Dive bomber accuracy in perspective.

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WAFU said:
Any version of the SBD could fly rings around any version of the awful Fulmar - a 'fighter' that was so awful, it struggled to catch the very bombers it was supposed to interdict.
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I'm a fan of the SBD but the Fulmar was about 20 mph faster than most versions of the "Slow But Deadly" as US crews called it, so I'm not sure if it fly's rings around that.
 

As we know these ended up becoming CAS aircraft mainly, not dive bombers.

Shortround6 said:
The problem they were finding with existing 2nd tier "fighter" aircraft like the Dauntless and the Val was that they could only engage 2nd (or 3rd) tier recon aircraft.
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A limited but still important role, especially for the SBD, which never really went away.

Shortround6 said:
Depending on Vals to shoot down even a Hudson ( converted 1937 airliner) was a bit of problem. The Hudson was as fast as an A3D1 and it had a power turret with better guns than the Val had.
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That's fair - Hudson's were pretty tough. Somebody needed to shoot them down though. They tried to do it with G4Ms even. Some Dive bombers were definitely better in the fighter role than others. But you do see D3A for example attacking all kinds of Allied aircraft in the verified day by day combat chronicles like Claringbould's South Pacific Air War. Either the pilots were super aggressive, or they were under orders to do this. More often than not these combats ended up inconclusive of course.

And aside from Hudsons there were also PBYs, OS2U, SOC's, Grumamn Ducks, Wirraways, Blenheims, etc. etc.


I'd have to double check but I think SBDs did shoot down some Betty's. You focus on production a lot but the Nell was still around as in flying combat missions in the early years of the Pacific War and was quite dangerous, definitely capable of sinking ships. Ask the crews of Prince of Wales and Repulse about that. They also bombed Darwin and as late as Jan 1943 Nells put two torpedoes into the side of the CA USS Chicago. If I was the captain of a CV in 1942 and Nells are spotted, I'd say send the F4Fs quick, if they aren't available and it's just "Scout squadron 6" SBDs around, send them without any doubt!

Shortround6 said:
The writing was on the wall, depending on strike aircraft to stop snoopers wasn't going to work, the snoopers were getting better and stopping only a small number is not what you want to bet your carrier fleet on.
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SBDs didn't fly CAP (usually) it was more often scouting missions far out from the fleet, and if they find recon planes, or say, some G3M or B5N, they could definitely shoot them down.


Of course using real fighters is a better bet. If you have them handy. Big if. I'm not sure what your point really is here.

We know that in the actual war, on land it was the fighters that took on the dual role as "dive bombers" for the most part, rather than bombers becoming fighters. Certainly for the Anglo-Americans and for the Germans too eventually. Out at sea though, it was a different story. Wake Island notwithstanding, Wildcats never made particularly good bombers and didn't carry a heavy bomb load. Same for A6Ms.. they could strafe but they were not effective ship sinkers. Hellcats were a little better in this role but not good enough. CV air fleets needed as much of an edge in sinking enemy ships as possible. They may have increased the ratio of fighters, but they kept the specialized bomber aircraft on the fleet carriers that were expected to duel with the Japanese CVs. They used SBDs and then SB2Cs to the end of the war and they were the ones that sunk the most enemy ships. The escort carriers only had the TBF / TBMs mainly because SBDs didn't have folding wings.

Today we have F/A 18s. But during WW2, the specialized dive bombers were needed, and due to the nature of what a dive bomber was designed to do, they had some crossover capability as second tier fighters as well, and were used that way. They also often had longer range than Carrier based fighters so they could venture further out, providing an extra layer of 'eyes and ears' and also 'teeth' for the Carrier group. Specialized fighters are always better for intercepting incoming strikes, but the 'scout bomber' was also another useful and very real weapon in the Carrier fleet's arsenal.
 
elbmc1969 said:
If you sink 100 ships, but fly 10,000 sorties to accomplish it, I wouldn't call the aircraft especially "effective."
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Ok lets put this issue of Ju 87, SBD and D3A dive bombing accuracy in perspective with a couple of reminders from earlier in this same thread:

- 8 hits by Stukas on the HMS Illustrious on 10 January 1941 out of 43 bombers, probably only 25 or 30 of which actually attacked the CV - here in this very thread
- 28 hits out of 53 D3A bombers against the cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire, 5 April 1942 - here in this very thread with more detail here
- 3 hits out of 10 attacking D3A against Yorktown (with 3 shot down before they started their dive) see here and here
- RN Admiralty report with a helpful chart on successful anti-ship attacks by Ju 87s vs other enemy types, noting over 60 successful attacks against Destroyers and over 50 against smaller ships. Here.

