Missed opportunity: US Navy land based P38D and P38E with dive flaps as a vertical dive bomber early 1942

Mid 1941, US Navy asks Lockheed to add dive flaps and a single bomb rack to a P38D and P38E for tests. US Navy tests these 2 aircraft with experienced dive bomber pilots, realizes they can outrun and out climb an F4F-3 while carrying a 1000 pound bomb at 25,000 feet. Even an unarmed F4F-3 can't catch them. They decide it would be a great land based dive bomber for defending ports.

I'm guessing an early P38 could maintain 350 mph with a 500 or 1000 pound bomb at 25,000 feet. That model Zero I believe was in the 300-315 mph range at 25,000 feet.

With trained navy dive bomber pilots, any japanese carrier that came within range of a land base with P38's so equipped would be at the mercy of the accuracy of the dive bomber pilots and nothing else.

Thoughts?

pinsog said:

They decide it would be a great land based dive bomber for defending ports.

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Defending the "port" is the Army's job.

The Navy manned few, if any, shore batteries/coastal fortifications for example.

From Wiki......"The 16th Coast Artillery Regiment was a Coast Artillery regiment in the United States Army, Along with the 15th Coast Artillery, it manned the Harbor Defenses of Honolulu and other fortified sites on Oahu, Hawaii from 1924 until broken up into battalions in August 1944 as part of an Army-wide reorganization.[1] The regiment manned a large number of gun batteries at locations all over Oahu.[2] Most of the forts where they were assigned were originally built 1899-1910, and had been in caretaker status for more than 30 years. On the morning of 7 December 1941, the soldiers of the 16th Coast Artillery manned their anti-aircraft guns, bringing down six of the attacking Japanese aircraft.".

Unless you can pull another factory out of the old black top hat there are no spare P-38s in either 1941 or 1942. The P-38, rightly or wrongly, is considered the the Army's premier fighter plane available in numbers until at least early 1943. (of the 532 P-47s built in 1942, 258 of them are built in Nov and Dec.

You also need a drop tank. Early P-38s carried 300 gallons internal fuel and would need over 70 gallons just to get to 25,000ft while carrying a single 1000lb bomb. While they could certainly cruise at well over 300mph they could also burn 130-180gallons per hour (about 130gph for 330mph with both racks carrying something)

Finding targets and identifying targets at 25,000ft is a whole lot harder than finding and identifying at 10-15,000ft.

Ships AA don't care if they are P-38s or Vought Vindicators.

I only said US Navy defending ports because they already had trained dive bomber pilots.

Agreed on drop tanks. I would hang a 1000 pounder on the center and a drop tank on each side.

Agree on identifying targets from 25,000 feet. I figure B17's find enemy carriers, P38's show up at higher altitude, drop down to a lower altitude gaining speed until the actual pushover point.

Japanese flak in 1942 isn't a huge concern except for the lucky hit or 'golden bb'. P38's arriving overhead at 300-400 mph before pushing into their final dives give less time to be spotted and less time to be shot at than a Dauntless or Vindicator.

I don't see the Japanese having a real defense against this.

Early P-38s were very restricted in dive angles, and even later versions with dive flaps could not dive anywhere near vertically, as they would quickly run into comprehensibility issues. Especially if diving from 25,000ft.

To me it sounds like a verry good idea in a vacuum but as Shortround pointed out the limiting factor was the limited supply of p38s. Any p38s to be used as dive bombers would have to be diverted from fighter duty in other places.

wuzak said:

Early P-38s were very restricted in dive angles, and even later versions with dive flaps could not dive anywhere near vertically, as they would quickly run into comprehensibility issues. Especially if diving from 25,000ft.

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I've read that A,if the flaps were deployed before beginning the dive they kept the Lightning out of the speed of compresability and B, dives started at or below 20,000 feet were not a problem regardless( Warren Bodies book on the latter a couple pilot interviews on the former). So it might have been practical were it not for the supply issue.

On supply issue: don't build any 322 models for the British. Don't build any photo recon. You wouldn't need very many to really tilt the scales in my opinion. Let's say the first 50, including all the early P38D models deemed not combat worthy, are delivered by February 1 to Pearl where they train. First deployment is Midway. Instead of barely trained Marines in Vindicators on the first attack wave, you have 36 well trained navy or army pilots flying P38's. Probably sets up a whole different Midway and probably ends without loss of Yorktown. I would not use them for everyday dive bombing, they would be dedicated carrier killers.

