parsifal
Colonel
The Skua
The Blackburn Skua was a fighter/dive-bomber used by the British Fleet Air Arm in the early years of World War II. All but forgotten now the Skua was flown in combat over Norway, the beaches of Dunkirk and in the Mediterranean. It gained the distinction of being the first Fleet Air Arm aircraft to shoot down a German aircraft in World War Two (a Dornier Do Flying boat on 26th September 1939) and also being the first aircraft to sink a major warship in wartime when Skuas sank the cruiser Königsberg in Bergen harbour on 10th April 1940. The Skua was also the first aircraft to carry out an interception of an enemy aircraft controlled by shipbourne radar.
Specification:
Engine: Bristol Perseus XII nine cylinder, sleeve valve, air cooled radial engine rated at 815 hp (could give a higher power rating of over 900 hp for 5 mins on emergency boost).
Max Speed: 225 mph at 6,700 ft, 204 mph at sea level.
Service ceiling 20,500 ft (reached in 43 mins), the Skua had a very poor rate of climb.
Total fuel: 163 imperial gallons, giving a maximum range of some 760 miles (an endurance of over 4 hours).
Armament: Four Browning .303 machine guns in wings with 600 rounds per gun (nearly double the number of rounds-per-gun of a Hurricane or Spitfire). One Lewis .303 machine gun in rear cockpit (whenever possible the gunner would try to replace this with a Vickers "K" gun which was more reliable and had a higher rate of fire). One 500 lb semi-armour-piercing bomb(SAP) or one 500 lb armour-piercing (AP) or one 250 lb general purpose (GP) bomb recessed under fuselage and held in a bomb crutch to swing it clear of the propeller in dive bombing attacks. A "light series carrier" bomb rack could be fitted under each wing. Each carrier could hold 4 x 20 lb Cooper bombs or incendiaries or 2 x 40 lb bombs or incendiaries.
The 500lb AP and SAP bombs was only used against armoured warships, for attacks on merchant ships and ground targets the normal bombload was a 250 lb bomb in the fuselage recess and either 20lb or 40lb bombs on the light series carriers. The 250 lb bomb had only a little less explosive content than the 500lb SAP and AP bombs (the extra weight of the latter was down to the casing, needed to punch through armour). If used against ground targets the SAP and AP bombs would often bury themselves deep before exploding, reducing the blast effect. The small and largely ineffective 100 lb anti-submarine (AS) bomb could also be carried in the fuselage recess.
The Skua prototypes used the well tried Bristol Mercury engine but use of these engines in the huge Blenheim bomber programme meant that production Skuas had to use the new Bristol sleeve valve Perseus engine. There is no evidence that the Perseus engine as used on the Skua was particularly unreliable in itself, but the new sleeve valve technology must have made maintenance more difficult and the Perseus's small production run must have made spares hard to find as the war years rolled by. The spin characteristics of the Skua were bad enough to prompt the fitting of an anti-spin parachute in the tail to aid recovery.
When reading histories of the Fleet Air Arm in the Second World War you often find naval writers blame the lacklustre performance of the Skua on the RAF and Air Ministry who effectively ran the Fleet Air Arm and controlled its supply of aircraft until 24th April 1939. Meanwhile writers in the RAF camp blame the Skuas poor performance on the specifications laid down by the Admiralty, particularly for it having to share the role of fighter and dive bomber. It is interesting to note that both the USA's Dauntless dive bomber and the Japanese Aichi "Val" dive bomber are often praised for their ability to act as fighters in an emergency! It is also worth remembering that when Skuas joined the Fleet Air Arm they went to fighter squadrons which operated a mix of Hawker Nimrod single seat fighters and Hawker Osprey two seat fighter-bombers. There is no doubt that the FAA found the Osprey with its dual-role, longer endurance, and top speed only a little lower than its single seat stable-mate, a much more useful aircraft. A lot of the enthusiasm for "multi-role" aircraft in the FAA seems to have come from the pilots themselves, rather than the Admirals (see Geoffrey Till's book "Air Power and the Royal Navy 1914-1945"). The Skua was designed with a very specific task in mind, the sinking of enemy aircraft carriers, for which its single 500 lb bomb would have been more than adequate (only Britain developed and deployed aircraft carriers with armoured decks during World War II). The role of fighter was secondary (see chapter 9 of Peter C. Smith's "Dive Bomber! An Illustrated History" for details of how the specification for the Skua was drawn up). In combat however the Skua was forced to be used as a fighter much more often than as a dive bomber. Off Norway and in the Mediterranean its performance as a fighter was often better than might be imagined just looking at its modest speed in level flight. Its long endurance meant it could loiter at altitude (once it got there, it had a very poor rate of climb) and dive onto its victims.
