Best dive-bomber of the pacific

syscom3 said:

A blown off cylinder would entail the loss of lubricating oil. If the top of a cylinder is blown off, that's probably a fire hazard right there (raw fuel being dumped onto the engine).

Perhaps the story's that have made the rounds, pertain to cooling fin damage or cracked cylinders that aren't leaking oil to any degree.

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Could very well be. I was just going by a vague memory.

pbfoot said:

I'm really not smart enough to say one is better then another but as for radials being easier to work on I can point out some guys that would dispute that after working on the Wright 3350 Turbo Compound
nice sound of 4 of them on take off as soon as you to website
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A very long time ago I worked briefly (thank god) on a P2V7 and the 3350 Turbo Compound is a beast. With that said I can't imagine having a larger in line engine with a coolant system being any more maintainer friendly, especially when it was used in a military application. On a radial you can pull cylinder heads off while the engine is still on the airframe, I doubt you're going to be doing that with an inline

your correct , Although a reality show Ice Pilots they have on several occasions blown a cylnder away from base and amazingly enough most times carry one as a spare

Yep - an opposed engine offers the same benifit.

syscom3 said:

Plus the CAP had plenty of time to get up to the altitude of the dive bombers as there was plenty of time between the VT and VB strikes. The Zero was a fast climber. The main problem wasn't so much the altitude of the two planes, it was the Zero's were completely out of their assigned sectors, horizontally speaking, for patrolling.

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If I recall, VT-3 made its escorted attack at about the same time that VB-3 hit the Soryu and VB/VS-6 made attacks on the Akagi and Kaga. It is very possible the real problem with the IJN CAP was that the CAP-vs-escort battle soaked up many of the 47 or so defending Zeroes. Both Navy's regarded the VT (torpedo threat as the real ship killer. The USN based that in part on their Coral Sea experience and the IJN based in part on their ignorance on how bad the USN's Mark 13 really was). Thus, early in the war, the two navies shared a bias toward a lower altitude deployment of CAP aircraft. In the USN this altitude was frequently around 10,000 feet which put the slow climbing F4F at a disadvantage since the IJN pilots usually came in higher. The high flying, relatively speedy Kate came as a real shock to the USN.

syscom3 said:

Renrich; one more thing about Midway. The IJN had a very primitive system for central fighter control. Granted that the USN still had a LOT to learn, but the IJN simply was not able to handle multiple threats coming in at different altitudes and distances. You might say that the lack of an effective doctrine and radio control put the fleet defenses into a position it could not handle nor recover from.

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Very true. A story partly related in Lundstrom's First Team describes Jim Gray's 10 VF-6 escort F4F-4's arriving over the IJN Carriers during the VT-8 attack (who according to one unremembered source, he misidentified as VT-6). He remained at altitude because he didn't hear the prearranged call for help from his Enterprise ship mates of whom he had lost track. Supposedly, his aircraft were misidentified as high level bombers and were essentially ignored by the IJN CAP. Without RADAR, decent radios and no fighter direction system (USN's of course courtesy of the Brits) they couldn't organize their CAP with any efficiency. It is my understanding, they never really solved this deficiency and US Dive Bombers inevitably got through. In contrast, the IJN dive bombers suffered massive losses at Midway when the RADAR fighter direction worked if not perfectly, at least effectively. Unfortunately the Hiryu Dive Bombers that got through were the IJN's first team and the 7 of 18 that survived the CAP intercept (and retained their bombs) got 3 hits.

RCAFson said:

According to Navweaps The three USN carriers had 103 operational SBDs at Midway, but my point is that the Barracuda had relatively few opportunities to attack naval targets, but it did so successfully when it had the chance.

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On June 4, Only 27 of the Yorktown's 33 operational SBDs participated in the battle. The Enterprise contributed another 32. Thus only a total 59 SBDs from those two carriers participated in the battle on the 4rth. The Hornet, with 34 SBDs on hand, only saw the burning Hiryu after she had been fatally hit by a previous combined (Yorktown/Enterpise) strike. Airwing training of the newly commissioned Hornet had suffered due to its participation in the Doolittle raid and she was essentially a bystander until the 5TH 6th during the Pursuit of the limping IJN cruisers. Lacking an armor peircing bomb, the 60 or so remaining SBDs on the surviving 2 CVs had difficulty putting the two CAs down even though they scored many hits on the slow moving targets which had collided earlier. They eventually sank one (actually I think the IJN finally scuttled her) but only managed to seriously maim the other. Thus there were never more than 60 SBDs attacking IJN ships at any one time during the battle.

