I won't claim to be able to deal with the math you guys are throwing around here, but I get the feeling that your making different assumptions. Shoot is assuming the Spit and P38 are flying the same mission (by definition something within the limited range of the Spit) while Auss is assuming both a/c are flying missions that approach the limits of each a/c's range (by definition a much longer range mission for the P38 than for the Spit). Maybe you should both make sure that the other (and the rest of us) understand your assumptions.

Larry; You are absolutely right! I was talking about the range to be 45% ofthe Spit's max range as defined by the plackard performance. That is 225 miles from base for the Mk-XIV Spitfire, according to Janes All the Worlds Air Craft. Note that this radius of action can NOT be acheaved at the throttle settings he would use. It would also leave no reserve for combat or bad weather. Using the throttle settings he sites, ten minutes at 75% for combat and leaving 30 minutes reserve, that could equal 5 minutes ate WEP, the radius of action would be only 182 miles. The P-38 could cruise at 75% throttle or 360MPH for roughly twice that distance. This is important to the discussion at hand because the Spitfire performed misserably in the later part of the war where they did NOT enjoy the ADVANTAGES of GCI and home field combat. Those two advantages gave the infirior plane, the SPITFIRE, a significant edge in combat durring the BoB. While fuel use constraints prevented the Me-109 from using full throttle the Spit could and did for a significant portion of each flight. This made it's performance look VERY MUCH BETTER than it truely was! When the roles were reversed, the fuel use advantage and home field edge gave the German planes the advantage and they proved their worth by downing more Spits than Spits downed them. The differance between the Spitfire and the P-38 is that the range of the P-38 lets it cruise at speeds that make interception difficult and less likely. It also make it very much easier to kill your target because he is less likely to see you comming if your plane cruises faster. The Spit cruises much slower if it has to go any distance. As much as 50MPH slower, in real life. It is not the placard numbers that matter, but the real opperational usage that counts. If the Spit used to much throttle durring combat and it can not get home. Lost plane without enimy damage. Al;so, the much reduced throttle required to nurse it home under those conditions made it an easy target. All of those things conspire to make the total record of the Spitfire about 1.2/1 for the entire war. The P-38 was about 12/1 for the entire war. About 8/1 in Europe and over 12/1 in the Pacific Theater. None of the statistics sited about potential cruise speed and weapons effectiveness can explain the real world differances in results! I have posed the therory that it is operational cruising speed and weapons effectiveness that made the MAJOR part of the differance between the two planes. The P-38 never enjoyed the GCI advantage that made the Spit a winner in the BoB and that makes those numbers even more impressive! I have tried to sum up the argument as best I can, but some try to use the apples and oranges types of arguments to cloud the issues; 1. The P-38 destroyed more German planes than the entire RAF! 2. The P-38 lost fewer planes durring the entire war than the Spitfires lost in any of the three major phases of the war. 3. The P-38 never enjoyed the GCI advantage and that makes those numbers even more impressive, because with out the BoB kills, the Spit is in NEGITIVE NUMBERS!

1. The P-38 destroyed more German planes than the entire RAF! 2. The P-38 lost fewer planes durring the entire war than the Spitfires lost in any of the three major phases of the war. 3. The P-38 never enjoyed the GCI advantage and that makes those numbers even more impressive, because with out the BoB kills, the Spit is in NEGITIVE NUMBERS! none of which you have substantiated over the numerous threads in which you've tried to argue your view.

Sadly you are paddling up the proverbial on this particular thread. Getting substantiated factual data from Shooter is like getting blood from a stone. I wish you all the best... ;)

