Improved Skua for FAA?

Admiral Beez said:

The biggest flaw in the Skua is the paltry 500 lb. bomb load, compared to 2,225 lb. on the Douglas SBD Dauntless. If we can increase the Skua's bomb weight we can forgive its other failings.

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No carrier launched SBD ever carried more than a 1000lb bomb. The SBD-1/2/3/4 (1000hp for TO) had a lower power to weight ratio and higher wing loading than the Skua. The SBD-5 and 6 with uprated engines might have carried more than that when operating from shore bases, but that's unlikely. Total bomb load on the Skua is 500lb plus 8 x 30lb bombs under the wings.


Compared to the SBD-1/2/3/4 the Skua was probably a better all round carrier aircraft, especially as it had very efficient folding wings. The Roc was essentially an updated and improved Skua, that was cripplied as a divebomber by the quad turret. It is a shame that Skua production wasn't continued after only 190 aircraft were built, since this was the aircraft that the RN FAA and RAF needed for the defence of Malaya, Burma, India and Ceylon.

The SBD-5 SAC data shows the 1600lb bomb as the maximum weapon load, but to carry this bomb fuel must be reduced to 165USG. To carry 2250lb, fuel load would have to be reduced to ~60USG!!! That's barely enough for TO and a few circuits around the airfield! The conclusion from this is that a 2250lb bomb load is impossible.

RCAFson said:

It is a shame that Skua production wasn't continued after only 190 aircraft were built, since this was the aircraft the the RN FAA and RAF needed for the defence of Malaya, Burma, India and Ceylon.

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100% agreed. Slower than almost everything the IJAF strapped bombs to, it'll be a poor fighter, but as a CAS dive bomber would have been very useful. IIRC, the Skua didn't have a voice radio, so that would need to be addressed.

Per Bloody Shambles, there was already a Fleet Air Arm station at Singapore, with a few Stringbags, so the experienced FAA crews might carry on rather than turn them over to the RAF. When the colony falls hopefully some of the Skuas can make it to India, and then onto HMS Hermes. If they transfer to the RAF they may be repainted.



The Skua carried 8 × 30 lb practice bombs under the wings. Make these incendiary and the IJA will have a challenge. But it looks like the 30 lb. phosphorus bombs were not yet available. http://www.wwiiequipment.com/index....30lb-incendiary-bomb&catid=43:bombs&Itemid=60

RCAFson said:

The SBD-5 SAC data shows the 1600lb bomb as the maximum weapon load, but to carry this bomb fuel must be reduced to 165USG. To carry 2250lb, fuel load would have to be reduced to ~60USG!!! That's barely enough for TO and a few circuits around the airfield! The conclusion from this is that a 2250lb bomb load is impossible.

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The 2250lb bomb load consisted of a 1600lb armor piercing bomb (which had less HE content than a 500lb GP bomb) and a pair of 325lb depth charges, hardly a combination of weapons that most people would combine in one mission. May US carriers only carried about 20 or fewer 1600lbs in their magazines.
The Manual for the SBD-3 does NOT list anywhere near this bomb load but the SAC sheets with later dates do, they also give a much higher gross weight than the manual does.

We can argue if the later Dauntless could carry that bomb load and 100 gallons or 60 gallons but you are correct, the 2250lb bomb load was a pretty scarce if not non existent weapons load in service.

It may be the reason the Skua was dropped was that the Perseus was totally unreliable in service. Every native Perseus application was a disaster & pulled from service.
They should of re-engined with 1820 or 1830 radials to keep commonality with Martlet motors, the Skua could of soldiered on to 1944 til the Firefly arrived.

Just think of the resourcing that would of been saved if the Fulmar & Albacore were skipped if the Skua was kept - the Barracuda & Firefly could of showed up sooner

keithwwalker said:

Just think of the resourcing that would of been saved if the Fulmar & Albacore were skipped if the Skua was kept - the Barracuda & Firefly could of showed up sooner

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Hmm, Different aircraft built to different specifications, the outcome of the Skua would not have been any different if either the Fulmar or Albacore were not built. It's a fact that even by 1937 when it entered service the Skua was considered to be bordering on obsolete by both the Admiralty and Air Ministry. The type had no development potential, as useful as it was in FAA service. It was a good dive bomber but was built to a flawed specification as a fighter dive bomber, which as a fighter was far too slow and too big. The Fulmar, for its limitations was a better fighter, but it was only intended as a stop-gap. The Air Ministry was hoping in the late 1930s in the efficacy of a turret fighter (the Roc was not a dive bomber, but the naval equivalent of the Boulton Paul Defiant bomber interceptor) and the Fulmar was put forward as an interim catapult fighter.

The Albacore was a torpedo bomber that could be converted with a water undercarriage as a replacement for the Swordfish, not building it doesn't help the Skua at all. The Barracuda was a hot mess of too many requirements into the same airframe, the aerodynamic issues behind which delayed its entry into service. The Firefly only happens if the Fulmar happens; their specifications are linked.

If we really want Fairey to do something useful, in 1938 the Admiralty tried and failed to get Richard Fairey to build navalised Spitfires under licence - make this happen. As for a better dive bomber than the Skua, make a navalised Hawker Henley. It was a purpose built dive bomber that incorporated the same construction techniques and minor componentry as the Hurricane, offering savings in manufacture cost and time.

