Improved Skua for FAA?

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Admiral Beez said:
The same way the RN's fighters before the Skua, and those of the USN, IJNAS and Aéronavale did before the introduction of radar, Mark I eyeball with limited (if any) radio comm back to the mothership for reinforcements.
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Which ignores the problem that experience in exercises showed that the Mk 1 eyeball was no where reliable enough especially air to air. Often ships were spotting attacking aircraft long before the airborne fighters. Too late for deck launched interceptors to react. Too close for any available fighters, if able to be directed by radio, to get to them before coming in range of the fleet's AA barrage.
 
EwenS said:
Which ignores the problem that experience in exercises showed that the Mk 1 eyeball was no where reliable enough especially air to air.
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I don't know how to overcome the contrarianism here. I must be an eternal optimist, otherwise why do I bother? So here goes..... All the carrier fleets into the 1930s are operating single seat fighters, I'm just suggesting the RN carry on alongside the Japanese, Americans and French carrier arms as it prepares to design its first all-metal, folding wing, retractable undercarriage aircraft. Make it a single seat fighter, like everyone else instead of pursuing the Skua.
 
But the point wasn't to penetrate the main Armoured deck (the hangar deck) of the carrier. It was to rip up the flight deck making it unserviceable and exploding within the hangar to do damage there and with a bit of luck start fires. The US carriers had a thin steel deck with 3" of timber on top.
 
But the main USN fighter from 1936 to 1941 is the non folding wing, 264mph, Grumman F3F biplane. OK it has a manually retracted undercarriage.

For Japan the monoplane Mitsubishi A5M with fixed undercart, 270mph introduced 1936.

The RN made a rush purchase of 250mph Sea Gladiator in 1938 with delivery late 1938/early 1939 to replace the 200mph Nimrod still in service.

With hindsight the RN needs a single seater to enter service in 1940. In other words at the same time as the USN F4F-3 and the Japanese A6M-2 Zero. But it needs more speed than the 330mph speed of those two because of what it will have to face in the skies over Europe. Robust like the F4F. And with folding wings from the start. Folding wings only appear on the F4F-4 which only began production in Q3 1941. On the A6M only the wingtips folded.

So I don't think that either the US or Japan should be held up as what the RN should aspire to in the mid1930s.
 
That's what I am saying. No point in SAP, they are not needed to penetrate into the hanger, they don't cause as much damage as a GP when they do explode. What I am saying it that a 1000 lb bomb is likely going to cause much more damage. That being said USN carriers suffered large fires from 1 or 2 500 lb bombs on more than one occasion.
I think the USN philosophy was that if you were going to carry one centerline bomb make as big as possible (at the time)
 
I think you are giving USN and French too much credit:

In '33, just 8 months before AM orders Skua, USN is ordering Vought XF3U: a biplane, 2 seat fighter to fulfill the same role as Hawker Osprey - the "reconnaissance in force" airplane. And there was much debate within USN BuAer, if moving the plane to SBU Corsair to be more focused DB role was correct course. And remember the XF4F was also a biplane in '36. The USN gets it right by '42. But Skua's reputation has been made by then.

I'm not sure the Wibault 74 would be my single seat fighter of choice in '39, or Dewoitine D.376 in '40.

And there is a period from '34 to ~'41, where a single seat interceptor is next to useless - where Mk. 1 eyeball is replaced by Radar.

Remember, when the specification is let, there aren't any Hurricane, Spitfires, Bf.109s, etc. So, Blackburn Skua was bleeding edge in '37, with all metal, folding wing, retracting gear, enclosed cockpit.

The issue is really there was no upgrade path for Blackburn's aircraft:
There are issues with the RAE wind tunnel (turbulence) which means it isn't giving correct drag number. So, you can't really say if that windshield is costing 0.5mph, 5mph or 50 mph​
The Perseus can't be developed into a 1,300 hp engine. (or even an 1,100hp one)*​
There is no plan to swap Bristol engine for RR one ala Fw.190A to Fw.190D (probably weren't enough Merlins anyways.)​

But I look at Hawker Henley of more/less same weight/wing area and see a plane that can almost touch 300mph and I can't help but think a cleaner design would have been more useful as a fighter.
​
*The NM experiments with a twin Potexz 565 leading to Bréguet Bre.810 for strike aircraft in acknowledgement that an engine of sufficient power are unavailable, being alternative. Somehow, I don't think twin Aquila's really buys anything.
 
don4331 said:
I'm not sure the Wibault 74 would be my single seat fighter of choice in '39, or Dewoitine D.376 in '40.
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No, but to be fair the French get the credit for the very first single seat monoplane carrier fighter with folding wings. Wing tips aside it's not something the Japanese would ever accomplish, the US not until late 1941 with the first folding Wildcats, and the British not until the Seafire Mk.III of 1943. Of course the D.376 is rubbish otherwise, even Skuas would shoot them down.
 
