Secret Weapons of the Allies

[Old Bunyip]

They had no fuel,

 

I wonder then, what were they planning to power the (I believe but could be mistaken on numbers) thousands of aircraft they had horded for use against the expected Allied invasion of the home islands with?

 

I think you'll find they had fuel, indeed I understand they had an interesting cottage industry producing fuel from pine roots in some ersatz form or other. What they lacked was sufficient fuel for sustained operations, including extensive training. It also tended to be of relatively low octane rating, which limited aircraft performance to a large degree.

[Old Bunyip]

Well the RN took delivery of the Sea Fury in about mid 1945, so if the war had dragged into 1946, they might well have had a carrier fighter to rival some of the US Navy's. Considering at least one Sea Fury bagged a mig 15 over korea (a far better warplane than the warmed over ME262 the Japs were considering) Id rate their chances as pretty good of evening any technical gap. More to the point, I seem to recall that there was an experiment at flying a DH vampire onto a carrier, but Im damned if i can recall whether it was 1946 or 47.

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I think you'll find that the Seafire was considered by those who flew it and had the chance to compare it to the US Navy's fighters, superior to them. Eric "Winkle" Brown considered it the best naval fighter of WWII. Superior to both the Corsair and the Hellcat.

 

By 1946, the RN would have had Sea Mosquitos and Sea Hornets in service. The Sea Fury wasn't developed until 1947, I believe.

 

It would have been interesting to see "Tiger Force" in action - Lancasters, Lincolns, Tempest Mk.IIs and so on. Plans included air-to-air refueling of the heavy bombers.

[Ox]

I think you'll find that the Seafire was considered by those who flew it and had the chance to compare it to the US Navy's fighters, superior to them. Eric "Winkle" Brown considered it the best naval fighter of WWII. Superior to both the Corsair and the Hellcat.

 

By 1946, the RN would have had Sea Mosquitos and Sea Hornets in service.  The Sea Fury wasn't developed until 1947, I believe. 

 

It would have been interesting to see "Tiger Force" in action - Lancasters, Lincolns, Tempest Mk.IIs and so on. Plans included air-to-air refueling of the heavy bombers.

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The problem I have with the seafire being called a good naval fighter and better than both the Corsair and Hellcat is rthat while it may have outflown them in the air what about reliability and shipboard handling. Witht that big liquid cooled engine getting banged around on landing and being susceptible to damage in the air, would that not have affected the Seafire's usefullness. How did the Seafire compare range wise tot the US air cooled radial fighters. I am a big fan of anything Spit related but have always believed that the US radial fighters were better naval aircraft. What areas did Winkle Browm say were superior?

[Old Bunyip]

The problem I have with the seafire being called a good naval fighter and better than both the Corsair and Hellcat is rthat while it may have outflown them in the air what about reliability and shipboard handling. Witht that big liquid cooled engine getting banged around on landing and  being susceptible to damage  in the air, would that not have affected the Seafire's usefullness. How did the Seafire compare range wise tot the US air cooled radial fighters. I am a big fan of anything Spit related but have always believed that the US radial fighters were better naval aircraft.  What areas did Winkle Browm say were superior?

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Brown bases his analysis upon the flying qualities of the aircraft. The other facets you mention, are if anything secondary to those. The Brewster Buffalo was a very reliable aircraft, sturdy, resistent to damage and had good handling on the ground. Didn't mean diddly-squat though, when it came to fighting in the air, where it got creamed by the Japanese fighters it encountered. The Seafire was a true throughbred, like its ground based relations - high-strung, difficult to control (on the ground) and prone to having a will of its own (when landing). It might have been "fragile" and prone to being pranged on landing. The Admiraltry Lords decided that didn't matter and while it was expensive to operate, with a high attrition rate, losing a Seafire or two was cheaper than losing a ship, in their opinion.

[GregShaw]

I think you'll find that the Seafire was considered by those who flew it and had the chance to compare it to the US Navy's fighters, superior to them. Eric "Winkle" Brown considered it the best naval fighter of WWII. Superior to both the Corsair and the Hellcat.

