Why was the SBD such an effective aircraft?

[XBe02Drvr]

how much of the speed difference between and SBD and say, a Buffalo or a Wildcat is due to drag as opposed to weight

At the risk of restating the obvious, the faster you go, the more drag "outweighs" weight as the critical factor. If you're focussed on hard and fast numbers, weight is easier to quantify than drag, but that doesn't make it the dominant factor. In raw speed terms weight affects speed in the form of the induced drag generated by the wing carrying it. This is governed by the L/D of that wing at that weight and AOA. The SBD, being a dive bomber with a load carrying and dive recovery requirement could be expected to have a wing designed for optimum L/D at high loadings. This lessens the significance of weight vis a vis top speed, but can be valuable in terms of reduced energy bleed in high G ACM scenarios. We know historically the SBD was good at this. Where weight makes a big difference is in acceleration, climb performance and general agility, to include turning ability.
The real speed enhancers in this case are serious drag reduction and anything that can be done to increase effective thrust.
I think a sleek, streamlined, lightweight "SFD", while no speed demon, could have made an effective early war secondary fighter in the F8U/F4B model and could have been a useful counter to the agility of various IJN aircraft.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[yosimitesam]

Winkle Brown was always entertaining to read, he would give his impression on first seeing a given aircraft. I don't always agree with his sense of beauty, but interesting. He describes seeing the SBD as being a decidedly pre war looking aircraft, this plane was the scourge of the Pacific?

In Peter C. Smith's book "Dive Bomber!", the last paragraph of Chapter 7 sums it up beautifully. In discussing the US Navy dive bombing policy just prior to the war he wrote: "By this date, the dive bomber was the backbone of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps air components, along with the torpedo bomber. They had the modern aircraft coming into service, with even better planes planned. They had the experience of almost two decades of experimentation and design behind them, as well as a wealth of expertise. Just as vital as these points, the Navy and its pilots believed in dive bombing, and they practiced hard."

 

[buffnut453]

In Peter C. Smith's book "Dive Bomber!", the last paragraph of Chapter 7 sums it up beautifully. In discussing the US Navy dive bombing policy just prior to the war he wrote: "By this date, the dive bomber was the backbone of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps air components, along with the torpedo bomber. They had the modern aircraft coming into service, with even better planes planned. They had the experience of almost two decades of experimentation and design behind them, as well as a wealth of expertise. Just as vital as these points, the Navy and its pilots believed in dive bombing, and they practiced hard."

You have to bear in mind, though, that Peter C. Smith never met a dive bomber he didn't LOVE!!!

 

[Schweik]

The range cruise for the IJN aircraft listed is too high. Most IJN aircraft were designed for low speed cruise to achieve very long endurance and range.

A6M5 range cruise was 146 mph at 1500ft to acheive 1800 miles (A6M2 was similar) and at Guadalcanal the A6Ms were cruising at these speeds during their ~1200 mile flights. Ki-43 was very similar. Higher speed cruise could be used on shorter range missions.

D3A2 range cruise was 125 - 167mph at 1500ft

B5N2 range cruise was 113 to 146mph at 1500ft

G4M range cruise was as low as 114mph.



(Data from TAIC Manual no.1 which was a US Intelligence summary of IJ aircraft based upon captured flight manuals.)

Yeah I tried to amend that post to note that there were different cruise speeds used for different circumstances. I wonder if they switched to higher speed cruise when closer to enemy territory / aircraft.

