Most valuable Carrier Fighter Of WWII

fastmongrel said:

I cant see anyone climbing into the cockpit. What looks like the head is part of the windscreen in my eyes.

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I'm with you. I'm not seeing a person in that shot.

CORSNING said:

Gentlemen, I give you the eagle eye of an US military fighter pilot.

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Biff, I am so glad that you see some humor in my statement sir. We both know
that it is an absolute truth and necessity in your past field. May God shed great
blessings on you and your family for protecting our country.

, Jeff......Thank you son.

CORSNING said:

Biff, I am so glad that you see some humor in my statement sir. We both know
that it is an absolute truth and necessity in your past field. May God shed great
blessings on you and your family for protecting our country.

, Jeff......Thank you son.

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Thanks Jeff!

fastmongrel said:

View attachment 509600

Swordfish could carry Rockets and early ASV mkIII. I know its a picture of a model but it was the clearest I could find. On the outer forward inter wing struts there were Yagi aerials (TV type aerials)

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A bit blurry but this shows the Yagi aerials

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The early version radars were huge and were under the fuselage. It was an either / or situation. No idea what Yagi aerials are, I've never seen those before. Maybe Yagi is surface only and not underwater?

Kevin J said:

The early version radars were huge and were under the fuselage. It was an either / or situation.

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No the large radome under the fuselage was for the ASV mkXI centimetric radar the early ASV mkIII metric radar was the small Yagi aerial receivers on the struts and the transmitter aerial on the top wing above the fuselage.

No idea what Yagi aerials are, I've never seen those before. Maybe Yagi is surface only and not underwater?

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A Televison aerial is a Yagi antenna. Its a directional receiver with a reflector to boost the signal Yagi-Uda antenna
Radar is surface only it cannot work underwater.

Very good page on UK ASV radars British ASV Radars - Technical pages - Fighting the U-boats - uboat.net

Kevin J said:

The early version radars were huge and were under the fuselage. It was an either / or situation. No idea what Yagi aerials are, I've never seen those before. Maybe Yagi is surface only and not underwater?

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Yagi = old style VHF TV antannae. It was used for ASV MkII as used in the hunt for the Bismarck.

The Swordfish III with ASV Mk X could still carry a full underwing weapons load. Eric Brown was involved in testing the Swordfish and Wings of the Navy shows lots of photos of Swordfish III with rocket rails.

This is from The Secret Years:

V4689/G, identified at A&A in October 1943 as a
Mk III, had a 'Pumpkin' searchlight under the starboard
wing* and could carry a range of loads bringing maximum
weight to 9,250 Ib with corresponding reduction in
performance (seeTable): handling was acceptable. L 295
from January 1945 confirmed that the searchlight reduced
top speed by 5 mph. In August 1944, W5902 had special
modifications enabling an American 1,000 Ib bomb (A
M65) to be carried and released without problems. LS364
was in use from ovember 1944 as a general purpo e
bomber to check fuse functioning. and HS218 flew in for
the armament demonstration in July 1945.

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*In addition to ASV X and rocket launcher rails and/or hard points for bombs. A Swordfish III with ASV X weighed about 6000lb clean with crew and full internal fuel.

buffnut453 said:

I'm not saying you're racist. I'm saying that the excuse made by some that the Japanese falsified their own loss returns is racist. It's one thing for a combatant to make mistaken claims about their own side's kills; all sides did that. It's another thing altogether to suggest that a combatant deliberately falsifies reporting of its own losses. That just doesn't stack up against the reality of warfare. The claim that the Japanese, exclusively, falsified upwards reporting of their own losses is bogus. As noted, if they did that then their airfields would have had spare parts and POL coming out of their ears. The reality is that the Japanese were running out of everything at the end of the war. It's frankly ludicrous to suggest that pervasive, systemic fabrication of loss reporting would not have been noticed given the dire straits the Japanese were in. So, yes, that specific claim is racist because it's only ever applied to the Japanese and, in the case of the AVG, it's used purely to justify provably inaccurate Allied kill claims.

