Worst Piston engined Bomber of World War Two

FLYBOYJ said:

The B-18 was used as an AWS plaform and it served well sinking several submarines. Operationally there was nothing wrong with the aircraft, by WW2 it was just obsolete.

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True. I suppose it was as reasonable an aircraft as the He 111 or wellington. It could have had some of the upgrades those two got along the way. It would have been relatively easy to convert it to self-sealing tanks, combat armor, more powerful engines, and better armament. I can see a B-18 armed with a Martin dorsal turret, B-26-like low waist gun positions, and a swivel-mounted .50 caliber mount in the nose. Then again, the B-23 was a development of the B-18 that took some of these thoughts into consideration, and they didn't think it was good enough for combat either, even though it had a tail position. The B-23 might have made a decent back-water bomber, given a Martin DT, twin tail guns, and flexible .50's in the waist and nose. My book gives it a moderate range of 1455 miles, but seems like there are always ways to improve range. I guess the B-25 and B-26 were able to do all the same things and more in a smaller package, probably cheaper, surely less aluminum. Curiously, its performance, weight, and bombload specs were similar or superior to the late-war B-25J. Of course the B-25J had much heavier armament and five years worth of improved systems. Available in 1940, the B-23 could have been a worthwhile bomber for any air force, especially with a few easy improvements, such as heavier armament.

But alas, poor Douglas could not make what the Army considered to be a good multi-engined bomber for use during the war. Its B-18, B-19, and B-23 just didn't cut the mustard. Of course the A-20 and A-26 count, and were excellent planes in their own right. I guess the 85-100' wingspan twin was an awkward size and considered unnecessary when smaller and larger aircraft were available. And they decided the giant B-19 wasn't workable.

So-- yes, I still guess I go with the Greif as the worst.

renrich said:

RCAF, If you don't believe the TBD, much less the TBF did not use the dive in to torpedo altitude, please read Lundstrom. They may not have dived at 75 degrees but a TBF in a shallow dive would be going faster than a Sword fish with a torpedo on board. As Michael has pointed out the TBF by wars end was not being used as a torpedo plane but rather a bomber and they often were glide bombing at rather steep angles. I have personally seen on the Naval Aerial Bombarment Range on Padre Island in 1953 TBFs (TBMs) diving at rather steep angles. By the way, the Avenger was the first FAA aircraft to attack the Japanese mainland in 1945.

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There's a big difference between a relatively shallow dive, and a near vertical dive as used in dive bombing. The former is easily followed by fighters and flak (predicted fire) gunners, while the latter is next to impossible for both fighters and flak to follow. It isn't that the Swordfish or Albacore would be moving faster than a TBF, but that they would be following a course that made it much more difficult to intercept or shoot down via flak. The other problem for both the TBD and TBF, was that in the early war years they could not drop at high speed, and so they would have to level off some ways from the target, even from a shallow dive, to bleed speed prior to the drop.

Oreo said:

But alas, poor Douglas could not make what the Army considered to be a good multi-engined bomber for use during the war. Its B-18, B-19, and B-23 just didn't cut the mustard.

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Actually they gave the army exactly what they asked for at the time. By the time the war started these aircraft were obsolete, based on a procurement specification that was obsolete

The B-18 was a somewhat commercial success for Douglas when it was produced. The B-23 was lost work, and the B-19 was a LOT of lost work.

Oreo said:

The B-18 was a somewhat commercial success for Douglas when it was produced. The B-23 was lost work, and the B-19 was a LOT of lost work.

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Not really. The B-19 was turned into a test bed and basis for a lot of systems used on later aircraft, Douglas wanted to cancel the program but the army had them press on. The aircraft was used as a cargo plane before it was scrapped.

The B-23 was another plane that did what it was supposed to do, it was just obsolete when it entered service. It was produced in small numbers and used as a trainer. Considering the era these aircraft were conceived they were, in retrospect hardly a waste of time,

When a company goes to the trouble to develop a plane, it is with the intention of selling MANY of them. Otherwise, it isn't worth their time. I didn't mean that nothing good came of their work, but the small handful of B-23's was precious small financial compensation for the trouble they went to to redesign it from the B-18, and the B-19 was only a single aircraft. Maybe the Army compensated Douglas plenty for their work on the B-19, but it was Boeing and Convair that reaped the benefit of the experience gained with the B-19. I must admit, it would have been fun to see what could have been done with a few more B-19's if the development had worked out on a hastier schedule. As slow as they were, though, I have a feeling the results would be predictable, once the opposing fighters learned not to start shooting from 5 miles away....

