Assume guns only and (to steal an LSLGuy term) yeagertastic pilots. How would this go down? Fill in any details you need.
I’ll leave detailed comment to the real military heads, but I can’t imagine it to be much of a contest. Advantage A-10, for performance at rough parity with the Mustang (and better climb rate), far better ability to take hits and the gross mismatch in armament and sighting (30mm cannon vs. 6 x .50 cal). Only thing in the Mustang’s favor may be a slight advantage in turning maneuvers.
BTW, a quick google search showed at least three threads on other boards in the past couple of years, discussing this exact question. Not saying you shouldn’t have asked here, but I’m curious whether there’s any reason you found the answers unsatisfactory.
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There are other boards? Just how wide is this web?
Dopers tend to think that the so-called best and brightest here have all the answers.
They don’t.
The dope might have a “chemistry guy” who had a semester or two more of college chem than anybody else here, but the chemistry stack exchange has actual chemists who answer questions.
In fact once you realize that the dope has “science guys” who are generalists who know less than the “chemistry guys” who know less than actual chemists, you should know that the dope is not the place to go to ask questions.
Go to the dope to argue politics.
Go the the stack exchange to get real answers to questions. In your case the aviation one.
After some further reading, the referenced threads also discuss A-10 vs. other aircraft types, and in nearly all cases the Warthog’s advantage is lost if the opponent is cannon-armed and post-dates WWII. In particular, the general consensus seems to one of the early (Korean-war-era) fighters such as the F-86 or MiG-15 would eat the A-10’s lunch.
Actually, the Dope has real chemists. And physicists. And mathematicians. And just about anything else you care to name. Your assertions are baseless, and calumny.
Hard to envision any scenario in which the A-10** doesn’t **have the overwhelming advantage. Jet engines, better avionics, better hardened against damage, more redundancy of systems, better gun, faster speed to minimize P-51’s window of attack.
Let’s up the antenna then. A-10 is having issues with one of its engines, if not impending failure…
When you have to include artificial limitations like this to try to hamstring one of the contenders, is there really any point to asking the question? The A-10 can carry 2 AIM-9 Sidewinders - A-10s usually fly with an ALQ-131 ECM pod under one wing and two AIM-9 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles under the other wing for self-defense. Sidewinders have been all-aspect since the Niner-Lima which entered service in 1977. In short, the A-10 kills the P-51 with a head on Sidewinder shot from 8 miles or more away.
Why stop there? Let’s assume the pilot of the A-10 is having a stroke. Or better yet, A-10 vs P-51, no jet engines allowed.
I am going to guess that this was a mild overreaction triggered by snfaulkner’s facetious post about informed sites, in general, (even if you did quote El_Kabong).
However, this is teetering on the edge of threadshitting and its content is really not relevant to this rather whimsical thread.
If you need to vent about SDMB culture, take it to The BBQ Pit.
If you wish to actually examine or debate the ability of the SDMB to engage in technical discussions, take it to IMHO or Great Debates.
[ /Moderating ]
Beyond wiki I don’t know the details of the latest updates to create the A-10C. But as to the A-10A which was my contemporary. …
The A-10s gun is a heck of a weapon. But without an air-to-air computing gunsight the A-10 has no practical ability to aim it at a maneuvering target. It’d be utterly effective against a non-maneuvering target such as a P-51 that had no idea he was under attack.
Conversely, the A-10 can absorb a lot of 0.50 caliber rounds with not too much consequence. Except for any shots into the canopy. In a typical maneuvering gun fight the attacker is (relatively) above and behind the defender. So looking down on the top of the target, not at the side or bottom. What armor the A-10 has is concentrated on the bottom.
The P-51 has a WWII-era computing gunsight where “computer” means some springs & a mechanical gyro. Which is a primitive toy compared to the modern radar- and digital computer- driven gunsight in a F-15 or any subsequent aircraft. But it’s vastly better than the nothing the A-10 has.
Net net those factors are probably a wash.
As to AIM-9s.
Absent a radar the A-10 can only shoot what he can see with his eyeballs. Shooting somebody in the face at 8 miles is an awesomely effective tactic we lived for. At that range a modern fighter is but a black speck. One you’re very hard pressed to first find and then keep sight of even with the radar putting a nice small box on the HUD so you know exactly where to look. Under typical sky conditions the A-10 pilot will not see the P-51 until much closer, more like min range of the AIM-9. As well the AIM-9 will track a recip, but only at a closer range and only under favorable circumstances.
Accidentally hit [Send]. Oops.
A lot depends on whether we assume the P-51 pilot is a modern pilot who knows about the A-10s capabilities. Or whether we assume time travel so in addition to his other advantages the A-10 is fighting some guy with 1940s era air combat knowledge who thinks he’s battling a space invader.
