A hand with the P38.......

[Ack-Ack]

Originally posted by OIO
btw ackack, the 38's E-retention is one of the poorest in the game. Its literally a brick with engines. Dive to 500mph then level, count how long it takes for it to slow down to its top speed at that altitude. Thats e-retention. The only reason why the 38 cant run away from most planes in the arena is because of that e-retention. Compare it to a P51 or spitfire, they retain their above-top-speed-for-altitude far longer than a 38.


38 has great zoom climb though

Meant in the vertical.


Ack-Ack

[DblTrubl]

Originally posted by Urchin
Hate to burst any bubbles... but the Spit 9 is completely and totally superior to the P-38.  More firepower, better turning, better acceleration, better climbing.  

LOL!  Good One Urchin! That was a joke...right?  OK I'll bite.

I freely admit that the Spit 9 is a better turner than the P-38 at low speeds, but any 38 jock worth his salt isn't going fight the spit where it holds its only real advatage. Wasn't it an actual RAF Spitfire pilot that said "turning doesn't win fights!" during a briefing on the relative merits of the Spitfire and Fw 190A?

Firepower? Sure, 2 hispanos and 2 .50s hits a little harder than 1 hispano and 4 .50s, but only near convergence for the wing-mounted setup and only until the 20mm ammo is gone. Then what?  A pair of .50s with 100 or so rpg is really only adequate to possibly save your butt while you rtb for more ammo (yes, I know many spit drivers only fire the cannon until it's gone, but you're still left with only a pair of .50s). In the 38 you still have 4 .50s with well over 1000 rds total and no convergence issues.

Soda already addressed acceleration so I'll leave that one alone. The difference in climb rates is small enough to be fairly insignificant. That said however, the 38 will outclimb the spit at 250 ias or more. BTW how fast will a spit climb with 2000 lbs and 10 HVARs slung beneath it?

Finally, toughness. The Lightning can absorb an amazing amount of lead and still fly home, and the benefits of a second engine here are obvious. All you have to do is look cross-eyed at a Spitfire and the wings fall off.

So, yes...The Spitfire Mk. IX is completely and totally superior to the P-38L at making tight low speed turns.  For everything else one might ask of a WWII fighter I'll take the Lightning thank you very much.

[Urchin]

I'd say the Spitfire would probably take 8 of 10 or so from a P-38 in a 1v1 fight.  Assuming the pilots are of equal skill anyway.  I've played around in the DA with both planes (in a P-38 vs Spit IX) and the Spit IX has a huge advantage.  The P-38 can't even bore n zoom the Spit for very long before the Spit has equallized the energy.  And once you lose that initial E advantage you have no options (except for just plain running).  You try to climb away and the Spit will catch up and blast you, you try to dive away and the Spit will catch up and blast you, you try to 'knife-fight' and the Spit will eat you alive.

[DblTrubl]

You're assuming alot of mistakes on the part of the 38 jock. The first and biggest being the decision to engage a better turning enemy co-E. Using that same logic we could say that the A6M5b is totally superior to the Spit 9 because it holds the upper hand in a turning contest.  If the Spit fights the zeke's fight it dies just as quickly as a 38 would fighting on the spitty's terms.

In my experience, I can BnZ a lower spit in a 38 all day if I want to, but they usually go down pretty quickly unless its pilot is very skilled and patient.  You're right that climbing or diving away can be very risky if you don't do it right. Climb too steeply or keep the nose down too long in a dive and sure enough the Spit will close on you. However, if you keep the climb fast and shallow you'll get away more often than not.  The 38 has great accel in the initial moments of a dive but almost anything will catch it once your speed gets much over 400mph. The trick is to get that head-start and level off before it evaporates. Again, if you do it right the spit will have a hard time keeping pace.

The Spitfire is a very good defensive fighter, but the faster plane usually dictates the fight and that's the 38s trump card here. If all else fails it can run away and I'm not ashamed to do so if I find myself at a disadvantage. After all, I play AH for my own enjoyment, not to provide Spit drivers with lots of easy kills by fighting their fight.

I realize that I'm biased, but factor in the 38s range and multi-role capability to this whole equation and you have a more versatile and imo, a better warplane.

[Hammerhead]

Thank you for all the good advice folks. I bought a new Saitek cyborg 3d usb stick.....rudder really does help.

Now I face a new foe..........AUTORETRACT.

Yesterday was fighting a chog, had bled his E so was turning for the kill and was 2 seconds away from a solid killing blow, when all of a sudden......wroooooorrrrr.... ..flaps retract.....lose the angles..... stall.........dive......recov er.....F4u on my six, 4 hits im dead.

The F4u was turning with a nose down attitude and for a split second or two I must have gone over 200mph..

To cut a long story short, is there any way i can disable autoretract???????

[Soda]

No you can't.

