Oddly enough we had trouble locating pics online of a P-47 carrying rockets. Almost every pic shows P-47's carrying droptanks or bombs. I found one picture of a P-47 carrying the bazooka tube style launchers and that was it. Supposedly the P-47 fired over 65,000 rockets in WW2 but I cant seem to find but one small grainy picture.

Anyone care to comment on P-47's carrying rockets or the lack of pictures?

We are Rangers. We walk in the dark places no one will enter. We do not break away from combat. We stand on the bridge and no one may pass. We do not retreat whatever the reason. We live for the one. We die for the one.

We are Rangers. We walk in the dark places no one will enter. We do not break away from combat. We stand on the bridge and no one may pass. We do not retreat whatever the reason. We live for the one. We die for the one.

It was definately an efficiant way of carrying a large payload of air to ground rockets while providing minimal parasite drag on the aircraft...

Next, missions involving the use of rockets were always low-level affairs. The Thunderbolts would have spent the majority of these missions at 1000 feet AGL or lower, and no one was going to play around with a camera under those circumstances.

At last, but perhaps not least, the plain fact of the matter was that it was difficult to hit ground targets with those rockets. They may have indeed fired 65,000 rockets during the war, but that pales besides the millions of 50-caliber rounds let loose. And if the gun camera footage shows the rockets just missing a locomotive, well, who's gonna want to save THAT picture? The pilots really didn't like the rockets all that much, and with their eight 50's, there wasn't much in the way of ground targets that the P-47 couldn't take out with the guns alone.

Actually, since the 9th Air Force groups were used almost exclusively for ground attack, I have no doubt that many, if not most, of the rocket-launch footage seen was, in fact from P-47's. But sometimes it's kinda hard to tell from the viewpoint of the gun camera just what sort of plane is doing the shootin!

Anlushac, I do a lot of browsing for P-47 stuff, and if i come across a pic with the rockets, I'll let you know ASAP.

During the entire war in the ETO, the 9th AF expended just 13,959 rockets. The 9th was FAR more involved in ground attack than the 8th AF or any of the other US Air Forces.

Contrast this with the fact that the RAF expended well over 200,000 rockets in the ETO.

The US used rockets big-time in the PTO, where Navy and Marine aircraft alone, from August 1943 to August 1945, expended 210,056 rockets. I think the USAAF used rockets there as well.

Regards,
SkyChimp

And one more I just found.....

I was thinking the other reason was I keep hearing about the P-47 being the premier dive bomber against the Germans. All the ground troops who mention the P-47 always mention being used as a bomber.

We are Rangers. We walk in the dark places no one will enter. We do not break away from combat. We stand on the bridge and no one may pass. We do not retreat whatever the reason. We live for the one. We die for the one.

It's interesting, I think, that an aircraft that was originally designed as a high-altitude interceptor should have gained such fame and devotion right down on the deck. But the P-47 never lost her high-altitude abilities. With that turbosuperchager, nothing could touch the Thunderbolt above 35,000 feet. I used to have fun baiting enemy planes in the Aces High online game by cruising along at about 28,000 feet and letting some guy curve in behind me. I'd start climbing, and by the time we got to 34,000 or so, the other guy was having a tough time maintaining control, while I was still gaining power! Didn't matter if he had an P-51, Spitfire, Me-109, or an FW-190. I had the edge. I'd just level out, accelerate, turn into him, and become the hunter.

It’s a bit pricey though. But if it reruns on PBS be sure to catch it.

I have another pic of this particular aircraft (same tail number, same loadout) in the air and another pic of another N on the ground with just rockets.

I could have sworn I saw a pic somewhere of a P-47D with the phrase "zero-length rails" in the caption but I can't find it right now. I know I've seen several pics with bazooka tubes.

the same plane with the interesing foreward airbase as a backdrop

any ideas on why that was done? damage perhaps?

We are Rangers. We walk in the dark places no one will enter. We do not break away from combat. We stand on the bridge and no one may pass. We do not retreat whatever the reason. We live for the one. We die for the one.

EjGr.-Ost-KIMURA