Could the later model P47 establish complete control of air over Germany without P51

bobbysocks · May 28, 2012

only ground forces can win the war. the effectiveness of air cover will legislate the cost. russia was pushing and would have continued to do so. but without resources pinned to central germany to defend daylight bombing they would have met a different german army. a D-day invasion or second front would have to happen...but probably not in june of 44...and maybe not normandy. but all of what was happening in europe had no effect on the development of the "bomb"...that was a finite date. the question would have been who to drop it on and what would the pros and cons of that be? and i have no idea what the production rate of A-bomb was. was it sufficent to mount a sustained nuclear bombing campaign if needed? would germany's now unmolested (due to no 51s) jet groups played a factor?

drgondog · May 28, 2012

Jenisch said:
Although the North American P-51 Mustang replaced the P-47 in the long-range escort role in Europe, the Thunderbolt still ended the war with 3,752 air-to-air kills claimed in over 746,000 sorties of all types, at the cost of 3,499 P-47s to all causes in combat.[13] In Europe during the critical first three months of 1944 when the German aircraft industry and Berlin were heavily attacked, the P-47 shot down more German fighters than did the P-51 (570 out of 873),(560 out of 1038) and shot down approximately 900 of the 1,983 969 of 2509)claimed during the first six months of 1944. In Europe, Thunderbolts flew more sorties (423,435) than P-51s, P-38s and P-40s combined. Indeed, it was the P-47 which broke the back of the Luftwaffe in the critical period of January–May 1944.[14] Nope

The P-47 didn't do much to LF Reich, most of their battles were with the Western Defense (LF 3) not Defense of the Reich. The test for the Battle of Germany was Operation Pointblank attacking Germani aircraft industry and the Luftwaffe itself and it bagan with Big Week (Feb 20-25). see official air credits by a/c for all USAAF ETO below.

The authors that cited the numbers didn't source the ONLY accepted US reference for air to air scores in WWII. USAF Study 85 - see below for ETO summary which includes 9th AF assets thrown into Battle of Germany (both P-51s and P-47s).

There were four phases of the airwar by USAAF against Germany before D-Day. 1.) Operations initiation/Lessons learned - 8/42 to Jan 43. 2.) ramp up/execute Strategic Plan - Jan 27, 1943 to end of October -1943, 3.) lick wounds, re-set tactics - November 1943 to Big Week in which deep penetrations beyond P-47s were not made because of August through October ass whipping by LW, 4.) Big Week through D-Day - kill the LW over Germany, attack critical aircraft and Oil and transportation targets

The P-47 was extremely important during Phase 2 and 3. The P-51 with only two (2) operationa FG's during Big week almost shot down as many German day fighters as ALL the 8th and 9th AF P-47 FG's (10), then steadily outscored the jugs during Operation Pointblank (see below).

Statistics

1942 1943 1943 1844 1944 1945 WWII
Total Q1 Q2/Q3 Q4 Total Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Total Q1/Q2 Total
Spitf 9 6 0 0 6 0 0 0 0 0 0 15
P-38 1 0 0 28 27 88 90 147 87 411 13 452
P-47 0 0 167 235 402 560 409 421 500 1890 366 2658
P-51 0 0 0 9 9 389 972 930 932 3224 946 4179
P-61 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 10 70 80 48 128
7432.55 10 6 167 271 444 1038 1471 1509 1589 5606 1373 7433

___________________Q1______________1944________________Q2
****** Jan**** Feb **** Mar***** ******* April**** May **** June
Spit 0 0 0
P38 33 30 25 20 27 43
P47 145 239 176 85 119 205
P51 45 91 254 323 431 220
223 359 455 428 577 468

********Q1
Feb 20 to Mar 31 June
P38______ 35.0 42.5
P47______ 316.0 205.0
P51______ 318.5 220.0

With increases in fuel capacity as the type was refined, the range of escort missions over Europe steadily increased until the P-47 was able to accompany bombers in raids all the way into Germany.

.

