Can we make a slightly smaller Fulmar as an improved carrier fighter?

[Admiral Beez]

I am still having my first morning cup. My groggy mind came up with license built Vindicators. If we're looking for suboptimal planes for carrier use, why not?

Well if we're looking at early war, folding wing dive bombers available to the British, the Chesapeake carries twice the bomb load of the Skua and is faster. I'd gladly put three squadrons into fleet service.

 

[SaparotRob]

Could the Vibrator use British radials?

 

[Shortround6]

Could the Vibrator use British radials?

Maybe, The US and British set their engines up a bit different.

The R-1535 engine in the Vindicator was good for 825hp for take-off but that was at a higher rpm than they used for anything else, Engine was rated at 750hp at 9500ft but that was max continuous.
Engine in the Skua was rated at 830hp for take-off and weighed about the same, Was bigger in Diameter.

I am not sure you want to try to take off with Vindicator with a 1000lb bomb from a British carrier. British carriers had small flight decks and while nobody used even 1/2 the flight deck for take-off the Americans had bit more margin. Vindicator didn't have quite as good a wing fold as the Skua.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Vindicator was a dud, kinda pretty though. They have one at the Naval air museum in Pensacola.

 

[SaparotRob]

Kinda pretty? That's what airplanes should look like.

 

[nuuumannn]

Sea Spitfire is not going to be a successful naval fighter (Seafire was mediocre at best)

How can you say that with any certainty? The Sea Spitfire was going to be a ground-up design, not a simple conversion like the Seafire as it eventually appeared. Not only that, the Seafire was not a bad naval fighter - careful you don't tread in that bias BS. The Seafire had an excellent rate of climb and was very manoeuvrable, with pilots reporting excellent control harmony and that it was easy to fly. It was, however, a mediocre deck-landing aircraft. Yes, it suffered accidents but someone on this site, and I can't remember whom or where, posted figures relating to deck accidents, and it turns out the Seafire's accident rate was about equal to other Allied deck aircraft, including US fighters, when comparing percentages. The alarm that Seafires initially caused on deck began during Operation Torch when sortie rates versus operational losses were skewed toward the latter, but progressive training in deck landing techniques sought to lower that attrition rate.

 

[nuuumannn]

I'd gladly put three squadrons into fleet service.

The Royal Navy didn't like it. The only thing that impressed the British about the Chesapeake was its range. Tests revealed that the type had poor handling at high weights, which also increased its take-off run to uncomfortable levels. Restrictions were placed on its MTOW but this still didn't help matters. This feature alone meant it wasn't suitable for British carriers. Another criticism was made about visibility over the nose, particularly to the right, which was obscured by the prominent intake mounted high on the engine cowl. Test pilots did comment favourably on its ease of operation, being easy to fly, but with the depletion of fuel, it became longitudinally unstable.

 

[RCAFson]

Well if we're looking at early war, folding wing dive bombers available to the British, the Chesapeake carries twice the bomb load of the Skua and is faster. I'd gladly put three squadrons into fleet service.

Wing folded height of the Chesapeake was 16ft 4in...so it won't fit into the hangars of Ark Royal and the armoured carriers. It was considered for use in FAA escort carriers, according to Eric Brown in Wings of the Navy. The divebrakes of the Chesapeake didn't actually work and after some trial and error it was decided to use the extended LG as divebrakes, but even with these the dive angle had to be restricted to ~60degs. Brown mentions a very long TO run at max TO weight, and Boscombe Down testing showed a max speed with a 500lb bomb of 222mph at 9900ft, along with a 600ft TO (into 20kt wind) run (vs 260ft for a Roc) with a 500lb bomb! (Mason, The Secret Years)

All in all, the Skua was a considerably superior aircraft.

 

[EwenS]

The RN plan for the 50 ex-French contract V-156-F (or V-156-B) received in 1941 was to use them as anti-submarine aircraft from the first US built escort carriers then being converted under Lend Lease. 811 squadron was formed to operate them and received 14 in July 1941. It rapidly became clear that their take off run would make them unsuitable for the role, so they were replaced by Swordfish by Nov 1941 before the squadron went to sea.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

How can you say that with any certainty? The Sea Spitfire was going to be a ground-up design, not a simple conversion like the Seafire as it eventually appeared.

