Geoffrey Sinclair
Staff Sergeant
- 869
- Sep 30, 2021
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It needed to because the pilots helmets were taller.I'm surprised the Wildcat had a higher ceiling than the Hurricane.
I'm surprised the Wildcat had a higher ceiling than the Hurricane.
And this where confusion starts.Two stage supercharger (at least on F4F versions)
The Fulmar had a positive kill ratio vs the Me110. The Fulmar II's climb rate to 10K ft wasn't that bad (7.1 minutes) , using Normal climb power, and could be increased considerably by using Combat Power.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.
The Skua as 'Fleet Defender'. During the 1940 Norway campaign the Skua downed the following aircraft via front gun kills:
Do 26 Flying boat - 1.
Dornier 18 flying boat - 3.
Heinkel 115 floatplane - 2. (10 more by strafing)
Henkel 111 bomber -17.
Junkers Ju 88 - 5
(verified by Cull et all by cross referencing Luftwaffe loss records and operation reports)
Those were verified kills by cross referencing Luftwaffe records.Are those claims or cross-verified?
Per another debate i was having upthread with Shortround6, this is exactly what the job of the Skua was. Same for Fulmar. Perfectly adequate for defending the fleet far out to sea against long range attacks from planes like this. I would say that of that list the Ju 88 victories are particularly impressive since a Ju 88 should be able to outrun a Skua in theory, though not always in practice.
Those were verified kills by cross referencing Luftwaffe records.
Acting as a fighter was secondary to it's intended role as a dive bomber, but 4 x forward firing .303 Brownings at 1200rpm/gun and 600RPG gave it lots of fire power. The Gloster Sea Gladiator was the fleet's dedicated fighter at the time and the SG scored a similar number of verified kills, IIRC.
The fleet was typically not that far out at sea. The RN and FAA benefitted from some of the first long range naval AW radars and were able to put together a rudimentary Radar GCI system fairly quickly.
How does one calculate a Rayleigh probability distributionCEP assumes a Rayleigh (2 dimensional circular) probability distribution, so if you're putting 25% within 30 meters, you should expect to put 50% within 1.552 * 30 = 46.6 meters.
It's a chi distribution with 2 degrees of freedom.How does one calculate a Rayleigh probability distribution
Standard Rayleigh distribution, so sigma = 1. We don't know what the standard deviation is, so I just put in numbers until I found that x = .5364 gave a cumulative probability of 0.25, and x = .8326 gave a probability of 0.5. 0.8326 / 0.5364 = 1.552, so 1.552 x 30 meters = 46.6 meters.
In researching my original SBD book (Naval Institute 1976) I found a 4th Marine Air Wing study comparing SBD and F4U bombing accuracy. Corsairs were surprisingly close to the Dauntless figures, though I don't recall specifics.Ju-87 with average pilot had a 25% chance to place 1,000kg bomb within 30 meters of target.
Ju-88 under test conditions (presumably expert pilot) could place 50% of bombs within 50 meter circle.
What accuracy could be expected from a Vietnam era Skyraider with 2,000 lb iron bomb?
What accuracy could be expected from a modern day A-10 with 2,000 lb iron bomb?
I posted this USN study on dive bombing accuracy a while agoIn researching my original SBD book (Naval Institute 1976) I found a 4th Marine Air Wing study comparing SBD and F4U bombing accuracy. Corsairs were surprisingly close to the Dauntless figures, though I don't recall specifics.
We never considered diving our Dauntless (an A-24B restored as an SBD-5) because the original seals were 30 years old by then. The pilot's manual said: THE SBD-5 AIRPLANE WILL NOT MAINTAIN LEVEL FLIGHT WITH THE DIVE BRAKES EXTENDED.
Roger that!