why did any nation with a substantial carrier or land-based naval air aim in WWII even bother with torpedo bombers at all? Seeing as dive-bombers proved to be very effective against shipping, it's hard to see why the Americans/British/Japanese/Italians/Germans bothered with the extra logistical/design/maintenance complications of maintaining a dedicated torpedo bomber arm when precision bombing was more than enough to deal with enemy warships. WWII-era aerial torpedoes had to be dropped well within range of ship-based armament, so the possible advantage of being able to launch ordinance out of range of an enemy fleet's ability to fire back wasn't a bonus. Why not just go all-in on dive bombers instead of bothering to keep separate squadrons of torpedo bombers around onboard CVs?
>>65435814Diveboming put a lot of stress on aircraft and crew. Pre and early war, strong enough designs were still being worked out, and in that same time AA aboard ships wasn't as big of a threat to attacking aircraft. Another option was level bombing against ships, but that had very mixed results the times it was done. Well-designed torpedoes could run straight and a hit would cause damage which was catastrophic to an unarmored/undivided freighter, and which was troublesome for an armored warship. AA definitely got better as the war progressed but so too did torpedo designs. By the end of the war, the US had modifications for dropping from higher altitude & speed, and were deploying torps with glide packages.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GT-1_(missile)
>>65435814accuracy with dive bombs is complete garbage
1) Dive bombers generally did not carry ordinance capable of penetrating the armored decks of battleships and in some cases heavy cruisers.2) Torpedo bombers typically carried heavier bomb loads for attacking static targets, and as such were more useful for port strikes and the like3) A torpedo impact was typically critical damage except for those hits that hit the thickest parts of torpedo defense systems4) Dive bombers often were often less space-efficient due to the need for their wings to be much more stress-resistant, often being less capable of folding for storage5) Dive bombers still needed to get within AAA range so I'm not sure why you think that's not a thing6) Because torpedo bombers had less strict maneuverability requirements, they could get away with things like larger fuel tanks which improved their ability to act as scouts
torpedoes also cause flooding when attacking large shipsif you read the account of the sinking of the yamato dive bombers were able to knock out guns and cause damage it was the torpedoes that caused catastrophic flooding which eventually caused it to capsize and sink
In dive-bombing, the bomb's impact velocity was too low to penetrate armored ships, while the accuracy of level bombing was far from adequate.The better approach was the American tactic of slamming high-explosive general-purpose bombs into the target, rather than attempting to sink the ship using armor-piercing bombs.
>>65435814Battleships.They were sole reason for torpedo bombers and latter for dedicated dive bombers with heavy bombs.As war deck aviation progressed such fighters as F6F and F4U could fullfil all missions including anti ship. Only battleships were protected against 1000 lbs bombs and up.
>>65435814Because mono winged planes made of mermtal were a less than 2 decade old concept when WWII started.
>>65435814Torpedo's create a water hammer effect making them punch above their weight.The battleship Conte di Cavour was hit by a single British 18 inch torpedo with a 176 kg warhead and was only prevented from sinking by being ran aground.
>>65435934>The better approach was the American tactic of slamming high-explosive general-purpose bombs into the target,That works against merchants and maybe destroyers, everything else just shrugs it off.
>>65436528>everything else just shrugs it off.everything except barrels, tubing, chimneys, towers, etc
>>65436541Destroying those doesn't sink ships>>65435814Torpedoes are far more effective at sinking capital ships. A single hit often slowed down the ship enough to basically doom it, given the ease of successive attacks
Because Japanese Navy anti-ship aerial bombs were designed primarily as armor-piercing weapons, they carried relatively small explosive charges and featured long fuze delays. Consequently, there was little secondary effect from near-miss explosions causing damage similar to that of torpedoes or mines.
>>65436609Every navy used armour-piercing bombs for antiship strike. Nobody used high explosive unless they were desperate.