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Hey I think I owe you an apology. I should have asked for clarification instead of jumping to the conclusion that it was me you were calling racist. My bad. I apologize for that.

michael rauls said:

Hey I think I owe you an apology. I should have asked for clarification instead of jumping to the conclusion that it was me you were calling racist. My bad. I apologize for that.

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I did ask that you read what I wrote. No worries, it's all good, and I appreciate your gracious response.

In truth, the Japanese weren't the only combatant to be accused of falsifying loss returns but it's the only that still has such allegations swirling. Back in 1940, American journalists in London started asking questions about why RAF claims were so much higher than the losses admitted by the Luftwaffe. At the time, and for many years after, it was taken as fact that the Luftwaffe falsified its upward reporting because junior staff feared the consequences for reporting bad news within the dictatorship. We now know, based largely on contemporary German quartermaster reports, that the Luftwaffe's reported losses were actually pretty accurate. Today, nobody with any serious interest in military history would claim that the Luftwaffe falsified loss returns...which is, in part, why it bugs me so much that some "historians" are still willing to trot out the same sort of accusation against the Japanese. I'd really like to see some convincing evidence to illustrate such claims but that never seems to be forthcoming...just "I heard from a guy..." kind of rumours.

buffnut453 said:

I did ask that you read what I wrote. No worries, it's all good, and I appreciate your gracious response.

In truth, the Japanese weren't the only combatant to be accused of falsifying loss returns but it's the only that still has such allegations swirling. Back in 1940, American journalists in London started asking questions about why RAF claims were so much higher than the losses admitted by the Luftwaffe. At the time, and for many years after, it was taken as fact that the Luftwaffe falsified its upward reporting because junior staff feared the consequences for reporting bad news within the dictatorship. We now know, based largely on contemporary German quartermaster reports, that the Luftwaffe's reported losses were actually pretty accurate. Today, nobody with any serious interest in military history would claim that the Luftwaffe falsified loss returns...which is, in part, why it bugs me so much that some "historians" are still willing to trot out the same sort of accusation against the Japanese. I'd really like to see some convincing evidence to illustrate such claims but that never seems to be forthcoming...just "I heard from a guy..." kind of rumours.

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Your right that when you think about it it really doesn't make much sense. It's something I've read from time to time over the years so tended to believe it but more and more im learning you cant always believed everything you read especially in articles on the internet.

RCAFson said:

Yagi = old style VHF TV antannae. It was used for ASV MkII as used in the hunt for the Bismarck.

The Swordfish III with ASV Mk X could still carry a full underwing weapons load. Eric Brown was involved in testing the Swordfish and Wings of the Navy shows lots of photos of Swordfish III with rocket rails.

This is from The Secret Years:


*In addition to ASV X and rocket launcher rails and/or hard points for bombs. A Swordfish III with ASV X weighed about 6000lb clean with crew and full internal fuel.

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There are some images of the installation I'm thinking of here
Google Image Result for http://data3.primeportal.net/hangar/mark_hayward/fairey_swordfish_iii/images/fairey_swordfish_iii_03_of_36.jpg
On the British ASV radars site see ASV Mk.XI paragraph where it states that the radar equipped Swordfish would be accompanied by other aircraft without radar to perform anti-shipping strikes. See http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/f4f/wildcat-VI-ads.jpg.
IIRC, it couldn't be fitted underneath the belly of an Albacore.
So yes, my memory on seeing submarines under water is clearly incorrect but it could detect a snorkel at short distances in calm seas.
I'm still sure that a strike performed by a Swordfish would be slow enough to enable a U-Boat to crash-dive, so you'd need something faster like Wildcats. Can't find anything on this, so yes, radar plus rockets for ASW.

