...searching for the best USAAF interceptor... (1 Viewer)

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Tony, Eric,

I to, belive the Pilots accounts are important and would in no way dissmiss them. I do want to say though that when a pilot came from the Pacific to the ETO they all (at least those I've seen) were dissapointed in the lack of 300gal drop tanks that would have pushed the P-38s range to and beyond the P-51s. The lack of tactics to use the P-38 to its full potential, horrified them. One last thing that must be be added to the mix is the model of P-38 the pilots used prior to transition to the P-51. If it was from a P-38H model under the operating conditions in the ETO, Bad cruise technics, bad fuel, no training, cold cockpits - you've heard it all before, under those conditions the aircraft weren't a match for the P-51 once things were ironed out in the P-51. It easily could have worked the other way. Even Doolittle admitted that neither the P-47 or P-51 would have done any better starting first and from scratch that winter of '43/'44 (Warren Bodie P-38, in an interview with Doolittle). Many pilots like Heiden who flew P-38Ls and P-51s thought the 38 was better for combat.

They were all great aircraft, I think the P-38 was best but in the end it worked out, they all did a great job. After the war economics took over. In peace time cheeper is always the final word!

wmaxt
 
Wmaxt, Erich indicated that the P-47 was better than the P-38 at handling the late war, high performance German fighters.

What tactics would have aided the P-38 that were not used by the P-47? Both fighters, to be effective, needed to utilize boom 'n zoom team tactics and since most all ETO pilots cut their teeth on the P-47, those tactics were well known and widely employed.

Generally, the tactics of the Japs were inferior to those of the Germans who worked well together as a team. You make it seem as though the Japanese were high tacticians and that the piloting of the P-38 in the PTO reflected that and that when the Americans moved over to the ETO, the Americans were slogging along without the benefit of having honed their skills against a frankly superior foe.
 
Marshall_Stack said:
I meant the XP-67 having turbocharged Allisons whould have been nice.

Yes, you are right. Lockheed built an improved version of the P-38 powered with the Continental XIV-1430's as the XP-49, and it didn't even perform as well as a P-38J. So, I think it is safe to say that the XP-67 probably would have been better with turbocharged V-1710's.
 
Gee Tony I always figured these forums were to discuss alternate possibilities and exhange data on some lesser known aircraft and events during the war not to argue.

Gun camera film of strafing runs has no validity of comparison in attacking bomber boxes. Opening fire at optimum range peering through your gunsight which tells where your guns are harmonized is what fighter pilots did everywhere. Every BoB bomber mentioned above was in actuality shot down by RAF fighters with little .303s even if some did limp home! That logic is like saying the Zertorers' massive armament wasn't effective against B-17s simply becaue some made it home damaged. Why would 8 fifties be less effective? Yes do look at gun camera footage and you'll see scads of twin engined A/C falling to the P-47's firepower. I have never met a P-47 pilot that ever mentioned he was poorly armed.

V-1710 That was a pretty bizarre fighter wasn't it? It always looked like some Popular Mechanix illustrator designed it.
 
Jank said:
Wmaxt, Erich indicated that the P-47 was better than the P-38 at handling the late war, high performance German fighters.

What tactics would have aided the P-38 that were not used by the P-47? Both fighters, to be effective, needed to utilize boom 'n zoom team tactics and since most all ETO pilots cut their teeth on the P-47, those tactics were well known and widely employed.

Generally, the tactics of the Japs were inferior to those of the Germans who worked well together as a team. You make it seem as though the Japanese were high tacticians and that the piloting of the P-38 in the PTO reflected that and that when the Americans moved over to the ETO, the Americans were slogging along without the benefit of having honed their skills against a frankly superior foe.

The majority of Pilots that transitioned from P-38s to P-51s did so from early versions of the P-38. A quote from Art Heiden

"Nothing, to these pilots, after the hard winter of '43/'44 could be more beautiful than a P-38L out rolling and tailgating a German fighter straight down, following a spin of split-s or whatever gyration a startled, panicked and doomed German might attempt to innate. You just couldn't get away from a P-38L. Whatever the German could do the P-38L could do better."