It was actually the pilot who was responsible for navigation and who had the maps in his cockpit. Having said that the TAG was essential to the pilot finding his way back to the carrier; the Skua carried an ingenious device that picked up radio signals from a rotating beacon on the aircraft carrier. This allowed to TAG to work out the bearing of the carrier and thus the Skua could find its way home even if the carrier had to change position because of enemy action. To work out the bearing the Telgraphist-Air gunner (TAG) in the Skua had to know the rotational speed of the beacon on the carrier (this made it extemely difficult for the enemy to use the same signals to home in on the carrier). The whole process was complicated, and could never have been done by the pilot, hence the need for a second crewman. Having said that a navigator (called an Observer in the wartime FAA) could be carried on a Skua for the purposes of finding the way to a target - For example the raid on the Königsberg and the flight to find the SS Fanad Head were both led by Skuas with an Observer, rather than a TAG, on board.
The Skua was built to Specification O.27/34 issued in 1934, two prototypes were ordered in 1935 and the first prototype (K5178) did not fly until nearly two years later on 9th Feb 1937. In October of that year it went for handling trials at A.&A.E.E. Martlesham.The second prototype (K5179) did not fly until 4th May 1938, and the first production Skua (L2867) flew on 28th August 1938. A total of 190 Skuas had been ordered as far back as July 1936, even before the first prototype had flown. Thus production was started a full two years after the order. However deliveries were prompt after that and over 150 had been delivered by the time War started, with all but one being delivered by the end of 1939. This meant that the Skua was very much a "new" aircraft when it first went to war and its pilots were still finding their way in this big metal monoplane aircraft with retractable undercarriage and enclosed cockpits, all a novelty to British carrier pilots of the time.
One thing that should never be forgotten when considering the Skua is that it was custom-designed for operation from aircraft carriers. Its wings folded back to lie alongside the fuselage so that the aircraft could fit onto the lifts of even the oldest of the Royal Navy's carries. The small floor-space required by the Skua meant more could be carried aboard. The Skua was also built to float on water if ditched, with water-tight compartments to give the necessary bouyancy, and there was a dingy in a compartment in the rear fuselage; released by pulling a cable (although it didn't always work - see "Oh Calamity!")
The Skua had a major disadvantage in that it been designed without any armour protection for the crew or self-sealing fuel tanks to cope with bullet and shrapnel holes. An armoured windscreen and some armour plate behind the pilot was provided for combat squadrons in late 1940, but the poor TAG in the rear seat had no such protection and faced being roasted alive by the blow-torch flames of a burning fuel tank blown back by the airflow. It is reported that before each combat mission the TAG had to sign for a small bag which contained corks of various sizes with which he was expected to plug any bullet holes in the fuel tank!
Considering the small production run of only 190 aircraft the number of combats the Skua was involved in is phenomenal. See the "Norway" "Mediterranean" and "Dunkirk" pages for more details
So, the Skua was designed as a Divebomber, and happened to be pressed into service as an emergency fighter as an exigency of war. Hurricane MkIs converted to Sea hurricanes could not have carried bombs, could not possess the necessary range, (Skuas had an operational range of 750 miles, to the hurricanes 425 mile range) lacked the navigational refinements and would have basically halved the air complements for british carriers at the beginning of the war (wing folding may have , been introduced later, but as a 1939 emergency measure, one would have to reasonably assume that they would not have wing folding)
On the other hand, there is little argument that as a day fighter, the Hurricane would have been far superior. Its just the little detail that the specification to which the Skua was designed could not be met by the Hurricane….it was an aircraft with a different role…
The Blackburn Skua was a fighter/dive-bomber used by the British Fleet Air Arm in the early years of World War II. All but forgotten now the Skua was flown in combat over Norway, the beaches of Dunkirk and in the Mediterranean. It gained the distinction of being the first Fleet Air Arm aircraft to shoot down a German aircraft in World War Two (a Dornier Do Flying boat on 26th September 1939) and also being the first aircraft to sink a major warship in wartime when Skuas sank the cruiser Königsberg in Bergen harbour on 10th April 1940. The Skua was also the first aircraft to carry out an interception of an enemy aircraft controlled by shipbourne radar.
