The airplane that did the most to turn the tide of the war.

Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules

To inject a little reality

another armor diagram for the Bismark.


Quoting the turret face armor thickness (part facing enemy battleships in gun dual) is useless for figuring out resistance to bombs.

The Haruna was extensively upgraded between the wars but started out as a battlecruiser very similar to one that blew up at Jutland.
The Japanese cheated on the treaty restrictions and modified her more than they were supposed to but they were starting with a 27,400 ton ship that was 92ft wide. it had 36 coal fired boilers and 64,000hp. Deck was originally 1 in thick the lengthened her, changed the boilers and turbines added armor and increase the elevation of the guns from 20 degrees to 33 degrees, anti torpedo bulges increased the beam to 108 ft (?), and they added around 4000 tons of armor. this was the first rebuild.
2nd rebuild changed the turbines and boilers again, lengthed the ship, increased the elevation of the main guns to 43 degrees and redid the armor some more
but you still wound up with a 32,200 ship compared to the 35-37,000ton treaty ships and and the 42,000 (or higher) Bismarck.

On a lot of these old rebuilds while deck armor was added most everywhere it was often rather "patchy" with large increases over the magazines/shell handling rooms and bit less over the propulsion and a lot less fore and aft of the citadel (space between A turret and Y turret)

Now when it comes to adding deck armor it gets heavy real quick. If it was 450 ft from the front of the A turret barbette to the back of Y turret barbette and we average 75 ftof width (or allow for openings, like the barbettes and funnels ) just ONE inch of deck armor over that space is about 675 short tons. Adjust as you see fit but adding an uniform layer of 2.5 to 3 inches was probably not happening. There was often an armored box around the steering gear so they wouldn't have to armor the whole stern of the ship.

The Haruna was old, rebuilt twice, had suffered previous bomb damage (including 2 500lb AP bombs), she had also been run aground and repaired. Maybe here crew was first class in July of 1945 when it came to damage control, maybe not.
 
We are alos getting a bit ahead of ourselves and ignoring the actual capability of the planes of the time.


This plane was ordered in August 1936 and first deliveries made in July 1937 it is a "-3" model with an 825hp engine and a max bomb load of as single 500lb bomb.
So in 1936-37 is it any wonder that the powers that be in charge of ordering aircraft and weapons thought that torpedoes were the way to go?

things got better with the SBC-4

with a 950hp engine the max bomb size went to 1000lbs. ordered Jan 1938 deliveries went from March of 1939 to April of 1941.
They served along side the Vought Vindicator

Also with an 825hp engine, it started serving in late 1937. the claimed max bomb load was 1500lb but you weren't going very far with such a load.
max take off weight was 7,332 lb and normal was 6,379 lb

also entering service in 1938 was the Northrop BT-1 which equiped a squadron on both the Yorktown and the Enterprise

Once again the P & W 825 hp twin wasp junior was the engine of choice.
Empty weight 4,606 lb loaded weight 7,197 lb claimed max bomb load 1000lbs.
with just under 1600lbs available for crew, guns, ammo, radios, oil and fuel you figure out what the real range was.

this was the plane that turned into the SBD

with a 1000hp engine, Marines got the SBD-1 in late 1940 and the Navy got SBD-2s (with extra fuel capacity) in early 1941.
Armor and self sealing tanks don't show up until the SBD-3 and it is unclear if all had them or if early production was refitted.

Then we are back to the bombs that were available, either general purpose bombs or converted naval shells for AP bombs with extremely small bursters.
Claiming that "they" should have known the dive bomber was a better weapon for ship attack than the torpedo bomber requires an awful lot of hindsight.
The SBD-6 with 450 made went out of production in 1944, it used a 1350hp engine. think of what some other planes could do with 35% more power over the early models.
2700hp Corsair anyone?
 
Did you actually read what I wrote? I DON'T doubt that SBDs can sink battleships. I just don't think they would be much use in an environment with a generally low cloud base. At dive-bomber release height, there would generally be a couple of thousand feet of clag between the bomber and its target.
 
Verry interesting read. Haven't thought about most of that much since my last metallurgy class about 35 years ago. Wait a minute................. 35 years ........where did that go?
 
Most armor steel also had varying amount of alloys, usually nickel and chrome. Vanadium was used in the early years of STS steel.

A lot of older battleships used hardened steel faces on the armor. Case hardening carried to extremes. The steel plates were "baked" in large ovens with hundreds of pounds of charcoal against the "face" of the armor which carburized the surface and made it much harder than the rear which remained softer and prevented cracking.

There was always a race between the armor makers and the projectile makers trying to get hard yet not brittle steel as the hard steel projectile could more easily "cut" the armor if it was softer. however too brittle and the nose of the projectile shattered leaving a blunt stump trying to punch it's way through.
Same with the armor, you didn't want this happening with repeated impacts.
 
The SDB dive bomber was a helpful tool..but no where a deciding factor. Each plane can take its place in history. 1942 the P39 fought well enough against the Zero in New Guinea. Eventually better planes, logistics and processes were put in place to fight a war in the Pacific where we did not have maps for most of the islands in the Pacific. What was a useful tool were our floating islands called Carriers and their supporting warships that could get war material to the hundreds of land base and chase Japanese Navy.

As for air campaigns...our early combat aircraft were equal to the generation of the Axis powers. In fact through out WW2. The US was a late player in WW2 and I Fact a bit Player when you consider our involvement. We lost a lot of men but the British lost 3 times what we lost..the Europeans and Asians together 100 million.
When our pilots began entering combat much of what we were training in a peace time environment did not work out so well. Hence the judicious use of higher boost levels and fuels to increase HP and learning team work.