The P-47D-25 finally increased internal fuel from 305 to 370 gallons, reached the ETO in June and equipped the 56th, 78th, 353rd and 356th FG by end of July. That got them as far as Magdeburg on occasion but by the end of July there were 6 Mustang Groups available for Deep Target escort and the P-47 was used very sparingly last Steinhuder Lake to Friedrichshafen - ergo they (56th) still weren't engaged deep until they were operational in the P-47M

The P-47 was a null factor against Berlin, Poznan, Brux, Aschersleben, Schweinfurt, Leipzig, Augsburg, Regensburg, Munich, etc - and while they were flying lots of sorties, the bulk of the sorties were by the 9th AF/TAC in Ground support from July 1944 to EOW. Simply stated - for the first half of 8th AF ops the Jug was battling JG2 and JG 26 - while the Mustang was battling ALL of them in LF3 and LF Reich.

drgondog · May 28, 2012

Timppa said:
I agree

I disagree. Ultimately the ground forces (Russian, US, British, in this order) won the war. While I think the P-51 was the best fighter in the war, the struggle without it would not have been longer at all.

Timppa - My sole disagreement relies on the question of possibly 500 more day fighters being available over the beaches as transfers from LuftReich - those pilots and aircraft Not KIA/MIA during the big battles absent the P-47 over mid to east Germany/Poland/Czechoslovakia.

The landings were very dicey when re-inforcements were critical, and logistics were strained when the Mulberries were pounded on June 9 storms. What could have been the outcome for consolidation of Omaha had the Luftwaffe been able to deploy those aircraft along with Ju 88/He 111 strikes on Tankers and Freighters on D-Day?

Conslaw · May 29, 2012

If the P-51 wasn't available, the US could have modified the F4U Corsair. The Corsair as originally built had wing tanks, but they weren't used because they weren't protected. For European operations, the wing tanks could have been enlarged and protected, though two wing guns might have had to be sacrificed. Weight could have been saved by deleting the tail hook and folding wings. The us had a surplus of F4U capacity from late 1943 to 1945. According to data from other ww2aircraft forum posts, the F4U-1 without water injection and with naval equipment was an even match for the Fw-190a5.

Juha · May 29, 2012

IMHO if no P-51Bs around, USA would have produced more P-38s/P-47s/F4Us and deep penetrations beyond P-47 range would have been far fewer with P-38 support beyond P-47 range after mid Oct 43. Probably Allied would have concentrate 8th AF raids on targets inside P-47 range and BC would have taken care most of those beyond. That was time of long nights, so that would have been completely possible and Harris would have been forced to obey or kicked out. If markings succeeded BC was capable to deliver devastating attacks on fairly small targets in late 43, of course if markings went astray then usually whole raid went astray and the latter happened now and then straight to the end of war. So the area covered by the bombing offensive would have been much the same than historically but its effectiveness would have suffered somewhat. Because of sporadic daytime raids outside P-47 range, some LW fighter units would have stayed in Central and Eastern Germany but some would have been transferred to East/MTO/LFl 3 where they would have some effects and where they would have suffered some losses. So after D-Day LW would have been able to transfer more fighters to France, but not sooner than it happened in real world, in fact some of the extra fighters would have arrived later because they would have been deployed farther away in East and in MTO and probably the LW infra would have been more or less in same condition that it was in early June 44 and would hindered the effective use of the extra fighters.

Juha

drgondog · May 29, 2012

Conslaw said:
If the P-51 wasn't available, the US could have modified the F4U Corsair. The Corsair as originally built had wing tanks, but they weren't used because they weren't protected. For European operations, the wing tanks could have been enlarged and protected, though two wing guns might have had to be sacrificed. Weight could have been saved by deleting the tail hook and folding wings. The us had a surplus of F4U capacity from late 1943 to 1945. According to data from other ww2aircraft forum posts, the F4U-1 without water injection and with naval equipment was an even match for the Fw-190a5.

Had that decision been made in 1942, the Corsair could have been in ETO in early 1944 - by Presidential order Only. The USAAF would not willingly by a USN aircraft.

drgondog · May 29, 2012

Juha - my sole disagreement with your entire well thought out comment is that when LW dealt the 8th AF the severe blows in August and October - they didn't reduce forces in Lbwh Mitte, they increased them and re-organized into LF Reich. The 8th would have still attempted Big Week and beyond without P-51Bs. The speculative question is whether the 8th could pull P-38s from MTO to buy time for more P-38s to replace P-47 groups.

If that decision was made then I believe that LF Reich does not re-transfer units back south and east unless and until the 8th AF stood down for several months on very long range targets. Given that LF Reich was dealing out continuous heavy losses during Big Week, then Berlin missions in March and April when there Were P-51bs inflicting heavy losses they still flooded replacements and units into Reich.

