FW-190 vs. F-6F Hellcat

I like to compare WW II fighters and see which had the better kill ratios, etc.

Sometimes, data is hard to gather. Theoretically, Hellcats supporting the invasion of southern France could have engaged Focke-Wulf's premier fighter, but I have found no record of that.

Does anyone here know of such an encounter and how it went?

I did find an account by a Hellcat pilot who strafed some German troops and facilities,and he said that until he started shooting, he had little ground fire. Thought that his plane, unusual in Europe, was being mistaken for an FW-190.

I'm guessing that an average FW would be a bit faster and climb and dive better, but might lose to the F-6F on turns. I'm also guessing that the German plane would roll better. A Royal Navy test pilot who flew captured FW-190's had high praise for them, and he fought one from a Spitfire MK IX. Said that the German pilot had him "in the vertical" but the Spit was better "in the hoirizontal". Both pilots tried to exploit their advantages, but were of such close skill that they eventually broke off combat. This officer also had high praise for the roll rate of the FW, much better than that of the Spits.

Roll could be very useful. Ace P-47 pilot Robert S. Johnson wrote that he used complex rolls in the Thunderbolt to overcome its relatively poor turn radius. Johnson (28 aerial kills) once engaged a British friend in mock combat. The other guy was flying a MK IX Spitfire. Johnson had had the new "fat blade" prop fitted to his P-47D, and with that, he could outclimb the nimble Spit, and his 3-D rolls let him get the drop on the RAF pilot. Both men were impressed.

Of course, with the average Thunderbolt pilot, the agile Spitfire would soon have won. But that wide propellor made a lot of difference, said Johnson. The Spit had better immediate acceleration, but the P-47 eventually outclimbed it, once it got into high gear, so to speak.

T-Star

I don't think there were any FW's in the Pacific. Or many if any F-6's in Europe, were there?

I would feel better with a P-51D or later against the FW-190. I wonder how the P-38 would do? I have a feeling it would come down to pilot skill. I like the late Fw-190's (TA model with the Jumo engine) I don't imagine they were as agile as the earlier radial engine models. It's funny I don't usually think of a Hellcat in the European Theater, but as you say they were there.

Dwight

I'm no expert, but I suspect the FW-190 would have the F6F outclassed. The F6F was a carrier based plane, and had to be built heavier to withstand the landings. The FW-190 didn't have that handicap. The FW-190-D was one of the best fighters of the war, while I don't see much similar praise for the F6F. The F4U Corsair seems to get that distinction.

When I worked at lockheed there was a old engineer who flew both the p-38 and p-51 in the war. He told me the first time he flew the p-51 he almost broke a arm in the first turn as it was more respondsive than the p-38.

therevjay said:

I don't think there were any FW's in the Pacific. Or many if any F-6's in Europe, were there?

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Please read the post. Hellcats WERE involved in the invasion of southern France in Aug. or Sept. of 1944. I even cited the experience of a Navy pilot flying one!

As for the Mustang, it was at least equal to the FW-190, and had much longer range.

I'm reading Martin Caidin's book on the P-38, and the concensus seems to ahve been that well trained P-38 pilots at low to medium altitude could take either of the primary German fighters, given good pilot skills. One German pilot cited said that P-38's in North Africa could outmanuever his ME-109G-6. But he seems to have managed rather well, shooting down over 80 Allied planes. (But some were bombers.)

The Lightning was also supreme in the Pacific, killing more Jap pilots than any other Allied fighter. With the later combat and dive flaps, the P-38 turned very well, and avoided its previous deadly tendency to lock controls in a high speed dive, which killed many pilots. Both of America's leading aces flew only P-38's, in the Pacific. One had 40 kills when he was withdrawn from combat and given the Medal of Honor. The other had 38 kills when he "spun in" after turning too tightly with his auxilliary fuel tanks still on the plane.

BUT...the P-38 usually relied on high speed dives and higher level speed to beat the Jap pilots. NOT until late P-38J's applied the aforementioned flaps could it turn with a Zero. Until then, the Hellcat and Spitfire were better infighters.

One German pilot wrote that he and his flight tried to catch some P-38's over the North African desert. The American pilots easily outran them. The Luftwaffe man was so eager to catch them that he blew his engine, a rod actually projecting through the cowling!

Over northern Europe, the P-38 wasn't so hot, and Gen. Doolittle eventually ordered them removed from the 8th Air Force in England. Poor cockpit heating left the pilots half frozen at the higher altitudes there, and the Lightning had massive amounts of engine trouble and wasn't as manueverable at 35,000 feet as it needed to be. It also was unable to dive at high speed until it got that flap to break compression on the wing edges. Considering that Luftwaffe pilots frequently used dives to avoid Allied fighters, that was a major handicap. Some Germans thought that P-38 pilots were cowards until a captured one told them about the compressibility issue.

