P-47 Thunderbolt Pt. 7 Firepower, A Lot of Firepower. 

His studies are deep...involved and researchEd.....I mean he digs deep to get the info......real good stuff greg

😂😂😂 Made me laugh!

Lol

What really required skill was firing the machine gun between the propeller blades! LOL

@@jobamasux especially at 3000rpm

Post the footage! You'd get tons of views.

Yes, please post them.

Please share

you have to upload them, it would be great

Did he paint his Jug Black? Was her name K.I.T.T.?

Mine's a hollowed out Volcano, I just hope the secret Ninja's don't invade while I'm out.

Duke Craig as opposed to the notorious “non secret” ninjas

KThe Mecoptera

We're not talking about those kinds of Jugs, although I am pretty sure that the pilots and ground crews would with enthusiasm!

Any other video thatd be a flagged comment

@@mgweible8162 ughhhh your prob right lol

I listen to them. Like an audiobook in bed.

Always amazes me how often these lessons seem to be repeated - crowded situations and weapon systems that can arm too early do not mix, on board a ship or otherwise. One lesser-known landlubber instance of this would be in Vientiane, Laos in early 1964 - when an (American-provided) T-28 being serviced on the ramp had a .50 cal gun pod go off into another T-28 that was already armed with a pair of 500lb bombs. Net result = quite literally half of the Laotian air force's combat strength (a dozen T-28s, plus a couple of Air America aircraft and a Russian-made helicopter) were destroyed by a chain reaction within minutes, at a crucial time in the Southeast Asia conflict (not long before the Gulf of Tonkin resolution). It pales in comparison to some of the carrier fires (including those during the Vietnam era) by sheer scale, but it had some very serious knock-on effects for the broader conflict.

@@otohikoamv Just like every other Bureaucracy, the US Military MUST Re-Learn lessons every or every other "Generation" because the people that LEARNED these lessons IN Blood, Sweat & Pain have either moved up the chain of command or "Left" the service. So Everyone in Service is CONSTANTLY Re-Learning these lessons over & over & over. Just a fact of life.

So I no zero about guns and little about planes, but does "charging" mean having a bullet in the gun itself ready to fire? And you're saying that for safety reasons, the Navy didn't want to have bullets where being jarred could somehow set them off, but instead have the gun barrels empty until the plane was actually going into combat, and therefore they needed a charging system to do that initial load while flying? And that this charging system gave the added ability to clear jams but that wasn't the main reason to have it?

Yes, "charging" means the gun is cocked and bullet in the chamber ready to go. It makes total sense than the US Navy didn't think charging the guns on a carrier was such a hot idea.

Yes it does make good sense to charge 'em upstairs instead of aboard ship!

Wally's gun camera footage from his ME262 shoot down is here on RU-vid.

I did what you said Shawn I googled him. World war II did provide us with the Greatest Generation. Men's was Men's then. You should be proud of him!

So... 8 50s have enough weight of shot to knock over a locomotive? Newton calls bullshit

@@sugarnads I think it's a confusion of terms. When a thug "knocks over" a liquor store it means he robbed it not literally knocked it over. So possibly the old saying knock over means to knock out or take over ie: Destroy. Yes I honestly believe 8 .50 calibers could destroy a train I've seen it many times in gun footage.

@sugarnads one shot from 8 50.s could fling a man 5 ft if he didnt turn into mist, so maybe not in one shot but i could see it at the end of a belt if the car kept all that lead

Garth Harrison The big air duct just inside the P-47 lower fuselage was supposed to act a bit like a skid and hold a crumpled lower fuselage together in a rough forced landing.

It's my favorite phrase

@Jack Tangles - if I was British in the fall of 1940 I'd want those cannons. "Bomb my Britain, do you? Meet my Hispano".

​@@dennismason3740 There are good arguments for both cannon and higher calibre MG's like the .50 cal... not rifle calibre though, they were all but useless! It really did not take long for us Brits to move towards cannons after the Battle of Britain. True, cannons have more punch, but 20mm cannon rounds are pretty damned big and heavy, so while an 8 gun P-47 could take up to 500 rounds per gun, a four Cannon C Wing late war Spitfire could take maybe 80 rounds per cannon. I believe the Tempests and Typhoons could carry a few more... but you get the point.... I think the Brits went for more punch, and the Americans went for more dakka with enough punch to matter! Both approaches were perfectly fine... but both approaches had strengths and weaknesses. The amount of ammo available to the guns was a definate weakness of the 20mm even if the Hispano had strengths elsewhere.....

@@dennismason3740 Nigel, Grab the Hispano

@@spindash64 Right after this pint, mate.