It's an interesting question to ponder - but at the end of the day, with Spaatz and Doolittle freshly arrived from MTO, I can't help but think they would have stripped Med if necessary to prioritze D-Day ops. I also believe that the 8th would have absorbed some 20%+ losses (continuous 5+%) on the unescorted parts of strikes to Merseburg, Stettin, Brux had the 6-8 P-38 groups been available in late March through May.

In any case the P-47D wasn't going to make the difference as the LF Reich would continue to pull back to limits of range and strike within Range only for defense of very important targets.

fastmongrel · May 29, 2012

The P47 had the legs to get to the Ruhr then why not concentrate on turning the Ruhr into a waste land. The LW is going to have to come up the Ruhr was the heartland of coal, iron and arms manufacturing. I have never understood why there was this fixation with Berlin, if the RAF and USAAF had done a 24/7 job on the Ruhr for a year then you can go off and start doing the same to other areas. Sometimes it seems to me the bombers had a list and every target on the list had to be ticked off like a train spotter.

renrich · May 29, 2012

In the F4U1 the wing tanks were utilised in the Pacific. In Boone Guyton's book, "Whistling Death" Guyton was chewed out by an admiral for allowing Vought to place the CO2 bottles for purging the wing tanks and blowing down the landing gear in an emergency too close together. One of the admiral's pilots accidently used the wrong bottle and blew down his gear in combat which cost him his life. Guyton went back to Vought and got that changed. The wing tanks were also known to be leaky. It sounds like a good idea to enlarge the wing tanks by removing the outboard guns. The P51B and C got along nicely with four guns. drgondog is right though as it would be a miracle if the Army Air Corps adobted a navy fighter no matter how good the fighter was. Quite a number of Goodyear built Corsairs were built without folding wings and the tailhooks were removed in theatre. I have never seen any perormance figures on Corsairs w/o folding wings and taihooks.

drgondog · May 29, 2012

renrich said:
In the F4U1 the wing tanks were utilised in the Pacific. In Boone Guyton's book, "Whistling Death" Guyton was chewed out by an admiral for allowing Vought to place the CO2 bottles for purging the wing tanks and blowing down the landing gear in an emergency too close together. One of the admiral's pilots accidently used the wrong bottle and blew down his gear in combat which cost him his life. Guyton went back to Vought and got that changed. The wing tanks were also known to be leaky. It sounds like a good idea to enlarge the wing tanks by removing the outboard guns. The P51B and C got along nicely with four guns. drgondog is right though as it would be a miracle if the Army Air Corps adobted a navy fighter no matter how good the fighter was. Quite a number of Goodyear built Corsairs were built without folding wings and the tailhooks were removed in theatre. I have never seen any perormance figures on Corsairs w/o folding wings and taihooks.

Ren - the primary benefit should be about 300+ fpm climb performance and a little more range w/o weight of hook/structure and wing fold structure.

Juha · May 29, 2012

Hello Drgondog
I'm not a fan of alternative histories and I like concrete facts, and the little I know/remember on Spaatz and Doolittle is that Spaatz was a clever man and less indoctrinated than Eaker so more flexible and that Doolittle was scientifically orientated so they were enormously more capable air strategists than I. But IMHO without P-51Bs 8th and 15th AFs would not have fought attrition air war beyond P-47 range and the targets attacked beyond P-47 range with P-38 support would have been carefully selected and those which were difficult targets to H2S equipped PFF/8 Group target markers. Those which were reasonable easy targets to mark with H2S like Stettin would have been left to BC to handle. On MTO P-38 Groups, there were strategic targets easier to reach from Foggia than from England like Ploesti and Wiener-Neustadt, so also 15th needed some VLR fighters to be able to contribute effectively to strategic bombing.

Juha

renrich · May 29, 2012

I would think that the F4Us without tail hooks and the wing fold might pick up a few knots in speed because of diminished drag.

Shortround6 · May 30, 2012

A problem with the F4U "what if" is that we really don't know the range/radius of the F4U at 20,000-25,000ft and at 310mph or whatever speed the weavers used. Range/radius at 500ft and 178-185 kts doesn't tell us a whole lot.

