Perhaps you should read about the P-38J/L, the first aircraft to feature hydraulic dive flaps? Who cares what other aircraft “needed”? The “win loss ratios” are deceptive, because other aircraft came online and the Luftwaffe was buckling under a two front, perhaps a three front if you count strategic bombing, war. If we rated the aerial victory ratio of the P-38L, no doubt it would be quite high in the Lightning’s favor…
Not compared to the P-51… & please do make the effort to find out what those “dive flaps” did… Ok I 'll reiterate [again…] they prevented the P-38J/L from going fast enough to lose control due to compressibilty…[& drill yet another big hole in the ground], but it also meant they were too sloooowww…to catch or evade a fast diving fighter…like the Lufwaffe operated…
The Luftwaffe maintained operations up until the surrender…
You’re just nitpicking now. They were not “too slow” and the twin boom design gave them significant acceleration and allowed the USAAF pilots to shift tactics and perform vastly more acrobatic feats than previously ever dreamed and they could outmaneuver just about any Luftwaffe plane. As for operations, yes the Luftwaffe carried them out until the end of the war. But knowing a very old gentleman that was a P-51 pilot out of Italy towards the end, they routinely avoided fighter on fighter combat by 1945 as best they could…
Laying out the historical facts - viz, the USAAF 8th AF FGs replaced their P-38s with P-51s & RAF fighter command did not want them either…were they ‘nitpicking’ too?
Or was it that they wanted the best possible aircraft for the toughest WW2 air combat, & the P-38 just couldn’t cut it…that seems plain enough.
Air fighting was tough in NWE to VE day… ie the Kiwi Tempest ace Warren ‘Smokey’ Schrader began his scoring run on 10 April `45 & got 9 +1 shared before the end of the month & being sent to run the Meteor jet fighter wing.
& Tempests downed 22 E/A in the 1st 3 days of May…
German pilots were not fazed by the P-38, they state that they never felt their fighters were inferior to them…& the results bear this out…
A few relevant remarks from the USAAF test branch re the P-38J will provide the gist…
"Caution must be used in aerobatics & diving manuevers at all altitudes to keep below limiting airspeeds.
These airspeeds have to be kept low due to tail buffeting which may eventually cause structural failure & is definitely objectionable & hazardous from a combat viewpoint "
The P-38 earned the notoriety of being the US fighter that killed more of its own pilots than any other [including perhaps , the 2nd highest scoring USAAF ace in the PTO].
Actually you’re just repeating the same red herrings and selective facts in a prosecutorial case rather than seeking the truth, over and over, without understanding why - as we’ve explained this about 50 times now. The P-51 also replaced their P-47D’s as well, a fighter you seem to be a bit more in love with. Does that mean the P-47 (which was also much more expensive than the Mustang) was a bad design? USAAF tactical fighter squadrons were also equipped with P-38L’s and the P-38J/L’s fought out of Italy until after the war and flew intensive and numerous sorties throughout the Overlord period in France. If the P-38 was so bad, why did they made nearly two-thirds as many as the U.S. did the P-51 series? Why was it the preferred fighter in the Pacific Theater with more kills than any other USAAF fighter aircraft? Are you going to post more wrong information like saying the Ki-43 “Oscar” was “obsolete” when in fact it was quite on par with the A6M Zero and (unlike German fighters) could outmaneuver the P-38’s at low level?
Or was it that they wanted the best possible aircraft for the toughest WW2 air combat, & the P-38 just couldn’t cut it…that seems plain enough.
You mean like in the PTO where it shot down 1,800 Japanese aircraft and relatively few Mustangs or Thunderbolts served?
The generals wanted an aircraft that worked well. The P-51 was serendipitously suited for long range bomber escorts and certainly was one of the best overall fighters of the war - but also had its weaknesses with the liquid cooling of the engine making it more vulnerable to fire, especially ground fire. Allison equipped early divebomber versions called the “Apache” had high loss rates due to this. I recall reading no such thing about the use of P-38L’s as tactical fighters. We could actually make the argument that while the P-51 “replaced” the P-38 as a strategic bomber escort, the P-38 replaced the P-51 as a tactical fighter and was used in large numbers along with the P-47 in that role…
Air fighting was tough in NWE to VE day… ie the Kiwi Tempest ace Warren ‘Smokey’ Schrader began his scoring run on 10 April `45 & got 9 +1 shared before the end of the month & being sent to run the Meteor jet fighter wing.
