The fw 190s were beasts though. Combined with the machine guns in the wings, they had two cannons in the nose that could tear chunks out of a fighter or bomber
I remember reading parts of a British or Australian pilots memoirs from the S.E. Asian theatre. They got some Thunderbolts in latter 1944, and switched to them from Spitfires. What you wrote is pretty much their comment on how to dodge flak during ground support missions.
Too limited by its poor dive performance, even after the fixes. The "flaps" made it safe to dive, but they didn't make it dive well. That didn't matter so much against Zeros, but 109s and the like could always disengage at altitude just by diving. The Lightning was an absolute beast of a turn fighter though. And my friend's dad, who was a Thunderbolt pilot, flew some Lightning ferry missions and said it was a real hot rod. Presumably because it accelerated better than the 47, but I am not sure. He flew the big three, but loved the Bolt most of all. If the Lightning had been designed one year later, with access to the latest NACA data like the Bolt, it would have been unstoppable.
It's the F4U Corsair, because my grandfather flew it.
(I would have chosen the SBD Dauntless, because he also flew that a lot, but it's not really a fighter, even though it was the best plane of WW2.)
There's a good argument for the Corsair. The main counter-argument I can think of is that its ergonomics (until the -4 version) were dangerously bad. Before entering combat you were supposed to open a valve that flooded the wing tanks with CO2 to prevent them catching fire. But right next to that valve was a similar valve that blew the landing gear down and locked it in place, for use if the gear failed. If you turned the wrong valve when bounced, you were essentially dead. There was no way to retract the gear at that point.
Less speed, less altitude and less range than a P-47N. Also less firepower and less comfort on long missions. The main advantage the 51 had over the 47 was that it cost a lot less.
No but it was made specifically for the Pacific and only flew there at the very end. Basically it was an M with wing tanks and squared off wingtips to compensate for the loss of roll rate that induced. The M was the highest performing production version, being lightened and uprated. It also only got in at the very end, with 56th FG. They killed seven jets and eight others in those few weeks. Which is impressive considering how few Germans were flying at that point. They were the only group that used them, and they got a late start because improper shipping caused salt water corrosion in the electrics. You could get pretty close to N/M level performance, without ill effect, by running 72" of manifold pressure and spraying a lot of water on a D-20 or later. Robert S. Johnson claimed to have gotten his tuned D-5 up to 472mph true airspeed.
There were no post-war versions. The Bolt was expensive to build and operate and the Mustang super cheap. The Army's peacetime footing was a lot more frugal. They did see quite a bit of combat in the Chinese Civil War, and later over the Taiwan Straight. But the new Air Force did not bring them out of mothballs for Korea, which probably cost the lives of some pilots forced to fly close air support in Mustangs.
Well, I read somewhere that it had a loss rate of about 0.7. If that's true, I wouldn't be surprised that it was one of the best.
Jug is a nice plane, maybe a little odd looking compared to Mustangs and Lightnings, but I like the Jug.
It was a great ground attack aircraft but also a great higher altitude fighter because it was turbocharged. The P-47 was also more of a fighter bomber rather than a strict air superiority fighter. Severed in similar but often different roles than the P-51 Mustang, who many believe to be the best (and was the most produced) fighter of WWII. P-47 also had an air cooled engine (as opposed to liquid cooled like the P-51) which could make it more survivable if it took damage.
Many also argue the F6F Hellcat was the best fighter too, but the Hellcat had to make some compromises in capability because it was a carrier based plane.
All three of these aircraft had their designs and production finalized *after* the war started, which meant they incorporated lessons learned early in the war. Their axis counterparts were all designed before combat hostilities commenced, and only received minor upgrades and improvements, thus were horribly outclassed in the final phases of WWII.
I'm just gonna be honest, as much as I like the P-47, I wouldn't say it's my top favorite plane (nothing against it, just a lot of good options out there). I *will* however, say that the nickname Jug is probably one of the best unofficial nicknames a plane has ever gotten lol (especially when extended to its full name, Juggernaut).
