Was really p38 a devil for germans?

At this game is were p38 turns worst with difference. It is difficult to outturn a 190 with a p38. Is it reallistic?

 

In WB P38 is an expert's plane - good pilot who knows this plane very well will pose a lethal threat to any axis fighter. Any other pilot will be a target drone.
And propably so it was in RL - it ruled in pacific where it faced mostly outdated zeros and ki43's and also it's range and reliability were praised by it's pilots in that theater of opearations. Then in ETO and MTO P38 was rather a poor performer. One of German aces and commanders (Galland?) stated that he let newbie pilots go after P38's in battle. So i guess it's realistic that it's turn performance isn't too good.

 

NOT SO LOUD!!!

P-38 have its qualities. It is best climber from the US planes, best accelerating, and until it hits higher speed, it has best initial dive acceleration. Its manouverability is somewhat poor, but you should be able to outmanouver P47 with ease, and P51D too, with some luck. It is stable as rock, and its zooms and vertical manouvers are at the top. It is also fast, especially at medium and higher altitudes (especialy J/L).

Weapon package is for some people best from the all fighters, 4x50+1x20 with similar trajectory is very effective.

This is enough to say that P38 in this game is still excellent aircraft. It climbs almost like 109, accelerating almost like 109, dives better (till 450mph), it is comparably fast. It is tough and it can take a lot of antiground ordnance.

----
[allied whine on]


Now, there is somewhat doubtfull behaviour in last two versions, and I don't believe its correct. Gold pilots must be happy, as one of their primary and most dangerous opponents is seriously castrated).
Don't even try to manouver with german aircrafts, every 109 without gondolas will easily outmanouver you (and his pilot laughing). Fw190A4 light will most probably get you too. 109s with gondolas and heavier 190s probably not, but you never know, untill you get close.

It's elevator authority is terrible, terrible, terrible, and without manual trim you will usually pull only 3-4G (which is direct opposite of pilot's descriptions).

Above 400mph it changes into the straight flying bullet, which is totall BS, but it was even in original IEN version. This behaviour was problem in dives above 25k (it was compression), but never at lower altitudes. And that is again wrong, because P38 at high altitude has minimal control problems in game even in dives.....

About turning, that's hard to say. Reports are indicating that both Americans and Germand were aware that P38 will outmaneouver at lower speed all later important german aircrafts, when flown by experienced P-38 pilot (and also american planes, and it could also maneouver with Spitfire) aircrafts, more at higher altitude, at lower altitude it was closer. If it can turn with Spitfire, it shouldn't have problems even with 109G2 and similar.

But there are no tests of P38 turning ability compared to the germans (at least I don't know about them), so FH WB sim is using wing loading, which isn't in favor of P38.

I am afraid that most of the reports from that time are useless. P-38 pilots in ETO had worst, minimal training in P-38 before combat, and most of them didn't even know how to fly that plane. Their tactics resembled tactics of Bf110 in BoB, and as only plane with sufficient range to escort bombers all the way to the Germany and back (without sufficient numbers), they were in deep s**t most of the time. (try to protect bombers with 6-12 planes against 40-100+ enemies when your group is under repeated attacks for hours, and you can't even use your full power, because you need every bit of fuel....).

[allied whine off]

Its very easy to kill inexperienced P-38 newbie afraid of his own plane, but if you meet experienced P-38 pilot, it will be you, who is at disadvantage (like one of the Galland' fight, where he was almost killed by P-38 veteran in one on one).

 

was RL P38 porked???

I will not address the performance of the P38 as it relates to this game.

BUT.
I will address, well, um, something else, um, which I can't, um, define, but I can, um, um, address, um, uh, oh, um......
Uh.

1) The P38 suffered from Maintanance troubles. Lockheed couldn't keep supply up with demand.
2) It had a crappy cockpit heater. The pilot's feet roasted while the rest of him froze.
3) It had the radio transmit button on the HUB OF THE STEERING WHEEL. A real fucking stupid place to put it.
4) It was to fly at the altitudes common in the ETO, which is, up high, where it is fucking very very cold (see cockpit heat, above).
5)the panes of glass in the cockpit canopy got frosty, very frosty. Pilots don't like not being able to see.
6) There was this phenomenum called, by ground crew, "The Green Slime." It was a mold peculiar to P38s. When they got wet and were not kept in tip top shape, like they would be in the USA, they grew little mushrooms and stuff in all the fancy electronics they had (and they had a lot of fancy electronics and shit, being Lockheeds babies, those guys loved fancy shit).
7)The fucking superchargers used to blow up.
Most of the P-38s in ETO and MTO did not have the dive flaps. Which later models and field mods DID have and mostly in the PTO.

