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Do we have casualty rates for the P-47 and P-51 during 1944?
Personally I think the F4U Corsair to be superior to the P-47 as a fighter-bomber. And it entered production just as early. Of course the U.S. Army Air Corps would need to admit that the USN produced a superior aircraft before adopting a version of their own.
Do we have casualty rates for the P-47 and P-51 during 1944?
Out of interest dr...the 51 was clearly superior to the 47 and way out in front of the 38 in both categories.
Out of interest dr
does the casualty rate for P-47s break down into losses prior to hydromatic propeller blades and methanol-water injection, and after?
The post wasn't designed to definitively prove anything, it is too short and generalised. It's an article I found whilst foraging and felt it might be of interest.having flown both. Which was a faster diver??
I would prefer the F4U and Fw-190 over the P-47 in the fighter-bomber role. They were superior to the P-47 below 15,000 feet (i.e. where fighter-bombers operate).There certainly was not another ground attack plane of that caliber that was as dangerous an opponent air-to-air.
I would prefer the F4U and Fw-190 over the P-47 in the fighter-bomber role. They were superior to the P-47 below 15,000 feet (i.e. where fighter-bombers operate).
I have to break my own heart here and say overall the P-51 was better.
But the P-51 was not the ground attack workhorse that the Jug was. Its cooling system was vulnerable to ground fire and it didn't have nearly the survival rate per sortie that the P-47 had.
Clay - that is a slippery statistic to deal with. The 47 had an overall loss rate per sortie that was lower than the 51 but there are no hard facts regarding meaningful mission profiles from which the statistics are derived.
Everyone likes to compare losses per enemy AC destroyed, but the Jug was blowing up bridges, strafing trains, trucks, river barges, etc.My own research comparing P-47 vs P-38 vs P-51 in ETO, while useful is not conclusive. For the 8th AF there were fewer losses for the 51 per German aircraft destroyed than either the 47 or 38 - in fact the 38 had the highest loss to award ratio of the 3 for both air to air and strafing scores - but sortie info in mission profile is extremely hard to nail down.
Dave said:I would prefer the F4U and Fw-190 over the P-47 in the fighter-bomber role. They were superior to the P-47 below 15,000 feet (i.e. where fighter-bombers operate).