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Why did the P-51outlive the P-47?


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Recently read a short article on the P-51 v P-47.  It seems that the intended use of piston engined aircraft after WW2 was as fighter bomber not air superiority due to the arrival of jet aircraft.  The P-47 had better capabilities as a fighter bomber (more payload and firepower) and better survivability than the P-51 although it was marginally slower which was probably not a big issue in the fighter bomber role.   Why would the AF choose to keep the mustang instead of the thunderbolt in the post war years?  Was it purely

image related?  The mustang was a more glamorous aircraft?  Just wondering.

 

 

geoff M 

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Probably as you said about the glamour and who knows who on the decision making chain liked the "War Winning" Mustang.

 

I read all it took to bring a Fighter Bomber Mustang down was a well placed rifle bullet to the radiator. Glycol leak then eventual engine seizure.

 

I have read accounts that some P-47's returned to base with entire cylinders shot out of the engine and the engine still ran!

 

11bee. Remember the P-47 was produced in greater numbers than any other American fighter. So I don't think that most p-47s went to the smelter by the simple fact of how many South American Air Forces we equipped with it.

 

Max Bryant

Edited by mightymax
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7 minutes ago, 11bee said:

There were more of them. Simple as that. 

As Max says there were a bunch made and they must have been around immediately after the war.  Why were they relegated to the dust bin?  There must have been some not-so forward thinking people involved in the decision.  

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Could it have been that the Mustang was cheaper to maintain and fly than the P-47? Maybe the decision was simply based on costs? Cheaper parts because of availability? There could be all kinds of factors that caused the USAAF to go with the P-51 over the P-47. But yeah, the Thunderbolt was a flying tank compared to the Mustang!

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Army Air Force made a decision to make the P-51 its standard fighter.  By end of WW2, they outnumbered Thunderbolts by a wide margin.  Thus, when Korea started, there were many more available to be fed into the meat grinder.    Were they the best aircraft for that conflict?    No way.    

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I think the Skyraider pretty much killed the P47 in my eyes. Keep in mind the Skyraider was a 1944 design that everything they wanted in spades. Plus they had the F8 and some other projects in the pipeline. The one serious advantage the Mustang had over everybody was range! It would have done well in Vietnam south of the DMZ. So would the P47. Myself, I'm more astounded by the longevity of the A26!

Gary

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1 hour ago, Jamie Cheslo said:

Could it have been that the Mustang was cheaper to maintain and fly than the P-47? Maybe the decision was simply based on costs? Cheaper parts because of availability? There could be all kinds of factors that caused the USAAF to go with the P-51 over the P-47. But yeah, the Thunderbolt was a flying tank compared to the Mustang!

My Dad and the guy in charge of Studebaker - Packard were very close friends, and I remember him saying they had warehouses full of engines. Like Allison's, they had thousands of them stockpiled everywhere.

Gary

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11 hours ago, ChesshireCat said:

I think the Skyraider pretty much killed the P47 in my eyes. Keep in mind the Skyraider was a 1944 design that everything they wanted in spades. Plus they had the F8 and some other projects in the pipeline. The one serious advantage the Mustang had over everybody was range! It would have done well in Vietnam south of the DMZ. So would the P47. Myself, I'm more astounded by the longevity of the A26!

Gary

The AD had nothing to do with it; Skyraider was a Navy airplane, as was the Bearcat.  Neither of them would have even been considered by the AAF at the time.

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7 minutes ago, Joe Hegedus said:

The AD had nothing to do with it; Skyraider was a Navy airplane, as was the Bearcat.  Neither of them would have even been considered by the AAF at the time.

You beat me to it Joe!   Apples and oranges here.  

 

That being said, in a perfect world of unlimited budgets, the AF would have purchased the Skyraider for use in the Korean War.     No other aircraft could do CAS better.    The Mustang was a horrible choice, it’s weapons load was minuscule compared to the AD and the underside was a rats nest of coolant lines, any of which being hit would lead to the loss of the aircraft.   It was also completely unarmored, except for a thin plate behind the pilot.   

 

However, in the AF’s view, the only thing that mattered was that they had a few thousand available to send on short notice.  

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Interesting read

 

https://sobchak.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/article-why-the-u-s-air-force-did-not-use-the-f-47-thunderbolt-in-the-korean-war/

 

Years of lean budgets and the neglect of tactical air power meant that by 1950 there were simply not enough Thunderbolts and associated spare parts left to support long-term combat operations. During World War II, 15,683 Thunderbolts were produced–more than any other American fighter. Of this total, an estimated one third were destroyed in combat, a third were scrapped after the war, and the remaining third went into storage, served with the Air National Guard, or were sold to foreign governments. Late-model F-47Ds and F-47Ns remained in service with a few active-duty Air Force units until the late 1940s, and the Air National Guard did not retire its last Thunderbolts until 1955. When the Korean War began, there were 1,167 F-47s on hand, but most of these were in storage–only 265 Thunderbolts were active in ANG units and they were all considered second-line aircraft. (24) Additionally, the rapid demobilization after World War II affected the supply system and the availability of spares for the Thunderbolts throughout the post-war years. For instance, the 23rd Fighter Group stationed on Guam in 1947 had pilots who had not accumulated the required night time flying hours because their Jugs lacked functioning flight instruments. The group’s historian noted “the installation of these instruments is contemplated in the near future, depending of course, upon Tech Supply.” (25) Historian Kenneth P. Werrell was told the F-47 was not used in Korea primarily because of the lack of spare parts. (26)”

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Lack of spares seems about right. We can't guarantee we can keep the couple hundred Thunderbolts that we have online flying but we have thousands of spare Mustangs that we can just, as said above, throw into the meat grinder. I'm sure a lot of pilots and their families liked that mentality...

