So we are back to the Cold War again?

@Setanta,

I would also add the FW-190 to your list.

At the war's inception the U.S. was significantly behind both its allies and opponents in aircraft development - public opinion was decidedly anti war throughout the 1930s. However the initial round of U.S. aircraft deployed after the war started, including the F6F, the P-38, P-47 & P-51 all qualified to make your list. Indeed the Mustang (significantly aided by a big Rolls Royce Engine produced here under license) was by far the most enduring of them all. As you indicated the multiple manufacturers here made a difference, but the British had just about as many themselves, and at the time were major innovators in aviation.

U.S manufacturers and designers were heavily invested in radial aircraft engines, and the Merlin was by far the best inline engine available - far better than contemporary U.S. alternatives. An interesting anecdote about the Mustang application was the replacement of the Merlin carburetor with forced fuel injection. The one defect the Spitfire had was a tendency for the engine to stall in a zero "g" maneuver - a potentially deadly event: the forced fuel injection eliminated that.

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The Italian Air Force suffered from Fascism. Contracts were let on the basis of how much support manufacturers had given the party, and thereafter, there was no incentive to innovate or even update designs. There was a similar problem with the Nazis. Willi Messerschmidt was a buddy of Adolf, so he got the Daimler-Benz engines. The Me210 and -410 were complete wastes of resources. The FW190 is an interesting story. Knowing they wouldn't get the Daimler-Benz engine, the aircraft was designed around a BMW radial engine. When it went into combat units in France in 1941, it outperformed the Spitfire in every category except turning radius. It was rugged, too, which is why a lot of German pilots preferred it, especially late in the war.

Almost every new German weapons system was highly engineered, but for that reason, took enormous amounts of resources and highly skilled machine-tool operators. On the other hand, there was complete neglect of other systems. The German FS units, the paratroopers, were highly trained and the best equipped infantry in Germany, but they were delivered to the target in JU52s. With a supposed top speed of 165 mph, they in fact delivered the paratroopers at 125 mph, because of the weight of men and equipment, and their jump doctrine. Fighters in 1918 were flying faster than that. They had to be escorted when delivering supplies in the Soviet Union. Over Crete, which was heavily provided with AAA, they just got shredded. FS losses were so high, that Hitler forbade them from ever jumping onto a target again. The mighty German war machine delivered much of the non-combat supplies in horse-drawn transport. I have read that more than two-and half million horses died in Wehrmacht service in that war. What a bizarre system fascism/Nazism produces.

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@glitterbag,

glitterbag wrote:

If all you have is Wikipedia you don't have the entire story.

I have enough to prove that I am right.

glitterbag wrote:

You should take some quality time and look up the declassified records/reports from AFSS. You will have to read more than a paragraph because these will be the original reports not Cliff Notes.

If you have a relevant cite, feel free to provide it.

glitterbag wrote:

I realize very few people like you have the patience to do extensive reading of incredibly complex history regarding US military actions, but it can be compelling.

I do plenty of historical study. That is why I can always back up everything that I say.

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@oralloy,

If all you have is a few facts (even if they are verifiable), that doesn't mean you understand the context in which they lie or the significance (or lack of it) of the facts you know. I believe that was Glitterbag's point earlier.

You appear to know (or imagine you know) a few somewhat isolated facts and simply assume those are indeed a determinative set and that, as a result, you truly understand the subject matter involved. This is usually a delusion and I believe it is certainly one in your case.

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@Setanta,

I believe your observation applies to all authoritarian governments, including socialist. In such authoritarian bureaucracies the complacent leaders merely assume that what they want is right and that what they get is what they want.

Do you recall the furor in the late 1980s over the Soviet MIG-25 Foxbat? This was a then new model that we had tracked at speeds approaching Mach 3 and with a remarkably high rate of climb - a formidable interceptor. Photographs of the aircraft enabled the Intel & Engineering types to estimate the max. airflow through the engine and, from that, the fuel flow, thrust and turbine inlet temperature (the latter is the determinative indicator of maximum thrust & power - the metallurgical limits on temperature and time of exposure of the turbine blades set the upper limit for engine performance, and it appeared the Soviets had made a major breakthrough.). The CIA issued a large reward for anyone who could deliver a MIG -25 to us, and , about a year later a Soviet pilot flying from an airfield in Kamchatka escaped with one to an airfield in Japan.