FLYBOYJ said:

And between June 5 and 6 1942 about 40 SBDs sunk 4 aircraft carriers and a heavy crusier.

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Very close to the mark. In the morning, 47 SBD's attacked three IJN carriers, but only 43-44 carried bombs, as some had been inadvertantly jettisoned due to an electrical glitch.

The 13 bomb toting SBDs of VB-3 attacked the Soryu from around the compass similar to the Hiryu's divebomber attack on the Yorktown to allow optimal geometry on the manuevering carrier. They obtained 3 sure hits and an unknown number of near misses. That's almost 25% accuracy but unknown precision.

The 3 SBDs of Dick Bests section hit the Akagi in a difficult cross-deck attack scoring one sure hit and two damaging near misses. Hard to do much better than 30% accuracy and near perfect precision.

Finally, the remaining 27 SBDs of VB and VS-6 hit the Kaga achieving about 5 hits and an equal number of near misses. That's nearly 20% accuracy and awfully good precision.

On successive days, about 40 cummulative SBDs attacked IJN crusiers and destroyers. The 60 or so surviving SBDs also were tasked with fulfilling ASW patrols and search duties in addition to their strike activities.

For me, the dump truck is the best dedicated dive bomber of WW2 by a wide margin including considerations of performance, handling, survivability and accuracy of bombing.

oldcrowcv63 said:

Very close to the mark. In the morning, 47 SBD's attacked three IJN carriers, but only 43-44 carried bombs, as some had been inadvertantly jettisoned due to an electrical glitch.

The 13 bomb toting SBDs of VB-3 attacked the Soryu from around the compass similar to the Hiryu's divebomber attack on the Yorktown to allow optimal geometry on the manuevering carrier. They obtained 3 sure hits and an unknown number of near misses. That's almost 25% accuracy but unknown precision.

The 3 SBDs of Dick Bests section hit the Akagi in a difficult cross-deck attack scoring one sure hit and two damaging near misses. Hard to do much better than 30% accuracy and near perfect precision.

Finally, the remaining 27 SBDs of VB and VS-6 hit the Kaga achieving about 5 hits and an equal number of near misses. That's nearly 20% accuracy and awfully good precision.

On successive days, about 40 cummulative SBDs attacked IJN crusiers and destroyers. The 60 or so surviving SBDs also were tasked with fulfilling ASW patrols and search duties in addition to their strike activities.

For me, the dump truck is the best dedicated dive bomber of WW2 by a wide margin including considerations of performance, handling, survivability and accuracy of bombing.

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Great info!

oldcrowcv63 said:

The 3 SBDs of Dick Bests section hit the Akagi in a difficult cross-deck attack scoring one sure hit and two damaging near misses. Hard to do much better than 30% accuracy and near perfect precision.

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One of the near misses wrecked one of the rudders of the Soryu. The fickle finger of fate decided that this hit effectively took this carrier out of the fight even before the fires started by Dick Bests bomb got out of control.

I guess it's fair to call that particular near miss as good as a hit if not a damaging near miss. I won't debate which carrier Best (VB-6) and Leslie's VB-3 hit. I appreciate the evidence in each case with my opinion posted above. All I think we can know for certain is that each got one. Somebody got the Akagi and somebody hit the Soryu. 8)

Id suggest the IJNs B7A Grace. Had no impact on the war, but as an aircraft it had few equals and none superior

parsifal said:

Id suggest the IJNs B7A Grace. Had no impact on the war, but as an aircraft it had few equals and none superior

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But it did nothing.

syscom3 said:

But it did nothing.

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Yeah I know, but was that the fault of the aircraft or the circumstances it found itself in .

the logic is warped. its a bit like saying the SBD was the worst aircraft because more of that type were lost than any other divebomber in the pacific......