P-47D "Jug" Thunderbolt vs Spitfire(any variations)

On some stations Spitfire 'C' wings were converted to 'E' wings, but it required conversion sets from the manufacturing firms and was a lot more of a 'do' than swapping in/out weapons in the 'C' wing. The 'E' wing wasn't universal in that sense.

That said I haven't looked into it too deeply and am willing to be educated.

Just fly around with the Jug till the spit gets low on fuel...

fliger747 said:

Just fly around with the Jug till the spit gets low on fuel...

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You do know that Spitfires flew over Berlin long before any Jug did.

People underestimate the potential of the Thunderbolt because of some bias. It is a clean, powerful, fast, maneuverable airplane that has a tremendous amount of energy at combat speeds due to it's being able to maintain a tremendous amount of power at high altitude. It's 8 fifties were on par with the 4 cannon on the late Spitfires. It's high speed maneuverability is competitive with the Spitfire too.

When I read terms like ground attack, mediocre, slow roll rate, low climb rate, when the 'supercharger is engaged', boost, etc associated with it I feel too many posters just do not understand how airplanes and their engines operate and the evolution of performance enhancing technology that were applied in a short time period took place.

Most posters seem to grasp the airplane was a good performing fighter, on par with the, at each stage, excellent Spitfire. Good for you guys. It was a heavy airplane so needed to go fast so it had the biggest engine available (turbosupercharged, intercooled and aftercooled) and during combat they used a lot of power. It's like the F-105 or F-4, nobody says they were ground attack airplanes or had poor performance, (but heavy and needed to go fast to perform). It was just used for that and some Migs went faster or maneuvered tighter.

The amount of BS about the Thunderbolt is right up there with the Airacobra, written by guys writing the same bad info from those that wrote before them. Read Martin Caiden's "Thunderbolt!", essentially Robert S Johnson's war biography. It pretty much lays out the limitations and evolution of the airplane, and told of the crippling of it's mission effectiveness which in other tomes like Brodie's were explained to be just government restrictions to allowing range enhancing drop tanks. A late model D with Lockheed 150's on the wing pylons went just as far as a Mustang with 75's.

Chris...

Milosh said:

You do know that Spitfires flew over Berlin long before any Jug did.

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What, a PR? Did it do escort, engage fighters effectively and return? In large numbers. Please explain...
Chris...

Was said in jest chris.

Spec sheet on the Mk VIII, http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/Spitfire_LF_VIII_Trop_Aircraft_Data_Performance.jpg

Milosh said:

Was said in jest chris.

Spec sheet on the Mk VIII, http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/Spitfire_LF_VIII_Trop_Aircraft_Data_Performance.jpg

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Let me guess a combat radius of 175 miles or less than a P-40N Warhawk which would be 200 miles.

Hmmm, Spit VIII is carrying 120IMP gallons internal which is equal to 144 US gallons. P-40N (with all three internal tanks) carried 159 US gallons? Early P40Ns held 122 US gallons.

Shortround6 said:

Hmmm, Spit VIII is carrying 120IMP gallons internal which is equal to 144 US gallons. P-40N (with all three internal tanks) carried 159 US gallons? Early P40Ns held 122 US gallons.

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No, 114 Imp gal in the Spitfire VIII. So you're looking at what, 137 vs 159 gals overall, so 1/8th less. 175 vs 200 miles combat radius. In the last year of the war in the Pacific the RAAF P-40N's scored more aerial victories than the Spitfire VIII's but then it had more range and their Beaufighters scored even more.

The two aircraft were entirely complimentary and on the same side. The RAF was always responsible for protecting the US airfields in UK. In an imaginary conflict, an intruding pilot going into UK airspace would count a Spitfire Mk XIV as the plane he would probably least like to be up against and most like to be protecting his home base.

pbehn said:

The two aircraft were entirely complimentary and on the same side. The RAF was always responsible for protecting the US airfields in UK. In an imaginary conflict, an intruding pilot going into UK airspace would count a Spitfire Mk XIV as the plane he would probably least like to be up against and most like to be protecting his home base.

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Don't understand your comment. Sorry about mine. Have edited it to correct.

From recent comments, I believe the P-47D is just going to have
to take a seat and wait. The challenge seems to be the majority of
Spitfire Mk.XIVs using +18 lb/sq. in. boost vs. the P-47M. I apologize
ahead of time because I am working this weekend and have a tight
schedule. I will work on the performance workup and possibly be
able to post by next Tuesday or Wednesday if the interest is there.

