It started life with the name "Helmore projector" ...…......The other torpedo remote-attack scheme was a radio controlled project initiated by the inventive Gp Capt W Helmore. By 1944 it had become an airborne weapon of gigantic proportions called the Helmore Projector, and scale models of the operational device were constructed by Messrs Stone. By about mid-1944 the weapon became Helmover. from here British Aerial Ordnance Exotica
Swordfish vs Devastator
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Reluctant Poster
Tech Sergeant
- 1,619
- Dec 6, 2006
The British used the Avenger exclusively as a bomber. Their torpedoes didn't fit and they didn't use American torpedoes.
The only redeeming feature of the British Albacore compared to the Swordfish was the enclosed cockpit, otherwise it was a complete anachronism that should never have been built. The Swordfish successor should have been a monoplane.
As to the superior survivability of unescorted Avengers, I have my doubts. Of the 6 that attacked at Midway 5 were shot down and the survivor never flew again with 16 of 18 crew killed. Flying low and slow is a recipe for disaster for any aircraft.
As I pointed out upthread, "escorted" and "unescorted" are not binary phenomena. It's actually a continuum. "Escort" might mean a combination of close escort and roving fighters sufficient to fend off most enemy fighters encountered on a strike most of the time, or (much more often) it might mean seeing the fighters briefly before they become engaged in their own desperate struggle to survive, at best distracting part of the enemy fighter force for a while. In the latter case they can still expected to be attacked a few times, as was typically the case.
I don't think Avengers were capable of taking on a numerically superior force of Zeros as happened at Midway and surviving, (although one did which is somewhat impressive) but if you have those same 6 Avengers attacked by one or two Zeros or Oscars, they may be able to fend them off long enough for most of them to complete their mission. The 12.7mm gun in the power turret makes very aggressive attacks somewhat risky, and if there aren't enough interceptors to coordinate distractions, simultaneous attacks etc., the chances of taking losses go up pretty high for the fighters. I believe Saburo Sakai claimed he was hit by a defensive gunner from a TBF (though he said a lot of things...). TBF is also big enough, armored, strongly built, with the self sealing tanks etc., that it may also take more than one pass to take one out. In addition, it's capable of a higher speed which means less time in the target area (at least, after the torpedo run).
Swordfish or Albacore by contrast, are very lightly defended, and could be engaged from beyond the effective range of their .30 cal defensive guns and they are not robust enough to endure hits by heavy machine guns or 20 mm cannon, IMO. They are also 100 mph slower so will be stuck in the target area far longer.
Reluctant Poster
Tech Sergeant
- 1,619
- Dec 6, 2006
The Meteor was a V12. The V8 was a post war developmen.
Regarding escorted, semi-escorted and unescorted, for example Blenheim bombers suffered appalling losses in the MTO, whereas Baltimore, Boston and Mitchel bombers had quite low loss rates in that Theater, despite all of the above having roughly the same quality of fighter escort protection ... (that is to say, usually some, but typically light and somewhat sporadic)
Reluctant Poster
Tech Sergeant
- 1,619
- Dec 6, 2006
I would certainly rather be in an Avenger, but an attack on any high value target such as an enemy aircraft carrier is going to meet serious opposition. The USN had serious doubts before WW2 about the viability of torpedo bombers in general, hence the Ranger was built without provisions for torpedoes and the major emphasis on dive bombers.
The British addressed the vulnerability of the torpedo bomber by developing night attack capability, which no other navy had.
Reluctant Poster
Tech Sergeant
- 1,619
- Dec 6, 2006
You're comparing the Blenheim to aircraft a generation ahead, I would hope their loses would be lighter.
The Albacore was faster, had better STOL whilst carrying a heavier bomb load with a longer range. The Albacore was delayed into production, hence the Swordfish served longer than intended.
buffnut453
Captain
But the Swordfish could operate effectively at night whereas the Avenger and the Devastator couldn't....and the IJN didn't have effective night interception capabilities.
