Wasn't the P-51 the best escort fighter of the war?

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P-39 Expert said:
The P-38 did cost twice as much as the P-51. More than twice as much. Not including over twice the maintenance.

That Griffon Spitfire has a listed top speed of 447mph in wwiiaircraft. The top speed of a P-38H was 403mph. All that turning is wasted when the Griffon Spitfire just leaves and the P-38H can't catch it.

Regarding the Mustang vs Lightning dogfight you better check your climb figures for a P-51B. It will substantially outclimb all but the very latest P-38J/L. And those weren't available until after D-day when air superiority had already been won in Europe. By the time the P-38J-25 and L were in combat they had been relegated to ground attack in the ETO.

If the Lightning (and Thunderbolt) were so great why were they displaced in the escort role by the P-51?
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Resp:
I think you need to re-read some of your comments. What I, and many others are trying to convey . . . is that both the P-38 AND P-47 were very good for the 'time period' of WWII. You said that the P-38 shouldn't have been made! What was the USAAF to use in its place? The P-39? The Merlin P-51 began to have an effect during the closing days of 1943, did really only affect 1944 and 5 MO's of 1945 in the ETO. Didn't really effect the Pacific until mid-to-late 1944, and that was only the USAAF, the Pacific being more of a Naval football game. I am a big fan of the P-51, particularly the Malcolm hood B/C models.
P-38Fs were ferried across the Atantic (usually 6 Lightnings with one or two B-17s to navigate) to be the first fighters in USAAF service to reach England. Yes, there were some P-47s fitted with large ferry tanks, but the numbers were far less. The highest scoring American ETO ace flew a P-47. The two highest scoring American SWP Aces flew P-38s! What fighter could have flown the long distant mission in place of the P-38 in the Yamamoto 'shootdown?'
 
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FLYBOYJ said:
And cast them aside when they served their purpose.
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Yup, just like Dowding and Churchill I suppose. I just heard an idiotic discussion about the values and morals of Tyson Fury as a "role model" he is a boxer, he boxes. Do you want to win or not? The world changes, we need people like them when we need them, we shouldn't forget what they did, or change our view of our need.
 
pbehn said:
In two separate polls the P-51 was voted both the most over rated and under rated aircraft of WW2. Maybe it is the most talked about. As a Brit, all USA types outperformed the Hurricane, but they didnt in the summer of 1940. They all did their "bit" in the conflict, it is a matter of opinion whose was the most significant and sometimes looks sways opinion in what should be a factual discussion.
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Resp:
It is my understanding that the Hawker Hurricane had the highest kills during the Battle of Britain; a very significant fighter at a very crucial time when England stood alone. The reason a photo of one hangs on the wall in my home.
 
Darnold said:
I've followed this forum for a number of years, weekly getting forum updates. I've even posted a few times, nothing spectacular or controversial, but I've been silent for the last 4yrs. For some reason I couldn't log on to post this so I had to register...again. With that all written...

