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Originally Posted by Pursuivant
One American fighter pilot who served in NG said that the main strike against the P-39 was lack of range, since the Allies had to cross the Owen Stanley Mountains in order to strike at the Japanese.
Additionally, by the time the P-39 got to NG, better fighters, such as the P-38 and P-47, were starting to become available. But, Army policy was that fighter squadrons didn't get newer fighters until the P-39s they had were unserviceable. Not surprisingly, U.S. pilots did everything they could to help that process along - such as bailing out of potentially salvageable aircraft.
I could also imagine that taking care of a relatively advanced plane like the P-39 in some of the most unforgiving terrain on earth was a nightmare for ground crews. Armchair historians tend to forget about boring logistical issues like maintenance intervals and serviceability rates.
Finally, the American pilots in NG in 1942/43 were still figuring out how to beat the Japanese, who were masters of the conventional turning dogfight. Part of the reason that they didn't have confidence in their planes is because they were blaming the planes for their own lack of tactical skill. It's telling that non-U.S. forces were able to take the same planes that the U.S. considered to be "dogs" and use them successfully. (Finns with the Buffalo, Soviets with the P-39, Australians with the Vengeance).
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The P-39 in the early war period had a number of problems; poor serviceability, uneven quality, and the fact that when it was sent to the Pacific, there were often several different models of the aircraft going to the same squadron or group, often without the necessary jigs, special tools and maintenance manuals. The pilots themselves in that early period were often fresh out of training, and had no previous experience with the Airacobra beyond seeing pictures of it in
Life magazine. I doubt that any aircraft put together in that sort of conditions is likely to perform to factory specs.
Add in the fact that no one in the Pacific in 1942-43 seems to have had the slightest idea of what Japanese fighters looked like, much less what they could do, and that the US fighters like the Warhawk and the P-39 were considered better dogfighters than their European counterparts at their best altitudes (and that the British and German fighters were supposed to be the best in the world at the time), and you have the makings of a dog's dinner or in the US military vernacular, a word that starts with "cluster."
I doubt that there was a P-39 anywhere in the Pacific before mid-1943 that performed as well as the game depicts every model of the Airacobra; it is possible that the ones in New York or the Kuban actually were that nifty, but not in New Guinea and certainly not at Guadalcanal, which is where they established their reputation with American combat pilots.
As for the Buffalo, the US Navy's problem with it was that normal carrier landings tended to literally shave portions off the landing gear struts; over a period of months, this led to aircraft becoming unserviceable when the US Navy desperately needed carrier fighters. The Grumman F4F was simply much more reliable and not all that different in capability.
As for the Vengeance, again, not that good as a carrier divebomber; the SBD was a better and more reliable weapon and it was what the Navy and Marines stuck with. Some manufacturers' products were primarily dedicated to Lend-Lease, not because they made lesser products necessarily, but because their products duplicated but did not exceed the products our military was already using.
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horseback