What if: Mosquito vs P-38

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Post #123

tomo, Greg is using the number of a/c shot down, thus in the ETO, the Mossie was the more effective fighter as it shot down more a/c.

One could ask your question for the PTO.
 
I was asking about the numbers of P-38s that were to make those 497 kills in ETO, it's not stated neither at the post 123 (typo?) nor 133. Ditto for Mossie.
Along with what type of their targets we are dealing with - 300 mph twins for Mossie, 400 mph singles for p-38?
 
It sounds like much too simplistic an approach. For instance we know that in the ETO almost as soon as the P-38 showed up in any numbs at all they were shuffled off to the MTO to support Operation Torch and that the actual build up of P-38 units in the ETO was slow to non-existent for a while as most/all new P-38s were sent to replace/reinforce the units in North Africa and then into Italy. Months passed between the P-38 "showing up" in Europe and combat operations being undertaken in any numbers in Europe because the Majority of the P-38s NOT in the Pacific were in the Med.
Same goes for the night fighter role. With something like only 75 P-38s equipped with radar and those late in the war the P-38 simply had no opportunity to prove itself one way or the other as a night fighter with combat results.
 
My primary sources are as below.

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AIR 50/164 - 256
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MS
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Tried to post supporting sources, board wouldn't take the post.
 
the value of comparating claims is zero, first that are claims, second how many fighters claimed that numbers? i.e. if 300 P-38 kills 500 E.A. and 100 Mosquito kills 300 E.A. is' clear that Mosquito is best but if wee have only that unk number of P-38 claimed tot E.A. and a unk number of Mosquito claimed tot E.A. we have nothing
 
I'm just trying to get my head around how anyone can compare the p38 to the Mossie, the Mossie was a fighter bomber/bomber/maritime strike/recon/nightfighter, the P38 was a fighter that could drop bombs if required, if your using the number of aircraft shot down as a yardstick to claim the P38 was superior, its a farce, how about comparing the number of ships sunk?, how about the number of low level special operations attacks?, how about tha ability to carry a cookie?, we can cherry pick all day but your not going to send a P38 to do a Mossies job any more than your going to send a Mossie to do a P38's job, if you want to compare a plane to the P38 then the Tempest, or the P47 is a far more logical choice!
 
Milosh said:
Kills in USAAF Service: ETO: 497

ETO, Night fighter: about 600 kills

Would say the Mossie is the better fighter in the ETO.
Click to expand...

I've done a count of ETO Mossie kill claims between July 1943 and May 1945 (using John Foreman's Fighter Command War Diaries, Vols 4 5).

Total for Mosquito day and night claims for this period is 1175. This is for Fighter Command, Air Defence Great Britain, 2TAF and 100 Group.

Obviously, this doesn't include kills between May 1942 and June 1943, the early operational period for the Mossie. Nor does it include claims by Coastal Command.

It also doesn't include claims by Mossies outside of Western Europe. There were plenty of Mosquito operations in North Africa, Malta, Sicily and Italy (where, as in Europe, the RAF had primary responsibility for night fighting), as well as Far Eastern operations (where there was very little night fighting).

If anything, I'd suggest that mxhunt's figure of 1353 air-to-air claims may be an underestimation of total Mosquito claims.
 
To work out the effectiveness of each type as fighters, I think at some point you would have to look at the numbers of fighter sorties each type made and when. this is still rather meaningless as a number since a sortie flown in 1942 against the highly trained experten crews helping to defend in the west are going to be much tougher opponents than a rookie flying a 109 in say august 1944 with say 100 hours under his belt. Then there are issues like the numbers, proximity and so many other variables that just make such comparisons impossible.

The best we can do is look at the key characteristics of each type. I would suggest the following are relevant (incidentally, if you want to be fair, compare subtypes that are contemporary to each other....Mosquitoes were operational at a time most of the p-38 subtypes were just an engineers wet dream):

Speed, Dive rate, climb rate, turn radius, weight of shell per minute, armour protection, fire resistancce, stability as a gun platform

Start looking at those values and you might get a clearer picture on the relative strengths of each type as a fighter
 
P-38's were in USAAF service in the ETO from near the end of 1942, and got their first kill in Aug 1942 while being ferried to the ETO. The first ETO kill on an ETO mission was in April 1943. By September 1944, the Lightning was withdrawn for the ETO as a fighter due to a low limitng Mach number of 0.68, though it DID stay on a PR plane. Most Lightnings went to PTO and the low limiting Mach number was fixed with the P-38J. So the P-38 was basically in ETO service for 13 - 14 months and scored 497 kills. That's 35.5 to 38.2 kills per month of service, counting September 1944, at which time the Lightnings were gone.