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don4331 said:
But I look at Hawker Henley of more/less same weight/wing area and see a plane that can almost touch 300mph and I can't help but think a cleaner design would have been more useful as a fighter.
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Henley "near" 300mph with a Merlin II or III which has 1030hp at 16,250ft.
Skua 225mph at 6,500ft with a Perseus XII with 905hp at 6,500ft.

Now just for comparisons sake;

Hurricane I with constant speed prop and using 6.25lbs of boost.

5,000ft.............................................276mph
6,500ft.............................................280mph
10,000ft..........................................291.5mph
16,500ft..........................................312mph
18,000ft..........................................316mph


Comparing the speed of planes at widely different altitudes is going to lead to some distorted results.

Yes the Hurricane would make a good carrier fighter if given a constant speed prop in 1939.
The Henley........not so much, unless you stick in a medium altitude Merlin (like Fulmar got) you are looking at a 250-260mph airplane at the combat altitudes of the Skua.
And the Henley had only one machine gun in the wing and as built had 94 Imp gallons of fuel.
I know you were not proposing using the Henley but just using it as a "benchmark".

You might have easily improved the Skua but with the Perseus engine you have a major problem. The chances of even getting close to the Hurricane's drag numbers are not good no matter what you do. Even if you get the Skua "slick" up to 245mph (1/2 the difference between a normal Skua and the Henley at 6,5000ft) you still don't have much of a fighter.

What is a 240-245mph Skua going to do that a 225mph Skua won't do?
 
re the USN push for the 1000 lb GP bomb

Somewhere on the internet . . .

There is a very good report on the tests made by the USN in the late-1920s to mid-1930s using bombers (level and dive) vs ships. One of the lessons learned was that a 1000 lb HE bomb was more likely to cause useful damage against a ship with a heavily armoured ship deck (or decks) than a 1000 lb AP bomb. Partly (as mentioned upthread) this was because it was difficult to make an AP bomb with a fuse that would still function after penetrating to the ships vitals, and partly the relatively tiny amount of HE that could be incorporated into an AP bomb of sufficient ruggedness.

Incidentally, the British had reached approximately the same conclusion during the same period. Although the British successfully developed a large AP bomb that could penetrate enough armour to reach the vitals of heavily armoured ships and explode (see "http://www.wwiiequipment.com/index....armour-piercing-bomb&catid=43:bombs&Itemid=60"), to do so they had to be dropped from relatively high altitudes with a consequent low chance of a hit.

Subsequently the British did studies as to what the optimum size bomb that could be carried on the operational airframes in service - or soon to be in service. They decided that a 500 lb HE or SAP was the best choice. Aside from the Skua with its single bomb, the Shark and Swordfish could carry 3x 500 lb, and the Albacore could carry 4x 500 lb bombs. The Shark and Swordfish had dive speeds of over 215 mph, and the Albacore's was 250 mph, when dive bombing.
 
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The Skua was not chosen as the fighter but as a strike aeroplane. They just made minor changes so that it could cope with the bombers and torpedo aeroplanes of the time. They needed a strike aeroplane and, at the time it was designed and entered service it was the canine testes of it's day. They also wanted a single seat defence fighter. Hence the search for a navalised Spitfire and Hurricane which was blocked by the home defence priority. Now if you can see the funding, spare design capacity and production to make a few dozen naval fighters using the production engines of that time without impinging upon the home defence priority it would receive a round of applause from Their Lordships and much booing from Their Airships. The spare capacity and funding just was not there and the Gladiator was only about to enter service and remain in front line home defence service. Only Fairey had something else and could carry it out. Make a new fighter and you have to not do something else. With hindsight I could happily do a long list of aeroplanes that may as well not have been made. Just a maybe; Boulton Paul's Defiant production did not get into full stride until after they had completed their Roc production. Perhaps there is a window then for a Sea Defiant but even then it will not get onto an operational deck until late 1940 so the Gladiator is the only option for the first two years. The key to arming the FAA with effective fighters is classing it as part of home defence.
 
Turing some of the arguments on their head; what was the purpose the earlier single seat FAA fighters? What was the actual threat to be met? I am reminded of the due to be independent Malaysian government intentions on an Air Force. They fancied some Venoms and Canberras but the staff pointed out that there was no threat requiring such expenses and mopping up of skilled staff and persuaded them to start on armed trainers and light tactical transport and build up from there. Who was sailing the oceans with potential enemy fighters and likely to attack the fleet? USA?
France? Japan, our recent best fleet mates?
 