Oreo said:

When a company goes to the trouble to develop a plane, it is with the intention of selling MANY of them.

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Not necessarily true. In the case of government contracts, the contractor, in this case Douglas either bids or is asked to bid on a contract based on a procurement specification. Most WW2 aircraft were the result of a contract solicitation, not a contractor just building and aircraft because they "think" they'll sell a lot of them...

A manufacturer many want to secure a certain production number to ensure their development and production costs are absorbed, but in the case of a government contract, that cost would be absorbed in each unit based on what the government orders.

Oreo said:

I didn't mean that nothing good came of their work, but the small handful of B-23's was precious small financial compensation for the trouble they went to to redesign it from the B-18, and the B-19 was only a single aircraft.

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Do you have evidence of that?

Oreo said:

Maybe the Army compensated Douglas plenty for their work on the B-19, but it was Boeing and Convair that reaped the benefit of the experience gained with the B-19.

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Again do you have proof of that? I see nothing anywhere to show that Boeing or Convair benefited from the B-19 and was given either proprietary or government owned technology.

FLYBOYJ said:

I guess your opinion?

The TBD was limited to a torpedo run of 110 mph because of the crappy torpedo being used at the time. I'd like to see documented evidence that the Swordfish used a diving attack during Taranto or the Bismark raid. The aircraft had a top speed of 140 mph. With a torpedo, I doubt you'll see more than 100 mph.

Bottom line - the Stringbag helped take out the Bismark and wrecked the Italian fleet and she did it at speeds were we have driven our cars almost as fast.

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Commander Charles Lamb, in his book To War in a Stringbag, has an excellent description of the type of attacks used in the Taranto raid, and he should know - he flew in it. He says that eleven of the 20 Swordfish were armed with torpedos, and that the remainder each had six 250-lb bombs (except for his aircraft, which was the flare-dropper). The two attacked differently; the torpedo-carrying Swordfish came in at low level, "flying into the harbour only a few feet above sea level", and the bomb-carrying Swordfish were used as dive-bombers, using what he describes as "vertical dives." But he's quite clear that all of the torpedo-carrying aircraft came in at very low level; indeed he says that the Swordfish of Torrence-Smith "bounced off the water as he came through the harbour entrance."

baclightning said:

Commander Charles Lamb, in his book To War in a Stringbag, has an excellent description of the type of attacks used in the Taranto raid, and he should know - he flew in it. He says that eleven of the 20 Swordfish were armed with torpedos, and that the remainder each had six 250-lb bombs (except for his aircraft, which was the flare-dropper). The two attacked differently; the torpedo-carrying Swordfish came in at low level, "flying into the harbour only a few feet above sea level", and the bomb-carrying Swordfish were used as dive-bombers, using what he describes as "vertical dives." But he's quite clear that all of the torpedo-carrying aircraft came in at very low level; indeed he says that the Swordfish of Torrence-Smith "bounced off the water as he came through the harbour entrance."

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The Swordfish was able to be taken into a vertical dive and would get up to about 200 knots, this accordig to a quote from Terence Horsley in "Find, Fix and Strike." This doesn't necessarily men the Swordfish was a bonafide dive bomber but it doesn't mean the aircraft wasn't capable of dive bombing, the same holds true for the Avenger. Within the Avenger's flight manual there is a note to "avoid prolonged vertical dives" but some operators did perform dive bombing with the aircraft. Point being, even if the aircraft (Stringbag) was "dived" while carrying a torpedo it wasn't going to maintain that airspeed for long once it pulled out from the dive and also had engine limitations that slow the aircraft down (see the Pilot's Notes). Again as stated earlier, the Stringbag's normal torpedo run was done at about 90 knots, I doubt any faster.

RCAFson said:

they would be following a course that made it much more difficult to intercept or shoot down via flak.

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Only during the dive - one the aircraft pulled out airspeed bled off quickly and that's where slower aircraft that were able to perform dive bombing had a disadvantage and was also vulnerable to flak.

