The most decisive aircraft of WWII, as in the ones that really impacted the war greatly.
Bomber B17
Fighter Me 109
Anti-tank Stuka
Interceptor Spitfire

Bomber B17 - What about the B-29 Stratofortres ? The one that bring end to the WW2 with A-Bomb.
Fighter Me 109 - Uhmm.. Messerschmitt BF-109E Emil
a good one that create the best Ace of all time.
What about the Mitsubishi A1M6M Zero ?

I'd have to say the North American P-51D Mustand was one of the best aircraft in WWII. If it wasn't for them the B-17's wouldn't have made it to there bomb targets or back home with out their fighter protection.

the b-17's didn't always have p51 support

your right they didnt and payed for it dearly,very dearly..
the bombers would have continued taking tremendous losses as they were, possibly to the point of putting a halt to daytime bombing..they were seriously considering it until the long range fighter was deployed.

the long range escort changed the war, the germans knew it when they saw the fighters flying over Berlin..

they also released the p-51 during the escort to hunt down and destroy the Luftwaffe in the air or on the ground, which they did very well.

the spitfire saved england no doubt on that at all, but the P51 helped speed up the war in Europe..

the me109?
nah.. it was more the pilots than that particular aircraft..
I could see the DH.98 mosquito on the list before a 109..

B-29 indeed , not just because of the bomb..
the bombers were practically untouchable to the japanese fighters that couldnt fly as high.
had the range to make it where no other bomber could safely.
did incredible damge to the japanese war industry, no industry no war..

it was decisive because it was germanies fighter throughout the war. it was a great fighter at the begining of the war while britian the hurricane and gladiator fighters.

quote:

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Originally posted by oliversmoliver:
it was decisive because it was germanies fighter throughout the war. it was a great fighter at the begining of the war while britian the hurricane and gladiator fighters.

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Actually we had both the Hurricane and Spitfire in front line service at the start of the war.

quote:

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Originally posted by reservedeputy:
I'd have to say the North American P-51D Mustand was one of the best aircraft in WWII. If it wasn't for them the B-17's wouldn't have made it to there bomb targets or back home with out their fighter protection.

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The P51D was designed and built at the behest of the RAF

hey guys what about mother russia don't forget the il-2 and the p-2 those are some great aircrafts without them how could of we helped your butts to defete adolf, ay

F4U Corsair anyone? Took some time to figure out how to put it down on a carrier reliably. This a great fighter, which outclassed everything Japan could throw at it. And although not designed for the role, it became the first true fighter/bomber. Marines discovered it could carry 4,000 pounds of bombs. Became a very good CAS craft later in the war, but that's typical. ETO gets way to much attention.

This is THE classic topic, we should narrow the topic for a more accurate answer and rate bombers against bombers, fighters vs fighters etc... Going on the facts I'll say the Hawker Hurricane shot down more axis planes than the Spitfire but was labelled as 2nd fiddle. P-47 was fighting the Luftwaffe at its peak long before the P-51 came in and cleaned up what was left. The P-38 was the total package fighter, fighter/bomber and recon version as F-4 and F-5. The intel gained by those camera planes did more to help allies than any other aircraft. Most of this is opinion and like choosing the MVP of the superbowl. It took the whole team to get them to that game so they were all needed to do their specific job. The MVP is the one who seemed to shine brightest in the limelight but many things of importance go on behind the scenes. Behind every WWII fighter pilot there were 10 people supporting him and his aircraft that enabled to them to get off the ground.

The F6F Hellcat had the best kill ratio of all WWII Fighters, 19:1 killing over 5154 enemy aircraft shot down (and another 5000 destroyed on the ground) with a loss of 280 Hellcats...

We are forgetting the STUKA, which was a large contributar to the victories the germans had in france, belgiem, africa, the balkans and russia(in the beginning of the campign).

