# Most successful Anti Ship aircraft



## fastmongrel (Dec 12, 2010)

What was the most succesful anti shipping aircraft by country of WWII and which aircraft was the heavyweight tonnage killer of the war. I dont mean the best anti ship aircraft (anyone with an ounce of sense knows its a Swordfish) I mean the most succesful by tons of shipping sunk or damaged beyond repair. By shipping I mean anything that floats military or mercantile, submarine or oil tanker.

For the US for example was the Navy Grumman Avenger or the Army North American B25 the tonnage king or was it another aircraft possibly the B24 that sank the most.


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## michaelmaltby (Dec 12, 2010)

Ju 87 and Ju 88 have to be contenders.

MM


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## Thorlifter (Dec 12, 2010)

The Dauntless had sunk more Japanese ships than any other aircraft, prior to being replaced by the Helldiver, but I'm not sure if it holds the "most tonnage" award.

I agree with MM that the Ju-87 and Ju-88 have to be serious contender's for most successful by way of tonnage.

**edit

I just found a site that says the Helldiver was responsible for more ship tonnage than any other aircraft in WW2. Trying to verify...........


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## syscom3 (Dec 12, 2010)

For the USAAF, the B-25 gunships were superb.


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## drgondog (Dec 12, 2010)

syscom3 said:


> For the USAAF, the B-25 gunships were superb.



I agree - but wonder what the results were for B-29 mine dropping exercises around Japan and Formosa were?


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## drgondog (Dec 12, 2010)

Thorlifter said:


> The Dauntless had sunk more Japanese ships than any other aircraft, prior to being replaced by the Helldiver, but I'm not sure if it holds the "most tonnage" award.
> 
> I agree with MM that the Ju-87 and Ju-88 have to be serious contender's for most successful by way of tonnage.
> 
> ...



I had heard the same thing..


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## fastmongrel (Dec 12, 2010)

Theres lots of contenders for most succesful anti ship aircraft but figures seem to be hard to come by. Spent the last 2 hours on wikipedia and other well known sites but apart from lots of uncited claims for some quite fantastical numbers nothing concrete. An example of the difficulty I am having getting hard facts is the Bristol Beafighter. I have seen claims for half a million tons sunk which is silly as far as I can find RAF Coastal Command Beaus sank 200,000 tons and RAAF Beaus sank 50,000 tons somewhat short of half a million. 

The JU87 and JU88 sank lots of tonnage but I have a feeling that the No1 for the Luftwaffe might turn out to be the FW200 simply because the ships it sank tended to be large ocean going vessels. 

It looks like the best Naval vessel killer might have been the Aichi D3 Val which surprised me but is understandable with the massive success of the Japanese navy up the end of 1942.


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## fastmongrel (Dec 12, 2010)

It has just been pointed out to me that the Avro Lancaster might have a claim to be the No1 ship killer. Lancasters with Tallboy and Grand slam bombs sunk several large German vessels Tirpitz being the most famous and some U boats were sunk during the attacks on the U boat pens. Lancasters laid a large number of mines in the Baltic and approaches to all the major ports plus ships were sunk in the major ports like Hamburg during city wide raids. 

Just off now to try and find some information on the Lancaster and B 29 mining raids.


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## renrich (Dec 12, 2010)

Sounds like the SB2C would be a good candidate because it was in service at the end of the war and was doing a lot of the cleanup work on the IJN and the Japanese commercial fleet. However the SBD had early success with the Navy and flew almost 41000 action sorties landbased with the Marines. Some of that had to be anti-shipping. SB2c flew almost 19000 action sorties carrier based with the Navy but not many more otherwise.


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## HealzDevo (Dec 12, 2010)

The Beaufighter and Beaufort did sink a lot of tonnage of merchant ships in the Pacific. I don't know how they stack up though. Because by tonnage, once you managed to sink a carrier, that would have to be about the equivalent of three or four merchant ships in tonnage wouldn't it?


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## davebender (Dec 12, 2010)

Not in tonnage sunk per aircraft (submarines are small) but in strategic importance. They played a major role breaking the back of the German submarine force. The real value of the PB4Y is how much Allied shipping wasn't sunk thanks to PB4Y patrols.

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## RCAFson (Dec 12, 2010)

Swordfish and Albacores operating at night from Malta also sank a lot of shipping.


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## vikingBerserker (Dec 12, 2010)

Getting hardcore data has been a little tricky. Although it does not directly answer the question, _NAVAL AVIATION COMBAT STATISTICS—WORLD WAR II _ does give some interesting data. I summarized this from page 102 (I combined land based and carrier based aircraft). I was amazed at the number of sorties the F6F flew compared to the other USN aircraft:








I did the same thing for the chart that broke out the number of sorties by type of ship attacked:






I'd never have thought of it, but perhaps at least on the American side the F6F might need to be considered.


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## GrauGeist (Dec 12, 2010)

wow...seriously? The F6F?

I had no idea it put that much hurt on the Japanese. My guesstimate would have favored the Dauntless as a serious contender for the title at least in the Pacific.


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## muscogeemike (Dec 12, 2010)

The Regi Aeronautica had some success in the Mediterranean and maybe the Savoia-Marchett S-79 deserves a mention.


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## Thorlifter (Dec 13, 2010)

My only thoughts on the F6F's incredible numbers are, just because they fired a lot of bullets at ships and attacked a large number of ships, doesn't mean they sunk them. They also fired a bunch of rockets at them, but we had a thread on here somewhere when we talked about the rockets used in WW2 were painfully inaccurate....somewhere between 5% and 15% accuracy if I remember right.

I'm thinking the SB2C and SBD's dropping a 500 or 1000lb bomb with delay fuse in the middle of a ship from a 350 - 400 mph dive did a WHOLE LOT more damage than 100 rounds of .50cal machine gun fire.


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## Erich (Dec 13, 2010)

for complete tonnage it would be the Fw 200 Kondor even with all the shipping hash marks on the tail surfaces many of them bogus as complete losses.


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## timshatz (Dec 13, 2010)

Really not that suprising that the F6 did a lot of ground/surface work. It may've been designed and made it's name as a fighter but towards the end of the war, it became more of an Attack Bird. Couple of reasons this happened.

1. Fewer dive bombers were brought aboard as the Kamikaze threat grew. Why bring on a plane that only bombs (SB2c) when you can bring on one that bombs and dogfights/defends the carrier (F6F).

2. As the Japanese airforces became less of a threat, the job of the F6s to escort dropped off. So, send them along with bombs and rockets on board. Only a short step from that point to getting rid of the birds they were escorting altogether. 

3. F4U became the fighter bird towards 1945 with the F6 going more to Attack work. 

4. Japan's economy is based on a lot of inter-island sea traffic. Small ships of less than 1000 tons. Sinking them would've been right in the F6Fs wheelhouse. Search and destroy runs up the coast. 

5. Ground attack during the Okinawa and Iwo Jima campaign went to anything that could carry a bomb. F4F, F6F, TBM, SB2C, all of them did a lot of work in that realm. It was what was needed so they did it. 

The F6 was a do anything kind of bird. Was somewhat suprised it didn't survive to fly in Korea. It really had the right qualifications for the job.


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## davebender (Dec 13, 2010)

Yes but like most fighter-bombers the range was too short for serious anti-shipping work. Aircraft like the F6F and Fw190G can only attack shipping within a couple hundred miles of their runway and they lack endurance to loiter over a shipping lane.


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## timshatz (Dec 13, 2010)

I wouldn't put the F6 and the 109 in the same family in terms of range. The 109 was a Continental fighter. 40 minute to an hour per mission. Hellcat was a 3-4 hour flight time bird. More if you really started stacking the drop tanks (but that lowers the weapons load). Flying over water, they had to have a better range option than the land based fighters. 

Still, neither had the range of a twin.


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## davebender (Dec 13, 2010)

I put the F6F in the same category as a Fw-190G. An aircraft that had a much greater payload then the Me-109.


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## johnbr (Dec 13, 2010)

I would say the B25 gunships to.


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## parsifal (Dec 13, 2010)

difficult to pin down the greatest tonnage to a particular type. However i think the single most efficient ship killing excercises could be short listed.

Some thoughts

1) Operations of Flieger Fuhrer Atlantik August 1940 to April 1941
2) RAAF and USAAAF operations in the Bismarck Sea, 1943
3) Beafort and Swordfish ops out of Malta, 1941-42
4) Operations of IJN Ryujo April 1942, Bay Of Bengal...extremely efficient use of forces
5) Luftlotte V operations against arctic convoys, particulalry PQ17
6) Operations of LW and Regia Aeronautica in the mediterranean
7) Minelaying operations by BC in the Baltic 1944-5


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## Matt308 (Dec 13, 2010)

GrauGeist said:


> wow...seriously? The F6F?
> 
> I had no idea it put that much hurt on the Japanese. My guesstimate would have favored the Dauntless as a serious contender for the title at least in the Pacific.



It's sorties attacked. Not tonnage sunk.

As has been quoted by famous writers, "Lies, damn lies and statistics".

Based solely upon those two tables one might conclude polar opposites of (1) F6F was the most effective shipping killer or (2) the most ineffective shipping killer.

Need much more information.


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## Matt308 (Dec 13, 2010)

timshatz said:


> Really not that suprising that the F6 did a lot of ground/surface work. It may've been designed and made it's name as a fighter but towards the end of the war, it became more of an Attack Bird. Couple of reasons this happened.
> 
> 1. Fewer dive bombers were brought aboard as the Kamikaze threat grew. Why bring on a plane that only bombs (SB2c) when you can bring on one that bombs and dogfights/defends the carrier (F6F).
> 
> ...



That's a good post, with the exception that the F6F did not have the F4U speed.


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## vikingBerserker (Dec 13, 2010)

Matt (and Thor) are dead on, I've been trying to find any type of detail about the results of these attacks but to no avail. This is the best info I've been able to find yet in regards to the US Results (only aircraft related results included from _The Joint Army-Navy Assessment Committee_:







http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/Japan/IJN/JANAC-Losses/JANAC-Losses-2.html

The only plane I've seen anything specifically stating about the tonnage sunk has been the Fw 200 so far with a range of 365k to 388k tons.


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## davebender (Dec 14, 2010)

HyperWar: Japanese Naval and Merchant Shipping Losses [Chapter 4]
57,758 tons. Dec 1941
73,865. Jan 1942.
37,291. Feb 1942.
103,095. Mar 1942.
42,796. Apr 1942.
105,123. May 1942.

Not much during the crucial first 6 months of the war. It wasn't for lack of targets as the Japanese were moving millions of tons of cargo around the Pacific during this time frame. Nor was it due to lack of assets. The USN had dozens of submarines in the Pacific and the U.S. Army had plenty of aircraft.

It's rather embarrassing that our military forces were so poorly trained during December 1941.


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## timshatz (Dec 14, 2010)

davebender said:


> HyperWar: Japanese Naval and Merchant Shipping Losses [Chapter 4]
> 57,758 tons. Dec 1941
> 73,865. Jan 1942.
> 37,291. Feb 1942.
> ...




I'm going on memory a bit here but I think the Subs were not up to the job for any number of reasons. The Torpedoes were pretty poor (magnetic exploder and depth settings for start) and there was also a problem with the Sub Commanders not being agressive enough. End result was an asset that wasn't producing.

As for the Aircraft, there is some truth to the lack of training perspective. The prewar doctrine focused more on conservation of assets (in short, don't screw up or it's your career down the tubes) than affective training. Further, the doctrine hadn't been worked out on a tactical level. The training really focused on activities that would cause the least chance of accident rather than effective use of aircraft. The US wasn't in a war at that time and experience had not yet shown that the war they planned for was not the one they were fighting (high level bombers attacking ships, ect). 

The Japanese, on the other hand, were and trained that way. They'd learned the lesson that more sweat equals less blood. 

But the US also hadn't started producing the numbers it would have later in the war and those that were produced were rarely in the right place. It took time for the production, equipment, organization, ect, to produce the results that would later destroy Japan. In early 42, it wasn't there. By late 43, it was starting to show up.


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## timshatz (Dec 14, 2010)

davebender said:


> HyperWar: Japanese Naval and Merchant Shipping Losses [Chapter 4]
> 57,758 tons. Dec 1941
> 73,865. Jan 1942.
> 37,291. Feb 1942.
> ...



Interesting to not the losses spiked in March and May. I am guessing one would be around the invasion of Java and Borneo (March) while the later might be Coral Sea. 

Just guessing though.


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## JoeB (Dec 14, 2010)

parsifal said:


> Some thoughts
> 
> 1) Operations of Flieger Fuhrer Atlantik August 1940 to April 1941
> 2) RAAF and USAAAF operations in the Bismarck Sea, 1943
> ...


I agree with all those but see the JANAC summary post, at least two others must be added from Pacific War:
8 ) USN carrier groups especially in 1944-45 in the 'inner zone' of Japan's defenses, sank a very large amount of tonnage in a short time, much more than US Army a/c.
9) B-29 mining in 1945, which sank a considerable though smaller chunk of Japanese shipping, in an even shorter time period, also slowed it down a lot which is another benefit of offensive mining even when ships aren't actually sunk.

Likewise German aerial magnetic mining in British waters early in WWII was a notable innovation in antiship air operations (though the British had laid magnetic mines from ships even late in WWI).

Another highly effective innovation of late WWII was SCR-717/APQ-5/LAB system onboard B-24's, which allowed accurate blind bombing of ships. Aerial radar was used through much of the war by many air arms to locate ships, but the LAB system allowed skip bomb-like low level attack at night with no moonlight or flares. It was particularly effectively used off the coast of China by 14th AF, and effective B-24 antishipping ops were one reason the Japanese determined to seize 14th AF bases in their 1944-1945 offensive in China.

Someone stated that rockets weren't accurate againt ships but that's not true. Rockets were an ideal weapon against a certain size range of relatively small ships. Rocket accuracy was questionable against smaller, tank sized, target. But unlike tanks, ships and boats too small to hit reliably with rockets were usually highly vulnerable to .50 cal or 20mm strafing. USN fighter bombers late in the war (among other cases of other air arms) were quite effective against typical coastal shipping.

Joe

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## davebender (Dec 14, 2010)

Prussia learned that lesson during 1806, then worked methodically to fix problems in operational doctrine, training and officer selection. Why didn't the USA learn a similiar lesson from the slaughter of 1861 to 1865?

The USA was not short of military personnel and military hardware during December 1941. If our military forces had proper training and leadership Japan would have been defeated during December 1941. Or more likely, Japan would have been deterred from attacking in the first place.


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## parsifal (Dec 14, 2010)

JoeB said:


> I agree with all those but see the JANAC summary post, at least two others must be added from Pacific War:
> 8 ) USN carrier groups especially in 1944-45 in the 'inner zone' of Japan's defenses, sank a very large amount of tonnage in a short time, much more than US Army a/c.
> 9) B-29 mining in 1945, which sank a considerable though smaller chunk of Japanese shipping, in an even shorter time period, also slowed it down a lot which is another benefit of offensive mining even when ships aren't actually sunk.
> 
> ...



Agree completely Joe, particularly the operations of th4e fast carriers in 1944-45

Japanese Carriers did similar work off Java in 1942, incidentally


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## timshatz (Dec 14, 2010)

davebender said:


> Prussia learned that lesson during 1806, then worked methodically to fix problems in operational doctrine, training and officer selection. Why didn't the USA learn a similiar lesson from the slaughter of 1861 to 1865?



Think it was a different situation. Napoleanic Wars were episodic. They would start and stop, leaving time in between to consider what had happened. In that, you are right. Napolean was actually teaching the Prussians (and the Austrians and the Russians...) how to fight the war as he figured it out. They changed their methods and got a lot better.

American Civil War was one long slogging match that changed a lot over the 4 years of the war. Started out with straight lines and a mishmash of weapons an officers. By the time it ended, there were repeating rifles and more open formations (not to mention a prototype of the Machine Gun and land mines) to say nothing of trench warfare with officers who knew what they were doing and had a pretty good idea of how to put their troops in a spot to do the most killing. It was a precursor of the 1st World War more than anything else. 

In that, they did change, but a lot of Europe missed it. The Euros looked at the American Civil War as, to use the words of Von Schlieffen "One armed mob chasing another around the country". 

However, that being said, the lesson of moving troops by rail was not lost on the Prussians. Picked that part up.


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## michaelmaltby (Dec 14, 2010)

".... the lesson of moving troops by rail was not lost on the Prussians" ... nor the telegraph. 

MM


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## Thorlifter (Dec 14, 2010)

JoeB said:


> Someone stated that rockets weren't accurate againt ships but that's not true. Rockets were an ideal weapon against a certain size range of relatively small ships. Rocket accuracy was questionable against smaller, tank sized, target. But unlike tanks, ships and boats too small to hit reliably with rockets were usually highly vulnerable to .50 cal or 20mm strafing. USN fighter bombers late in the war (among other cases of other air arms) were quite effective against typical coastal shipping.
> 
> Joe



Without a doubt the rockets were effective.....when they hit. I'm just stating that rocket accuracy was extremely poor. You even see alot of aerial footage of rockets missing the target by a wide margin.

Russian RS-82/RS-132 rockets, which were very similar to the standard 5" HVAR used on Thunderbolts, Corsairs, etc., had an accuracy of 1.1% of 186 rockets fired at a single tank and 3.3% when fired at a column of tanks when fired at a distance of 500 meters. 100% of rockets fired at a distance of greater than 500 meters failed to hit any target. Results were better when an attack fired a salvo instead of a single shot.

Everything I could find (in 10 minutes of searching) all stated that the early rockets (Russian and U.S.) were very inaccurate and best used in salvos. If you have documentation (because I couldn't find any) on a hit ratio of the 5" HVAR in WW2, that would be interesting to see. If you don't, hopefully someone else does.

Yes, I know ships are bigger than tanks and present a larger target!  I'm simply stating that early rockets were extremely inaccurate.


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## timshatz (Dec 14, 2010)

michaelmaltby said:


> ".... the lesson of moving troops by rail was not lost on the Prussians" ... nor the telegraph.
> 
> MM



Yeah, good point.


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## JoeB (Dec 15, 2010)

Thorlifter said:


> Without a doubt the rockets were effective.....when they hit. I'm just stating that rocket accuracy was extremely poor. You even see alot of aerial footage of rockets missing the target by a wide margin.


But again you're talking about rockets v tanks, first in general, now in the specific example you gave. And besides ships being a lot bigger, they were usually less numerous and so more a/c and more rockets would typically be concentrated on each ship than each tank. Rockets proved effective against ships, in hitting and causing damage, in contrast to the situation with tanks, where hit rates were a lot lower, and in addition many rockets used against tanks had limited lethality against tanks. For example, the tube launched 4.5" rockets used by USAAF fighter bombers until late in the war were only likely to blow a track off or set external storage on fire, at best, against most German tanks of 1944, even if they hit. But the original point was about late war ops by USN fighter bombers v smaller ships. They were mainly using 5" HVAR, so a quite different situation, a faster more consistent rocket as well as much bigger targets, and targets definitely vulnerable to the HVAR's (5"/38 common shell) warhead. 

Controlled testing in late 1950 in Japan w/ 5" HVAR fired by F-51 at typical combat range in salvo's of 6 resulted in an impact pattern 92ft long and 50ft wide, with mean impact point 50% likely to be within 25ft of the aim point, v a T-34-sized target, giving a hit probability of 7.4% per rocket (37% for at least one rocket in a 6 shot salvo). In a separate test in Korea at around the same time against actual captured T-34's, F-80's achieved 5 hits w/ 64 HVAR's. Those results are from original USAF test reports. I don't know the source of your numbers but would likely be a pre-HVAR rocket unless it was from 1945. HVAR was quite accurate enough against ships, even considering that accuracies would probably be worse in real combat than in those tests.

We could make a similar comparison when it came to bombs. German tests showed that a 250kg bomb would not do serious damage to either T-34 or M4even at 3 meters miss distance, though it would kill the crew (killed test animals inside, See "German Air Dropped Weapons to 1945"), and that kind of accuracy was very unlikely in real combat. But of course 250kg/500# class bombs were quite effective against unarmored ships, either by direct hit or mining effect of a near enough miss...because ships were much bigger than tanks and more bombs could typically be brought to bear v. a given ship than a given tank.

Joe

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## Glider (Dec 16, 2010)

Its good information about the post war testing of rockets but it should be remembered that controlled tests are never close to what happens in combat. The targets tend to be stationary in the open and of course, no one is trying to shoot down the attacking aircarft.


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## parsifal (Dec 17, 2010)

true enough, however if an inherent error arises due to combat stressers, this would apply for all weapon types would it not????


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## Glider (Dec 17, 2010)

parsifal said:


> true enough, however if an inherent error arises due to combat stressers, this would apply for all weapon types would it not????



Oh yes


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## comiso90 (Dec 17, 2010)

I've read many times that it's the Helldiver but its usually just a factoid flippantly thrown out there. I saw a Helldiver at an airshow last year and they said it was the top killer but me thinks thats slightly biased:

Home

The Helldiver is so damn ugly that Id rather think the Condor is the title holder.

,


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## Skibear (Apr 18, 2021)

It was almost certainly the humble Swordish. Its credentials are pretty solid and it's success is due to its versatility and longevity as a design. For starters 3 Italian battleships at Taranto plus damage to a cruiser and destroyers, crippling the french battleship Dunkique at mers El kebir, and cruiser Pola at Cape matapan. Also credited with 14 U boats sunk. Then as convoy raiders based out of malta they sunk at least 450 tons over a 9 month period. That's a pretty impressive resume but you could also argue a strong success tick in contributing to damaging bismark leading to her distruction.

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## Ovod (Apr 18, 2021)

Skibear said:


> It was almost certainly the humble Swordish. Its credentials are pretty solid and it's success is due to its versatility and longevity as a design. For starters 3 Italian battleships at Taranto plus damage to a cruiser and destroyers, crippling the french battleship Dunkique at mers El kebir, and cruiser Pola at Cape matapan. Also credited with 14 U boats sunk. Then as convoy raiders based out of malta they sunk at least 450 tons over a 9 month period. That's a pretty impressive resume but you could also argue a strong success tick in contributing to damaging bismark leading to her distruction.



None of those 3 Italian battleships were actually sunk - 2 of them were back in service within a year. Swordfish certainly had more success against convoys and other freighters than against warships. The Grumman Avenger sank more U-boats in the Atlantic than the Swordfish.

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## A.G. Williams (Apr 18, 2021)

I read recently that mines dropped by Luftwaffe aircraft sank more ships than bomb attacks.


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## Glider (Apr 18, 2021)

A.G. Williams said:


> I read recently that mines dropped by Luftwaffe aircraft sank more ships than bomb attacks.


I wouldn't mind betting that mines dropped by most if not all the combatants sank and damaged more ships than direct air attacks


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## syscom3 (Apr 18, 2021)

Skibear said:


> It was almost certainly the humble Swordish. Its credentials are pretty solid and it's success is due to its versatility and longevity as a design. For starters 3 Italian battleships at Taranto plus damage to a cruiser and destroyers, crippling the french battleship Dunkique at mers El kebir, and cruiser Pola at Cape matapan. Also credited with 14 U boats sunk. Then as convoy raiders based out of malta they sunk at least 450 tons over a 9 month period. That's a pretty impressive resume but you could also argue a strong success tick in contributing to damaging bismark leading to her distruction.


What did it do in the Pacific against the IJN?

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## Glider (Apr 18, 2021)

What did the USN do against the Germans and Italian surface fleet?

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## MikeMeech (Apr 18, 2021)

Hi

Reference Bomber Command and mining, Harris's 'Despatch on War Operations', page 173, has the following:

"It has not yet been possible to obtain a full list of ships sunk and damaged by mining, but known results so far comprise 491 ships sunk and 410 ships damaged by mines laid by Bomber Command during the period February, 1942, to May, 1945."

In the Mediterranean, the book 'The Armed Rovers - Beauforts & Beaufighters over the Mediterranean' by Roy C. Nesbit, page 213, mentions:

"Of the merchant ships which were registered in Lloyds' Lists, the official figures prepared after the war show 273 vessels sunk by the whole RAF and Commonwealth Air Forces in the Mediterranean, totalling 440,040 tons GRT. In addition, seventy-nine ships totalling 108,731 tons were shared with the FAA or the USAAF."

This does not include small coastal vessels or barges that were sunk which were not on the Lloyds' List.

From the UK, aircraft under the control of Coastal Command listed the following enemy controlled vessels sunk or damaged (page 353, of 'A Forgotten Offensive' by Christina J M Goulter):






More to follow.

Mike

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## MikeMeech (Apr 18, 2021)

Hi

To continue, Roy Conyers Nesbit's book 'The Strike Wings - Special Anti-Shipping Squadrons 1942-45' has a long list of shipping sunk or damaged in an Appendix. These squadrons were mainly equipped with Beaufighters, although some were replaced by Mosquito fighters from September 1944:
































I hope that is of use.

Mike

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## Admiral Beez (Apr 18, 2021)

timshatz said:


> 2. As the Japanese airforces became less of a threat, the job of the F6s to escort dropped off. So, send them along with bombs and rockets on board. Only a short step from that point to getting rid of the birds they were escorting altogether


Speaking of the IJNAS, did they sink anything of substance after 1942? Top marks to the IJNAF for Pearl Harbour, plus sinking HMS Prince of Wales, Repulse, Hermes plus cruisers and lighter craft and crippling USS Lexington, Yorktown and Hornet.


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## SaparotRob (Apr 18, 2021)

Admiral Beez said:


> Speaking of the IJNAS, did they sink anything of substance after 1942? Top marks to the IJNAF for Pearl Harbour, plus sinking HMS Prince of Wales, Repulse, Hermes plus cruisers and lighter craft and crippling USS Lexington, Yorktown and Hornet.


I imagine striking moored and docked ships that you aren't actually at war with might improve the results of the attack.


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## fastmongrel (Apr 18, 2021)

Ovod said:


> None of those 3 Italian battleships were actually sunk - 2 of them were back in service within a year. Swordfish certainly had more success against convoys and other freighters than against warships. The Grumman Avenger sank more U-boats in the Atlantic than the Swordfish.



By that measure the USN only lost one battleship at Pearl Harbor. If it's sitting on the bottom I think it's sunk.

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## SaparotRob (Apr 18, 2021)

fastmongrel said:


> By that measure the USN only lost one battleship at Pearl Harbor. If it's sitting on the bottom I think it's sunk.


It's still there. U.S.S. Utah doesn't count, btw.


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## Skibear (Apr 18, 2021)

Ovod said:


> None of those 3 Italian battleships were actually sunk - 2 of them were back in service within a year. Swordfish certainly had more success against convoys and other freighters than against warships. The Grumman Avenger sank more U-boats in the Atlantic than the Swordfish.



