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Even worse than the He 177?Hands down the Manchester
If you say so - you're original statement was the aircraft was "stressed for dive-bombing." There is no doubt that it did bomb vertically. There is NO evidence that at its design it was "stressed for dive-bombing" as it was a primary function. I showed you the original specifications the aircraft was designed to. It was an aircraft that could do dive bombing (no faster than 200 knots and probably no more G loading than 3 or 4gs) but there is no evidence the aircraft had any dive bombing stress factor built into it way back in 1933. The fact that it was capable of doing dive bombing "just came out that way." Compare it with other aircraft I listed that were dive bombers in performace (dive speeds, equipment, G loading) in the true sense of the word, well that's another story
I have to agree, Swordfish were not designed as divebombers.
Swordfish however did prove to be remarkably strong. as you say, there are numerous sources that attest to its ability to dive bomb. Moreover, such attacks are documented as being verital, or near vertical. Some have described these attacks as more "floating" down rather than a "power dive" because the rate of descent was that gentle. Ther was no problem in fitting roskets and metal blast shields to the undersides of the wings for the Mk II and later. Whilst its a bit dangerous to generalise an often used method of attack against submarines was to track the sub above the cloud cover, tracking the sub by radar, dive down through the cloud , drop flares, and launch a rapid rocket firing attack. These tactics (and others no doubt) delivers at least 22 kills for the swordfish with at least another 16 probables. Operating from 14 escort carriers, thats an impressive tally, and attests to the basic styrength of the aircraft.
One thing further worth noting, the Swordfish was not a small aircraft. I dont know how much difference that makes, but it certainly w as no breeze driven waif at the mercy of the wind and rain . Its operational record shows that. No other carrier borne strike aircraft operated on a regular basis north of the arctic circle. that in itself tells a lot about how it handled rough conditions. It had a high reputation for operating wll in difficult conditions
While an open cockpit can unsuredly be miserable, considering that is splittinghairs as the basis fore or against if nothings else, is following approved 'just' nationalism eh, it could be also be seen as a reason for it, if being the decideing factor yes?
OK, look, I'll tell you right out, I'm not persuaded the Devastators (or, for that matter, the Avengers) failed because they were ill-equipped for the task at hand. They failed because they went in there alone. Your Swordfishes wouldn't have fared any better had they gone in there alone. Those aircraft were the most vulnerable when they were about to deploy their weapons. They needed cover when flying into enemy firepower to occupy and distract that firepower from them, otherwise they were sitting ducks for it.I dont disagree that torpedo bombers were vulnerable whilst in their final approach, but the allies judged later in the war that divebombing was an even more hazardous undertaking.......the aircraft had to fly in at an ideal height to be shot at, peel off and fall straight out of the sky at a prefdetermined angle along a predictable path, with the pilot struggling against G forces and a (usually) unresponsive aircraft. Truth is, everybody found divebombing and torpedo bombing hazardous work. Midway was not an especially hostile environment.
The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. For a start, there were no fighters no CAP to contend with, and it was the CAP that destroyed the VTs at Midway. Even if the Japanese had tried to respond to an approaching VT, they would simply have blundered about in the dark, not able to vector or direct their CAP properly. There was no Japanese radar in 1942, much less Radar intergrated into their air defence arrangements. They had no RDF to direct their fighters, and no radar assisted gunnery, which significantly downgrades the effectiveness of their 25mm batteries which all relied on sight for targetting.
As for loss of accuracy, for properly trained crews, such penalty simply does not exist. ive just finished posting hits at taranto establishing that the hit ratio was about 80%. Over the Bismark it was about 35%, whilst at other times in night conditions it varied to a high of 125% down to zero. Accuracy is all over the place, but nowhere is there a consistent pattern that accuracy suffers if the attacks are made at nighht by properly trained crews. Only if your crews and equipments are not sufficiently trained does this become an issue. and thats the problem. But, if the USN had proper aircraft conversions, ASV fitted and crews and tactics worked out beforehand, I dont see any reason why they couldnt expect at least something back for theirt efforts in the TBDs. as its stands, as day bombers, they got nothing except a whole bunch of dead heroes. Even if you dont want to accept that potentially there is no penalty for night trained crews, how can it be argued that getting all your aircraft shot down for nothing is better than say 1 or 2 hits from a fully trained squadron. And neither was this failure an isolated incident. US VTs were spectacularly unsucessful throughout most of the war, mostly because of the crappy torpedo they were given,, but also because of the outmoded tactics that they insisted on clinging to. They had good equipment (eventually). and still they got virtually nothing back from them. Lucky for the USN they had an absolute winner in their divebomber, otherwise they would have been in a world of hurt.