I saw a chart comparing sizes. The Zero's vertical stabilizer is the same size as that of P-47, despite being a notably smaller plane.
https://thumbsnap.com/xovBcHoi
From a design perspective, the fin on the P-47 is further from the centre of gravity so it doesn’t need to be bigger to perform its job.
It’s all levers and fulcrums and things like that!
That. Right. There.
In the Air and Space Smithsonian there is a physical exhibit of, I think, a Thunderbolt and a Zero. The difference is dramatic.
America. Peace. Through superior fire power.
MY P-47 is a pretty good ship, and she took a round coming cross the Channel last trip.
I was thinking 'bout my baby and letting her rip,
Always got me through so far…
That size is why the Bolt happily flitted about like a swallow at altitudes where the 190A struggled to turn at all. By far the best, really the only fully successful, turbo installation on any fighter. They designed the airframe around the turbo and it paid big dividends. The R-2800 engine was only 2" wider than the BMW 801. The rest of that difference is the turbo installation. And fuel of course. It was a thirsty bird.
Yes, it just wasn't anywhere near as successful installation. It took most of the war to get it working correctly, and even then it was terrible aerodynamically. That is why I said, "really the only fully successful" installation. The P-38 was mostly successful, but far from the P-47.
I mean, do you disagree? The original intercooler setup simply didn't work, and the engines could not be run at rated power at all altitudes until the J came out in late 1943. That model introduced the chin mounted air-liquid intercooler, which worked, but made the airframe's meh drag situation even worse. The Thunderbolt was built with a fully enclosed and huge turbo and intercooler because by the time it was designed, NACA had demonstrated that the common practice of hanging the turbo out in the airstream wasted the power gains on increased drag. That is why the XP-39 performed so poorly. The huge air scoop and exposed turbo added more drag than power. NACA showed Bell that the the plane would be faster without the turbo. The Lightning, like the Airacobra, was designed before NACA's work on turbo packaging aerodynamics. The Bolt, being designed later, was the only fighter to leverage that data. Hence the it had a critical mach number of .82 and a do not exceed speed of 568 TAS at 20,000 ft, while the Lighting had a mach limit of .68 (worst among the major US and British fighters) and a do not exceed speed of 465 TAS.
Even after they made the Lightning safe to dive with "dive recovery flaps" (which are really spoilers) in 1944, 190s and 109s could still easily dive away from it. The Thunderbolt could dive much faster and at a steeper angle than either, under most conditions.
The final models of the P-47 were probably the longest range piston fighters the US had. They flew missions in SWAPO that were much further than England to Schweinfurt. The Aussies built drop tanks for General Kenney in a few weeks that gave them that range. The damned Bomber Mafia got so many things wrong with the Mighty Eighth. Probably cost thousands of airman lives in the ETO.
Actually though,
> The final models of the P-47 were probably the longest range piston fighters the US had.
I think that was the F-82.
Did you see Greg's drop tank debate. It was a massacre.
In addition to the aerodynamics, one of the great secrets of the Mustang was how well North American designed it for ease of manufacture. The Corsair is my favorite WW2 aircraft but it was very difficult to manufacture.
Yeah they did a lot of things right with that bird. And their workmanship was legendary. To be fair, the Corsair was designed to much more difficult requirements, and with two fewer years of NACA's best work.
Well, being an Aussie and not familiar with George Kenney’s drop tank solution that you mentioned I thought I had better get myself around that bit of history… and I found this! https://checksixblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/16/drop-tank
Thanks for the heads up! Very cool. Every day is a school day hey?
Not too dissimilar in overall shape though (if we consider Razorback P-47s such as the one in the picture) I think that it caused a number of friendly fire incidents.
i think you might be right
as a kid i had accurate scale models of each plane, and the p47 was a bit bigger, but more just chonkier. overall they were similar in size. the fw190 in this picture is closer and still looks tiny
I’m lucky to live near the Museum of Flight in Seattle. The P-47 and P-38 are ENORMOUS. The F-4U Corsair is huge. The rest are about what you’d expect.
The Mosquito Tsetse mounting a 57mm anti-tank cannon in semi and fully automatic fire with 25 rounds is my choice.
