German Pilots Laughed At The P-51 Mustang, Until Its .50s Turned Luftwaffe Dogfights Into Slaughter

If one airplane has captured the public’s imagination more than any other, it’s the North American P-51 Mustang. To many, especially the young fighter pilots who flew it during the war’s final year, it was the Mustang that gave the Allies the edge and secured air superiority over Europe.

The Mustang

In the summer of 1941, the US Army Air Forces (USAAF) received two Mustangs designated XP-51. Flight tests showed great potential, but the USAAF didn’t immediately place an order. Thanks to Gen. Hap Arnold’s intervention, however, the service kept 55 Mustangs from a British order. Most were converted into F-6A photo-reconnaissance planes and assigned to the 154th and 111th Observation Squadrons in North Africa in spring 1943.

By March 1942, the first production P-51A fighters were delivered. These aircraft performed well at low altitude, but their Allison engines limited them at higher altitudes. As a result, they were mainly used in the China-Burma-India theater, where air battles took place closer to the ground.

In April 1942, the USAAF ordered an attack version fitted with dive brakes and bomb racks, the A-36 Apache. Entering combat in June 1943, the A-36 saw action in North Africa, Italy, and India.

A Winning Combo

In the fall of 1942, engineers in the U.S. and Britain fitted the Mustang with the powerful British Merlin engine. The result was stunning – one test aircraft in the U.S. reached 441 mph at 29,800 feet, nearly 100 mph faster than the P-51A. This breakthrough led to mass production of the Merlin-powered P-51B and P-51C models (the “B” built in Inglewood, California, and the “C” in Dallas, Texas).

By December 1943, the first P-51B/C Mustangs were flying combat missions in Europe with the 354th Fighter Group, known as the “Pioneers.” When U.S. bombers struck Berlin for the first time in March 1944, about 175 of these Mustangs were in service, finally giving American bombers the long-range, high-altitude escort they desperately needed.

The P-51D introduced several major upgrades and became the most produced version, with nearly 8,000 built. Its most noticeable improvement was the new “bubble-top” canopy, which gave pilots a clear, all-around view. The P-51D also featured a modern K-14 gunsight, six .50-caliber machine guns instead of four, and a redesigned ammunition feed system that greatly reduced gun jams. The P-51D arrived in large numbers in Europe in the spring of 1944, quickly becoming the USAAF’s main long-range escort fighter.

Strategic Air Power

At the start of World War II, air power was still a relatively new concept. Military leaders were unsure how best to use aircraft in warfare. Two main schools of thought emerged on how airplanes could shape the outcome of the war. The first was tactical air power- using aircraft as a precision weapon to directly support ground troops. The Germans mastered this approach, employing their Luftwaffe as a kind of “mobile artillery” that provided devastating real-time support to tanks and infantry.

The second approach was strategic bombing, championed by the British and Americans. Rather than directly aiding battles, bombers would strike deep inside enemy territory to destroy the capacity to wage war, targeting factories, oil refineries, transport networks, and even civilian populations. However, no enemy had ever been defeated through bombing alone. The U.S. Army Air Forces would soon put this theory to the test through Operation Pointblank.

Issued in June 1943, the Pointblank Directive aimed to cripple Germany’s ability to resist by destroying its morale and its day fighter force. The goal was to inflict “heavy losses on Germany’s day fighter force” and draw its aircraft away from the Russian and Mediterranean fronts. Once this objective was achieved, Allied bombers would shift to supporting the upcoming D-Day landings in the spring of 1944.