If you think the Stukas weren't a threat to ships you should read about some of the British convoys, such as Operation Excess and Operation Pedestal, and PQ 17

We all know what the SBD did at Coral Sea and Midway but all the major dive bomber types were pretty dangerous to ships. Even the Blackburn Skua could be deadly as a dive-bomber, sinking the German cruiser Königsberg in 1940
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
More often than not these combats ended up inconclusive of course.
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Which shows that the idea wasn't working.
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
You focus on production a lot but the Nell was still around as in flying combat missions in the early years of the Pacific War and was quite dangerous,
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I focus on the production as it shows what the planners were planning or hoping for.
There is no doubt that the attack planes/dive bombers were used as 2nd tier fighters at times. But it wasn't working, and the planners were looking at other solutions and indeed, using the retro spectroscope only a little bit, one would only hope it was viewed as a temporary solution. If your 2nd tier fighter can't out run a modified 1937 airliner in 1942 you have a problem.
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
They used SBDs and then SB2Cs to the end of the war and they were the ones that sunk the most enemy ships.
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They did use them, as attack aircraft, not 2nd line fighters.
 
Shortround6 said:
Which shows that the idea wasn't working.
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I'm not sure about that. First, we are talking about D3A here the most lightly built and armed of all the major dive bomber types. Even this plane was used as a fighter sometimes, but the SBD tended to kill far more often, I think Skua did too though it was involved in fewer combats.

But more importantly, often the goal here is to drive off the scout, break up the enemy attack, send the lingering 'converted airliner' or other odd bird fleeing for cover instead of spotting for submarines etc. Again, actual WW2 on the battlefield wasn't a matter of 'Timmy the power gamer' slugging it out between Spitfire Mk 21 and Ta 152, most of the war was actually on this level.

Shortround6 said:
I focus on the production as it shows what the planners were planning or hoping for.
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But that is not the whole picture, and the plans routinely turned out to be woefully inadequate to the realities. This required improvisation an swift adjustments to be made, which in turn is why versatile aircraft that could effectively do more than one job were often much more valuable than highly specialized one-trick ponies, as Air Marshal Tedder noted after Second El-Alamein. It's also why airframes which could be successfully modified to do something other than originally intended often tended to work out the best in the long run.

Prior to WW2, everyone thought the torpedo bombers were going to be sinking all the ships. It was lucky they had the dive bombers as backup.


I wouldn't be so certain about that. Modified airliners proved to be fairly deadly and effective military aircraft all over the world from the 1930s and well past 1942. The SM.79 was an airliner converted to one of the most effective torpedo bombers of the war (by one estimate, being responsible for sinking 320,000 tons of Allied shipping). The Fw 200 was an airliner which turned out to be one of the biggest headaches for the Royal Navy, despite it's small numbers, both for attacking ships and helping to coordinate U-boat attacks. The He 111 was at first, at least technically, an airliner introduced in 1935, but it was still sinking ships in 1942. The CANT Z.506 was both a military and civilian airline plane introduced in 1936 and was still active in 1942. The Hudson itself, and it's cousin the Ventura, were quite deadly descendants of the Lockheed 14 as I'm sure you know.

Even the SBD was ultimately a development of a series of predecessors originating with the Northrop Alpha and Gamma which were passenger planes.

Shortround6 said:
They did use them, as attack aircraft, not 2nd line fighters.
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SBDs were still intercepting and destroying enemy aircraft as late as 1944.
 
yulzari said:
Yet it was the Royal Navy's highest scoring fighter of the war………..
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Sure though the Royal Navy didn't really score that high during the war in air to air combat.

To put it in perspective, Fairey Fulmar was credited with 122 'confirmed' victories for 40 losses in action (16 to enemy aircraft). Mostly this was to unescorted bombers, not too many Bf 109s or A6Ms in that total.

F6F was credited with 5,160 victories in USN service
F4U with 2,140
F4F+FM2 were credited with 1,408
I don't know how many Allied aircraft were claimed by A6Ms but I'm pretty sure it was in the thousands.