For the Admiralty, from 1923 the threat to Imperial interests was seen as Japan.

The Anglo-Japanese Alliance finally came to an end in Aug 1923, following decisions taken at the 1921 Imperial Conference and the signing of the Washington Treaty.

Anglo-Japanese Alliance - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The Sempill Mission in 1921/22 probably represents the last signs of co-operation until after WW2.

Sempill Mission - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

The change in attitude is best shown by the decision to build a new naval base at Singapore, which was announced in 1923. Construction started slowly and gained a fresh impetus in 1931 following Japanese moves into China. It opened in 1938 but was still under development on the outbreak of war with Japan in Dec 1941. Imperial defence was then based around sending a large fleet east from Home & Med waters to Singapore and advance via an advance base through the South China Sea to relieve Hong Kong and defeat the Japanese fleet.

Singapore Naval Base - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Things only begin to change in Europe with Hitler becoming Chancellor in Jan 1933 and Fuhrer in Aug 1934. And in the Med changes come with the changing relationship with Italy as a result of the Abyssinian Crisis in 1935. The latter helped shape the Admiralty's view of the Air Defence of the fleet and led to the design of the Armoured carrier instead of building additional Ark Royals. At that point there were severe doubts that carriers could carry enough fighters to maintain standing patrols around the fleet in sufficient strength to break up enemy shore based strikes.

Armoured Aircraft Carriers

An overview of how the 1930s Royal Navy settled on a strategy to deal with a rapid pace of change and a challenging set of requirements.
www.armouredcarriers.com
 
Unfortunately The Skua took too long to design/build.
Requirement issued in 1934 and got 5 different proposals.
Backburn doesn't get the order for two prototypes until April of 1935.

IN 1935 The Japanese were using this as torpedo plane.

which was developed from the Blackburn Rippon. Top speed 132mph.
In 1936 it's replacement stated to show up. The Yokosuka B4Y.

Top speed 173mph (?) one Lewis gun in the rear cockpit.
Japan was so advanced that 8 of them were operating off the Hosho during Midway.
The B5N1 went into production in Nov 1937 using a 840hp (?) Hikari 9 cylinder radial engine.

I have no idea of what the British knew in secret but the 1938 Janes (updated in Sept 30th 1938) has only a picture of the Yokosuka B4Y with no details (not even manufacturer let alone make of engine)

The urgency of the Skua program was such that the Air ministry ordered 190 aircraft in July 1936 while the first prototype didn't fly until Feb 1937.
First production aircraft was completed Aug 1938. Now due to factory space the main-planes (wings) were built in the old Olympia works in Leeds and some fuselages were sub-contracted to General Aviation Ltd.

I don't know what Blackburn could have done to speed things up but the Skua certainly met the existing threat during the mid 30s and the likely threat into the late 30s.

Had the Admiralty/air ministry not gone down the turret fighter rabbit hole perhaps the 136 aircraft contract for Rocs placed in April of 1937 could have been substituted by a suitable number of Skua IIIs with Pegasus engines. By 1937, even if they didn't know what the Japanese were doing the US TBD could provide something of a benchmark that monoplane torpedo bombers of higher performance than the Biplanes were certainly possible.

Blackburn and Britain were ill served by the Botha program. Blackburn built what they were told, using the the engines they were told to use. The results were worse than useless which should have been apparent to anybody with any brains before hand. Both Bristol and Blackburn knew their aircraft were underpowered and while Bristol got the Taurus Blackburn was stuck with the Perseus which was not powerful enough for an 18,000lb plane.

The problem was getting Pegasus engines.
 
Shortround6 said:
By 1937, even if they didn't know what the Japanese were doing the US TBD could provide something of a benchmark that monoplane torpedo bombers of higher performance than the Biplanes were certainly possible.
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I certainly agree with your post, SR, but the issue with British torpedo planes wasn't that they needed higher performance, but versatility. The Swordfish and Albacore were designed to fulfil multiple roles and requirements. The Albacore was designed to a couple of different specifications, ultimately leading to 41/36, which was for a "Torpedo Spotter, Reconnaissance, Dive Bomber Aeroplane", the earlier specification, M.7/36 specified that it also operate from floats, which the Swordfish also could and yes, one TBD was tested on floats, but the Swordfish and Albacore were stressed for ship catapult launches and could be converted to float configuration. Standard production TBDs couldn't.