The Mosquito entered RAF service in 1941 and served for the entire war thereafter. It served for 4.5 years. Let's say the Mosquito claimed about 1,700 kills, if the numbers sent to me are corect (I can't say). That's generally in the same ballpark, at 31.5 kills per month.

So in the ETO, the two were apparently about equally effective.

Overall, in all theaters of USAAF operation, the Lightning was in USAAF service for 4.5 years and shot down 3,785 enemy aircraft. That's about 70.1 enemy aircraft per month, and that is WAY better than any Mosquito unit ever achieved.

As I said, give me a P-38 any day all day long, unless I needed a bomber for a mission. As a bomber the Mosquito was very probably better, though I'd still take a squadron of P-38's over a squadron of Mosquitos.
 
The FBVI didn't enter service until 1943. The FII didn't do much before it became the NFII. And until 1943/44 NFs didn't go into Europe, staying home and defending British airspace.

The Mosquito was much more useful as a bomber, a PR aircraft and a night fighter. As a fighter the P-38 wins hands down, and as a fighter bomber you could probably go either way - remembering that the P-38's range was restricted quite a bit when carrying bombs.

So, what you want to achieve with the aircraft determines the final choice. If you wanted a fighter, go the P-38, but if you wanted a PR, bomber or NF aircraft go teh Mosquito.
 
GregP said:
That's about 70.1 enemy aircraft per month, and that is WAY better than any Mosquito unit ever achieved.
Click to expand...

Assuming you don't want a single Mossie squadron to match the totality of the P-38 force, you'll probably need to moderate that sentence, or define what "WAY better" or "ever" mean, since the Mossie kill rate for all of 1944 was 76.5 per month. From January '44 to the end of the conflict in Europe, the rate was 70.0 per month.
 
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Good post Wuzak, and I can't argue too hard with your statements.

Mbux, you're doing what many others do ... some particular model was introduced at some point and you want to use only the best model and the best missions for your numbers. Sorry, use the series as a whole. I could break down the P-38 by model introduction and theater, too, but that gives a false picture of the total service life of the type.

My own measure of efficiency to the war effort is kills per month over the months of service. I'd MUCH rather have kills per action sortie, but you can't typically FIND that data for all the types you want to compare, so we're stuck with SOMETHING as a measure. You choose yours. I'll use a measure that takes into account for the entire service life of a type and I feel confident in my consculsions.

No doubt we could show that some Mosquio squadron had 5 kills and no losses on some mission and conclude that the Mossie was tops. But that ignores the rest of the service life of the Mosquito, and I find that disingenuous. I suppose we have to agree to disagree on this one. That does NOT mean I dislike the Mosquito; I don't. It means I use a measure that I find to be fair to the early life, the combat service, and the non-action sorties all rolled into one.

On the negative side, it doesn't take into account for the number of aircraft employed. I'd include that, too, but have no source ofr the numbers of P-38's or Mosquitos employed over what period. To get atht data sounds like a 10-year project and though I am interested, I am not interested enough to imterrput my already 15-year project to comile a databse of all WWII types including prototypes. So, I use total kills divided by months of service as a qualitative measure.

Actually, I have a GREAT measure that takes into account for everything (kills, losses, sorties, action sorties, time of service, and number of aircraft built), but you can't find all the data for ANY types as far as I have been able to see. So although it makes a great statistic, it is impractical to use as a qualitative measure. In plain English, my great number is uselsss because the data are almost impossible to obtain for any meaningful portion of all WWII aircraft.
 
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your numbers worth nothing

for clear, that numbers worth alone if we have same number of fighters that flying same number of missions that encountered same opposition
 
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That's a fair call Greg. So far as I know, the RAF sortie numbers are contained in the Group Summaries, and in the Squadron ORBs. I can find sortie numbers for bomber Mossies of 2, 5 and 8 Groups, and for the 2 Group FBs from late 43 onwards.

