WW2 Air to Ground Opinion – Typhoon vs Corsair vs Thunderbolt?
OK guys, opinions about WW2 aircraft. You have to fly air to ground missions in WW2. You can choose one of these aircraft – Hawker Typhoon, Vought F4U Corsair or Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. Dont worry about range, they are all short range missions. Which do you choose? Which was the most effective A2G aircraft (and not because of numbers built) – head to head which do you think is better? If you can think of a fighter bomber which was better than these 3 then feel free to throw it into the mix. Opinions please!
Joe W, I’m afraid you are wrong about the P-47 not being a fighter bomber. The following quote is from Wikipedia
“The P-47 gradually became the USAAF’s best fighter-bomber, carrying the 500 pound (227 kg) bombs, the triple-tube M-8 4.5 inch (115 mm) rocket launchers, and eventually HVARs. From the invasion of Europe on 6 June 1944, to VE day on 7 May 1945, the Thunderbolt destroyed 86,000 railway cars, 9,000 locomotives, 6,000 armored fighting vehicles, and 68,000 trucks”
Debatable. Both P47 and F4U were used post-war (just not necessarily in the USAF) The very young ROCAF (that’s Republic of China, i.e. Taiwan) were fighting Communist Chinese MiGs in P47s and P51s before USAF transitioned them to F-86 Saberjets.
Look at some of the earliest ROCAF looses (at the bottom) and you’ll see P51s and F47’s (same as P47s)
http://www.taiwanairpower.org/history/shootdowns.html
I think the US kept F4U because it could be used both on land and on carrier, whereas P47 was ground-based only.
However, further research shows that F-4U, even in its initial version, can carry 4000 lbs of payload. Whereas the P47 is limited to about 3700 due to pylon design. (1600 each wing, plus 500 belly, but there are no 1600 lb bombs)
The latest versions of F4U, -4 and -5, can do almost 5200 pounds of payload. Seems P47 has lesser payload, but far more guns, esp. the P47N version, as the M3 guns it carries has better firing rate than the M2’s carried by the F-4U’s. M3 carries up to 500 rds, and P47N has EIGHT of them, compared to 6 M2’s of F-4U.
So it depends on if you’re after bombs, or guns. 
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