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General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: oboe on March 09, 2023, 05:59:05 PM

Title: How good was the P-47?
Post by: oboe on March 09, 2023, 05:59:05 PM
Says Pete Feigal, former Pro Military Artist for 25 Years:

(https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-11e161ca8be7ff885ef3883ef44ebd0a)

The P-47 Thunderbolt was the best, most versatile single-engined fighter of WWII. Period.   It was the “workhorse” of the US military, and flew 746,000 missions, more than the P-38, P-40 and P-51…combined!

Designed from Day One around a massive TURBO-supercharged Pratt & Whitney R-2800 (2,800 cubic inches!) air-cooled, radial Double Wasp engine to be the premier high altitude fighter of WWII (except for a very few Fw Ta-152s that barely saw combat.)

It was the best and fastest piston-powered diver of the war with its very rare and expensive electric dive flaps.

It was the 2nd best roller of the war after the Fw 190.

With those diving/rolling skills it was a great air-to-air fighter, master of “Boom and Zoom,” diving. ambush attacks and helped break the back off the Luftwaffe a full year before the P-51s started arriving in significant numbers.

It was always very fast, and then after the ultra-fast P-47 M model came out, it was the fastest piston-powered aircraft of the war (except for a very few rare German experimentals that didn’t see combat)

More great stuff (facts, figures, and images) on the P-47 Thunderbolt here:

https://www.quora.com/How-good-is-the-P-47 (https://www.quora.com/How-good-is-the-P-47)


Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: Dadtallica on March 09, 2023, 06:29:12 PM
It’s my fave! :heart:
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: Oldman731 on March 09, 2023, 07:05:09 PM
The P-47 Thunderbolt was the best, most versatile single-engined fighter of WWII. Period. 


Agreed, so long as restricted to ETO.  47's range wasn't enough for the Pacific until the N came along, which was rather late.

Always been a Thunderbolt proponent.

- oldman
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: oboe on March 10, 2023, 04:24:25 PM
It was made in greater numbers than any other US fighter. More than 15,600 Thunderbolts were manufactured between 1941 and 1945 and they served in every theatre of the war (except Alaska). American factories pumped out one P-47 Thunderbolt every *two* hours for the duration of World War Two.

The P-47 Thunderbolt was the “Cadillac” fighter of WWII, very expensive at $83–85,000 a piece, and was the #1 manufactured US fighter and the #1 flown, *the* “workhorse” of the Air Force flying 746,000 combat sorties, (423,435 sorties in ground attack operations alone), and more total sorties than the P-38, P-40 and P-51 Mustang…wait for it…combined!

And…best of all, it had the best survival rate per mission of any single-engine fighter in WWII.   Think about that-- the P-47 had THE best survival rate per mission on ANY fighter in WWII.

“The plane’s (P-47) safety record was nothing short of astounding – only about 0.7 percent of Thunderbolts were lost in action.”  -Military History Now.

Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: save on March 13, 2023, 05:59:34 AM
The early reincarnations of the P-47, before the paddle prop, was a good fighter high up, not until that where they nimble enough to compete down low - according to the LW (JG26 books volume II)
as a Jabo, they were 2nd to none compared with other US inventory planes due to its toughness.
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: DmonSlyr on April 07, 2023, 08:08:51 PM
I had no idea the p47 was that good and did that many sorties while.surviving. That is incredible. One of the planes I'd have wanted to fly in WW2. I love the flaps in that thing in AH. Can really surprise a lot of people on your 6. The P47N is so much fun. You just gotta get above 8k on initial takeoff or it feels sluggish. You can fly for almost an hour in that badboy. It's one of the more purdy planes they created as well. I fell in love at the air museum in Ohio. It's an awesome bird that doesn't get as much credit because the P51 is skinnier  :old:
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: oboe on April 07, 2023, 08:43:51 PM


(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.airwar.ru%2Fimage%2Fidop%2Ffww2%2Fp47d25%2Fp47d25-13.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=9b8347c1240aea3aa7ee29f25c6efe24d57186ad86e42c5dc3ce9f862ba6028a&ipo=images)
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: Vulcan on April 09, 2023, 04:06:52 PM
Comon we all know the 47 was just an amerikan super-sized copy of the 190.








 :bolt:
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: GasTeddy on April 10, 2023, 02:59:31 AM
Comon we all know the 47 was just an amerikan super-sized copy of the 190.


