FAA Seafire vs Corsair

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Outstanding. That really paints a nuanced picture.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

It's not clear to me how many, my understanding is that by mid-war a lot of IJN units anyway were using them.

Again yes and no - many units were discarding their radios, mentioned by Saburō Sakai many times

Well that was part of the (both planned and actual) mission of the Fulmar. And the USN certainly sent both bombers and fighters out to scout and even on "ASW" (sub-search) missions during the war. The SBD was designated as a 'scout-bomber' and some of the USN SBD squadrons were specifically designated as 'Scout-Bomber' units. Those were the ones which got some fighter training.

OK if you're comparing the allies to the Japanese

Whether or not to use a fighter on recon is in part a matter of balancing tactical advantages vs. strategic / operational. If you are in a carrier knowing where they enemy ships are may be more important than having one more fighter on CAP or escort.

Depends on the situation. Again, there were IJN scout planes designed specifically for this

That said, I certainly wouldn't sent a lot of fighters (or bombers) on scouting missions, but it depends what other options you have. Up to a certain point, maybe you can rely on the E-13s or the OS2U and ground based PBYs and so on. But the OS2U's didn't have such a great range, they were slow (as were the PBYs) and may not be available in numbers where you are.

Up front yes (my initial point) but on the other side if you don't have that luxury, you use what's available

Agreed, though it took a while. They didn't disappear or lose their sting overnight.

Agree

 

[Reluctant Poster]

My understanding is that the engine itself generated static to the extent that the radio on the Zero, while not absolutely useless, was so poor that it could not reliably transmit for the four hundred or so miles of a mission round-trip back to base. It's not that they didn't have long-range radio, it's that the generator(?) in the engine gave electrical interference.


Without reliable radio, using Zeroes for scouting not only diminished a carrier's CAP, it also was not reliable enough to provide early warning. If you've got to trap on the deck before delivering intel, that could obviously be too late in many instances.

Would a Zero in the place of Tone's late scout have made a difference if its message was garbled by these known radio issues? The delayed Tone scout-plane reported by radio "one carrier" at 0740. But if it had been a Zero with the crummy radio, would Nagumo have done the order-counterorder-disorder thing because he'd have no intel until the plane landed? Or would he have blithely launched a second strike at Midway with many of his fighters flying bomber-escort instead of CAP?

The world wonders.

Note that radio interference wasn't limited to the Japanese. According to Freeman in "The Mighty Eighth War Manual" in his discussion of the early P-47.
"The ignition system of the engine, poorly designed from the standpoint of interference with radio equipment was found to have some 36 leaks and the unfiltered booster coil allowed a leak back into the battery system. After the leaks had been located, special shielding was designed as a remedy............... a new ignition system was designed in the US and incorporated in subsequent P-47s."
Note that this was in 1943 with much better radio equipment (VHF) than the Japanese had.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

Report on operations by CVG(N)-90 on the Enterprise along with histories of her rwo squadrons, between Dec 1944 & May 1945

Night Operations Analysis

Analysis of Night Operations Aboard USS Enterprise CV-6

www.cv6.org

VF(N)-90 Squadron History

The history of Night Fighting Squadron 90: a pioneering US Navy night and all-weather squadron, 1944-1945.

www.cv6.org

VT(N)-90 Squadron History

The history of Night Torpedo Squadron 90: one the first US Navy squadrons engaged in night and all-weather carrier operations, 1944-1945.

www.cv6.org

History of Carrier Division Seven - First Night Carrier Division

Carrier Division Seven

History of Carrier Division Seven: The Navy's first night carrier division.

www.cv6.org

Note the variety of missions being flown in daylight, bad weather and at night by the fighters. These included CAPs over the carrier groups, bombardment groups and target areas and intruder sorties over enemy territories.