& Tempests downed 22 E/A in the 1st 3 days of May…
That’s called ‘target practice,’ as few of the German pilots were anything close to being trained combat pilots. Secondly, fighters were now operating directly over Luftwaffe aerodromes with little resistance. Bomber losses plummeted and there was virtually no threat of German tactical aircraft hitting Allied troops - as the Landser joke regarding planes in the sky went: if it’s camouflage, it’s British. If it’s silver, it’s American. If it’s invisible, it’s ours! There was little threat from German fighter bombers before Normandy actually…
German pilots were not fazed by the P-38, they state that they never felt their fighters were inferior to them…& the results bear this out…
Some German pilots were not “fazed” by much apparently, including P-51’s and P-47’s if you want to find their selective, cocky interviews. But most of those comments come from the time periods early in the war when the P-38 series was still having much teething pain, tactics were awful, and the Luftwaffe often outnumbered the Allies at various points and were actually able to conduct tactical airstrikes…
Red herrings, red herrings, red herrings. Um, it’s loss rate was almost identical to the P-51’s overall, even though the P-38 was utilized more in the early years of America’s entry into the war when the Luftwaffe was much stronger. Not all P-38J series of the Lightening had been equipped with hydraulic drive-flaps as some had to have field additions. The numerous of the Lightenings is the L series anyways…
The USAAF’s own test facility findings are a ‘red herring’? …Yeah, right…
Perhaps the 8th AF decision to dump P-38s was…
[cue Monty Python’s Holy Grail]… ’ ‘tis but a scratch, - merely a flesh wound’? …
Seriously though, the facts stand…so check them…& post accordingly…
If you do some research, say - read Don Caldwell’s JG 26 history, you may learn that by wars end, the Luftwaffe was still putting in meaningful effort, with their scarce fuel being reserved for those keen, capable, dutiful or fanatical to keep having a go…& an experte in a hot Fw 190D, BF 109K or Me 262, He 162 jet was still something to be reckoned with, the allies were losing their aircraft too, right to the end [not at a 7-1 loss margin like the Soviets though]…
The Jagdwaffe in fact sent hundreds of fighters to Normandy, but they were simply squelched by the overwhelming allied tactical airforces…& they were sorely missed elsewhere… [where they were quite effective, on the Ostfront].
Attacking Luftwaffe airbases was a dangerous occupation for fighters, since they had formidable flak defenses, so much so that an archetypal cocky fighter pilot by the name of Chuck Yeager said about just such a mission…
…“I was usually confident & gung-ho, but I found myself praying for a mission abort. Man I had the shakes. I did not want to fly into the sky that day…we got an abort…I never wore a bigger grin…”
The 8th AF P-51s flew search & destroy tactical missions on the way back from bomber escort duties, & did not suffer the same casualty levels as P-38s, naturally - since the P-38 was a bigger,slower target, with twice as many juicy engines to hit…
…Incidentally the Germans did research the value of utilizing twin engined aircraft in tactical strike roles & found exactly that…
As for having the ability to ‘get home’ -on one engine, well that was at best, simply putting the inevitable crash site in a different location…
In fact, the last recorded Tempest loss to E/A in WW2 was F/O M.Austin [486 NZ Sqd] , shot down by an He 162 jet fighter…
From Air Enthusiast/48, P. 31;
“Although the Luftwaffe was restricted by the Allies overwhelming superiority in numbers, the Allies were never able to achieve true air superiority. The Germans remained able to impose losses on the Allies to the very end.”
This is just getting ignorant now, you’re pointing to the wrong test results. It’s like asking, “how did the test results go on the P-51A? Yes, terrible high level fighter…”
The T-34 tank was awful in 1941, because the losses of several hunbred to mechanical failure. Was the T-34 an awful tank in the end?
