Shipbucket

When asked about German tanks versus American tanks, a Panzer commander once said:
"A German Tiger can outfight ten American Shermans. Unfortunately, there is always an eleventh Sherman."

Of course, they also called Shermans "Ronsons".

_________________
"Anybody remotely interesting is mad in some way." - The Seventh Doctor

Well you can say many things about germans but they know how to fight. As one soviet general once said: we almost always fight outnumbered by germans, we have only 7 against 1 fascist tank.

Good old soviets, they always think that fair fight is when there is 10:1 soviets against enemy.

_________________

Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

I fear I must say I agree with the Sovs.
My Pops taught me: "The only fair fight is the one you win."
He also told me the bravest soldier he ever met was Waffen SS, so I won't dispute the statement about the Germans knowing how to fight.

ok, back to winged warriors...

While certainly not ranking anywhere near the top of the list, I have always had a soft spot for the little F2F/F3F "Flying Barrel". Without it we may never have had its successor, the F4F Wildcat, and you most likely couldn't have the F6F Hellcat without the Wildcat. I always thought it was rather interesting too that the first prototype of the F4F was a biplane like the F3F.

_________________
"Anybody remotely interesting is mad in some way." - The Seventh Doctor

indeed I agree with you vey much Zephyr the Grumman FF led to the F2F and is a personal favorite

_________________
Projects:
Zealandia AU
John Company AU
References and feedback is always welcome!

Both the BF109 and FW-190 were good planes. But the real mistakes were upgrading them instead of making superior ones. They did have limitations since these were early war planes. If they had however designed new ones from scratch that incorporated all the advanced technologies from the start, they would have gotten much better fighters.
The Spitfire is pretty to look at and nothing is quite as beautiful as the roar from the Merlin.
The Mustang is the most balanced plane design ever designed, it was simply outstanding in every catagory.
But I do love the P-47. It`s insane firepower, powerful engine and it`s mythical rugedness that rivals that of the B-17. It could outfly and outmanouver both the BF109 and FW-190 at 30,000+ feet. It could outdive everything and there was simply no way one could survive when trying to dive from it.
The Zero was simply extremely agile, but it`s completely non-extisting armor lost to planes such as the P-40 and the F4F. It`s lack of self-sealing fuel tanks made it easy to kill as tracers ignited the engine and the plane litterly melted as it fell down.
The F6F and F4U simply outclassed it in every category exept manouverability.
Some Soviet planes such as the Yak-3, Yak-9 and MiG-3 are underpresented. They were good planes that not too many know about.
French planes never got a chance to prove themselves as most designes came to late to do anything at all.
The P-39 was very good at low altitudes and was very popular to say the least among Soviet pilots.
On paper, the Brewster F2 was outclassed by just about anything, and everything. Good tactics by the Fins and poor training and execution by Soviet pilots made the Brewster a killing machine, achieving a whooping 32:1 kill ratio.
All the Japanese planes suffered from the same thing, lack of armor. This made them easy to kill when you first hit them.
The Italian planes ere just quite amazingly ugly, especially the ones with that huge lump foward of the cockpit.
Good tactics and good execution wins battles and wars. Some lack these qualities (Italians,) some have good ones (Germany.) Even thought they lost both world wars.

my bad

_________________
Projects:
Zealandia AU
John Company AU
References and feedback is always welcome!

He meant the F4U outclassed the Zero.

_________________
Republic of Lisenia AU - In progress
Republic of Lisenia in FD Scale - In progress