A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever...

[GtoRA2]

Originally posted by Hangtime
He is correct. The truth often is a sharp stick.

Does the leather panty crowd come into the oclub?

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by lazs2
yep if ol kurt woulda known how to build an airplane he woulda built the Bearcat.   It did everything better than the FW series and didn't catch fire either.   Fuel injection on a plane that might get hit by fast moving bits of metal is a really really bad idea.   Germans were the best at bailing out tho..

lazs

Yeah, true its easy to be improve over a copied design - as was true of many US designs after the war which were ripped from German research. The Luftwaffe was really good at bailing out true, they put a lot of value on their experienced fighter pilots, and did not have the same mass produced horde such as the USSR and USA which could soak up lots of casualties.

[Shuckins]

Yeah...well...every nation borrowed technology from the captured war machines of their enemies...and the Germans were no exception.

While the FW-190 may have inspired the wizards at Grumman, design work on the Bearcat had already begun before they got their first look at that German aircraft.

And I gotta tell ya, the Germans get very little sympathy from me, or anyone else for that matter, because of the "hordes" of Allied aircraft that buried them.  They declared war on the USSR and the United States.  Both nations produced excellent aircraft of their own design and highly trained and skilled pilots.

If one takes the "ubermensch" claims of massive aerial victories seriously, then one has to believe that the top 34 German aces shot down nearly 7,000 aircraft, and their top 100 pilots shot down over 14,000 aircraft.  The Russians will admit to losing 80,000 aircraft in the conflict.  Therefore, a mere handful of German pilots shot down 1/6 of all Russian aircraft.

Balderdash.

[GtoRA2]

Originally posted by Shuckins
Yeah...well...every nation borrowed technology from the captured war machines of their enemies...and the Germans were no exception.

While the FW-190 may have inspired the wizards at Grumman, design work on the Bearcat had already begun before they got their first look at that German aircraft.

And I gotta tell ya, the Germans get very little sympathy from me, or anyone else for that matter, because of the "hordes" of Allied aircraft that buried them.  They declared war on the USSR and the United States.  Both nations produced excellent aircraft of their own design and highly trained and skilled pilots.

If one takes the "ubermensch" claims of massive aerial victories seriously, then one has to believe that the top 34 German aces shot down nearly 7,000 aircraft, and their top 100 pilots shot down over 14,000 aircraft.  The Russians will admit to losing 80,000 aircraft in the conflict.  Therefore, a mere handful of German pilots shot down 1/6 of all Russian aircraft.

Balderdash.

Now you have done it Shuckins,  You have insulted the honor of Nazi Germanies amazing fighter pilots.  How could you think that men who fought for Germany would inflate their kill claims!

[Shuckins]

But eet vasn't zem, Herr GtoRA2, zat made zees claims, eet vas Herr Goebbels!

[Hangtime]

Kurt Tank invented the internet.

[Bronk]

Originally posted by Hangtime
Kurt Tank invented the internet.

And Al Gore ripped it off and copied. Damn  Americans.



Bronk

[GtoRA2]

Originally posted by Hangtime
Kurt Tank invented the internet.

The gay porn section is not the WHOLE internet.

[Vulcan]

Originally posted by Shuckins
If one takes the "ubermensch" claims of massive aerial victories seriously, then one has to believe that the top 34 German aces shot down nearly 7,000 aircraft, and their top 100 pilots shot down over 14,000 aircraft.  The Russians will admit to losing 80,000 aircraft in the conflict.  Therefore, a mere handful of German pilots shot down 1/6 of all Russian aircraft.

I show the top 27 shooting down 5692, so I'd like to know where you get 7000 from (the next 7 on the list would score 100 or less) ? However its not a hard figure to meet, the Soviets were throwing up hordes of lightly trained pilots in varying qualities of aircraft, the eastern front was faught under completely different circumstances to the western.

Finally the "russians admit to losing 80,000", so the top 30ish pilots shot down 7% ( 1/14th ). Now, we all know the Russians were given to fiddling figures a bit (and still are), so assume it was 120,000 then we drop to under 5% ( 1/21st) . These pilots also survived multiple shootdowns (one 18 times).

So its not really balderdash, its very believeable and acheivable when you crunch the numbers a bit.

[Shuckins]

It is balderdash.  The top 34 German aces are each credited with shooting down at least 150 allied aircraft.  Their claims totalled 6,902 victories.

Many of these victory claims cannot be confirmed actual allied loss records.  The Luftwaffe pilots always cover their backsides on this account by stating that many of these victories came against the Russians, whose pilots are portrayed as incompetent boobs.

Fits in rather nicely with the racist Nazi "untermensch" philosophy doesn't it.

Top allied aces, especially the British, who faced the best the Germans had for six years, are very skeptical of these claims.  To quote one of them, "The German fighter pilot seemed no better than ours in 1940, and a lot less good by 1944."

These claims served to bolster the spirits of the German people in an increasingly grim situation, and encouraged eager young men to continue to enlist in the Luftwaffe.

If it is any comfort, the Japanese, perpetuating their own racist dogma, also registered vastly inflated victory claims during the war.

[Angus]

We all know how it went don't we?
But I belive most of the LW claims are actually correct. Pilot quality alone does not decide everything, - it's very much the opportunities and the tactical situations. So, they scored some good goals but lost the match.
And the 190-F8F issue has been covered in a long flaming thread. Now where was it again?

[lazs2]

the bearcat is very much an evolutionary gruman product.

What is "copied" is the worst attributes of tanks FW series.... short range.

It is very easy to make nimble and fast planes that only fly for an hour or so.... Now make one with allmost 300 gallons of fuel and a 4,000 pound loadout that will go from england to berlin and back.

Also... if you care about your pilots and you have the luxury of winning because you thought ahead and were on the offensive instead of defensive....  You could have a plane like the bearcat stay at home and be tested for over 6 months... it wasn't a target before it was even built...  you could fly it around in your country and then go to a bar or dance that night...

The reason that FW pilots bailed so much was fuel injection... it is a very bad idea to have high presure lines to each of 14 cyl full of av gas when fast moving bits of metal are flying around... it is bad to have the oil cooler in front of the engine so that any hit will spray hot oil on even hotter engine parts...  galland bailed at the first sight of a cowling hit in a 190 ne was flying.   Americans brought corsairs and hellcats home with half the engine shot off.

It is also much easier to get into a bailing mindset when you are only every flying over friendly territory.

And why are you flying over friendly territory?   because your aviation people screwed you with short range useless fighters and doomed your country to defense over your own land or prohibitively expensive support systems that couldn't be maintained.

The bearcat worked as a short range plane because it's airport could move.

Get it?

lazs