Mission of futility......

[Knarley-Bob]

1st mission on Bodeplatte, after the Battle of the bulge......

 

A free hunt, yay! Whoopie!!         In a P-47?       One might as well rack a shell into his 1911 and shoot himself before taking off.

Well, of course I died. Flying the "Thunder Pig" in a free hunt? Only a madman would attempt that. But then, it is just a frickin' game...................................

I usually am worried WITH a P-47 escort. A plane, in this sim, that can't keep up to or out run anything is going to protect a Spitfire? Even laden with bombs?

On the bright side, it flipped over and lawn darted on landing approach, instead of letting me touch down to the earth, and then expiring from the jolt of landing.................... 

 

So what would one's options for this suicidal mission be? 

Opting out of the mission?

Or would it have been wise to bail out over friendly territory? I have recently read of many parachute deaths, I just don't know.

 We all know it is certain death to try belly landings.

I once saw a movie, that said "The only way to win, is not to play". Well, we can't have that either can we.

 

Must have really sucked being there IRL...............

Tally Ho!!      

 

 

KB

Edited March 12, 2022 by Knarley-Bob

[Yogiflight]

1 hour ago, Knarley-Bob said:

Flying the "Thunder Pig" in a free hunt?

I was flying several Free Hunt missions with the Bf 110 E2 on the Moscow map. Fighting with two 110s versus 4 Mig3 is not very easy, either.

 

1 hour ago, Knarley-Bob said:

So what would one's options for this suicidal mission be? 

I usually try to get at least one kill, when trying to save my flightleaders a$$ and then when it gets hot for me, dive down to the deck and run under tree top level, evading every now and then, when my personal hunter gets too nasty.

 

1 hour ago, Knarley-Bob said:

Or would it have been wise to bail out over friendly territory? I have recently read of many parachute deaths, I just don't know.

As long as you don't come down over water or trees, and bail out with enough altitude, it is quite safe.

 

1 hour ago, Knarley-Bob said:

 We all know it is certain death to try belly landings.

Belly landing with low speed is still doable as long as you don't lawn dart into a hill.

[PatrickAWlson]

Let's see.  We'll take a fighter plane optimized for high altitude and turn it into a low  altitude attack aircraft.  It really was a great idea as the P-47 was an excellent attack aircraft, but only because we owned the skies.  

 

In PWCG, if you wanted to fly the plane as it was flown historically, you would set opposition fighter flights to zero.  No enemy fighters.  Now fly it with all of that lovely ordnance hanging off of it and that big radial in front of you.  You might appreciate it.  In real life, ground attack P-47 squadrons still suffered very heavy losses to AAA.  It just would have been worse with a different plane.

 

If you are flying a P-47 in a air to air free hunt, fly it higher.  If you don't see anything, oh well.  If you do, they will be below you.  Make a diving pass and get out of Dodge.

[DBFlyguy]

Historically, 9th Air Force P-47s claimed over 1,000 air to air kills.  The 358th, 362nd, 366th, 368th and 373rd Fighter Groups all had over 100 kills and all of the units (except the 358th) didn't fly their first combat missions until 1944.  None of the 9th AF P-47 fighter groups flew exclusively ground attack missions, even late in the war they were still getting air to air tasking from time to time including escort work for 9th and 8th AF bombers as well as bumping into the Luftwaffe on occasion when they were originally tasked with air to ground work. I have no idea where this often repeated thing of once P-51s showed up P-47s only flew ground attack missions came from, but its just not true.  It's wasn't true for the 56th FG (8th AF) and it definitely wasn't true for the 9th P-47 units.

[Gambit21]

Yep - all true.

Well said.

 

When the pilots of the 365th were tasked with a (uncommon) fighter sweep, it was “like Christmas”

The point is, they did get these missions as a 9th AF Fighter Group.

 

Not to mention that while 1v1 against a. 109 wasn’t adviseable below 15,0000 feet (quite doable above that) they had mutual support. They got shot down, but they gave as good as they got and better. 

 

Fights with Germans did happen while executing CAS missions etc too. The sky was not always devoid of German fighters despite the inference to the contrary.

The real life Jug was not a dog of an aircraft, and was very survivable compared to the Mustang. To a last, the 352nd pilots attacking Normandy targets pre-invasion wished they had their Jugs back.

[Giggles]

3 hours ago, Gambit21 said:

Yep - all true.

Well said.

 

When the pilots of the 365th were tasked with a (uncommon) fighter sweep, it was “like Christmas”

The point is, they did get these missions as a 9th AF Fighter Group.