 :bolt:


Never noticed before but there sure are similarities. Somehow remembered when once put too much yeast in a dough...     :D
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: oboe on April 27, 2023, 12:33:23 PM
Found this on a War Thunder forum and its pretty good reading...

The Air War Nobody Told You About
P-47 Thunderbolts on the Continent of Europe, 1944-45
Combat Aircraft, March 2004
by Robert F. Dorr and Thomas D. Jones

The P-47 Thunderbolt evoked fierce loyalty from pilots who flew it, but today one group of P-47 veterans is bitter. Thunderbolt veterans who fought on the European continent in the final year of World War II feel that their contribution has been forgotten. "People don't know we were there," said retired Col. James L. "Mac" McWhorter. "Air-to-ground action wasn't glamorous, and it attracted very little attention."

Today, war often appears clean and efficient when viewed on television screens.

But P-47 pilots know that combat can be dirty, gritty, and ugly. Consider, for example, the citation awarded to pilots of the 406th Fighter Group, for destroying a column of German vehicles attempting to escape advancing Allied forces near Chateauroux, France:

"Thirty-six P-47's of the 406th Fighter Group took off on September 7, 1944 at 15:05 hours and raced south of the Loire River to find the road from Chateauroux to Issoudon clogged with military transport, horse drawn vehicles, horse drawn artillery, armored vehicles and personnel. Attacking this enemy concentration, at minimum altitude, in spite of accurate ground fire, the...pilots...made pass after pass until their bombs, rockets, and ammunition were expended. The road was blocked for 15 miles with personnel casualties, wrecked and burning military transport. More than 300 enemy military vehicles were destroyed in this attack alone."

The citation continues: "The group returned to home base, and after being refueled and rearmed in a minimum length of time, returned to the scene of the action. Before the enemy could reorganize and extract the remnants of his column, a further 187 vehicles, including 25 ammunition carriers, were attacked and destroyed. In spite of intermittent rain and the hazard of landing at night on a slick tar paper runway...."

Left out of the citation is the fact that Thunderbolts frequently strafed horse-drawn supply columns, leaving behind tangled, bloody carcasses. Thunderbolt pilot Tom Glenn says, "The horses were not our enemy, but our assignment was to prevent those columns from harming our troops." The gruesome sight sometimes made pilots physically ill---not what they expected when they signed up for pilot training starry-eyed about the beauty of flight. "No one would call this slipping the surly bonds," says Glenn, in a reference to the lofty words of the poem "High Flight."

Those who sat in P-51 Mustang cockpits at high altitude on escort missions to Berlin were able to savor a little of the joy of flying. But for Ninth Air Force fighter pilots, the job meant living in infantry-like conditions at snow-covered, mud airstrips on the Continent and flying low-level strafing and bombing runs---"not clean, not comfortable, and certainly not glamorous," says Glenn, "but necessary...."

Low-Level Hell
To a man, the dozen P-47 pilots interviewed for this article agree that they might not be alive today had they been flying the P-51 instead of the rugged, eminently survivable Thunderbolt. As Americans learned later in Korea, the under-fuselage cooling system of the P-51 made the Mustang vulnerable to gunfire at low altitude, even small-arms fire from infantry rifles. The Mustang was a feisty filly at higher elevation, but the Thunderbolt offered the best chance to stay alive down low where the metal was flying around.

Not for nothing, the Farmingdale, N. Y. manufacturer of the Thunderbolt was called the "Republic Iron Works" and had a reputation for building fighters that were big, roomy, and survivable. One P-47 returned to its European base with body parts from a German soldier embedded in its engine cowling. Another landed safely riddled with 138 holes from bullets and shrapnel.

P-47s rolled out of American factories in greater numbers than any other U. S. fighter, ever. There were 15,683 P-47s, a figure that compares to 15,486 P-51s, 13,143 P-40 Warhawks, and 10,037 P-38 Lightnings. But while the ubiquity of the Thunderbolt is undeniable, P-47 pilots are accustomed to being slighted. In an appalling gaffe, the U.S. National Air and Space Museum did not have a P-47 on permanent display until the omission was rectified in late 2003 at the museum's new Udvar-Hazy Center at Dulles Airport, Washington, D.C. The Museum has long been the owner of a pristine, Evansville-built P-47D-30-RA (44-32691) but for many years had it loaned out to the Museum of Aviation at Warner Robins, Ga.

