Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: amdcad!tanner@dssmv1.mpr.ca (Tim Tanner) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Surprise in air combat Message-ID: <9876@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 3 Oct 89 13:07:24 GMT Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Lines: 96 Approved: military@att.att.com From: amdcad!tanner@dssmv1.mpr.ca (Tim Tanner) In sci.military Fri, 15 Sep, 1989, article 2173 miket@brspyrl.brs.com (Mike Trout) writes: > 80% of all airplanes that are shot down by other airplanes never detect > their attackers. > This 80%-20% ratio has held fairly constant from World War I up to the > present. I am curious where this statistic came from. It seems likely that it is true (it is much easier to shoot down an unsuspecting victim). However I doubt that it is as true today as it was in WW1 and WW2. With all the fancy equipment on planes today, the least you can hope for is to detect your attacker. Is this a fighter-fighter statistic or does include fighter-bomber kills. A WW2 bomber was much less maneuverable, but could take more damage and is unlikely to be destroyed on the first shot from cannon or machine gun fire. Also it had lots of people to detect approaching fighters. On the other hand, not many bombers can sneak up on a fighter and shoot it down. > In air combat, speed is life, because stored energy gained by speed can be > transferred into what manuver you want. As I understand it, dogfights today are conducted at subsonic speeds. Being able to react quickly enough to shoot somebody down at high subsonic speeds is hard to imagine, but if they do that, why can't they dogfight at supersonic speeds. Can you fire a Sidewinder at Mach 2? > In all the above cases, the earlier planes could greatly > outmaneuver the newer models. The later planes tended to be big, heavy > "hot rods" with tremendous firepower, but poor maneuverability. [Two other > important nations don't really fit here, as neither ever emphasized > maneuverability, even in the early part of the war. The USA emphasized heavy >airplanes that could take lots of damage (which later was easily changed to an > emphasis upon high horsepower with corresponding high speed), while Germany > emphasized speed, firepower, and innovative tactics.] Similar trends can be > seen in WWI (Sopwith Pup replaced by Sopwith Snipe, Nieuport 17 replaced by > SPAD XIII, Albatros D.III replaced by Fokker D.VII). I disagree with your assessment of German planes. Germany started off the war with two very different fighters. The Me-109 and Me-110. The Me-109 was a highly maneuverable fighter, which could or could not outmaneuver the Hurricane or Spitfire depending on the altitude. The Me-109 was produced to almost the end of the war (if not to the end, I can't remember). The Me-109 is comparable to the Spitfire or Hurricane in design philosophy. The initial design of the Me-109 was with TWO machine guns in the wings. Once the German high command found out that the British planes were going have EIGHT machine guns, they changed their design specs and required eight machine guns too. The Me-110 was a two engined fighter (nicknamed Destroyer) which single engine fighters could shoot down due to its lack of speed/performance/ maneuverablity. The Germans later used it as a night fighter where it worked well against bombers. Another German fighter plane that was designed (?) and produced during the war was the Fw-190. It was suppose to be an excellant fighter, and I think it emphasised speed and firepower over maneuverability (but I'm not sure). Germany ended the war with the Me-262 jet fighter. This fighter is exactly the same type of fighter that the other countries ended the war with. It emphasised speed, poor maneuverablity, and heavy firepower. Saying that "Germany emphasized speed, firepower, and innovative tactics" is too simplistic and incorrect. In a nutshell Germany went through the same evolution as the other countries during the war. One final point on this, wasn't the Sopwith Pup replaced by the Sopwith Camel which was very tricky to fly, but highly maneuverable? > In closing, I'd like to repeat something I've said before in this forum: air > crew quality is about ten times more important than aircraft quality. We can > discuss airplane maneuverability, performance, and whatnot from now until the > cows come home, but it all has little impact in real situations. What we > really should be comparing is things like aircrew training, motivation, > organization, and ability; those are the criteria that REALLY matter. In WW2, German high command had (initially) a highly trained and well motivated air crews. However, these crews and their airplanes were used for missions that they were not designed for. For instance, during the Battle of Britain Me-109's could not stay over the UK long enough to defend the bombers since they didn't have long range tanks. Also the bombers were one or two engined bombers that were meant to support the army. They were not designed for actions such as the blitz. This is the key, the Luftwaffe was created and trained to support the army in the tactical arena, it was not suppose to be a strategic weapon. So perhaps aircrew training, motivation, organization, and ability are the most important criteria. BUT only if the plane and aircrew are utilized correctly by high command. For more information on the German air force (told from the German point of view.) during WWII, see _The Luftwaffe War Diarys_ by ???. Tim Tanner (tanner@mprgate.mpr.ca) All opinions are mine, and incorrect facts are due to my terrible memory.