General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Gaston on March 03, 2022, 09:57:15 AM
Title: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: Gaston on March 03, 2022, 09:57:15 AM
Hello:
Here is what I recently uncovered in my research:
Pierre Clostermann: Audio from the past [E16], WW2 Pierre Clostermann. Chuck Owl channel in Youtube. https://youtu.be/c2zdA9TcIYo 12:44 "Alors il y a les legendes sur le Spitfire... Ahhh puis alors les legendes... Les legendes ont la vie dure... Une des legendes c’est que le Spitfire tournait mieux que le Messerschmitt 109, ou que le FW-190: Eh ben ca c’est une belle blague. D’ailleurs tout ceux qui se sont retrouves avec un FW-190A ou un Messeschmitt tournant a l’interieur, a basse vitesse, eh bien, en general ne sont pas revenus pour se plaindre de la legende. Pourquoi? Au dessus de 280 a 300 noeuds, le Spitfire tournait mieux que le Messerscmitt 109. D’abord en combat tournoyant la vitesse descend descent descent descent, et arrive a un moment, ou la vitesse tombant en dessous de 200 noeuds, le 109 tournait a l’interieur du Spitfire."
https://youtu.be/c2zdA9TcIYo (At 12:44)
Translation: "So there are legends on the Spitfire... Legends are hard to kill... One of those legends is that the Spitfire turned better than the Messerschmitt 109, or the FW-190. Well that is a good joke... In fact all those who found themselves with a 109 or a 190 turning inside them, at low speeds, well those in general did not come back to complain about the legend... Why? Above 280 to 300 knots, the Spitfire turned better than the Me-109. But, first and foremost, in a turning battle, the speed goes down and down and down and down, and at one point there comes a time, when the speed has gone down below 200 knots, that the Me-109 turns inside the Spitfire."
This correlates well with all other front-line sources I was able to find:
2-Johnny Johnson: -Johnny Johnson "My duel with the Focke-Wulf": "With wide-open throttles I held the Spitfire V in the tightest of vertical turns [Period slang for vertical bank]. I was greying out. Where was this German, who should, according to my reckoning, be filling my gunsight? I could not see him, and little wonder, for he was gaining on me: In another couple of turns he would have me in his sights.---I asked the Spitfire for all she had in the turn, but the enemy pilot hung behind like a leech.-It could only be a question of time..."
(Jonhson escaped when he abandoned the turn fight, and dived near a Royal Navy ship that fired AAA at his pursuer)
3-"-Squadron Leader Alan Deere, (Osprey Spit MkV aces 1941-45, Ch. 3, p. 2): "Never had I seen the Hun stay and fight it out as these Focke-Wulf pilots were doing... In Me-109s the Hun tactic had always followed the same pattern- a quick pass and away, sound tactics against Spitfires and their superior turning circle. Not so these 190 pilots: They were full of confidence... We lost 8 to their one that day...
4-Gray Stenborg, 23 September 1944 (Spitfire Mk XII): "On looking behind I saw a FW-190 coming up unto me. I went into a terribly steep turn to the left, but the FW-190 seemed quite able to stay behind me. He was firing at 150 yards-I thought "this was it"-when all of a sudden I saw an explosion near the cockpit of the FW-190, upon which it turned on its back." (Stenborg was killed the next day in a head to head engagement with a FW-190 over Poix)
Osprey Aces Series. "Griffon Spitfire Aces"
5-1-S/L J. B. Prendergast of 414 Squadron recorded in his Combat Report for 2 May 1945 (Spitfire Mk XIV vs FW-190A-8):
I observed two aircraft which presumably had just taken off the Wismar Airfield as they were at 800/1000 feet flying in a northerly direction and gaining height.-------The other E/A had crossed beneath me and was being attacked by my No. 2, F/O Fuller. I saw my No. 2’s burst hitting the water--------The E/A being attacked by my No. 2 did a steep orbit and my No. 2 being unable to overtake it broke away.
6-2-RCAF John Weir interview for Veterans Affairs (Spitfire Mk V vs FW-190A-4 period): "A Hurricane was built like a truck, it took a hell of a lot to knock it down. It was very manoeuvrable, much more manoeuvrable than a Spit, so you could, we could usually outturn a Messerschmitt. They'd, if they tried to turn with us they'd usually flip, go in, at least dive and they couldn't. A Spit was a higher wing loading..."