I would be glad to use the Spitfire 21 instead. But it did not have the
control harmony or handling of the Mk.14 and was not liked by its
pilots as well.

Jeff

Kevin J said:

Don't understand your comment. Sorry about mine. Have edited it to correct.

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It was a general comment on the original post not a response to your post. Since the two aircraft were on the same side they were never modified to counter each others strengths. From the little I have read Spitfire and Jug pilots in UK at the time had fun in mock combats, the planes were equally matched in some area of performance and mismatched in others.

chris mcmillin said:

People underestimate the potential of the Thunderbolt because of some bias. It is a clean, powerful, fast, maneuverable airplane that has a tremendous amount of energy at combat speeds due to it's being able to maintain a tremendous amount of power at high altitude. It's 8 fifties were on par with the 4 cannon on the late Spitfires. It's high speed maneuverability is competitive with the Spitfire too.

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I would grant that the P47 was a fast clean powerful airplane with a good roll rate, but, and its a big but, to claim it had the agility of the Spit is possibly stretching it.

The following is a quote from the Williams web site regarding:-
FLIGHT TESTS ON THE REPUBLIC
P-47D AIRPLANE, AAF NO. 42-26167
USING 44-1 FUEL
The airplane and engine handled well at all altitudes at the higher powers. At 70.0" Hg., water injection, a maximum speed of 444 MPH was obtained at 23,200 feet. At 65.0" Hg., with water a high speed of 439 MPH at 25,200 feet and a maximum rate of climb of 3260 ft/min. at 10,000 feet were obtained.

These are good numbers granted, but the Spit XIV Griffon 65 at +18 boost at 23000ft seems to max at just under 440 mph and at its best height is about 450mph which is a precious little difference. However when comparing the climb the Spit is all over the P47 with a climb at 10,000ft of approx 4,500ft/min. It should be noted that the Spit sometimes operated at more than +18 boost.

fliger747 said:

Just fly around with the Jug till the spit gets low on fuel...

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Without external tanks the P-47D hasn't that much more endurance than an F.XIVE (142.5 UKG tankage) and about 30 minutes more than the the F,XIV (109.5 UKG).

If it has external tanks and keeps them on, then it would be a sitting duck against the XIV without external tanks.

In the scenario where the P-47D is flying over enemy airspace, which is defended by the Spitfire XIV, the P-47D cannot use its endurance advantage because a) it has to drop external tanks to fight/avoid fighting and b) most of the remaining fuel is required for the trip back to base. While the XIV's base is near by.

A P-47D could probably avoid combat with a IX or VIII by using its speed advantage, but it does not have the speed to run away from a XIV.

Greyman said:

On some stations Spitfire 'C' wings were converted to 'E' wings, but it required conversion sets from the manufacturing firms and was a lot more of a 'do' than swapping in/out weapons in the 'C' wing. The 'E' wing wasn't universal in that sense.

That said I haven't looked into it too deeply and am willing to be educated.

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Here is an excellent site describing the modifications required to convert a C wing to an E wing.
Sorting Out the "E" – American Armament for the Spitfire Mk. IX/XVI — Variants & Technology | Spitfire Mk. IX | Spitfire Mk. XVI
Note that moving the 20 mm to the outer bay allowed the 50 cal ammunition to pass under the 20 mm barrel minimizing the size of the blisters.

Again, which version of the P-47D?

There were quite a few changes between the P-47D-1-RE and the P-47D-40-RA, most notably the transition from the "Razorback" to the "bubble-top".
And amonsgst those changes came a considerable change in range and performance.

Reluctant Poster said:

Here is an excellent site describing the modifications required to convert a C wing to an E wing.
Sorting Out the "E" – American Armament for the Spitfire Mk. IX/XVI — Variants & Technology | Spitfire Mk. IX | Spitfire Mk. XVI
Note that moving the 20 mm to the outer bay allowed the 50 cal ammunition to pass under the 20 mm barrel minimizing the size of the blisters.

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If I may one-up you ...