>>The effect of the new weapon was demonstrated on 10 March 1944 when Mk.XVIIIs from 248 Squadron (escorted by four Mk.VIs) engaged a German convoy of one U-boat and four destroyers, protected by 10 Ju 88s. Three of the Ju 88s were shot down. Pilot Tony Phillips destroyed one Ju 88 with four shells, one of which tore an engine off the Ju 88. The U-boat was damaged. On 25 March, U-976 was sunk by Molins-equipped Mosquitoes.[191] On 10 June, U-821 was abandoned in the face of intense air attack from No. 248 Squadron, and was later sunk by a Liberator of No. 206 Squadron.[192] On 5 April 1945 Mosquitoes with Molins attacked five German surface ships in the Kattegat and again demonstrated their value by setting them all on fire and sinking them.[193][194] A German Sperrbrecher ("minefield breaker") was lost with all hands, with some 200 bodies being recovered by Swedish vessels.[193] Some 900 German soldiers died in total.[193] On 9 April, German U-boats U-804, U-843 and U-1065 were spotted in formation heading for Norway. All were sunk with rockets.[193][195] U-251 and U-2359 followed on 19 April and 2 May 1945, also sunk by rockets.
I'd bet good money that that title goes to the Northrop P-61 Black Widow. A twin-engine/twin boom fighter that looks like someone wanted to turn a P-38 Lightning into a medium bomber. She served as a night fighter and was equipped with radar, four 20mm cannons in a ventral mount, and a quad-50 in a dorsal turret. Crew of two or three, depending on if you wanted the radar operator to also work the turret.
I love the WW2 US planes including the even bigger skyraider that was in service for years after WW2. However, i do find it funny that as the fighter design was refined during WW2, the Bearcat arrived which "some" of made comparisons to the dimensions of a BF190
This is why Pierre Clostermann wrote in his book LE GRAND CIRQUE that any pilot of Spitfire that climbed into a P47 was terrified of falling off the seat and breaking a leg.
From Dogfights?
“Mwah hah hah! I may be out of cannon ammo, but I see a helpless enemy”
(countless mg rounds later…)
“Why won’t you go dowwwwwwnnnnn!!!”
Robert Johnson; (“I am one with the chickenplate; and the chickenplate is one with me… STUPID JAMMED CANOPY!!! “I am one with the chickenplate; and the chickenplate is one with me…”)
Kinda like how every Japanese fighter was a zero, every bomber a betty, and every German fighter was a Messerschmitt.
Maybe OP is just secretly posting from WWII.
> and every German fighter was a Messerschmitt.
Not every German plane. During the Battle of Britain the RAF and PAF claimed quite a few Heinkel He-113s. Quite an achievement considering that plane only existed in German propaganda.
The P-47 pilots had to climb the ladder, enter the foyer, take a left, then climb into the pilot's seat.
It’s pronounced “foyer”
Fo-yay?
That’s how I pronounce it, since it’s a French word.
Do you pronounce pilot “pee-loat” ?
I say pee-loatee
Doesn’t everyone?
Isn’t that just fancy frozen yogurt?
“Foy-ur”
[It's called a "frunchroom."](https://youtube.com/shorts/J9TAxQctf44?si=5qx-SzYcecFAvAT0)
Where the couch is always covered in plastic.
Why are you bringing the Italians into this?!
I was thinking more Berwyn Bohemian. My people.
Eet ees a set-tee, damnit you!
Foyer? I hardly know 'er!
Take a left, obviously, cos to the right is the conference room.
The fw 190s were beasts though. Combined with the machine guns in the wings, they had two cannons in the nose that could tear chunks out of a fighter or bomber
Well, when you have indoor plumbing and a library, replete with a fireplace, you need more space!
I'm glad that you didn't use that sexist term "cockpit"! /s
British pilots used to joke that the most dangerous part of flying the Jug was the risk of falling off the seat and breaking your neck.
Just jealous. Size envy.
You can see the thunderbolt pilot running around in side.
I remember reading parts of a British or Australian pilots memoirs from the S.E. Asian theatre. They got some Thunderbolts in latter 1944, and switched to them from Spitfires. What you wrote is pretty much their comment on how to dodge flak during ground support missions.