"The Hurricane was more manoeuvrable than the Spit and, and the Spit was probably, we (Hurricane pilots) could turn one way tighter than the Germans could on a Messerschmitt, but the Focke Wulf could turn the same as we could and, they kept on catching up, you know."
7-US 8th Air Force P-51 pilot observation: "We can out-turn the Me-109G at most altitudes, but more difficulty is encountered in out-turning the FW-190A." : From: Osprey "VIII Fighter Command 'Long Reach' "
8-Osprey "Duel" #39 "La-5/7 vs FW-190", Eastern Front 1942-45: P.69 "Enemy FW-190A pilots never fight on the vertical plane.---The Messerschmitt possessed a greater speed and better maneuverability in a vertical fight" P.65 Vladimir Orekov: "An experienced Fw-190A pilot practically never fights in the vertical plane"
9-In "Le Fana de l'Aviation" #496 p. 40: (Spitfire in Soviet use) Première citation : " Dans la journée du 29 avril, le régiment effectua 28 sorties pour escorter des bombardiers et des avions d'attaque au sol et 23 en protection de troupes, avec quatre combats aériens. Les premiers jours furent marqués par des échecs dus à une tactique de combat périmée dans le plan horizontal, alors que le Spitfire était particulièrement adapté au combat dans le plan vertical." [Translation: "The Spitfire failed in horizontal fighting, but was particularly adapted to vertical fighting."]
P. 40-41: " A basse et moyenne altitude, la version VB était surclassé par les chasseurs allemands et soviétiques de son époque. Pour tenter d'améliorer la maniabilité et la vitesse, les Soviétiques l’allégèrent en retirant les quatre mitrailleuses. Apparemment ce ne fut pas concluant, car il n'y eu pas d'instructions pour généraliser la modification." [Translation: To improve the Spitfire Mk VB's maneuverability and speed to the level of contemporary Soviet and German fighters, the four outer .303 machineguns were removed. This attempt at lightening the Spitfire was not conclusive, and the modification was not widely adopted.]
10-Interview de Pierre Clostermann: "Votre ennemi intime, c'etait plus le 109 ou le 190? ---Ah non! C'etait le 190... Le D-9 etait d'une beaute epoustouflante. Par contre, alors la, il tournait moins bien que le 190 'normal' , parce qu'avec son nez, malgre qu'ils ont allonge le fuselage, avec une tranche pour reequilibrer l'avion, il tournait moins bien."
TRANSLATION: "Your intimate enemy, it was the 109? --- Oh no! It was the 190... The D-9 was of magnificent beauty. However, in its case, it did not turn as well as the 'normal' 190, because of its longer nose, despite the longer fuselage, with the added segment they added to re-balance the aircraft, it did not turn as well."
https://youtu.be/c2zdA9TcIYo
11-Donald Caldwell wrote of the FW 190 D-9’s operational debut in his "The JG 26 War Diary Volume Two 1943-1945" (pages 388 – 399): "The pilot’s opinions of the “long-nosed Dora”, or Dora-9, as it was variously nicknamed, were mixed. The new airplane lacked the high turn rate and incredible rate of roll of its close-coupled radial-engined predecessor."
12-1946 US evaluation of FW-190D-9: "1-The FW-190D-9, although well armored and equipped to carry heavy armament, appears to be much less desirable from a handling standpoint than other models of the FW-190 using the BMW 14 cylinder radial engine."
13-Eric Brown ("Duels in the Sky") p. 128:
FW-190A: "Care must be taken on dive pull-out not to kill speed by sinking, or on the dive's exit the FW-190 will be very slow and vulnerable."
14-Red Fleet, No. 37, November 4, 1943.:
"When climbing in order to get an altitude advantage over the enemy, there is a moment when the FW-190 "hangs" in the air. It is then convenient to fire." [This is in the context of dive pull-outs] -"However, the FW-190 is never able to come out of a dive below 300 or 250 meters (930 ft or 795 ft). Pulling out of a dive, made from 1,500 meters (4,650 ft) and at an angle of 40 to 45 degrees, the FW-190A falls an extra 200 meters (620 ft). [Meaning after levelling out, continues sinking nose up]
15-A translated Russian article from "Red Fleet" describing Russian aerial tactics against the German FW-190, from Tactical and Technical Trends, No. 37, November 4, 1943.
Quote:
-The speed of the FW-190 is slightly higher than that of the Messerschmitt; it also has more powerful armament and is more maneuverable in horizontal flight.
