Comments by "TheThirdMan" (@thethirdman225) on "Imperial War Museums"
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@Mustapha1963 So basically everything the? Look, ALL tanks have their limitations. If your criteria were to be used, the only tank that would meet it would be the Maus.
But if you take the trouble to read how these things were used, you’ll find that the Sherman was a very good tank which was highly thought of by its crews. In this day of the internet, gamers in particular, have contributed a large swath of information based entirely on tank v tank on a level playing field (Tank battles are never fought that way).
That is not the best way to assess a tank.
If you are a designer, you will most likely try to minimise compromising the triangle of effectiveness. If you are an end user, you probably want the thickest armour and the heaviest gun available and neither could ever be big enough. If you are a senior army commander your values are different.
It has to stop somewhere. And what about the commanders? They needed a tank that could be there and work well, while providing high levels of effectiveness. The Sherman did that probably better than any other tank in WWII, barring the T-34-85.
Just because a Sherman could be defeated by a Tiger doesn’t mean the Sherman was not a good tank. In fact, the two only rarely met. But the fact is that about 85% of the work of a tank in WWII was in the role of infantry support. Only maybe 15% of the time did they come to blows with enemy tanks.
This was reflected on both sides. Only 15% StuG III’s ammunition was AT. The rest was HE. The British tank units used one Firefly for every 5 75mm versions. The 75mm gun was very good at infantry support. The 17-pounder, less so. The two complimented each other and again the German ratios and British ratios agree.
Read James Holland’s book Brothers in Arms and Steve Zaloga’s book, Armored Champion. Holland describes the war from the perspective of a British Army tank unit from D-Day to the end of the war. Zaloga tries to assess the best tank of each year of the war from various perspectives. He’s done a great job. IMHO, it’s arguable that there was no greatest tank of WWII but some were better than others. The Sherman was pretty good. It was also one of the more survivable tanks. Casualty rates among American tankies were quite low.
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@lqr824
"But it wasn't just the cost of the aircraft, you also needed 50% more fuel than the Mustang, so 50% more tanker trucks, 50% more tanker boats, etc. etc. The P-47 was on the other hand cheaper for losing probably fewer pilots and airframes in similar circumstances."
Oh, God, another Greg rigmarole. Rinse and repeat...
The directive from Hap Arnold to his Chief of Staff, Lt Barney Giles in October, 1943, was to find a fighter that could escort the bombers to any target in Germany in six months, even if it meant developing one from scratch.
Cost was no object.
Giles knew the range potential of the P-51 and there was no practical cure for the P-47's lack of range. Drop tanks could not make enough difference to matter and Republic were way too slow making changes to the design in response to the needs of the USAAF.
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What killed the Luftwaffe was the P-51.
By the end of 1943, the USAAF in Europe had shot down 451 German fighters. 'Operation Argument', also known as 'Big Week', was a tactic intended to draw the Luftwaffe into a battle it could not afford and everyone knew it. In February, 1944, the P-47s shot down 233 German fighters, the P-51 got 89.5 and the P-38 got 32.5. In March, the P-47 got 175, the P-51 got 251 and the P-38 got 25. In April, the P-51 shot down a massive 329 German aircraft. The P-47 got 82 and the P-38 got 23. And the Mustangs did it with half the number of squadrons the P-47 had. The figures remained that way for the rest of the war. The P-51 also destroyed 30% more ground targets than the P-47.
By mid year, Flak was more of a danger to US bombers than fighters were. It was only then that the fuel problem really started to bite but the Luftwaffe was already defeated. The P-51 ended the war with 4,950 German fighters shot down in 213,000 sorties. The P-47 shot down 3,082 in 423,000 sorties, so the hit rate of the P-51 was nearly three times as good and it did so without suffering exceptional casualties.
The P-51 wrecked the Luftwaffe.
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Greg is a lousy source for information on the P-47 and it is simply staggering that so many people have fallen for his conspiracy. ALL of Greg's figures are theoretical, many are estimates and all assume optimum altitude and throttle settings. This was almost never the case. Furthermore, all his assumptions are for the 200 gallon ferry tank which was unsuitable for combat since it was semi-conformal, unpressurised and could not be jettisoned in an emergency. The idea that this was some kind of conspiracy against the P-47 is ridiculous. Even by the time of Mission 250 - the first USAAF raid on Berlin - most P-47s could not go past the Dutch border. A small number could not go past Magdeburg.
