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

P-39 Expert said:

but the P-38 could have been unescorted.

Click to expand...

P-38s that formation bombed in Europe in 1944 very quickly had formations of P-38 fighters attached as escorts. It took too long and communications were too uncertain to delegate one or more sections of bomb carrying aircraft to drop their bombs, accelerate up to combat speed and get into position to stop the German fighters attacking the bomb carrying aircraft.

The ability of bomb carrying fighters to be "self defending" was not anywhere near as practical in reality as it was in theory.

Kevin J said:

Okay so it was intercoolers not condensers, my mistake. Since someone brought up the subject of bombing submarine pens have any of you visited any of the towns where they were located. I've done Lorient in France. The pens are still intact and the whole town rebuilt. Yes, our glorious bomber boys missed 3 buildings, everything else was flattened.

Click to expand...

That's what I figured you meant but couldn't resist the opportunity for a little ribbing.

I don't think this is a feasible idea as a) too many modifications would be needed to the P-38 and b) the USAAF was a bit obsessive about controlling land based aircraft.

I will say I'm not a big fan of the P-38 (or some of Kelly Johnson's other designs), mostly because it had far too many teething problems that should have been picked up during testing, many of which were due to poor detail design.

Lockheed had problems making the P-38s anyway, as the Air Corp didn't order very many from the git-go. The early ones were essentially hand-made, and the design didn't translate well into production numbers when the Air Corp ordered more and more of them. To hint that the Navy would buy even more flies in the face of practicality. Lockheed just didn't have the ability to make more.

Shortround6 said:

P-38s that formation bombed in Europe in 1944 very quickly had formations of P-38 fighters attached as escorts. It took too long and communications were too uncertain to delegate one or more sections of bomb carrying aircraft to drop their bombs, accelerate up to combat speed and get into position to stop the German fighters attacking the bomb carrying aircraft.

The ability of bomb carrying fighters to be "self defending" was not anywhere near as practical in reality as it was in theory.

Click to expand...

And bombing Europe in '44 was hardly comparable to bombing Japanese ships at sea in '43. Those lightinigs cruising at 25000' at 350mph would have been near impossible for 330mph Japanese planes to intercept.

Shortround6 said:

If my sole concern was to get to and from the target area with the best chance of my own survival the P-38 would be a great choice. However that total disregards effectiveness of the attack.
A P-38, without extensive modifications, simply cannot perform the mission. It is would be releasing the bomb much higher altitude and at higher speeds and quite possible flying a bit crabwise (yawed) to boot, all of which will degrade accuracy to greater or lesser extent.
The P-38 pilots would have a much better chance of surviving but then so would the Japanese carriers. Which then makes repeat strikes necessary, which doesn't help the survival odds of the pilots.

Click to expand...

Oh, I agree, This was the last sentence in the paragraph you quoted:
"It wasn't done, maybe it couldn't be done, but if possible that would have been my preference."

Kevin J said:

We didn't have any Wildcats there. It would have had to be Buffalos.

Click to expand...

You are 100% correct. I just said Wildcats to avoid the 'Buffaloes suck' comments and the thread going off on 'Buffaloes couldn't have stopped the attack because....'

pinsog said:

You are 100% correct. I just said Wildcats to avoid the 'Buffaloes suck' comments and the thread going off on 'Buffaloes couldn't have stopped the attack because....'

Click to expand...

The British Buffaloes sucked if they had crap engines, too much fuel and faulty equipment. They did score victories. Beaufighters would have been better but like the Martlet, there weren't any there. Its a shame that we didn't have any of our Mohawks there. That would have been possible.
Singapore Defences

Kevin J said:

The British Buffaloes sucked if they had crap engines, too much fuel and faulty equipment. They did score victories. Beaufighters would have been better but like the Martlet, there weren't any there. Its a shame that we didn't have any of our Mohawks there. That would have been possible.
Singapore Defences

Click to expand...

