What was the most over rated plane of WW2, and the most underated?

[Krusher]

.

[Hawklore]

Fighters

Over-rated: P51

Under-rated P-40

Transports

Under-rated: Ju-52, C47, He-111

[Rafe35]

Over-rated:  Vought F4U-4 Corsair
Under-rated:  Brewster F2A Bufflao

[FUNKED1]

Overrated - P-51 - Clearly the best but the hype is out of hand.
Underrated - F6F - People have a mistaken impression that it was less important than the F4U and some people can't even tell it apart from the F4F.

[genozaur]

Overrated :  FW190

Underrated :  I-16 type 6, variant with underwing
                     rocket launchers.

During the defence of Leningrad on February 23, 1943 (!) Soviet Navy ace SrLt Anatoly Lomakin from the 21st IAP of Krasnoznamionniy Baltiyskiy Flot shot down a FW190 using the rockets.
Lomakin became Hero of the Soviet Union on January 22,1944 but KIA while flying a newer type of aircraft on January 25 after he had scored that day his 24th victory.

Unrated : I- 153 with underwing rocket launchers
                (6 RS-82 rockets)

The rockets launched from this plane downed some Luftwaffe aces in 1941 at the start of operation Barbarossa.

[SunTracker]

P-51 over rated?  From December 1943 until VE Day, it made 10000 kills.  Ten Thousand.

[Nath_____]

This thread sucks.

bye

[Hawklore]

Originally posted by Nath_____
This thread sucks.

bye

/\



Runstang user..

[Reschke]

Originally posted by midnight Target
The F6F is usually overshadowed by its sexier cousin the Corsair. So it falls into the under-rated catagory as well.

I take the exact opposite opinion in that the F6F series was the one that overshadowed the Corsair. Simply because the Corsair wasn't the fleet aircraft of choice until a good deal of work had been done and the Brits and two US Navy squadrons showed us how to land it on a carrier.

The Hellcat pilots also had the highest ratio of kills to losses of any aircraft in the Pacific as well. Between 5,156 and 4,947 were claimed as kills by the pilots against 270 combat losses for a ratio of 19.1 or 18.3 depending on which number you use for kills.

The next was the Corsair with an 11.32 to 1 kill ratio based on 2,140 kills claimed against 189 combat losses.  

While this is the best ratio kills versus losses in WW2 I don't think it was the best aircraft. I should since that is all I typically fly in AH but I honestly don't think its the best aircraft. In some ways I prefer the Hellcat but there is something about the way the Corsair wings bring me back each time.

[Shuckins]

Mustang's actual tally of aerial kills was 4,950....slightly less than the Hellcat's.

[NUKE]

If you can list another fighter that had the range and performance of a p-51, then maybe you could say it was over rated........ but it is not over rated.

[GtoRA2]

Sure you can Nuke, it just depends on what values you are using to rate a planes worth.

Sure the mustang had great range, and speed, but those are not that only factors we have to use.


What plane do you consider over rated and or under rated?

[GtoRA2]

Shucking,
 Is there a page that lists stats for kills etc by plane type?  I googled but didnt find anything.

[GRUNHERZ]

I cant belive this wasnt mentioned:

Overrated: A6M Zero

Underrated: F4F

As for LW planes....

The 109 was never really underrated in ww2, maybe by uninformed types after the war but I understand they were almost always given a fair bit of respect in the actual conflict. That said i agree with Pongo, the early 109s werent so great and i personally think that Bf109E is possibly the worst collection of fighter design errors in history that still somehow managed to be very competitive. Bf109F and early Bf109G were world class fighters though.

MT saying that the 190 had an insignificant impact on the war is pretty silly considering over 20,000 were made in the last 4 years of the war which makes it nearly as prevalent as the massivly produced Bf109s of the same period. Not to mention that it was a much more effective bomber destroyer and considered a more dangerous adversary than 109 by many enemy pilots on both fronts but especially in the west.

[NUKE]

Originally posted by GtoRA2

What plane do you consider over rated and or under rated?

I don't really think any plane is over rated or underated.