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Effectiveness Of Straffing Aircraft Against Ships


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Touche. One reason for that kind of thinking, and the empire's downfall, was an exaggerated sense of exceptionalism beyond nationalism on the part of Japan and Japanese. Kurita himself seems to have vacillated in his postwar assessment of his own decision making at Samar, from regretting his decision to standing by it, all the way up to refusing to speak with Toland in the course of his research for The Rising Sun to explain it.

 

Well, I wasn't actually going for points, I was trying for accuracy. :D

 

 

My exact words here were "...and whose decks were close enough to cycle rearmed aircraft back over the target area 10-15 minutes after launch." Poor choice of the word "cycle" on my part. What I should have said was "...and whose decks were close enough to put aircraft over the target area 10-15 minutes after launch." I respect the competence of the USN, but 15-minute aircraft arming cycles would be impossible for any navy.

 

As here. :D If you look at the actual strikes, you will find the times between launch and strike varied from about 45 to around and hour and ten minutes, not "10-15 minutes after launch". The problem was the Japanese kept moving, the rain squalls kept moving, and the Taffies kept moving, so each strike had to spend some time getting off the carriers, forming up, flying to where the Japanese were supposed to be, visually spotting the Japanese, adopting an attack disposition, and actually attacking. The impression that you and the Japanese (and perhaps Lundstrom) had that they were cycling ever 10-15 minutes is do to the disorganized and uncoordinated state of most of the strikes and that they were dispatched from multiple task units and carriers.

 

The arming cycle varied from 30 minutes to an hour depending on the ordnance...but also the organization. One problem was that the TBMs were all configured as bombers, because that was what they had been doing for four days. To arm them with the few torpedoes available meant installing the torpedo bracing and arming circuits, which were removed when bombs were carried. The other issue was getting bombs from the magazine, most of the CVE had GP bombs in the hangers for the planned bombing missions, the few SAP bombs available had to be brought up from the magazine, but they then had to be spotted in the hanger, which meant the bombs already there needed to be cleared or at least moved. That is why, especially in Taffy 3, whatever was on deck was what got loaded.

 

 

 

The reason I mentioned this message was to counter the argument that the carrier airpower potential of TG77.4 was not capable of the anti-shipping mission, either in general or on October 25. The issuance of such a message to Kincaid the morning of October 25 indicates a belief on the part of USN flag-rank officers otherwise.

 

It is not that they were not capable of the anti-ship mission. The problem is their capability was so limited. In theory, the 16 carriers available should have had 144 torpedoes aboard for their 143 TBM. In practice though, approximately three-quarters of the TBM strikes were done with bombs and perhaps something around one-third to one-half of the torpedoes were ever used for various reasons (including the CVE was bombed, kamikazied, or otherwise sunk or put out of action).

 

 

They did, and the Japanese DDs could have acquitted themselves a hell of a lot better in retrospect. Although I suspect that if the purported effectiveness of strafing against light warships versus heavier types is taken into account, the presence of a significant number of USN Hellcats and Wildcats throughout the day with .50 caliber ammunition loads and no Japanese fighters to expend them against may have had an effect on Japanese DD performance.

 

Yep.

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I'd be curious to see a study on the methods of carrier ordnance storage, movement and hoisting in various ship classes to now. :rolleyes:



Huh...

Edited by rmgill
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I'd be curious to see a study on the methods of carrier ordinance storage, movement and hoisting in various ship classes to now.

 

Huh...

 

In the UK ordinances are stored like this:

 

ImageVaultHandler.aspx.jpg​

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I'd be curious to see a study on the methods of carrier ordinance storage, movement and hoisting in various ship classes to now.

 

Huh...

 

In the UK ordinances are stored like this:

 

ImageVaultHandler.aspx.jpg​

 

 

Cheeky bugger! :D

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I'd be curious to see a study on the methods of carrier ordinance storage, movement and hoisting in various ship classes to now.

 

Huh...

 

In the UK ordinances are stored like this:

 

ImageVaultHandler.aspx.jpg​

 

 

Cheeky bugger! :D

 

Yep, that was a good catch and riposte. ^_^

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I'd be curious to see a study on the methods of carrier ordinance storage, movement and hoisting in various ship classes to now.

 

Huh...

 

In the UK ordinances are stored like this:

 

ImageVaultHandler.aspx.jpg​

 

 

Cheeky bugger! :D

 

Yep, that was a good catch and riposte. ^_^

 

 

English is such a wonderful language. I always think of George Carlin and the Seven Things you Cannot Say on Television, "You can prick your finger, but never finger your prick..."

