Pre-WW2 Carrier Comparison

[DesertFox]

I thought the Seafire predates the Corsair/Hellcat (or at least predates the UK getting any), it being operational in 42. Also AFAIK a version with folding wings came in 43.

 

It does sound like I messed up the time frame.

 

In an article I found on my hard drive, I found this:

 

Above 12,000 ft. the Corsair outfought the Mustang and was considered evenly matched at lower altitudes.

 

I think it is this page:

http://usfighter.tripod.com/f4u.htm

[DesertFox]

Another I have read is this:

 

Quote:

As for the Spitfire and the Zero, a lot of disinformation has been put out over the years. The Spitfire's record against the Zero is clouded in misconceptions and distortions, and the negative stereotypes that have surrounded it are supported only by the inconsistent performance of the Spitfire Mk.Vs (fitted with Volkes filters) of No. 1 Wing that opposed the A6M3s during the Darwin raids of 1943.

 

To start with, much of the myth of the Zero's superiority over the Spitfire is based on erroneous Japanese identification. Typical of this is Jiro Horikoshi's Eagles of Mitsubishi: The Story of the Zero Fighter (generally an excellent book, BTW). Horikoshi's account of the fighting over Ceylon in 1942 states, "...in the skies over Colombo, thirty-six Zeros fought against scores of Hurricanes and Spitfires and downed seventeen Spitfires and twenty-one Hurricanes with a loss of just one Zero."

 

The problem with this is that there were no Spitfires there at all. In the second edition of the book, the publishers added a correction that read, "After publication of the English edition of this book in 1981, we were alerted to a factual error in the description of the air battles during the Indian Ocean campaign. On page 131, we describe the Zero fighting against the Supermarine Spitfire over Colombo in 1942. Apparently Japanese pilots confused the Fairey Fulmar for the Spitfire, since the Fulmar, which somewhat resembled the Spitfire, participated in this battle; the Spitfire was not operational in the Pacific until 1943."

 

Unfortunately, the damage to the Spitfire's reputation had been done.

 

The Spitfire's first action against the Zero came in 1943, when two RAF and one RAAF Spitfire Mk.V squadrons were assigned to the defense of Darwin, in Australia. These battles between the Spitfire Mk.V and A6M3 over North Australia in are also clouded by misconceptions. The Spitfire Mk.V certainly did have a tough time dealing with the A6M, partially because of poor tactics, but also because the A6M3 was, at the time, an equal match for the Spitfire Mk.V, which was obsolescent in Europe and had already been replaced there by the Mk.IX. But the Spitfire's performance against the Zero wasn't anywhere near as bad as is commonly suggested. Here's an excerpt from Famous Fighter Squadrons of the RAF, Volume One, by Francis K. Mason:

 

"On 2 May [1943], a radar station on Bathurst Island located an enemy force 160 miles from Darwin, whose controller then ordered all three squadrons into the air. Led by Caldwell, the wing assembled 33 Spitfires but failed to gain a height advantage until the raiders were over Darwin. No. 54 [squadron, RAF] was again directed against the fighter escort while the Australian squadrons closed with the retiring bombers. Squadron Leader Gibbs led the RAF Spitfires in an almost vertical dive on the 'Zekes' and saw his first target burst into flames. Taken by surprise, the Japanese fighters broke formation and the sky was filled with diving and turning aircraft. Flying Officer Farries (in BR 239) accounted for a second 'Zeke' but, in turn, was shot down and took to his rubber dinghy. He was rescued after 5-1/2 hours by a Supermarine Walrus amphibian.

