Poor Strategic Decisions in Aviation Development

[Glider]

Originally Posted by Udet

Correct. See the fate of the entire Swordfish flight sent to attack German vessels during Unternehmen Cerberus.

Be fair Udet, any torpedo bombers would have shared the same fate given those odds and that tactical situation.

[Udet]

Glider, hi:

Well i do no think i was being unfair to be honest.

I know the Swordfish did not stand a chance if intercepted as it occurred during the Channel dash.

I was just agreeing to syscom´s comments when stating that by 1942 the model was just too old, unlike most U.S. Navy torpedo aircraft that, from what i can recall, stood at least some chance against Japanese aircraft after having released their torpedoes.

[mkloby]

Originally Posted by FLYBOYJ

The Swordfish performed well, especially in the clutch but would of been mauled if there was a heavy opposition of fighters. Could you imagine Swordfish being used at Midway!

Would've performed the same gallant attack as the TBD... occupy Jap fighters while the SBD reaches out and touches somebody, not to say that that was actually the tactical plan.

I agree w/ Lanc that an aircraft's military worth is in the combat results it acheived, not sexy performance numbers that by themselves mean nothing. But, I think you're all just saying the same thing from different sides of the table.

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by mkloby

Would've performed the same gallant attack as the TBD... occupy Jap fighters while the SBD reaches out and touches somebody, not to say that that was actually the tactical plan.

They would of - but 80 or 90 mph slower with less armament and of fabric construction, I doubt they would of even got close enough to drop their torpedoes...

[Matt308]

I was waiting for that. And Glider's mention of the Albacore too.

[syscom3]

Another blunder the Germans did was not prepare for the mass production of high octane avgas early in the war.

Just imagine the -109 and -190 with 115 octane fuel.

[comiso90]

Originally Posted by syscom3

Another blunder the Germans did was not prepare for the mass production of high octane avgas early in the war.

Just imagine the -109 and -190 with 115 octane fuel.

I was going to start another thread about aviation fuel. Richard Overy made the point in "Why the Allies Won the War"

Was too much faith put into synthetic fuels? Obviously they must not of worked very well.

[mkloby]

Originally Posted by FLYBOYJ

They would of - but 80 or 90 mph slower with less armament and of fabric construction, I doubt they would of even got close enough to drop their torpedoes...

I was just alluding to the wave of Devastators that got jumped by Zekes, leaving the SBDs to dive and attack the Jap carriers w/ virtual impunity, inflicting horrific damagethrough dive bombing, if my memory serves me right.

[syscom3]

Originally Posted by comiso90

I was going to start another thread about aviation fuel. Richard Overy made the point in "Why the Allies Won the War"

Was too much faith put into synthetic fuels? Obviously they must not of worked very well.

I remember reading an article about the mass production of high octane aviation fuels. The process that worked on an industrial scale wasnt really perfected untill the late 1930's. By a Frenchman of all things........

I dont think the issue was using synthetic fuels as such, but of the additional refining steps that were needed might have made it appear unatractive to produce untill the allies showed it could be done.

The US had a few years lead over Germany in this regards. And a few years lead was nearly unsurmountable in the end.

[syscom3]

Comiso, that would be a great thread to start.

From wikipedia....

World War II and octane ratings
World War II Germany received much of its oil from Romania. From 2.8 million barrels in 1938, Romania’s exports to Germany increased to 13 million barrels by 1941, a level that was essentially maintained through 1942 and 1943, before dropping by half, due to Allied bombing and mining of the Danube. Although these exports were almost half of Romania’s total production, they were considerably less than what the Germans expected. Even with the addition of the Romanian deliveries, overland oil imports after 1939 could not make up for the loss of overseas shipments. In order to become less dependent on outside sources, the Germans undertook a sizable expansion program of their own meager domestic oil pumping. After 1938, the Austrian oil fields were made available and the expansion of Nazi crude oil output was chiefly concentrated there. Primarily as a result of this expansion, the Reich's domestic output of crude oil increased from approximately 3.8 million barrels in 1938 to almost 12 million barrels in 1944. Even this was not enough.

Instead, Germany had developed a synthetic fuel capacity that was intended to replace imported or captured oil. Between 1938 and 1943, synthetic fuel output underwent a respectable growth from 10 million barrels to 36 million. The percentage of synthetic fuels compared to the yield from all sources grew from 22 percent to more than 50 percent by 1943. The total oil supplies available from all sources for the same period rose from 45 million barrels in 1938 to 71 million barrels in 1943.

By the early 1930s, automobile gasoline had an octane reading of 40 and aviation gasoline of 75-80. Aviation gasoline with such high octane numbers could only be refined through a process of distillation of high-grade petroleum. Germany’s domestic oil was not of this quality. Only the lead additive tetraethyl could raise the octane to a maximum of 87. The license for the production of this additive was acquired in 1935 from the American holder of the patents, but without high-grade Romanian oil even this additive was not very effective.

