Jug armor

[Stoney]

In all seriousness this time, I fly the P-47 a lot in the game.  Its my main ride.  While I don't have any scientific evidence to prove it, I believe it is the most durable fighter in the game, even more so than the F6F, which I would put in second place.  I've been chewed up many times by bomber gunners, and come out of those hits with only oil leaks, and perhaps a damaged gun.  I've collided with planes and watched them fall to the ground, while I was able to fly home.  I rarely suffer fires, mostly in the P-47N more so than the D models.  I rarely suffer pilot wounds, and ironically seem to suffer them most from Lancaster guns (perhaps more an effect of me being lazy against such a defenseless target).

Overall, at least comparitively, I'd say the P-47 lives up to its legendary durability in game.  Its not a tank though, and needs to be handled as any other aircraft in the game.  The only difference, IMO, is that what damage would cripple you in another plane will only serve to give you an incentive for an early RTB in the Jug.  And, I am a P-47 fanboi.

[TimRas]

The armor was only effective against 30cal and 7.9mm type of machine guns.

You're talking about .50cal Browning API rounds. These bullets can cut through 1/2 an inch of SOLID STEEL ARMOR at a mile downrange.

Some designers were more confident:

[Kweassa]

Some designers were more confident

 Tim, observe closely the angles.

 The "protection" mentioned in the picture is not a result of armoured resistance against bullets. Rather, it's a consequential result gained through the fact that bullets incoming from directly front/rear angles will have to make past the engine block in case of frontal fire, or past the rear vert./horiz. stabilizers and then the long fuselage in case of rounds coming from behind.

 Indeed, the stabs and fuselage prove to be a major hinderance to the impacting power of machine gun rounds. But the problem is, the pilot may be unhurt, but the plane still will be. Besides, the stabs are narrow. There is always a good chance that incoming rounds will miss the stabs or the long fuselage and land directly somewhere near the rearside of the cockpit.

 Guess what would happen when a .50 equivalent round misses the stabs, and impacts the rear of the cockpit with a little bit of angle so it does not enter the "long" travel of the fuselage.


 

 

[TimRas]

There is always a good chance that incoming rounds will miss the stabs or the long fuselage and land directly somewhere near the rearside of the cockpit.

I would say the chance that the round would hit stabs is minimal. Do you really believe that this kind of drawing would be presented in the pilots manual if your interpretation is right ?

"The Spitfire F Mk.21, a late war model, was considered protected against German 20 mm AP rounds in a 20 degrees cone from the rear, and against 13 mm rounds from the front. The US Navy expected fighters to carry armour able to stop a .50 rounds at 200 yards"
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Hangar/8217/fgun/fgun-ar.html

[BnZ]

Kweassa:

I am not he only one who has noticed frequency of PWs in the Hog and engine stoppages with the R2800. No, I haven't a scientific test for it (be glad to try it if you can think of. Perhaps park a running airplane near an M-3 and fire one .50 round at a time with it until the engine goes dead? ) But I have attacked buffs quite abit with both a D-9 and a C-Hog. In the former, the radiator nearly always get shot out, but the engine hardly ever get stops. While it seems like in the C-Hog, about as many pings as usually knock out the D-9's rad will actually stop the engine.

I never expected the Hog/Jug to be flying tanks, I think that they are generally structurally rugged, although you will note the venerable WideWing has demonstrated that the Jug sometimes takes multiple 20mm pings, and sometimes just one, to remove a Jug's wing, something you must admit is odd. I just think on three points, engine stoppage, fire, and PW, they are actually a little weaker than many other planes.

[Stoney]

Tim, observe closely the angles.

 The "protection" mentioned in the picture is not a result of armoured resistance against bullets. Rather, it's a consequential result gained through the fact that bullets incoming from directly front/rear angles will have to make past the engine block in case of frontal fire, or past the rear vert./horiz. stabilizers and then the long fuselage in case of rounds coming from behind.

Wrong.  The protection shown in the graphic is a direct result of the armored areas of the cockpit.  With a 3/8" face hardened plate in the firewall, and another behind the seat pan of the pilot, you achieve the described protection against .50 cal.  The 1.5" thick glass in the front windscreen gives you the protection against .30 cal and flak.  The rest of the lightly shaded area merely suggests that the airframe itself protects the pilot from wounds received from .30 cal and flak.

Certainly the engine is a huge part of protecting the front of the cockpit, but not by design.

There are plenty of hypotheticals regarding pilot protection.  What I've been looking for is the USAAF and USN specifications for the armor plate.  If the U.S. military put it in planes, it had to have a Mil-Spec that would detail exactly what it was supposed to protect against, Brinell hardness, etc. and there would have been testing to show that the Mil-Spec was correct and achieved the specified protection.

What we really need to do in order to answer this question properly, is the data or documentation from this.  Perhaps Tony Williams or others have a resource they could point us to.  I found a couple of post-war tests on Oscar and Me-109 armor, but nothing on U.S. armor...yet.

[h338]

pannono

finally something we agree on

-in 1943 there was a P47D that returned with 105 holes in his aircraft and 3 cylinders missing
-also in 1943, a p47 (not sure which model) flew THROUGH a tree on accident and returned to base just fine...not saying if u hit a tree with a jug u should live but i am saying that the P47 definitly needs some more armor rivetted on there in the game