Hi Guys,
I had a quick look but I cannot find the quote regarding the Geschwader who were warned about the Yak-3. But I do remember reading the quote in context with a single Geschwader. It even mentioned the name of the officer who issued the memo. If I come across it, I'll post it.
Erik Pilawski in his "Soviet Air Force Fighter Colours 1941-45" states that it was the OKL is isued it.
Pilawski also says that against the "...BF109, the MiG-3 did not rate particularly well." Which is interesting coming from a book that is generally full of praise for the Soviet fighters.
Tony
Yak - 9 compared with German fighters
See YAK-3 in action;tonyh wrote: Pilawski also says that against the "...BF109, the MiG-3 did not rate particularly well." Which is interesting coming from a book that is generally full of praise for the Soviet fighters.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2PvcG4Vmyw
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Michael Emrys
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TFsfT8PpeA
Here's a very interesting, if very short, war-time video of the Yak-9 chasing a Me-109. Wonder who filmed it, possible a bomber rear-gunner?
Here's a very interesting, if very short, war-time video of the Yak-9 chasing a Me-109. Wonder who filmed it, possible a bomber rear-gunner?
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Michael Emrys
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Perhaps, but it looks like it was staged to me.Thracian wrote:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TFsfT8PpeA
Here's a very interesting, if very short, war-time video of the Yak-9 chasing a Me-109. Wonder who filmed it, possible a bomber rear-gunner?
Michael
Found that quote...tonyh wrote:Hi Guys,
I had a quick look but I cannot find the quote regarding the Geschwader who were warned about the Yak-3. But I do remember reading the quote in context with a single Geschwader. It even mentioned the name of the officer who issued the memo. If I come across it, I'll post it.
Luftwaffe Colours Vol 5 Sect 2 "War in the East 1944-45"An even better Soviet fighter, which had appeared during the latter half of 1943, was the La5FN. In this version, an la-5 with a more powerful engine, the Soviets had for the first time produced a fighter that was superior to the German types, and was followed by the La-7 and the Yak-3, two even more advanced Soviet fighters, both of which were considerably superior to the BF109G-6 and the FW190A. So good were these types that in late 1944, Obstlt. Hermann Graf, JG52's GeschwaderKommodore, was compelled to instruct his pilots to "avoid combat below 5,000 metres altitude with Yakovlev fighters lacking a visible radiator under the nose".
Tony
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phylo_roadking
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well the Dora 9 was superior to anything the Soviets could muster in 1945. am not at all sure how the myth of 2 Ta 152H's were shot down over Vienna but that is an outright lie as JG 301 never flew into Austrian airspace while shooting down Soviet a/c at mid-range altitude during 1945. There will be a book on JG 301's missions with the Dora 9 and the Tank in due time with first person accounts
Of course it would be interesting to know in which parameter was it so superior, of course for the environment where the fighting took place?Erich wrote:well the Dora 9 was superior to anything the Soviets could muster in 1945. am not at all sure how the myth of 2 Ta 152H's were shot down over Vienna but that is an outright lie as JG 301 never flew into Austrian airspace while shooting down Soviet a/c at mid-range altitude during 1945. There will be a book on JG 301's missions with the Dora 9 and the Tank in due time with first person accounts
Yak 3 has just slightly smaller groudn level speed as Dora and Yak 9U slightly better. La 5FN and La7 have better ground level speed. In terms of manouvrebilty Dora laggs behind all of them. I do not see any superiority of Dora at all in the working environment of the fighters on eastern front.
frcoplan
I guess we could then compare first person accounts, as the Dora pilots attacked from above with superior speed, turn, climb and of course dive, the latter a tough one as they had the edge, there was not room of course for the Soviet craft to maneuver as they were pounced upon. .... Doras of JG 301, II. gruppe, Doras of JG 3 in IV. gruppe the old SturmFw gruppe now on the Ost front. The Dora was a high altitude bird in process of protecting lower flying Fw 190A-8's and A-9's, in simple facts it was to be used for the Höhenjager rold against P-51's. It did not matter as they were driven from the skies by the Mustangs.
