Hi,
Greggs Airplanes and automobiles is mostly about airplanes. The main key is that he uses the best sources (Airplane manuals).
He argues against the idea that the US Bombers operating from Britain to Germany didn’t have fighter escort at first because of the ranges of the fighter plane. So only with the P-51 Mustang were escorted missions to Berlin possible. WRONG: When simply reading the Airplane Manuals the P-47 Thunderbolt with droptanks ALSO could fly escort that far.
He argues succesfully in my view that the US Airforce top brass argued for the unescorted bomber first and turned to escorts later on account of masses losses. At the end of the war they had to find a narrative to hide this mistake by “forgetting” the droptank option on the P-47 Thunderbolt.
This sounds like a detail but basically I own a few dozen books which would have to be rewritten as for now everyone (including me) has forgotten to check data with the “Airplane Manuals”. Airplane Manuals from the factory are very reliable as these are the results of design and testing and normally would get updated if there is a mistake. Reading manuals save lives.
Pretty amazing that after 75+ years written history can be easily corrected by ancient manuals.
See the episode in question, I believe Gregg when he said he accidently ran into this when researching the P-47 Thunderbolt.