Swordfish vs Devastator

SaparotRob said:

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

Click to expand...

I believe those were a different model. They replaced them with the non-functional ones.

buffnut453 said:

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?

Click to expand...

I thought there were actually 5 Avengers plus some B-26 Marauaders at Midway

Koopernic said:

Torpedo bombing against ships protected by fighters sounds like a terrible idea unless protected by a strong fighter force which will fail on occasion. I wonder when it was realised it was a bad idea. The Germans seem to have almost given up on the idea and preferred to aim a time delayed bomb at the ships waterline to try and blow up beneath it. Except for night attack they were developing a Fw 190D variant that could carry a torpedo by virtue of an extended tail yoke.

Click to expand...

I seem to remember the Germans using torpedos from Ju-88 and He 111 in the Med a fair amount, and of course the Italians used them from (rather antiquated) SM. 79 and CANT bombers quite effectively, albeit with fairly heavy losses.

Snautzer01 said:

Tell that to the convoy guys going to Murmansk or in the Med.

Click to expand...

Exactly. Or to Axis shipping in the Med. I think he's forgetting about land based torpedo bombers too.

buffnut453 said:

Or you take the RN's approach, fully developed by mid-1942, of pairing radar-equipped and torpedo-carrying Swordfish and operating them at night. AFAIK, the IJN didn't have any effective means of operating fighters at night from their carriers.

The Swordfish was anachronistic and absolutely a sitting duck in daylight ops. However, at night against an adversary that lacked radar, it would have been a difficult target to locate and engage. Just look at the results from Taranto which had decent-ish AAA and barrage balloons, and yet only 2 Swordfish were lost.

Click to expand...

The addition of radar to the Swordfish was absolutely a stroke of genius, especially given the fact that the airframe could fly around with that radar and score torpedo hits. It gave the aircraft 'legs' as a weapon and put a very effective tool in the hands of Royal Navy leaders. The ability to attack at night in (air to surface) naval combat was remarkable.

However, there were limits. The Swordfish had a pretty bad range for a naval strike aircraft at around 500 miles (though I think the Devastator was even worse). TBF was a bit better (around 900 miles), but for places like the Med or Pacific what was really needed more were land based strike aircraft. To use one of these carrier based torpedo bombers in action they had to get a highly vulnerable aircraft carrier probably within 100 miles of enemy ships, and very likely within strike range of enemy aircraft. Given the level of naval fighter protection in the early war that was a big risk as we know, just look at the attrition rate of US carriers in the PTO and British carriers in the Med. By comparison to the Torpedo bombers though, the SBD had almost double the range of the Swordfish (1,000 miles). That, in combination with the fact that it was a fairly tough, maneuverable plane with a high combat survival ratio, makes it a weapon more likely to be used.

For comparison the B5N is listed by Wikipedia at 600 miles / 1,000 km (also not very good), the B6N a much more respectable 1,000 miles / 1,700 km but not that many were made. And in terms of attrition, not much protection. B7N of course was badass but barely made it into combat.

The PBY had a range more like 2,500 miles and it is the only aircraft to score a torpedo hit at Midway. They proved pretty effective at night attacks around Guadalcanal.

Beaufighter had a range of 1,700 miles, G4M 'Betty' (which sunk Prince of Wales and Repulse with torpedoes) of 1,700 miles, SM. 79 of 1,600 miles, CANT Z.1007 of 1,100 miles, CANT Z.506 1,200 miles, Ju 88 1,500 miles. So if you are talking about doing raids from a land based field (or a float plane lagoon) like around Midway, land based torpedo bombers are far more lethal. Some of these like the Beaufighter were in fact fitted with radars and used at night. I know they put radar on Ju 88s for use as nightfighter but not sure if they did night-time strikes with them.

I know ranges for land based planes are not necessarily with a torpedo load, and strike ranges are probably 1/4 or 1/5 of the above in all cases, but it gives you a ball park idea.

RCAFson said:

The Albacores could have also flown a similar dive bomber attack profile to the SBDs, with an even bigger bomb load.

Click to expand...

