In December of 1941, when the United States joined the rest of the
world's industrialized nations in the first truly globe-spanning war,
there was a tremendous range of single-seat fighters both in use and
under design everywhere. However, to paraphrase a later persona, you go
to war with the military you have, not the one you wish you had. What
was a nation's front-line fighter plane in 1942 was obsolescent in 1943
and a death trap a year later. This entry will examine the best fighter
planes from the "early years," and decide which of them is the best.
Bear in mind, however, that in the hands of a talented pilot any one of
these planes could beat any of the others. None of them could be
considered a "dog," just perhaps not quite as good as the eventual
winner.
As previously mentioned, the US gets two planes, one from the Navy
and one from the USAAF, since the two services had completely different
design criteria which generated completely different fighters. The
Japanese, Germans and British get one entry each. 
The entries are presented in no particular order. Let's get on with it.
1
The biggest reason the P-40 did so well early in the war was because its pilots were very well trained and knew the plane. A squadron of P-40's fought out of Henderson Field for a while, and did very well against the Zero even though the Zero really was a much better plane.
I agree that the Zero was the best fighter of the early war.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 01, 2011 11:39 PM (+rSRq)
2
SDB, I think the same argument can be made for the early success of the Zero as you made for the 40. But in any discussion of this type, my tendency is to look at the characteristics of the bird versus the ideal list of my wants. Then the preference for rugged and heavily-armed comes into play....
Posted by: The Old Man at December 02, 2011 06:10 AM (TcNy+)
3
It looks like you have a picture of an F4F-3. It clearly has "F-3" on the side, and I don't see any sign of the wing joints. That minor nit aside, great article, and great pictures. They all look like they were taken somewhat recently, I wonder how recent the BF109 and A6M pictures are, given that I don't believe flyable versions of either exist anymore.
I'd have to argue on throwing out the BF109 so early, just based on the results it achieved. I'd put it into the top three with the Spitfire and Zero.
Posted by: David at December 02, 2011 10:30 AM (+yn5x)
4
David, that would actually be the squadron markings, not the type number, though technically it's incomplete. The correct number would be X-Y-Z, where X is the Air Group Number, Y the plane type (Fighter, Bomber, Scout, Torpedo), and Z the plane number in the squadron. So in 1942, 6-F-12 would be the 12th plane of the fighter squadron of the USS Enterprise's air group.
Posted by: Wonderduck at December 02, 2011 11:20 AM (OS+Cr)
5
There were no P-40s serving at Henderson Field during the Battle for Guadalcanal. They had the P-400, which was a bastardized export version of the P-39. Almost completely unsuitable for air combat (All the more so because they had no ground equipment to keep their oxygen system charged.), but its heavy armament and payload made it invaluable for ground support. The pilots there learned the hard way to leave tackling the Japanese aircraft to the F4Fs.
The A6M was very maneuverable but at high speeds or high attitudes, that maneuverability almost completely disappeared to the point of the aircraft being uncontrollable. That was why Japanese pilots were reluctant to go into steep dives in the Zero.
Finally, it is easy to overemphasize the importance of maneuverability in a fighter. Pilot skill and tactics often were far more determinative of the fighter's performance - which aircraft had greater maneuverability was only critical for the few pilots pushing the edge of the performance envelope.
Posted by: cxt217 at December 02, 2011 04:29 PM (Zye/c)
6
The genius of the Thach Weave was that it pretty much eliminated the value of maneuverability, and instead emphasized weapons and armor, in which areas the F4F (and pretty much all later American fighters) vastly outrated the Zero.
Also, this is from Fire in the Sky:
In April 1943 No. 15 Squadron (RNZAF) arrived on Guadalcanal with P-40s. RNZAF fighter squadrons took part in many of the fierce engagements triggered by each new U.S. Landing farther up the Solomons. These engagements did much more than the Guadalcanal campaign to damage the JNAF, and by the time the JNAF abandoned Rabaul in April, New Zealand fighters had claimed ninety-nine kills
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 02, 2011 05:02 PM (+rSRq)
7
Regarding the suitability of P-39 for air combat, there's a funny picture here:
http://wio.ru/aces/rechkalov.htm
Every star on that cowling is a downed German aircraft (quite a few were 109s).
Posted by: Author at December 02, 2011 08:41 PM (G2mwb)
8
I had forgotten that the P-40 saw such wide use early in the war.
I do remember that the American Volunteer Group ('Flying Tigers') were taught to climb high and dive towards the Japanese planes they fought. At least, that was mentioned in the book I read, way back in high school.
Chennault (leader of the AVG) was big on using that advantage of the P-40.
About the Spitfire, Bf109, and A6M2: the mix of guns with different convergence zones is surprising. Did the pilots have the ability to select which set to fire? Or did they have to fire both at once, and hit with whichever one was aimed right?
Posted by: karrde at December 03, 2011 08:04 AM (+Zz5p)
9
The Spitfire did not; it either fired all guns or none at all. The other two could select to fire one type or the other (or both).
Posted by: Wonderduck at December 03, 2011 09:04 AM (2YMZG)
10
P-39 originally had the fire selectable, but in Russian service it was modified to all-or-nothing, as were domestic fighters (such as Yak). I am not sure exactly why it was done, perhaps it had to do with flying in heavy gloves.
Erich Hartmann said that he preferred minimum range shots.
Posted by: Author at December 03, 2011 02:35 PM (G2mwb)
11
Conventional wisdom is that the Spitfire had a better turning radius than the Me-109. In actual tests run between captured Spits and Me-109s, though, the Germans found that the 109 had a better turning radius at most altitudes and speeds. Because of the huge firepower advantage of the Emil, I would eliminate the Spit before the Emil.