 

Still we didn't have enough to send a couple hundred Thunderbolts over there for ground pounding duty but we had plenty of thunderbolts (plus spares) to sell to foreign governments. Hmmmmm

interesting......

 

Max Bryant

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19 hours ago, mightymax said:

Lack of spares seems about right. We can't guarantee we can keep the couple hundred Thunderbolts that we have online flying but we have thousands of spare Mustangs that we can just, as said above, throw into the meat grinder. I'm sure a lot of pilots and their families liked that mentality...

 

Still we didn't have enough to send a couple hundred Thunderbolts over there for ground pounding duty but we had plenty of thunderbolts (plus spares) to sell to foreign governments. Hmmmmm

interesting......

 

Max Bryant


The latter was a cause of the former, those foreign T-Bolt sales happened in the late 40’s

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I think 'mawz' hit on something illustrative of how Mustangs got to Korea and not the better-for-the-mission P-47:   The P-47 was marked for deletion as soon as WWII was resolved.  Easy to give away stuff you have no intent to use.  No mission impact.  Seems like the USAF figured they were better off keeping the Mustang than the P-47 and they weren't keeping both of them.  My guess. 

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It's worth noting that while it's often recorded that the P-47 was built in greater numbers than the P-51, that's not actually correct. There were 15,636 P-47's built and NAA built 15,586 production Mustangs, 50 less, but CAC also built 200 Mustangs and in 1984 Piper built 2 new-build PA-48's (in addition to the two original conversion from 1971), for a slightly higher total production (80 of the 200 CAC builds may or may not be counted in the NAA built numbers as well, as they were built from NAA-supplied kits, 120 were built entirely by CAC). But the numbers are so close that the difference is academic, there were just shy of 16,000 of each type produced.

Mustang production was also biased towards later in the war than Thunderbolt production, despite fairly similar production numbers the P-51's peak production was in 1945, while P-47 production peaked in the early bubbletop era a year or so before. The reality was that in 1946 when they started shifting Mustangs to the reserves, the USAAF was sitting on large unused stocks of the P-51D-25 and D-30, as well as 555 unused P-51H's. The stocks of P-47's were both smaller and split across the largely unused P-47N production and late P-47D production. In addition, the P-47 while more robust simply has a wildly more complicated engine installation that made it more costly to maintain.

It's also worth noting that the USAAF didn't send the F-51H to Korea for largely the same reason as the P-47's, a lack of spares. Ironically by 1950 most of the F-51H's were fairly high time airframes while the F-51D's were being pulled out of storage and refurbished in 1949/1950 for other reasons (the RCAF Mustangs came from the same rebuild program that would later supply many F-51D's to units in Korea). This was because the F-51H's had been used by the reserves since 1946 while the last D models went to storage instead.

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1 hour ago, mawz said:

It's worth noting that while it's often recorded that the P-47 was built in greater numbers than the P-51, that's not actually correct. There were 15,636 P-47's built and NAA built 15,586 production Mustangs, 50 less, but CAC also built 200 Mustangs and in 1984 Piper built 2 new-build PA-48's (in addition to the two original conversion from 1971), for a slightly higher total production (80 of the 200 CAC builds may or may not be counted in the NAA built numbers as well, as they were built from NAA-supplied kits, 120 were built entirely by CAC). But the numbers are so close that the difference is academic, there were just shy of 16,000 of each type produced.

Mustang production was also biased towards later in the war than Thunderbolt production, despite fairly similar production numbers the P-51's peak production was in 1945, while P-47 production peaked in the early bubbletop era a year or so before. The reality was that in 1946 when they started shifting Mustangs to the reserves, the USAAF was sitting on large unused stocks of the P-51D-25 and D-30, as well as 555 unused P-51H's. The stocks of P-47's were both smaller and split across the largely unused P-47N production and late P-47D production. In addition, the P-47 while more robust simply has a wildly more complicated engine installation that made it more costly to maintain.

It's also worth noting that the USAAF didn't send the F-51H to Korea for largely the same reason as the P-47's, a lack of spares. Ironically by 1950 most of the F-51H's were fairly high time airframes while the F-51D's were being pulled out of storage and refurbished in 1949/1950 for other reasons (the RCAF Mustangs came from the same rebuild program that would later supply many F-51D's to units in Korea). This was because the F-51H's had been used by the reserves since 1946 while the last D models went to storage instead.

Fascinating rundown- thanks for the info!

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P-51 was lighter, smaller, easier to transport and used less fuel. More of them could be delivered and made operational in a shorter period of time. The P-47 was known for needing a long runway and lots of gas. The logistics made the decision.

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It is kind of ironic if what I am reading here is true.  P-51's were more plentiful, cheaper to maintain, cheaper to transport, but still more vulnerable in the mission they were to perform than the P-47.  Current USAF philosophy is to have the best equipment whatever the cost to insure we come out on top in the end.  Aparently that was not the case in the 50's.

 

Geoff M

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2 hours ago, Geoff M said:

It is kind of ironic if what I am reading here is true.  P-51's were more plentiful, cheaper to maintain, cheaper to transport, but still more vulnerable in the mission they were to perform than the P-47.  Current USAF philosophy is to have the best equipment whatever the cost to insure we come out on top in the end.  Aparently that was not the case in the 50's.

 

Geoff M

Korea caught the US military completely unprepared, so to paraphrase something from a more recent conflict, they went to war with the airforce they had.    

 

Much to the chagrin of those brave pilots.  

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