P-38 J Lightening droop snoot

[bluewillow]

370TH FIGHTER GROUP P38J droop Snoot

Completed during my MAYDAY build last month the P-38J from the 401st reconnaissance squadron of the  370th fighter group USAAF.  I have always wanted to build one of these for my European theatre ground air support. This unit was the close support for Pattons 3rd Armys breakout through Pays de Loire in August 1944. The droop snoot nosed aircraft was used reconnaissance and coordination for targeting the rocket armed P38s and bombing for the rest of the group. They targeted the German armour, support elements, rail heads and retreating convoys to the north and east of 7th Army HQ at Le Mans into the Falaise pocket or east to Chartres.

As Wargamers we like to think that air support was easily available, with ground to air contact regularly. Pattons 3rd army was the first time that units at the front had direct radio liaison between the ground and the target liaison aircraft during the breakout. US aircraft were available every 8 mins to be targeted on the Germans units directed by these aircraft in constant contact with the lead elements of Pattons Armoured and cavalry units. The 370th Fighter Groups P-38s were flying out of Cardonville in Normandy so were over targets in the Mayenne region in around 5-6 mins as they chased the German 7th army east towards Falaise and onto Paris. The unit was also the first to drop Napalm incendiary bombs in Normandy on the 17th of July on a German fuel depot at Coutances west of St Lo.

My kit is the superb Dragon model, only complaint no pilot….. so a Revell one was used, markings are for the 401st squadron of the 370th Fighter Group, fuselage code 7F.







Cheers
Matt

[moiterei_1984]

Looking spot on! Great work

[snitcythedog]

Always nice to see reconnaissance aircraft get some love and the P38 was a particularly pretty bird. 

[carlos marighela]

Nicely painted Matt. Fine looking aircraft, albeit a death trap if hit.

I'll demur on one point however. The Tin Tanks were not the first people to develop effective tactical air support. From an allied perspective that prize goes to the Desert Air Force, who managed to build a very effective system of CAS. So seamless that Montgomery remarked that 'The RAF and Army are one'.

[bluewillow]

Nicely painted Matt. Fine looking aircraft, albeit a death trap if hit.

I'll demur on one point however. The Tin Tanks were not the first people to develop effective tactical air support. From an allied perspective that prize goes to the Desert Air Force, who managed to build a very effective system of CAS. So seamless that Montgomery remarked that 'The RAF and Army are one'.

I understand, yes coordination was done early by both German and allied troops, spotted marked on a map, called back to the HQ then redirected to the battery for a fire mission or to aircraft sorties.

From my understanding, the yanks were the first to have a permanent FAC presence flying over the point of a Armoured column. The FAC co-ordinated directly with the on the ground point recon units, the Forward Artillery observers and the air cover sortie, the recon unit, FAO or the FAC would mark the target, then the FAC would direct the incoming air sortie, or the artillery precisely onto the target, knocking out resistance ahead of the armour and Armoured infantry.

Cheers
Matt

K

[carlos marighela]

Maybe but the Yanks essentially picked up the British Rover FAC system after seeing it in action at Salerno. This was supplemented by Horsefly, the aerial FAC component, which 2 TAF also used. Both used cab rank CAS systems. Indeed under a Kiwi, 'Mary Coningham', the RAF excelled at the task.

One must give credit to the USAAF for adopting a good idea when they saw one.  Of course tempering all of that is the commonly expressed view that the USAAF was one of the larger threats to their own troops. Admittedly it was the 8th Airforce that were the biggest culprits.*  See Operation Cobra



*To be fair 2nd TAF managed to bomb the Canadians by mistake during the campaign but not quite with the same dramatic effect.

[Rick]

I'm sorry to have to say it but, despite having a different inbuilt approach to war, the Americans had to learm everything about how to fight a modern war (at the time) from the British, French and Commonwealth veterans.
General Ismay, touring US Army training areas in the USA in 1942, remarked to Churchill that putting American troops up against German troops would be sheer murder.