As for the Barracuda, make the dive bomber and torpedo bomber two separate aircraft. A torpedo bomber needs size on its side, but a dive bomber doesn't. As I've pointed out in another thread, the Dauntless and Aichi D3A were around the same size as a T-6 Texan (Harvard), give or take (length of around 33 ft, wingspans around 40 to 42 ft), whereas the Barracuda was a big aeroplane of larger dimension (length of around 40 ft, wingspan of nearly 50 feet). Interestingly, the Skua was bigger than the Dauntless and Aichi D3A by several feet in overall dimension, but not as big as the Barracuda, but then it wasn't a torpedo bomber.

The US Navy thought the SBD was obsolescent, but it carried on until 1944. The Skua, with an engine upgrade would of been functionally equivalent to the SBD.
Leave the fighter responsibilities to the Grumman Martlet which was much faster than the Fulmar. That would leave the Skua as a dedicated dive bomber.

Albacore was so awful (recall it had the Bristol Taurus, another unreliable motor), they kept the Stringbag. Again, my point is that not engineering the Albacore, and Fulmar - it would of sped up the Firefly and Barracuda into service.

I don't see your point about a float based Albacore - another dead end.
The Henley, too, was a dead end as it wasn't designed as a dive bomber to my knowledge. The Skua beat it to service anyway. Fighter command by late 1938 were reserving almost every Merlin for Spitfires and Hurricanes.

It wasn't that the craft was so bad, but the FAA's concepts of just what they should have were so wrong. 2 man fighters proved out of date, and it was 1946 by the time they got back on track, just in time for the jet age.

The only reason that the SBD soldiered on as a carrier dive bomber into 1944, was the delays in getting its successor, the SB2C Helldiver, sorted and into service.

The SB2C was ordered in May 1939, first flew in Dec 1940 before crashing in Feb 1941. Engine problems, structural weaknesses, poor handling, directional instability and poor stall characteristics all needed addressed before it was deemed acceptable for use around a carrier deck. The result was that it was late 1943 before it became operational with VB-17 on the Bunker Hill.

That was another aircraft that, like the Barracuda, saw a significant weight increase between initial spec & design and final service entry.

keithwwalker said:

Albacore was so awful (recall it had the Bristol Taurus, another unreliable motor), they kept the Stringbag. Again, my point is that not engineering the Albacore, and Fulmar - it would of sped up the Firefly and Barracuda into service.

I don't see your point about a float based Albacore - another dead end.
The Henley, too, was a dead end as it wasn't designed as a dive bomber to my knowledge. The Skua beat it to service anyway. Fighter command by late 1938 were reserving almost every Merlin for Spitfires and Hurricanes.

It wasn't that the craft was so bad, but the FAA's concepts of just what they should have were so wrong. 2 man fighters proved out of date, and it was 1946 by the time they got back on track, just in time for the jet age.

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There's a lot to unpack here, so let's get started.

The Albacore was not awful. In fact, pilots assessment was that it was a very good aircraft, just a little anachronistic in its biplane layout. It could do the job of the Swordfish, which it was intended on replacing, with better conditions for the crew. It had flaps, an enclosed heated cockpit, variable pitch airscrew and was of all metal construction. It was a modern aircraft but for the biplane layout and fixed gear, but there was a rationale that dated back to the Great War and the first aircraft carrier based torpedo droppers behind that. As for the Taurus, initially the Albacore had problems with it, but its issues were eventually solved, so it's failure rate was no worse than other FAA aircraft.

In service, Albacores were replaced by the Barracuda as a torpedo bomber, not the Swordfish, it graduated to being used for anti-submarine duties from 1942 on and spent less time as a torpedo bomber. Again, the Firefly doesn't happen without the Fulmar. Its specification was released in 1938, then revised in 1939 and re issued in 1940. It ain't appearing any earlier.

Once again, the Barracuda was a dog. Why do you want it in service at all? It's too big to be a dive bomber and too complex to be a good torpedo bomber. As for Albacores on floats, they were designed to be operated on floats so they could be used aboard ships other than carriers, just like Swordfish. In fact, British battleships of the Queen Elizabeth Class before WW2 were slated to operate Albacores from catapults, as Swordfish were also designed to do.

The Henley was designed from the outset as a dive bomber! It was only a dead end because the RAF showed no interest in it. Its performance was very good for a single-engined bomber, it could almost reach 300 mph, which is good in the late 1930s. Converting it to a carrier based aircraft would not have been too difficult, the Hurricane was, as was the Spitfire, which was a big undertaking! It was also smaller and had better performance than the Skua, and, as I mentioned the Skua was considered as being near obsolete when it entered service, so why not bring in a better aircraft to do the job?

As for Merlins, let's not forget the Fairey Battle, Beaufighter Mk.II, Handley Page Halifax and Fulmar, which all had the Merlin, but you're right, Fighter Command's needs took precedence over the FAA's, which is why it never got Spitfires before the outbreak of WW2 despite the Admiralty asking for them. which neatly brings us to the next thing you mentioned.