In regards to the Ost front most of the ops took place at the mid-altitude of which you experten on the Ost front and with Soviet A/C tactics know-full-well, and if anything this is not where the Dora nor the hot rod Ta 152H-0 and H-1. in fact the German pilots could not bring the Soviet pilots up to their perferred alt and had to engage at the lower. You will find even on the net in some form the kills made by Geschwaderstab of JG 301 which proves what I am claiming to be.
Smart move on the Soviets in my opinion as most of the Doras on the Ost front were shot to pieces by Soviet anti-aircraft fire
v/r E ~ and pardon me if I am carrying this interesting thread off base. two volumes have been written by Eric Larger and company on the Dora variants and Jerry Crandall has just released his first volume full of first person accts. Mine is in the mail which I expect very shortly and am anticipating the materials on my cousins JG 301
In regards to the Ost front most of the ops took place at the mid-altitude of which you experten on the Ost front and with Soviet A/C tactics know-full-well, and if anything this is not where the Dora nor the hot rod Ta 152H-0 and H-1. in fact the German pilots could not bring the Soviet pilots up to their perferred alt and had to engage at the lower. You will find even on the net in some form the kills made by Geschwaderstab of JG 301 which proves what I am claiming to be.
Smart move on the Soviets in my opinion as most of the Doras on the Ost front were shot to pieces by Soviet anti-aircraft fire
v/r E ~ and pardon me if I am carrying this interesting thread off base. two volumes have been written by Eric Larger and company on the Dora variants and Jerry Crandall has just released his first volume full of first person accts. Mine is in the mail which I expect very shortly and am anticipating the materials on my cousins JG 301
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Stravinsky444
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Re: Yak - 9 compared with German fighters
<r><QUOTE author="frcoplan" post_id="1118483" time="1190792039" user_id="15105"><s>
Another significant quote from that poster, concerning hit and run tactics:
"And again, it is a very effective tactic against a rookie or plane that does not know you are there, but when attacking a pilot that sees you its efficiency significantly decrease. Boom and zoom as vertical manoeuvre can always be either countered with frontal attack as offensive manoeuvre or horizontal manoeuvre as defensive measure. If you read memories of both western and eastern front allied pilots both were used"
I have researched this, and continue to research this, in part to create this "Air Force" board game variant, which you can download here for free:
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/9710 ... -air-force
Speed and hit and run were pre-War assumptions: The reality was that guns did not like speed: It gave no time for multiple hits with a 1-3% hit rate. On the other hand, slow speed turns protected you from hit and run by generating angles, and also "trapped" your target because rolling out of the turn was instant death. (An issue of turn lag geometry) Turning was thus more suited to create multiple hits.
Germans, and especially Germans flying the Me-109G, largely performed poorly in the West, and to some extent the East, because they clung too rigidly to pre-War hit and run tactics (They only started to turn well -with reduced power, which helped turns- in late 1944: Finally, by then, Western Me-109 pilots were starting to get it).
Reduced power to win turn fights was essential. The Me-109 lost turn fights because it kept a higher power. Despite this, most WWII pilots, even with their heads full of the hit and run garbage (the garbage being that it should dominate turn fighting), still knew enough to never use full power in turns. Some knew much better:
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/art ... yths/#g6r6
"I learned to fly with the "Cannon-Mersu" (MT-461). I found that when fighter pilots got in a battle, they usually applied full power and then began to turn. In the same situation I used to decrease power, and with lower speed was able to turn equally well. I shot down at least one Mustang (on 4th July 1944) in turning fight. I was hanging behind one, but I could not get enough deflection. Then the pilot made an error: he pulled too much, and stalling, had to loosen his turn. That gave me the chance of getting deflection and shooting him down. It was not impossible to dogfight flying a three-cannon Messerschmitt."
