The P-47N was still in service with some Air Guard units during the Korean War, but it never got over to Korea. A lot of historians wonder why it didn’t. Usually the answer to these imponderables is found in the supply chain. There were simply a lot more P-51s and veteran pilots trained for them. Spare parts, etc. And so the P-51 got pressed into a ground attack role that it really wasn’t suited for while the few P-47’s that were then left in service were trolling the skies over the US.
“The P-47N was still in service with some Air Guard units during the Korean War, but it never got over to Korea...the answer to these imponderables is found in the supply chain...Spare parts, etc. And so the P-51 got pressed into a ground attack role that it really wasn’t suited for...” [Tallguy, post 72]
The F-47 (the Air Force redesignated all “P” aircraft to “F” in 1948) is believed by some to have a better choice for ground attack than the F-51 in Korea, but it may not have worked that way.
The chief reason there were fewer F-47s than F-51s in service in 1950 was that Air Force leaders had been ordered to prioritize their assigned airframes according to forecast utility in “general war” - a total conflict against the USSR in Europe. Korea was a side show.
With range, interception, and dogfighting capabilities inferior to the F-51, the F-47 was judged to be outclassed by Soviet Frontal Aviation and thus was placed well down the list. Hence it was relegated to continental air defense and other ANG missions. Training and resupply were reduced correspondingly.
The F-47 could haul greater warloads than the F-51, but thus burdened it weighed twice as much and the resulting poor takeoff performance would have precluded its deployment to the small, primitive airfields near the front lines, which were readily usable by the F-51, from which it launched on short notice and flew only short distances to prosecute close air support against Communist forces.
“Could have been” is always problematic; honest comparisons are out of reach. Some insight might be gained by looking at USN losses of ground support aircraft of somewhat similar design to the F-47: the Corsair and the Skyraider, both propeller-driven craft powered by large air-cooled piston engines, sustained heavy losses to ground fire: 312 and 124 respectively. The Naval acquisition organization went to the trouble of obtaining modified Corsairs from Vought, equipped with 25 pieces of additional armor, 17 of which protected the engine & subsystems. The aircraft’s oil cooling system, which had proven almost as the F-51’s cooling system, was relocated out of the wings to improve survivability.
Some perspective on losses of aircraft to hostile fire: the losses of F-51s in Korea are widely condemned, but in a single strike on 25 October 1951, Mustangs inflicted over 200 KIA/WIA on the enemy, greater than the total number of F-51 pilots killed during the entire war.