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I'd be curious to see a study on the methods of carrier ordinance storage, movement and hoisting in various ship classes to now.

 

Huh...

 

In the UK ordinances are stored like this:

 

ImageVaultHandler.aspx.jpg​

 

Hah...you lot should embrace the printing press and book binding...

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They tried, about 2 years ago. Turned into a running gun battle, and eventually the Lords gave in.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3447873/The-Government-finds-80-000-make-sure-Parliament-printing-laws-GOAT-SKIN.html

In actual fact there are good practical reasons for using vellum, it lasts forever. And personally I have great pleasure at the thought that the nearest thing Britain has to a constitution is written on an 800 year old cows arse.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have forgotten the technical terms, but the "ing" form if the verb "to strafe" is "strafing" with one "f". It would only be "straffing" if the verb was "to straf" or "to straff". This is not a matter of British or American spelling rules.

I have never seen straffing in British English. If we wanted it pronounced like that, we might have considered spelling like "straph" as in graph (although there are regional differences in how the a would be pronounced in graph, see also bath, with long and short variants.)

 

It's always been strafe; strafing.

 

We really mess about with "a".

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  • 4 weeks later...

 

 

 

 

I'd be curious to see a study on the methods of carrier ordinance storage, movement and hoisting in various ship classes to now.

 

Huh...

In the UK ordinances are stored like this:

 

ImageVaultHandler.aspx.jpgâ

Hah...you lot should embrace the printing press and book binding...

I can't believe you of all people are advocating reeware?!!! :) In my current job, I've spent a lot of time helping to eliminate paper from our health board's record keeping system. There are some persistent holdouts, but we're getting there.

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I know there are advantages to having data in a server somewhere but sometimes I stop and think about what your standard issue 14 year old script kiddie could do to or with it if he lucked out and got access.

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Given how data bit rot or worse, some badly executed scripts or delete command can make things go.... I'm rather enamored with hard copy backups or at least a backup scheme that's off site and immune to idiots with too much access.

 

We had a rather bad scare this past week where someone trying to deal with untagged virtuals (and thus no departmental accounting) managed to delete EVERY single virtual in our AWS environment.

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I'd be curious to see a study on the methods of carrier ordinance storage, movement and hoisting in various ship classes to now.

 

Huh...

 

In the UK ordinances are stored like this:

 

ImageVaultHandler.aspx.jpg​

 

 

Concerning ordinance v ordnance, it occurs to me that I should remind y'all that the pen is mightier than the sword.

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Given how data bit rot or worse, some badly executed scripts or delete command can make things go.... I'm rather enamored with hard copy backups or at least a backup scheme that's off site and immune to idiots with too much access.

 

We had a rather bad scare this past week where someone trying to deal with untagged virtuals (and thus no departmental accounting) managed to delete EVERY single virtual in our AWS environment.

 

I'm unware of anything being permanently lost electronically, despite the best efforts of one individual who will remain nameless and is currently suspended pending a disciplinary. In paper days, we had clerks who had their own unique ways of misfiling (letter substitutions etc.) that the other clerks were aware of and helped them find the misfiled notes in an ocean of paper. A (>20x larger) sister health board decided to put a good chunk of their paper records in a basement, pending scanning. It won't surprise you that the basement promptly flooded. Many of the records were declared irretrievable. It's unusual, even here, for a filing clerk to require a commercial diving qualification to do their job.

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  • 6 months later...

Since spelling has been a tangent on this thread, Admiral Thomas C. Kinkaid is spelled with a k not a c.

​

​I read about 5 pages of this thread and nobody blamed MacArthur for this debacle off Samar. That is refreshing!

​

​Mike

 

 

 

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How good will https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bofors_57_mm_m/45_aircraft_gunthis be? Can it crippel or sink real warships? Like a Destroyer.

The Swedes probably borrowed the idea from the Mosquito tsetse, as the Swedes recovered the bodies of German warship crew sunk by Mosquitos using the 57mm Mollins gun.

