Best Heavy Fighter

[J.A.W.]

The top picture is one of the 23 P-38s being converted to the Droop Snoot at Lockheed's Langford Lodge factory and not a P.R. picture you try to dismiss it as.  The 2nd picture is of a Droop Snoot from the 474th getting ready to taxi to the flight line before a mission.

Not at home so I can't look it up but from what I remember, ordnance payload was the same as the standard P-38.

What load?  Don't know why you brought up the test with the torpedoes, no one has claimed it was done beyond a single test nor even relevant to this discussion.  


Verifiable mission data for what?  Here is a video of the 430th FS in action over Germany, you'll see the use of the Droop Snoot in the mission.  In the video it also explains why Droops Snoots were used, in missions "where risky, precision dive bombing was unnecessary - rail yards, dock yards - doing level bombing from higher altitudes."

430th FS in action over Germany


And?  

A.A., thanks, some good stuff there, but this this the kind of mission profile stuff I meant..[see post #18]

http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,356037.195.html

[ P-38 as bomber thread currently running on the aircraft of ww2 forum,
-in case that link wont play]

ack-ack

[J.A.W.]

Torpedo load-out for P-38 is listed as example of Lockheed hype in trying to eke out [unlikely] alt' roles for the P-38, when it is benched as an A2A/escort..

Equally as unlikely is the D.S. carrying the same ordnance load as its single seat brethren, how much did that conversion weigh/add?

& how many D.S.'s went on a mission - per squadron of `38s in the M/B role?

The 'risky dive-bombing' was obviously too costly for P-38s,& a job reserved for T-blots & Typhoons?

& a M/B attack speed of ~180 mph is a bit of a come down for a 400+mph
fighter-bomber aint it? Bet those fighter jocks wished they were in a `51 unit.

See this relevant thread [post #18]for the mission profile stuff..

http://www.ww2aircraftforum.net/forum/aviation/p-38-bomber-39178-2.html

[Widewing]

J.A.W., I'm more convinced with every post you make that you lack basic knowledge of WWII aviation history. You will find, if you bother to pay attention, that there are many members of this group with great resources and knowledge of the topic. Several of these are published authors and historians. So, you'll have to excuse them if some dismiss you as a windbag and a troll. You have an opinion on everything. Just keep in mind that opinions are conclusions drawn in the absence of adequate facts.

[J.A.W.]

Yes, I reckon the same about you too - Ww,
 & many writers like Bodie are like-wise opinion driven..
Far too ready to 'dismiss' ideas that don't meet their fixed ideas,
then use emotively laden terms like troll to discount/demonise..

He makes a favourite of the given subject, [likely to sell more copies to fans],
& then does the same for his next.
 i.e. the P-38 is the best, [except in his P-47 book - then the `47 is, eh..].

That is why I prefer to post links to primary info sources,
rather than rely on revisionism of doubtful value/validity..

& let the facts speak, rather than agenda bearers.

Doolittle made the call re P-51, & was proved correct..

[MiloMorai]

JAW has been banned from several boards because of his trolling.

[Widewing]

Yes, I reckon the same about you too - Ww,
 & many writers like Bodie are like-wise opinion driven..
Far too ready to 'dismiss' ideas that don't meet their fixed ideas,
then use emotively laden terms like troll to discount/demonise..

He makes a favourite of the given subject, [likely to sell more copies to fans],
& then does the same for his next.
 i.e. the P-38 is the best, [except in his P-47 book - then the `47 is, eh..].

That is why I prefer to post links to primary info sources,
rather than rely on revisionism of doubtful value/validity..

& let the facts speak, rather than agenda bearers.

Doolittle made the call re P-51, & was proved correct..

What have you written, edited and published?

Bodie loved the P-38. It doesn't take any analysis to see that in his writing. However, that isn't a basis for not accepting the facts presented. Warren was an opinionated man. I know that first hand, having worked with him for three years. However, he wasn't obtuse and recognized the P-38's faults and limitations.

Oh, and what were Doolittle's reasons for opting for the P-51? There were many....

Did you ever sit down with the men who flew these various aircraft? Johnson, Gabreski, Ilfrey, Heiden, Shilling, Smith and the like... How about some of the test pilots? How about some of those who fly them today?

I know, we hear the tired argument that anecdotal accounts are rife with error and opinion. Easy to say... But usually devoid of solid reasoning. All history is anecdotal. Someone recorded what was seen or occurred. That record invariably reflected that individual's mindset. Can't be avoided.  

