how tough was the P-38?

[Nashwan]

Go here http://www.geocities.com/spades53.geo/prodocs.htm  for a report listing the effects of 20mm hits on a Ju88
The effect of 1 round hitting the base of the fin is described as
"Point of detonation: on port side of vertical member in fin. 16" above bottom of fin, 18" back from leading edge
Effect: blew a hole in the leading edge measuring about 18" vertically and extending back about 18" from the leading edge on both sides. Also distorted the fin, and lifted it's base about 9" from fuselage."
Fragmentation holes spread about 5 feet from the point of detonation.
If a P-38 kept it's tail after 2 or more of those in RL I'd be very suprised.

[Tac]

"#1 not big, i.e. not much of a cross section"


yep, there lies the problem. how the FEK does it get hit 98% of times instead of something else?. I mean, wow, what a COINCIDENCE. specially on HO's.. quite prone to get that tail shot off in a HO. Or better yet, a slow plane making a snapshot hit on a REALLY high speed 38 at a hard angle... 1 ping on wing and you barely get pings on the big wing structure...but oh boy, that 2ft (or so) wide tail booms get all the hits.

Quite...interesting eh?

[B52Charlie]

I once saw a p38 that had gotten hit by a string of #500 bombs dropping from a b17 on a bombing mission and still escorted the buffs to target, and while over the target got hit by a 410mm mortar round in the canopy and still had no problem destroying the train the mortar was mounted on, even after that it destroyed 6 bf109gs by ramming them, and even after that it mowed down 3 SS grunt battalions with its single working prop using low level passes on the troops( the other engine was shot clean off by a v2 rocket earlier) and so that should be enough proof to perk that pathetic p38 in this game