Submarine hunters

[Lightning Guy]

The Lib and the Sunderland are obvious choices, but what about the TBF/TBM Avenger? This was the primary aircraft of the Jeep Carriers and they did an aweful lot of damage to the U-Boats.

[Cougar]

ive seen storys of catalina sub hunters, or "black cats" anybody know how many subs they sunk?? or ships sunk

[evangilder]

Sounds like there are a couple of books and a news story to watch out for. Let us know if you hear anything else on that story, Gemhorse. I think you have our attention now.

[Adolf Galland]

Loads, from 5 book I'd read about on the Atlantic war, the flying boats sunk about few hundred in the entire war, but that's because not ONLY flying boats sank U-boats, most were sunk by other types of air cover(escort carrier, merchant carrier, faster or anti-sub destroyers, and B-24s(working off the Greenland coast)

[Adolf Galland]

Also the Sea Hurricane(well yea) armed w/ rockets keeps the boats from surfacing and some Wildcats too, but about which aircraft got the most"kill" on U-boats? Can't help ya.

[the lancaster kicks ass]

as soon as i saw the name of this thread the B-24 and sunderland were shouting out to me............

[mosquitoman]

I was thinking Catalina, Hudson, Whitley and Wellington aswell but I'm guessing the B-24 and the Sunderland got the most U-boat kills

[the lancaster kicks ass]

wellington was more anti-shipping than anti-submarine..................

[mosquitoman]

Leigh Light equipped Wellingtons stopped nearly all night-time passage through the Bay of Biscay. The Leigh Light was a 16" naval searchlight that was switched on and aimed at the surface contact the aircraft had. This made it easy for the aircraft to fly down the beam of light and depth charge the U-Boat. Other planes were fitted with this later on but the Wellington pioneered this

[cheddar cheese]

Originally Posted by mosquitoman

I was thinking Catalina, Hudson, Whitley and Wellington aswell but I'm guessing the B-24 and the Sunderland got the most U-boat kills

I think the Cat was the best

[Lightning Guy]

I am still thinking that the Avenger might have been the dark horse here. It would have had numerous chances, several squadrons opperated them by the end of the war and since they traveled with the convoys there wasn't a spot in the Atlantic they couldn't cover. They also carried a more versatile weapons load that any of the other aircraft including bombs, depth charges, rockets, and the FIDO homing torps.

[MikeMan]

Are there any stats out there on FW-200 kills on allied subs/ships?

[redcoat]

Right folks
Here's the Top 7 Allied Submarine Hunter aircraft of WW2
(figures supplied by U-boat net.com)

1) B-24 Liberator with 72 kills*

2) Catalina with 37 kills*

3) Avenger with 35 kills*

4) Wellington with 29 kills*

5) Sunderland with 27 kills*

6) Lockheed Hudson with 25 kills*

7) Swordfish with 21 kills*


* includes Submarines sunk in joint air/surface forces attacks


A total of 249 U-boats were sunk by aircraft alone and 37 more were sunk by aircraft and ships together.

43 additional U-boats were bombed while in port and another 12 were lost to aerial mine

Are there any stats out there on FW-200 kills on allied subs/ships?

The Fw-200 Condor had no submarine kills credited to it.

In fact, just off memory, only one Allied submarine was lost to Luftwaffe attack in WW2, and that was shared with surface forces

[Lightning Guy]

I was pretty doubtful about the idea of a Fw-200 sinking any Allied subs. The Condor was used (exclusively?) in the Atlantic. What would an Allied sub be doing there? It's not as if there was any trans-oceanic German trade to interdict.

[Erich]

the Condor worked with U-boots in transmitting Allied surface ship movements besides bombing and strafing on these surface shipping. The Condor was to be replaced but only in part by the stealth unit FAGr 5 and it's Ju 290's...............quite an effective but unknown unit.

v/r

E ~