>>65436360>The battleship Conte di CavourOutdated WWI ship with 1.8" deck. Single AP bomb could easily blew up his magazines.
>>65436586>Destroying those doesn't sink shipsA mission kill is good enough if you have your own naval assets in the area. A disabled ship is good as dead as far as that singular battle is considered.
Torpedos were more effective than bombs by quite a marginhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ScbvrJfcdQ
>>65436636GP bombs were more effective than SAP bombssee vid above
>>65435814List of underway battleships sunk by torpedo bombers:YamatoMusashiHieiConte di CavourList of underway battleships sunk by dive bombers:...
Although their use increased toward the end of the war to sink armored ships more efficiently, it is difficult to find photographs of U.S. attack aircraft equipped with slender AP or SAP bombs; GP bombs were simply sufficient for the task.In Yamato's final battle, several 1,000-pound SAP bombs struck near the aft secondary gun turret as the initial blows, inflicting severe damage.
>>65436771>GP bombs were more effective than SAP bombsas your video shows, GP was not used against capital ships unless they were trying to disable rather than sinkGP was most effective against cruisers and destroyers, truethey had the agility to dodge torpedoes
>>65435814Because going into WW2 it wasn't clear which was superior and torpedoes did very well early in the war. If the mark 14 hadn't shit the bed so badly the US might not have switched to bombing so hard.
>>65436968Mark 13*
>>65435814Sure, in hindsight all torpedo bombers should had been replaced by more divebombers but no one knew that going into the war. So they spread their bets. Torpedoes also were also much more likely to sink battleships easily, while bombs would typically "merely" cripple a battleship (even though of course a crippled ship would spend so long at dock they were effectively sunk). very tempting. So everybody shrugged their shoulders and did a 50-50 mix of torpedo and dive bombers.
>Seeing as dive-bombers proved to be very effective against shipping,Even ignoring that you seem to have funny ideas about the relative effectiveness about dive bombers vs torpedo bombers, you really shouldn't be able to write somethign like that without you brain going "Oi, hindsight!"
>>65437109His entire post is a propaganda success for the US; how the United States did its best to hide just how effective submarines are.
dive bombing presents a very easy flight-path to track and shoot down.
If the war had continued another year or two, everyone would have worked out their own Fritz-X type of immense guided bomb and both torpedo and dive bombers would have been obsolete.
the last time a capital ship was sunk by dive bombing was midway. after that it was all torpedo.
>>65437447Japan was already successfully deploying guided anti-ship munitions.
>>65437538Even at Midway, only Kaga was in danger of actually sinking, the rest were perfectly afloat when they were scuttled.>>65437552You joke, but they did actually have non-piloted guided missiles as well.
>>65437584>The operator had no optical aid for controlling the missile, nor was visibility improved by any flame or smoke trail. For night use, a tail light was added to help maintain the missile’s course.Oof. That fact alone makes it difficult to use. Also I can't help but think there were few Japanese aircraft getting within sight of an allied ship and not getting harassed by flak and/or fighters.
>>65436912they absolutely used GP over SAP against carriersthe chart shows GP are better than SAP on medium cruisersonly time they'd use SAP was for battleships but even then it was a mix of GP and SAPthey did not try to sink battleships with bombs, only to suppress crewtorpedoes were the primary goal
>>65437425Wrong, a dive bomber on its terminal run was one of the hardest things to hit for AA and CAP, because it was very brief, fast and untelegraphed. Meanwhile, torpedo bombers doing their final run might as well have been assisted suicide.
>>65437552The US also tested TV-guided 'kamikaze' bomb planes, as well as active-radar guided glide bombs
>>65435814They thought bombs couldn't kill battleships. Which may have been true, but ultimately irrelevant, since bombs could kill carriers and without those, battleships couldn't operate.
>>65438196And IR guided bombs.
Although U.S. Navy aerial torpedoes were improved to allow for release at higher speeds and altitudes, it was still necessary to suppress AA fire and escort vessels prior to the attack.
