[HusarDerLuft]

Which is the better aircraft?

The P-51 had incredible long range and high altitude performance, the Fw-190A8 was very heavily armed, armored and versatile and had tons of other high tech features.., while the Japanese Ki-84 was superior to the mustang in rate of climb, maneuverability .. probably Japan's best Fighter of the war.

make your pick

[aaareg13]

personally, i believe the 51 is better than them all, but, it is a bit biased, since i am part of a 51 dedicated squad, but it has its limits, since ive been able to shoot down many squadmates in either the ki84 and fw190, so it all depends on you.

[HusarDerLuft]

personally, i believe the 51 is better than them all, but, it is a bit biased, since i am part of a 51 dedicated squad, but it has its limits, since ive been able to shoot down many squadmates in either the ki84 and fw190, so it all depends on you.

I agree, its not so much the plane but the pilot that makes the difference.. Thats why this is a hard poll - the planes are almost equally matched
Personally I would have flown the 190A8, my fav.

[GeneralPsycho]

FW all the way. Germans knew what they were against.

[skyomish]

Its not the plane as much as the person in it.

[Sakai07]

suppose with my screen name this wont be a hard sell but my favorite of the three is....(drum roll please)..... the Ki-84b!!!!!
I fly online and the Ki84 is my mount of choice on dogfight servers. It climbs well, maneuvers well, turns well, and great guns (almost a match for the 190 with four 20mm cannons). The butterfly flaps allow me to make very tight high speed turns. This plays well into one of my favored attack positions, diving on my enemy with the throttle cut back from a beam angle (9 or 3'o'clock) and make a sweet deflection shot. I know this goes against all WWII dictum but this approach I practice over and over again offline. That and if i'm expected to attack from dead astern or dead ahead, I dont want to do what is expected.

As has been mentioned before, the pilot more then the plane determines the outcome of the fight. Both the 51 and 190 are excellent aircraft, I just prefer the Ki84!

[HusarDerLuft]

If you notice, each nation has a different mentality and a different approach towards aircraft design.

The Allies focused to long range, high altitude (tons of fuel lots of heavy machine guns, lots of ammo), the Germans tried to gain a technical advantage as usual and also designed a plane to be "mehrzweck" (multipurpose), the Ju-88 designed as a bomber, became a dive bomber, recon plane, torpedo plane, and then used even as night fighter!!, the Fw190 designed as a fighter became a fighter bomber, ground attack and you could fit more types of weapons on it, bombs, guns rockets, than I got cothes in my closet!! .. Their highly trained pilots considered very valuable were given the latest in protection, armor and later... ejection seats!!!
The Japanese build their planes to be very maneuvrable, with little protection for the pilot or even radios (early part). The designs are good nevertheless, Japanese technology should not be underestimated,.. and for example the NIK1-J had automatic combat flaps that deployed by themselves with a little mercury sensor that measured angle of attack - very advanced stuff for that time.. and the Zero A6M5b and onwards had automatic fire extinguishers in the main fuel tanks.. etc
The Japanese designs are very good, - if they had more raw materials, better labour standards and better access to some of the latest german technology, (and fanatic as they were), the war would not have ended in 1945...

[HusarDerLuft]

FW all the way. Germans knew what they were against.

Indeed, Lukashenko would have agreed

:lol:

[HusarDerLuft]

Here is a Soviet video of a captured Focke Wulf 190A4, of pilot Uffz. Helmut Brandt of 2./J.G. 54, was captured on the 16th of January 1943
It is being test flown and evaluated.. great movie!!
I particularly like the sliding canopy and the foot rest for the pilot, activated by a switch behind the canopy.. awesome plane

[Murph]

The real P51 (not the one we have in il2) actually performed quite well at all altitudes. The 190A8 was good at lower altitudes, but suffered higher up, which was one of the reasons the 190Ds were developed. I don't know much about the KI84s but I do know they suffered from poor engine reliability, the few that were actually built. Both Germany and Japan by about 1944 had very few really good pilots left, and lots of very green pilots. With a few exceptions, such as the ME 262, they were having to keep modifying airframes that were past their prime. Shortages of fuel and experienced trainers also meant that some new pilots were going into combat with as little as 20 hours in type. One of the reasons Japan resorted to Kamikaze was because even though they could still build airplanes, they could'nt train pilots fast enough to replace their heavy losses.
Conversely, The US was producing large numbers of highly trained pilots by this time, with many of them starting their tours of duty with 200 or more hours in type.
German engineering was very good, but they used slave labor to build a lot of their aircraft, and thus had issues with sabotage and not so great production standards, especially near the war's end. Putting a higher priority on exterminating their work force than on building equipment did'nt turn out so well for them.
There is a whole mythology about German aircraft, but the fact is, they had some truly excellent designs for their time, many of which became outdated by the war's end, and some really awful ones as well.