Mohawks would have been very helpfull, especially if they had retained 2 synchronized 50's

P-39 Expert said:

And bombing Europe in '44 was hardly comparable to bombing Japanese ships at sea in '43. Those lightinigs cruising at 25000' at 350mph would have been near impossible for 330mph Japanese planes to intercept.

Click to expand...

Trouble is that you can't just cruise over at 350 mph at 25,000ft and drop the bombs anymore than the B-17s could and hit anything.
You don't need to cruise that fast until you get to the area the CAP would be in. However you have no radar. You need to get a visual on the ships and that may be easier at a lower altitude.
Even the did dive bombers didn't use the dive brakes to slow them down. They opened the brakes before diving and the brakes prevented the build up of speed. So the P-38 dive bomber has to slow down to the desired air speed before popping the brakes. It has to be a suitable altitude. They may not work if deployed too high (plane may build up higher than desired speed before getting into the thicker air?) .
In any case to get the best accuracy you have to be diving at a speed slower than even a Zero dove at, you had to slow down to that speed before you entered the dive. You had to execute a 4G or higher pullout at the bottom of the dive, further bleeding off speed. You could then accelerate back up to a speed higher than the Zero could manage to make your getaway.
The Zero had a window of opportunity to engage a dive bombing P-38 if the P-38 was using dive flaps. It may not have been long but it did exist. If the CAP stayed close to the carriers they may well have been able to inflict losses.
If the P-38 uses higher dive speeds it has to start the pull out sooner and release the bombs higher meaning worse accuracy.


Now please note that at 340mph the plane is diving at just over 498 feet per second and the above diagram has a 500ft safety margin. Hold one second too long or make any other mistake and there is a good chance the plane hits the ground/water.
340mph in a dive will NOT keep a Zero from gaining on you, even the early ones.

Shortround6 said:

The difference is in the speed/s flown or required. The forces go up with the square of the speed, Flying at 200mph in an Asymmetrical condition may be acceptable (consider how many twin engine planes made it back on one engine) trying to fly at over 300mph maybe another story.

I have no idea what the drop parameters of the MK 13 torpedo were in the spring of 1943. It started at the plane had to be under 50ft and flying slower than 100mph. By Midway it may have been up to 100ft and a bit faster (the B-26 handley exceeded the recommended drop speed, some people claim that by dropping higher and faster it would work but not low and fast or high and slow?) By early 1944 you could drop the MK 13 from up to 1000ft.

The torpedo may not care that the plane is flying a few degrees crabwise when it is dropped. However trying to "dive bomb" at higher speeds than the torpedo would tolerate being dropped at means higher forces. The bomb does not have a gyroscope to bring it back onto the correct bearing (even if offset a bit) You may well be able to drop the bomb in a dive with the airplane flying crabwise but the accuracy goes to pot. Pilot trying to retrim the aircraft while pulling out of the dive may not be good thing either, he is trying to retrim some of the other control surfaces at the same time.

It turns out that P-38s flying in formation and level bombing (how were the sub pens attacked?) showed less accuracy than formations of medium bombers for several reasons and the idea of the formations of P-38s being lead by droop snoots was allowed to to fade away.
A lot of techniques or tactics were tried. That certainly doesn't mean they all worked let alone were equal in effectiveness/accuracy.

The whole point of dive bombing was the greatly increased accuracy (more hits per number of bombs dropped) was considered a good trade off vs the dive bombers getting within range of small caliber AA guns. If your dive bomber, for whatever reason, is giving poor accuracy and still flying into range of the light AA guns then the whole thing needs a rethink.

Do you have a combat report for P-38s dropping 2000lb bombs on sub pens as the whole things sounds a bit off.