I think the dive flaps would prevent compressibility issues in dives from altitude, but testing would reveal what altitude was safe and practical from target spotting, dive speed etc. Those are all minor things that can be adjusted. The main point being that a 330-350 mph self protecting dive bomber operating at 20-25,000 feet would be nearly impossible for the Japanese to stop in 1942.

michael rauls said:

I've read that A,if the flaps were deployed before beginning the dive they kept the Lightning out of the speed of compresability and B, dives started at or below 20,000 feet were not a problem regardless( Warren Bodies book on the latter a couple pilot interviews on the former). So it might have been practical were it not for the supply issue.

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Even with the dive flaps the P-38 could not dive vertically, or even at 70°.

So as a dive bomber it was limited.

pinsog said:

On supply issue: don't build any 322 models for the British

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Ok, that gets you 4 planes. That's how many the British got. The 3rd one arrived in England in April of 1942. about 140 stay in the US to be used as trainers with without turbo chargers and the first 36 or so (?) even have engines turning in the same direction. You can forget flying at 25,000ft with any of these.

pinsog said:

Don't build any photo recon.

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Hmm, The F-4s go into action over new Guinea in April of 1942 using 75 gallon drop tanks. Only about 20 are built and do you want to tell us what photo recon plane takes their place in the South Pacific theater if the F-4s do not show up?? Hudsons or Blenheims?

pinsog said:

Let's say the first 50, including all the early P38D models deemed not combat worthy, are delivered by February 1 to Pearl where they train

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leaving P-38 units in the US to train with what??? Cessna AT-17s? We have a lot of threads where the lack of decent training for P-38 pilots was to blame for a lot of the operational problems for several years (at least) during the war and you want to take the majority of the early trainers and use them for some elaborate "trap" at Midway (which was scarcely a "port").

pinsog said:

Instead of barely trained Marines in Vindicators on the first attack wave, you have 36 well trained navy or army pilots flying P38'

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Just have the Navy, Marine, Army pilots train on the planes they have.

pinsog said:

I would not use them for everyday dive bombing, they would be dedicated carrier killers.

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Shortage of P-38s for photo recon, for training, for operational use in the North Pacific, South Pacific, and shortage of P-38s to send to Europe to escort B-17s (80 P-38Fs are ordered to fly from the US to Europe June 18th 1942, the First Fighter group has a full complement of P-38s assembled at Bangor Maine in early June of 1942.
You want to hoard these scarce planes for a one shot deal at Midway with preparations starting months earlier than the US even any real idea that the Japanese would target Midway?

There is more than just a little bit of the use of retrospectoscope in this proposal.

The Japanese (aside from a couple of submarines using their deck guns to shell the west coast) never came close to attacking a US "Port" after the attack on Pearl Harbor and Pearl was more a base than a "Port" (how much trade goods or supplies entered or left the US through Hawaii?)

Send a squadron or two of these P-38 dive bombers to the Philippines instead of the A-24s (Army Dauntless) the Army did send? Which wound up in Australia or the DEI (?) because the Philippines fell before they got there.

First of all...define "well trained dive bomber pilots".
The forces at Midway had already had 19 Douglas SBDs, which should have been more than able to deliver accurate damage to IJN shipping, but their crews, like most of the USN, USMC and USAAF crews had nearly zero combat experience.
1942 was the year of the steep learning curve for American aviators.

I meant don't build any 322's at all. Build them as standard P38's.

I would probably have used B17's in place of the photo recon F4's, but if you have them in New Guinea I guess you could either add dive flaps to the F4's and use them as bombers or deliver them as dive bombers and also do photo recon with them, or go ahead and build F4 recon aircraft.

When I said the "50 delivered to Pearl by February 1" I meant February 1942. It sounds like you are thinking I meant 1941.

It is not "some elaborate trap" at Midway. I would simply be replacing the unescorted Dauntless and Vindicators with something that had a prayer of getting through the Zero CAP and hitting the carriers instead of just giving the Zero's some live gunnery practice.

