Although the two never met in combat, how would the F8F have fared in a maneuvering contest against the Zero?

The Bearcat will dominate the maneuver in the vertical plane, the Zero will dominate in the horizontal plane at lower speeds if the US pilot is stupid enough to fight there. The Bearcat will win easily by keeping the speed up and maneuvering in the vertical plane. After all, the Hellcat beat the Zero by avoiding low speed turning fights, and the Bearcat was designed to be better than the Hellcat in most air combat parameters except range and bombload.

Hojutsuka

And firepower. The F8F carried 4 .50s as opposed to the 6 .50s on the F6F.

I think the F-8 was closer to the Zero in more respects than the Hellcat, but it would have been a slaughter in any case.

We look at fighter combat as a sort of joust or gladatorial combat, one on one. It really wasnt like that. Dogfights were usually between groups of planes, and the US pilots were FAR better at group tactics than the japanese pilots were.

Of course those became 20 mm's starting with the F8F-1B.

You guys should definitely read this:

http://www.microsoft.com/games/combatfs2/articles_sakai.asp

It's an interview with Saburo Sakai by the development team of Microsoft Combat Flight Simulator 2. You can check out the "articles" section of that site, too, if you want to read a bunch more interviews (mostly with American pilots).

The F8 was also optimized for quick reaction to air raids, with superior rate of climb, etc. By the time any Zeros or other Kamikazes got to within striking distance, they'd be facing a LOT of Bearcats, in addition to the CAP, whilst earlier navy fighters would still be climbing to altitude.

A single engagement between a Zero and a Bearcat was unlikely late in the war, since so many Japanese sorties were kamakaze raids. Here the F8's high power to weight ratio would be telling, allowing it to make passes at incoming planes and reengage others quickly. It would fight almost entirely in the vertical plane, and escorting Zeros would be unable to engage or protect their raid, much less dogfight

I was wondering yesterday how the F7F did, would have done.

what a beauty!

More intended for night figher.

The Bearcat was described by Grumman as more or less a plane the size of the Wildcat with the engine of the Hellcat. Conversely, it was "the smallest airframe that could be designed around the specified engine and fuel specified in the request." Bearcats could climb like raped apes. Spoke to a pilot a few months ago and he mentioned the Bearcats could put the Panthers to shame off the deck most impressively. Time to height was the point.

Cleveland Air Races 1947 - An USNR F8F-2 IIRC went from a standing start to 10,000 ft in 91 seconds. About 6500 fpm average, which is downright scary. Reputedly the F7F was also in the 6000+ fpm range at WEP. I don't know if there were ANY other piston engined fighters that could manage near that level of performance.

Greg Shaw

Recall it was described as a Razor blade with an engine. Intent was as a Point defense fighter but she did a lot well re: AAF post war and indochina

Multi Mission Fighter. Was designed with an internal weapons bay and could carry a 18" (?) Trop. Energy Fighter, Boom and Zoom. 4 .50's in the nose and 4 20MM in the wing root, They had to put blast hoods on the wing guns as they blinded the night fighter pilots when fired. JF

Okay, Mitsubishi A6M Reisen, first flew April 1939. Bearcat, first flew August 1944. Five years of development difference, sort of like comparing the P-80 (1944 with the F-86 (1947).

Now, compare, in battle, with well trained pilots, the Hawker Sea Fury (Sept 1944) cat. One source states that the Bearcat had a edge in climb and manoeuvrability whilst the Sea Fury was a better wapons platform and the superior aircraft under instrument flight conditions.

It could even be said that the Fairy Firefly (Dec 1941) was a much better fighter, even as a two seater, than the Zero.

Care to develop that line of analysis a bit further? Seems like a curious statement to just leave hanging out there ...

-Mark 1

As long as you didn't actually have to fight anything.

Greg Shaw

Are there any surviving bearcats and especially, are there any remaining Flying bearcats?

Kind of why I fell in love with the thing.