 

[Kevin J]

At the risk of restating the obvious, the faster you go, the more drag "outweighs" weight as the critical factor. If you're focussed on hard and fast numbers, weight is easier to quantify than drag, but that doesn't make it the dominant factor. In raw speed terms weight affects speed in the form of the induced drag generated by the wing carrying it. This is governed by the L/D of that wing at that weight and AOA. The SBD, being a dive bomber with a load carrying and dive recovery requirement could be expected to have a wing designed for optimum L/D at high loadings. This lessens the significance of weight vis a vis top speed, but can be valuable in terms of reduced energy bleed in high G ACM scenarios. We know historically the SBD was good at this. Where weight makes a big difference is in acceleration, climb performance and general agility, to include turning ability.
The real speed enhancers in this case are serious drag reduction and anything that can be done to increase effective thrust.
I think a sleek, streamlined, lightweight "SFD", while no speed demon, could have made an effective early war secondary fighter in the F8U/F4B model and could have been a useful counter to the agility of various IJN aircraft.
Cheers,
Wes

Perhaps the USN/USMC should have pressed for the Brewster Buccaneer to have been a 2 seat all weather and / or night fighter without the bomb bay, dive brakes and dive bombing capability. It had a Wright R-2600 so lots more power and a decent forward firing armament, but still only 279 mph, except its not going to improve much in speed as a single seat scout fighter. Would it have got to 300 mph?

 

[pinsog]

Gentlemen, why are we trying to rebuild a Dauntless from a dive bomber into a 2 gun, maybe if we are lucky 300 mph single seat fixed wing fighter? We already have a 330 mph, 4 gun, good climbing, good maneuvering fixed wing fighter, the F4F-3. We also already have a 6 gun, 320 mph, horrible climbing, ok turning, folding wing fighter called the F4F-4. The US Navy needed a 350 mph plus fighter with 4 or more guns that could tackle a Zero 1 on 1 and could carry a drop tank or 2 to both escort bombers or loiter over the carrier in a CAP.

Much easier than redesigning the Dauntless for a task it would probably be terrible at would be to either add a turbocharger to the F4F-3, which on other threads I showed that it should give it a 10-20 mph speed increase from SL to over 20,000 and add drop tanks from day 1.

Or ditch the F4F and instead do the F5F Skyrocket from the beginning. Timeline should run about the same as its pretty obvious from reading the history that Grumman did not work on it very hard. All they needed to do is add armor, self sealing tanks and turbochargers and they would have had early P38 type performance in a carrier capable fighter from the beginning of the war. According to the cube rule it should match the early P38 in speed, and since it would weigh considerably less and actually have 100 more hp it should substantially out climb it. If they really wanted to build a war winner that could have been fighting from december 1941 they could have added 65 gallon tanks in the folding wings and had a fast climbing, twin engine, turbocharged, carrier capable fighter with extremely long range.

10,900 overload weight of XF5F, add 150 pounds of armor, 200 pounds for self sealing main fuel tank, 500 pounds for turbochargers and intercoolers, 250 pounds for outer wing tanks and 750 for fuel in outer tanks.

12,750 pounds with 2400 hp from Sl-25,000 feet and about 400 gallons of fuel not including what you might carry in a drop tank could have been there ready to fight in 1941

An F4U-1 Corsair with 363 gallons weighed 12,656 pounds and didn't arrive until mid 1943

 

[XBe02Drvr]

Perhaps the USN/USMC should have pressed for the Brewster Buccaneer to have been a 2 seat all weather and / or night fighter without the bomb bay, dive brakes and dive bombing capability. It had a Wright R-2600 so lots more power and a decent forward firing armament, but still only 279 mph, except its not going to improve much in speed as a single seat scout fighter. Would it have got to 300 mph?

I don't think a "Fuccaneer" could have made the scene in time for 300 mph to be a tenable performance level for a fighter. Could it have been deployed before the Hellcat, Corsair, Tony, and Tojo? I doubt it. In any case, it was another whole increment in airframe size, so top speed still likely inadequate.
Cheers,
Wes

 

[Schweik]

Gentlemen, why are we trying to rebuild a Dauntless from a dive bomber into a 2 gun, maybe if we are lucky 300 mph single seat fixed wing fighter?

Because we are a bunch of old guys who like to talk about planes and always looking for a subject that hasn't already been beaten to death...