 

Not to mention that while 1v1 against a. 109 wasn’t adviseable below 15,0000 feet (quite doable above that) they had mutual support. They got shot down, but they gave as good as they got and better. 

 

Fights with Germans did happen while executing CAS missions etc too. The sky was not always devoid of German fighters despite the inference to the contrary.

The real life Jug was not a dog of an aircraft, and was very survivable compared to the Mustang. To a last, the 352nd pilots attacking Normandy targets pre-invasion wished they had their Jugs back.

theres a video on youtube of a p47 flying home with half a wing shot off.....

[PatrickAWlson]

Big difference between something happening on occasion and something being a common occurrence.  We all know the Luftwaffe kept flying to the end, but by late 44 it was not a force that could put up a good fight with any regularity.  Too many pilots lost.  Not enough fuel.  I am sure that P47s flew fighter sweeps.  German fighters could appear, as could ground attack raiders.  Still, by late 44 it was getting increasingly rare and the quality of opposition was dropping by the day.

[Knarley-Bob]

What it was really like, and what is presented to us is a different thing.

Flying with the 'group' you're with, your flight as it were, at lower altitudes doesn't give one any advantage. Flying at higher altitudes doesn't give one an advantage either, for this is the way it is presented to us.

Now, one must accept the limitations of the aircraft, not on what it really was, but as it is depicted here, and fly it as that. Once that is realized, one would accept the fact that here, the P-47 is a flying coffin............

So, to survive in a P-47 here, one must avoid any and all air combat. Drop one's bombs and run for home. And if on a free hunt, abandon your flight, fly as high as you can until it's time to go home.

If on a bombing run, that has an escort, let them fight the enemy. Do not fire at the enemy fighters for then they will know you are there. Once engaged with the enemy aircraft, you are pretty much doomed.

Other than that, blowing up stuff is kinda fun!!

 

EDIT: Wouldn't a 'free hunt' for the P-47 be best served as to hunting something to strafe and or blow up? Like trains or bridges?

 

KB

Edited March 13, 2022 by Knarley-Bob

[LukeFF]

Free Hunt missions are essentially what the USAAF and RAF called fighter sweeps, and yes, 9th Air Force P-47s were flying those sorts of missions.  Hopefully at some point there will be true Armed Recon missions; until then, the Attack Vehicle Column and Attack Armor Column missions are the closest match.

[Knarley-Bob]

I have an old VHS tape of a 'Propaganda' film from WWII. It's basically what our P-47 pilots were going through on a daily basis. It showed that after dropping their ordinance, they were free to 'hunt' on the way back to base, sort of a search and destroy mission, where if it was behind enemy lines and moving it was fair game. I would imagine that at times they would do that, in pairs, but in the sim it's always back to base in formation. That might be an option too, later on.

 

KB

[oc2209]

On 3/13/2022 at 8:34 AM, Knarley-Bob said:

Now, one must accept the limitations of the aircraft, not on what it really was, but as it is depicted here, and fly it as that. Once that is realized, one would accept the fact that here, the P-47 is a flying coffin............

 

 

There's really no need to be so fatalistic about it.

 

Like others have said here, don't mix it up with 109s on the deck. That largely was true in real life. The difference between real life and the sim isn't so much in the P-47's low level handling, but in the fact that our friendly AI is too stupid to be as coordinated as American pilots were, while our enemy Luftwaffe AI is, on average, superior to the typical Luftwaffe replacement pilot circa 1944. It's certainly more aggressive.

 

The Fw-190A-8 can be fought very easily in a D-22 (slightly less easily in a D-28) on the deck:

 

Spoiler

 

 

All combatants are at Ace level AI. 3 of 4 Thunderbolts survived. I got two kills and damaged a third. The AI legitimately scored a kill all by itself, defeating a 190 in a head-on pass.

 

109s cannot be fought on the deck. The P-47 AI will be slaughtered, while you won't be able to get guns on target very often. You can, however, survive by flying at treetop level and flying evasively.

 

If you drag a 109 up to approximately 5,000 feet, however, things become very different. They are very killable at that height and above:

 

Spoiler

 

 

So, no, a P-47 is not a flying coffin against the AI.

 

You can make your life easier by not starting with 100% fuel, and by not carrying extra ammo.

[Knarley-Bob]

If you are heading out looking for a scrap in a plane that is bigger, slower, and less maneuverable than the ones you will be running into, you are going to be in trouble.

To fly, one had to be an officer. I was told by a gentleman that flew P-47s with a group called 'Easy's Angeles'.  He told me that the attrition rate of officers was 80%. He was there so, I kinda believe him.

 

Not what I would call great odds...........

 

KB

Edited March 17, 2022 by Knarley-Bob