Best tank killer aircraft of WW2 Part I

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evangilder said:
If you slice them real thin, they might fit behind the seat in the radio compartment!

That would make a mess a though! LOL And trust me you never get the blood out from everywhere and then it begins to stink really bad!
 
Eagle, the HS 129 book is OOP but definately worth looking into at some of the finer and much larger book distributors online. Martins Ju 87 monster is not published quite yet.

the Locobuster fighter group the US 55fg started out with P-38 and later the P-51D and K

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Actually, a number of P-38s were modified to carry a person in the rather cramped confines of the radio compartment. And with those 6 hardpoints a P-38 could carry 6 500lb bombs, equal to the Mossie.
 
I was talking to a vet that flew the P-38 last night and he said his "training" for the P-38 was crouched down in the radio compartment, behind the pilot with the radios and armor plating removed while the IP flew the plane and showed him a few things. After that, he was given his own plane!
 
Lightning Guy said:
Actually, a number of P-38s were modified to carry a person in the rather cramped confines of the radio compartment. And with those 6 hardpoints a P-38 could carry 6 500lb bombs, equal to the Mossie.

The only reason I could think that it would be used in that reason is to extract a downed pilot and rescue him. Unless you are talking about the snoopdroop version which was designed as a bomber.
As for the 2 seat trainer it was the TP-38. There were several versions made. I believe they were all modifications to existing aircraft though.

 

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Late mode P-38J's and all P-38L's could carry 2 x 2000 lbs bombs on their main racks. This matches the Mossie's 1 x 4000 lbs bomb.

In some special instances, the P-38L could be setup to carry even more bombs, I think 5000 lbs were carried.

The P-38M was a two seater night fighter variant with radar. Some saw action before the end of WWII.

Some P-38's had level bombing bombsights installed. One would act as leader and lead a flight of P-38's on a bombing mission, all dropping when he dropped. To me this is an intriguing concept. Large formations of P-38's carrying, lets say, 3000 lbs of bombs and drop tanks to bomb German cities and would have been difficult for the German's to intercept. This would be especially true for early morning raids where the cover of night provided protection through most of the inbound journey. The P-38's would climb to 30,000 feet and just as dawn broke would begin a slow dive down to about 23-25,000 feet as they made their approach to the specified target, making them quite fast.

=S=

Lunatic
 
Excuse me I stand corrected I meant to say night fighter and not bomber.
There were several night fighter versions built as single seaters also. And yes the dual seat trainer TP-38's had two sets of controls.
 
so as an effective Tank killer the P-38 was ? in the ETO ?? granted a great ground attck plane agasint soft skinned vehicles, MT and locos/trains
 
I am not sure how effective it was a tank killer. I know if the experimental version that was talked about in other posts with the 75mm cannon or the ChainLightning could have been effective but I am not sure how effective it was.
 
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