Our real impact was our uninterrupted manufacturing ability and consistent quality of our war material and training programs... FWIW the US Army and Navy became the largest Public Education schools in the world. One interesting fact was all our pilots were college educated and were lieutenants. Where Axis / Japan were Sargent level pilots. The US was way behind in public education compared to Japan and Europe.

Revolutionary aircraft that made a leap in the current generation of fighters was the P51 and Jets. Mustang Was the most efficient, competitive performance, cost effective, easy to maintain, versatile, less expensive to build than any fighter. Required no special flight training like a P38 would require. Had any of our other fighters had the range. They had the performance and they would have been right there too.

But what was more important was our logistics, education, system, training people to maintain worn out aircraft. And none of WW2 was fought on our continent. Here German manufacturing is more impressive considering the bombing campaign against their manufacturing facilities.

The really sad thing was that the Axis Dictatorship Leaderships were bent on war...!
They sure got it!
 


I know for a fact not all USAAF pilots were college-educated: one of my uncles was a USAAF pilot and a high school dropout.

Also, in 1940, there was not a "US" education system; there was some 12,000 independent local systems varying from very good to just about worthless.
 
Last edited:


The movie dive bomber was filmed early in 1941 in San Diego. It featured the USS Enterprise. This is what the US Navy looked like at the time the RN was sinking the Bismark.
Dive Bomber - The Internet Movie Plane Database
A beautifully shot movie in technicolor
The SBD is not in sight because it wasn't in front line service at that time. The Lexington was converting to the SBD-2 (not 3) but every other aircraft carrier was equipped with SB2Us.
So we have the mighty USN sinking the Bismark with weapons that aren't available in May 1941 using an aircraft that isn't operational.
 


YEAH most were college educated but those that were agile were given a chance.
That is why the FDR organized a Public School system. Russia and other countries did the same on the 50's and 60's.
 
There may have been quite a number of pilots who had one or more years of college and had not finished their degree. Many of them went back to college in 1946-47.

Now does one or two years out of four qualify you being college educated?

Friend of mine's father was in this catagory, dropped out of college to enlist in the Marine corp, served in VMF-124 (late war) went back to college after getting out.

Granted that is the Maines and not the USAAC (or USAAF)
 

If I recall all that was typically required then was 2 years of college. At least that is what the USAF Museum link I provided states.
 
Dan Fahey said:
The SDB dive bomber was a helpful tool..but no where a deciding factor.
Click to expand...
Never mind the accrued tonnage sunk by the SBD during the Pacific war or the concerted attacks on strategic IJN ships during the Battle of the Coral Sea or the Solomons campaign.

Let's discuss what other aircraft besides the Dauntless delivered fatal blows to the four IJN carriers during the Battle of Midway?

Take you time, we'll wait for your answer.
 

And the reason they were able to do it was, in large part, down to sheer dumb luck plus a gutsy decision by McClusky to continue searching for the Japanese fleet when peacetime norms suggested he should turn back to the US carriers. Yes, the SBDs delivered a telling attack against the Japanese carrier force but the timing of that attack relative to the TBD attacks which drew away the Japanese CAP was simply serendipitous. Had the Japanese CAP maintained better discipline (or had it been better controlled), or had the SBDs arrived at a slightly different time, it's likely they would have faced the Japanese CAP and, as capable as the SBD was, I think the conclusion of such an engagement would be inevitably bad for the SBDs.

Yes, the SBD attack turned the tide of the battle which was a tipping point in the Pacific war. However, to say that the SBD did it alone or because of some innate capabilities which the SBD alone possessed exaggerates the reality and, frankly, does a disservice to the other members of the USN, USMC and USAAF teams who all played their part on that day to keep the IJN fleet on its toes, reacting to the changing situation rather than driving the agenda.
 
No, it doesn't.

Midway wasn't the only engagement in which the SBD played a key role, it's just the most definitive. All the other American aircraft types involved in the battle were used in other battles and the outcomes were similar. Nobody is saying that a machine trumped the individual courage or sacrifice of everyone else involved in the battle. That is just some kind of guilt trip which could basically be used to derail discussion of any aircraft in every battle in the war. Weapons and machines like military aircraft are just tools, levers with which very hard jobs are done. When it comes to things like carrier battles, it's extremely difficult to keep up without very good tools, including the aircraft, the aircraft carriers and everything that went into them.

It's just how good of a lever were these brave men using to move the earth in this particular case. The SBD turned out to be an excellent tool for this particular job. It most certainly was decisive at Midway and that doesn't take away any courage from anybody or dishonor anyone.

There is by the way certainly no guarantee they would have been slaughtered by Zeroes either because they clashed with Zeros many times, including without fighter escort, and sunk ships (including carriers) anyway. Read the thread for details.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)

Similar threads

Why did the U.S. navy reject the F6U Pirate?
Replies
10
Views
548
eagledad
E
Paper comparing the flight performance of the P-40E Warhawk and the A6M2 Zero
Replies
8
Views
1K
Ivan1GFP
I
A
The Myth of the British "Fixing" The Corsair
8 9 10
Replies
183
Views
13K
EwenS
E
S
Why did the Me 109 roll and turn so bad at speed?
5 6 7
Replies
134
Views
10K
GregP
A
Was the Hispano-Suiza 12Y the worst ≥25L V-12 of WW2?
2 3
Replies
46
Views
3K
ThomasP
T
Menu
Log in
Register