[Oldman731]

JAW has been banned from several boards because of his trolling.

He's a troll, clearly, but also a well-read troll and, if I guess correctly, a person of mature years.

One of the useful lessons I've learned is this:  Say that what you want to be true, is true, and rely on others to disprove it.  Quite often they won't, for any number of reasons. 

I'm still waiting to see his response to evidence that P-47s escorted B-29s and that P-47s ultimately ranged to Berlin.

- oldman

[J.A.W.]

So, M.M. telling tales, drops the 'troll' bomb eh,
usually the resort of one bereft of facts, it would seem..
& I.M.O. - your view of what constitutes 'trolling' is patently suspect.

If you have never been banned from a forum, then in my 'opinion'
I'd reckon you are not much more than a lurker..

I'm still waiting to see the facts about P-47s over Berlin & Tokyo
['cept for a toy plane box-art imagining] but I am always pleased to go with reliable data sets ,  if & when posted, - since I am not emotionally attached/fixed on favourites -[but truly, P-51s did it do it better]..

Being an 'author' don't mean much in itself - Mein Kampf  is a best seller,
& still in print - after all.

Yes Ww, my mothers great uncle was S/Ldr Bob Spurdle, a Kiwi RAF fighter pilot, who flew 550+ op sorties - from the BoB & catapult Hurricanes on the Atlantic convoys - to the Rhine Crossing,  & also shot down Zekes in a lousy
 P-40 in the Solomon Is `43..

He really liked flying the Tempest - leading 80 Sqd post invasion[& also survived having a Spitfire disintegrate on him in a terminal dive chasing a 109]..

He was a real no-B.S. bloke, & that pugnacious character is a familial thing, I am told..

[J.A.W.]

Notwithstanding Bodie's 'love' -[ugh] - for the P-38, history records that
for the established 8th AF purpose of grinding down the Jagdwaffe, it WAS [ & justifiably so, based on cost effectiveness/results]  - the 3rd string USAAF fighter in the ETO.

Being generous, I'd venture that it - might, just - squeeze into a [very] low spot on a 10 best [based on performance envelope/A2A capability] ETO fighter list..

[Lusche]

If you have never been banned from a forum, then in my 'opinion'
I'd reckon you are not much more than a lurker...

 

[Tank-Ace]

If you have never been banned from a forum, then in my 'opinion'
I'd reckon you are not much more than a lurker..

[J.A.W.]

(Image removed from quote.)

'Nice'  selfie [self-portrait]  there [for a 'bird-brain'], T-A,
& isn't  'Orly' somewhere near Paris?

Or is that Roland Garros?..
[the famed WW 1 French Ace Bosche-flieger-raptor/jager?] L.O.L

Anyhow, T-A - given the standard of your recent posts [as seen so far], I doubt there is any real prospect of you contributing something worthwhile to the thread,
 so why not just blather [& troll, actually] on..

Next...

[FLOOB]

Why anybody would ban anybody for trolling is beyond me. Trollers are here to remind us how stupid and idiotic it is to get emotional about intertext. The troll says to us all, HEY DUMAS, IT'S THE INTERNET, IT'S NOT REAL.

[FLOOB]

BTW, in real life no f4u has ever been shot down by a p51, but p51s have been shot down by f4us.

The p51 is basically a p40 upon which designers threw new ideas and waited to see which one's stuck, which explains it's hideous form. It's a square aeroplane in more than one sense of the word. It's as if it was built by fascist germans, they love right angles and straight lines. Even the sides of the p51's fuselage are flat and the cross section is rectilinear. And then the grotesque profile, with the afterthought air intake and coolers suspended, stuck where they were thrown, barely clearing the ground. Imagine the offspring of a dachshund and a dairy cow, now you've taken your first step into understanding just how sick a person would have to be to enjoy looking at a p51. And if that wasn't nauseating enough, after the B model they ditched the fast back and stuck on a bubble top. To their credit I guess they were going for symmetry, a bulbous deformity on the top to match the bulbous deformity on the bottom.

[Randy1]

This is a picture of the S-1 bomb racks on a P-38J Droop Snoop.  The S-1 had the capacity to hold 2x 2,000 pound bombs or 4x 1,000 pound bombs.

The Droop Snoop were also used as navigational lead planes.

ack-ack

Thanks for that great picture.  That explains the three 500# racks under each wing in the picture in my thread and the P51 rocket thread.