Why was the SBD such an effective aircraft?

swampyankee · Jun 22, 2019

...yet the last generation of piston-engined attack aircraft and all the jet-propelled ones eschewed the back-seat gunner as superfluous.

When you have enough fighters, which the USN didn't early in WW2, it's better to defend attack aircraft by putting the guns into the fighters. Of course, that back-seat gunner has one or two rifle-caliber machine guns, while the fighters tended to have HMG or cannon

davparlr · Jun 22, 2019

swampyankee said:
The TBF, in British service, couldn't carry British torpedoes, so it's not improbable that a B-26 couldn't either.

TBF carried torpedo internally which would limit torpedo dimensions, B-26 mounted torpedo externally so carrying British or other torpedoes should not be problematic. If the US had swiped the Japanese torpedo designs and copied them the war would have went differently. Of course they could have used anybodies design and improved performance! Pix from World War Photos

Ascent · Jun 22, 2019

You've got to wonder how successful it would have been if it was operating in the Med. Would it have the same kind of success or would it have had problems with the different opponent?

davparlr · Jun 22, 2019

You think this may have impressed the Japanese about the courage and tenacity of American aviators?
b-26 torpedo attack midway - Google Search:

swampyankee · Jun 22, 2019

Ascent said:
You've got to wonder how successful it would have been if it was operating in the Med. Would it have the same kind of success or would it have had problems with the different opponent?

Different opposition and a less-target rich maritime environment, but there's really no reason it wouldn't have been able to do as well as, say, the Ju-87

XBe02Drvr · Jun 22, 2019

davparlr said:
If the US had swiped the Japanese torpedo designs and copied them the war would have went differently.

"The Japs are a third rate power with inferior technology. How could they have anything we don't have better? They can't even build a reliable 1200 horsepower engine fer chrissake!"

GrauGeist · Jun 22, 2019

Ascent said:
You've got to wonder how successful it would have been if it was operating in the Med. Would it have the same kind of success or would it have had problems with the different opponent?

Different environment in the fact that the Enemy wasn't a Naval-based power, but the SBD did see action in the Med during Operation Torch (operating from the USS Ranger) and performed well against Axist targets. It also saw action soon after, in the North Sea, sinking German shipping.
As a side note: the USS Ranger was actually trying to entice the Tirpitz to come out and play, but the Germans wouldn't go fo it...

swampyankee · Jun 22, 2019

GrauGeist said:
Different environment in the fact that the Enemy wasn't a Naval-based power, but the SBD did see action in the Med during Operation Torch (operating from the USS Ranger) and performed well against Axist targets. It also saw action soon after, in the North Sea, sinking German shipping.
As a side note: the USS Ranger was actually trying to entice the Tirpitz to come out and play, but the Germans wouldn't go fo it...

They had noted how well the Bismarck did. The German naval high command probably also noted that "fair fight" wasn't something in the USN's vocabulary, except by accident. If the USN had the Ranger out there as bait, the Germans probably figured that they'd also have a large number of ships with scarily big guns, too, and the USN was friends with the RN, and between them, they'd set up a few hindrances to the Tirpitz getting far out of harbor.

michael rauls · Jun 22, 2019

GrauGeist said:
Different environment in the fact that the Enemy wasn't a Naval-based power, but the SBD did see action in the Med during Operation Torch (operating from the USS Ranger) and performed well against Axist targets. It also saw action soon after, in the North Sea, sinking German shipping.
As a side note: the USS Ranger was actually trying to entice the Tirpitz to come out and play, but the Germans wouldn't go fo it...

I read they also saw action in Europe( in the form of the A24) with the Free French Airforce right up until the end of the war although I can't find many ...... no make that ANY details about it beyond a couple vague mentions on wiki and one other source the name of which escapes me at the moment.

fubar57 · Jun 22, 2019

The Groupement Aeronavale 2 in Algiers had 37 SBDs, starting March 1, 1944

fliger747 · Jun 22, 2019

I wonder how effective that the SBD would have been against Tirpitz at sea? In her hideaway I believe Tirpitz was dive bombed yielding mainly superficial damage. However fo a raider not too hard to achieve a mission kill, such as the minor damage to Bismarcks bow which caused a number of other unfortunate events to tumble forth for her.

Certainly ships were a high value target and about the right size for the CEP of a dive bomber. Ground targets generally not as high value and smaller, less susceptible to damage.

As to the British aerial torpedos they must have been set to run pretty shallow to hit on the external armor belt, sending most of their force upwards. Perhaps the heavy seas factored in this somehow. These seemed to be effective enough at Taranto.

michael rauls · Jun 22, 2019

fubar57 said:
The Groupement Aeronavale 2 in Algiers had 37 SBDs, starting March 1, 1944

Very cool. I just got back from a trip to wiki to see if any more had been added on the SBDs in free French service since I last checked( which has been quite awhile) and sure enough quite a bit had. Amoungst other things it said there SBD5s were averaging 3 sorties a day in April 45. Is that even possible, 3 sorties per day? Maybe it's a misprint and they meant 3 per week?