Folks - I think it's clear to say that the Stringbag WAS NOT one of the worse piston engine bombers of WW2

To begin with the SBD, one of the better dive bombers in WW2, did it's diving at around 75 degrees. That is a far cry from verticle. The Corsair could actually successfully dive more steeply. 80 degrees. I don't believe the Swordfish was ever dived on purpose vertically, 90 degrees. I expect that 75 degrees felt like 90 degrees. The TBMs I observed and there were many of them over a couple of days looked to be diving at around 45 degrees. Some pulled out pretty close to the ground and some quite a bit higher. We speculated that the high pullouts were married

A big negative for the TBD and even more negative for the Stringbag, IMO, was their slow cruise speed with a torpedo. The TBD cruised at about 110 MPH with a torp. The escort fighters either had to match that speed or do S turns. The S turns wasted a lot of fuel and if they matched the TBD speed they were at a severe disadvantage if jumped by enemy fighters. The F4F needed about 130 MPH in order to begin to maneuver well. Imagine a Martlet trying to escort Stringbags at 90-100 mph.

A big negative for the TBD and even more negative for the Stringbag, IMO, was their slow cruise speed with a torpedo. The TBD cruised at about 110 MPH with a torp. The escort fighters either had to match that speed or do S turns. The S turns wasted a lot of fuel and if they matched the TBD speed they were at a severe disadvantage if jumped by enemy fighters. The F4F needed about 130 MPH in order to begin to maneuver well. Imagine a Martlet trying to escort Stringbags at 90-100 mph.

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For the Swordfish, it was only a negative if operated in a hostile environment during daylight hours. it seldom was. It was as accurate by night as it was by day ue to the very thing you are not acknowledging....its slow speed. , as its service results clearly show. It had no need to operate in the daylight in enemy controlled skies. When operating at night they were seldom escorted, though the Fulmars had no trouble escorting them when the need did arise.

If the TBD had been able to operate effectively at night, and carry a torpedo that worked, we would be singing its prasies as much as the Swordfish. It had neither capability, and this gap in capability damned it to oblivion.

At the cruise speed for the Swordfish (which wasnt 100mph with a torpedoe, it was 80 mph, in calm conditions....in any sort of headwind it could be as low as 50mp) it had to rely on its ability to dive and relative manouverability through all axes to try and escape. About the worst thing an attacker could do was make a high speed pass at them. They needed to throttle back, line up the Swordfish and blow him out of the sky. Anything else hardly ever worked. And it took its opponents more than a little time to work that out

Actually, the TBD did good service in the early part of the war during the Marshall Islands raids, the raid on Lae, Salamaua (SP) and at Coral Sea where some of the torps worked. It gets it's bad rep because of Midway where it had no fighter help and it did no worse than many of the Attackers from Midway who had no fighter escort either. The TBD really only suffers when compared to Kate and TBF which were later designs. I am taking it off my worst list!

What are the esteemed members views of the Battle. I know it faired badly in France in 1940 yet if you look at its specs it does not seem to be such a bad single engined bomber, why the failure in France and does this put it amongst the worst bombers of the war?

FLYBOYJ said:

Not necessarily true. In the case of government contracts, the contractor, in this case Douglas either bids or is asked to bid on a contract based on a procurement specification. Most WW2 aircraft were the result of a contract solicitation, not a contractor just building and aircraft because they "think" they'll sell a lot of them...

A manufacturer many want to secure a certain production number to ensure their development and production costs are absorbed, but in the case of a government contract, that cost would be absorbed in each unit based on what the government orders.

Do you have evidence of that?
Again do you have proof of that? I see nothing anywhere to show that Boeing or Convair benefited from the B-19 and was given either proprietary or government owned technology.

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The evidence is self-evident. The benefit they got was seeing that the ultra-large aircraft idea was feasible to build-- as well what problems were encountered. It is a lot easier to build a machine when you can see that it has already been done. The Boeing and Convair engineers may never have been privy to the minutia of data employed and interpreted by Douglas, but from a general sense they could see what worked and what didn't. The B-29 and B-36 projects were no doubt far less fretful undertakings than they would have been if they were charting brand new territory. The B-19 proved several things were valid, including the tricycle undercarriage on a mega-plane, it showed that a large aircraft could be built stiff and strong enough to survive routine flight procedures, and it pointed out that any large aircraft, to be effective, needed to be properly powered, which it was not. These generalities point the way forward for all design teams that are aware of them.