 

Lotsa problems with that conclusion. The F4U-1 he tested was abnormally poor as far as performance. But more importantly if I remember correctly, he is comparing a 1943 non-H2O injected F4U-1 with a 1945 Griffon engined Seafire. Does a Griffon Seafire outperform a 1943 F4U-1, hell yeah. But by that time the F4U-4 was out, and it is a 440-450 mph, 4000+ fpm fighter, with twice the range and three times the warload of the Seafire. As a deck launched interceptor the Seafire MIGHT be better, but as a multi-role carrier aircraft it isn't even close.

 

Greg shaw

[hojutsuka]

I wonder then, what were they planning to power the (I believe but could be mistaken on numbers) thousands of aircraft they had horded for use against the expected Allied invasion of the home islands with?

 

I think you'll find they had fuel, indeed I understand they had an interesting cottage industry producing fuel from pine roots in some ersatz form or other. What they lacked was sufficient fuel for sustained operations, including extensive training. It also tended to be of relatively low octane rating, which limited aircraft performance to a large degree.

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I'm sure that the Japanese could have found a gallon or two. But by 1945, even the fighter units defending the homeland were short of fuel. IJN could give the Yamato and its escorts only enough fuel for one way trip to Okinawa, and even that meant pumping dry the ships that were not involved. As for assuming that the Japanese must have had reserves of fuel because they were hoarding aircraft for the critical home island battle, you are assuming a fully thought out rational decision making with foresight, hardly what Japan had back then. Look at the Luftwaffe in 1945: there were thousands of brand new aircraft including hundreds of jets that never made it to combat because there was not enough fuel...

 

As for pine root oil, it would have taken 300,000 workers working 30 days to dig up enough roots to produce oil equal to that carried by a single tanker. Provided that you could find so many workers capable of the work (malnutrition was a major problem) and not already engaged in war activities, and provided that there were that many pine trees....

 

Hojutsuka

[hojutsuka]

Brown bases his analysis upon the flying qualities of the aircraft.  The other facets you mention, are if anything secondary to those.

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That doesn't sound like Eric Brown; what reference are you using? I have Eric Brown's "Duels in the Sky World War II Naval Aircraft in Combat". In it Eric Brown has a section entitled "The Greatest Naval Fighter of World War II" (page 209). To quote from this:

 

"A naval fighter has more than just the rigors of combat to overcome; it must return to and land safely on a small, moving flight deck before it can be said to have survived. Both combat and landing require a high degree of skill, and to fail in one is in effect to fail in both."

 

Assessing naval fighters for both combat and carrier operation, Eric Brown gives the following list in order of merit:

 

1. Hellcat

2. Zeke ("Zero")

3. Wildcat

4. Sea Hurricane

5. Corsair

6. Seafire

 

So even though the Seafire does well in combat, Brown puts it at the bottom because he feels it is not suitable for carrier operation.

 

Hojutsuka

[Old Bunyip]

I hope everybody had a happy Christmas and a safe one. I've been busy helping pack relief supplies for Indonesia for the Hospital that I work at, which has just dispatched a medical team to Aceh. So my apologies for not replying sooner. I also needed some time to get to my sources and check them - yes, Brown's "Duels in the Sky".

 

It appears I must eat a little humble-pie. I made that claim suggesting that Eric Brown had claimed that the Seafire was the best naval fighter. I was mistaken. It has been several years since I last read this book and I misremembered it. I apologise.

[hojutsuka]

I hope everybody had a happy Christmas and a safe one.

 

SNIP

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Old Bunyip, you have no need to apologize. What you have been doing was much more worthwhile and important than any immediate reply. As for your lapse of memory, all of us are subject to it at times. And when the time comes for me to eat humble pie (it will happen sooner or later), I hope that I will be able to do it as graciously and straightforwardly as you have done.

 

Sir, you are a gentleman, and I am happy that I had the opportunity to correspond with you on this forum. My best wishes for a joyous New Year!

 

Regards,

Hojutsuka