Why was the SBD such an effective aircraft?

The PB4Y-2 was perhaps unique among bombers in that in the course of their patrols it was normal to chase down and attack enemy aircraft as long as they were not fighters. They did pretty well against fighters, as my friend's Privateer showed when it and an a wingman were attacked by 12 George II fighters, shot down two of them and still made it home with one feathered engine, a blown up radio, and some wounded.

It was pretty typical for Privateers intercepted by Japanese fighters to see one or two firing passes, after which the Japanese pilots often seemed to recall pressing business elsewhere and depart.

On another occasion a Privateer from another unit was patroling near Iwo Jima and was shot down by a horde of Zeros. The unit then sent out three Privateers to that area and when the Zeros came out shot down one after another, until the Zeros gave up and went back to Iwo. And they were never bothered in that area again.

Stig1207 said:

Carrier based SBD's had a claims to losses ratio of 2.5 to 1 and land-based SBD's a ratio of 0.9 to 1. The combined ratio is 1.3 to 1; and that is still the claims not verified enemy losses.

USN stats also show 306 victories for 28 lost to enemy aircraft for an exchange ratio of 10.9 to 1 for the PB4Y, beating the SBD by a stretch 'in the most enemy aircraft shot down by a bomber 'department.

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Verry cool info on the Pb4y, a plane which i had only seen mention of a couple times in my life. I've read several articles( at least 3 ) claiming the SBD was the only bomber type of the war to hold that honor.
The SBD having a positive exchange rate is still remarkable however and I think that it turns out another bomber type had an even better record doesn't diminish its achievement in any way. Yes I know a good chunk may have to be lopped off for overclaiming but that goes for all planes and I'm still not seeing a reason to discount the claims of SBD pilots more than others. There may be one, I'm just not seeing it if there is.
Also, I'm no expert but a few thoughts that occur to me about verifying claims with Japanese( or German) loss records. Certainly it's going to be more accurate than raw claims but it seems intuitive to me that it would swing to far, if just a bit( or possibly more than a bit) in the other direction. For example, what about Japanese aircraft that made it back but were so badly damaged they had to be written off later. Some of these might not be listed as a loss initially but upon digging into them further might be. No way to know what percentage of damaged aircraft this represents but surly it is a percentage albiet probably a small one. Then also the completeness of Japanese records available now. Yes I know this is something that it used by those wishing to inflate US kill ratios but just because some abuse this issue doesn't mean that there isn't some truth to it in some cases. Thirdly, even in cases where it would appear that we are compairing to all Japanese loss records there may have been planes in a particular area that we would never know about in the first place if the records do not exist today. If one of those planes were shot down we would go to the known Japanese units in the area, look at there loss records, and come to the conclusion that the loss did not indeed happen.
These are just a few issues that would seem to make the verification of claims with Axis loss records, although certainly more accurate than raw claims, swing at least a bit to far in the other direction.
These are just a few that occur to me off the top of my head. I'm sure there are probably a few other such factors as well. Each of these issues may be marginal when looked at individually but together, along with probably a few others I'm not thinking of, certainly make at least somewhat of an underestimation of claims when verifying with Axis records.

Stig1207 said:

Point is that that the bomber air gunners' claims are readily and universally accepted as over claiming. While over claiming by fighters and other aircraft may not have been as optimistic as the air gunners; it still is a factor, yet it seems to be happily ignored by many aviation enthusiasts when extolling the virtues of there favorite aircraft.

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Agreed 100%. That is why I keep referencing looking at the claims in a relative or comparative manner and pointing out that reductions for overclaiming must be done for all aircraft, not just the SBD.
The point being if you lop off say 50% of the SBDs claims you stilm have a pretty impressive record considering the type of plane it was and what it was doing most of the time and of course in the absence of a good reason to discount the claims of SBD pilots more than others would have to lop off 50% of the claims of all other types as well for comparison.

All I know is I'll take the word of the gunner in combat over any historian or juvenile whose only acquaintanceship with same is what he imagines he can infer from circumstances or from being proficient at playing video games...

Interesting discussion on the PB4Y. The old WWII four engine bomber are now retired from fire fighting, but not so many Summers ago I would have a PB4Y fly right over my house sometimes several times a day, heading North. Still get DC6's droning Northward on occasion. To pilots the racket is a music.

As for overclaiming, it could go both ways.

One Marine F4F pilot was defending Guadalcanal one day when he looked down to see three Zeros shooting up a PBY. An Admiral had come to visit in the PBY and the Marines had asked to borrow it. They borrowed it to go attack IJN shipping and the Zeros took offense at that.

Desperate to get the Zeros off the "P-boat", the Wildcat pilot dove down, just spraying them with .50 cal to scare them off. All three Zeros broke off, so his mission was accomplished and he claimed no kills. But after the war he found out he had shot down all three of those Zeros. One took a hit in the fuel tank and it ran out of gas on the way home. One took a hit in an oil line and ran out of oil on the way home. One took a hit in the engine and it quit on the way home. It only took a single .50 cal round in each of those Zeros to down them, and the Wildcat pilot was not even trying.