It was kind of like a modern fighter bomber, only before its time.

Do you know the ammunition loadout for the 8 guns? Were the two kinds on the same trigger?

Were they M2, or M3 .50s?

I'm not sure it wouldn't be a HELL of an impressive foundation for an UCAV.

From William Green and Gordon Swanborough's An Illustrated Anatomy of the World's Fighters:

"It could turn with the best of its single seat contemporaries and inside most of them".

Bf-109K-4 could - with MW50 water injection - climb to 6000 metres in mere 3.5 minutes. Without the boost system it took 5 to 6 minutes, depending from engine model etc. Some of the late Spits were also quite hot climbers.

Late piston-engined fighters could outclimb early jets to a degree, especially if we're talking about alert start. Thing about early jet engines was that they accelerated terribly slowly.

F8F would have completely butchered any Zero model...

There are a few around, including Rare Bear, which set a piston engine speed record at 500+mph not too long ago. See here: http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/regis...8fregistry.html

Douglas

But they were M3 guns which fired at 1,200 rpm rather than the c. 850 rpm of the M2 variant in the F6F, so there wasn't much difference.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

I am sure that the pilots of 1770 Squadron, Royal Fleet Arm will be rather surprised at the viewpoint, considering that they shot down, if I remember it correctly, half a dozen Ki43 Hayabusa fighters. Several over Palembang and several over Okinawa, I believe.

That pretty much sums up the extent of the Royal Fleet Arm's contribution to the Pacific war.

Korean suicide bombers did more damage to the Japanese war effort.

No, it couldn't really climb that fast. The infamous Green figures are a misread of the climb chart. This has been discussed endlessly on other forums. The FEW 109K-4 that had the 2000 ps DB 605D engine maxxed at around 5200-5500 fpm, and about 4800 fpm on 1850 ps. Likewise, the best of the Spitfires were right about 5200-5500 fpm, either Mk XIII/IX/XVI on +25 psi boost with the Merlin 66/266 or the XIV on +21 psi boost with the Griffon.

They will all require between 500 and 700 hp just for flying at climb speed, all other power goes to climbing. Given the lower wing loading of the F8F its climb speed should be lower, and given the hp-thrust relationship (remember that thrust = 375/TAS * hp) the F8F is going to have a big edge in PsubS. 6000+ fpm just doesn't work for a 109K-4 on 2000 ps at typical weights. 6500 fpm does barely work for a F8F at typical loaded weight. Just plugged it into my spreadsheet, a 109K-4 at 7200 lbs and 75% Propellor efficiency (typical figure for a 109) requires 565 hp @ 177 mph (280 km/h recommended climb speed) and does about 5475 fpm. A F8F-1 at 9500 lbs requires 735 hp for 165 mph IAS and does 5550 fpm on 2400 hp, 6650 fpm on 2800 hp.
Poor acceleration, and poor thrust at low speeds. It all comes back to hp/thrust equation, a 2000 hp recip has a hell of a lot more thrust at climb speeds than a 2000 lb thrust jet.

Without question.

Greg Shaw

Brain fart, should be 565 lbs/thrust for the 109K-4 adn 735 lbs/thrust for the F8F-1. Or 266 hp for the 109K-4 and 323 hp for the F8F-1. And 250 to 350 hp for the first sentence. I forgot to do the hp/thrust conversion when I looked at my spreadsheet figures.

Greg Shaw

"It could turn with the best of its single seat contemporaries and inside most of them".
A Sopwith Camel could turn inside even the Firefly, but that doesn't qualify it as a competitive fighter. How long was the Firefly in service before it scored its first aerial victory?

Big deal, turning doesn't win fights. A 315 mph fighter was outclassed in '40, by '45 it would be criminal to fly it against anything current. As for beating up on on Ki-43, again, big f'ing deal. You had a 315 mph fighter against a badly obsolete 310 mph fighter. Take them up against a Ki-44, 61 or 84 and see what happens. Or compare it to the F6F-3/5 and F4U-1 which were both approx 100 mph faster.