[HusarDerLuft]

and while talking about Russian captured german planes.....
the Heinkel-162 jet !




and the 262 .. Soviet footage

[HusarDerLuft]

The real P51 (not the one we have in il2) actually performed quite well at all altitudes. The 190A8 was good at lower altitudes, but suffered higher up, which was one of the reasons the 190Ds were developed. I don't know much about the KI84s but I do know they suffered from poor engine reliability, the few that were actually built. Both Germany and Japan by about 1944 had very few really good pilots left, and lots of very green pilots. With a few exceptions, such as the ME 262, they were having to keep modifying airframes that were past their prime. Shortages of fuel and experienced trainers also meant that some new pilots were going into combat with as little as 20 hours in type. One of the reasons Japan resorted to Kamikaze was because even though they could still build airplanes, they could'nt train pilots fast enough to replace their heavy losses.
Conversely, The US was producing large numbers of highly trained pilots by this time, with many of them starting their tours of duty with 200 or more hours in type.
German engineering was very good, but they used slave labor to build a lot of their aircraft, and thus had issues with sabotage and not so great production standards, especially near the war's end. Putting a higher priority on exterminating their work force than on building equipment did'nt turn out so well for them.
There is a whole mythology about German aircraft, but the fact is, they had some truly excellent designs for their time, many of which became outdated by the war's end, and some really awful ones as well.

Dont forget that Allied pilots flew for a certain duration of time, after which they could go home, and usually did.
Luftwaffe airmen flew until the War ended, or they were killed. They flew alot, and thats why they became so good.
Russian pilots for the most part had 100 hours of flying after which they were sent to the front (these days to get your commercial pilot licence you need a minimum of 200-250 hours).. but a few of them were really good, as good any other pilot

[Cuccos19]

I like the many cannon and huge amount of ammo of the Fw190, but it is so lazy in climb and so slugish in tight turn that I cannot fly it efficiently.

Many years ago I liked the outlook of the P-51D, but it turned out it is not a very good plane... :-? I simple can shoot them with a 109 and I always was shoot down when I flew the Mustang. It had a bit better roll rate than the Spitfire, but Mustang is dead in tight turn, and climb rate is also not impressive. Spitfires (VIII, IX, XVI) much better to fly and fight, IMHO. And if USA aircraft, I rather prefer the P-38 Lightning, or P-40 Hawks. Lightning is better in every part than the Mustang for me, as well the P-40s, although it has a weak climb rate, too. As for naval aircraft I love the little F4F Wildcats, but I'm not impressed about the F6F Hellcat. Simply slugish. Maybe the F4U Corsairs are okay, but I prefer Wildcats.

Generally I love almost every Japanes plane to fly and fight. But there are some exceptions. I don't like the Zero. It has very heavy airleons at little higher speeds. I also don't like Ki-61s because of the weaker climb rate and turning abilities. But I love Ki-43 (especially the Ki-43-I series), Ki-84 ("b" is for best, IMHO :wink: ) and Mitsubishi J2M.

[I/JG27_Waggel]

I think the concept of the Focke Wulf 190 was the best one of World war II. This airplane was the best allrounder. You succesfully could use it as a:

fighter vs fighter (no other german aircraft has produced so much headache to the commands of the allied air forces with its introduction)

fighter vs bomber

fighter bomber vs ground targets

long range fighter bomber vs ground targets

Planes like the P-51, the Spitfire and the Bf 109 were running horses, the Fw-190 was a serving horse.

At the end of the war the frame of the 190 also could be used to develop a high altitude fighter like the D series or the Ta-152.


The P-51 was no allrounder. She had much problems as a fighter bomber because of the vulnerability of its engine. The P-51 served as a fighter bomber in the korean war and had sensitive losses. The P-47 Thunderbolt whould have been the better fighter bomber but unfortunatly after world war II nearly all jugs went out of service and their radial engines went into civil aeroplanes.

In 1944 the P-51 as a long range bomber escorter was in its finest hour. Like the 190 a cockpit like an office. A bubble canopy with very good visibility. In this role the P-51 was fantastic.

In Il-2 I personally like the FW-190 most. But closely followed by the P-47 and P-51. Unfortunatly on most servers you can find Sissifires, Messerschmiddies, Lalas and other noobstuff. My personal wish whould be a Thunderbolt vs Focke Wulf server or a Mustang vs Focke Wulf Server.

On spit vs 109 I sometimes had the pleasure to fight against a P-47 or a P-51 in high alts. It was like: Let the children play downstairs (Spit and 109). We will have our fun upstairs.

Edit. Something to read: http://www.white1foundation.org/history_blackfriday.htm

[Alex T.]

LOL I can't believe that after so many years of debate over this kind of silly question there's still someone wasting time over it!
It's not a matter of which plane is better, it's the pilot and his skills, together with the tactical situation, that make a difference.
The features of a plane are like a short blanket: you have to leave something uncovered. The skill of a pilot is learning these special features and use them to his advantage in combat.
A couple of years ago I introduced a good friend of mine to IL-2, we did a quick combat, he was flying a P-51D and I was flying a Cr.42!
He had moderate experience back then, while I had long experience both in the sim and in real life flying, so all I had to do was "dragging" him down to my level of fight, where the Cr.42 had an advantage (low speed high manouverability), and I shot him down. He made a serie of mistakes that brought the result, so what did I demonstrate, that a Cr.42 is better than a Mustang? Hardly.. It's skills and tactical situation, only that..

You can spend hours talking about the features of each single plane and compare them to the other, it's just theory..