First up, thanks to several of you for some actual performance figures for the Skua...
Spec O.27/34 that led to the Skua called for max speed 225mph at 6,500 feet.
"Wings of the Navy" by Eric Brown gives Skua speeds as follows:-
225mph max at 6,700 feet
204mph at sea level
"British Naval Aircraft since 1912"
225mph max at 6,500 feet
204mph at sea level
"Blackburn Skua & Roc" by Matthew Willis gives Skua speeds as follows:-
225mph max at 6,500 feet
"British Carrier Aviation" by Friedman
225mph (196 knots) max at 6,700 feet
204mph (177 knots) at sea level
Friedmaan uses the same figures in "Fighters over the Fleet" but with the following added comment:-
"In 1934, estimated maximum speed with a Perseus IIS engine (835hp at 15,000ft) was 203 knots [233mph] at 15,000ft. with a service ceiling of 30,000ft ...."
Blackburn Skua, one 905 HP at 6,000 feet air cooled Perseus XII, span 46 feet, length 35 feet, height 12 feet 6 inches, wing area 319 square feet. 2 Crew wing armament 4 Browning with 600 rpg, dorsal 1 Lewis with 6 Mags. Normal and maximum bomb load 5000 pounds. RAF performance figures
| Type | Type | Dive Bomber | Fighter |
| Weight | Tare (pounds) | 5,839 | 5,839 |
| Normal | Weight (pounds) | 8,215 | 8,115 |
| Normal | Take Off (Over 50 ft) (Yards) | 670 | 650 |
| Normal | Climb to Height (feet) | 15,000 | 15,000 |
| Normal | Climb to Height Time (Mins) | 22 | 21 |
| Normal | Service Ceiling (Feet) | 19,000 | 19,300 |
| Normal | Maximum Speed (m.p.h) | 212 | 213 |
| Normal | Max Speed Height (Feet) | 15,000 | 15,000 |
| Normal | Cruising Speed (m.p.h) | 193 | 194 |
| Normal | Cruise Speed Height | 15,000 | 15,000 |
| Normal | Bomb Load (pounds) | 500 | |
| Normal | 50 Minutes allowance Range (miles) | 466 | 906 |
| Normal | 50 Minutes allowance Endurance Hours | 2.93 | 4.67 |
| Normal | Fuel (for range, pounds) | 706 | 1,080 |
| Normal | Fuel (for allowance, pounds) | 142 | 142 |
| Normal | Fuel (Total, pounds) | 848 | 1,222 |
| Normal | Fuel (Total, Gallons) | 163 | 163 |
| Normal | Miles per 100 pounds fuel | 80.2 | 83.9 |
| Extended | Overload Weight (pounds) (Max bombs (or Fuel if same)) | 8,625 | 8,115 |
| Extended | Take Off (Over 50 ft) (Yards) | 770 | 650 |
| Extended | Climb to Height (feet) | 15,000 | 15,000 |
| Extended | Climb to Height Time (mins) | 25 | 21 |
| Extended | Service Ceiling | 18,000 | 19,300 |
| Extended | For Maximum Bombs (Cruise) | | |
| Extended | Speed (m.p.h) | 190 | |
| Extended | Height (feet) | 15,000 | |
| Extended | Bomb Load (pounds) | 500 | |
| Extended | Range (50 mins allow.) (miles) | 890 | |
| Extended | Endurance (50 mins allow.) Hrs | 4.7 | |
| Extended | Fuel (for range, pounds) | 1,080 | |
| Extended | Fuel (for allowance, pounds) | 142 | |
| Extended | Fuel (Total, pounds) | 1,222 | |
| Extended | Fuel (Total, Gallons) | 163 | |
| Extended | Miles per 100 pounds of fuel | 82.5 | |
| Extended | For Maximum Fuel (Economical) | | |
| Extended | Speed (m.p.h) | 157 | 156 |
| Extended | Height (feet) | 15,000 | 15,000 |
| Extended | Bomb Load (pounds) | 500 | |
| Extended | Range (50 mins allow.) (miles) | 980 | 1,025 |
| Extended | Endurance (50 mins allow.) Hrs | 6.25 | 6.57 |
| Extended | Fuel (for range, pounds) | 1,080 | 1,080 |
| Extended | Fuel (for allowance, pounds) | 142 | 142 |
| Extended | Fuel (Total, pounds) | 1,222 | 1,222 |
| Extended | Fuel (Total, Gallons) | 163 | 163 |
| Extended | Miles per 100 pounds of fuel | 91 | 95 |
So (and correct me if I misunderstand), what this says when it's taken together is that the 1934
specifcation called for 225mph at 6,500ft, that the resulting 1934
design speed was 203 mph at 15,000ft with a Perseus IIS, that most sources quote the specification speed, sometimes hefting the altitude by 200ft, but that a detailed legend raises the slower design speed by a round 10mph to 213 mph with the Perseus XII (still, rather oddly, at 15,000ft rather than its own rated altitude of 6,500ft)?