No amount of praise heaped on the accomplishment of fitting functional radar is too much - particularly on carrier borne aircraft, as early as 1940 with the ASV Mk II. It certainly was a game changer in the sense of adding another Operational capability to not only the Swordfish, but eventually many other aircraft (including PBY Catalinas). However aside from their early successes such as at Taranto, I don't think it can be said that the Swordfish was the terror of the 7 Seas, whether flying at night or during the day. Yes they managed to jam the rudder of the Bismarck, and they sunk quite a bit of more or less undefended merchant shipping, but I don't remember a lot of other major warships being sunk. RN had a really tough time dealing with the few German commerce raiders and pocket battleships which threatened the Atlantic, even though their main problem was Submarines. Allied convoys were routinely devastated and etc.
Japanese torpedo carrying aircraft by contrast, certainly were the terror of the Pacific, well into 1943. They sunk the Prince of Wales and Repulse with torpedoes, the carrier borne rival of Swordfish, the B5N 'Kate" (first flight also in 1937) sunk or substantially helped sink multiple US aircraft carriers, battleships, and heavy cruisers. The TBF, eventually, also wrecked quite a few major IJN ships including carriers and their superbattleships. Even the Italians with their venerable airliner turned torpedo bomber, 3 years older than the Swordfish, (the Sparviero) managed to sink quite a lot of British shipping in the Med.
Swordfish could indeed attack at night, but limited range and the combination of features which made it essentially incapable of operating during the day in environments where it might face fighter attack or intense AAA, limited it rather severely. The fact they were still producing them in 1944 says something was amiss, to me. Not that it's the only example in the FAA by a long shot, and better than some of their other designs without a doubt.
As for the USN, maybe someone was prescient about the torpedoes, it certainly turned out fortuitous that they had put so much emphasis on dive bombing because to make that work, they not only needed good aircraft but also a lot of very good training (witness the relative ineffective of the less well-trained USMC and USAAF units using the Dauntless). They later put a lot of emphasis on skip-bombing and the equivalent with their land based bombers which seemed to turn out pretty effective.
I'd say the Royal Navy's most effective torpedo bomber was probably the Beaufighter, at least in the MTO. The heavy guns and strafing capability helped against ship-borne AAA during the strike. The nature of the torpedoes also made a difference but I'm going to try to tackle that in a later post.
Japanese torpedo carrying aircraft by contrast, certainly were the terror of the Pacific, well into 1943. They sunk the Prince of Wales and Repulse with torpedoes, the carrier borne rival of Swordfish, the B5N 'Kate" (first flight also in 1937) sunk or substantially helped sink multiple US aircraft carriers, battleships, and heavy cruisers. The TBF, eventually, also wrecked quite a few major IJN ships including carriers and their superbattleships. Even the Italians with their venerable airliner turned torpedo bomber, 3 years older than the Swordfish, (the Sparviero) managed to sink quite a lot of British shipping in the Med.
Swordfish could indeed attack at night, but limited range and the combination of features which made it essentially incapable of operating during the day in environments where it might face fighter attack or intense AAA, limited it rather severely. The fact they were still producing them in 1944 says something was amiss, to me. Not that it's the only example in the FAA by a long shot, and better than some of their other designs without a doubt.
As for the USN, maybe someone was prescient about the torpedoes, it certainly turned out fortuitous that they had put so much emphasis on dive bombing because to make that work, they not only needed good aircraft but also a lot of very good training (witness the relative ineffective of the less well-trained USMC and USAAF units using the Dauntless). They later put a lot of emphasis on skip-bombing and the equivalent with their land based bombers which seemed to turn out pretty effective.
I'd say the Royal Navy's most effective torpedo bomber was probably the Beaufighter, at least in the MTO. The heavy guns and strafing capability helped against ship-borne AAA during the strike. The nature of the torpedoes also made a difference but I'm going to try to tackle that in a later post.
Yes... but the extreme vulerability and effective inability to operate during the day, combined with the very limited range of the Swordfish, meant that in order to be used effectively they would have to get aircraft carrier very close indeed to make Swordfish into a realistic strike weapon, and hope they could get away before dawn, which is one reason why they were not really used as major offensive weapons in naval engagements after the early war. It wasn't really viable in that role, though it could still be used to attack merchant ships etc. which were far from fighter protection.
