Toward the end, when Hanks is shooting at the German tank, the tank explodes and then the plane flies over. If you look closely, you will see that the plane has no rocket racks or anti tank cannon. How does the tank get hit before the plane has gone over? If it had been a bomb, the plane would have had to have passed before it would have hit.
Some versions of the P-47 Thunderbolt had 4 20mm cannon mounted in the wings. From the ground they cannot be seen as the plane flies away from the observer.
The fighters that save the day in the movie are North American P-51d "Mustangs"
The P-47 was the Republic "Thunderbolt" I noticed that the P-51's did have the
right paint scheme, the black and white stripes were referred to as D-Day stripes. All allied aircraft in the European Theater used them from 6 June 44 until the end of the war. I have dozens of books on WWII combat aircraft. None of them mention P-51's with rockets as part of their armament. I've read they had six .5in Browning machine guns (three in each wing) with either 270 or 400 rounds each, and wing racks for drop fuel tanks or two 1,000 lb. bombs. Mustangs were capable of reaching speeds of 450 MPH. You'll notice how the tank explodes while the fighter pulls into a steep climb. That conforms with dive bombing tactics, so if nothing else, I thinks that is what they want us to believe happened. Spielberg must love the Mustang. In Empire of The Sun, there's the scene with a P-51 beautifully filmed in slow motion as the kid yells out, "P-51 Mustang! The Cadillac of the sky!" He also had Ryan say out loud what they were... "They're tank busters, sir. P-51's!" My father is good friends with a P-51 fighter ace that flew with the 357th. He recorded 7.5 kills including a ME-262 jet!
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This is indeed a minor slip-up. If the plane had dropped a bomb it would have had to have gone over the tank before it blew up. But if it had been machine gun fire from the plane that destroyed the tank, it is very unlikely that the pilot could have magically hit the tank and destroyed it with just a few shots. He would have had to line up and strafe the tank causing a highly visible line of gun fire to go across the bridge.
I must say that no the P51s didn't use bombs, yes they did use rockets from time to time. but they also were fitted with API (armor piercing incinedary) rounds. These were used against tanks.
If a P-51 were to begin descent on a dive bombing run it is possible that if released early in the dive the bomb could make it to the tank before the fighter did. As is said in the other post above, it is probably a P-51 with a 1000 lb. payload making a dive bombing run pulling up and into view just after the tank explodes
Look - strafing would not have taken out a Tiger! with those .50 cal pop guns. Brutal on other planes, trucks etc, but not tanks! A Sherman couldn't knock out a Tiger at 800 metres and it had a 75mm gun! Whatever postulated 'bomb' these P 51s might have used - no hard points under the wing or belly where a bomb would be attached and no rocket pods. A clear technical mistake by the film makers.
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