I cant reconcile US air to air claims no matter what I do. That link I posted is pretty typical. Its purports to tabulate air to air victories....not all losses from all causes. we know that about 60% of aircraft were destroyed on the ground either captured or bombed to scrap. We can safely assume that 10-20% of losses were "failed to return" categories. A percentage were scrapped due to obsolescence and/or damage. I don't know precisely the numbers of Japanese aircraft that never left then home islands, and were never used in anger....the so called reserves. but it would be at least 50% of the total production.
For comparison purposes, over 60% of the aircraft produced in the US never left the US and were never attached to front line units. now US reserves were lavish, for sure, but none of the other airforces operated without huge reserves. For example, the VVS had an operating reserve of 20000 a/c in june 1941, and a frontline air force of 3500 a/c. The RA is often quoted as having 3500 aircraft in June 1940, and while is definitely a stretch, they certainly possessed a active reserve larger than the 1200 or so a/c they could put into frontline service. the service with the smallest operating reserve was the LW, but even it, at the end of the war surrendered nearly 10000 a/c.

So no way under the sun can the claims made by US forces as to the number of shoot downs they achieved, even come close to being right. The Japanese certainly lost a lot of aircraft, especially once the fronts became fluid, but its the number of claimed air victories that is utterly busted for me.

On a different issue I find it ironic, to be honest that 1 TFW is so often berated for its so called poor exchange with this 27:4 exchange rate often quoted. What isn't mentioned is that whereas the Spitfire wing is a tally of losses to all causes, the losses on the Japanese side are only those lost on the battlefield. if Japanese losses to all causes are included , that is, comparing apples to apples, 1 TFW goes from one of the worst exchange rates, to one of the best in the SoPac TO. By comparison, in the period April to September 1942, over Moresby, the two FGs engaged managed to shoot down just 7 Zekes in total, with the Zekes losing somewhere in the order of 20 a/c overall, whilst Allied losses from those two fighter groups, plus the odds and sods also committed, amounted to well over 100 a/c. Yet we never hear anything about the poor exchange rate there...…...The hypocrisy and downright baloney knows no boundaries......

Just an interesting note:

Fairey Fulmar Mk.II: 1,320 hp., 9,672 lb. (combat weight),
Wing loading: 28.28 lb./sq. ft., Power loading: 7.112 lb./hp.

The Fairey Fulmar Mk.II N.F. last mission was on 8 February 1945.
The Mk.II was capable or 265 mph./1,750 ft., 272 mph./7,150 ft.,
260 mph./9,000 ft. and had an initial climb rate of 1320 fpm.

Douglas SBD-5: 1,200 hp., 9,352 lb. (Scout)
Wing loading: 28.78 lb./sq. ft., Power loading: 7.793 lb./hp.

The SBD-5 was capable of 247+ mph./S.L., 250 mph./3,281 ft.,
248 mph./7,150 ft., 249 mph./9,000 ft., 260-265 mph./13,800 ft.
and had an initial rate of climb of 1700-1950 fpm. depending on
its weight (with rear gunner, guns and ammo or without).

Fighter vs Scout dive bomber.

Just an FYI,

CORSNING said:

Just an interesting note:

Fairey Fulmar Mk.II: 1,320 hp., 9,672 lb. (combat weight),
Wing loading: 28.28 lb./sq. ft., Power loading: 7.112 lb./hp.

The Fairey Fulmar Mk.II N.F. last mission was on 8 February 1945.
The Mk.II was capable or 265 mph./1,750 ft., 272 mph./7,150 ft.,
260 mph./9,000 ft. and had an initial climb rate of 1320 fpm.

Douglas SBD-5: 1,200 hp., 9,352 lb. (Scout)

The SBD-5 was capable of 247+ mph./S.L., 250 mph./3,281 ft.,
248 mph./7,150 ft., 249 mph./9,000 ft., 260-265 mph./13,800 ft.
and had an initial rate of climb of 1700-1950 fpm. depending on
its weight (with rear gunner, guns and ammo or without).

Fighter vs Scout dive bomber.

Just an FYI,

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The Fulmar was an all weather RN fighter that entered service at the same time as the USN F4F-3 Wildcat day fighter which lacked armour and self sealing fuel tanks. It was only slightly slower than the Wildcat at the altitudes that it was expected to intercept German and Italian torpedo bombers.

