Thats why I said coup de grace. The Mustang did not win the air over Germany itself. As you said the attrition from bombers, p-47s, p-38s and accidents had greatly damaged the Luftwaffe in the great air war of 43. But they still had safe places to retreat to, out of range of the P-38s and P-47s, allowing training,repairing,etc. The 8th had retreated (as did Bomber Command) from central Germany and thats how it stayed until there were sufficient Mustangs to escort all the way to (for example) the oil refinaries. The Mustang, when it was freed up took away any last remaining safe places. Plus its speed and range meant that the Luftwaffe couldn't get away. No quick dive and back to base when you ran low on fuel or ammo, you had 20 Mustangs on your tail the whole way ... if you made it. The first losers were the heavily armed J-88, Me-110s, used to break up the bomber boxes, they were eliminated from the air. The 2nd were the havily armed Me-109s and Fw-190s, with extra guns and armour, again ideal for anti-bomber but useless against fighters. This put intolerable pressure on the remaining 'pure' fighters, which the Luftwaffe was always short of anyway. They had to try and defend the heavy fighters but were insuffient for the task. When they cracked the heavy fighters were unusable. Which is why the bomber losses seem to stay constant for a while, then suddenly dropped as the Luftwaffe's fighters finally collapsed as a coherent fighting force. Interestingly there was a shadow to this in the night war (albeit on a smaller scale), when the RAF finally pulled the finger out and sent sufficient numbers of Mossie night fighters out (with a range of tactics, such as orbiting air bases, night fighter beacons, etc) the Luftwaffe's night fighter arm collapsed as well. Harrased from the moment of takeoff to landing (then straffed and bombed) a German day or night fighter pilot's life in 44 was a poor one. The Germans aided this, with insufficient numbers of fighters and an appaling attitude to safety (40% losses just through accidents).

Except that the limited range of the Luftwaffe day fighters made it impossible to 'retreat out of range' except by abandoning the defence of targets that they HAD to defend. Also, the increasing range of the P47s and the few squadrons of P38s continually deprived them of 'safe' areas to attack unescorted bombers, even before the Mustangs were available, let alone in serious numbers. By the time the Mustangs represented the majority of 8thAFs fighters, P47s were doing escorts to the edge of Berlin. As throughout the rest of the war, range was the critical factor for fighters on BOTH sides, and the very short range of the '109s and '190s made retreating very far impossible. They repeatedly defended target areas that were critical to them even after range increases by P47s and P38s could reach them, until driven back, and had to conceed that area, then the cycle repeated as the range of the USAAF fighters increased yet again. It was the range increases by the P47s that were the key. The P38s could fly anywhere in Germany by late '43, but the very limited number meant that they best they could do as escorts was to handle a penetration for a fairly short distance beyond the reach of the 'bolts. Remember, the term 'coup de grace' refers to a final, mercy blow to an already defeated enemy. The German accident rate increased radically thoughout the period ('42-'44) as the skill and experience levels of their pilots declined due to the attrition of aircrews. Even the RAF night bombers profited from this as the Lustwaffe repeatedly (and stupidly) committed its night fighter a/c and crews during daylight against the B17s (and their escorts), with predictable results.

I'm suprised no one has had anything to say about it the apparent 900-1000 mile range a MkVIII could get. I've been looking at some of the other pages that go along with the table (which is ferry condition as well, 90 gal drop tank) and the 740 miles range from earlier is at -1/2 lb boost and 1850 RPM and a slightly higher speed. It was probably getting about 7.5-8 MPG.

http://marinergraphics.com:16080/ww2/files/spit/8/97.jpg"> I'm guessing there might be a bit of fudge factor in the 740 miles as well.

It absolutely confirms your and my earler arguments. That puts the Mk VIII well into P-47 class. What an amazing design, with remarkably few changes and a 1935 design: Actual: air defense interceptor, high altitude & low altitude Actual: tactical air craft (fighter & fighter bomber), able to work off temporary airfields. Actual: short and long range recon, low & high level. Actual: carrier aircraft (don't knock it, for short range air defense & supremacy it was better than anything else. The Siscilian and Italian landings were under an umbrella of Seafires). Actual: dog fighter, arguably the finest of the war (in the top 2 at least). Actual: fastest climber of the war. Potential: Long range air escort fighter. Actual: highest mach limit of any aircraft of the war. Even the Mustang didn't have that flexibility, the Spit was probably the most flexible single engined aircarft of WW2. Only the Mosquito exceeded that range of abilities.

