Blackburn Skua was it that bad?

[Freebird]

Alternatively, if Adm Phillips had woken up when he sighted the Japanese reconnaissance aircraft shadowing Force Z and asked for air support from Singapore, where a whole squadron of Buffalos was on immediate readiness with 2 more standing-by, the ships wouldn't have been sunk...at least not on 10 December 1941.

No argument here - the whole mission was a fiasco, from Churchill overruling the Admiralty to send 2 capital ships on a mission without proper escort, or the ridiculous adherance of the RN to radio silence even after sighting IJN aircraft.


Nonetheless, the Skua would have been more useful on the Force Z mission than just straight fighters

 

[parsifal]

How so. It performed well when not engaged by single engine fighters (just like the 110) and was in big trouble whenever that happened. Pretty similar.

Similar, but not the same, and sufficiently differnt to label the 110 a failure and the Beafighter a success. everything about the Beau was "better" when compered to its german counterpart. It was more heavily armed, a better climber, could turn better, seemed to absorb punishment better. The differences are not that great, i admit, and the Beau was never going to do well in a single engined environment, but my opinion is that it could complete its mission better than the 110.

 

[riacrato]

Calling the 110 a failure is just wrong considering what it did as a nightfighter. And in that role I would actually take it over a Beau. Not to say the beau is a bad plane, it wasn't, but it performed so similar to the 110 that you just can't call one a success and the other a failure.

 

[tomo pauk]

...

it never ceases to amaze me just how ignorant people from non-maritme nations are as to the role and significance naval power has on European affairs throughout history. By extension carrier based air power is the miodern day extension of that influence.

It never ceases to amaze me just how arrogant people can be.

 

[tomo pauk]

Sure, but even with some modern fighters, because of the small capacity of RN carriers, the FAA still needed multi-role aircraft for bombing, that could still be used as fighter defence against bombers

Agree. Skua with Hercules on board would be even more suited for both tasks.



Fighting in France? The FAA was never designed for extended fights near land, but to provide air superiority away from land, or raids against ports ships

Surely not designed, but it was tasked. Eg. covering Dunkirk.



The bomber was of very limited danger to capital ships unless using torpedoes, in which case the Skua was perfectly able to match the Italian or Japanese bombers in 1940.

FAA was tasked to provide cover for merchant ships in Med, so something with better performance armament would come in handy.

The Fulmar was as fast as a SM 79, and while the Skua was slower, it was optimised for a much lower altitude, I don't think the SM 79 was faster at sea level. Does anyone have a speed comparison of a Skua vs a Nell or SM 79 at sea level?

And further, a squadron of Skua's defending a fleet against bombers on a Torp attack could stay at altitude, and dive down on the TB's as they closed in for the attack.

Works fine in theory, but SM-79s still managed to sink damage UK ships in Med, despite protection. And then we need to account in the Ju-88s doing anti-shipping work in (but not only) Med.

(about MC-200)

And out of range for operations in the central Med

Since you stated CR-32 -42 as possible opposition, there is no reason to discount MC-200 from our assessment

If the

 

[parsifal]

It never ceases to amaze me just how arrogant people can be.

Your right TP, I shouldnt have said that, i do apologize

 

[Juha]

hello
IIRC Eric Brown didn't have altogether positive opinion on Skua, but I cannot remember much from his article in one old Air International, only that Skua tended to drop hard on its main wheel when throttle was cut during carrier landing. I don't have time now to try to dig out the article.

And IIRC Sea Gladiator was developed when RN found out in late 39 that the prewar idea to fight out bombing attacks using only naval AA wasn't very good idea after all. because Skua was underpowered and poor climber they needed something better for interceptor role and Sea Gladiator was developed as a stop gap measure while Sea Hurricane and Seafire were developed.

Juha

 

[tomo pauk]

Your right TP, I shouldnt have said that, i do apologize

No problem.

 

[JoeB]

The concept of a/c like the Skua and Fulmar was overtaken by events. It was a basically mistaken concept by the time of WWII. I don't see the reason to deny this obvious fact, just to support the 'underdog' a/c all the time. Carrier operation in early WWII had to avoid, or just skirt as shallowly as possible, the range envelope of single engine fighters based on large land masses. That was actually true in the Pacific too, not just in Europe, untill carriers became vastly more numerous later in the war. Only small island bases with limited complements of fighters, and limited means to protect or disperse the a/c on the ground, could be attacked by carriers at reasonable risk until the much larger carrier forces of 1944.