The FAA's concepts were not strictly the navy's. Before 1939 the FAA was a branch of the Royal Air Force, not the navy, so its needs were met by the Air Ministry, not the Admiralty. There is a common misconception that the navy didn't care for single-seat fighters. That's simply not true. The Air Ministry brought in the concept of the two-man fighter, firstly with the Skua, being a fighter dive bomber, then the Fulmar and Roc and lastly Firefly, although the latter was re-released when the Admiralty regained the FAA in 1939.

In the early 1930s the Air Ministry decided that modern aircraft were becoming too big for carriers, so the decision was made to incorporate disparate tasks into the same airframes. This brought about the fighter dive bomber specification and the Torpedo Spotter Reconnaissance role. Before the Skua, the FAA had plenty of single-seat fighters, from the Nieuport Night Hawk to the Flycatcher and the Hawker Nimrod. The Sea Gladiator was brought in as a stop-gap because the Skua was considered too ungainly as a fighter.

Between the mid 1930s and 1942 the admirals did all they possibly could to get a decent single-seat fighter. Letters flew between the Air Ministry in White Hall and Admiralty House about this subject, lots of them. In 1937 admirals began decrying the lack of modern single-seat fighter when the RAF was getting the Spitfire and Hurricane and at a meeting the Hurricane was put forward as a possible naval fighter. As mentioned in my previous post, the Spitfire was considered for modification to the extent that Joe Smith of Supermarine even drew up a proposal for a "Sea Spitfire" in 1938 powered by the Griffon engine. It was this that the admirals asked Richard Fairey to build during a meeting at Admiralty House that same year. Fairey couldn't be persuaded at any rate, so the Admirals tried requesting Spitfires from the Air Ministry, who said no, Spitfire production was prioritised for the RAF.

In 1939 the navy regained the FAA from the Air Ministry and sought to redraw the specifications that had been issued, including a replacement two-seat turret fighter for the Roc, which was canned in favour of a new single-seat fighter specification, which was issued to Blackburn, which was to be the Firebrand. The two-seat specification that became the Firefly was kept as a heavy fighter attack aircraft.

The Skua, Roc, Fulmar, Albacore and Barracuda were all ordered from specifications issued by the Air Ministry before the Admiralty took over the FAA in 1939 and couldn't be halted as all these types were either in service, being delivered or under advanced development. The Firebrand proved to be a disaster and ran into delay after delay, but the intent was that it was to go into service in 1942 as the FAA's high performance single-seat fighter. In the meantime, an interim solution was sought.

The Hurricane became the Sea Hurricane from late 1940, the FAA received ex-Aeronavale Grumman Wildcats in mid to late 1940 and Lord Beaverbrook, Minister for Aircraft Production proposed that the Miles M.20 should be modified as a naval fighter. Under trial in 1941, this idea proved a dead end as it wasn't a good fit for carrier operations. Next of course was the Seafire, which became a reality in 1942. Hawker also proposed the Sea Typhoon, but couldn't offer a prototype until 1942, which at the time it was proposed, the Admiralty believed the Firebrand could match the time schedule.

So, the thought that the navy did not want single-seat fighters is frankly, misguided. All the evidence is there that the admirals really didn't like the fact that they didn't have a decent one at the beginning of the war and did all they could to rectify the problem.

nuuumannn said:

The Henley was designed from the outset as a dive bomber! It was only a dead end because the RAF showed no interest in it. Its performance was very good for a single-engined bomber, it could almost reach 300 mph, which is good in the late 1930s. Converting it to a carrier based aircraft would not have been too difficult, the Hurricane was, as was the Spitfire, which was a big undertaking! It was also smaller and had better performance than the Skua, and, as I mentioned the Skua was considered as being near obsolete when it entered service, so why not bring in a better aircraft to do the job?

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The Henley was a bit of a dog itself and the Skua gets a bad rap.

The Skua was a poor fighter, but yanking the guns wasn't going to change much.
The Skua only carried about 100lbs worth of fixed guns and since you have to leave some sort of forward firing gun/s in the plane you are only going to save 50-75lbs plus the ammo.
About 160lbs for 600rpg for 4 guns.

The Henley needed a host of modifications before it would have been a good naval dive bomber. Or even a good land based dive bomber.
Some of this was due to poor specification writing.
The Henley was "stressed" for "dive recovery with full bombload" which is not quite the same as dive bombing (The Battle could do the "dive recovery' bit).
The Henley was never fitted with dive brakes, or bomb crutches, or bomb sights and according to Wiki, was limited to attack angles of 70 degrees.
The first two prototypes were fitted with Hamilton standard propellers but I don't know if they were constant speed or older two pitch versions. The Henley's fate was sealed when they decided that there were not going to be enough Rotol or DH constant speed propellers to fit them with as the heavy bombers and fighters were going to need all available planned production and the Henley was going to get two pitch props which made over speeding the props while diving a very real possibility with the accompanying wrecked engines and lost aircraft.
The Henley as originally built had a small bomb bay for a pair of 250lb bombs side by side. This was hardly ship killer armament.