And here's the painful one - SBD was credited with 138 victories. TBF Avenger with 98.


Of course, these are just claims numbers, actual losses are some fraction of that. But it does give us an idea of the comparative scale here.
 

I'm not, incidentally, saying that the point of view of production and planning is irrelevant. It's very important and I've learned an enormous amount from your posts that follow this poiint of view. But IMO it's just one of many you have to consider to grasp the whole picture.
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
And here's the painful one - SBD was credited with 138 victories. TBF Avenger with 98.
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Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
Of course, these are just claims numbers, actual losses are some fraction of that.
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And that is why these discussions keep cropping up.

The high claims (for several nations) keep coming up. It is only after the claims were investigated that idea of using dive bombers as was shown to be a really bad idea.
Within the war the war time claims made it seem like only sort of a bad idea.
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
But it does give us an idea of the comparative scale here.
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It does, also look at the SBD and TBF claims for the pilots vs the rear gunners. The Rear gunners claimed many more times the "kills" that the pilots did.
Now if we assume (I know) that the pilots and gunners over claimed in similar amounts or even if the gunners over claimed a bit more, that means the front guns shot down very few enemy aircraft indeed considering the scale of things.

We know and the planners knew then that older, obsolete aircraft would be used at times. But it should be seen as what it was, poor planning and/or poor procurement.

The Skua may have been a good idea in 1934. It might have been an OK idea in 1937 (target date of introduction), it was a bit under OK in 1938 (enemy aircraft were getting better while the British waited for deliveries), The British had ordered the Fulmar to tied them over till they got what they really wanted. Except the Fulmars wouldn't be ready in time so they ordered Sea Gladiators to tied them over (lets not even go into the Roc, somebody in planning was stealing Herman's drugs).
The Skua did well but it was 2 1/2 years out of date when used off Norway. It also destroyed more enemy aircraft by bombing/strafing than it did in air to air.

The British had some excuse. Nobody had a good idea of how things were going to go. The Americans and the Japanese had over 2 years to figure it out. Trouble for the Japanese was that many years of combat over China taught some of the wrong lessons.
.
 
Some comparative data - all from official USN and Air Ministry service data (aircraft worn in but not worn out)
_______________IROC*_______ Vmax**__________ VNE_____________W/S***______Fixed Guns
SBD-3&4______ 1190 ft/sec___250 mph@16k____ 350 mph IAS_____ 27.7 lb/ft2___2x .50 cal w/180 rpg (ROF of 238 rpm)****
____________________________235 mph@_9.6k
____________________________243 mph@_5k
Fulmar Mk I____ 1220 ft/sec___253 mph@10k____450 mph IAS_____ 25.0 lb/ft2___8x .303 cal w/750 rpg (ROF of 1100 rpm)
Fulmar Mk II____1420 ft/sec___263 mph@_5k____450 mph IAS______26.0 lb/ft2___8x .303 cal w/1000 rpg (ROF of 1100 rpm)

*IROC is based on time to reach 10,000 ft
**Clean
***Clean with 2/3 fuel and full ammo
****The low ROF ws due to the guns being synchronized to fire through the prop

NOTE I used the SBD-3&4 because they were the ~contemporary of the Fulmar. The SBD-5 was slightly slower than the SBD-3&4 at higher altitudes, but slightly faster at lower altitudes and with a better IROC (1350 ft/min) due to using Military power for the first few minutes.
 

Well, as I think you know, I'm a big fan of the newer generation of 'verified' research where you can see something much closer to what actually happened. And I would still say SBDs were a great investment and Skuas, in spite of a lot of design flaws and issues, were also pretty good. Ju 87 was definitely a smashing success, as was the D3A. A-36 is highly underrated and was quite valuable. Pe-2 and Ju 88 (also dive bombers) were clearly very good, certainly for the first couple of years of the war.

Overall dive bombers were a success. A very good investment. The fact that many of them (including Ju 88s) could be employed aggressively against other aircraft was a bonus.

At some point in the later part of the war, dive bombers became less necessary for a variety of reasons, and more vulnerable, but they were still brought along in the inventory for (I'd say) pretty good reasons. Even the guided munitions had their limitations (subject to jamming etc.) and in WW2, dive bombing was the most effective method of tactical bombing.