That is a somewhat fair point,

Not only that, the Seafire was not a bad naval fighter - careful you don't tread in that bias BS. The Seafire had an excellent rate of climb and was very manoeuvrable, with pilots reporting excellent control harmony and that it was easy to fly. It was, however, a mediocre deck-landing aircraft. Yes, it suffered accidents but someone on this site, and I can't remember whom or where, posted figures relating to deck accidents, and it turns out the Seafire's accident rate was about equal to other Allied deck aircraft, including US fighters, when comparing percentages. The alarm that Seafires initially caused on deck began during Operation Torch when sortie rates versus operational losses were skewed toward the latter, but progressive training in deck landing techniques sought to lower that attrition rate.

But this, in my sincere opinion, is just a rationalization based on desperately cherry-picked data (having been part of several discussions about this). I know I may come across that way, but I'm really not one of those "battle of the Atlantic" WW2 aircraft nationalist types! I just refuse to accommodate the illusions of those who are. And that applies to people on both sides of the pond.

Aside from deck handling problems, which were worse than you are implying there, the real problem with the Seafire was range and endurance. The same traits that gave it that wonderful climb rate made it a poor carrier fighter. An interceptor is not what you want on a carrier. Though I'll admit they were somewhat useful against Kamikazes!

I do admit though that if they had looked at it early as a ground-up design, including possibly making it slightly larger, they may have been able to make a viable fighter out of it. Some later marks of Spitfires had more fuel, and if you say, made the wing slightly thicker or something, they may have done something that worked. Better than a converted Spit VB anyway.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Were Avengers too big to fit in the early British carriers?

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

The general issue with strike aircraft is that the American ones either didn't have folding wings (SBD) or were way too big for early British carriers (Avenger, Vengeance), or too big and not very good (SB2C), the British ones were too backward (i.e. the biplanes) or weird (Skua, Barracuda).

The Vengeance was actually fairly good in British and Aussie service but I think much too big and probably not suitable to carrier ops.

The Tarpon / Avenger worked out eventually but (I think?) that was on later / larger carriers. It could operate from small carriers but you needed a catapult and the under the hangar space and larger elevators (I think...)

So I think the best bet is what the Americans ended up doing toward the end of the war and into the Korean War - using fighters as fighter-bombers instead. The Fulmar was capable of decently high angle dive bombing, Firefly was known as a good strike aircraft, and if you made a single-seat version of either of those it would probably work fairly well for air strikes.

Or just license build Corsairs as early as possible, though that would require a great deal of foresight plus unrealistically swift cooperation from the Yanks.

Another outlier idea I kind of like is the French Loire-Nieuport LN.401. I think it had potential. And it had folding wings. Practicalities of bringing the design over to England are unrealistic of course.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Also could Avengers even carry British torpedoes?

This is also an interesting French naval fighter

Loire-Nieuport 161 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[EwenS]

Vultee Vengeance was never designed for operation from aircraft carriers.

The TBF/TBM Avenger did not have a bomb bay long enough to hold a British Mk.XII/XV torpedo.

At the end of 1942 / early 1943 the RN had a dilemma when planning its expansion in 1943 and later years.

The much delayed Fairey Barracuda was finally entering full scale production and was able to carry what the RN still saw as the main ship killer - the air launched torpedo. The irony was it did so on only 1 occasion IIRC. In 1939 the RN was expecting it to enter production in 1941 not 1942.

The Avenger was just about to become available via Lend Lease (5 were received for training in 1942. Main deliveries began from Jan 1943) but was only capable of carrying the then unreliable US Mk.13 torpedo. On top of that the numbers scheduled to be made available in 1943 came no where meeting the TBR requirement that the RN needed to fulfill. The allocation was to be 395 and just over that number were received in that year. Supplies were never enough. Relatively few TBM-3/3E were received from late 1944 and deliveries in 1945 contained numbers of refurbished ex-USN TBF/TBM-1.

The SB2C Helldiver was also to be made available as the SBW from a Canadian factory. The 1943 allocation was to be 185 but only 26 were delivered by April 1944. But by late that year it had become apparent that the USN was only going to make little more than that handful available to make up for losses on what had been delivered so far. So the RN binned the idea of operating them beyond the initial squadron. It would have been restricted to operations from escort carriers and the light fleet carriers then expected to enter service from mid-1944 which had the required hangar height.

