HouseHobbit
Charter Member
Sorting out the best way to do this mission..
P-47s flew more than 546,000 combat sorties between March 1943 and August 1945, destroying 11,874 enemy aircraft, some 9,000 locomotives, and about 6,000 armored vehicles and tanks. Only 0.7 per cent of the fighters of this type dispatched against the enemy were lost in combat. As a testament to the survivability of the P-47, it should be noted that the top ten aces who flew the P-47, returned home safely. Before the war was over, a total of 15,579 Thunderbolts were built, about two-thirds of which reached operational squadrons overseas.
Under the tenacious and inspiring leadership of Colonel Hubert “Hub” Zemke, the U.S. Eighth Air Force’s 56th Fighter Group (also known as “Zemke’s Wolfpack”) emerged as one of the most successful American fighter units during World War II.
Equipped with new P-47Cs, they joined the 4th Fighter Group on a couple of 'rodeos'–fighter sweeps intended to lure the Luftwaffe into combat, but Zemke had to abort because of an oxygen system malfunction. And on the group's first 'ramrod'–a bomber escort mission for which the P-47, with its blunt, high-drag nose and resultant short range, had never been designed–his own radio went out. (Because of faulty ignition systems, early model P-47s suffered from inordinate radio static.) His men bounced some bogeys over Walcheren Island and knocked one down–realizing too late the fighters were British. In all fairness, the RAF had strayed from its assigned area, and in the heat of combat even experienced pilots sometimes failed at aircraft recognition.
But such things happened, so to do a mission like this is out of the normal, not that I do missions out of the normal..
Off to shoot down some Brits, Bummer.. I guess this is the Ugly part..
P-47s flew more than 546,000 combat sorties between March 1943 and August 1945, destroying 11,874 enemy aircraft, some 9,000 locomotives, and about 6,000 armored vehicles and tanks. Only 0.7 per cent of the fighters of this type dispatched against the enemy were lost in combat. As a testament to the survivability of the P-47, it should be noted that the top ten aces who flew the P-47, returned home safely. Before the war was over, a total of 15,579 Thunderbolts were built, about two-thirds of which reached operational squadrons overseas.
Under the tenacious and inspiring leadership of Colonel Hubert “Hub” Zemke, the U.S. Eighth Air Force’s 56th Fighter Group (also known as “Zemke’s Wolfpack”) emerged as one of the most successful American fighter units during World War II.
Equipped with new P-47Cs, they joined the 4th Fighter Group on a couple of 'rodeos'–fighter sweeps intended to lure the Luftwaffe into combat, but Zemke had to abort because of an oxygen system malfunction. And on the group's first 'ramrod'–a bomber escort mission for which the P-47, with its blunt, high-drag nose and resultant short range, had never been designed–his own radio went out. (Because of faulty ignition systems, early model P-47s suffered from inordinate radio static.) His men bounced some bogeys over Walcheren Island and knocked one down–realizing too late the fighters were British. In all fairness, the RAF had strayed from its assigned area, and in the heat of combat even experienced pilots sometimes failed at aircraft recognition.
But such things happened, so to do a mission like this is out of the normal, not that I do missions out of the normal..
Off to shoot down some Brits, Bummer.. I guess this is the Ugly part..