I don't think a "Fuccaneer" could have made the scene in time for 300 mph to be a tenable performance level for a fighter. Could it have been deployed before the Hellcat, Corsair, Tony, and Tojo? I doubt it. In any case, it was another whole increment in airframe size, so top speed still likely inadequate.
Cheers,
Wes

Plus Brewster seemed to be having some serious problems, they got taken over by the government in 1942. Buccaneer was fast for it's large size but apparently had a lot of build and production problems, everyone seemed to reject it. The similar Vultee Vengeance did a little bit of good in Australian service. This line from the Wiki is pretty much what I'd been saying about fighter bombers vs. dive bombers:

"Australian Vengeances flew their last operational sorties on 8 March 1944, as they were considered less efficient than fighter bombers, having a short range and requiring a long runway, and were withdrawn to allow more effective fighter bombers to move into the forward area.[18] The Vengeance squadrons were re-equipped with Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers.[19]

The view of the Vengeance's limitations is disputed by Peter Smith in Jungle Dive Bombers at War, "The precision and skill of the dive-bombing method...and its clear superiority over most other means of air attack when it came to destroying small and well-hidden targets in difficult country, was proven over and over again in the Asian jungle campaigns."

So fighter bombers generally more suitable but dive bombers more accurate. However the Vengeance seemed to be pretty second rate over all. Certainly by 1944 it was quite obsolete, even for Burma. Neither the Vengeance or the Buccaneer was small enough to make a good fighter IMO.

The XF5F always looked really good to me on paper. Basically the US Navy equivalent to a Westland Whirlwind, but unlike the Whirlwind, it supposedly had a 1200 mile range on top of being a bit faster and having an even better rate of climb. On the other hand the Whirlwind had 4 x 20mm cannon. At 380 mph and a 4000' per minute initial climb rate though the XF5F seems like it may have been pretty good in the Pacific Theater even without a turbo, though I'm not sure how good altitude performance was. I too wish they would have developed though it it seems like a neat design which could have had some benefits for the Navy.

But XF5F was a new and fairly radical design. New designs can have more potential ultimately but they also have their drawbacks one of the main ones being lengthy development time. XF5F doesn't seem to have been ready (with all the asked for revisions) until 1942. Personally I would have ordered it into development even then, but maybe that was too later. The F7F also looks great to me though it definitely wasn't ready in time. Turbos in general also take a long time to get right and the US seemed to struggle with them. The P-43 wasn't really ready in time for the early war and it was a while before it evolved into the P-47. The Grumman XP-50, very similar to the XF5F, was doomed when the prototype was destroyed after a turbo explosion.

An "SBF" would have the merits, and drawbacks, of a proven design that was quickly adapted. Kind of like how the F4F was derived from the F3F, how the I-16 was a monoplane version of the I-15 / 153, how the Hurricane was more or less a monoplane version of the Hawker Fury, the Merlin P-51 was derived from the Allison P-51. Or how the P-40 was derived from the P-36. Or how (I think?) the F6F was at least partly derived from the F4F. Or was it? I'm not sure about that one.

Brand new ones are more of a roll of the dice. Some worked out great like the Fw 190, the P-47, the P-38, and the Corsair. But the latter three in particular had a long teething period before they were really sorted out. You also have a lot of P-46's, P-55s, P-75s, P-60's, and so on which just never worked out. And planes like the P-39 which did work but as such radical new designs never seemed to settle into a good niche (except for the Soviets).

Even if it worked though I do think the SBF would have had a limited niche. I could see putting a few on an escort carrier to give some longer range scouting ability and maybe give a little edge dogfighting with Zeroes and Hayabusas.

 

[Kevin J]

Because we are a bunch of old guys who like to talk about planes and always looking for a subject that hasn't already been beaten to death...



