SEE, don't take the descriptions in the aircraft viewer as the gospel truth.
The F4F was the tightest turning aircraft fielded in numbers by the United States in WW2, closely followed by the P40, which was far and away the most maneuverable aircraft fielded by the USAAF in WW2.
Yet both aircraft get a bad rap as being poor in maneuverability by "historians" that only compare them to the A6M or the Ki-43. Remember that a real life P40 will out turn a Spitfire below 15,000 ft, and out roll it at any altitude or speed, but neither of these planes can out turn a Zeke or Oscar at low dogfight speeds. It would take a biplane to do that, or an earlier Japanese monoplane fighter. (Ki-27 or A5M)
Fighting Japanese aircraft is all about keeping your speed up, which is how the Flying Tigers were so successful against the Ki-27 and Ki-43 over China, and how the Spits beat the Zekes in the Pacific, and why the F4F was replaced with the F6F and Corsair.
Speed is life.
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Personally speaking, the P-40 could contend on an equal footing with all the types of Messerschmitts, almost to the end of 1943.
~Nikolay Gerasimovitch Golodnikov
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02-05-2011, 04:17 AM
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