"When the enemy decreased power, I used to throttle back even more. In a high speed the turning radius is wider, using less speed I was able to out-turn him having a shorter turning radius. Then you got the deflection, unless the adversary did not spot me in time and for example banked below me. 250kmh seemed to be the optimal speed (160 mph: 60 mph above wing level stall)"
- Kyösti Karhila
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/must ... 4may44.jpg
"The second Me-109 was maneuvering to get on my tail, and a dogfight developed at 500 ft. (after climbing from 150 ft. following an attack on a landing Me-109) At first he began to turn inside me. Then he stopped cutting me off as I cut throttle, dropped 20 degrees of flaps and increased prop pitch. Everytime I got to the edge of the [German] airdrome they opened fire with light AA guns. [Meaning was forced to turn multiple consecutive 360s continuously, even when going towards the enemy ground fire] Gradually I worked the Me-109G away from the field, and commenced to turn inside of him as I reduced throttle settings."
Eastern Front Me-109 pilots learned the bad habit of ignoring turns and relying on hit and run, because Soviet aircrafts had one way radios: You took out the head of the flight, and the whole flight was without radios...You can see now, with the above quote about target awareness making hit and run inefficient, how this artificially favoured hit and run... "Every ace brought to me from the Eastern Front was shot down on the Western Front." said one Luftwaffe officer. To see the result, read below:
-“Defenders of the Reich” JG 1 p. 247: Ofhr. Hubert Heckmann (5 kills, survived the War): “I became wingman to the new Kommandeur, Hptm. Karl-Heinz Weber. His only experience was from the Eastern Front, and from time to time he used the words “pull up during air combat”. I assumed that he would make use of this method in the West, and I warned him about doing so. As his "Kaczmarek", I did not want to lose my "protégé" on his first mission- that would be a bad omen. But he cast all my well-meant recommendations to the wind on our first mission. Weber had a highly polished aircraft (thus emphasizing speed) and whereas we all looked like gray mice, he differed from the rest of the formation. Besides he had Methanol on board (again, emphasis on speed in every option: Me-109G-6AS with MW-50)—7th June Flying at 1000 m. about 30 P-51s showed up some 500 meters above us. After passing us they made a downward turn. Weber didn’t turn in, but pulled up steep into the sky, dragging a Methanol cloud behind him. I yelled “turn in!” but he did not listen. I saw 4 P-51s coming down on me, and pulled into a slight left bank to distract them from Weber. My self-sacrifice was of no use; two P-51s stayed behind me, and the other two went after Weber. I fought my two opponents for more than 30 minutes. They moved off when, eventually, they lost much of their speed. That evening we were informed Hptm. Weber (136 kills) was dead."
So much for air combat experience being universal...
Even the Zero was subject to the hit and run disease, and avoided turn fighting like the plague (it was generally more of an Axis disease, except maybe for the Japanese Army, one that the Allies generally learned to drop before the Axis did. You have to remember the training constantly pushed in the wrong direction, so this correction could only be done informally at the front line level), as was discovered by War Intelligence Historian Justin Pyke while scouring Intelligence archives:
https://youtu.be/ApOfbxpL4Dg
57:55: Useful intro to the discovery.
At 59:07 "Intelligence reports assumed that these tactics indicated the Zero lacked maneuverability."
59:22 "Judging from their apparently long fuselage, these planes do not have a small turning circle, and are not very maneuverable."
59:33 "The Chinese report in question noted the reluctance of the Japanese Navy pilots to dogfight."
1:00:05 "Chinese pilots report that the Japanese will not engage in a turning duel."
1:01:32 "Accounts of Japanese hit and run tactics against the Allies are so numerous, we'd be here for days..."
And, finally, my favourite of all of the quotes in this video, from a US Navy pilot on September 27, 1942:
1:01:45 "Japanese Zero pilots have generally poor fighter tactics. Zeroes could not be shaken by us if they would chop their throttles and sit on our tails."
After the hit and run issue, a final point I would like to address is our lack of understanding of the physics of these aircrafts: We do not understand reducing power not only reduces radius, which we do know, but that, on tractive low wing prop types, it also does so while maintaining or increasing the turn RATE... The final proof of this lack of knowledge is that we actually think the FW-190A is out-turned by the Spitfire: Absolutely laughable in the face of front-line experience... See my video here for an explanation of why these (related) mistakes exist:
https://youtu.be/uYnCI3XURx0
If we cannot figure out that a supposed 50% difference in wingloading (30 lbs to 45 lbs) between these two types is the reverse of what we think, then we do not understand the physics of low wing tractive single engine WWII fighter aircrafts.