Plus Brewster seemed to be having some serious problems, they got taken over by the government in 1942. Buccaneer was fast for it's large size but apparently had a lot of build and production problems, everyone seemed to reject it. The similar Vultee Vengeance did a little bit of good in Australian service. This line from the Wiki is pretty much what I'd been saying about fighter bombers vs. dive bombers:

"Australian Vengeances flew their last operational sorties on 8 March 1944, as they were considered less efficient than fighter bombers, having a short range and requiring a long runway, and were withdrawn to allow more effective fighter bombers to move into the forward area.[18] The Vengeance squadrons were re-equipped with Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers.[19]

The view of the Vengeance's limitations is disputed by Peter Smith in Jungle Dive Bombers at War, "The precision and skill of the dive-bombing method...and its clear superiority over most other means of air attack when it came to destroying small and well-hidden targets in difficult country, was proven over and over again in the Asian jungle campaigns."

So fighter bombers generally more suitable but dive bombers more accurate. However the Vengeance seemed to be pretty second rate over all. Certainly by 1944 it was quite obsolete, even for Burma. Neither the Vengeance or the Buccaneer was small enough to make a good fighter IMO.

View attachment 542506

The XF5F always looked really good to me on paper. Basically the US Navy equivalent to a Westland Whirlwind, but unlike the Whirlwind, it supposedly had a 1200 mile range on top of being a bit faster and having an even better rate of climb. On the other hand the Whirlwind had 4 x 20mm cannon. At 380 mph and a 4000' per minute initial climb rate though the XF5F seems like it may have been pretty good in the Pacific Theater even without a turbo, though I'm not sure how good altitude performance was. I too wish they would have developed though it it seems like a neat design which could have had some benefits for the Navy.

But XF5F was a new and fairly radical design. New designs can have more potential ultimately but they also have their drawbacks one of the main ones being lengthy development time. XF5F doesn't seem to have been ready (with all the asked for revisions) until 1942. Personally I would have ordered it into development even then, but maybe that was too later. The F7F also looks great to me though it definitely wasn't ready in time. Turbos in general also take a long time to get right and the US seemed to struggle with them. The P-43 wasn't really ready in time for the early war and it was a while before it evolved into the P-47. The Grumman XP-50, very similar to the XF5F, was doomed when the prototype was destroyed after a turbo explosion.

An "SBF" would have the merits, and drawbacks, of a proven design that was quickly adapted. Kind of like how the F4F was derived from the F3F, how the I-16 was a monoplane version of the I-15 / 153, how the Hurricane was more or less a monoplane version of the Hawker Fury, the Merlin P-51 was derived from the Allison P-51. Or how the P-40 was derived from the P-36. Or how (I think?) the F6F was at least partly derived from the F4F. Or was it? I'm not sure about that one.

Brand new ones are more of a roll of the dice. Some worked out great like the Fw 190, the P-47, the P-38, and the Corsair. But the latter three in particular had a long teething period before they were really sorted out. You also have a lot of P-46's, P-55s, P-75s, P-60's, and so on which just never worked out. And planes like the P-39 which did work but as such radical new designs never seemed to settle into a good niche (except for the Soviets).

Even if it worked though I do think the SBF would have had a limited niche. I could see putting a few on an escort carrier to give some longer range scouting ability and maybe give a little edge dogfighting with Zeroes and Hayabusas.

I've come to the conclusion that the guys who made the decisions in WW2 were right.

 

[Schweik]

Well, a lot of the time. Other times not so much. Norden bombsight was a huge waste of money and effort for example. Preparation for the US in the Pacific was pretty bad, notably in the Philippines. Probably the same for the British in Malaysia, Singapore etc. Whoever was in charge of that American Mk 14 torpedo probably should have been put in prison or courts martialed. Dieppe seems like it wasn't such a great idea. Etc.

 

[pinsog]

Because we are a bunch of old guys who like to talk about planes and always looking for a subject that hasn't already been beaten to death...