When those machines were used in the PTO, some of the issues I mentioned above became moot, non-issues.
1)In the PTO, ground crews improvised, a LOT. They re-wired many things.
1a)For instance, the radio send button was given a thumb switch, was ordered by the brass to be made BACK the way it was and the pilots and ground crews merely (as is a very "American" trait, much to their credit, just carried on as if the brass had said nothing, eventually both Lockheed AND the bras got the message: You can make us fight the good fight, but you ain't gonna make us die the stupid death)...
They changed the location of the gun camera, which Lockheed had placed very badly.
2)It was a different climate in the PTO, and there were different (although bothersome) molds, slimes and mushrooms growing in the airframe, but apparently not as damaging to the aircraft as the Green Slime of ETO and MTO.
3)The pilots did not have roasting feet and freezing everything else in the PTO, due to the different climate and the lower altitudes the planes were called to operate in.
Flying for twelve hours in the ETO, while freezing and roasting in a mouldy plane with high altitude specialists (luftwaffe) hunting it while freezing and roasting, and not being able even to have a piss (the piss tube came later, as a field modification and production upgrade) can serverely degrade performance.
In the PTO, the pilots and ground crews dealt with many of the above issues by improvizing and adapting or them not even being issues in the PTO, for instance, it is easier to sit in a cockpit for twelve hours when you are NOT freezing and roasting then it is to do it while you ARE freezing and roasting...

Um, I have forgotten a LOT.

Simply stated, the plane was better performer in the PTO than the ETO for subtle reasons not easily duplicated in WB.
This is not to say it was shitty in the ETO. The pilots flying it were somewhat unhappy, but they did their duty heroically and with great skill. Bomber crews in the ETO loved them, Allied troops on the ground loved them also.
Apparently, they did well in the ETO too, we just don't hear as much about that.

Anyway, um, where was I? Oh, yeah:
C c c c o ff e e e e E

[click]

 

Galland is far from reliable source on anything.
Later he was forced to change his statement in confrontation with P-38 veterans, who confronted him because of this. They strongly disagreed with him, because they remembered something else. He tried to avoid it, he said that it wasn't his opinion at all, but he heard it from some pilots from his unit...and so on...

 

Galland was more renowned for his post-war beer fests with his new pals, former allied veteran pilots and JOURNALISTS, than he was ever renowned as a Hero Of The Fatherland.
Much beer and schnapps can influence a guy to say things he really shouldn't say AND also can influence JOURNALISTS to quote things they shouldn't quote.

 

Really interesting

Now i need to know who is a great p38 driver to learn from him .

But i still thinking p38's outturn 109g6 or more, and 190 of course.

Who is the more terrorific pilot with a p38?

 

You think P38 and you see Alw Never fought against him but his admiration for this plane is only a step from perversion
Also if you would ever run into sebek- or sebpft (one person) in the arena he would show you how to fly P38 effectively for sure - but then he would show it to you in any other plane, this guy is a real killer. Too bad I haven't seen him anywhere for a past half a year or so.

 

Hi Comet,

>Above 400mph it changes into the straight flying bullet, which is totall BS, but it was even in original IEN version. This behaviour was problem in dives above 25k (it was compression), but never at lower altitudes.

This is no P-38 specific problem, but a problem of Warbirds' absent Mach modelling.

It was the thing that struck me most when I came over from Air Warrior where you could outdive a P-38 anytime by dropping down to earth like an uranium sledgehammer - in Warbirds, this wouldn't shake the P-38. In fact, it would only break your own plane in a most unrealistic way :-(

But not a P-38 specific problem, though this aircraft has the lowest maximum Mach number around so the problem is most obvious by looking at the P-38.

>I am afraid that most of the reports from that time are useless. P-38 pilots in ETO had worst, minimal training in P-38 before combat, and most of them didn't even know how to fly that plane.

On the other hand, noone less than Jimmie Doolittle who certainly knew about men and machines called the P-38 a "second-rate" fighter. The uranium sledgehammer tactics were possible in real life, too, and there was no way around the P-38's Mach limit.

>like one of the Galland' fight, where he was almost killed by P-38 veteran in one on one

I guess that's the Lowell story? If it really happened, it must have been in a different place, at a different time, and with Galland in a different plane. I'll account for this one under "Schnaps stories", too ;-)

With regard to the Luftwaffe perception of the P-38 - it was just another fighter to them, like the P-47. The one they really feared was the P-51, it definitely stood out from the rest of the Allied fighters in the respect it commanded with the Luftwaffe pilots.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

P-38 Aces to learn from...

