Rn vs IJN (1 Viewer)

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

So no modified airliners.

Planes that built to modified airliner designs which is not quite the same thing.
Also please note that a number of companies in different countries tried to use modified airliner designs for bombers to save on engineering and tooling costs.
Lockheed actually did rather well with this, Hudson's and Ventura's.

That's true. Modified airliners aren't always bad. Hudson in particular seemed to be a very, very useful aircraft. Ultimately very helpful to the Allied cause in many Theaters. Venturas were pretty good too. Most modified airliners though as far as I can think of don't make the greatest front line strike aircraft. Sparviero did pretty well but at great cost because they were a bit too vulnerable. The other Italian ones didn't do so well.

The point i was making is that these were rather obsolescent types compared to what the Japanese was using in the Pacific Theater.

 

[RCAFson]

I think we can put most of the blame on the RN/air ministry for this one. After all, they did have the choice of picking this instead.
View attachment 733825
For two different manufacturers to come up with such ugly airplanes at the same time for the same requirement (and these are the ones that made it off paper) and this one is from the company building the Spitfire.

Re the Barrcauda, was looking at it again and i'll just say my god what were they thinking when they built that thing. Don't knows who's more at fault, RN who drew the specs (is it them who wanted the high wing?) or Fairey who built it. They probably said to themselves, "right, how can we make this plane as awkward, inefficient and complicated as possible". What was wrong with designing a straighforward, decent if not outstanding torpedo plane with low or at most mid wing, with landing gear attached to the wings.

Supermarine's alternative bid for an Albacore replacement was a very interesting aircraft and probably better than the Barracuda. However, the Barracuda 1 first flew in late 1940 vs mid 1943 for the Supermarine 322 (pictured above).

The Barracuda and the Supermarine 322 were not torpedo bombers; they were torpedo dive bombers and as such had to have an airframe stressed for dive bombing, This is a key distinction.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

Yes, I know. I guess I just don't see the logic behind these. Somewhat cheaper than a fast battleship, sure, but also significantly more limited deployment options as well as you can't really send it up against enemy battleships. Just churn out another Iowa class ship instead. Or more Essex spam for that matter.

I have to admit i don't know enough about naval architecture to comment. Alaska class ships look pretty damn useful to me. Another value to those bigger guns is in the bombardment role where they seem to have been pretty devastating. I don't know how a 12" gun holds up to a 14", but I think it probably out-ranges an 8" a bit and one or two shells ought to be very lethal in naval combat. If i was an admiral in some of those 1942 -43 surface battles I'd be glad to have one around. The armor is pretty good too, enough to deal with anything but a full fledged battleship.

The big question I guess is how much time / resources does it take to make one compared to an Iowa. How much fuel does it use in comparison. One thing I've learned about the Pacific War is that the battleships used an astonishing amount of fuel, as much as many many other ships, and that is in part why both the IJN and USN were somewhat slow to use them.

 

[SaparotRob]

The Devastator is quite poor, it was actually worse than the Swordfish in almost every measurable respect, I left them off because they only made 130 of them and they were so quickly replaced. There are a couple of other USN strike aircraft which didn't do well and were replaced, like the Vindicator (aka 'Vought Vibrator' / 'Wind indicator') of which 260 were made with some used by the Marines during Midway. And there is the Vultee Vengeance dive bomber which the Australians seem to have used with some success in New Guinea, and then I think the British used them in Burma.

Then the big one I left out is the SB2C Helldiver, which looks pretty good on paper (295 mph max, 2 x 20mm guns, 2,000 lbs of bombs in an internal bay, theoretically a torpedo also possible, supposedly 1,100 mile range) but we know in practice it had a particularly ugly shakeout period and needed a ton of work before it became viable, by which time the lack of Japanese carriers or battleships still floating (needing maybe precision dive bombing capability) meant that it became the preference to replace them with Corsairs.