The Fw-190A actually broke the Germans a little from their hit and run fixation, because it could literally do nothing else well... It was the most stereotyped one trick poney turn fighter of the entire War...
See what actual combat pilots with actual fighter kills have to say (as opposed to test pilots with 2 quad engine kills like Eric Brown?):
A translated Russian article in "Red Fleet", describing Russian aerial tactics against the German FW-190, A US Army translation in "Tactical and Technical Trends", No. 37, November 4, 1943.
Quote:
"-The speed of the FW-190 is slightly higher than that of the Messerschmitt; it also has more powerful armament and is more maneuverable in horizontal flight.
-They interact in the following manner:
Me-109G will usually perform dive and climb attacks using superior airspeed after their dive.
FW-190 will commit to the fight even if our battle formation is not broken, preferring left turning fights.
-Being very stable and having a large range of speeds, the FW-190 will inevitably offer turning battle at a minimum speed."
-Squadron Leader Alan Deere, (Osprey Spit MkV aces 1941-45, Ch. 3, p. 2): "Never had I seen the Hun stay and fight it out as these Focke-Wulf pilots were doing... In Me-109s the Hun tactic had always followed the same pattern- a quick pass and away, sound tactics against Spitfires and their superior turning circle. Not so these 190 pilots: They were full of confidence... We lost 8 to their one that day..."
Johnny Johnson article (top Spitfire ace at 36 kills, and top FW-190A killer at 20): "My duel with the Focke-Wulf": "With wide-open throttles I held the Spitfire V in the tightest of vertical turns [Period slang for vertical bank]. I was greying out. Where was this German, who should, according to my reckoning, be filling my gunsight? I could not see him, and little wonder, for he was gaining on me: In another couple of turns he would have me in his sights.---I asked the Spitfire for all she had in the turn, but the enemy pilot hung behind like a leech.-It could only be a question of time..."
RCAF John Weir interview for Veterans Affairs (Spitfire Mk V vs FW-190A-4 period): "A Hurricane was built like a truck, it took a hell of a lot to knock it down. It was very manoeuvrable, much more manoeuvrable than a Spit, so you could, we could usually outturn a Messerschmitt. They'd, if they tried to turn with us they'd usually flip, go in, at least dive and they couldn't. A Spit was a higher wing loading..."
"The Hurricane was more manoeuvrable than the Spit and, and the Spit was probably, we (Hurricane pilots) could turn one way tighter than the Germans could on a Messerschmitt, but the Focke Wulf could turn the same as we could and, they kept on catching up, you know."
In "Le Fana de l'Aviation" #496 p. 40:
Première citation : " Dans la journée du 29 avril, le régiment effectua 28 sorties pour escorter des bombardiers et des avions d'attaque au sol et 23 en protection de troupes, avec quatre combats aériens. Les premiers jours furent marqués par des échecs dus à une tactique de combat périmée dans le plan horizontal, alors que le Spitfire était particulièrement adapté au combat dans le plan vertical."
[Translation: "The Spitfire failed in horizontal fighting, but was particularly adapted to vertical fighting."]
I kept my favourite for last: Pierre Clostermann was an 18 kill ace and RAF mission record holder at 432. He was also a Caltech trained engineer and was the only pilot I know of to actually give technical conferences on German aircrafts to fellow pilots. He had 10 FW-190 kills. He wrote what is widely considered the greatest aviation memoir this side of St-Exupery: Le Grand Cirque. He watched litterally thousands of gun camera films for his conferences, most of which are probably gone forever by now. Do you really think this guy does not know what he is talking about?
https://youtu.be/c2zdA9TcIYo
(From 12:44)
Translation: "So there are legends about the Spitfire... Aaaahh the legends... Legends are hard to kill... One of those legends is that the Spitfire turned better than the Messerschmitt 109, or the FW-190. Well that is a good joke... In fact all those who found themselves with a 109 or a 190 turning inside them, at low speeds, well those in general did not come back to complain about the legend... Why? Above 280 to 300 knots, the Spitfire turned better than the Me-109. But, first and foremost, in a turning battle, the speed goes down and down and down and down, and at one point there comes a time, when the speed has gone down below 200 knots, that the Me-109 turns inside the Spitfire."
