Ad: This forum contains affiliate links to products on Amazon and eBay. More information in Terms and rules
How many Spitfires were flying CAP over Pedestal on Aug 11 and 12?And I'd refer you to post #11, where you refer to the defending force as being 36 Sea Hurricanes, 16 Fulmar, and 10 Martlets - or 62 fighters.
Reverting to none after the carriers withdrew.
This neglects the 137 Spitfires and 38 Beaufighters at Malta, which is the key missing bit IMO.
What was the longest range strike that IJN carriers made against USN carriers in 1942?So one thing I would point out right out the gate from looking at this analysis, is it helps clarify one of the major points we've been discussing in this thread and in some of it's precursors and off-shoots - the importance of range in naval air combat. I'll just mention a couple of specifics:
If the Axis had good long range fighters
...Then they could have launched attacks against Pedestal two or three days before they did. You can argue that "range doesn't matter because the Allies have to come to the where the Axis bases are." But this ignores the reality - if you can only escort the bombers once the convoy is 50 or 60 miles away, you are giving yourself much fewer opportunities to sink the ships. The same obviously applies in carrier combat. If the Germans had a fighter like the A6M they could have been sending waves of Ju-88s and SM.79s escorted by first-rate fighters. Instead of either sending them by themselves or holding them back.
On 11 August, 27 Ju 88s and 3 He 111s attacked Pedestal just before sunset, having flown 200 nmi from their base on Sardinia. They made a rushed and hasty attack, to evade the CAP, since they were unescorted - beyond the range of their Bf 109 fighters - and they missed in all their attacks. What would have happened if that had been 27 D3As or G4Ms? How about if they had been escorted by first line fighters?
Because the Allies did have long range strike aircraft
The night after this attack on 11 August, Liberators and Beaufighters attacked the Axis bases in Sardinia, destroying multiple Axis aircraft and setting hangars on fire.
Longer ranged Axis fighters could have protected Axis warships
Then their surface ships may have also been able to attack. On the night of 11/12 August the Italians sent two cruiser divisions and 17 destroyers from Sicily and Italy to attack the British convoy. A British Wellington recon plane spotted them and sent fake messages to a fictitious Liberator unit, the Italians canceled the sortie because there was no guarantee of air cover.
If the Axis had better long range strike aircraft
The Ju 88 and SM.79 were pretty good. The Ju 87s were better. But the Ju 88 and SM.79 didn't have as good a 'kill rate' as the D3A and B5N did, probably not as much as the G3M or G4M either. We have seen some data in another thread which shows the extremely high rate of accuracy of the D3A in particular, not just against the US but also against the British, such as when 53 D3A dive bombers hit HMS Cornwall and HMS Dorsetshire 28 times in five minutes, plus 15 near misses. We know that the Ju 87 could also bomb very accurately, as we can see in the attack on Illustrious on 7 January 1941 during Operation Excess, in which it was hit six times by 30 stukas. But Ju 87s lacked long range, and in spite of having armor and self sealing tanks, couldn't survive an encounter with Allied fighters unescorted. But a D3A could strike twice as far as a stuka. Even if most of them were shot down, they still carried a bite. In one raid against Pedestal, all but 4 Ju 88s were shot down or driven off, and those four attacked, but got no hits. During Midway, a Japanese strike was decimated by USN CAP, but three D3As got through. All three scored hits. Four B5Ns got through as well, scoring two torpedo hits. This is lethal!
If the Allies had more effective fighters with better range
Like if they had all Martlets instead of the mix of Sea hurricanes, Fulmars and the few Martlets they actually had, then they could have intercepted the enemy strike aircraft at a further distance from the fleet. All of this also depends on recon, fighter coordination, radar and other factors. But it's also just a matter of how far your fighters go out on their patrol. When a strike is intercepted at 60 miles from your ships, you have a much better chance of breaking up the attack than if you intercept it 20 miles away. I think the British had a problem here, mainly due to the short legs of the Sea Hurricane in particular, but they partly made up for it by very good fighter direction. The Americans conversely had a longer ranged fighter in the Wildcat, but their fighter control was more haphazard. When they intercepted raids further out, the outcomes were better.
This also applies to the British land-based fighters. If the Spitfires had longer legs, they could have helped the convoy when it was further out, in greater numbers, and for longer. Which brings me to...
If the Allies had more fighters with a longer loiter time
Another factor which seemed to be telling during Pedestal was that the CAP was small, and enemy strikes were at least in part intercepted by aircraft launched at the moment they were detected. This is even possible in part because of the efficient fighter control system. But it was also probably done in prt due to the kind of problems posed by the Sea Hurricane described by RN officers and FAA pilots, i.e. that Sea Hurricanes couldn't stay up long, and the carrier was constantly having to turn into the wind to launch or recover them...
"16. The short operational endurance of the Hurricane and small amount of ammunition carried must result in frequent turns into wind to land on aircraft which have been in combat, greatly aggravating the position in regard to flying off others or maintaining sections standing by to fly off."
