Good questions. The P47 is my favourite ride by far, and if you have an E fighting skill set already from flying LW birds, you should do well. There are a few things you will have to adjust to however. First, most of the LW birds accellerate very well. The P47 does not accellerate well at all, with the exception of diving and even then only over about 250 MPH. There are many situations where you want to slow down quickly and then accellerate to escape in an FW, but try that in a Jug and you are going to be left wallowing at low speed and you'll die soon after. The P47 is great at maintaining E using speed, vertical maneuvering, and by avoiding sustained high-G maneuvers. That means using lag pursuit, barrel rolls, lag displacement rolls, and anything else you can to keep your speed high and still maintain position on your target.
Also the gun set is very different from a cannon bird. The .50's don't hit as hard, but you have more of them, they have a very high rate of fire, and they have very good ballistics. That means that they are easier to hit with than the cannons you are used to, but it also means they need a bit more time on target, and are more sensitive to convergence than you are used to. You can't rely on snapshots as much as you can with cannons, and you will have to be careful to try and be shooting your targets at convergence or close to it. On the up side you'll have a crapload more ammo than you are used to as well. Generally I use 275 yards for all guns as my convergence point, but some folks like a longer one. It's personal taste, skill, and control setup that makes the difference here. Try different settings between 300 and 400 or so, and make sure you converge all 8 guns at the same point. Also, be sure to take the larger ammo load for 8 guns. Taking less guns or less ammo simply gives you less weight to drag around, but given the huge weight of the Jug, it's not that big of a performance gain to go lighter on a % basis. 8 guns and lots of ammo is one of the Jug's best features, so I recommend you take full advantage of that and take the overload ammo condition. You don't win fights in a Jug by being nimble at low speed anyway, so the extra weight is not a big deal. Your fuel load will make much more of a difference.
Now let me try to answer your questions:
The Jug burns fuel the way it should... that is it burns the AUX tank first. You really don't want to have anything left in the AUX tank if you are going to get down and dirty in a tight E fight. I normally try to stick to pure BnZ from advantage when I've got fuel in the AUX tank, it has a negative affect on the Jug's handling. For this reason I don't usually use 50% and a drop tank like some do. I prefer 75% internal in the Jug, that way I burn my AUX completely in climb-out, and I'm on to the regular tanks for the fighting bit. Of course you don't have much flexibility this way, and if you get caught with a mostly full AUX tank you are in deep trouble, and will likely die.
Flaps.... the Jug has great combat flaps. They will help you turn and maintain control at low speeds. I don't normally use them to slow down... that's a bad idea in a Jug. The 47 dives well and holds speed well, but it doesn't accellerate for crap, so be careful not to dump speed unless you absolutely must. If you do need to dump speed, simply chop throttle and pull some high G barrel rolls... that will dump speed pretty quickly. Under 200 Mph in a tight fight, I'll use a notch of flaps, maybe 2 if under 150 to try and keep my nose up. However, that's kindof a last resort thing, you don't want to use any flap if you can avoid it. The jug is all about conserving E, and using flaps will bleed E.
The jug has a great roll rate at medium to high speed. It's not that bad slow, but you REALLY don't want to be slow enough to rely on that anyway. I don't know if the Jug rolls "better" than a Dora at 400 or not... it's pretty close. Not likely roll rate will be the deciding factor in that battle anyway, you can both roll pretty well. Oh, just remember, don't try to win rolling scissors in the Jug. It doesn't do well enough in low speed rolls to win them. Generally the rolling scissors comes down to who can maintain control to keep rolling at the lowest speed, and the Jug is not a good choice there. It's big and heavy, tends to keep it's speed up (which is bad in this case) and can't keep it's nose up at low speeds, even with lots of flap. Generally anything with a lower sustained turning speed and better sustained turn capabilities is going to beat the Jug in this situation, so you want to avoid it.
Best defense when slow in a Jug? Uh... don't get slow. It does not accellerate well, DO NOT GET SLOW. If you are below 250 MPH, use a 0G dive to get to 250. You need speed to be able to perform evasives, and in the Jug you can't rely on accelleration to get the speed you need. You must dive. This means you should always try to keep at least 5k beneath your wings to work with. With about 7k, the Jug can dive to "insane speed" and lose most other planes in the game for long enough to get to friendlies. Your high speed dive is one of the best in the game, so be sure to use it. If you are at say 6k and a higher 190 comes along and starts to set up the BnZ, wait until he misses the first attack and goes back up, then take that opportunity to 0G dive to 500 MPH or so and get the hell out of dodge.
The Jug is tough as hell, has great guns, and a great engine. What it can't do is accellerate or climb for beans. That means it's an E fighter that needs to START the fight with more E. If you don't have more E than the other guy at the start of the fight, and you are flying a Jug, you will die unless the other fellow screws up. You REQUIRE and E advantage to fight this plane effectively.
Oh and one more tip. The Jug does very well in numbers. Jugs tend to work better with wing pairs, or more. For some reason it's great guns and speed seem to lend themselves to drag'n bag tactics much more so than slower fighters that rely more on turning ability. Take a wing man with you, you'll be glad you did.
