Why was the P39 considered dogshit in the PTO but king shit

>>33205270
Flat spins and slavs.

>>33206129
Are you saying the Airacobra could squat?

Most Soviet aces used Aircobras

>>33205270
>dogshit in the PTO

range


>king shit in the ETO

thats pushing it

>>33206411
The Bell P-39 Airacobra was one of the principal American fighter aircraft in service when the United States entered World War II. The P-39 was used by the Soviet Air Force, which scored the highest number of individual kills attributed to any U.S. fighter type in the Eastern European theatre.[N 2]

>>33205270

During WWII, there was an Aircobra that was specially armored so it could be used for aerial gunnery practice. So long as you used special ammo, you could blast the shit out of it all day long without damaging it. It was called "Pinball".

> get newbie pilot
> put him in Pinball
> "Er, yeah.. we're testing out a new armor. Just fly it around to see how long the fuel lasts."
> let him get up to altitude and have the rest of the squadron just beat the living fuck out of him like they're trying to murder his ass
> record his panicked screams over the radio

>>33205270

Because all other aircraft the russians had access to were basically piles of dogshit.

Russians gave their best vehicles (land lease vehicles) to their best divisions (the Guards), that should tell you something.

>>33205270

Supercharger tuned for lower alts than those common in the ETO

And
>>33206129

caused by the longitudinal and vertical cg being at nearly the same location. Bell probably thought it was a good idea

>>33206884
>which scored the highest number of individual kills attributed to any U.S. fighter type in the Eastern European theatre
Well that's not very hard considering it was one of very few US fighter types in the Eastern European theatre lmao

File: Bell-P63-Kingcobra-skis.jpg (32KB, 600x335px) Image search: [Google]

32KB, 600x335px

>>33205270
It's primary defect was that it just didn't have the high altitude performance to play with the Luftwaffe in western Europe - they were outclassed over 20k feet, and that was where most of the action was.

Especially after the redesign, however, it was an extremely versatile fighter-bomber and it did very well in eastern Europe and in China where little combat took place at high altitude.

>>33205270
Is this a thing now? Are you gonna work your way up from P-38 yesterday, P-39 today, P-40 tomorrow, and just start the same tread over and over, with a tiny change each time?

>>33205270
It depends on what it was being compared to and how it was used. Compared to a Zero as a fighter, it was a dog. Used against the Germans at low level, it did fairly well. It was fairly maneuverable, if unstable. Decent firepower, tough, and easy to land.