Plus Brewster seemed to be having some serious problems, they got taken over by the government in 1942. Buccaneer was fast for it's large size but apparently had a lot of built problems, everyone seemed to reject it. The similar Vultee Vengeance did a little bit of good in Australian service. This line from the Wiki is pretty much what I'd been saying about fighter bombers vs. dive bombers:

"Australian Vengeances flew their last operational sorties on 8 March 1944, as they were considered less efficient than fighter bombers, having a short range and requiring a long runway, and were withdrawn to allow more effective fighter bombers to move into the forward area.[18] The Vengeance squadrons were re-equipped with Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers.[19]

The view of the Vengeance's limitations is disputed by Peter Smith in Jungle Dive Bombers at War, "The precision and skill of the dive-bombing method...and its clear superiority over most other means of air attack when it came to destroying small and well-hidden targets in difficult country, was proven over and over again in the Asian jungle campaigns."

So fighter bombers generally more suitable but dive bombers more accurate. However the Vengeance seemed to be pretty second rate over all. Certainly by 1944 it was quite obsolete, even for Burma.

View attachment 542506

The XF5F always looked really good to me on paper. Basically the US Navy equivalent to a Westland Whirlwind, but unlike the Whirlwind, it supposedly had a 1200 mile range on top of being a bit faster and having an even better rate of climb. On the other hand the Whirlwind had 4 x 20mm cannon. At 380 mph and a 4000' per minute initial climb rate though the XF5F seems like it may have been pretty good in the Pacific Theater even without a turbo, though I'm not sure how good altitude performance was. I too wish they would have developed though it it seems like a neat design which could have had some benefits for the Navy.

But XF5F was a new and fairly radical design. New designs can have more potential ultimately but they also have their drawbacks one of the main ones being lengthy development time. XF5F doesn't seem to have been ready (with all the asked for revisions) until 1942. Personally I would have ordered it into development even then, but maybe that was too later. The F7F also looks great to me though it definitely wasn't ready in time. Turbos in general also take a long time to get right and the US seemed to struggle with them. The P-43 wasn't really ready in time for the early war and it was a while before it evolved into the P-47. The Grumman XP-50, very similar to the XF5F, was doomed when the prototype was destroyed after a turbo explosion.

An "SBF" would have the merits, and drawbacks, of a proven design that was quickly adapted. Kind of like how the F4F was derived from the F3F, how the I-16 was a monoplane version of the I-15 / 153, how the Hurricane was more or less a monoplane version of the Hawker Fury, the Merlin P-51 was derived from the Allison P-51. Or how the P-40 was derived from the P-36. Or how (I think?) the F6F was at least partly derived from the F4F. Or was it? I'm not sure about that one.

Brand new ones are more of a roll of the dice. Some worked out great like the Fw 190, the P-47, the P-38, and the Corsair. But the latter three in particular had a long teething period before they were really sorted out. You also have a lot of P-46's, P-55s, P-75s, P-60's, and so on which just never worked out. And planes like the P-39 which did work but as such radical new designs never seemed to settle into a good niche (except for the Soviets).

Even if it worked though I do think the SBF would have had a limited niche. I could see putting a few on an escort carrier to give some longer range scouting ability and maybe give a little edge dogfighting with Zeroes and Hayabusas.

I certainly don't mind beating a dead horse either. Sometimes the best discussions on here start out as bad (opinions vary) ideas.

I'm not sure I believe the 380 mph for the F5F. We have 357 at 17,000, unknown hp. 346 at 14,000 on 1,800 total hp. Add turbochargers and that would jump to 2400 hp and 380 mph at 14,000. That's quite fast. I believe it could have been ready in the same timeline as the F4F but it just wasn't a priority. My guess, opinion, whatever is that the F4F was a safe bet and so that's what they put most of their time into. The first mock-up of the F5F was litteraly an F4F with a slightly bigger wing and 2 engines so it wasn't any leap in engines like the R2800 for the Corsair and Hellcat. They just hung 2 existing engines on a rather small airframe. The F5F was only 28'8.5 inches long and a 42 ft wingspan. Folded up to around 21.5 feet.

By the time the Corsair arrived, they could have put 1350 hp Wright's on it with no weight gain. That's 2700 hp in an 11,250 pound fighter if you don't use turbochargers. If you added water injection you could get 1480 hp per engine so you could have a 2960 hp fighter that weighed 11,250 pounds overload if you didn't have wing tanks or turbochargers. Wonder how that would climb at low level? Add turbochargers and you could have had 2700 hp from SL to 25 or 30,000 feet depending on what turbo you wanted to use.

