Douglas SBD Dauntless upgrade/replacement

FLYBOYJ · Dec 19, 2011

michaelmaltby said:
@Flyboy Jr ....

Do you know if - when dropping LG for bombing - the folding doors closed over the wheel openings - just leaving the semi-circular doors covering the leading edge of the oleos ...?

MM

It's FLYBOYJ unless you know of an illegitimate son I left behind somewhere!

As far as I can see all the landing gear doors stayed opened. Here's a grainy clip of one dropping napalm...

Here's an interesting site...

http://www.hms-vengeance.co.uk/page3.htm

michaelmaltby · Dec 19, 2011

".... unless you know of an illegitimate son I left behind somewhere!"

Thank you, FLYBOYJ .... mother meant to speak to you ...

Seasons Greetings,

MM

Arossihman · Dec 19, 2011

first of all seasons greetings to all of you! secondly...what about the tigercat? I have heard it carrier manners werent the best but being a twin radial engined aircraft one could surmise it could haul a decent load into combat and sustain engine damage from ship or groundfire. Aside from all that i do agree that the skyraider was an excellent choice. Just ask the countless ground troops in korea and viet-nam that owe their lives to them!

gjs238 · Dec 20, 2011

Was the Skyraider divebombing?
I was thinking of the replacement for the SBD.
With hindsight, perhaps the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver was not the ideal choice.

It's looking more and more like the replacement was at hand, but unknown at the time, the F4U.

michaelmaltby · Dec 20, 2011

"... It's looking more and more like the replacement was at hand, but unknown at the time, the F4U."

I agree.

MM

Njaco · Dec 20, 2011

gjs238 said:
Was the Skyraider divebombing?
I was thinking of the replacement for the SBD.
With hindsight, perhaps the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver was not the ideal choice.

It's looking more and more like the replacement was at hand, but unknown at the time, the F4U.

Thats what I was thinking. Skyraider was in developement and ready by end of war. To me, that would be a logical extension of the SBD.

renrich · Dec 20, 2011

The AD was a dive bomber. It had huge dive brakes which made it a formidable dogfighter.

The Helldiver was not considered to be an especially successful replacement for the Dauntless and the Dauntless soldiered on through the end of the war. By 1950 the Helldiver had been replaced as a dive bomber by the Corsair and the AD. However, the following surprised me:
The SB2C flew more than 18800 carrier based action sorties for the Navy.
The SBD flew sightly more than 6000 carrier based action sorties for the Navy.
The SBD did most of it's work as a Marine, flying almost 41000 land based action sorties.

davparlr · Dec 20, 2011

SDB was a hard act to follow. Well balanced in design and a tough bird, kind of like the A-4 of the Vietnam era.

I'm with renrich. Take the F4U-1, put effort into solving carrier landing problems (mostly training) and install dive brakes. It would have great range, great speed, and a couple of thousand pounds better carrying capacity than the SBD. Very fast leaving the combat area. No plane could catch it and if they could, they wouldn't want to.

gjs238 · Dec 20, 2011

Makes ya wonder if the USAAF would have benefitted from this aircraft as well.

davparlr · Dec 20, 2011

gjs238 said:
Makes ya wonder if the USAAF would have benefitted from this aircraft as well.

Well, they had the P-47 which made its own impressive reputation.

FLYBOYJ · Dec 20, 2011

gjs238 said:
Makes ya wonder if the USAAF would have benefitted from this aircraft as well.

davparlr said:
Well, they had the P-47 which made its own impressive reputation.

While true about the P-47, 20 years later the "USAF" did benefit from the Skyraider.

tyrodtom · Dec 20, 2011

That looks like a minigun pod on that Skyraider.

davparlr · Dec 20, 2011

It is interesting that the AD came in second to the AM Mauler, which was really awesome with its P&W R-3350 and 5k lbs higher gross. Unfortunately, Martin wasn't able to build it acceptably.

renrich · Dec 21, 2011

This subject has been sliced and diced before re the P47 versus the F4U but my opinion is that the US overall would have been better off if all resources had concentrated on producing only two fighters, the F4U and the P51, after the P40 and F4F had outlived their usefulness. The early F4U with somwhat more range than the P47 could have been the escort fighter until the P51-Merlin came along and then could have been the ultimate WW2 fighter bomber and carrier fighter and the P51 gone on to be the ultimate escort and long range strike fighter.

tomo pauk · Dec 21, 2011

Ren, suppose we go back in 1939, and are to say just one thing to improve any military system in the US. Would you rather say
-'plumb the wings of the P-47 for drop tanks', or
-'build F4U stead of P-47'?

