The Myth of the British "Fixing" The Corsair (3 Viewers)

[GregP]

We've heard rumors for years about this, but I have not investigated it until now because it really didn't make much difference what the reason was why the Corsairs were ground-based for so long; they were and that's a fact. When they got to carriers, they did well. Not better than the Hellcat, but well.

A LOT of the overall success of a particular aircraft is due to it's assignments. The Hellcats were in the thick of most of the battles that happened after their deployment and were in a target-rich environment. The Corsairs were constrained by the location of whatever ground bases they were assigned to and didn't get the chance for the same amount of combat until they got to carriers. They did fine when they had the chance to do so.

 

[special ed]

All of the info is elsewhere in the forum. We did all this about a year ago with dates of first USN carrier dates and the orders to standardise on the F6F for supply convienence. Much documentation is here somewhere. I am not computer savvy enough and have limited forum finding stuff ability to know exactly where.

 

[Zipper730]

Late-1930s: The US Navy adopted a curved landing approach for all carrier aircraft.

When did they do away with that? It would seem a straight-in approach was planned initially for the F4U-1 with VF-17.

 

[Thumpalumpacus]

All of the info is elsewhere in the forum. We did all this about a year ago with dates of first USN carrier dates and the orders to standardise on the F6F for supply convienence.

That's my understanding as well.

 

[Ambaryerno]

All of the info is elsewhere in the forum. We did all this about a year ago with dates of first USN carrier dates and the orders to standardise on the F6F for supply convienence. Much documentation is here somewhere. I am not computer savvy enough and have limited forum finding stuff ability to know exactly where.

The same place I got the scan of the carrier trial results also had one that tl;dr was:

"Marines need fighters ASAP, send every Corsair we have now."

With the US carrier forces still rebuilding for much of early 1943 (Enterprise and Saratoga out of action for repairs from the Guadalcanal campaign, their air groups badly depleted and needing to be rebuilt, and the first Essexes were still fitting out) it makes sense that the carrier groups would be a lower priority to receive the new fighters than the Marines that were in the war zone NOW and were desperate for equipment. With every F4U available being rushed out to the Pacifc, that naturally meant the Hellcats were what was available in the States to build the carrier groups around, which then led to the logistics decision once the distribution of aircraft was established.