Which fighter scored the most kills in history of air combat?

[GRUNHERZ]

One of Marsaille's 109F4s he had 17 kills in one day in that one.

[Rojo]

Grimm, I seem to recall that F6F K was 9:1, not 19:1. F4F was 7:1.  Don't remember for F4U, but seem to remember it being higher than either Kitty (12:1?).

My bet would still be the 109 for greatest number of kills by an aircraft series.  By the time the P51 came into service in number, it was fairly late in the war.  I just don't see how it could have made up time against the Bf109.

[Grimm]

Well, I got off my Butt and did a little research. I Checked many F6F and F4U websites and got some infomation...

The First Quote comes from National Air and Space Website

  "During the war pilots flying Hellcats destroyed over 5,100 enemy aircraft, compared with 270 Hellcats lost in combat-a ratio of 19:1."

  "the Hellcat was a potent force against the Japanese, and was credited with over three-quarters of the US Navy's air-to-air kills in the war."

  "The F6F Hellcat had the highest Kill/Loss ratio of any American fighter plane in Army, Navy, Marine or Air Force service during WWII."
 
On the F4U Corsair I found this..

  "By the end of hostilities in the Pacific War it had established an 11:1 "kill" ratio against Japanese aircraft. "

  "Not surprisingly the F4U generated a massive (11:1) kill ratio rivaled only by it's R2800 cousin the F6F."

And Lastly just a thing on the Corsairs nicknames..
  " the F4U had many nicknames: "Hose Nose", "Bent Wing Bird", "Hog" and "Ensign Eliminator", Japanese ground troops called it "Whistling Death".  
Note the Lack of CHOG..  

So in Fairness, Lets give the Hellcat proper credit.  The Corsair's numbers are impressive, but the Hellcat gets the high K/D credit.

 

[GRUNHERZ]

Well in WW2 the pitifully few 200 F4U1C 20mm armed F4U were completly irrelevant and more or less useless planes. toejam apparently USN navy pilots actually prefered the .50cal armament. In AH this clearly wasnt the case before the perk system. Thats why AH uses the term CHOG and noboy else does.

[humble]

correct k/d ratio for F6F is 19-1...the hog was 11-1....p38 produced the most aces of any us plane ...I think.

[LLv34_Camouflage]

In the hands of the Finnish Air Force, the Brewster Model B-239 achieved an air-to-air kill:death ratio of 32:1 during over 3 years of continuous fighting against a numerically superior enemy. If you count the Brewsters shot down by AAA, the ratio is 26:1.

No other aircraft in the world, that had significant combat use, can match these numbers.

More info here:  http://www.hkkk.fi/~yrjola/war/faf/brewster.html  http://www.hkkk.fi/~yrjola/war/faf/brewkills.html  http://www.danford.net/buff.htm


 

Originally posted by BlauK:
Howabout the highest scoring individual plane.. not just model or type???

FAF Bf109G-2 marked MT-201 was flown by three different aces, and scored 32 1/2 victories.

Any higher scores for one plane?

BK, direct quote from My's website: "41 aerial victories were achieved with BW-393, 7 of them by Capt Luukkanen and 26 by Lt Hans Wind."  Looks like the BW scores well in this category too?  

Camo

[Sorrow[S=A]]

Unfortunatly Camo- you have to include ALL the marks of brewster into the discussion. After you do that the ones slaughtered on the Pacific front reduce that k/d ratio into decimals  

BTW Grimm- those look like the unadjusted claims. Somewhere around are the "adjusted" ones they did after the war looking at known Japanese losses. The F4F sufferred the most from these- I think they lost almost 1/2 their claims from this. F4U hurt too- some F4U squadrons claimed more kills than Japanese records showed planes in the area.


Still both ended the war with impressive tallies.

[Sorrow[S=A]]

One plane/pilot combo- would be Johhnie Johnson. His spit had something silly like 26 kills. Probably would have been higher too except he had a non-detonating 20mm round lodge in the wing-root and since the Mk XIV was current they just replaced his plane.

Did any Luftwaffe Aces stay in one plane long enough to go higher?

For that matter- my guess (just a guess!) is that on the Allied side the F4F or the P-40 scored the most kills. The Mustang just couldn't have made up the ground those two had. Especially since planes like the P-40 were claiming kills from the beginning to the end of the war.
 

[LLv34_Camouflage]

Originally posted by Sorrow[S=A]:
Unfortunatly Camo- you have to include ALL the marks of brewster into the discussion.

No I don't.  

The ones slaughtered in the Pacific were not Brewster model 239s.  

Camo

[Steven]

A link to USN fighters...
 http://www.westnet.com/~ssherman/air_wins.html

[Sorrow[S=A]]

from that site under "sources" link-

 

Most important to realize, that all air forces from all countries in all theatres, over-counted their kills.  Post-war researchers have compared total American claims to total losses recorded by the Japanese, and determined that we over-claimed by about 50 to 100 percent.  For every 100 planes the Japanese records showed as destroyed, it seems the Americans counted about 150 to 200.  This is a very approximate statistic, and the Japanese over-count of their victories  is believed to be even worse.  On an individual basis, there's no way to account for it (revise each pilot's claim by some arbitrary percentage?), but in total, it's important to keep in mind.  As one source noted, all victory claims were made in good faith under extremely stressful conditions.

IIRC there IS a list somewhere showing a better view of the kills these planes scored in the Pac. Surely someone must be able to find it.

[Naudet]

The overclaims of kills by RAF and USAAF were well know bye the air commands of both air forces.

The reason behind all this was that the pilots should be confidend of want they did to the enemy. And so up to date the kill numbers stand as at the end of WW2.

On the other side the german also overclaimed sometimes, but not as high as the allieds. And to actually get from a claim to a real kill was very hard in the LW.
Some GE aces can be cosidered to have higher kill numbers than recorded. Especially in the time after D-Day, to get a kill notified, was hard if the enemy plane crashed behind the nme front.

[Karnak]

Naudet,

That's a joke.

Look at the Battle of Britain.

The Germans overclaimed by more than 3 to 1, close to 4 to 1.

The Brits overclaimed by a bit over 2 to 1.

Whenever your fighting over enemy held ground, or water, kills are highly exagerated.

[Naudet]

Karnak, i see i expressed it wrong.

The LW overclaimed for sure, but to get a kill from a claim was a different thing within the LW than within the RAF/USAAF.

I think in the Allied airforce a claim was much easier to "convert" to a kill than in LW.

And from what i read in this thread, they are talking about kill numbers not claims.


And so for example we get the following (numbers just examples):

Allied claims  4000
Allied confirmed kills  3000
Actual kills  2000

LW claims  4000
LW confirmed kills  2500
Actuall kills  2000

hope this shows what i mean

[ 10-02-2001: Message edited by: Naudet ]

[e_medal]

Allow me to disagree, Asmo. The best fighter pilot of the 109 (and possibly the best air gunner of the war) was Jochen Marseille


hmmm i know that the best pilot of the ww2 was Errich Hartman
I`m new here so i don`t want to argue whit any one but the history is the history so we just can`t say that it was difrent

btw Hi all