Greg Shaw

Again, an understatement. The Royal Navy was, if you remember, shouldering the burden in other theatres but even so, managed to contribute and was increasing its contribution to the Pacific war when it abruptly ended. This sort of childish observation is on a par with asking "What did the US Navy do in the first two years of WWII?" or "Where was the US Navy in the Indian Ocean?" All services of all the Allies contributed as much as they could towards the common objective of destroying the enemy, something we should all be thankful for.

Yet, the Hayabusa was noted as being if anything, more maneauvrable than the Zero. It was acknowledged as a hard kill, by most of its protagnists, even in 1945. That the Firefly, an aircraft that you're choosing to denigrate which was primarily a strike aircraft in this period, was able to meet and kill them, suggests that it was not quite the dog of an aircraft that you're attempting to portray it as.

Come on now, was the Ki-43 agile? Certainly, extremely agile compared to its '45 opponents. It was also dog slow, mediocre climb, poor dive. It had NO performance edge except low speed turning, no escape ability. The best it could hope for against a competently flown and aware allied fighter in '45 was to make the allied pilot work for a kill. Or hope the opponent screws up and get a snapshot during an overshoot.

The Ki-43 was the only fighter in front line service in '45 that the Firefly I had any speed advantage over. The Firefly I had enough of a speed advantage to play boom'n'zoom on the Oscar, but against the contemporary F4U and F6F was clearly inadequate as a fighter/interceptor. Against any German or top line Japanese fighter it was just as clearly outclassed. As an attack aircraft it held up better, but still wasn't as good as an F4U-1d or F4U-4.

I'll stand by my first statement, beating up on an obsolete fighter is less than impressive as a demonstration of it capabilies as a fighter.

Greg Shaw

(edited to fix a typo, didn't mean to put II)

There was little naval action v the IJN in the Indian Ocean, the one time the IJN seriously went there (April 1942) the RN carriers missed (and well they did, 2 against 5) a major confrontation but RN still took considerable losses; RN's withdrawal was then followed up by a anti-merchant shipping sweep by the Japanese in the Bay of Bengal where Allied merchant ship losses ranked with the worst convoy debacles against the Germans. The consolation prize was sinking the CA Haguro near Penang in 1945 by RN DD's.

The last sentence would fit into wartime Allied propaganda but the RN contribution in Pac was in fact small. If there was an exception it would be RN subs more than carriers. The latter effort has been criticized from a Brit veteran and scholarly perspecitve both in a number of books (eg. "They Gave Me a Seafire" by Crosley, "Barracuda Pilot" by Hadley, "Grave of a Thousand Schemes" by Wilmont), how RN didn't adapt carrier concepts well to the situation in the Pacific, and simple lateness of any serious RN carrier effort against Japan until considerably after any important role for them in Europe had disappeared. So 'contributed as much as it could" is actually disputed, v. falling into the pattern of laying back later in the war because Britain felt it had suffered too many losses and casualties already (which may have been a defensible realpolitik decision from a Brit POV, but we shouldn't pretend it didn't happen, and PTO wasn't the only place).

The original statement of Firefly parity with the A6M is silly. By any reasonable comparison the Hurricane wouldn't be a far inferior fighter to the Firefly, and A6M v. Hurricane in the prime of the JNAF was extremely one sided (19:1 real over Ceylon in April '42, similarly lopsided in Malaya and East Indies though most opposition there was JAAF).

Re; Palembang strikes, one squadron of Fireflies flew with 6 of Hellcats and Corsairs on strikes, with 2 of Seafires doing CAP. This is like the P-40 later against the Japanese except much more so, flying in concert with F4U's and P-38's was not the same as by itself, and it's one reason the P-40 did better later on (like 1943), although decline in pilot quality of Japanese air arms was another reason, heavily compounded by January 1945.