Or

"The P-51 was a new plane and we were eager to fly it and were happy with it. It was so easy and comfortable to fly. The P-38 kept us on our toes and constantly busy-far more critical to fly. We were disappointed with the 51s rate of climb and concerned with the reverse stick, especially if fuel was in the fuselage tank, a rash of rough engines from fouled plugs, and cracked heads which dumped coolant. With the 38 you could be at altitude before landfall over the continent, but with the 51 you still had a lot of climbing to do. The P-38 was an interceptor and if both engines were healthy, you could outclimb anyother airplane, and thats what wins dogfights. When your in a dogfight below the treetops, it is way more comfortable in a 38 with its power and stall characteristics, and for that matter at any altitude."

Or Robert Carey

"I was never worried for one minute that if I had to tangle with the Luftwaffe, I was going to be at a dissadvantage, because the airplane (P-38) could just outperform them."

Granted there is some exaggeration here but its clear how they felt Carey site is P-38 Lightning Pilot Briefs: Robert Carey and Heiden's is at http://home.att.net/~ww2aviation/P-38-2.html

Twitch,

Cruise technics in Europe were high rpm/low manifold pressure this was not good on the engines, causing cool oil temps, lead precipitation, made the cold cockpit worse. In the Pacific/Aleutions they used Higher pressure, lower rpm did not have either the extream cold in the cockpits or the engine issues experienced in Europe and it gets as cold on the ground in the Aleutions as it did at altitude in Europe. BTW this also saves fuel extending range. I've already noted that in Europe the 300 gal drop tanks were never used. Pilots from the Pacific comment of flying technics like differential throttle that were almost unknown in Europe. Training is another issue, In Europe transition was often a few flights in the new aircraft and let them go for it. Many pilots of P-38s in Europe had as little as 20 hours in type and no twin engined training at all. In the Pacific it was normal for new pilots to be orientated and trained a bit prior to combat, this was a policy in the 5th AF. The Robert Carey link above will put some incite on P-38 attitudes in Europe.

I'm not contending the P-38 it the greatest ever, I was a very good aircraft, in my opinion, the best AAF fighter in WWII and one of the best piston fighters ever. The others were great to, and certainly in the ball park, just not quite there.

wmaxt
 
Hey guys how are you?
For some it's been quite a while…
I think this is definitely Wmaxt's perfect p-38 thread…
Delcyros is owed thanks by all P-38 lovers everywhere; he hit the nail smack on the head.

There were plenty of 'experimental' toys in the mid '43 (the time limit in this tread) US arsenal…Some were called front line fighters, but the '38, '39 or P-40 was all an army flyboy could look forward too. The Army, well fer now lets put aside the '38; did have brand spanking new P-47Cs that were just being delivered, as of March… no paddle-blades yet either… So they were almost ready; still not quite in her 'fighting duds', even the pilots manual called the 7th and 8th gun optional. The P-51 was still the A-36. The last of the initial ordered 500 Apaches were delivered in March of '43. The B was in service some months later, it may be argued that they were not in number 'till early '44, the early 'Packard-Merlin' didn't really work well, the guns that jammed during high G-turns of course stayed that way… Nope she was definitely under development.

So this seemingly innocent question is a real doosie, as we actually were using fighters in defensive roles at the time, as interceptors, they actually were P-39s or P-40s; or they were P-38s. Now she had her fair share of problems, but if you weren't flying a reverse lend lease Spitfire, you may have had to face a few FW-190s in your 'Cobra' or 'Hawk'… So what's left…?

The Navy was taking fresh Hellcats, the Marines Corsairs, but likely you were in a Wildcat. The Hellcat was a fine bird with no real problems, but it was too slow… The F4U in mid '43 was probably a bird cage type, or a fresh, still warm from the oven; a glazed F4U. She had the speed…but at best a marginal climb rate and high altitude performance for the task of interceptor, at least in mid '43, unless you were a '39 or '40 or Wildcat pilot.

