Swordfish vs Devastator

[Shortround6]

For a bit of context the magazine load for the Essex in 1942 is given as
100lb gp bomb........504
500lb GP bomb........296
1000lb GP bomb.....146
1000lb SAP bomb...129
1000lb AP bomb......110
1600lb AP bomb.........19
2000lb GP bomb........19
325lb DB.......................296
100lb incendiary........296
torpedoes ....................36

The Bennington in 1944 is credited with 50 torpedoes.

the List for the Lexington in 1936 was
100lb gp bomb........804
500lb GP bomb....... 391
1000lb GP bomb.....240
torpedoes ....................36

 

[RCAFson]

Warpaint has the Albacore at 161 mph at 4000 ft but doesn't show whether clean or loaded.

That was with a Taurus II loaded with 6 x 250lb bombs, IIRC. Full speed clean was 172mph, again with a Taurus II according to Boscombe Down testing. Full speed with a Taurus XII would be 5-10mph faster.

 

[ThomasP]

The Albacore and Swordfish would routinely return with their torpedo - the only times they did not land on the carrier with the torpedo was in extreme sea states where it would be too dangerous. I do not know how common it was for the Devastator to land on the carrier with a torpedo (I do not think there were enough opportunities to get a count), but by early-1944 the SOP for the Avenger (in US service) was to dump the torpedo before attempting to land on board. This was due to multiple incidents where the torpedo came loose during the landing and skittering across the deck, causing damage to the landing aircraft and sometimes causing damage to other aircraft and deck crew. There was at least one instance where the pilot forgot to safe the torpedo before dumping it and ended up torpedoing a friendly ship.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I've not read a lot on the subject but I think some or even many missions were patrols or screens looking for a target. Obviously only one or two in a screen will find what is being looked for.

Perhaps patrols were never made with a torpedo... though depth charges for certain.

 

[yulzari]

The real comparison is between cruising speeds. The sortie is usually at some range and the target approached at cruising speed. For bombing maximum speed can be used but for a torpedo run the speed is limited to that at which the torpedo can be launched.

 

[Elvis]

Never confirmed this, but I once heard a speed of 90 mph was what the Swordfish used during an attack.
Seems agonizingly slow, if you ask me, but we're talking about 75-80 years ago, so maybe that wasn't considered so bad back then.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Never confirmed this, but I once heard a speed of 90 mph was what the Swordfish used during an attack.
Seems agonizingly slow, if you ask me, but we're talking about 75-80 years ago, so maybe that wasn't considered so bad back then.

Seems slow now. 90 mph is 78 knots. Imagine flying towards your target into a 20 knot headwind, you're now a 58 knot (1,957 yards per min), level flying target for every AA gunner. If you begin your torpedo run at 2,000 yards and drop at 500 yards, you're a sitting duck for about 45 seconds.

 

[pbehn]

Seems slow now. 90 mph is 78 knots. Imagine flying towards your target into a 20 knot headwind, you're now a 58 knot (1,957 yards per min), level flying target for every AA gunner. If you begin your torpedo run at 2,000 yards and drop at 500 yards, you're a sitting duck for about 45 seconds.

Wasn't that speed dictated by the torpedo, not the plane?

 

[buffnut453]

Had been the other way round, and all the Zeros were at HA beating the hell out of the SBDs and thus not noticing the approaching TBDs at LA, the Devastators may have scored crippling hits. The AA on IJN was apparently rubbish.

That's just another way of describing the same problem...that the IJN lacked adequate fighter direction. That still doesn't make the Devastator an effective weapons platform.

I also highly doubt that crippling hits would have been achieved given the limitations of the USN's torpedo at the time.

 

[Elvis]

 

[RCAFson]

Wasn't the Mk. 13 the "improved" torpedo?
I thought the Mk. 8 was the one that was so bad?

The USN Mk 13 wasn't made reliable until mid-late 1944, ditto for the USN Mk 14 torpedo.

