In the ETO, captured Luftwaffe pilots rated it as the Allied fighter they would most prefer to enter combat against, while the Spitfire was the fighter they least wanted to encounter. That is why the Germans called it the "Fork tailed Devil"?

My preference for the P-38 is based purely on technical grounds, not other people opinions. Those reasons are unique among Allied fighter planes. Pointability derived from the CR Props made getting Victories at longer ranges easy and made winning at shorter ranges positively sublime! You, and as far as I can tell, all of the rest of the members of this board who have never actually flown in a war bird, do not appreciate this attribute and it's critical nature! Getting hits at close range is very difficult in any plane, more so in WW-II! Getting hits at medium range was nearly impossible in all other planes, which is why the Average range of all ALLIED Victories in WW-II is only 250 yards or less! That is technically short range. Getting hits at longer range, something the P-38 did with regularity, was pure dumb luck in any other Allied plane, but the P-39. I know, so do not bother reciting the 1,000 yard Spitfire kill until you can show me the GCF!  Next, the CL Guns with both high MV and high BC and high rate of fire with more than 35-40 seconds worth of fire that constituted a 1,600 meter long fire hose that no opponent would willing trade Head on Passes with! Regardless of your witness's to German preferences above, I have never heard of one who would make that bet! Never and with good reason.

Next, is real, usable speed! More than any other plane in the war WO a turbine engine(s)! You know the jet jockey saying; Speed is life? Well the P-38 has it in spades. Cruising speeds higher than the TOP SPEEDS of early Spitfires and Me-109s. And it could do that for almost three hours. Which by the way, brings up range! PS, Did I tell you it has two engines and is built tough like a tank?

In the ETO, captured Luftwaffe pilots rated it as the Allied fighter they would most prefer to enter combat against, while the Spitfire was the fighter they least wanted to encounter. That is why the Germans called it the "Fork tailed Devil"?

They didnt, this was a monica invented post war and thier is no record of it being used during the actual period

My preference for the P-38 is based purely on technical grounds, not other people opinions. Those reasons are unique among Allied fighter planes.

 

Unique for a good reason they didnt work

 

Pointability derived from the CR Props made getting Victories at longer ranges easy and made winning at shorter ranges positively sublime!

 

Yet results dont actual support this, per combat engagement the P38 scored less kills than either the P47 or the P51, in otherwords the P38 converted less chances to results, now this could be many causes, inferior pilot (nope same training), inferior tactics (nope same as the others), or inferior plane (seems likely), also thier is NO evidence that long range kills were any more likely in a P38 as any other fighter, every ace seems to say that a long range shot is a waste of bullets and that you need to get close to make the Kill, the only Ace that I can find that actualy used long range shooting was Buieling and he like Spitfires!

 

You, and as far as I can tell, all of the rest of the members of this board who have never actually flown in a war bird, do not appreciate this attribute and it's critical nature!

 

yet you with your experiance of flying warbirds (ture only in your imagination and on flight sims) know so much more than the pilots of the time, you realy do have a hugely inflated oppinion of yourself dont you, one I hasten to add is NOT shared by ANYONE you have ever been in contact with

 

Getting hits at close range is very difficult in any plane, more so in WW-II! Getting hits at medium range was nearly impossible in all other planes, which is why the Average range of all ALLIED Victories in WW-II is only 250 yards or less! That is technically short range. Getting hits at longer range, something the P-38 did with regularity,

 

Not according to after action reports, the P38 like all other squardons were taught that long range shooting was a waste of ammo

 

was pure dumb luck in any other Allied plane, but the P-39. I know, so do not bother reciting the 1,000 yard Spitfire kill until you can show me the GCF! 

 

So a confirmed kill one that is well documented is of no consequence but non supported P38 kills are ? get real this is purely your thoughts and are worth less then the paper they are written on

 

 

 

Next, the CL Guns with both high MV and high BC and high rate of fire with more than 35-40 seconds worth of fire that constituted a 1,600 meter long fire hose that no opponent would willing trade Head on Passes with!

 

this shows how little you knoew about combat flyng, if you wernt such a prat this would actually be funny

 

 Regardless of your witness's to German preferences above, I have never heard of one who would make that bet!

Never and with good reason.

 

yet I have never heard of one that would refuse it, see an unsupported statement can work both ways

 

Next, is real, usable speed! More than any other plane in the war WO a turbine engine(s)! You know the jet jockey saying; Speed is life?

