What was the best pound-for-pound air force in WWII? Who punched above their weight? Who punched below?
>>34699829
The USAAF and US Navy punched above and below their weight. By the end of the war they were kicking toddlers.
>>34699829
This is almost a loaded question, because on one end you have the Luftwaffe with pilots like Erich Hartmann who racked up amazing kills but were expected to fly until they died, and on the other end they had insane issues with having good pilots in general by and after the mid point of the war...this makes appraising that organization as a whole, difficult, in spite of the off the charts k/d ratios they achieved at times.
Then you have Air Forces like the USAAF and the RAF that were good at training all pilots to have good general abilities, and shining stars were allowed to become trainers to teach new techniques to beginner pilots. I'd say the western allies were best at being generally pretty capable.
I can't really decide, but I think I'm leaning towards the RAF or USAAF. I won't even talk about the Red Army Air Force.
>>34700260
Fpbp
>>34700260
I think that's the exact opposite definition. They had practically unlimited production abilities.
>>34699829
IJN was a shitshow of incompetence for the entire war. They managed one victory via sucker punch at the beginning of the war and basically got their ass handed to them for the whole rest of it. And it wasn't because USN was staffed with geniuses - it was that IJN was a bunch of damn fools who refused on principle to learn from and adapt to their mistakes. By Midway, they were out of good pilots and were useless the whole rest of the war.
>>34700398
Which means nothing in this context. The USN entered the war with inferior pilots and planes when compared to the Japanese. It was the development of good tactics that enabled them to take on the Japanese despire their edge. Later in the war, tactics and tech had advanced even more, and the edge changed to the Americans. The Japanese failed to innovate in any way and found themselves facing a superior foe with poor equipment and even poorer pilots.
>>34699829
Really depends on the period.
RAF did pretty well during battle of Britain considering the situation and lack of training.
Having a Radar defense network really helped them a lot. without that they would have been fucked.
Luftwaffe were professional from 1935 until the end. Gotta hand it to them for consistency.
>>34699829
The polish air force and later the 303rd where preeeeettt good. The czecks where ok too under the RAF iirc
>>34700480
And none of that mattered because the US could have flown Wildcats for the entire war and still won. You are missing the point of the topic.
>>34700369
Fucking this, good shit. Afaik the Allies typically regarded real good German pilots as the absolute cream of the crop, few and far between as they were, but most of those pilots died in the saddle. Allies, on the other hand, had a shitload of time and materiel to train with, and that showed after a while.