Author: Station Fengxue (Without permission, please do not copy the full text to carry!) ）
At the beginning of the Pacific War, the Japanese army relied on the advantages of the flexibility and mobility of the Zero fighter, and it was indispensable in air combat, and it was proud of the crowd!
U.S. warplanes were simply powerless to counter Zero provocations. The Japanese pilots were even more arrogant, shouting that "allied aircraft saw one and shooting down one" and even shouted the slogan of "zero undefeated".
The imminent situation on the front line makes the US military urgently need to change into a fighter with better performance, at least to compete with zero war. But time did not wait, so the U.S. military remembered a new "half-finished" fighter in the hands of Locke Side: the XP-38.
The xp-38, with its strange appearance, fierce firepower and heavy armor, became the best choice for the US military.
In fact, as early as 1936, the US Army Aviation announced the design requirements of the new twin-engine interceptor: it required its maximum cruising speed to reach 576 km / h. On June 23, 1937, the U.S. Army Air Force finally chose to adopt Lockheed's XP-38 design among many bidding companies.
On January 27, 1939, the first XP-38 prototype successfully flew for the first time, and all the data also satisfied the top management of the US Army Aviation. The XP-38 has a strange design: it looks like it merges two fighter jets together.
You should know that in that era, the shape design of mainstream fighters was mostly a single-seat, single-engine straight wing layout, even now the design of mainstream fighters is like this, but the straight wing was changed to a retreat wing, and the engine became a jet.
At that time, mainstream fighters were single-engine flat-winged
The XP-38, on the other hand, had a single-seat, twin-engine straight wing layout, so it had a fighter with two propellers mounted at the front of the two side fuselages.
Of course, this design has the advantage of carrying more weapon systems, and the XP-38 not only has a 20 mm caliber cannon and four machine guns, but also can carry nearly 1400 kg of rockets and bombs.
XP-38（P-38）
Its fuel tank and engine were mounted in the middle of the fuselage in the cabin, with thick armor protection on the outside, and the pilot sat in the fuselage in the middle of the aircraft.
This design makes the XP-38's crew less susceptible to bullets and the plane less prone to being shot down. Even if the aircraft is shot several times in an air battle, it can generally continue to fight or return safely.
In addition to its strong damage resistance, the XP-38's first three-point landing gear design is also very innovative, which can make it easy to take off and land even in poor conditions and limited runway distances, which is more suitable for the combat environment of the Pacific theater.
Therefore, the XP-38's speed, defense, and firepower performance are almost perfect, and its maximum flight speed is also 667 km / h, and it can complete 3,000 miles at a time without landing without refueling.
If it is piloted by a high-quality pilot, it is undoubtedly a very terrible interceptor and attack aircraft, which can be completely comparable to the Japanese Zero fighter.
But on February 11 of the same year, the XP-38 accidentally crashed during a record-breaking transcontinental flight from California to New York. Later, in a series of tests of the XP-38's actual combat performance, the number of crashes was still relatively large.
Many XP-38 test pilots, due to bad weather and speed, when they fly between the same gray sky and the sea for a long time, they often fly the plane directly into the sea, until after the crash they do not react to where is the sea, where is the sky.
In addition, the US military did not participate in the war at the beginning of World War II, so the US military high-level asked for the improvement of this fighter and suspended equipment.
After the P-38 was installed in large quantities, Japan gradually "low-keyed" zero war!
Although the XP-38 had an unfortunate accident during the test flight, the U.S. military still recognized the aircraft's excellent performance.
After the outbreak of the Pacific War, the outstanding performance of the Japanese Zero fighter forced the U.S. military to speed up the pace of installation of the XP-38: they officially named the P38 "Lightning" and attacked for the first time in England in 1941, but did not encounter enemy aircraft at that time.
It wasn't until early 1942 that the P38 Lightning achieved its first success: it successfully shot down a German bomber after taking off in Iceland.
On August 9, 1942, two U.S. P-38Es engaged two Japanese Type 97 seaplanes during a one-way 1,000-mile patrol mission and managed to shoot them down, the first Japanese fighters to be shot down by the P-38.