-They interact in the following manner: Me-109G will usually perform dive and climb attacks using superior airspeed after their dive. FW-190 will commit to the fight even if our battle formation is not broken, preferring left turning fights. There has been cases of such turning fights lasting quite a long time, with multiple planes from both sides involved in each engagement."
-Since the FW-190 is so heavy and does not have a high-altitude engine, its pilots do not like to fight in vertical maneuvers.
-A fairly good horizontal maneuver permits the FW-190 to turn at low speed without falling into a tail spin.
-Being very stable and having a large range of speeds, the FW-190 will inevitably offer turning battle at a minimum speed.
-In fighting the FW-190 our La-5 should force the Germans to fight by using the vertical maneuver.
All courtesy of people who had NO idea what they were talking about... Especially compared to US Navy test pilots! :salute Or Eric Brown... Test pilots in general were just infallible geniuses compared to those ignorant fools fighting in the front lines...
And the math! The MATH! Who can believe in something when the math does not agree with it? It's the SCIENCE that counts... Yes the SCIENCE... Humanity is well known to be full of geniuses who never, ever, eeever get THE SCIENCE wrong... :rolleyes:
Gaston (It's the SCIENCE guys!!!)
PS: I might also soon post about the Phillipines Japanese commander who cancelled Ki-84 orders to replace them with more Ki-43s, since all his units found the maneuverability of the Ki-43 Oscar far more valuable for front-line use than the much less maneuverable Ki-84 (in an Osprey book on Ki-43 aces). This will also include a Spitfire Mk VIII pilot account who describes inexperienced Spitfire pilots not knowing that, when making making a diving attack on Ki-43s below, hit and run style, this type of attack was so easily broken by slow turns that IF the Ki-43 spotted you, the thing to do was to INTERRUPT your diving attack and climb back up, or it would be the DIVER who would be on the receiving end... (Also remarkable is the Commander's comment that the Ki-84, if caught from above, was virtually useless, since its turning ability did not allow it to "break" diving attacks like the Ki-43 could)
In a similar vein, check out the latest Pacific war research on the Zero, where historians recently found the Japanese Navy so obsessively used the Zero for hit and run, and never turning with it (this in ACTUAL combat), that US Navy pilots criticized them in the following way: "The Japanese Navy tactics are generally poor: Zeroes could not be shaken by us if they would shut their throttles and sit on our tails..." https://youtu.be/ApOfbxpL4Dg at 1:01:32, but other mentions earlier from 58:50. And just listen to the video's guest DISAGREEING with this front-line pilot's assessment that the Japanese Navy was wrong to NOT dogfight enough: Priceless...
Funny what you discover when your read what went on in the ACTUAL front lines isn't it?
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: Oldman731 on March 03, 2022, 12:06:05 PM
Perfectly true that the anecdotal testimony from combat pilots doesn't match the performance we see in this - or any other - simulation based on specs. The debate has gone on forever, or at least back to the early days of AW. You've done a good round-up of the pilot testimony.
- oldman
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: Gaston on March 03, 2022, 12:38:43 PM
Perfectly true that the anecdotal testimony from combat pilots doesn't match the performance we see in this - or any other - simulation based on specs. The debate has gone on forever, or at least back to the early days of AW. You've done a good round-up of the pilot testimony.
- oldman
Very nice to hear hear you say it. I do believe, but can't prove so far, that the implications of these observations go far beyond merely a wrong assessment of each type: There is a misaprehension of their actual physics.
I will point here to my own Youtube channel, Wrath of Atlantis: In particular to a video I made in reaction to a Veritassium video, where a professor of physics made a $10000 bet that claims about an engineless car (of speeds 2.8 times faster than the wind) were not possible...: He was proven wrong, and lost the $10000... The reason he lost is because of the counter-intuitive nature of leverages internal to an object. The video is titled "WWII fighter aircraft designers did not understand what they designed":
https://youtu.be/uYnCI3XURx0
Internal leverages generated by a vertically asymmetrical prop loads can easily explain why a heavier aircraft can out-turn a lighter one in low speed sustained turns: All you have to do is understand the current Flight Physics for low-wing nose props does not take into account the interaction between the wing and the prop! Jets are assumed identical to props...
Internal leverages are extremely counter-intuitive, and the example of a simple car confusing a professor of physics is quite relevant, despite the leverages being very different in aspect: It still is the same idea.
These front line observations are not compatible with flight physics as they are currently understood, that much I am sure...
Gaston
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: TryHard on March 03, 2022, 06:55:49 PM
Any spitfire will out turn a 190 in a flat turn fight. Not a question in my mind.
