Attack aircraft

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Milosh said:
Disagree. The P-51 as the A-36 was a better dive bomber.
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Too slow as it used dive brakes. By even 43 a slow dive braked dive bomber could not exist against reasonable AA. Dive bombing had to be fast.

The A-36 was a good concept, but (there is always is a but) by 43 it was too slow (much slower than a normal P-51A) and slow dive bombing was a recipe for suicide.

What you needed (and an upgraded A-36 could have done the job, but they never did that) was a plane that could go fast at (say 10,000-15,000ft), dive deeply (70 degrees or more) , pull out on the deck and pull away fast. There was one Allied plane that could do that, the Spit. Even a Mustang couldn't pull that sort of G low down off of a steep dive right to the deck.

The other TAC ones used rockets or shallow bombed (Tiffies, P-47s, Mossies, et al)
 
Be sure, 390mph in a dive is too slow. Bomb release could be as low as 2000' which does not leave much room for the pull out.

A little article on the Spit and dive bombing, Spitbomber > Vintage Wings of Canada

Fl Lt Raymond Baxter ....."approach made at 8,000 ft .... never below 5,000 ft .....speed reduced to 200 knots ..... rolled ..... target lined up in the centre of the unlocked gyro-gunsight .... throttled back and trimmed into what was effectively a hands-off dive at about 70 degrees .... Once trimmed, and with the throttle pulled back, the Mk XVI held very steady when hurtling groundward, which allowed you to make full use of the excellent Mk II gunsight ...... the gunsight graticule was brought to bear on the target .... We never really monitored our dive speeds .... I think 360 mph was a typical maximum ..... bombs (presumably only 250-lbs under the wings) usually released at 3,000 ft – no lower than 1,500 ft – and the aircraft was then pulled out to escape at low level. An experienced pilot could bomb accurately to within 25 to 30 yards". If the bombs failed to release, then the aircraft would usually break up during the attempted pull-out.
 

The fighter bomber rendered the purpose built dive bomber redundant, except in some theatres where the fighter/AA defences were relatively light - the low speeds of the like of the Ju 87 made it very difficult for escorting fighters which either had to slow down and weave to keep up the Ju 87 showed just how vulnerable

While the Spitfire did a fine job with 2 TAF it did have its problems with deformed wings with when it was pressed into the dive attack role, which is one reason the clipped wings were adopted on the Mk XVIs. In general the fighter bomber superseded the purpose built dive bombers - except in theatres where the opposition had light fighter opposition and unsophisticated flak defences - for the reasons you've described; high speed low down to get in fast, climb to altitude quickly, dive, then get away again at high speed and low altitude where it was able to defend itself against opposition fighters.

I cannot think of any bunker busting bombs that were able to be used by either dive bombers or fighter bombers during the war - even with the Ju 87 available and at peak accuracy in 1940 the Germans still needed troops on the ground with hollow-charge explosives to disable the outer defences of the forts at Eban-Emael, which were protected with a mere 1.5 metres of reinforced concrete.

There was a German AP bomb available which could penetrate 2.5 metres of concrete - this was the PC 1600 production of which was stopped in October 1942; weighed 3,527 lbs so couldn't be carried by fighter or dive bombers
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HxDQdIZYoE

some interesting comments on the Spitfire dive bombing by an SAAF pilot:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmskTpbCW3w

Both did a great job and stating which was better is impossible to say without a detailed analysis of their combat records when operating purely as dive bombers. The A-36 could carry 500 lb bombs under the wings, while the Spitfire could carry one under the fuselage, but it couldn't operate as a proper dive bomber because it didn't have the release gear needed to avoid hitting the propeller at angles over about 50 degrees.
 
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The A-36 proved itself many times over, even as late as 1944, where a flight of 4 successfully attacked a heavily defended rail depot in Italy in foul weather. Even after taking damage, the lead element of the flight still delivered accurate hits to it's target and withdrew safely to a friendly airbase.
 
cimmex said:
Flying and missing, means waste resources is more effective, really a great statement…
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Actually yes. At best, under the most ideal circumstances aircraft flying in direct support were responsible for about 2-4% of casualties. Yet the mere fact that aircraft are overhead can provide firepower modifiers for the ground forces in various ways, to the tune of more than 60%. in other words, aircraft over an army's head improves its efficiency by more than 60%.

Its one of the main reasons the German Army was so inneffective in its operations in the last 2.5 years of the war.

