Which was the ARR's deadliest opponent in 1944?

The P-51 had also better visibility :shock:
The 109 got in the last year of the war the Erla cabin,or also called the "Galland Hood",but still much inferior to tha Mustang "all around "visibility.
One thing that those two fighters had in comun.was the very vulnerable radiators.It was enought one bullet to bring them down.
In contrary the P-47 and the FW 190 with their air cooled engines could get a lot of punishment and to go on flying.

Only from the P-51D was the bubble canopy introduced. Until then it had about the same visibility.

The Focke Wolf 190 also had a one piece bubble canopy.
Also the distance between the 2 main wheels was much bigger compared with the Me-109, and that resulted in an easier landing.

Focke Wolf 190 was a shock for the Allies when appeared in 1941 (actually it was really felt as a dangerous newcomer in 1942).

Even though on the buckle belts of the Wehrmacht was print "Got mit uns" (God with us), the guys were unlucky again and again, many, many times.

In one case a fresh new type of a Focke Wolf 190 was flying over England. The pilot was an officer - captain or major. The guy crossed a deep gulf protruding in the British coast, and he thought he crossed the Channel. He was still over Great Britain, but he thought he arrived in France. So he landed nicely on a British airfield, with his brand new Focke Wolf 190, having a brand new type of motor, improved and upgraded.

Examples of such bad luck would never end. The first Tiger to be used in combat, fruit of 2 years of research and design of 2 German teams competing each other, was not only disabled near Leningrad in August 1942, but it was also captured! Another Tiger from the first series was captured still operational in North Africa in 1942, this time by the British.
As I said, the examples would never end...

I voted the Luftwaffe not for the airplanes but for the quality of the German pilots. ARR lost a lot of pilots/airplanes in the few air to air combats with Luftwaffe/MKHL (?). I suppose that if the "coup d'état" was earlier the ARR would suffer alot from the Luftwaffe...

Yours,
BM

QUOTE

Ok, the Germans had the best engines, but the U.S. had the best airframes. Obviously so if 1850hp & 2000hp engines weren't enough to rival the P-51's performance. Just imagine a German plane that was designed to work with a 2000hp machine, then you would have something better then the P-51 I think.

I have to disagree with you my friend, Ta 152 was better than Mustang, but it was too little too late.

Quote sign and title added by Dénes

[quote][quote]Ok, the Germans had the best engines, but the U.S. had the best airframes. Obviously so if 1850hp & 2000hp engines weren't enough to rival the P-51's performance.

Just imagine a German plane that was designed to work with a 2000hp machine, then you would have something better then the P-51 I think.[/quote]

I have to disagree with you my friend, Ta 152 was better than Mustang, but it was too little too late.

Quote sign and title added by Dénes

Well yes I guess I exculded the Ta 152 because it never really had any impact on the war.

[quote]Horsepower...damn right! I hate being nationalistic, but one thing I do love about my country is the fact that we know how to make some serious kick ass machines.

Mustang = King of the skies, King of the road.[/quote]

o:)
Who makes better engines, Ford or BMW?
(1)If I remember correctly Porsche makes the best V12 Engines in the world at the moment.
(2)And I also remeber this, the Mustang was powered by a Rolls Royce Merlin British Engine!
~there goes your nationalism... :|

And as for who was the deadliest Enemy, all three were very deady particularly the USAF (in numbers) and the Luftwaffe in skill.
-The Germans were experienced and had good machines, there is no doubt that in pilot skill they were on top.
-The Americans showed up in such large numbers that it demoralized you.
Going up against a formation of 1000 bombers each with 10 or 12 heavy MG's firing at one single plane. You need balls to go through that rain of bullets. I'm sure many pilots got shot down when they lost their nerve or became demoralized by the destruction on the ground. You see your home town below getting bombed, and you know you familly is there..you can't stop worring. Another cowardly act was the shooting of parachutes.
As for the Mustang, Serbanescu himself was shot down by one, a plane he considered inferior to his Messerschmitt.
-The Russians too showed up in large numbers, but because the ARR had fought them for many years already, they knew what to expect. They had some formidable aces however (a german ace told the story of how he dogfighted a magnificent soviet ace flying a LaGG-3, for 46 minutes, and could not get on his tail, they both perfomed every aerobatic maneuvre possible, + invented a few new ones :loool: (in his own words), and still could not get him. There was also Ivan Kozhedub, the top ace who shot down 2 Americans flying Mustangs that attacked his plane. In total 64kills.
But the Russians were deadly if they got their hand on you, on the ground.. they knew how to use their revolvers,.. just ask Traian Dârjan. http://www.elknet.pl/acestory/darian/darian.htm

