Some of us want to master the most common aircraft for each nation, but there’s a lot of confusion about which particular variants were the most common or most produced.
For example a quick search will give you P-51D as the most produced american fighter of WW2, but the P-51D planes we have in game are the P-51D-5 and P-51D-30. There were just about 1000 P-51D-5 built and the P-51D-30 is a post-war variant. The most produced P-47 we have in game is the P-47D-28 with 1028 copies built (assuming we have the RA version). Other very common american fighter aircraft were the F4U Corsair and the F6F Hellcat. The F6F-5 variant had over 5000 copies built, as for the Corsair, out of the 12k that were made, the F4U-1a should be the most produced variant, but I don’t know the exact number.
For the german planes at least it’s crystal clear that the Bf 109 G-6 was the most produced fighter.
When we arrive at russians, there’s more confusion with goolag proudly stating that the most produced was the Yak-9 during WW2 and that Yak-9U is the definitive version. Which is bullshit, the Yak-9U came late in the war and in the russian language wikipedia page it is stated that Yak-9M was in fact the most produced variant with over 4000 copies made. Now we don’t have Yak-9M in the game apart from one of those pilot specific gift models. Yak-9M itself was just a Yak-9D with very minor improvements and this Yak-9D is also missing from the game. The closest we have to Yak-9D and Yak-9M is the original Yak-9 which is in fact the prototype.
Still searching through wiki, La-5FN has over 4800 copies built and the La-7 over 5500, thus more than the Yak-9M.
Then we have the british with their Spitfires and Hurricanes. According to goolag the most produced was the Spitfire Mk. V, but we have multiple Spitfire Mk. V variants in game and wikipedia states that the most produced Mk. V was the Mk. Vb with 3900 aircraft built. The second most produced Spitfire version was the Mk. IX and the War Thunder wiki says that Spitfire LF Mk. IX had over 4000 copies made. As for the Hurricanes, there were over 14k, but I have no idea how many of each variant were built, yet considering the number of variants, including the naval ones, there shouldn’t be any single Hurricane variant that surpasses the Spitfire LF Mk. IX number.
Moving on to the japanese fighters the most numerous was the Zero, but which variant? Well apparently the A6M5 with older A6M variants being also converted to A6M5. Still, looking at the production history on the japanese wiki it doesn’t look like the converted airframes appear in it. Also some source on some modelling company states that the A6M5 hei was the most numerous, but I’m skeptic. I mean the A6M5 hei came out pretty late and was in production for about 1 year and unless all the A6M were converted to that variant, it wouldn’t be more numerous than the standard A6M5.
The chinese did have some prototype, but no fighter in production during that time period. Still they assembled some kits provided by their supporters. In my brief search seen the CW-21 mentioned more than others, so I’m going with that for now.
Goolag again says the most produced italian fighter plane was the C.R. 32, but that is a freaking biplane, so going for the second most common which is between the C. 200 with 1151 built and C. 202 with 1150 built (and some more converted). In the end I think the C. 200 is the definitive italian fighter since not only it had 1 more made (lol), but it had italian engine too, whereas the C. 202 had german engine.
For the french it’s again pretty straightforward since the M.S. 406C1 was the most produced fighter. The D. 520 might be better, but this is not about which is better.
As far as I can tell, the only swedish fighter plane of indigenous production apart from the J21A-1 (which came too late to be considered WW2 and in small production batch), was the J22. Agreed, it resembles some american radials, had american engine, but seems it was native enough. Thus J22-A should be the definitive swedish ww2 fighter.
Nothing for the israelis since they didn’t exist.
In conclusion, for the nations where there’s more confusion on which type or variant was the most produced, I’m gonna take the most emblematic instead. While all 4 american planes that I listed are emblematic, I think the P-51 is the most iconic, P-51D-5 it is. For the russians it’s the Yak-9, also Lavochkin fell out of favor with Stalin at some point during or before ww2, so I’m gonna go with the basic Yak-9. For the british I’m trusting Gaijin, so it’s the Spitfire LF Mk. IX. For the japanese it’s the basic A6M5 unless someone convinces me the A6M5 hei had more numbers. Same for the chinese, I’m going with the CW-21 unless someone convinces me the KMT flew/liked other fighter they also assembled. C. 200 for the italians, M.S. 406C1 for the french and J22-A for the swedes.