Sorry for reviving this 15 year old necro thread, but I have been collecting WWII pilots quotes for 27 years now, and the above is the first time I see a post by someone who has a good understanding of how WWII air to air tactics actually worked.frcoplan wrote: ↑26 Sep 2007, 09:33
It is true that the one who is higher has an advantage, but it does not mean this automatically transfers into victory.
I believe Soviets were escorting bombers (when it was possible) with high and close cover. It is ok if you are higher when fight begins but after that you must stick to your bombers. You can chase fighters around, but your bombers are going to had it (as it is nicely explained in Golodnikovs interview). When you are defending bombers shooting down enemy fighters is not a priority but defending your bombers.
From my memory, one of the biggest shocks that came to Britts was that Fw190A could actually compete with Spit V in horizontal as well, leaving no advantage in any category to Spit.
It is absolutely natural that Soviets tried to find tactics to counter vertical manoeuvre of Germans. If the other side is using vertical manoeuvre than it is clear you will try to find the best way to counter it. But this still does not mean that that is the only and the single important aspect of fighter airplane or so predominantly great tactic that everything else is unimportant. It is just one tactic, nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes you are able to use it, sometimes you are not. Same as horizontal manoeuvre. The whole zoom and boom myth has gone over every rational level. And again Germans were not always higher than Soviets, Soviets did zoom and boom too. Actually even in 1st war, the fighter pilots did it.
frcoplan
Another significant quote from that poster, concerning hit and run tactics:
"And again, it is a very effective tactic against a rookie or plane that does not know you are there, but when attacking a pilot that sees you its efficiency significantly decrease. Boom and zoom as vertical manoeuvre can always be either countered with frontal attack as offensive manoeuvre or horizontal manoeuvre as defensive measure. If you read memories of both western and eastern front allied pilots both were used"
I have researched this, and continue to research this, in part to create this "Air Force" board game variant, which you can download here for free:
https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/9710 ... -air-force
Speed and hit and run were pre-War assumptions: The reality was that guns did not like speed: It gave no time for multiple hits with a 1-3% hit rate. On the other hand, slow speed turns protected you from hit and run by generating angles, and also "trapped" your target because rolling out of the turn was instant death. (An issue of turn lag geometry) Turning was thus more suited to create multiple hits.
Germans, and especially Germans flying the Me-109G, largely performed poorly in the West, and to some extent the East, because they clung too rigidly to pre-War hit and run tactics (They only started to turn well -with reduced power, which helped turns- in late 1944: Finally, by then, Western Me-109 pilots were starting to get it).
Reduced power to win turn fights was essential. The Me-109 lost turn fights because it kept a higher power. Despite this, most WWII pilots, even with their heads full of the hit and run garbage (the garbage being that it should dominate turn fighting), still knew enough to never use full power in turns. Some knew much better:
http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/art ... yths/#g6r6
"I learned to fly with the "Cannon-Mersu" (MT-461). I found that when fighter pilots got in a battle, they usually applied full power and then began to turn. In the same situation I used to decrease power, and with lower speed was able to turn equally well. I shot down at least one Mustang (on 4th July 1944) in turning fight. I was hanging behind one, but I could not get enough deflection. Then the pilot made an error: he pulled too much, and stalling, had to loosen his turn. That gave me the chance of getting deflection and shooting him down. It was not impossible to dogfight flying a three-cannon Messerschmitt."
"When the enemy decreased power, I used to throttle back even more. In a high speed the turning radius is wider, using less speed I was able to out-turn him having a shorter turning radius. Then you got the deflection, unless the adversary did not spot me in time and for example banked below me. 250kmh seemed to be the optimal speed (160 mph: 60 mph above wing level stall)"
- Kyösti Karhila
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/must ... 4may44.jpg
"The second Me-109 was maneuvering to get on my tail, and a dogfight developed at 500 ft. (after climbing from 150 ft. following an attack on a landing Me-109) At first he began to turn inside me. Then he stopped cutting me off as I cut throttle, dropped 20 degrees of flaps and increased prop pitch. Everytime I got to the edge of the [German] airdrome they opened fire with light AA guns. [Meaning was forced to turn multiple consecutive 360s continuously, even when going towards the enemy ground fire] Gradually I worked the Me-109G away from the field, and commenced to turn inside of him as I reduced throttle settings."