GrauGeist · Jun 22, 2019

michael rauls said:
Amoungst other things it said there SBD5s were averaging 3 sorties a day in April 45. Is that even possible, 3 sorties per day? Maybe it's a misprint and they meant 3 per week?

In Europe, the distances were far shorter than typically found in the PTO/CBI, so three sorties per day were not out of reason for either Allied or Axis pilots.

pinsog · Jun 22, 2019

XBe02Drvr said:
"The Japs are a third rate power with inferior technology. How could they have anything we don't have better? They can't even build a reliable 1200 horsepower engine fer chrissake!"

USA "The Brewster Buffalo is the most powerful fighter in the pacific theater"

Britain "you don't need Spitfires, your only fighting the Japanese"

pinsog · Jun 22, 2019

fliger747 said:
I wonder how effective that the SBD would have been against Tirpitz at sea? In her hideaway I believe Tirpitz was dive bombed yielding mainly superficial damage. However fo a raider not too hard to achieve a mission kill, such as the minor damage to Bismarcks bow which caused a number of other unfortunate events to tumble forth for her.

Certainly ships were a high value target and about the right size for the CEP of a dive bomber. Ground targets generally not as high value and smaller, less susceptible to damage.

As to the British aerial torpedos they must have been set to run pretty shallow to hit on the external armor belt, sending most of their force upwards. Perhaps the heavy seas factored in this somehow. These seemed to be effective enough at Taranto.

I would think that even only using 1000 pounders SBD's, without having to worry about CAP fighters, might not sink her, but everything topside would be a wreck. Might lose a few planes to AA at first but after the first several hits that take out her radar and much, most, or all of her AA, it would become target practice on a maneuvering target that can't fight back. If the SBD's are carrying 1600 pound armour piercing bombs I would think it isn't "if" but "how long" until you sink her.

swampyankee · Jun 22, 2019

fliger747 said:
I wonder how effective that the SBD would have been against Tirpitz at sea? In her hideaway I believe Tirpitz was dive bombed yielding mainly superficial damage. However fo a raider not too hard to achieve a mission kill, such as the minor damage to Bismarcks bow which caused a number of other unfortunate events to tumble forth for her.

Certainly ships were a high value target and about the right size for the CEP of a dive bomber. Ground targets generally not as high value and smaller, less susceptible to damage.

As to the British aerial torpedos they must have been set to run pretty shallow to hit on the external armor belt, sending most of their force upwards. Perhaps the heavy seas factored in this somehow. These seemed to be effective enough at Taranto.

The SBDs would wreck the upperworks and strip off the escorts. There would have been other weapon systems around: TBMs, Barracudas, Swordfish, submarines, surface ships, ....

The entire point of enticing Tirpitz out would be into a trap. USS Ranger would be bait; the trap would be enough to overwhelm anything the Tirpitz and its consorts could bring to the fight.

michael rauls · Jun 22, 2019

GrauGeist said:
In Europe, the distances were far shorter than typically found in the PTO/CBI, so three sorties per day were not out of reason for either Allied or Axis pilots.

Ya, that makes sense. Just seems like an average of 3 per day for an extended period would make them very busy to say the least. That would mean a sortie every 4 hours or so. Truly remarkable.
My hat's off to the pilots and ground crews that managed to pull that off. The Indi 500 pit crews got nothing on them.

fliger747 · Jun 22, 2019

Yamato and Musashi were both sunk by the swarm of gnats. The Dive bombers were probably SB2C's, but the biggest damage might have been from the aerial torpedos, which apparently worked by then. The dive bombers and strafers probably made way for the Torpeckers by decimating the AA.

fliger747 · Jun 22, 2019

To answer my own question... Apparently Ark Royal's torpedoes against Bismarck were only set to run at 10 feet because of the high seas running. They were afraid of them running under the bow or stern if set at the normal 20'. So if they had been set at 20' would the torpedo have missed the stern hit?

GrauGeist · Jun 22, 2019

michael rauls said:
Ya, that makes sense. Just seems like an average of 3 per day for an extended period would make them very busy to say the least. That would mean a sortie every 4 hours or so. Truly remarkable.
My hat's off to the pilots and ground crews that managed to pull that off. The Indi 500 pit crews got nothing on them.

During Operation Torch, the Ranger launched nearly 500 sorties in a three day period and if memory serves right, she laid about 10 miles off the African coast during most of the operations, so again, short distances provided for a much shorter mission cycle.

Why was the SBD such an effective aircraft?

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