I don't know why we're suddenly talking about TBFs, but we also have to bear in mind that it had the same flaw as the TBD, namely that it had a very lightly stressed airframe and could not conduct high G manoeuvre. It's inability to dive bomb seriously hampered it's usefulness as a naval carrier strike aircraft, after the Mk13 was found to be unreliable:
"CAB 80/78/44 - "EXPANSION AND DISTRIBUTION OF FLEET AIR ARM SQUADRONS DURING THE FIRST QUARTER OF 1944" - says:
"2.The ineffectiveness of the American Torpedo has necessitated the withdrawal of Avenger squadrons from HMS VICTORIOUS and the substitution of Barracudas. This has resulted in more Avengers being available for A/S work in the North Atlantic. "
Both the Japanese Navy and the USN had ASV radar fitted to their torpedo bombers by the end of 1942, but they still carried out torpedo attacks in daylight anyway.
As well as the the Swordfish, the Albacore and the Barracuda were also equipped with ASV radar - thousands of aircraft - but how many German, Italian and Japanese navy warships (as opposed to cargo shipping) were attacked and sent to the bottom of the sea as a result of RN aerial torpedo attacks?
The Mk 13 (etc.) debacle was of huge significance. If the RN had more of the larger more modern carriers they could have just operated SBDs like the Americans did, which would have helped a lot I think. Why they couldn't modify a British torpedo to fit into an Avenger is a bit baffling, but their main problem was with submarines anyway.
That said I think by 1944 the US torpedoes had been substantially improved - they were sinking a lot of ships with them in the Pacific anyway, and as we know, the Barracuda was quite a disappointment in itself. Not exactly a "sterling" combat record as the British would say...
The Swordfish had considerably better range and endurance than the TBD. They could also operate in poor weather and overcast conditions and still have reasonable expectation of finding their targets, but they were replaced as carrier strike aircraft as Albacore production allowed.
You beat me by about 5 minutes - agree on every word. People seem to forget that it was the Japanese Navy which sunk a RN aircraft carrier, and not the other way around.
I think many have stipulated, of the two obsolescent, highly flawed early torpedo bombers, the Swordfish was a bit better than the TBD Devastator. The Swordfish had a marginally better (though still quite bad) range of 522 miles with a Torpedo, vs. 472 for the TBD. But the single thing you can say positively about the TBD is that they only made 130 of them and they were retired in 1942. For some reason they made 2,300 Swordfish and were still using them to the end of the war. It don't think the reason was because they were wildly effective.
From mid 1942 the Allied competition of the Swordfish was the Avenger, which the RN themselves adopted in spite of the torpedo problems. I think that should tell you something. And the Avenger did get radar in 1943 so it could operate at night and in bad weather. They were also robust enough to be used by the USMC in the CAS role, with rockets. In the TAFFY 3 / Samarengagement they proved capable of taking on major /advanced Japanese warships more or less on their own.
Ever heard of a place called Taranto?
The KM stayed away from RN carriers as much as possible. To engage the RMI meant also engaging the land based axis aircraft based in Italy, Crete and North Africa, and enduring far more powerful airforces than the IJN ever gathered, after Pearl Harbour and prior to Philippine Sea.
In fact it was the RN that went up against KB with two fleet carriers when the Kido Butai had 5 fleet carriers at Ceylon, versus 4 at Midway, against 3 USN fleet carriers and a much stronger land based airforce on Midway, than the FAA/RAF had on Ceylon.
buffnut453
Captain
Again, the "very limited range" of the Swordfish was still greater than the Devastator...so, from a Midway scenario, the US carriers could still be further away from the IJN carriers when the Swordfish were launched. AFAIK, the Devastators typically weren't used for daytime scouting, which was the job of the SBD with its longer range and better performance.
I entirely agree that the Swordfish was extremely vulnerable to daylight fighters but, it did offer unique capabilities in mid-1942 that no other navy could match.
Ho ho ho! Not so fast. I think that bold statements needs a second look lolol
You are forgetting Coral Sea, where the USN had two carriers vs. three for the IJN, and came out a lot better than the RN did at Ceylon.