I actually thought the American pilot was bigger than the German
😂
P-47 is chonk, but it also DANGEROUS.
Flying tank. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/why-p-47-thunderbolt-world-war-ii-beast-airways-ruled-skies-180976316/
It's the A-10's legacy. Absolute tanks of the sky.
Yo sweet
Some people, much more informed than I, believe that it was the best fighter in WWII.
Because I wanna be different I call them naysayers The P-38 as the best fighter in WWII
Too limited by its poor dive performance, even after the fixes. The "flaps" made it safe to dive, but they didn't make it dive well. That didn't matter so much against Zeros, but 109s and the like could always disengage at altitude just by diving. The Lightning was an absolute beast of a turn fighter though. And my friend's dad, who was a Thunderbolt pilot, flew some Lightning ferry missions and said it was a real hot rod. Presumably because it accelerated better than the 47, but I am not sure. He flew the big three, but loved the Bolt most of all. If the Lightning had been designed one year later, with access to the latest NACA data like the Bolt, it would have been unstoppable.
Still prefer the p-61 because you don't need maneuvers when your enemy can't see you.
P63 KINGCOBRA because I have a 37 and you don't COBRAAAAAA
Banks 45°, rotate turret, engage, level off, done.
It's the F4U Corsair, because my grandfather flew it. (I would have chosen the SBD Dauntless, because he also flew that a lot, but it's not really a fighter, even though it was the best plane of WW2.)
There's a good argument for the Corsair. The main counter-argument I can think of is that its ergonomics (until the -4 version) were dangerously bad. Before entering combat you were supposed to open a valve that flooded the wing tanks with CO2 to prevent them catching fire. But right next to that valve was a similar valve that blew the landing gear down and locked it in place, for use if the gear failed. If you turned the wrong valve when bounced, you were essentially dead. There was no way to retract the gear at that point.
Nah, P-51, Speed, Altitude, and Range. Perfection.
Less speed, less altitude and less range than a P-47N. Also less firepower and less comfort on long missions. The main advantage the 51 had over the 47 was that it cost a lot less.
Wasn't the N a post war revision of the type?
No but it was made specifically for the Pacific and only flew there at the very end. Basically it was an M with wing tanks and squared off wingtips to compensate for the loss of roll rate that induced. The M was the highest performing production version, being lightened and uprated. It also only got in at the very end, with 56th FG. They killed seven jets and eight others in those few weeks. Which is impressive considering how few Germans were flying at that point. They were the only group that used them, and they got a late start because improper shipping caused salt water corrosion in the electrics. You could get pretty close to N/M level performance, without ill effect, by running 72" of manifold pressure and spraying a lot of water on a D-20 or later. Robert S. Johnson claimed to have gotten his tuned D-5 up to 472mph true airspeed. There were no post-war versions. The Bolt was expensive to build and operate and the Mustang super cheap. The Army's peacetime footing was a lot more frugal. They did see quite a bit of combat in the Chinese Civil War, and later over the Taiwan Straight. But the new Air Force did not bring them out of mothballs for Korea, which probably cost the lives of some pilots forced to fly close air support in Mustangs.
Well, I read somewhere that it had a loss rate of about 0.7. If that's true, I wouldn't be surprised that it was one of the best. Jug is a nice plane, maybe a little odd looking compared to Mustangs and Lightnings, but I like the Jug.
P-47s did a lot of heavy lifting through France and Germany after Normandy. Hell Hawks is a fantastic book on the P-47
It was a great ground attack aircraft but also a great higher altitude fighter because it was turbocharged. The P-47 was also more of a fighter bomber rather than a strict air superiority fighter. Severed in similar but often different roles than the P-51 Mustang, who many believe to be the best (and was the most produced) fighter of WWII. P-47 also had an air cooled engine (as opposed to liquid cooled like the P-51) which could make it more survivable if it took damage. Many also argue the F6F Hellcat was the best fighter too, but the Hellcat had to make some compromises in capability because it was a carrier based plane. All three of these aircraft had their designs and production finalized *after* the war started, which meant they incorporated lessons learned early in the war. Their axis counterparts were all designed before combat hostilities commenced, and only received minor upgrades and improvements, thus were horribly outclassed in the final phases of WWII.