Perhaps the 8th AF decision to dump P-38s was…
[cue Monty Python’s Holy Grail]… ’ ‘tis but a scratch, - merely a flesh wound’? …
Oh, how horrible! They relegated the fighter from a high level bomber escort to a tactical fighter? So what?
Was the fact that it was so successful in the Pacific a “flesh wound?”
Seriously though, the facts stand…so check them…& post accordingly…
I have!
So? They could deploy all the “hot” aircraft they wanted. Many of their better pilots were dead and replaced by inexperience greenhorns. How “meaningful” was their effort on D-Day? What? two fighters strafed the beaches? The last major tactical effort during the Battle of the Bulge was at best a draw meaning the Luftwaffe suffered serious losses they could not replace whereas the USAAF and RAF losses suffered were a drop-in-the-bucket…
The Jagdwaffe in fact sent hundreds of fighters to Normandy, but they were simply squelched by the overwhelming allied tactical airforces…& they were sorely missed elsewhere… [where they were quite effective, on the Ostfront].
Right! But they were defeated on the Ostfront as well…
Attacking Luftwaffe airbases was a dangerous occupation for fighters, since they had formidable flak defenses, so much so that an archetypal cocky fighter pilot by the name of Chuck Yeager said about just such a mission…
…“I was usually confident & gung-ho, but I found myself praying for a mission abort. Man I had the shakes. I did not want to fly into the sky that day…we got an abort…I never wore a bigger grin…”
There were losses suffered, but in the end the sending fighters down on the deck to destroy the Luftwaffe at the aerodromes was their death-knell - the final nail in the coffin…
The P-51’s were also fighting a vastly reduced Jagdwaffe that tried to avoid them in favor of the bombers…
I’m curious as to how the P-38L performed as an escort out of Italy…
As for having the ability to ‘get home’ -on one engine, well that was at best, simply putting the inevitable crash site in a different location…
The problems with the engines were solved by the J variant. If reliability was such an issue, then why did the Air Force use the Lightnings as their primary fighter against the Japanese for long patrols over the ocean? There were issues at high level such as pilot comfort, but again these issues were rectified after 1943…
T 34 was awful for those crew members needlessly maimed or killed due to it being deficient in basic survivability aspects - by the standards of the day, same as the Sherman…
Two LW sorties on D-Day? Been eating too many Hollywood red herrings? Do the research…
Defeated sure, but by weight of numbers, in a profligately wasteful manner…
Repeating errors does not make them correct, same for overt inability to recognise/acknowledge the published & officially verified technical/performance attributes of P-38s…
1944 saw the peak of Luftwaffe fighter sorties, & the P-38 was withdrawn from 8th AF service in the face of them…
1941? When it shocked the Germans and they had nothing to contend with it?
Two LW sorties on D-Day? Been eating too many Hollywood red herrings? Do the research…
Okay. How many sorties were there? Where was the mighty Luftwaffe in Normandy? It was “invisible.”
Defeated sure, but by weight of numbers, in a profligately wasteful manner…
Repeating errors does not make them correct, same for overt inability to recognise/acknowledge the published & officially verified technical/performance attributes of P-38s…
Yes, you should really stop that…
88mm was nothing? That would `ve been news to the T 34 crews covered in burning Diesel…
I 'm up for a ‘Pepsi Challenge’ on the facts, I 'd be pleased to learn something new. So prove something…anything…go ahead…or prove me wrong…I `ll go with the facts…
Over 170 Jagdwaffe sorties alone on D-day[ according to D. Caldwell].
That would be 85+ times as many as you [red herring?] claimed & as for how many bomber missions…why dont you research the Allied D-day shoot down claims… before posting red herrings…
The ‘invisible’ Jagdwaffe put 900+ fighters up to strafe Allied airfields on 1st Jan `45, & here’s some open, honest comments about it -from the RAF contingent…
Bob Spurdle CO 80 Sqd … “A blanket of secrecy hid the true facts, but one thing was sure - we’d suffered a mighty blow…it was the greatest air disaster & a major defeat for us bought on by complacency & lack of foresight.”
Pierre Closterman, Tempest pilot… " Allied public opinion would have been dealt a staggering blow if it had known of it . The American censorship & the Press services, in a flat spin, tried to present this attack as a great Allied victory, by publishing peculiar figures. We pilots were still laughing about them 3 months later."