The TBD is left off the charts, so to speak, because it was withdrawn from service after about seven months of U.S. involvement in the war. We are ignoring it the same way the Brewster SB2A is ignored from these comparisons.

 

[mack8]

Regarding the Albacore and Barracuda as dive-bombers, what were the typical loadouts for this DB role? I'm trying to get a feel how they compared with the SBD and D3A. At any rate, at 215kts VNe the Albacore is terribly slow, on one hand it's slow speed presumably helps it aim better, on the other hand it means more time exposed to AA.
Iirc the typical dive speed (presumably not VNe) for the D3A is 240 kts, not sure for the SBD, but probably in the same region?
PS: Yes, it was about 240-250 knots for the SBD too.

 

[Shortround6]

That being said, I wonder if in the absence of the treaties, we'd seen such heavy cruisers at all?

If you did you would see a small number.
the whole 8in cruiser cycle was started with these ships.

with 7.5in guns to answer a hypothetical German Cruiser in 1916. The rumored German Cruisers didn't exist. Once the British had them they didn't want to scrape ships that were only a few years old and so everybody else got 8in cruisers under the Washington treaty.
Now being the "first" this class of cruisers was also pretty crappy. As built the guns were worked by hand but that didn't last long. Lugging the 200lbs shells from the ammo hoists to the guns slowed down the rate of fire even when not in a seaway. And the guns could outperform the fire control equipment by a fair margin so the theoretical range far exceeded the practical range. This turned out to be a very common problem with the 8in Cruisers but not for a lack of trying.
At times during the 20s and early 30s the 8in cruisers were sometimes viewed as fast wing of the battlefleet (only the British and Japanese had battlecruisers) and the idea was that the 8in cruisers would form up and take the enemy battles ships under fire at long range and while they could not expect to penetrate the armor they could score hits on the outside vulnerable areas and degrade the enemy accuracy. They could also be used to cross the T or other manuvers with their speed. Fast battleships would not show up until the late 30s, 10-12 years after the 8in cruisers show up.
However a lot of these theories didn't work in practice.
USS Pensacola in 1935

Please note the mast top fire control station for fighting at the maximum possible visual range. No radar so how far you could see governed your maximum combat range.
The guns on this cruiser maxed out 31,860 yds at max elevation. Pitch and roll were going to affect things. Please note the aircraft and catapults. the aircraft were combination recon and "spotting" which in this case means flying near the enemy ships being shot at and radioing back fire corrections. They might be able to drop flares in a night action.
Fleet problems/exercises were often set up to reinforce theories, not to find problems with the actual basic theory. Like what to do in rain squall or heavy seas.
The enemy was only going to fight in good clear, calm weather to maximize his own gunnery, right?

Now please note that this cruiser could out distance the max range of Warspite's "hit" (not the max range of the Warspite) by almost 6000 yds so everybody was under delusions as to how far they could really hit at. Some people were beginning to catch on that combat just might be at ranges under 20,000yds and faster firing 6in guns might work better more of the time.

 

[Shortround6]

The TBD is left off the charts, so to speak, because it was withdrawn from service after about seven months of U.S. involvement in the war. We are ignoring it the same way the Brewster SB2A is ignored from these comparisons.

They actually stopped making it in 1939 before Poland. there were never going to be anymore. The newest plane used at Midway was at least 3 years old, had hundreds of hours on the airframe and had zero armor and zero protection of the fuel tanks. The Buffaloes used at Midway were two years newer and at least some protection.
An Albacore used an engine with 300hp more power (about 37% more).

 

[z42]

I have to admit i don't know enough about naval architecture to comment. Alaska class ships look pretty damn useful to me. Another value to those bigger guns is in the bombardment role where they seem to have been pretty devastating. I don't know how a 12" gun holds up to a 14", but I think it probably out-ranges an 8" a bit and one or two shells ought to be very lethal in naval combat. If i was an admiral in some of those 1942 -43 surface battles I'd be glad to have one around. The armor is pretty good too, enough to deal with anything but a full fledged battleship.

