Offensive Fighter Tactics - US Navy Pilot Training Film, World War II
This media is the work of U.S. Navy personnel or employees or contractors, made during the
course of their official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the media is in the public
domain.   

World War II
Strategies for fighter development

During the 1930s two different streams of thought about air-to-air combat began to emerge,
resulting in two different streams of monoplane fighter development. In Japan and Italy especially,
there continued to be a strong belief that lightly armed, highly maneuverable single seat fighters
would still play a primary role in air-to-air combat. Aircraft such as the Nakajima Ki-27 and
Nakajima Ki-43 and the Mitsubishi A6M Zero in Japan, and the Fiat G.50 and Macchi C.200 in Italy
epitomised a generation of monoplanes designed to this concept.

The other stream of thought, which emerged primarily in Britain, Germany, the Soviet Union and
the United States was the belief the high speeds of modern combat aircraft and the g-forces
imposed by aerial combat meant that dogfighting in the classic WW I sense would be impossible.
Fighters such as the Messerschmitt Bf 109, the Supermarine Spitfire, the Yakovlev Yak-1 and the
Curtiss P-40 were all designed for high level speeds and a good rate of climb. Good
maneuverability was not a primary objective.

Immediately following the Spanish civil war came World War II, during which dogfighting was most
prevalent. It was widely believed that strategic bombing alone was synonymous with air power; a
fallacy that would not be fully understood until Vietnam. After the failings in Spain, a greater
emphasis was placed on the accuracy of air-to-ground attacks. The need to stop bombers from
reaching their targets, or to protect them on their missions, was the primary purpose for most
dogfights of the era.

Dogfighting over Europe

Dogfighting was very prominent in the skies over Europe. The air force in France, while a major
force during the first world war, was inadequate and poorly organized, and quickly fell to the
German onslaught. Hitler believed that the British government was on the verge of collapse, and
offered them a choice between peace and war, being quite astonished when Winston Churchill
opted, without hesitation, for war. As the first battles began, the awesome power of the German’s
anti-aircraft artillery became readily apparent, with 88 millimeter shells capable of firing 50,000 feet
in the air. General Wolfram von Richthofen noted that these guns were equally destructive when
used for ground fire, when they were not preoccupied with destroying airplanes. The German ME-
109 and the British Spitfire were some of the most common fighters used in the European theater.
A typical dogfight is described by an unnamed pilot,

Pulling up into his blind spot I watched his plane grow larger and larger in my sight. But this
German pilot was not content to fly straight and level. Before I could open fire his plane slewed to
the right, and seeing me on his tail, he jerked back on the stick into the only defensive maneuver
his plane could make. I banked my 47 over to the right and pulled back on the stick, striving to get
him once more into my ring sight. The violent maneuver applied terrific G’s to my body, and I
started to black out as the blood rushed from my head. Fighting every second to overcome this
blackness about me, I pulled back on the stick, further and further, so that the enemy would just
show at the bottom of my ring sight to allow for the correct deflection. We were both flying in a tight
circle. Just a little more and I’ll have him. Pressing the [trigger] I waited expectantly for the 109 to
explode. I’ve hit his wing. A section two-feet long broke loose from the right wing as the machine
gun cut like a machete through it. Too low, a little more rudder and the bullets will find his cockpit. I
could see occasional strikes further up the wing, but it was too late. The 109, sensing that I was
inside him on the turn, slunk into a nearby cloud. Straightening my plane, I climbed over the top of
the bank, and poised on the other side, waiting for him to appear. But the 109 did not appear, and
not wishing to tempt the gods of fate further, I pushed my stick forward, entered the protective cover
of the clouds, and headed home.

Soviet fighters

During this time, three new Russian fighters, the LaGG-1, the Yak-1, and the Mig-1 were just
coming off of the production line. The Soviet Air Defense Force had been fraught with problems
since World War I. The German Barbarossa offensive on June 22, 1941, destroyed more than
2000 Soviet aircraft on the first day, and more than 5000 before October. With great desperation,
the Soviets fought in dogfights over Leningrad, Moscow, and the Ukraine for more than a year. It
became common practice at this time for Soviet pilots to simply ram an opponent.

Struggling with morale problems, the Soviets slowly and methodically began to regain air
supremacy after the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943.

USA and Japan

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, in the Hawaiian Islands, the United States entered the war. The
Japanese used the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, an extremely lightweight fighter known for its exceptional
range and maneuverability. The U.S. military tested out an A6M2, which was captured intact in
1942, advising "Never attempt to dogfight a Zero." Even though its engine was rather low in power,
the Zero had very low wing loading characteristics, a small turn radius, a top speed over 330 MPH,
and could climb better than any fighter used by the U.S. at that time, although it was poorly armored
compared to U.S. aircraft.

A pilot who realized that new tactics had to be devised was Lieutenant Commander John S.
"Jimmy" Thach, commander of Fighting Three in San Diego. He read the early reports coming out
of China and wrestled with the problem of his F4F Wildcats being relatively slower and much less
maneuverable than the Japanese planes. He devised a defensive maneuver called the "Thach
Weave", (named by Lieutenant Commander James H. Flatley, another fighter tactician and
contemporary of Thach). Lieutenant Commander Thach reasoned that two planes, a leader and
his wingman, could fly about 200 feet apart and adopt a weaving formation when under attack by
Japanese fighters. He later faced the A6M Zero during the Battle of Midway, in June 1942, for the
test of his theory. Although outnumbered, he found that a Zero would lock onto the tail of one of the
fighters. In response, the two planes would turn toward each other. When the Zero followed its
original target through the turn it would come into a position to be fired on by the target's wingman,
and the predator would become the prey. His tactic proved to be effective and was soon adopted by
other squadrons. The Thach Weave helped make up for the inferiority of the US planes in
maneuverability and numbers, until new aircraft could be brought into service. The usefulness of
this strategy survives until today. Another effective maneuver used by the U.S. Pilots was a simple
break, which consisted of turning sharply across an attacker's flight path, which worked well
because the large nose of the Zero tended to obstruct the pilot's view.[20] Still another good tactic
was to dive upon the Zero, shoot in one pass, and use the speed to climb back above the fight to
dive again. By 1943 the U.S. technology began to produce planes that were better matched against
the Japanese planes, such as the Grumman F6F Hellcat, and the Vought F4U Corsair.

Technology

Technology advanced extremely fast during World War II in ways that would change dogfighting
forever. Jet propulsion had been demonstrated long before the war, by a German named Hans von
Ohain in 1934, and by a British engineer named Frank Whittle in 1937. The ME-262 was the first jet
fighter to be used in battle, with a speed over 500 MPH, and began taking a toll on Allied bombing
missions in 1944. The British were testing a jet that same year, the Gloster Meteor, which would
later see action in the Korean War. Although U.S. General Hap Arnold test flew the XP-59A in 1942,
the plane was never used in combat. Other prime inventions of the era include radar and air-to-air
missiles.

Vælg antal: