#18, P-47 Thunderbolt: An Indestructible Wrecking Ball
Republic's P-47 Thunderbolt was the heaviest single-engine fighter of World War II, and also the toughest. Pilots brought Thunderbolts home with cylinders shot off the radial engine, entire control surfaces missing, and holes in the fuselage large enough to crawl through. The "Jug" earned its reputation as the premier fighter-bomber of the European theater, destroying 86,000 railroad cars, 9,000 locomotives, 6,000 armored vehicles, and 68,000 trucks in ground attack missions.
The P-47's eight .50-caliber machine guns delivered a devastating three-second burst weight that could shred any ground target, and its turbocharged R-2800 engine gave it excellent performance at high altitude. Thunderbolt pilots also claimed 3,752 aerial victories. The aircraft could absorb punishment that would destroy lighter fighters, its air-cooled radial engine didn't have a vulnerable liquid cooling system like the Mustang's Merlin. For pure destructive capability and survivability, the P-47 was the most effective tactical military equipment of World War II.
