How would German WWII Ac rate to WITP Ac ?

[Honda]

I didn't mean bloody in sence of having blood on one's hands. I used it as a stylistic intensifier. There was, however, a feeling of ambiguity in the sentence but that just made me look sneaky.[;)]
And Kossuth only got the Liberty ship 'cause he was popular in USA in 1850s. And because there was a lot of them...
I guess he also got a Liberty ship because he was considered a freedom fighter against the oppressive and obsolete Habsburg Empire. The only problem is every nation within the Hungarian crown's borders thaught of Kossuth equaly as oppressive. But that's another story...[>:]

[Ursa MAior]

Yep. Big mistake by him. IMHO all of us in Eastern-Central Eu would be happier if he would have counted on the minorities in the Carpathian Basin against the Habsburgs and not the other way arund. Now we hungarians are the minority. And that is (partially) his fault.

[Honda]

Nah, he was only the instigator (well one of the instigators). Hungarian policy lacked flexibility, but that is a characteristic of any 19cen country. It only mattered if the country was in the position of some power. And Hungary was. It was the time of raging nationalisms. Nations grabbed what they could. Hungary has two great traumas: Vilagos and Trianon. Some 25% Hungarians (ethnic ones) were left out of Hungarian bordes but before the end of the century 1/3 of the Hungarians (ethnic ones) were assimilated Germans, Slovaks, Croats, Serbs, Rumanians. So it almost evens out.

[Przemcio231]

Well there is a bunch of some ugly cheep beers in Poland called "Volt" "Gulman" "Tab" those really suck[:D] i drunk Zloty Bazant its Great[:D][:D][:D]

[Hipper]

My bad, about the FW 190's

For P-40 vs Me 109 (and others) read: Erik Shilling, John Lundstrom, Steven Vincent
http://yarchive.net/mil/p40.html

On that chat note the following the problem was that german fighters could operate above the p40's and Knock them down in diving slashing attacks then regain height faster than the P40's to escape The RAF proved this at tedious length in the desert in 1941 & 1942, the answer was to have top cover so that, the me 109's had to look over their Shoulder

thats what the USAAF did in north africa

The P40 was an excelent medium altitude plane but was outclassed at high altitude



"On the E or K, 22,000 ft. could be achieved with reasonable performance, but
above that full throttle would barely manage to keep the airplane flying
slightly faster than stalling speed. Raising the nose ever so slightly--or even
firing the guns while straight and level--could knock it into a stall,
depending on how good the engine was running that day and how good the pilot's
reactions were. It took some careful stick handling to wheeze up above 25,000
ft. It was done, too, with 49FG P-40s intercepting Japanese bombers above that
altitude. Pilots flying the N model were able to intercept and shoot down
Dinah recon planes flying at 31,000 ft., but only after long chases. But no
model P-40 was in its element at those altitudes. The 109 could at least
operate in the 25,000 to 28,000 ft. environment with some degree of performance
margin. The best the P-40 could do was hope to be above its foe and in
position to make a diving attack. Were it attacked at that altitude, if the
P-40 driver was not sufficiently quick to recognize the danger and dive away,
he was in serious trouble. On one raid over Darwin, P-40Es were at 26,000 ft.
positioning themselves to attack Japanese bombers at 22,000 ft. when they were
hit by the Zero escort diving from above. The Curtiss machines were helpless
to counter a fighter threat at that altitude and three P-40s went down
immediately, the greatest single loss of the entire Darwin campaign. My guess
is that an Me 109 at 26,000 ft. would have had a better chance against the
Zero.
But maybe not. The Zero was an airplane best never underestimated."


Search for Google's copy of this article

[Demosthenes]

ORIGINAL: Hipper

My bad, about the FW 190's

For P-40 vs Me 109 (and others) read: Erik Shilling, John Lundstrom, Steven Vincent
http://yarchive.net/mil/p40.html

On that chat note the following the problem was that german fighters could operate above the p40's and Knock them down in diving slashing attacks then regain height faster than the P40's to escape The RAF proved this at tedious length in the desert in 1941 & 1942, the answer was to have top cover so that, the me 109's had to look over their Shoulder

thats what the USAAF did in north africa

The P40 was an excelent medium altitude plane but was outclassed at high altitude



"On the E or K, 22,000 ft. could be achieved with reasonable performance, but
above that full throttle would barely manage to keep the airplane flying
slightly faster than stalling speed. Raising the nose ever so slightly--or even
firing the guns while straight and level--could knock it into a stall,
depending on how good the engine was running that day and how good the pilot's
reactions were. It took some careful stick handling to wheeze up above 25,000
ft. It was done, too, with 49FG P-40s intercepting Japanese bombers above that
altitude. Pilots flying the N model were able to intercept and shoot down
Dinah recon planes flying at 31,000 ft., but only after long chases. But no
model P-40 was in its element at those altitudes. The 109 could at least
operate in the 25,000 to 28,000 ft. environment with some degree of performance
margin. The best the P-40 could do was hope to be above its foe and in
position to make a diving attack. Were it attacked at that altitude, if the
P-40 driver was not sufficiently quick to recognize the danger and dive away,
he was in serious trouble. On one raid over Darwin, P-40Es were at 26,000 ft.
positioning themselves to attack Japanese bombers at 22,000 ft. when they were
hit by the Zero escort diving from above. The Curtiss machines were helpless
to counter a fighter threat at that altitude and three P-40s went down
immediately, the greatest single loss of the entire Darwin campaign. My guess
is that an Me 109 at 26,000 ft. would have had a better chance against the
Zero.
But maybe not. The Zero was an airplane best never underestimated."