Also US torpedoes wouldn't go boom
>>65436771>>65436767NTA. Oh it's this guy's channel. He doesn't synthesise sources very well at all, exclusively and uncritically uses US sources to the exclusion of all others and doesn't seem to think about the data he presents. I'll watch it anyway, but my expectations are very low.
>>65436771>>65436767Why did he completely exclude AP bombs from his analysis? It's on literally the very next page of the source he used for GP and AP bomb penetration and materially changes whether or not a given target would be penetrated in, I think, every fucking case. God Youtubers are such a gigantic goddamned waste of time.
Torpedos are far more powerful than bombs. Most actual sinking occurred with torpedoes, even in ship to ship action. The ability to sink anything but the lightest merchant marine and destroyers with dive bombers is almost nil, though bombs rapidly degrade most ships ability to be combat capable. Furthermore, torpedoes are also far more accurate, and you need far less aircraft making attack runs with them to guarantee a serious hit, as basically any torpedo hit will be serious and it might take 4-5 bombs to achieve a similar level of damage. Early war Japanese torpedo planes were utterly devastating. They had hands down the best and most experienced torpedo bomber pilots in the world and it showed. But what was also shown was that torpedo bombers were extremely easy to shoot down and almost all of them were dead in the first year of the war. Losses by the US and Commonwealth forces was also similarly near total, which came to realize two things. Torpedos were very effective, but dive bombers are necessary to degrade AA enough for torpedo bombers to attack the ship reliably (damage from bombs both degraded AA and usually seaworthiness, and also expended a ship’s momentum so that they would be less able to evade incoming torpedos since they were already busy dodging bombs), otherwise, you were basically sacrificing anywhere from half to 100% of your torpedo bombers to AA and CAP if you sent them in on the first or second wave.
>>65438321>GP and AP*GP and SAP
>>65438198And they were right, at least for WWII. See >>65436840
>>65437754>they absolutely used GP over SAP against carriersyour own video posted the caveat and reason for that exceptionread the fine print>they did not try to sink battleships with bombsthere was literally an arms race between the 3 major prewar navies to design AP bombs to kill the other side's battleships, and design deck armour to defend against AP bombs>even then it was a mix of GPyes, because as you said,>torpedoes were the primary goalbecause everybody recognised that letting the water in was way more effective than blowing holes in the deck>>65438198>without those, battleships couldn't operatecomplete the line of reasoning: WHY couldn't battleships operate without carriers?you'll find you're making a circular argument with extra steps
My early war planefu. Something cool about a plane diving low and fast, threading through incoming fire, and lining up to drop a fish.
>>65438758>Something cool about a plane diving low and fast, threading through incoming fire, and lining up to drop a fishI loved the Beaufort for the same reason
>>65437936can the AA on a ship not aim upwards?
>>65435814One doesn't sink a battleship with divebombers
>>65439000ESL? Hard to hit is not the same as impossible to hit.
>>65438382>but dive bombers are necessary to degrade AA enough for torpedo bombers to attack the ship reliablyAnother tactics to suppress AAA was to strafe ships with 0.50 machine guns.
>>65439000high-angle guns could, but not all guns on a warship are high-angle, especially for the interwar European and Japanese naviesthe Americans bet bigtime on AA, introducing dual-purpose high-angle-&-low-angle (sometimes abbreviated HA/LA) mounts with the Farragut class destroyers' 5"/38 gunsin comparison, every other navy's 1930s destroyer armament was optimised for surface action, with longer barrels and higher muzzle velocity for better penetration, but most did not have high-angle mountings (defined as >+80 degrees elevation) for the main armament, only the dedicated AA armament
Maybe guessing here but it was probably the most reliable way of hitting large slow moving merchant marine, especially when your pilots were not aces. Another key advantage would seem to be a low approach against enemy convoys, so the ships would block each other's line of fire, and flack would be hard to fire at the low angle without hitting friendly warships or the sea. And it might be harder to spot and hear you as well. There were probably some ships which could tank a bomb to the deck, because it was well above the water line, you might only damage cargo or peripheral fittings. But the torpedo always hit at the water line. Another issue might be the kind of lsne which could carry heavy torpedoes, vs the kind which had the structure to pull out of a dive. I imagine a lot of plants designed for lift could carry torpedoes, but couldn't dive bomb at all. Hitting targets like subs, which had a thin profile, so if they saw you and just turned in any direction, you were unlikely to score a good hit on.
