Corsair vs Lightning

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In the Pacific, there wasnt any armor to shoot at. However, for the marines, lucky the Corsair could carry those big napalm tanks.

Anyone remember the pictures of them taking off at Peleliu (Palau Islands) and being so close to the Japanese positions, they didnt even have time to raise up their gear?

One other thing that we forget the P38 was famous for......... it was the "Get Yamamoto" mission. Absolutely perfect mission planning and execution of it, coupled with some fantastic navigation by the flight leader.
It couldnt have been done without the dependability of two engines and the range the P38 had.

http://p-38online.com/yam.html
 

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syscom3 said:
In the Pacific, there wasnt any armor to shoot at. However, for the marines, lucky the Corsair could carry those big napalm tanks.
Click to expand...

The Japanese quickly learned that US aircraft, and ground forces for that matter, carried the .50 BMG as their largest small cailber weapon (short of bomb or a howitzer) and built thier defenses accordingly. Thus the Marine Corsair test unit (VMF318? - I'd have to ciheck that) therefore requested 20mm guns to allow Japanese pillboxes to be strafed successfuly.

Yes the napalm was effective, but I think it was actually more effective in Europe.

And those paintings are not historically accurate - the shot that downed Yammato's Betty was scored at extreme range (3000 feet). But they are nice none-the-less.

=S=

Lunatic
 

However only one of the three fuel tanks in each wing was self-sealing. On the Corsair there was a single self-sealing fuel tank mounted behind the engine below the pilots feet. It was (comparatively) well protected and much less exposed than the fuel tanks on the P-38, making the whole plane much less vulnerable since fire is probably the single type of damage most likely to result in a kill. The wing structure of the Corsair was also stronger than that of the P-38 - it was also box-within-box, just no fuel within the inner box, and it also had a huge steel main spar and two secondary spars and fabric covering on the rear 60% of both wings outside the fold (this was less susceptable to cannon fire than metal).

I'd agree with your assessment for damage, but I'd rather take 4-6 hits to the R2800 than 1-3 to each Allison. Any hit to the Allison or the turbo system and it is pretty much finished. And the Corsair engine was better protected than the P-38's and had much less exposure.

=S=
 
But theres two engines, not one. Plus the tail boom assembly proved to be quite strong.

Id say its still a draw between the two.

And napalm in the Pacific was quite effective. If the pilot could see his target of course.
 
syscom3 said:
But theres two engines, not one. Plus the tail boom assembly proved to be quite strong.

Id say its still a draw between the two.

And napalm in the Pacific was quite effective. If the pilot could see his target of course.
Click to expand...

Well, the USAAF doesn't agree with you. They clearly considered the P-47 to be more capable of surviving combat damage than the P-38. They also agreed in post-war testing that the Corsair was tougher than the P-47. To me that means the Corsair was tougher than the P-38 by a substanial margin.

Napalm was effective in the Pacific, but the opportunities to use it were somewhat limited. Targets in Europe tended to be much more exposed. We just didn't publicize its use in Europe much for largely racist reasons (it was much more palletable to Americans to be frying Japanese alive than Germans).

Where Napalm was used quite effectively in the PTO was against Japanese cities. B-29's dropped a lot of Napalm on Japanese cities to horrendous effect. It was used somewhat less against German cities (Dresden is one example).

=S=

Lunatic
 
The P47 was the single toughest fighter of WW2. But this thread is about the Corsair and Lightning in operations in the pacific.

The P38 was a tough plane, having hit ship masts and tree's without being brought down.

Since range is everything in the PTO, having two engines brought home many a pilot who otherwise would have dissapeared into the vast reaches of the sea, or into the jungles.
 
I believe Lunatic just stated that the USAAF agreed that the Corsair was, in fact, 'tougher' than the P-47. Making the Corsair the single toughest fighter of World War II.

P-47s, Mosquitos, B-25s and various other aircraft came home trailing telegraph wire or with bits of tree on or in them. It's not really a sign have survivability above the other great 'rocks' in the sky.

As Lunatic posted earlier, it would depend on which approach you take. With mechanical failure, yes, the P-38 with two engines is more survivable being able to run it's other engine after one breaks down. However, in combat the fuel and cooling systems on the P-38 were much more vulnerable compared to the Corsairs. A rupture in the P-38s fuel tanks would cause fire, the single most destructive force on aircraft after an outright explosion.

On the engine issue, mechinical survivabilty goes to the P-38 while combat survivability goes to the Corsair.

We must remember that while the P-38 had two engines, they were much weaker than the Corsairs' engine. It was said that to shot down a P-47 you must fill it so full of lead that it's too heavy to fly ...well, if the USAAF concluded the F4U was tougher than the P-47 ...how do you shoot one down!?!
 
The Corsair was designed for carrier ops, so yes it would had a far stronger airframe.

You can always say a single cannon hit in the R2800 would have minimal impact on it. But the P38 also had two engines so the chances are lower for two engines hit at the same time. Taking a hit in cooling system was always a bad thing. But the Allison could run for awhile before failing.

So when it comes to mission survivabilty, we can say the Corsair would take the pilot back home because the airframe was so tough. And the P38 could survive because it had two engines to take its pilot back home.

It ends in a draw.
 
I'd sooner state the Corsair was more combat survivable than the Lightning, while the Lightning was more operational survivable. While Lightning does have two engines, it also has a weak airframe and vulnerable fuel tanks which would be extremely destructive to any aircraft. The Corsairs fuel tanks are safe in comparison.
 

There is no evidence the Lightning has a weak airframe.

As was stated before, the wing structure and fuel cell design was well designed and strong.
 
I've seen both up close - The Corsair is built like a Brick Sh*t House. The -38 is not as robust but still pretty damn strong. I'd give ease of construction to the Corsair, I heard from old Lockheed folks the tailplanes were hard to assemble and they looked for midgets to do assembly in that area...
 
Back in the 80's when Chino was putting together their P38, they had the center section on display for all to see.

There were a lot of pieces!!!!!!!
 
The P-38 is also spread out making a single burst unlikly to do criticle damage to both engines and their systems.

As for the robustnes of the various aircraft, I'm not sure how to accurately assess that. The 8th AF made a big deal about how badly the P-38 fared in the ETO and it turns out the real number was 451 P-38s Total. The numbers of P-38s lost were low (not much different that P-47s) and remember the P-38s were tacticle fighters as much as air to air in all theaters. The difference, if any, is not much.

wmaxt
 
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