Somewhat strangely, since the USN quoted a/c speeds in kts, all official USN data for their a/c ranges in WWII era are in statute, ie land, miles. Even when authors quote US WWII naval a/c ranges in nautical miles, they are often mistakenly assuming the official ranges are nm, rather than correctly converting the official land mile ranges.The A-24s should provide a potent offensive punch at virtually any point on Luzon flying from either Clark or Nichols. I believe the 1,000 pound bomb radius was about 225 miles and 500# pound range used for CV searches was closer to 300 miles. I can't recall whether these ranges are in nm or sm.
... Found the SBD range reference.... I am assuming, based on published numbers (Lundstrom Fletcher book) 175 and 225 nm that max combat radius was 200 and 260 sm with the 1942 CV battles providing the basis for the estimate.
The SBD-5 without drop tanks had similar characteristics to the SBD-2/3 which USN used in 1942 and which equated to early A-24's. The SBD-5's official radius with 1000# bomb was quoted in the original document "Airplane Characteristics and Performance" dated June 1 1944 as 240 statute miles. However this assumed highly conservative reserves for carrier operations (which are given in detail in the document). A land based SBD could be expect to safely range farther, especially in a mainly overland flight, as from a Luzon base against transports unloading just offshore.
Note though that we have a reality check on Army A-24's v Japanese shipping only a few months later in the DEI. They managed to sink one Japanese transport, a relatively unusual event for the Allies in that portion of the war, and avoided interception by Zeroes. But on one of the two missions their P-40 escort was almost wiped out by Zeroes. Eventually the A-24's also would have suffered heavy losses to Zeroes (as they eventually did in New Guinea, after which the USAAF swore off the a/c for use in areas with enemy fighters).
IMHO some 'what ifs' have a hard time dealing with the basic reality that Japanese air units at this stage of the war were just better trained and prepared than US Army ones. Switching around the types of a/c might gain another bomb hit here or there but isn't going to change anything dramatically. The bottom line is that the modern US Army fighter force could not stand on equal terms with the Zero force. This was repeatedly demonstrated in encounters over the early months of the war beyond the PI; it applied as much or more for the other Allied fighter arms in action at the time (RAF, Dutch). And there was a strict ceiling on what bombers could accomplish in face of enemy fighter superiority.
OTOH if you magically assume USAAF competence typical of around a year later, even B-17 units will score hits against ships in low altitude strikes, including at night (as B-17's did in several cases in Solomons in late 42-early 43), besides P-40 units standing up to Zeroes on at least roughly equal terms (though still no better than that); and IJN AA was even more deficient against such attacks in Dec 41 as a year later. But it's unrealistic. The USAAC of Dec '41, trying desperately to expand in size from a quite small force even in 1940, just wasn't the USAAF of spring 1943. It was necessarily cutting lots of corners on material and training readiness to build raw numbers, and its leaders were still subject to a peacetime mentality, in particular to systematically underestimating a potential opponent about whom they knew almost nothing. Frankly the latter tendency still has slight echoes even now, 70 years later, which makes it all the more ironic to assume the USAAC of then could have understood and countered Japanese capabilities. There was no alternative to US forces learning hard lessons about the Japanese in defeat, IMO.
Joe
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