The big question I guess is how much time / resources does it take to make one compared to an Iowa. How much fuel does it use in comparison. One thing I've learned about the Pacific War is that the battleships used an astonishing amount of fuel, as much as many many other ships, and that is in part why both the IJN and USN were somewhat slow to use them.

Of course, if an admiral is given the choice between having an Alaska class or being without, sure he's going to choose having an Alaska available. But the interesting question is, if the Alaskas don't exist, what is the realistic option? For a very crude approximation, lets assume the cost of the ship is proportional to the (empty) displacement. So you have the Alaska at 30kton and Iowa at 48. So for the price of the two Alaskas you could have an Iowa and a light cruiser, say.

As for fuel consumption, both classes make 33knots, Alaska with 150000 hp and Iowa with 212000. So at full clip the difference isn't ridiculously huge. At such high speeds a largish fraction of the resistance will be wave drag, whereas at slower speeds wave drag is less of an issue. I didn't find any info about fuel consumption at cruise speed but I'd expect at cruise speed the Alaska would have a bigger advantage, maybe fuel consumption being roughly proportional to the displacement as a first guess. So yes, less fuel consumption than a battleship, but then again compared to a 10kton cruiser, yeah the Alaskas will gulp down fuel at a fearsome rate.

 

[Shortround6]

Supermarine's alternative bid for an Albacore replacement was a very interesting aircraft and probably better than the Barracuda. However, the Barracuda 1 first flew in late 1940 vs mid 1943 for the Supermarine 322 (pictured above).

The Barracuda and the Supermarine 322 were torpedo bombers; they were torpedo dive bombers and as such had to have an airframe stressed for dive bombing, This is a key distinction.

In the photo please note the window under the wing. There was also a requirement that the "observer" had to be able to see below the wing so this dictated the high wing design which then complicated the retracting landing gear or forced the fixed gear. The Dumbo used a tilt wing (-2 degrees to +16 degrees) to get the landing speed down which also forced the high wing design. When you are trying for a stalling speed about 12mph lower than the Avenger there are going to be a few compromises.

 

[RCAFson]

Regarding the Albacore and Barracuda as dive-bombers, what were the typical loadouts for this DB role? I'm trying to get a feel how they compared with the SBD and D3A. At any rate, at 215kts VNe the Albacore is terribly slow, on one hand it's slow speed presumably helps it aim better, on the other hand it means more time exposed to AA.
Iirc the typical dive speed (presumably not VNe) for the D3A is 240 kts, not sure for the SBD, but probably in the same region?
PS: Yes, it was about 240-250 knots for the SBD too.

Typical bomb load as a DB was 1500lb (2 x 500 + 2x 250lb plus flares for night ops) for the (also Swordfish ) Albacore and Barracuda. Max was 2000lb (4 x 500lb or a single 1600 (max used in carrier ops ) or 2000lb for the Barracuda) Both could an carry external drop tank and theoretically reduce the bomb load for increased range.

Yes the Albacore is slow, even in a dive (but it's faster than a TBD) but an aircraft in a ~vertical dive still presents a difficult target for AA and fighters. The Albacore flew hundreds of DB night sorties in North Africa.

 

[Shortround6]

I didn't find any info about fuel consumption at cruise speed but I'd expect at cruise speed the Alaska would have a bigger advantage, maybe fuel consumption being roughly proportional to the displacement as a first guess. So yes, less fuel consumption than a battleship, but then again compared to a 10kton cruiser, yeah the Alaskas will gulp down fuel at a fearsome rate.

The US 8in Cruisers used about 100,000 to 107,000hp until the Baltimore's 120,000hp for 13,000 tons (heavier when loaded)

The Alaska's were real oddballs. They could probably have gone head to head with the whatever Kongo's were left. The US used an 1140lb shell instead of the much more common 850-900lb shells used in old Dreadnaughts. So the gun power was a lot closer than first glance.