By the end of 1943, the USAAF in Europe had shot down 451 German fighters, the vast bulk - 414 - went to the P-47. 'Operation Argument', also known as 'Big Week', was a tactic intended to draw the Luftwaffe into a battle it could not afford and everyone knew it. In February, 1944, the P-47s shot down 233 German fighters, the P-51 got 89.5 and the P-38 got 32.5. In March, the P-47 got 175, the P-51 got 251 and the P-38 got 25. In April, the P-51 shot down a massive 329 German aircraft. The P-47 got 82 and the P-38 got 23. And the Mustangs did it with half the number of squadrons the P-47 had. The figures remained that way for the rest of the war. The P-51 also destroyed 30% more ground targets than the P-47.
By mid year, Flak was more of a danger to US bombers than fighters were. It was only then that the fuel problem really started to bite but the Luftwaffe was already defeated. The P-51 ended the war with 4,950 German fighters shot down in 213,000 sorties. The P-47 shot down 3,082 in 423,000 sorties, so the hit rate of the P-51 was nearly three times as good and it did so without suffering exceptional casualties.
The P-51 wrecked the Luftwaffe.
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@keithstudly6071
"Even after they were available for fighters it was 2 months before 8th AF started using the extended escort range in their mission plans. It appears that the 'bomber mafia' was intentionally limiting the use of fighter escorts in 1943 to prove that they could do the job alone. With the paper drop tanks that they did have in late 1943 the P-47 could escort bombers deep into Germany. They just weren't allowed to."
Please stop repeating this. It's incorrect. Greg, from 'Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles', has persuaded a lot of people that there was this conspiracy against the P-47 by the US high command who apparently wanted to kill as many US airmen as possible. In fact, Greg is quite wrong. The salient feature of his videos is charts and numbers. He quotes no historical/operational evidence whatsoever. So when Greg says a P-47 could fly to Schweinfurt, he's talking about a P-47D-25 flying at optimum altitude and throttle settings.
Escort work was anything but optimum. Even then, the chart he uses is calculated and subject to test flying.
Secondly, Eaker was constantly requesting new aircraft, including fighters and getting nowhere. So this was not about 'the bomber will always get through'. He couldn't even get the bombers he wanted, much less the fighters. In fact, Eaker was openly opposed to the Schweinfurt raid because he knew the 8th Air Force wasn't ready. But the fact was, it was a priority target and it had to be bombed. (Middlebrook) This wasn't because of ny 'Bomber Mafia'. It was because it took those back in the US a while to understand how serious the problem was. Communication was not like it is today and Hap Arnold spent quite a lot of 1943 travelling to theatre around the world. On top of that, he suffered two heart attacks that year. (Holland) By the time of the crisis in October, he directed his Chief of Staff, Lt Gen. Barney Giles to find a solution in six months.
This can be found in James Holland's book, 'Big Week" and Martin Middlebrook's book, 'The Schweinfurt Regensburg Mission'.
The USAAF had ordered 1,350 P-51 Mustangs on 9 October, 1942 and by mid-1943, they were ready. Given the distractions of 1943, it's understandable that Arnold didn't quite manage to put two and two together but Giles did and the first Mustangs arrived in England in December. (see: Holland) No 'Bomber Mafia' conspiracy.
Secondly, it would not have mattered what they did, drop tanks were not the answer to the P-47's problems. It is an axiom that it takes half the fuel in a drop tank to get the other half there. What increases range is internal fuel and the P-47 simply did not have enough. The P-47C, which was still in widespread use during 'Big Week', had an internal fuel capacity of 256 gallons. The P-51 had 269 gallons and was about 50% more fuel efficient. The P-47D-25, which was the first model to exceed 300 US gallons internally, did not arrive until May of 1944, by which time it was largely too late.
The other problem was that the P-47C was only plumbed to carry a centreline tank. By the time of Mission 250, the first large-scale USAAF raid on Berlin, about 20% of the P-47 fleet had been modified to carry tanks under the wings. This was a very slow process, completed in the field and requiring cutting metal. On the mission, those fitted with a 108 gallon centreline tank got no further than the Dutch border. Those with the second tank could only get to a point just short of Magdeburg. The specifics of this mission are extremely well documented in 'Target Berlin: Mission 250, 6 March, 1944', by Jeffrey Ethel and Dr Alfred Price.
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@robertelder164
”Very low loss rates in total, sparky. P-47 got you home.”
Myth.