One P-38 Droop snoot did fly a mission to "monitor" the dropping of one or more 2000lb guided bombs but the planes carrying the bombs may have been B-17s.
Some articles say it was the GB-4 bomb but other articles say no GB-4 was used operationally ( which doesn't meant that the operation couldn't have used an earlier model)

Bombing coastal targets was also a common practice for squadrons/groups just working up (1st few combat missions) to get the pilots some experience rather than with any real expectations of hitting point targets. British were using 12,000lb Tallboy bombs against sub pens. They tried using British 2000lb AP bombs but they wouldn't penetrate the roof.
The US 2000lb bomb was GP bomb which would stand no chance of penetrating the roof. The US AP bomb was 1600lbs.

It could very well be true that P-38s dropped 2000lb bombs on a sub pen (or tried to) but a lot of the existing reports I can find in avery quick search seem to disagree with each other.

Click to expand...

I tried to find a cite for this but couldn't find it one in this sitting, so I'm going from memory - always risky.

Toward the end if the Batttle of the Phillippine Sea, the Japanese fleet was retreating at high speed, and the Americans wanted to attack the retreating Japanese. The Americans did not have favorable winds for carrier operations in this situation. Instead of sending out bomb-laden TBFs which could carry extra fuel in a fusellage tank, the US sent F6Fs with a drop tank and a bomb (which would mean bombing from an a-symetrical configuration). The faster cruise-speed of the F6F meant that the the retreating Japanese wouldn't get as far before the strike arrived, and a shorter distance would be required to get back to the US carriers. Under these circumstances, the Hellcat actually had a higher effective strike radius than the Avenger. (The strike was not successful.)

Shortround6 said:

The ability of bomb carrying fighters to be "self defending" was not anywhere near as practical in reality as it was in theory.

Click to expand...

Mosquito FBVI did use a similar tactic to delay a pursuit. One of the defending options if the Germans were seen in time was for one section to ditch the bombs and drop tanks, turn into the German fighters and do a head on attack. Then not to dogfight, but just keep on going and run for home. The temporary delay this caused to the Germans who would evade for a short while at least try to go for the mosquitos that had attacked them, was often sufficient for the still bomb laden mosquito's to get away. A Mosquito that didn't want to get caught takes a lot of catching whatever you are in

Shortround6 said:

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.



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?


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").


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



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.

Click to expand...

P38 was just not ready yet and nor were the pilots. P38 consumed two turbo chargers, two motors and basically 2.25 single engine fighters.
Their deployment was in accordance to what could be done at the moment. 50 more P40 P39 or Wildcats would have given the Phillipines another 2 or 3 months. Maybe enough time to evacuate alot more guys and killed alot more Japanese, shot down a few more Japanese planes and sunk a few more Japanese ships. Now after typing this what if P38s were there just skycapping the airfields. Nice results from that seem more promising. Firepower in their could also eat up landing craft.

pinsog said:

You are 100% correct. I just said Wildcats to avoid the 'Buffaloes suck' comments and the thread going off on 'Buffaloes couldn't have stopped the attack because....'

Click to expand...

Kevin J said:

The British Buffaloes sucked if they had crap engines, too much fuel and faulty equipment. They did score victories. Beaufighters would have been better but like the Martlet, there weren't any there. Its a shame that we didn't have any of our Mohawks there. That would have been possible.

Click to expand...

What hurt the PoW and the Repulse the most was that Admiral Philips thought that radio silence was more important than air cover.
You could have had a wing of Gloster Meteors at Singapore, if they didn't know where the PoW and Repulse were and weren't called until the attack was underway they couldn't have done anything either.
10 Buffaloes may not have been enough to save both ships, or even one, but they never got the Chance.

Making a good dive bomber at all was very hard. The US Navy went through a bunch of unsuccessful designs before and after the start of the war. The SBD evolved from a Northrop design, the BT-1 which the navy wasn't entirely happy with but after some changes (BT-2), the Navy ordered iit as the SBD as a stop-gap. The stopgap status is reflected in the fact that the Navy didn't require folded wings. The SBD never got folded wings. I'm sure the Navy thought that the Curtiss SB2C with its interior bomb bay and powerful R2600 engine was the plane they wanted to go to war with. That's another story.

