Worst Naval Plane of WWII

[redcoat]

I thought the Blackburn Roc was briefly flown from carriers during the Norway campaign? Unlike the Seamew the Roc was not a dangerous aircraft,!

They did make a floatplane version of the Roc but it was so slow it kept going into a stall when put into a turn. It didn't enter service.

 

[Shortround6]

I thought the Blackburn Roc was briefly flown from carriers during the Norway campaign? Unlike the Seamew the Roc was not a dangerous aircraft, it was just a useless one. The Roc was basically just a Skua with a turret on it's back, and to think that somebody was actually paid to come up with that idea! as though the Skua wasn't bad enough without putting a turret on it!

Blackburn Roc aircraft profile. Aircraft Database of the Fleet Air Arm Archive 1939-1945

" The aircraft operated from shore bases only, alongside Skua squadrons, and its front line career ended in June 1940"

 

[pattle]

Blackburn Roc aircraft profile. Aircraft Database of the Fleet Air Arm Archive 1939-1945

" The aircraft operated from shore bases only, alongside Skua squadrons, and its front line career ended in June 1940"

Sorry Shortround6, I am rubbish at computers and I don't know how to do links but if you go to the page you linked and click Blackburn Roc in the further information column at the bottom of the page it mentions the Roc flying from Ark Royal and possibly Glorious during the Norwegian campaign, there was only a few of them though.

 

[Shortround6]

Good catch.

 

[RCAFson]

Sorry Shortround6, I am rubbish at computers and I don't know how to do links but if you go to the page you linked and click Blackburn Roc in the further information column at the bottom of the page it mentions the Roc flying from Ark Royal and possibly Glorious during the Norwegian campaign, there was only a few of them though.

I'm guessing this is the link you mentioned:

Blackburn Roc, description and overview of service use.

It does give an excellent summary of Roc performance and operations. It actually wasn't that bad of an aircraft, but was sensibly withdrawn from carrier service. Although with the long range tank, it would have been a useful recon and patrol aircraft, and it actually had some limited value as a dive bomber.

and here's an excellent essay on the outstanding Skua:

Blackburn Skua

 

[pattle]

Yes that's the link. I read an excellent book called "I sank the Bismarck" about a year ago, I can't remember the name of the author but he was the pilot of the Swordfish which was believed to have been the most likely to have put the torpedo into the Bismarck's steering gear. In the book he said he originally wanted to be a fighter pilot but was put off by the Royal Navy's fighters of the day the Skua and Roc and so he volunteered for the Swordfish. Fancy volunteering to fly an obsolete biplane against ships like the Bismarck! no offence to the Swordfish as it did what it did and proved it's worth. I wouldn't have believed it was possible to land on the heavily pitching decks of those carriers but they did it.

 

[stug3]

Hush-Kit bottom ten: The ten worst carrier aircraft

Interesting list, some examples-

10. Supermarine Seafire Mk XV
The first Griffon-engined Seafires did not like being on carriers. They had a tendency to veer to the right on take-off, smashing into the carrier's island superstructure.

5. Blackburn Firebrand
An evil, scandalous pilot-killer.

2. Blackburn Roc
A maximum speed (at sea level) of 194 mph was simply suicidal for a fighter facing the Luftwaffe's '109s. Add terrible agility, no forward-firing guns and you get the idea. Wisely, the military decided the best use for it was as a static machine-gun post!

 

[parsifal]

Dont believe everything you read on the Seafire. Most of it is post war US propaganda. In 1943, when first introduced, the Seafire IIs had a poor operational record for safety. By 1945, at the time of the Seafire III and XV the Seafire had the best deck safety record of any type in the allied navies. This was not due so much to the outstanding nature of the type, more to do with the pilot training and deck handling procedures that had been developed to cope with the type in the intervening two years. US deck handling procedures were sloppy and dangerous by comparison, something that continued after the war. Not that you would know, reading US propaganda of the time.


Edit

This is a link to a site that discusses the Seafire in some detail. its not an entirely stelar performance, but neither should the Seafire be classified as one of the "worst" aircraft in Naval History.

http://www.sepsy.de/raf-spirtfire-mk-III Seafire.htm

 

[nuuumannn]

Interesting assessment, but that list is highly subjective and I could find fault with a lot of the points raised there. In particular, the Griffon Spitfires might not have had the best deck manners, but as fighter interceptors they had few piston engined equals at sea. The Seafire was always regarded as an excellent performing, if not short ranged interceptor, this was by the Americans as well as the British and yes, its deck handing was decidedly hazardous at times, but good piloting skills and practise, not to forget its excellent performance overcame many weaknesses suffered by the type.

The Harrier a poor carrier aircraft? Far from it. The Royal Navy did not have anywhere near the record of crashes with its Sea Harriers as the Marines did with its AV-8s. The Harrier has enabled an unrivalled flexibility for smaller navies that do not have the budget for large carriers. Many still operate the type in service at sea, including the Marines, Indian Navy, the Spanish Navy, The Italian Navy and the Thai Navy and their loss rates are far lower than those suffered by the Marines to begin with.

The Yak-38 is another contentious one; although not the best berforming aircraft, again, it offered a previously unavailable (albeit limited) strike capability to the Soviet Navy; it also was fitted with one of the most effective autoland systems and nav-attack systems for a single-seat carrier aircraft of its age. Yak-38s regularly demonstrated operations from carriers in weather conditions that grounded conventional carrier aircraft that was witnessed by British and American over flights.

here are other suggestions that need'nt be in that list, including the Scimitar...