 

[pinsog]

I've come to the conclusion that the guys who made the decisions in WW2 were right.

These are the same guys that let the US fight 2 years without a working aerial torpedo, or submarine torpedo, and left the prototype P51 Mustang sitting on a runway for like a year and said it was a crap plane and built 8,000 pound fighters with 1200 hp. They definitely could have used some help from us!!!

 

[XBe02Drvr]

The XF5F always looked really good to me on paper.

Wasn't it the first USN multi engine contemplated for carrier use? Just looking at it, I think it would be a scary beast to land on a carrier with battle damage and an engine out. Probably couldn't take a waveoff unless it was issued pretty far out. Anybody know what Vmc speed was? I'm thinking it would result in a seriously "hot and heavy" arrestment. Probably far beyond anything carriers and their gear had experienced previously. How did the F7F fare onboard ship?
Cheers,
Wes

 

[XBe02Drvr]

These are the same guys that let the US fight 2 years without a working aerial torpedo, or submarine torpedo

I believe it was mentioned on this very forum that the CO of the BuOrd torpedo factory, who stonewalled against fixing the torpedoes, was not in fact hanged or shot, but went on to become a 5 star Admiral. Why weren't we there to correct the situation?

 

[pinsog]

Wasn't it the first USN multi engine contemplated for carrier use? Just looking at it, I think it would be a scary beast to land on a carrier with battle damage and an engine out. Probably couldn't take a waveoff unless it was issued pretty far out. Anybody know what Vmc speed was? I'm thinking it would result in a seriously "hot and heavy" arrestment. Probably far beyond anything carriers and their gear had experienced previously. How did the F7F fare onboard ship?
Cheers,
Wes

I've never seen a single engine stall speed for it. You may be right, might have to bail out or ditch when you got back.
On the other hand, 10,900 was overload fighter with 278 gallons of fuel, and ballasted for 900 pounds of weapons (supposed to be 4 50's and 400 rpg). 10,900 plus 150 armor, 200 self sealing tank, 200 for wing tanks, 500 for turbochargers=11,950 but if you use up all your ammo, 1600 rounds, isn't that 400 pounds? And burn up say 250 gallons of your main tank, wing tanks empty, leaves you 28 gallons, that's another 1500 pounds. 11,950-1900=10,050 pounds to land. Engine is about as close to centerline as possible and the rudders are in line with each engine....

What is your opinion in a couple of scenarios, light on fuel and ammo vs loaded etc with an engine out?

An engine that quit but no other damage is a lot different than an airplane full of 20 mm cannon holes or flak damage, wings holed, controls not working.

I guess bailing out or ditching with your own fleet beats hanging out with the guys you just bombed.

Edit: I don't think F7F was ever deployed on a carrier, just too big for the ships they had.

 

[Schweik]

I've never been able to find out much about the F5F except what is on the Wiki. The latter includes the test pilot report:

"Testing by Grumman test pilot "Connie" Converse indicated "the flying qualities for the XF5F-1 were good overall. The counter-rotating props were a nice feature, virtually eliminating the torque effect on takeoff ... single-engine performance was good, rudder forces tended to be high in single engine configuration. Spin recovery was positive but elevator forces required for recovery were unusually high. All acrobatics were easily performed, and of course forward visibility was excellent."

LCDR Crommelin, in charge of the test, stated in a 1985 letter to George Skurla, Grumman president:

"for instance, I remember testing the XF5F against the XF4U on climb to the 10,000 foot level. I pulled away from the Corsair so fast I thought he was having engine trouble. The F5F was a carrier pilot's dream, as opposite rotating propellers eliminated all torque and you had no large engine up front to look around to see the LSO (landing signal officer) ... The analysis of all the data definitely favored the F5F, and the Spitfire came in a distant second. ... ADM Towers told me that securing spare parts ... and other particulars which compounded the difficulty of building the twin-engine fighter, had ruled out the Skyrocket and that the Bureau had settled on the Wildcat for mass production"​

This is also the same source which claims 382 mph. Sources for all this seem pretty marginal though. Do you have a good source on the F5F pinsog?