Aircraft effectiveness as a battelfield modifier has virtually nothing to do with its ability to kill things. Its ability to fly, be seen and survivie has much to do with it. The Germans never got that
 
parsifal said:
Aircraft effectiveness as a battelfield modifier has virtually nothing to do with its ability to kill things. Its ability to fly, be seen and survivie has much to do with it. The Germans never got that
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In the early stages of the war, the Germans excelled at using airpower to augment their ground forces. Both with level bombing and dive bombing and GA by the fighters, the Wehrmacht was able to enjoy success.

With the loss of air superiority came the loss of safety for the ground troops meaning they were no longer able to get full Luftwaffe support for the infantry/armor with air-strikes or air-support when the enemy pressed their positions but instead had to not only worry about defending thier positions from Allied ground forces but were forced to modify thier movements due to punishing Allied air attacks.
 

Just a question. Is it possible that even though they might have only caused 2-4% of the casualties that they caused the right casualties or some casualties that were a sticking point for the ground forces?
 
It is not just air superiority that allowed dive bombers to operate and be effective. It was the lack of numbers of effective AA guns. The Dive bomber attack profile gives the defenders too much warning and tracking time. Trading a number of aircraft for an important bridge is one thing, trading aircraft for trucks or a couple of pill boxes is another.
 
Wildcat said:
Another question. Did the Allies ever achieve air superiority to such an extant that it was feasible to re-introduce dedicated dive bombers to the ETO?
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Nope, because of the German mastery of light flak. By the time of Normandy flying low and slow was suicide against the German 20mm, etc flak guns.
Clostermann tells of an attack on a German airfield they went in with 8 ... came out with 2. And that was in Tempests.

Tiffie guys had the sort of loss rates that the heavy bombers had, second only to U-Boat crews in 'the most suicidal jobs in WW2' competition. I (though I haven't checked them) the P-47 people probably had similar experience in the 9th and 19th TAC US airforces.
 
OldSkeptic said:
Clostermann tells of an attack on a German airfield they went in with 8 ... came out with 2. And that was in Tempests.
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Must be one of Clostermann's embellishments as there was only one day, April 24 1945, when 6 Tempests were lost. They were from 4 different squadrons (222, 486, 33 (2), 56 (2)) and were at different locations (Ratzeburg, Hamburg, Konigsmoor, Schonberg, Pritzwalk (2)). Flak and small arms fire were the reason for the losses tho.
 

Ah yes - The Big Show...unfortunately, while Clostermann's book can be exciting and sometimes interesting, it should be treated as a work of fiction unless there is corroborating evidence: in another instance he told a fairly gruesome tale of how Wing Cdr. Brooker, C/O of 123 Wing, supposedly died in a fiery crash after being hit by flak on 16 April 1945, with Clostermann as a wing man and eyewitness. Sadly for the truth Clostermann wasn't on the mission and no-one knows what happened to Brooker except that the armed recce flight was bounced by Fw 190s.
 
As for single vs. two engines for attack planes, there was an interesting exchange noted at the 1944 Joint Fighter Conference related to fighter bomber survivability.

Page 87:

Colonel Garman: "I can speak only for the African theatre and only for a particular type of operation. The P-38 was used at low altitude on many occasions and we found that it was quite vulnerable to ground fire - any type of ground fire, even small arms fire. But other planes also experienced that same ground fire and the radial engines brought the planes home. You can't lay down any hard and fast rule and say the in-line engine is no good at low altitude as far as ground fire is concerned, It all depends on the operation entirely."

Lieutenant Colonel Tyler: "We have data which shows that in the entire European theatre the P-47 is much better able to take punishment and return after any sort of mission - either ground attack or any mission which incurs damage. That may be due to the P-47 airplane or due to the air-cooled feature. We don't know which, but it certainly can take it better than other types."
 
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Some people claim the P-40 was better than the P-38 because all the important stuff was in the nose. Minor hits from the behind the cockpit to the tail didn't do much ( killed the radio?) The P-38 had stuff stretched out over quite a distance. Radiators were almost half way from the wing to the tail.
In the CBI theater the P-38 was noted for having by far the the lowest losses for ground attack missions. However they were only a few squadrons of P-38s in theater so perhaps the the sample is too small for an accurate analysis.
 
That's a good point SR. It is not so much whether a liquid cooled engine is inherently more vulnerable, rather how the radiator and piping are set up and protected.

Shoving everything into a chin radiator (and especially if you then armoured it, which never seemed to have been done) as per the P-40, Tiffie and Tempest seems inherently less vulnerable than say the Spit/109 under wing type, the rear fuselage Mustang type or the rear stuff in the booms of a P-38.

Not sure about the in-wing type that the Mossie used. It was vulnerable to debris from planes they attacked exploding or breaking up. But I have absolutely nothing about its vulnerability to ground fire (if anyone here knows anything please enlighten us). At least its piping runs were short
 
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