War over the Wine Dark sea

It is my understanding that aircraft diesel engines have been rather fuel efficient. It has been a long time since I studied the subject though.

Schweik said:

They only made 6, but it saw action so it is admissible. Thanks for turning me on to this one.

Dornier Do 26 - Wikipedia

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The range in Wiki seems to be for the civilian version ( no high drag gun turrets/positions)
a small payload (500kg?) and the need to be launched by catapult at the higher gross weights (plane cannot take off under it's own power)

It was pretty though

Spotted this yesterday.
I'm assuming they mean Arado 196.
But why "famously unreliable?" Or was it just that particular aircraft on the Graf Spee?

Schweik said:

It's too bad your uncle didn't want to talk about it though, I bet he has some interesting stories to tell flying scout planes from a warship for the duration.

My Grandfather was in the French resistance in WW2 but I never heard about his exploits from him or anyone else from that side of the family. I eventually found some stories about him in a book by a journalist named Howard K. Smith, who met him toward the end of the war.

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My father did nothing in WW2. After the war ended he joined Customs & Excise who lent him the money to buy a house. For his funeral service he insisted on her using his first civil service photo which was embossed with the stamp of the Foreign and Colonial Office. He used to tell great stories, everyone got told a different variation on it. Spoke English, German, Italian and Spanish, never got called up though, died aged 95 last year. Would never visit Spain while Franco was in charge.

Dornier Do 24 for the win.

Graeme said:

Spotted this yesterday.
I'm assuming they mean Arado 196.
But why "famously unreliable?" Or was it just that particular aircraft on the Graf Spee?

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I assume they meant that specific plane on the Graf Spee, I never heard anything about the Ar 196 being unreliable.

Schweik said:

I guess the diesel engine had something to do with the extraordiary range? Or was it just the twinned engines?

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That seems likely to have at least something to do with it. I can only speak to cars and trucks but a diesel engine of the same size as a gas counterpart and powering the same vehicle will generally get about 40 or 50% greater mileage.
The old diesel Mercedes-Benz from the 70s and 80s are a good example of this. They often made the exact same car with either diesel or gasoline engine of aproxamitly the same size and the diesels always get much better millage.
Great cars by the way. I own a 82 240d with 300,000 miles on it and it still runs like it just came off the showroom floor.

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:

Dornier Do 24 for the win.

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Uhhh, dude, I already won with the Do-26 - bigger (real Americans know this means better), faster (maybe), longer range, and most of all prettier - like Brad Pitt prettier It's got was maritime missions crave!

The PBY is not getting much love in the comments. It was an old war horse that did just about everything that was asked of it. It found the Bismark in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It fought well every theater. It was the first MAD equipped plane. It was a handsome ship too. I know the Sutherland might have been a "better" plane but it was just an ugly slab sided flying honey barge. It's like comparing the Mavis to the Emily. The Mavis was a thing of beauty, the Emily was just another slab sided flying honey barge. Who cares about range, speed, bomb load, etc. If you don't have style just stay home.

Graeme said:

Spotted this yesterday.
I'm assuming they mean Arado 196.
But why "famously unreliable?" Or was it just that particular aircraft on the Graf Spee?

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Must be a typo, since the Ar96 was similar to the Bf108.

In regards to the Ar196, it was most certainly reliable and is one of the war's often overlooked work horses.

Vic Nighthorse said:

Uhhh, dude, I already won with the Do-26 - bigger (real Americans know this means better), faster (maybe), longer range, and most of all prettier - like Brad Pitt prettier It's got was maritime missions crave!

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No, no, sorry you are wrong. But hey, not everyone can have good taste.

Schweik said:

Image of the Shetland prototype, quite an impressive beast...

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If that's what you call impressive, what do you call unimpressive?

Glider said:

If that's what you call impressive, what do you call unimpressive?

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Junglerot said:

The PBY is not getting much love in the comments. It was an old war horse that did just about everything that was asked of it. It found the Bismark in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It fought well every theater. It was the first MAD equipped plane. It was a handsome ship too. I know the Sutherland might have been a "better" plane but it was just an ugly slab sided flying honey barge. It's like comparing the Mavis to the Emily. The Mavis was a thing of beauty, the Emily was just another slab sided flying honey barge. Who cares about range, speed, bomb load, etc. If you don't have style just stay home.

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I agree with some of this but some parts are silly!

PBY was a great flying boat, but it was an early war design and other later designs were clearly better in at least some respects. PBY does look nice and gets an A for reliability which is very important, and for being there in sufficient numbers early in the war, and I think for being fairly good at not getting shot down for whatever reasons.

It's Sunderland btw. not Sutherland. Unless you were thinking of this Sutherland.



Aesthetics are individually subjective of course but I find some of your stark preferences a bit baffling.

