Thumpalumpacus
Major
Doesn't sound very decisive to me. How many a/c did those Hurris shoot down or deter before exiting the battle? How many Axis planes were able to attack due to their short range?
Comparison of Pacific, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean, and North Atlantic naval combat
- Thread starter Schweik
- Start date
Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
Doesn't sound very decisive to me. How many a/c did those Hurris shoot down or deter before exiting the battle? How many Axis planes were able to attack due to their short range?
Glider
Captain
I need to go but have found a more detailed description of the Fulmar vs D 520 combat in Dust Clouds in the Middle East.
Two D 520 saw Fulmars of 803 Squadron and approached to attack when Lt Martin reporte he was about to attack when he was shot down by a fighter. The British attributed the shooting down to AA fire from the ships.
What's interesting is what comes next. 6 x D 520 in three flights of two aircraft saw six x Fulmars and attacked claiming three Fulmars shot down. 803 Squadron lost three Fulmars that day with one crew picked up. A fourth was so badly damaged it was written off and a fifth was damaged. The losses were so bad the RN had to request the RAF to provide additional fighter cover for the fleet.
Most of the D 520 were damaged to some degree by the aa fire from the ships.
That was a flight of Fulmars that were bounced by D520s during the Battle for Syria.
The combat I'm taking about happened during a naval Malta operation.
Jeez, man read the thread... Over 200 Axis strike sorties were engaged by the CAP prior to the carriers having to turn back and no ships were lost due to aerial attack. Sea Hurricanes splashed about 20 Axis aircraft, IIRC.
Thumpalumpacus
Major
I'm thinking Wildcats did that pretty often around Guadalcanal, too.
When?
Thumpalumpacus
Major
24 planes on 7-8 Aug 42.
On 7 Aug the IJNAF sent 27 Bettys (18 x Zero escorts) and 9 Vals (on a one way mission) from Rabaul. The Bettys bombed from 12000ft and, no surprise, hit nothing (two or three were lost IIRC to F4Fs) while the Vals, despite their claimed range could only carry 2 x 60kg bombs each and managed to damage a destroyer; several were shot down by F4Fs with the survivors ditching. Not a terribly impressive raid, and the decision to send the Vals on a one way mission, armed with only 2 x 60kg bombs each bordered on outright insanity. The USN had ~65 F4Fs and lost 15 with more damaged, mainly to Zeros, as they bounced the F4Fs. Only about a 1/3 of the F4Fs intercepted the raids along with some SBDs were also attacked by the Zeros.
On 8 Aug 23 x Bettys (7 x Zero escort) attacked with torpedoes and sank a transport and damaged a destroyer. 18 Bettys were lost, 13 from AA and 5 x CAP. The unarmoured, non SS tanked Bettys were nightmarishly vulnerable to massed CIWS fire from the 50 odd naval and transport ships of the transport force assembled off Guadalcanal. The USN carrier TFs was some ways to the east, well out of sight, and was not attacked.
Last edited:
Glider
Captain
I wouldn't be to sure of the bounce as a reason for the losses. After all they were Naval fighters over the fleet that has a modern set of radars and a very experience fighter control.
At the very least they would have had some warning that the enemy aircraft were approaching.
In June 1941 radar was still rare in the eastern MTO and naval radar always had problems detecting aircraft flying over land. According to Dust Clouds over the Middle East, the Fulmars encountered two D520s, and (according to a French pilot) shot one down, but RN AA gunners also claimed it, the surviving D520s returned to a nearby base, and informed command that 6 Fulmars were patrolling over the fleet, and they promptly despatched 6 D520s who bounced the Fulmars, shooting down three.
The same thing happened numerous times to almost every fighter type in WW2. The Fulmars were bounced, just as a similar number of F4F-4s were bounced by Zeros on 7 Aug 1942 over Guadalcanal, where the USN had even more modern radar equipment, and the F4Fs suffered a similar fate.
BTW, the confirmed Fulmar kill of a D520, I mentioned earlier occurred on 18 May 1942 off Algeria. The Fulmar was flown from HMS Argus.
Last edited:
Thumpalumpacus
Major
18 + "several" = ?
Here, how many airplanes did the Sea Hurri shoot down in combat, total? The Wildcat in its various forms shot down around 1300. What's the SH got? The Wildcat has about 6:1 kill ratio, too. Got any Hurri numbers about that?
I'm really not convinced that a Sea Hurricane was very useful. Feel free to educate me further, but be aware I'm pretty skeptical of its impact on the naval war.
Last edited:
How can you skeptical about something which you know little about?
5 Vals were shot down but AA probably got one and maybe shared in another kill. F4Fs claimed 14 Val kills despite there only being 9 present.
6-1 is based upon kill claims and the actual number was far less than that. About 7900 F4F/Martlet/FM1/FM2s were built versus 600 Fulmars and a similar (probably 400-500 as not all ~600 Hurricanes transferred to the FAA were converted to Sea Hurricanes) number of Sea Hurricanes. The actual kill loss rate of the F4F is probably worse than for the Fulmar or Sea Hurricane. Actual Sea Hurricane kill-combat loss rate for PQ18, Harpoon and Pedestal was 33-9. I'd guesstimate that total kills versus combat losses was about 50-60 - ~15.
The Fulmar's kill loss rate was about 3-1; 89 actual kills versus 34 losses as detailed by Shores et al, in various Books, in the MTO, and IOTO
You need to read Lundstrom's two volume First Team, which looks at almost all USN naval air combat in the Pacific in 1942.
Last edited:
Thumpalumpacus
Major
Okay.
Is there a break down of which periods and in which theatres these claims were made? It is my impression that the Hurricanes kill claims topped with the BoB and then fell off drastically. Perhaps a couple of thousand claims to the end of 1940, but where would thousands of kills be claimed from 1941 on?
Peter Gunn
Master Sergeant
Claims, no source docs for confirmation then? We get to use claims for the hurricane but not the F4F?
Thumpalumpacus
Major
I'm still waiting to hear how many planes the Sea Hurricane shot down through the course of the war.
Admiral Beez
Captain
From who? Why don't you Google that yourself and tell us?
Thumpalumpacus
Major
I wanted to hear it from the guy who was arguing the SH was the more significant airplane. I'm having trouble finding totals myself, but I reckoned that him arguing so vigorously for its effectiveness meant that he had data.
Admiral Beez
Captain
I don't think that data exists, at least no anything I've seen online. For the FAA the MTO was mostly a Fulmar affair, the I/PTO one of the Seafire, Martlet, Hellcat and Corsair. I think the Sea Hurricane wasn't given the opportunity to shine. Replace all the Fulmars in the MTO with Sea Hurricanes and we should see good kill numbers, and maybe fewer carrier hits.