I have tried to sum up the argument as best I can, but some try to use the apples and oranges types of arguments to cloud the issues; 1. The P-38 destroyed more German planes than the entire RAF! wrong and not even close, the p38 is credited with some 1500 kills in the eto and mto combined, the RAF is credited with over 2000 in the war prior to 1941(based on post war numbers from german records) so this first point is so badly wrong on an intital level and gets worse, of the 1500 odd kills of the p38 in europe some 350+ were ground kills, this type of kill was not counted against numbers in RAF service. if you add the number of kills in the far east to these figures the p38 reaches 3200 ish again with some 500+ ground kills, this is less than the RAF numbers in europe alone. 2. The P-38 lost fewer planes durring the entire war than the Spitfires lost in any of the three major phases of the war. The P38 fought in completely different engagement types, this is why the numbers are different. The P38 as you point out consistantly, was used in shoot n scoot eneagements which is why it was so effective, however when forced to fight on even terms the P38 in europe got whooped. you correctly define tactics as the major success in the p38 life. you use this argument to poor scorn on th spit, the spit had to fight a different war, the spit oiiin the BOB was at a dissadvantage from the takeoff, the CGI was a grat help but wasnt the allmighty advantage you claim, if you look at the intial stages of the BOB you will see that the CGI allowed the RAF to get airbourne but only just. the fighters of the RAF were rarely able to get altitude on the germans and were at the mercy of the german fighter bouncing them. also the need to engage the bombers as the prime requirement changes the tatical situation (the same problems the Luftwaffe had over germany) this tatical situation is a kill rich enviroment for the bommber escorts (again prooven by the actions over germany) it wasnt untill the blitz against london started that the RAF could instigate the type of tactics you are so proud of(by the way predating you use of these tactics by 2 years) after the BOB and the invasion of russia the luwtwaffe in europe kept a low profile, the germans cgi of 1941 was actually superior to that of the british in 1940. this enabled the germans to pick and choose enagagements. fighter sweeps by the RAF over europe meant heavy losses ataacking ground targets and when they did get the luftwaffe to come out and play they did it in superior numbers and from a superior position. unlike the bomber offensive against germany, where the luftwaffe had to engage, the air war over france was one in which they could pick there battles. 3. The P-38 never enjoyed the GCI advantage and that makes those numbers even more impressive, because with out the BoB kills, the Spit is in NEGITIVE NUMBERS! no it didnt, however it didnt need to, most of the P38 kills in europe were in bomber escort missions, missions in which the germans came to you and were concentrating on the bombers allowing you to pick them off, a kill rich enviroment. however i think its worth noting that the P38 lost more of its charges(you know those poor B17 and B24) than did the p51 in fact if i was a bomber crew flying a B17 over germany i would much perfer p51 escort than P38 (especially if i could have the Tuskegee air men). in hort shooter you use differnt situations to claim superiority. Yet if you look at the record of the P38 in close combat in europe its suddenly looks bad, it was outclasssed by the 109 and 190s in turn and roll whilst only having advantages in climb and dive, in short it was an aircraft to dive shoot and run, whilst an effective tatctic one that i refused to use as an argument to claim an aircraft is the best. ps you have still consistantly refused to provide edvidence of your claim that the spit only downed 1.2/1 and now you claim its negative. either back up these claims for recant. can you show evidence of the spits poor performance in the later years of the war? from the books i have consulted (the ones you happply quote) the later mark spits were every bit as good as the german and US planes on the day and quite often better. you do things like quote the 190 as being superior, well yes it was for about 6 months then the spit was improved and the 190 lost nearly all of its advantages and was inferior in many areas. you say the martin baker should have replaced the spit, well the MB5 (the first one that was actually fit to fly) was actually regarded as inferior to the mkXII and was discontinued. you consistantly rubbish the spit for its poor range. yes it was always a short ranged fighter, it wa designed as such, it actually excceded its designed range by a factor of 3 by the end of the war a proportional increase better than the p38. the RAF never saw a need for a long range day fighter, the only need for this ty

Actually, you've got the argument on RAF long range fighters backwards. The RAF intended to use its bombers on day raids and was driven into the night by the failure the bombers to defend themselves without fighter escort. There was a set policy in the RAF (originating with Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal) that any long range fighter would been hopelessly inferior to short range fighters and so developement would be a waste of resources. Source THE BOMBER WAR by Robin Neillands. I agree that the '109 and '190 had better roll rates than the P38, but they were better than the Spitfire at roll, as well. Low roll rate was one of the Spits weak points. In mock combat, a P47 could easily disengage from a Spit in close combat by a sudden turn reversal. The two Luft a/c were NOT superior in turn rate to the P38 after intoduction of the combat flaps in the '38F. The greater escort success of the P51 resulted from vastly greater numbers of a/c. The Mustang's real superiority was that it was cheap and easy to build and could be (and was) turned out in vaste numbers. Moreover, the quality of the Luft pilots had declined by the time the Merlin Mustang was introduced, compared to what the early P38 and P47 groups had faced. You seem to suggest that using 'shoot and scoot' tactics was somehow unfair and inferior to 'close combat'. Any intelligent fighter pilot uses his a/c's strengths against his opponent. What you call 'close combat' is usually a pretty stupid way to use a fighter. Since 90% of all fighter kills at a result of an initial engagement catching someone by surprise, good tactics involves generating as many initial engagements as possible -- the essence of 'shoot and scoot'. By the standard you seem to be suggesting, the ZERO or even the humble Nakajima Ki43 was a better fighter than and MK of the Spitfire, since they were better at close combat. Against them, even the MK XIV was forced to use 'shoot and scoot', so I guess you can't say the Spit was the best.

