“BEST FIGHTER” SELECTION CRITERIA
CONSTANT PRODUCTION IMPROVEMENT IN COMBAT CAPABILITY
Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, the famous southern Civil War cavalry officer, uttered, “Git thar fustest with the mostest.” That combat axiom had probably been defined in many other languages for eons before he said it, but it’s succinct, and it happens to be the prescription. For that reason, I have limited the contestants by selecting only fighters that were built in quantities of more than 10,000; during such a production run, they will have seen many improvements and will then meet Gen. Forrest’s criterion of “mostest.”
FOUR-MISSION CAPABILITY
My principal selection criterion was that a fighter must have made a continuous contribution to the destruction of the enemy ground and air forces in four tactical roles: fighter-to-fighter, air-to-ground-troop support, bomber protection and photo recon missions. Comparing them only in the exciting, ace-making fighter-to-fighter role would omit three quarters of their capabilities, which were tactically and strategically necessary to win the war. Most of the combatant WW II air force pilots had been trained in all of these roles, and most fighters could fly all missions to some degree.
PILOT COMPATIBILITY
During WW II, it was almost useless to design a superb airplane that required an experienced pilot. Experienced pilots didn’t fight wars; hastily trained fledglings who eventually become experienced pilots fought them. For that reason, planes had to be comfortable enough for a 200-hour, wartime-trained pilot; they had to have docile flight characteristics, high performance, good cockpit design and outside visibility, comfort, armored/ self-sealing fuel tanks and a resulting low accident rate.
SERVICE RECORD
U.S. flight records from the European theater were easy to obtain and clearly showed what each fighter type contributed. Records from the Pacific theater were more difficult to come by. For British, German and Japanese fighters, I found very little hard data on the number of sorties, tons of bombs dropped, aircraft shot down, locomotives and rail cars destroyed, and that made comparing their operations difficult.