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If you believe the Luftwaffe was defeated because of air to air combat then you are sadly mistaken. It was defeated because it could no longer protect its, fuel sources, train its pilots, land or take off or even park its planes in safety. That's what killed the Luftwaffe not individual combat.
During the time periods mentioned the Luftwaffe was down to ill trained rookies. They were cannon fodder. They could barely fly straight and the Mustang were free to follow them home.
Do you have anything to back any of this up?Your right Pbehn. The Spits and Jugs did the shorter part of the missions and the Lightning ran the rest. Before the Lightning was let loose the Luffees would just wait at the edge of the P-47 and Spits range and form up ahead of the bomber stream. They would hit when the bombers were unescorted. Using rockets, special up-gunned 190s and the 110s.
I don't believe the true costs were figured in. The P-38 returned itself and it pilot at a rate of 2 to 1 over other fighters. I would suggest that if you take in the cost of retooling, building new or retrofitting old factories, training mechanics, assembly line workers, finding subcontractors and training them. The cost of a lost pilot had huge ramifications in moral and support for the war at home not to mention the cost of the hours spent on training them to fly. Then there is the moral of the pilots them selves. If you had a plane with two engines that could out perform all other fighters, I know what my choice would be.
Keep in mind there was a disinformation campaign designed to hide the truth about the ETO. The myths that were concocted are repeated over and over again.
Here's a few:
The 51 had a longer range than the 38. Myth that needs b be corrected. At least 3 escort missions were flown by the P-38 from Manado to the oil fields at Balikpapan, a distance of 2200 miles. The first mission included quite a dog fight that lasted a good 30minutes and used up a lot of fuel. The end result was 36 Japanese fighters destroyed. The longest mission flown by a pilot in a P-38 was a photo recon mission and flew a staggering 4650 miles and was in the air 23 hrs.
"One-third more pilots were lost in the four months spanning February through May (1,970) that were lost in the five months from September through January (1,471)."
If you believe the Luftwaffe was defeated because of air to air combat then you are sadly mistaken. It was defeated because it could no longer protect its, fuel sources, train its pilots, land or take off or even park its planes in safety. That's what killed the Luftwaffe not individual combat.
During the time periods mentioned the Luftwaffe was down to ill trained rookies. They were cannon fodder. They could barely fly straight and the Mustang were free to follow them home.
Myth that needs busting: The P-38 was too hard to fly for the average pilot. Lockheed engineers were constantly offering solutions to the Air Force brass. These solutions were well designed and if most were adopted would have made the P-38 a dream to fly comparable to the P-51. So why weren't they adopted?
Most if, not all were rejected by either the War Production Board or the USAF as being unnecessary. One that was developed by the Lockheed engineers was a small addon that replace 4 critical functions into one lever. The complexity of the controls could have been mitigated by a large margin, but there were darker forces at work.
"On Nov 26 the 8th was back at Bremen and suffered fairly high losses (25, but only 5 percent of the total bombers compared to about 20 percent at Schweinfurt when unescorted). Only seven were lost to fighters, however. As a result of actions combating these three raids the German air force lost 21 percent of its entire fighter force in the west. This is astounding and is in a significant part attributable to operations of the P-38--sorting in in fairly small numbers. If 45 P-38s could have such an influence, what would have been the effect of 200?"
"The TRUE maximum speed of a P-38L was not the much published 414 mph. This reflects Military Power, not War Emergency Power. In WEP, a clean P-38L could exceed 440 mph. The P-38J with its lower rated engines could pull speeds in the low to mid 420's."
"The P-38 was the only fighter in the ETO that could be flown into an accelerated stall at 1,000 ft. without fear of torque-rolling into an unrecoverable attitude. Nothing in the ETO could stay with a P-38 down in the tree tops. Absolutely nothing."
"The P-38L could out-climb the P-51D and Fw-190D by better than 30%."
The 51 had a longer range than the 38. Myth that needs b be corrected. At least 3 escort missions were flown by the P-38 from Manado to the oil fields at Balikpapan, a distance of 2200 miles. The first mission included quite a dog fight that lasted a good 30minutes and used up a lot of fuel.
