Wingspan: 40 ft., 9 in.
Length: 36 ft., 2 in.
Height: 14 ft., 2 in.
Empty Weight 10,000 lb.
Maximum Weight: 17,500 lb.
Powerplant: 1 Pratt & Whitney R-2800-21 rated at 2,000hp
Max Speed: 429mph @ 20,000 ft.
Range (with maximum external fuel): 1,800 miles
Service ceiling: 40,000 ft.
Armament: 8, .50-caliber machine guns; 4 per wing
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Republic's immense and powerful P-47 Thunderbolt was one of the truly
great fighters of World War II. Designed by Alexander Kartveli, who earlier
had acquired a stellar reputation for designing great aircraft under the
Seversky banner, the P-47 was to play a major role in World War II and
be built in greater numbers than any other U.S. fighter, including the
North American P-51.
Two versions of the ubiquitous P-47D were manufactured. One, referred
to as the "razorback," had a faired-in cockpit and canopy, and the other,
known as the "bubble," had no canopy fairing and a bubble-type canopy offering
a greatly improved field of view. All-told, an amazing 12,962 P-47Ds of
both types eventually rolled from Republic's production lines on Long Island,
New York.
In combat, the P-47 was an effective air-to-air fighter—but it was
an even more effective air-to- ground weapon. It had great diving speed
and a tremendous payload capacity. |
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Some 5,222 P-47s were lost during the war, but only 3,499 of the losses
were directly attributable to enemy action. Some 1,350,000 combat sorties
were flown with a combat loss rate per sortie of just 0.7 percent.
 Those
who look down their noses at the blunt form of the Jug and smirk are ignoring
the facts: most references credit the rotund Jug with having knocked 3,752
enemy aircraft out of the air, many of which were supposedly much more
agile. More important, only 0.7 percent of the Jugs that left on a combat
mission didn’t return.
The most heavily armed fighter in the American arsenal, the Thunderbolt
came into its own as a ground-pounder and, because of this, it flew more
than twice as many sorties as the Mustang. |
When its eight .50-caliber Brownings were combined with rockets and bombs,
the Jug was a fiercesome ground-attack machine. In the European Theatre
of Operations alone, between D-Day and VE day, it is credited with the
destruction of 9,000 locomotives and 86,000 rail cars.
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