IIRC Chris Shores 2nd Tactical Air Force books have sorties (by Wing?) for the night-fighters of 2 TAF, however I don't have monthly summaries for Fighter Command or Coastal Command, though it's possible they appear in various books.

Now that ORBs are available online, it may be possible to build a much better picture, though as the files are currently sold by month, it might be a while before I can access them all. Couple other mini-projects first, namely sorting out the 300-odd V-1 claims not yet in my db, and getting some files about German flak claims.
 
Fair enough mhuxt. Good luck with your research. Maybe you could post the URl where they are avialable? Appreciate it!

Thanks Vincenzo, I appreciate YOUR numbers just as much as you appreciate mine, although you haven't posted any in here. I have to use SOMETHING, and the data available, particularly for Axis aircraft, are not very easy to dig out. Especially for Soviet aircraft.

I'd bet a large sun of money that my data are more complete than anything you have (being the subject of 15 years research), and it is STILL tough to come up with a fair evalutaion of aircraft.

Only ONE thing is for sure to date: the Me 109 shot down more enemy aircraft in WWII than all other aircraft in all other wars in human history combined. And it is tough to get exact numbers for the Me 109 production build, much less the victories.
 

Small correction:

Mosquito first operational fighter sortie (NF Mk II): 27 April 1942

First fighter claim: 30 May 1942

First 'confirmed' fighter kill: 26/27 June 1942
 
My understanding is that the P-38 was largely replaced in the ETO by P-51's. One of the problems experienced by the P-38's was that their Allison engines did not do all that well in the cold temperatures of Northern Europe, especially at altitude.

Obviously, the USAAF did not think that the P-38 was an adequate night fighter because the P-61 was designed and used for that role.

Actually, I believe that the P-38 never had a chance to reach its true potential as it was equipped with Allison engines. IF the P-38 had been re-equipped with Packard built Rolls Royce Merlin engines, it would have been a much, much more potent fighting machine.

I really wonder how a "fly-off" between a P-38 equipped with Merlin engines and a Mosquito would had have gone.

Keep in mind that the Mustangs were a "so-so" performers until their Allison engines were replaced by Merlins!
 
The major part of the P-38s problems (actually, the problems of the initial P-38Js) with the V-1710s were duel to pilots using wrong engione settings, the high RPM and low manifold pressure. Because the new intercoolers were more efficient than the old ones, that was leading up to the puddling of the fuel in the intake manifolds, leading to the damaged destroyed engines. With engines operated as 'ordered' both by Lockheed and Allison (low RPM, high manifold pressure), the air-fuel mixture was of right temperature and the engines were far less likely to be damaged.

Why do you think that a later plane (P-38M) could influence anything regarding the earlier plane (P-61)? Perhaps it was the other way around - the USAAF was not very happy with P-61, so they decided to go with a P-38 modification?

If you want to compare engines, I'd advice that you 1st try to read more about Merlins and Allisons. And then compare likes with likes. For the starters, you might want to compare the P-40s, planes that were fitted with both Allisons Merlins. Then, you might try to get yourself a nice book, called the 'America's hundred thousands' by Francis Dean. Worth every penny, it might be even cheaper for you in the USA than it was for me in Croatia
 
Tomo is for the most part correct. What he has posted was a large part of the problem. Another part was that the allowable components of the 100/130 fuel were changed with more "heavy" Compounds being allowed. This contributed to the fuel puddling problem to the extent that Allison was working on a new intake manifold in the summer of 1943 that was to be fitted to ALL types of Allison engines and by Nov/Dec 43 shipments of new manifolds were being sent overseas for the refitting of ALL Allison engines regardless of airframe type.
There were at least 5 contributing factors to the P-38 problem to greater or lesser degrees which is why it took a while to sort it out. Unfortunately for the P-38s reputation it was sorted out with in a couple of weeks of the decision to concentrate on the P-51. The P-51 was the better choice but it was not quite the obvious choice it is sometimes made out to be.

Another rather interesting book is "Vee's for Victory" which is the story of the Allison engine. It goes over 3 different paper studies to use Merlin's in place of Allisons. In some cases the Merlin's offer better performance in some parts of the performance envelope. But they were usually figured to give less range. In one instance ( depending on particular model of which engine and exact cruise conditions) the difference was estimated to be a loss of 30% in range with the Merlin. Most of the time the differences were estimated to be in the single digits percentage wise.
 
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