But, the actual nature of carrier ops, even avoiding large forces of landbased singles, and with the introduction of radar, proved that the Skua/Fulmar type two seater was not optimal, but rather a higher performance single like the Sea Hurricane or Wildcat (Martlet). The Skua in particular had serious issues intercepting even various bomber types though it sometimes succeeed. I'm mystified by the claim that a few of them would have saved the POW and Repulse; those were numerous bombers coming in at varied altitudes, challenging intercepts for a Skua. Even a Hermes worth of higher performance planes, say Wildcats, would have inflicted heavier losses on the attacking a/c but probably not saved the ships. Lexington's larger complement of F4F's shredded an unescorted attack by Japanese Type 1's (Betty) v Lexington in 1942 near Rabaul (where Butch O'Hare won the Medal of Honor), but that was a much smaller force of level bombers only, the attacking 4th Air Group had no torpedoes at Rabaul, and near misses and near suicide crashes were scored as it was.

Joe

 

[parsifal]

The concept of a/c like the Skua and Fulmar was overtaken by events. It was a basically mistaken concept by the time of WWII. I don't see the reason to deny this obvious fact, just to support the 'underdog' a/c all the time. Carrier operation in early WWII had to avoid, or just skirt as shallowly as possible, the range envelope of single engine fighters based on large land masses. That was actually true in the Pacific too, not just in Europe, untill carriers became vastly more numerous later in the war. Only small island bases with limited complements of fighters, and limited means to protect or disperse the a/c on the ground, could be attacked by carriers at reasonable risk until the much larger carrier forces of 1944.

But, the actual nature of carrier ops, even avoiding large forces of landbased singles, and with the introduction of radar, proved that the Skua/Fulmar type two seater was not optimal, but rather a higher performance single like the Sea Hurricane or Wildcat (Martlet). The Skua in particular had serious issues intercepting even various bomber types though it sometimes succeeed. I'm mystified by the claim that a few of them would have saved the POW and Repulse; those were numerous bombers coming in at varied altitudes, challenging intercepts for a Skua. Even a Hermes worth of higher performance planes, say Wildcats, would have inflicted heavier losses on the attacking a/c but probably not saved the ships. Lexington's larger complement of F4F's shredded an unescorted attack by Japanese Type 1's (Betty) v Lexington in 1942 near Rabaul (where Butch O'Hare won the Medal of Honor), but that was a much smaller force of level bombers only, the attacking 4th Air Group had no torpedoes at Rabaul, and near misses and near suicide crashes were scored as it was.

Joe

Joe

98% of the time I agree with your positions, but this is one time i will have to respectfully disagree. Whilst the low performance of the FAA aircraft was a definite disadvantage, your assertion that British Carriers were not in the "thick of it" from the beginning is just not supported by the facts. British carriers were able to enter enemy controlled airspace, particularly in the central basin, time and again, with relative impunity. The paucity of numbers was what prevented them from achieving air superiority, but this did not generally stop them from completing the crucial mission of achieving sea control of any area the RN needed to control (possible exceptions being the closed seas like the Adriatic and Baltic). This was a direct result of the carriers contribution to the RN force capability. They had an effect on all manner of operations, to a very significant degree. I would say that without the British carrier operations of 1940-41, the outcome of the war would have changed completely

I would suggest your comparisons of RN operations to those that occurred in the Pacific by the USN is not a valid comparison, The mission profiles were fundamentally different, as were the conditions under which the two navies were operating......

 

[JoeB]

I would suggest your comparisons of RN operations to those that occurred in the Pacific by the USN is not a valid comparison, The mission profiles were fundamentally different, as were the conditions under which the two navies were operating......

