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Subject: Best All-Around Fighter of World War II
sentinel28a    10/13/2009 3:38:03 PM
Let's try a non-controversial topic, shall we? (Heh heh.) I'll submit the P-51 for consideration. BW and FS, if you come on here and say that the Rafale was the best fighter of WWII, I am going to fly over to France and personally beat you senseless with Obama's ego. (However, feel free to talk about the D.520.)
 
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45-Shooter       4/22/2013 8:56:57 PM

Again when the one called Shooter cannot answer, he seeks to dismiss. This is intellectual cowardice on his part..
 
 
I can answer and with correct information. Succinctly; the P-38 was a bomber destroyer; a fairly good one, but it was not that good an angle fighter. As to the two engines, this was because Lockeed knew that given the engines available at the time to be able tvo reach the range requirement of the USAAF for a bomber destroyer for homeland protection, one engine was not going to give the power, so they built a US version of the Me110 with all the compromises entailed, they did an amazing job but in the end is was a flawed idea and was always a step behind the best

Not worth answering!
QUOTE from your link above, that makes many of my points: "Johnson saw the considerable increase in power as the primary advantage of a twin-engine fighter, thus overcoming his major obstacle. The XP-38 also had a number of advanced features. For example, the propellers turned in opposite directions, thus canceling engine torque forces. The aircraft was designed with a tricycle landing gear, which made takeoff and landing much easier and safer than the “conventional” gear arrangement. The gun installation was also very efficient, with all guns mounted in the nose. All skin sections were butt-joined with flush riveting throughout, and all flight controls were metal covered. Add to this an unusually long range for a fighter aircraft, which would become one of its most important assets." 
If you read the entire article, It makes all of my points at one time or another! Great post! The part I thought, and still do think, not worth answering was the snipe at the Me110 and the idea that the P-38 was more of the same.
 
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45-Shooter       4/22/2013 8:59:41 PM

Again when the one called Shooter cannot answer, he seeks to dismiss. This is intellectual cowardice on his part..
 
 
I can answer and with correct information. Succinctly; the P-38 was a bomber destroyer; a fairly good one, but it was not that good an angle fighter. 

Please define "Angle fighter" for us! You use it as some sort of a club, but I think you do not have a clue what it means and why it is not a valid argument.

 
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Maratabc       4/22/2013 9:21:33 PM
An aircraft that solves the angle solution to the target in the plane and not the weapon, foolish one. If you knew  what angle fighting is you know that a turning fighter with good roll control is an angle fighter. These were qualities possessed by the Zero, Spitfire, and the Corsair and not by the Lightning and the Thunderbolt.
 
In modern terms (to take the Six Day War as the example) the Mystere and the Mig 17s and 19s were angle fighters, the Mig 21, the Mirage III and the Hawker Hunter, not as much, though the Israelis still found a way with the Mirage to turn with the soviet fighters.      
 
 
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45-Shooter       4/22/2013 9:22:41 PM

No, it is you who do not get it! Spits lost their arses over France from England, by a ~1/4 ratio! In similar circumstances over North Africa, badly out numbered by Nazi planes with pilots who had much more experience, the P-38 NEVER Had a LOSING record! See pages 97-115 of Fork Tailed Devil, the P-38 story. When they were tasked to escort bombers and required to stay close, they still shot down more Nazi planes than the lost by a 3/2 ratio! The Spitfire can not claim that kind of effectiveness from any post war study at any time in any theater! For instance when they "Claimed ~725 kills for a loss of only ~425 Spits over France for 6 months before the invasion, post war research shows the Nazis only lost about 120 planes! Thus a 1/4 W/L record! (All numbers from my memory!)
 
