Plane review - P-47D Thunderbolt

P47D plane analysis

USAAF's Big Jug

Click here to see the Youtube video review with commentary&gameplay

Introduction:

Unlocked at level 9 (soon, in 1.35, to be level 8), the P-47D Thunderbolt is a massive fighter in size and weight, and a massive one in firepower too. Few, very few things can stand the concentrated fire of eight 50 cals firing at convergence for more than a split second. And even those who do will be so damaged that will be more worried about keeping their plane in the sky than in fighting back...
Despised by many as an useless plane, this is other of those instances of a plane which is far from useless, but certainly demanding to fly. It's unforgiving and requires a good flying in order to prevail against other fighters but well flown is a very hard to stop machine of doom.

General description:

The Republic P-47D thunderbolt is a low wing single engined fighter with a traditional configuration. It's massive weight is not a coincidence- the plane was built around a turbosupercharger configuration which required space and a big airframe, and as a result, a high weight.

Designed as a high altitude fighter the P-47D excelled in that role. Probably one of the best high altitude fighters of the whole war, the performance of the jug at altitudes over 25000 feet was at it's prime when most of the fighters of it's era were gasping for air up there. It's biggest asset was also one of the main drawbacks - to achieve that high altitude performance the plane was built around a turbosupercharged R-2800 engine, which required both space and weight. That extra weight was a sacrifize that the extra power at altitude the turbo provided more than compensated for, but at low altitudes the turbo was mostly dead weight and useless as there was enough air pressure outside of the plane to provide more than enough boost pressure without needing the turbocharging.

That doesn't mean the plane was a bad fighter at low altitudes, but certainly it's performance and maneouverability were at a compromise the lower it went, and under roughly 18000 feet the german fighters were consistently better performers. 

Even then, the massive weight of the P-47 (at 7 tons the heaviest single engine plane of the whole conflict) was an incredible asset. The plane dived like a stone, and zoomed like a dream, it had excelent controls at all speeds and while somewhat impaired by a pretty low sonic compression treshold, was an all around great fighter.

The engine was very powerful. A turbo-supercharged Pratt&Whitney R-2800 offering 2350hp on takeoff and an absolutely stunning 1800hp at 32.000 feet. However that power had to bring 7 tons of aiframe, wings and weapons up to the sky and keep it there. The powerloading was very poor and as a result the plane accelerated slowly and had a very limited sustained climbrate.

Mounting 8 50 cal M2 machine guns on the wings the P-47D was the most powerful fighter in the American arsenal from the firepower standpoint (if we forget about the very limited production of F4U1Cs, less than 200), and as it's common in the american fighters, with an impressive ammunition count. Great firepower - long fire times, the 8 50 cals were a trademark of the plane ,as much as it's toughness was.

The biggest asset of the P-47D, and one could argue, the only, resided in it's incredible ability to rule in high speed combat and BnZ tactics. When flow fast and to it's strenghts it was a nightmare for the german fighters, all of them lighter (well, little kidding here, there were no heavier fighters in the whole war, so of course the german fighters were all lighter). This plane was a nasty, very nasty surprise for the Germans when introduced, as all the standard evasion tactics that worked like a charm against the Spitfire (diving, or using high speed maneouverability to leave them on the dust) simply didn't work against the Thunderbolt.

Maneouverability:

One has to say this about the P-47...it's jekyll and hyde. Keep this plane over 450kph, it'll handle and maneouver like a dream. Rock solid, stable, trustworthy, responsible...just amazing.

Slow it down under 300kph and it turns into a lazy, heavyweight drunkard that resists changes of direction with all his soul and will. And with a reason. Those are 7 tons the wings struggle to keep in the air at slow speeds.

Wingloading is high. Very high. Fw190-like high. Which in some ways is good, in others is bad. Good features of a high wingloading are: high corner speed (your best turn speed is much faster than lighter planes), exceptional high speed initial turnrate (your first seconds of a turn at high speeds happen at a vertiginous rate very few things will be able to track), and rock solid stability at those speeds (the plane feels at home when fast).

Bad features of a high wingloading are: Terrible energy wastage on high-G pulls (your speed drops at a tremendous rate in those), and bad, very bad sustained turn at low speeds.