This is very much a personal opinion - favorate aircraft of world war II. I can honestly see where someone of British or German heritage may have certain biases, as we americans do as well.

So to throw my $0.02 in (and my opinions as well), my picks for best WWII aircraft would be:

Fighter: The P-51 mustang. I won't go into versions, just suffice to say that engine the british provided made the mustang what it was. Prior to that upgrade, the P-51 suffered. And for the record, the spitfire also benefited mid-way through the war from an engine swap. The F6F, the P-38 and a couple of others deserve mention as well.

Bomber: The B-17. It was everywhere. The 8th Army Air Force in Europe lived by them, along with the B-24. There was a flight going into Hawaii during the attack. There was a flight based out of midway which participated in the battle of midway.

There were a lot of bombers, but the one that "brought the boys home" was the B-17. It took massive amounts of abuse and still flew people home. Look up Andy Runy's comparison of the B-17 and B-24 as a reporter in WWII. The wooden Mosquito of British origin was also a winner and did a lot of great things.

Dive Bomber/Ground Attack: The P47 would take a beating and still accomplish the mission. The stuka suffered in air to air conflict, but was superb as a ground attack aircraft. The Russians had a couple planes that really performed well for them as well. When the "released the fighters" in the 8th Army, the mustang also took on a ground attack role, but it suffered from being more frail than the P47. There were a number of good dive bombers and torpedo planes in the pacific as well.

But reading the pilot's exploits and stories of world war II, the P47 was the perfect ground attack aircraft. Planes continuing to fly and fight with direct hits taking out individual pistons in the aircraft's motor; that's impressive.

And alas, we have forgotten one set of planes, and one plane in particular credited by General Eisenhower as helping win the war. The cargo aircraft played a vital part in the war and the C-47/C-49 was the kingpin of these aircraft. This was an extremely popular and versitile aircraft. From "flying the Hump" in Asia, to dropping paratroopers on D-Day, to participating in the Berlin airlift after the war. There are still significant quantities of this aircraft flying all over the world. (Just as a note of record the C-47 was also know as the C-49, C-53, C84 and R4D in US Variants and the commercial version was the DC3.) Foreign militaries benefited from the DC3 as well. The Japanese version was the Showa L2D, built under contract before the war, and the russian version was the Lisunov Li-2.

Tom

Just a side note:

The history of the mustang is interesting; and the D model was not a British order, but rather an upgrade that followed british design lines with the bubble canopy to enhance the pilot's view, amoung other changes. The D models were put in service in the US Army Air Forces prior to seeing service with the British.

A really good read on the history of mustangs and the D model is available here:

History of the P-51 Mustang

Tom

quote:

Originally posted by ruskisniper:
hey guys what about mother russia don't forget the il-2 and the p-2 those are some great aircrafts without them how could of we helped your butts to defete adolf, ay

hear, hear....

PS You guys need to learn to spell...

In my opinion, the aircraft in the first part of the war were the most important. If the RAF hadn't had the Spitfire(my favorite) or the Hurricane, not to mention the determination of the pilots, Britian would have been taken over by Hitler, and America wouldn't have had a base of operations, and war probably would've been lost.

IL-2, my grandfather flied those. I guess thats why I have such obsession with A-10...genetics?

One of my faverit ww2 aircrafts would be the
Messerschmitt ME-109

[quote]Bomber B17 - What about the B-29 Stratofortres ? The one that bring end to the WW2 with A-Bomb.
Fighter Me 109 - Uhmm.. Messerschmitt BF-109E Emil
a good one that create the best Ace of all time.
What about the Mitsubishi A1M6M Zero ?[/quote]

I agree that the B-29 Stratofortress was the most decisive aircraft of WWII.

