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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 ExoticaI'm wondering about the name "helmover. Was it because that thing would chase a ship down no matter how many times it put its helm over?
The British used the Avenger exclusively as a bomber. Their torpedoes didn't fit and they didn't use American torpedoes.I don't think the Battle really compares with the 'Tarpon' for a number of reasons. The Battle was lighter - because it didn't carry any naval gear (like folding wings, arrestor hook, extra navigation kit etc.) was not strengthened for carrier landings, and also didn't have self sealing fuel tanks (as far as I know) didn't have armor, and was far less well armed - it also certainly couldn't carry an internal torpedo! So I don't think it's a realistic comparison. The 'Battle', a much earlier design, was not really ready for "BATTLE", let alone carrier operations. The differences in the combat histories are also pretty stark.
I don't think that is actually true. The Avenger / Tarpon was in action at Midway and pretty heavily engaged from Nov 1942. At that time US fighter protection was pretty marginal both because of limited numbers and relative effectiveness compared to Japanese fighters. Fighter cover tends to sometimes be looked at as a binary thing, either they have it, and you are good, or they don't and your bombers have to fend for themselves. The reality is that it's quite a wide range, and fighter escort does not automatically equal air superiority / supremacy. Until large numbers of F6F and other modern fighters were available in the Pacific in 1944, strike aircraft active there were decidedly not in a permissive environment.
The F4F Wildcat was hard pressed to survive an engagement with A6M or Ki-43 fighters, and often provided little protection for US strike aircraft from 1942 through the end of 1943. This was particularly true in carrier engagements. So any strike aircraft needed to have characteristics - defensive armament, maneuverability, armor, and good handling, that enabled them to survive attack by fighters and evade destruction. The SBD was quite good at this (despite not looking so good on paper or from a 'rivet counting' perspective). The Devastator, Swordfish and Albacore did not seem to be. The Avenger / Tarpon was somewhere in the middle. They took losses but being intercepted wasn't necessarily a death sentence. They were strongly built, armored, had self sealing tanks, and had fairly heavy defensive armament including a power turret with a 12.7mm defensive gun, plus a 7.62 mm in the ventral position. A Fleet Air Arm Tarpon once shot down a Ki-44 in an aerial duel over Sumatra. I don't think you'd want to fight that engagement in a Swordfish, a Devastator, or a Battle.
Well, I hope you aren't referring to me as a 'rivet counter'. I am personally far more focused on context, as in the historical records of combat, than on statistics, but I think in naval combat a 100 miles or more of a range advantage is not insignificant, it's one of those hard realities. Things like top speed, dive speed, rate of climb and cruise speed, armament, armor, and so on are more incremental, but they do add up. Ultimately though, the proof is in the pudding. And by that I mean, what actually happened when they were put to hard use in action against the enemy.
I was comparing the Avenger-Tarpon to the Albacore in my post showing relative performance, not the Swordfish / Devastator. The two debates have become somewhat overlapped.
The Devastator was just a bad design. Many other designs of that same early era were far more advanced and effective. Some like the Spitfire and the Bf 109 remained in use through the end of the war because they were so effective. Others like the designs which became the D3A and SBD, proved highly lethal and versatile in combat through at least the mid-war.
The Swordfish may have been the result of the severe limitations of the ships they were meant to fly from, I find less credibility in that explanation for the Albacore. The Avenger was a huge, ungainly, lumbering gas-guzzling beast of an aircraft, certainly not an elegant or beautiful design, but it turned out to be the best torpedo bomber in the Allied service for the period of the war when the fighting was heaviest. It was the one both the Americans and British relied on.
What they did with the Swordfish, such as effectively fitting radar to it, is pretty amazing, and I think it does tip the scales in advantage of the Swordfish over the Devastator. But given the choice for operations in the Pacific, you'd be better off with Avengers/ Tarpons, which is why that is what they actually used.
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.
The Meteor was a V12. The V8 was a post war developmen.The ultimate air dropped torpedo was the British Helmover. 33' long powered by a RR Meteor V8 engine. Range 50miles. A ship launched version would have been 44' long and had a range of 150 miles. Warhead was 1 ton of Torpex.
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.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.
You're comparing the Blenheim to aircraft a generation ahead, I would hope their loses would be lighter.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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. "
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.