And not a short one.

pinsog said:

And how many SBD's were brought down by AA fire at Coral Sea, Midway and the Guadalcanal campaign? Very very few. Zeros were the problem, if you got past them the big ships were in serious trouble.

The attack on Force Z, Prince of Wales and Repulse, by Betty and Nell twin engine bombers cost the Japanese 4 planes. How would that attack have gone if 2 dozen Wildcats had been flying CAP? CAP was the main threat, not AA

Click to expand...

"Very very few" is not realistic.
At Midway, the SBDs arrived at a fortuitous time when the IJN carriers were in disarray, the IJN CAP was drawn down by the failed TBF attack and the fleet escort ships were out of formation. The B-26 that scared the sh!t out of Nagumo as it made a kamikaze attack on the Akagi had been shredded by their AA.

And speaking of Midway, Henderson field was named in honor of a SBD pilot who was killed by IJN AA during the attack on the Hiryu.

So while the IJN's AA may not have been as complete as the USN's, it was far from helpless.

GrauGeist said:

"Very very few" is not realistic.
At Midway, the SBDs arrived at a fortuitous time when the IJN carriers were in disarray, the IJN CAP was drawn down by the failed TBF attack and the fleet escort ships were out of formation. The B-26 that scared the sh!t out of Nagumo as it made a kamikaze attack on the Akagi had been shredded by their AA.

And speaking of Midway, Henderson field was named in honor of a SBD pilot who was killed by IJN AA during the attack on the Hiryu.

So while the IJN's AA may not have been as complete as the USN's, it was far from helpless.

Click to expand...

The Devastators made the SBD's "lucky". The brave and commited pilots drew the zros down to the deck absorbed th AA and died doing it.

GrauGeist said:

"Very very few" is not realistic.
At Midway, the SBDs arrived at a fortuitous time when the IJN carriers were in disarray, the IJN CAP was drawn down by the failed TBF attack and the fleet escort ships were out of formation. The B-26 that scared the sh!t out of Nagumo as it made a kamikaze attack on the Akagi had been shredded by their AA.

And speaking of Midway, Henderson field was named in honor of a SBD pilot who was killed by IJN AA during the attack on the Hiryu.

So while the IJN's AA may not have been as complete as the USN's, it was far from helpless.

Click to expand...

There is a HUGE difference between firing at B26's at sea level doing torpedo attacks and shooting at SBD's diving from altitude. Shortround is correct that the Japanese had no AA between 25mm and heavy AAA. They had 0 quick firing medium range weapons such as the 40mm Bofors on their ships. At least one of the Japanese carriers at Midway couldn't even fire directly upward, essiently if an SBD was diving on that carrier nothing besides maybe 25mm could even fire at it. 25mm AA guns on a ship are revenge weapons, the bomb has already been dropped. How do you know who killed that B26 that almost hit Nagumo's ship? The pilots may have been incapacitated by a Zero before the 25mm opened up in the final seconds. What is the reasonable range of a 25mm firing at a plane? 1000 yards? 500 yards?

During the all the attacks on the cruisers Mogami and Mikuma I believe they shot down exactly 1 Vindicator, not exactly a screaming success for the AA crews of 2 heavy cruisers and multiple destroyers.

Yes, the last torpedo strike at Midway pulled the Zeros down to low level, that is what the hypothetical P38 dive bomber would be about, avoiding Zeros. Japanese AA was a nuisance at best but not something that would stop a group of US Navy dive bombers.