I am still amazed at the bias that goes on here. That bias is especially strong against the P51. It has started to become nauseating to see people pull selective data, or even worst, inaccurate data to make virtually every other WWII fighter from 1942 onwards better than the Mustang. I laugh at the constantly purported concept that wing loading alone determined turning ability, only for those people to then use the gross weight of one plane and compare it to the empty weight of another. 🤣 Another one that's frequently bantered is stall speed as THE definitive indicator of turning capability throughout the entire performance envelope of all altitudes, speeds, loadings, and configurations. Or another crazy comparison happens when people use the service date, or design date, or even the genealogical order to compare fighters so that they can move one marquee with a decided advantage into play against another and declare their favorite the winner.
The funny thing though is that every human has bias, the key is to admit it, and then be open to being inaccurate, or only having a part of the picture so that we can learn from each other. There's no problem with healthy debate, but it seems like it's long past being healthy debate around here.
It's gotten to the point that the forum seems to only have a small percentage (20-30% to me) of very Sage contributors who are a delight to read and learn from, and a somewhat large percentage of very biased posters who turn most comparisons into a "who's group yelled/posted for their belief and logic algorithm format the most" exercise. All done to enable their bias to be deemed as the "Truth". I've come close to cancelling being here for a few years, but the Sage ones keep me coming back refreshing me with their data, real world experiences, and deeper insights.
In the end let's all remember that no one plane was THE best at everything.
There was no one plane that was THE best dogfighter at every altitude and performance envelope strata, no one plane was THE best fighter-bomber (couldn't all of them carry some bomb payload 🤣), or THE best for the entire, or rest of , our beyond the war. 🤣🤣🤣
They all had mission profiles that they were designed to, and some were better at it than others. And with that in mind no one that is knowledgeable would say that the Mustang was the best at everything, that's for sure.
What I've gathered from my own literature reviews, and what I've gleaned from most of the Sage people on the forum is that the Mustang was overall the best from 43' - 45' at what it wound up being enabled to do with a better engine than it was originally given: long range escort. It turned tight enough to turn with its enemy (better at many of the altitudes it faced them at), had enough maneuverability to react and engage its enemy throughout its performance envelope, with enough firepower to down them. And it was pretty much the only fighter that had the range to escort the heavies to their deepest targets, fight over and coming back from those targets, and land at home. That's why it's typically been referred to as the best escort fighter of the war. That doesn't mean it was the best at everything, all of the time, and in every situation. To say that this isn't accurate is problematic at the least. The Jug was the most rugged fighter with enough maneuverability to really mix it up with the event and provide cover for the distances it could travel. The Fork Tail Devil could hammer in a turn long enough to shoot down a zero at lower altitudes, and the Corsair in my opinion was the "Mustang" of the Pacific theater and it's lower operating altitudes. The Hellcat was a dream to fly and really matched the zero, and it could do it from the deck, while the Spit was a pilot's plane that Badger and Johnson said you literally write the wings on your back. The Messerschmidt was beautiful and deadly, a German "pre-type Mustang " for me, and the Butcher Bird was a wonderfully elastic plane that was extremely adaptable and capable.
They were all great.
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I'm a little puzzled. Off the top of my head I cant think of a single regular here, even those who may feel the p51 is over rated( by some) even beyond its impressive capabilities, that doesn't think the Mustang is a great plane and in most cases probably indeed the best overall escort of the war.
Yes some may feel that the well deserved stellar reputation of the p51 unfairly overshadows other deserving types in the minds of too much of the public but that does not make them anti p51.
All data, unless one posts every piece of such that pertains to a specific type or types and multiple practical examples of how it affected combat situations(basically a long book) in a post, will be selective by definition.
Not sure where this nauseating bias to which you refer is. I've been here for several years now and haven't seen it.
Is it possibly you could have read stuff on another site and got it confused?
 
michael rauls said:
I'm a little puzzled. Off the top of my head I cant think of a single regular here, even those who may feel the p51 is over rated( by some) even beyond its impressive capabilities, that doesn't think the Mustang is a great plane and in most cases probably indeed the best overall escort of the war.
Yes some may feel that the well deserved stellar reputation of the p51 unfairly overshadows other deserving types in the minds of too much of the public but that does not make them anti p51.
All data, unless one posts every piece of such that pertains to a specific type or types and multiple practical examples of how it affected combat situations(basically a long book) in a post, will be selective by definition.
Not sure where this nauseating bias to which you refer is. I've been here for several years now and haven't seen it.
Is it possibly you could have read stuff on another site and got it confused?
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Resp:
I am a little puzzled also. I learned a long time ago, that if you wake up in the morning . . . and you are looking to be offended . . . then chances are you will find someone before the day is out. My butt has been on the burner on this site . . . but even though this is in English, points made are not always understood or accepted. I don't mind being corrected, as many times I am in error. I didn't join this blog to be "the expert." I usually learn something I didn't know each day. This is what it is all about. "Here endith the Lesson!"
 