Eastern Front Me-109 pilots learned the bad habit of ignoring turns and relying on hit and run, because Soviet aircrafts had one way radios: You took out the head of the flight, and the whole flight was without radios...You can see now, with the above quote about target awareness making hit and run inefficient, how this artificially favoured hit and run... "Every ace brought to me from the Eastern Front was shot down on the Western Front." said one Luftwaffe officer. To see the result, read below:
-“Defenders of the Reich” JG 1 p. 247: Ofhr. Hubert Heckmann (5 kills, survived the War): “I became wingman to the new Kommandeur, Hptm. Karl-Heinz Weber. His only experience was from the Eastern Front, and from time to time he used the words “pull up during air combat”. I assumed that he would make use of this method in the West, and I warned him about doing so. As his "Kaczmarek", I did not want to lose my "protégé" on his first mission- that would be a bad omen. But he cast all my well-meant recommendations to the wind on our first mission. Weber had a highly polished aircraft (thus emphasizing speed) and whereas we all looked like gray mice, he differed from the rest of the formation. Besides he had Methanol on board (again, emphasis on speed in every option: Me-109G-6AS with MW-50)—7th June Flying at 1000 m. about 30 P-51s showed up some 500 meters above us. After passing us they made a downward turn. Weber didn’t turn in, but pulled up steep into the sky, dragging a Methanol cloud behind him. I yelled “turn in!” but he did not listen. I saw 4 P-51s coming down on me, and pulled into a slight left bank to distract them from Weber. My self-sacrifice was of no use; two P-51s stayed behind me, and the other two went after Weber. I fought my two opponents for more than 30 minutes. They moved off when, eventually, they lost much of their speed. That evening we were informed Hptm. Weber (136 kills) was dead."
So much for air combat experience being universal...
Even the Zero was subject to the hit and run disease, and avoided turn fighting like the plague (it was generally more of an Axis disease, except maybe for the Japanese Army, one that the Allies generally learned to drop before the Axis did. You have to remember the training constantly pushed in the wrong direction, so this correction could only be done informally at the front line level), as was discovered by War Intelligence Historian Justin Pyke while scouring Intelligence archives:
https://youtu.be/ApOfbxpL4Dg
57:55: Useful intro to the discovery.
At 59:07 "Intelligence reports assumed that these tactics indicated the Zero lacked maneuverability."
59:22 "Judging from their apparently long fuselage, these planes do not have a small turning circle, and are not very maneuverable."
59:33 "The Chinese report in question noted the reluctance of the Japanese Navy pilots to dogfight."
1:00:05 "Chinese pilots report that the Japanese will not engage in a turning duel."
1:01:32 "Accounts of Japanese hit and run tactics against the Allies are so numerous, we'd be here for days..."
And, finally, my favourite of all of the quotes in this video, from a US Navy pilot on September 27, 1942:
1:01:45 "Japanese Zero pilots have generally poor fighter tactics. Zeroes could not be shaken by us if they would chop their throttles and sit on our tails."
After the hit and run issue, a final point I would like to address is our lack of understanding of the physics of these aircrafts: We do not understand reducing power not only reduces radius, which we do know, but that, on tractive low wing prop types, it also does so while maintaining or increasing the turn RATE... The final proof of this lack of knowledge is that we actually think the FW-190A is out-turned by the Spitfire: Absolutely laughable in the face of front-line experience... See my video here for an explanation of why these (related) mistakes exist:
https://youtu.be/uYnCI3XURx0
If we cannot figure out that a supposed 50% difference in wingloading (30 lbs to 45 lbs) between these two types is the reverse of what we think, then we do not understand the physics of low wing tractive single engine WWII fighter aircrafts.
The Fw-190A actually broke the Germans a little from their hit and run fixation, because it could literally do nothing else well... It was the most stereotyped one trick poney turn fighter of the entire War...
