The best piston 1945

[ArtieBob]

There really was no best fighter and if I had to choose as a pilot, I now would have choose a P-47 N or M. Read my reply below on the P-47 versus P-51 thread. The real problem is there are so many variables in fighter versus fighter combat that it boils down to the conditions for each individual combat, beyond that it becomes emotional choices and nit-picking with data that is in most cases incomplete. No fighter aircraft during late WW II was best across the entire performance envelope and some variables are dependent.
I happen to like late war USSR fighters, but even very late in the war and on a per mission basis (this is German data), the Luftwaffe loss rate in the West was several times higher than it was in the East. When this data was first located and analyzed it really surprised me, for I thought the fighter vs fighter combat had become pretty equal East versus West. IMHO, the lesson from that data is how overwhelmingly important tactics and the doctrines of force deployment are in the final outcome.
To choose a less emotional period for some, look at the data for the air war over Lebanon a couple decades ago. The "kill" ratio was approaching 100 to 1. Differences in aircraft performance and armarment was not so great that the expected results would have been so one -sided. It wasa combination of non-aerodynamic factors that led to the final result.

Best regards,

Artie Bob