In the US the oil was not "as good" and the oil industry had to invest heavily in various expensive boosting systems. This turned out to have benefits: the US industry started delivering fuels of increasing octane ratings by adding more of the boosting agents and the infrastructure was in place for a post-war octane agents additive industry. Good crude oil was no longer a factor during wartime and by war's end, American aviation fuel was commonly 130 to 150 octane. This high octane could easily be used in existing engines to deliver much more power by increasing the pressure delivered by the superchargers. The Germans, relying entirely on "good" gasoline, had no such industry, and instead had to rely on ever-larger engines to deliver more power.

However, German aviation engines were of the direct fuel injection type and could use methanol-water injection and nitrous oxide injection, which gave 50% more engine power for five minutes of dogfight. This could be done only five times or after 40 hours run-time and then the engine would have to be rebuilt. Most German aero engines used 87 octane fuel (called B4), while some high-powered engines used 100 octane (C2/C3) fuel.

This historical "issue" is based on a very common misapprehension about wartime fuel octane numbers. There are two octane numbers for each fuel, one for lean mix and one for rich mix, rich being always greater. So, for example, a common British aviation fuel of the later part of the war was 100/125. The misapprehension that German fuels have a lower octane number (and thus a poorer quality) arises because the Germans quoted the lean mix octane number for their fuels while the Allies quoted the rich mix number for their fuels. Standard German high-grade aviation fuel used in the later part of the war (given the designation C3) had lean/rich octane numbers of 100/130. The Germans would list this as a 100 octane fuel while the Allies would list it as 130 octane.

After the war the US Navy sent a Technical Mission to Germany to interview German petrochemists and examine German fuel quality. Their report entitled Technical Report 145-45 Manufacture of Aviation Gasoline in Germany chemically analyzed the different fuels and concluded that "Toward the end of the war the quality of fuel being used by the German fighter planes was quite similar to that being used by the Allies".

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by mkloby

I was just alluding to the wave of Devastators that got jumped by Zekes, leaving the SBDs to dive and attack the Jap carriers w/ virtual impunity, inflicting horrific damagethrough dive bombing, if my memory serves me right.

I understand what you're trying to say but I think the poor Swordfish were so slow the Japanese might of had enough time to shoot them all down and then climb up after the SBDs (I am exaggerating). My point is even the Devastator made the Swordfish look like a brick, but reality the Swordfish had a way better overall combat record because where it served...

[Glider]

Originally Posted by mkloby

I was just alluding to the wave of Devastators that got jumped by Zekes, leaving the SBDs to dive and attack the Jap carriers w/ virtual impunity, inflicting horrific damagethrough dive bombing, if my memory serves me right.

Cannot disagree with that but remember that the RN didn't have the Dauntlass which saved the day. All we would have had were more Swordfish and on that basis there is no doubt we would have lost the Battle of Midway.

Adding to my list of errors in the UK.

h) Prematurely taking out of service planes that could perform a useful role.
Example the Skua.
It may not have been the best dive bomber of the early war years but it wasn't the worst either being a fair match to the Ju87B. The RAF could have used it as a ground attack in the early war years plus by Midway we had taken them out of service.

PS don't anyone accuse me of not seeing the failings of my home country, or sevice, being ex Fleet Air Arm.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

why did the RAF need a ground attack aircraft let alone the Skua early in the war? in the Battle for France she would've been useless and proved by the Battle for example, and by '40 we were on the defensive, sending small fleets of Skuas over the channel to attack German airfields would not only have been a tiny dent because jerry had so many more aircraft and so few would've gotten through, by '41 when the RAF tried to take the fight back to the Germans they would have faired worse than the spitfires did, what the RAF was good at was still using aircraft that'd been bought back off the frontline, old obsolete aircraft were used for donkey's years for domestic duties, as was common in many air forces..........

[plan_D]

Just a small note here; the RAF did attack German airfields during the Battle of Britain. Several raids against German targets were made by Blenheim IV aircraft, some were quite successful.

[Glider]

Originally Posted by the lancaster kicks ass

why did the RAF need a ground attack aircraft let alone the Skua early in the war? in the Battle for France she would've been useless and proved by the Battle for example, and by '40 we were on the defensive, sending small fleets of Skuas over the channel to attack German airfields would not only have been a tiny dent because jerry had so many more aircraft and so few would've gotten through, by '41 when the RAF tried to take the fight back to the Germans they would have faired worse than the spitfires did, what the RAF was good at was still using aircraft that'd been bought back off the frontline, old obsolete aircraft were used for donkey's years for domestic duties, as was common in many air forces..........

During the battle for France there were a number of ocaisions where German troops were attacked by the RAF and they achieved basically nothing.
The Battle and the Blenhiem had one LMG firing forward, hardly enough to cause much trouble, they were large, slow targets that had to come in from a low altitude and were not very accurate as they were doing a task they were not trained for.
The Skua would have come in high, been far more accurate with their bombs and when straffing, had four LMG's which while not fantastic was a lot better than one.
Read one report of a British Army unit in France attacked by a Blenhiem by mistake. After making numerous attacks the Blenhiem went back. Honours were considered even as all he destroyed was one truck without hitting anyone, whilst he was shot up pretty badly by the troops but made it home and by dumb luck, no one in the crew was hit.