 

[RCAFson]

Yeah should have mentioned this 322 as well, it's even worse!


D3A2s took part in operation I-GO in April 1943 and flew from Buin, which is about 300nm away from Guadalcanal. So they seem to have no issue operating at 300nm radius. And the D3A2 actually had a shorter range compared to the D3A1.

The August 1942 D3A1 strike on Guadalcanal took of from Rabaul 560nm away, and the survivors ditched at Shortland, about 400nm away. So they flew 860nm. If they could have flown from Buka, 400nm from Guadalcanal, seems they could just have made it (i mean land and not ditch), though flying on fumes.


As to the Albacore torpedo, it may have been more reliable and dependable than the US Mark 13, but isn't the drop limit 150kts max and a few hundred feet for it? Better than the Mark 13, but still slow. And the whole of 10kts VNe advantage for the Albacore probably wouldn't help much against a Zero!

During the August 1942 strike the D3A1 bomb load had to be reduced to 2 x 60kg bombs (see Lundstrom), so not really an advertisement for extreme range. It shows the incredible stupidity that the IJN sometimes exhibited.

In 1940 Skuas sank Konigsberg at ~300nm from their base.

The drop speed limit for the Mk XII was raised via mods to an eventual 250-270 knots (Campbell). The Mk XV, it's mid war replacement started at 270 knots. The Zero would have a hard time following an Albacore in a vertical dive, certainly harder then one flying straight and level.

 

[z42]

Now please note that this cruiser could out distance the max range of Warspite's "hit" (not the max range of the Warspite) by almost 6000 yds so everybody was under delusions as to how far they could really hit at. Some people were beginning to catch on that combat just might be at ranges under 20,000yds and faster firing 6in guns might work better more of the time.

One issue being that 8" shells just by virtue of being smaller will slow down quicker than a battleship caliber shell. At 30000 yards the 8" on the Pensacola class had a time of flight of about 70 seconds, vs. a 16" battleship shell took about 50 seconds to reach the same distance. Which might make a difference when trying to hit a moving target.

And yes, at shorter ranges the higher rate of fire (and higher amount of tubes for the same installed weight) of 6" gun could be an advantage of a 6" cruiser vs a 8" heavy cruiser.

 

[Wild_Bill_Kelso]

So due to the vociferous opposition of some people to such heretical concepts as, the Gladiator might have trouble with an A6M, or that the Swordfish might be a little less capable than the D3A, I often get into the position of becoming the nemesis of the British.

This isn't necessarily my point of view, and to kind of balance things out I'm going to try to realistically assess how the RN might manage this situation. First having seen some of the disadvantages, what are the advantages of the British?

Radar
Encryption (probably breaking the code, their own code is likely unbroken)
ECM / ECCM - including things like tracking enemy ships and planes via RDF
General night fighting capability (in part due to putting radar on planes, even biplanes)
Excellent engines especially (but not only) the Rolls Royce
Very good interceptors
Discipline - almost as disciplined as the Japanese themselves.
Adaptability - the British are extremely cunning and can recognize new and seemingly ephemeral opportunities and use them to act decisively.


The British had several procurement or design related problems with some aspects of their kit in WW2. But they were also adapted to these situations with remarkable ingenuity.

I think initially, it's clear there will be setbacks. Ships, including carriers, are going to be lost. Island bases are going to be lost. But the British won't just sit on their haunches, they will adapt.

LF Spitfires
To deal with Japanese fighters like the A6M and Ki-43, there were basically three strategies. The first was to use fast roll and dive speed to flick away into a power dive to disengage, ala AVG / 23rd FG and 49th FG, 75th FS etc. P-40s. The second was to use careful group tactics Thach Weave to protect fighters and force the Japanese into an attrition situation, as was done with some success with the F4Fs. The third was to just overcome the agility of the IJ planes with sheer power and high combat speed, which is what the P-38 and then F6F, F4U, P-51 and pilots P-47 did.

I see an opportunity here with Spitfires. Initially, maybe it's not such a great match. But if you take a Spit V and clip the wings, now you have a phenomenal roll rate, faster dive and a much higher speed at lower altitude. You'll still want some 'regular' Spitfires for high cover but the LF types could prove to be very deadly. When Spit VIII shows up, you get this plus better range, plus increased high altitude performance which is going to become a problem for the A6Ms and Ki-43s.

Beaufighters and long range torpedo bombers
Right out the gate almost, you have Beaufighters. These had a pretty good record against A6Ms, for reasons I don't fully understand. I think high low altitude speed and of course, heavy firepower. I can see Beaufighters escorting aircraft like Wellingtons or Beauforts on long range, sea level torpedo, strafing and bombing strikes becoming very dangerous for the Japanese. Eventually you get the Beau's themselves carrying torpedoes.

Mossie?
There is also the Mosquito. They had some problems with moisture in India but what if you did something like the Russians did with Yaks and put a thin layer of bakelite over the fuselage. if you could fly Mosquitoes out of say, Darwin or maybe even Port Morseby, you could really pose a major problem for the Japanese both with high speed recon and strikes.

Coordinated naval battles in ideal conditions
As for surface combat, again I see trouble for the RN initially, (depending on the weather conditions) but they will adapt. Just as the Japanese torpedoes and night combat skills will probably be a nasty surprise for the British, the radar equipped night flying Swordfish and Wellingtons could be a very unpleasant surprise for the Japanese. So could radar equipped battleships and cruisers. Several times in the various Pacific battles, the navies were separated by weather. British ships could 'see through' the weather, as could British strike aircraft. They could deliver some punishing blows to the Japanese that way.

And if they broke the Japanese codes, and protected their own, which seems likely considering how sophisticated they were in this field, they could chose their moment to strike very carefully. They may even sow confusion in the ranks of the Japanese with some misdirection, as they did to the Germans on a couple of occasions. I see this path as the means to counter the Japanese naval threat to some extent.

Ground Forces - Churchill Tanks
The RN also has the potential of strong land forces if they bring enough troops and kit. As we know, the Japanese were no slouches in island defense but if you say, land Royal Marines and Paratroopers in Malaya, and (assuming you have the landing craft available) I think Churchill tanks could be pretty effective in a land war in some places. I don't think the Japanese have anything that can contend with these, and some of them have good 75mm guns.

Stoicism and Industrial Strength
The British are stoical. So are the Japanese, but the British are better positioned for attrition war.

Submarines?
The British might have an advantage here too I'm not sure I don't know enough about IJN and RN subs yet. But if the RN subs are as good as some have suggested, in theory they could get an early start at commerce raiding against the Japanese, which could cause them all kinds of serious headaches as almost all of their key supplies come by ship.

Air Sea Rescue and Recon
The British have a fairly large number (700+) of their excellent Sunderland flying boats. Heavily armed and capable of killing submarines, they are probably a challenge for A6Ms and Ki-43s the same way that US heavy bombers were. They also have this vast fleet of 'escorts' and destroyer escorts which can act as rescue ships for downed pilots and crew. This will ultimately work out the same way as it did for the USN, improved ratios of survival for the attrition war.

Impunity
There is no way Japan can attack Britain directly. They almost certainly can't invade Australia or New Zealand either.

Night strikes
British have heavy bombers that can fly from distant bases to hit Japanese ports, airfields. The Wellington has 2,500 mile range, and other heavy bombers which came later were close to that. That means bases like Saigon or Taipei might be in range of long range strikes from Ceylon or the Bengal region. And if they can capture some big enough airfields close enough to Japan, the home islands themselves. Japan struggled in night time air combat.


Overall
I think the Japanese have a chance to knock out the RN early. This is due to their marked technical advantage in the carrier war, and strengths they showed in real life in surface combat at Java sea, in the sinking of capital ships at Singapore, conquest of Malaya, fighting in Burma etc.

