GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Another issue that had to be addressed, was that the diverted French-ordered aircraft had to be converted to British/U.S. standards (controls, gauges, etc.).
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We keep going back to sending small numbers of obsolete aircraft without sufficient spare parts
to Far East (India, Burma, Singapore) as a sort of "surprise" for the Japanese.
100 aircraft is not small numbers. Many of these proposals call for one or two squadrons, without spares. AVG had 3 squadrons of how many aircraft? most squadrons of the time had 12-16 aircraft, US went to 25 aircraft in late 1943 or early 44. So the AVG had squadrons with 100% spare aircraft as sent. Invasion of Burma and bombings meant losses.
The P-40s sent to the AVG were not obsolete. They were the best the US had in June 1941 and were better than most other nations had in June of 1941. We can argue about what was better in Dec 1942 but what you have in Dec 1941 is not what you can put on the ships in back in June.
The Battle gets a very, very bad rap from the Battle for France. I have asked in other threads for people to come up with how anybody else's planes would have done any better flying the same missions under the same conditions. So far no answers
The Battles, and Lysanders and Blenheims, were not given escorts. They were sent in penny packets, that is small numbers spread out over hours to attack some the targets in question, giving time for the AA crews to have coffee and snacks between attacks
But it was easy to blame the aircraft rather than the poor training, tactics/doctrine, inter unit co-operation. A fighter sweep 20 minutes before or after the strike in the same general area as the target is NOT escorting the strike force.
The RAF did not want to do tactical missions so they seized on the failures in France to get out of the tactical strike business and blamed the lack of suitable aircraft as one of the excuses.
Well, the Chesapeake couldn't dive bomb either
or some of the other planes being put out there. If we are going by the criteria of needed to do a 90 degree (or close) dive. If we consider using 60 degrees as needed diving angle then it could.
Battle was as big as it was because it had just over 100 Imp gal in each wing and that is not at the cost of bomb capacity. The Battle could carry a 500lb bomb under each wing with no reduction in fuel capacity if they did not put any bombs inside the wing. Since Battles were supposed to carry 1000lbs for about 1000 miles I find it hard to believe that by shift the bombload to external racks they would have lost around 50% of their range.
Yes the Battles needed to be replaced but it's reputation, such as it is, is very much like the reputation of the Brewster Buffalo in US service (not British or Finnish) . Based on a few battles over a short period of time manned by basically green crews and often in bad situation/s.
And we are shifting from 1-2 squadrons of dive bombers to 1-2 squadrons of bombers PLUS 1-2 squadrons of fighter escorts.
You want more fighters in the far east in Dec 1942?
Don't send over 200 Tomahawks to Russia in the summer/fall of 1941. Granted you have no (or few) pilots or ground crew but you have planes
True in part. It depended on how far along production and delivery was and how quickly Britain could renegotiate contractual specs and terms. That often meant delivery delays though.Another issue that had to be addressed, was that the diverted French-ordered aircraft had to be converted to British/U.S. standards (controls, gauges, etc.).
I will note that the Battle was a lot closer to 200mph down low, but then most of the other single engined attack planes were also 20-40mph slower at a few thousand feet, so were most of the early fighters.
One of my objections to the Chesapeake being the solution to the dive bomber problem for the British (technically, not crew/training) is the 750-825hp engine. I have a strong feeling that they didn't change the engine very many times. There may have been a difference in rating the engines involved. Some people rated by using take-off power and others rated by using max continuous power. Military power didn't exist for some engines in 1939-41. I would guess that all of the late model Vaught aircraft used the same power engines regardless of customer. But still leaves around 55hp to 205hp less than a Merlin depending on altitude and around 175hp less than the engine in an SBD-3 in 1941/42.
I am glad that MikeMeech provided all of that information on the low altitude attacks done by the Blenhiems.
The British in the NE Europe and the Med could time attacks to shipping movements at certain times of day and the freighters were pretty slow. On the other hand the Japanese AA was usually less numerous than the German AA. I have no idea why the Blenheims were mixing the bomb loads in the squadrons. Were they still working out the most effective load? Not enough 500lb bombs?
It does seem (?) that the Blenheims were using low altitude bombing instead of "skip bombing" which is intentionally dropping the bomb/s short and skipping the bombs off the surface of the water to hit the ships side. Perhaps this needed the blunter shape of the American bombs to work well? You also need fuses you can set to 11-12 second delay so you don't blow yourself up with your own bombs. British bombs needed closer near misses to work well as their low HE content has a smaller blast/shock damage radius.