I don't see where I was saying 'British carriers weren't in the think of it' or what that is supposed to mean, even. British carrier doctrine very logically was that carriers would not approach within range of large landmasses containing numerous high performance fighters. This was actually not totally different in the Pacific. USN carriers didn't operate within single engine fighter range of large landmasses either until 1944, when they had become more numerous than any navy's carrier force in 1939-43. The definitions of effective and numerous single engine fighters and their range obviously varied. Axis fighters were typically very short ranged, and the ETO/MTO contained relatively few small 'islands' with limited numbers of fighters* nor any enemy carriers, which the Pacific did contain. That was different, but the basic idea that a TF's of a few carriers could not approach large land masses with lots of fighter bases was pretty universal. And this was the basis of British carrier doctrine and the concept of a/c like the Skua and Fulmar. An additional component of that concept was the pre-war idea that even unescorted bombers would be difficult to detect and intercept, so a single purpose single seat fighter wasn't so worthwhile. This proved wrong in WWII. Radar could enable higher performance singles to intercept unescorted bombers, and the carrier fighthers might also sometimes have to engage land based singles.

In Med operations the Regia Aeronautica coordinated its operations notoriously poorly with Italy's naval needs, so British carriers had some extra scope of operation even fairly near land. But when German a/c arrived that became much less so. Only in pretty extreme cases would RN carriers operate within range of Bf109 bases, then only barely. For example in the Pedestal Convoy to Matla in Aug '42, desperate situation, an RN carrier TF came close enough to Malta to encounter effective escort by Bf109's and the results were hits on one of the British carriers. But even in those operations, the 109's and Italian fighters were usually operating right at the edge of their effective radius. Any closer would have been foolish for the carriers, just based on numbers of a/c on each side. But in those situations, a/c like the Sea Hurricane and Martlet were by far preferable (though Fulmars particpated in those operations, Skua's were gone). The single engine two seat low performance scout/fighter a/c was just the wrong concept.

*though there were examples especially v the Vichy French where, actual island or not, there were small isolated detachments of French fighters with which one or few carriers worth of fighters could reasonably contend. Same with the Torch operation in Morocco, small enough French air contigent for the entire carrier force of US Atlantic fleet to deal with, but using a relatively high performance single seat carrier fighter. Something like a Fulmar was the wrong concept of a/c for that sort of operation.

Joe

 

[Freebird]

The concept of a/c like the Skua and Fulmar was overtaken by events. It was a basically mistaken concept by the time of WWII. I don't see the reason to deny this obvious fact, just to support the 'underdog' a/c all the time. Carrier operation in early WWII had to avoid, or just skirt as shallowly as possible, the range envelope of single engine fighters based on large land masses. That was actually true in the Pacific too, not just in Europe, untill carriers became vastly more numerous later in the war. Only small island bases with limited complements of fighters, and limited means to protect or disperse the a/c on the ground, could be attacked by carriers at reasonable risk until the much larger carrier forces of 1944.

Are you suggesting that the carriers carry ONLY fighters for defence? Unless you are, then the carrier has to have some attack/bomber aircraft. Of the available aircraft in 1940 the Skua makes the most sense on a small carrier, until the arrival of Sea Hurris as a better multi-role aircraft. The Skua can make bombing (or dive) attacks, yet can be used as fleet defence in a pinch, unlike the FAA's TBs, Swordfish or Albacore. It's easy for the USN, with a capacty of 80 or 90 aircraft, you could carry 24 Dauntless, 24 Devastator 36 F-4 (or such) But with the RN's very limited carrier capacity multi-role aircraft make much more sense.

But, the actual nature of carrier ops, even avoiding large forces of landbased singles, and with the introduction of radar, proved that the Skua/Fulmar type two seater was not optimal, but rather a higher performance single like the Sea Hurricane or Wildcat (Martlet). The Skua in particular had serious issues intercepting even various bomber types though it sometimes succeeed.

Again, I'm not suggesting that the carrier have ONLY Skua's, obviously some SeaHurri's or Martlets would be needed as well. If the Hermes was being sent out with Force Z to attack Japanese shipping, probably the best mix would be Sea Hurri and some Swordfish, but if only Skuas were available, then better than nothing.

 

[Freebird]

I'm mystified by the claim that a few of them would have saved the POW and Repulse; those were numerous bombers coming in at varied altitudes, challenging intercepts for a Skua. Even a Hermes worth of higher performance planes, say Wildcats, would have inflicted heavier losses on the attacking a/c but probably not saved the ships.