We quickly retrieved the aircraft to study its design and construction. Our folks were astounded to find that the main construction material was STEEL, the rivets on the surface of the aircraft weren't even flush with the surface, and that the jet engine was of rather conventional design. Mach 3 aircraft experience extremely high leading edge and skin temperatures, eliminating the use of aluminum as a construction material: the usual alternatives were titanium and (very new at that time) carbon filament. The operational life of a jet engine is limited by the erosion of the stage 1 turbine blades which are exposed to the maximum turbine inlet temperature. The normal service life of a military jet engine is 10-20 thousand hours. Our analysts were amazed to find that those on the Foxbat were good for only 20-40 hours. In short the MIG 25 wasn't a combat interceptor at all: instead it was merely the illusion of one, used by the Soviets to demonstrate capabilities they didn't have.

Such an aircraft would never have been put into production in the West.

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@georgeob1,

The context is plain. Historians record 37 Soviet aces from the Korean War.

Therefore I am completely correct to state that there were 37 Soviet aces from the Korean War.

Therefore I am completely correct to state that a highly skilled enemy pilot is a threat to American pilots, and American pilots are not somehow magically superior to other pilots.

So no delusions. If anyone could point out a single thing that I am wrong about, they would have done so. But no one can.

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@georgeob1,

The story of aircraft development in the Soviet Union is an interesting one. Their air units were regiments of the army, and it was expected in the west that the army purges would cripple their aircraft design future. What happened was entirely unexpected, and I don't believe that anyone to this day can say how it came about. Design teams were set up and named for the lead designer(s)--so Ilyushin (IL), Mikoyan and Gurevich (MiG), Irkut (IR), Sukhoi (SU), Tupolev (TU), and Yakovlev (YA, but commonly known as Yak)--were operational before the Army purges and show trials. In any event, for whoever's idea this was, they were under the aegis of the Peoples' Commissar for Heavy Industry, and were unaffected by the purge process, which devastated the Red Army in the few crucial years before the outbreak of war in Europe.

All aircraft design teams were required to meet three standards, in addition to whatever requirements were built into the orders placed. Those were the ability to take-off and land on unimproved surfaces, to take-off and land on ice and/or snow, and to take-off and climb in short distances. Though that may seem rigid, it stood them in good stead during The Great Patriotic War (as they called it), when they were unable to employ hard-pan airstrips, and were often retreating in the beginning, and almost outrunning their logistical train as the German war machine was collapsing.

The Foxbat is another mystery which I have not closely investigated, but what you tell me does not surprise me. It went into design in 1964, the year that Nikita Khrushchev "retired." His successor, Leonid Brezhnev, always put form before substance. was intolerant of anything smelling of reform, and tolerated gross corruption in his obsessional drive for "consensus" in the Politburo. That lead to stability in the party and the country, and a rapid socio-economic decline.

What you say about the Foxbat is particularly ironic in that Brezhnev was originally educated and first worked as a metallurgical engineer.

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@oralloy,

Quote oralloy:

Quote:

A plane with little air-to-air capability, like the F-35, will be such a case when it comes to air combat. It'll be a terrific ground attack plane though.

I guess there is still a chance that they will find a way for it to detect enemy planes in the air. But I prefer to see them actually demonstrate this capability before I assume that it exists. So far the only thing that the F-35 has demonstrated is an inability to detect enemy planes in the air.

Okay, they'll demonstrate the superiority of the F-35 when Russia sends some modern MiGs over for it to detect. Trump just got off the phone to Putin, the MiGs are on their way, and the second week of January Fox will run an exclusive special named Flying Apprentice where Trump fires the American and Russian pilots who got shot down.

Will that satisfy you?

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@Blickers,

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahaha made me laugh

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@Blickers,

[
Quote oralloy:

Quote:

You should call the Joint Chiefs and see if they have Evvvvveeeer learned how to detect enemy planes in the air.......................what do you think happens....we just fly willy nilly around in the wild blue yonder looking for enemy planes?????
You always say no one can say your 'ideas are incorrect' well that's a glaring example of stupid ideas about facts...I assume you know the aircraft have comms, right? You can't tell me you think they just listen to FM talk radio until they just run into an enemy??? Or can you??? How do you dream it happens...I want to hear something actually truthful...because I actually know how it happens...and so do a few other folks here...SOOOOOOO skippy, what do you want to present as a "fact".......try not to use wikipedia.

Or do you like Blickers scenario? I liked it better than yours, he at least made me laugh. Yours just make me sob in frustration.

Okay, they'll demonstrate the superiority of the F-35 when Russia sends some modern MiGs over for it to detect. Trump just got off the phone to Putin, the MiGs are on their way, and the second week of January Fox will run an exclusive special named Flying Apprentice where Trump fires the American and Russian pilots who got shot down.

Will that satisfy you?
[/quote]

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@Setanta,

Thanks for this interesting dialogue.