There appears to be nothing that could not have been changed given enough time and desire. It really wasn't that hard considering some of the modifications that other planes went through in their early stages.

1. Fit a low altitude Merlin instead of the 16,250ft model, give the bomber several hundred more HP for take-off even on 87 octane fuel.
2. Get the needed propellers.
3. Rip off the bomb bay doors and fit a bomb crutch that will hold a 500lb (or larger?) bomb. Get hammers to modify the lower fuselage.
4, Fit a radiator that will suit the intended low altitude high speed flight ( for at least 10-15 minutes) missions.
5. Fit some sort of dive brake.
6. Figure out a bombsight or attack profile that has a better chance than sticking gum on the windscreen and trusting to the pilots "instinct" (USE the "force" Luke!)
7. Fit folding wings
8. Fit protection
9. Increase fuel tankage.
Of course the nearly 300mph speed at around 16-17,000ft goes away but that was not a realistic altitude for a dive bomber to be flying anyway.

Of course we can go back to the Skua and do.

1. Fit a low altitude Merlin (Pegasus) give the bomber several hundred more HP for take-off even on 87 octane fuel.
2. Get the needed propellers.
3. Rip off the bomb bay doors and fit a bomb crutch that will hold a 500lb (or larger?) HE bomb
5. Fit some sort of dive brake. Already done
6. Fit protection

The Skua was actually a few inches shorter and a few inches less wingspan than the Henley and about 23 sq ft less wing. You won't gain or loose a single hanger space if the Henley wing fold gets done right.

nuuumannn said:

So, the thought that the navy did not want single-seat fighters is frankly, misguided.

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Agreed. Dual role Skua aside, in the history of British carrier aviation out of more than two dozen fighters there have been a total of five two-seat fighters: Fulmar, Firefly, Sea Venom, Sea Vixen and the American Phantom II. Every other FAA operated carrier fighter: Pup, Camel, Nightjar, Flycatcher, Nimrod, Sea Gladiator, Sea Hurricane, Seafire, Sea Fury, Sea Hornet, Firebrand, Attacker, Sea Hawk, Sea Vampire, Scimitar, Sea Harrier, plus the American Martlet, Hellcat, Corsair and now Lightning II have been single seaters. The FAA and Admiralty weren't stupid, but they had to deal with the cards they had.

If the Sabre could be made to be reliable and plentiful earlier on and the chin scoop relocated along with landing speed adjusted, the Hawker Typhoon might have made for a superb carrier fighter for 1941-42 onwards. Imagine flying in your daintily built, lightly armed A6M and this beast comes diving from above at 400+ mph, four 20 mm cannons blazing.

Shortround6 said:

The Henley was a bit of a dog itself and the Skua gets a bad rap.

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Actually, the Henley wasn't a dog at all and its subsequent service career does nothing to prove that it might have been a formidable combat aircraft if it had the opportunity to be so. The Merlin was not designed for the plod of target tug duties and the engine failures the type suffered in service were largely due to the engine protesting its use. The Merlin was a high performance engine and putting one into a target tug is like putting an LS into a Honda CRV, really pointless, but you know this already. The aircraft itself was fine and airframe wise bore sufficient commonality to Hawker's previous multi-seat aircraft, such as the Hart family, as well as the Hurricane, with which it shared considerable structural commonality. This of course means lower manufacturing and maintenance costs and less time to manufacture by a suitably trained workforce.

As for conversion to naval use, they did so with the Spitfire, which arguably converting the Henley would have been much easier. It's construction method meant that it could have received the necessary fuselage strengthening and wing folds without much modification. It was the same metal Warren-truss type structure under the skin, with fabric rear covering as the Hurricane and almost all other Hawker aircraft of that vintage. It was of entirely metal construction and its wing centre section comprised the main structural load bearing unit of the aircraft and the outer panels bolted on outboard of the undercarriage units. This makes for a natural wing fold position, so again, nowhere near as difficult to try and figure out a workable method of doing this.

As for the specification, P.4/34, to which the Fairey day bomber that spawned the Fulmar was built, states that "the aircraft is to be fully stressed for dive recovery with a full bomb load (500 lb fully stowed)", which we are not talking a light descent angle, SR, let's be serious for a moment, dive brakes or no dive brakes.

The big problem with the Henley was not the aircraft itself, it was the lack of faith in pursuing the specification by the Air Ministry. Hawker handed development and production over to Gloster while it got on with the serious business of building fighters.

As for the Skua, yes, in 1937 it wasn't a bad aeroplane; it was certainly the most advanced onboard British carriers at that time, but it had a very short built-in lifespan. There was to be no modifying it simply because there was no growth in the design subsequent to undertaking redesign and the performance advantages would not have been sufficient to warrant it. Besides, the FAA placed its hope in the Barracuda being good, but we know how that turned out. The Skua was smaller than a Barracuda, which is the size point I was making; the Barra was a big aircraft for a dive bomber.

nuuumannn said:

As for the Skua, yes, in 1937 it wasn't a bad aeroplane; it was certainly the most advanced onboard British carriers at that time, but it had a very short built-in lifespan.