As far as whether it was worth it or not, Any design team designing anything, is only worthwhile to a corporation if they produce designs that result in products that can be sold at a profit. A single item, like the B-19, can be profitable if they receive enough money for the single prototype. However, merely paying for the design team and making a profit off their time (and the team of assemblers, and the raw materials, and the factory space, etc) is normally not enough. To be truly profitable, companies built around factories must also be able to BUILD and SELL multiple production units, since the real money is usually in production, not in design. (I do realize it is possible for this to be the other way around, and in some countries, such as the Soviet Union, design bureaus and production centers were unrelated).

Now, thankfully for Douglas, they evidently had one of the most productive and capable design teams around, just based on the shear number of designs they came up with during the 1930's and 40's. A quick look shows no fewer than 6 highly successful high-production designs during that time-frame, as well as several lower-production aircraft as well, and numerous prototypes. Boeing, on the other hand, tended to concentrate on one design at a time and exhaustively develop each type into a highly-honed quality instrument. Either way, the production was able to bring in the needed funds for both companies, which continued to be successful for many years. And Douglas even grabbed some of Boeing's pie by building B-17's in their factory. It all turned out well in the end.

beitou said:

What are the esteemed members views of the Battle. I know it faired badly in France in 1940 yet if you look at its specs it does not seem to be such a bad single engined bomber, why the failure in France and does this put it amongst the worst bombers of the war?

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In terms of results, I would have to say it was one of the worst. But as we are showing, sometimes the circumstances an aircraft type is serving under have a far greater affect on the outcome than the aircraft itself. It is quite possible that, if the Battle had been employed more prudently, it may have done better. Night operations, for instance. As it was, the British and French forces at that time and place suffered from many circumstantial illnesses, not the least of which was poor organization and leadership. Being a liquid-cooled engine with no protection for the radiator, you can't expect the sort of resilience you might get out of a Dauntless or Swordfish with an air-cooled engine. The Stuka, a plane of similar characteristics, was also vulnerable to fighter attack. The Stuka continued on until very late in the war on the Russian front, however, and when it was prudently deployed it had an acceptable loss rate. The Battle might possibly have been improved, but evidently British officials decided to use other types they had available rather than further develop the Battle. It was quite large for a single-engine type, which made it more difficult to improve performance substantially by adding a more powerful engine. Perhaps if they had done something radical, like installing a Bristol Hercules, and fitting self-sealing fuel tanks and armor, they could have also increased its defensive (and offensive ) armament and come up with a premature weaker shadow of the future AD Skyraider. But would that have been worthwhile? Maybe not, when other types such as the Beaufighter, Mosquito, Whirlwind, Boston, Typhoon, and so on were in the works.

renrich said:

Actually, the TBD did good service in the early part of the war during the Marshall Islands raids, the raid on Lae, Salamaua (SP) and at Coral Sea where some of the torps worked. It gets it's bad rep because of Midway where it had no fighter help and it did no worse than many of the Attackers from Midway who had no fighter escort either. The TBD really only suffers when compared to Kate and TBF which were later designs. I am taking it off my worst list!

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The TBD suffers in comparison to any other torpedo bomber. It had neither the range or versatility of the Swordfish, while the Albacore was probably faster all round. TBDs in actual service were much slower than their pre-war specs as the memo I posted earlier states.

renrich said:

To begin with the SBD, one of the better dive bombers in WW2, did it's diving at around 75 degrees. That is a far cry from verticle. The Corsair could actually successfully dive more steeply. 80 degrees. I don't believe the Swordfish was ever dived on purpose vertically, 90 degrees. I expect that 75 degrees felt like 90 degrees. The TBMs I observed and there were many of them over a couple of days looked to be diving at around 45 degrees. Some pulled out pretty close to the ground and some quite a bit higher. We speculated that the high pullouts were married

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Take a look at:
http://www.history.navy.mil/nan/backissues/1940s/1948/feb48.pdf
page 7 (PDF page 9):
" ...As every naval avaiator knows the TBM was not designed as a dive bomber. It was designed as a torpedo and horizintal bomber. As a result the maximum permissable speeds and G forces are considerably less than those applicable to any other currently operated carrier aircraft..."

