The Worst Aircraft of WWII

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[Peter-lmic]

I am now 92 years old and I well remember the V! and the V2 rockets. The V2 rockets being much worrying at the time because you could not hear them coming. I say that I can recall going to the shops one morning at Eltham S.E. london UK. when I heard a double bang a strange noise then a very loud bang a couple of miles and a plume of smoke. The double bang meant nothing at the time but since of course it was the rocket going through the sound barrier. On another occasion I was on a newspaper round and something made me look ahead and there was a very big flash with burning bits going up in the air a few seconds later the shock wave hitch blew the front doors open or a row of terrace houses to my left and gaps in the windows. Fortunately it landed on the edge of Castlewoods at Eltham I believe killing three people living close by. Exciting day's for sure but i cannot ever feeling scared, just excepted it. Happy days!

[kennethfields]

One of the reasons these projects were sometimes unreliable was because the slave labourers used in their construction and assembly, risked an even quicker death by committing acts of sabotage.

[Allack]

Every time I listen to one of Simon's videos about the Nazis, I just imagine Wile E Coyote in the background, inventing all these insane contraptions.

[barelyasurvivor]

Who could have ever forseen that allowing only 14 days to design a huge, huge glider would give problems?
I am shocked, shocked I say!

[chestermarcol]

Much is made of USA's air superiority, and it was formidable, but as an American, and a student of history, The RAF was, IMO, the true badass of WWII in Europe. It's not even debatable. Great Britain's steadfast will, is what wore down and broke the German war machine, enough so, that Barbarossa was doomed from the start. The Brits had already beaten much of the starch out of the Luftwaffe, and forced the Germans to expend vast resources that they couldn't easily get back. And let's not forget that without the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, the jewel of American fighter planes would never have achieved it's lofty status. Until that switch, the P-51 Mustang was pretty, "meh..." Even with the upgrade, the Supermarine Spitfire was the greatest fighter of WWII. Maybe some won't agree, but that's MY opinion.

I am not downplaying the United States' role in beating back the Third Reich, but Great Britain, on their own, for a long time (until FDR finally got his head out of his ass) held back the Germans in a feat of sheer will, patriotism, and sacrifice, the likes of which we might not ever see again.

[roberthunter]

Outflanking an enemy from the sky was a brilliant concept, but the basic problem with air-mobile troops [where by parachute, glider, helicopter, or heavy lift tactical transport aircraft] basically made these lightly armed troops fragile in combat. The same problems occurred every single time. The lack of heavy weapons supporting them, and the fragility of the air bridge in providing logistic supports.
The near fatal mistake of the 1/7 Air Cavalry operations at landing zone X-Ray in the Ia Trang valley was not deploying Chinook helicopters in the first hour, when helicopters had a relatively safe landing window. Not to land tanks, but MUCH more mortar and MG ammunition. A few 50cals would not have gone astray either. Instead, the command decided that 16 light Heuys would provide the air bridge to land an albeit very under-strength 1/7, and as a consequence Moore did not have his "complete" battalion on the ground until over five hours had passed by. By that time, he had lost nearly two hundred wounded and dead, and had to be reinforced with one company and part of another from the 2/7. Of course, other units came by forced land march, but they too were also lightly armed with limited ammo.
When the 1st Cav Division was conceived the army was determined not to repeat the mistakes in logistics and heavy weapons support problems of the 1944 Arnhem operation, which took 3 and a half days to get the 82, 101st [US], British 1st Airborne, and the Polish parachute brigade on the ground and effective. Indeed, the lift into X-Ray was completed far more quickly by comparison with WW2, but not quickly enough. The 1st US Cav division in Vietnam had well over 400 helicopters, so why the generals decided that the initial life and operations for days afterwords would only be supported by 16 Heuys is a recurrent mystery. [And three of those helos were damaged/ disabled, and unable to fly]. In fact, Moore's battalion lost their main LZ at X-ray for a considerable period of time, and were limited to a one or two ship LZ, which created botha resupply and reinforcement bottleneck, because even when it was under cavalry control, the enemy fire often made it impossible to use.
Had the PAVN had tanks, even crappy obsolete tanks in the battle, the battalion would have been overwhelmed.
As it was, the situation was only saved by massive artillery and air support. It was these improvements, compared to 1944, which saved the day.

[maxzachdad]

Panzer VI eh? That would be impressive considering they didn't start production until August of 1942. Methinks they meant a Pz IV :)

[ichbins]

the ME323 was designed in a very short time and served well, when not exposed to enemy fighters.
Moreover, what transport plane will not be a "lumbering death trap" without air superiority or at least fighter escort?
What do you expect regarding a transport plane, doing air acrobatics in order not to appear as "lumbering"?

[spandecker]

Hitlers interference with the Me262 has been a bit exaggerated; the biggest delay in the program was engine development.

[kirkstinson]

The A4 rocket, if armed with a chemical or radiological weapon, would have been devastating. One of the few smart things Hitler did at the end was to NOT use these type weapons on the rocket.

[JohnnyWednesday]

"Flying Deathtrap" : the F-104 was developed after WW2

[patwilson]

I would not call the Gigant the worst plane or even a bad plane. After all, how would an unescorted unit of DC-3s fare against two flights of fighters? There was no cargo plane that could survive an attack by a large force of fighters. The original glider version was idiotic but the powered version could do its job quite well - its job being carrying freight and not taking on a large fighter force.

[cjackmond]

My German teacher was a pilot of a ME-321 in North Africa and Russia. He was shot down only once, over Russia during a Black Sea mining operation, by American fighters escorting bombers hitting the Romanian oilfields at Ploiesti in 1944. He was lucky, being shot down again late in the war flying a fighter when Germany was desperate for bodies to put in fighter planes. He was captured by the Americans, and later emigrated to the U.S., living there the rest of his life, as far as I knew.

[RicoX]

Original paratroopers got dropped with one small gun and had to pick up weapons along the way? Sounds like Fortnite or something... 😂

[johnoneill]

I’m not surprised that a panzer 6 fell through the floor as a Tiger 1 weighed well over 50 tons.🤔🤔🤔

[retepeyahaled]

I always wonder how to define "worst aircraft of WW2". I stick to airplanes that have been in operational use. Usually they still have some benefits, like the Gigant - which has seen quite some use and even inspired allied plane builders into building better cargo transports. Hoewever, I came across one plane, that was put into production and had no use what so ever. The Italian Breda Lince was meant as a bomber, but when armament, crew and bombs were loaded into the plane, it could not take off! They ended up as decoys around Italian airfields to attract enemy airplanes, thereby keeping them from attacking the better airplanes at the airfields. Side note: Italy built some of the best airplanes of WW2 as well.

[davidwilburn]

Happy that you concluded with the contributing factors that inspired the three aircraft mentioned.

[EAWanderer]

06:34 - 1 of the UK's 🇬🇧 proudest moments!
The battle of britain! 😊

[DougguoD]

10:41 "used as fuel for wood powered vehicles" 👀 💻✅

[simonross]

I've never heard anyone classify the He111 as a light bomber before. It was a heavy bomber in 1939 and although it could only really be considered a medium by mid war, it was still one of the largest and heaviest dedicated bombers in the Luftwaffe's inventory at the war's end.