Once you take into account different energy states it will make a lot more sense why a 190 can turn inside a spitfire but a spitfire WILL out turn it sustained.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: Guppy35 on March 03, 2022, 09:38:01 PM
Been a while since you've been around with cherry picked info to try and prove the Luftwaffe won the war. Good luck with that :) Keep in mind, no one has ever claimed the Spitfire V was an equal of the FW190, so to throw that out as evidence is just silly. But again, have fun with it :aok
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: nrshida on March 04, 2022, 06:44:31 AM
the Ki-84, if caught from above, was virtually useless, since its turning ability did not allow it to "break" diving attacks like the Ki-43 could)
Yes they are useless, never fly them is my advice. There's sufficient internal leverage because the prop is close to the wings like an air-cooled 190. Unfortunately in that particular airframe there exist further hidden forces beneath the hidden forces you have discovered which counter the first layer of hidden forces. It's probably due to improper heat-treatment of the scientists.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: Ack-Ack on March 05, 2022, 01:47:05 AM
Ahhh...Gaston, the bitter table top game developer is back.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: FLS on March 21, 2022, 08:02:12 PM
It's the internal beverages that affect turning.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: nrshida on March 22, 2022, 03:16:47 AM
Of course it is possible that Gaston is well-meaning but misguided / poorly educated and has fallen into the bad ways of faulty-reasoning and informal fallacy so commonly promoted by today's culture.
Ought not mock the afflicted. But it is tempting.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: Vulcan on March 23, 2022, 02:18:46 PM
Clostermann was a frog wasn't he? Everyone knows the frogs had a stick up their backside over anything English made. They could never admit anything made for the King of England was war winning.
Besides that you can never trust the frogs, they cheat at rugby and blew up greenpeace!
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: Karnak on March 23, 2022, 05:49:38 PM
Gaston,
You can post cherry picked anecdotes all you want. You can misrepresent what has been stated by others all you want.
Your problem is that regardless of all of that, physics simply doesn't agree with you.
It is like you read an account of an Fw190 out turning a Spitfire Mk V and, ignorant of the specific situation in which that happened, locked onto all other claims, practical tests and so on that find that the Spitfire Mk V easily out turns the Fw190, all other things being equal as being false due to your first exposure being the contextless account of an Fw190 out turning a Spitfire Mk V when all other things were not equal.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: Oldman731 on March 23, 2022, 09:14:38 PM
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: nrshida on April 11, 2022, 02:30:54 AM
I don't think Gaston is a malevolent force determined to remodel simulated versions of Fw190s to turn like Zeros across the world of gaming, I just think he's misguided with his education and thinking patterns. He tends to put the cart before the horse in terms of evidence and hypothesis. I was wondering if Greg would do a follow up video to his comments on Gaston's YouTube video. But he was busy with the Lancaster bomber of late, triggered apparently by a Mark Felton speculation.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: perdue3 on April 11, 2022, 02:29:33 PM
You can post cherry picked anecdotes all you want. You can misrepresent what has been stated by others all you want.
Your problem is that regardless of all of that, physics simply doesn't agree with you.
It is like you read an account of an Fw190 out turning a Spitfire Mk V and, ignorant of the specific situation in which that happened, locked onto all other claims, practical tests and so on that find that the Spitfire Mk V easily out turns the Fw190, all other things being equal as being false due to your first exposure being the contextless account of an Fw190 out turning a Spitfire Mk V when all other things were not equal.
And yet here we are, after 15 plus years, and still not a single credible quote of the Spitfire ever out turning, at low sustained speeds, a FW-190A (but more quotes that the Spitfire did out-turn it around 280 knots and above, the exact contrary of what everyone assumes).
If a single quote demonstrated that, in speeds well below 250-300 mph, the Spitfire could maintain a circle with a FW-190A, but without burning speed from a higher angle of attack (to shoot momentarily "across the circle" at a smaller circle -which I only ever heard being done from Spitfire pilots by the way- all of them describing as being forced to do this: ie: Shooting with the wings rumbling to aim "across the circle"...), I would consider it a serious counter quote. Note I am not even talking about gaining... I am talking about just maintaining the sight picture more than for a brief moment, in a turn that is not from a steep dive, basically.
Not one account has surfaced. And I have been looking for 20 plus years.
You keep mentioning specific situations, when most of the quotes I find are general statements from the most qualified people.