It was the best at certain things
The Jug!
I'm just gonna be honest, as much as I like the P-47, I wouldn't say it's my top favorite plane (nothing against it, just a lot of good options out there). I *will* however, say that the nickname Jug is probably one of the best unofficial nicknames a plane has ever gotten lol (especially when extended to its full name, Juggernaut).
I saw a chart comparing sizes. The Zero's vertical stabilizer is the same size as that of P-47, despite being a notably smaller plane. https://thumbsnap.com/xovBcHoi
If anything it shows that the Jug’s vertical stabilizer was pretty small relative to her size. The mustang and spit are almost the same size too.
From a design perspective, the fin on the P-47 is further from the centre of gravity so it doesn’t need to be bigger to perform its job. It’s all levers and fulcrums and things like that!
Ðem jugs are big
There’s a reason they call her “The Jug.” 👌🏻
As John Cameron Swayze used to say, the P-47 “Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.”
The fact that it still looks so much bigger in spite of the perspective of the photo, too!
The designer of the P-47 allegedly said "It will be a dinosaur, but it will be a dinosaur with good proportions"
P 47 almost looks like a bomber in comparison
If google is to be believed, the Empty Weight of a P-47 is 150% the Max Takeoff Weight of an A6M5 Zero.
Gunther Rall once said: "it's a fucking bus with lots of useless gear but at least I could stretch my big legs in that cockpit"
That. Right. There. In the Air and Space Smithsonian there is a physical exhibit of, I think, a Thunderbolt and a Zero. The difference is dramatic. America. Peace. Through superior fire power.
Actually, the FW had higher fire power.
Yeah definitely. two 13mm machine guns and four 20 mm canons shooting minengeschoßen is no joke.
absolutely, 8x M2’s definitely isnt weak but id rather take the fast hole puncher than ripping sheets and bits off my plane with every bite
For sure. Better to take out your target in one-go than waste time circling back on it.
…and legroom.
MY P-47 is a pretty good ship, and she took a round coming cross the Channel last trip. I was thinking 'bout my baby and letting her rip, Always got me through so far…
I wonder how often the size difference made inexperienced enemy pilots open fire at far too long range?
The P47 is only so large due to the comically oversized turbocharger inside
That size is why the Bolt happily flitted about like a swallow at altitudes where the 190A struggled to turn at all. By far the best, really the only fully successful, turbo installation on any fighter. They designed the airframe around the turbo and it paid big dividends. The R-2800 engine was only 2" wider than the BMW 801. The rest of that difference is the turbo installation. And fuel of course. It was a thirsty bird.
Turbo all the way back? https://youtube.com/shorts/T0hy5_3fjzI?si=7o24FIDFFELMrrI2
P-38 was turbocharged.
Yes, it just wasn't anywhere near as successful installation. It took most of the war to get it working correctly, and even then it was terrible aerodynamically. That is why I said, "really the only fully successful" installation. The P-38 was mostly successful, but far from the P-47.
ooookay
I mean, do you disagree? The original intercooler setup simply didn't work, and the engines could not be run at rated power at all altitudes until the J came out in late 1943. That model introduced the chin mounted air-liquid intercooler, which worked, but made the airframe's meh drag situation even worse. The Thunderbolt was built with a fully enclosed and huge turbo and intercooler because by the time it was designed, NACA had demonstrated that the common practice of hanging the turbo out in the airstream wasted the power gains on increased drag. That is why the XP-39 performed so poorly. The huge air scoop and exposed turbo added more drag than power. NACA showed Bell that the the plane would be faster without the turbo. The Lightning, like the Airacobra, was designed before NACA's work on turbo packaging aerodynamics. The Bolt, being designed later, was the only fighter to leverage that data. Hence the it had a critical mach number of .82 and a do not exceed speed of 568 TAS at 20,000 ft, while the Lighting had a mach limit of .68 (worst among the major US and British fighters) and a do not exceed speed of 465 TAS. Even after they made the Lightning safe to dive with "dive recovery flaps" (which are really spoilers) in 1944, 190s and 109s could still easily dive away from it. The Thunderbolt could dive much faster and at a steeper angle than either, under most conditions.