>>65436897I keep getting surprised about how flat the bottom of battleships is. Ships oughta have a sharp pointy keel, not that flat nonsense.Dont care about the practicality, it just looks WRONG.
>>65439274>the most reliable way of hitting large slow moving merchant marine, especially when your pilots were not acesdive bombing is still more reliable, torpedo bombing has lower accuracy>low approach against enemy convoys, so the ships would block each other's line of fire, and flack would be hard to fire at the low angle without hitting friendly warships or the seakind of a wash because torpedo bombers were still occasionally brought down by near-misses from flak kicking up water spouts; at the high speeds that aircraft fly at, running into water is the same as running into concretethat being said, skip bombing was invented during the war and it was extremely effective used against ships for almost the same reason as skip bombing against the Ruhr dams; it was a more accurate way of getting your bomb right next to the ship's waterline, as compared to bombing it from above>There were probably some ships which could tank a bomb to the deck, because it was well above the water line, you might only damage cargo or peripheral fittingsindeed; capital ships were built to resist a given bomb charge dropped from a given height>But the torpedo always hit at the water linethat would be the number one reasona single hit from a torpedo almost always doomed a ship, because even a minor flood would slow down the ship enough that subsequent hits were easier>vs the kind which had the structure to pull out of a diveindeed. tell that to the Luftwaffe. their prewar autism made them demand that every bomber including the He111 be made capable of dive-bombing; as a result He111 production was delayed, there weren't enough of them, and its range and payload was impaired due to the need for the strengthened fuselageand after all that they virtually never used the He111 for dive-bombing anyway>Hitting targets like subsyestorpedoes of any type were ideally never to be used against fast destroyers and light cruisers for this reason
>>65438741>complete the line of reasoning: WHY couldn't battleships operate without carriers?Because AP bombs can mission kill or degrade battleships easily. And torpedo bombers will sink battleships even if it costs them a lot of casualties.
Why is everyone saying that only torpedoes can sink ships and dive bombers only damage and disable and enable torpedo sinking. If my history is correct, the USN sunk all four Japanese fleet carriers at Midway with dive bomb attacks.
>>65435814What are you talking about? The dive bomber was dead before the end of WW2. The torpedo bomber continued on as a bomb truck.
>>65439601I don't know how you got that impression given that everybody here has been careful to say actually say battleships and not just ships.
>>65439601That was very circumstantial. It's likely that VT-3 or VT-6 would have scored the first hits of the battle if their torpedos had worked.
>>65439601Why do you not even read the thread before posting something dumb? >>65437584Even with Kaga it was questionable despite her being a floating powder keg at the time she was attacked.
>>65439601the Japs were specially retardedeven Yorktown would have made it if she hadn't been torpedoed by a Jap sub
>>65438284You summed up the video pretty well. >>65439637I don't know how he managed to avoid all the posts specifying battleships, but a few were more generalized >>65435934 >>65436528 >>65438382 >>65439650A Catalina hit an oiler with a torpedo earlier in the battle. Even if the torpedoes were reliable most of VT-6 and VT-3 were unable to use them and those that did were in poor circumstances.>>65439669I think forcing them to scuttle would be a rough equivocacy to sinking outright.
>>65439305wtf they edited out the shadow? why would they do that?