On specific claims sources vary. Generally given is 14 FAA claims 24 January 1945 raid and 7 a/c failed to return (cause breakdown not known, but at least some and probably most AAA). The defending units were 26th Sentai Ki-43-II's, 21st Sentai Ki-45's and 87th's Ki-44's. They lost 1, 1 and 8 pilots respectively, claiming at least 25 Brit aircraft. So pretty accurate FAA claims in this case (as often for Allied claiming *late* in WWII, but in contrast to many early-mid war Allied claims) and likely victories were actually over Tojo's. 29th January the FAA claimed 7 Japanese a/c and 9 FAA a/c didn't return including a Firefly. The 87th Sentai claimed 14 for the loss of 4 pilots.

The only Firefly claims I know of around Okinawa were identified as Ki-51 Sonia's (JAAF dive bomber/CAS a/c).

In Brown's "Duels in the Sky" Firefly v Tojo is "Firefly had little hope of success in such a combat". That book is theoretical one-one matchups. Though interesting, one reason I think it's a less important book than many seem to is 1-1 plane matchups in a vacuum are such a small part of fighter combat. Still when distilling down to comparing planes in the abstract, for whatever that's worth, 'Firefly might be better than A6M' is not a defensible statement. Against 1945 JAAF pilots, as part of a force of mainly Hellcats and Corsairs, OK Firefly's might survive and score some kills. Alone against 1942 JNAF fighter units, they would very likely have suffered some variation of the same fate as all other 1942 JNAF opposition (with the exception of F4F's):a high kill ratio for the A6M's.

Joe

Please explain the latter remark ?

Frank

Given the debate about two (or more - we have a "third party" getting dragged in here) fighter technologies, design philosophies and mission requirements - that of the A6M of the later 1930s and that of the F6F Bearcat of the early 1940s. It must also be remembered that if and when the two aircraft would have met the circumstances would have heavily favoured the Bearcat without even considering any other matter (the JNAF being largely a "kamikaze" or escort for "kamikaze" force). Their last serious attempt at the use of "classic" naval air warfare was rightly named the "Marianas Turkey Shoot".

On its day and in the right circumstances just about any aircraft can "down" another.

There are instances where little better than an "armed trainer" has destroyed one of the "race horses" of the era - it depended on who and how the engagement was initiated and how it was broken off.

What does matter is that it seems as those the Allies got their setup right in the end and theoretically won the war (there has been for a while debate about who won and who lost with the rise of the German and Japanese economies post war )

Whether they could have started from a better position is something I would find both more interesting and more profitable (possibly) to current events. Failures of intelligence, of political will and an enemy taking advantage of distractions in another part of the world to push its case – forcefully if need be……

It is really rather a sterile argument - rather akin to "boys seeing who can p*!s up the wall higher".

Frank

I was referring to the "fleet arm" ie: carrier aviation.

The Royal Navy's contribution to the Pacific war "abruptly ended" with 12 torpedo hits to Repulse and 10 torpedo hits to Prince of Wales on 19 December, 1941.

One other item with the Bearcat is that teh main book I have for WW2 aircraft does not list the Bearcat. They list other aircrfat which never really reached service such as the Volksfighter.

The Bearcat did reach squadron status but never entered combat during WW2?

edit: If you were to fight the Beacat with any WW2 propeller driven aircraft, which would it be?

Changing the goalposts from "the Firefly was useless" to "the Firefly was only able to beat up obsolete fighters" is a big step. The reality is, no one has disputed that the Firefly was outclassed by more modern opponents but remember, just as comparing the Zero, a 1938-9 design to the Bearcat a 1944-45 design is silly, comparing the Firefly, a 1941 design to an aircraft designed in 1944-45 is equally as silly. The evidence is that the Firefly could have taken on and won against the Zero in single combat - which as Joe notes is a very artificial environment, anyway. It won against the Ki-43 and Ki-44, which even Brown concedes it shouldn't have. As Frank points out, no matter what the mount, any pilot can still have a bad day and get bounced. The Firefly might not have been the best but it was adequate, as the experience of 1770 Sqn. proved, which is all one can ask of any weapon really.

