How many Luftwaffe pilots achieved five or more P-38 kills?

Twenty-three Luftwaffe pilots achieved five or more P-38 kills. Some Lightnings captured in flying condition, or repaired until they could fly again, were used by the 2nd squadron of the Luftwaffe High Command's Versuchsverband. German airmen nicknamed it Doppelschwanz, Gabelschwanz, or Gabelschwanzteufel because of its distinctive look and enormous firepower.

Franz Stigler, an ace with 28 kills, flew the Bf 109 against the P-38 in North Africa: he said the Lightning turned tighter than they could with ease and went from level flight to a climb almost instantly, and that his rule was never to face one head-on. His best defense was a quick roll and a dive, because the P-38 was slow in the first 10° of roll and not as fast in a dive. Herbert Kaiser, who would go on to reach 68 kills, shot down his first P-38 in January 1943 and considered it a formidable adversary. Kurt Bühligen, the third-highest-scoring German pilot on the western front with 112 victories, recalled that the P-38 burned easily.

Until the J-25 variant, German fighters could easily evade P-38s because they lacked dive flaps to counter compressibility. In Europe, the smaller, more aerodynamic P-51, faster in a dive, replaced the P-38 in most fighter groups by mid-1944.

Johann Pichler, another high-scoring ace, stated that the 1943 P-38 climbed much faster than the Bf 109. In North Africa, where it was used in large numbers from November 1942, the Lightning was especially effective as a fighter-bomber against ground targets and against German and Italian transport aircraft.