Control surfaces are amazing. There's no other way to put it. No matter the speed, the plane answers to controls like a champion. Rollrate is decent. No world beater here but not lousy either, and it doesn't lose that much of it's roll at high airspeeds. Elevators are great, again that holds true at all speeds. And the rudder is pretty effective too. Given that the plane is very stable, and it has a very nicely balanced set of controls, the P47D is one of the most solid, stable and trustable gun platforms in War Thunder.

Performance:

The R-2800 is a notably powerful engine, but the plane weighs 7 tons. Powerloading is simply said, crap. Climb and acceleration are, as a result, poor. 

If other planes encourage time climbing well outside of the combat zones at the game start, the P-47D doesn't encourage it - it demands it. If you're within 10km of the first enemy fighter that's been spotted and you're not still climbing you're doing it wrong. And if you slow down the plane at low altitudes, you're a flying corpse. It's as true as cathegoric. Climb, because your life depends on it. NEVER get low and slow, because you might aswell crash your plane - it'll be as good.

Speed wise the plane is not a hotrod until you go very high and even there it's not as fast as it should be (problem shared with all the planes currently in war thunder owing to an incomplete high altitude model). It's reasonably quick, but at most altitudes is outran by most enemies. It's not that the plane is slow by contemporary standards, as historical contemporaries as the Fw190A8 weren't much faster at low at mid levels - but still were faster.

Energy keeping and high speed performance:

What should be the main strenght of the plane and the reason to fly it sadly is somewhat lacking in War Thunder. With its already stated 7 tons of weight the plane should dive like no other fighter in the sky - without reserves, without arguments, the P-47 was the best diver of WW2 with the possible exceptions of the very late war Ta152 german series. Yet it is not in War Thunder, nor is nowhere near being so.

It's not that the plane dives bad. It's just that it should dive much better, and it just doesn't. Given time, space and a lot of altitude you'll outdive 109s - just not as fast as you should. And Fw190s are almost impossible to shake off or leave behind with the nose pointed down when they should be much better than 109s, yet nowhere near the P47D.

The plane is just lacking in that regard for what it should be.

The other assets the P47 should have energetically speaking, it actually has. It's got an excellent Zoom. Not the best in the game but still very good, exactly what you'd expect from a plane this heavy with not the best aerodynamics ever. It's also got a very nice long term speed retention in a straight line, so if you dive over your top speed and level off, that extra speed will be bled very slowly.

However the main asset of the plane, the one that should give the biggest advantage over other fighters, it's dive, is just not as good as one would expect, and the plane is hampered by it.

Firepower&Weapons: 

The P47D has eight 50 cal machineguns. While by separate those are clearly inferior to cannons, we're talking a battery of 8 here. Firepower wise the P47D is just a beast. Even out of convergences it deals damage quickly but in convergence unspeakable things happen to whatever those machinegun rounds hit. They're really powerful damage dealers.

To compound on that the M2 bullets have a very flat trajectory with a very shallow drop in distance, thanks to it's very high muzzle velocity. This are very easy and intuitive weapons to fire, as the lead angles are lower than with other weapons, and the flat trajectory makes long range sniping fire possible.

The nature of the damage however mostly relies on kinetic energy, as the M2 rounds are mostly based around the AP concept. The closer you achieve hits at, the bigger and faster damage you'll be inflicting. This should really affect your convergences and firing distances, as shooting at anything beyond 500 yards is not only possible but really plausible, but the damage per round you'll be inflicting will be much lower than at more fighter-friendly ranges.

Considering those, and how important convergences are for the 50 cals to deal fatal instant damage, I'm reluctant to advice on a proper convergence range. Just find out at which ranges you fire the most, and adjust convergences accordingly. In my particular case I vary from 300 to 400m, but this is one of those planes were an ideal doesn't exist and really the focus should be on pilot practices and preferences.

 Ammo belt choices should be based around API round belts. Hence Universal or Stealth are favored. The armor piercing capability of API ammo is almost the same as the pure AP rounds, and the added incendiary effects are of high value. Given the nature of the plane as, mainly, a Boom and Zoomer, Stealth is highly favored, as it won't alert your prey that he's being fired upon until the first hits start to arrive.



The P-47D can mount a wide array of ground attack ordinance, the largest of any single engined fighter of the game, and heavier than quite some twin engined bombers. If you're flying this plane in historical battles however, DON'T...just DON'T make use of those options at the battle beginning. If the plane without any external load accelerates and climbs slowly, burdened by all that weight it's much, much worse. Only go for ground targets when the enemy fighter force has been dealt with.