 

"The Australian squadrons were simultaneously attacking the bombers which were defended by even more enemy fighters. Thus, when the action was broken off due to fuel shortage, enemy losses totalled eight destroyed, four probables, and eight damaged. Five Spitfires had gone down and three of their pilots were in dinghies awaiting rescue. Sixteen minutes after the attack began, Caldwell recalled his scattered fighters and headed for home, now a long way off. Though within the normal capacity of Spitfires, the chase had resulted in abnormal consumption of fuel and an extreme adverse wind did nothing to help. Five aircraft ran out of fuel and force landed, one in the sea, and three more suffered engine failure causing a fatal crash. This brought the total number lost during the day to eight, with six more force-landed and awaiting recovery.

 

"At this point, an astonishing series of events left the squadron baffled. General MacArthur - who had been appointed Supreme Commander in the South-West Pacific after his defeat in the Philippines - had been criticized for the optimistic communiqués issuing from his headquarters. Presumably because no U.S. forces were involved and Darwin was remote from his main preoccupations, a communiqué was issued to redress the balance, It announced baldly that Spitfires defending Darwin had engaged a Japanese bomber force and suffered heavy casualties. The squadrons involved were staggered, newspapers throughout the world reported that Spitfires were 'outclassed', and RAAF headquarters was enraged.

 

"An amending press release mentioned 'bad weather' as contributing to the losses, another obvious untruth, and the men of the Spitfire squadrons suspected that it was a plot to boost the morale of the U.S. fighter squadrons in New Guinea who were having to cope with Japanese fighters while flying obsolescent Bell p-39s (Airacobras) and P-40s, neither of which were a match for the 'Zeke'.

 

"The Japanese reacted predictably, claiming 21 Spitfires shot down without loss to themselves!"

 

Unfortunately, this distortion has been perpetuated to this day - for example, when AeroMaster Decals released their Eagles of the Rising Sun set of decals for model aircraft in 1995, they repeated the fiction that Zeros had destroyed 21 Spitfires for no loss on their instruction sheet.

 

The Darwin air raids were the only time that Spitfire Mk.Vs and A6Ms met head to head, but the Mk.V did very well against other Japanese fighters. For example, in January 1944, Burma-based Spitfires Mk.Vs destroyed 20 Ki-43s for the loss of four Spitfires. Bryan Philpott's RAF Combat Units SEAC 1941-45 gives the Spitfire's kill ratio in the CBI as 8-1 in favor of the Spit.

 

Once the Spitfire Mk.VIII was introduced into the region in early 1944, the game was up for the Japanese fighters. As Chaz Bowyer in Supermarine Spitfire notes of the first CBI Spitfire kill in November 1943, "It was the start of the long road back to Allied air superiority over Burma; an ascendancy directly attributable to the impact of Spitfires on the aerial war. If the Mark Vc was only marginally better than its best opponents, the arrival of the Mark VIIIs by March 1944, which by then equipped a total of eight squadrons, offered an unqualified advantage in all sections of the performance envelope."

 

The Official History eloquently states, "...the advent of the Spitfire squadrons brought promise of victory as the arrival of the swallow that of summer."

 

Back to the Spitfire against the Zero. Although the later model Spitfires never had a chance to meet the later model Zeros, we do have a way of being able to judge them. The Seafire Mk.III did have a chance to fight against the Zero, and from its record against the A6M, we can get a clear idea of how they would have fared against each other. David Brown's The Seafire: The Spitfire That Went to Sea looks in detail at the Seafire's combat career. Versus the A6M, the Seafire had a kill ratio of 16-1, which pretty much contradicts any assertion that the Spitfire never mastered the Zero. The later Spitfires/Seafires could basically eat it for lunch.

 

Eric Brown, in Duels in the Sky, sizes up the outcome of a hypothetical fight between the Spitfire Mk.XIV and the A6M5 with the following:

 

"The Zeke would find itself facing a fighter par excellence, with no weakness to exploit and huge advantages in performance, view, and firepower. Even its legendary maneuverability would be matched for once. The Zeke would be overwhelmed swiftly and surely by a fighter outclassing it in virtually every department."

 

Opinions?

[KingSargent]

At the time of the F2F and Peashooter, what did other Air Forces and Navies operate and how did they compare to each other?