The P-47 spent a much lower percentage of its time in hostile airspace than the P-51 because of its range. If you only stick your toe in the water you’re not going to get as wet as if you jump in. In statistics it’s known as ‘survivor bias’.
Yes, it had low loss rates but they were only marginally better than the P-51 (0.73 v 1.18) for much lower time in enemy airspace.
This claim that ‘the P-47 got you home’ is also largely unfounded. If you weren’t in hostile airspace, then any aircraft stood a better chance of getting home. Of course there are anecdotes but the P-51 was more likely to engage in combat than the P-47, which usually has to turn for home before the Luftwaffe attacked the bomber stream.
In ground attack, the P-51 destroyed 30% more targets than the P-47 in half the number of missions. Yet according to P-47 fanbois, the P-51 couldn’t do ground attack because it was a liquid-cooled flying death trap that could be brought down by a cockeyed school kid with a slug gun.
In air-to-air, the P-51 scored 60% more victories than the P-47 in half the number of missions.
By every objective measure, the P-51 was the better aircraft. That’s why it was replacing the P-47 by the end of 1944. The more you look, the more obvious it is, no matter what the cool kids are saying.
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"The P-47 arguably broke the back of the Luftwaffe in '43 and early '44.”
Okay, let's look at a few things about that. First of all, the USAAF shot down 451 aircraft up to he end of 1943, with the P-47 accounting for 414 of them. Let's put that into perspective. That year the RAF shot down 3,300 German aircraft out of a total of 22,000 which the Luftwaffe lost. In other words, the P-47 accounted for about 2%. Hardly breaking the back of the Luftwaffe.
Furthermore, the Luftwaffe put up a pretty fair fight up to mid-October when most of the bombing was paused while an escort solution was found. Meanwhile the Allied forces were reorganised under Eisenhower in preparation for D-Day. But before that the USAAF was being pasted by the Luftwaffe on operations like Schweinfurt and Regensburg because the P-47s had to break off before the Luftwaffe attacked. Why would they do otherwise? Not bad for a force that had already been decimated.
"It should also be noted that with the introduction of the 'paddle bladed' airscrew, the climb disadvantage disappeared. Besides the water injection, the Allies also had the huge advantage of better, higher octane fuel which allowed pilots to wring the most power from their engines."
That's a bit of a distraction. All well and good, of course but not if it has no effect on the fight. The fact was that until the problem of lack of range was resolved by the Mustang, the USAAF could not carry out their goal of strategic bombing. So, whatever its attributes, the P-47's limited range makes its high altitude performance and the paddle prop (which was by no means universal in the P-47 fleet) something of an irrelevance.
The paddle prop wasn’t mainstream until mid-1944. The D-25 variant didn’t fly its first mission until May 1944, by which time the Mustang was scoring at a much higher rate. I’m happy to provide those figures with references.
Greg is dead wrong about this.
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@ME-xh7zp
"For this video, the key is the 200 gallon ferry tank did not work above FL180."
What Greg doesn't tell you is that the 200 gallon ferry tank was, as the name implies, not suitable for combat. For a start, it was semi conformal and couldn't be jettisoned.
Most of what Greg says is pointy headed theory. Greg does not read historical accounts and it's bloody obvious. If he did, he would quote examples, instead of relying on pilot's manuals and theory. As has been pointed out by others, ALL Greg's range figures are based on optimum altitude and throttle settings. But escort work was flown at less than optimum altitude and throttle settings. It wasn't just that they were flying a zig-zag course, they also had their throttles set low. Neither is made for optimum fuel economy.
In case you haven't heard, Greg has been challenged to a debate by James William 'Bill' Marshall, author of 'North American’s Bastard Stepchild that Saved the Eighth Air Force'. Marshall - also known as 'drgondog' - was banned from posting on Greg's page for disagreeing with him and providing photographic evidence of something Greg claims did not exist.
The debate is due to held in April but it's my bet that Greg will wave off, citing a dose of the vapours or something.
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@markswalley8716
"its mostly because the p 51 was too fragile for the job whereas the P47 could take the punishment from groundfire better."
That isn't true. You should check the results of the 78th FG in Europe.
With the P-47 they destroyed 152 destroyed, they lost 51, giving a ratio of 3:1
Flying the P-51 they destroyed 190.5 and lost 32 for a ratio of 5.9:1
56th FG the figures are 320 destroyed for 50 lost, a ratio of 6.4:1.
Figures From James William Marshall, author of 'Our Might Always - History of 355th FG', via personal correspondence.
For the record, the 355th: P-47 figures are 8 destroyed for 4 lost and for the P-51, destroyed 493 and lost 86 with P-51 for 5.5:1.
As you can see, the picture is far from a clear victory for the P-47 or proof that the P-51 had a glass jaw. Oh sure, everyone says the P-51 was a liquid-cooled death trap that Uncle Same bought because it was cheap so they could sacrifice brave flyboys to... oh God... The truth is rather different. In point of fact, the P-51 destroyed 4,131 on the ground vs 3,202 for the P-47 (figures from Francis Dean's 'America's Hundred Thousand').
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@AlanRoehrich9651 The P-47 did not bear the brunt of the Luftwaffe. That is just Greg nonsense. I get tired of explaining this but hey…
From its combat debut in April, 1943, to the end of December, the P-47 shot down 414 German aircraft out of a total of 451 claimed by the USAAF. The rest were shot down by P-38s and Eagle Squadron Spitfires. To put that into perspective, the Luftwaffe lost 22,000 aircraft that year. So <2% isn’t ‘breaking the back of the Luftwaffe’ or ‘shooting them down in droves’ or any other silly hyperbole Greg uses.
When deep penetration raids resumed in Operation Argument, in February, 1944, the P-47 had its best month, getting about 250 German aircraft. The following month the P-51 overtook the P-47. In April, the P-47 shot down 82 German aircraft, compared to 329 for the P-51 and they did it with half the force size. The figures remained lop sided for the rest of the war and with the exception of 56th FG, the P-47 was handed over to the 9th AF for ground attack missions.
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@JimmySailor
”Brits love the Mustang but the P47 won the skies over Europe.”
I don’t know what justification anyone would have for saying this. From its combat debut in April, 1943, to the end of that year, the P-47 shot down 414 German aircraft. But the big air battles that culminated in the defeat of the Luftwaffe did not happen until early 1944, with the implementation of Operation ARGUMENT in February and then the first daylight raids on Berlin in March. The last day on which the P-47 outscored the P-51 was 18 March. In April, eight fighter groups of P-47s shot down 82 German aircraft. That same month, four fighter groups of P-51s shot down 329. The P-51 was out scoring the P-47 at a rate of eight to one. This was almost certainly the result of the P-51s range as well as its fighting qualities. Not for nothing was it known as ‘the fighter with the seven league boots’. The Luftwaffe had lost the tactical initiative.
In spite of the P-47’s undoubted contribution - it did actually shoot down 3,082 German aircraft in the ETO - it was the P-51 that wrecked the Luftwaffe.
As an escort fighter, the P-47 was a failure and this was not the result of any ‘bomber mafia’ conspiracy either. Drop tanks could not make up for the P-47’s lack of internal fuel capacity. The P-47 carried 256 gallons internally, while the P-51 carried 269 and drank it at 2/3 the rate. In fact, so short was the P-47’s range that even with a 108 gallon external tank it could not get past the Dutch border. People will argue the toss about this but that’s how missions were planned, even with the arrival of the relay system.
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@peterwebb8732
"Firstly, Britain is not and was not a Dictatorship."
Yet it's funny how the pro-Churchill crowd believed Winston could snap his fingers and stuff just happened.
Yet under Chamberlain, Britain was not a dictatorship...🤔
"To reiterate, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Chamberlain was well aware of the lack of funding for the military and was privy to all the debates on the subject in Cabinet."
And he could only do so much.
"The unpreparedness of the military cannot have been a surprise to him, unless he was utterly incompetent."
I take it that this is the main thrust of your argument: 'that he was utterly incompetent'. If you bother to actually read something specific about this matter, you will pretty soon find that, whatever Chamberlain's shortcomings, he DID see it coming and he DID do something about it.
Try reading Laurence Thompson's excellent book, 'The Greatest Treason'. When you've finished that, read John Charmley's book, 'Chamberlain and the Lost Peace'. Now, I'll start by saying I didn't like Charmley's book but it does give a pretty good outline of how defence policy and rearmament changed under Chamberlain, so that when Britain was fighting for her life in 1940, her armed forces had what they needed.
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"I feel the P47 has been somewhat overlooked in WW2."
Since everyone else on the internet says the same thing and since every video you find pits the P-47 and P_51 as being either much closer than they really were or defers to the Thunderbolt, I'd say you're off target. The P-47 has now become spectacularly overrated. It was by no means bad - it shot down 3,082 German aircraft in the ETO, so it was no dud but it the P-51 was just better in pretty much every regard.