The RN converted the light carrier Ocean as a night carrier between Aug & Nov 1945 immediately following her completion. She then embarked 892 squadron with Hellcat NF.II (F6F-5(N)) and 1792 with Firefly NF.I. Until April 1946 they flew trials to determine which made the best night fighter. The conclusion was that while the APS-6 radar in the structural wing pod on the Hellcat was better as an air-intercept set, the AN/APS-4 in the Firefly could also be used for surface search and could be fitted to any Firefly easily simply by moving the black boxes between airframes. In addition having an observer to work the radar was a safer option in bad weather, leaving the pilot free to concentrate on flying the aircraft. That led to the addition of so called "Black" night fighter flights to all Firefly squadrons up until the outbreak of the Korean War.

Friedman in "Fighters Over the Fleet"
"As evaluated by May 1945, the F7F-2N was found to be superior to the F6F-5N, at that time the standard carrier night fighter, both in overall performance and in that the radar operator was able to reduce interception time substantially."

 

[nuuumannn]

Voice radio was used during WW1, the French tried it out over Verdun during 1916 (with a few problems) and the British used it over the battlefield during 1918 (air to ground) and also in the British air defence system at home.

As an historic aside from this excellent conversation, the RNAS also used it during the Dardanelles campaign for artillery spotting in early 1915. The seaplane tender Ark Royal had one radio set that used to be loaded aboard each aircraft before each sortie. This was the first time that aerial spotting using aeroplanes equipped with radio was used to plot the fall of naval gunfire against land targets - the primary purpose of sending aircraft into the Dardanelles in the first place. The balloon tender HMS Manica also had radio contact with its tethered balloon whilst gunfire spotting. This was also the first time that aerial photographic reconnaissance was used to verify fall of shot of naval weapons pre and post attack, narrowly missing the first use of aerial photography for reconnaissance over a battlefield in the Great War by a matter of weeks. This was also the RNAS under Charles Rumney Sampson, but using French cameras and expertise.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

Very interesting article, thanks for posting.

From this...

"The type 96-1 operated in the frequency range of 3.8 to 5.8 megahertz. This is the lower end of the High Frequency or Short Wave band. Quartz crystal oscillators controlled frequencies. Power of the transmitter was 8 to 10 watts in voice mode and 30 watts in telegraph mode, called CW for 'continuous wave'. In 'At Dawn We Slept' Gordon Prange relates that one of the problems encountered in the IJN's preparation for Pearl Harbor was that they had never operated fighters farther than 90 miles from their carriers. 50 miles was the practical limit of utility of the voice radios under optimum conditions. Since the fighters would be venturing around 250 miles outbound on the mission it was necessary to initiate a training program in the use of the longer ranged telegraph code communication. It may be seen in the photo that Hirano's A6M2 did not have a code key installed and his transmitter is set to voice function. It seems that not all fighter pilots were trained in code transmission. Perhaps only unit leaders were supplied with the necessary equipment. The receiver circuit was a superheterodyne type. Total weight of the system was 38 pounds."

And some other parts of the article, it sounds like the radios weren't that bad, problems were somewhat intermittent but the biggest issue was actually training. Apparently A6Ms did carry morse radio sets and could and did communicate with aircraft carriers, at a distance of 250 miles. I think this definitely puts them over the line from "useless" and well into "useful".

It seems that training and maintenance, and eventually production quality were all significant problems though and as we know by Midway they seem to have been mainly relying on the flying boats and cruiser launched seaplane scouts. I'd love to know if they were ever using zeros as armed recon later in the war.

Drachinifel has a long and informative video on the Zero, wherein his interviewee, Justin, goes into the radio issues with the Zero. One thing he notes is that the radio issues were more prevalent in the equatorial region than up north around the Hawaiian Islands. He also notes that even the Allies suffered radio issues in the Solomon Islands, seeing a reduction in range to (according to him) around 80 km range for the Wildcats radio when normally they would have had significantly longer range.

He goes into the radio issues starting a 1:46:30 in this video, but the entire thing is well worth the watch if you've got a few spare hours:

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

It might have been done by US fighter units on occasion.

The USN initially paired their nightfighters with a TBF/TBM carrying radar which would vector two non-radar Hellcats onto targets. Indeed, Butch O'Hare disappeared on such a mission in 1943. Of course, they transitioned to nightfighter variants of both the Hellcat and the Corsair well before the war ended.

Also, P-38s flying direct to ETO usually used a heavy bomber to provide nav support.

Not sure if any of these buddy missions involved the issue of radio communications directly, though.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

One thing I remember about radios in the Med, one of the pilots, I think it was a Canadian Ace, "stocky" Edwards, mentioned that the US vs. UK planes (both P-40s) had different radios, and that the British one was a HF set with knobs for tuning, while the American one was a VHF and it had preset buttons like in a late 20th Century car radio. He said the latter was much faster for changing bands, and described an incident where they were trying to warn a guy of a bounce and he never reacted, and they figured he was fiddling with dials.

 

[Macandy]

The Corsair nor Hellcat never encountered a Fw 190 nor Me 109G

Lucky for the Fw 190 and Me 109 pilots who'd have had a quick ride to Valhalla at the hands of a fighter that was faster, outclimbed them and could turn inside them with ease.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

One thing I remember about radios in the Med, one of the pilots, I think it was a Canadian Ace, "stocky" Edwards, mentioned that the US vs. UK planes (both P-40s) had different radios, and that the British one was a HF set with knobs for tuning, while the American one was a VHF and it had preset buttons like in a late 20th Century car radio. He said the latter was much faster for changing bands, and described an incident where they were trying to warn a guy of a bounce and he never reacted, and they figured he was fiddling with dials.

I think that was the difference between analog, manually-tuned radios, and crystal sets which operated on only a few frequencies but which had much better freq-tracking fidelity.

So far as I know (what little that is!) the Japanese only used crystal radio-sets through the war, but I'm definitely open to correction in that regard.

 

[FLYBOYJ]

One thing I remember about radios in the Med, one of the pilots, I think it was a Canadian Ace, "stocky" Edwards, mentioned that the US vs. UK planes (both P-40s) had different radios, and that the British one was a HF set with knobs for tuning, while the American one was a VHF and it had preset buttons like in a late 20th Century car radio. He said the latter was much faster for changing bands, and described an incident where they were trying to warn a guy of a bounce and he never reacted, and they figured he was fiddling with dials.

Yes - US VHF radios had 3 or more preset frequencies IIRC.

 

[Macandy]

The Seafires were operating off ~15 knot CVE's in essentially windless conditions, consequently their landing speeds were excessive but any other carrier fighter would have suffered under similar conditions.

Additionally, all Seafires from the II variant onward were purpose built as carrier aircraft, extensively modified from the basic Mk V, and were not converted Mk Vs.

All Seafires until the very last marks with contra props suffered from an intractable problem, they were very prone 'pecking the deck' when trapping back aboard, busting the engine and bulkhead - winning themselves a push over the side and a swim.
Some Squadrons lost 50% of their Seafires to deck landing accidents and none to enemy action.

In all respects, it was a very poor carrier aircraft, unlike Grummans Hellcat, arguably the best 'package'. Fast enough, tough, well armed, highly manoeuvrable and with docile deck behaviour.
Yes, the Corsair was a better fighter, but it was also a bit of a beast - and while a terror to the enemy in the hands of a pilot who could master it, it was as big terror to those that didn't. It didn't take prisoners - 'Bent winged bastard' or 'Ensign eliminator' depending wether your were FAA or USN

 

[FLYBOYJ]

SCR-522 - RadioNerds

radionerds.com

 

[Reluctant Poster]

One thing I remember about radios in the Med, one of the pilots, I think it was a Canadian Ace, "stocky" Edwards, mentioned that the US vs. UK planes (both P-40s) had different radios, and that the British one was a HF set with knobs for tuning, while the American one was a VHF and it had preset buttons like in a late 20th Century car radio. He said the latter was much faster for changing bands, and described an incident where they were trying to warn a guy of a bounce and he never reacted, and they figured he was fiddling with dials.

You have it backwards. The British transitioned to VHF before the Americans did. Late production Spitfire I and IIs were equipped with TR1133 VHF radios. Friedman writes in "Fighters Over the Fleet" for Operation Pedestal in August 1942 the RN had VHF sets: "The fighters and controllers had VHF voice radio (R/T) which the US Navy would not have in quantity for another year." My emphasis in bold.

In fact, according to Freeman in "The Mighty Eighth War Manual" the US VHS set was based was based on the British one. "A very high frequency set based on the British TR1143 and interchangeable with it, the SCR-522-A was the principal operation set for verbal communications with both 8th Air force bombers and fighters."

More info on British VHF radios

SpitfireSpares.com - warbird Reference

www.spitfirespares.com

Here's a photo of a Tomahawk fitted with a TR1133

THE SHARK HAS LANDED! Curtiss Tomahawk 112sqn RAF

forum.largescaleplanes.com

 

[PAT303]

It was impossible to fit aft fuel tanks in the Merlin and early Griffon engined variants.

They could have added 25G tanks in the leading edges, there's lots of room.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Lucky for the Fw 190 and Me 109 pilots who'd have had a quick ride to Valhalla at the hands of a fighter that was faster, outclimbed them and could turn inside them with ease.

I'm pretty sure F6 at least did encounter Bf 109Gs and handled them, though the excuse is that the (German) pilots were green.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

You have it backwards. The British transitioned to VHF before the Americans did. Late production Spitfire I and IIs were equipped with TR1133 VHF radios. Friedman writes in "Fighters Over the Fleet" for Operation Pedestal in August 1942 the RN had VHF sets: "The fighters and controllers had VHF voice radio (R/T) which the US Navy would not have in quantity for another year." My emphasis in bold.

In fact, according to Freeman in "The Mighty Eighth War Manual" the US VHS set was based was based on the British one. "A very high frequency set based on the British TR1143 and interchangeable with it, the SCR-522-A was the principal operation set for verbal communications with both 8th Air force bombers and fighters."

More info on British VHF radios

SpitfireSpares.com - warbird Reference

www.spitfirespares.com

Here's a photo of a Tomahawk fitted with a TR1133

THE SHARK HAS LANDED! Curtiss Tomahawk 112sqn RAF

forum.largescaleplanes.com

I'll see if I can find the quote, both aircraft were P-40s actually, in the Med. It was either Edwards or Gibbes.

(EDIT: I wasn't trying to crap on the British radios, just relating an anecdote. For all I know both sets were made by the Americans. Anyway I'll find the quote)

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

I think that was the difference between analog, manually-tuned radios, and crystal sets which operated on only a few frequencies but which had much better freq-tracking fidelity.

So far as I know (what little that is!) the Japanese only used crystal radio-sets through the war, but I'm definitely open to correction in that regard.

That is what that article was saying as well.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

That is what that article was saying as well.

I was relieved, reading it. that my old-ass memory was working, for a change.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

All Seafires until the very last marks with contra props suffered from an intractable problem, they were very prone 'pecking the deck' when trapping back aboard, busting the engine and bulkhead - winning themselves a push over the side and a swim.
Some Squadrons lost 50% of their Seafires to deck landing accidents and none to enemy action.

In all respects, it was a very poor carrier aircraft, unlike Grummans Hellcat, arguably the best 'package'. Fast enough, tough, well armed, highly manoeuvrable and with docile deck behaviour.
Yes, the Corsair was a better fighter, but it was also a bit of a beast - and while a terror to the enemy in the hands of a pilot who could master it, it was as big terror to those that didn't. It didn't take prisoners - 'Bent winged bastard' or 'Ensign eliminator' depending wether your were FAA or USN

I've had the good fortune to talk to a couple of dozen WW2 fighter pilots over the years. Generally, they liked the plane(s) they flew, but when you try to get them talking about the combat performance etc., what they usually talked about was things like landing and takeoff, how comfortable they were to sit in and so on.