Search for Google's copy of this article

Yep - but with further reading you will note that diving down on a P-40 from well above was the ONLY way an ME 109 could maintain advantage over a P-40...and that would have to be combat above 20,000 feet.

Down below 20,000 the advantages were all P-40 in turning, speed, dive, and Zoom climb.
Continue reading...

>The P-40 was considered outclassed by the Bf109

By whom?
Granted, the 109 had superior high altitude performance, but that wouldn't have
been a concern on the eastern front. The P-40 could outroll the Me, outdive it
(although the Me had an initial advantage), outturn it, had comparable speed, a
more rugged airframe, more survivable plumbing arrangement, and superior
firepower. The one major advantage (aside from high altitude performance) the
Me had over the P-40 was a superior rate of climb. But the P-40 had a slightly
superior zoom climb. Of course, the P-40 had greater lift capacity and range.

The 325FG flew 128 combat missions with the P-40 in the MTO.
Results:
Shot down in air-to-air combat:
96 Me 109
26 MC 202
7 Me 323
3 Ju 52
3 Fi 156

In addition, the 325's P-40s dropped 329,000 lbs. of bombs.

Losses:
17 to enemy fighters
6 to flak
5 to unknown causes (probably weather, fuel or mechanical)
3 to engine failure
2 to mid-air collision
1 to small-arms fire
1 to hitting high tension wires.

The 325FG had two brilliant victories over the Me 109 while equipped with the
P-40. On July 1, 1943, while on a fighter sweep over southern Italy, 22 P-40s
were bounced by 40 Me 109s. Results: one P-40 shot down, 20 Me 109s shot down.
On July 30, 1943, similar situation: 20 P-40s on a fighter sweep over Italy
bounced by 35 Me 109s. One P-40 shot down, 21 Me 109s shot down.
In these two battles, the 109s engaged the P-40s in classic, turning
dogfights--and lost big time. The Curtiss fighter could outmaneuver the German
fighter, take hits that would wreck the Me, and dish out much greater firepower
than the 109. The Me's only clear superiority was in the climb, which was not
helpful. It could not out-turn the P-40s, dive away from them or outrun them.
Nor could it outshoot them or take as much punishment as they could.
Add in the fact that the Mess. drivers faced a very aggressive bunch of pilots
(the motto of the 325 was "Shoot the Bastards"), and it's no wonder they found
themselves "screwed, blued and tattooed."
Never sell the P-40 short.
- from Erik Shilling, John Lundstrom

On British P-40 losses in North Africa..

>>>The P-40 was considered outclassed by the Bf109
>
>>By whom?
>
>RAF/SAAF

Certainly the SAAF suffered grievous losses at the hands of the Luftwaffe in
North Africa, and the RAF had some rough times, too. But an examination of
what happened will reveal the British and Commonwealth forces using poor
tactics. It has been commented on more than once that while RAF units in
Britain were flying finger-four formations after the Battle of Britain, RAF and
Commonwealth forces in the Med were still routinely flying Vics and line-astern
formations long afterward. They were also using the completely useless
Lufberry Circle.

- from Erik Shilling, John Lundstrom

[fairplay]

"Although subsequent model P-40s did fall behind the new model
Me.109s and British Spitfires in performance, however in every case,
each new model Zero that came out remained inferior to their
contemporary P-40." Erik Shilling

Demosthenes, even Erik Shilling states that late versions of P-40 fell behind newer ME 109 and Spitfires. The ME 109 E-3 with which he is comparing the P-40 was built from end of 1939 to autumn. That plane was equipped with the DB 601A engine. A The first model flewn in Africa was the E-7 with the stronger DB 601N enginge. Most plane flown in Africa were of the F series F-2 trop and F-4 trop (trop = tropical). The F series were built from 1941 onwards. The difference between F-2 and F-4 was apart from better armor a stonger engine, the DB 601 E. DB 601A from E-3 had 1160 hp,DB-601N 1175 and DB 601 E 1350 hp. Speed for the E-3 Shilling is mentioning was 570 km/h compared to the F-4 with 625 km/h.
Turn rate: during the BOB the Spitfire MK 1 (and all subsequent models) had a better turn rate than the ME 109 E-3s and E-4s that were used by Luftwaffe. On the other hand the ME 109 had some advantages. Overall they were considered equal and normally the better pilot, better tatics or luck decided who won the dogfight. Turnrate isn´t everything. I am quite sure that even with its inferior turn rate the ME 109 will be superior to all modern jets (F-16, Eurofighter etc.). Would you assume that a ME 109 is better than a F-16?[&:] When the FW 190 was introduced it was a superior plane in comparion to the Spitfire Mk V and the British pilots weren`t pleased.The Spitfire could outturn the FW 190 but that didn´t help. A British Ace made a sarcastic statement when during a briefing for a mission the superior turn rate of the Spitfire was stressed: "Turning doesn´t win battles."
It is not a single factor that counts but the package. Erik Shilling is aware of that fact that different features are influencing dogfight. For the old ME 109 E-3 he mentions turn rate and dive speed, for the Spitfire he mentions superior speed.

[fairplay]

Fishbed, to one poit of your statement I have to disagree: I wrote "claims" not "kills" which is a significant difference. Apart from that I agree to you. When you lokk at an other part of the page I have already citated (http://www.deutsches-afrikakorps.de/html/luftsieg/1.htm)48 pilots were credited with 801 kills. I don´t know how may pilots were flying in JG 27 altogether. But this is comparable to other Luftwaffe fighter groups: a comparably small number of suberb pilots were credited with a high percentage of kills in comparison to the majority of average pilots who were only credited with a few kills or even none. But I think that was similar in all Air Forces.Similar to soccer, only a very limited number of real goalgetters and a large number of water carriers. But without those guys the goalgetters would loose.