>>65440537>>65439601The only carrier actually sunk directly by enemy action at Midway was Yorktown, because of Japanese torpedos. The Japanese carriers were effectively destroyed but not actually sunk and are a specialish case, since they were very lightly built compared to most warships, being carrier conversions with a lot of armor removed, and were mostly destroyed by their own munitions and fuel cooking off as a result of weak compartmentalization, bad damage control training, and just pure bad luck. Or good luck if you’re an American with the timing of the randomly launched attacks. About the only way bombs dropped on a ship are going to take it out is if they hit a magazine or something combustible in the ship itself. And even then that still usually didn’t result in a ship sinking, Hood is one of the few exceptions. Generally speaking you’re just not going to sink a ship no matter how much damage you do to the internals or the superstructure unless you pierce it below the water line. That is how sinking works after all.
>>65440562Swedish MoD was worried that word about their experiments with berserker genes would get out and draw unwanted attention, so they had to make it seem like a stunt or trick of editing.
>>65435814Torpedoes are more lethal to capital ships than bombs. That said everyone kinda figured out that torpedo bombing is dangerous and should mostly be utilized in massive strikes with little expected air opposition. The burgers focused heavily on dive bombing and used torpedo bombing in huge air strikes. The Japs switched to nighttime radar/flare guided torpedo bombing.
>>65438758Jap carrier planes were awesome. Come to think of it, the Japs never built a truly dogshit plane, they were all very well engineered, and usually very good at one thing or two. The USN on the other hand, especially in the inter-war, commissioned into service some irredeemably dogshit aircraft like the TBD and Vindicator.
>>65439317>kind of a wash because torpedo bombers were still occasionally brought down by near-misses from flak kicking up water spouts; at the high speeds that aircraft fly at, running into water is the same as running into concreteThat's an exaggeration. I've seen a Zero cut right through a big geyser.
The development concept behind the Red Angel rocket is intriguing, representing an anti-ship weapon from the post-war era when missile guidance technology was still unreliable.
>>65440674As a rule of thumb bombs break things off the top and torpedoes let water in. Letting the water in is the important part of sinking ships. :)There are of course exceptions.
reminder that yamato and her escorts were attacked by 386 aircraft and only 10 were lost, and like half of those were from the shockwave when it exploded. only the us navy had aa that wasn't garbage.
>>65440912There's no evidence 5 airplanes were lost to an explosion shockwave, that's retarded. Also, it's not surprising. A sortie of US ships wouldn't have fared much better being zerged by a massive airstrike, they would've performed only marginally better while they zigzagged under a massive, unceasing flock of aircraft and a torrent of bombs as well as swarms of fish streaking through the water. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the US bombers got shot down in the initial stages of the action.
>>65440931of course no american ship ever faced that many attackers at once, but compare the yamato's air defense to laffey who shot down 9 as just one destroyer. they spent more money developing the vt fuse than the atom bomb.
>>65440949>more money developing the vt fuse than the atom bomb.That was a gift from the British.
>>65440949Is that figure even confirmed? there's an important distinction between claim and record. The Japs also often made exorbitant claims about how many planes they brought down, and those claims are a big part of the reason why dead weight like the light shipboard air defense stuff remained in service.Also the British developed the VT fuse.
>>65440958the unit citation says 8, and the japs that could dispute it all killed themselves so who's going to argue? bongladesh only invented proximity fuses for bombs. it was entirely the us that made it possible to put one inside a shell fired from a gun.
>>65440976>proximity fuses for bombsWho the f* would want that. GTFO you troll.
>>65440987https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval-history-magazine/1999/august/tiny-miracle-proximity-fuze
>>65440958>why dead weight like the light shipboard air defense stuff remained in serviceis because there were not enough 40mms to go around, and 20mms could still destroy aircraft at very close range, and the pilots knew this, and anyone who is not suicidal would think twice about bombing a ship with a dozen 20mms on itwhy the 40mm? because it was still capable of killing a plane before it reached optimum bomb-dropping range, and more importantly, could still be trained and fired if a prior hit had knocked out shipboard power>the unit citation says 8MOH and VC citations have often been found to be overblown after comparing with German and Japanese post-war records
>>65441039wasn't the problem with 20mm that its range was too short to stop a kamikaze? I think even 40mm had to hit at near max range in order to stop the plane from still hitting the ship anyway even if it was shot down.