Of course the Zeros had a long trip home that time, too.

By the way, most of the fire fighting P4Y-2's had the R-1830's replaced with R-2600's out of B-25's.

michael rauls said:

Agreed 100%. That is why I keep referencing looking at the claims in a relative or comparative manner and pointing out that reductions for overclaiming must be done for all aircraft, not just the SBD.
The point being if you lop off say 50% of the SBDs claims you stilm have a pretty impressive record considering the type of plane it was and what it was doing most of the time and of course in the absence of a good reason to discount the claims of SBD pilots more than others would have to lop off 50% of the claims of all other types as well for comparison.

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We're loping off over 90% of the kill claims for IJN fighters and ~50% of other claims but since the SBD's claimed 60 fighters and 28 others that leads to about a 75% reduction in overall claims. It is obvious that SBDs were overclaiming fighters to a very large degree.

MIflyer said:

As for overclaiming, it could go both ways.

One Marine F4F pilot was defending Guadalcanal one day when he looked down to see three Zeros shooting up a PBY. An Admiral had come to visit in the PBY and the Marines had asked to borrow it. They borrowed it to go attack IJN shipping and the Zeros took offense at that.

Desperate to get the Zeros off the "P-boat", the Wildcat pilot dove down, just spraying them with .50 cal to scare them off. All three Zeros broke off, so his mission was accomplished and he claimed no kills. But after the war he found out he had shot down all three of those Zeros. One took a hit in the fuel tank and it ran out of gas on the way home. One took a hit in an oil line and ran out of oil on the way home. One took a hit in the engine and it quit on the way home. It only took a single .50 cal round in each of those Zeros to down them, and the Wildcat pilot was not even trying.

Of course the Zeros had a long trip home that time, too.

By the way, most of the fire fighting P4Y-2's had the R-1830's replaced with R-2600's out of B-25's.

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The only way the above info about IJN losses could be known would be via a careful examination of their combat records and recorded losses. This is what Lundstrom did in his two volume First Team books.

RCAFson said:

We're loping off over 90% of the kill claims for IJN fighters and ~50% of other claims but since the SBD's claimed 60 fighters and 28 others that leads to about a 75% reduction in overall claims. It is obvious that SBDs were overclaiming fighters to a very large degree.

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Maybe your lopping off 75% of claims and that's your prerogative to do so for yourself if you wish but I'm not. Please see above post on why all lagitamit claims will not nescesarily show up in the available loss records of oposing forces.
Taking these factors into account and although we can disagree on the percentage affect these will have surely you cannot deny some influence on the varifyability of claims numbers using Axis records.
Taking these factors into account I'm guessing a 40 or 50% lopping is more realistic but who knows for sure.
And that's still a hell if a record by the way. That would mean the the SBDs shot down about 7 for each 10 of there own lost. Considering it's a pre war dive bomber design that spent half the time toting a 500 or thousand pound bomb and setting up for the attack.
And another point, if we really want to pin down the efficacy of the SBD in an air to air context we would have to look at only the contacts with enemy planes made without a heavy bomb in tow. What do the numbers look like then. Not sure exactly but I am sure it improves quite a bit

RCAFson said:

The only way the above info about IJN losses could be known would be via a careful examination of their combat records and record losses. This is what Lundstrom did in his two volume First Team books.

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Given that no SBDs were lost to enemy air action during the first 7 months of US involvement in WW2, and the known defensive shortfalls of the IJN during the Battle of Midway, I'm intrigued to know whether later operating environments were more challenging from an adversary defensive perspective?

Please note this isn't an attempt to undermine the SBD's performance...I really just want to understand how often the SBD went up against serious air defence opposition? Some of the key shortfalls of Japanese air defence, relative to other combatants, were lack of radar to detect incoming raids and poor C2 of CAP forces. I'd be intrigued to understand how the SBD might have faired against an adversary that had these types of air defence capabilities.

And another thought, surely at least a few of those SBDs or any plane for that matter that were written off at lost to enemy aircraft where in fact lost to mechanical trouble, AA, etc. This will affect kill/ loss ratios also.
My point being that it's not as cut and dried as looking at what we lost, looking at what is absolutely 100% verifiable by available axis records, doing a little math, and voila you have the absolute for sure numbers.

buffnut453 said:

Given that no SBDs were lost to enemy air action during the first 7 months of US involvement in WW2, and the known defensive shortfalls of the IJN during the Battle of Midway, I'm intrigued to know whether later operating environments were more challenging from an adversary defensive perspective?

Please note this isn't an attempt to undermine the SBD's performance...I really just want to understand how often the SBD went up against serious air defence opposition? Some of the key shortfalls of Japanese air defence, relative to other combatants, were lack of radar to detect incoming raids and poor C2 of CAP forces. I'd be intrigued to understand how the SBD might have faired against an adversary that had these types of air defence capabilities.

