Low Battery
Airman
- 39
- Sep 11, 2014
I was going to make an entire video on this, but quite frankly I am exceedingly lazy so this is going to have to do.
Ever since Greg made is absurd video on the P-47s range where he argues that the so called "bomber mafia" deliberately were holding back the P-47 from its true potential I have wanted to rebut the video. I find it extremely frustrating how easily many people in the general online community have bought his rubbish wholesale. It is quite frankly one of the most nonsensical and factually dubious videos on his channel.
Gregs big clincher in this video is a 200 gallon drop tank he claims tha Republic made that the USAAF was just deliberately ignoring. There are so many problems with this particualr part of his narrative that it is part of why I had a hard time making a video on this. It would have been extremely long trying to point out the many logical as well as factual issues that this claim presents that quite frankly should have been obvious to anyone with a modicum of knowledge on the subject even if they did not know what I am going to point out here. Some of the obvious issues with this claim are the fact that around the same time this manual was published, the USAAF was scrambling to get drop tanks to the escorts by pretty much any means necessary. This included improvising paper tanks, and trying to use the 200 gallong ferry tank in this role even thought it was completely inaqdequate. Somehow according to Greg, everyone was conspiring to deliberately not use escort fighters even though everyone in this period was demanding more escorts and longer range and making every feasible effort to make this happen. Greg COMPLETELY IGNORES, that Hap Arnold made a long range escort fighter priority number 1 back in February 1942. This is a weird thing to do for a man who was supposedly so wedding to unescorted bombing that they were willing to deliberately sabotage efforts to improve the range of the P-47 to somehow save face rather than admit unescorting bombing was unfeasable. I could go on forever about this, such as shortages of metal to make the drop tanks, competing demands on resources from different theatres, etc.
Despite going on at the beginning of the video about how people just repeat the same old narratives because they never look at the primary sources, Greg proceeds to demonstrate by this video that having primary souces is completely pointless if you cannot be bothered to read said documents with sufficient attention to detail. Greg uses a 1943 P-47 manual to claim that the 200 gallon drop tank in the manual is a new, BEFORE NOW SOMEHOW TOTALLY UNHEARD OF, high atltiude capable drop tank that is supposedly NOT the 200 gallon ferry tank. He comes to this conclusion by looking at the range charts in the back of the manual and observing that the predicted range values are given for altitudes well over those known to be possible with the ferry tank. Therefore, accoding to Greg, this is some myterious republic drop tank that was "fully flight tested" above 20,000 feet. However, Greg is wrong. This drop tank was never flight tested.
I took the liberty of purchasing an actual color copy of this manual due to some very important words at the bottom of the page that Greg did not bother to read. All of the copies of this manual online are black and white.
NOTICE THE ENTIRE CHART IS IN RED.
None of these values were "flight tested". Therefore, there is no evidence here that this is some never before seen high atltiude drop tank the USAAF was deliberately ignoring. What this is, is the ferry tank, and whoever wrote the manual simply filled in the range estimations ignoring the fact that this drop tank could not be used at high altitude.
This is Greg's original video:
View: https://youtu.be/aCLa078v69k?si=mRLfW6_LslOARlwo
Ever since Greg made is absurd video on the P-47s range where he argues that the so called "bomber mafia" deliberately were holding back the P-47 from its true potential I have wanted to rebut the video. I find it extremely frustrating how easily many people in the general online community have bought his rubbish wholesale. It is quite frankly one of the most nonsensical and factually dubious videos on his channel.
Gregs big clincher in this video is a 200 gallon drop tank he claims tha Republic made that the USAAF was just deliberately ignoring. There are so many problems with this particualr part of his narrative that it is part of why I had a hard time making a video on this. It would have been extremely long trying to point out the many logical as well as factual issues that this claim presents that quite frankly should have been obvious to anyone with a modicum of knowledge on the subject even if they did not know what I am going to point out here. Some of the obvious issues with this claim are the fact that around the same time this manual was published, the USAAF was scrambling to get drop tanks to the escorts by pretty much any means necessary. This included improvising paper tanks, and trying to use the 200 gallong ferry tank in this role even thought it was completely inaqdequate. Somehow according to Greg, everyone was conspiring to deliberately not use escort fighters even though everyone in this period was demanding more escorts and longer range and making every feasible effort to make this happen. Greg COMPLETELY IGNORES, that Hap Arnold made a long range escort fighter priority number 1 back in February 1942. This is a weird thing to do for a man who was supposedly so wedding to unescorted bombing that they were willing to deliberately sabotage efforts to improve the range of the P-47 to somehow save face rather than admit unescorting bombing was unfeasable. I could go on forever about this, such as shortages of metal to make the drop tanks, competing demands on resources from different theatres, etc.
Despite going on at the beginning of the video about how people just repeat the same old narratives because they never look at the primary sources, Greg proceeds to demonstrate by this video that having primary souces is completely pointless if you cannot be bothered to read said documents with sufficient attention to detail. Greg uses a 1943 P-47 manual to claim that the 200 gallon drop tank in the manual is a new, BEFORE NOW SOMEHOW TOTALLY UNHEARD OF, high atltiude capable drop tank that is supposedly NOT the 200 gallon ferry tank. He comes to this conclusion by looking at the range charts in the back of the manual and observing that the predicted range values are given for altitudes well over those known to be possible with the ferry tank. Therefore, accoding to Greg, this is some myterious republic drop tank that was "fully flight tested" above 20,000 feet. However, Greg is wrong. This drop tank was never flight tested.
I took the liberty of purchasing an actual color copy of this manual due to some very important words at the bottom of the page that Greg did not bother to read. All of the copies of this manual online are black and white.
NOTICE THE ENTIRE CHART IS IN RED.
None of these values were "flight tested". Therefore, there is no evidence here that this is some never before seen high atltiude drop tank the USAAF was deliberately ignoring. What this is, is the ferry tank, and whoever wrote the manual simply filled in the range estimations ignoring the fact that this drop tank could not be used at high altitude.
This is Greg's original video:
View: https://youtu.be/aCLa078v69k?si=mRLfW6_LslOARlwo
Last edited:
