FAA Seafire vs Corsair

[Shortround6]

I guess the Japanese ultimately didn't need a carrier based scout in the early war because they had the Zero, which worked as an excellent armed scout

A "scout" without a long range radio is pretty much useless.
Scouts that need accompanying 2-3 seat aircraft to provide navigation support are also redundant/useless.

Vals and Kates could be used as scouts. It does dilute the strike force but using A6Ms as scouts and waiting for them to fly back from spotting something to land on the carrier or use a short range radio to report a sighting for 1-2 hours earlier doesn't make for very good strikes either.

also had radar pretty early on, though they also ended up putting that on TBFs, F6Fs and a lot of land based planes.

Radar also changed considerably as the war went on, also for long range search you search range was rather dependent on the altitude of the plane.

Even the US didn't have enough radar equipped night fighters to use them as distant scouts. Even some big carriers only had 4-6 radar equipped night fighters.

 

[EwenS]

Well it was certainly a neat trick. It made all those aircraft much more useful especially the 'stringbag'. More or less turns into a day / night all weather attack plane too right?

Not quite. In the early days maintaining and operating a radar set was a black art. Results were variable with many separate variables affecting detection ranges. ASV radar failures were just one factor that helped contribute to the German success in the Channel Dash in Feb 1942. Things got better as the war went on especially after the introduction of centimetric sets.

 

[EwenS]

A "scout" without a long range radio is pretty much useless.
Scouts that need accompanying 2-3 seat aircraft to provide navigation support are also redundant/useless.

Vals and Kates could be used as scouts. It does dilute the strike force but using A6Ms as scouts and waiting for them to fly back from spotting something to land on the carrier or use a short range radio to report a sighting for 1-2 hours earlier doesn't make for very good strikes either.

Radar also changed considerably as the war went on, also for long range search you search range was rather dependent on the altitude of the plane.

Even the US didn't have enough radar equipped night fighters to use them as distant scouts. Even some big carriers only had 4-6 radar equipped night fighters.

I don't believe it was a shortage of night fighter and strike aircraft. From 1944 the USN CV Air groups all had a night fighter flight attached for defensive purposes especially around dawn and dusk.

But from Aug 1944 they started to deploy entire night air groups. First on the CVL Independence, then Enterprise, Saratoga and finally the Bon Homme Richard. Those groups fulfilled both offensive and defensive roles with F6F-5(N) and TBM Radar equipped aircraft of various models. A CVEG(N) was also being readied for service as the war ended.

Edit:- USMC squadrons also flew night fighter F6F from various Pacific shore bases. As the war was ending the first F7F night fighters were just arriving on Okinawa.

 

[pbehn]

Well it was certainly a neat trick. It made all those aircraft much more useful especially the 'stringbag'. More or less turns into a day / night all weather attack plane too right?

To hit the Bismarck needed two types of Swordfish because they couldnt carry both RADAR and a torpedo. In ASW warfare it was purely by chance as close as you could get to a helicopter in WW2. It would take a particular genius to see that future requirement in 1939, the boffins were working on airborne RADAR but the UK was still struggling to deploy Chain Home around all of its coast.

 

[EwenS]

To hit the Bismarck needed two types of Swordfish because they couldnt carry both RADAR and a torpedo. In ASW warfare it was purely by chance as close as you could get to a helicopter in WW2. It would take a particular genius to see that future requirement in 1939, the boffins were working on airborne RADAR but the UK was still struggling to deploy Chain Home around all of its coast.

Not true.

All 9 Swordfish of 825 squadron launched from Victorious against the Bismarck carried torpedoes and were all equipped with ASV.II Radar. The leader got a radar contact on Bismarck at 16 miles.

On Ark Royal, the first strike that targeted the Sheffield had a single radar equipped Swordfish but several were launched as part of the second strike. Again all carried torpedoes.

ASV.II used Yagi aerials on the leading edge of the upper wing in front of the pilot and on the outer interplane struts. These did not interfere with the carriage of a torpedo between the undercarriage legs.

Come 1944 however, the Swordfish Mk.III was equipped with a radome for a centimetric ASV set between its undercarriage legs. As a result it was unable to carry a torpedo. It's main role was ASW with depth charges and rockets although they did take part in a number of anti-shipping strikes off Norway in 1944/45. They were often referred to as pregnant Swordfish.

 

[pbehn]

Not true.

All 9 Swordfish of 825 squadron launched from Victorious against the Bismarck carried torpedoes and were all equipped with ASV.II Radar. The leader got a radar contact on Bismarck at 16 miles.

On Ark Royal, the first strike that targeted the Sheffield had a single radar equipped Swordfish but several were launched as part of the second strike. Again all carried torpedoes.

ASV.II used Yagi aerials on the leading edge of the upper wing in front of the pilot and on the outer interplanetary struts. These did not interfere with the carriage of a torpedo between the undercarriage legs.

Come 1944 however, the Swordfish Mk.III was equipped with a radome for a centimetric ASV set between its undercarriage legs. As a result it was unable to carry a torpedo. It's main role was ASW with depth charges and rockets although they did take part in a number of anti-shipping strikes off Norway in 1944/45. They were often referred to as pregnant Swordfish.

Thanks, I confused those two bits of info. I knew they were using one plane to guide another.

 

[Shortround6]

I don't believe it was a shortage of night fighter and strike aircraft. From 1944 the USN CV Air groups all had a night fighter flight attached for defensive purposes especially around dawn and dusk.

The strike aircraft (Avengers and dive bombers) often had radar using the Yagi aerials. Since they had somebody besides the pilot as a radar operator they were probably a better bet for "scout duty" than using single seat night fighters were were not common.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

A "scout" without a long range radio is pretty much useless.
Scouts that need accompanying 2-3 seat aircraft to provide navigation support are also redundant/useless.

You got a good point about the notion that scouts need radios to really work well, but even without a radio I would not go so far as to say 'useless'.

A6Ms routinely navigated over long distances in Pacific, from the Aleutians to Australia.

Vals and Kates could be used as scouts. It does dilute the strike force but using A6Ms as scouts and waiting for them to fly back from spotting something to land on the carrier or use a short range radio to report a sighting for 1-2 hours earlier doesn't make for very good strikes either.

And you are sure they never had a long range radio in an A6M?

Radar also changed considerably as the war went on, also for long range search you search range was rather dependent on the altitude of the plane.

Even the US didn't have enough radar equipped night fighters to use them as distant scouts. Even some big carriers only had 4-6 radar equipped night fighters.

Obviously all of this changed as the war went on. With regard to radio and the Swordfish, I was mainly referring to strikes in bad weather or at night.

 

[yulzari]

The Army had the equally fast twin engined Ki-46 of course which caused the Allies some problems for a while but it seemed to become victim of Allied fighters fairly often by the mid-war.

Bill, 1942 was the middle of the war. From the point of view of my father who had spent the three previous years in active service across three continents.

 

[Shortround6]

You got a good point about the notion that scouts need radios to really work well, but even without a radio I would not go so far as to say 'useless'.

A6Ms routinely navigated over long distances in Pacific, from the Aleutians to Australia.

And you are sure they never had a long range radio in an A6M?

Never is a long time but a lot of the early A6m's didn't even have a radio or it was taken out, sometimes because the static from the engine ignition system was so bad as to make the radio useless.
For radios in general using voice instead of morse code shortened the range by around a factor of 3.

Long range radios used higher power transmitters, they used different frequencies, and they used different antennae's because of the different frequencies.
A lot of early war (and some later war) used variable length antennae's to tune the antennae to the frequency being used. Some aircraft had 100ft or more of wire on a spool that was let out and retracted by a hand crank to get the length of antennae to match the desired frequency.

A lot of western fighters had short range radios in the early part of the war. Some still had short range radios at the end. Short is relative but both radios and antennae's made good progress during the war.

as for useless, that rather depends on the definition of "scout" and/or what you definition of reconnaissance is.
If all you what is a plane to fly over an Island and fly back and tell when it lands if the enemy has troops on the Island then perhaps the plane will meet your goal.
If the plane flies over a group of enemy ships and has to fly for 3 hours to make it back to land to report it is pretty useless. The enemy ships can move over 60 miles in any direction by the time the plane makes it back, by the time a strike can be formed up, launched and make it back to the "target area" the possible target area could be 140-180 miles in radius (280-360 miles in diameter) OR, the enemy strike aircraft are bombing your runways/flight decks as you are forming up to take off.
Plane with a working radio gives you 3 hours extra warning.

 

[PAT303]

Just want to say the information in is thread is brilliant.

 

[EwenS]

Further to my post #187 and this comment

Reading back through this thread, I'm beginning to sense that the RN/FAA didn't have a clearly defined vision for the role of the aircraft carrier and this shows in the types of aircraft being designed and flip flopping in design specs. Thinking about the Corsair vs Seafire part of this thread, the Corsair must have been a real boon to the FAA especially given its capacity as a multi-role platform. Ordnance capacity (other than the torpedo) is on par with the Barracude and well above the Seafire all the while being able to serve as an air superiority fighter. One could imagine that if enough had been available that you could have seen carriers with a majority of Corsairs and very few other types.

I'll try to summarise the RN fighter position interwar. Friedman's "Carrier Air Power" and "Fighters over the Fleet. Naval Air Defence from Biplanes to the Cold War" are good reads on the subject. But first turn the clock back to 1920 and review the carrier position.

