Altitudes of dogfights in ETO

[agent 009]

What altitude were better than half of dogfights fought at in ETO west, high or low? in 2 parts 40-42 & 43-45.

[bunch]

between 40,000' & the surface

[Guppy35]

They tended to be fought at the alt of the bombers they fighters were covering.

The airwar seemed to peak alt wise over France in 42 as sweeps were in the 25K range with the 109s above.  When they started flying B25s, A20s, B26s etc, the bombers were flying at medium alts, 18-20K or so and the fights came down.

THe majority of Spit IXs for that reason were LF IXs which performed better in that alt range from 20K down.

That alt drop was in late 42- 43 with the war getting even lower post D-Day with most of it being low level tactical air, but by this point there weren't many LW fighters opposing the Fighter bombers over France.

All except the USAAF bombers going to Germany.  There it still stayed up high with the 51s and Jugs.  THat being said, the escorts were okayed to take the fight down to the deck and destroy the LW wherever they could find them

Dan/CorkyJr

[Krusty]

I don't mean to criticize, mind you, so take this as a pattern Im seeing.

You like to post a lot. That's good. But you ask vague, generic, and really open ended questions with no right answer most of the time, and for the most part could be answered by most books or even internet sites.

Again, don't mean to be unkind, just wondering why all the silly questions?

Re: fights: Well depends. Early on alt was king. The spits turned well but the 109s had the edge on horsepower at alt. 25k wasn't unheard of. Later on the bombers kept going higher, so the fighters had to follow. 30k wasn't unheard of. That's why the dora and the 109K and the ta152 were developed -- the high alt performance they brought to the field.

[Pongo]

Typical altitude of dogfights in the ETO was in the fog. Thats where the bad guys were.

[agent 009]

Well the flap post was not considered silly, nor was the Contra prop post, or the Mustang vs Corsair post either. Most had right answers to boot. So I don't concur. There are some informative people  here who can answer questions faster than a book & make more interesting conversation as well.

[Krusty]

Oh those were good posts, to be sure. But I'm thinking of "How does tail trimming work?", "if marry poppins were in a mossie and liberace in a g10, who would win?", and "Why are airplane scoops where they are?"

[agent 009]

Poppins was a joke. What's wrong with the odd joke? Tail trimming had some interesting info as well.

[Pongo]

"Most had right answers to boot. "

[hawker238]

He's only at about 6 posts a day.


Try JB88 with 17 posts a day.