 

[Marcel]

Im going to have to nominate the Zero. Of course it was a great dogfighter as far as being extremely maneuverable and adequately armed. It also had great range. But the lack of armor and self sealing fuel tanks (though contributing to its light weight), were fatal flaws, as was the failure to develop more powerful engines to "keep up with the Joneses".

I see many people bash the zero for that. But i don't understand. It beat evrything in it's way, the first few months. So it did everything expected an more. That it should have been replaced later is not the fault of the aircraft.

 

[nuuumannn]

I'm with you, Marcel; the Zero was for its time the best carrier based fighter in the world. I don't believe the structre and lack of self sealing tanks were fatal flaws, flaws yes, but a part of the ethos of the design, very much intentional and the best Japanese pilots were more than able to use the aircraft's advantages and minimise its weaknesses. The Zero should not be on this list. We all would be surprised if we found out just how few aircraft had self sealing tanks in 1940.

 

[parsifal]

USN supporters are very fond of proclaiming a 19:1 kill ratio for the Hellcat over the IJN, and often parade that as a 19:1 kill ratio over the zero. In fact, the hellcats victory ratio in the air over the zero was closer to 4:1. Thats still impressive, but not the whitewash often paraded as "the real story".

 

[Marcel]

The hellcat appeared when the pre-war trained pilots became replaced with not so well trained pilots. I think one could say the Zero was a good fighter in capable hands but not very good su ted for the novice pilot. A good pilot could use all it's strong points, especially the agility. An inexperienced pilot iscnot able to do that and suffers from lack of armour.

 

[stug3]

I think the weak points of the A6M is an important factor in the attrition of experienced Navy pilots, especially if as you say this was already an effect by late 1943 when the Hellcat showed up. Im not saying the Zero was an inherently bad design, Im saying the IJN failure to update it with evolving technology led to disastrous results for its own operations.

 

[buffnut453]

A key aspect in the USN's success over the IJNAF was not the aircraft employed but the use of tactical SIGINT. I recommend a read of Layton's "And I Was There" for interesting insights into how intercepting the radio comms of the IJN "master controller aircraft" allowed the USN to position its fighter aircraft in exactly the right position to inflict maximum casualties on the enemy.

 

[swampyankee]

All of these "worst" and "best" lists are, by their nature, very subjective. I tend to view "bad" as a synonym for "failed at their specified role due to design issues," as opposed to "failed because their specifications sucked." I think the Roc was quite firmly in the latter category, a group in which it is not alone. Some select aircraft fall into both (in my view, the exemplar is the Bell YFM-1).

A third category could be "failed because they were kept in service too long," which may be a bin into which one can throw aircraft like the Zero, I-15, CR.32, and Gladiator.

 

[parsifal]

For th4 zero debate, you have to remove all the extrqaneous issues and then make your comparisons. The Japanese were defeated by an enemy with vastly superior numbers, industrial backing and aircrew. They also adopted policies that worked against their own interests and unrealistically assessed their own strength and capability. That is not to deny that the zero by 1943 was the wrong formula for the Japanese. They needed an aircraft no longer with great range, they needed firepower and inbuilt defernces, to take the punishment and keep fighting.

Zeroes in the hands of a good pilot were dangerous until the very end. that in my book imediately eliminates them from the "worst" category. But were they ideal? Far from it. The two issues..."worst" and "not ideal" are two entirely different fish however. Same argument applies to the Seafire, was it ideal...not a chance, was it the worst, nope, it was actually a better than average competitor.

 

[nuuumannn]

Im saying the IJN failure to update it with evolving technology led to disastrous results for its own operations.

Yes, but that was not a failure of the aeroplane. I would even disagree with swampyankee's assertion that the Zero failed because it was kept in service for too long; the Zero was, right until the very end a competent warplane and in the hands of a good pilot could still hold its own - although there were fewer of these as the war went on for the Japanese. It's just that there were far better aircraft being fielded by the Allies. The failure was with the IJN for not recognising that the Zero's design was obsolescent and that with technological advances abroad, something should have been done to rectify the situation sooner.

A third category could be "failed because they were kept in service too long," which may be a bin into which one can throw aircraft like the Zero, I-15, CR.32, and Gladiator.

These aircraft mentioned did not fail because they were kept in service for too long, they were overtaken by technology; this is not a failure of the aeroplane, but a failure of the operator.

 

[swampyankee]

Yes, but that was not a failure of the aeroplane. I would even disagree with swampyankee's assertion that the Zero failed because it was kept in service for too long; the Zero was, right until the very end a competent warplane and in the hands of a good pilot could still hold its own - although there were fewer of these as the war went on for the Japanese. It's just that there were far better aircraft being fielded by the Allies. The failure was with the IJN for not recognising that the Zero's design was obsolescent and that with technological advances abroad, something should have been done to rectify the situation sooner.



These aircraft mentioned did not fail because they were kept in service for too long, they were overtaken by technology; this is not a failure of the aeroplane, but a failure of the operator.

I'm not sure whether you're trying to disagree with me or not, but one can say that "failure of the operator" applies to all the failures, as the operators write the bad specs, accept the bad designs, or keep aircraft in service too long.

 

[nuuumannn]

A bit of both. What I mean't regarding operators was the armed forces that operated the aircraft in your last list, not the manufacturers; when those aircraft you listed first entered service, that is the Zero, I-15 (do you mean I-16, the monoplane; I-15 was a biplane?), CR-32 (do you mean CR-42?), and Gladiator, they were good aircraft, but swiftly became obsolescent as a result of technological progress. That's not a design fault of any of them.