Specification:
Engine: Bristol Perseus XII nine cylinder, sleeve valve, air cooled radial engine rated at 815 hp (could give a higher power rating of over 900 hp for 5 mins on emergency boost).
Max Speed: 225 mph at 6,700 ft, 204 mph at sea level.
Service ceiling 20,500 ft (reached in 43 mins), the Skua had a very poor rate of climb.
Total fuel: 163 imperial gallons, giving a maximum range of some 760 miles (an endurance of over 4 hours).
Armament: Four Browning .303 machine guns in wings with 600 rounds per gun (nearly double the number of rounds-per-gun of a Hurricane or Spitfire). One Lewis .303 machine gun in rear cockpit (whenever possible the gunner would try to replace this with a Vickers "K" gun which was more reliable and had a higher rate of fire). One 500 lb semi-armour-piercing bomb(SAP) or one 500 lb armour-piercing (AP) or one 250 lb general purpose (GP) bomb recessed under fuselage and held in a bomb crutch to swing it clear of the propeller in dive bombing attacks. A "light series carrier" bomb rack could be fitted under each wing. Each carrier could hold 4 x 20 lb Cooper bombs or incendiaries or 2 x 40 lb bombs or incendiaries.
The 500lb AP and SAP bombs was only used against armoured warships, for attacks on merchant ships and ground targets the normal bombload was a 250 lb bomb in the fuselage recess and either 20lb or 40lb bombs on the light series carriers. The 250 lb bomb had only a little less explosive content than the 500lb SAP and AP bombs (the extra weight of the latter was down to the casing, needed to punch through armour). If used against ground targets the SAP and AP bombs would often bury themselves deep before exploding, reducing the blast effect. The small and largely ineffective 100 lb anti-submarine (AS) bomb could also be carried in the fuselage recess.
The Skua prototypes used the well tried Bristol Mercury engine but use of these engines in the huge Blenheim bomber programme meant that production Skuas had to use the new Bristol sleeve valve Perseus engine. There is no evidence that the Perseus engine as used on the Skua was particularly unreliable in itself, but the new sleeve valve technology must have made maintenance more difficult and the Perseus's small production run must have made spares hard to find as the war years rolled by. The spin characteristics of the Skua were bad enough to prompt the fitting of an anti-spin parachute in the tail to aid recovery.
When reading histories of the Fleet Air Arm in the Second World War you often find naval writers blame the lacklustre performance of the Skua on the RAF and Air Ministry who effectively ran the Fleet Air Arm and controlled its supply of aircraft until 24th April 1939. Meanwhile writers in the RAF camp blame the Skuas poor performance on the specifications laid down by the Admiralty, particularly for it having to share the role of fighter and dive bomber. It is interesting to note that both the USA's Dauntless dive bomber and the Japanese Aichi "Val" dive bomber are often praised for their ability to act as fighters in an emergency! It is also worth remembering that when Skuas joined the Fleet Air Arm they went to fighter squadrons which operated a mix of Hawker Nimrod single seat fighters and Hawker Osprey two seat fighter-bombers. There is no doubt that the FAA found the Osprey with its dual-role, longer endurance, and top speed only a little lower than its single seat stable-mate, a much more useful aircraft. A lot of the enthusiasm for "multi-role" aircraft in the FAA seems to have come from the pilots themselves, rather than the Admirals (see Geoffrey Till's book "Air Power and the Royal Navy 1914-1945"). The Skua was designed with a very specific task in mind, the sinking of enemy aircraft carriers, for which its single 500 lb bomb would have been more than adequate (only Britain developed and deployed aircraft carriers with armoured decks during World War II). The role of fighter was secondary (see chapter 9 of Peter C. Smith's "Dive Bomber! An Illustrated History" for details of how the specification for the Skua was drawn up). In combat however the Skua was forced to be used as a fighter much more often than as a dive bomber. Off Norway and in the Mediterranean its performance as a fighter was often better than might be imagined just looking at its modest speed in level flight. Its long endurance meant it could loiter at altitude (once it got there, it had a very poor rate of climb) and dive onto its victims.