Pierre Clostermann was the RAF's record mission holder at 400. He was, in addition, a trained engineer, and the only pilot I am aware of, on the Allied side, tasked with giving technical conferences on German aircrafts.
Do you think when he said, in these conferences, that the Spitfire could not out-turn the Me-109 or FW-190A below 280 knots, that he intended to get Allied pilots killed?
He said of the Spitfire's turn reputation (although the issue is not as much of a poor turn rate than of a poor turn radius) that below 280 knots this reputation was "a die hard legend"... Then you have, on the opposite side, innumerable correlations that the FW-190A was a low-speed turn fighter, including a Russian overall conclusion (In "Red Fleet" Feb. '43) from one year of front-line combat: "The FW-190A will inevitably offer turning combat at a minimum speed."
You keep talking about cherry picking, because you fail to see it is the overall picture that contradicts you. On the other hand, you have US and British Navy test pilots on your side!
The Spitfire Mk V out-turned the Spitfire Mk IX. That is just a fact you can ask any flying museum operating both of them today. Yes there is an odd Russian turn test time quote at 17 seconds (vs a more realistic 21 seconds for a Mk V), but then the Russians also removed the outer guns to try to get more maneuverability out of this fighter, which Galland called "great for aerobatics, but ridiculous as a fighter"... Yes, he was talking of the Spitfire.
Sure the Johnny Johnson quote is about one encounter, but he CHOSE that encounter for a post war article: Context is everything...
(https://i.imgur.com/ZDi0d4b.jpg)
Johnny Johnson was not just the RAF's top Spitfire ace, he was also the top Western FW-190A ace, with 20 kills on FW-190As alone... Do you really think he would choose this particular combat for an article in 1946 if he thought it was non-representative? This was not written the day of the action: It was cherry picked, by him, for a post war article... Johnny Johnson was the one doing the cherry picking. See how that changes the context? No, I guess you don't.
Consider the Clostermann quote: Do you think Clostermann, top French ace at 27 kills, and RAF mission record holder at 400, is more on my side or more on your side?
Gaston
P.S. As to the physics you keep assuming are infallible, I can only point to the inability of a professor of physics to understand that, through internal leverages, an engineless car could be 2.8 times faster than the wind... He bet $10000 that this could not be the case, because, you know, internal leverages don't exist.
Same exact reasoning you apply here.
https://youtu.be/uYnCI3XURx0
G.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: Arlo on April 23, 2022, 11:45:15 AM
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On the face of it, the need to defy online Luftiewobblers seems obvious to the point of being trite. And yet, at the root of all of that lies the deeply radical notion that online Luftiewobblers’s policy is to provoke boisterous schmendriks into action. Then, it uses their responses in whatever way it sees fit, generally to establish tacit boundaries and ground rules for the permissible spectrum of opinion. The great irony is that there are some morally questionable, raucous jobsworths who are shameless. There are also some who are feebleminded. Which category does online Luftiewobblers fall into? If the question overwhelms you, I suggest you check both.
Ironically, by providing stiff-necked, savage smut peddlers with an irresistible temptation to unleash the forces of blackguardism upon an unsuspecting populace, online Luftiewobblers is playing with fire—and we all risk getting burned. So despicable are online Luftiewobblers’s clueless canards that online Luftiewobblers has been made a pariah by the international media, and its beliefs have been condemned by numerous government officials. You may be wondering why online Luftiewobblers is so desperate to irritate an incredible number of people. The most charitable answer is simply that it’s easy for it to accede to the voices of capricious, detestable sapheads and their effrontive campaigns to advertise magical diets and bogus weight-loss pills. Another possible answer is that I don’t know which are worse, right-wing tyrants or left-wing tyrants. But I do know that I contend that the best way to overcome misunderstanding, prejudice, and hate is by means of reason, common sense, clear thinking, and goodwill. Online Luftiewobblers, in contrast, avows that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and liberate the mind. The conclusion to draw from this conflict of views should be obvious: I’ve heard of sick-minded things like amoralism and obscurantism. But I’ve also heard of things like nonviolence, higher moralities, and treating all beings as ends in and of themselves—ideas that online Luftiewobblers’s ignorant, unthinking, childish brain is too small to understand.
