Lightning & Corsair

[Netpackrat]

Heard something similar, so mine might be BS:

"If you wanted a nice picture to send home to your girl, you fly the P-51. If you actually wanted to live to get back to her, you flew a P-38 or -47."

That actually makes sense, given the P-51's single, liquid cooled engine. The engine in the P-38 was liquid cooled and probably not as good, but there were two of them. And there were instances of the P-47 managing to return home, with entire cylinders shot off the radial engine.

[Kommander]

Pretty sure the LaGG-3 was one of the worst planes of the war.

Unless you play a Russian-produced game, then it's the God plane. At least until you tier up to the Yak-9.

You noticed that too? All the Russian planes seem to move like UFOs armed with rapid firing anti tank guns. The Germans must have been true ubermench to manage to shoot down any of them.

[Darrell]

A little off topic, but would you shit bricks if you were flying and saw this happen?

http://imgur.com/a/U7IVd

[D5CAV]

WW2 vets are now in their 90s. I know one who was a pilot.

Some of his comments:

1. F4U Corsair - great in the air, hard to take off and land. Impossible to taxi without a wing walker.
2. P38 Lightning - heavy, but fast. Easy plane to fly.
3. FW 190 - great airplane. Fast and responsive. No bad characteristics.
4. ME 109 - great in the air, hard to take off and land. Almost everyone ground loops it at least once - even some who later became high scoring aces.
5. P51 Mustang - similar feel to P38. Fast but a bit heavy. More maneuverable than the P38, but harder to take off and land.

[Jericho941]

Heard something similar, so mine might be BS:

"If you wanted a nice picture to send home to your girl, you fly the P-51. If you actually wanted to live to get back to her, you flew a P-38 or -47."

The best German pilots considered the P38 an easy kill , the P47 a tough fight because it was so hart to bring down and rather feared P51.

That may be true, and it is widely believed that the P-38 underperformed in the ETO. Nevertheless, by the 8th AF's stats, the P-38's kill-loss ratio in air-to-air combat was 4:1, while the P-51's was 2:1.

So I'm still not sure anyone actually made that statement, but it's possible.

[Netpackrat]

You can't just look at air to air... The Allied fighters also did a lot of ground attack, and a fighter like the P-51, with its single, liquid cooled engine, and belly mounted radiator, was decidedly inferior for that work. A single hit to the cooling system could bring it down. Maybe not immediately, but it was a long flight back to base.

[randy]

IIRC one of the German nicknames for the P-38 was "Forked Tailed Devil". I wouldn't think that is a name that would be applied to an easy kill.

[Jericho941]

You can't just look at air to air... The Allied fighters also did a lot of ground attack, and a fighter like the P-51, with its single, liquid cooled engine, and belly mounted radiator, was decidedly inferior for that work. A single hit to the cooling system could bring it down. Maybe not immediately, but it was a long flight back to base.

Right, it's just that A/A is what's relevant to whether or not an enemy pilot would find them "easy prey." If you ask Adolf Galland, he'd say the P-38 was exactly that. Other German aces said things more along the lines of having to learn a series of very hard lessons to figure out how to counter the P-38, and it was never easy. FWIW, anything Adolf Galland said should be taken with a grain of salt. He was a fighter pilot's fighter pilot, with all the charming personality quirks that implies.

[Greg]

You can't just look at air to air... The Allied fighters also did a lot of ground attack, and a fighter like the P-51, with its single, liquid cooled engine, and belly mounted radiator, was decidedly inferior for that work. A single hit to the cooling system could bring it down. Maybe not immediately, but it was a long flight back to base.

Right, it's just that A/A is what's relevant to whether or not an enemy pilot would find them "easy prey." If you ask Adolf Galland, he'd say the P-38 was exactly that. Other German aces said things more along the lines of having to learn a series of very hard lessons to figure out how to counter the P-38, and it was never easy. FWIW, anything Adolf Galland said should be taken with a grain of salt. He was a fighter pilot's fighter pilot, with all the charming personality quirks that implies.

Each plane also had characteristics that gave it particular strengths and weaknesses. A plane employed in a way that made use of its strengths was much more effective than that same plane used in a way that emphasized its weaknesses.

As a for instance the P-38, as I understand it, had some issues that made is a poor choice for a high-altitude bomber escort. In other roles, it was much better suited and therefore much more effective.

There's also the question of time. In 1943 in North Africa, when the P-38 was the only American fighter capable of matching German fighters of the time and was being used to good effect intercepting German air supply flights, it acquired a fearsome reputation. Later, against improved models of the same German aircraft, not so much. (Like the Zero being much more terrifying in 1942 than 1944.)

[Vonz90]

Heard something similar, so mine might be BS:

"If you wanted a nice picture to send home to your girl, you fly the P-51. If you actually wanted to live to get back to her, you flew a P-38 or -47."

The best German pilots considered the P38 an easy kill , the P47 a tough fight because it was so hart to bring down and rather feared P51.

That may be true, and it is widely believed that the P-38 underperformed in the ETO. Nevertheless, by the 8th AF's stats, the P-38's kill-loss ratio in air-to-air combat was 4:1, while the P-51's was 2:1.

So I'm still not sure anyone actually made that statement, but it's possible.

The P51 being an easy take was said by Adolf Galland and (similarly statements) by other pilots I've seen quoted.

It is not just the ratio, it is the total number and what type of mission they were doing. On escort missions in Europe, the P-38's kill/loss ratio was 1.15 to 1 in 1944 which was inferior to to both the P47 and P51. There was a reason they mostly pulled them back to PTO.

They were a beautiful aircraft and gave us legs early in the war when we needed it, but there were better options later on.

Here is some interesting info I stumbled onto: http://www.ausairpower.net/P-38-Analysis.html

There is little wonder that loss rates were relatively high and the kill to loss ratio was below that of the P-47's