All 3 were put out of action for considerable time at a critical juncture of the campaign, I'd say that was the definition of success especially with only 20 aircraft committed. That they were not sunk was thanks to being close to land and able to run themselves aground. Success doesn't have to be defined always as tonnage sunk, thus the credit for also disabling the Bismarck. They also played a role as gunnery spotters in the Norway campaign allowing Warspite to put 8 destroyers out of action, nearly half the entire German destroyer fleet. I'd chalk that in the success column for a anti-ship credentials of a very versatile plane.

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## GrauGeist (Apr 18, 2021)

Glider said:


> What did the USN do against the Germans and Italian surface fleet?


The USS Ranger engaged Axis elements both in the Med and North Sea.
The USN was also present during Operation Overloard.
So they contributed to the European campaign.

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## SaparotRob (Apr 18, 2021)

Thanks for jogging my memory, GrauGeist!
I think there was an American battleship that had a rather impressive record in the Med. One of the newer ones. It used its float planes for spotting. That's the best I can come up with and keep airplanes in my post. My wife started talking to me and I forgot what this thread was about.


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## GrauGeist (Apr 18, 2021)

fastmongrel said:


> By that measure the USN only lost one battleship at Pearl Harbor. If it's sitting on the bottom I think it's sunk.


Two - the USS Oklahoma was only righted and refloated because it was blocking a navigation channel.
Once afloat, it was only good for salvage and even then, sank while being towed enroute to the west coast before that could happen.

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## MikeMeech (Apr 18, 2021)

Hi
In 'RAF Fighters Part 1' (WW2 Aircraft Fact Files' by Green and Swanborough, page 26, reference the Bristol Beaufighter, it mentions that in the first nine months of 1943 No. 27 Squadron (claimed) destroyed or damaged 123 ships and 1,368 sampans and other small rivercraft (as well as land transport targets). These would be on the major rivers or coastal traffic. Another example is from February 1945 when Beaufighters discovered a Japanese convoy in the Andaman Sea at extreme range for the aircraft. During the 33 hour attack 14 merchantmen, two sloops and a gunboat were sunk or seriously damaged by rocket and cannon fire.
With Beaufighters attacking Axis ships in Northern Europe, the Mediterranean Burma and with the Australians in the South West Pacific it must, at least, be a good contender for the most successful anti-ship aircraft.

Mike

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## 33k in the air (Apr 18, 2021)

I presume by "anti-ship aircraft" we are excluding aerial minelaying.


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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

SaparotRob said:


> My wife started talking to me and I forgot what this thread was about.



You're supposed to ignore the wife and make encouraging noises when she starts talking, whilst maintaining focus on what you're doing. It's in the manual, bro.

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## SaparotRob (Apr 18, 2021)

nuuumannn said:


> You're supposed to ignore the wife and make encouraging noises when she starts talking, whilst maintaining focus on what you're doing. It's in the manual, bro.


The things one learns here.

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## Ovod (Apr 18, 2021)

Skibear said:


> All 3 were put out of action for considerable time at a critical juncture of the campaign, I'd say that was the definition of success especially with only 20 aircraft committed. That they were not sunk was thanks to being close to land and able to run themselves aground. Success doesn't have to be defined always as tonnage sunk, thus the credit for also disabling the Bismarck. They also played a role as gunnery spotters in the Norway campaign allowing Warspite to put 8 destroyers out of action, nearly half the entire German destroyer fleet. I'd chalk that in the success column for a anti-ship credentials of a very versatile plane.



I never said the raid at Taranto was not a success - when did I say that? There was more than 20 aircraft were committed, there was also an aircraft carrier, 4 cruisers and 4 destroyers.
I'm just trying to point out that the Swordfish just didn't sink a whole lot of warships. Come to think of it most of the carrier based aviation of the RN had a limited effect against the Axis navies - the RAF probably played a greater role sinking enemy ships.


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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

SaparotRob said:


> The things one learns here.



Happy wife, happy life...

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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

Ovod said:


> Come to think of it most of the carrier-based aviation of the RN had a limited effect against the Axis navies



History doesn't agree. From a holistic perspective, their impact was far more significant than you might imagine. For example, Cape Matapan, two Italian cruisers and two destroyers were sunk by British gunfire as a result of a torpedo hit on the cruiser Pola launched from an Albacore. The crippled Pola was torpedoed by British destroyers. Also:

Fairey Swordfish - Aircraft - Fighting the U-boats - uboat.net

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## Ovod (Apr 18, 2021)

nuuumannn said:


> History doesn't agree. From a holistic perspective, their impact was far more significant than you might imagine. For example, Cape Matapan, two Italian cruisers and two destroyers were sunk by British gunfire as a result of a torpedo hit on the cruiser Pola launched from an Albacore. The crippled Pola was torpedoed by British destroyers. Also:
> 
> Fairey Swordfish - Aircraft - Fighting the U-boats - uboat.net


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## SaparotRob (Apr 18, 2021)

This is the first time I've read "holistic" and blowing stuff up in the same paragraph. Refreshing!