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The Skua was very innovative for its day being the first carrier dive bomber of any navy to combine all-metal construction, folding wings, retractable undercarriage, and a monoplane layout. But yes, its day was brief.

nuuumannn said:

The Merlin was not designed for the plod of target tug duties and the engine failures the type suffered in service were largely due to the engine protesting its use. The Merlin was a high performance engine and putting one into a target tug is like putting an LS into a Honda CRV, really pointless, but you know this already.

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Strangely enough the Merlin managed to not have quite the same trouble powering target tugs in Defiant airframes.
Or powering Whitley bombers.
Or A few hundred Wellingtons.
Or a few thousand Fairley Battles.
Any other Merlin powered slow aircraft?
like the first 23-30 Barracudas?

You get the idea.
Blaming the engine for a poor radiator set-up seems like a copout.

Not exactly a low drag radiator set up but strangely the Merlin managed to drag around well over a 1000 of these for some years.
some of them towing Horsa gliders although many aircraft had trouble towing large gliders. Maybe the Whitleys were no different.

See this for some Henley pictures.

That and perhaps the lousy propeller had something to do with.
Like driving your highly tuned sports car using only 1st and 5th gear in the transmission and then bitching about the engine either overheating or fouling the plugs.

nuuumannn said:

As for the specification, P.4/34, to which the Fairey day bomber that spawned the Fulmar was built, states that "the aircraft is to be fully stressed for dive recovery with a full bomb load (500 lb fully stowed)", which we are not talking a light descent angle, SR, let's be serious for a moment, dive brakes or no dive brakes.

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I was serious.
The JU 87 could dive at 90 degrees, some (but not all) US dive bombers could dive at 90 degrees. They pulled out at lower altitudes, in large because of the dive brakes. They could carry the normal bomb load during recovery. Loosing aircraft in training due to a bomb crutch/release malfunction seems to be skating in the thin edge. Most countries figured their dive bombers would do a lot of practice dives and metal/structural fatigue over the live of the plane should be factored in. Patting themselves on the back for designing a plane that
did not break-up, crash or or be written off on landing due to a bomb crutch/release malfunction in training is setting a low bar.
Biplane dive bombers got away not using dive brakes because the biplane had enough drag to keep the speed within reason.
I never said the British used "light descent angle" but limiting dive angles to 70 degrees or less and having to pull out at higher altitudes that dive brake equipped planes means your accuracy is not as good as the steeper diving but slower diving planes.

Hawker could have fixed a lot of things on the Henley if they had been told to and they had built a few more prototypes.
Again a naval Henley wouldn't have been that hard. But it also wouldn't have made that big a difference of a Pegasus Skua.
A Naval Henley with a Merlin VIII from a Fulmar I would have had 1080hp for take-off instead of 880hp, which would be needed to get off the flight decks.


The Skua had that crappy 500lb SAP bomb. You want more target effect, you need to change that bomb and the bomb crutch/recess in the bottom of the fuselage.
British don't even really have 1000lb bombs of any type in 1939/part of 1940.
Doesn't matter which dive bomber you use if you are using crappy bombs.

The whole army close support effort during the late 30s was a fiasco. Substituting Henley's for Battles wouldn't have made much difference in France because the doctrine/ training was faulty. Some other countries weren't any better but for the British without changing the target selection, identification, escort procedures and the like Henleys would have made very little change in the outcome over France.

Shortround6 said:

That and perhaps the lousy propeller had something to do with.
Like driving your highly tuned sports car using only 1st and 5th gear in the transmission and then bitching about the engine either overheating or fouling the plugs.

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Surely you jest. The Henley prototype was fitted with a Hamilton Standard Hydromatic constant speed prop. Here we go again, making a drama out of this apparent British "shortcoming" of its bad propellers when Britain had C/S props on its fighters before anyone else in Europe at least. As previously mentioned on numerous occasions, only the Spitfire and Hurricane had those big wooden props fitted. US fighters of the period had C/S props before anyone else's but they still lagged behind European ones in outright performance and maximum altitudes, so the basis of your bias needs to be reassessed.

The Henley suffered engine failures as a target tug, perhaps radiator design had something to do with it, perhaps it was a combination of factors, the radiator layout, the performance envelope and so on. One example that can be promoted is that of the Avro York, whose Merlins suffered considerably during the Berlin Airlift because of the nature of operations; short runs at high power settings did nothing for the engines and failures were common. The Canadair Argonaut passenger transport suffered the same issues with its Merlins... The Halifax suffered engine failures in action owing to radiator design and consequent overheating... I can provide other examples as a counterpoint to yours.

As for the doctrine behind the use of the single engined day bomber, yup, you got that one right at least. It was flawed, but again, you are totally missing the fact that following the disaster in France the Desert Air Force under AVM Coningham became the archetype and model for tac air support in a combat environment equipped with the right aircraft. So let's not labour the point about the poor performance of the Fairey Battle in France. No other air force in the world including the USAAC and its equipment at the time could have provided a successful counter to the German advance through Europe with their existing tactics and no, the Henley wouldn't have done anything to stop that failure, but that doesn't mean it would have been totally worthless.