From looking at a lot of verified data over the last couple of years, generally the pilots were more accurate and you can look at the overclaim rates in aggregate they range from somewhere around 3-1 to 1.5-1 depends in Theater and conditions. Defensive gunners did get victories but it was a lot more hit and miss and sporadic in terms of overclaim rates, sometimes they were pretty close, more often it was in the realm of 10-1 or more.. though they did get some! Saburai Sakai had his eye shot out by a TBF ventral gunner IIRC...

Shortround6 said:
We know and the planners knew then that older, obsolete aircraft would be used at times. But it should be seen as what it was, poor planning and/or poor procurement.
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I think this is where we differ, sharply. I don't think it's always or necessarily a matter of older, or obsolete aircraft, so much as aircraft that have different kinds of capabilities. In spite of being a modified airliner, A FW 200 isn't an obsolete aircraft in 1940 or even 1942. It can't bomb as accurately as a Stuka or shoot down enemy planes as well as a BF 109, but what it does have is a 2,000 mile range and the ability to defend itself fairly well (just ask Eric Brown about that). The OS2U or F1M or E8 weren't obsolete, they were planes that could be launched from the catapult of a warship. Bf 109s and Thunderbolts didn't really do that. An H6K or a PBY wasn't obsolete, they were very useful aircraft that happened to have the ability to land and takeoff from water.

These aircraft just had the unique traits that allowed them to operate far out to sea. In remote areas.

Where obsolete aircraft are more of a factor are in the more remote and tertiary Theaters. Hawk 75 was certainly obsolete in 1943 -44 but it was playing a fairly useful role in India then. Gladiator, CR 32, and Vickers Wellesley were certainly obsolete even in 1940, but they proved useful and competitive in the remote Theaters where they operated, because there is always a lag of the newest and best kit making it out to the most remote Theaters.

Then there are edge cases, planes like the Swordfish which were definitely obsolete at the beginning of the war, but operated in an environment where there weren't a lot of enemy fighters, and without strong fighter opposition were still very deadly. Same with the modified airliner SM.79.


By all means, British should have developed a better naval fighter, no argument from me there. Classifying the Skua as a fighter is very questionable to say the least IMO, even though I'd also argue that it did have this capability so long as you were clear what the limitations were. None of the British naval fighters until arguably the Firefly or maybe Seafire were very good, and even those had some pretty severe limitations.

Shortround6 said:
The Skua did well but it was 2 1/2 years out of date when used off Norway. It also destroyed more enemy aircraft by bombing/strafing than it did in air to air.
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I don't see why that matters... it was mainly a bomber after all.


I'd say the D3A proved to be excellent, world class ship killers, as did the A6M fighter in air combat. The SBD was obviously a big success and the Wildcat was the best Allied Naval fighter until the F4U and F6F came along in the mid-war. What is the big mistake they made here?
 

I'd say it's abundantly clear that the SBD did NOT run rings around the Fulmar, and in fact was not as good in the fighter role. But it could sink ships!

As scouts they were probably fairly equivalent. Fulmar has a bit better performacne but I think the SBD has better range.
 
I'd add, even if SBDs (or Fulmars) only actually shot down 30 or 40 enemy aircraft, as is fairly likely, that doesn't mean they didn't do their job. It's not just a matter of shooting down enemy planes, especially in Naval combat. It's often more important to break up attacks, drive away enemy scouts or sub coordinators, prevent attacks before they can start and so on.

The odd thing about the Fulmar is that it was designed for this same zone or range band that the SBD and Skua operated in their 'second rate fighter' mode; i.e. out to sea beyond the range of land based fighters. Since Fulmar can't also dive bomb or carry a torpedo (that i know of anyway) this makes it basically a specialized scout, and overspecialized planes are a bit of a problem on a carrier. You wouldn't want your carrier task force defended by Fulmars (or dive bombers) when the waves of D3A escorted by A6Ms, SM 79s escorted by MC 202s, or Ju 87s escorted by Bf 109s comes flying in.

But it's still useful far out to sea for driving away and sometimes shooting down the FW 200s, He 111s, He 115s and so on.