Did online Luftiewobblers cancel its plans to monitor and moderate all forms of discussion and information distribution because it had a change of heart, or is it continuing the same battle on another front? It would appear to be the latter. When we chastise it for not doing any research before spouting off, we are not only threading our way through a maze of competing interests; we are weaving the very pattern of our social fabric. I don’t know when NIMBYism became chic, but when it tells us that there should be publicly financed centers of sectarianism, it somehow fails to mention that its representatives have discounted their brain as a useless organ. It fails to mention that there can be no gainsaying the fact that its conduct can be described as less than perfect. And it fails to mention that I welcome its comments. However, it needs to realize that its ruminations are hostile. They’re weapons-grade hostile. If hostile were architecture, online Luftiewobblers’s ruminations would be the Parthenon. To restate that with less grandiloquence, many of the most valued members of our community believe in beginning the debate about online Luftiewobblers’s ululations. Online Luftiewobblers, on the other hand, believes in subjugating persons of culture, refinement, and learning to inhumane, obdurate head cases. I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In particular, I hope you can see that online Luftiewobblers is the type of organization that turns up its nose at people like you and me. I guess that’s because we haven’t the faintest notion about the things that really matter such as why it would be good for it to demonstrate an outright hostility to law enforcement.
When I was little, my father would sometimes pick me up, put me on his knee, and say People who insist that flighty jobbernowls are more deserving of honor than our nation’s war heroes are either ignorant or cheapskates. Nocent pessimism has come to occupy a primitive place in the national dialogue. Okay, that’s a bit of an overstatement, but for all of you reading this who are not anti-democratic, tartarean exponents of cronyism, you can understand where the motivation for that statement comes from. While it may be a pleasing fantasy to pretend that the laws of nature don’t apply to online Luftiewobblers, the fact of the matter is that there’s one abhorrent nymphomaniac I know (more on him later) who thinks that one can judge people’s intentions and worth from the color of their skin. Of course, that’s not as bad as the unholy, homophobic scrub I ran into yesterday (more on him later as well) who was absolutely unable to comprehend that online Luftiewobblers recently claimed that teachers should teach our children that a book of its writings would be a good addition to the Bible. Interestingly, rather than use the word teach online Luftiewobblers substitutes the phrase, apply strategies for facilitating learning in instructional situations. I assume this is to conceal the fact that someone should tell its goombahs that its whole approach is overweening. Of course, none of online Luftiewobblers’s goombahs will listen. They have made up their minds. They sincerely believe online Luftiewobblers’s lies, its disinformation, its emotional manipulation. They unequivocally believe that waging a war against freedom of thought is so obviously a good thing that you shouldn’t need to question it. You know what? I avouch you should question everything, including that. If you do, I suspect you’ll conclude that if online Luftiewobblers isn’t ghoulish, I don’t know who is. In closing, let me remind you of my plan to address the legitimate anger, fear, and alienation of people who have been mobilized by online Luftiewobblers because they saw no other options for change. I ask each of you to join me. This is no doubt a substantial task, and while there exist big, systemic issues we must address together there are also things we can do individually. If we all work hard at it we can indubitably transform our culture of war and violence into a culture of peace and nonviolence.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: nopoop on April 23, 2022, 06:10:03 PM
WHAT ????
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: atlau on April 24, 2022, 01:00:06 PM
And yet here we are, after 15 plus years, and still not a single credible quote of the Spitfire ever out turning, at low sustained speeds, a FW-190A (but more quotes that the Spitfire did out-turn it around 280 knots and above, the exact contrary of what everyone assumes).
If a single quote demonstrated that, in speeds well below 250-300 mph, the Spitfire could maintain a circle with a FW-190A, but without burning speed from a higher angle of attack (to shoot momentarily "across the circle" at a smaller circle -which I only ever heard being done from Spitfire pilots by the way- all of them describing as being forced to do this: ie: Shooting with the wings rumbling to aim "across the circle"...), I would consider it a serious counter quote. Note I am not even talking about gaining... I am talking about just maintaining the sight picture more than for a brief moment, in a turn that is not from a steep dive, basically.
Not one account has surfaced. And I have been looking for 20 plus years.
You keep mentioning specific situations, when most of the quotes I find are general statements from the most qualified people.
Pierre Clostermann was the RAF's record mission holder at 400. He was, in addition, a trained engineer, and the only pilot I am aware of, on the Allied side, tasked with giving technical conferences on German aircrafts.
Do you think when he said, in these conferences, that the Spitfire could not out-turn the Me-109 or FW-190A below 280 knots, that he intended to get Allied pilots killed?
He said of the Spitfire's turn reputation (although the issue is not as much of a poor turn rate than of a poor turn radius) that below 280 knots this reputation was "a die hard legend"... Then you have, on the opposite side, innumerable correlations that the FW-190A was a low-speed turn fighter, including a Russian overall conclusion (In "Red Fleet" Feb. '43) from one year of front-line combat: "The FW-190A will inevitably offer turning combat at a minimum speed."