ps: oh, and Fw190's BMW radial engine had way more than 2100 horse power. More like 2600-2800hp.

I seen nobody said nothing bout the most important thing from P-51 any series,the thing who gave it the capability to alow and mentain superior speeds and long range at superiour speed,for ex. cruise speed of an Mustang was 587 km/h (366 mph) and VNE at 895 Km/h (0.8 M). This thing was the wing with laminar profile,not the engine. The same engine was on Spitfire and the british plane never touch the same performance at the same instalated power. But... because everytime it existing an "but",that wing give it also a bigger speed of stall (around 162 km/h or 101 mph) and that's mean lower maneuvrability and maneability (I think I write corectlly-excuse please my lower knowlege of english) than an Messerschmitt 109 G at lower and medium speeds (at that time- 450-550 km/h). Maybe because of that,Al. Serbanescu said in that memorable speech... "the Mustangs are not better than the Messerschmitts".
For a parallel example,look at the rezults of americans Brewster Buffalo on U.S. pilots hands in comparations with the rezults of the same planes on finish pilots hands.It's an important matter how use the plane.

Regards

This post has been edited by transavia on December 27, 2012 10:35 pm

The laminaf flow wing alone was not that big a deal - such wings are in fact a hindrance without the right engine. The engine was the main asset of the Mustang. Do not forget that the same laminar flow wing was also used on the first versions of the Mustang powered by the Allison engine, and that combination led to really poor performance. Only when the laminar flow wing was combined with the Merlin engine, the Mustang became effective.
Radu

"...the early V-1710 powered P-39, P-40 and P-51A (which also had only the single-stage, single-speed-supercharged V-1710) airplanes were limited to combat operations at a maximum of about 15,000 feet (4,600 m)..."
"The P-38 was the only fighter to make it into combat during World War II with turbosupercharged V-1710s."
"The first production P-51A had the Allison V-1710 without turbosupercharger and thus, poor high altitude performance. At low altitudes, the P-51A was substantially faster than the Spitfire (transavia question for Radub; ...way?), which very much impressed the British when they first received the plane; they quickly realized the P-51 had an outstanding low-drag airframe and the airplane could become one of the best of the war if the Allison V-1710 engine were replaced by the two-stage-supercharged Merlin."

Allison F3R-V-1710-39 Short was P-40D/E and NA-91 & 97 (A-36Apache or Mustang I named by the british) production engine.The P-51A had an F20R-Allison V-1710-81 engine which developed 1,200 hp for takeoff and increased maximum. The British designation for the P-51A was the Mustang II and fifty were delivered late in 1942.

So,for comparation:

" Specifications (Spitfire Mk Vb)
Airfoil: NACA 2209.4(tip)
Powerplant: 1 × Rolls-Royce Merlin 45 supercharged V12 engine, 1,470 hp (1,096 kW) at 9,250 ft (2,820 m)
Maximum speed: 378 mph, (330 kn, 605 km/h)
Service ceiling: 35,000 ft (11,300 m)
Rate of climb: 3,240 ft/min (13.5 m/s)
Wing loading: 27.35 lb/ft² (133.5 kg/m²)

Specifications (P-40E)
Airfoil: NACA 2215-2209
Powerplant: 1 × Allison V-1710-39 liquid-cooled V12 engine, 1,150 hp (858 kW)
Maximum speed: 360 mph (310 kn, 580 km/h)
Service ceiling: 30,800 ft (9,400 m)
Wing loading: 35.1 lb/ft² (171.5 kg/m²)