Now is there anything else? …Only the '38; only the Lightning, we put her aside, good thing.

Now if we only had another 6 months….
 
Twitch said:
Gun camera film of strafing runs has no validity of comparison in attacking bomber boxes. Opening fire at optimum range peering through your gunsight which tells where your guns are harmonized is what fighter pilots did everywhere.

Attacking ground targets was actually easier because the targets were only moving slowly or not at all. That removed one of the problems affecting accurate shooting. In aerial combat, unless you were exactly behind your target, your fire would be 'sprayed', not concentrated, as the target moved across your sights.

Furthermore, it was very difficult for a pilot to fly his plane and concentrate on keeping the sights exactly on target - the sights would 'drift' during a burst of fire (the RAF called this 'aim wander') and the longer the burst, the more they would drift. Once again, having a spraying effect.

Finally, the USAAF fighter guns were not generally harmonised at one distance, but each pair was set to a different distance. This meant that some guns would be harmonised to the sights at all normal ranges, but that there wouldn't be any one range at which they were all concentrated. Of course, in attacking a bomber there would be a significant closing speed anyway, which would mean that the range would be constantly shortening, affecting the pattern of fire.

Put those three factors together and you can see why I was dismissive of your claimed 'three foot square' of concentrated fire over three seconds.

Every BoB bomber mentioned above was in actuality shot down by RAF fighters with little .303s even if some did limp home! That logic is like saying the Zertorers' massive armament wasn't effective against B-17s simply becaue some made it home damaged. Why would 8 fifties be less effective? Yes do look at gun camera footage and you'll see scads of twin engined A/C falling to the P-47's firepower. I have never met a P-47 pilot that ever mentioned he was poorly armed.
It's basically a percentage issue. Yes, of course many Luftwaffe bombers were shot down in the BoB. However, it is clear that on average this took a lot of effort and many bullets - the RAF was desperate to get the Hispano cannon into service. The more powerful your armament, the shorter the burst of fire you need, and that helps enormously if you also have escort fighters to deal with - you don't want to be sitting behind your bomber pouring fire into it (and being a sitting duck yourself) for any longer than you have to.

I notice you refer to 'twin-engined bombers' and that's significant. The bigger the bombers, the more destruction you needed to achieve to knock them out of the sky. Look at it this way - a .50 bullet was about four times heavier than a .303 and had a slightly higher velocity so, other things being equal, it would do four to five times the damage (the calculated difference being 4.6x). So allowing for their lower rate of fire, eight .50s would inflict damage at three times the rate of eight .303s.

A Heinkel III (the most common bomber in the BoB) weighed around 10,000 kg loaded, whereas the He 177 weighed 30,000 kg. In other words, a P-47 would have had as much trouble shooting down an He 177 as the RAF fighters had in shooting down the He 111. A Boeing B-17 weighed slightly more than the He 177, a B-29 almost twice as much. Of course, this is a bit simplistic - late-war bombers carried far better armour protection than the German planes in the BoB, so would have been much more difficult to shoot down.

Taking that into consideration, perhaps you appreciate why the Germans and Japanese were moving up to 30mm cannon to deal with the heavy bombers. I don't doubt that the P-47 could have shot heavy bombers down, it's just that on average they would have had to spend a very long time pouring shed-loads of ammo into them.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum
 
Some additional evidence for you to consider - an extract from Flying Guns – World War 2: Development of Aircraft Guns, Ammunition and Installations 1933-45:

The Germans soon discovered that shooting down a big bomber such as a B 17 or B 24 was by no means easy. The examination of wrecks showed that few had less than twenty hits by 20 mm rounds; the synchronised machine guns carried by Bf 109s and Fw 190s were irrelevant. The Luftwaffe had used gun cameras to study armament effectiveness since the Spanish Civil War, and after the outbreak of WWII a team under Dr. Theodor W. Schmidt began to analyse all gun camera footage. The conclusion was that a pilot of average ability hit the target with less than 2% of the projectiles he fired. That implied that on average 1000 rounds [of 20 mm] had to be fired to bring down a B 17, but even a Fw 190 carried only 500 rounds for its four cannon.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum
 