Speed was relative in torpedo aircraft, a high speed machine might mean quicker transit speeds to the combat area, but during the attack run it served no benefit because dropping torpedoes was a precise art and had to be done at a particular speed to ensure correct entry of the torpedo into the water to enable a smooth run at the right depth, and lessen the risk of the torpedo from breaking up on the water's surface. Too high penetration speed could, at the time, ruin the depth setting mechanisms, so approach speeds had to be measured and restricted. The other consideration of British torpedoplanes was that the Admiralty believed that torpedo aircraft required manoeuvrability low to the water's edge to evade enemy fire once the torpedo had been dropped. A biplane offered better low speed manoeuvrability than a monoplane.

Fairey could have designed an all-metal monoplane to meet the Albacore specification, but it didn't.
 
Sorry, The Point wasn't about the British building a monoplane torpedo bomber. It was that the Skua, when designed and adopted, was an adequate fighter to use against foreign torpedo bombers.
The point about the Douglas TPD was that the foreign torpedo bombers were changing and the British would have to take that into account.
We do tend to use the retrospectoscope in these discussions and when criticizing the Skua it doesn't matter so much what other nations were doing behind the scenes but rather what the British could expect their opponents to do. The Japanese were very secretive about their own aircraft development and while now we know which planes they were developing when, the capabilities of Japanese aircraft in 1936-1941 were much less well known. Again, the point about the TPD was what or when the Japanese could be expected to follow suit with a monoplane torpedo bomber (and thus a recon plane) of their own that would require the British to field a higher performance fighter to counter it.
The British were working on, or at least thinking about/designing, a better fighter than Skua. But if the Japanese were only revealing to the world a new biplane torpedo bomber to the world in 1938 when the Skua was being introduced into service perhaps the British thought they had more time.

Sorry for the confusion.
 
No need to apologise, I understood the point you're making, SR but I wanted to stress the logic behind British approach to torpedo aircraft. The TBD was a trailblazer and that's often forgotten because its reputation suffered in WW2, but the British didn't go that way for a reason in designing torpedo aircraft is all. My point wasn't to criticise yours.

Shortround6 said:
But if the Japanese were only revealing to the world a new biplane torpedo bomber to the world in 1938 when the Skua was being introduced into service perhaps the British thought they had more time.
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The problem was that those slow lumbering torpedoplanes wouldn't be operating in a vacuum, any strike against British carriers would be carried out in conjunction with fighter support because such slow torpedo and dive bomber aircraft would be vulnerable to enemy fighters, be they Skuas, Hawker Nimrods or Sea Gladiators. In the late 30s the Japanese had the Mitsubishi A5M, which was an all-metal monoplane with fixed gear and open cockpit, with performance that suited its vintage, but was still better than any other carrier fighter in the world in 1937 when it entered service, although the British had long ceased receiving intelligence from its sources in Japan by then, so its capabilities were not exactly known.

I suspect the British motivation was more about funding than any operational considerations; the FAA was just not the highest priority in the early to mid 1930s Air Ministry defence budget. By the mid to late 1930s when aircraft like the Bf 109 and Spitfire and Hurricane are receiving interest and orders, this began to push naval personnel to question the wisdom behind the decision not to pursue a decent single-seater order for the FAA. Even before it entered service both Admiralty and Air Ministry representatives believed the Skua to be bordering on obsolete and would be completely so by 1940.
 
True but the Skua had a lot more firepower than the A5M, a pair of Vickers guns that were slowed by synchronization. The Skua had the four Brownings. They also had twice teh ammo capacity of the 8 gun fighters so they could make more firing passes. Poor substitute but at least something

The Skua and the Japanese torpedo bombers had the exact same defensive fire power. A single Lewis gun firing .303 ammunition (Japanese never changed it) from 97 round drums.

The Fulmar was ordered in 1938 and that should have taken care of any improved torpedo planes/dive bombers that showed up in 1940. Assuming they showed up about 2 years after the latest biplanes.

I agree that the RN was held back by the lack of funding. The Skua not only never got an improvements in any role, it never got an actual bomb sight, let alone a bomb release system.
They had been fooling around with a system (or several) that would do some of the things the Ju 87 system would.
I have yet to see a photo of the Skua with gunsight. There was supposed to be a ring and bead (how 1917 can you get in 1938?) but trying to use a ring and bead as a bombsight is not going to give good results. Apparently the Air Force thought that dive bombing was a passing fad and all true bombers, of whatever size should use level bombing from 6,000ft or more.

Penny wise and pound foolish. Buy the planes, put them on expensive ships. train crews. Don't buy gun sights or bombsights?
 
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