Actually everwhere I have read it was 5 (possibly 6) torpedoes into Prince of Wales and 5 in Repulse plus multiple 250kg and possibly 500kg SAP bombs.

Where do your figures come from ?

Frank

CR-42!!!!!



I'm going to have to disagree with you here. In 1942 and early 1943 the US carrier fleet was taking it pretty hard. What yonder carrier do I see? HMS Victorious!

She was there when most needed.

This entire thread is based on a late war / postwar fighter (Bearcat) beating up on an obsolete fighter - (Mitsubishi Reisen).

I think you're assuming that activity against the enemy constitutes all naval activity, something which I don't think my statement said (although, it could be construed that way, I admit). I was merely making an observation that the absence of the RN from the Pacific was because of commitments, elsewhere, just as the absence of the USN from the Indian Ocean. No one criticises the USN yet, it seems the RN gets unfair criticism for its absence from the Pacific.

As to your points about the Firefly's engagements, very interesting. I was only aware that it had managed to gain some victories in the Pacific, something which the other posters disparaged, unfairly in my opinion.

That may have been down to tactics as much as technology. The RAF pilots were used to matching or bettering the Bf 109 in a turning dogfight, but this was the worst thing to do against the agile Japanese planes; even the Spitfires got chewed up until they learned to play to their strengths rather than to the Japanese ones.

IIRC US pilots went through the same learning experience.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

I find that hard to believe - even G-2 with mere 1310hp maxed over 4500 fpm, and could get into 6km under six minutes. Sure, K-4 was slightly heavier but it had also 700hp more.

The G-2 hit 4500 fpm on 1455 hp (1475 ps), not on 1295 hp (1310 ps). It did about 3850 on 1310 ps. The math is fairly easy to do, we know how fast the G-2 was at SL (524 km/h, 325 mph on 1310 ps) and how much power it had available. From there it is simple to calculate Cd0 figures, for the G-2 that works out to about .0273. That is based on 95 lbs exhaust thrust and 85% propellor efficiency. After that it is trivial to calculate how much the total drag in lbs is a 177 mph, subtract that from thrust(lbs) available at that speed. Convert that back to hp, giving you the excess power available for climb. Divide 33,000 by aircraft weight, multiply that by excess hp gives you the climb rate in fpm.

Doing so gives climb rate of about 3850 fpm on 1310 ps, and 4500 fpm on 1475 ps. Right in line with all the test figures I have from US, UK, German and Soviet tests.

Greg Shaw

That is a strawman argument, I never said "the Firefly was useless". I said as long as you didn't have to fight anything. And I'll still stand by that, as I said beating up on another obsolete fighter doesn't prove anything.

And I'm not comparing it to fighters designed in '44-'45, I'm comparing it to the F4U-1 whose design predates it, and the F6F which was designed about the same time. It simply comes off 2nd best against EVERY contemporary fighter, and most whose design predates it. It was an adequate multi-role aircraft, but as a fighter it was nearly hopeless in '43, much less in '45.

Greg Shaw

Greg, very good information. Thanks.

Somebody posted a link to a page comparing the F4U-4 to the P51D. I don't suppose you have the data for the F4U-4 vs the P51H? More contemporary I'd think. Mind you I prefer the F4U. The F2G would provide another backdrop.

Tactics is partly true, partly an excuse. The Commonwealth units in SE Asia were consistently routed whenever they met the JNAF, and usually v. JAAF too all the way from beginning of war to April '42 raids on Ceylon, after which action v. Japanese calmed down a lot. The Japanese fighter units were just more effective at that time, taking into account planes*, pilots and the whole war situation. That also applied to the USAAF though their results were not as bad, per two sided accounts; the AVG OTOH was successful against the JAAF (only) by the middle of that period, so a learning curve can be seen there. The USN was at parity with the JNAF fighters from the get go, unlike any other air arm, so not really the same story there.