 

Did they have less opportunities and more difficult missions? (YES!) - No they didn't they had easier time
Read the official history of the USAAF in North Africa, to find the truth to this lie. 
Pointability derived from the CR Props made getting Victories at longer ranges easy and made winning at shorter ranges positively sublime! yet as pointed out history does not agree
But it does agree, see pages 97-115! Then tell us about all the Spitfire pilots who actually became "Confirmed" Aces in a day, let alone how many shot down seven in one mission!
Yet results dont actual support this, Wrong! no its a fact of history See above.
 
While it is absolutely true that all pilots were taught as you state in training, there are many who thought and did otherwise! Se the report above. yes see the actual report and you will notice that the claimed long range kill was of a zero yet no zero's were lost that day
or Gun Camera Film, unlike the 1,000 yard Spitfire claim!
ok you provide a link to them because I cannot find a single gcf of a 1000yd kill and neither could Mick Spick and a lot of other historians than have investigated, yet they have found supporting evidence of the Spit kill Then post a link to it! Tell us how many Spit pilots made "Ace in a day", how many made seven or nine in a single mission? Let alone five over several missions in one day!
 Further more as any trained sniper knows range estimation is almost impossible at those ranges WO much time and effort, things a fighter pilot just does not have!
try reading up on Beirling, his distance skill were amazing He is one out of a thousand, so what?
  500 yards is almost nothing and WO GCF, the claim is either completely BOGUS, or pure fabrication! Take your pick! 
yet you make the claim for the P38 how hypocritical
But there is lots of P-38 GCF and almost none from Spitfires! How many reals per 1000 sorties?   
PS -  you do realise that less then 10% of gun camera shots actually show hits? YES! Absolutely! Less than ~5% of ALL fighter pilots became Aces!
For the third time, post a list of all of the Spitfire "Confirmed, not claimed" Ace in a Day pilots!

 
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45-Shooter       4/22/2013 9:34:45 PM

rate
You are dead wrong about this! It is well researched and documented and it tells both sides of the story, both good and bad.

as the P38 was such a one trick pony then height and speed were life as if you didn't have them you were at the mercy of the oposition
 as if you let it beed off it too so long to build back up, piston engined combat was about useabloe speed and energy management, the P38 bled energy mre than any other fighter, Wrong! The P-38 has one of the very highest SETs of any WW-II fighter and it's long and high aspect ratio wing was much more efficient at preventing bleed of speed! See the chart in the link several posts above. It shows that only two of the types tested had a higher SET. (Specific Excess Thrust!) It also had a higher aspect ratio wing and bled speed more slowly because of it.
 
you catch up fast, especially as these flaps were required to give the turn radius needed to fight  deploying the flap tightened the turn but slowed you down, a naturally turning fighter would stay with you and limit your possibilities, turning always bled energy and if you bled quicker then you had to stop the turn or stall, stopping the turn before the other guy gives him the upperhand But because the P-38 had more excess power/drag than the Mk-IX Spitfire, and a higher aspect ratio wing there was absolutely nothing the Spit could do to stay alive in combat Vs a correctly flown P-38L! Nothing!
The P-38 could out roll all but the Fw-190 and Me-163 at speeds above 250 MPH and the power boosted L mods could out roll them by 50% or more even at much faster speeds,
no this is just pure rubbish and shows you have not actually read anything, the earlier P38 were all out turned We are not talking about turning! we are talking about the power to rotate the plane about the longitudinal axis! And like all planes ever built, it had better and worse parts of the envelope. In the good parts, it easily out flies any Spitfire ever made.
which is why they went to power boosted controls.
Cruising speeds higher than the TOP SPEEDS of early Spitfires and Me-109s. And it could do that for almost three hours.
as the P38 didn't enter service until 42 that well past the early Spits and 109s you were into fw190s 109F and MKIXs
its a non statement But they were all still in service until they were all shot down. Note that the Me-109G was the only Me in North Africa.
Since the P-38 was the first plane on earth to exceed 400 MPH, it would be very hard to play catch up, would it not?
 
