Stencils over D-day stripes?

[Blimpyboy]

1 hour ago, Giorgio N said:

We don't really know if the P-47 would have fared better in Korea, people assume this to be case based on WW2 but there's no proof

I think we can - to a degree - especially from a ground threat perspective.

 

The low-to-medium altitude ground threat was essentially the same as that found at the end of WW2, and the stats from AAA were similar in both wars.

Therefore, I presume that the P-51 would be more prone to loss from ground fire than a P-47.

 

Of course, this does not take the air threat or maintenance issues into account...

Edited July 7, 2020 by Blimpyboy

[Work In Progress]

You don't to hypothesise that. Air to air, a P-47 beats a Skyraider and the Skyraider didn't have a notable air-to-air loss problem in Korea so the P-47 wouldn't have either. Most of the Korean Skyraider losses were ground fire - where both a P-47 and a Skyraider are comfortably superior to a P-51 - or normal hazards of carrier ops.

 

Maintainance issues pretty much non-issues in terms of differentiation. The reason the P-51 had a longer life than the P-47 with the USAF was purely cost.  In 1945 a P-47 cost about $83K, a P-51 was about $51K, a P-38 about $100K.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Work In Progress

[Blimpyboy]

23 minutes ago, Work In Progress said:

didn't have a notable air-to-air loss problem in Korea

Fighters, schmighters...

AAA and SAMs are what you need!

 

http://www.airdefence.in/history/north-korean-aa-hunter-groups/

[Giorgio N]

32 minutes ago, Work In Progress said:

You don't to hypothesise that. Air to air, a P-47 beats a Skyraider and the Skyraider didn't have a notable air-to-air loss problem in Korea so the P-47 wouldn't have either. Most of the Korean Skyraider losses were ground fire - where both a P-47 and a Skyraider are comfortably superior to a P-51 - or normal hazards of carrier ops.

 

Maintainance issues pretty much non-issues in terms of differentiation. The reason the P-51 had a longer life than the P-47 with the USAF was purely cost.  In 1945 a P-47 cost about $83K, a P-51 was about $51K, a P-38 about $100K.

Production cost was never an issue: by the time the USAF decided what to do with their WW2 types, they had all been paid for and there was no F-51D or P-47D in production. The P-38 had ended production even earlier. By the start of the Korean War even the more advanced variants of the two types had all been built years before: the last P-51H left the assembly line in 1946 while the last P-47N had been delivered in October 1945. The relative cost of the two fighters is often cited as the reason to retain the Mustang but it's one of those myths that started already in the '50s and has been repeated over and over again even if there's no basis for this... for the simple fact that none of these aircraft required further production.

What mattered was the cost of operating the aircraft and the P-47 was the clear loser. Maintenance is an issue in peacetime when an aircraft requires more spare parts than another and the Mustang was the easier to maintain. Attrition rate is another problem and again the Thunderbolt was worse.

 

Regarding the hypotheses, things are not as easy... Skyraiders had relatively little problems in air-to-air, but where were they employed ? Did they operate in proximity to areas covered by MiGs ? Or did they operate in other areas where enemy air activity was lower ? Not that it matters much, as a P-47 may beat a Skyraider but both are easy preys for jet fighters (and yes, someone will tell the story of the A-1s that shot down MiGs in Vietnam but single events and anecdotal evidence is good for bar stories, not serious research).

The only things that matter are the operational assessments made in similar conditions and numbers. Numbers say that Mustangs suffered a 0.3% loss rate in Korea. If anyone has similar values for the Corsair we may try some comparison. I have loss rates numbers for the Corsair in WW2 and these are much worse but WW2 may or not be comparable.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Giorgio N

[Work In Progress]

Corsair numbers which include deck operations are always going to be vastly disadvantaged compared to Mustang numbers

[Blimpyboy]

Yeah, that’s why I did my back-of-the-fag-packet numbers without considering maintenance or non-combat losses!

[Work In Progress]

10 minutes ago, Blimpyboy said:

Yeah, that’s why I did my back-of-the-fag-packet numbers without considering maintenance or non-combat losses!

I was replying to Giorgio

[Blimpyboy]

I see... (sniff)😥

[Giorgio N]

1 hour ago, Work In Progress said:

Corsair numbers which include deck operations are always going to be vastly disadvantaged compared to Mustang numbers

 

That's why every comparison of this kind must be based on data that differentiate losses by cause. I have similar data for the USAF in Korea, showing losses separated by cause and type of mission (operational or not). The value I posted above only includes P-51 losses due to enemy action during operational sorties

I don't have the same kind of data for the USN and USMC and this means I can't calculate a comparable value.

Mind, not that losses for other causes are not important in the overall management of resources in a conflict, they are very important and the numbers can be shocking: in the same Korean War the USAF lost almost 1500 aircraft for both enemy action and other causes during combat operations. The same service lost around 500 aircraft for causes not related to combat operations, one third more.

[Martian]

On 01/07/2020 at 23:35, corsaircorp said:

 

On 01/07/2020 at 23:35, corsaircorp said:

So a blue Chimay or a Delirium Tremens ?? This last one receive the grrrreat favor of our Dear  @Martian

He did'nt tell if he saw the pink pachyderm visible on the bottle ??? 

I

 

Said ephalumps were indeed noted. 

 

Martian 👽

[corsaircorp]

7 hours ago, Martian said:

Said ephalumps were indeed noted. 

 

Martian 👽

Glad to see you back !!

I was talking about the one that may have crossed your way after SMW

Still nasty CC

[Graham Boak]

Don't forget that messy hurriedly-applied stripes could readily be touched-up and tidied later.  A photo of an aircraft in the middle of being painted is not an absolute guide to what that aircraft would have looked like by the time it came to fly.  However I have seen a recently-posted film of the first C-47 to take-off for D-Day and that did have fairly messy stripes,  Whether they stayed like that for many days could be another matter.

[Blimpyboy]

2 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

 

Don't forget that messy hurriedly-applied stripes could readily be touched-up and tidied later.

 

I hadn’t considered that! Touch ups are always the rule!

 I suspect too, that when scaled down, most irregularities are just too minute to be noticed.

 

Perhaps too, any stencilling in the stripy areas just wasn’t essential enough to ever need re-application.

[Blimpyboy]

On 7/5/2020 at 11:41 AM, 11bravo said:

P-51’s, with their vulnerable liquid-cooled engines, were unsuitable for low level strafing missions and suffered very high losses compared to the Jug.

 

A minor revival for this thread - despite it not being about the original post...

 

If this article is a good guide, it seems that the USAF was more interested in keeping an escort fighter immediately following 1945, than a ground attack capability:

https://www.afhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2003_fall2.pdf