>>65440696For Japan, the name of the game was range. They played it well for a while. They started to get more powerful and robust designs, but they weren't able to manufacture enough. Then the decline in fuel availability/quality really killed any chances to make better performing aircraft, not even getting into the issue with shortage of experienced pilots.And honestly, I'll go to bat for the Devastator (to an extent.) A serviceable aircraft when it was made in the mid-1930s, but that's a time when developments were so rapid that it was outclassed just a few years later.
>>65441119
>>65441119Additional thought to that. The Navy knew the Devastator wasn't suitable anymore and were already planning to take the Avenger. The war started before production had, and a large batch just missed out on Midway. The few that were there, five out of six were shot down. The Devastators get crapped on for what happened at Midway but between Japanese AA and CAP mauling them, the specific type of plane making those torpedo runs wouldn't have made a difference.
>>65441127crazy that the bongs were still operating fucking biplanes all the way into 1945
>>65437635>Also I can't help but think there were few Japanese aircraft getting within sight of an allied ship and not getting harassed by flak and/or fighters.One of the reasons they resorted to Kamikaze attacks was that doing so didn't actually change the survival rate of their pilots and aircraft very much by that point in the war.
>The Swordfish is getting a bit old, I mean an open biplane? Surely we can modernize a bit.>We can add a close canopy.>That works.
>>65441166Radar is a hell of a thing.
>>65441003aww, CAPT Hoover.Did the 5" shells also use the expanding rod warhead?
>>65440976>the unit citation says 8Do Japanese records /recovered wrecks confirm that?(if not then didn't happen).
>>65440958>dead weight like the light shipboard air defense stuff remained in service.Light AAA guns were "free" air defenses as they occupied space that otherwise couldn't be used for heavier AAA mounts
>>65441232I specifically meant the model types and mounts they used, the 25mm Type 96, I read it was trash and slow to load, but maybe the bigger problem is lack of good radar based FCS
>>65441236It was the best they had in bulk. They tried to use captured 40mm guns and produce their own, but there were never enough. Japanese AAA also suffered from substantial gaps in coverage where heavier stuff was too slow to be useful as range decreased, and the lighter stuff was only possibly useful at close range. Lack of good FCS was another major and separate issue.
>>65440696>Japs never built a truly dogshit plane, they were all very well engineered, and usually very good at one thing or twoThe definitely had some mediocre designs, although I'd say they were mostly light twin engine bombers and heavy fighters which were less important>USN on the other hand, especially in the inter-war, commissioned into service some irredeemably dogshit aircraft like the TBD and Vindicator.Neither of those aircraft were particularly bad, they shared the same problem of being looking modern while being outdated by several years. Remember there was a greater span of time between these designs being introduced and the US entering the war than Pearl Harbor to the end of the war.
>>65441229>where are the enemy records of a suicide attack?
>>65441236it sucked because it had a high rate of fire but only a 10 round magazine and had to be manually traversed
With the 25mm gun, the only opportunity to land an effective hit lay in the gap between its 1,200-meter effective range and the enemy aircraft's bomb-release distance of several hundred meters.
isn't it interesting how the devestator was way more advanced than the swordfish, but it's considered a piece of shit that couldn't be replaced fast enough, while the swordfish is the hero plane that outperformed all expectations?
