Have Arrived!!! The P-47D along with a Stunning New Detailed Map of The English Channel have Landed in DCS World!!

Thanks for L@@KING Friends!! 😊

Edited June 6, 20206 yr by Phantom88

Patrick:

I know of P-47D for umpteen number of years, but, arrival of this P-47D in "DCS" must be, without doubt, the best...!!

Beautiful shots, here, of the Classic fighter, along with remarkable scenery...!

[And, btw, I'm still trying to figure out, how its profile resembles that of a milk "jug" (of the time)...oh well...I'm sure it does/did...🙂...]

2 hours ago, P_7878 said:

And, btw, I'm still trying to figure out, how its profile resembles that of a milk "jug" (of the time)...oh well...I'm sure it does/did...🙂...]

Although quite a few sources - erroneously - claim the P-47 was named 'the Jug' because it looked like a Milk Jug (which it doesn't anyway), this is in fact not where the name comes from. The P-47's Jug nickname is a shortened version of its full nickname - The Juggernaut - which appropriately enough, in its English usage, means an unstoppable or very powerful force.

This incidentally, was told to me by someone who flew the real things in WW2; he flew many other fighters as well, including German ones when he was evaluating them a test pilot, so ignore that milk jug story, because it is not correct in spite of many people repeating it and it even appearing in some otherwise pretty good text books about the P-47 from time to time.

For even more fun facts: The word Juggernaut in its original meaning is a portmanteau of a few of words, most likely the Hindi word 'jagannath' which translates as 'lord of the world', but in local usage it referred to a huge wagon or chariot used in a religious procession which carried statues of Hindu gods. The Sanskrit words 'jagati' and 'natha' which roughly translate as something along the lines of 'world lord', may also be part of the etymology.

Allegedly - according to the travelogues of a Franciscan Monk writing in the 13th Century - fanatical Hindus would throw themselves under these chariots or wagons when they were used in religious processions, as a sacrifice, although it is likely these incidents were accidents, but were played up a bit for dramatic writing purposes to disparage those Eastern religions amongst Western readers, and also probably to dehumanise the people they were intent on conquering.

As a result of all this, by the time the British Empire was in place, the word Juggernaut was a fairly common English word, where it of course typically was used to mean an unstoppable or powerful force, which is why in Britain, it is often used as a slang word for a big powerful truck. 

When you know all that, you can see why the P-47 got that nickname, because it is a huge fighter, and with its air-cooled engine, and massive fuselage full of all the turbocharger pipes, it was capable of taking loads of damage and still making it back home. It was also, like its nickname-sake, pretty much unstoppable when used with the 'boom and zoom' fighting technique. 

Here's another fun fact about the P-47. When it was first flown in the European Theatre, it was unusual in being an Allied fighter which had a radial engine, and the USAAF were worried it might be mistaken for an Fw190 - these early variants being the 'razorback' ones without the blown canopy - so the very first ones in-theatre had prominent white markings on the engine cowling and a white band across the tail to aid in distinguishing them from the German fighter. This seems silly to us when we look at the differences these days, but in the heat of combat it would be much easier to make such a mistake if you were a jumpy B-17 gunner and an unfamiliar radial-engined escort fighter rolled up along side your formation when you were used to seeing Spitfires with slim water-cooled engine profiles doing that duty. The cannon-armed Fw190 was the 'bogeyman' to most daylight bomber crews in 1943 and they would - understandably - shoot first and ask questions later if they thought one of those was around.

To give you an idea of how appropriate that Juggernaut nickname was, here is a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt parked up next to a Messerschmitt bf109. The difference in size is readily apparent:

Edited June 6, 20206 yr by Chock

The P-47 is rather large isn't it? Lovely MiG-29 BTW!

Time for the song containing these lyrics:-

"My P-47 is a pretty good ship
And she took a round comin' cross the channel last trip
I was thinkin' 'bout my baby and letting her rip
Always got me through so far"

Johnny Come Lately by Steve Earle 😎

Alan: Very interesting details, indeed...!! Thanks. Yes, you never know about these Pilots' jargon and terms...glad you heard the details from one....(I also sometimes wonder, about, those "lovely" pictures they (sometimes) put on these types of planes....🙂...)

 

And, Patrick:

Can you now land this beautiful thing on your beautiful (new and fast-moving!) DCS Supercarrier...🙂...?