 

wiki

 

Another fighter-bomber variant was the Mosquito FB Mk XVIII (sometimes known as the Tsetse) of which one was converted from a FB Mk VI to serve as prototype and 17 were purpose-built. The Mk XVIII was armed with a Molins "6-pounder Class M" cannon: this was a modified QF 6-pounder (57 mm) anti-tank gun fitted with an auto-loader to allow both semi- or fully automatic fire.[nb 23] 25 rounds were carried, with the entire installation weighing 1,580 lb (720 kg).[142] In addition, 900 lb (410 kg) of armour was added within the engine cowlings, around the nose and under the cockpit floor to protect the engines and crew from heavily armed U-boats, the intended primary target of the Mk XVIII.[179] Two or four .303 (7.7 mm) Browning machine guns were retained in the nose and were used to "sight" the main weapon onto the target.[142]

The Air Ministry initially suspected that this variant would not work, but tests proved otherwise. Although the gun provided the Mosquito with yet more anti-shipping firepower for use against U-boats, it required a steady approach run to aim and fire the gun, making its wooden construction an even greater liability, in the face of intense anti-aircraft fire. The gun had a muzzle velocity of 2,950 ft/s (900 m/s)[142] and an excellent range of some 1,800–1,500 yards (1,600–1,400 metres). It was sensitive to sidewards movement; an attack required a dive from 5,000 ft (1,500 m) at a 30° angle with the turn and bank indicator on centre. A move during the dive could jam the gun.[180] The prototype HJ732 was converted from a FB.VI and was first flown on 8 June 1943.[142]

The effect of the new weapon was demonstrated on 10 March 1944 when Mk XVIIIs from 248 Squadron (escorted by four Mk VIs) engaged a German convoy of one U-boat and four destroyers, protected by 10 Ju 88s. Three of the Ju 88s were shot down. Pilot Tony Phillips destroyed one Ju 88 with four shells, one of which tore an engine off the Ju 88. The U-boat was damaged. On 25 March, U-976 was sunk by Molins-equipped Mosquitos.[181] On 10 June, U-821 was abandoned in the face of intense air attack from No. 248 Squadron, and was later sunk by a Liberator of No. 206 Squadron.[182] On 5 April 1945 Mosquitos with Molins attacked five German surface ships in the Kattegat and again demonstrated their value by setting them all on fire and sinking them.[183][184] A German Sperrbrecher ("minefield breaker") was lost with all hands, with some 200 bodies being recovered by Swedish vessels.[183] Some 900 German soldiers died in total.[183] On 9 April, German U-boats U-804, U-843 and U-1065 were spotted in formation heading for Norway. All were sunk with rockets.[183][185]U-251 and U-2359 followed on 19 April and 2 May 1945, also sunk by rockets.[186]

 

 

 

So probably one Swedish aircraft with a 57mm gun may have had a good chance of damaging a destroyer, a flight of such aircraft would have a very good chance.

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In the article, it mentioned old, armored boats. Did these old, armored boats fire back?, maneuver much? Damage control parties on board? The whole article reads like a Bofors advertisement; '...the 57 mm was the perfect replacement for the torpedo." :blink: Ask any sailor which is worse, a 2 1/4 inch wide, 6 pound shell or an 18" wide, 400+ pound warhead.

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In the article, it mentioned old, armored boats. Did these old, armored boats fire back?, maneuver much? Damage control parties on board? The whole article reads like a Bofors advertisement; '...the 57 mm was the perfect replacement for the torpedo." :blink: Ask any sailor which is worse, a 2 1/4 inch wide, 6 pound shell or an 18" wide, 400+ pound warhead.

And these seem to be the only ships that fit into both the category and the timeframe

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSwMS_Fylgia

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  • 3 weeks later...

In the article, it mentioned old, armored boats. Did these old, armored boats fire back?, maneuver much? Damage control parties on board? The whole article reads like a Bofors advertisement; '...the 57 mm was the perfect replacement for the torpedo." :blink: Ask any sailor which is worse, a 2 1/4 inch wide, 6 pound shell or an 18" wide, 400+ pound warhead.

 

I'm not buying that either! :) In all honesty, 8 x 5" HVAR would be easier to put on an aircraft and be much more likely to make a mess of a warship on a single pass. I think Australian Mosquitoes used them in place of the British 3" 60lb HE rocket.

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  • 2 weeks later...

In the article, it mentioned old, armored boats. Did these old, armored boats fire back?, maneuver much? Damage control parties on board? The whole article reads like a Bofors advertisement; '...the 57 mm was the perfect replacement for the torpedo." :blink: Ask any sailor which is worse, a 2 1/4 inch wide, 6 pound shell or an 18" wide, 400+ pound warhead.

 

One of which generally hits you above the waterline, the other consistently under the waterline, or even unde the keel....;

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