Was the Douglas BT2D / AD Skyraider suitable for operation from escort aircraft carriers?? Limits on Takeoff weight when operating off these smaller carriers?
If the Skyraider was not suitable for operation from an escort carrier, was there escort carrier 'suitable' replacement planned for the SBD and TBF/TBM generation of aircraft???
The only escort carriers to operate the SBD were the 4 Sangamon class, which lraded them for more TBF/TBM by mid-1944. The later SB2C Helldiver, not the SBD, was of the same generation as the TBF, and other than for training purposes or delivery of replacements to the fleet never flew from the decks of escort carriers.
Just before the end of the war the USN began a reorganisation of it carrier air groups with a view to eliminating the TBF/TBM altogether at least from the fleet carriers by late 1946. By this time the need was seen to be more dive bombers in view of the way the war had moved, and the elimination of the IJN surface fleet as a threat. The first step in that process which was beginning to happen in Aug 1945, saw the elimination of the TBF/TBM from the CVL air groups in exchange for more fighters. The next step would have been for the CV to reduce the number of TBM & fighters for more SB2C (which could be used as TB if the need arose). The MIdways air groups were built around the F4U & SB2C only.
However there were other versions of the TBM coming along to fill any immediate need.
The XTBM-4 flew in June 1945 with a strengthened airframe. Eastern were due to switch production to that version in late 1945 but the order for 900 was cancelled before that could happen. In an attempt to improve the performance of the TBM-3E, 2 aircraft were modified at NAMU as XTBM-5 prototypes, but development ended with the end of WW2.
From July 1944 Grumman was developing a 2 seat replacement for the TBF/TBM in the shape of what became the XTB3F (later AF) Guardian. Postwar, with the AD-1 Skyraider & AM-1 Mauler developed to fill the DB/TB role on the fleet carriers, the Guardian was developed as a ASW aircraft to replace the ASW TBMs from around 1950. Some of these may have operated from the larger Commencement Bay class CVE in the ASW role in the 1950s. Postwar it was only a few of these CVE that saw any service in the active fleet operating fixed wing aircraft.