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%."
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%."
