P-38 Lightning vs P-51 Mustang: Which was the Better Fighter?

[swampyankee]

I am not an anti-Lightning person, but the fork tailed devil nickname is a propoganda myth. The Germans never actually nicknamed it that.

So, apparently, is "Whistling Death" for the Corsair.

 

[pbehn]

So, apparently, is "Whistling Death" for the Corsair.

Has anyone ever asked Shinpachi about this?

 

[redcoat]

In a dive, the P38 would reach subsonic speeds, the tail would flutter, and the P38 would go into a dive with all control stuck. The retrofit flaps were sent out, but the ones sent to England were shot down by an RAF pilot due to mistaken identity.

Only two were used by the 8th in Europe but due to the flaps constantly breaking they were soon exchanged for P-38's without these flaps
Source: The Mighty Eighth War Manual by Roger A. Freeman

 

[GrauGeist]

The enemy is rarely ever going to glorify their opponent's hardware with catchy names.

My great-Uncle, who flew P-38s in the PTO, called them "Fork-Tailed Devils" - the Germans typically referred to Allied aircraft by their names: Spitfire, Lightning, Mustang, Thunderbolt and so on.

 

[wuzak]

d_bader remarks the P-38 was inferior to German planes and I think a lot of experts would disagree. While it was probably inferior to the P-51 as a pure dog fighter it was superior in many ways to the best American and German planes. If memory serves me correctly Richard Bong was one of the highest ranking AmericanAces of WWII and he flew P-38s almost exclusively.

Of course, Richard Bong flew exclusively in the PTO, so he wouldn't have come across many enemy aircraft with similar levels of armour, performance and firepower.

 

[DarrenW]

The enemy is rarely ever going to glorify their opponent's hardware with catchy names.... the Germans typically referred to Allied aircraft by their names: Spitfire, Lightning, Mustang, Thunderbolt and so on.

Those names sound catchy enough to me....

 

[redcoat]

I am not an anti-Lightning person, but the fork tailed devil nickname is a propoganda myth. The Germans never actually nicknamed it that.

A nick-name that was attributed to the P-38 by the pilots of the USAAF 8th Air Force was the 'Ice-Box' due to its poor cockpit heating

There were several reasons they weren't used in the European theater, mostly due to bad circumstance. First, If you remember, the first batches of the P38's sent to England were early models, and they were not given superchargers. At that time, superchargers were a top secret thing, and they were afraid that the technology would be captured by the Germans if Germany invaded England. Because of that, they severely lacked power. England rejected them because they just didn't have enough power at altitude for that reason. Second, The British demanded they make several changes, like not wanting the propellers to rotate the same direction for commonality of parts. and as a third strike against them being used in the European theater was the fact they didn't have dive flaps.

The P-38's ordered by the British never saw combat in the ETO so they were not responsible for the bad rep the P-38 gained in Northern Europe while serving with the 8th Air Force.
The P-38's used by the 8th were standard models fitted with superchargers.

 

[swampyankee]

The P-38 was one of the innovative designs to see service; it was, alas, also one where the detailed design and flight testing were not well performed, which are some of the reason why it had numerous problems in the European Theatre of Operations -- the other was inadequate pilot training. Issues like inadequate cockpit heating and detonation at altitude should have been found and corrected before service entry. The problems with compressibility may be more forgivable, as the aerodynamic results of compressibility were not well understood, so they may not even have been looked for. The problems with pilot's crashing on engine failures were almost solely due to inadequate pilot training, which was the fault of the USAAF.

The other issue is that there were no missions that the P-38 could perform that the P-51, once it entered service, could not, and that the P-51 was less demanding of resources: the P-38 would cost close to twice as much to support as the P-51 and cost far more to purchase. In a strategic context, it's not whether you want a P-38 or a P-51; it's whether you want 500 P-38s or 1,000 P-51s.


So, P-51 or P-38?

P-51.

 

[Rudeontour]

Bunch of other prices for Aircraft (in thousands):
P36A- 23
P35A- 22.5
P39Q- 46
P40E- 45
A-36A (Allison Mustang Version) 49
P47D- 85
P-61C 170

Bombers:
B-17G 276
B-25B 96
a-20G 74
A-24A (Douglas SBD) 38.2K
B-24D 336
B-26G 227
C-47D- 138
C-46D- 223
B-29 639

All the prices came from the US Air Force Museam page. Here's a link:
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/air_power/ap.htm

wow curious as to why the B-24 cost soo much more than the b-17, really surprised by the cost of the c-47 as well, i would have thought the b-25 would have cost way more than the c-47

 

[swampyankee]

Another point for consideration:
Mustang $54,000 each (P51D)
Lightning $114,000 (P-38L)

When you get right down to it, it's all about the money.

Of course, the P-38 will also need more resources in the field: more maintenance, more spares, more fuel. The USAAF found out, the hard way, that more pilot training was also needed compared to the a single-engined aircraft.

When you add that the P-51 (and P-47) had very similar performance, the case for the P-38 was not strong.