For men caught up in a down-and-dirty conflict on the European continent, it was indeed fortunate that the Thunderbolt existed at all---especially since the aircraft emerged from a conversation aboard a railroad car traveling between Dayton, Ohio, and New York in 1940. Republic Aviation's chief designer Alexander "Sasha" Kartveli, Army Capt. Marshall "Mish" Roth, and Republic's C. Hart Miller were coming back from a Wright Field conference, where they had learned that Republic's two fighters then being proposed to the Army, the P-44 Rocket and the XP-47 lightweight fighter, failed to give Army Air Corps the performance it wanted.

The trio discussed ways to exploit the best of what they had already -- the 2,000-hp. Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp18-cylinder, twin-row air-cooled engine they had selected for the XP-47, a superb cockpit design, and the proven airfoil and wing of the P-43 Lancer and the proposed P-44. They talked of building on these positive features to create a more robust fighter. Kartveli jotted notes on the back of an envelope, giving rise to the myth that the Thunderbolt was designed this way.

The first XP-47B---a wholly different aircraft from the never-built XP-44 and XP-47---took to the air on May 6, 1941, with Republic's Lowery Brabham at the controls. Built around its massive engine and the extensive ducting system for its turbosupercharger, the new fighter dwarfed its competitors.Early in its career, pilots dubbed the aircraft the "Jug" because of its portly shape. Contrary to accounts published much later, the nickname had nothing to do with the P-47 being a juggernaut, although it assuredly was one.

By the time the Allies landed in Europe, the "razorback" configuration of early Thunderbolts (and the automobile-style door of the prototype) was giving way to the bubble canopy found on late P-47D models. The typical P-47D flown on the Continent by Ninth Air Force pilots had a 2,535- R-2800-59W radial, a 17,500-pound takeoff weight, and eight .50-caliber (12.7-mm) Browning M3 machineguns packing 250 rounds each.

Formidable Fighter
Fifteen fighter groups, 45 squadrons, and about 14,000 pilots and maintainers made up the Thunderbolt force on the continent. For these men, air-to-air combat---normally the way a fighter pilot attained glory---was secondary. As 2nd Lt. Leslie Boze of the 365th Fighter Squadron described it, "We felt our efforts would help to win the war."

By D-Day, June 6, 1944, Thunderbolts were pouring from factories faster than pilots could fly them away. They were Soon™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™™ arriving in the combat zone in natural metal finish, devoid of the olive-drab camouflage scheme in which the Thunderbolt began its operational service. They were decorated with caricatures and names---the term "nose art" had not yet been invented---that reflected the personalities of their pilots. McWhorter's P-47 was named "Haulin' xxx." Boze's was "Blonde Trouble."

Bob Hagan of the 365th Fighter Group, the "Hell Hawks," remembers that the air-to-ground war seemed "very personal," as when he engaged in a one-on-one contest with a German gunner while strafing troops in a forest. Hagan remembers the gunner tracking him through each pass in the contest of survival, he did his best to outwit his adversary by jinking, then returning to make another strafing run. The war at low altitude could be very personal but on that occasion Hagan doesn't know whether he got the gunner after two or three passes. Looking down through trees, snow, and mush, he couldn't tell.

"I felt comfortable handling the Jug," Hagan said. "It was big and heavy [with a gross weight of 19,400 lb. in the P-47D-25 model], but it never felt that way." Hagan recalled that the P-47 created less engine torque than the P-40 Warhawk flown during training, that the Thunderbolt took off smoothly, and that acceleration forces rarely exceeded the 3 or 4 Gs encountered for a few seconds when coming off a target.

Hagan said the pilot did not feel the bombs coming off during a high-speed dive. He said Thunderbolt pilots typically closed to about 200 yards before opening fire on a ground target. "You could see smoke trailing from other Thunderbolts when they were firing. You sensed a vibration when the guns were being fired, but no big shaking." Thunderbolt pilots believed their eight guns gave them enormous firepower. Gun camera film supported that view.

Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: oboe on April 27, 2023, 12:33:59 PM
[continued]

Hell Hawk
While the emphasis was on air-to-ground fighting, Hagan and his fellow P-47 pilots faced German fighters as well. On October 21, 1944, the 365th FG "Hell Hawks" took off from Chievres, France on a sweep over the German frontier. The top cover unit, the 386th Fighter Bomber Squadron, spotted bogies at 22,000 feet---a flight of 30 Focke-Wulf Fw 190s. Diving out of the sun at the enemy formation, the Thunderbolts forced the -190's to break earthward, straight into the sights of the group's other two squadrons. In the huge, swirling air battle that followed, the Hell Hawks knocked down twenty-one of the enemy fighters.

Hagan was flying wing on the 386th's commanding officer when they slashed through the German flight. After a few minutes in the melee, Hagan's engine began smoking and his Thunderbolt lost power. He didn't think he'd been hit. Apparently, he had run into his leader's spent .50-caliber shell casings. Hagan dropped out of the action and turned toward Allied lines.

With his heavy Thunderbolt in a stable but steep glide, he knew the chances were slim that he'd make it to an emergency field. Hagan unbuckled his harness and squatted on the seat in preparation for bail-out. The young lieutenant hesitated: he was almost certain to be captured if he abandoned the plane so far east. Deciding to take his chances with his ship, he sat back down, strapped in, and willed the P-47 towards the front line and safety.

With a sudden jolt, the Thunderbolt's engine finally seized. Beyond the motionless prop, Hagan could see hilly terrain with small woodlots below. Too low to bail out and with no sizable pastures at hand, his only option was a forced landing. Heading into a small clearing, he realized his final glide would carry him right into a clump of trees at the far end. He banked as much as he dared in an attempt to swing wide of the timber looming ahead.

It was too much to ask of the heavy Jug. The Thunderbolt's right wing stalled and dipped toward the earth rushing by. Catching a wingtip, the big fighter cartwheeled across the pasture, in the process shedding the radial engine, both wings, and the tail section. As the P-47 tore itself apart, Hagan tumbled with the wreckage, protected by the sturdy cockpit structure. As the wreckage slid to a stop on the Belgian turf, the impact slammed his head against the instrument panel cracked several ribs. He was clear-headed enough to crawl from the crumpled cockpit, Hagan headed for a GI and a Jeep he'd spotted on a road bordering the pasture.

After making a successful, if painful, dash across the clearing, an exasperating Hagan asked the GI why he hadn't driven over to pick him up in the Jeep. "Because you landed in a minefield," the GI deadpanned.

The injured pilot's luck continued to hold. After going only two hundred yards, he was rushed by GIs who hustled him back through their lines to an aid station. He had crash-landed just 400 yards from the front, near Athus, Belgium. In eight weeks, Hagan was back flying combat in a new P-47. A few months later, hit by flak after strafing a Luftwaffe airfield at Leipzig, Germany, Hagan bellied in near the Ruhr Pocket and again evaded capture. (Hagan went on to a lifetime of many other aviation achievements, including making the first flight of the Cessna T-37 Tweet trainer, aircraft 54-716, on October 12, 1954).

Air Action
While the Thunderbolt's primary fight on the Continent was an air-to-ground war, there was aerial action as well.
1st Lt. Leslie Boze of the 365th Fighter Squadron was element lead in his Thunderbolt on a typical ground attack mission over Germany when he was drawn into an aerial battle. A Lt. Jones (first name unknown) was leading the flight, followed by 1st Lt. Tom Easterling. A pilot named Gallagher flew on Boze's wing in the second element.

Spotting a Wehrmacht truck convoy, Jones led the flight down in a tight spiral for a strafing attack. Jones, in the lead, opened fire with his eight .50-caliber machine guns as Easterling curved in behind him.

Flak began to rise from the German convoy to meet the onrushing attack. In just a few seconds the four P-47's were caught in a vicious crossfire, and Easterling caught the worst of it. His plane staggered under the impact as Gallagher shouted over the radio, "Tom! The xxxx is on fire! Get the hell out of it!" Easterling barely managed to bail out of the burning fighter. He opened his parachute just seconds before hitting the ground. Severely injured, Easterling struggled through pain and imprisonment until liberated from a POW camp at war's end.