It was actually the pilot who was responsible for navigation and who had the maps in his cockpit. Having said that the TAG was essential to the pilot finding his way back to the carrier; the Skua carried an ingenious device that picked up radio signals from a rotating beacon on the aircraft carrier. This allowed to TAG to work out the bearing of the carrier and thus the Skua could find its way home even if the carrier had to change position because of enemy action. To work out the bearing the Telgraphist-Air gunner (TAG) in the Skua had to know the rotational speed of the beacon on the carrier (this made it extemely difficult for the enemy to use the same signals to home in on the carrier). The whole process was complicated, and could never have been done by the pilot, hence the need for a second crewman. Having said that a navigator (called an Observer in the wartime FAA) could be carried on a Skua for the purposes of finding the way to a target - For example the raid on the Königsberg and the flight to find the SS Fanad Head were both led by Skuas with an Observer, rather than a TAG, on board.
The Skua was built to Specification O.27/34 issued in 1934, two prototypes were ordered in 1935 and the first prototype (K5178) did not fly until nearly two years later on 9th Feb 1937. In October of that year it went for handling trials at A.&A.E.E. Martlesham.The second prototype (K5179) did not fly until 4th May 1938, and the first production Skua (L2867) flew on 28th August 1938. A total of 190 Skuas had been ordered as far back as July 1936, even before the first prototype had flown. Thus production was started a full two years after the order. However deliveries were prompt after that and over 150 had been delivered by the time War started, with all but one being delivered by the end of 1939. This meant that the Skua was very much a "new" aircraft when it first went to war and its pilots were still finding their way in this big metal monoplane aircraft with retractable undercarriage and enclosed cockpits, all a novelty to British carrier pilots of the time.
One thing that should never be forgotten when considering the Skua is that it was custom-designed for operation from aircraft carriers. Its wings folded back to lie alongside the fuselage so that the aircraft could fit onto the lifts of even the oldest of the Royal Navy's carries. The small floor-space required by the Skua meant more could be carried aboard. The Skua was also built to float on water if ditched, with water-tight compartments to give the necessary bouyancy, and there was a dingy in a compartment in the rear fuselage; released by pulling a cable (although it didn't always work - see "Oh Calamity!")
The Skua had a major disadvantage in that it been designed without any armour protection for the crew or self-sealing fuel tanks to cope with bullet and shrapnel holes. An armoured windscreen and some armour plate behind the pilot was provided for combat squadrons in late 1940, but the poor TAG in the rear seat had no such protection and faced being roasted alive by the blow-torch flames of a burning fuel tank blown back by the airflow. It is reported that before each combat mission the TAG had to sign for a small bag which contained corks of various sizes with which he was expected to plug any bullet holes in the fuel tank!
Considering the small production run of only 190 aircraft the number of combats the Skua was involved in is phenomenal. See the "Norway" "Mediterranean" and "Dunkirk" pages for more details
So, the Skua was designed as a Divebomber, and happened to be pressed into service as an emergency fighter as an exigency of war. Hurricane MkIs converted to Sea hurricanes could not have carried bombs, could not possess the necessary range, (Skuas had an operational range of 750 miles, to the hurricanes 425 mile range) lacked the navigational refinements and would have basically halved the air complements for british carriers at the beginning of the war (wing folding may have , been introduced later, but as a 1939 emergency measure, one would have to reasonably assume that they would not have wing folding)
On the other hand, there is little argument that as a day fighter, the Hurricane would have been far superior. Its just the little detail that the specification to which the Skua was designed could not be met by the Hurricane….it was an aircraft with a different role…