Are those figures likely to be accurate, or are they just estimates created by tinkering with 1934 numbers? Was the Skua, in fact, slower than advertised? Anyone know where 204 mph at sea level comes from? Or 6,700ft rather than 6,500ft?
The Skua specs above are not at FTH (max boost) which was:
(3) Maximum level flight (5 minute limit) rpm 2,750 Boost +2½lb/in2 which could be held till about 7000ft. (static 905 hp at 6500ft). (From Smith).
Thanks! Do you know what that means in terms of speed, though?
No topic is too off topic. There's usually a wealth of knowledge to be gained from our little detours.
Thanks for the encouragement! I'll maybe detour back to Leyte, as it's come up in the replies, but I've left it off for now...
Welcome on board now officially registered.
Thanks too!
A related question is why the Perseus and Mercury both remained in production at the same time given that they had a very similar performance?
Anyone got any idea why?
Not as a navigator though. Normally a lowly Telegraphist Air Gunner whose main purpose was to operate the homing device that could find the carrier wherever it may have moved to. Of course a navigator could replace the TAG such as one in a strike group.
Ah! That makes sense, so it's not so much "navigating" as using his radio training - though presumably it's vulnerable to enemy RDF?
That's a bit unfair. The rear gunner in the Dauntless was also a radioman-gunner and not a navigator. Everyone at the time thought a rear gunner was necessary for dive bomber.
I'd assumed as much simply from its prevalence, but then something like the Fulmar trades the rear gun for moderately better performance, and that's the sort of context I'm thinking of to modify the design, if that makes sense?
But the RN expected to fight around 10,000 feet. That was seen as the ideal approach height for the torpedo bombers for which the Skua was to act as escort in one of its roles. The operational height of the Fulmar was specified in 1938 to be 10,000ft. Only with the 1939 & 1940 Specs was the operational height increased to 15,000ft.
Oh, I agree, insofar as my knowledge extends. My sense is that in the 1930s, everything was pegged to the idea of bombers trucking along at 10,000ft, so I'm not imagining that they'd be unreasonably smart/ambitious when the Skua was originally designed. No, my point about a new engine is really a question about the potential of the airframe for an upgrade
circa 1939 - is it too surreal to talk about a Skua equivalent of a Griffon Spit?
USS Nevada
That is an over simplistic view of what happened to her, and just because it happened while in PH, it does not follow that the same would have happened had she been at sea. Look at the damage report.
The report makes very interesting reading - the question I now have to answer with a detailed read is whether the torpedo protection and damage-control counterflooding mitigated the torpedo hit as it was designed to (and as I had assumed it had); in short would the less controllable flooding from the bomb hits and the associated problems of uncontrolled fires and the engines being knocked out for about ninety minutes have sunk her without the torp? One thing that's clear (paragraphs 89 and 91) is that the technically-unnecessary flooding of the aft magazine after the torpedo hit had the unintended consequence of
reducing the effect of the bomb damage, by lifting the forepart of the ship higher out of the water...
I also appreciate the report's direct confirmation of something else I'd suspected, namely that the (comparatively slight) damage to the dry-docked USS
Pennsylvania and the destruction of the adjacent destroyers was also the work of the Vals, not the first wave's level-bombing...
HMS Warspite
The story is not as simple as you lay it out.
I'd say it's more that I simplified the phrasing - I was broadly aware that the damage to
Warspite was above decks
, my point is that it was still
enough damage to take a fast battleship out of the fight for ten months. The fact that it was just
one 500lb hit only reinforces that point.
Funnily enough there has been a discussion on another site about GZ and her air group. By May 1941 any connection with GZ it is to say the least tenuous given the turnover in aircrew that would have occurred in Luftwaffe units as a result of losses in the BoB. Here is the history as posted of the II./186(T) that became III./JG77 that was reponsible for the bombing of Warspite.
My understanding is that at least one
staffel of III./JG77 remained a dedicated anti-shipping dive-bomber unit carrying over the skills of II./186(T), they skipped the Battle of Britain (perhaps specifically for that reason?), and at least the
gruppenkommandeur and the
staffelkapitän were veterans of the original unit, implying some ability to pass on tactics and training...
The Whirwind was modified to drop 2x250lb or 2x500lb bombs from Aug 1942 in the fighter bomber role. But I don't believe it was ever used as an 80 degree dive bomber.