So don’t believe the Hollywood ‘red herring’ hype…
The 88mm was bad news for everyone. Why do you keep mentioning “burning diesel.” Do you have any authoritative works that discuss the differences between diesel and gasoline powered WWII AFV’s? Because this seems like rather a fetish of yours completely news to everyone else. I’d rather be in a diesel powered tank than a gas one if hit, although I do not think it really made much more of a difference than is the common wisdom. Ammunition stowage -often poor on Russian-designed tanks into modern day- is probably the biggest worry. Not what the engines were using…
I 'm up for a ‘Pepsi Challenge’ on the facts, I 'd be pleased to learn something new. So prove something…anything…go ahead…or prove me wrong…I `ll go with the facts…
Selective anecdotes are not authoritative “facts.” They’re opinions tainted with bias of the moment. What “facts” do you need, that America’s two highest scoring aces flew the P-38? You know, the “facts” you callously dismiss with bizarre, nonfactual statements such as the “Oscar was obsolete.” It wasn’t. The fact is that the P-38 was not initially intended to be a “workhorse” aircraft in mass production, it was thought of as more of a high-end, temperamental sports car designed to control North American airspace along the coasts at high altitudes while other aircraft would be mass produced for specific missions IIRC. The plane had its issues, it wasn’t meant to be a high level bomber escort; but it was an excellent fighter by the end of the war and brought lots of pilots back from long patrols over the Pacific and killed Yamamoto. Not that it really makes much difference, but I read that the P-38L is one of the best cyber-fighters in video game simulations…
Over 170 Jagdwaffe sorties alone on D-day[ according to D. Caldwell].
That would be 85+ times as many as you [red herring?] claimed & as for how many bomber missions…why dont you research the Allied D-day shoot down claims… before posting red herrings…
Which is barely a drop in the bucket, many of those were of course reconnaissance flights and I cannot recall ever reading about a German airstrike of note. Don’t you think the beaches chocked full of troops and vehicles would have made some tempting daytime targets? All the ships? The Mulberries? I think all I’ve seen for Normandy were some night sorties that were basically ineffectual at best. The Luftwaffe was swept from the skies of France. According to the Holocaust Museum site, the Allies flew almost 14,000 sorties. Many were by Lightnings…
I know, I mentioned it to you - that was their tactical storm during the Bulge. They squandered a lot of resources better used for defense against the Soviets in that period and hastened the Reich’s collapse in the East IMHO. It was a Pyrrhic draw at best, as they lost a lot of fighters and aircrews. The RAF and USAAF simply brought some more planes over from England…
Bob Spurdle CO 80 Sqd … “A blanket of secrecy hid the true facts, but one thing was sure - we’d suffered a mighty blow…it was the greatest air disaster & a major defeat for us bought on by complacency & lack of foresight.”
Pierre Closterman, Tempest pilot… " Allied public opinion would have been dealt a staggering blow if it had known of it . The American censorship & the Press services, in a flat spin, tried to present this attack as a great Allied victory, by publishing peculiar figures. We pilots were still laughing about them 3 months later."
So don’t believe the Hollywood ‘red herring’ hype…
Facts? It was regarded as a tactical failure of intelligence, much like the entire Bulge episode was. But Operation Bodenplatte was a failure in its goal to achieve air superiority and only decimated the Jadgwaffe more. And like the idiotic attacks in the Bulge, only weakened Germany by sapping resources they simply could not replace in men, panzers, transport, ammunition, and most of all --fuel.
According to Wiki, sourced from Manrho & Pütz 2004, p. 10.:
The Luftwaffe had been far from absent over the front in December. It flew several thousand sorties over the theatre. Its encounters with the RAF and USAAF had meant heavy losses in matériel and pilots. On the eight days of operations, between 17 and 27 December 1944, 644 fighters were lost and 227 damaged. This resulted in 322 pilots killed, 23 captured and 133 wounded. On the three days of operations, 23–25 December, 363 fighters were destroyed. None of the Geschwaderkommodore (Wing Commanders) expected any large-scale air operations by the end of the month.[14]