Planes

[David603]

Originally Posted by yanks12025

The P-38 is the second greatest war plane of WW2 behind the P-51 mustang.

Purely if you want the best dogfighters, a late model Corsair or a Spitfire XIV would walk all over either of those planes, and the Corsair had a pretty good range too. Even the older Merlin engined Spitfires like the VIII, IX and XVI could outclass either plane in a dogfight, even if the P51 is faster by around 30mph. The later Russian fighters like the Yak 3 and La7 would be all over a P38 and more than a match for a P51 once the fight slowed down slightly.

The P38 was withdrawn from Europe because it could not hold its own against the Bf109 and Fw190, and sent to the Pacific where its speed advantage over the slow Japanese fighters allowed safe use of BnZ tactics all day long and ensured a good kill/death ratio.

Edit: I see a lot of other people have also responded to this post. Should have checked the next page of posts before I replied.