You keep talking about cherry picking, because you fail to see it is the overall picture that contradicts you. On the other hand, you have US and British Navy test pilots on your side!
The Spitfire Mk V out-turned the Spitfire Mk IX. That is just a fact you can ask any flying museum operating both of them today. Yes there is an odd Russian turn test time quote at 17 seconds (vs a more realistic 21 seconds for a Mk V), but then the Russians also removed the outer guns to try to get more maneuverability out of this fighter, which Galland called "great for aerobatics, but ridiculous as a fighter"... Yes, he was talking of the Spitfire.
Sure the Johnny Johnson quote is about one encounter, but he CHOSE that encounter for a post war article: Context is everything...
(https://i.imgur.com/ZDi0d4b.jpg)
Johnny Johnson was not just the RAF's top Spitfire ace, he was also the top Western FW-190A ace, with 20 kills on FW-190As alone... Do you really think he would choose this particular combat for an article in 1946 if he thought it was non-representative? This was not written the day of the action: It was cherry picked, by him, for a post war article... Johnny Johnson was the one doing the cherry picking. See how that changes the context? No, I guess you don't.
Consider the Clostermann quote: Do you think Clostermann, top French ace at 27 kills, and RAF mission record holder at 400, is more on my side or more on your side?
Gaston
P.S. As to the physics you keep assuming are infallible, I can only point to the inability of a professor of physics to understand that, through internal leverages, an engineless car could be 2.8 times faster than the wind... He bet $10000 that this could not be the case, because, you know, internal leverages don't exist.
Same exact reasoning you apply here.
https://youtu.be/uYnCI3XURx0
G.
That interview doesn't support your argument too well.
An instance of the 190A outrating a spit V. What were their respective airspeed at the start? That would be critical information.
His overall conclusion:
190A > Spit V Spit IX > 190A
But doesn't break it down in every category.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: Gman on April 24, 2022, 07:28:25 PM
I don't think Gaston is a malevolent force determined to remodel simulated versions of Fw190s to turn like Zeros across the world of gaming, I just think he's misguided with his education and thinking patterns. He tends to put the cart before the horse in terms of evidence and hypothesis. I was wondering if Greg would do a follow up video to his comments on Gaston's YouTube video. But he was busy with the Lancaster bomber of late, triggered apparently by a Mark Felton speculation.
Long term subscriber to both Felton and Gregg's YT channels. The recent Lanc vids = good times, hah.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: Tig on April 24, 2022, 07:41:32 PM
My input is simply this.
All 3 were quality planes and effective at their job. They all had strengths and weaknesses. Pilots were a tremendous factor.
But most importantly:
War battle accounts are almost never reliable!
As others have pointed out, key information is missing, and it's virtually impossible to say what aircraft was definitively the best. There are even confirmed stories of A-1 Skyraiders shooting MiG-17s down over Vietnam, which just furthers the point that skill and luck make almost anything possible.
So let's just figure out which planes we like most and enjoy them as is, and leave it at that, eh, Gaston? (P.S- if you think replying with a counterargument will make me react, you are sorely mistaken, I've said all I needed to say. :) )
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: Eagler on May 12, 2022, 09:24:15 AM
Good pilot in 109 will kill crappy pilot in spit
BOB was lost by poor leadership not inferior planeset
Eagler
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: nrshida on May 21, 2022, 03:25:39 PM
P.S. As to the physics you keep assuming are infallible, I can only point to the inability of a professor of physics to understand that, through internal leverages, an engineless car could be 2.8 times faster than the wind... He bet $10000 that this could not be the case, because, you know, internal leverages don't exist.
You apparently don't understand what physics is. And the precise mistake the professor made you are reproducing here.
You apparently don't understand what physics is. And the precise mistake the professor made you are reproducing here.
^^ Agreed. Any professor that bets money on ideas like that is not open minded and thus, a horrible professor. Don't follow the lemming professor off the cliff, Gaston.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: nrshida on May 23, 2022, 03:15:01 AM
Since Gaston cited this fellow as instrumental in his argument:-
The gentleman running this channel is not unintelligent, but you have to question the motivations and tactics of someone fixated on getting views by any means, including 'sensational' methods. His more recent video on electricity is a good example of this. He seems adept at selective vagueness in order to move the goalposts once people have committed, as the above video indicates he's well aware of. I ought to know. I use a similar tactic in ACM :rofl
In the case Gaston cites it's not impossible that this YouTuber 'conned' or 'tricked' the aforementioned Professor into arguing from authority, another informal fallacy, and subsequently losing the bet for basically not reading the exam question carefully enough. Fundamentally intelligent, superficially stupid.