A Vindicator might be a great plane to train in, but actually flying it, unescorted into the Zero CAP of 4 Japanese fleet carrier's is akin to playing Russian Roulette with all the chambers loaded. We didn't know if Pearl Harbor would be attacked again or not, that is why I would have deployed these P38's at Pearl Harbor to train. When the Midway situation arose, it would have been a simple matter, with drop tanks, to let them self deploy to Midway just before the battle just as they did with the B17's, B26's and Avenger torpedo planes. If flown by well trained crews, such as the carrier based navy dive bomber pilots that actually sank the 4 Japanese carriers at Midway then I think they had a great chance of doing the same thing without the needless slaughter that happened to the guys that tried it in the Dauntless and Vindicators.

One shot deal? Great amounts of hindsight or retrospect? Not really. Someone says 'we have a big fast fighter that could carry a bomb, add dive brakes and use it for dive bombing' (I mean come on, the first P51's/A36's had dive brakes and were used as dive bombers so it isn't a huge stretch) They are training at Pearl Harbor and also there in case of another Japanese attack. They get deployed to Midway because they are there and they can. After the battle they fly back to Pearl Harbor. They would have a been a great help at Guadalcanal as well with drop tanks, being able to attack japanese carriers at great distance and having the speed to avoid the Zero CAP and accuracy of a dive bomber to actually hit the target, unlike B17's.

wuzak said:

Even with the dive flaps the P-38 could not dive vertically, or even at 70°.

So as a dive bomber it was limited.

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If it could not dive at 70degrees its utility as a dive bomber seems like it would be more than limited. I'm having trouble visualizing why if the dive flaps kept it out of the speed of compresability it would make any difference the angel of flight vertical or otherwise.
One of the quotes I read and I think I can get it almost exactly was" it was good to see a p38 going straight down after a 109"
(It was a pilot expounding on a felow p38 pilots victory over a bf 109 specifically and how useful the dive flaps were in general in late 44).
Admittedly "straight down" is a little vague and doesn't nescesarily mean 90 degrees but is does denote a pretty steep angle I would think.

GrauGeist said:

First of all...define "well trained dive bomber pilots".
The forces at Midway had already had 19 Douglas SBDs, which should have been more than able to deliver accurate damage to IJN shipping, but their crews, like most of the USN, USMC and USAAF crews had nearly zero combat experience.
1942 was the year of the steep learning curve for American aviators.

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By well trained I mean they have flown the aircraft enough hours and dropped enough bombs with it on a practice range that they have a high probability of hitting the target at the range when they aren't being shot at. (getting shot at would add a whole new amount of stress that probably can't be simulated until your being shot at) They could be well trained but haven't seen combat. The Vindicator pilots were not well trained, they couldn't even dive bomb, they had to settle with glide bombing. John Thach had never seen combat until Midway but he was well trained.

Again, what experience would the Navy pilots have in a P-38 that they didn't have an an SBD?

If you look at the order of battle for Midway, you'll find that the Army, Navy and Marine compliment at Midway had an impressive array of aircraft at their disposal and yet, they came up short in refusing Japanese elements. Even the B-26 kamikaze attack on Nagumo's flagship missed it's mark.

If we substitute any of the USN (or Army or Marine) aircraft at Midway for a P-38, you will still have the same outcome. The Pilots at Midway simply had no combat experience and in spite of their efforts and sacrifices, could not inflict serious damage to the Japanese fleet.

GrauGeist said:

Again, what experience would the Navy pilots have in a P-38 that they didn't have an an SBD?

If you look at the order of battle for Midway, you'll find that the Army, Navy and Marine compliment at Midway had an impressive array of aircraft at their disposal and yet, they came up short in refusing Japanese elements. Even the B-26 kamikaze attack on Nagumo's flagship missed it's mark.

If we substitute any of the USN (or Army or Marine) aircraft at Midway for a P-38, you will still have the same outcome. The Pilots at Midway simply had no combat experience and in spite of their efforts and sacrifices, could not inflict serious damage to the Japanese fleet.

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Well for starters the P38 would have around a 200-250 mph faster ingress speed and they could do it at a height, if they chose, above where the Zero performance drops off. Regardless of your training level, would you rather try to attack a Japanese carrier by flying past a couple of Zeros that are trying to kill you at 10,000 feet and 120 mph in a Dauntless or Vindicator or at 20,000-25,000 feet at 350 mph in a P38?