The Japanese were moving from the unremarkable A4N and Ki-10 biplanes to the fixed-gear monoplane A5M and Ki-27. The RAF had the Gauntlet and Gladiator, with the Hurricane trickling in. The RN/FAA was still in Fairy Flycatcher mode for fighters, ie behind everybody.

 

IMHO, the only real interesting contest is between the A5M and the F2F-F3F series. The IJN bird was faster, but not by much. This is also the most likely pairing of enemies, if the Pacific War had started in 1937.

[DesertFox]

The Japanese were moving from the unremarkable A4N and Ki-10 biplanes to the fixed-gear monoplane A5M and Ki-27. The RAF had the Gauntlet and Gladiator, with the Hurricane trickling in. The RN/FAA was still in Fairy Flycatcher mode for fighters, ie behind everybody.

 

IMHO, the only real interesting contest is between the A5M and the F2F-F3F series. The IJN bird was faster, but not by much. This is also the most likely pairing of enemies, if the Pacific War had started in 1937.

 

Would teh British have been the Hawker Nimrod or Hawker Osprey mid 30s and isn't that inferior to the Grumman birds as well although a bit better than the Flycatcher? It looked like the Grumman aircraft and the Peashooter could both outperform the British fighters.

[KingSargent]

Would teh British have been the Hawker Nimrod or Hawker Osprey mid 30s and isn't that inferior to the Grumman birds as well although a bit better than the Flycatcher? It looked like the Grumman aircraft and the Peashooter could both outperform the British fighters.

Yeah, you're right, the Hawker fighters were in service and they were inferior.

[DesertFox]

Yeah, you're right, the Hawker fighters were in service and they were inferior.

 

Still, you gave me a place to start googling and Wikiing.

 

One intersting note is that the F3F had a slightly greater top speed and about 1/4 greater climb than the Gloster Gladiator

Edited July 12, 2007 by DesertFox

[KingSargent]

Still, you gave me a place to start googling and Wikiing.

 

One intersting note is that the F3F had a slightly greater top speed and about 1/4 greater climb than the Gloster Gladiator

I am pleased that I have inspired you to serious research. Keep it up. ;)

[Shortround6]

In reply to #39

 

"There was really no appreciable difference in performance between the USN and USAAC clones. Since both services were using the same airframes - except for all those weighty, performance reducing naval mods - there should have been a great difference according to the above theory, there was not. The USN's Boeing F4B and its Army P-12 contemporary had nearly identical performance (I say "nearly" because I'm sure some Gollum type will claim to find a small difference in speed or something, but I can't recall any)."

 

I will be the Gollum.

 

You are correct the differences were small. But the Navy F4B's were about 200lb heavier than the Army P-12s empty. Army also bought the P-12 series when the prototypes for the Navy showed much better performance than existing Army types. Development of new technologies was very fast back then and planes went obsolete very quickly. Much faster than most Nations could afford to replace planes. P-12/F4B was also a private venture, not the result of an official requirement. Direct comparisons are also difficult because the two planes didn't use EXACTLY the same engine. Army P-12s used an engine with a different super charger gear ratio (I am guessing here, source book I am using lists different engine model numbers, refers to army engine as supercharged but not the Navy engine, and lists MAX speed for P-12 at 1,000 feet higher than the F4B.) At any rate a good Navy plane might be quite usable by the land based air force. The reverse is seldom true. But never say never

 

As to differences between P-26 and the F2F the 14cylinder engine in the F2F was both heavier and more powerful than the 9 in the P-26. The big difference was the 16.5 to 7mph higher landing speed of the P-26. First 111 made didn't have flaps. And even a 7mph difference was about 10%. Early carrier planes usually had wings designed for lower speed landing and take-off than land based planes. Maybe they still do This may have hurt top speed.

