P47 Thunderbolt

Brrrt before brrrt could even be conceived.

"The P-47 wasn't so bad because we could out turn and out climb it, initially. But that big American fighter could roll with deceiving speed and when it came down on you in a long dive, there was no way you could get away from it."

– Walter Wolfrum

The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt is one of the most iconic aircraft in all of World War II and one of the more successful fighters utilized by the USAAF. The Thunderbolt often earned a reputation as "a beer bottle with wings" due to it's stubby and small profile. The P-47 was also ARMORED AS FUCK and could shrug off ground fire that would tear a lesser plane to shreds.

Mid War

The Stats.

In Real Life

When you absolutely positively need to make some fresh swiss cheese, accept no substitutes.

The Thunderbolt was an aircraft developed by the now-defunct Republic company during the Second World War. American fighter design during the early part of the war favored survivability over all else. The Thunderbolt supplied this in droves and returned the favor by having no less than EIGHT Browning .50 Caliber machine guns.

The Thunderbolt lacked the maneuverability of other aircraft, such as the Spitfire, Mustang, or BF 109, but they got around this in two ways. The First was that American Pilots didn't give a shit and just flew into battles guns blazing. In fact the Germans were often shocked by the balls out suicidal bravery American Pilots presented. Given that said batshit insane pilots also have eight .50 cals and a highly armored aircraft did not make things any easier. The second factor was that P-47's dive. A common tactic for P-47 pilots was to gain altitude, dive towards whatever poor idiot that made themselves a target, and hold down the trigger until said thing suffered a critical existence failure.

That said, despite the aircraft's ruggedness and the pilots' bravery, the P-47's downside of weighing almost 8 tons eventually proved too much: while it claimed an impressive tally of around 4.000 kills (total over all theaters) it also suffered around 3.500 losses (idem) once the enemy realized they should not dive away, thus denying "The Jug" his major advantage. This led to the P-47 being replaced by the P-51 in the primary fighter/bomber escort role due to its superior performances at the B-17's operational altitude; while the P-47 got a second lease of service in another role. Up into Korea, the Thunderbolt developed a secondary reputation as an effective fighter-bomber, providing close air support for ground units and advancing armies. The latter part of the air war in Europe had General Doolittle order his P-47's to strafe Luftwaffe airfields to great effect, though this decision was not terribly popular among bomber crews at the time.