How many Raptors to repel the bombers in the Battle of Britain?

[Gorsnak]

@Boyo Jim

The Air Force says the A10’s top speed is 420. At what altitude, it doesn’t say. IMO a 70 mph speed difference is not enough. A diving ME-109 could likely catch an A-10 going flat out. That is less of a differential than vetween say, a P-51 and an ME-262. P-51s shot down a number of ME-262s. Most, admittedly, while taking off or landing, but some in open air combat.

An A-10, IMO, would not have such an overwhelming advantage that a handful could handily win the battle, though they would certainly be an improvement over Spitfires.

The Me262 had a ridiculously bad power:weight ratio and accelerated like a slug in molasses, was flown in the face of overwhelmingly enemy air superiority with inadequate logistic support and a rapid dwindling supply of pilots. The A-10 can do things a Me262 couldn’t even attempt, aerobatics-wise, and I’ll bet without even looking it up that it outclimbs the Me262 by a huge margin. Plus it’s ridiculously durable, unlike the Me262. Comparing a contest between A-10s and Bf109Es to the encounters between P-51s and Me262s is completely unreasonable. A diving Bf109E might indeed catch an A-10, but its 2 7.9mm machine guns would do no more than scratch the paint, and the 2 20mm cannons had only 60 rounds and were prone to jamming. It’s not particularly likely it could shoot down an A-10 even if the A-10 pilot wasn’t trying to avoid fire.

More importantly, the outcome of most aerial encounters in WWII was determined before any shots were fired, by the initial positions of the two forces. If you spotted the enemy first, and had altitude/energy advantage, you would almost certain win or draw. The A-10 doesn’t likely have the most sophisticated radar suite in the USAF, but it’s plenty for the task at hand. A-10 pilots would be able to position themselves favourably before closing with the enemy, diving down behind Luftwaffe formations and shredding them with that ridiculous 30mm gatling gun. The situations in which P-51s scored kills against Me262s would never arise, because the A-10 pilot can see the Bf109 on his radar and turn the tables on the German pilot long before any attack ensued.

A single squadron of A-10s in WWII would confer total air supremacy within weeks. I think it’s the perfect aircraft for our time-travelling airforce.

[Ranchoth]

@Gorsnak

e of most aerial encounters in WWII was determined before any shots were fired, by the initial positions of the two forces. If you spotted the enemy first, and had altitude/energy advantage, you would almost certain win or draw. The A-10 doesn’t likely have the most sophisticated radar suite in the USAF, but it’s plenty for the task at hand.

Er, point of order…as far as I know, the A-10 doesn’t have active radar. They have Radar Warning Receivers, but that’s not going to do a lot of good against the early WWII German air force.

Whether or not you could refit the A-10s with radar, I’ll leave to someone else.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

I think the Lim-2R , a Polish-built Ground Attack/Recon/Escort Fighter version of the MiG-15bis would be a good choice.

Specs on the MiG-15bis

Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 |

[Small_Clanger]

@Gorsnak

. . . shredding them with that ridiculous 30mm gatling gun.

I thing one single 30mm round would bring down nearly any 1940 plane, a one second burst would turn a single engined fighter into small pieces of tinfoil. It’s meant for use against armoured vehicles after all.

the A-10 pilot can see the Bf109 on his radar and turn the tables on the German pilot long before any attack ensued

An A-10 pilot could probably simply ignore the fighters (leave the RAF something to do) and when he runs out of ammo he can carry on by just ramming the bombers out of sky.

[Malacandra]

@Small Clanger

I thing one single 30mm round would bring down nearly any 1940 plane, a one second burst would turn a single engined fighter into small pieces of tinfoil. It’s meant for use against armoured vehicles after all.

An A-10 pilot could probably simply ignore the fighters (leave the RAF something to do) and when he runs out of ammo he can carry on by just ramming the bombers out of sky.

Of course a single 30mm round might just go straight through and out the other side, leaving just a pair of neat holes, having hit nothing solid enough to detonate it.

A short burst on the other hand… :eek:

[chowder]

Boyo Jim If you were Dowding with 24 Tomcats at your disposal Hitler/Goering etc would have to ask your permission to even fart much less fly against you.

“ring, ring”

“hello”
“Adolf here and I need a dump badly”
“Tough shit old bean, you’ll have to clench your buttocks”

hangs up.

[DrDeth]

@Boyo Jim

The Air Force says the A10’s top speed is 420. At what altitude, it doesn’t say. IMO a 70 mph speed difference is not enough. A diving ME-109 could likely catch an A-10 going flat out. .