 

er no, speed is life was a creed of the first and second generation jets, as if you let it beed off it too so long to build back up, piston engined combat was about useabloe speed and energy management, the P38 bled energy mre than any other fighter, this was made even worse when they added the facility to apply flaps for combat to enable it turn anywhere near the single engined fighter (by the way why did they do this if turning wasnt a big thing?) these flaps bled energy at a huge rate and did the control forces needed to manouever the p38, remmeber to get decent performance out of it it need control forces beyond that a pilot could exert (hence the need for power assist)

 

 

 Well the P-38 has it in spades. Cruising speeds higher than the TOP SPEEDS of early Spitfires and Me-109s. And it could do that for almost three hours.

 

No the early P38 were no faster, here you use late model P38 vs early models, dishonest and wrong, the MkI spit and me109E both when they entered service were faster and longer ranged than the p38 (as the P38 was not even in service) the P38 played catch up, a role it didnt do very well, early P38 operations in the Med got Spitfire escorts

 

Which by the way, brings up range!

as pointed out ad nauseum, european countries didnt regard range as a issue and didnt haqve it as a major requirement, claiming range is a prime reason why it is best is like me claiming thet the Spit is obviouly better as it was used successfully as a carrier plane something the P38 had never succeeded at 

 

Lastly is agility in the purest sense of the word. This is related to rate of roll more than any other factor and the P-38 had that highest rate of roll above 300 MPH in the early Mods

 

No the early models were poor at roll this is one of the reasons they fitted power assist on the controls, to get the plane to roll like a single engined fighter need more force on the stick than a pilot could exert

 

and the P-38L had it at ALL speeds! Bar none.

except those in reality

It is impossible to make any substantial change to the planes Vector while it is rolling from one bank to the other!

 

what? this statement makes no actual sense, I assume you meant to say something but got confused

 

 

As to the two engines, this was because Lockeed knew that given the engines available at the time to be able tvo reach the range requirement of the USAAF for a bomber destroyer for homeland protection, one engine was not going to give the power, so they built a US version of the Me110 with all the compromises entailed, they did an amazing job but in the end is was a flawed idea and was always a step behind the best

While there are other good and great attributes, most do not think those are needed in a fighter plane, but I would reply that the most agile "Angle fighter" ever built is actually used as a bomb truck 99.8% of the time.

PS, Did I tell you it has two engines and is built tough like a tank?

ok lets look at it, it had a unreliable engines (far far worse record than the RR Merlins and Griffons) it had poor cooling and a terrible intercooler system (one that would likely put an engine out of action if a single bullet hit in 30% of the airframe) it was over complacated to fly and was a pilots nightmare control wise, it was big and easy to see (and to identify which in the heat of combat is a big advantage to the opposition), it was not very agile and bled energy far too easy. in fact it was so good it pretty much when to the role that is assigned to either second rate fighters or those superceeded by improved ones, that of Ground attack!

and by the way if you are flying a tank you miss understand what a fighter is about

Shooter said : "The P-38 had that highest rate of roll above 300 MPH in the early Mods and the P-38L had it at ALL speed"

 

This is the REVERSE of reality, at least for the early P-38, up to the boosted J's and then the L.

 

The P-38 was a notably SLOW roller at high speeds. P-38E,F,G,H roll rates were only a little better than a 1939-1940 vintage Mk I Spitfire with fabric ailerons, certainly worse than a Mk V.

 

USAAF tests of a back this up.

 

P-38F:

March 1943:  Against the P-39D, P-51, and the P-40F, the P-38F had a longer radius of turn below twelve-thousand (12,000) feet. From twelve-thousand (12,000) feet to approximately fifteen-thousand (15,000) feet, the radius was almost the same, and from fifteen-thousand (15,000) feet on up, the P-38F had a equal or shorter radius of turn. In the initial turn, due to the slowness of aileron roll of the P-38F, the other types could roll into a turn faster and close up the circle rapidly before the P-38F would reach its maximum radius of turn. It would then take the P-38F sometime, if ever, to overcome this initial disadvantage. 

 

P-38J:

January 1944: "The radius of turn is fairly large for a fighter and the rate of roll is fair at medium speeds, but slow at high speeds because of heavy aileron forces"

German pilot's opinion of the P-38.

 

"German fighters would always attack P-38s in preference to other Allied escort fighters".

 

http://img22.imagevenue.com/img.php?loc=loc198&image=06008_GAFOpinions.jpg

Then let us argue about the best way to judge the worth of a fighter plane?

