Best Pacific Fighter?

Best Pacific Fighter?

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Burmese Bandit said:
Hellcat for me. Good gun platform, large production, excellent protection for the pilot, and it brought you home after damage more often than not.
Click to expand...

P38 ..... extremely tough airframe, supurb climb rate, longest ranged fighter of WW2, excellent armorment, high payload, dual engines brought the plane home when the alternative was ditching in the sea or over the jungle, photo recon version was second to none ...

Now what were you saying about the Hellcat?
 
Cost of p-38 versus hellcat? Aaaand I won't even emphasize the fact that if any Pacific commander had chosen the p-38 to the exclusion of the Hellcat, he would have been embroiled in endless squabbles about number allocations with the generals of the ETO...
 
Why would the Corsair be any worse a torpedo bomber than the P-38? (Hell the Fw 190 could do it, and the Corsair could carry a pair of Tiny Tim's)

Did the P-38 even use torpedoes operationlly? (I know it was tested)

And could the P-38 be used as a dive bomber? (the Corsair was almost as accurate as the Dauntless in tests)
 
The P38 was also used with some success as a light bomber in the "droop snoot" configuration.

It also was a far safer plane to operate due to its tricycle landing gear.
 
F6F. Maybe not as impressive performance-wise as the F4U, but overall more practical and safer as a carrier fighter.
 
Air to air kills in pacific-P38=1700. Corsair=2155. Hellcat=5257. BB, if you can get your hands on
"80 Knots to Mach 2" by Linnekin, read his evaluation of Corsair and Hellcat. In short Corsair was much better performer and be cause of better control modulation was superior in gunnery runs. The Corsair could obviously have been a VT but there was no need for it because of Avenger.
 

IMO, the generals in the ETO would've been quite happy letting the Pacific generals have all of the P-38's they want; the P-38 was never very popular in the ETO anyway (for a variety of reasons), whereas it did quite well in the PTO. I'm sure the ETO generals would probably have even agreed to shipping all of their P-38's to the PTO in exchange for a like number of P-47's P-51's.
 
Renrich, Sod stitch, (I really must look up that thread to find out what those names mean!) thanks for the info. SS, I'll put that book on my "to find and buy" list.
 
I would rank the most impactful planes in the PTO as follows:

1) F6F Hellcat. It's massive kill count and fantastic kill ratio speak for themselves. While it is true that the Wildcat fought against tougher opposition, it is also true that once unleashed and serving side by side with Wildcats, the Hellcat totally outperformed it in actual battles.

2) P38J/L Lightning. The top 2 US aces in history flew this bird. Coincidence? Probably not. As has been pointed out many times, for sheer versatility the P38 is probably unbeatable. And yes, there was a carrier based P38 variant built, called the "Model 300". The USN was not interested because they felt it was too large(taking up too much deck space), and they didn't like water cooled engines.

3) F4U Corsair. I personally like the F4U-1C the best (4x 20mm guns).

All three of them are legends though. And rightfully so IMO.
 
Valo300 said:
And yes, there was a carrier based P38 variant built, called the "Model 300". The USN was not interested because they felt it was too large(taking up too much deck space), and they didn't like water cooled engines.
Click to expand...
You sure about that? The Lockheed "Model 300" was the C-141.
 
The Lockheed P-38 Lightning

Yes, i am sure of that. Actually....haha.....

Lockheed proposed a carrier-based "Model 822" version of the Lightning for the US Navy. The Model 822 would have featured folding wings, an arresting hook, and stronger undercarriage for carrier operations. The Navy wasn't interested, since the brass regarded the Lightning as too big for carrier operations and didn't like liquid-cooled engines anyway, and the Model 822 never went beyond the paper stage. However, the Navy did operate four land-based F-5Bs in North Africa, with these aircraft inherited from the USAAF and redesignated "FO-1".
 

errr - you said model 300 NOT 822

Valo300 said:
there was a carrier based P38 variant built, called the "Model 300"
Click to expand...

"The Lockheed Model 300 C-141 StarLifter is a series of American long-range logistics transport aircraft in service since 1965."

Lockheed C-141

hahahahahaha..........
 
No kidding, what do you think the "haha" was about? Why do you think i highlighted the model 822 in bold?

Here, for you, since you are obviously not adept at catching self depriciating humor...

I was wrong about the model number.

Of course the particular model number is totally irrelevant to the point i was making- that there was a carrier capable P38 variant/prototype built. Is there any other minutia in my post(s) you'd like to comment on?
 
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