See what actual combat pilots with actual fighter kills have to say (as opposed to test pilots with 2 quad engine kills like Eric Brown?):
A translated Russian article in "Red Fleet", describing Russian aerial tactics against the German FW-190, A US Army translation in "Tactical and Technical Trends", No. 37, November 4, 1943.
Quote:
"-The speed of the FW-190 is slightly higher than that of the Messerschmitt; it also has more powerful armament and is more maneuverable in horizontal flight.
-They interact in the following manner:
Me-109G will usually perform dive and climb attacks using superior airspeed after their dive.
FW-190 will commit to the fight even if our battle formation is not broken, preferring left turning fights.
-Being very stable and having a large range of speeds, the FW-190 will inevitably offer turning battle at a minimum speed."
-Squadron Leader Alan Deere, (Osprey Spit MkV aces 1941-45, Ch. 3, p. 2): "Never had I seen the Hun stay and fight it out as these Focke-Wulf pilots were doing... In Me-109s the Hun tactic had always followed the same pattern- a quick pass and away, sound tactics against Spitfires and their superior turning circle. Not so these 190 pilots: They were full of confidence... We lost 8 to their one that day..."
Johnny Johnson article (top Spitfire ace at 36 kills, and top FW-190A killer at 20): "My duel with the Focke-Wulf": "With wide-open throttles I held the Spitfire V in the tightest of vertical turns [Period slang for vertical bank]. I was greying out. Where was this German, who should, according to my reckoning, be filling my gunsight? I could not see him, and little wonder, for he was gaining on me: In another couple of turns he would have me in his sights.---I asked the Spitfire for all she had in the turn, but the enemy pilot hung behind like a leech.-It could only be a question of time..."
RCAF John Weir interview for Veterans Affairs (Spitfire Mk V vs FW-190A-4 period): "A Hurricane was built like a truck, it took a hell of a lot to knock it down. It was very manoeuvrable, much more manoeuvrable than a Spit, so you could, we could usually outturn a Messerschmitt. They'd, if they tried to turn with us they'd usually flip, go in, at least dive and they couldn't. A Spit was a higher wing loading..."
"The Hurricane was more manoeuvrable than the Spit and, and the Spit was probably, we (Hurricane pilots) could turn one way tighter than the Germans could on a Messerschmitt, but the Focke Wulf could turn the same as we could and, they kept on catching up, you know."
In "Le Fana de l'Aviation" #496 p. 40:
Première citation : " Dans la journée du 29 avril, le régiment effectua 28 sorties pour escorter des bombardiers et des avions d'attaque au sol et 23 en protection de troupes, avec quatre combats aériens. Les premiers jours furent marqués par des échecs dus à une tactique de combat périmée dans le plan horizontal, alors que le Spitfire était particulièrement adapté au combat dans le plan vertical."
[Translation: "The Spitfire failed in horizontal fighting, but was particularly adapted to vertical fighting."]
I kept my favourite for last: Pierre Clostermann was an 18 kill ace and RAF mission record holder at 432. He was also a Caltech trained engineer and was the only pilot I know of to actually give technical conferences on German aircrafts to fellow pilots. He had 10 FW-190 kills. He wrote what is widely considered the greatest aviation memoir this side of St-Exupery: Le Grand Cirque. He watched litterally thousands of gun camera films for his conferences, most of which are probably gone forever by now. Do you really think this guy does not know what he is talking about?
https://youtu.be/c2zdA9TcIYo
(From 12:44)
Translation: "So there are legends about the Spitfire... Aaaahh the legends... Legends are hard to kill... One of those legends is that the Spitfire turned better than the Messerschmitt 109, or the FW-190. Well that is a good joke... In fact all those who found themselves with a 109 or a 190 turning inside them, at low speeds, well those in general did not come back to complain about the legend... Why? Above 280 to 300 knots, the Spitfire turned better than the Me-109. But, first and foremost, in a turning battle, the speed goes down and down and down and down, and at one point there comes a time, when the speed has gone down below 200 knots, that the Me-109 turns inside the Spitfire."
Re: Yak - 9 compared with German fighters
Excellent post Stravinsky. Most informative.
Nothing beats first hand accounts.
Nothing beats first hand accounts.