Скачать или смотреть Luftwaffe Pilots Never Expected Water-Injection To Make P-47s 470mph Behemoths At 30,000 Feet

When the U.S. Army Air Forces unveiled the P-47 Thunderbolt, German pilots mocked it as a flying barrel—too big, too heavy, too slow to fight.
But then came the R-2800 engine upgrade and a secret weapon that changed everything: water-injection boost.

Within months, the “Jug” went from a lumbering escort to a 470 mph monster that could climb, dive, and strike at 30,000 feet with terrifying ferocity—leaving the Luftwaffe stunned and scrambling to understand what had just happened.

⚙️ The Power Problem

Early versions of the P-47 struggled above 25,000 feet.
Its turbo-supercharger gave it altitude performance, but its climb rate and acceleration lagged behind lighter fighters like the Bf 109G or Fw 190A.
American engineers knew that if Thunderbolts were going to take on the Luftwaffe over Europe, they needed a radical performance boost.

That breakthrough came in the form of an unorthodox idea: injecting water into a fire-breathing engine.

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