How common is the P38J in the Battle of Bodenplatte campaigns?

[Guest deleted@400649]

Since there is a huge sale on the IL2 GB modules, and I'm already buying the Battle of Normandy. I just wanted to ask you guys who own Battle of Bodenplatte how common is the P38J in the BoB campaigns (of course if you happen to own this plane too)? 

 

As for the historical perspective the P38J fighter squadrons were being gradually converted to either P51 Mustangs and P47 Thunderbolts by late 1944. I believe there are only two FS in late 1944/early 1945 that flew them; the 370th that flew Lightnings until February/March of 1945 and 474th that flew them until the end of the war. Thus I came up with that question since I know IL2 stays pretty close to the real life usage of the planes on the fronts present in the series.

 

Probably such topic also been out there in the forum, but how does the P38J fare in Battle of Bodenplatte. Can it compete with the Germans late war designs? I've watched some of the reviews on american airframes made by MagzTV and Sherrif's Sim Shack, they were generally fond of P38 with some issues pointed out, but perhaps you guys have different opinions or additional insights regarding that warbird. Also the fact that P38J is a late 1943 airframe and thanks to the LukeFF insight on the P38J availability in mid 1944 I decided to go with the Battle of Normandy. However, out of just pure curiosity I am wondering how the P38J holds up in the late 1944 - early 1945 against German fighters both singleplayer and multiplayer as I will be probably flying multi with my friend. 

As for the ground attack capability that is not an issue as both modules feature P-47 Thunderbolt which I think is a no-brainer, although I know from the MagzTV review that P38 is also a good choice for it.

 

Thank you in advance for all of your answers!

 

 

 

 

Edited October 29, 2024 by San_Jacinto

[LukeFF]

You can fly in several P-38 squadrons all the way to the end of career mode in April 1945. There are also some good third party missions / campaigns featuring it. 

[MaxPower]

It seems it should perform rougly similarly to a FW-190 A8 with Erhohte Notliestung when the P-38 is on Emergency Power, and better than the A8 on 1.42 ata Emergency Power when at Combat Power.  It also doesn't have the 'supercharger gap' and has a higher critical altitude.  This should be true for all altitudes.

To its disadvantage, it has a massively lower roll rate.  And, C-3 injection allows the FW-190 to stay at its maximum power for a long time.

It ought to be roughly superior except in climb to a Bf-109 G, except if the aircraft has MW-50.  It should be inferior to any aircraft with MW-50 in pretty much every metric to one extent or another, sometimes by a lot.

Note these are only estimations.  They are calculations based on flight test data from the community, and info from other sources.  I haven't tested these aircraft head to head at every altitude.

Another plus side of the P-38 is its godly ability to carry ordnance.  You can load it up to the gills with an amazing amount of bombs or rockets, or cruise comfortably with the bomb load of a mere mortal.  Also the concentrated nose armament punches above its weight class when compared to aircraft with similar wing mounted weapons.

[Guest deleted@400649]

12 hours ago, LukeFF said:

You can fly in several P-38 squadrons all the way to the end of career mode in April 1945. There are also some good third party missions / campaigns featuring it. 

Thank you for your insight Luke, I was afaird that P38 would a rare warbird in the BoBP considering the fact that 8th Air Force almost entirely switched to Mustangs by the late 1944.

But I guess there is also 9th Air Force which still used them for the ground attack role as well as P-47s.

 

Either way, I really appreciate your reply

 

Take care!

[Guest deleted@400649]

6 hours ago, MaxPower said:

It seems it should perform rougly similarly to a FW-190 A8 with Erhohte Notliestung when the P-38 is on Emergency Power, and better than the A8 on 1.42 ata Emergency Power when at Combat Power.  It also doesn't have the 'supercharger gap' and has a higher critical altitude.  This should be true for all altitudes.

To its disadvantage, it has a massively lower roll rate.  And, C-3 injection allows the FW-190 to stay at its maximum power for a long time.

It ought to be roughly superior except in climb to a Bf-109 G, except if the aircraft has MW-50.  It should be inferior to any aircraft with MW-50 in pretty much every metric to one extent or another, sometimes by a lot.

Note these are only estimations.  They are calculations based on flight test data from the community, and info from other sources.  I haven't tested these aircraft head to head at every altitude.

Another plus side of the P-38 is its godly ability to carry ordnance.  You can load it up to the gills with an amazing amount of bombs or rockets, or cruise comfortably with the bomb load of a mere mortal.  Also the concentrated nose armament punches above its weight class when compared to aircraft with similar wing mounted weapons.

Wow, did not expect a detailed answer like this one, I really appreciate your effort Max. That's actually great to hear since I like some challenge, I do realise that P38J as late 1943 airframe is not that capable in late 1944, since there was a serious technological development surge near the end of WW2 regarding the airplanes, like FW190 D9 or Ta152.

Do you happen to have an insight on how the P38J holds among the US late war designs like P-51D-15 and P47D-28? Is is notably inferior or has some advantages over the late Mustangs or Thunderbolts?

 

By the way, thank you very much for the reply!

 

Take care!

[BlackSix]

1 hour ago, San_Jacinto said:

Thank you for your insight Luke, I was afaird that P38 would a rare warbird in the BoBP considering the fact that 8th Air Force almost entirely switched to Mustangs by the late 1944.