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In terms of absolute numbers lost I think it's safe to say the SBD, or any plane would not fair as well against better deffenses but as far as a kill/ loss ratio there is no reason having more or fewer contacts with the enemy should change that. The strengths and weeknesses or the planes and the realative skill of the pilots of the oposing sides remains the same. I.e. the absolute numbers would surely go up but the ratios should remain realatively stable.

michael rauls said:

In terms of absolute numbers lost I think it's safe to say the SBD, or any plane would not fair as well against better deffenses but as far as a kill/ loss ratio there is no reason having more or fewer contacts with the enemy should change that. The strengths and weeknesses or the planes and the realative skill of the pilots of the oposing sides remains the same. I.e. the absolute numbers would surely go up but the ratios should remain realatively stable.

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I wasn't looking at the issue solely from the perspective of kill/loss ratios. I was asking with regard to all functions the SBD performed. Midway provides one example where the SBD was, in some respects, lucky to avoid the Japanese fighters, which got me wondering whether Japanese air defence shortfalls during other combats presented the SBD with similar tactical advantages?

buffnut453 said:

I wasn't looking at the issue solely from the perspective of kill/loss ratios. I was asking with regard to all functions the SBD performed. Midway provides one example where the SBD was, in some respects, lucky to avoid the Japanese fighters, which got me wondering whether Japanese air defence shortfalls during other combats presented the SBD with similar tactical advantages?

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From what I've read I think you premonition is correct as far as absolute numbers lost. The SBDs for some reason seemed to have good luck showing up without opposition on at least several occasions.

buffnut453 said:

Given that no SBDs were lost to enemy air action during the first 7 months of US involvement in WW2, and the known defensive shortfalls of the IJN during the Battle of Midway, I'm intrigued to know whether later operating environments were more challenging from an adversary defensive perspective?

Please note this isn't an attempt to undermine the SBD's performance...I really just want to understand how often the SBD went up against serious air defence opposition? Some of the key shortfalls of Japanese air defence, relative to other combatants, were lack of radar to detect incoming raids and poor C2 of CAP forces. I'd be intrigued to understand how the SBD might have faired against an adversary that had these types of air defence capabilities.

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The SBDs suffered losses from Zeros at Coral Sea and and at Midway.

VBF-13 said:

All I know is I'll take the word of the gunner in combat over any historian or juvenile whose only acquaintanceship with same is what he imagines he can infer from circumstances or from being proficient at playing video games...

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Within a few hours, yes. After that, well, memory is malleable. This is one of the reasons eyewitness testimony is far from the "gold standard" in evidence that it's often been purported to be.

buffnut453 said:

Given that no SBDs were lost to enemy air action during the first 7 months of US involvement in WW2, and the known defensive shortfalls of the IJN during the Battle of Midway, I'm intrigued to know whether later operating environments were more challenging from an adversary defensive perspective?

Please note this isn't an attempt to undermine the SBD's performance...I really just want to understand how often the SBD went up against serious air defence opposition? Some of the key shortfalls of Japanese air defence, relative to other combatants, were lack of radar to detect incoming raids and poor C2 of CAP forces. I'd be intrigued to understand how the SBD might have faired against an adversary that had these types of air defence capabilities.

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Well there was at least one SBD lost to enemy air action at Pearl Harbor. Was something I'd never heard of or read about before reading Mr Tillmans book and my memory on the details are a bit fuzzy but the gyst of it is that some SBDs were headed into Pearl Harbor when the attack occurred and one of them attacked a Zero only to end up colliding with it. I think both planes went down.
So I guess you could say an SBD scored the first American victory of the war...........sort of.

"The only way the above info about IJN losses could be known would be via a careful examination of their combat records and recorded losses. This is what Lundstrom did in his two volume First Team books."

Yep, well, the F4F pilot that described what occurred in the book Top Guns, edited by Joe Foss, did not claim those three Zeros as kills at the time. He must have been told by a researcher after the war.

An observation I read many years ago was that fighter pilot kills were always revised upward when more data came in after the war. No one ever seems to take kills away and tell people they are no longer aces.

But given the relative fragility of Japanese aircraft I think it entirely possible that aircraft claimed as damaged or not even claimed at all were in fact kills.

I read of an incident where a radar picket destroyer was yelling for help off of Okinawa. They got ahold of two Hellcats that were out of ammo and returning to their carrier. The Hellcats said they were out of ammo and could not help but the ship begged, saying there were a couple of Vals iinbound, the ship was badly damaged and could not take any more hits. By charging their guns the Hellcats could fire ONE round from each .50 cal. And with the target a Val and using .50 cal API ammo that turned out to be enough; they flamed the Vals.

16 USMC SBD-2's launched from Midway and attacked the IJN fleet. They were intercepted by Zeros and eight SBD's were shot down. The remainder that made it back were badly shot up.

The Enterprise lost 14 SBD's at Midway, including some that had to ditch due to running out of gas.

They built 5,936 Dauntless dive bombers, Not all went overseas and/or saw combat.

Some sources say the Dauntless scored 138 air to air victories, some give a bit different numbers.

Aside from bragging rights the number of air to air victories is too small to make any statistically valid conclusions from.

I seriously doubt any SBDs fought their way through a Japanese CAP while loaded with bombs. That is to say maneuvering and using the front guns. Perhaps they stayed in groups and used the rear guns to try to hold off attackers.