Bf 110 vs P-38

[B4Buster]

I am curious now as I have not flown the 110 for a while. Going to fly a few sorties with it.

[TwinBoom]

For the most part a P-38 is nothing but a big, shiny target. A kill waiting to happen. Unless it is flown by the 80th or a few pilots. Until then, they seem to be a tough bird to be really dangerous in.

Boo

 

[mthrockmor]

Twinboom, you get to laugh. The other 99 P-38 pilots aren't so skilled.

I will say that for me the first turn with a -38 is always a bit tender. Pretty much one turn will tell you if you have Twinboom, 80th, 8Spade, etc by the tail or some noob who likes to talk trash on 200. Again, most pilots are unable to make that plane dance.

Boo

[Tank-Ace]

Perhaps I just have bad luck with encountering P-38's. It always seems to be Stokes, Silat, or AKAK. I do admit most P-38 pilots are quite easy to kill as, like the 109 or 190, it takes a skilled pilot to make the plane shine.

But, like mthrockmor says, the first turn is a bit.... sketcy. If I get a noob, I'll usually kick his arse in about 15 seconds. If I get AKAK, I nose my 190 over, WEP it to the deck, and then always get killed as his P-38 teleports to D600 behind me  .

[Karnak]

I had a P-38 dive from some alt on my Mossie the other day, thought "This is going to be tough." and then it got within 1000 yard, the tag switched to "P-38G" and I thought "Oh, never mind, I got this." and killed it in about 15 seconds.

[bozon]

Karnak, I thought your second sentence will be: "and then he buzzed by me at 500 mph and hit the ground so hard that it physically damaged a few bytes of RAM in the HTC server."

[B4Buster]

Did a few 110 sorties. I still find it to be better in the flat turn (Than the P-38), but had forgotten just how slow it is.

110G-2 that is. The C-4b is a nimble plane and I would never get caught in a turnfight with it.

[Krusty]

The problem with flying the 110C or G is that naturally you can turn tightly because you are so slow, but it's surviving to the point of getting to use that. That's the tricky part. Like when you fly a Hurr1 in the LWA. You have to survive to get into position to needle the bugger to death for a kill. If anybody goes high on you and drops down after you stall out (rather quickly) you are toast. If you have a fight and there is any other enemy presence nearby you have to stay on target leaving yourself wide open for the other guy (and... consequently, if you break off to avoid him the other guy you were trailing reverses and you're up a creek twice as much as before).

I think the P-38s turn better than the 110s overall, higher speed flaps and better E for going into endless vertical loops. It's that vertical element that really sets the P-38s above other twins.

[Knite]

Whether speed, climb, diving (P38 can hit >450mph and still come out of a dive if you know what you're doing), rolling (late models roll faster than almost any other aircraft at high speeds), or hanging on it's props... the 38 has enough things where it's above average in, that there's a good chance it'll have something YOUR plane isn't good enough in, and a good pilot can pick that out and beat you with it.

[mthrockmor]

This gets into another subject but speed counts. When in a bad spot survival demands the ability to point your nose down, pick up speed and change the nature of the fight. Most great turners lack that ability and thus almost every fight turns into a certain death match. The question is how many kills you score before you are in turn killed. So the 110 lacks the ability to disengage, among a couple other weaknesses?

Boo

[Krusty]

I would say that's mostly true... in a 1v1 you can probably disengage to a certain extent... Diving away... You can be chased and caught in a prolonged chase, BUT, in the short-term you can gain enough distance to reverse or get yourself out of a bad spot.

Add others (i.e. a furball of average size) and your odds of disengaging dwindle rapidly.

[Plazus]

One day I was flying a P38. I saw another P38 and flew over and shot it down. It was an easy kill.

[mthrockmor]

One day I was flying a P38. I saw another P38 and flew over and shot it down. It was an easy kill.

Now its just getting complicated.

Boo

[LCADolby]

Dolby isnt that good 

Quoted for truth

Even if it's soo cruel 

[waystin2]

Um, I have to disagree with this.. I've outturned spit16s in sustained turns.

I've seen it!  From the wrong side of course....   Was great with you and me duking it out against all them red guys yesterday Krup!