What If: F4U Corsair vs. Focke-Wulf Fw 190

There are many things that make history such a fascinating study. One is the opportunity to second-guess decisions and occurrences with the clarity of hindsight many years after the fact. Another is to contemplate what might have happened if the circumstances or timing had deviated from reality just a tad, allowing people or equipment to encounter each other in a different way than what actually happened.

• What if German Luftwaffe (Air Force) General Walther Wever hadn’t been killed in a plane crash in 1936 (three years before the start of World War II) and his vision of the importance of long-range strategic bombing had been put into practice by Nazi Germany? Germany did not develop any numerically significant, effective long-range bombers in World War II and so American, British and Russian factories — hundreds of miles behind the front lines — produced huge amounts of munitions and fuel, totally safe from German air attack. In contrast, American and British long-range bombers decimated German industrial and fuel production during the war.
• How might boxing history have been changed if big-punching heavyweights George Foreman and Earnie Shavers had met in the early 1970s? Such a pairing would have pitted perhaps the two heaviest hitters of all time against each other. Shavers might have won. Had that happened, Foreman never takes the title from Joe Frazier in 1973 and he never fights Muhammad Ali in 1974’s “Rumble in the Jungle.”
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• What if the German battleship Bismarck had avoided the lucky torpedo hit to its rudder from an antiquated British Swordfish biplane and instead escaped pursuit in May 1941, reaching safe haven in the French port of Brest? Might the U.S. Navy battleship Massachusetts (deployed to North Africa in November 1942 to support the American invasion of Morocco in Operation Torch) have fought the Bismarck one-on-one if the German ship had been sent to oppose those landings? How would that battleship-to-battleship encounter have gone?

History is full of what ifs and if onlys, whether that history be military, politics, sports, entertainment, whatever. Here, we’ll look at one such fascinating example.

America had a unique industrial advantage

In World War II, the United States produced and deployed several major different models of fighter aircraft. Nazi Germany essentially used just three major variants, the Messerschmitt Me 109 and Me-110 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 for the entire war. (There were others, of course, but they were quantitatively far less significant.) 

Great Britain had their legendary Supermarine Spitfire (and the Royal Navy’s version, the Seafire) and the workhorse Hawker Hurricane, as well as the widely used Hawker Typhoon and Tempest, along with a few other types used sparingly here and there. 

Japan’s main fighter aircraft was the famous Mitsubishi A6M Zero-Sen (the “Zero”) and a few other notables, like the Nakajima Ki.43 “Oscar” and Kawanishi N1K “George.”

However, because of the incredible industrial capacity of the United States and the fact that, unlike every other combatant country, its manufacturing facilities were totally safe from any enemy attack whatsoever, the U.S. produced more total aircraft and more different types — by far — than any other country. The Lockheed P-38, Bell P-39, Curtis P-40, Republic P-47, and North American P-51 were all produced in huge quantities for the U.S. Army Air Force. The U.S. Navy got completely different fighter planes: The Grumman F4F Wildcat, Grumman F6F Hellcat, and Chance Vought F4U Corsair. Such was the enormity of America’s industrial might that the entirety of the high-performance Bell P-63’s production — over 3,300 machines — was exported to Allied countries (mostly Russia) for their use. The United States did not use even a single P-63 in its own air force. Not one — it gave them all away. For free. Great Britain also used a large quantity of American Wildcats, Hellcats and Corsairs in their navy, where they served with distinction on all fronts.

‘Sweetheart of Okinawa’

The F4U Corsair is the American fighter that is of particular interest in this study. It was affectionately called the “Sweetheart of Okinawa” by American ground troops for its devastatingly effective ground-support missions against the Japanese during that island campaign, while the Japanese called it “Whistling Death” in grudging respect of its lethality. During its operational history in the Pacific theater, U.S. Corsairs achieved the astonishing record of scoring 2,140 air-to-air “kills” for the loss of only 189 of their own.

Possessing an extremely high performance by virtue of its powerful and rugged Pratt and Whitney 18-cylinder radial engine, the Corsair is universally regarded by aviation analysts as being in the very top echelon of elite fighter aircraft of World War II. Noted aviation historian William Green states on page 79 of his seminal work, Famous Fighters of the Second World War, Second Series (Doubleday and Company, © 1962), “Many people, and particularly its pilots, went further and claimed it to be the best single-seat fighter of any nation to emerge from that conflict.” 

The Corsair achieved the distinction of becoming the first American fighter aircraft in World War II to surpass 400 mph in level flight when it hit 404 mph flying from the Pratt and Whitney field in East Hartford, Conn. down to Norwalk, Conn. on its maiden voyage in October 1940. This occurred at a time when the British Spitfire, German Me-109, Japanese Zero and American Curtis P-40 were all topping out at 340-360 mph at best. 

Certainly the Merlin-powered P-51 Mustangs of 1944-45 (the B, C, D and H variants), 1945’s P-47N and the very latest Spitfires (Mk 21 and up) also have to be considered among the best. Japan’s Ki.84 “Frank” was a great plane, although it arrived too late and in too small numbers to make any real difference. 

Corsair vs. Focke-Wulf likely never happened

Germany, too, produced some truly outstanding fighter aircraft, especially the later versions of its redoubtable Fw 190, specifically the Fw 190D-9 and TA-152. The question that arises in the “What If?” mold is this: How would the Corsair have done in air-to-air combat against the very latest and best Fw 190 variants? Although the British used the Corsair on their aircraft carriers, including those operating in the German-occupied European Theater, there are no specific details on any Corsair vs. Focke-Wulf encounters that may have taken place. And if there were a few such isolated clashes, they weren’t between American fighter pilots and German fighter pilots, in the manner of the great, decisive daylight air battles over Europe that took place from 1943-45.

How would a Corsair vs. Fw 190 matchup gone? In head-to-head “in-house” competitive trials with the P-51, the Corsair proved to be essentially equal to the Mustang in level speed, acceleration and climb rate (depending on altitude), markedly more maneuverable at all altitudes and somewhat inferior in diving speed. This is telling, since the Corsair’s apparent slight overall performance advantage over the Mustang is measured against the American fighter — the Mustang — that absolutely broke the back of German fighter forces in a matter of only a few months, from February-May 1944. Combine that slight performance advantage with the Corsair’s typically rugged American design and its air-cooled radial engine (the same engine used in the Republic P-47) that was far more tolerant of battle damage than the Mustang’s somewhat fragile and dainty liquid-cooled Merlin engine and the result is an aircraft that would arguably been even more effective against tough German fighter opposition than the already excellent P-47 and P-51.

The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 was a tough opponent, no question. Fast, nimble and ruggedly built, the 190 also possessed a lethal punch with its combination of heavy machine guns and rapid-fire cannons. Effective in the fighter vs. fighter role, as a bomber interceptor and as a ground-attack support plane, the Fw 190 was one of the truly outstanding aircraft of World War II. Corsair vs. Fw 190 battles promised to epic, indeed.

Unfortunately for Monday morning revisionist air aficionados, the Corsair vs. Fw 190 contest will forever remain as hypothetical and subject to complete conjecture as the tantalizingly mythical-but-never-happened George Foreman vs. Earnie Shavers heavyweight boxing slugfest. Both pairs of contestants (the Corsair and the Focke-Wulf, Foreman and Shavers) were active and at the height of their powers at the same time as their potential adversary, but the matchup never occurred.

A shame. For enthusiasts of either historical pursuit, it’s a question that will go permanently unanswered.