 

With much less testing (wind tunnels and computer modelling peaple at the time were guessing with designs much more than we might think. More than one pre-WW II fighter prototype turned out to be virtualy unflyable. Designers tended to go with what they "KNEW" even if they didn't quite understand why it worked. The P-26s landing speed without flaps was actually lower than some late model F4Fs or early Corsairs but in 1933-34 would have been totally unacceptable to the Navy.

 

Peaple thought that monoplanes couldn't be operated from carriers. they didn't really try to, it was just something that everbody "KNEW".

[DesertFox]

In that case what accounts for the fact that the Seafires were considered dogs when compared with their landbased brethren?

 

The first 163 were RAF conversions.....do you really think that the RAF gave their best, they were likely problem aircraft which tehy wanted to get rid of

[KingSargent]

Peaple thought that monoplanes couldn't be operated from carriers. they didn't really try to, it was just something that everbody "KNEW".

The French managed to operate parasol monoplane fighters from the Bearn. By the early 1930s, the USN was not specifying biplanes or monoplanes in specifications for design, they were specifying performance and leaving it up to the designers how they did it. The TBD met the specified performance and was much better than the competitive Great Lakes biplane, so it got the nod.

 

"P-12/F4B was also a private venture, not the result of an official requirement." It was also a progression from the F2B-F3B series of fighters that preceded it - basically enough of an improved F3B to get a new designation rather than a "we need some more" order.

[DesertFox]

Here is another question, did the British have any better choices for a torpedo bomber than the Swordfish bomber?

 

As well, with so many of the British Naval aircraft being so slow, that leaves the question on if the German fire control being unable to track the aircraft because the aircraft were too slow.

[KingSargent]

Here is another question, did the British have any better choices for a torpedo bomber than the Swordfish bomber?

 

As well, with so many of the British Naval aircraft being so slow, that leaves the question on if the German fire control being unable to track the aircraft because the aircraft were too slow.

The Swordfish was actually inferior to the Blackburn Shark it replaced - not that the Shark was up to USN or IJN standards. The Swordfish was, however, cheaper than the Shark. The Swordfish outlasted the Albacore because the Albacore's engine was not reliable. The Barracuda's tail fell off (but only in the Mark I!!! ).

 

That was a legend from the Bismarck Episode. The German AA didn't have any problem tracking Swordfish during the Channel Dash, nor did the German CAP.

[DesertFox]

That was a legend from the Bismarck Episode. The German AA didn't have any problem tracking Swordfish during the Channel Dash, nor did the German CAP.

 

Who started the legend?

[Tiornu]

As well, with so many of the British Naval aircraft being so slow, that leaves the question on if the German fire control being unable to track the aircraft because the aircraft were too slow.

The standard French CV torpedo plane in the late 1930's was even slower than the Swordfish.

The Swordfish charged in at 200 mph. I think this "too slow" business is hogwash.

[KingSargent]

Who started the legend?

Probably some joke about "We weren't hit because we were too slow", or a Bismarck survivor looking for an excuse for not hitting things.

[KingSargent]

The standard French CV torpedo plane in the late 1930's was even slower than the Swordfish.

Yeah and the design was a lot oder than the Swordfish.

 

The Swordfish charged in at 200 mph. I think this "too slow" business is hogwash.

Where are you getting "The Swordfish charged in at 200 mph?" Every reference book I have gives 139 mph as MAX speed, and AFAIK that is unladen. Albacore got up to a whole 161 mph if the engine was working. Barracuda was rated at 235 mph with the tail still attached.

[Richard Lindquist]

The British may have trailed the Americans but Seafires could out horsepower most Italian aircraft.

 

 

Not a particularly demanding benchmark.

[Tiornu]

Where are you getting "The Swordfish charged in at 200 mph?"

I bet you've been looking at figures for level flight. Do you have a copy of Thetford handy? See what he says about the Swordfish or Shark descending to attack. He probably mentions something relevant here.