As for armament fit, stating that the Henley would not be great in combat because you know British bombs were crap doesn't fly. When the war happened, the military machines of all the combatants were exposed for what they were, flaws and all. Basically, the British went to war with what weapons they had. If that was what they had to work with with the Henley, then they would have to do it. As you know however, the British have a tendency to learn from their mistakes and developed bombs and other weaponry with considerably better effectiveness.

My proposition was as a carrier based dive bomber, for which there is no doubt it could have been modified to carry out based on its structure - this is a what-if after all.

You're letting the Admiralty off too lightly.

HMS Ark Royal was going from a design aircraft capacity of 72 airplanes to 50 because of the increased size of planes in the late 30s. And the armoured carrier concept reduces that further (to 36). So, combining roles to recover the "lost" 30-50% in air frames make a lot of sense on paper. And in '34, when the specification for Skua is drawn up, there is no shipborne Radar or IFF and with range of the new monoplanes/range of in-service radios/weather in North Atlantic/Sea, having a navigator made sense. Note: There are no Hurricanes/Spitfires/Bf.109/Zeros/Widcats (not even a Claude or F3F) for reference. So, the fact that the specification tried to include too much/wasn't aggressive enough isn't just Air Ministry's fault.

Yes, fast forward to '38, with shipborne radar, IFF and latest fighters for reference, the Skua looks bad, but the ABH on carriers does too, IMHO*. Replace the carriers with carriers ones without and you gain back the "lost" capacity" Then taking advantage of fact that metal aircraft are less susceptible to weather and can be operated from deck park. Combined with the other technical improvements and single engine fighters makes a lot of sense. But hindsight is often 20/20 and FAA/RN got to go to war with decisions by combination of Admiralty and Air Ministry from 5 years before.

Switching gears:
Is it a failure of radiator design when a 300mph airplane has issues towing a target at 200mph. Or is it simply using wrong aircraft for the job. My truck has over heating issues towing trailer at 70 km/h, but none when driving 100 km/h without.

In '39/mid '40, Germany has ?2? Battle Cruisers that justify heavier bombs than 500lb SAP?

*While the ABH did serve the RN well, I can't help by wonder if an additional 30+ fighters wouldn't have done just as well.

nuuumannn said:

Surely you jest.

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Don't call me Shirley

nuuumannn said:

The Henley prototype was fitted with a Hamilton Standard Hydromatic constant speed prop. Here we go again, making a drama out of this apparent British "shortcoming" of its bad propellers when Britain had C/S props on its fighters before anyone else in Europe at least.

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Hawker Aircraft since 1920 by Francis Mason says that the Henley Prototype used a Hamilton Standard Hydromatic propeller.
However the 2nd prototype and all production versions got DH 3 blade 2 position (two pitch) propellers.
Doesn't matter what the British fighters had in this discussion. The Henley's, as built, had the two pitch propellers.
So did the Battles, so did the Blenheim's.
So did scores if not hundreds of British fighters in June of 1940.

nuuumannn said:

It was flawed, but again, you are totally missing the fact that following the disaster in France the Desert Air Force under AVM Coningham became the archetype and model for tac air support in a combat environment equipped with the right aircraft. So let's not labour the point about the poor performance of the Fairey Battle in France. No other air force in the world including the USAAC and its equipment at the time could have provided a successful counter to the German advance through Europe with their existing tactics and no, the Henley wouldn't have done anything to stop that failure, but that doesn't mean it would have been totally worthless.

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I am not missing anything because I am talking about the Spring of 1940. What happened after that is a different story. And I believe I have stated, not only here but in other threads that the US or any other Western force wouldn't really have done any better.
Considering the amount of time the RAF spent "policing" tribesmen in a number of different places they didn't seem to take much of their experience to and go forward with it.

nuuumannn said:

As for armament fit, stating that the Henley would not be great in combat because you know British bombs were crap doesn't fly. When the war happened, the military machines of all the combatants were exposed for what they were, flaws and all. Basically, the British went to war with what weapons they had. If that was what they had to work with with the Henley, then they would have to do it. As you know however, the British have a tendency to learn from their mistakes and developed bombs and other weaponry with considerably better effectiveness.

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I think my assessment of the British bombs flies very well indeed.

It really wasn't rocket science. As I have state before the British had done a study of British bombs and the damage they had done to the Germans in WW I. They had also done a separate study of German bombs and damage they done in England in WW I. They had also done a study to assess the damage done in some of the bombings in the Mid East and tribal territories.
They had at least some idea of what worked and what didn't, at least as far bombs up to and including 500lb bombs and some larger.
Nobody else had the experience the British had access to. The Germans knew what British and French bombs had done to them. They didn't have access to the damage records of their own bombs had done to the British in WW I. They did not have an officer on the ground examining the bomb craters and the damage to structures in the mid east.
The Germans (and others?) may or may not have done more extensive tests on test ranges/proving grounds.
The British seemed to ignore the knowledge they did have until around 1938-39. Which in some cases was almost too late. The Early 30s decision that a 500lb bomb would be all that would be needed flew in the face of all three existing studies/reports. However convenient it made bomb stowage spread across the wing span of bombers.
The British standard bombs had about the worst ratio of explosive to bomb weight. It made them cheap to build/buy. But you have to use more of them to get the same effect. Which was know to the men who made the reports and to any group who studied bombs or artillery shells in any other countries. The British, as I have noted before, built among the lowest capacity artillery shells of modern armies. In part because they could use cheaper steel. Now maybe cheaper bombs and shells are better than no bombs or shells but at what point does having to use a lot more of them turn the cost upside down?