Richard Bong and Tommy McGuire were the top P-38 aces in the PTO. Tommy might have finished the war as THE top P-38 ace but he was killed by ack.

I don't know if Richard "Dick" Bong is still alive or giving lessons though.

Check six!

Tex

 

Major Richard I. Bong was killed on 6th of August 1945 when his P-80 had a fire after take-off and crashed.

Regards
heartc

 

McGuire wasn't killed by ack.

He was killed by being a fucking moron.

He wrote some tactics and had a list of things NOT TO DO. One of them was go slow and low.

Guess what he did? He went after a zeke, got slow, put the P38 superflaps and tried to turn. He stalled out, crashed into the jungle, and died.

As i said being, he was killed by being a fucking moron.

 

McGuire was NOT killed by ack! He was killed when he and his flight of 4 Lightnings bounced a single Zero over Negros island on january 7th, 1945. Unfortunately the Zeke was piloted by one of IJN's top aces Shoichi Sugita who quickly shot down one of McGuire's wingmen and heavily damaged the other two. McGuire tried to dogfight with the Zeke (something you would never expect from such an experienced ace!), stalled and crashed into the jungle. So as you see even in PTO lightnings were not invincible when facing good pilots.

 

LOL hehe afi was first

 

Hi Stec,

>He was killed when he and his flight of 4 Lightnings bounced a single Zero over Negros island on january 7th, 1945. Unfortunately the Zeke was piloted by one of IJN's top aces Shoichi Sugita

Actually, McGuire bounced a Ki-43 flown by Akira Sugimoto who was returning from a reconnaissance mission to the Japanese base McGuire had just overflown.

McGuire ordered the four P-38s into a circle and told them not to jettison their drop tanks.

Sugimoto first attacked Doug Thropp's P-38, then lined up Ed Weaver's. At that point McGuire stalled and spun in.

At the same time, Mizunori Fukuda who was also coming back from a reconnaissance flight had aborted his final approach and entered the fight, shooting down Jack Rittmeyer. Fukuda was hit by Ed Weaver in return, landing his damaged aircraft at the nearby airstrip.

At this time the fight - which had been confusing due to low clouds and probably poor general visibility - broke apart, with at least one of the P-38's and the Ki-43 damaged.

Sugimoto couldn't get his shot-up Ki-43 over the ridge. Accordingly, he was forced to crash land, but once on the ground, he was killed by Filipino partisans.

(From Stanaway's "P-38 Lightning Aces of the Pacific and CBI". In the end, Stanaway confused the Japanese pilots, but I guess it was Fukuda who survived and Sugimoto who died.)

Apparently, the surviving P-38 pilots hadn't been aware that they were fighting two different fighters as they seem to have reported only one.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

McGuire gained multiple kills by turnfighting Japanese planes in his P-38. That you wouldn't be able to do that in this GAME doesn't mean an individual couldn't have had some success with it IRL. So much for the fuckin moron. His mistake was probably to leave the drop tanks attached, cuz jettison them would have led to an aborted mission. Maybe overconfidence on that part.

http://www.acepilots.com/usaaf_mcguire.html

Regards,
heartc

 

Bong and MaGuire both used throttles to assist in turns. One throttle at time. I think the technique was to throttle down a bit on the inboard engine(?? or was it outboard ??)
And didn't one of the two tour the theatre teaching other pilots how to do that?

 

heartc, I don't doubt the fact he was a great pilot, I'm saying he was a fucking moron to do something that idiotic. If he left his tanks on, that's even stupider!!! He died, so I think that backs my claim

 

Where did you read about that? I've wondering about the possible advantageous tactical use of differential throttling and it makes sense to me that you could tighten up your turn by easing off the inboard engine, but I've been told differential throttle jockying could really only help roll rate (Lightning needs help there too). I'd like to learn more on the topic. Of course if you're really going to master this technique you'll need to learn about differential pitch control too.

 

Hi Heartc,

>His mistake was probably to leave the drop tanks attached, cuz jettison them would have led to an aborted mission. Maybe overconfidence on that part.

Overconfidence, augmented by his wish to beat Bong's score and become the leading US ace again. He had been flying very long but fruitless missions the days before, and obviously intended to stay in the area as long as possible to maximize his chances to get more kills.

By punching his drop tanks and shooting down Sugimoto, he'd not aborted but accomplished his mission, but I'd speculate he was on a personal quest anyway - glory hunting.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)