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## syscom3 (Apr 18, 2021)

Glider said:


> What did the USN do against the Germans and Italian surface fleet?


When it came to naval surface warfare, the PTO was the big league.

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## Ovod (Apr 18, 2021)

nuuumannn said:


> History doesn't agree. From a holistic perspective, their impact was far more significant than you might imagine. For example, Cape Matapan, two Italian cruisers and two destroyers were sunk by British gunfire as a result of a torpedo hit on the cruiser Pola launched from an Albacore. The crippled Pola was torpedoed by British destroyers. Also:
> 
> Fairey Swordfish - Aircraft - Fighting the U-boats - uboat.net




It's funny you should post a page from that website. It claims that 22 U-boats were sunk by Swordfish - however, it also claims that RAF Coastal Command PB4Ys were responsible for 70 U-boat kills - and this before we even mention other RAF types - who knew that the Handley Page Halifax sunk a handful of U-boats as well?

Handley Page Halifax - Aircraft - Fighting the U-boats - uboat.net

Aircraft Types - Aircraft - Fighting the U-boats - uboat.net

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## nuuumannn (Apr 18, 2021)

Yup, but it doesn't change the premise of the so-called ineffectiveness of British carrier-based aircraft. 

And yes, the Halifax was operated by Coastal Command as a long-range maritime patrol aircraft. It's pretty much where Bomber Command sent its older bombers, with the exception of the Short Stirling, those mainly went to Transport Command or stayed with Bomber Command at OTU level, and the Manchester, those remained in Bomber Command at OTU level too.


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## ThomasP (Apr 18, 2021)

I have also read that the SB2C Helldiver was the king for the US (at least in the PTO), partly due to the wide spread use late-war when they were dropping mines as well as directly attacking ships and boats with bombs and torpedoes. But I have no statistics to verify this.

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## Glider (Apr 19, 2021)

nuuumannn said:


> You're supposed to ignore the wife and make encouraging noises when she starts talking, whilst maintaining focus on what you're doing. It's in the manual, bro.


I left the computer to get a drink and my wife saw this posting. Linda's observation was the partners manual which should simply say 

'Humour him. let him think he's got away with it, and plot revenge when next time your out shopping'.

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## MikeMeech (Apr 19, 2021)

Hi

The BC 'Despatch' mentions the following relating to major German surface units, page 175:







It goes on to mention other attacks against naval targets, including:

"On the 14th and 14/15th June (1944), shortkly after the invasion of Normandy, a heavy and outstandingly successful attack was delivered against enemy light surface craft lying in Le Havre. On the following day an attack was made on similar units at Boulogne. These two attacks sank 88 war vessels including three torpedo boats, four armed trawlers and twenty E/R boats, and robbed the enemy of the use of these craft against our cross-Channel shipping."

Mike

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## michaelmaltby (Apr 19, 2021)

"... have also read that the SB2C Helldiver was the king for the US ..."

.... I have seen that claim for the Helldiver too .... IMO ... I can believe it to be _numerically_ accurate ... for the time and the stage of the Pacific war ... but the tonnage numbers wracked up by Lancaster bombers leads me to the opinion that the leading,#1, anti-shipping AC in WW2 : - tonnage sunk, strategic difficulty of target, longevity of AC war-service, etc. ... is the Avro Lancaster bomber.

The Lanc had legs, could lug heavy payload, and was lovely to fly.


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## GrauGeist (Apr 19, 2021)

Some of the lists I have seen, place certain aircraft at the top depending on that list's criteria.
Total ships sunk
Total tonnage sunk
Total pounds of ordnance dropped
Total sorties flown
and so on...
For total enemy Capital ships sunk, the award would go to the SBD - in the span of one year (December 1941 to December 1942), the Dauntless sank:
6 Carriers
1 Battleship
3 Cruisers
1 Submarine
14 Transports

While the total tonnage or number of vessels sunk in that 12 month period might not stack up to other types' totals, that's still a hard accomplishment to beat.

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## michaelmaltby (Apr 19, 2021)

.... good to know. Great AC ... and serving in the early years.

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## SaparotRob (Apr 19, 2021)

And one of my favorite planes.

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