Mowaca

That is my exact interpretation as well.

Indeed, the holes in the fairings are oversized, I would assume to allow for hamonization movement along the yaw and pitch axis. I would suggest the team get the EMI for the aircraft, and also find a real one to inspect to corroborate the claim. The objective truth is that the guns are not adjustable within the mounts (beyond harmonization movements as described), nor are the mounts themselves able to be adjusted descretely along the vertical axis. There are only two adjustable screws, traverse and elevation (yaw and pitch). I hope the team finds these reports useful.

While restored birds are always questionable, the harmonization adjustments on wartime birds as described in the Rebublic EMI for the P-47 were for yaw and pitch of the gun within the mount exclusively. At least that's my interpretation of the manual's gun mounting section. From page 350: (5) All gun adjustments are made from the top of the gun bay with a screw driver inserted into the slots in the adjustment screws located on the rear mount. The elevational screw is just outboard of its respective gun, and the traverse screw just inboard of its gun. I cannot find instructions for adjusting the mounts themselves along any axis at all. However, the real issue with raising or lowering the guns vertically within the mount, or adjusting the mount itself to support discrete vertical axis movement of the entire gun would be the need to replace the leading edge fairings at the moment of mounting the guns in any new vertical alignment with an entirely new leading edge fairing featuring a new set of barrel holes exactly-matching the adjusted gun alignment. Republic only made one leading edge fairing part for each wing, so I think this would only be possible by manufacturing new, custom-made fairings in the field after any/every adjustment. That is, if it was even possible to do. And again, there is no reference to that type of adjustment in the EMI whatsoever. And in closing, I cannot find a wartime photo of the guns configured exactly along the diheadral as the DCS Thunderbolts guns are currently arranged. https://i.redd.it/g5fx5vhvyw911.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/474x/82/a9/ae/82a9ae5760ea680ad7a7247f56335fd8.jpg https://albumwar2.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/03610.jpg Thanks very much for considering this report.

BTW that Tamiya kit is fantastic! If you ever get into 1/32 the Hasegawa Jug is equally beautifully engineered (they quote the Tamiya engineering liberally) and makes an impressive finished project.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/4/3480/5847093065_fc54203ace_b.jpg https://farm66.static.flickr.com/65535/48175013456_9c1b752c8f.jpg

Here's a picture from reputable blueprints. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LyzDRPDnfv2uBM8-JvYJ8N8PtHBcOtd2/view?usp=sharing However, I am not making this up. Republic Aviation simply built them this way. Il2 appears to have gotten this correct on their recent P-47D-28 external here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1md7kMUw3eB3j8XAcjuwHp1stiEbJ_Tt1/view?usp=sharing Not trying to do any harm here, or lead the team down a road that makes no sense. Simply go stand by a P-47 and see for your self :)

The Thunderbolt's wing guns are aligned parallel to the ground, and not with the leading edge of the wing. This is often missed on model kits and in artwork and paintings of the plane. This picture is fairly indicative of the feature on an M model (this feature remained unchanged throughout all production models of the P-47). You can see the inboard guns extrude from the wing clearly above the leading edge, while the outboard gun is aligned almost perfectly with the leading edge. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/57/20/76/5720763a2d793e756621b32df325b2c6.jpg On the DCS external model it appears that the gun barrels are modeled aligned with the leading edge, following the diheadral as shown here in a screen grab attempted to capture a similar angle. https://drive.google.com/file/d/18qAzPOvBMOutMz9m0flTqDcXXsbCFlPt/view?usp=sharing Not sure it matters to many folks, but loving the Thunderbolt as much as some of us do, this one sticks out to me.

+1 to the Razorback...probably D-15 or D-22 would be a good bet