[horseback]

From WOZ:
I agree with most of our points horseback, including trimming and innacurate instruments (this later issue is not only a problem of US planes).

I’m aware that many other aircraft have inaccurate or unreadable instrumentation, but there are several that are blessed with key instruments that are quite accurate (most of the Japanese fighters definitely fall into that category) in the game; this just makes it harder to tolerate. What you may not appreciate is how inconsistent the inaccuracies of the trimming and instrumentation of these aircraft are; in most other aircraft, the ‘error’ is almost always the same, whereas in the late war US fighters as a group, the instruments will not only lie to you, they will lie to you from different directions as the speed changes.

Regardless of ammount of armor or redundancy, if you look at the ammount of space occupied with critical systems on the P-47 you cannot deny that the chance of damaging something to some extend is greater than in other planes. But of course redundancy will make critical hits harder to achieve.

I took a look at the collision boxes on the P-47, both distributors are modelled and are slightly smaller than in reality, there's two magnetos placed behind the engine, while in reality the R-2800 had only one placed between the two distributors (unless I missed something while looking at the schematic).
The intercooler is missing, but the turbine and belly plumbing is there. Oil coolers are merged into a single smaller unit. (Cockpit armour plates and other internal parts are also modelled btw)

All in all I think the collision boxes itself are generous in favour of the P-47. The probability of actually hitting something inside the plane might be smaller than in reality.

The problem, if there's actually one (not saying there isn't, it's just that I dont fly the P-47, and when flying a bomber surviving a Jug attack long enough to cause damage with the gunners -I man the guns- is almost impossible) might indeed have to do with too big a chance to receive damage when a internal part is hit.

The amount of space occupied with critical systems is relatively farther into the fuselage than the diagram can convey; as I pointed out, there are a lot of support members and fuselage framing and skin that you have to get through before you can talk about puncturing the pipes and ducting—and the more critical the pipe or duct is, the more non-critical stuff is between it and the outer skin. Additionally, the ducting and pipes are not remotely comparable to the ducting in your building’s air conditioning system; it was pretty heavy-duty stuff that had to hold up under the extremes of altitude and high G maneuvers, not to mention the odd bullet or explosive round that found its way past the tail wheel and the rudder.

I remember being admonished on several occasions over the years that to penetrate a metal layer that not only thickness of the plate but angle of penetration is critical (usually after I pointed out that the vulnerability of certain aircraft from rear quarter attacks seemed awfully low). Penetrating multiple layers of metal at varying angles as would be necessary to damage the turbosupercharger system would be fairly difficult, even with multiple close range 20mm hits.

If you have to penetrate multiple layers from multiple angles, it gets a lot harder to do meaningful damage, and the whole of the underside of the Jug was reinforced by that ‘keel’ I mentioned earlier, as well as the structural members that held the fuel tanks in place.

I still think that the historical record shows both that making the kind of hits that are routinely made (or more accurately, credited) in the game and the amount of damage they are modeled as inflicting are excessive.

From Pursuivant:
Quote:
Originally Posted by horseback
However, most Jug (and Corsair and Hellcat) fans would have to wonder where you’ve been all these years; the Il-2 Sturmovik ’46 version of the P-47D DM is obviously the creation of a truly dedicated bunch of debunkers.
To paraphrase a common saying, "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by poor modeling." (Other than that, I agree with you. Debunking is just a method of generating controversy, which drums up trade for documentary producers, writers and academics.)

While I rarely attempt to contradict the great Robert A. Heinlein, I would suggest to you that nothing says ‘basic human nature’ more than: “I’m going to stick this up your %#&%(&*^)*, and there’s not a damned thing you can do about it.” One or two misunderstandings is a coincidence; after that, if they continue to always work to your disadvantage you should assume that you’re getting jerked around, and start protecting your interests (learn this lesson before you get married, or your life will be a living hell).

Remember that both the Corsair and Hellcat are products of the deeply flawed Pacific Fighters expansion, and there might be legal reasons why 1c/TD can't fix them. The Pacific Theater and carrier ops were obviously areas that 1c had less experience with, fewer local resources to work with, and less personal incentive to recreate, and it shows.

As for the P-47, I think that 1c's original work was influenced heavily by contemporary Soviet assessments of the P-47C, which were influenced by the relative lack of need for a high-altitude, long-range escort and the Soviet preference for cannons rather than heavy machine guns as fighter aircraft armament. The Soviets didn't know what to make of it and wrote it off. I also have to wonder if Soviet assessments suffered from some of the same shock that British and U.S. 56 FG pilots suffered when transitioning from the Spitfire to the Jug. After all, Soviet fighter pilots were more familiar with small, nimble fighters like the I-16 and Yak series, so the P-47 must have seemed clumsy by comparison.

Here, I generally agree. I argued on many occasions on the Ubi forums that the late war American fighters were too demanding of technical expertise at the ground crew level for the Soviets to keep them flying properly, and that the tactical doctrines they were built to were utterly alien to the VVS, which led to Oleg and Co taking the operational records, performance data and pilot descriptions with a five pound bag of salt (rather than the traditional grain). As products of the old Soviet system, I suspect that they believed to their bones that anything from America was heavily propagandized and needed to be taken down a peg. I know that they rejected official documentation on the P-38 in favor of ‘other’ sources, and certainly the Mustang’s treatment would indicate that they preferred to use data gathered from Chiang Kai-Shek's clapped-out, badly maintained Lend-Lease examples acquired from the People’s Republic of China after 1948.

One correction: the 56th FG came to England as the only fighter group in the 8th AF that had experience with the P-47, and they loved it. By contrast the 78th FG had originally been a P-38 outfit that got stripped of its aircraft and most of their experienced pilots for the North African invasion, and the 4th FG had originally been the RAF’s Eagle Squadrons flying Spit Vbs (and as the only source of experienced combat pilots, were stripped of a large portion of key leaders and their most promising pilots). The 78th and 4th FGs were not big fans of the Jug, and frankly sulked about it for most of their breaking in period.

The 56th adapted and made the most of the Jug, while the 4th couldn't move on to the P-51 fast enough; its senior officers were trying to get the P-51 or P-51A before word about the Merlin version reached them. The 78th eventually resigned themselves to the Jug, and were one of the last groups to convert to the Mustang.

Quote:
Originally Posted by horseback
P-47s and F6F Hellcats were the two safest fighters to fly in combat in WWII, and they were both powered by the mighty R-2800.
While I think that your points about the R-2800 (and, by extension many of the other late war U.S. radial engines modeled in the game) are valid, to play devil's advocate, part of the reputation of the late war U.S. fighters was made by the fact that after 1943, U.S. pilots usually had air superiority (at least locally) and were usually facing inferior opponents.

When we are talking about taking damage from ground fire, the reputations in question were made during 1944 and after, against some extremely potent AAA systems and ground troops (IJA) trained to shoot back rather than scatter and hide from aerial attacks. The 8th AF fighter groups prior to February of 1944 had barely achieved a standoff, but the ruggedness of the (much less capable) early P-47s was already established; Robert Johnson was far from the only guy to get his Thunderbolt shot to pieces over eastern France and still make it back across the Channel.

Corsairs and Hellcats got their combat starts in February and August of 1943, well before the Japanese had been beaten. The fact is that US Naval Aviators used the Corsair and Hellcat to break the IJN air arm’s back by spring of 1944; using the F4F or FM-2, it would have taken another six months (and hundreds more good men’s lives) at the least.

cheers

horseback