors minimise the effect of aiming errors.

To minimise the shell flight time you need both a high muzzle velocity and a shell which doesn't lose speed quickly (other things being equal, the bigger the shell the better).

For the most part, there wasn't much point in opening fire at more than 400m with typical 20mm cannon - or the US 37mm. However, with a high-velocity 37mm like the BK 3,7 or the Russian NS-37, a range of around 600m was quite feasible.

Planes were shot down at longer ranges than these, but not very often!

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and Discussion forum

 

I understand your arguments, and these 600m are rather more than I expected!

 

Well then, the upgraded high velocity 37 mil had good muzzle velocity. I stand upgraded.