If you believe the Luftwaffe was defeated because of air to air combat then you are sadly mistaken. It was defeated because it could no longer protect its, fuel sources, train its pilots, land or take off or even park its planes in safety. That's what killed the Luftwaffe not individual combat.
During the time periods mentioned the Luftwaffe was down to ill trained rookies. They were cannon fodder. They could barely fly straight and the Mustang were free to follow them home.
"On Nov 26 the 8th was back at Bremen and suffered fairly high losses (25, but only 5 percent of the total bombers compared to about 20 percent at Schweinfurt when unescorted). Only seven were lost to fighters, however. As a result of actions combating these three raids the German air force lost 21 percent of its entire fighter force in the west. This is astounding and is in a significant part attributable to operations of the P-38--sorting in in fairly small numbers. If 45 P-38s could have such an influence, what would have been the effect of 200?"
"The TRUE maximum speed of a P-38L was not the much published 414 mph. This reflects Military Power, not War Emergency Power. In WEP, a clean P-38L could exceed 440 mph. The P-38J with its lower rated engines could pull speeds in the low to mid 420's."
"The P-38 was the only fighter in the ETO that could be flown into an accelerated stall at 1,000 ft. without fear of torque-rolling into an unrecoverable attitude. Nothing in the ETO could stay with a P-38 down in the tree tops. Absolutely nothing."
"The P-38L could out-climb the P-51D and Fw-190D by better than 30%."
Why didnt they shoot down the LW aces who were claiming bombers destroyed throughout the period, were rookies bouncing P-38s? I posted the numbers of escorts used in Big Week that is Feb 1944, the P-47 was by far the most numerous then the P-38 in slightly higher numbers than the P-51 but P-51s scored higher than P-38s.Shooting down rookies did not win the air war in the ETO. Preventing them from becoming trained before the P-51 took over, did.
Why didnt they shoot down the LW aces who were claiming bombers destroyed throughout the period, were rookies bouncing P-38s? I posted the numbers of escorts used in Big Week that is Feb 1944, the P-47 was by far the most numerous then the P-38 in slightly higher numbers than the P-51 but P-51s scored higher than P-38s.
On long range escort missions, the P-38 were always wedded to the bombers and were not allowed to take the fight to the enemy.
"The Oil Plan didn't (officially) start until after D-Day."
Officially, that's a big qualifier.
Unexpectedly high stocks captured in Italy in 1943 also helped in early 1944.35 In fact, over the winter of 1943-44, the Germans built up aircraft fuel reserves for the first time since 1941. From a reserve of 33,786 tons in November 1943, the special reserve had grown to 119,738 tons by May 1944. Its existence provided a substantial cushion in meeting the fuel crisis of the early summer.36 The Germans had found the failure of Allied bombing to strike the synthetic oil industry inexplicable. Writing to Speer in March 1944, Keitel's staff thought it possible that enemy air forces would attack the oil industry to achieve a quick end to the war.37 In April, a Luftwaffe staff officer was more direct. Considering that the major German refineries and fuel plants lay within "the zone threatened by air attack," he found it extraordinary that enemy airpower had not struck the oil industry--a target that would jeopardize the Reich's entire war effort.38
The Wiki link I posted earlier said that US fighter serviceability dropped during big week from 72 to 65%. I dont have a dog in the fight, I cant see how a case can be made for any of the three doing it on its own, all three were needed at the time, even if the P-51 was the best of them, no one would wait until all squadrons had them.Serviceable fighters in the 8th Air Force on the evening of March 6, 1944, as given in Target Berlin by Jeffrey Ethell and Alfred Price.
130 P-38s
415 P-47s
109 P-51s
"The Oil Plan didn't (officially) start until after D-Day."
Officially, that's a big qualifier.
As I stated earlier. On long range escort missions, the P-38 were always wedded to the bombers and were not allowed to take the fight to the enemy. This meant in addition to not getting all the kills that the other fighters got during the same period, they were constantly getting bounced. In addition they were frequently outnumbered and a significant number of missions the ratio was as high as 10-1. Yet the bombers got through.
Spaatz was allowed to attack oil targets when transportation targets were not available due to weather conditions or other issues.