Look, every ace I've ever interviewed knew at what range his guns were harmonized and in as many instances as possible they let loose on target at that range. This goes for Germans, British and Americans. USAF weapons were harmonized wherever the crew chief and the pilot agreed to have them converge. Factory settings had little effect on it. You can disagree with the 3 foot square convergence pattern all you want by pilots and crewmen have acknowledged that basic setting for harmonization for me repeatedly over the years. It's been described in published narrative also. Of course one distance is optimum for convergence and varying ranges presented themselves all the time so shots were taken. P-47 pilots and others that were 50-100 yards behind opponents would actually kick rudder to skid so as 4 of their guns were firing point blank on target while the other 4 went astray.

Making firing passes in an energy fighter is what it was all about. No one fired at bomber boxes from oblique angles as they pass before the fighter or dunced in from six o'clock at the same speed to get better aim. Firing passes were made slashingly from above diving down from the front or rear of the formation. Only green kids opened fire too far away.

There was nothing on the Luftwaffe inventory roster that could not be shot down by a P-47 including the huge FW Condor. Ju 88s, Do 17s, He 111s and assorted twin engine bombers were destroyed, as it was, ALL THE TIME. The He 177 was no more than a twin with coupled engines in one nacelle and offered no bulk and size advantage. Hit one nacelle- kill 2 engines- convenient. P-38s downed FW 200s regularly.

The Japanese were dealing with B-29s and Germans the B-24s and B-17s hence the heavy guns. The Germans and Japanese had NO equivilant that would have been a difficulty for the P-47 or any other fighter to shoot down. To invent fantasy heavies that didn't exist and couldn't be shot down is frivilous at least.

Eight fifties with 34 seconds of combined API fire were quite adequate for anything the P-47 encountered. Name a legitimate Axis bomber in service that it couldn't have killed. You can't because there are none. Since its seems dry statistics and data are paramount over the human factor please note the weight of fire produced by the P-47's 8 M2s was far in excess of almost all other aircraft in mass production with very few exceptions. And there is no denying that many fighters with much less muzzle power than the P-47, like the A6M2 or Ki 84 and the Bf 109 G-6 or K-4 without Rüsätze, successfully shot down Allied heavy bombers. Cockpit areas were ravaged by Axis pilots from ahead and above passes as the most successful way of neutralizing heavy bombers. Why wouldn't that be effective for Thunderbolts even if the Japanese and Germans did have some pretend 4 engine bombers?

Sorry but with all due respect, to state that the Jug could NOT shoot down a "heavy" bomber is just wrong, everyone knows it and contradicts all the gee-whiz stats anyhow.
 
Twitch said:
You can disagree with the 3 foot square convergence pattern all you want by pilots and crewmen have acknowledged that basic setting for harmonization for me repeatedly over the years.
I suggest you read my post, where I explain about the various reasons why the actual fire hitting the target was not concentrated, regardless of what the harmonisation on the ground might have been. Those are two separate issues.

The Japanese were dealing with B-29s and Germans the B-24s and B-17s hence the heavy guns. The Germans and Japanese had NO equivilant that would have been a difficulty for the P-47 or any other fighter to shoot down. To invent fantasy heavies that didn't exist and couldn't be shot down is frivilous at least.
The entire basis of the original post was hypothetical: it raised the question of the ideal interceptor for the USA if it were subject to bomber attack - which we know was impossible. So if we are assuming a defence against such attacks, we have to assume the heavy bombers to carry it out.

Sorry but with all due respect, to state that the Jug could NOT shoot down a "heavy" bomber is just wrong, everyone knows it and contradicts all the gee-whiz stats anyhow.
You really didn't read my post did you? if you had, you would have read the following: "I don't doubt that the P-47 could have shot heavy bombers down, it's just that on average they would have had to spend a very long time pouring shed-loads of ammo into them."