But due to the fact that the British can retreat to India, Australia, New Zealand etc., it will be hard for the Japanese to deliver a knockout blow. They could send ships to attack India, and they may well wreck the RN fleet there, but i don't see them successfully invading or conquering India. Not saying it's impossible but... really hard. Same with Australia. Unlikely IMO. So the British will have a chance to re-assess and come back.

The British do have some kit which could be adapted to victory. And the longer the war lasts the more of a disadvantage the Japanese have. The British are better positioned for attrition warfare.

 

[Greg Boeser]

During the August 1942 strike the D3A1 bomb load had to be reduced to 2 x 60kg bombs (see Lundstrom), so not really an advertisement for extreme range. It shows the incredible stupidity that the IJN sometimes exhibited.

In 1940 Skuas sank Konigsberg at ~300nm from their base.

The drop speed limit for the Mk XII was raised via mods to an eventual 250-270 knots (Campbell). The Mk XV, it's mid war replacement started at 270 knots. The Zero would have a hard time following an Albacore in a vertical dive, certainly harder then one flying straight and level.

The D3A1s sent against Guadalcanal were land-based, and had been optimized for ground support.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

In a way the 8" heavy cruiser was a pretty difficult design spot, and they tended to end up as a bit of glass cannons, as it wasn't really feasible to design a well balanced 8" cruiser within the treaty 10kton limit. Or then just lie about the actual displacement.

That being said, I wonder if in the absence of the treaties, we'd seen such heavy cruisers at all? Light cruisers certainly, as they had a useful role to serve even in the absence of any treaties. But the heavy cruiser didn't really have much going for it in the sense it could do the light cruiser roles + that it could likely beat a light cruiser in a 1 vs 1 engagement, in a somewhat more expensive package. But, in the absence of a treaty, the response to that would be a class of "heavy cruiser killer cruisers". Which in turn could be beaten by another slightly bigger "heavy cruiser killer cruiser killer". Iterate a few times, and (ignoring the historical diversion of the battlecruiser concept), pretty soon we're up at a full-size battleship. So why not skip the iteration and go straight for building more battleship and forget about the classes in between the light cruiser and the battleship?

In a word, fuel. Getting 10,000 tons up to 30 kts is a lot cheaper on fuel than getting 35,000 tons up to the same speed.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

So no modified airliners.

Planes that built to modified airliner designs which is not quite the same thing.
Also please note that a number of companies in different countries tried to use modified airliner designs for bombers to save on engineering and tooling costs.
Lockheed actually did rather well with this, Hudson's and Ventura's.

The B-18 Bolo was a redesigned DC-2, as well. Lasted until 1943 doing ASW patrols.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

That's true. Modified airliners aren't always bad. Hudson in particular seemed to be a very, very useful aircraft. Ultimately very helpful to the Allied cause in many Theaters. Venturas were pretty good too. Most modified airliners though as far as I can think of don't make the greatest front line strike aircraft. Sparviero did pretty well but at great cost because they were a bit too vulnerable. The other Italian ones didn't do so well.

The point i was making is that these were rather obsolescent types compared to what the Japanese was using in the Pacific Theater.

The regeneration rate of land bases is going to be greater; they have greater facilities and better ease of operations. Additionally, you will have fewer a/c losses due to airplanes not being able to find their home carrier, or carrier being sunk in combat. Further, land-based bombers can be larger and range longer.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

So yes, less fuel consumption than a battleship, but then again compared to a 10kton cruiser, yeah the Alaskas will gulp down fuel at a fearsome rate.

Alaskas were expensive to build, expensive to man, and expensive to fuel.

 

[Shortround6]

They were another answer to a non-existing problem. Intelligence said that the Japanese were building large cruisers with 12.2in guns so the US just had to have something that matched
Turns out the Japanese had absolutely no plans to build such ships. The US knew a lot of what the Japanese were doing but they didn't know everything, or even close to it.