Me too...seems to be strong in so many, even contradictory, areas of abilities

@@zam6877 The ability to take punishment and still return home with a living pilot is without peer.

Why have machine guns of P47 different lengths of the protrubing gun tubes in the wings?

@@michaelschwarz7210 Wrong guy, bud! You should ask Greg. Good question though, I can only assume it has to do with ammuniton storage layout in the wings and/or for convergence purposes, or perhaps with particularities having to do with the gun feed and expulsion of the cardriges - all highly hypothetical.... Greeeeeeeeeg!!!! Would you come over for a second please?

@@michaelschwarz7210 Obviously, it's so each Ammo Belt has its own unrestricted track. Simple & Brilliant.

@@michaelschwarz7210 Because the guns needed to be staggered for the belts to work properly.

@@michaelschwarz7210 belts line up in the same spot on each gun, guns offset for the layout of the belt racks

Remove some weight and she we will fight like a Zero! Or at least that's what the Dutch did in South East Asia and it made the Britts jealous. Still, didn't made a difference due the larger numbers of Japanese fighters.

I agree - superb turn rate/radius, and the 4x50 model was pretty well armed too. A lot of great Aces flew them (not so much for the USA, but there were definitely some).

@@martijn9568 are you forgetting the Finnish Brewster? Interesting story: desperately short of airplanes the In April 1939, the Finnish government contacted the Roosevelt administration, requesting the supply of modern combat aircraft as quickly as possible. On 17 October, the Finnish Embassy in Washington, D.C., received a telegram clearing the purchase of fighter aircraft. The only strict requirements laid down by Finnish authorities were that the aircraft be already operational and able to use 87-octane fuel Part of an F2A-1 shipment - 44 aircraft originally intended for the US Navy - was diverted to Finland, by the US State Department, after the USN agreed to instead accept a later shipment of F2A-2 variants.On 16 December, the Finnish government signed a contract to purchase 44 aircraft: a F2A-1 variant designated Model B-239E by Brewster. Unlike other fighters already in service, the F2A-1 or more precisely B-239E lacked self-sealing fuel tanks and cockpit armor. However, the B-239E was built with a more powerful engine than the F2A-1, in the form of the Wright R-1820-G5, producing 950 hp and the capacity to carry four machine guns (instead of two carried by the F2A-1). The B-239E was also "de-navalized" before shipment: equipment such as tail hooks and life raft containers were removed. The upgraded engine and reduced net weight like omitted armor and de-navalization resulted in an improved power-to-weight ratio and better general performance. In four batches of the B-239E was shipped initially to Norway in January and February 1940. The crated fighters were then sent by railway to Sweden and assembled by SAAB at Trollhättan. After delivery of the B-239E, the Finnish Air Force added armored backrests, metric flight instruments, the Väisälä T.h.m.40 gunsight, and four .50 in (12.7 mm) machine guns. The top speed of the Finnish B-239s, as modified, was 297 mph (478 km/h) at 15,675 ft (4,750 m), and their loaded weight was 5,820 lb (2,640 kg. In short it was a different airplane and in hands of great pilots in service from 1941 to 1945, the fighter Squadron 24 claimed 477 Russian airplanes with the combat loss of just 19 Buffalos, an outstanding victory ratio of 26:1. It is is worth to note that B-239 was popular among the Finnish pilots and mechanics and gave various nicknames but it was not called "peanut special"....

The Buffalo? "It was a DOG!....But the early models, before they weighed it all down with armorplate, radios and other shit, they were pretty sweet little ships. Not real fast, but the little fucks could turn and roll in a phonebooth. Oh yeah--sweet little ship; but some engineer went and fucked it up." - Greg "Pappy" Boyington in an Oct 1977 interview

@@paoloviti6156 No, I'm just telling a fact that even fewer people realise than the effectiveness of the Finnish Brewsters. Probably because I'm Dutch myself :P

Beaten by the 4x cannon of the Typhoon, Typhoon pipped by the rockets, Typhoon equalled by the Bomb Load But down on the deck the Typhoon had 370 mph the P47D 350 mph

no one cares about the typhoon, it was irrelevent in the air war@@jacktattis

Thanks, that explains that, I couldn't understand how so many Russian speakers ended up over here.

Greg and Drach 👍

Probably comes at least partially from many years talking on the radio as an airline pilot...

Logistics are a huge and overlooked factor, so it cost.

Yup, and that makes sense considering the huge number of bullets going out there.

Didn't know they had thunderbolts

That book is a wild ride. I have a two part series on the featured plane, the Me 163, you might like it.