Specifications (A-36 A/U.K. Mustang I)
Airfoil:NAA/NACA 45-100
Powerplant: 1 × Allison V-1710-39 liquid-cooled V12 engine, 1,150 hp (858 kW)
Maximum speed: 382 mph (332 kn, 612 km/h)
Service ceiling: 31,350 ft (9,555 m)
Wing loading: 37.3 lb/ft² (184 kg/m²)

Specifications (P-51 A/U.K. Mustang II)
Airfoil:NAA/NACA 45-100
Powerplant: 1 × Allison V-1710-81 liquid-cooled V12 engine, 1,200 hp (895 kW)
Maximum speed: 390 mph (338 kn, 629 km/h)
Service ceiling: 31,350 ft (9,555 m)
Wing loading: 36.6 lb/ft² (181.5 kg/m²)




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allison_V-1710#Supercharger
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_P-40_...ons_.28P-40E.29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Spitfire
http://www.aviation-history.com/north-american/p51.html
http://p51h.home.comcast.net/~p51h/sig/sig.htm

This post has been edited by transavia on December 28, 2012 07:50 pm

For an other example for how much important was the airfoil, Messerschmitt-109 G who have an NACA 2R1/Clark 2315-2309/14.2%-11.35% it have a maximum speed almost similar with P-51 A who have with 200 C.P. less power on his engine and more important ,but very important,this airfoil give to Bf-109 G over 140 km/h on VNE under the VNE of Mustang's,that's mean...you can not run by an Mustang(it doesen't matter wich model A,B/C or D) in pich. The advantage of Bf-109 G was in climbing and maneovrability/maneability at speeds until 550 km/h.
So ...probably the single solution was,like in case of the Thunderbolt,s,to stay and fight on horizontaly with severe vertical climbings (like Ilmari Juutilainen vs. La-5) and maneuvering a lot in negative G-forces,not to run.

This post has been edited by transavia on December 28, 2012 07:08 pm

Transavia, I do not know what that the wall of text that you copied from the internet means.
You said that the wing not the engine made the Mustang great. And I told you that the same wing with a poor engine made the Mustang bad. Ergo, the engine made all the difference.
Radu

...it means cause the Mustang was an very good airplane even without the R.R. Merlin XX engine and just become excelent with it,but never have the chance to touch the maximum of his performances indiferent the type of the engine put it on it, without that type of wing and airfoil.

You don't give the answer.

...it means cause the Mustang was an very good airplane even without the R.R. Merlin XX engine and just become excelent with it,but never have the chance to touch the maximum of his performances indiferent the type of the engine put it on it, without that type of wing and airfoil.

You don't give the answer.

Transavia,
No wonder there is confusion... in one sentence you say that the Merlin engine made the Mustang excellent but then continue by saying that the engine did not really make any difference. So, if the engine "did not matter" how did the change of engine lead to "excellence"?

My point was that the laminar-flow wing was inefficient until the introduction of the Merlin. This is not "my opinion", it is an established fact.
It is hard for me to figure... but it seems that you agree (at least in the first half of your sentence).

This is OOT and serves no purpose.

Radu

I didn't said "did not matter",I said:
..."the Mustang was an very good airplane even without the R.R. Merlin XX engine and just become excelent with it,but never have the chance to touch the maximum of his performances indiferent the type of the engine put it on it, without that type of wing and airfoil."

...because the laminar profile induces a lower drag resistance and increases the efficiency of traction control (where the drag resistance and traction,together with the lift,the weight and the gravitational acceleration are the forces wich apear on a wing that is in a flow of a fluid),so acordind with that in 1942 an P-51 A touch the speed of 630 km/h with an engine who give it only 1200 h.p. while a Spitfire Mk.V b powered with 1470 h.p. touch only 605 km/h and an Bf-109 G with D.B-605 A by 1455 h.p. have 636 km/h.
This is the point,because you can put a 15000 h.p. engine to a cube...certainlly you will make it to fly,but never to rich high speed.And this is not "my opinion", it is an established fact...by the laws of aerodynamics.
so,because of that's the wing was the most impotant thing for P-51 in reaching its maximum performances.