I don't know why but this topic seems to rear its head every few years or so on forums like this one. Maybe its because of the what if factor as the two never faced each other in combat and the relative merits of each plane against their real opponents - 109, 190, Zero, Tony, Oscar etc. are well known. Maybe because the two are so much different in philosophies. The Spitfire is like a rapier sword and the Thunderbolt is like a battle axe. Both are effective in their own ways. My take is the P-47 was so very good with its strengths and still good enough in other areas that it was overall more effective as a combat aircraft. Certainly, as an interceptor or classic dogfighter it was totally outclassed by the Spitfire. But interception and classic dogfighting is not how the majority of air combat occurred in the ETO or even the PTO and CBI for that matter.

Those who are perplexed about how the Thunderbolt (or the Corsair, Hellcat, Wildcat or even the P-40) could shoot down so many planes, most of which were more maneuverable and better climbing than they were, always forget this: In WWII (unlike WWI? I am not knowledgeable about that era), only a small percentage of air to air kills were from classic dogfights. Something like 80% are from the unobserved bounce. One pilot likened it to sneaking up on someone from behind and clubbing them in the head with a baseball bat.

The P-47 excelled at what actually became important in WWII aerial combat: Speed, dive, zoom, roll rate and (in later models) range. Fly far, fly fast, hit hard, then get out.

How well it could "dogfight" is very close to irrelevant. The Japanese employed fighters that could out turn and out climb anything that the Allies had, yet they were shot down in droves.
It is my belief that turn and climb rate are over rated as attributes for fighters in WWII while roll and dive rate are under rated. And range is the great multiplier.

Fighter design in WWII coalesced around two philosophies: "Turn and Burn" and "Boom and Zoom". For some reason we are still carrying on this argument today. It was settled in WWII. Boom and Zoom won, for the Americans at least. They were more than successful with it, as they achieved air supremacy over Germany and Japan.

windswords said:

How well it could "dogfight" is very close to irrelevant. The Japanese employed fighters that could out turn and out climb anything that the Allies had, yet they were shot down in droves.
It is my belief that turn and climb rate are over rated as sttributes for fighters in WWII while roll and dive rate are under rated. And range is the great multiplier.

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Hello Windswords,
I believe that the difference in attributes of the fighter aircraft flown by the Japanese as compared to the Allies is much less important than other relative aspects of their air forces and infrastructure. The Japanese simply did not have the training programs, aircraft production, airfield construction, or anything else needed to sustain the kind of war they got into.

Results were pretty much the same in Europe where the Axis fighters had quite different characteristics.

While I am sure we have all read the story of Robert Johnson flying his Thunderbolt against the brand new Spitfire Mk.Ix, we should remember that Johnson was probably the best Thunderbolt pilot there ever was and the other guy was stupid enough to play a game to his own weaknesses. Think about what might have happened if the other pilot had been J.E.Johnson.
The Thunderbolt really didn't roll all that well but against a new Spitfire IX, it was just a little better.
The clipped wing Spitfires and later Spitfires were a LOT better.
As for diving performance, remember that the US chose to go with the Mustang in Europe because it had fewer problems with compressibility. Thunderbolts always had issues with compressibility in a dive; the wing would lose lift. The dive recovery flaps only helped to reduce speed and pitch the aircraft up and didn't come as factory installed equipment until the P-47D-40. (Many earlier aircraft were retrofitted.)

One interesting observation that can be made is that a pretty credible fighter force could be made up of nothing but Thunderbolts while a force of all Spitfires would have much less capability.

windswords said:

Fighter design in WWII coalessed around two philosophies: "Turn and Burn" and "Boom and Zoom". For some reason we are still carrying on this argument today. It was settled in WWII. Boom and Zoom won, for the Americans at least. They were more than sucessful with it, as they achieved air supremacy over Germany and Japan.

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I don't believe it is an either-or situation. It is really a relative performance thing. The Japanese A6M fighting in China against their obsolete aircraft was a BnZ aircraft. Against US types, it was TnB.
As for Americans versus the Germans in the ETO, how does one come to the conclusion that it was BnZ versus TnB?

I am also not so sure that this argument was ever really settled nor will it ever be settled. If BnZ was the best game, then why did we replace older fighters such as the F-4 Phantom with much more agile but slower fighters such as F-16 and F-18? From the fighter pilot interviews I have watched, the game gets a lot more complicated and often it is a matter of exploiting a particular performance advantage that really doesn't fall into either category. There are people in this forum with actual experience in this domain, so perhaps they can explain things better than I can.

- Ivan.