-Report from Commanding Officer, HMS Ark Royal to Flag Officer Commanding Force 'H' ADM 199/ 847 31 July 1941
Obviously this is a problem when you are in a convoy that's trying to get to their goal as fast as possible. So for this reason they would keep some on deck, to launch when the enemy planes were spotted.
Just to clarify, the ME110s were used as escorts and they and the SH1Bs traded kill claims against each other during Pedestal.So, according to Shores/Cull/Malizia, the Axis had 66 single-engine fighters available, plus 20 Italian fighters tasked to air base defense (and of less capable types). The Germans order of battle lists everything in the vicinity and does not mention that any fighters were on airbase defense duties. I would be surprised if the Luftwaffe simply trusted the Italians to protect their bomber bases ...
In addition, the Germans had 8 Bf110s and 12 Ju88C night fighters. The night fighters were obviously a non-factor in the air attacks, which were all made during daylight. (Unless you wanted to sacrifice them as decoys.)
If we ignore the Malta-based aircraft, the British have a tiny nominal superiority in single-engine fighters. Throwing in the Bf110s might give the Axis an advantage or two fighters or so.
What about the Malta-based aircraft? The problem is that they are non-overlapping with the carrier-based aircraft. Their employment divides the battle into three phases for the British: the carrier-protected phase, the nearly-unprotected phase, and the Malta-protected phase. It's obvious, but I'll say it: range meant that only a fraction of the Malta-based aircraft could be over the convoy at any time. That fraction increased as the convoy got closer to Malta, transit times decreased, and CAP endurance increased. In any case, the Sea Hurricanes (and Martlets, and Fulmars) are irrelevant to this portion of the battle.
If the British were utterly unable to achieve concentration of force, the Axis was not perfectly concentrated either, since the aircraft were based all over Sicily and on Pantelleria.
Anyhow, I don't know if any of this is helpful or even slightly insightful.
That's because they are two different fields of battle. Pedestal, like other convoy runs, was a running battle through a gauntlet of NSCs (non sinkable carriers). The Axis forces neither had, nor really needed, a surface force. Both opponents faced off in the confines of the Med. Both sides knew (sorta') where the other guy was. The RN carriers were armoured because they knew they were going to get clobbered. The RN developed their doctrine and tactics for a new kind of warfare and where they were going to fight it.
The USN needed big, roomy carriers with as many airframes they could stuff in them just to find the other guy. Same held true for the IJN. There were big fleets involved because that was the only way to do it. The USN developed their doctrine and tactics for a new kind of warfare and where they were going to fight it.
I agree with Just Schmidt's opinion. To me, it's like comparing the Relief of Bastogne to the Battle of Kursk.
How many Spitfires were flying CAP over Pedestal on Aug 11 and 12?
I'm trying to be civil here but you're just not making much sense and trying to twist my post into something that I never stated. I stated very clearly, that I was referring to IJN carrier strike sorties vs USN carrier TFs in the Pacific in 1942 vs the number of Axis strike sorties (~246) flown against PEDESTAL on Aug 11 and 12.
So, according to Shores/Cull/Malizia, the Axis had 66 single-engine fighters available, plus 20 Italian fighters tasked to air base defense (and of less capable types). The Germans order of battle lists everything in the vicinity and does not mention that any fighters were on airbase defense duties. I would be surprised if the Luftwaffe simply trusted the Italians to protect their bomber bases ...
In addition, the Germans had 8 Bf110s and 12 Ju88C night fighters. The night fighters were obviously a non-factor in the air attacks, which were all made during daylight. (Unless you wanted to sacrifice them as decoys.)
If we ignore the Malta-based aircraft, the British have a tiny nominal superiority in single-engine fighters. Throwing in the Bf110s might give the Axis an advantage or two fighters or so.
What about the Malta-based aircraft? The problem is that they are non-overlapping with the carrier-based aircraft. Their employment divides the battle into three phases for the British: the carrier-protected phase, the nearly-unprotected phase, and the Malta-protected phase. It's obvious, but I'll say it: range meant that only a fraction of the Malta-based aircraft could be over the convoy at any time. That fraction increased as the convoy got closer to Malta, transit times decreased, and CAP endurance increased. In any case, the Sea Hurricanes (and Martlets, and Fulmars) are irrelevant to this portion of the battle.
If the British were utterly unable to achieve concentration of force, the Axis was not perfectly concentrated either, since the aircraft were based all over Sicily and on Pantelleria.
Anyhow, I don't know if any of this is helpful or even slightly insightful.
What was the longest range strike that IJN carriers made against USN carriers in 1942?
I have a feeling that was an outlier, the Stukas don't seem to have made such long range strikes normally.I've pointed out that HMS Southampton was sunk by Stukas operating ~300nm from their base.
Intercepting further from the fleet than historically was almost impossible due to the detection range of the fleet's radar
vs the time needed to vector the CAP onto the enemy aircraft If the FAA's Martlets could have been assigned high cover or could have intercepted further out then they would have done so. As we've discussed at length the difference in range and endurance between the SH1B and an F4F-4 is quite small
and in the Pacific, even when cruising for economy with no contact with the enemy, F4F-4s were running out of fuel after ~3.5 hours. The Captain of Ark Royal was comparing the SH1B to the Fulmar, but as we've seen the F4F-4 was only marginally better than the SH1B.