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Hairog said:
Don't know where to start. How about the myth that the P-38 was twice as costly as the Mustang. I would argue that you have to add in the costs of ...
1. cost of retooling for P-51 parts Why do you think that the fully burdened PRICE charged to AAF for the airframe was not absorbing engineering, management and production overhead. If you still think so - trot out your data.
2. cost of building new factories If you are talking about Dallas, it was funded by the government and initially devoted to first AT-6 and then B-24 before Mustang
3. engineering costs to solve the problem of the tails falling off or the wrong engine etc. ???? Not very high but all engineering hours were collected and allocated into the costs. As NAA did not increase the price, only decreased the price for the Mustang, the only thing NAA had to worry about was the profit margin of a fixed price airframe.
4. cost of training workers to run the new machinery used to build the parts. See above. FWIIW the original labor hours for the NA-73 were ~ 12,000 per ship. For the P-51D it was just north of 2000 hours.
5. cost of new warehousing ??? Open air on the tarmac at Dallas and Inglewood. Cheap.
6. cost of training new pilots to replace the ones that didn't come home due to their engine being damaged. Aren't you leaving out a little detail if you are comparing air to air and air to ground losses perhaps in ETO where the P-38 and P-51 were competing exactly against the same enemy? P-38 = 1.5 to 1; P-51 8:1 to 1. So, for 100 engagements on that scale the P-38 with 2 engines just didn't cut the mustard and the 8th AF shed them as quickly as possible to 9th and 15th as spares. The two engines didn't help proportionately for strafing survivability.
7. cost to the morale of those remaining pilots at losing their friends. Now I know you're just trolling. See the smiling happy faces of 20, 55th, 364th and 479th FG pilots that ditched their P-38s and got the P-51 to fly instead?
8. cost to the families who lost sons, brothers, fathers needlessly Wow.

Just a few stories and facts from this source... The P-38 (C.C. Jordan; MakinKid; CDB100620)

I know Corey - damn fine guy and knowledgeable, perhaps a little biased re: P-38. The narratives below should really include Col Jack Jenkins 55th FG CO who wrote a blistering letter to VIII FC detailing the myriad of ETO survival issues posed by flying the P-38 in combat. OBTW he was shot down by flak with his two engine, redundant survivability P-38.

"During the late winter of 1944 occurred the famous dual between a
Griffon-engined Spitfire XV and a P-38H of the 364FG.

This is a complete Fairy Tale. First, the last mission flown in a P-38 by the 364th FG was a P-38J-15 in late July 1944. Henceforth all combat missions of the 365=4th FG were in P-51B/D/K to EOW. Given that a.) The 364th did not fly the P-38H on its first Mission 3 March 1944. They had long been replaced by the P-38J-10 and -15. Given those facts you should be able to deduce that someone was 'mis-informed' or perhaps 'memory failed'. ?

Col. Lowell few the
P-38, engaging the Spitfire at 5,000 ft. in a head-on pass. Lowell was
able to get on the Spitfire's tail and stay there no matter what the
Spitfire pilot did. Although the Spitfire could execute a tighter turning
circle than the P-38, Lowell was able to use the P-38's excellent stall
characteristics to repeatedly pull inside the Spit's turn radius and ride
the stall, then back off outside the Spit's turn, pick up speed and cut
back in again in what he called a "cloverleaf" maneuver.
More BS unless the Spit pilot was a complete moron. First the Spit XIV out accelerated, out climbed, out turned, out dived the P-38J/L (and the P-51B/D). As Ralph Parr once said of the Mig 15 "usually one of those will work for you". When a P-38 driver goes dirty to increase instantaneous turn rate for a desperation deflection shot, he is slow and dirty and dead if his maneuver didn't work. Offhand I can't think of one performance attribute other than range and bomb load that gave any advantage to the P-38?