As for diving skills, the Germans used that technique a lot, as they were able to avoid Hurricanes and early Spitfires that way. The P-47 and the Tempest could outdive them, though, as could late P-38's, fitted to overcome the compression problem.

Many P-38 pilots in Europe were ill-trained on the plane, and its engine problems under winter conditions and high altitude in Europe gave the plane a bad rep. Lockheed test pilot Tony LeVier (sp?) was sent out to teach our combat P-38 pilots how to fly the plane to its capabilities, and this helped a lot. But most P-38 pilots in northern Europe were delighted to trade their planes for P-51's as the Mustang bcame available. The P-51 was designed to a British order, and was the first US fighter to be smaller and lighter, like its opposition and RAF fighters. Its handling was superb, by all accounts, with a turn almost as tight as a Spitfire's, and a better rate of roll and FAR greater range.

T-Star

johngalt said:

I'm no expert, but I suspect the FW-190 would have the F6F outclassed. The F6F was a carrier based plane, and had to be built heavier to withstand the landings. The FW-190 didn't have that handicap. The FW-190-D was one of the best fighters of the war, while I don't see much similar praise for the F6F. The F4U Corsair seems to get that distinction.

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I'm pretty sure that Capt. Eric Brown, RN, said that the Hellcat was the war's supreme naval fighter. He didn't like Corsairs as well, and some Jap pilot said that he was afraid of the Hellcat, as it turned better than a Corsair, and was much more dangerous in a dogfight.

The Hellcat seems to have been better than any Jap fighter until it met the George 12 and the Ki-100 late in the war. But the Japs made so few of those that they couldn't turn the tide. And B-29 raids caused inferior materials to be used in many late Jap planes. Some weren't up to their design potential.

One ace Hellcat pilot said that he loved his plane so much that if it could cook, he'd marry it!

Royal Navy Hellcat pilots also seemed to love the plane. The Corsair was regarded as much more dangerous to fly and for a time, until it got improved landing gear, was forbidden for ship operation, being usually given to the Marines for shore duty. The Royal New Zealand Air Force bought some, too.

I think the Hellcat had more ace pilots than any other US fighter. The P-38 had more kills, but fewer individual aces. (Although it had the top two.)

The Seafire was too fragile for best carrier operation, and its narrow landing gear was a problem. It also had short range for a carrier plane. Brown said that it was deadly if the enemy was close enough, but that it had too high an accident rate at sea to be a good naval fighter. It was just an emergency lashup of the Spitfire due to war needs. After the war, the Royal Navy got the Sea Fury, a very effective plane. One downed a MiG-15 over Korea!

feralmerril said:

When I worked at lockheed there was a old engineer who flew both the p-38 and p-51 in the war. He told me the first time he flew the p-51 he almost broke a arm in the first turn as it was more respondsive than the p-38.

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Merril-

Thanks! Very revealing!

T-Star

In reading first hand reports the big advantage the Corsair and the P38 had in the Pacific was that they were obviously NOT Japanese. In some areas so many other US fighters were shot down by nervous Navy AA gunners that only P38's were used.

But it wasn't only nervous AA gunners. My dad said that one trick the Japanese pilots would occasionally pull was to try and quietly slip a single plane into the back of a returning US formation. By blending in with a US flight they had a good chance of not being spotted until they made an attack, either when a plane was landing or simply strafing the field. With the US planes low on fuel and ammo it was unlikely they would be successfully pursued and the AA gunners would have been caught sleeping at the switch, so if the Japanese plane survived the initial attack they had a good chance of slipping away.

This was countered by a code word given when a US pilot suspected they had picked up a straggler. The US pilots wound then quickly veer off to the right or left and the AA gunners new the single plane still flying straight probably deserved their attention.

Texas Star said:

The Hellcat seems to have been better than any Jap fighter until it met the George 12 and the Ki-100 late in the war. But the Japs made so few of those that they couldn't turn the tide.

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And the Ki-100 was a desperation move itself caused by the inability of the Japanese to build enough serviceable inline engines for the the Ki-61. They ended up with hundreds if not thousands of Tony airframes sitting around without engines. Somebody got the idea of putting a radial engine into a Ki-61 airframe. Nobody thought that it would work. Not only did it work, it worked brilliantly. It was the best Japanese Army Air Force fighter other than the Frank. Fortunately, they came too late, and I think they lost a lot of productive capacity in an earthquake and several B-29 raids.

The Japanese just didn't have the technical prowess to duplicate the Daimler-Benz engines in production quantities.

I read somewhere that the F6F was designed after engineers had a chance to evaluate a downed Zero found in Alaska.