USN
The USN only began conversion of the collier Jupiter to CV-1 Langley in March 1920, completing her 2 years later. Capacity 36 but with very difficult hangar operation (aircraft had to be craned on and off the lift as it was not flush with hangar floor).

IJN
Hosho laid down Dec 1920 and completed 2 years later with RN assistance. Capacity 15 aircraft.

RN
Ignoring the semi-carriers Furious & Vindictive, the RN completed Argus (capacity 18), the world's first flush decked carrier, in Sept 1918. Eagle's conversion was suspended after trials in 1918 pending experience with Argus. Construction began again in 1921 and she completed in early 1924 (capacity c30 aircraft). Hermes, the world's first purpose designed carrier, laid down Jan 1918 and underwent several redesigns before completing in 1924. Capacity 20 aircraft.

July 1920 the RN decides to convert Furious & Courageous to full carriers, beginning the strip down of Furious in 1921 before the Washington Conference starts. Glorious is added to the schedule post Washington. These complete F 1925 (capacity 36), C converted 1924-28 (capacity 48) and Glorious converted 1924-30).

Washington Conference
Allows the US and Japan to realise something from their to be cancelled capital ship programmes by allowing conversion of two ships each of a size in excess of the carrier Treaty limit of 27,000 tons. Britain has no such ships building at the time of the Conference. Hence Lexington and Saratoga (completed late 1927 capacity 90 aircraft) and Akagi & Kaga (completed 1927-29 capacity 60).

After that the USN goes smaller with the unsuccessful Ranger and Japan also goes smaller, trying to exploit a Treaty loophole closed in the 1930 London Treaty, with the even less successful Ryūjō. A period of experimentation for them.

So Britain leads the world in carrier development in the early 1920s. It falls to it to work out how best to equip and use the aircraft carrier.

How did the RN see the roles for its carrier aircraft? Dec 1919 CinC Atlantic Fleet defined them as:-
Reconnaissance (edit - to find the enemy fleet)
Spotting (edit - for the fleet's big guns)
Torpedo attack (and depth bombing subs) (edit - to slow down the enemy fleet for RN big guns to catch them)
Machine gun attack on hostile aircraft and on exposed personnel aboard enemy ships and destroyers. (Edit - principally to allow unimpeded torpedo attack)

But the focus was on obtaining air superiority by destroying an enemy's carriers so denying them a platform to strike back.

So the initial fighters were WW1 types followed by the unsuccessful Nieuport Nightjar (a version of the RAF Nighthawk) and then the purpose designed Fairey Flycatcher (because the RAF Sopwith Snipe wasn't suitable for carrier use). That led to the Hawker Nimrod in the early 1930s. (Which was still in service in 1938).

But it was the reconnaissance task that led to the development of the two seat fighter. What the RN defined as "Fleet Reconaissance" involved the initial search for an enemy fleet, after which aircraft involved could retreat. The other task, defined as "Contact Reconnaissance", later called "Fighter Reconnaissance",involved shadowing the enemy, possibly under the threat of interception, which required a faster more manoeuvrable aircraft. But that type still required two seats so that it could radio its contacts to the fleet and find its way back to the parent carrier. That led to the two seat Hawker Osprey. A secondary role for that aircraft then became supporting the torpedo bomber attack by machine gunning the AA crews on enemy ships. And from that it became short step to adding bombs and the design of the dive bomber and the Blackburn Skua.

As for defence of the fleet itself (or for knocking down an enemy's gunfire spotters when both fleets were in proximity to each other) that involved single seaters that couldn't venture far from the fleet or they wouldn't find their way back. Added to that the problem was that spotting an enemy attack depended on the Mk.I eyeball. And exercises in the late 1920s revealed that pilots on standing patrols (CAP in today's terms) had difficulty spotting an enemy, often more-so than spotters on the ships that they defending. And single seat fighters of the period did not carry radios, let alone voice radios, allowing direction from the ship. And the carriers couldn't carry enough fighters to maintain permanent patrols in enough strength to keep the fleet safe. And as aircraft speeds increased in the 1930s the problem increased significantly as interception times shortened.

So the fleet came to depend more on its AA guns and the RN plowed a lot of money into High Angle Control Systems to increase their accuracy, with fighters providing an outer layer of defence to break up attacks. Ultimately the Abyssinian Crisis showed that fighter protection was virtually impossible and that the torpedo aircraft, needed to slow down an enemy fleet to bring it within big gun range, would need protection under armour and the Armoured carrier concept was born.