 Read any good history about the type! BoB Spits and Me-109s were very hard pressed to go over 350MPH IRL!
and yet they were available something that the P38 wasn't, a 350mph fighter in service is far superior to a prototype than was showing promise
 Yet cruising speeds were 210-220 MPH and you could burn the engine up and have it quit cold before a Spit could accelerate from a 300 MPH "Combat Cruise" to 408 MPH in level flight! Read "Spitfire the history" to know this truth beyond any doubt!
I have read it and cannot find anything to support this rubbish
Then read the entire book! 
 


 
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45-Shooter       4/22/2013 9:50:19 PM


 

"On 1 October 1940, the XF4U-1 made a flight from Stratford to Hartford
with an average ground speed of 405 mph, the first U.S. fighter to fly
faster than 400 mph."
Again, different definitions of types and conditions. From; http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-38/p-38-wayne.html
Quote; "One of the calculations showed a maximum speed of 394 mph at 20,000 feet on 1150 hp/ engine. The other showed 399 mph at 20,000 feet if 1250 hp/ engine was used. His data and calculations were given to Kelly Johnson who came up with 403 mph at critical altitude (around 20,000 feet) on 1150 hp/ engine. Johnson also had plans to alter the design of the airplane and expected to improve the speed by around 10-mph, giving it a top speed of 413 mph. This is often quoted as the top speed of the XP-38, but as flown, it would appear to be between 394 to 403 mph.  Nonetheless, this makes the P-38 the first 400-mph fighter in history."
So, not first aircraft, nor first fighter past 400 mph.
See above. http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-38/p-38-wayne.html

The following curves compare the speed and climb performance of the P-38G, using the conservative Wright-Field data as a baseline (red), and that generated by Kelsey and Hough (orange) as the maximum limit (notice that the cleaner G model is faster than the J when at the same power). The power settings actually used in combat fell somewhere in between. Notice how the high CAT-induced power reductions above 15,000 feet affected P-38G performance. In fact, any high power setting with the carburetor air temperature above 45-50 degrees C was, supposedly, risky. Also shown are curves for a P-38J at WEP using both 130 and 150-grade fuels. 150-grade fuel was used by the US Eighth Air Force from mid 1944 to the end of the war. The P-38J curves are modified Wright Field data verified by power required calculations.

http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-38/p-38-wayne-fig2e.jpg" alt="" />


 
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Maratabc       4/22/2013 10:53:11 PM
Corsair: The F4U in World War II and Korea
by Barrett Tillman 1979 Naval Institute Press. p 12:
 
He states that it was the P-38 which was the first American fighter to break 400 mph in recorded instrument flight, however...that was not with a war-load. That honor belongs to the F4U Corsair on Oct, 1, 1940.
 
As for the true 400 mph achievement?
 
 
I think the British have this one sewed up. 
 
 
 
 
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45-Shooter       4/22/2013 10:57:03 PM

 
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45-Shooter       4/22/2013 11:03:30 PM

 
 


 
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Maratabc       4/22/2013 11:14:04 PM
All it proves foolish one is that you do not know what the difference is between a two dimensional ballistic  solution and a four dimensional ballistic solution is. How do compute lead UP on a circling adversary above you?  The WORMS formula doesn't work when you have four variables.
 
But you do not know this.
 
I do know how to duck hunt from a moving platform foolish one. If you do not understand, then know this also, you cannot use the WORMS formula at all from an aircraft lead computing gun-sight when you have to push the bullet stream UP the reticule cone.
 
You do not understand? I don't have the three weeks to teach a pretender what he should have learned in school.








WORMS formula?

Are you insane, one called shooter?

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/23-11/Ch5.htm

I laugh at you. I utterly laugh at you.



I note that the link you provide makes and proves my point beyond any doubt! Thanks! You have to go down until you get to the part labeled "Binoculars" and they call the formula WORM! I merely used the Plural form. But I know how to do it and I bet that you can not do it in real life while flying in a plane with a reflector gun sight.

 
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