That's certainly what's claimed in Niall Corduroy's book on the Whirlwind, and I think it's stated in a squadron war diary online somewhere, too. Used against the FW 190 runway at Maupertus and the blockade runner
Münsterland, apparently, though 250lb GP bombs were probably not ideal...
This will explain the Whirlwind's propellor problems.
I'm aware of the argument about blade-shape, which would presumably make a difference, but it also seems that the production aircraft were stuck with variable-pitch propellers rather than constant-speed ones, and that would have surely had an effect, comparable to what was seen with the Spitfire or Hurricane...?
It was April 1943 before RE Bishop of De Havilland suggested to NE Rowe of MAP that it might be possible to modify the Mosquito to carry a 4,000lb Cookie. Authorisation for a trial conversion of a Mk.IV was given on 29th April 1943. That aircraft DZ594 flew in July in its new form. The first converted aircraft were delivered to 692 squadron in Feb 1944 and flew their first missions on 23rd Feb.
Apologies for not being entirely clear - my reference to de Havilland doing things in 1940 was to the origins of the Mosquito in general, not its use as a cookie jar, which as you say came later.
Not sure where you got the idea that the Pathfinder force wasn't telling anyone what they were doing. Harris authorised it all after all.
I had the sense that Bomber Command understood the "nuisance bombing" remit in a more literal sense than Pathfinder Force. But I could be quite wrong there...
USS Nevada was torpedoed between her forward turrets before getting underway, then ordered to stop as it became clear to local command the Japanese were trying to sink her in the habour channel, something that would bottle up the fleet. Total of 5 bomb hits, plus torpedo plus delberate flooding of the magazines plus counterflooding to correct the torpedo induced list pushed the waterline above the highest water tight deck. The USN commented on the effects of near misses when repairing Illustrious. Warspite, damaged 22 May 1941, arrived in the US for repairs 11 August (via the Pacific) recommissioned 28 December.
I've commented on this at more length above, in response to the detailed report that EwenS linked...
The Whirlwind was the medium altitude bomber destroyer, the Welkin the high altitude interceptor. The Whirlwind was adapted as a fighter bomber, which operations used 80 degree dives? The wing cells in the Fairey Battle could release their bombs safely in an 85 degree dive.
Again, commented on above. The Whirlwind was "high altitude" by 1930s standards in terms of being designed to intercept at 15,000ft, rather than 10,000ft, though I can see why that's a confusing turn of phrase...
And I thought that while the Battle could theoretically bomb at a steep angle, the airframe wasn't actually able to get there?
(Tail less bombs) Quite sure, consider how easy it is to see bombs falling at night. And it was the USSBS post war including examination of the dud bomb dumps. The US proved quite conclusively heavier bombs were more accurate.
Do you know if the source material with the German comments is available anywhere, out of interest?
As for the majority of aircraft, having the Merlin is an upgrade. Big 2-row radials of 2000 lbs might be a bit too much of a good thing.
Taurus being small is/was a good thing, what was not good was that Taurus on itself was never considered as a win, and required 100 oct fuel to make about 1100 HP, despite being a spanking new design. Installing a Pegasus would've been improvement over the Perseus, IMO.
G&R Mistral Major as made at Alvis (the 'Pelides') was not with a high-altitude S/C, rated altitude was at 7500 ft, where 975 HP was produced.
I don't know why I thought the Alvis was high-altitude, but I hadn't realised that the Pegasus was improved to the extent it was - you're probably right, in that case!
Backseater has it's role in the FAA in the late 1930s-early 1940s, not just to operate the homing device.
Equaling Gladiator and Fulmar wrt. speed might be done with a Merlin X on board. Equaling Sea Hurricane - not likely. Keeping the Skua firmly in the dive bombing role would've been the best, IMO, and provide some meaningful fighter escort in the meantime.
What, Fulmars?
Obviously, designing a dedicated single-seat carrier fighter would have been the right solution, but as someone said further back in the discussion, they wanted a multi-role type because of limited hangar space... so if they'd done the sensible thing, they might have been stuck with Sea Hurricanes and Skuas and no Swordfish...
This has already been discussed, but the Telegraphist/Air Gunner was necessary for homing in on the carrier's beacon. Also, not having a tail gunner.while acting as a dive bomber is bad. Ask the French and the Soviets.
Isn't it more than attack aircraft that lack fighting qualities need a tail gunner? The question I'm asking is whether a single-seater Skua can be raised to the performance of a Gladiator or Fulmar...
But you have just led me to discover the Loire-Nieuport LN.401, the French equivalent of the Skua - it was a single-seater, had marginally better speed on a paltry 690 hp, and its attrition in 1940 was due to flak, not the lack of back-seaters...