That means that after the first clash has happened and, if you come back to base to reload or repair, if the enemy fighter force has spent it's bolt and your team is in an advantage taking that air to ground loadout is a good option. But only then. At the game beginning you're a fighter, a very valuable asset for your team to fight and shoot enemy fighters down, and using ground attack ordinance is erasing yourself from the fight, turning yourself from a hunter to a target, and almost guaranteeing that you'll be dead after the first 5 minutes of battle.

Tactics:

Tactics when using this plane should be focused around Boom and Zoom. Just because of the fact that this plane simply can't turn at slow speeds nor outclimb or accelerate better than most fighters it'll find.

Base your flying on high speed tactics mainly. Your energy retention at speeds over 400kph IAS is extremely good. Use it. Even while your dive is not as good as it probably should be is still quite good, so dive and zoom tactics work very well and the high controllability of the plane at all speeds means that very fast aim corrections are very easy to achieve even in a high speed dive.

If forced on the defensive or subjected to an attack your dive is still very useful. Use that dive to accelerate down to lower altitudes and stay at high speeds, to then chain zooms and level extensions as the situation requires. The plane is not really good in the defensive mostly because of the limited options available: historically the plane would just dive and leave anything in the dust. in the game your option is also diving...but it'll take a noticeably larger ammount of time to leave what's following you behind.

 This is a good plane to start training overshoots and rolling scissors defences as are two of the most effective defensive tactics you can resort to. Given the plane's stellar controllability and stability at high speeds it's able to do very effective defensive flying and it's ability to brake at high Gs is very useful when in a diving maneouver to force a faster enemy behind you to totally overshoot your plane and go in front of you where you can obliterate it with those 50 cals.

Also don't forget you have combat flaps - and decent ones. They won't make your plane turn very well but will help in those moments when you need a bit of an oomph to complete a vertical move, or to win a slight bit of turnrate to put your nose those few inches in front of the enemy to correctly lead him and shoot him down. Just don't forget to retract them immediately afterwards.

On the offensive just stay fast and quick. Boom and Zoom should be your way of life, and you shall never move away from it. Don't ever get greedy and don't fall for the trap of wasting your energy to kill an enemy. Stay fast, stay quick, and if the enemy is not going to give you a proper shot, pull up, win altitude back, reset your pass and come down again. Never, ever, move out of this parameters or, chances are, you'll pay for it dearly.

Also remember: this plane doesn't accelerate or climb anywhere close most enemy fighters, so once you've been forced low and slow the end is coming shortly afterwards. Just don't allow yourself to waste precious energy that you'll need later to stay in the air.

A good advice in this plane is to keep a hard deck in your mind. Select an altitude that'll allow you plenty of defensive options and never go under that when in the offensive as long as there are enemy fighters up high. If an enemy fighter dives under that altitude give up, zoom climb back to an altitude and look for other targets. Only dive under that altitude when in the defensive, and when all the enemy fighter opposition is lower than you.

CONCLUSSION:

The P47D is a very effective fighter, and can be downright deadly when well flown. It's lack of expected diving ability norwithstanding the plane still offers more than good enough performance as a BnZer to outmatch enemies and obliterate them with that devastating firepower.

It's a demanding plane to flight, and one that you should really understand before taking up to the sky. Trying to fly a P-47 without understanding BnZ basics is like trying to scuba dive without an air bottle - it'll get you killed in minutes.

It also allows for very little misjudgement and miscalculation. In other planes you can get away with a few mistakes because your acceleration will bring you up the energy you wasted very quickly. Not so with the P-47D. A bad move, a miscalculated maneouver, a wrong call, and you'll be really into deep trouble.

However, that said, with that firepower, BnZ ability and high speed controllability and maneouverability this plane can hardly be taken lightly. Also works in your favor: most players seriously underestimate the P-47 when they fight one, and that will always be an advantage for you, as a well flown Jug has little or very little to envy from other fighters. The problem, again, is that flying well a P-47 requires a high degree of discipline, a very advanced understanding of energy and it's use in combat, and it also demands no mistakes.

It's a challenging plane to fly, no doubt. But still a deadly enemy if you are up to the challenge.



For further information, and to see gameplay of the plane flown right, check out my Youtube analysis on the plane