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum
 
The axis powers never had a heavy bomber similar in capability to what the allies possesed. The "bombers" they had were more of the medium type. P38's and P47's shot down plenty of -88's and Betty's. The P47's eight fifties shredded these bombers and the -38's concentrated firepower was just as deadly.

Perhaps if the axis had heavy bombers as rugged as the allied types, then perhaps the theory of US Armourment as being inadequate would have been proven true.

So the main issue here, would the -38 or the -47 be THE interceptor of choice in 1942 and 1943.

My vote is for the -38 simply because of its climb capabilitites and long loitering time.
 
Perhaps if the axis had heavy bombers as rugged as the allied types, then perhaps the theory of US Armourment as being inadequate would have been proven true.

Piaggio 108 was extremely rugged. Accounts of 100+ mg strikes with fin being shot to pieces but able to be repaired by next day.

The problem with machine guns is that they make holes. The sole advantage of the 0.5" is that it makes a larger hole than the 0.303" I'm sure the P-47 could shoot down enemy bombers, but probably not within a 3-second pass. Cannons make the job massively easier.
 
red admiral said:
Piaggio 108 was extremely rugged. Accounts of 100+ mg strikes with fin being shot to pieces but able to be repaired by next day.

The problem with machine guns is that they make holes. The sole advantage of the 0.5" is that it makes a larger hole than the 0.303" I'm sure the P-47 could shoot down enemy bombers, but probably not within a 3-second pass. Cannons make the job massively easier.

Bullets also tumble on impact and break things in the way. They also have a way of penetrating into engines and making holes for oil and coolant to leak out of.

Look at it this way, a -47 with eight .50's will be spraying lead all over the place occasionally putting a hole in some vital equipment or people. At a short instance in time, the convergence of the guns will ensure a large chunk of metal is blasted out. On the other hand, a -38 guns will act like a hack saw and just cut to pieces anything in its way.

And noone has ever compared the Piaggio to the -17 and -29 for shear strength and rubbedness.
 
Syscon3 said, "So the main issue here, would the -38 or the -47 be THE interceptor of choice in 1942 and 1943.

My vote is for the -38 simply because of its climb capabilitites and long loitering time."


I agree but would add the superior weapons layout.
 
"The P-51 was still the A-36. The last of the initial ordered 500 Apaches were delivered in March of '43. The B was in service some months later, it may be argued that they were not in number 'till early '44, the early 'Packard-Merlin' didn't really work well, the guns that jammed during high G-turns of course stayed that way… Nope she was definitely under development."

The XP-51 was the first of the series, they were the fourth and tenth NA-73/NA-83 off the production line. And were tested by the USAAC at Wright Field.

The U.S then held back 57 Mustang Mk.IA destined for Great Britain. These cannon armed Mustangs became the P-51. They were modified with K-24 cameras and were then designated the F-6A, but were also known as the P-51-1. With the 68th Observation Group F-6As performed the first operational USAAF Mustang sorties of the war.

The first order for the Mustang from the USAAF was for the NA-97, or A-36A. These arrived in Morroco with the 27th and 86th Fighter-Bomber Groups in April 1943.

The P-51A then followed the A-36A. Arriving in the CBI with the 311th Fighter-Bomber Group. The planes first combat operation was on 23 November 1943 with 23rd Fighter Group.

JonJ, the P-51 was the P-51 first and A-36 second.
 
Climb and firepower are the two most important features of a good interceptor. You have to give it to the P-38. Everyone knows Jugs couldn't climb. They dived good, though.
 
While I love both planes the P-47Cs and Ds with the padddle blades could hit 30,000 in 13 minutes. I don't call that bad climbing.
Dunno.gif
 
Still slower than a P-63A - 25,000 feet in 7.3 minutes :p . And that could presumably have been significantly boosted if required, judging by what was done to the Allison engine in the P-38.

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum
 

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