To my eye this H6K looks a bit like a four engined PBY, albeit maybe a tad longer and more ungainly.



whereas (again, to my eye) this clearly majestic and beautiful (if slightly portly) Sunderland which you so cruelly deride...







looks pretty similar to the H8K that you praise





Perhaps there are subtleties that I'm missing?

GrauGeist said:

Must be a typo, since the Ar96 was similar to the Bf108.

In regards to the Ar196, it was most certainly reliable and is one of the war's often overlooked work horses.

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I think the AR 196 is actually pretty scary for a lot of other aircraft way out on the wine dark sea, mainly because of it's heavy armament of 20mm cannons plus machine guns. Definitely one of the most heavily armed scouts or scout-fighters, though it suffered from relatively short range.

Schweik said:

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you win

Schweik said:

I think the AR 196 is actually pretty scary for a lot of other aircraft way out on the wine dark sea, mainly because of it's heavy armament of 20mm cannons plus machine guns. Definitely one of the most heavily armed scouts or scout-fighters, though it suffered from relatively short range.

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I've often wondered if Bismarck couldn't have tried to use hers against those pesky torpedoplanes.

Ok we are near the bottom of page 3 so it's time for a running tally of the votes in each category.

In the ship launched Scout Plane category, so far the winner is the Ar-196 with 3 votes. Not a bad choice as it's a heavily armed, reliable, maneuverable (wing loading is a very good 20 lbs / sq ft.) plane. Also slow and doesn't have a lot of range (671 miles). The Aichi E-13 kind of represents the opposite strategy, very nice range (1,200 miles), also maneuverable (same wing loading as the Ar 196) but only one defensive gun. I can see that I put in two entries for the OS2U, which I could have used for the Martin PBM, Supermarine Walrus, He 111 or the Wellington, plus the miserable and short lived SOC... I should add that this category and the scout fighter category are a bit mixed up, the Ar 196 may belong more in the latter. I have to think about it.

In the Seaplane Bomber category, which is reserved for twin engined and mostly twin-float planes, once again the Germans are ahead with the formidable Heinkel 115. The CANT 506 is second with one vote. Range is similar with a slight edge to the He 115, CANT 506 is more heavily armed though and faster and a higher service ceiling. Not sure about armor. Were there any other viable twin engine seaplane bombers in the war (that saw combat) that I missed? I can't believe there are only two...

In the competitive Seaplane Fighter category the stand out is the Japanese A6M2-N, Zero seaplane with 3 votes. I concur on this one though both the Kawanishi N1K and the Curtiss SC are quite competitive with it (each getting one vote), the A6M2-N came much earlier in the war and therefore had a far greater impact on the more important fighting. The biplane F1M was also pretty formidable and was definitely in the thick of it, and the N-3PB was a nice design that saw a little action. But the Zero float plane is king which is probably right.

In the long range maritime patrol category there is a tie between the FW 200 and the PB4Y-2, which is probably fair. I might give a slight edge to the PB4Y-2 on performance and being a true military design but the FW 200 was there from the beginning so it had much more of an impact I think.

For long range torpedo carriers, the British Bristol Beaufighter wins with 3 votes, which I think makes sense as it was one of the most deadly aircraft of the war. It was significantly more of a threat than most of the others in this category (including the He 111, B-26 and Wellington which weren't on the poll), the only close competitor being the Ju 88 which gets 2 votes. SM 79 is tied for second as it gets 2 votes as well which I agree with as it sunk a lot of ships. The Beaufort got one vote and the Wellington also got a write-in so to speak.

For the biggest category, Flying Boats, right now the US PBY Catalina is way ahead with 9 votes. Though I like the Catalina, agree that it is pretty, and acknowledge it's importance in the war being there from the beginning and showing such versatility and reliability... I still have to chalk this up to patriotism. Second place is a tie (with 6 votes each so far) between the Japanese H8K "Emily" which I agree is by far the best performing, has the best range and was the best armed, and the British Short Sunderland, which if you include the Seaford and other later marks is pretty competitive with the H8K, and they seem to have been used more successfully. The US Martin PBM Mariner is probably actually the best Allied flying boat in the mix at least on paper, even though I barely knew anything about it before I started this thread and I forgot to add it to the poll. And we can't forget the mighty Blohm and Voss flying boats which are probably the most interesting and among the best performing and armed.

Just Schmidt said:

I've often wondered if Bismarck couldn't have tried to use hers against those pesky torpedoplanes.

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Great point, I definitely would have launched them! Ar-196 vs. Swordfish is a pretty interesting match up. Did the Bismarck have 1 or 2 of them? Even outnumbered 8-1 I bet they might have been able to disrupt the attack. Worth a try anyway. Also good to get the float planes off the ship as being full of fuel they are often a fire hazard.

Cannot vote. The Dornier Do 24 is not listed. Better performer than the PBY Cat, and much prettier too.