Thanks HG. My engine is doing really well, it's powerful, runs great, I'm happy with it. At some point I'll show off what it can do.

That metric system is never going to catch on.

You dad must have been an amazing pilot to have made it back in that Hellcat, good job for him!

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles "Engine ran rough but cool" is what he put in the summary of his combat tour, and I'm guessing his cruise speed was lower than usual on the way back to the carrier.

These kind of stories makes RU-vid a pleasure. Thanks for sharing a great story. I had a great uncle who was at Pearl Harbor, my dad was shot at by MiG 15's, ... it's kinda eerie to be close to some very interesting history aint it - know some one who fought in something that they make movies about now? Your story reminds of why they called Grumman Aircraft the "Iron Works" :) Take care.

The difference between canon and machine gun is kind of like sword vs knife.

@Jack Tangles - Have you never heard of the ‘Silent War’? Roosevelt did his best to provoke Hitler in the Atlantic for a year before Pearl Harbor. It less to do with the government and more to do with the US not wanting to send it’s sons off to die -again- for Britain’s and France’s mismanagement of post-war Germany.

That channel is certainly welcome to pick this subject up where I left off. My knowledge of guns is limited to operation and effect, I can't tell you why the Oldsmobile built 20mm jammed, or how they fixed it.

Well said. I had to chuckle when it dawned on me how true it was :-)

I don't know what else you could possibly say about WWII fighter plane guns. I think he's under estimating his knowledge.

@Hoa Tattis ahaha..thanks Hoa....hope you're keeping well

@Hoa Tattis HA!..Tangles my old buddy!....Are you going ok?

@Jack Tangles I thought the double wasp engine was 2 radial nine cylinder engines bolted in tandem. My error.

That's an excellent channel.

I mean, it was the '40s.

Yeah... he missed one letter...which came out quite funny. The left side of the figure has a correct description - "Grams". Multiply it by 15.43 and the results is in [Grains].

Well, when I speak for an hour, there will be some slip ups.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Smokin some tear grass? Lol, I'm just messing with you, cheers

Jack Tangles Ha, all those versions were produced in small numbers & saw limited action vs the 9th Air Force’s P-47 units

Forgotten Weapons recently put up a vid, in which he tells us that the M2 was surprisingly rare at the start of the war. Only the Navy apparently using a substantial number of them. But once that war machine shifted into gear, indeed...

Ma Deuce "not the best"? You, sir, risk deportation for such heresy. ;)

The use of Mustangs vs P-47 in Korea, was about the dollar. The '47 cost too much. 200 pilots were KIA in a three month period.

There was also another saying...if you had the enemy on your tail, you wanted to be in a P-47...if you were on the enemy's tail, you want to be in a P-51...

That’s a fair argument, but I’d argue that the difference in ballistics between a Hispano Mk II and a Browning .50 cal were small enough that it was worth having the additional High Explosive capability, which meant that a burst anywhere on the target aircraft had a good chance to do severe damage, while just .50s would need to land a burst on something more direct, like the engine block, a radiator, or one of the fuel/oil/hydraulic lines. On the flip side, HEFI ammunition is less effective at dealing with armor plates and engine blocks, so having the 4 .50 cals “escort” the HEFI rounds into a burst helped cover the weaknesses of both weapons.

Go and have a look at WW2 FIGHTER GUN EFFECTIVENESS and all arguments for the 50 Cal is disproved

@@jacktattis a shit load of dead germans and Japanese would argue that point dufus

That's correct, it's pretty crazy.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Yes, it seemed like they added the blade off maybe later? Reminds me of the russian helicopter ejection seat with explosive blade offs, even crazier.

Worse than being in a boiler room?

I've often wondered if the explosive bolts in the prop hubs were timed to avoid throwing blades through the fuselage, especially for the sake of the poor radio operator. Being in an Airacuda in combat would be bad enough. Being in an Airacuda that was going down would be worse still. Knowing that at any moment you might have to share your work station with a prop blade traveling at several hundred miles an hour had to be the pits.

@@peteranderson037 the prop would've been fully feathered prior to blade offs.

Almost always an exaggeration. Also military aviation history has quite a few videos on the HS 129 and ju 87

Interestingly, that was imagined a couple of times but the rifles weren't up to it back in WW2. Ian McCollum has a great video on this. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mf7MezhQ6pw.html The Germans, British, and Soviets had anti-tank rifles with calibers a little above .50 BMG. Nothing about them, barrels, triggers, or was anywhere near the quality needed for sniping. More damning: they would destroy the fragile scopes of the era. Limiting them to iron sights limited them to the same range as the normal sniper rifles.

They exist. Barrett. McMillan. Lots of them