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Originally Posted by Flanker1985
Thanks for all those valuable information. 
So basically what you are saying is as long as I flight USN fighters, I can forget about dog fight.
Also, about the choice between F4U and F6F, which do you thinks it's better?
By the way, is that true?? That F4F had a kill-to-loss ratio of 5.9:1 in 1942 and 6.9:1 for the entire war??? |
USN fighters are not dog fighters, yep, that's the easiest way to put it. By 1943 their tactics emphasized the energy fight using turns only in high speed passes against Japanese aircraft and using their weight and engine power as an advantage. The Finnish called the technique a 'pendulum attack' which is actually a nice way to describe the basics of a boom and zoom. The type of attack requires more discipline but given the right teamwork it can be used to dominate the fight.
The F4U and F6F are a bit different. The F6F Hellcat should be a bit more pleasant to fly than it is, but despite that it's definitely the easier of the two. Both are big heavy fighters (a F6F is larger than a P-47... think about that for a moment) with a lot of weight to carry around but they also have very powerful engines.
The F4U Corsair is a bit trickier to handle. It's roll rate, top speed, and climb rate are all very good... but it's also less predictable. It's a little bit harder to land on a carrier deck which is one of the reasons why it earned the nickname 'Ensign Eliminator".
In a late war fight the Corsair is probably the better option but against Zeros (common right to the last day of the war) but the Hellcat is also a great fighter. The USN tended to favour the Hellcat on carriers as it was easier to land and so it saw the majority of carrier use while the Corsairs were really only seriously active on carriers in later 1944 and 1945. The USMC made extensive use of the Corsair from land bases with very exceptional results - again... excellent training and the eventual accumulation of combat experience helped.