The article notes 48 fatal TBM accidents in 30 months, all apparently while doing practice bomb runs.

parsifal said:

If the TBD had been able to operate effectively at night, and carry a torpedo that worked, we would be singing its prasies as much as the Swordfish. It had neither capability, and this gap in capability damned it to oblivion.

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It was an operator's choice NOT to operate the TBD at night, again the Swordfish had no unique feature (except the huevos of the pilot) that enabled it to be operated at night. It had desirable features that made it easier to land and take off from a carrier but outside of that everything else is null

Oreo said:

And Douglas even grabbed some of Boeing's pie by building B-17's in their factory. It all turned out well in the end.

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Turn about was fair play. Boeing had built Douglas DB-7s for export in 1940 when the US wasn't keeping the Boeing factory full with B-17 orders and Douglas was building up it's own production capabilities.

Boeing had also built the XB-15 which had a bigger wing span and a LOT more wing area than the B-29. And the B314 Clipper flying boat. And was working on the XPBB Sea Ranger flying boat whose wing shows a few similarities to the B-29 wing.

Oreo said:

The evidence is self-evident. The benefit they got was seeing that the ultra-large aircraft idea was feasible to build-- as well what problems were encountered.

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That was known to Convair and Boeing before the B-19. Look into the Boeing B-15. Convair (Consolidated) was also building the largest aircraft of the day in the late 1930s

Oreo said:

It is a lot easier to build a machine when you can see that it has already been done. The Boeing and Convair engineers may never have been privy to the minutia of data employed and interpreted by Douglas, but from a general sense they could see what worked and what didn't. The B-29 and B-36 projects were no doubt far less fretful undertakings than they would have been if they were charting brand new territory. The B-19 proved several things were valid, including the tricycle undercarriage on a mega-plane, it showed that a large aircraft could be built stiff and strong enough to survive routine flight procedures, and it pointed out that any large aircraft, to be effective, needed to be properly powered, which it was not. These generalities point the way forward for all design teams that are aware of them.

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While all true this still does not really prove that either Boeing or Consolidated really benefited from the B-19 program. The real benefit from the program went to engineering and procurement folks at Wright Patterson AFB as it gave a prelude of what they would be in for during a wartime engineering and procurement capacity.

Oreo said:

As far as whether it was worth it or not, Any design team designing anything, is only worthwhile to a corporation if they produce designs that result in products that can be sold at a profit. A single item, like the B-19, can be profitable if they receive enough money for the single prototype. However, merely paying for the design team and making a profit off their time (and the team of assemblers, and the raw materials, and the factory space, etc) is normally not enough. To be truly profitable, companies built around factories must also be able to BUILD and SELL multiple production units, since the real money is usually in production, not in design. (I do realize it is possible for this to be the other way around, and in some countries, such as the Soviet Union, design bureaus and production centers were unrelated).

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Not really true, it depends upon what is being designed and how it is being deployed. Perfect example is Lockheed and the U-2/ TR-1 and SR-71 programs. There weren't a lot of units built but they were paid for the R&D that went into these aircraft - The same later for the F-117A and B-2 -some thing I know "a little about as I worked on both programs.

Oreo said:

Now, thankfully for Douglas, they evidently had one of the most productive and capable design teams around, just based on the shear number of designs they came up with during the 1930's and 40's. A quick look shows no fewer than 6 highly successful high-production designs during that time-frame, as well as several lower-production aircraft as well, and numerous prototypes. Boeing, on the other hand, tended to concentrate on one design at a time and exhaustively develop each type into a highly-honed quality instrument. Either way, the production was able to bring in the needed funds for both companies, which continued to be successful for many years. And Douglas even grabbed some of Boeing's pie by building B-17's in their factory. It all turned out well in the end.

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Hmmmm - you're basing that on??? The only reason why Boeing didn't have the many coals in the fire during WW2 is because what they had was huge, so huge that they had to "farm out" B-17 production to Douglas and Vega. Douglas didn't "grab" anything, the pie was given to them based on wartime need, and Vega was given the same opportunity.