Absolutely disagree with you here. There was no problem of "varied altitudes", as ONLY the torpedo attacks (at sea level obviously) were of any great danger. Both ships were earlier hit by both 250 500 lb bombs, with no critical damage. The Repulse evaded 3 TB attacks, (by combing), and only on the 4th attack did the Japanese get a hit, by making TB runs from 3 directions at once. As she was hit, there were only a few IJN aircraft left, if they had missed it would be too late to return for another attack. The Japanese were able to set up these attacks with almost complete impunity, due to the lack of fighters the RN's weak AA. Had the British had Hurricanes the Japanese would almost certainly have broken off the attack. The Skua may not have shot down many Japanese bombers, but they could certainly disrupt the TB attacks, it's pretty hard to hold straight level as someone is pumping lead into your tail.

Lexington's larger complement of F4F's shredded an unescorted attack by Japanese Type 1's (Betty) v Lexington in 1942 near Rabaul (where Butch O'Hare won the Medal of Honor), but that was a much smaller force of level bombers only, the attacking 4th Air Group had no torpedoes at Rabaul, and near misses and near suicide crashes were scored as it was.
Joe

And almost ANY bombing hit is bad news against a US carrier, wheas it would be little problem for the BB's BC's. (Hermes may have been hit, but the other 2 ships would likely survive) It is also easier for the bombers to attack from altitude. The British fighters would ONLY have to prevent the TB's from making a multi-directional TB attack which the ships couldn't comb.

 

[parsifal]

Joe


You raise the very valid point that British carriers would not generally operate within range of land based fighters. true enough, though it is by no means a universal rule. British carriers often operated within range of Axis fighters, be they German or Italian. And for precisely the reasons you bring sorward, ie the range that such actions occurred, the socalled second rate British Naval Fighters were able to give far better than they received, simply because the fighters they were engaging could not hang around, and as a result could not engage in either the numbers, nor could they press home tactical advantages they might otherwise enjoy.

But it was not the poor performance of the British fighters that determined whether or not carriers, or ships could operate for extended periods in Axis airspace. it was numbers, or more correctly the lack of them. British carriers were far too few, and their CAGs far too small to be abale to stan up to Axis land based air and duke it out with them. This would have been just as true if they had been equipped with first rate fighters, as the fighters they actually were given.

And even though the second string fighters given to the Royal Navy appeared to be a tactical handicap, this was more illusory than real. Because of the small numbers, and because these older, leess effective types were at least available, pushing the Skuas, Sea Glads and Fulmars into the fray at least allowed fighter defence to be available, and at no cost to the high performance fighters (Spit and Hurricanes so urgently needed elsehere at that time. If Britain had poured resources into fileding 1st line fighters for her carriers, she would have gone to war with no carrier based fighters, and a large block of 1st line land based fighters would have been diverted away from fighter command

 

[tomo pauk]

For the sake of discussion, would it be better if Fairey produced Sea Hurricanes instead of same number of Fulmars and Fireflies? They used same engines (until Fireflies reciived Griffons) , so land-based Hurricanes would be produced as they were historically.

 

[fastmongrel]

Did Hawkers or any other manufacturer ever build a folding wing Sea Hurricane or was it not thought worth the effort spending development money on an aircraft that was going to be replaced pretty soon by better aircraft.

 

[Freebird]

The concept of a/c like the Skua and Fulmar was overtaken by events. It was a basically mistaken concept by the time of WWII. I don't see the reason to deny this obvious fact, just to support the 'underdog' a/c all the time.
Joe

You don't supply any data or theories to support this "obvious fact"? The fact that carrier doctrine was to avoid engagement with land based fighters does not invalidate the concept.

Further, you refer to "the concept of a/c like the Skua and Fulmar", and yet these are two different types of aircraft.
And even if true it's pretty hard to predict " obsolete concept by the time of WWII" when the Skua was designed in 1934.

So lets take these 3 aircraft separately:

1.) The Skua. This was a perfectly good aircraft. For an aircraft introduced in 1937 it's hardly a surprise that it was obsolete by 1941. It was NOT designed as fighter/recon as you seem to imply, it was designed as a Dive bomber, with a secondary capability as a fighter. It performed quite well as a DB, and was adequate as an emergency fighter, provided that it didn't engage enemy first line fighters. It was withdrawn from FAA service in 1941.