One other point worth making, is that the specialized denizens of the 'Wine Dark Sea", like the seaplane scouts, flying boats, maritime patrol aircraft and so on, were often made in quite small numbers. There were only 270 FW 200s made during the war. 215 H6Ks. So if you shot one of those down, you are actually helping your cause out a lot.
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
I don't see why that matters... it was mainly a bomber after all.
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To be fair, whether you're a bomber, fighter, or fighter-bomber, I'd think that the airfield is the best place to destroy any enemy aircraft, as it can't really fight back. Of course, not enough glory or fruit-salad to go along with it, but it's a damned good place for a kill otherwise.
 
My apologies for trying to cut down on wordage in my post.
I was making comments about the use of dive bombers/strike aircraft was 2nd tier fighter, not their use in their primary role/s.

However now that you brought it up...............................The Skua was a product of it's time. I Still can't figure out the thinking behind the 500 SAP bomb. It was neither fish nor fowl.
Too much AP for destroyers, light cruisers, transports and too little AP for German Battleships (or newer Italian ones). Using one bomb for everything simplifies logistics and training but isn't go good for target effect. Again, there was no improved Skua, what they had in in spring of 1940 was what they had in Dec of 1938.

The D3A was sort of mediocre. Don't confuse well trained crews with a good aircraft design. It was so good that the D4Y first flew in Dec 1940. Not saying the D3A had any major flaws (it didn't break up or crash on it's own) but obviously the Japanese navy was looking for something better. The D3A2 was sort of forced on the Japanese as the D4Y tended to crack/break it's wing, kind of a major flaw in dive bomber. The Japanese stuffed the 1300hp Kinsei 54 engine into the D3A to tied them over. Even with 200-300 more horsepower they kept the bomb load at 550lbs under the fuselage. Didn't beef up the frame? The D4Y1 was supposed to carry an 1100lb bomb at short range.

The SBD could carry a 1000lb from the start. It may have been capable of carrying different types to suit the target (the Japanese may have had that capability, the Germans sure did).
The SBD did get a variety of bombs later on although the much ballyhooed 1600lb AP bomb may never had dropped in anger from an SBD.

The Skua had an impressive wing fold for the mid to late 30s. The SBD skipped the wing fold and the D3A sort of split the difference, The D4Y tried to get around it by using a small wing. Which bit them in the butt when they needed rockets to get it off small carriers. The D4Y1 was used as a recon aircraft so they didn't have to do a high speed pull out.
It does show a bit of a disconnect at staff level or hubris. "We are fielding a recon plane that cruises 230mph and has a top speed of 343mph but since we are so much more clever than the Americans we can rely on 270mph top speed aircraft to stop American snoopers, the Americans won't come up with fast recon planes"

BTW the FW 200 is a bit overrated. It is not only a converted airliner, it was designed to be a record breaker (not adapt to be one). This meant the airframe was sort of marginal for hard use (nobody has ever said the Lockheed twins were weak) and for ease of service the fuel lines ran along the bottom of the wing and with a 4 engine plane that was designed to fly over the Atlantic there were a lot of fuel tanks/lines. Rather susceptible to small caliber ground fire until they were ordered to fly higher. Of course British light AA was rather lacking in convoys for a number of years. And then instead of doing a proper job of converting it they only patched it up just enough to build another handful while they waited for the He 177, and another handful while they waited for the Bomber "B", and another handful while they waited for..........................
It did run up a large score of ships. What that says about the German crews and the dearth of British AA guns vs the actual capabilities of the aircraft I don't know.
 
Wild_Bill_Kelso said:
I'm a fan of the SBD but the Fulmar was about 20 mph faster than most versions of the "Slow But Deadly" as US crews called it, so I'm not sure if it fly's rings around that.
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Speed is not the definitive be all of fighter combat. The A6M was quite a bit slower than many contemporary fighters, but proved to be a deadly adversary thanks to its agility and good climb rate.
The Fulmar was what it was, a variant of a light bomber and proved unable to compete with the Bf110, let alone the Bf109. It was not only slow and docile handling, but also had a terrible climb rate. It struggled to deal wit many bombers.
By comparison, the SBD was a very agile aircraft, relatively well armed, 2 x .50's up front are much more lethal than 8 x .303's, and had a decent climb rate, not far short of the F4F Wildcat.
The SBD was certainly able to hold its own against the fearsome A6M, a plane that had no problem sweeping the Fulmar aside.
 
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