The small air groups on British carriers are often looked on unfavourably compared with the USN. USN Carrier tactics until 1942 called for them to operate individually. From the early 1930s Britain was practicing multi carrier operations, pooling the airgroups of several ships for attack & defence. 1938 plans for example called for 4 carriers in the Mediterranean, something reiterated in 1940 when carrier numbers were reviewed. Unfortunately the early outbreak of war in 1939 meant that those plans couldn't be realised.

As for aircraft radios, AIUI, HF voice radio telephony only began to appear in the early 1930s with VHF around 1939/40. Radar direction of fighters only began off Norway in April 1940 with the RN fighter direction school set up in mid-1941 with 2 US participants. The USN set up its first direction school in Sept 1941, using much of what the RN had already learned.

By 1938 the RN knew it didn't have a viable short range interceptor, hence the desire to acquire Sea Gladiator or better. Skua and then Fulmar have to fill that role short term.

Couple of points about the USN. The dive bomber grew out of 1920s attempts at fitting bombs to fighters to wreck carrier decks. All pre war US fighters were designed to carry small bombs. The USN moved away from the torpedo bomber in the early 1930s, not considering it an effective weapon. It was only revived with the TBD Devastator in 1937. Ranger was designed without any torpedo storage at all.

I can't agree that the RN had no vision for the carrier. The split of responsibilities between RAF and RN made it more difficult than in the IJN and USN to realise that vision. And as the world leader in the 1920s and early 1930s there was no book to refer to.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Why did Vought design the Corsair with such poor visibility and rearward cockpit placement?

http://www.oocities.org/capecanaveral/4676/images/f4u_cutaway_01.jpg

Why not put the fuel behind the pilot, move some of the supercharger gear behind the engine to behind or beneath the pilot? Yes we need to watch the CoG. It's just such an odd layout by a designer who knew he was making a naval aircraft.

 

[SaparotRob]

Didn't the original F4U have the cockpit more forward?

 

[EwenS]

Didn't the original F4U have the cockpit more forward?

The whole fuselage was lengthened from the XF4U and the F4U-1. The cockpit moved aft and the engine forward so more fuel could be added, some of it displaced from the wings by increasing the armament.

 

[EwenS]

Why did Vought design the Corsair with such poor visibility and rearward cockpit placement?

http://www.oocities.org/capecanaveral/4676/images/f4u_cutaway_01.jpg

Why not put the fuel behind the pilot, move some of the supercharger gear behind the engine to behind or beneath the pilot? Yes we need to watch the CoG. It's just such an odd layout by a designer who knew he was making a naval aircraft.

I've always understood that the RAF aversion interwar to rear fuel tanks was because they thought them more vulnerable to attack from behind, especially when they weren't self sealing.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

I've always understood that the RAF aversion interwar to rear fuel tanks was because they thought them more vulnerable to attack from behind, especially when they weren't self sealing.

The fuel tank in front of the pilot is at or near the center of gravity, therefore as fuel is used the handling characteristics do not change. A rear mounted tank does have adverse effects on handling. This is why, for example, the rear tank of the P-51 was to be used before the other tanks. Note that drop tanks are mounted to be close to the aircrafts CoG.
The fuel tanks for the prototype Corsair were in the wings. The USN decided that synchronized guns were inferior to wing mounted and need to find space for the new armament arrangement. The displaced fuel was moved to the fuselage at the CoG so the pilot was moved back.

 

[Shortround6]

Didn't the original F4U have the cockpit more forward?

You are correct.

There were about 800 changes between the XF4U-1 and the 1st production versions.
The prototype did have a single .50 cal gun in each wing. There were also little bomb cells in each wing for dropping bombs on enemy bomber formations.
Part of the problem with the fuel was that between initial design and prototype testing the Navy decided in might be kind of nice to have at least one fuel tank that was self-sealing,
(what pansies). Please note that the early production Corsairs did have fuel tanks in each wing of just under 60 US gallons in each wing.
Now in the late 30s the US designers had a real fetish for integral tanks and Vought was part of that (Used them on the Kingfisher float plane) and if you want to fit standard fuel tanks you have to redo the wing structure. The storage that stayed in the wings were unprotected (overload tanks) although there was a CO2 system to help keep down the fumes.
Between the change in armament ( two fuselage guns moved out to the wing and two more added) and the need for protected fuel storage the tank wound up in front of the cockpit with the cockpit moved back. The Fuselage tank did take up some of the space the cowl guns and ammo had occupied.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Bill, 1942 was the middle of the war. From the point of view of my father who had spent the three previous years in active service across three continents.

Did I say otherwise? They were already shooting down Ki-46 in 1942.

Please don't suggest I was trying to disparage your father, that is a stretch!

 

[Admiral Beez]

I wonder how a Seafire would handle with aft fuel tanks. The added endurance would be welcome.

13's....

Concise Guide To Spitfire Wing Types

ww2aircraft.net