How much enemy fighter operation did the Swordfish ever face? Not much.
I'd say that would be because they used them almost exclusively at night. Swordfish did operate in an environment where enemy fighters were around (i.e., the Mediterranean, and at least potentially, Indian Ocean or Pacific), and not being able to use them during the day was a severe limitation, as was the very short range. Add very limited and poor fighter protection options, and a small carrying capacity for aircraft by the RN carriers, and FAA has fairly weak capabilities. It's impressive that they did as much with it as they did.
The ability to carry radar so early compared to other types was an advantage for the Swordfish, allowing them to conduct effective night attacks and maybe even more important, bad weather attacks. But TBF Avengers had this capability by late 1942.
I'd say the inability to survive encounters with enemy fighters, the slow speed increasing both vulnerability to interception by fighters and targeting by AAA, as well as increasing (doubling or tripling in some cases) the length of time to conduct a strike over a given distance, which was very limited anyway with this type, were all fairly telling disadvantages. Not so much in 1940, and maybe still competitive, all things considered, in early 1942, but by late 1942 this is not viable. But the poor FAA pilots still had to fly them.
At Coral Sea, when they put a few F4F's down on the deck with the TBD's they not only got some hits but did not lose a single torpedo bomber.
That is a fair point, though I would argue they got lucky. Coral Sea was really the first ever major naval carrier battle. TBD was extremely vulnerable both to fighters and AAA, and the Wildcats themselves were pretty vulnerable when flying down low. Specific circumstances in this battle contributed to the (somewhat limited) US success. The USN made serious mistakes too though.
At Coral Sea, the CAP defense for the
Shōhō on May 7 for example was very limited - four A6M and two A5M, with all the other fighters being loaded and fueled. Seven Japanese fighters, who had to be split into defending high (dive bomber) and low (torpedo) approaches, were contending with 18 Wildcats escorting 53 SBDs, and 22 TBDs. That greatly improved the odds for the USN strike planes.
In many subsequent engagements in the Pacific however there were much larger numbers of enemy fighters available to intercept strikes. And the TBD did not have a good record subsequent to Coral Sea. It is fortunate that it was quickly replaced by the TBF / TBM.
The RN carrier Glorious had Swordfish when its captain ordered a bombing attack on Norwegian shore installations occupied by the Germans. The squadron replied that was a suicde mission, such slow biplanes against the AAA. The carrier capatin was so infuriated that he requested that teh ship proceed back to Scapa Flow so a court martial board could be convened ASAP. The Glorious departed, with no air patrols and only a single destroyer for escort. Both RN ships were sunk by the German battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, with heavy loss of life. If the Glorious had TBD's they could have done high altitude level bombing attacks with a pretty good chance of survival.
I doubt that. IIRC TBD had a slower cruise speed than a Swordfish as well as inferior range. It wasn't particularly well protected and probably inferior in maneuverability. Swordfish was also stressed for dive bombing which may have been a better option for that raid, which would have had little chance of success regardless IMO. Certainly level bombing (in this case without even a norden sight) had a poor accuracy rate historically during the war.