"Remember they were there very early and fought against Germanies best pilots flying well made airplane's."
This is From 'Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles', isn't it? The Luftwaffe peaked in terms of pilot quality between May, 1940 and June, 1941. After that they were stuck in a war of attrition they could not hope to win. From its combat debut in April, 1943 to the end of that year, the P-47 shot down 414 German aircraft. But the Germans lost 22,000 that year, so <2% is bugger all.
"By the time Mustangs arrived they were fighting mostly poorly trained pilots with low hours fighting in poorly built aircraft because by then there factories had been destroyed and they were building them outside in forests hidden by the trees."
This had been true for a lot longer than that. See my previous comment. It had very little to do with the P-47.
"The P47 may have started with 2 thousand HP but quickly kept increasing HP winding up with almost 3 thousand HP by the end of the war ! This was done with ever increasing octane, water injection and I think they were using nitrous oxide also."
Distraction. Minimally relevant.
"It had the record for sending more aces home alive than any other fighter of the war."
Survivor bias.
The P-47 is now very overrated and the P-51 dismissed. In fact, if you look deeper - I have been reading this stuff for half a century - the P-47 wasn't even in the same post code as the P-51. The USAAF could not have prosecuted its strategic bombing strategy without it.
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@isher304
"yea those cute little channel incursions of 41' & 42' did sooo much damage to the Luftwaffe. Id say hurricanes, P-40s, P-39s, A-20s did more damage to the Luftwaffe in 42'-43' in Russian hands than the channel incursions did. The real fighting over Western Europe started in late 43' and was decided by Spring 44' and the P-47 was the workhorse during that time. By the time the P-51 came on (powered by a Packard Motor exclusively) the Luftwaffe was already in a death spiral. The P-47 did not get surpassed by p-51 kills to a substantial degree until Sept 44'. Packard P-51s did not out number P-47s in the 8th AF until May 44'."
The claim that the P-47 broke the back of the Luftwaffe in 1943-44 is nonsense.
At the end of 1943 the USAAF had claimed 451 German aircraft, with the P-51 claiming 414. The rest were shot down by P-38s and Spitfires (presumably from Eagle Squadron). That year the RAF shot down 3,300 aircraft. That's 3,300 and the British didn't count ground kills. The Germans lost a total of 22,000 so 414 represents about 2% of the total. So much for the P-47 decimating the Luftwaffe.
To paraphrase Bill Marshall:
Meanwhile, before December 1, 1943 there was one P-38 group which had been operational for 6 weeks. There were no P-51B operations, seven P-47 groups, the 4th, 56th 78th had been operational for eight months with the 353rd operational for four months, 352nd and 355th for three months. By the end of December there were 8 P-47 groups operational, one totally inexperienced P-51B group and one+ P-38 group. (20th began December 28). The victory credits were 78, 9 and 5 respectively for P-47, P-51 and P-38.
In January those numbers were 43 and 32; In February, 233, 89.5 and 32.5 and in March 175, 251 and 25. At end of March the 354th, 3554th, 4th and 357th FG were flying P-51B. The 56th, 78th, 352nd, 353rd, 356th, 359th, 362st FG were flying P-47s.
The April victory credits for the three P-38 and seven P-47 (352nd converted to Mustang) dropped precipitously with 23 and 82, while the P-51 totals for April went up 50% to 329.
P-51 vs P-47 = 329 to 82. 4X the impact with 0.5X the force.
P-51 vs P-38 = 329 to 23. 15X the impact with 1.4 X the force.
That's 329 v 82 in April, not September. With half the number of aircraft.
It remained that way for the rest of the war.
There is no objectively measurable statistic where the P-47 is ahead of the P-51. At no stage of the war did the P-47 outscore the P-51 on a mission by mission basis.
Furthermore, according to Wagner (quoting USAAF statistics) in Francis Dean's "America's Hundred Thousand', the P-51 scored 4,131 ground kills, compared with the P-47 at 3,202. In other words, the P-51 outscored the P-47 ground kills by 30%. And overall, it outscored the P-47 in air to air kills by 1.6:1 (3,082 compared to 4,950).
In half the number of sorties..
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@twolak1972
"Early on the only allied fighter in europe was the P47 .In the 3 1/2 years it took to make the P51 the 47 decimated most of Germany's great aces ."
Bullshit. Absolute nonsense. You can't just keep on parroting Greg's ludicrous claims with no background information.
