SBD Dauntless Discussion Group

R Leonard · 09-10-2005, 12:54 AM

And also found

TF-37 Activity July and August 1945

Format is Date -- Strike Sorties -- CAP Sorties -- Tons of Bombs Delivered

18 Jul -- 51 -- 40 -- 10
24 Jul -- 284 -- 131 -- 93
25 Jul -- 175 -- 138 -- 46
28 Jul -- 237 -- 132 -- 85
30 Jul -- 192 -- 130 -- 66
9 Aug. -- 258 -- 137 -- 105
10 Aug. -- 227 -- 132 -- 90
13 Aug. -- 21 -- 42 -- 8
15 Aug. -- 17 -- 47 -- 1
TOTAL -- 1462 -- 929 -- 504

Rich

plan_D · 09-10-2005, 02:44 AM

Oh, he works miracles. Excellent, Rich. B-E-A-utiful.

evangilder · 09-10-2005, 08:52 AM

Once again, Rich, great info. Thanks

Nonskimmer · 09-10-2005, 10:50 AM

He's a fountain on this stuff. Excellent.

syscom3 · 09-10-2005, 02:57 PM

We could make another thread...."American carriers vs RN carriers, who was better"

That would bring out some opinions, heheheheheh

Nonskimmer · 09-10-2005, 03:03 PM

That was discussed here not so long ago. Now that we have a lot of fresh faces around here, it might be interesting to see some more opinions.

trackend · 09-10-2005, 03:12 PM

Well I just re-read War in a Stringbag by commander Charlie Lamb
and he said the Eagles flight deck was so thin that if you jumped up and down it set off a sympathetic vibration on the other hand the Illustrious had three inches of amoured flight deck but when the Stukas reaked revenge for Taranto using amour peircing bombs it contained the fires and made them a real arsehole to tackle. but against convetional bombs and Kamikazi the amoured flight decks where very usefull in damage limitation.

syscom3 · 09-10-2005, 04:05 PM

Didnt the USN think the unarmoured flight decks had one advantage in that they could be repaired very quickly?

Question for you..... Did that 3" armoured flightdeck affect its sea handling in rough sea's? All that weight so high above the water, must have given the ship a high center of gravity.

Glider · 09-10-2005, 05:56 PM

I don't know why the USA went fo the wooden deck and it may well have made it easier to repair in dock where you have the cranes and equipment to handle the timber. Unfortunately it didn't do anything to cntain the damage when the ship was hit. Hence they were able to take such damage.
The weight of the deck and the armoured sides to hanger (up to 4 inches) did have an effect and this was countered by only having one hanger deck not two as in other Fleet carriers which is why the nominal no of aircraft carried by the RN carriers was so much less than the USN carriers.
Our later carriers had a better balance retaining the Armoured deck but reducing the armour on the sides of the hanger to 1.5 inches which enabled us to go back to two hanger decks, helping to redress the balance to some degree.

Nonskimmer · 09-10-2005, 06:01 PM

The Colossus class light carriers were essentially slightly smaller Illustrious class fleet carriers minus the added armour.

Glider · 09-10-2005, 06:31 PM

The Colossus and Majestic classes were really good examples of someone sitting down with a problem and coming up with a pragmatic solution. Its an interesting story which I have outlined below.
The RN needed carriers and they needed them quickly. We didn't have the Naval shipyards to build sufficient numbers of large carriers. The CVEs which as we know were basically converted merchant ships were coming on stream, were serving well but were of course too small and slow.
So the design for the Colossus was finalised.
The ships were built to Merchant Navy standards enableing them to be built in non naval shipyards.
The non armour protection, compartmentation, damage control, sprinklers, fireproof curtains, ventilation etc was as good as the best but the armour was missing.
The engines were standard destroyer engines and machinery for ease of supply
AA defense was very good but only short range. The carriers main AA defence was its aircraft, secondly its escort then its AA. They didn't carry any 20mm just 40mm and 2pdr. 20 mm lack the range to hit and destroy an attacking plane before it drops its weapons, hence the emphasise on the 40mm guns.
As a result you had a small ship that could carry a good number of aircraft at speed to keep up with our capital ships of the time. It was also cheap and easy to produce.
Its a formula that worked as after the war a number were purchased by other countries.
France, Netherlands, Australia, Argentina, India, Brasil all bought examples.

Nonskimmer · 09-10-2005, 06:54 PM

Canada too. We were loaned the Warrior for a time, of the Colossus class, and the Magnificent which was a Majestic class. We later bought one of the Majestics (the planned HMS Powerful) which was updated and commissioned as HMCS Bonaventure. Six Majestic class carriers were planned, but none were ever commissioned into the Royal Navy. The war ended and they were considered surplus to requirements.

syscom3 · 09-10-2005, 10:04 PM

The more I read up on the Dauntless and the Helldiver, the more I appreciate the SBD.

Too bad the USN just didnt put in larger engines as an upgrade, and not waste time with the "2C"

FLYBOYJ · 09-10-2005, 10:29 PM

The SBD was also very maneuvable and scored Zero Kills, now here I go lighting the "fire," I read that an SBD empty, with a good pilot could trun INSIDE a Zero using it's dive brakes in the turn....

COMMENTS?!?

evangilder · 09-10-2005, 11:02 PM

But what good would an empty plane do in a dogfight? Seriously, I suppose it is possible, but I would think it would be a bit foolhardy to mix it up with a Zero while flying an SBD.