Russia was actually an early innovator in aviation, going back to WWI. In addition Russian engineers and technicians were then at the forefront of metallurgy and structural engineering. Many of the prime textbooks here for structural engineering from the 1950s thru the 1970s were written by Russian (or Ukrainian) emigres - Stephan Timoshenko prominently among them. Igor Sikorsky, the helicopter pioneer was also a Russian émigré.

I wasn't aware of the timing of the creation of the various Soviet Design bureaus and their exemption from the great purges of the 1930s, as you described it all. However it all makes sense. It is true that Stalin saw them as valuable assets and protected most of his industrial leaders, even to the point of moving many of them to designated new cities in the East. Perhaps he feared them less than Generals, political functionaries and writers.

Soviet Aircraft design and construction was a sometimes odd mixture of practical utility, simplicity and ruggedness (The ground attack Sturmovik, Il-2 -probably the inspiration for our A-10 - was a prime example.) interspersed with sometimes brilliant design innovation.

The TU-114 Bear aircraft always fascinated me. It is, as far as I know, the world's only turboprop powered aircraft that flies fast enough to require swept wings ( ~ 35 degrees). They achieved this by installing a pair of counter rotating propellers on their 15,000 HP engines to reduce prop. diameter and thereby evade Mach effects at the propeller tips at high speed. the Bear's top speed is only about 15% less than that of the B-52, but it's unrefueled range and payload are much greater.

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@georgeob1,

Your desire to placate someone who continuously denigrates you is embarrassing

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@georgeob1,

Oh yeah, the Germans hated the Sturmovik, and it was decades ahead of its time. No one had ever designed a dedicated anti-AFV attack aircraft before. I know nothing about the Peoples' Commissar for Heavy Industry who set up the design bureaus, but he must have been responsible for their fine AFVs, too, even if he did nothing more than say: "Make it so." Then we provided them with Studebaker two-and-a-half ton, 6X6 trucks, and they stripped them to the flatbeds and mounted rocket launchers on them. By late 1944, the Red Army had turned into quite a powerful offensive weapon. A very strange mix of inspired design, intelligent management, brute force and institutional terror. Better them than me.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

My apologies george - my prior post was uncalled for.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Setanta can be an irritable SOB, but then so can I (though I think a bit less frequently), However he knows a great deal about History, and as we can see here, many other topics as well. I've had a number of interesting discussion with him of which this is only one. I'm more interested in the enjoyable stuff like this than the occasional barking, and I try not to take myself, and things here, too seriously.

He's Irish and I take that into account as well.

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@Blickers,

Blickers wrote:

Okay, they'll demonstrate the superiority of the F-35 when Russia sends some modern MiGs over for it to detect. Trump just got off the phone to Putin, the MiGs are on their way, and the second week of January Fox will run an exclusive special named Flying Apprentice where Trump fires the American and Russian pilots who got shot down.
Will that satisfy you?

Yes. A demonstration of an actual ability to detect enemy planes (at a reasonable combat distance) would greatly satisfy me.

Presuming of course that it is the much-hyped ability to "detect planes in any direction" that is supposed to compensate for the F-35's complete inability to maneuver.

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@glitterbag,

glitterbag wrote:

You should call the Joint Chiefs and see if they have Evvvvveeeer learned how to detect enemy planes in the air.......................

To what end? I am already aware that our warplanes used to have that ability before Barack Obama sabotaged our military.

glitterbag wrote:

what do you think happens....we just fly willy nilly around in the wild blue yonder looking for enemy planes?????

What used to happen was our planes had weapons systems that would attain a lock on an enemy plane, and then be able to dispatch a missile that was locked onto that target.

glitterbag wrote:

You always say no one can say your 'ideas are incorrect' well that's a glaring example of stupid ideas about facts...

The idea of just flying around looking for planes came from your post, not from mine.

glitterbag wrote:

You can't tell me you think they just listen to FM talk radio until they just run into an enemy??? Or can you??? How do you dream it happens...I want to hear something actually truthful...because I actually know how it happens...and so do a few other folks here...SOOOOOOO skippy, what do you want to present as a "fact".......

What used to happen was, our warplanes would establish a weapons lock on an enemy plane, and then dispatch a missile at that target.

glitterbag wrote:

try not to use wikipedia.

If they have data to back up a point that I have made, I will cite them whether you like it or not.

glitterbag wrote:

Or do you like Blickers scenario?

A demonstration that the F-35 has an actual ability to function in an air-to-air role would greatly satisfy me.

It's a shame that no such demonstration is possible.

glitterbag wrote:

I liked it better than yours, he at least made me laugh. Yours just make me sob in frustration.