Shortround6 said:

Trouble is that you can't just cruise over at 350 mph at 25,000ft and drop the bombs anymore than the B-17s could and hit anything.
You don't need to cruise that fast until you get to the area the CAP would be in. However you have no radar. You need to get a visual on the ships and that may be easier at a lower altitude.
Even the did dive bombers didn't use the dive brakes to slow them down. They opened the brakes before diving and the brakes prevented the build up of speed. So the P-38 dive bomber has to slow down to the desired air speed before popping the brakes. It has to be a suitable altitude. They may not work if deployed too high (plane may build up higher than desired speed before getting into the thicker air?) .
In any case to get the best accuracy you have to be diving at a speed slower than even a Zero dove at, you had to slow down to that speed before you entered the dive. You had to execute a 4G or higher pullout at the bottom of the dive, further bleeding off speed. You could then accelerate back up to a speed higher than the Zero could manage to make your getaway.
The Zero had a window of opportunity to engage a dive bombing P-38 if the P-38 was using dive flaps. It may not have been long but it did exist. If the CAP stayed close to the carriers they may well have been able to inflict losses.
If the P-38 uses higher dive speeds it has to start the pull out sooner and release the bombs higher meaning worse accuracy.
View attachment 539441

Now please note that at 340mph the plane is diving at just over 498 feet per second and the above diagram has a 500ft safety margin. Hold one second too long or make any other mistake and there is a good chance the plane hits the ground/water.
340mph in a dive will NOT keep a Zero from gaining on you, even the early ones.

Click to expand...

I'll go ahead and repeat that I agree that a P38 dive bomber would have been difficult or maybe impossible to build due to fitting true dive flaps big enough slow it down for proper dive bombing (same envelope as an SBD)

That being said, if by some miracle, some working monster sized dive flaps were attached that didn't hurt performance, here is how they, in my opinion would be used:

Take off, climb to 25,000 feet, cruise to enemy fleet at appropriate speed. Nearing enemy fleet, drop tanks are released, speed is increased to 350 mph. Instead of an asymmetrical bomb load, carry 2 500 pounders, one very tightly on each side of center nacelle. Doubtful Zeroes would be at 25,000 feet, if you see them, turn directly at them and make head-on firing pass. They can't turn around and catch you before your gone since you already have a speed advantage (350mph compared to 315ish at 25,000 feet). Cant see targets from 25,000? Cant pick out a target from 25,000? Ok, lower the nose and dive at a shallow angle down to 20,000 or 15,000 or 12,000, keep your speed around 400-425 mph whatever is controllable. A zero shouldn't be able to catch you. If they are lower than you, make a firing pass through them to scatter them, you are moving along at 400 plus, if they scatter they won't be able to catch you. pull out on the level at whatever altitude you want to dive from, pull back on throttles, flat pitch the props, deploy dive brakes while on the level until your speed is reduced to 300 mph, then roll over and dive on your target. The likelihood of a Zero being in the perfect position to intercept your group is very low since they don't have radar. Once in a steep dive (70 degree or whatever) you will make a difficult target for a Zero anyway. He can't roll at that speed so he will only have elevator and rudder to make corrections. When you pull out at 1800 feet 300 mph and level out at 500 feet or so, you pull up flaps and pin the throttle and run like mad. A Zero making a run on you has to worry about the whole string of P38's behind you, remember, your in a fighter. A P38 had great vision everywhere but down left and right. If a Zero is diving on you, while your doing 300 mph or more, he will have to be exceeding that to catch you, you will be able to see him, he won't be able to roll or turn. He would be easy to avoid. (In trials a P38 could out turn a Zero at high speed). If he is anywhere in front of you, you turn into him (4 50's and a 20mm, bring on a head on pass. Great view ahead, bring on deflection shooting).

Now, who would rather plod into the same scenario in an SBD (it was a great aircraft) at 180 mph? Zero see you before pushover point, they are already above you, if not they have time to get there if they are in any reasonable position. (If they can't get into position to attack an SBD then they sure as heck won't do it on a P38) They have plenty of time to make multiple attacks before you dive. You dive and pull out. What is max speed of an SBD at SL? 225 mph? I know it was 255 mph at 14,000. Would you rather run from a Zero at 225 mph or 340 mph? Would you rather do a head on attack with 2 50's or 4 50's and a 20 mm? How about a deflection shot?

In reality the dive bomber P38 wasn't built, may have been difficult, may have been impossible, but if it had been, that would be the way to fly and attack in it.