Hellcat vs. European Theater fighters

[AniThyng]

How does the Hellcat compare against its luftwaffe/USAAF counterparts?

would a Hellcat be able to take on a BF-109 or FW-190 and win? or a P-47?

[MKSheppard]

would a Hellcat be able to take on a BF-109 or FW-190 and win? or a P-47?

I dunno, but towards the end of the war, bomb-laden Hellcats were starting
to replace SBD Dauntlesses and SB2C Helldivers due to the Hellcat
being able to range as far out from the Carrier with a 500 pound bomb
slung under the fuselage as the dedicated divebombers

[AniThyng]

hmm i see. IIRC the Helldiver was not at all well liked by pilots, right? compared to the Dauntless.

hmm..how about making things abit more interesting. what if for some arbitary reason the 9th Air Force is substituted by an equivalent number of Navy-type fighters..that is replace the P-51's, P-47's and P-38's with Hellcats, Corsairs and Helldivers. would it still be able to function in its role in achieving tactical air superiority/support for the invasion of europe?

[Frank Hipper]

The Hellcat would have proved itself to be every bit as outstanding in Europe as it did in the Pacific. The Fw 190D would have given it a run for it's money, but poor overweight late war Bf 109s wouldn't be as much of a threat. They were fast, but had lost their manouverability.

[Frank Hipper]

hmm i see. IIRC the Helldiver was not at all well liked by pilots, right? compared to the Dauntless.

hmm..how about making things abit more interesting. what if for some arbitary reason the 9th Air Force is substituted by an equivalent number of Navy-type fighters..that is replace the P-51's, P-47's and P-38's with Hellcats, Corsairs and Helldivers. would it still be able to function in its role in achieving tactical air superiority/support for the invasion of europe?

They would have lacked the range to substitute for P-51Ds, and the Helldiver would have been best left to secondary roles. Other than that, yeah.

SB2C Helldiver, known to it's crews as the Son of a Bitch, 2nd Class

[Sea Skimmer]

Hellcats in British service did engaged a few German fighters over Norway, they shot down a couple and lost one of there own but the battle was really too small to indicate much of anything. But the performance figures would suggest the Bf-109 would have done poorly against them and the Fu-190 would have had a hard time. However the Hellcat had a much more limited bomb load and less range then the best that where flying in Europe and with many USN escort carriers in the Pacific stuck with Wildcats well into 1944 additional transfers to Europe would have been a bad idea.