Additionally the vastly superior climb rate of the SH1B meant that it could be launched right from the carrier and still have the ability to intercept incoming raids. During Pedestal and PQ18 SH1B endurance turned out to be a non-factor in terms of aircraft recovery.
The only fighter support that the Pedestal ships received from Malta was on Aug 13, after the carriers, and the SH1Bs turned back during the evening of Aug 12. This thread started as a discussion of the SH1B...I already can see that Spitfires shot down Axis bombers during the Pedestal battle. I'll provide more data tomorrow.
I am not trying to 'twist' anything. Pedestal didn't happen on just two days. Naval battles in WW2 (involving air strikes on US carriers) routinely involved both land based and naval aircraft on both sides. You said all of 1942 - Midway was just one battle and it was kind of an outlier in that sense.
And those 246 sorties on those two days during Pedestal that you want to limit the discussion to (I won't) were escorted by less than half as many fighters as escorted the IJN strikes at Midway, and in other Pacific war battles as well.
They were used against long-range recon aircraft and against unescorted ASW aircraft, and occasionally against bombers operating beyond the range of single-engined escorts.I don't know if the Ju 88c did any strikes but they were used as daytime heavy fighters sometimes in the Med, and could probably hold their own against the FAA cap.
They were used against long-range recon aircraft and against unescorted ASW aircraft, and occasionally against bombers operating beyond the range of single-engined escorts.
I don't want to go into details, but I have to disagree with you about "holding their own" against CAP. The performance differences were immense and the Sea Hurricanes, Martlet, and even the Fulmer would typically be able to simply ignore them. If the Ju88Cs couldn't be ignored, the CAP could easily break up their formations. Beyond that, any Ju88C in a dogfight with any of the FAA aircraft was essentially doomed.
The JU87-R was designed especially to act as a long range strike aircraft. The Me110 was designed as a long range escort fighter.I don't know, that would be worth looking into. I believe they made some quite long range strikes. Land based torpedo bombers even further.
The key factor here though is that in most cases these could be escorted by A6Ms or in the case of the land based bombers, sometimes Ki-43s.
I have a feeling that was an outlier, the Stukas don't seem to have made such long range strikes normally.
But again the problem is, Stukas flying unescorted strikes 300 nm or 100 nm from their base, would be decimated by Martlets, Sea Hurricanes, or even Fulmars.
It seems that in many cases the enemy strikes were actually detected by friendly recon aircraft or fighters
This seems to be your unique opinion and not that of multiple RN and FAA officers who I've already quoted. The Captain of the Ark Royal to cite one example that I just quoted upthread, made a point of saying that the Sea Hurricane had unusually short endurance. They never said that about the Martlet that I can find.
Again, that is not actually true, in fact the FAA pilots directly contradict this.
"With its excellent patrol range – I actually flew one sortie of four-and-a-half hours in this fighter – and fine ditching characteristics, for which I can vouch as a matter of personal experience, this Grumman fighter was, for my money, one of the finest shipboard aeroplanes ever created."
The RAI flew 68 escort fighter sorties in 3 waves and the Luftwaffe around 30-40 on Aug 12.Question: How many Axis fighters escorted each of the attacks on the convoy while it was covered by carrier-based fighters?
Let me be clear about one thing. I'm not arguing at all that British sailors were not absolutely heroic in all the convoy fights and in all the battles for all the convoys and the other engagements with the Germans and Italians. They went through tribulations I can't even imagine, and pulled off feats of heroism that would humble any of us here.
What I am saying is that these sailors and aircrew would have been better served with more Martlets, which was the best available to our (British and American being very close Allies in WW2 lest we forget) side. The US and British authorities let down those aircrews, but they did the best with what they had. The Hurricane was one of the best fighters in the world in 1940. The Sea Hurricane was not one of the best naval fighters in 1942. Nor was the Fulmar.
I would also however take this a step further and point out what is to me the glaringly obvious - the Imperial Japanese Navy was by far the most serious Axis naval threat in WW2, and the battles in the Pacific were by far the most dire, fraught, and dangerous naval engagements of the war. The British held out against the Germans on their own during the BoB. Sinking the Italian fleet at Taranto, hunting down the Bismark and the commerce raiders, saving Malta, were all major achievements by the British, the FAA, RAF and the Royal Navy.
But these pale in comparison to Midway or to the various surface battles around the Solomons, the Battle of the Bismark sea or the Battle of the Philippine Sea, the Battle of Leyte Gulf etc. That's what I AM saying.
The only time they can be compared is in their outcome. Any engagement is dire and fraught, ask anyone who has been in one.Would you rather die of cancer, or a gunshot to the head? Which is worse, a stab wound or a toothache?
I'm not sure these battles in the two theaters are really comparable.