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As usual good post Kris with much common sense. I located the Brown book finally( it was packed in boxes) and reviewed it. His ranking of naval fighters in descending order is Hellcat, Zeke, Wildcat, Corsair, Sea hurricane, Seafire. ahem, His ranking of dive bombers(not naval necessarily) is : JU87, SBD and Val tied, Skua, Helldiver. Torpedo bomber: Swordfish, Avenger, Kate Jill. ahem, Single seat fighters: Spitfire and FW190, Hellcat, Mustang, Zeke.ahem
I admit though I cannot see why he rated the Swordfish over the Avenger, the Avenger was a generation on from the Swordfish in every way as well as being a well behaved aircraft operating from small escort carriers.
Maybe in Eric Brown's opinion the Swordfish had more impact on the war and had better handling
As Hop said, handling is very important, and so is impact on the war. I think Eric Brown took these things into consideration when ranking these aircraft:
- Effect on the war
- Performance
- Ease of handling, since many pilots received a relatively short amount of flight training
Maybe in Eric Brown's opinion the Swordfish had more impact on the war and had better handling
There's a tendency amongst armchair pilots to focus only on combat characteristics, probably because those can be more easily quantified with numbers. Speed, rate of climb, range, power, rate of roll etc. All hard numbers.
However, handling, particularly low speed handling, was of very great importance.
The 109 has excellent low speed handling.
You could be right that maybe that is what he thought. In my opinion though I dont understand how? Avengers I think would have had more of an impact because I can think of more "heavy" ships that they helped send ot the bottom than the Swordfish and the Avenger was a better aircraft. Hell it was an all metal aircraft as compared to a fabric covered biplane.
For the British it had more of an impact but then it would go to personal bias...
During the early war period, a non-aircraft related problem had emerged: the faulty torpedoes used by the U.S. Navy had failed to explode (even on direct hits) on many occasions; Prange mentions a likely problem in the magnetic detonation device (at Midway, one submarine (USS Nautilus (SS-168)) actually hit the Sōryū with a faulty torpedo, although after it was already incapacitated).
The Avenger had a large bomb bay, allowing for one Bliss-Leavitt Mark 13 torpedo, a single 2000 lb (900 kg) bomb, or up to four 500 lb (230 kg) bombs. Torpedoes were generally abandoned after Midway and were not carried again regularly until after June of 1944, when improvements mandated their use again.
The Avengers played a very major role in the American victory during World War II, although torpedoes had become largely outdated (replaced by the faster and more effective dive bombers) by then.
There was one major problem with the Avenger though - its torpedos
We are not discussing torpedos though are we? We are discussing aircraft.
True however the Torpedo problems did not last the whole war. Later the US was making better torpedos.
Again as an aircraft the Avenger is better.
torpedoes had become largely outdated (replaced by the faster and more effective dive bombers) by then.
So this is a massive reduction in its effectiveness as a torpedo bomber. This forced it to use bombs and rockets.
Someone name me one big naval battle that the Swordfish fought in that WAS decisive and had an impact on the course of the war. Were they at Leyte Gulf? Philipine Sea? Truk? Rabaul? Mariana's?