Mitsubishi Stuka and Thunderbolt

[Treetop64]

Originally Posted by JtD

Actually, the only single shot kill to the R-2800 is hitting the ignition, on top of the hub in the P-47. No armour or backup system there in real life, a clear one shot kill.

Virtually all aircraft piston engines have dual ignition systems. If one totally fails, the other will continue to run. You'd have to take out both mags or the entire ignition manifold (which also had extra thickness at the front of the ring) to destroy the ignition system in an R-2800. The mags were encased with some armor protection at the front, and also had some protection from the spinning propeller. Their small size also helped protect them. Many things will be hit and knocked out from the front before the ignition.

Though it's one of my top favorite aircraft of any era, I haven't touched Oleg's P-47 in years, due to it's unacceptably crappy cockpit, and it's "glass jaw" vulnerability. Now, I don't know if the latter issue was ever addressed in subsequent patches, but if the real-world P-47 was anywhere as near to being one-shot-killed from the front as it is in the game, then it would have earned an entirely different reputation than the one it enjoys now.

The game's F6F and F4U have the same engine but aren't nearly as brittle in the front quarter as the P-47.