As far as the Zeke, it had a really poor roll rate, especially before the reduction in wing size with the Model 32. It's a remarkable technological achievement, but I'd take the Emil every day of the week and twice on Sunday, so long as operational radius wasn't my primary consideration.
And the Emil is clearly better looking than that effete Spitfire.
8-)
Posted by: Doug Sundseth at December 03, 2011 02:36 PM (xdhJI)
12
The Brits disagree with you, Doug, as does every single reference book I have over here. The Japanese tested the A6M2 against the Bf109 (I can't find out which version), and according to them the only place the German fighter had any edge was in top speed.
I'll point out again that any of these planes could shoot down any other in the contest. We're talking tiny percentage points differences between the top three.
Some time ago, I mentioned that I had a "What If...?" post I had to let go because I didn't know enough of the history involved. The basis of that post was "What If... the Germans had replaced their 109s with Zeros at the Battle of Britain?" I suspected the difference would have been huge, but I couldn't (and still can't) track down all the various permutations that change would cause.
Posted by: Wonderduck at December 03, 2011 04:03 PM (2YMZG)
13
I want to say that the information came from a comment by Galland, but it was about 15 years ago when I read it (back when I was playing Mustangs and Messerschmitts seriously) and I have no idea how to find it now. IIRC, it's related to the behavior exemplified in this (from your link*):
"I had survived this mission simply
because the Spitfire could sustain a continuous rate of turn inside the
BF 109E
without stalling - the latter was known for flicking into a vicious
stall spin without prior warning if pulled too tightly.
The Spitfire would give a shudder to signal it was close to the edge,
so as soon as you felt the shake you eased off the stick pressure."
A good pilot could fly the 109 right on that edge, while an average pilot had to fly a few percent below that performance. With a Spit, even a relatively average pilot could hang on the performance edge. When combined with the 109s flying at the end of their endurance over England and the Spits flying over their own fields, the result was the performance differential that's usually reported.
"I'll point out again that any of these planes could shoot down any other
in the contest. We're talking tiny percentage points differences
between the top three."
Oh, clearly. To a large extent, the aircraft of the major combatants were direct responses to the challenges they faced during the war. The Japanese and Americans prioritized operational radius, the Japanese by sacrificing defense and the Americans by sacrificing maneuverability. American aircraft started significantly behind those of the Japanese and the Europeans, largely because of political concerns. The Germans and British sacrificed range for maneuverability or firepower.
The primary reason I'd choose a 109 over a Zero is that with good tactics, P-38s, P-40s, and F4Fs eventually attained something like loss parity with the Zero. And US experience in North Africa indicates that none of those aircraft could match the 109.
I'm treating this comment section in much the way I would treat the grognard discussion you alluded to in the first post in this series. And it wouldn't be that kind of discussion without disagreements opaque to anyone not in the in-group.
FWIW, when this is done, I'm willing to put forward the case that the Sherman is the most under-rated tank in WWII, (and arguably the best tank in WWII) as well**. 8-)
* An excellent data source, BTW, that I've not seen before.
** Seriously, not facetiously, but not based on which tank would win a tank duel.
Posted by: Doug Sundseth at December 03, 2011 10:14 PM (xdhJI)
14
Let's not derail. Fighters, folks,
not tanks!
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 03, 2011 11:24 PM (+rSRq)
15
Yes. the only tanks that could conceivably belong in this thread are the flying tanks from the 1930s and they were even worse dogfighters than they were tanks. So they wouldn't win anyway.
Posted by: brickmuppet at December 03, 2011 11:42 PM (EJaOX)
16
I thought brick was joking. I
was wrong. That's insane! I can very well appreciate why the Soviets ordered one of the designers to take a ride on one of those contraptions after a prototype disintegrated on landing...
I don't really know enough about fighters to have any strong opinions about them, except to follow the simple rule: the point of fighters isn't to dogfight, it's to assert and defend air supremacy over a theatre. That can be highly dependent on local conditions - logistics considerations, range, fuel efficiency, anti-aircraft artillery deployment, etc. What was the relative maintenance profiles of these aircraft, for instance?
Posted by: Mitch H. at December 04, 2011 08:20 AM (pvALX)
17
Even within the IJN in the discussions which led to the development of the Zero, there were experienced pilots who believed the emphasis on maneuverability to the detriment of other traits in a fighter design was a bad idea, and that inadequate maneuverability in a fighter could always be compensated for by improved pilot skill. Ultimately, those pilots were proven correct.
It is worth noting that most pilots did not push their aircraft to the limit. In that sense, arguments over the whether one fighter was more maneuverable tend to lead into a blind alley.
And as Len Deighton once noted, a common trait of all the highest-scoring aces like Hartmann was a willingness to get really close before opening fire on their targets. That fact led to one of the few peeves pilots had with the Spitfire - the mounts for the machine guns were simply too narrow to converge the fire of all the machine guns as close as the pilots wanted.
Posted by: cxt217 at December 04, 2011 06:05 PM (Zye/c)
18
With the correction that it's the turn rate that's important, not turn radius, Spit still won. Another important advantage that it had was that it shed energy slower than the competition (Mustang was the absolute champion though: it even had a maneuvering flap setting).
Posted by: Author at December 04, 2011 11:29 PM (G2mwb)
19
I just got emailed this, and it seemed relevant to this post... just about every plane mentioned appears at some point in the video, I think. Now excuse me, I'm going to go see if I can figure out how to get to England this summer..
http://player.vimeo.com/video/37599899
Posted by: David at March 13, 2012 03:41 PM (+yn5x)
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