After 20 minutes
of this, at 1,000 ft. altitude, the Spit tried a Spit-S (at a 30-degree
angle, not vertically down). Lowell stayed with the Spit through the
maneuver, although his P-38 almost hit the ground. After that the
Spitfire pilot broke off the engagement and flew home. This contest was
witnessed by 75 pilots on the ground."

I didn't bother rebutting the deathless prose, too much to deal with. Suffice to say that the combat loaded P-38 (ANY Version) could bot remotely keep pace with combat loaded P-51B/D from SL through 36K where they were approximately equal. Climb rate advantage remained with P-38 if you could find one that solved all the intercooler/oilcooler/turbo issues that hung around through May 1944.


The bottom line is that the P-38 was one hell of a fine airplane. It was
complex for its day, and required the pilot to spend some time with it before
he was fully qualified to take advantage of its capabilities. But once he
understood the airplane and how to use it, there was no other fighter in the
air that could match the P-38."
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You obviously spent a lot of time on your post.
 
drgondog said:
You obviously spent a lot of time on your post.
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You beat me to it, I was just about to say all that, honest. I couldn't find the conversion rate between brute horsepower and horsepower, I figured it is like miles and nautical miles but even Google doesn't give a "hit". BTW fighter versions of the B-17 had over 4,000BHP available which was of no importance whatever in combat.
 
Hairog said:
"During the late winter of 1944 ocurred the famous dual between a
Griffon-engined Spitfire XV and a P-38H of the 364FG. Col. Lowell few the
P-38, engaging the Spitfire at 5,000 ft. in a head-on pass. Lowell was
able to get on the Spitfire's tail and stay there no matter what the
QUOTE]
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Not being one to split hairs, well no worse than Mrs Hair Splitter from Hairsplit street. County Splytairs. But there was no XV version of the Spitfire, the XV was a post war Griffon engine Seafire. "The Supermarine Seafire Mk.XV was the first Griffon powered version of the Seafire to be produced, entering service just too late to reach the front line during the Second World War. The Seafire Mk.XV borrowed features from four versions of the Spitfire. It had the fuselage of the Spitfire V as used on the Seafire III, the wing-root fuel tanks from the Spitfire IX, the enlarged fin and rudder and retractable tail wheel of the Spitfire VIII and the Griffon engine installation of the Spitfire XII. The folding wings were taken from the Seafire III." from Supermarine Seafire Mk.XV
 
Well I have a question, how do you think the P51 P38 and P47 would stack up against the Spitfire MkXIV and Tempest II/V in a hypothetical British V American BoB with Dowding and Park still in charge?. I'm thinking Park would still use his stripping away the enemy tactic with Spits up high and Tempests low and mozzies with 8 or 10 hispano's in the nose to handle the bombers or even a pair of bofors with drum magazines armed with mine shells in the bomb bay, it would be nasty in every sense of the word that's no doubt.
 
Navalwarrior said:
Resp:
The P-51H point is moot, as their only participation in WWII was on the flight deck of a carrier enroute to SWP when the war ended.
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No it isn't because the comparison was not restricted to only those planes that saw combat. The comparison was P-38 vs P-51, and the last time I checked, the P-51H model was still a P-51...
 
Darnold said:
*SNIP*

It's gotten to the point that the forum seems to only have a small percentage (20-30% to me) of very Sage contributors who are a delight to read and learn from, and a somewhat large percentage of very biased posters who turn most comparisons into a "who's group yelled/posted for their belief and logic algorithm format the most" exercise.

*SNIP*

What I've gathered from my own literature reviews, and what I've gleaned from most of the Sage people on the forum is that the Mustang was overall the best from 43' - 45'

*SNIP*
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Wish I could be an old Sage instead of just old. :(
 
grampi said:
No it isn't because the comparison was not restricted to only those planes that saw combat. The comparison was P-38 vs P-51, and the last time I checked, the P-51H model was still a P-51...
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Resp:
Ok, my mistake. I'll stay out of your theoretical discussion.
 
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