Boze and Gallagher had barely digested the sight of Easterling's plane being hit when they caught sight of a pair of Bf 109s, boring in on their element. Boze pulled off the convoy and headed straight for the nearest -109. The Messerschmitt, a head-on silhouette, opened up with its 20-mm cannon; Boze had to wait until his fifties came into effective range. The -109's cannon rounds came streaking by his canopy like a string of glowing white golf balls. Now Boze had the enemy in range, and he touched the trigger. The eight .50's reached out to the Messerschmitt and staggered it. Boze could see his armor-piercing incendiary rounds hitting home, sparkling over the wings and cowling of the onrushing fighter. The German pilot still came on, nose-to-nose, in a deadly game of chicken. Still scoring strikes on the -109, Boze held the trigger down as the two fighters came together. In the last split-second, the German pulled up and whipped over the top of Boze's Thunderbolt, a near-miss so close that he heard the roar of the -109's Daimler-Benz engine.

Looking back over his shoulder as he turned slightly, Boze caught sight of the enemy, smoking and slipping toward the wooded terrain below. The German slammed into the ground in an oily fireball. There was no parachute.

Winter War
Today, it is convenient to think of the war as a straight-line march of victories that led to Germany's defeat. It is also easy to think of the air war without considering what was happening on the ground.

Both approaches are too simple. The story of P-47 Thunderbolt pilots on the Continent ran parallel to the saga of combat soldiers on the ground. In fact, pilot one pilot referred to the Thunderbolt as "a foxhole in the sky." The landings at Normandy, the slugfest in the Falais Gap, the Battle of the Bulge, and the final victory in Europe saw ground soldiers and P-47 pilots fighting together.

Perhaps the best examples came in one of the largest battles ever fought (perhaps with the sole exception of Kursk, on the other front). A furious attack by German armies on December 16, 1944, surprised Allied troops in the Ardennes, a forested plateau in northern France that been the scene of earlier fighting in both world wars. The Germans opened the assault along a 50-mile front, initially with twenty-one infantry and armor divisions. They called it the Ardennes offensive; Americans called it the Battle of the Bulge.

Two weeks later, on January 1, 1945, the Luftwaffe launched Operation Bodenplatte (Baseplate), an air-to-ground effort against Allied airpower on the continent. Possibly 800 Luftwaffe aircraft struck about two dozen Allied airfields, including several where P-47s were based. By far the worst damage was inflicted at Y34 Metz-Frescaty airfield, where the 365th "Hell Hawks" suffered 22 P-47s destroyed and 11 damaged. But in the course of destroying a total of 122 Allied aircraft on the ground, the Germans lost 200---and while only a handful of Allied personnel lost their lives, dozens of irreplaceable German pilots perished.

For a brief, shining moment, the Luftwaffe apparently believed the New Years Day air attack had been a giant success. Anyone could have been forgiven for concluding as much after seeing the twisted, blackened, smoldering wreckage of Thunderbolts at Metz. The story of a captured German pilot illustrates how the conclusion was the wrong one.

Cocky Captive
The German was arrogant. Never mind that his Bf 109 had been shot out beneath him. He had begun the new year by parachuting into the American airfield at Metz, now lit up by the fires of burning P-47 Thunderbolts---a sprinkling of bright torches amid the gray January gloom and the dirty white snow.

Initially at least, the air attack seemed a stunning setback to American pilots, maintainers, and support troops. In the months since D-Day, most had gotten accustomed to crude living conditions, lousy weather, and a war in which Thunderbolts harried the German army at low level where a lot of metal was flying around. They were not, however, used to being attacked.

U.S. Army anti-aircraft gunners managed to shoot down eight of the sixteen Messerschmitt Bf 109s that came over that day, and the German pilot was now an American prisoner as a result. Yet he obviously believed that his side had inflicted a major blow. Standing inside 365th FG headquarters with Maj. George R. Brooking, commander of the 386th Fighter Squadron, the German jerked his thumb out the window at the burning Thunderbolts and said in perfect English, "What do you think of that?"

There was no denying the damage. But American industry had turned out nearly 100,000 warplanes in the calendar year that had just ended. Within a few days, Metz was in full operation again and factory-fresh Thunderbolts---brought down from a marshaling center near Paris---lined the ramp. There was no mistaking the corpulent shape of the distinctive P-47s.

Brooking went back to see the German, who was still being held at the base. Brooking pointed to the new planes and asked, "What do you think of that?"