>>65441287TBD>Terrible handling>insanely slow>short operational endurance>useless for anything other than torpedo bombing and limited radius ASWVindicator>dive bomber that's incapable of anything than a shallow dive>no dive brakes, pilots were meant to pull out the landing gear >bad handling>mediocre payload>operational endurance 200 miles behind the D3A>slowThe vindicator is especially bad in that it sits in this weird limbo where it's not really a light bomber/CAS aircraft nor a dive bomber, it was just shit that was accepted into service, it wasn't only a matter of being outdated; some of these aircrafts were just badly engineered and the US navy had lower standards than the IJN which had ridiculously unrealistic standards (new carrier fighter armed with 20mm cannons, 500 Km/h cruising speed, 6-8 hours endurance and more, all with maneuverability equal to the A5M) that forced designers to push the envelope. And going forward the navy still commissioned really bad aircraft designs like the Buccaneer and SB2C, it wasn't only in the interwar. >>65441386Different use cases, the TBD was put up against the top 2 navy in the world. It was also terrible compared to its direct competitor, the B5N1/2, which was almost 100 knots faster, can drop torps on a shallow dive and had insanely long range and significantly better handling.
>>65441461>it was just shit that was accepted into service*because there wasn't anything else better at the time.Same reason why the F4F and Kingfisher were also rolled into service. The Buffalo was a cut better than the F4F in a lot of things but production issues forced the navy to order the F4F.
>>65435814They built non-diving light bombers like the Fairey Battle.
>>65441068>too short to stop a kamikaze?its range was even too short to stop a bomber from releasing its bombs or torpedoes, but it could kill a bomber that had just done so and was climbing awaythat was an effective deterrent in the ETO because Europeans weren't as suicidal as Japs, but still sub-par because those bomber pilots who dared run that risk would roll the dice anywayhence the 40mms were desired because they could kill an attacking bomber before they even reached the bomb/torpedo release pointin the Pacific, even though this deterrent effect of 20mms was pointless since they were dealing with kamikazes, massed 20mms could still shoot down a Jap plane in the very last minute before it hit the ship, so they still had some use>>65441119>I'll go to bat for the Devastator (to an extent.) A serviceable aircraft when it was made in the mid-1930s, but that's a time when developments were so rapid that it was outclassed just a few years lateragreed>>65441177the Albacore had similar performance to the Devastator and had dive-bombing capability
>>65440587How many fleet carriers were sunk by aerial torpedoes?
>>65441461You're comparing aircraft introduced in 1937 to an aircraft that had design work start in 1937.
>>65441853How many battleships were sunk by bombs?
>>65441863Arizona, Tirpitz, Roma. All in harbor, by level bombing.
>>65441853Zuikaku, off the top of my head.
>>65441853>How many fleet carriers were sunk by aerial torpedoes?Hornet, Lexington, and Zuikaku. All at sea.Four more Japanese light or escort carriers were sunk by aerial torpedoes, and one British escort carrier.>by level bombingthat's not a good way to describe a Fritz-X
>>65441853Hiyo and zuikaku.The light carriers zuiho, ryujo, and chitose were also sunk by aerial torpedoes.
>>65442006>arizona, struck by a 1700 pound bomb that detonated the magazine >tirpitz, struck by a fucking 12,000 pound bomb>roma was struck by two Fritz-X guided missiles one of which detonated the magazine Yeah there’s a reason not many ships underway were outright sunk by bombs >>65441853Yorktown and Hornet were both crippled by aerial torpedoes before being finished off by subs Lexington was scuttled after being devastated by bombs and torpedoes from aerial attackThe Enterprise was almost destroyed multiple times by aerial torpedoesWhy limit to only fleet carriers and only aerial torpedoes though? Torps were very effective and sank so so very much tonnage in every navy, of course the military is going to keep using aerial torpedoes the ones on subs and destroyers clearly also work.