Arossihman · Dec 22, 2011

renrich said:
This subject has been sliced and diced before re the P47 versus the F4U but my opinion is that the US overall would have been better off if all resources had concentrated on producing only two fighters, the F4U and the P51, after the P40 and F4F had outlived their usefulness. The early F4U with somwhat more range than the P47 could have been the escort fighter until the P51-Merlin came along and then could have been the ultimate WW2 fighter bomber and carrier fighter and the P51 gone on to be the ultimate escort and long range strike fighter.

Blasphemy! All kidding aside neither the mustang or the corsair had the armament or armor that the p-47 possesed. Although the mustang and the corsair did very well in ground attack i believe without the p-47 we would have lost even more pilots than we did due to lack of surviveability from ground and air attack.

gjs238 · Dec 22, 2011

tomo pauk said:
Ren, suppose we go back in 1939, and are to say just one thing to improve any military system in the US. Would you rather say
-'plumb the wings of the P-47 for drop tanks', or
-'build F4U stead of P-47'?

I suppose if P-47 had tanks in wings, and capability for wing drop tanks much earlier, there might not have been a need for the Merlin-powered P-51.
So one could argue that the F4U and P-47 be the two planes.

On the other hand, a 2-stage blower powered F4U much earlier in the war may change the game somewhat.

tomo pauk · Dec 22, 2011

The P-47 with 305 internal and 150 gals in belly tank managed a 350 miles combat range, with 305 + 2 x 150 (wing drop tanks) that's already 425 mph (= all the way to Frankfurt, Hanover, Hamburg)- all at 25000 ft.
(P-38 was operating with 165 gal drop tanks as early as mid 1942.)

renrich · Dec 22, 2011

The original Corsair had a two stage, two speed blower. The factor, to me that would have made my theory valid was that Vought was a small company with somewhat limited capacity for development, testing and production. Brewster and Goodyear were enlisted to help production with only Goodyear being successful. If Republic and Grumman had been involved in development and production, the gestation period of the Corsair would have been shorter and a land based only version with probably better performance than the shipboard fighter would have resulted. The Corsair was always a better performer than the P47 from sea level up to about 20000-25000 feet, could carry a bigger load, needed a lot less runway and was a carrier fighter which the P47 never could be. The P47 had outstanding performance up really high but was lacking where most ACM took place. The Corsair was a better dive bomber than the P47 and as far as ground attack is concerned the F4Us with four 20 mms was much more lethal than the P47 with 8-50s.

tomo pauk · Dec 22, 2011

USAAF battled LW at high altitude, with bombers flying well above 20 000 ft. If one chooses a plane that is a world class at 15000 ft, instead of a plane that is world class at 25000, the choice is a wrong one.

As for raw performance, here is what I'm extracting from US 100K book.
At 20 000 ft.....speed....RoC
F4U-1.............385mph...2000 ft/min
P-47C.............410 mph..2100 ft/min
F4U-1A/-1D.....400 mph..1800 ft/min
F4U-1A/-1D.....415 mph..1900 ft/min WER
P-47D-23........415 MPH..2650 ft/min WER
From cca 23000 ft Corsair gets slower (410 mph for -1A/-1D at that alt, 400 for -1), while P-47 remain at almost 430 mph from 23000 ft above.

All for the weights with full hull tanks - 305 gals for P-47, but only 237 gals for F4U. So P-47 is a better performer at 20000 ft (let alone above that altitude), even while carrying more fuel and 1/3rd more firepower.

The Corsair was always a better performer than the P47 from sea level up to about 20000-25000 feet, could carry a bigger load, needed a lot less runway and was a carrier fighter which the P47 never could be.

So it's under 20000 ft, for same era. As for bolder part, don't see why we should underestimate Republics engineers.

The P47 had outstanding performance up really high but was lacking where most ACM took place.

Again, for the task of flying above in front of the bombers, P-47 was wastly better tool. And, with introduction of paddle blade props and water injection for the P-47 (1st 2300 HP, then 2600 HP), P-47 was an all-altitude fighter. Eg. at 10000 ft it was capable of RoC of 3000 ft/min, while F4U-1D was managing 2700 (all for WER). Or 2400 vs. 2100 for MIL rating.

Douglas SBD Dauntless upgrade/replacement

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