The airplane that did the most to turn the tide of the war.
- Thread starter michael rauls
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I think I already posted that it had the size to carry centimetric radar and weapons and an operator at a speed that was useful. I am no great champion of it as a plane in any sort of way but it was in service until just before the end because it could do stuff ...mainly evolving around flying very slowly for a long time.
We will just let the Bismarck float around doing nothing in particular with the Italian fleet until you get your TBF/TBMs and their torpedos sorted then.
MiTasol
1st Lieutenant
Thanks. I have not seen that brochure but I do have a 24 page one that I now see says the same on page 11. It may be that your brochure is the same one but missing pages or it may be a totally different one.
Mine has this cover and I will post it if you want.
wingnuts
Airman 1st Class
Fairey Swordfish - Wikipedia "By the end of the war, the Swordfish held the distinction of having caused the destruction of a greater tonnage of Axis shipping than any other Allied aircraft."
https://www.historyhit.com/facts-fairey-swordfish/
Fairey Swordfish
Fairey Swordfish
https://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=571
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Actually the early torpedoes worked so I could just send a few squadrons of Devastators to do the job properly and actually sink it instead f just jamming the prop
I saw the Wikipedia quote I just don't think that's true. There is a lot of daffy stuff on Wikipedia. I'd like to see a side by side comparison with the real heavy hitters like the SBD and TBF. I googled it a little bit today ... and there are a bunch of sites which say the same thing about the SBD for example:
Douglas SBD Dauntless (Dive Bomber) | Pearl Harbor Museum
"In total, the Dauntless sank more enemy shipping than any other Allied bomber. "
National WW II museum says more or less the same thing
"By some accounts, the Dauntless sank more Japanese ships than any other plane. "
"Slow But Deadly" - Douglas SBD Dauntless Dive-bomber with 26 Photos
One site says 300,000 tons, another mentions "six Japanese carriers, fourteen cruisers, six destroyers, fifteen freighters "
From another thread on here - total sorties:
Some info on tonnage sunk
Looks like over 2 million tons by USN carrier aircraft which would break down mostly to three types - SBD, TBF / TBM and SB2C. Some by fighters of course, and a few from the old Devastator at Coral Sea and maybe a few more by Vindicators. But it looks like that 300,000 tons for the SBD is plausible.
As for the TBF, History of War.org credits the Avenger with "being involved in the sinking of" 11 battleships, 19 cruisers, and 25 destroyers.
Helldiver is once again given credit for sinking the greatest amount of enemy tonnage of every Allied bomber on several sites like this one and this one
...though I take that with a grain of salt.
I think we need to see hard numbers.
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Since when is the definition of "turning the tide" defined in terms of tonnage, and since when is the PTO THE decisive arena? If you want to talk tonnage in the overall effort, you can't ignore Bomber Command and the Lanc, and the day the TBF first (ineffectively) saw combat the tide was already starting to turn in PTO. By the time they saw combat in any numbers, the initiative had already changed hands.
By the time SBD saw combat in any numbers, the "early years" were already over. The war was almost three years on.
Not to knock the Catalina, the Mariner, or the Seagull, but here the B24 was huge. Much as its reputation tends toward "not the greatest aircraft", the Liberator's multi faceted contribution to the overall effort stands out in many ways that were decisive. The Lib's exploits with Coastal Command in the Uboat war and with the USN in the PTO as a super long range strike aircraft tend to go unnoticed by historians of land warfare. Low level dawn attacks by Privateers on Japanese bases "outside the combat zone" accounted for huge attrition losses in ships and aircraft.
Cheers,
Wes
wingnuts
Airman 1st Class
Don't forget the Swordfish was in action from the start of WW2 in 1939 up to the end in 1945, it had a two year head start on the SBD and TBF who did not get into action until 1942 when the US joined in. The Swordfish had already a head start at Taranto and Matapan and numerous action in the Battle of the Atlantic.
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michael rauls
Tech Sergeant
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- Jul 15, 2016
I dunno. I kinda think just the fact that they were still pretty successful way past there" best by" date shows the were good designs. Long in the tooth by 42 maybe but still good designs. Imho.
Tonnage isn't the only criteria, I was responding to the claim that the Swordfish sunk more than any other type. I would say that the SBD, TBF and SB2C also sunk more capital ships and won more crucial WW2 battles than any other naval bomber too (including the Swordfish).
I disagree - the tipping point was from late 1942 through mid 1943. The TBF was involved in the mid-war.
I would say for naval combat the PTO was indeed the decisive arena because naval warfare took place there on a far larger scale than in the North Atlantic, the Med, or anywhere else, objectively, and it's also a categorical fact that the Japanese had by far the largest, most dangerous and most effective navy on the Axis side. Nobody else came close. If the Americans hadn't stopped them they certainly would have caused major problems for the British in and around India. They were nudging in that direction anyway.
Until the Japanese carriers were sunk the naval war in WW2 was in it's early stages.
I agree - the Liberators got my nomination earlier in this very thread (I think) as well as one or two others as one of the most important aircraft in it's particular category.
I found a source with a bit more hard numbers.
https://www.history.navy.mil/resear...nese-naval-merchant-shipping-losses-wwii.html
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michael rauls
Tech Sergeant
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- Jul 15, 2016
You know what would be a really interesting comparison is whether the TBF or Swardfish sank more tonnage not in total but per plane. I have no idea but that would be interesting to know.
wingnuts
Airman 1st Class
It was doing it two years before the aircraft you mentioned had entered the war, the RN did not have TBFs or TBMs back then, neither did they have SBDs. I am sure the RN, and the crews, wished they had a better aircraft, but they had to go with what they had.... and it did better than they expected and for longer. It could carry almost anything they hung off it, radar, torpedoes, Leigh lights, bombs, rockets.... hence the name "Stringbag" it could carry anything.
wingnuts
Airman 1st Class
I have not been able to find any figures comparing the two.
wingnuts
Airman 1st Class
The early years for the US navy maybe, the the RN had been sinking ships for two years before the SBD started.
That is a good point - I don't think there is anything wrong with a Swordfish when it was first introduced in 1936, at worst it was slightly obsolescent but a single-engined aircraft carrying a torpedo was always going to have some significant design challenges.* But by 1940 or 41 the FAA or Fairey or Blackburn or somebody should have come up with something better. The British were good at aircraft design you can't tell me they couldn't have made something better. The Barracuda came a little too late and never really did much.
During the war the best Allied carrier based naval strike aircraft were the SBD, TBF, SB2C (for all it's faults)
To me the best carrier based torpedo bombers that saw action were the later war Japanese ones which never got to fly in any numbers like the Aichi B7A
I think the best torpedo bombers which actually fought in the critical early and middle years of the war were land based twin or three engined aircraft like the G3M and G4M, the Beaufighter and Beaufort, the A-20, the SM 79, the Ju 88 and so on.
S
* and I don't think the Allies really had any really good carrier based torpedo bombers until well past the tipping point of the war (and past the heyday of propeller engined aircraft or torpedo bombers period). Some examples of those would include the seemingly excellent Blackburn Firebrand (promising and available early but they had to tinker with it too long to get it in service) and the Douglas BTD
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michael rauls
Tech Sergeant
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- Jul 15, 2016
Ya that would be really interesting. Maybe this weekend if I have time I'll try to figure it out. Tonnage sunk should be the easy part of the equation but for the other half of the equation I'm wondering if I should use total of each type produced or maybe try to find the total of each type to deployed to combat units.
Until the Japanese carriers were sunk the naval war in WW2 was in it's early stages.