[Red Ant]

The Me-262 was anexcellent fighter - most ones that were destroyed were destroyed returning to base or on the ground.

 

Re. the Meteor - you are mixing up the Meteor I (good but not outstanding) and Meteor III

 

The 262 was fine vs bombers. It wasn't much good in an air superiority role.

[wallaby bob]

The 262 was fine vs bombers. It wasn't much good in an air superiority role.

REDANT. I'm a little cautios here in assessing it's value as a fighter overall. Speed was certainly a factor in it's anti-bomber role as of course was the superio clearly armament. Speed served to reduce the planes exposure to defensive fire. As a pure fighter to fighter role i's high fuel consumption was a dreadful drawback too much time spent in low-speed approches to landing fields,including improvised road bases in an environment of overwhelming lack of air superiority,

Naturally many of the references to it's viability come from pilots, including Charles Yeager, who successfully intercepted them in this vulnerable phase of flight. From memory only another early exponent of the 262 Major Nowotny also suffered the same fate. WB

[DesertFox]

How was the P-80 in air superiority? Could Phil make a better case with that one. Not that I agree with him, he is talking about a point of transition and he does not seem to be willing to understand that and then claiming victory based on that.

 

I think the best comparison is the P-51 and the F4U, how comparable they are.

[DesertFox]

Yeah and the design was a lot oder than the Swordfish.

Where are you getting "The Swordfish charged in at 200 mph?" Every reference book I have gives 139 mph as MAX speed, and AFAIK that is unladen. Albacore got up to a whole 161 mph if the engine was working. Barracuda was rated at 235 mph with the tail still attached.

 

How fixable was the tail problem? It sounds like it would have been a much better choice.

 

It is funny that the US Devastator had a top speed of over 200 mph and it was introduced at the same time as the swordfish and was considered obsolete before the war

[Rich]

The Swordfish charged in at 200 mph. I think this "too slow" business is hogwash.

 

Well, it does roll off the tongue easier than the Bismarck had crap AA capability.

 

Maybe something to do with having a main AA armament that was in two different types of mounts, with different train and elevation rates? That must have made the director solution interesting? Then of course there was the crappy 3.7cm SK C/30 - a light AA gun loaded by hand with single rounds? Good thing it had a nice big bursting charge, but too bad that was probably useless since it had such a slow rate of fire it was probably a miracle if it hit any aircraft, let alone a Swordfish? Of course at least they had the 2cm guns, but then the C/30 liked to jam and didn't have the greatest ROF either. I can just hear the gun captains, "it's okay boys, were suckering those British bastards into 2cm range!"

 

Seriously, what do you think the problem was? Low visibility? Exposed gun crews losing their edge? Or all of the above?

[Tiornu]

Bismarck was no better an AA asset than any other ship in 1941. And it's just not easy to shoot down airplanes. The splitting of the 4.1in guns into two incompatible groups could not have helped. The fabric construction of the Swordfish probably had something to do with it. (I believe the US 1.1in gun may have been the only system maximized to take down cloth-covered planes.) And then there's Lady Luck, who has a very unladylike way of running out....

[Sardaukar]

There is a good book about Swordfish ops from Malta, especially during nights: "To War in a Stringbag" by Charles Lamb

 

He was there from the very beginning of the war, his 815 Squadron's history a "constant repetition of involvement in campaigns which ended in German victory" despite heroic efforts to the contrary; he saw some dark days indeed when days into the war his carrier the _HMS Courageous_ was sunk by a U-boat, laid mines off the German coast, attempted to stem the advance of Germany into the Netherlands, flew over Dunkirk to provide cover for the retreat, and operated against the Axis first in Greece and later from a secret base in Albania, in both cases forced to retreat as the enemy overran his position. He was involved in some very notable success, in particular the epic raid on the Italian fleet in Taranto Harbor and in virtually ending the shipment of goods to Rommel in North Africa.

Edited July 14, 2007 by Sardaukar