Sure, they could- but it’d be like the dog who caught the mail truck- then what? The 8mm machine guns would possibly make the A-10 Pilot think it had been caught in an unseasonble hail storm.

I agree- the A-10 would just fly through the Luftwaft bomber formations, shooting down the bombers at his leisure. He could out-run, out fly the Ju88, Do17, and He111, and have a “turkey shoot”. The 30mm gun can target one of those bombers at a range of one mile, and with 80% accuracy even at that range. It can also carry 8 sidewinder missles.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/a-10.htm

Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II

In case the A-10 had to dogfight with the Bf109: (from Wiki)
A-10
Never exceed speed: 450 knots (520 mph, 830 km/h)
Maximum speed: 380 knots (438 mph, 704 km/h) at 5,000 ft (1,500 m) with 6 Mk 82 bombs
Cruise speed: 300 knots (340 mph, 560 km/h)
Combat radius:

On CAS mission: 250 nm (290 mi, 460 km) at 1.88 hour single-engine loiter at 5,000 ft (1,500 m), 10 min combat
Ferry range: 2,240 nm (2,580 mi, 4,150 km) with 50 knot (55 mph, 90 km/h) headwinds, 20 minutes reserve
Service ceiling: 45,000 ft (13,700 m)
Rate of climb: 6,000 ft/min (30 m/s)

Bf109
Maximum speed: 640 km/h (398 mph) at 6,300 m
Cruise speed: 590 km/h (365 mph) at 6,000 m (19,680 ft)
Range: 850 km (528 mi) with droptank 1000 km (620 mi)
Service ceiling: 12,000 m (39,370 ft)
Rate of climb: 17.0 m/s (3,345 ft/min)

The A-10 is faster and can outclimb the Bf109.

[Boyo_Jim]

I agree that the A-10 would be superior to anything else in the sky in 1940. I would only argue that it is not the best choice, mostly because of speed and resulting vulerability, but also because of weapons loads.

As to vulnerability – the A-10s armor is placed primarily for protection against ground fire. The engines are partially shielded from below by wings and tailplane, and the pilot is protected from below by his titanium “bathtub”. I’m not so sure how it would fare against an attack from above, particularly the canopy. The ME-109 had 3 20mm canon, BTW, including a propellor shaft gun.

As I said in my first post, it MIGHT be that IR missiles would be useless, if the piston engines of the times don’t generate sufficient heat – which would leave nothing but guns for the A-10 to fight with.

In a war, if you can, you shoot the other guys from out of their sight and out of their range, You could do neither with an A-10. Why take chances?

Re the comparison to ME 262s and P-51s: I think there are some valid comparisons to make. One is that a slower prop plane can catch a faster jets in its sights with the right advantaghes. And if both planes are limited to gun fights, the jets will at times be within gun range of the prop planes.

A fighter that could toss radar guided BVR missiles would be almost like God throwing bolts of lightning at the Germans. Raptors, Tomcats, or even Phantoms would be superior choices, IMO, and they would be 100% invulnerable to counter attack, unless caught on the ground.

Still, good luck with your A-10 squadron, I’m sure it will do very well.

[control-z]

This really really calls for a computer simulation.

[DrDeth]

@Boyo Jim

. The ME-109 had 3 20mm canon, BTW, including a propellor shaft gun.

In a war, if you can, you shoot the other guys from out of their sight and out of their range, You could do neither with an A-10. Why take chances?

.

That’s a later version of the Bf109. The BoB version had 1 or 2x20mmFF cannons, which were not very good.

As to “out of sight and out of range” the A-10 has a accurate range with laser targeting devices and such like of 1 mile. The Bf109 has more or less 1/10th that.

Although I agree the Raptor could destroy Bf109s at longer range, it only has a few missles. The A-10 has 8 missles and the cannon- which might be able to take down dozens more.

[Ranchoth]

@control-z

This really really calls for a computer simulation.

The current X-Plane simulator could probably do it—it has combat capabilities (against AIs or network players), a wide range of pretty accurate aircraft available, and a generous weapon-editing system.

On the downside, the actual damage-modeling system isn’t that advanced. It’s basically “hit/not hit.” So, while gunfire ranges and trajectories and missile behavior should be pretty accurate (depending on modeling), you can’t tell offhand if you’ve just scratched “Jerry’s” paint, or if you’ve ripped his wings off.