P47 Thunderbolt


5 comments:

.45ACP+P said...

And those 4 M-2 .50 calls are just one wing! The shear energy of that metal storm was said to blown train cars off the tracks.

Will said...

IIRC, each gun gets about 450 rounds, which is approximately 30 seconds worth of shooting. Some of those fighters could select less than the full compliment of guns to fire at the same time, depending on the target selected.

The saying: I gave him "the whole nine yards" is in regard to the length of each .50bmg ammo belt they are loading into that wing.

One of the reasons that p-47 weighed 7 tons: 8 M2 machineguns and 8 belts of ammo! The B-17 only carried 10 of them, normally.

Anonymous said...

This may seem like a big duh, but that picture explains something I had wondered about; why each gun embedded into the wing differently. Duh, because each gun is fed from between wing spars. The barrel offset/protrusion from wing would equal the thickness of the spars. Thanks!

New Jovian Thunderbolt said...

:-)

Old NFO said...

Yep, 27 feet of linked .50 is all that would fit in the tray... Normal firing rate in battle was 1-2 seconds, at a range of 200 yards or less.