3 hours ago, P_7878 said:

..I also sometimes wonder, about, those "lovely" pictures they (sometimes) put on these types of planes....🙂...)

Got to have some nose art!! 😎

The vast majority of those nose art jobs were based on paintings by Alberto Vargas, who used to produce them for Esquire magazine in the 1940s, which made them readily available for enterprising ground crews and pilots to copy using the paints lying around in the hangars. Quite a few USAAF personnel ended up with their skills being in high demand and they made quite a decent extra bit of cash from painting such things. Occasionally local artists in the UK were used too. If you ever get into a highbrow art discussion with someone, this is a great way to appear knowledgeable about art, but also subversively lower the tone of the discussion. I often used to do this art art college, to shut pretentious people up, since Vargas' work is now highly collectible in the art world.

The USAAF sort of unofficially encouraged it, as a morale booster, although depending on the base commander, some crews were told to tone it down a bit. Conversely, the USN officially discouraged it, however, the propensity for ignoring the rules on this sort of thing tended to be proportional to how far away you were from headquarters, so some of the most racy designs were seen on aircraft based in the Pacific Theatre on remote places such as Tinian and Papua New Guinea. But this presented an interesting PR dilemma in 1945...

In view of the publicity such things might attract, both of the B-29 Superfortresses used to carry atomic bombs on attacks on the Japanese mainland were notable for having somewhat tame artwork, and this was a deliberate decision. Enola Gay - the aircraft which was used to attack Hiroshima - was named after the pilot's mother and simply had her name on its nose in plain capital letters, and Bockscar - the aircraft which carried the bomb to Nagasaki - carried a cartoon boxcar with wings, running along a train line from Salt Lake to Nagasaki, it being named after the aircraft's regular pilot, Frederick C Bock, although ironically enough, on the occasion of it attacking Nagasaki, it was flown by the crew of another B-29 - which also had pretty tame artwork and was named The Great Artiste - it was piloted by the unit's commander, Charles W. Sweeney.

During the 1992 Gulf War, nose art had something of a renaissance, British crews in particular went really over the top on painting nudes on their aeroplanes. The MOD tried to stop this (which just made it worse lol). The popularity of this sort of thing with the UK press supporting the troops (in particular the Sun, which at that time was famous for having a nude on Page 3 every day), meant that most requests to stop that kind of thing were roundly ignored and in many cases, actively encouraged, in spite of these aeroplanes being based in Arab countries were women are often ordered to cover up completely, which was probably another reason why it was so rife among the Brits, who as a rule, don't have a lot of time for that kind of suppressive culture. Sadly, few of these painting survive, but there are plenty of pictures of them here where you can see why the MOD didn't exactly approve of it, particularly with some of them using notoriously lewd and hilarious characters from Viz magazine 🤣

Edited June 6, 20206 yr by Chock

52 minutes ago, Chock said:

The vast majority of those nose art jobs were based on paintings by Alberto Vargas, who used to produce them for Esquire magazine in the 1940s, which made them readily available for enterprising ground crews and pilots to copy using the paints lying around in the hangars. Quite a few USAAF personnel ended up with their skills being in high demand and they made quite a decent extra bit of cash from painting such things. Occasionally local artists in the UK were used too. If you ever get into a highbrow art discussion with someone, this is a great way to appear knowledgeable about art, but also subversively lower the tone of the discussion. I often used to do this art art college, to shut pretentious people up, since Vargas' work is now highly collectible in the art world.

The USAAF sort of unofficially encouraged it, as a morale booster, although depending on the base commander, some crews were told to tone it down a bit. Conversely, the USN officially discouraged it, however, the propensity for ignoring the rules on this sort of thing tended to be proportional to how far away you were from headquarters, so some of the most racy designs were seen on aircraft based in the Pacific Theatre on remote places such as Tinian and Papua New Guinea. But this presented an interesting PR dilemma in 1945...

In view of the publicity such things might attract, both of the B-29 Superfortresses used to carry atomic bombs on attacks on the Japanese mainland were notable for having somewhat tame artwork, and this was a deliberate decision. Enola Gay - the aircraft which was used to attack Hiroshima - was named after the pilot's mother and simply had her name on its nose in plain capital letters, and Bockscar - the aircraft which carried the bomb to Nagasaki - carried a cartoon boxcar with wings, running along a train line from Salt Lake to Nagasaki, it being named after the aircraft's regular pilot, Frederick C Bock, although ironically enough, on the occasion of it attacking Nagasaki, it was flown by the crew of another B-29 - which also had pretty tame artwork and was named The Great Artiste - it was piloted by the unit's commander, Charles W. Sweeney.