If getting about the same range at most economical cruise that a P47D-25 got at maximum cruise puts them 'well into the P47 class'... Except for carrier use (the US neither needed or wanted a carrier fighter burdened with a liquid cooled engine) I see nothing on your list that wasn't done by both the P38 and P51. I will grant the smaller turn radius and rate of climb, (especially vs the P51), but both were quite capable in air defense -- and rarely needed to be. Both were superior at tactical fighters -- greater bomb load over better range, and able to take more punishment. Both were built in recce models -- the F4 and F5 (recce P38s) had far more range and a greater selection of cameras, the F6 (recce P51s) added cameras equivelent to any of the photo Spits, without leaving its guns at home. Neither the Spit, Lightning or Mustang was the best dogfighter of the war, if that means tight turning contest. That would be something Japanese, probably be the N1K2-J Shieden-kai. And, of course, both the P38 and P51 were actual escort fighters, not potential ones.

The P-47D-25 wasn't an early model P-47, which have been the ones we have been comparing the Spits range potential to. P-47s after the D-15 had a significant increase in internal fuel capacity. Early P-47s had a range of about 850-900 miles at most economical. The extra fuel capacity introduced in the D-15 and the droptank plumbing in the wings gave them much better range. Liquid cooled engines were only a USN aversion, the FAA had no problem with numerous other aircraft that used liquid cooled inline engines and the Japanese never built satisfactory liquid cooled engines. As a tactical fighter the Spitfire was better able to operate off smaller and less prepared fields close to the front due to its lower landing speed and easy handling. This was important for things like intercepting jets and time critical targets(straffing Rommels staff car and putting him hospital during a critical time in the land battle at Normandy). The large size and slow role of the P-38 also puts it at disadvantage when attacking ground targets, it is less able to avoid flak. Neither P-38 or P-51 could cruise as high or as fast as the PR XIX and doubt I they could cruise as long. It carried 302 US gallons, more than a P-51 and only 100 gallons less than P-38. I think as a dogfighter the spitfire combined the best mix of turn, role, acceleration(particularly in the highly boosted 44-45 types), climb and dive. If flown correctly there were very few fighters that could touch it. It could also perform from the deck right up to 40,000'. The P-38 was not a particularly successful escort fighter.

Thanks AE, the US aversion to liquid cooled engines is a rationalisation afer the fact, because the US aero engine maufacturers had fallen so far behind in the engine race prior to WW2. To get the same power they were much larger (56 ltrs vs 27 ltrs), had lower BMEP, poorer fuel consumption, heavier, more drag , etc, etc. The Germans managed to make a reasonably good (39 ltr I think) air cooled engine for the 190, still had heating problems though and later in the war when power became more important switched to liquid cooled. Its a simple fact of physics , a liquid cooled engine will generate more power per ltr (more BMEP basically) than an air cooled one (look it up why). Seen a formula 1 engine that's air cooled recently? Actually seen any air cooled engines recently in a car or motor cycle? I'm compiling some numbers on the P-47 (a few days more) which shows that its fuel consumption was 1/3 of a Mustang/Spit. Sure it was pretty fast at very high altitiude, pretty slow at medium/low altitide though ... drag. Climbed like a brick and turned like a tractor. Later models wieghed 20,000 pounds all up, thats the weight of a fully loaded Mosquito! Took a mile, yes a mile, fully loaded to take off! By the way, don't knock fuel consuption, when every gallon delivered to the UK cost a lot of lives, every gallon saved mattered. Every Mustang could do the job better for half (or less) fuel = a lot less ships & lives. Gas guzzler vs Euro sports car. I also am skpetical about how good it was as a fighter bomber, heavily armoured FW-190s (arguably the best single engined of the war)and Typhoons were faster (at low level) just as tough, cheaper to build, better fuel consumption, shorter take off, not difficult to fix. Turbo tubing (1 bullet, sure it might get home ok, days to fix though)? It was ok, but the US made a virtue out of a necessity, they needed a fighter bomber with more performance than the P-40 (which by this time was completely obsolute, despite its good work earlier in the war). The Mustangs were far superior at escort, they had a lot of P-47's left, it was all they had, so they used them. It wasn't a bad plane, just not very good. It was all the US had for a while so they used it. A real tribute to the pilots who got the best out of at (at best) 2nd string aircraft. The proof is the eating, the US dumped them as soon as they had a replacement (just as they did the P-38, another so-so plane). Happened to the British and Russians as well. Some pretty ordinary planes at first, used them as well as possible, replaced them as soon as possible with better ones (or sent them to secondary theatres like North Africa and the Pacific where the competition was a lot less fierce).

Well?

Nuff said.