Subsequently, the P-38 began to spread throughout Europe and the Pacific Theater: in November 1942, it was sent to the North African theater, and the results were remarkable.
In the later strategic bombing of The German mainland and occupied areas by Britain and the United States, escort P-38 fighters could be seen. In July 1943, the United States also aided a small number of P-38 fighter jets to the Soviet Air Force. In the spring of 1944, P-38 fighters also began to appear on the Battlefield of China's Anti-Japanese War.
In the Eurasian theater of 1944, the U.S. Army Aviation was already equipped with 13 squadrons of P-38 fighters. Especially in the Pacific Theater, the P-38 exerted its advantages of long range and fierce firepower to the fullest, so that the once arrogant Zero gradually became low-key.
The advantages of the Zero fighter are light weight, fast climbing, and excellent maneuverability! However, its disadvantages are also obvious: weak firepower, in order to reduce the weight of the aircraft, its armor protection performance is very poor.
Therefore, in view of this feature, US aircraft generally adopt dive attack tactics when flying P38s and encountering Zero fighters. If one hit fails, the P38 will accelerate to escape, and then launch the next dive attack, trying not to get tangled up with the Zero fighter.
It was the use of this shrewd tactic that caused headaches for the Japanese Zero fighter pilots, and gradually showed a downward trend in the Pacific air battle.
The most impressive record of the US P-38 fighter is the successful "assassination" of Yamamoto Isoroku.
P-38 "Assassination" of Isoroku Yamamoto
It was April 18, 1943, at 9:30 a.m., over the Pacific island of Bougainville, japanese Navy Supreme Commander Isoroku Yamamoto was inspecting the front line in a Land-based Bomber type I, escorted by only six Zero fighters (and another bomber with other senior Japanese officers).
Isoroku Yamamoto
Along the way, The Zero pilot Kenji Yanagaya was careful to drive, and as he flew through the screen-like primeval forest, he deliberately raised a little height so that he could have a favorable view of the surrounding situation. Directly below his plane, there were six Japanese Zero fighters escorting the I land-based bombers.
But what Yanagani did not expect was that directly above him, 16 U.S. P-38 Catamaran Demon fighters were swooping down.
Suddenly, the 6 Japanese Zero fighters in the Japanese aircraft group formation went up to meet the "desperate protection of the lord". However, the Japanese did not expect that this was a "trick to lure the enemy" by the US military. In less than a minute, the two Japanese bombers that had lost their protection were besieged by several American P-38 fighters.
Yamamoto's landline was shot down
Amid the horrific screams of the 20 mm cannon and 12.7 mm machine gun above the P-38 fighter jet, the bomber in which Yamamoto was riding quickly disappeared into the dense forest with thick flames. In this way, the US P38 "Lightning" fighter finally completed its most dazzling blow in the war!
Comprehensive evaluation
Throughout the war, the P-38 performed well in the Pacific: it shot down more than 1,800 Japanese fighters. There are many American aces in the Pacific Theater, and they all fly the aircraft to fight.
For example, the number one and number two aces in the United States have a record of 40 and 38 respectively, and they fly the P-38. There were also more than 100 U.S. P-38 crews, all of whom shot down 5 or more enemy aircraft.
Compared to the Pacific Theater, the P38 performed somewhat poorly in the European theater: it may be due to the cold weather in Europe, which caused the engine of the early model of the P-38 to be very reliable. Compared with German fighters, the P-38 has little advantage in speed and maneuverability, so the loss rate on the European battlefield is relatively high.
After the advent of the P51 fighter, the P38 no longer played the escort role of a European battlefield bomber, and instead performed some tactical bombing missions. However, production of the P38 continued until the end of the war, eventually stopping at nearly 10,000 aircraft.
For the P-38 fighter, the opponents of the US military at that time still gave high praise: the German army called this fighter a "katsuo monster", while the Japanese pilots called it a "double-body demon". Of course, the U.S. military itself gave it a nice nickname: "Almighty Angel."
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