I don't think Blenheims or Battles could do it, at least not during the day.
Langley with 32 P-40E of the 13th Pursuit Squadron and Sea Witch with 27 crated P-40E left Fremantle on 22nd Feb to join convoy MS5 bound for Colombo and then Bombay. They were diverted on the 23rd to Java. Worth noting that when the IJN struck Darwin on the 19th Feb, there was a USAAF fighter squadron present, but only because it was en route to Java by air IIRC.
But let's be clear, USAAF units being sent to India at this time were NOT intended to provide reinforcements to bolster British defences in Ceylon. They were destined for NE India and China to protect the Burma Road termini. Keeping China supplied was the US priority, not protecting British colonial interests.
The 51st Pursuit Group (later Fighter Group) with P-40E left California in Jan 1942, stopped briefly in Australia & Colombo before being landed at Karachi on 14 March 1942. It then moved up to Dinjan in NE India in Oct 1942.No doubt its move East was delayed due to need to assemble its aircraft and then the SW monsoon that affects the whole IO area in May-Sept and limits the "fighting season".
On 22 April USS Ranger left the US carrying 68 P-40E intended as replacements for both the AVG and the 51st FG. These were launched on 10 May to fly to Takoradi and the across Africa and the ME to India.
It was over the summer months that RAF squadrons that had fought in Java & Burma were able to rebuild their strength ready for the next campaign.
Edit:- The IJN carriers sailed from Staring Bay, Celebes (now Sulawesi) on 26th March with the strike on Ceylon on 5th April & Trincomalee on the 9th. Ozawa's cruiser force left Mergui, Burma on 1st April and began sinking ships on the 5th.
What about the images posted by Mike at #76 of Blenheims conducting mast-height attacks. Are those faked? Or are you simply ignoring information that contradicts your preconceptions?
Most of the conversion work was done before they sent out. Not a lot of aircraft instrument makers in India in 1941. Getting the aircraft and having the ship with the instruments get sunk by a U-boat kind of defeats the whole thing.They had ~70-75 Mohawks in India in early 1942, in various stages of preparation and conversion. That is more than enough for two squadrons with spares. All it really requires to get them into action, is for some people to accelerate the decision making process over their gin and tonic on the veranda in Calicutt. In a pinch they could have flown them with French throttle and instruments, after all they used P-39 / P-400 in the Solomons without even fixings for US Oxygen equipment for how long?
You are forgetting armor and protected fuel tanks. Dive bombs also make long, long straight approaches. They also make rather predictable pull outs at the end of the dive.That is a fair point. However, neither the Battle, nor the Lysander, nor the Blenheim had any of the ingredients that bombers needed to survive combat with enemy fighters, or withstand flak. Those would be 1) Speed, 2) Agility, 3) Defensive Firepower. One of the advantages of dive bombers was that they could make hard, high-G turns. The Battle may have carried a lot of fuel, but it was a lumbering beast of an aircraft. Of the three, I'd put it in the middle, but the Lysander was probably more agile.
Dash speed at low altitude was around 200-205mph. You have time to order lunch get it delivered and eat it before you get from low altitude back up to where the plane could hit 250mph. As said earlier, none of the early single engine dive bombers were much betterDash speed of 250 mph and only one of these:
Once we bring in the American twins we are dealing with another class of aircraft and the Baltimore doesn't show up in time anyway. I keep saying the British didn't want to do tactical bombing. They shipped the Marylanders off to do tactical/strategic recon and maritime recon/maritime strike at first. Bostons were used as night fighters, intruders (attack enemy airfeilds at night as the enemy bombers landed) rather than support the army. Things changed but even when the RAF could be persuaded to do "tactical" attacks it was more in the line of attacking the enemy supply lines than actually attacking front line units. Again this changed and the Desert Air Force lead the way, over the objections of the Staff in Britain and who were the officers in the FE going to follow? RAF headquarters or the renegades who were not in their change of command?... for defense, at 54' wingspan and 42' length, with a gross weight of 10,000 lbs / 4,800 kg, I don't see these evading A6Ms. I think it's little more than just a massive target both for fighters and AAA. If it had any merits for combat the British would have used them, just like they used the Vindicator and the Maryland, the Boston, Baltimore etc. which were all basically tactical bombers
Granted it is a painting but that plane does not appear to be diving at 90 degrees, therefor it is not 'dive bombing'I think you might want to double check thatThey clearly could dive bomb,
Unknow, what is the role rate on a Devastator?What is the roll rate on one of those things?