I don't think Albacores would have held up well to attacks by Zeros lol

For my $.02 though, on the comparison between the Devastator and the Swordfish, I'd go with the Swordfish. It actually has better range and maneuverability and the radar and night flying capacity is a big deal. I think also probably easier maintenance and better handling / flight safety.

Once TBF Avenger are available though I think wave goodbye to the Swordfish at least as the frontline TB option (maybe keep some for night ops).

A PDF of British and U.S. torpedo development here upon request....https://www.researchgate.net/public...omplex_in_the_United_States_and_Great_Britain

This is a very long string so I might have replied before...

Anyway:

Starting with Flight Journal (1996) back when it actually paid authors, I began a campaign to rehabilitate the TBD almost in the Stalinist sense. It was a two-front war involving the Brewster Buffalo as well. The things they had in common: both were first-generation carrier monoplanes and both were/are known almost solely for one disastrous mission each.

Sadly, far too much of what We "know" about the TBD lingers from the Sole Survivor (who wasn't.) But comparing the TBD to the Swordfish is an exercise in futility. Other than both being mid-30s carrier designs, they had almost nothing in common operationally. For starters, nearly 20 Stringbags were built for each Devastator. Then the S/F operated almost wholly in what today is called a Permissive Environment (very very little fighter opposition) hence its longevity.

Fact is (and I stressed the point in my Osprey TBD book), despite the so-called "suicide coffin" of internet wisdom, NO TBDS WERE LOST IN FLIGHT TO ENEMY ACTION IN THE SIX MONTHS AFTER PEARL HARBOR, up to the morning of 4 June.

Somewhere I also have a side by side comparison of the vaunted B5N "Kate" with TBDs in the same battles, and the overall attrition was roughly comparable, with the Nakajima having the edge.

Just FWIW.

....and if you are really into torpedoes, a 580 page book for purchase

Any chance for a summary?

Schweik said:

Any chance for a summary?

Click to expand...

Added the contents

Wiki gives the endurance of a Swordfish as 5 hours, that his a long time to be looking at a radar set on a bi plane.

From Stanford University...A Brief History of U.S. Navy Torpedo Development...152 pages

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/hernandez2/docs/TorpDevel-Usn-JolieNusc1978.pdf

From the Montana State University...DAMN THE TORPEDOES: THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE AND UNDERSEA WARFAREIN WORLD WAR II...334 pages

https://scholarworks.montana.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1/12808/SimsG0517.pdf?sequence=4

pbehn said:

Wiki gives the endurance of a Swordfish as 5 hours, that his a long time to be looking at a radar set on a bi plane.

Click to expand...

How about the radar guy at the other end? How do you find string with a radar?

Snautzer01 said:

How about the radar guy at the other end? How do you find string with a radar?

Click to expand...

Very easily I would think if it has a big round engine, metal landing gear, a torpedo and lots of metal wire holding it together, radar found strips of aluminium very easily. I don't know how the rigging wires of a bi plane interact with RADAR, I suspect they would make a big blob on the screen.

I dont realley know. But this being 1940-45 i somehow doubt they would get a good spike. Specially at the hights it was flying. Radar at the time did not find alu strips. The strips found it. Masses of them, precisly cut for the wave lenght of the german radar. Not 1 but tonnes where dropped. On specific locations.

Snautzer01 said:

I dont realley know. But this being 1940-45 i somehow doubt they would get a good spike. Specially at the hights it was flying. Radar at the time did not find alu strips. The strips found it. Masses of them, precisly cut for the wave lenght of the german radar. Not 1 but tonnes where dropped. On specific locations.

Click to expand...

I know, but I was only speaking from a theoretical POV. I have no idea about radar but in ultrasonics the maximum detectable individual reflector is half a wave length in cross section. However if you have lots of small reflectors near each other the sound bounces and reflects between them so a group of gas pores together can be detected even though non of them individually can be. On stuff like stainless steel the grain boundaries can be impossible to penetrate not because any are too large but because all together they make a wall you cant "see" through.

fubar57 said:

....and if you are really into torpedoes, a 580 page book for purchase

View attachment 608922

View attachment 608924

​

Click to expand...

Ha! That book (as is typical) doesn't go nearly far back enough. Lol.