During the 1992 Gulf War, nose art had something of a renaissance, British crews in particular went really over the top on painting nudes on their aeroplanes. The MOD tried to stop this (which just made it worse lol). The popularity of this sort of thing with the UK press supporting the troops (in particular the Sun, which at that time was famous for having a nude on Page 3 every day), meant that most requests to stop that kind of thing were roundly ignored and in many cases, actively encouraged, in spite of these aeroplanes being based in Arab countries were women are often ordered to cover up completely, which was probably another reason why it was so rife among the Brits, who as a rule, don't have a lot of time for that kind of suppressive culture. Sadly, few of these painting survive, but there are plenty of pictures of them here where you can see why the MOD didn't exactly approve of it, particularly with some of them using notoriously lewd and hilarious characters from Viz magazine 🤣

There was a famous nose art painting on an F-105 flown during the Viet Nam war by USAF Colonel (then Captain) Vic Vizcarra. ( Col Vizcarra is still with us, and is an active participant in a couple of Facebook groups dedicated to military aircraft of the Viet Nam era.)

Avsim's TOS would definitely prohibit me from linking to a photo. Let's just say it was a nude female figure and it had something to do with the in-flight refueling receptacle.

I doubt the aircraft name would pass muster here either, but it was named after a character portrayed by Honor Blackman in the James Bond film "Goldfinger".

Edited June 6, 20206 yr by JRBarrett

1 hour ago, JRBarrett said:

...but it was named after a character portrayed by Honor Blackman in the James Bond film "Goldfinger".

... lots of cats to be found everywhere... 😜

 

Another pin up artist whose name I remember is Gil Elvgren although a quick search revealed that there are many more artitsts.. 😉

May I say, what a very distinct privilege it is to read this thread.

You guys are not just mere simmers.

1. Patrick-----exposing us time after time  to the wonders of DCS
2. P_7878----already a noted exponent of not only his flying skills but his historical tie-ups.
3. Alan--------another noted historian and sage of wisdom.
4. Mark--------again not only an accomplished MD-11(pine) exponent, but now with his BN2 epilogue, another historian.

Never mind the simming side of this thread, there is an underlying  historical lesson to be learned.

Gentlemen, I salute you

 

 

Very interesting...! I was looking around a bit, and the P-47D, indeed, has an amazing range of "artwork"..!!

And, this DCS P-47D, here, seems to have been in the making for years...I'm so glad they finally finished the project. I was, just now, also viewing the on-line images of it, and the reviews, it seems to be really an astounding add-on for the DCS World...! Enjoy, DCS folks..!!

6 minutes ago, vc10man said:

.Mark--------.... another historian.

To think that I actually gave up history in my third year at high school s I didn't have to try and do an 'O' level in it! Mind you, the History curriculum had very little to do with aviation otherwise I'd have been all over it like a sailor in a dockside knocking shop on his first night of shore leave... metaphorically of course!

Thanks Rick 😎

28 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

To think that I actually gave up history in my third year at high school s I didn't have to try and do an 'O' level in it! Mind you, the History curriculum had very little to do with aviation otherwise I'd have been all over it like a sailor in a dockside knocking shop on his first night of shore leave... metaphorically of course!

Thanks Rick 😎

Oddly enough, I hated Maths but loved History in school. Had I not arrived at the RAF Recruiting Office in Kingsway, Central London, just that one 'O' Level deficient, Maths, I'd have been in the Flying Branch as I passed all medicals with flying colours(forgive the pun!).

Funny thing about it, when I later went to Uni, I ended up loving Maths🤣

You're welcome, Mark, as are the rest,deservedly so, because I was taught something this evening.

Hello Friends,Thank You all for the fantastic comments along with the excellent history lessons on The P-47.I got somewhat interested in the Military Nose Art discussion and found this great video.

 

Great and highly informative thread (along with, of course, the beautiful screenshots), to read and view again...!!

And, fantastic video, here, Patrick...! I'm sure, your (talented) DCS P-47D folks are watching such collection of (vintage) images, and we'll, surely, see some of these on the DCS P-47D repaints soon...!