 

[Schweik]

These are the same guys that let the US fight 2 years without a working aerial torpedo, or submarine torpedo, and left the prototype P51 Mustang sitting on a runway for like a year and said it was a crap plane and built 8,000 pound fighters with 1200 hp. They definitely could have used some help from us!!!

Well to be fair, we had to give you (if you are from the UK) your first proper monoplane carrier fighters and bombers... couldn't take on the Jerries with Gladiators, Fulmars and Swordish could we?

 

[fubar57]

Well to be fair, we had to give you (if you are from the UK) your first proper monoplane carrier fighters and bombers... couldn't take on the Jerries with Gladiators, Fulmars and Swordish could we?

...but they did

 

[Schweik]

As for carrier landings, I think the F5F was both smaller and and lighter than the TBF Avenger which was supposedly a grreeat Carrier plane. And having two engine is one extra to at least get back to the vicinity of the home fleet. Just for fun:

TBF Avenger
Length 40'
Wingspan 54' 2"
Height 15' 5"
Empty weight 10,545
Loaded weight 17,893
Wing loading 36.5 lb / Sq ft (fully loaded)
Power / mass 0.11 hp / lb (fully loaded)

XF5F "Skyrocket"
Length 28' 9"
Wingspan 42'
Height 11' 4"
Empty weight 8,107 lb
Loaded weight 10,138
Wing Loading 35.9 (fully loaded)
Power / mass 0.22 (fully loaded)

F4F-3
Length 28' 9"
Wingspan 38'
Height 11' 10"
Empty Weight 4,907 lb
Loaded weight 7,423 lb
Wing loading 28.55
Power/mass 0.16

F6F-5
Length 33' 7"
Wingspan 42' (334 sq ft)
Height 13' 1"
Empty weight 9,238
Loaded weight 12,598
Wing loading 37.7 lb / sq ft
Power / mass 0.16

SBD Dauntless
Length 33'
Wingspan 41' 6" (wing area 325 sq ft)
Height 13' 7"
Empty weight 6,404
Loaded Weight 9,359
Wing loading 27.8 lb / sq ft (fully loaded)
Power/mass 0.12 (fully loaded)

"SBF Fauntless" (imaginary)
Length 311
Wingspan 37'
Height 13' 7"
Empty Weight 5,500
Loaded Weight 8,000
Wing loading 24
Power/mass 0.15

 

[VBF-13]

Gentlemen, why are we trying to rebuild a Dauntless from a dive bomber into a 2 gun, maybe if we are lucky 300 mph single seat fixed wing fighter? We already have a 330 mph, 4 gun, good climbing, good maneuvering fixed wing fighter, the F4F-3. We also already have a 6 gun, 320 mph, horrible climbing, ok turning, folding wing fighter called the F4F-4. The US Navy needed a 350 mph plus fighter with 4 or more guns that could tackle a Zero 1 on 1 and could carry a drop tank or 2 to both escort bombers or loiter over the carrier in a CAP.

I unequivocally agree. And while the SBD won't put a 500# bomb in a pickle barrel, it'll get it close enough, count on it, when it's given the chance. Let's also not forget to credit the F6F, which I see being referenced by implication in your last sentence, on its diving capabilities. There's a reason those were in VBF squadrons. Given that, and by that time in the War, at least, and with the F4U, I don't think we needed any SBDs over land. Still, given its track record, I'm at a loss as to why it couldn't have been put to land targets. In particular, what was it lacking, compared to the ones that were deployed over land? How do they rate as against those? Forget about the comparisons to the fighters. How do they compare as against the land dive bombers? Again, I don't know enough about the latter to form an opinion either way. Having said that, without more, I still don't see them handicapped in any material way.