How good was the P-47?

[oboe]

Says Pete Feigal, former Pro Military Artist for 25 Years:



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

[Dadtallica]

It’s my fave! :heart:

[Oldman731]

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

[oboe]

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.

[save]

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.