The Wikipedia article (FWIW) on Operation Dragoon lists the various aircraft carriers in support and the aircraft they flew.
I always thought the real advantage of US WWII fighters was in their armament-50 caliber MG vs the rifle caliber MGs supplemented by a cannon of the Axis fighters.

BLACKHAWKNJ said:

The Wikipedia article (FWIW) on Operation Drgoon lists the various aircraft carriers in support and the aircraft they flew.
I always thought the real advantage of US WWII fighters was in their armament-50 caliber MG vs the rifle caliber MGs supplemented by a cannon of the Axis fighters.

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Some Axis fighters had 12.7mm (sometimes printed as 13 mm) machine guns, e.g., the famed Zero. The Oscar (Ki-43) also had these heavier MG's in later versions. I think some Italian fighters also had the heavier MG's. And I think that some FW-190's had them. Most of these planes also had 20mm and 30mm cannon. The Oscar had just two MG's in the nose. But it was so aerobatic and so well flown that it was a deadly foe.

T-Star

brick said:

I read somewhere that the F6F was designed after engineers had a chance to evaluate a downed Zero found in Alaska.

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This is partially true. Grumann already had data from the front lines about the performance of Jap planes and knew that the successor to the Wildcat had to be lighter for its size, more powerful, and more manueverable. It was largely completed before a captured Zero became available.

But the Zero that crashed in the Aleutians (sp?) was surely examined by Grumann engineers, and may have added a bit to the final design.

T-Star

cmort666 said:

And the Ki-100 was a desperation move itself caused by the inability of the Japanese to build enough serviceable inline engines for the the Ki-61. They ended up with hundreds if not thousands of Tony airframes sitting around without engines. Somebody got the idea of putting a radial engine into a Ki-61 airframe. Nobody thought that it would work. Not only did it work, it worked brilliantly. It was the best Japanese Army Air Force fighter other than the Frank. Fortunately, they came too late, and I think they lost a lot of productive capacity in an earthquake and several B-29 raids.

The Japanese just didn't have the technical prowess to duplicate the Daimler-Benz engines in production quantities.

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True, but until B-29 raids grew heavy, they were fielding many Tonys. (Ki-61.) It was sort of a Jap version of the ME/Bf-109, and gave good service in New Guinea and other war zones.

I'm glad that you mentioned the Frank, Ki-84. It seems to have been a brilliant design, able to take on the Mustang and other top US fighters, although not nearly as fast.

The Spitfire MK XIV didn't reach the war zones before the Jap surrender, but it would have been a very formidable foe for anything the enemy could produce, as it was in Europe from early 1944. In fact, the MK VIII Spit cleaned Jap clocks from 1943-on, when it began reaching the war over Burma.
Capt. Eric Brown, RN, a distinguished test pilot, flew about all Allied and Axis planes, and said that if he had to be in a dogfight in any, he'd choose the MK XIV. But he named the Mustang IV (P-51D) as a close runner-up.

I think his opinion carries a lot of weight, as so few others had his extensive experience of all fighter types. He also saw combat over Europe. His book, "Duels in the Sky" is remarkable. It's out of print, I think, but if you can find a copy, give thanks. It's a remarkable volume

T-Star

Bestimmt, die FW-190, mein Herren.

Texas Star said:

True, but until B-29 raids grew heavy, they were fielding many Tonys. (Ki-61.) It was sort of a Jap version of the ME/Bf-109, and gave good service in New Guinea and other war zones.

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The Ki-61 was never as effective as it could have been because availability was very low. Holding the required manufacturing tolerances in liquid cooled engines always eluded the Japanese. Combine that with chronically poor Japanese logistics and maintenance management, and you end up with a lot of Tonys sitting on the ground waiting to get bombed, or as in the Philippines, captured intact.

I talked to an ex airforce pilot in 1956. He flew P-38's on photo recon missions over Europe from Britian. He said he could outrun anything the Germans had but their jets.

Hellcats flying off British carriers shot down a few German planes off the coast of Norway late in the war, however, they also lost a few Hellcats to the older (and arguably less capable) Me109s. The late war FW190s were substantially different and more capable than early models, but Norway didn't get priority gear.

Navy planes operating over southern France shot down a few German planes, but I don't remember the type or numbers. A lot would have depended on the quality of the pilots. Rank and file Luftwaffe pilot skills were below those of the average US Navy aviator circa 1944, but those Luftwaffe pilots that were skilled aces were simply the best that there was at what they did.

A decent flight sim that accurately replicates both planes could probably answer some of the technical questions.

You are certainly correct about pilot skills. A Royal Navy Wildcat shot down a FW -190 off Norway very late in the war. But the German pilot may not have seen him in time.
The account didn't say. It was a Wildcat, not a Hellcat. Probably flew off of a small carrier.

Gator, where have you been? I've missed your posts.

T-Star