Mustang air combat reports...

[Skyraider3D]

Fascinating reading!!!
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/mustang/combat-reports.html

[Spinner]

Landers' report. He mentions 'tail warning device'
surprised me a bit!

[Zorin]

Wow, german planes sucked big time! ... Bit weird IMO.

[Skyraider3D]

Spinner, before the end of the war, tail warning radar was installed in Mustangs. According to veterans I've spoken it was both a blessing and a curse, as it also went off when a friendly aircraft approached. You can imagine the confusion it sometimes created, as the Luftwaffe rarely showed up in the closing months of the war. So there were plenty of falls alerts and suddenly scattering formations! :lol: As a consequence, it was often swicthed off (especially over friendly territory).


German planes didn't suck, but most the pilots did. Most pilots were the so-called "Nachwuchs", very young guys with only the bare essential flight experience and no clue what to do in combat. I've often read - both in US combat reports as in German recollections - that these pilots would bail out of the aircraft before being hit. They knew the war was lost, didn't believe in the cause anymore, hadn't the skill or numbers to dogfight on equal level and simply didn't feel like dying.
Some Experten were still going strong and these "old dogs" could decimate allied flights in a matter of seconds. Pierre Clostermann describes such an event where his flight of four Tempests is surprised by a single Fw 190 Dora. Two Tempests fell in flames after the German's first pass. Clostermann went after him and ended up being shot down himself.
Obviously Hartmann was such a guy as well and in a single-handed combat with four Mustangs he claimed three. US sources indeed confirmed two lost.
Pure aircraft performance rarely decides the outcome of air combat. It's the opportunity and the pilot's skills that count most. Superiority in numbers often helps, but isn't always relevant. Just to underline this further, I recently read a report about a Japanese ace who was flying a Ki-43 Hayabusa ("Oscar") and ran into four Hurricanes, while his landing gear was stuck in the lowered position. Despite the seemingly hopeless odds he claimed three Hurricanes shot down and returned safely. Another very skilled Japanese pilot shot down a Hellcat, while flying a Ki-79 trainer aircraft (= two-seat Ki-27 "Nate" with a single 7.7mm gun!). All fifteen of his colleagues of the same flight were shot down though!
Another good one is the story about Wetmore (pilot of "Daddy's Girl" > in my avatar) and his wingman York, who ran into two huge gaggles of Luftwaffe fighters. "You take the hundred on the right and I take the hundred on the left" he ordered his wingman. Sure enough they both engaged and survived, claiming three 109s destroyed each (and one further probably by York)!
There's tons more examples of course, I could go on for awhile :)

Disclaimer: most these encounter descriptions are from memory and numbers could vary slightly ;)

[Spinner]

So it was a radar installation, not a radar detector?
I guess I mean was it a transmiter/receiver or a receiver only?
It's the size that intrigues me, having researched small size naval radar development for MGB, MTB, PT boats in some depth recently.

Yeah, a lot of those guys could barely do a circuit, let alone a high deflection angle snap shot inverted.

[System-M-]

I Beleive some P-38s had Tail Radar Warning too it was A bell that went off when it picked up any aircraft behind them.

[Skyraider3D]

It was a receiver/transmitter: http://www.fernblatt.net/m12.html#a2227 (AN/APS-13)

[Spinner]

It was a receiver/transmitter: http://www.fernblatt.net/m12.html#a2227 (AN/APS-13)

Interesting! Thanks
AN - Airborne, Sound in air.
APS - Airborne, Radar, Range and bearing.

[Skyraider3D]

Some Tempest combat reports as well...
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/tempest/temptest.html

[Skyraider3D]

And now the same site also has Thunderbolt and Spitfire (various Mks) combat reports.

[Lukem]

That looks very interesting - thanks for the links!

One question: (27th December 1944) How can you shoot down one and one half ME109s?

[Skyraider3D]

One question: (27th December 1944) How can you shoot down one and one half ME109s?

Shared kills :)

[raf]

I even remember of seeing quarter kills.

However, I have a feeling that that most allied encounters on lists like this one, were against pretty green pilots.

How else to explain things like taking down Zero with Corsair by flying slower (Escape at Rabaul, i think). There is a lot of things Corsair was able to do to a Zero, but flying slower shouldn't be one of them.

[Lukem]

Ah, that makes sense - it just looked a little odd to me.

Thanks for clearing that up for me!:)

[Skyraider3D]

It's often the pilot, not the aircraft that counts. In the Corsair-flying-slower case it was one of the famous Corsair aces on the stick :) The Zeros bounced him in a dive and having inferior speed already he slammed on the brakes so to say. The Zeros overshot and made a pretty target.
Risky technique though... if the Zero evades damage the Corsair is a sitting duck for the second attack.

Enemy pilot skill became less and less as both Japan and Germany were losing the war and most experienced flight leaders got themselves killed. But there were still some crack aces about so an enemy could never be taken for granted. Pierre Closterman, and ace himself, describes how a flight of four Tempests got bounced by a single Fw 190 Dora. The German shot down two of the Tempest on his first pass, before he was even seen! Closterman went after him only to get himself shot down too!


PS. I've even seen 1/5th shared kills! For example four Skyraiders and a Corsair against a Chinese La-11 sometime in the 1950s.