I have just started re-reading "The Fork Tailed Devil, story of the P-38". It is a very well written and researched book with many first person quotes,

No its badly written and factually incorrect in many areas, it is a fan boy book of the worse order

 

 including many from those who did not like it. So it is at least a fair book, telling both sides of the story with much data.

Not unless its been heavily revised, it was slated as being so bias as to be worthless

 

 After the first 100 pages or so, all I can say is that it makes the best case I've ever seen that any one plane is the best fighter plane of WW-II. Points made include the handling, rate of roll, best guns installation of all fighters and finally, my all time favorite the pointability endowed by the CR Props!

 

wow no wonder you like it, it is as blinkered and bias as you are

 

That brings me to which was the second best fighter plane of WW-II? The only two I seriously consider are the last few Spits with CR Props and the Ta-152C/H? The spit was more pointable and they finally fixed the snaky behavior and it was almost as fast as the TA-152, but it was still ham-strung by the wing mounted guns. On the other hand, the Ta had superior aerodynamic performance in all regimes and a great guns installation, plus a pressurised cockpit!

How do you choose between them?

all those late war fighters to go at and you pick these?

My preference for the P-38 is based purely on technical grounds, not other people opinions. Those reasons are unique among Allied fighter planes.

Pointability derived from the CR Props made getting Victories at longer ranges easy and made winning at shorter ranges positively sublime!

Yet results dont actual support this, Wrong! per combat engagement the P38 scored less kills than the P47 or the P51, True. the P38 converted less chances to results, True. now this could be many causes, inferior pilot (nope same training), Less training per engine/complexity of the plane? inferior tactics True! (nope same as the others), or inferior plane (seems likely), No, it all boils down to how they were used. also thier is NO evidence False, read the after action report of the Yamamoto shoot down! Absolute proof that long range shooting was done and was effective!
Getting hits at longer range, something the P-38 did with regularity,

was pure dumb luck in any other Allied plane, but the P-39. I know, so do not bother reciting the 1,000 yard Spitfire kill until you can show me the GCF! 

So a confirmed kill one that is well documented is of no consequence but non supported P38 kills are? Yes, because many of the P-38 Victories were caught on GCF, or Gun Camera Film, unlike the 1,000 yard Spitfire claim! Further more as any trained sniper knows range estimation is almost impossible at those ranges WO much time and effort, things a fighter pilot just does not have! Furthermore, Range estimation errors are typically so large at those kinds of range that they AVERAGE 50% off! That is true Range is 500, or 1,500 yards when the shooter claims 1,000! And that is over not thousands, tens, or even hundreds of thousands, but millions of test cases over the last 70+ years of US Army Sniper school tests! get real So you get real, the chance that the true range was more than 500 yards is almost nothing and WO GCF, the claim is either completely BOGUS, or pure fabrication! Take your pick! 
   

 

 

 

WORMS formula?

Are you insane, one called shooter?

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/23-11/Ch5.htm

I laugh at you. I utterly laugh at you.

Never and with good reason.

yet I have never heard of one that would refuse it, see an unsupported statement can work both ways
But I can and have posted the supporting evidence to the above claim! Read Fork Tailed Devil, the P-38 story!

Next, is real, usable speed! More than any other plane in the war WO a turbine engine(s)! You know the jet jockey saying; Speed is life?

er no, speed is life was a creed of the first and second generation jets, And WW-II! Read the writings of the American P-38 aces in the Pacific ToO. as if you let it beed off it too so long to build back up, piston engined combat was about useabloe speed and energy management, the P38 bled energy mre than any other fighter, Wrong! The P-38 has one of the very highest SETs of any WW-II fighter and it's long and high aspect ratio wing was much more efficient at preventing bleed of speed! this was made even worse when they added the facility to apply flaps for combat to enable it turn anywhere near To out maneuver any single engine fighter at low speed. the single engined fighter (by the way why did they do this if turning wasnt a big thing?) these flaps bled energy at a huge rateTrue, but you know what happens when the target puts on the breaks in a tight turn and you can not do the same? Right! and did the control forces needed to manouever the p38, remmeber to get decent performance out of it it need control forces beyond that a pilot could exert (hence the need for power assist)You are very wrong about this! Again read the books! The P-38 could out roll all but the Fw-190 and Me-163 at speeds above 250 MPH and the power boosted L mods could out roll them by 50% or more even at much faster speeds, which is why they went to power boosted controls.
Cruising speeds higher than the TOP SPEEDS of early Spitfires and Me-109s. And it could do that for almost three hours.