Does anybody have a photo of an F4U-1D with two 1,000lb bombs, one 2,000lb bomb and eight rockets? I am a little skeptical that all of that was carried at once.
Thanks, but those images don't exactly back up the claimed loadout.
While returning to the United States, Lindbergh stopped at the Marshall Islands and visited with the Marine Corsair squadrons that were bombing and strafing bypassed Japanese garrisons. On his final two flights on Sept. 12th/13th, 1944 he flew loaded with a 2,000 pound bomb on the center pylon and 2 1,000 pound bombs under the wing. He dropped his bombs on targets located on Wotje Island.
Also, the P-38L could carry two 2,000lb bombs, the Typhoon could carry sixteen rockets and so on. Many rarely used loadouts are not in the game because they would be overly dominant. It is bad enough how often 1,000lb bombs are carried by fighters already.
The 2,000 pound loadout was not rare ordnance to be carried by the P-38, they carried them depending on the mission parameters. They had to use wooden bomb shackles to carry them that would bang up the P-38 on bomb release and both bombs had to be dropped at the same time during pull out. Otherwise the shackles would be torn from the plane due to the G-force. That was pretty much the main reason why the P-38 didn't use 2,000 pound bombs regularly.
Rockets on the other hand were an uncommon loadout for P-38s. One fighter group's squadron never used rockets on any missions they flew in combat in the ETO (428th FS, 474th FG served in the ETO until the end of the war). Another squadron that did use them from time to time in the PTO mentions that on missions were they did carry rockets on their rails (referring to the P-38L), they would routinely not carry 20 mm ammunition.
I wouldn't be surprised if the instances of P-38s carrying 2,000 pound bombs didn't happen with more frequency than P-38s carrying rockets.
ack-ack