I didn't present a scenario. I merely presented facts.

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@oralloy,

Yeah, I understand you think you are discussing or presenting facts. The jets that scrambled on 9/11, did they have the ability to detect enemy planes???? Well, that's not really fair is it, because they scrambled looking for airliners. Did you know they were not armed? Not because Bush didn't want them carrying weapons but because it burned less fuel when the fighters are lighter. So the two US pilots from Andrews scrambled knowing they had no weapons except the vehicle they were flying. Can you imagine that?? You can't. Two USAF pilots were ready to fly into an airliner to prevent it from hitting it's target.

Obama didn't remove any equipment from our fighters...it wouldn't save money and it's flat stupid. But unfortunately a few dim bulbs out there are eager to think that one half of America wants the other half to be destroyed. I hope you understand how stupid it sounds....(I'm not optimistic) you probably don't. However it's interesting to see you still want a personal demo of weapons capability even though the miracle worker Le Trump is now president. Do you think the airforce is still without top flight equipment now that the Savior is in the oval office, or is he too busy pointing out imaginary problems to justify his inaction in office and his cosy up strategy with the Turks, Saudies, Russians???? There are only 24 hours in a day.

Just to satisfy my idle curiosity, is wikipedia your only source or do you have previous military experience, or (WAG) are you a military history buff. Soldier of Fortune doesn't count. Which DoD declassified sources do you use?

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@glitterbag,

glitterbag wrote:

Yeah, I understand you think you are discussing or presenting facts.

Your inability to point out a single thing that I am wrong about speaks for itself.

glitterbag wrote:

The jets that scrambled on 9/11, did they have the ability to detect enemy planes????

I don't think they had an AESA radar that would be necessary in a modern air superiority fighter.

glitterbag wrote:

Did you know they were not armed?

Yes.

glitterbag wrote:

Obama didn't remove any equipment from our fighters...

Obama canceled our only modern air superiority fighters, leaving the US military without nearly enough modern air superiority fighters worldwide to take on a competent modern enemy.

glitterbag wrote:

it wouldn't save money and it's flat stupid.

That didn't prevent Obama from doing it.

glitterbag wrote:

But unfortunately a few dim bulbs out there are eager to think that one half of America wants the other half to be destroyed.

My IQ's 170. What's yours?

glitterbag wrote:

I hope you understand how stupid it sounds....(I'm not optimistic) you probably don't.

The facts speak for themselves.

glitterbag wrote:

However it's interesting to see you still want a personal demo of weapons capability even though the miracle worker Le Trump is now president. Do you think the airforce is still without top flight equipment now that the Savior is in the oval office,

Yes.

I wouldn't mind imposing a heavy tax on liberals and anti-war protesters in order to fund efforts to undo the damage that Obama did to our military.

glitterbag wrote:

Just to satisfy my idle curiosity, is wikipedia your only source

My source is whatever credible source is handy online to back up whatever fact I am backing up.

glitterbag wrote:

or do you have previous military experience,

None of your business.

glitterbag wrote:

are you a military history buff.

I'm one of the world's foremost experts on the A-bombings of Japan.

glitterbag wrote:

Which DoD declassified sources do you use?

Anything that backs up whatever fact I am defending.

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@Setanta,

I believe we also provided several thousand Bell P-39 Airacobra and subsequently modified P-63 King Cobras to the Soviets under our Lend Lease program. I've read that these aircraft racked up an impressive kill rate in air-to-air combat, but that most operated with the Soviet Far East forces. The initial versions lacked a supercharger, limiting operations to 15,000ft or leas. Later versions corrected this, and with a larger engine and 4 bladed prop, were both very fast and well armed.

In the early years of jet aviation both the Soviets and U.S. (and as well the UK), rapidly produced a series of aircraft designs, many of which were practically successful, as engineers worked to get higher speed and better performance in a fast evolving field. There were also many failures in this era. We had our duds too - the F-102, a supposedly "supersonic interceptor" couldn't get past Mach 0.94 due to transonic drag (later engineers learned to trim the width of fuselage near the wing to minimize abrupt changes in the frontal cross section of the aircraft to correct this. The subsequent F-106 was a very successful fighter based on the same design, but with an "area rule" fix, could get to Mach 2. The Navy F-4D and F-3H were transitional fighters with very short operational lives due to inferior performance..

The industry here stabilized after Vietnam and apart from a few follies, like the F-111, aircraft service lives are now usually measured in decades. The F-15 was introduced in the early 1970s, and is still operating now - one of the best and most beautiful fighters ever built, in my view.

1 Reply

So we are back to the Cold War again?

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