well comparing aircraft is kind of difficult, you have to be more specific. if you ask me id have to say its the P51d mustang. the thing with that plane is that its incredibly fast and has good armament and firepower. the me 109 is definatly not a very good fighter. i mean it was good before the war ahd started. me 109s were not used any more because they were not good enough to beat the british spitfires, so this gave it limited use. the ju 87 or stuka same thing as the me 109, it was badly armored, slow and they got chewed up by fighters trying to intersept them. stukas were good in the blitzkrieg of poland because poland had very little defenses against air attacks, but after that it was pretty much useless. and some one mentioned the A6M type 21 zero, yes i have to agree it was a very good plane. but after the attack on pearl harbor which was pretty much the time where the zekes were the most effective the american pilots already had found out a way to counter their attacks, and it only took a few shots to take one down because it tended to turn into flames to the slightest damage.

For me

Fighters
Hurricane
Spitfire
P-51 Mustang
F6F Hellcat
F4U Corsair (Fighter-Bomber)
P-47 Thunderbolt (Fighter-Bomber)
Tempest (Fighter-Bomber)

Bombers
SBD Dauntless
TBF Avenger
Avro Landcaster
B-29 Superfortress
B-25 Mitchell
B-26 Marauder

i think the sbd dauntless is the most desicive aircraft of the war. at Midway it was dauntlesses that crippled all foru japanese carrier.

Let not forget about the FW190 a closer match to the P51.

The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger ("shrike"), often called Butcher-bird, was a single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft of Germany's Luftwaffe, and one of the best fighters of its generation. Used extensively during the Second World War, over 20,000 were manufactured, including around 6,000 fighter-bomber models. Production ran from 1941 to the end of hostilities, during which time the aircraft was continually updated. Its final incarnations retained qualitative parity with Allied fighter planes, although Fw 190s lagged far behind in production numbers.

The Fw 190 was well liked by its pilots, and widely regarded as superior to the front line Supermarine Spitfire Mk V on its combat debut in 1941. Compared to the Bf 109, the Fw 190 was a "workhorse," employed in and proved suitable for a wide variety of roles, including ground attack, long-range bomber escort, night-fighter and (especially in the "D" version) high-altitude interceptor.

Frank

Ltes not forget the Junkers Ju 87 Stuka. Flying Artility. It made the Blitzkrieg posible. There is a very good book about a German Stuka Pilot.


It changed the face of war and the mission of the airplace to support ground troups. Its use prompted the use of ground forces calling in air support and the Germans where first to have communication between ground forces and the airforce to call in air stricks.

The british, french nor the Russina did not have a dive bomber designed to support ground troups. Nor the idea of being able to communicate with the airforce for ground strikes.

We can attribute todays close air support to the orginal Stuka. The most famous was Hans-Ulrich Rudel (July 2, 1916 – December 18, 1982) was a Stuka dive-bomber pilot during World War II. Rudel is famous for being the most highly decorated German serviceman of the war (Hermann Göring was nominally more highly decorated, but he did not achieve his Grand Cross of the Iron Cross by combat action). Hans-Ulrich Rudel was the only person to be awarded the Knight’s Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds.

Rudel flew 2,530 combat missions and successfully attacked many tanks, trains, ships, and other ground targets, claiming a total of 2,000 targets destroyed - including 800 vehicles, 519 tanks, 150 artillery guns, a destroyer, two cruisers, and a battleship. Russian records however confirm neither cruiser sinking; smaller warships may have been the actual targets. He also shot down 9 aircraft[1].

It had a major impact as well as a major impact today.

Frank

Lets not forget the Junkers Ju 87 or Stuka which change how ground forces and air can support each other. They where the first to use ground observer.

In fact the most famous pilot was Hans-Ulrich Rudel. Rudel's input was used during the development of the A-10 ground attack aircraft.

("Only those who themselves give up are lost.")

His famous Quote...

Frank

I'd have to say the Spitfire. Without it the british would've lost the battle of britain and that would have been a severe blow to the western allies because theyd have no place to base their attacks on germany. Even german ace Adolph Galland told Goering he wanted a squadron of em.