Neither plane used exhaust thrust ( at least the F4u didn't until the -4 or later) so the P-47 had at least 350hp more at the higher altitudes.

renrich · May 30, 2012

An interesting story about weavers was told to me by a former P47 pilot in about 1955. I was working at Temco Aircraft while in engine school at SMU. He was an engineer at Temco. He said that his Squadron of P47s were to meet up with a group of B26s and escort them on a raid. The P47s got to the appointed place, several thousand feet above the B26s and began a weave because they did not want to get caught going slow by LW interceptors and the B26 cruised, loaded, pretty slow. They realised they were being left behind and had to straighten out and add power and pretty soon were cruising as fast as they could to keep up. They looked more closely at the bombers and realised they were not B26 Marauders but A26 Invaders. Thay had failed to get the word.

davparlr · May 30, 2012

Shortround6 said:
A problem with the F4U "what if" is that we really don't know the range/radius of the F4U at 20,000-25,000ft and at 310mph or whatever speed the weavers used. Range/radius at 500ft and 178-185 kts doesn't tell us a whole lot.

Good comment.

Neither plane used exhaust thrust ( at least the F4u didn't until the -4 or later) so the P-47 had at least 350hp more at the higher altitudes.

This is true up to about 23k ft where the power of the F4U-1 engine drops off quickly where the P-47B is still generating 2000hp up to 27k ft and still generates good power at 30+. While the F4U is competitive with German fighters over most of the envelope, the P-47 clearly held the high ground over the attackers, a big advantage in escort.

windswords · Jun 8, 2012

It's all speculation but my 2 cents:

The P-38 would have had a bigger presence in the ETO.
The P-47 would have been modified sooner for increased range (I guess at least 6 months earlier for an"N" type model).
Another aircraft would be developed by another manufacturer... they were always trying to develop new planes. Would it have been successful? No way to know.
Both P-47 and P-38 production would have increased. Since NA wasn't building Mustangs, they would have capacity available to build more 38's and 47's!
The bomber offensive would have slowed, but it would not have come to a standstill. As soon as the longer range 47's and 38's were available, deeper penetrations would have resumed.
Thunderbolt evolution might have taken two branches: One for ground attack (perhaps a razorback with no wing tanks, 8 (or 10!) 50's, maybe no turbo), and one for escort (bubble top,wing tanks, 6 50's)
The outcome of the war would not change, Normandy would have gone on as planned - The allies can control the air right across the Channel. Once the allies break out of Normandy air bases can be established right on the continent, which is exactly what happened (even Spitfires could fly farther if their bases are in France).

Let me add one more thought: America in WWII was not like America today. They didn't dwell on the woulda/coulda/shoulda like we do now. If they had a problem (in this case the need for a long range escort) they would solve it somehow. They always tried to make lemonade out of lemons.

wuzak · Jun 8, 2012

windswords said:
Since NA wasn't building Mustangs, they would have capacity available to build more 38's and 47's!

Won't they be busy building P-40s (Warhawk/Tomahawk) for the British?

windswords · Jun 8, 2012

Probably, that's why I added the "smiley". The point is the extra capacity would have been found somewhere.

Arossihman · Jun 9, 2012

Did'nt have time to read every post but let us not forget about the survivability of the jug compared to its water cooled counterparts! I bet 50% more jugs made it home out of sheer toughness. Just a speculation.

windswords · Jun 9, 2012

Good point! There seems to be a counterpoint to everything (or reaction if you will). If less German fighters would be shot down while waiting for longer range T-bolts and for the Lightnings to get their high altitude capabilities sorted out then those extra fighters may have been thrown against the Russians where some would be lost. If the deep penetration missions were curtailed during this time there would be more B-17's and 24's available for those missions later. If North American wasn't building Mustangs, perhaps they would have done something else (a successful follow on to the B-25?). The lack of the P-51 would not happen in a vacuum.

You could also argue that no P-51 might mean no P-47 for the ground attack role. How would the allied advanced be affected if there were more trucks, tanks, trains, etc. for the Wehrmacht? The British could make more Typhoons, but did they have the capacity? The P-38 could have also filled this role.

If the P-47 stayed longer as a front line US fighter would they have been used in Korea instead of the Mustang? How much more successful would they have been? Would MacArthur have chased the communists back to the Yalu weeks earlier so that Chinese could not mobilize in time? Or if they did, would the American retreat have been less costly because the weather would not have been as severe then?

Could the later model P47 establish complete control of air over Germany without P51

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