 

[RCAFson]

Never confirmed this, but I once heard a speed of 90 mph was what the Swordfish used during an attack.
Seems agonizingly slow, if you ask me, but we're talking about 75-80 years ago, so maybe that wasn't considered so bad back then.

Drop speeds varied but 90 knots was common with a Swordfish but max drop speeds were ~120 knots, IIRC, in 1939/41. By 1942 drop speeds on RN aerial torpedoes increased to ~150 knots.

 

[Elvis]

The USN Mk 13 wasn't made reliable until mid-late 1944, ditto for the USN Mk 14 torpedo.

Shoulda looked it up before I posted.
Simple Wiki article answered it quite thoroughly.
Apologies, but thanks for the info anyway.

 

[Elvis]

Drop speeds varied but 90 knots was common with a Swordfish but max drop speeds were ~120 knots, IIRC, in 1939/41. By 1942 drop speeds on RN aerial torpedoes increased to ~150 knots.

KNOTS!!...maybe that's what it was, and not mph.
90 kts is almost 104 mph, so that's a little faster.
From what I'm learning here, it seems the torpedoes had wood shrouds over the nose and tail that helped protect and stabilize the torpedo in the air. They sheared off upon impact, but they also slowed the torpedo slightly and that helped them home in on the target.
I guess it was this that allowed launch speeds to increase.

 

[Admiral Beez]

That's just another way of describing the same problem...that the IJN lacked adequate fighter direction. That still doesn't make the Devastator an effective weapons platform.

Yes, we need to overlook the sh#tty torpedoes. With the same torpedoes, even if we replace the Devastators with A-1 Skyraiders the damage would be the same. Could Swordfish or Albacore have done better than the Devastator at Midway?

 

[RCAFson]

Yes, we need to overlook the sh#tty torpedoes. With the same torpedoes, even if we replace the Devastators with A-1 Skyraiders the damage would be the same. Could Swordfish or Albacore have done better than the Devastator at Midway?

The Swordfish/Albacore could have been armed with bombs and flown DB missions.

 

[buffnut453]

Yes, we need to overlook the sh#tty torpedoes. With the same torpedoes, even if we replace the Devastators with A-1 Skyraiders the damage would be the same. Could Swordfish or Albacore have done better than the Devastator at Midway?

I think the Swordfish could have done better. By the summer of 1942, Swordfish had radar and the crews were well-practiced operating at night. The RN's torpedoes also had a much better chance of actually causing damage on an enemy's ships. Given all of these factors, I suspect the IJN would have a really hard time countering the Swordfish threat.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I think the Swordfish could have done better. By the summer of 1942, Swordfish had radar and the crews were well-practiced operating at night.

No, I mean on that same attack, same daylight conditions. At Midway, a total of 41 Devastators were launched from USS Hornet, Enterprise and Yorktown to attack the Japanese fleet - only six Devastators returned. Swap out each of these 41 Devastator for a torpedo-armed Swordfish, do any survive to launch their torpedoes and return?

And forget about torpedo quality, the Devastators at Midway didn't suffer from torpedo failure, because none of them managed to strike their targets.

 

[SaparotRob]

And those torpedoes seemed to work a few weeks earlier at the Coral Sea action.

 

[buffnut453]

No, I mean on that same attack, same daylight conditions. Swap out each Devastator for a Swordfish, do any survive to launch and return?

You can replace the Devastator with any other torpedo type--Swordfish, Avenger etc.--and you'll get broadly similar results as happened at Midway. The only difference would be the amount of punishment a particular airframe could take.

I have to ask, though, what's the point of taking an airframe with capabilities that the Devastator didn't have, and then constraining its use by employing it in the same daylight conditions as the Devastators? No operational user would deliberately ignore a platform's key strengths and operate it at a tactical disadvantage. If the USN had a radar-equipped torpedo aircraft in June 1942, surely they'd have used it at night to increase the odds of success...or am I missing something?