*including very importantly the superior range of their fighters, Oscar too though not as much as the Zero, to concentrate their moderately superior numbers into overwhelming ones again and again when the Allies had to spread their short legged fighters out to defend many places; also typically the Allied fighters couldn't escort return raids to Japanese airfields so their fields only suffered generally ineffective night raids while Allied ones were under pressure all the time.

The Spits at Darwin in 1943 were consistently bested by the JNAF in reality. Per their claims they turned things around with hit and run tactics, per actual Japanese losses they didn't. 20 some (28 per one source) Spits were lost in air combat (not counting fuel losses which were common too, but counting some bomber defensive fire losses). 2 May 1943 is a combat often given as demonstrating the turnaround through better tactics, 9 bombers and 5 fighters claimed for the loss of 2 Spits; but actually only one 59th Sentai Oscar and a Sally of the JAAF were lost, their only raid against Darwin. The JNAF fighter unit in all the other raids, 202nd Air Group, says it lost 3 fighters in combat altogether (NG, etc) from March-Sep 1943, and again some sources say none of those over Darwin. Later in Burma Spits claimed a positive ratio v. the JAAF, but that's a long learning curve if we refer to that.

In general CW air arms tended to put the second team v. the Japanese and it showed. Although, the units in SE Asia '41-42 included a number of BoB vets, some killed some with claims (though Allied claims in general check out poorly in that period), see Shores' "Bloody Shambles". But not well integrated top performing units, or planes. The Japanese fighter units were highly effective, so they routed them. It was more than a simple tactics learning curve. Anyway subsitute Firefly for the other types, change nothing else, and same result is a reasonable prediction.

Joe

Selective reading there, as usual. The point of criticism, and not limited to anyone here, long voiced by historians, is the RN did virtually nothing in the Indian Ocean when it might have, or combined with USN more. And BPF operations were very late compared to the disappearance of a real carrier role anywhere else. Part of this was almost undoubtedly what I said, the Brits felt (at a high level, like Churchill) they'd fought enough already and tended to arrange things so the US (not to mention Soviets) would do more of the heavy lifting later in the war.

On the air combats you're being selective too. The key point of very small sample of Firefly fighter combat is that it was backed by much larger numbers of Hellcats and Corsairs. Send in the same raids on Sumatran refineries, even against the '45 JAAF, with *just* Fireflies as the escort, and the situation could completely change, because obviously it was an inferior fighter in basic performance. Also inject the Firefly to the situation otherwise in the period where CW figther units were consistently beaten by A6M's, and surely it would have been beaten as well. I don't see any reason from a few kills to say the Firefly wasn't, as seems obvious otherwise, a dog of a fighter in its time, and even before its time

Joe

Sure it could. I've seen the graph myself, from FAF performance tests which were flown specificially with 1310hp power. Use of takeoff emergency power (1475hp) was often mechanically prevented in G-2's.

I find this bit about Spitfires being defeated by A6M aircraft unlikely. Even Hurricanes would have outclassed the Mitsubishis. Spitfire I/II would have slaughtered them.

After thumbing through Brown's Wings of The Navy it would seem that the Firefly was a usefull airplane. Perhaps not in it's primary role as a fighter but it continued in production into the mid 1950's.

It was found to be a good anti-submarine platform. It was also used in the dayfighter-reconasince and night-fighter roles. In Korea six squadrons of them operated from carriers flying mainly close support missions throughout the conflict. They also participated in mine laying and anti shipping strikes.

After Korea the type continued in the anti submarine role until relaced by US furnished Avengers. It then was used as a trainer for anti-submarine observers.

The last production planes were delivered as target drones in 1956.

Brown participated in the types development, and he liked the way it flew. Also it's handing and reliability.

Perhaps he has a soft spot for it.