You could argue that a couple of mph shouldn't make any difference, but some could also argue that they post a limit on flap deployment for a reason so they aren't damaged.  A catch 22, I don't think they would be damaged at 251mph vs 250, but you have to set a limit somewhere.  If not, it would be all subjective and people would complain about that.  Best instant turn rate on the P-38 without flaps is around 260mph anyway so above that flaps aren't helping you any(IAS at sea-level).  At 260mph you are pulling max G's (blackout) without use of flaps.

-Soda
Aces High Trainer Corps
The Assassins.

[OIO]

The autoretract 'feature' is killing the P-38 as you have discovered.

Its just sad that the ONE plane that depends 100% on its flaps is porked because of that feature.

As far as P-38 vs Spit9, pilots of = skill, i'd put my money on the spit9.

The 38 only has 2 advantages over the spit: it out-accelerates the spit and that advantage only works below 200mph (above 200mph the spit9 accels faster) and has very good roll rate at high speeds (above 350mph).

P38 vs Spit9 below 200mph, spit wins hands down because it has exponentially better manouverability.

Above 350mph the 38 wins because the spit9's cant roll worth a damn and the 38 can manouver rather well.

So far the one manouver a 38 can hope to try and pull vs a coalt,co-e spit is to dive and use the 38's better roll rate to peel away and escape. Going vertical or turning is suicidal (note: if pilots=skill). Either that or HO and shoot from d1.2 to d800, then start the dive-away.

[Soda]

OIO, you need to be a bit more objective about this.  The P-38 has plenty of areas of advantage but sustained turning isn't one of them.  The P-38 has a clear speed advantage (it's 333mph vs 310 at sea-level), an acceleration advantage at all altitudes (slow and fast), a complete firepower advantage,  and a host of other issues in regards to load carrying and survivability.

The whole flaps thing, well, I can appreciate it to some point, but if you look at the EM diagrams for the P-38 you can see that max G is available at about 260mph without flaps and the last notch of flaps only retracts at 250mph.  That leaves a VERY small window in which you really see any loss from the flaps retracting.  You may think it's hurting you, but in reality it isn't.  Fact is though that the Spit turns WAY better and has a max instantaneous turn rate/speed that is 34 deg/sec @ 220mph.  The P-38 is only 28 deg/sec @ 265mph... the P-38 can't hope to compete in a turn fight like that (or at least it'll come down to the pilot and not the plane).

-Soda
Aces High Trainer Corps
The Assassins.

[Hammerhead]

That may well be true soda....and whilst it may be ideal to get max turn rate at 260mph, the P38 can and does outturn many aircraft under tht speed..but i was talking about a turnfight with a F4U at 200mph, with 2 notches of flaps. Since I accelerated for only few seconds to over 200mph (and then dropped under 200 again), I lost the fight, because the second my flaps retracted I lost my turn rate (at under 200mph) and the f4u could build on tht slight advantage during the time it took to redploy the flaps.......

Hope in the next version they allow people to select autoretract enable/disable option. I would rather stress the flaps (unto breaking point if need be) rather than lose my turning ability.

[Urchin]

Originally posted by Soda
OIO, you need to be a bit more objective about this.  The P-38 has plenty of areas of advantage but sustained turning isn't one of them.  The P-38 has a clear speed advantage (it's 333mph vs 310 at sea-level), an acceleration advantage at all altitudes (slow and fast), a complete firepower advantage,  

-Soda
Aces High Trainer Corps
The Assassins.

I'm honestly not sure about the acceleration, to be honest with you.  The Spit is one of the best accelerating planes in the game, in my experience.  Also... the P-38 has more firepower than the Spitfire?  Can I have some of whatever you have been smoking?

Spitfires got two 1 hit kill cannons, and 2 .50s.  The P-38 has 4 .50s and 1 cannon.  I'd say the Spitfire probably puts out about 10 .50s worth in firepower, and the P-38 is about 8.

[OIO]

Soda, here's why i say what I said in my previous post:

1) P38 does not accelerate better than spit9 ABOVE 200mph. 38 goes from 0 to 200mph really fast when level,  spit does it a bit slower (about 30% slower imo). Above 200mph the spit will accel to 300mph in almost half the time the 38 does.

2) Spit retains E way,way,way better than the P-38. In combat, a spit will catch up to the 38 if the 38 has no more room to dive. Aka, both dive from 10k to 2 ft off the water, both planes at speeds nearing 500mph... P38's better initial accel in dive gained it a separation of say, d1.2 . Once on the deck, both planes level, the P-38 will slow down to its 333mph top speed in about half the time the spit9 will, allowing the spit9 to catch up and have E advantage vs the 38 on the deck.