Launching an Avenger by catapult from an escort carrier was not compulsory. It all depended on weather and payload.

By the time the Avenger entered RN service the only surviving "old" carriers were Argus (as a training carrier) and Furious. There was no need for them to be equipped with them.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

The Avenger ended up being pretty good, better than you might expect from just looking at the stats. Especially useful for ASW which was important for the British. But it wasn't really that great, especially for striking enemy ships. I'd also suspect it to be pretty vulnerable against German and later model Italian fighters which would limit it's ability to strike land targets. And Lend Lease, especially where it competed with US needs in the Pacific, sometimes tended to come a bit "too little too late" as you pointed out here.

Ultimately I suspect the Corsair was the best strike aircraft the British ever got during the war. Followed by the Firefly probably. Too bad the Sea Hornet and Sea Fury didn't make it into service in time... or the Vampire.

 

[Shortround6]

Were Avengers too big to fit in the early British carriers?

Define 'BIG'.

Fit on the carrier lift?
Fit in the hanger?
Get off the deck with the existing catapult and not nose dive into the sea?
Land without tearing out the arresting cables and crashing into the crash barrier/superstructure?

To fix the last two usually requires a dockyard refit.

 

[Shortround6]

The Avenger ended up being pretty good, better than you might expect from just looking at the stats. Especially useful for ASW which was important for the British. But it wasn't really that great, especially for striking enemy ships

Well, when you build a torpedo bomber and the torpedo doesn't work you are rather stuck. And the torpedo was NOT supplied by Grumman.

Then there was the whole Helldiver Fiasco.

Which left the Avengers trying to glide bomb (dive at less than a 45 degree angle) using 1000lb or 1600lb AP bombs.

Then you have the absence of targets.
There was over an 18 month gap between the Battle of Santa Cruz and and the Battle of the Philippine Sea.

So the Avenger diminished in numbers aboard carriers so it was not present in great numbers, enemy aircraft got better, enemy AA got better and enemy radar started to show up.
Range while attacking Japanese Islands was not as important as fleet actions so the Payload to Range factor wasn't as important when comparing it to fighter bombers.

The Avengers did play a very imprortant role in sinking the two Japanese super battleships but the higher, faster drop limits of the new versions of the MK 13 make the torpedo strikes hard to pick out in photos or films.

 

[RCAFson]

How can you say that with any certainty? The Sea Spitfire was going to be a ground-up design, not a simple conversion like the Seafire as it eventually appeared. Not only that, the Seafire was not a bad naval fighter - careful you don't tread in that bias BS. The Seafire had an excellent rate of climb and was very manoeuvrable, with pilots reporting excellent control harmony and that it was easy to fly. It was, however, a mediocre deck-landing aircraft. Yes, it suffered accidents but someone on this site, and I can't remember whom or where, posted figures relating to deck accidents, and it turns out the Seafire's accident rate was about equal to other Allied deck aircraft, including US fighters, when comparing percentages. The alarm that Seafires initially caused on deck began during Operation Torch when sortie rates versus operational losses were skewed toward the latter, but progressive training in deck landing techniques sought to lower that attrition rate.

There's this interesting data on Seafire operations during Dragoon:




The Seafire LIIC/III / F6F / FM1+FM2:

Operation Dragoon (Invasion of southern France) Aug 1944.

CVE carrier sorties:

1073 Seafire Sorties / 252 F6F sorties / 347 FM1/2 sorties.

Operational and combat loss rate: 2.8% / 4.4% / 3.4%

This campaign was notable as the Seafires were also used extensively as fighter bombers (~300 sorties) , typically carrying 500lb bombs, but occasionally using 250lb bombs when winds were light or there was a shortage of 500lb bombs.

(Data from The Seafire by D. Brown)

 

[Admiral Beez]

Wing folded height of the Chesapeake was 16ft 4in...so it won't fit into the hangars of Ark Royal and the armoured carriers.

Well damn. I'll send my three squadrons of Chesapeakes to RNAS Sembawang.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Also could Avengers even carry British torpedoes?

This is also an interesting French naval fighter

Loire-Nieuport 161 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

No. The Avenger's folding back wings meant it could fit on every British carrier. But AIUI, the Avenger never operated from a RN carrier as a torpedo bomber.