First of all, in terms of skill and experience, the Germans probably peaked between May, 1940 and June, 1941. By 1943, the average new pilot in the Luftwaffe had 100-120 hours and about 10-15 hours on type. The average new pilot in the USAAF had 600+ hours and 50-100 on type. More information on this can be found in Williamson Murray's book, "Luftwaffe: Strategy for Defeat' and Martin Middlebrook's 'The Schweinfurt-Regensburg Mission'.
Between April, 1943, when the P-47 made its combat debut in Europe, and December that year, it shot down a total of 414 German aircraft. That year the Luftwaffe lost 22,000 aircraft. Are you really telling me that by shooting down <2% of that total, the P-47 'broke the back of the Luftwaffe'? Really? Both the RAF and the USAAF shot down about 3,300 German fighters each.
"The 51 was a good plane but not the war winner the ME262 would have been had it been taken seriously in 1939 when the prototype came out."
The P-51, more than any other aircraft, enabled the USAAF to carry out its strategic bombing campaign. With the P-47, long range missions were impossible without incurring unacceptable casualties. With the P-51, there was nowhere the bombers couldn't go. The Me-262 is basically irrelevant.
"But back to the 51, it was not an ideal GA aircraft due to its liquid cooled engine. 1 hit in a critical coolant line and the 51 would seize up and crash. Many stories of P47 pilots coming home with football sized holes in the fuselage and pistons pumping up and down outside a shot out cylinder with engine oil covering the side of the plane were common."
Oh, FFS, when does this crap end?
The P-51 destroyed 30% more ground targets than the P-47, liquid cooling or not. As for them flying with missing cylinders, find me a picture. If it was so common, why are such things so hard to come by? Yet people have told me hand on heart that it was 'no big deal' to have a couple of cylinders shot away. I use to fly and I can tell you that anyone who says this has no idea what they are talking about. After the shell impact, two things will be immediately obvious: the engine will be incredibly rough in operation and oil pressure will vanish. The next thing is that most of the oil will be lost and the engine will seize in seconds. The only thing you can do is find a field to land in. If you ant to see this, check out a channel called 'I Do Cars'. He pulls seized engines apart and virtually all of them are the result of lubrication problems.
The 'liquid-cooled death trap' trope is BS of the highest order. A liquid cooled engine with a hole in the radiator can run a lot longer if it's babied than any engine can run without oil. Apart from that, GA pilots were a lot more concerned about 37mm or flying into the ground. The stats prove it and I have the stats..Apart from anything else, the P-51 destroyed 30% more ground targets than the P-47 and did so deeper in German territory than the P-47 went and in half the number of missions. It also faced heavier Flak than the P-47 as the army retreated behind the German border. Every pilot memoir you read from late in the war says the same thing: the Flak in Germany was thicker than anywhere else.
I'm sorry to get stirred up about this but Every day I read another repeat of Greg's crap by people who don't ever, ever look it up for themselves. I encourage you to look further but don't take Greg at face value because you happen to prefer the P-47. And before you say it, my preference is the Mosquito, the Hellcat or the Yak. I only realised how important the P-51 was when I researched it myself.
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@lqr824
"The bombers themselves did shoot down a fair number of fighters, but what do you think was escorting the bombers?"
In the early raids over France, the bombers managed to survive without sustaining unacceptable casualties. Once over Germany, the bombers had little to no protection. The P-38s were not successful as escorts, despite their range. The P-47s might have been good escorts but they didn't have the range and that is wha caused the crisis in October, 1943. That's why there was a six month layoff before 'Big Week'. The 8th needed to wait for the availability of the P-51 before it could continue with its campaign.
"It had EVERYTHING to do with P-47s. They were outclassed below 20,000 feet. But above 20,000 feet, the Germans didn't have a chance against them."
That's almost irrelevant. Once the P-47s turned for home at the Dutch border, the Luftwaffe attacked. Altitude performance made no difference to that. You can't shoot down Germans beyond your range.
"At altitudes where 109's and 190s literally could not maintain altitude while turning, the P-47 could still pull 2G turns."
That's fine as long as the Luftwaffe attacked within the P-47's range envelope. Why would they do that? This is why Goering instructed his fighter controllers to hold off until the P-47s turned for home before turning the Luftwaffe loose. You can find thins in James Holland's book on 'Big Week'.
"The supreme irony of the war is that a plane that was TOTALLY built around high-altitude combat ended doing so well in ground attack."
I wouldn't argue with that but that happened once the P-47 was consigned to the 9th AF, once the P-51 took over the escort role.
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