But I guess there is also 9th Air Force which still used them for the ground attack role as well as P-47s.

Available P-38 squadrons in the BoBP career:

 

401st Fighter Squadron, 370th FG, 9th AF: Sep 27, 1944 - Mar 26, 1945

402nd Fighter Squadron, 370th FG, 9th AF: Sep 27, 1944 - Mar 26, 1945

485st Fighter Squadron, 370th FG, 9th AF: Sep 27, 1944 - Mar 26, 1945

 

(On February 28, 1945, the decision was made to convert the entire 370th FG to P-51 Mustang fighters and transfer the Lightnings to the 474th FG. The Mustangs only began arriving in March, and the first combat missions were carried out on March 22, 1944, so P-38s were still in use until March 26.)

 

428th Fighter Squadron, 474th FG, 9th AF: Oct 02, 1944 - Apr 01, 1945

429th Fighter Squadron, 474th FG, 9th AF: Oct 02, 1944 - Apr 01, 1945

430th Fighter Squadron, 474th FG, 9th AF: Oct 02, 1944 - Apr 01, 1945

[LukeFF]

3 hours ago, San_Jacinto said:

But I guess there is also 9th Air Force which still used them for the ground attack role as well as P-47s.

 

Yes, both the Normandy and Rhineland USAAF careers focus on the 9th Air Force, since that was their area of operation. You'll also see the 352nd FG starting in December 1944, when they were rotated to the continent to provide more fighter coverage for the 9th's fighter-bombers.

[MaxPower]

11 hours ago, San_Jacinto said:

Do you happen to have an insight on how the P38J holds among the US late war designs like P-51D-15 and P47D-28? Is is notably inferior or has some advantages over the late Mustangs or Thunderbolts?

 

By the way, thank you very much for the reply!

I can give it a shot!  But the usual disclaimer is that I'm making estimations and I'm not an aerodynamicist, etc etc.

I'm using the P-38J-25, the P-47D-28 and the P-51D-15.  The earlier models will generally perform better if they have access to the same high octane fuel.

In terms of stall speed, the P-38 is between the P-51 and P-47 at 50 percent fuel.  The P-38 has a full fuel fraction of 14 percent, the P-47's is 15 percent, and the P-51s is 16 percent.  So they should respond similarly to similar fuel percents.  However, the P-51 has maneuver limitations above 70 percent fuel because of center of gravity reasons.  Stall speed is important for low speed turn performance and also the amount of Gs you can pull at higher speeds before the aircraft stalls.

The P-38 has a power to weight ratio of 0.42 bhp/kg.  This is assuming 1550 bhp per engine for a total of 3100.   The P-47's is 0.47 bhp/kg with 150 octane fuel and 2800 horsepower.  The P-51's is 0.41 bhp/kg with 150 octane fuel and 1788 horsepower.  Power to weight ratio is important for low speed acceleration, climbing, and I think sustained turn performance.

The P-38 design unfortunately has a lot of drag.  It was designed before some important break throughs in aerodynamics that later designs could take advantage of.  Consequently, it is the slowest aircraft at sea level.  Top speed is important not only for straight line performance.  At the aircraft's top speed, 100 percent of its propeller thrust is overcoming drag and being converted into airspeed.  However, if the aircraft has decent top speed advantage, there is a range of speeds where it can be faster than the other aircraft and still has some power left over to climb, turn, accelerate or what-have-you.  At the risk of getting into the weeds here by making claims about historical aircraft parasite drag, I think the P-38 is the most draggy of the three, followed by the P-47, and then the P-51.  This certainly bears out in their sea level top speeds.  Just a bit of a detour here since making claims about historical aircraft engineering is a bit controversial: I'm not attempting to make any real absolute claim about historical aircraft physical properties, just provide info that helps in the context of playing this sim.  I'm also not approaching this from an engineering perspective.

It looks like in turns of turning rate, the P-51 and P-38 should behave similarly between 300 and 400 km/h.  The P-47 has a little disadvantage here.  The P-51 can be slower and still manage a high turn rate because of its lower stall speed.

They seem to have similar climb rates down low.  This would probably be the least accurate estimation, but it's what I've got.  With 150 octane, the P-47 has a significant climb rate advantage over 3000 meters or so.  Since all three aircraft have a 5 minute emergency power limit, they're more likely to be climbing at combat power.  In this case, at 54 inches of manifold pressure, the P-38 should be the best climber.  The other two aircraft are gravely affected because their WEP horsepower is so high with 150 octane, and their combat horsepower is much lower.

The top speed numbers should be pretty solid since they're not estimates.  They're the results of community flight tests.  The P-51 is the fastest at every altitude.  In fact it's still the fastest up to around 5000 meters on combat power when the other aircraft are on WEP.  It also has the highest compressor critical altitude.  The P-47 is next and is faster on WEP than the P-38 (with 150 octane or not).  But, the P-38's top speed on combat power is better than the P-47's by kind of a large margin, especially down low.

If you want to check out a quick way to see aircraft top speed comparisons, check out this thread.  It shows how to kind of hack an older tool for another game into accepting new aircraft data for this game.  I used this data and the il2 aircraft info pages to get the aircraft statistics to base my estimates on.