The latter scenario really helps the A-10 a bunch. Despite the vast number of man-hours of dogfighting in WWII it’s sobering to read period accounts of what they thought they were doing and why they were doing it. The science of the maneuvering dogfight and of air-to-air tactics was a 1950s and 1960s invention. Prior to that it was mishmash of individual anecdote and idiosyncracy.
Does the A-10’s radar not have at least a vestigial air-to-air mode? If not why bother equipping it with A2A missiles in the first place?
That does not strike me as being at all true; WWII-era air combat doctrine was rather advanced. It had to be. It was a Darwinian process.
What puts our P-51 pilot at a disadvantage, more than anything, is that he is fighting alone, something U.S. WWII fighter pilots were taught not to do. American air combat tactics were very much team-oriented.
That said, who sees whom first? That guy wins.
The A-10 has no radar at all. The AIM-9s are definitely an afterthought and serve several roles.
As I described years ago here F-14 Tomcat vs WWII Zero - In My Humble Opinion - Straight Dope Message Board if a fast aircraft is fighting a slow aircraft the fast-mover is generally forced to pass the slow-mover and will end up out in front. Which exposes his backside to having an IR missile stuffed up it.
From the POV of a fast-jet driver, knowing that if I end up out in front of an A-10 he can shoot me with his gun if I’m in close (~<1/4 mi) or missile me if I’m a bit farther away (~>1/2 mi) leaves me with a tougher problem. Even if the A-10 never shoots at me with his AIM-9s I still need to alter my attack plan to respect that threat.
In the case of fighting a P-51 we’re dealing with aircraft of comparable speeds and G capabilities. So this is less of an issue. OTOH, USAF didn’t install the AIM-9s to defend against P-51s.
Agree that individual survival was *very *Darwinian. OTOH even late in the war what was being taught back in the schools was a mishmash of what one ace or another thought worked for him. There wasn’t institutionalized vetted science-based knowledge. At least not much. That came later.
Team orientation is still 100% the way it’s done. Where we differ most now is the old way used a two-ship formation with one dedicated attacker and one dedicated lookout / defender. Modern doctrine is more of a fluid tag team.
Agree totally with your bottom line. The first pilot to see the enemy has a very good opportunity to get an unobserved kill or at least to start with a large positional advantage in the ensuing melee. If they wrap it up from a mostly neutral set-up I’ll bet on the A-10 but IMO it’s a 70/30 proposition, not 95/5.
How would it do against a radar equipped night fighter like the BF110?
Without looking it up, I’d assume the P-51 has a range (i.e., loiter) and ceiling advantage. Properly abused, that might translate into the ability to dive on the A-10…maybe only once, if the claim above [that the A-10 has better climb] is true.
Now, what about a match between the same dollar amount of A-10 vs P-51? 
Interesting question.
AIUI, the radars on night fighters of that era were pretty primitive. They’d be enough to put the interceptor a mile-ish behind the target more or less co-attitude then they’d try to catch sight visually to press the attack. It was not, AFAIK, shooting at blips.
Assuming that’s all true, the A-10s radar warning will probably not trigger on the Bf110’s radar; totally wrong frequency band and operating parameters. So the A-10 is depending on good visual lookout over his shoulders or passing tracers to tell him the 110 is back there.
The A-10 has a great advantage in power and maneuverability, so assuming the first burst doesn’t do too much damage the A-10 breaks away and can run or try to fight as he chooses. He’s not equipped with anything to help him find the -110 again, so fighting it in the dark is probably not practical.
Clouds, moonlight, or ground lights may permit the A-10 to keep track of the -110 and maneuver around behind. Or if the A-10 has help like GCI (even WWII GCI) or AWACS (!) to put him into position. Now he too has a chance for an unobserved shot at a non-maneuvering target. Albeit one with a rear-facing gun and lookout / gunner. Despite my earlier comments about lack of an air-to-air gunsight, against a straight and level cruising target it’ll be easy enough to line up behind, settle in, then chop the -110 into beercans with the first few rounds.
I agree with some of the general comments about an A-10 v some higher performance WWII night fighters. But Bf-110G’s were only fast enough to overhaul their roughly 200kt cruise bomber opponents reasonably easily. An A-10 can cruise at around 300kts, close to a Bf-110G’s all out top speed. It would take a higher aerodynamic performance WWII night fighter like a Mosquito NF Mk 30 to intercept A-10’s reliably. OTOH the AI Mk.X (SCR-720, S band) radar emissions would be within the nominal range of coverage of an A-10’s ALR-69 radar warning receiver, while the SN-2 radar on most German night fighters would not be (VHF band).
OTOH a radar-less A-10 wouldn’t be very effective chasing after Bf-110G’s/Ju-88G’s in support of British bombers like Mosquito’s did. Radar was quickly adapted to night fighters for a good reason, and ones lacking it tended to rely on searchlights or light from fires on the ground to pinpoint targets, unless it was bright moonlight and clear. Just direction from GCI radars was usually not enough. Night vision goggles might change that somewhat.