It was time for a little humility. The German looked at the spanking-new aircraft, just arrived from a heartland that seemed capable of building an infinite number of them. He said, "That is what is beating us."
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: nopoop on April 27, 2023, 02:41:43 PM
Great read !! Thanks !!
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: mthrockmor on April 27, 2023, 05:13:40 PM
Great information and AARs.

Now, there is real life P-47 and there is AH3 Jugs. When I flew the 190A5 all the time, whenever I saw a P-47 I got giddy, cause I killed most of them! haha  :cheers:  :rock  :banana:  :x  :neener:  :old:

Boo
Loose Deuce
Butcher Bird for life
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: save on May 01, 2023, 09:26:56 AM
AH's reincarnation of the P47s damage model does not in any way favorably resemble comparatively to other (read Yak3) planes, a P47 would lose its wing with a handful of 20mm stitched into it, whereas a Yak3 can take double digit hits of 20mm's before it decides its too ridiculous to keep it on.
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: drgondog on May 01, 2023, 09:44:48 AM
The P-47 was a fine airplane.

It was designed and developed as a high altitude interceptor - but was not an interceptor capable fighter in context of Spitfire, FW 190 or even Bf 109 until the P-47N and M were finally operational in April 1945.

Compared to other Allied aircraft it was arguably the best fighter bomber, but Typhoon and Tempest and F4U and F6F are debatable contenders. Even the Mustang (including A-36, P-51A/B/C) which had greater bomb oad and range than the P-47B/C and mid block D with wing Pylons and fuel plumbing. The A-36 was close air support and superior dive bomber, was operational and dropping 1000 pound bombs in mid 1943 - the P-47D in mid 1944.

Compared to P-40, P-39, Spitfire, Typhoon, Tempest, FW 190, Bf 109, all VVS fighters, it was superior - but inferior to F4U-1, P-51B/C/D and P-38J - as escort fighter. If you want to compare P-47M and N, you have to bring P-51H into the conversation and it loses again.

Compared to NAA P-51, which including Australia, produced more aircraft than P-47, the P-47 was a.) 60% more expensive to buy, 70% more expensive maintain, took 50% more runway (Important for airfields close to MLR for CAS) with full combat internal load.

The P-51 was produced before US entered war, was in combat before the P-47, was still produced as a combat aircraft after WWII - and was a front line fighter bomber and All-Weather Night Fighter (F-82) in Korea, and was in foreign service with far more counties. Including the P/F-82 the Mustang was still being produced in 1949, and P-51D/H squadrons were still active in National Guard until 1956.

The Mustand destroyed 5986 air to air for USAAF, 330+ more for RAF and destroyed mre than 4500 on the ground (8th AF), far more for all other theatres that didn't keep score. In other words about 50% more effective in the context of air superority platform.

Consider - when P-51 was deployed to Korea instead of the P-47, there were more reasons for, than against.

1.) More P-51Ds on active duty and National Guard.
2.) The combination F/FB of CHOICE in USAF in 1947. USAF had four FG in Japan when Korean War began. There were more in Japan than entire production run of P-47N during WWII.
3.) Superior short range airfield capability for Korea operations.
4.) Longer range with equivalent bomb load than the P-47D (or F-80, F-84, F-86). Few P-47Ns even in NG in 1950.
5.) Cheaper to maintain and operate.
6.) Logistics supply and chain already set up for Far East.

Reasons against.
1.) more vulnerable to ground fire. That said, the Mustang was only a 1/2% higher loss per sortie than F4U.

Last but not least - During the Fighter Conference at Patuxent River, the assembly of USN, USA, USMC, RAF ab=nd Contractor pilots (NAA, Republic, Bell, Lockheed, etc) voted the P-51D the "Best Fighter Below 25,000 feet" - with F4U seond and P-47D not even at 2%, and the P-47D "Best Fighter Above 25,000 feet".  That said the P-51D was second - only 6 percent behind with F4U next.

The problem with even that ranking by fighter pilots that flew them is that high altitude performance only mattered on long range escort. If you have a great fighter that competes at 30,000 feet - but the action is 300 miles further away than you can fight?

So 'the Best claim' seems to reduce to CAS, where F6F and F4U and Tempest and Typhoon and FW 190G seem to be tough competitors.

Range was the P-47C/D achilles heel until D-Day. The solution to range (first the P-47D-25 with 370gal internal fuel, the the P-47N with 550gal) were too late to take a prominant role for either 8th/15th AF, or 20th AF and hence the reason for not being in the conversation for LR escort. 
 
