Best WW1 Fighter

[ysacres]

polishshooter
Senior Chief Moderator Staff
Posts: 1167
(7/10/01 9:31:29 am)
Reply Best WWI FIghter
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Time for another poll to stimulate the discussion.


Gosh I wish they offered more spaces! I couldn't even fit in the Eindecker or the Vickers Gunbus...
Spad XIII
Fokker D-7
SE-5a
Nieuport 28
other

Show results

I like Browning on my Browning.

Edited by: polishshooter at: 7/10/01 10:32:36 am

polishshooter
Senior Chief Moderator Staff
Posts: 1168
(7/10/01 9:37:15 am)
Reply Re: Best WWI FIghter
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The SE-5a was stable, solid, fast enough, maneuverable enough, easy to fly, forgiving with new pilots, stayed together when "thrown around" by the aces, took punishment, good gun platform, produced in numbers that were meaningful, first "modern" fighter produced with tactics in mind.

Kinda lost in the glamour of all the pure "dogfighters," though....

Lasted longer than any of the others in front-line service after the war too....
I like Browning on my Browning.

Xracer
Moderator
Posts: 574
(7/10/01 5:58:36 pm)
Reply Re: Best WWI FIghter
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I suspect that one-on-one, with equal (experienced) pilots, the D7 would come out on top.

However......what with the life expectancy of pilots in WWI being some 20 flight hours, that weren't that many experienced pilots near the end of the war.....so....for the reasons you stated, I voted with you Polish.

SE-5a.

polishshooter
Senior Chief Moderator Staff
Posts: 1173
(7/10/01 7:00:16 pm)
Reply Re: Best WWI FIghter
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Maybe we should do it in "eras." Like Eindecker vs. Nieuport 11 vs. Vickers Gunbus, or else the Camel vs. the N.17 vs. the Dr1 Tripe.

I still liked Guynumers Spad 12 with the single shot 37mm infantry gun through the prop hub. 5 shots, 4 kills before he was overcome with the fumes in the cockpit while reloading it between his legs.

I guess he got pretty close before he fired, probably just scared them into crashing when that thing went off.
I like Browning on my Browning.

Xracer
Moderator
Posts: 585
(7/11/01 8:05:10 am)
Reply Re: Best WWI FIghter
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Do you s'pose that's where Larry Bell got his idea for the P-39?

boeboe1
Member
Posts: 1
(7/25/01 10:03:47 pm)
Reply Re: Best WWI FIghter
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Anyone seen a copy of "Years of the Sky Kings" by Whitehead around? Every once in a while I think of that book, and how much I enjoyed it as a kid. Wish I had a copy.

Alphamale
Senior Chief Moderator Staff
Posts: 564
(7/25/01 10:21:15 pm)
Reply Re: Best WWI FIghter
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Welcome to the board boeboe
To run from trouble is foolish, to look for it... even more so

polishshooter
Senior Chief Moderator Staff
Posts: 1384
(7/26/01 12:17:14 am)
Reply Re: Best WWI FIghter
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Welcome, BB!

I need to find that book, MANY pilots of WWII cite it in their memoirs when they talk of what made them want to fly before the war, ranks right up with those who say it was the first time they saw a Barnstormer in a JN4.

What about the Bristol Fighter? Once they started throwing it around like a scout and not an observation plane, it was pretty darn good!

And it was a direct descendent of another "big" Bristol fighter, the WWII Beaufighter.
Eibar Pimp. "Pssst! 'Ay Meester..."

Xracer
Moderator
Posts: 680
(7/26/01 10:37:29 am)
Reply Re: Best WWI FIghter
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Hi BB.....Welcome to the Military/HistoryNuts division of TFF!

boeboe1
Member
Posts: 4
(7/26/01 7:51:46 pm)
Reply Re: Best WWI FIghter
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Thanks for the welcome! Some of you might remember me from GB. I had a friend (teehee) suggest I come to a site that was lighter on the censorship. Not as though I've been barred from GB...yet. Good to see some names I recognize!

I must have read "Years of the Sky Kings" six times when I was a kid. I must have read it three times after the cover was gone. I remember taping it up and drawing my own cover on it. It was in paperback then. I look for it every time I go to a Goodwill or DAV. There was another one, the "Baloon Buster" I think, the Frank Luke story. Now HE was my favorite.

jonkx
Member
Posts: 11
(2/7/02 12:31:42 am)
Reply fighters
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I gotta agree and go with the D-7 for late war, though new German monoplane designs would have gained prominence in a few more months, especially all metal ones. The SE-5a was a close second, as was the Spad XIII. For mid war, I vote for the Sopwith pup and then Camel which replaced it, and for early war, the Nieuport 11. The Fokker Eindecker was no great fighter, it just had a great advantage due to the mounting of its machine gun at the time.

polishshooter
*TFF Senior Staff*
Posts: 2759
(2/7/02 10:18:01 am)
Reply Re: fighters
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Tough to argue about the D7, it was good, but typically too little too late, the Germans are good at that sort of thing...the D8 never saw any meaningful sevice to rate it...but the Germans also had some pretty interesting armored low-level ground attack planes, made by Rumpler and others, in service towards the end that get overlooked because of the glamour of the "dogfighters." The allies had nothing like that really...unless you considered the flying coffin Dehavilland "light bomber" an "attack" plane....

(HEY jonkx, surprised you, huh? Thought I was going to jump on German stuff like usual, didn't you? )

The late Albatrosses were pretty good though also...

There were a bunch of decent allied designs on the drawing boards too, late, that were stopped by the end of the "War to End All Wars," which MAY have contributed to the longevity of the SE5a in British front-line service so late, I mean, why waste money on a new fighter when you are never going to need it, right?









(And oh yeah, Tony Fokker was Dutch... )
We must make war as we must; not as we would like. - Field Marshal Kitchener, 1915

warpig883
*TFF Staff*
Posts: 2478
(2/18/02 10:30:15 am)
Reply Re: fighters
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I never heard of those fellas you guys are talking about. I thought Sgt. Alvin York was a pretty good WW1 fighter though.

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