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Hello Franek
the reason is that N had clearly greater fuel load (556gal. internal+440gal external = 996gal vs. 269gal+150gal = 419gal for P-51D).
The mission profile was climb to 25000ft at normal rated power, cruising at 25000ft at 210mph IAS , external tanks were dropped before entering combat, in combat 5min at WEP and 15min at military power, return flight at 25000ft at 210mph IAS, allowance for 30min reserve at minimum cruise power plus some other assumptions but these are the most important ones. The combat radius of action for P-47N is given as 1000mls and that for P-51D 700mls. From another graph one can read that if the cruise was at 10000ft and other variables same as above the combat radius of action for P-51D was 750mls no info for P-47N range at 10000ft.
On P-47 vs. P-51 speeds. According to Dean's book P-47D-25 was a bit slower than P-51B but appr. as much faster than P-51D at 30000ft.
And IMHO a claim that P-47 was "just only useless as a fighter. " is rather extreme. After all one of the two most successfull FGs at ETO (there is some argument which of the two was the most successful) was 56th FG, which flew all it's time P-47 and it was a couple short times grounded because of troubles with the engines of its P-47Ms and it was also some times handicapped because of the lack of range of its P-47Ds.
Six Nifty .50s
äIn 1942, 36 Spitfires were under investigation for structural failures and in 24 cases the tail unit broke off in flight.
IIRC the structural failures were mostly confined to early Spit Vs and the problem was firstly cured by installing bobweights to elevators control cables and then more elegantly by local strengthening.
Juha
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