P-38 vs. Me109 and FW190

bobbysocks said:

very well could and probably is. i cant remember how bad his plane was beat up but if i remember correctly he was able to keep turning so the zeros had to make only head on passes and not able to get on his tail.

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Wish I remember the episode title; it's probably on YouTube. He did some kind of maneuver that put the Zero's right in front of him and were shot down, and this was a Dauntless, a dive bomber.

renrich said:

Swede Vjetsa(sp?) was the pilot of an SBD that reportedly shot down a Zero or two or three in one engagement. He later transferred to a VF squadron. The are a number of instances where SBDs in formation managed to shoot down or damage attacking Zeros with their forward or rear guns.

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And this may have been the man that bobbysocks and I are referring to. I'm going to try and find this on YouTube.

Ghostdancer said:

He did some kind of maneuver that put the Zeros right in front of him and were shot down, and this was a Dauntless, a dive bomber.

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Haven't seen it
but I'll wager it was something to do with deploying his dive brakes

Swede Vjetsa is friends with our own Dan (Les).

davebender said:

Late model Me-109s and Fw-190s were also improved. So it's not likely a P-38L will be encountering a Me-109E or Fw-190A3.

1942. P-38E. vs
Me-109F4 and early model Me-109G.
Fw-190A3 and Fw-190A4.

1943. P-38F /G/H. vs
Me-109G6.
Fw-190A5 and Fw-190A6.

1944. P-38J and P-38L. vs.
Late model Me-109Gs with engines producing up to 1,800 hp.
Fw-190A8.
Fw-190D9. Beginning September 1944.

.

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I agree with what you are pointing out. The early model P-38 was not as good of a fighter vs the foes that it had to deal with at the same time from the Luftwaffe. But the later mark J and L models, were far superior to the earlier P-38, and were up to the challenge of the later marks of the Fw or Me fighters.
The two key success pionts of the P-38 are: environment and altitude of engagement, and Japanese vs German advarsaries.
I don't think any of the Japanese planes were near the performance of the Luftwaffe aircraft, of the same time period. And in particular with the early P-38's, if the altitude at which the fight began was in the medium to lower altitudes, if was a much better aircraft. The Pacific theater put both of those two key points into the hands of the Lightning, and the Mediterranian theatre better favored the Lightning in altitude fought and temperature at which it flew, which I believe accounts for its better record as compared to fighting the Luftwaffe in Northern Europe.

The USAAF did not use the P-38 K because they were concerned that Allison could not deliver the engines and so the USAAF went with the P-38 L instead. This is from a book on the Lightning by Jeff Ethell.

Ghostdancer said:

I've heard different things about how the P-38 matched up to the FW190 and Me109. Some material states that the P-38 was inferior in most ways to both and others say the opposite.

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Based on my study of Shores, "Tunisia" book, the Germans were not initially overawed by the plane. Against just the 109/190 opposition i'm currenlty noting an approximate 3:1 exchange in favor of the Luftwaffe though in my opinion, I think the ratio is probably a tad bit below 3:1. The 38 drivers were agressive and listed many claims which made it seem like they were kicking a$$ and taking names.

kills i could confirm worked out as:

34 x 109 kills by P-38
3 x 190 kills by P-38

97 losses to 109's
13 losses to 190's

davebender said:

I expect they did. However you don't need an Uber fighter to defeat the relatively low performance A6M (Zero IJN fighter) and Ki-43 (Oscar IJA fighter).

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ouch.

scottmsw said:

The USAAF did not use the P-38 K because they were concerned that Allison could not deliver the engines and so the USAAF went with the P-38 L instead. This is from a book on the Lightning by Jeff Ethell.

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The P-38K was not ordered because of worries about shutting down the production line because of mods to the spinner and cowl, there was not a great difference between the V-1750-75/77 and other marks being produced. With all due respect to Ethell, I think in later years this was established as the reason why the P-38L never went anywhere. There is also possibilities that politics had some play in it as well.