John Thach had no combat experience until Midway and he shot down 3 Zeros and at least 1 torpedo bomber. George Welch had no combat experience at Pearl Harbor and yet he shot down several japanese planes.

pinsog said:

Well for starters the P38 would have around a 200-250 mph faster ingress speed and they could do it at a height, if they chose, above where the Zero performance drops off. Regardless of your training level, would you rather try to attack a Japanese carrier by flying past a couple of Zeros that are trying to kill you at 10,000 feet and 120 mph in a Dauntless or Vindicator or at 20,000-25,000 feet at 350 mph in a P38?

John Thach had no combat experience until Midway and he shot down 3 Zeros and at least 1 torpedo bomber. George Welch had no combat experience at Pearl Harbor and yet he shot down several japanese planes.

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Ok...let's back up for a second here.
Rasmussen was a "wet behind the ears" Lieutenant and he he shot down two A6Ms at Pearl Harbor with his P-36, while wearing purple pajamas. Experienced pilots are ones who have met the enemy, survived, learned their tactics and used it against them later on.

In regards to your 250/255 mph faster ingress...what variant of P-38 are you using as a metric for comparison, the P-38L?
The notion of dive-flaps on the P-38 wasn't instituted until 1943 and a diving P-38 prior to that was in serious jeopardy of catastrophic failure.
The SBD cruised at 185, it's max. speed was 255 but was rock-solid in an accelerated dive, when it deployed it's dive flaps that were the extent of it's entire control surfaces.
No other dive bomber made, except for the Ju87, had the accuracy and control that the SBD did in a full dive.

Better still add dive brakes to the Whirlwind and boost the engines. So reverse lend lease. It was faster than a Spitfire below 15000 feet.

A scenario that involves P-38 usually gets my approval
So does this one, with a couple of caveats:
- Lockheed, please, please don't make the development process of the P-38 program such a long-winded affair
- Kelsey, please, please don't wreck the XP-38
- USAAC + US Government: please, please, make a deal for a second source of P-38s by some time early 1941

Extra P-38s early enough can cater for the needs of US military (including a bomber P-38 version), the historical output cannot.

Quite a bit of confusion here,

This

does not replace these.


for an attack like this.


The dive(anti-compressibility flaps) on a P-38 limited it to (combined with a restricted dive angle) to around 420mph in a dive. You are going to need much, much bigger dive brakes for dive bombing. Which calls for redesigning/re-engineering the wing and a lot of flight testing which seriously delays the introduction of the P-38 dive bomber and may impact delivery of the whole P-38 series. The First YP-38 crashed Nov 4th 1941 killing test pilot Ralph Virden and compressibility is suspected.
There were nearly 2000 changes between the P-38D and P-38E, most were minor, but futzing about redesigning the wing during the summer/fall of 1941 is really going to screw things up (or make for a great plane in the spring/summer of 1943.

getting to specifics.

pinsog said:

A Vindicator might be a great plane to train in, but actually flying it, unescorted into the Zero CAP of 4 Japanese fleet carrier's is akin to playing Russian Roulette with all the chambers loaded.

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This is a training tactics issue. It is solvable with a change in training/tactics. Escort the bombers.
no need for massive changes to existing airframes and production schedules.

pinsog said:

I meant don't build any 322's at all. Build them as standard P38'

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You just need the different model Allison engines and a supply of turbo chargers large enough for the number of planes you want to build. The US NEVER converted the 140 or so planes it kept from the British contract despite the dark days of early and mid 1942. All but the first 20-30 did get handed engines but all of these planes got the long nosed Allison engines like early P-40s.

pinsog said:

I would probably have used B17's in place of the photo recon F4's, but if you have them in New Guinea I guess you could either add dive flaps to the F4's and use them as bombers or deliver them as dive bombers and also do photo recon with them, or go ahead and build F4 recon aircraft

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There were short of all kinds of planes in Spring/summer of 1942 in The New Guinea area. Every even half way decent plane you pull plane away from what it was doing to "fill in" for another is going to leave a hole.

pinsog said:

John Thach had never seen combat until Midway but he was well trained

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pinsog said:

John Thach had no combat experience until Midway

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Which is it? Thach was not just well trained. He was an aviator of over 10 years experience, several of those years were as a gunnery instructor in air to air combat and he was a squadron leader for several years. Not taking anything away from him but he was a major exception to the average pilot in US service in Dec 1941/1942. He was 37 years old at the time of Midway.