Question: P51 Loadouts

[Babalonian]

Over the cource of time a number of us players have stumbled or sought out all sorts of random bits of information and documentation available in the free world to support an expansion and increase of the P-51D's available ordnance loadout options in AH.  In particular: 10-rockets with no drop tanks or bombs, and the possibility of larger drop tanks.

Will the matter of expanding/increasing the ordnance options for one of the most popular aircraft of WWII and within AH ever be considered?  Is there any reason or information on this matter unknown to most of us to support the current options as being the only ones available for the mustang we have in the game?  Is it just a real difficult and time consuming chore for little payoff?

[Guppy35]

I don't recall anyone coming up with a combat used 10 rocket load out yet, despite lots of looking.

I think it comes down to what they did do operationally vs what they could have  done.

Not my call of course

[Babalonian]

I don't recall anyone coming up with a combat used 10 rocket load out yet, despite lots of looking.

I think it comes down to what they did do operationally vs what they could have  done.

Not my call of course

I don't have a copy of it myself, I think someone in one of the numerous pervious threads did provide documentation of larger DTs being used operationaly for long range escort missions in addition to large drop tanks or bombs + 6-rocket combos being used in long-range ground support missions over the Pacific with mustangs.

Specificly for just 10-rockets, you may have a valid point, but I think some from the Korea era were produced... and this is where the discussion turns into a debate, as some points can be made while referencing the current P-47 and it's ability to currently carry loadouts that it also mostly (if not exclusively) utilised during Korea.

So, while trying to avoid that subject it still raises another question, why then choose to err on one side with this aircraft (and only 4-more rockets) and not the others?


Also, when looking at the way these fire control systems were installed (the bare-bones) or shipped/supplied to units as a post-production field kit for installation, they all came with 10-rocket capability once upgrading from tubes (which btw the earliest P51-Ds did have and would ALSO be a valid request as I also recall its use was documented) or you simply didn't have the fire control system necessary.


I thought maybe HTCs got creative here, they've modeled a mustang with the old 3-tube bazooka firing system but shooting the new rockets (so 6 rocket maximum capability, + ord), BUT that would mean that it was then field modified to shoot 5" rockets instead, which could make sence except it blatantly goes against their use of field-modifications (where's our beer-keg drop tanks or up engined 190s?).  See, 5" rockets needed these mounts (one on the rear and one about midway) that are specificly for them... like many creative ground crews, give them enough raw material and the right tools and they can make it themselves... but they didn't do this for the most part in WWII.  They were shipped a kit that included 10 front and back 5"-rocket mounts AND a new firing system/ontroller with a maximum/stanard capacity of 10 rockets (or 6 + ord).


Maybe most fundamental reasoning to my arguement for 10-rockets is this:  To limit them to only 6, specificly without any other ordnance loaded, is a blatant field modification and non-standard USAAF practice.  Can we document a mission flown with only 6 and nothing else on the wings?.... 

So yeah, want to open that can of "field modifications are tollerable within limits"-worms instead?

[Chalenge]

This is another case of not being able to prove a negative. The absent photographs are seen as "proof" that it never happened where as the factory specifically designed the aircraft to carry ten.

[Tank-Ace]

Can't prove a negative, but we shouldn't assume it happened because it had the capability to do so, and we can't prove that it didn't.


IMO, remove the 6 HVAR's + 2 1000lb bombs, add the bazooka-tube rockets and allow them to be mounted with 1000lb bombs (we HAVE seen photo proof of this, while I don't recall any photographs showing a WWII P-51D carrying 6 HVAR's and 2 1000lb bombs).


Thinking about things, I feel like an updated ordnance system (and updated ordnance packages for the biggest planes with the largest discrepancies/missing loadouts)

[Babalonian]

This is another case of not being able to prove a negative. The absent photographs are seen as "proof" that it never happened where as the factory specifically designed the aircraft to carry ten.

Much more eloquently put than my posts.

We lack proof that is ever absolutely happened, despite in order to be equiped with standard issued 5" rocket mounts (non field-mod/fab) for a P-51D mustang, you (as a wrench turner) received a standard kit including instructions, 10 front and 10 back 5" rocket mounts AND an updated/graded firing system/controller capable of 10-rockets.

Can't prove a negative, but we shouldn't assume it happened because it had the capability to do so, and we can't prove that it didn't.