With the Henley the bomb bay using a pair of 250lb bombs with no ability to use a single 500lb simply boggles the mind. The US had been sticking a single 500lb bomb under a variety of naval single bombers (Dive and otherwise) well before they put pencil to paper on the Henley. French were using a 440lb bomb?
The Skua being rigged to hold that 500lb SAP bomb without the option to use a fatter 500lb with more explosive should the situation warrant it turns the Skua into a one trick pony.
OK two tricks if you count the eight 20 or 30lbs(?) bombs under the wing.
Some of the US scout bombers could trade their 500lb bomb for four 116lb bombs. I am not holding up the US a paragon of virtue. It is just common sense. The German HS 123 Biplane could carry a 550lb under the fuselage or four 110lb bombs under the wing. Take your 500-551lb bomb and split the load up 4 ways using whatever bomb/s of the appropriate size your air force uses.
None of this uses the retrospectroscope. I have not used what the Italians or Japanese were doing as it was not well known at the time. people knew they bombing people in Africa or China but the details don't seem to have been common knowledge.

don4331 said:

In '39/mid '40, Germany has ?2? Battle Cruisers that justify heavier bombs than 500lb SAP?

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It was the wrong thinking.
A "good" 500lb HE bomb could carry about 2 1/2 times the amount of explosive that the 500lb SAP bomb carried.
The British 500lb GP bomb was not a "good" HE bomb.
While you weren't going to sink Battle cruisers with 500lb SAP bombs the HE bombs were much more effective against merchant ships, destroyers, light cruisers and quite possibly heavy cruisers and shore installations.
Going to a 1000lb (or 1100lb) HE bomb might very well fail to penetrate the armor deck but a 450-500lb charge of HE going off in the superstructure or even under the non armored deck but over the armored deck of the Battle cruisers is going to end their "cruise" pretty quick and require weeks/months of work in a shipyard.

The British 500lb SAP bomb held 90lbs of HE.

Shortround6 said:

So did scores if not hundreds of British fighters in June of 1940.

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Again, not true, by June 1940, a lot of British fighters, Hurricanes and Spitfires had Rotol constant speed props, Hurricanes had these fitted from late 1939. We've been over this before and thanks to forum member Mike Williams, who has done a lot of research on the subject and provided plenty of links confirming dates and so forth, the RAF fighters had C/S props before the majority of mainland European fighters. Yes, their installation was a bit haphazard, but, not surprisingly enough, so was the case in France, with VP props being hastily fitted to frontline aircraft at the time of the invasion in May 1940. As mentioned in another thread, the Germans were not much better in terms of consistency, although the first Bf 109s with C/s props arrived on the scene in June.

I noticed you didn't include July, since that's when Spitfires began receiving the de Havilland kits and as recorded in the Big Book of Spitfires by Morgan and Shacklady, every in-service Spitfire had a C/S prop by August 1940. The Bracket props served the British well until the arrival of C/S props, which proved easy to fit. The travesty here is that you refuse to budge on this, not that Britain had bad props!

Shortround6 said:

Considering the amount of time the RAF spent "policing" tribesmen in a number of different places they didn't seem to take much of their experience to and go forward with it.

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Again, so what of it? What does that add up to in this case? Are you going to tell me that Britain was hopelessly unprepared for war? So tell me something I don't know. Was any country opposing the Germans in 1939/1940 ready for war?

Again with the British bombs, to use your example, what does the bombing of tribesmen with small calibre weapons actually teach you? Let's not forget that British bombs sank the Konigsberg, caused a whole lot of damage to German shipping and Axis infrastructure, so it can't have been as bad as you make out. Again though, you work with what you've got. You need to lower your expectations and be fairer since your anti-British bias has little foundation.

SBD Performance Charts Standard Aircraft Characteristics Arcive

don4331 said:

You're letting the Admiralty off too lightly.

HMS Ark Royal was going from a design aircraft capacity of 72 airplanes to 50 because of the increased size of planes in the late 30s. And the armoured carrier concept reduces that further (to 36). So, combining roles to recover the "lost" 30-50% in air frames make a lot of sense on paper. And in '34, when the specification for Skua is drawn up, there is no shipborne Radar or IFF and with range of the new monoplanes/range of in-service radios/weather in North Atlantic/Sea, having a navigator made sense. Note: There are no Hurricanes/Spitfires/Bf.109/Zeros/Widcats (not even a Claude or F3F) for reference. So, the fact that the specification tried to include too much/wasn't aggressive enough isn't just Air Ministry's fault.

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Yes increasing aircraft size was a problem. By the time Ark Royal entered service at the end of 1938 she was operating up to 36 Swordfish and 24 Skua (with 42 Albacore and 18 Skua envisaged). The Illustrious class were designed around 30 Swordfish and 6 Skua, total 36. By the time they entered service in 1940 it was 21 Albacore and 12 Fulmar, total 33 as the new types were c4ft longer.