You're probably correct but what made matters worse was our crappy torpedoes. Remember the discussion about VT-8 scoring 4 hits on Japanese carriers? If I remember correctly all 4 torpedoes actually ran below the carriers due to their detonators possibly being destroyed when they were dropped. Interesting scenarios; would be what would have happened if VT-8 had better torpedoes at Midway or if Swordfishes had US torpedoes at Taranto!!!OK, look, I'll tell you right out, I'm not persuaded the Devastators (or, for that matter, the Avengers) failed because they were ill-equipped for the task at hand. They failed because they went in there alone. Your Swordfishes wouldn't have fared any better had they gone in there alone. Those aircraft were the most vulnerable when they were about to deploy their weapons. They needed cover when flying into enemy firepower to occupy and distract that firepower from them, otherwise they were sitting ducks for it.
They dropped them before they were in position, that would be my guess. They had no choice, really. They were like ducks flying into a shooting gallery.You're probably correct but what made matters worse was our crappy torpedoes. Remember the discussion about VT-8 scoring 4 hits on Japanese carriers? If I remember correctly all 4 torpedoes actually ran below the carriers due to their detonators possibly being destroyed when they were dropped. Interesting scenarios; would be what would have happened if VT-8 had better torpedoes at Midway or if Swordfishes had US torpedoes at Taranto!!!
OK, look, I'll tell you right out, I'm not persuaded the Devastators (or, for that matter, the Avengers) failed because they were ill-equipped for the task at hand. They failed because they went in there alone. Your Swordfishes wouldn't have fared any better had they gone in there alone. Those aircraft were the most vulnerable when they were about to deploy their weapons. They needed cover when flying into enemy firepower to occupy and distract that firepower from them, otherwise they were sitting ducks for it.
On your last paragraph, you're in a little over my head. I'm not knocking your torpedo-bombers, as they do sound as though they were much better endowed than ours. To throw off the failure of an unescorted squadron of torpedo-bombers to get off a hit on a task force like that, however, on the theory the torpedos they were carrying were substandard, or on inferior tactics, or on an unsuitability for daylight operations, whatever, is, I find, truly fascinating, I'm sorry to have to tell you that.
You're probably correct but what made matters worse was our crappy torpedoes. Remember the discussion about VT-8 scoring 4 hits on Japanese carriers? If I remember correctly all 4 torpedoes actually ran below the carriers due to their detonators possibly being destroyed when they were dropped. Interesting scenarios; would be what would have happened if VT-8 had better torpedoes at Midway or if Swordfishes had US torpedoes at Taranto!!!
This is the detail of the actual attacks that I found in Kemps book . It differs from the online source, but ther is some doubt about the number of hits obtained.
Individual attacks
(Part I of II)
The first wave
parsifal said:Part II of II
The Second Strike
In primary instrument training in the AF, we were told, on losing attitude information to fly "needle, ball, and airspeed", using turn indicator. The needle told you if you were in a turn and how much of one, the ball told you if you were in a slip, and increasing airspeed told you that you were in a descent and decreasing airspeed told you that you were in a climb. We only studied this and did not practice it.Flying instruments for the most part is the same whether you're in a heavy bomber or in a SBD. For just staying level you're relying on airspeed indicator, vertical speed indicator and altimeter, add a compass in there and you have direction, add a directional gyro and that's even better. Understand that a trained pilot will recognize when they are about to enter instrument meteorological conditions (IMC) and begins what's called an "instrument scan" when they stop looking outside the cockpit and just affix their eyes on their instruments, ignoring their "inner ear" as you put it. While doing this they better be aware of what's around them (mainly mountains) and one would hope that no one is attempting aerobatics in IMC conditions, although during combat, a different story. A pilot should be trained to realize when they are disorientated and start using their instruments to get re-orinetated.
There's a lot more to this but I do know that during WW2 pilots received enough intrument training to hopefully keep them out of trouble. I do know later in the war there was expanded training. Bill (Drangondog) may have some input on this.
In primary instrument training in the AF, we were told, on losing attitude information to fly "needle, ball, and airspeed", using turn indicator. The needle told you if you were in a turn and how much of one, the ball told you if you were in a slip, and increasing airspeed told you that you were in a descent and decreasing airspeed told you that you were in a climb. We only studied this and did not practice it.
This has the best detail I have seen and is pretty consistent with the sources I listed with 10 torpedoes launched, most sources I read said 11, but one crashed before launch, and 5 hits. Of course torpedoes into the mud tend to sway the percentage of accuracy, however the problem also existed with the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. All in all, it appears to me that the two attacks were similarly successful. It is just too bad that US Naval command did not study this attack as the Japanese Naval command did.
At NAS Norfolk the Air Force administered the Night Vision Training (Evelyn Trainer) Program for the Naval Aviators in the Atlantic Fleet. At least, in late 1944, that's how it was. I mention that only because when I searched it on Google I was surprised to find more women named "Evelyn Trainer" than any historical data on it.In primary instrument training in the AF, we were told, on losing attitude information to fly "needle, ball, and airspeed", using turn indicator. The needle told you if you were in a turn and how much of one, the ball told you if you were in a slip, and increasing airspeed told you that you were in a descent and decreasing airspeed told you that you were in a climb. We only studied this and did not practice it.