How good (or bad) was the P-38, really?

Just a quick note: Jimmy Stewart instructed on B-17s (and ATs) at Albuquerque, but flew the B-24 in Europe.

Earliest P-38 orders according to the USAAF list of contracts,
Contract AC-9974 dated 23-Jun-37 for 1 XP-38
Contract AC-12523 dated 27-Apr-39 for 13 YP-38
Contract AC-13205 dated 16-Sep-39 for 66 aircraft, built as 29 P-38, 1 XP-38A and 36 P-38D
Contract AC-15646 dated 30-Aug-40 for 410 aircraft, built as 210 P-38E, 75 P-38F, 5 P-38F-1, 99 F-4, 20 F-4A, 1 F-5A

I recall reading forums concerning the early combat flight simulations that the model of the P-38 was defective because it was coded as a target with 100% of the space between the booms being counted as hits. I don't think this is 100% reliable, but I can understand why they might have coded it that way. I haven't played a combat sim in years, so I'm asking you who do - in the game you play is the damage model on the P-38 fair?

The main problem in that regard wasn't so much the aircraft models but the ballistics/gunnery models.

In the '80s and '90s the representations of bullets/bursts being functionally much larger volume-wise than in real life. It wasn't until around 2000 that processing power in your average person's PC allowed more accurate gunnery modeling.

Representational gunfire projectiles the size of beach balls or basket balls didn't do the P-38 'hit-box' models any favours.

Ah, yes. Was it Aces of the Pacific, that had the Betty tail gun of doom?

I believe it was Jane's WWII Fighters, where hit-registering on the Aircraft model became reasonably accurate, especially with the P-38's complex model.

Then a short time later, CFS3 raised the bar by reducing the damage "bubble" to the wireframe's approximate perimeters as well as defining the difference between various weapon calibers and the level of damage based on where the projectile impacted.

Conslaw said:

I recall reading forums concerning the early combat flight simulations that the model of the P-38 was defective because it was coded as a target with 100% of the space between the booms being counted as hits. I don't think this is 100% reliable, but I can understand why they might have coded it that way. I haven't played a combat sim in years, so I'm asking you who do - in the game you play is the damage model on the P-38 fair?

Click to expand...

It was suspected in the early Il-2 versions, as I remember. Also, fragile booms - they could be cut by a few MG hits. Improved in later versions and in the mods.

My dad immediately identified the P-38 kit I was assembling while I was a teenager.
He recalled me that one tried to strafe him in Japanese occupied Indochina.
He was clad in colonial khakies and the Lightning's pilot mistook him for a Japanese.

The P-38 was a very complex aircraft compared to other fighters of its generation. It not only had two powerplants, but both were turbocharged and unlike the P-47, as well as the B-17 and B-24, the pilot had no direct control over the turbosupercharger. After installing the new chin intercoolers on the J and later models they eventually realized they needed to give the pilots some control over the intercooler temperatures. Also, you had to turn on the hydraulic system first before operating the landing gear and the later models had hydraulically boosted ailerons which you had to turn off and on; with them turned on you probably could not safely land the airplane. Then there was Compressibility, which eventually was addressed by the addition of "dive flaps," giving the pilot yet another dohickey to fiddle with.

One Saturday morning years ago my friend Ward Duncan, the WWII Chief of Maintenance of the 9th PRS, hauled out his scrapbooks and gave us what might be called "A Seminar How You Can Screw Up a Lockheed Lightning." He gave us many interesting examples of pilots who managed to wreck a perfectly good F-4 or F-5 as a result of not understanding how the systems worked. In a few cases he even had to wedge into the cockpit with the pilot (not behind it in the radio compartment) to try to figure out what was mystifying the pilot.