IMO, remove the 6 HVAR's + 2 1000lb bombs, add the bazooka-tube rockets and allow them to be mounted with 1000lb bombs (we HAVE seen photo proof of this, while I don't recall any photographs showing a WWII P-51D carrying 6 HVAR's and 2 1000lb bombs).


Thinking about things, I feel like an updated ordnance system (and updated ordnance packages for the biggest planes with the largest discrepancies/missing loadouts)

Why, we have documented during WWII mustangs flying with them and even heavier loadouts on their wings that 1000lb bombs in adition to the 6 5"-rockets, specificly in teh pacific campaign.

This is why this thread likely keeps getting recreated without any concrete responce.  Everyone has 5-cents to pitch in without ever researching or looking up the documentation.

Simple things, like this:



and this:



proove without any need of opinion what it was quite capable of actually acomplishing.

[Tank-Ace]

Just because it could doesn't mean it did.

I personally haven't seen any solid evidence to show that the P-51D carried 6 5" HVARs in addition to 2 1000lb bombs on the wings in combat during WWII.


If such evidence exists, I would love to see it, and would change my stance accordingly. But I haven't yet seen evidence, and so I say that load out should be removed.

[lyric1]

I don't recall any photographs showing a WWII P-51D carrying 6 HVAR's and 2 1000lb bombs).

Neither have I.
3 rockets & 1 1000lb I have though. 

[Eric19]

Neither have I.
3 rockets & 1 1000lb I have though. 

(Image removed from quote.)

plane would not fly very straight there lyric lol 

[Babalonian]

Neither have I.
3 rockets & 1 1000lb I have though. 

(Image removed from quote.)

I count three 5"-rockets and 1 and 1/2 of a 1,000lb bomb.

[Tank-Ace]

Alright, there we go.

[Krusty]

Just because the technical specs allowed it doesn't mean it was EVER done. Look at Mk108s on Me410s. Never happened. Look at 20mms on P-40s. Built from the factory to allow them. Never happened. Look at so many options where something was built in as a plan, or as a future expansion, that NEVER happened.

It's not a matter of "proving a negative" as challenge puts it. It wasn't done, or else there'd be SOME proof of it. In writing. In loadouts recorded for missions, etc. This is just another way of whining about wanting more rockets, but disguising it as a noble quest.

[Babalonian]

Just because the technical specs allowed it doesn't mean it was EVER done. Look at Mk108s on Me410s. Never happened. Look at 20mms on P-40s. Built from the factory to allow them. Never happened. Look at so many options where something was built in as a plan, or as a future expansion, that NEVER happened.

It's not a matter of "proving a negative" as challenge puts it. It wasn't done, or else there'd be SOME proof of it. In writing. In loadouts recorded for missions, etc. This is just another way of whining about wanting more rockets, but disguising it as a noble quest.

O.o


This is just another whine of yours Krusty about an imaginary whine.  You talk of its noble quest yet have set your blinders so narrow as to ignore any trace of it's true integrity, lol.


We could dismiss the enitre matter of the mustang lacking it's proper and historical loadouts (capable or actualy utilised) because nobody has found a picture or researched through large amounts of documentation for "proof" of it carrying 10-rockets into combat.  But that's dismissing/selectively-ignoring the one fact from the main and undeniable underlying issue, the mustang's ordnance option in AH are wrong and/or incomplete. 

Its capability for a full 10-rocket loadout is just one (and maybe the only single one we can go out of our way to proove it wasn't utilised in WWII.  We can equally go out of way and proove that the P-47 never carried 2500lbs in bombs + 10 rockets, yet we selectively choose to ignore that over four 5" rockets?  Easier yet is to proove that it is currently available within AH.

Also lacking from the mustang is its ability to carry 110 gal (or 150 gal) drop tanks, yet looking to your logical comparison within AH of the P-47, we can see those options/choices/availability were included and made available to the community.

So, that highlights my question, why are (not just one but) multiple ordnance options for the P-51D omitted/excluded from AH?


Edit:  I really don't know why this won't load above, stupid photobucket.

[Tank-Ace]

Babalonian, I can't quite tell. Are you arguing that the P-51 should have loadout options it was capable of carrying, but did not in fact carry?

[Babalonian]

Babalonian, I can't quite tell. Are you arguing that the P-51 should have loadout options it was capable of carrying, but did not in fact carry?

Argueing that the P-51 is missing loadouts it should have, as it did carry into combat, and ones it should have and could have but that haven't (yet?) seen any documentation of actualy seeing combat (ie: as currently with the P-47 with 2500lbs + rockets, so why "nerf" the mustang?  ).