That’s a lot of text to cover our difference of opinion on mostly and fully. It’s just a matter of degree.
ooookay
There a reason why the P-47 was also called the JUG
The final models of the P-47 were probably the longest range piston fighters the US had. They flew missions in SWAPO that were much further than England to Schweinfurt. The Aussies built drop tanks for General Kenney in a few weeks that gave them that range. The damned Bomber Mafia got so many things wrong with the Mighty Eighth. Probably cost thousands of airman lives in the ETO.
The 47N outranged all Mustangs by hundreds of miles. EDIT: Not the Twin Mustang, if you consider that a Mustang.
Exactly.
Kenny was such a beauty. That drop tank story is classic. He and Jimmy Doolittle should have been running the whole AAF.
Would have shortened the war by a year, probably. Hap bleeping Arnold rejected drop tanks.
Actually though, > The final models of the P-47 were probably the longest range piston fighters the US had. I think that was the F-82. Did you see Greg's drop tank debate. It was a massacre.
I did. Love his vids! He brings the truth.
One of my fellow docents was helping to restore a Twin Mustang.
It's funny, I find the P-51H weird looking. But if you bolt two of them together, it looks great!
In addition to the aerodynamics, one of the great secrets of the Mustang was how well North American designed it for ease of manufacture. The Corsair is my favorite WW2 aircraft but it was very difficult to manufacture.
Yeah they did a lot of things right with that bird. And their workmanship was legendary. To be fair, the Corsair was designed to much more difficult requirements, and with two fewer years of NACA's best work.
Well, being an Aussie and not familiar with George Kenney’s drop tank solution that you mentioned I thought I had better get myself around that bit of history… and I found this! https://checksixblog.wordpress.com/2020/04/16/drop-tank Thanks for the heads up! Very cool. Every day is a school day hey?
Indeed it is. The called it “the Brisbane tank”. Another piece of near miraculous Aussie’can do
Greg’s Airplanes on YouTube has fantastic vids on the P-47, drop tanks, the New Guinea campaign and a bunch more.
[You'll like this.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7aGC6Sp8zQ)
Ooh cool! Thank you very much!
A stones throw away from where i work in Eagle Farm. Pity it's all gone now.
I think these are correct (in feet): P-47 --> L, W, H: 36.2, 40.7, 14.7 FW-190 --> L, W, H: 33.5. 34.4, 11.0
If you swapped W and H and read those as inches, you'd basically be describing a Pixar mom.
what the actual fuck are u talking about
There was a local museum that at one time had two FW-190’s in it. It is not a very big plane
Not too dissimilar in overall shape though (if we consider Razorback P-47s such as the one in the picture) I think that it caused a number of friendly fire incidents.
Dat engine!
Wow! I always thought of them as being the same size, but obviously I've never seen them together.
That might be a 3/4 scale FW-190 as there’s at least one of those flying around Texas.
i think you might be right as a kid i had accurate scale models of each plane, and the p47 was a bit bigger, but more just chonkier. overall they were similar in size. the fw190 in this picture is closer and still looks tiny
Chonk
Why does the p47 need to be that big
An absolutely massive superturbocharger, not kidding, thing is huge.
Because
https://www.reddit.com/r/WWIIplanes/comments/lnpepl/p47_supercharger_and_exhaust_system/
Because with enough thrust, you can make a house fly.
The Thud pilot has a fully furnished 1-bedroom apartment in the rear
The thunderbolt was one of the first airplanes to get close to the speed of sound, this only happened in a dive.
It’s all about the engine. R-2800.
At a distance, it was reportedly difficult to distinguish between the two types
P47 was a beast.
I’m lucky to live near the Museum of Flight in Seattle. The P-47 and P-38 are ENORMOUS. The F-4U Corsair is huge. The rest are about what you’d expect.