Some the recon Tomahawks were replaced by the first Mustang Is. Replacing them with even Hurricane IIs was not going to work.Those 200 Tomahawks were needed in Russia. But some of the ones sent to England were not needed or really much used (several tactical recon squadrons) . And other fighters were available. Mohawks. Spitfires. Whirlwinds. Buffaloes. Kittyhawks even.
Most of the conversion work was done before they sent out. Not a lot of aircraft instrument makers in India in 1941. Getting the aircraft and having the ship with the instruments get sunk by a U-boat kind of defeats the whole thing.
Not converting and using French throttle and instruments just leads to a lot of accidents. French throttle movement was backwards to British throttle movement and we haven't even gotten into metric measurements on the air speed and altimeter. Killing pilots and wrecking aircraft because you are in a hurry to get airplanes in the air is counter productive.
You are forgetting armor and protected fuel tanks.
Dive bombs also make long, long straight approaches. They also make rather predictable pull outs at the end of the dive.
Lysander agility is questionable. It could do a tight turn. Getting it to turn was not easy. It had very heavy controls that took a lot of effort to actually get it to change direction much.
Dash speed at low altitude was around 200-205mph. You have time to order lunch get it delivered and eat it before you get from low altitude back up to where the plane could hit 250mph. As said earlier, none of the early single engine dive bombers were much better
Once we bring in the American twins we are dealing with another class of aircraft and the Baltimore doesn't show up in time anyway. I keep saying the British didn't want to do tactical bombing. They shipped the Marylanders off to do tactical/strategic recon and maritime recon/maritime strike at first. Bostons were used as night fighters, intruders (attack enemy airfeilds at night as the enemy bombers landed) rather than support the army. Things changed but even when the RAF could be persuaded to do "tactical" attacks it was more in the line of attacking the enemy supply lines than actually attacking front line units. Again this changed and the Desert Air Force lead the way, over the objections of the Staff in Britain and who were the officers in the FE going to follow? RAF headquarters or the renegades who were not in their change of command?
Granted it is a painting but that plane does not appear to be diving at 90 degrees, therefor it is not 'dive bombing'
The Battle was designed to dive bomb, the bomb racks were designed to extend while diving, how well that worked I don't know. The Crews practiced dive bombing although often without practice bombs so effectiveness was hard to judge.
Unknow, what is the role rate on a Devastator?
Some the recon Tomahawks were replaced by the first Mustang Is. Replacing them with even Hurricane IIs was not going to work.
As already shown, the Buffaloes were already slated to go east
Whirlwinds were never going to go.
Kittihawks were going to go where the shooting was going on, not were there might be shooting several months in future.
You are correct but the early war Japanese Navy AA was somewhere around 1-2 years behind the British and German AA. While the Japanese improved (slowly) they never caught up as the British and Americans kept raising the bar.I haven't read all the stuff Mike posted yet (looks very interesting!) but a quick look suggests this is indeed about attacking merchant shipping. The photo shows a small cargo ship under attack. Planes like FW 200 Condors and Vickers Wellingtons could and did sink little isolated cargo steamers that way, but that's not what we are talking about here, is it?
You are correct but the early war Japanese Navy AA was somewhere around 1-2 years behind the British and German AA. While the Japanese improved (slowly) they never caught up as the British and Americans kept raising the bar.
Standard early war destroyer AA armament was 2-4 13mm machine guns. Licensed Hotchkiss guns with 450rpm but with 30 round box magazines actual rate of fire was much lower. Usually laid out with mount on each side of the ship. It was well into 1942 and occasionally into 1943 for the destroyers to be upgraded to four 25mm guns. The Japanese 25mm AA guns also sucked.
Cruisers had more but still very light even compared to British cruisers around Crete.
The Japanese ships are faster and more maneuverable than freighters of course.
We seem to be getting back to the age old question of what angles of dive do we move from glide bombing to shallow dive bombing to steep dive bombing? It seems that as usual reality is less than most today might suppose.
IIRC the only two aircraft designed to dive bomb at 90 degrees were the Ju87 and Vengeance. Or, if not the only pair designed to do that, it ia at the very least the pair who are recorded doing that most often.