The point i was making about the shoot and scoot is that an aircraft with only that ability is eliant on the combat enviroment to be able to use it. the p38 didnt get flaps till late 44 so any ones before that had a major disadvantage (and had they been so good why wernt they fitted to all aircraft? maybe because that while improving roll rate they also bleed all your energy off) the early spits could and did roll better than the 109s it wasnt till they brought in the 190s that the germans had an aircraft that could roll with a spit and the cropped spit reduced this to a very slim margin. the early mk1 spits were found to be able to mix with zeros but as these had all been replaced by 1941 with faster but less manuverable versons, I have never claimed the spit was the best fighter of ww2 let allone all time what i have argued is that was one of the best. I have pointed out that all fighter have weaknesses and that its intended use also has a major role in its success. What i refuse to do is listen to shooters lies when it concerns the spit, he may not think the spit was the bees knees but his arguements are wholely biased and quite frequently plane wrong. if you had asked me what i thought was the best fighter of ww2 was then my choices would be 1, in jets the heinkel 163. a very manoverable fast jet 2, in piston engined the hawker fury/sea fury or the grumman bearcat. both where the pinicle of piston engined fighters. I rate both the spit and the P38 as greats because these aircraft were developed into aircraft that performed so many roles that the designer never had in mind for them, a sign to me that the aircraft were "right" (plus the spit has to be given marks for being such a sexy looking plane) if you say the aircraft that had the biggest impact on the war them the spit again scores as it became a symbol of the fight against germany, in the pacific i would personnely put the f4 ahead of the p38, had it not been for that little grumman fighter its possible that even the great range of the p38 wouldnt have been enough to get to japanise held teriitory from the fields in california. the me109 is another design that showed if you get it right then it can be developed and developed. the 190 was a sweet plane but loses out beacuse it arrived late and was quickly matched by the opposition. the mustang was not the best fighter in the world but what it did it did at ranges even the p38 couldnt match. the p47 was just an excerise in what brute force can achieve. I will admit a lack of knoweledge of russian fighter so I havent tried to include them (however the guns on the russian fighters are supposed to have ben the finest of any airforce) as to the others. japan and the zero! yes a manuverable aircraft, but obtained this by sacrificing armour and self sealing tanks, its weaponary was inferior (the 20mm cannons fitted were little better than the 7.7s in the nose) the reast i know little about but i understand that the army fighter was regarded as superior to the zero, can someone dispell or confirm this? french had one fighter of note in the late 30's the dewoitine, a resonable fighter by all acounts but suffered from being difficult to learn to fly (a fault i have been informed it shared with the p38) and in the early days of 1939/40 gave a good account despite its slight inferority against the 109s no other country realy produced a air superiorty fighter of note during the war. I think to compare different aircraft that fought in different combat envrioments is impossible or at least a lifetimes project. only certain aircraft can be compaired, the spit and the hurricane are two, the p38 and the p51 are another pair.

P38s got the combat flaps with the P38F in late '42 or very early '43, not '44. You seem to belittle the superior 'hit and git' tactics for tight turning contests that won't generate as many kills. So what if the Zero was fragile, then. It could out turn any Spitfire. The Ki43 (Oscar to the Allies) was the first IJA retractable gear fighter. Top speed just about 300 mph. Armament 2xhalf inch mgs in nose, but even more maneuverable (in terms of tight turn) than a Zero. Tight turning was really a defensive maneuver. It didn't score kills unless the opponent screwed up badly. Using it meant that either you had been jumped yourself, or you'd botched your initial attack. Either the P47 or the FW190 could easily out roll any MK of the Spitfire. That was the reason for cropping the wing tips in the LF Spits. To improve the roll rate, at least a little. The Lightning's roll rate wasn't good, because of the long wing span. The Spit's problem with the wide wing cord, and in the early MKs, the fabric covered ailerons didn't help. That's why Douglas Bader went under the table to get the MK IIs of his wing refitted with Ailerons made for MK Vs shortly before he went down. Gave some inprovement to the roll rate. Don't think much of the HE162 as it was a failure for its designed purpose. Was supposed to be flown in mass by Hitler Youth trained on gliders. What they got was fairly maneuverable (for an early jet) but very trickly to fly. Nine out of ten of those German boy scouts would have ended toasted at the end of the runway.

Further on the 'detent' flaps. They didn't improve roll rate. They improved tight turning rate by reducing stall speed. The deflection was about 2% and didn't have a noticable effect of energy bleed. They were being used in combat in North Africa shortly after Torch and were standard on all models starting with the 'F'. Now I will agree that Shooter goes overboard on this. On the other hand, while I like the Spit within its place, it's lack of range is a HUGE problem. No matter how good its flying qualities are, they don't matter if the a/c can't get to the fight. Dick Bong had the same argument with Neal Kierby comparing the P38 to the P47. Offered to settle it with a mock dog fight over Rabaul. Of course, they both knew that the P47 of early '43 couldn't get to Rabaul. The Lightning could perform any mission the Spitfire could, but the opposite just isn't true. You don't count unless you can get to the fight.

whilst the p38 had the flaps in 43 they didnt get to active service untill 44 (you refering to f model? or f designation? as the f model never had flaps and the f designateor some did and some didnt the f was the photo opp version) the spit could get to the fight it was designed for. both the me109 and the 190 had a comparable range to the spit as did all the russian fighters in fact the only country that fielded long range fighters was the US and japan. the late model spits had roll rates that whilst not quite as the fw190s were superior to 109's and the turn and e retention was superior to both!