A-20 vs. Beaufighter
- Thread starter tomo pauk
- Start date
No early war NF was particularly successful, but the Beaufighter was the best of the lot. As far as early war NF's went the Beaufighter was pretty good.
Lucky13
Forum Mascot
A Beaufighter with rockets could ruin anyones quiet and relaxing afternoon, can't remember ever see the A-20 carry any rockets....
davebender
1st Lieutenant
Rockets will scratch the paint of an armored warship or a bunker made of reinforced concrete. You need the 4 x 500 lb bombs or 2 x 18" aerial torpedoes carried by the A-20.
Shortround6
Lieutenant General
Rockets can sure beat up on anything less than a cruiser.
And even on a cruiser having holes blown in the stacks (lessening draft), AA guns knocked out, search lights, radars, gun directors and other topside equipment (deck torpedo tubes anyone?) suffer rocket hits just might qualify as ruining anyones quiet and relaxing afternoon
And even on a cruiser having holes blown in the stacks (lessening draft), AA guns knocked out, search lights, radars, gun directors and other topside equipment (deck torpedo tubes anyone?) suffer rocket hits just might qualify as ruining anyones quiet and relaxing afternoon
syscom3
Pacific Historian
I dont think the A20 ever carried torpedo's into battle. It had the capability, but that doesnt mean it was used operationally.
The Beaufighter carried/had the capability to carry torpedo's didn't it?
syscom3
Pacific Historian
I dont recall the light and medium bomber units in the SW Pacific carrying torpedo's. Once skip bombing was shown to be superior, there wasnt much reason to carry them.
Most anti-shipping missions in that part of the world were search type missions where the most likely type of ship to be found were small coastal luggers and barges. In which 500 pound bombs (and lots of forward firing cannons and .50's) were more than adequate for the task at hand.
davebender
1st Lieutenant
Soviet A-20s carried aerial torpedoes.
Prior to 1944 the USN had defective torpedoes. So if given a choice you carry bombs.
Prior to 1944 the USN had defective torpedoes. So if given a choice you carry bombs.
Wildcat
Major
The only Allied light/medium torpedo bomber units in the Pacific that I can think of is the RAAF Beaufort squadrons. They flew torpedo missions up till early '44 as part of the onslaught aganist Rabaul in Oct 43- Jan 44 campaign. I know USAAF B-26's conducted torpedo trials in Australia, but I'm unsure if the 22BG flew any operationally.
syscom3
Pacific Historian
Defective sub torpedo's. The aerial torpedo's werent exactly great weapons but usually worked.
syscom3
Pacific Historian
Its quite possible Beaufighters were equipped with torpedos in that time frame. But it had to be on only a few missions where they expected Japanese ships to be around.
I know the 22nd had a few missions where they did equip with torpedo's (outside of Midway) but as far as I know, they didnt hit anything.
Wildcat
Major
RAAF Beaufighters in the Pacific never equipped with torpedoes, in fact the only other RAAF aircraft that flew torpedo strikes were Catalina's on two occasions.
davebender
1st Lieutenant
What makes you think that? It appears to me that 69% of USN aerial torpedoes malfunctioned under normal combat conditions two years after the U.S. entered the war. As bad as performance for the Mk-14 submarine torpedo.
USN Mk 13 Aerial Torpedo
USA Torpedoes of World War II
USN Mk 13 Aerial Torpedo
USA Torpedoes of World War II
renrich
Chief Master Sergeant
B26s carried and dropped torpedoes at Midway but got no hits. I don't whether the aerial torps suffered with the same maladies as the larger ones but they were slow and had to be dropped low and slow and were not very effective. I wonder if the torps carried by the B26s were carried internally or externally.
Shortround6
Lieutenant General
Both the B-25 and B-26 wered equiped to carry torpedoes in the early models. Given the launch restrictions on the early MK 13 torpedo the A-20 wouldn't have offered any advantage as a launch platform except a bit smaller target. A-20s shorter range has already been mentioned.
Training squadrons to do torpedo attacks might be another thing.
Training squadrons to do torpedo attacks might be another thing.
davebender
1st Lieutenant
Nothing prevents the USN from putting competent leaders in charge of torpedo development. We built the Merlin engine under license and used it to power American aircraft. Why not build the British 18" Mk XII aerial torpedo under license?
They also flew a few missions with them later in 1942 in the Aleutians, again without definite success. Then, B-26's in the Aleutians obtained at least one significant sinking with skip bombing.
There was nothing basically wrong with the Mark 13, but it had the same kind of flaws as the other major US torpedo models of the 1930's (Mark 14 sub, Mark 15 DD). Not the same exact flaws, but same pattern of relatively minor issues that hadn't been debugged properly, because of lack of sufficiently realistic testing and general dysfunctionality of the Torpedo Station at Newport, the main design agent. While realtively easy to overcome once isolated, these flaws caused a lot of failures in the meantime. And the Mark 13 originally had quite restrictive launch criteria in height and speed, often naturally exceeded in combat operations. The re-engineered versions had much wider launch envelope, and again this didn't involve a fundamental re-design, just detail work on various components, plus the ring tail and break-away plywood head. In Mark 13's case the rework was done by Cal Tech. It's true the improved torpedoes were only issued in 1944, when they proved reliable and had as wide or wider speed/altitude envelope as anybody else's aerial torps.
But again, the USAAF wasn't mainly looking to launch torpedoes and foiled by the Mark 13. They were looking for an alternative to medium altitude bombing of ships which the USAAF *gradually* agknowledged was not getting a lot of hits*. Skip bombing was one idea and it proved spectacularly successful, no reason to look back at that point. It was not just against '500 ton luggers. Skip bombing was deadly v. full size (in those days several 1,000 ton) merchant ships, escorts, and DD's and severly damaged cruisers in a few cases too.
*in air-air case we still sometimes only have one side's account so it's still often quoted. Whereas actual sinkings of Japanese warships and large merchant ships, were mainly (with some later corrections) catalogued by the late '40's. But in say 1942, the USAAF was still going partly on its own claims of far greater numbers of Japanese ships sunk, eg. sinkings by B-17's at Midway which didn't occur; but was gradually realizing the hit rate was too low.
B-26 in the Aleutians w/ underslung Mark 13
Joe
Last edited:
syscom3
Pacific Historian
Ive never seen that pic before.
Thanks!
Thanks!
davebender
1st Lieutenant
Unfortunately they remained disfunctional well into 1943. I guess when the Pacific Fleet commander was judged incompetent nobody had time to worry about small commands like the torpedo station.
Anyway....
Russian service shows the A-20 was a fine torpedo bomber when equipped with proper aerial torpedoes.
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