Most successful Anti Ship aircraft

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I've read many times that it's the Helldiver but its usually just a factoid flippantly thrown out there. I saw a Helldiver at an airshow last year and they said it was the top killer but me thinks thats slightly biased:

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The Helldiver is so damn ugly that Id rather think the Condor is the title holder.

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It was almost certainly the humble Swordish. Its credentials are pretty solid and it's success is due to its versatility and longevity as a design. For starters 3 Italian battleships at Taranto plus damage to a cruiser and destroyers, crippling the french battleship Dunkique at mers El kebir, and cruiser Pola at Cape matapan. Also credited with 14 U boats sunk. Then as convoy raiders based out of malta they sunk at least 450 tons over a 9 month period. That's a pretty impressive resume but you could also argue a strong success tick in contributing to damaging bismark leading to her distruction.
 

None of those 3 Italian battleships were actually sunk - 2 of them were back in service within a year. Swordfish certainly had more success against convoys and other freighters than against warships. The Grumman Avenger sank more U-boats in the Atlantic than the Swordfish.
 
What did it do in the Pacific against the IJN?
 
Hi

Reference Bomber Command and mining, Harris's 'Despatch on War Operations', page 173, has the following:

"It has not yet been possible to obtain a full list of ships sunk and damaged by mining, but known results so far comprise 491 ships sunk and 410 ships damaged by mines laid by Bomber Command during the period February, 1942, to May, 1945."

In the Mediterranean, the book 'The Armed Rovers - Beauforts & Beaufighters over the Mediterranean' by Roy C. Nesbit, page 213, mentions:

"Of the merchant ships which were registered in Lloyds' Lists, the official figures prepared after the war show 273 vessels sunk by the whole RAF and Commonwealth Air Forces in the Mediterranean, totalling 440,040 tons GRT. In addition, seventy-nine ships totalling 108,731 tons were shared with the FAA or the USAAF."

This does not include small coastal vessels or barges that were sunk which were not on the Lloyds' List.

From the UK, aircraft under the control of Coastal Command listed the following enemy controlled vessels sunk or damaged (page 353, of 'A Forgotten Offensive' by Christina J M Goulter):


More to follow.

Mike
 
Hi

To continue, Roy Conyers Nesbit's book 'The Strike Wings - Special Anti-Shipping Squadrons 1942-45' has a long list of shipping sunk or damaged in an Appendix. These squadrons were mainly equipped with Beaufighters, although some were replaced by Mosquito fighters from September 1944:








I hope that is of use.

Mike
 
timshatz said:
2. As the Japanese airforces became less of a threat, the job of the F6s to escort dropped off. So, send them along with bombs and rockets on board. Only a short step from that point to getting rid of the birds they were escorting altogether
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Speaking of the IJNAS, did they sink anything of substance after 1942? Top marks to the IJNAF for Pearl Harbour, plus sinking HMS Prince of Wales, Repulse, Hermes plus cruisers and lighter craft and crippling USS Lexington, Yorktown and Hornet.
 
Admiral Beez said:
Speaking of the IJNAS, did they sink anything of substance after 1942? Top marks to the IJNAF for Pearl Harbour, plus sinking HMS Prince of Wales, Repulse, Hermes plus cruisers and lighter craft and crippling USS Lexington, Yorktown and Hornet.
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I imagine striking moored and docked ships that you aren't actually at war with might improve the results of the attack.
 

By that measure the USN only lost one battleship at Pearl Harbor. If it's sitting on the bottom I think it's sunk.
 

All 3 were put out of action for considerable time at a critical juncture of the campaign, I'd say that was the definition of success especially with only 20 aircraft committed. That they were not sunk was thanks to being close to land and able to run themselves aground. Success doesn't have to be defined always as tonnage sunk, thus the credit for also disabling the Bismarck. They also played a role as gunnery spotters in the Norway campaign allowing Warspite to put 8 destroyers out of action, nearly half the entire German destroyer fleet. I'd chalk that in the success column for a anti-ship credentials of a very versatile plane.
 
Thanks for jogging my memory, GrauGeist!
I think there was an American battleship that had a rather impressive record in the Med. One of the newer ones. It used its float planes for spotting. That's the best I can come up with and keep airplanes in my post. My wife started talking to me and I forgot what this thread was about.
 
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fastmongrel said:
By that measure the USN only lost one battleship at Pearl Harbor. If it's sitting on the bottom I think it's sunk.
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Two - the USS Oklahoma was only righted and refloated because it was blocking a navigation channel.
Once afloat, it was only good for salvage and even then, sank while being towed enroute to the west coast before that could happen.
 
Hi
In 'RAF Fighters Part 1' (WW2 Aircraft Fact Files' by Green and Swanborough, page 26, reference the Bristol Beaufighter, it mentions that in the first nine months of 1943 No. 27 Squadron (claimed) destroyed or damaged 123 ships and 1,368 sampans and other small rivercraft (as well as land transport targets). These would be on the major rivers or coastal traffic. Another example is from February 1945 when Beaufighters discovered a Japanese convoy in the Andaman Sea at extreme range for the aircraft. During the 33 hour attack 14 merchantmen, two sloops and a gunboat were sunk or seriously damaged by rocket and cannon fire.
With Beaufighters attacking Axis ships in Northern Europe, the Mediterranean Burma and with the Australians in the South West Pacific it must, at least, be a good contender for the most successful anti-ship aircraft.

Mike
 
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