Let's look at a hypothetical RN carrier complement of 36 aircraft in late '39 or early '40. Neither the Sea Hurri or Martlet are available yet, the RN fighters would be Sea Gladiators. If the carrier had:

12 Sea Gladiators
12 Sea Skua
12 Swordfish

It would be able to launch an airstrike of 24 aircraft, and had 12 fighters for protection, with an additional 12 Skuas to assist in the defence in an emergency (capable against slower aircraft like the SM 81 or Ju 87)

Since neither the Sea Glad or Swordfish had the range of the Skua, it would also be useful as a scout/recon for the carrier.

In answer to the original question - "Was the Skua that bad?" No.
It was equal or better in performance than the comparable US aircraft in service in 1937 - 1940, the Northrop BT-1 or the Douglas TBD-1

 

[Freebird]

The Fulmar: Unlike the Skua which was a DB with some limited fighter capability, the Fulmar was just a plain fighter, and it was indeed a failure.

It was introduced only a half year before the Sa Hurri on RN carriers, and although it had a better range, it had less than half the ceiling, much slower climb rate, could only carry a 250 lb bomb, and was about80 (!) mph slower (yikes!)

For the sake of discussion, would it be better if Fairey produced Sea Hurricanes instead of same number of Fulmars? They used same engines, so land-based Hurricanes would be produced as they were historically.

In answer to your question, probably not. The Fulmar started coming off the assembly line in 1940, and the British were desparate for any aircraft available, and as soon as possible. So to delay for perhaps 3 - 6 months to re-tool would not be a good idea. The aircraft were still useful later on as night fighters, where the second crewman could operate the radar, and many Fulmars were converted to NF. In 1940 the RN still needed aircraft to replace the Sea Glads, and since no Hurris could be spared until after the BoB (1941), that's why the Fulmar was put on board carriers in summer 1940

Otherwise I would have switched from producing Fulmars to Fireflys at the earliest possible date.

 

[tomo pauk]

Firebird,
If I understand you correctly, it was easier for Fairey to build a new type of fighter, then to produce Sea Hurricanes? What type of retooling would be needed if we completely erase Fulmar from Faireys history? And then: why on earth would you want Fireflies, and what those had to offer when compared to Martlets, Sea Hurries, Seafires or Corsairs?

 

[parsifal]

Firebird,
If I understand you correctly, it was easier for Fairey to build a new type of fighter, then to produce Sea Hurricanes? What type of retooling would be needed if we completely erase Fulmar from Faireys history? And then: why on earth would you want Fireflies, and what those had to offer when compared to Martlets, Sea Hurries, Seafires or Corsairs?

Fireflies were actually more useful than their limited peformance might suggest. For a start they were a very effective carrier borne night fighter, and because they carried two crew could operate in conditions of poor weather far more effectively than single man aircraft.....compared to the RN, USN night and poor weather operating abilities were very limited, and this could be decisive in the poor conditions of the far northern atlantic (not a single American carrier operation ever took place on the northern route to Russia whereas the RN provided carrier based air cover on a regular basis to the Murmansk convoys). They also had a very useful strike capability, and were far more survivable than any other strike aircraft. With a crew of two, they were able to find targets very accurately in these poor visibility conditions


Now, with regard to your theory about Sea Hurricanes in place of Fulmars, Hurricanes only became availble to the FAA after they were obsolete in the RAF. Ther was absolutely zero chance of even a single Hurricane being available for carrier operations until well into 1941. Moreover the ability to operate such high performance aircraft on and off carriers was not realized as possible until after the emrgency landings and takeoffs during the Norwegian campaign and also during the Malta re-supply operations. Even then it took some time to realize that SE fighters could operate and navigate effectively. Until well into 1941 normal procedure required the Hurricanes being flown to Malta being guided to the destination by the two seat Fulmars (if at all possible). Britain was slow to realize that in normal weather conditions single seat types could operate over water. Although I hasten to add that the Brits still found their two man aircraft useful in the often soupy conditions they were forced to operate in...RN aircraft demonstrated many times their superior ability to operate in poor weather conditions and at night, something facilitated by the two crew configuration....

It was only after the RN started to "americanise" its carrier doctrines that single seat aircraft became useful. This meant that night operations and poor weather operation capability was abandone in favour of the massed daylight strike approach being used to great effect in the Pacific. However it also meant a loss of flexibility and capability, as the ability to operate at night and in poor weather, such as the RN demonstrated in its great victories at Taranto and against the Bismarck was greatly reduced after 1942, after the RN started to adopt the "mass production" pilot training techniques of the USN