Lest it be thought that the problem was unique to the RN, the same problem afflicted the USN, but with their doctrine of maintaining deck parks to less overall effect. The Yorktown class were designed for an air group of c90. By 1941 that was reduced to 72.

don4331 said:

Yes, fast forward to '38, with shipborne radar, IFF and latest fighters for reference, the Skua looks bad, but the ABH on carriers does too, IMHO*. Replace the carriers with carriers ones without and you gain back the "lost" capacity" Then taking advantage of fact that metal aircraft are less susceptible to weather and can be operated from deck park. Combined with the other technical improvements and single engine fighters makes a lot of sense. But hindsight is often 20/20 and FAA/RN got to go to war with decisions by combination of Admiralty and Air Ministry from 5 years before.

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Problem is that ignores the timelines and necessary lead times for development and construction of ships and radar.

Illustrious class. Design developed in 1936 taking account of the RN experience in the Med during the Abyssinian Crisis of 1935. Final design signed off on 14 Dec 1936. Orders placed Jan-Jul 1937. Laid down April-Nov 1937. Build time for Ark Royal and Illustrious was 39 and 37 months respectively.

Radar. Elsewhere I posted the timeline on CH development (4 transmitting and 4 receiving masts 240-360ft high) plus all the associated huts etc for filter rooms etc, starting in early 1935. Development of shipborne radar presented a different set of challenges, if only that of size, and began a few months later with funding granted in Dec 1935. It was the responsibility of the RN Signals School and was initially given a low priority. Through most of 1936 only 4 people were working on it.

Radar at that time was classified Most Secret and could only be discussed with named individuals on an authorised list (reportedly <200 in the entire country). Were the ship designers even on that list?

The very first naval radar trial took place on 15 Dec 1936, the day after the Illustrious class design was signed off. It's range was 18 miles against an aircraft, 4-5 miles against surface "targets". But it was range only, no bearing information was possible. The first two prototype Type 79X sets were not at sea in Rodney and Sheffield until July 1938. On 3rd Sept 1939 they remained the only radar equipped ships in the Fleet. Only another 4 ships were equipped with radar by the end of the year.

Fighter direction on ships only began with Ark Royal off Norway in April 1940. That consisted of Lt Commander Coke, a specialist FAA Observer, and a telegraphist, sitting in the bridge wireless office receiving radar reports from other ships (Ark Royal was never radar equipped) by either flag or light signal or morse code. He then plotted those on an aircraft observer's Bigsworth Board, before passing information to patrolling fighters, again in morse code, and leaving them to interpret that to carry out the interception. As experience built up in May and June he was able to begin to direct fighters to carry out the interceptions.

It would be a very brave ship designer indeed that was prepared to forecast in 1936 that an "experimental shipborne gadget" that had yet to even be demonstrated could be predicted to have the effects that radar did in WW2. And that is if he was even on the list to have that knowledge. And look at how RN fighter direction evolved between April 1940 and Operation Pedestal in Aug 1942.

As for IFF well it didn't see the light of day experimentally until 1939 in Mk.I form that only operated with CH radars. It was not put into production. The IFF Mk.II, which worked with RAF, Army and RN radars, went into production at the end of 1939 but it was only towards the end of the Battle of Britain that it began to be fitted to aircraft generally.

So a awful lot of gazing into the retrospectroscope is needed if you think radar should have influenced the design of the Illustrious and Implacable class carriers.

don4331 said:

Switching gears:
Is it a failure of radiator design when a 300mph airplane has issues towing a target at 200mph. Or is it simply using wrong aircraft for the job. My truck has over heating issues towing trailer at 70 km/h, but none when driving 100 km/h without.

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don4331 said:

In '39/mid '40, Germany has ?2? Battle Cruisers that justify heavier bombs than 500lb SAP?

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don4331 said:

*While the ABH did serve the RN well, I can't help by wonder if an additional 30+ fighters wouldn't have done just as well.

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And that is the argument that still goes on today 85+ years after the Illustrious class were designed. On the 1936 London Treaty limit of 23,000 tons, and operating without permanent deck parks, you can have 60/72 aircraft (Ark Royal) or an Armoured deck to protect 33/36 (Illustrious) but not both.

Different countries chose different routes for their own reasons and for the war they expected to fight. As they did with the mix of their air groups, which changed over time due to war experience. It doesn't make one right and another wrong.

In terms of fighter complements on fleet carriers most increased over time. The RN went from 12-24 in 1939/40 (33-40%) to 36-48/60 (60-66% or 74-84% depending on whether you class Fireflies as fighters or strike aircraft) in 1945. The Japanese seem to have stuck to c27 (one third of the air group). The USN increased from 18 to 70 (25% to 70%) but with larger carriers taking over. Your solution of another 30+ fighters takes things towards a mid-late war complement and the hindsight of war experience.

To get both an Armoured deck and a large air group you need the Audacious class (31,600 tons std; 57-69 aircraft hangar capacity as designed in 1942), or an IJN Taiho (29,770 tons std, 53-82 aircraft) or a Midway (45,000 tons; c130 aircraft including the deck park standard for the USN).