CORSNING said:

The SBD-5 was capable of 247+ mph./S.L., 250 mph./3,281 ft.,
248 mph./7,150 ft., 249 mph./9,000 ft., 260-265 mph./13,800 ft.
and had an initial rate of climb of 1700-1950 fpm. depending on
its weight (with rear gunner, guns and ammo or without).

Fighter vs Scout dive bomber.

Just an FYI,

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Don't know about the SBD-5 but the pilot's manual for the SBD-3 says that if the rear gunner is not carried 200lbs of ballast should be put in his seat and fastened down.

Just a FYI

Kevin J said:

The Fulmar was an all weather RN fighter that entered service at the same time as the USN F4F-3 Wildcat day fighter which lacked armour and self sealing fuel tanks. It was only slightly slower than the Wildcat at the altitudes that it was expected to intercept German and Italian torpedo bombers.

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Fulmar I / F4F-3
246 / 290 @ Sea Level
255 / 295 @ 3,281 ft.
250 / 303 @ 6,562 ft.
245 / 312 @ 9,843 ft.
240 / 314 @ 13,123 ft.
233 / 315 @ 16,404 ft.
221 / 325 @ 19,685 ft.

This is the way it was on 4 December 1940.

Shortround6 said:

Don't know about the SBD-5 but the pilot's manual for the SBD-3 says that if the rear gunner is not carried 200lbs of ballast should be put in his seat and fastened down.

Just a FYI

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Thank you sir, great information.
, Jeff

CORSNING said:

Really?
Fulmar I / F4F-3
246 / 290 @ Sea Level
255 / 295 @ 3,281 ft.
250 / 303 @ 6,562 ft.
245 / 312 @ 9,843 ft.
240 / 314 @ 13,123 ft.
233 / 315 @ 16,404 ft.
221 / 325 @ 19,685 ft.

Just saying...

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Kevin, I am sorry that you did not like this post. It was intended to be
an informative post. The truth is son, I cannot change the facts.

, Jeff

Kevin, I looked at my post closer and decided I was too harsh.
Sorry sir, I changed my post a little.

CORSNING said:

Really?
Fulmar I / F4F-3
246 / 290 @ Sea Level
255 / 295 @ 3,281 ft.
250 / 303 @ 6,562 ft.
245 / 312 @ 9,843 ft.
240 / 314 @ 13,123 ft.
233 / 315 @ 16,404 ft.
221 / 325 @ 19,685 ft.

Just saying...

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You should be comparing the Fulmar II against the Martlet II with folding wings, 20 mph top speed difference at 1000m / 2000m is no big deal. Maybe you should be comparing an Martlet I, land based only & no folding wings, against a Fulmar I?

Kevin J said:

You should be comparing the Fulmar II against the Martlet II with folding wings, 20 mph top speed difference at 1000m / 2000m is no big deal. Maybe you should be comparing an Martlet I, land based only & no folding wings, against a Fulmar I?

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Kevin,
The Fulmar II began deliveries somewhere in 1942. The Martlet II October 1940, The F4F-3
4 December 1940. The USN VF-6 receives the first F4F-3As (Martlet III) in May 1941.

FYI: The Martlet II / Wilcat II

Maximum speed at Sea Level: 292 mph.
Maximum speed at 14,000 ft.: 317 mph.

CORSNING said:

Kevin,
The Fulmar II began deliveries somewhere in 1942. The Martlet II October 1940, The F4F-3
4 December 1940. The USN VF-6 receives the first F4F-3As (Martlet III) in May 1941.

FYI: The Martlet II / Wilcat II

Maximum speed at Sea Level: 292 mph.
Maximum speed at 14,000 ft.: 317 mph.

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The Fairey Fulmar II entered operational service in March 1941, a handful of the non-folding wing Martlet II entered service in September 1941, with speeds as quoted by you, the folding wing variant was first delivered in August 1941, 54 being sent to the Far East and 36 retained in the UK. Top speed was slower, 292 at 6000 feet, 300 mph at 14000 feet and first saw service in the Far East in the invasion of Madagascar.