F4U F6F P-38 P-47 or P-51 Which plane was best by war's end

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

I'm not sure really which one was best by the end of the war, they all had their good points. But I will tell you one thing, the P-51 was best overall since it was re-developed and re-used so many times post war. P-82 Twin Mustang, F-6, Cavalier Mustang, Cavailer Turbo Mustang, Piper Enforcer. As late as the 1980's this bird was still being considered as a viable aircraft for the USAF. So from a design development point of view the P-51 wins hands down.
 

The Mustang was a good aircraft but its Only outstanding attribute was it's long range in a single engine fighter. The Cavalier and Enforcer were exreriments (that failed to meet their intended purpose) based on a restored P-51 aitframes only because there were some available. The P-82 was only an attempt to be able to relieve a pilot on those 12 hour missions. The P-38 (amoung others) was much more versatile than the P-51 ever thought of being and the P-51 started out as an attack plane (P-40 replacement).

The only things a P-51 did as well or better than a P-38L (the contemporary of the D model) was a faster cruise (~50mph) and it's cost
The Spit (IX on) didn't have the range but was better everywhere else.
The P-47N cost more but was as good/better for everything else
The F4U-4 was short only on range and a minor cost differential but was better everywhere else.

The P-51 had the following advantages:
1) it was competitive with its main adversaries
2) it was cheap (important, but if you were fighting for your life, do you want to fight someone with a knife - another knife or a gun?)
3) POLITICS


wmaxt
 
Right OK, I think you missed the point. The fact is the P-51 has served in more countries than any of the others (post war), has been through a longer development used in a wider variety of roles than the others, makes it "better" from a DESIGN DEVELOPMENT view point. I did say that I was unsure as to what aircraft was better by the end of WW2, it would depend on where it was being used, what it was used for and by whom. The P-51 was a jack of all trades, easy to fly, cheap, and easy to maintain.
Also I think you got a bit mixed up, the Mustang was not designed as an attack aircraft (A-36), this was just a role that was given to it by the USAAF due to a lack of ground support aircraft. The USAAF didn't intially even want the Mustang, it was built for the RAF as a pursuit aircraft. It was faster than the Spitfire V (which was the main RAF fighter at the time) and had a longer range, its only shortcoming was the fact that it had a crap climb rate due to its underpowered Allison engine (RAF Mustang I).

Politics didn't really come into it either, the RAF were desperate for a fighter after the P-40 didn't deliver, so NA decided to embark on their own project instead of building P-40's. The outcome was the Mustang, when the USAAF saw how much potential it had they also bought it.

The Cavalier Mustang was not an experiment, it saw service with the USAF (along with the piper enforcer which I forgot to mention) during the late 60's who used it for counter insurgent forward air control duties. So as I said, by the end of the war it may not have been the best, but long afterwards it was still around.
 
I disagree, I understand the points that you are making but I would go with the P-47N. It was more durable and a much better aircraft. The P-51 was great but it was quite overated as well.
 
I don't think the P-51 was best, I'm just saying it outlived all the competition, thats all. I wouldn't be able to pick one from the list because as I said earlier, it would depend on what it was used for, where it was used and who was using it.
 
I to can agree with that statement.

The P-51 was supposed to be P-40s but NAA talked the British into a replacement instead. The P-40 had been relegated to ground support by that time (primarily) and without a high blower section they never had a prayer of being anything else. The A-36 and it's British equivalent the Mark I were low altitude support aircraft as designed with the Allison. Your right it was faster below 15,000ft than the Spit V but was never intended to replace or even bolster the Spitfire. It was also never intended to be a persuit plane.

As for politics it came into being as the Merlin P-51 at a time where the AAF could say (only by bad mouthing or removing credit from the P-38 and to some extent the other Allied fighters) it saved the bombers because it was the only (single engine) fighter that could escort the bombers all the way. It was then championed as the best to cover up the fact that the Idea of self escorting bombers was very wrong and they had the P-38 all along. I can smell Congressional Investigation. It's never mentioned that the P-38 was there in larger/equal numbers through the most criticle period before July '44. The real problem with the P-38 was that a second source wasn't available until Jan. '45.

I do stand on all the points I stated above. look through the PR and check it out.

You do have a point that it was a good solid aircraft and between cost and numbers built it had staying power.

If I came on to strong - Sorry Welcome to the forum!

wmaxt
 
FLYBOYJ said:
One point though - 2 engines 2x the cost to operate
Click to expand...

Very True but in the heat of war you get the best, win the war, then if your the winner count the cost. But again cost is counted in other ways too including attrition and results. The 8th air Force page admits to 451 P-38s and 2,201 P-51s lost to combat. P-38s flew a little less than 2/3 the sorties the P-51s did and many of those were the more dangerous attack missions. That's 4+ Mustangs for each P-38 and pilot at that rate the Mustang is a lot more expensive.

The combination today is the Twin engine F-15 and the single engine F-16 there is and was a place for both.

My beef is the lack of credit where its due.

As far as Dolittle was concerned it was not about cost or capabilities (once the mininum performance threshold was crossed) but logistics. He accepted the fact that the P-38 could do the job (he allowed the 474th to keep theirs) but didn't want to deal with the masive and duplicate/triplicate (P-47) spares issues. Remember the three fighters in the ETO were completly different except in the ammo for their guns. Thats what got the P-38 in trouble with the Brittish who wanted commonality with the Tomahawks.

Oh well, it worked out in the end.

wmaxt
 
wmaxt said:
but didn't want to deal with the masive and duplicate/triplicate (P-47) spares issues.
Click to expand...

You have a great point - I think this is what the Italians were up against!

Be aware there are those bureaucrats who do look at cost issues (even in a wartime setting) and operating aspects of multi-engine fighters are always considered. I've worked on US government contracts and dealt with some of these "geniuses"
 

I Agree, I've worked with them too, but all costs must be included including the reduced loss rate of the bombers/crews and survivability etc.

Double check the first paragraph of the reply above, i was edditing it when you wrote this one.

And the Itallians a tighter budget.

wmaxt
 

Yep - that's true and is considered by MOST of the folks who hold the purse strings.
 

Very good way of putting it.
 
I have yet to lock down the loss rate thing, another source I've found shows the loss of 1,758 P-38s and 2,520 P-51s. When adjusted on a sortie basis the loss percentage is .1% different (1.2% for the P-51 abd 1.3% for the P-38) considering the mission difficulty the P-38 still came home more often.

Cost wise to maintain (overhaul) the AAF used more than twice the manhours to maintain a Merlin (417) as for an Allison (191). Reference AAF archives. I averaged the manhours required from July '43 to Aug '45.

Lastly the P-38s shot down about 1/3 the German aircraft with the following difficulties:
Green US pilots against the Expert German pilots
Close escort and attack (including 600,000lbs bombs) missions limited oportunities
Poor tactics durring the P-38 phase in Europe

My estimate is that the P-38 would have exceeded the P-51s in every area in the ETO had they been given the chance

wmaxt
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Similar threads

M
P-61 Performance
Replies
15
Views
1K
Snautzer01
Effectiveness of the P-38
6 7 8
Replies
145
Views
13K
Thumpalumpacus
How good a plane was the P-40, really?
23 24 25
Replies
493
Views
41K
Think Tanker
T
P-47 roll rate - a bit of new (to me) info
Replies
1
Views
625
Shortround6
S
J
Ki-84 vs P-51 engagemants 1945
2
Replies
31
Views
5K
CHen10
Menu
Log in
Register