Trying to dive vertically might work against a fixed land target, but against a moving and manoeuvering vessel it is not going to produce results. You need to be able to adjust your trajectory on the way down as the ship moves.
IJN dive bombers pilots were trained to use a gentle dive of about 20 degrees on approach to the target from their transit height. At 2,000m the attack dive commenced using an angle of anywhere from 45 to 70 degrees as considered necessary.
USN dive bombers used a similar method with the final dive from about 4,000ft preferred to be at 70-75 degrees.
The Skuas that sank Konigsberg in April 1940, crossed the North Sea at 10,000ft. They skirted the harbour to attack out of the sun from 8,000ft. The attack dives were 60-70 degrees with dropping from 3,000ft to just 1,500ft.
I've come across reports of Swordfish " dive bombing" off Norway at 60 degrees.
When the Ju87s attacked Illustrious in Jan 1941, the initial shallow approach dive was from 12,000ft to 6-8,000ft before beginning the final attack dive. Those final attack dives were recorded as being 65-80 degrees.
Even the method taught to rocket firing Mosquito crews in late 1944 involved a 45 degree dive from 2000ft to 500ft before launch. But that is not considered dive bombing.
So there is a remarkable similarity between the "dive bombing" attack methods of all nations. And there must be a reason for that.
So anything above 45 degreemiwould seem to be considered dive bombing.
Finally, Luftwaffe Fw200 and other anti shipping strike aircraft weren't just making low level attacks on lone ships in 1940/41. They were more than happy to attack convoys. Advantage at that time was that most merchantmen and the few escorts had little in the way of defensive AA armament. It was one reason for the Irish Sea Escort Force with AA cruisers and Auxiliary AA ships which would go out into the Atlantic and bring convoys home on the final stages of their journeys.
Hitting and sinking are not the same thing.
You are correct, attacking a group of ships is much risker. Just pointing out that whatever the Japanese did right, light AA was not one of them.
We also have to be careful of some quotes, from Wiki.
"The rest of the dive bombers under Short attacked Mikuma from an altitude of 14,000 ft (4,300 m), and caught her as she was coming out of her sharp starboard turn. Cascading through a torrent of her anti-aircraft fire, the bombers delivered two hits."
Ship had eight 5in guns which fired about 2/3s as fast as US 5in AA guns. four twin 25mm guns (which fired about 1/2 as fast as a 20mm Oerlikon and used 25 round magazines which really slowed things down and either two twin 13mm guns or a single quad 13mm mount.
Yes they could be dangerous but compared to AA fire in 1944???
On the other hand we are back to the Crappy British bombs.
The Two Japanese cruisers in this fight were hit repeatedly by 1000lb bombs and the standard US 1000lb bombs contained about 50% explosives. About double the explosive of four British 250lb bombs of the time.
British 500lb SAP bomb carried about 90lbs of HE.
British 500lb G.P. bomb carried about 144lbs of HE.
Hitting and sinking are not the same thing.
Convoy MS5 arrived at Colombo on 5th March 1942. You are assuming that the facilities existed in Ceylon to assemble and make them ready in time for Operation C.Ok so this is even better. 59 P-40Es on their way to Colombo, that is Ceylon, before being diverted to Java which was clearly a mistake as Java was already doomed. All we need is for someone in the air ministry to call a chap in DC and talk them into a Lend Lease type deal. Even just a temporary diversion. An intelligence intercept showing the Japanese were coming into the Indian Ocean?
The US was not interested in protecting British Colonial interests, but preventing the collapse of India or the British supply lines to the Middle East was another story. The US was already protecting Burma by late 1941, and 51st FG were heading into India. Torch was a pretty big operation by the US into British and French Colonial territories, but the goal there was to stop the Axis from wrecking Allied supply lines. Sometimes the two goals overlapped.
Sounds like the US has plenty of fighters to pursue their own plans here, as they did in fact do with the 51st FG, which was active both in Burma / India and in China.
One thing we can agree about. But in 1942 not in 1941. As a geographically challenged American, you need to look at a map and consider just how far Japan, or even FIC is from India and how much effort went into closing that gap.Clearly the Indian subcontinent needed more warplanes and a more robust defense overall.
Good point. I believe French spec throttle controls are reversed for one. And then I assume all the gauges are metric. Maybe we need a some FAFL support.Another issue that had to be addressed, was that the diverted French-ordered aircraft had to be converted to British/U.S. standards (controls, gauges, etc.).