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: LilMak on May 01, 2023, 04:50:47 PM
If memory serves…7 of the top 10 American Aces to n the ETO flew the Jug. I believe 5 or 6 of them were 56th pilots. There were many great “fighters”.  The Jug was simply the best all around war machine. It flew more sorties. Destroyed more stuff. And came home when it was done.
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: SIM on May 02, 2023, 10:42:40 AM
Another good read

https://www.cradleofaviation.org/history/history/aircraft/p-47_thunderbolt_aviation_darwinism.html (https://www.cradleofaviation.org/history/history/aircraft/p-47_thunderbolt_aviation_darwinism.html)
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: oboe on June 29, 2023, 10:53:55 PM
Learn about the Thunderbolt in under 20 min, find out why it was one of the best planes of WWII:

Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: GasTeddy on July 01, 2023, 06:05:09 AM
Also, ground grew found paintwork useful during lull time.


(https://i.pinimg.com/736x/9e/2d/2e/9e2d2e23504e4a7801067d64f2357fcf.jpg)
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: Tig on August 05, 2023, 04:16:31 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S27wKScRZi4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S27wKScRZi4)

Thought I'd share this, a freshly restored P-47D razorback "Bonnie" at Oshkosh recently.  :cheers:
By far my favorite Jug, and probably the only one I think is pretty in any way.
Although I don't have a sub at the moment, I've been fooling around with it in the Match Play arena, and it's a very interesting bird. Picking up a few tricks here and there in a close in turnfight with the razorback.

My favorite trick right now is to lure someone into a vertical climb, let them stall out as I drop full flaps and get a shot on them. Gonna need some refining and practice before I can use that in the MA, but it might just be enough to catch someone off guard.  :airplane:

Might return sometime in the future! Right now I'm holding onto my cash, I might have a shot to make a cross country flight with a friend in a 1946 Cessna to the Reno Air Races, in which case I'll need all the money I can get. Y'all will know if I resub though!  :cheers:
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: oboe on August 27, 2023, 08:49:41 AM
Tig, thanks for posting that video.   That was some of the best airshow footage I've seen; the quality of the video and sound is excellent.  And when that guy did low passes he wasn't kidding!   That looks like the razorback '47 that was restored by the outfit in northern Minnesota. 

Hope you get to experience the cross country flight to Reno and the air races there coming up in September.   Come back here when you are able!

More on the Thunderbolt:

 
Title: Re: How good was the P-47?
Post by: TryHard on August 27, 2023, 02:41:36 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S27wKScRZi4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S27wKScRZi4)

Thought I'd share this, a freshly restored P-47D razorback "Bonnie" at Oshkosh recently.  :cheers:
By far my favorite Jug, and probably the only one I think is pretty in any way.
Although I don't have a sub at the moment, I've been fooling around with it in the Match Play arena, and it's a very interesting bird. Picking up a few tricks here and there in a close in turnfight with the razorback.

My favorite trick right now is to lure someone into a vertical climb, let them stall out as I drop full flaps and get a shot on them. Gonna need some refining and practice before I can use that in the MA, but it might just be enough to catch someone off guard.  :airplane:

Might return sometime in the future! Right now I'm holding onto my cash, I might have a shot to make a cross country flight with a friend in a 1946 Cessna to the Reno Air Races, in which case I'll need all the money I can get. Y'all will know if I resub though!  :cheers:
Sweet video  :aok

The D11 can actually sustain a halfway decent turn if you keep her low on fuel and run it with 6 guns (it is nice having 8 guns but every little bit of wing loading you can spare helps the big girl out a lot).

There is a certain last ditch "im about to get shot down" trick you can do if you run out of air speed and a bandit is almost ready to pull lead on you in a turn fight where you can do a 109 style "tail slide" (I know tail slide isn't the right term but its what I call it). Pull hard up and full right rudder and the plane will pivot on its axis in kinda a controlled departure of controlled flight and literally cartwheel through the sky making it a near impossible shot as your air speed near 0. This only works if he is close enough to you to overshoot before he gets a gun solution and you have enough altitude to recover. Now doing this leaves you at nearly 0 energy so its best to dive away and get your air speed back up and it is sorta just prolonging the inevitable but it is a last ditch solution and might save you from going to the tower if there is friendlies near by.