3) Flap retract is a huge issue because any 38 driver worth its salt would not even use flaps unless engaged in a turnfight (and face it, if you under 250mph and fighting in a 38, its a turnfight) or stall-fight (usually vertical). It is NOT cool to have gained angles against a spit (and yes it can happen) by using flaps and rudder roll and all the sudden having your plane spin out of control just because the speed indicator hits the 250mph tickmark for 1/10th of a second WHILE you are pulling heavy g's (aka, you're going for a shot) and clicked the fairy autoretract feature.

When in the MA, do film every 38 you come across, I will guarantee you that those that try to outmanouver you (turn, vertical , loop) will spin or stall or lose angles one or more times during that fight. If you watch the film closely, you will notice a split second gap between the flaps retracting and the 38 spinning or losing control. Coincidence? I dont think so.

4) Firepower: In AH 2 .50 cals=1 20mm hispano. Spit 2X20mm 2X.50 = 6 .50 cals equivalent. P38 has 4X.50's and 1X20mm = 6 .50 cal equivalent.  

Nose armament seems to be worthless with the current damage model. Get a P-51b, put its convergence to 150 on all guns, go shoot a B17's wing from d600. You will see sprites all over the wing and it will fall off in half a second burst thanks to some magic BB hitting the spot that detaches wing/wingtip or something of the sort. Get P-38 and do the same, the B17s wing will not fall out until you have put maybe a second or more of 50 cal ammo on the same spot. BUT! Use your rudder to spray left and right and you get same result as bpony. Magic BB.

[Soda]

Where to start....

Acceleration, OIO, I suggest you test it.  My tests showed the P-38 winning at all speeds, slow and fast.  The margin was small, but the excess speed potential and thrust of the P-38 won at all altitudes I tested (sea-level, 10K and 18K).  As I said, the margin was small though, not enough to escape with (though no acceleration margin in AH is enough, not even the vaunted La7).  Spit does tend to be in the top 10 accelerators but that's a pretty crowded group with very close times (measured in portions of a second).

No arguement about Spit E retention, but you can't compare any plane in the game to the Spit in that regards.  nothing compares (the Tempest is close for a while).  90% of the time when I think a Spit out-accelerated me in a P-38 it's actually because he came out of the initial merge with more speed because of his superior E retention.

Firepower on the P-38 is totally fine.  1 hispano vs 2, true, but also twice the .50's with twice the ammo for each gun.  Center mounting also does make a difference, to say otherwise is silly.  If you want to compare it as inferior, why not throw in something with 4 hispanos.  I think the 2 vs 2 contest at the convention was won on a D1.1 shot with a P-38.... I know I've actually made my longest kill with a P-38 at ranges over D1.0

I don't know that I've ever spun a P-38 because of flaps.  I tend to use them in very short bursts, only seconds long, so my speed doesn't have time to vary much though.  I have had them retract though in the middle of a shot (especially around 250mph).  Thing is, I know that at 260mph I don't need flaps anymore, they simply don't help.  They don't improve turn-rate since you are G limited at 260mph anyway, they don't improve turn-radius (same reason), etc.... below 250mph they work (and do improve turn, radius) but they won't retract until technically I don't need them anymore.  I rarely use more than 1 notch of flap, usually only at the top of a zoom or in an absolute emergency since the drag penalty is somewhat extreme.

Comparing to a Spit is somewhat unfair anyway.  He has way more turn-potential at all speeds than the P-38, sustained.  He's capable of pulling something around 34 deg/sec at 220mph while your BEST will be more in the 30 deg/sec at 240mph (with flaps).  that's decisive in the Spits favor.

Hammerhead, the F4U was probably riding the flaps pretty hard too... he has the same issues as you do and his snapstall is way worse.  I simply haven't seen the snapstall

-Soda
Aces High Trainer Corps
The Assassins.

[Murdr]

Hammerhead, I read your comments earlier on the auto-retract, but did not have time to post then.  Soda's subsequent comments on it hit the mark.  38 tops my kills in stat every tour, and I almost never have a snap stall from the auto-retract for the very same reasons.  I only use flaps in short bursts, and constantly retract them to my percieved need for less drag.  From time to time they do auto-retract in a turn, however in those situations I am following the G limit on the pilot and not the stall/elev angle on the plane.  The only way to get a snap stall during the auto retract is if you were riding the edge of stall when it happens.  I think with a little experience you will find that softening up on G force when speed picks up will eliminate most occurances.

[Hammerhead]

Does anyone know where I can find an EM Diagram from the P38.

If someone has one can u please e-mail me a copy at hazard69_2003@yahoo.com

I would appreciate it if i could have one with just the P38 and no other planes on it, since i basically just want to know the flight envelope, for altitudes of 0k,10k,15k and 20k.

Thanks in advance.

[Soda]

I'll send you what I have.

-Soda
Aces High Trainer Corps
The Assassins.