Gaston is doing exactly what the above video highlights with his Fw190 argument. I bet he can't answer this question: If the 190 has internal leverages which give an advantage in turning over the Spitfire, then by what quantity is the internal leverage force larger than that which must also be present in the Spitfire?
Now watch him selectively ignore my question or move the goalposts (as he should, it's basically an Aikido technique).
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: icepac on June 29, 2022, 02:27:51 PM
Curious how a skyraider shot down a Mig 17 who made 11 or more gunnery passes at him.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: FLS on June 29, 2022, 06:24:04 PM
SkyRaider turns better, fight on the deck, Mig overshot and got clipped. I forget the details but I think there were two Mig kills.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: Tig on June 29, 2022, 06:29:42 PM
SkyRaider turns better, fight on the deck, Mig overshot and got clipped. I forget the details but I think there were two Mig kills.
I heard one of a MiG that went the wrong way around a mountain/large hill and HO'd the Skyraider.
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: icepac on June 29, 2022, 08:19:46 PM
Two migs dove in with missiles and missed and made 10 guns passes to try to get guns on the sky raiders before one went to a high perch likely out of ammo. The other made a pass and overshot and extended for a HO which ended badly. When he met the surviving mig pilot a few years ago he was told they made 12 passes
Title: Re: Pierre Clostermann opinion of the Spitfire vs Me-109 and FW-190A
Post by: FLS on June 29, 2022, 09:00:03 PM
The first of these victorious engagements took place on Jun. 20, 1965, when a flight of Skyraiders from the Strike Squadron 25 (VA-25) Fist of the Fleet, took off from the USS Midway (CVA-41) supporting the rescue of a downed USAF pilot in the northwest corner of North Vietnam were attacked by a flight of MiG-17s.
The two enemy jets launched missiles and fired with their cannons against the two A-1Hs, but both Skyraiders’ pilots, Lt. Charles W. Hartman III, flying A-1H BuNo 137523, radio callsign “Canasta 573,” and Lt. Clinton B. Johnson, flying A-1H BuNo 139768, callsign “Canasta 577,” evaded them before and maneuvered to shoot down one of the MiGs with their 20 mm cannons.
Lt. Johnson described this engagement in Donald J. McCarthy, Jr. book “MiG Killers A Chronology of U.S. Air Victories in Vietnam 1965-1973” as follows: “I fired a short burst at the MiG and missed, but got the MiG pilot’s attention. He turned into us, making a head-on pass. Charlie and I fired simultaneously as he passed so close that Charlie thought I had hit his vertical stabilizer with the tip of my tail hook. Both of us fired all four guns. Charlie’s rounds appeared to go down the intake and into the wing root, and mine along the top of the fuselage and through the canopy. He never returned our fire, rolled, inverted, and hit a small hill, exploding and burning in a farm field.”
The subsequent MiG kill of this engagement was shared by both Hartmann III and Johnson.
The second victory of the propeller-driven Skyraider against a North Vietnamese MiG-17 jet fighter, took place on Oct. 9, 1966 and involved four A-1Hs launched from the deck of the USS Intrepid (CV-11) in the Gulf of Tonkin flying as “Papoose flight.”
The flight was from the Strike Squadron 176 (VA-176) Thunderbolts and it was led by Lt. Cdr. Leo Cook, with Lt. Wiley as wingman, while the second section was led by Lt. Peter Russell with Lt. William T. Patton as wingman.
It was during the RESCAP (the REScue Combat Air Patrol, a mission flown to protect the downed pilots from ground threats) flight, that the “Spads” (as the Skyraiders were dubbed by their pilots) were attacked by four MiG-17s. This engagement ended with one Fresco confirmed as being shot down, a second as probably shot down and a third heavily damaged.
According to McCarthy, the MiG-17 kill was awarded to “Papoose 409,” the A-1H BuNo 137543, flown by Lt. Patton who, after having gained a position of advantage on one of the MiGs, opened fire with his four guns, hitting the tail section of the enemy jet. Patton followed the MiG which descended through the cloud deck and when Papoose 409 emerged from the clouds he spotted the enemy pilot’s parachute.