Top 10 Worst Aircraft of WWII

[HomerJay]

The Bi-plane Fairey Swordfish had an illustrious WW2 campaign, helped sinked the Bismark, among others:



http://ww2total.com/WW2/Weapons/War-Pla ... rdfish.htm

[klr]

Perhaps controversially, I'd add the Ju-87. Once everybody realised it wasn't as good as its hype suggested, its crews suffered heavy losses and it had to be deployed carefully.

Dedicated ground attack aircraft in WW II usually needed plenty of fighter cover - the Ju 87, the Henschel 129, the Sturmovik, Vultee Vengeance, and so on. Either that or such general air superiority that cover was not needed. The same was true of bomber aircraft in general. That's why the RAF switched to night bombing, over Germany and why the US Air Force suffered such bad losses until good escort fighters were deployed.

The Ju 87 wasn't as good as the early propaganda, but it wasn't a failure either. It was only a failure relative to the early hype IMHO.

It also depends on the details of the environment an aircraft fights in. The Douglas Dauntless - a direct counterpart to the Ju 87 - operated mainly against Japanese aircraft which were so lightly armoured that even the rear gunners with two light machine guns scored plenty of victories. It was also strongly enough built itself (like most US Navy aircraft) that it was hard to shoot down given the light-ish Japanese armament. Close-in dogfighting (which the Japanese always favoured) also tended to negate pure speed advantages of fighter aircraft*. When the Dauntless was used in other theatres, it was much more vulnerable.

*As late as the Vietnam War, the piston-engined Skyraider scored a couple of victories against supersonic MiG jets.

My 2 cents anyway.

Yep. But I note you say "dedicated". Ground-attack variants of plenty of other aircraft did better: Hurricanes, Typhoons, P-47s and Ta-152/Fw-190s among them. Speed had a lot to do with that, no doubt: the Ju-87 was terribly sluggish, and having a single 7.9mm for defence didn't compensate.

Hmmm ...

In Europe in the second half of the war, the British and Americans tended not to use "pure" ground attack aircraft, but went in almost exclusively for those fighter-bombers. The Germans did the same with the Fw 190. There were more of the Fw 190F (the ground attack version) built than the entire Stuka production run. But even Allied fighter bombers often operated with their own fighter cover, until the Germans had so few fighters left that they could do what they liked.

The other thing about the above aircraft is that they are mainly "later" designs, apart from the Hurricane, which was used almost exclusively as a ground attack aircraft for the last three years of the war - and which often needed top cover. But the point of the other aircraft is that engine power more than doubled over the course of the war. So a late-war P-47 or Typhoon (or Fw 190) could carry much more ordnance than an Battle of Britain-era Stuka, and they were an awful lot faster. But they also weighed a lot more, cost more to build, consumed more fuel, etc.

At the start of the war, a single-engined aircraft could be either a fighter (and usually a pure fighter), or else a bomber of some sort. But increasing engine power completely changed that. By the end of the war, almost every new fighter design was expected to be a capable fighter-bomber as well, and the single-engined bombers that were so popular at the start of the war mostly gone*. The Stuka managed to hang around for a long time, although mostly in "niche" roles - anti-tank, night bomber, etc. To me, the real point of the Stuka is that the Germans were unable to design newer and more powerful generations of piston-engined aircraft over the course of the war the way the Allies were. The Stuka, Junkers 88 and Heinkel 111 were still all in until almost the end of the war, and to a much greater degree than they should have been.

*Except on aircraft carriers, for obvious space/size reasons.

The Bi-plane Fairey Swordfish had an illustrious WW2 campaign, helped sinked the Bismark, among others:



http://ww2total.com/WW2/Weapons/War-Pla ... rdfish.htm

Ack! Stop reminding me I have a new Airfix Swordfish waiting to be built.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I win.

[FBM]

I think you do. They actually used that thing? It looks like it's made of plywood...

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I think you do. They actually used that thing? It looks like it's made of plywood...

The nose is canvas.

[FBM]

I think you do. They actually used that thing? It looks like it's made of plywood...

The nose is canvas.

Oh. Well, that's OK, then.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Those Italians made some shit aircraft.

[klr]

I win.

I was waiting for someone to post the Me 323. It looks exactly like what it is: An outsize glider (the Me 321) with engines bolted on - French engines.

I built a kit of this in the mid-80's, and have another one to build "sometime". All 350 parts of it ...

Actually, the Me 323 wasn't that bad a design. It was able to take a lot punishment, but no transport can survive for long without air superiority. That's just as true today as back then. The biggest weakness was the relatively short range, but it still gave the Germans a heavy lift capability way ahead of anyone else's at the time.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"eggs" vs. "basket". Too many resources for such a lovely, sluggish target.

[klr]

"eggs" vs. "basket". Too many resources for such a lovely, sluggish target.

It was the only aircraft of its time that could lift a decent-sized vehicle, and it could operate from rough airstrips. It was the Hercules/C-17 of its day.

The Ju 52 was actually much slower than the Me 323, although they were both so slow that any fighter of the time would have been much faster than both of them put together. The C-47 was a good deal faster than both German aircraft, but still much too slow to fly away from trouble. A transport just can't be fast, and still be good at the day-job.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"eggs" vs. "basket". Too many resources for such a lovely, sluggish target.

It was the only aircraft of its time that could lift a decent-sized vehicle, and it could operate from rough airstrips. It was the Hercules/C-17 of its day.

The Ju 52 was actually much slower than the Me 323, although they were both so slow that any fighter of the time would have been much faster than both of them put together. The C-47 was a good deal faster than both German aircraft, but still much too slow to fly away from trouble. A transport just can't be fast, and still be good at the day-job.

C-17

[John_fi_Skye]

This is a good fred.

Context is all. The good old Wimpey, with its geodetic construction and other advantages that made it difficult to shoot down, features in a song of the time that shows its crews' insecurity about their chances of survival. I can't find it online, so this is just from memory:

Ops in a Wimpey (tune: Waltzing Matilda)

The first silly bastard, he got in an aeroplane,
He thought he would fly over Germanee.
And the crew all sang as they pranged upon the boundary,
"Who'll come on ops in a Wimpey with me?"

Now the next silly bastard, he got in an aeroplane;
He set course o'er the cold North Sea.
And the crew all sang as they swam back to the coast again,
"Who'll come on ops in a Wimpey with me?"

Now the next silly bastard, he got over Magdeburg;
Up came the flak like a Christmas tree.
And the crew all sang, as the navigator shit himself,
"Who'll come on ops in a Wimpey with me?"

Now the next silly bastard, he got over Hanover;
Up came the fighters, one, two, three.
And the rear gunner sighed, as he reached for his parachute,
"Who'll come on ops in a Wimpey with me?"