Originally posted by bbosen
Me too! Amen. When I see a high P38 in the distance, I know I am in probably going to die. With most anything else, I have some way to prevail or escape. But against another P38 that has an altitude advantage.... I don't have any tricks. I'm just forced to engage on the other guy's terms and it isn't pretty!
[and frequently the other P38 is Rapotor01, but I'm generally above him. Hehe]
-Peabody-
Well, I think like most here, when I see a P-38 I think to myself it will be an easy kill. 99% of the time it is. For the reasons I have mentioned in this thread, most P-38s are little threat. Very few players know how to use the P-38 effectively, and even fewer can extract all it's capable of. Those that can will make you wish you had taken them a lot more seriously.
My favorite ride for brawling with P-38s is the F6F-5. Just my preference though.
This past Sunday, we took the whole squad into the TA to work on their P-38 skills. I took up a Spit V and headed for the crowd. Now, since you can't actually shoot them down, any kills you get are maneuver kills (but you must at least shoot them). I landed 11 kills which means I screwed 11 guys into the ground AFTER I had hit them. I was hit once in the process. We did this several times until the guys realized what they have to do to defeat the Spitfire. At that point, we switched to half flying Spits and half in P-38s. The P-38s won about 50% of the brawls. With that we headed for the DA and started over again. Well, the P-38s began to dominate the Spits to the point that the Spit drivers started upping 262s to get revenge.
Since Sunday, the squadron has tripled their kills in the P-38, and cut their losses by 2/3rds. One young fellow (high school student) named Wrecker landed 3 consecutive sorties of 10 kills or more. His comment was, "I absolutely love this plane now!" Wrecker turned around a 1/2 K/D in the P-38 to a 2/1 K/D in less than a week. I figure that if Wrecker stays here for a year or so, he will develop into one of the better sticks. This is why I urge players to spend some time in the DA and TA, regardless of what you prefer to fly. It will do wonders for your MA experience.
My regards,
Widewing