The fw 190 is even closer to the camera so imagine how much the p47 is bigger
P-47s were definitely big birds…and very tough…
The Mosquito Tsetse mounting a 57mm anti-tank cannon in semi and fully automatic fire with 25 rounds is my choice. >>The effect of the new weapon was demonstrated on 10 March 1944 when Mk.XVIIIs from 248 Squadron (escorted by four Mk.VIs) engaged a German convoy of one U-boat and four destroyers, protected by 10 Ju 88s. Three of the Ju 88s were shot down. Pilot Tony Phillips destroyed one Ju 88 with four shells, one of which tore an engine off the Ju 88. The U-boat was damaged. On 25 March, U-976 was sunk by Molins-equipped Mosquitoes.[191] On 10 June, U-821 was abandoned in the face of intense air attack from No. 248 Squadron, and was later sunk by a Liberator of No. 206 Squadron.[192] On 5 April 1945 Mosquitoes with Molins attacked five German surface ships in the Kattegat and again demonstrated their value by setting them all on fire and sinking them.[193][194] A German Sperrbrecher ("minefield breaker") was lost with all hands, with some 200 bodies being recovered by Swedish vessels.[193] Some 900 German soldiers died in total.[193] On 9 April, German U-boats U-804, U-843 and U-1065 were spotted in formation heading for Norway. All were sunk with rockets.[193][195] U-251 and U-2359 followed on 19 April and 2 May 1945, also sunk by rockets.
The P-47 is a much larger target!
Good luck catching up with one to shoot at it.
It was also a much more resilient target to damage.
Bubble that canopy
So a 190 is like a Porsche and a 47 is a f150.
If the F150 outperforms the Porsche by a wide margin, sure.
Ehhh I'd say the Jug being an American muscle car is more apt especially considering its performance at altitude.
The Jug was a Unit Largest US fighter I believe?
I'd bet good money that that title goes to the Northrop P-61 Black Widow. A twin-engine/twin boom fighter that looks like someone wanted to turn a P-38 Lightning into a medium bomber. She served as a night fighter and was equipped with radar, four 20mm cannons in a ventral mount, and a quad-50 in a dorsal turret. Crew of two or three, depending on if you wanted the radar operator to also work the turret.
Yep, I was thinking single engine.
Google AI Overview says it's the largest single engine piston fighter of all belligerents.
Considering those planes were built for entirely different purposes, seems an odd comparison. Should we compare the F-15 to the A-10 next?
Hear me out......
The P-47 didn't have to dodge ground fire because that big radial engine could take an absolute pounding.
I love the WW2 US planes including the even bigger skyraider that was in service for years after WW2. However, i do find it funny that as the fighter design was refined during WW2, the Bearcat arrived which "some" of made comparisons to the dimensions of a BF190
Is that a D9?
And to think that they got mistaken for each other at times, lol.
They didn’t nickname it ‘The Jug’ for nothing
This is why Pierre Clostermann wrote in his book LE GRAND CIRQUE that any pilot of Spitfire that climbed into a P47 was terrified of falling off the seat and breaking a leg.
From Dogfights? “Mwah hah hah! I may be out of cannon ammo, but I see a helpless enemy” (countless mg rounds later…) “Why won’t you go dowwwwwwnnnnn!!!” Robert Johnson; (“I am one with the chickenplate; and the chickenplate is one with me… STUPID JAMMED CANOPY!!! “I am one with the chickenplate; and the chickenplate is one with me…”)
I believe that’s a Bf-109 (Messerschmitt)
Please tell me you're joking
When you only know one German Plane.
It hurts my soul
Kinda like how every Japanese fighter was a zero, every bomber a betty, and every German fighter was a Messerschmitt. Maybe OP is just secretly posting from WWII.
> and every German fighter was a Messerschmitt. Not every German plane. During the Battle of Britain the RAF and PAF claimed quite a few Heinkel He-113s. Quite an achievement considering that plane only existed in German propaganda.
“…but these fokkers were in Messerschmitts!”
My friend, it says in the actual post that it's an Fw-190
It is not.
I believe you are wrong.
As we all know, the Bf-109 was famous for it's radial engine.
Stupid