P38 Lightning

[thomas916]

Does anybody knows how to fight against this pesky fighters?In my pbem game I play as Japanese.All things were quite o.k until now.Its Okt1942 and my opponent comes with 20P38 every day over Singapure.Sweeping at 40000 feet I have no chance to counter that.He blows me out of the sky.I tried all my fighters(Zero and Oskars) at different altitudes but no success.

[PresterJohn001]

Yep they are real bad news. To make things worse they get plenty of experience shooting down your planes, so in short order have the height advantage, sweep bonus and excellent pilots. Ive not found a decent way of fighting them except possibly overwhelming numbers. The other tactic you can try is shutting down the airfields they are flying from. Yeah i know they've indecently long range as well.
I've stopped contesting the air when they are around, but maybe i just suck.

[:'(]

[m10bob]

1.Lots of AA guns.
2. Find other airfields and deploy in several instead of one big target.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: thomas916

Does anybody knows how to fight against this pesky fighters?In my pbem game I play as Japanese.All things were quite o.k until now.Its Okt1942 and my opponent comes with 20P38 every day over Singapure.Sweeping at 40000 feet I have no chance to counter that.He blows me out of the sky.I tried all my fighters(Zero and Oskars) at different altitudes but no success.

In October 1942, how is it that Singapore is being swept by P38s? Where are they based to do this? If he's recaptured Burma already, a few P38 sweeps is amongst the least of your concerns at this early juncture of the war.

I agree with PP-if he keeps sweeping your predictable fields either change fields or don't fly CAP. Why do you *have to* fly CAP anyways? Is he bombing you too? You don't have to keep feeding his kitty.

[thomas916]

Shutting the enemy airfield down will be impossible.Too much fighters there and no access from sea.Maybe I have to wait for developement of new models.Until the I have to train my remaining pilots.I dont know.Thanks for replies

[thomas916]

Yeah bad things happened.He is holding Palembang and all the peninsula south.I wasnt able to get the ground.Now he starts to bomb Singapur and this city is vital for my naval force in the region.Anyway I have to stop CAP now

[Misconduct]

ORIGINAL: thomas916

Yeah bad things happened.He is holding Palembang and all the peninsula south.I wasnt able to get the ground.Now he starts to bomb Singapur and this city is vital for my naval force in the region.Anyway I have to stop CAP now

apur and this city is vital for my naval force in the region.Anyway I have to stop CAP now

If he's held Java, then you have a more serious problem then CAP.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: thomas916

Yeah bad things happened.He is holding Palembang and all the peninsula south.I wasnt able to get the ground.Now he starts to bomb Singapur and this city is vital for my naval force in the region.Anyway I have to stop CAP now

May I suggest that your biggest challenge is to extricate your opponent from Palembang? Soon. You're in a lot of trouble here-and very early too.

Kicking him out of the DEI / SRA altogether will diminish the ways in which he can sweep your cities with P38s.

[FatR]

You should be able to handle 20-Lightnings raid alone with sheer numbers of CAP, patrolling at low altitude to maximize MVR advantage.

[thomas916]

Thats bad news

[thomas916]

Yeah I know.But my armies there are in a nearly hopeless situation.They are not strong enough to kick him out.Not enough supply.And he has Air Superiority

[thomas916]

Really?That would be nice.I thougt MVR rating is not relevant if he is sweeping at high altitudes

[wdolson]

The only real weakness of the P-38 is the high service rating.  they break down when run on sweep turn after turn.  If you know where they came from wait until the P-38 sweeps drop off and bomb their home field, you might be able to destroy some on the ground while under repair.

For the Japanese, the real pain is when P-47s start arriving in large numbers.  They have a service rating of 1 and 8 .50 caliber machine guns.  They can sweep non-stop until pilot fatigue gets them.  P-38s can only maintain full squadron sweeps for a few days before a lot of them are down for maintenance.

Bill

[tigercub]

they are ways to counter the P38 as said...but its gamey to be flying at 40,000 anyway...the P38 was not a good figher over the 20,000 let alone 40,000 feet.

[wdolson]

Hub Zempke talked about the problems with the P-38 in Europe in his autobiography.  The turbos on the P-38 could operate in dry cold environments, and in warm damp environments, but the oil in them tended to jellify in cold damp climates.  Even at altitude the P-38's turbos tended to work OK in the Pacific, but in Europe too many pilots pushed forward the throttles for combat when flying at 30,000 feet only to find the turbos seize up.

Lockheed finally worked out the problems with the J or L, but by then the P-38 was mostly out of service in Northern Europe.

Northern Europe was really the only part of the world where combat was routinely happening at high altitudes.  On every other front the fights were generally at lower altitudes.

Bill

[Mynok]

Combat is always at the altitude of the target.

[aoffen]

I remember someone suggesting that setting your CAP at multiple altitudes helped offset the high altitude sweep tactic.
A counter tactic may be to sit of the ground for a turn or two get repaired and rested, then when he is fatigued and sweeping in lower numbers, surge up suddenly for a turn or two with 3 squadrons set at say 80% CAP. Set one at 20,000, one at 15,000 and one at 10,000. I believe the chances are you may get a bounce back on him in one of the later combat rounds.
Regards
Andrew