>>65442043>Why limit to>only aerial torpedoes though?NTA but the thread is about naval aviation
>>65442048It’s a question that belays an inability to think about what you would feel like if you didn’t have breakfast this morning. The thread question is, why did ww2 navies use torpedo bombers when they had dive bombers?The answer is Ship based torpedoes were very good at sinking ships in ww1 and interwar tests and during ww2 and before ww1 and the ability to stick them onto freaking flying machines and use them from 700 miles away is wicked sick let’s do that and only considering the end effect of that decision does nothing to explain why every nation stuck torpedoes on planes before ww2 began
>>65442062>It’s a question that belays an inability to think about what you would feel like if you didn’t have breakfast this morningnot at allyour answer is an appeal to the historical fallacy, which OP was right to question: just because they used aircraft-dropped torpedoes, does it mean they must have rationally decided that aircraft-dropped torpedoes are effective? and does it mean that their reasoning must be correct?>only considering the end effect of that decision does nothing to explain whyneither is widening the scope of consideration to include launch platforms which have extremely different tactical characteristics, most notably visibility and approach speed
>>65442086This chat GPT? “Appeal to historical fallacy” get the fuck outta here retard. That’s not an appeal that’s me quoting the design decisions and considerations of the men at the time. Whether they were correct
>>65442086>>65442111or effective in retrospect is irrelevant to why they were developed and used when dive bombers existed. This was an ongoing debate before during and after the war even, plenty of dive bomb enthusiasts said to dump torpedo bombers for more dive bombers. The US is like the only nation that actually did that but that’s because their torpedoes didn’t work, and when they did start working again they were basically reintroduced in force, with updated tactics so as to not get every single pilot killed like the Japanese managed to with their very effective early war aerial torpedoes.
>>65442043>Why limit to only fleet carriers and only aerial torpedoes though?Its in reference to Midway being a special case and the thread was about dive vs torpedo bombers. Zuikaku is the only one that really describes torpedo bombers causing a fleet carrier to sink. The rest depends on what you count but they're more disabled/something combustible in the ship got hit.
>>65439601They didn't sink them, they shredded them and what was left of the crew scuttled them. Pic related is what is left of the Kagas island (flight control tower).
>>65442118except Mk 13 aerial torpedoes never had problems and were never pulled from USN duty, it was their submarine-launched torpedoes that had the problem (destroyer also, IINM)you get the fuck outta here, pseud
>>65442123>Zuikaku is the only one that really describes torpedo bombers causing a fleet carrier to sinkHornet and Lexington alsothe US Navy's own assessment was that bombs would certainly damage and disable carriers and potentially sink them if they could be set on fire, but torpedoes were much more certain of inflicting a killing blow
>>65442125>except Mk 13 aerial torpedoes never had problems and were never pulled from USN dutyWhy the fuck do we live in an era of unredacted ability to find out facts within fifteen seconds starting from the time it takes to open a new tab and people like you still exist and just say the most blatantly incorrect nonsense while peacocking and acting like you’re not the intellectual equivalent of a muffin
>>65442030Hornet was sunk by destroyer launched long lances, Lexington and Zuilaku are correct.>>65442033Hiyou really wasn't a fleet carrier.>>65442006Worth noting that despite being a bomb carried by a carrier aircraft, Arizona was sunk by a torpedo bomber, not a dive bomber.
>>65442123Zuikaku, Hornet, Lexington, and this is only limiting to fleet carriers, one of the most small sample sizes of warships in the war. So it’s a weird and niche callout no matter how you slice it since you’re removing >submarine and surface warship torpedos >pt boat launched torpedos >merchants, destroyers, cruisers, battleships, escorts, light carriers, and any other warship you wanna bring out that were sunk by both air and sea launched torpedoesI guess I don’t see what the point of belaboring and itemizing it like this is. It was a big war and aerial torpedoes sank a lot of ships, even of the very niche “fleet carrier” variety they still performed and were responsible for mauling and sinking multiple of them.
>>65442147Hornet was finished off by long lances, but it was already dead and sinking from Japanese aerial torpedoes. It was just sinking really slow because it was well built.
>>65442147>Hornet was sunk by destroyer launched long lancesAFTER Americans had already attempted to scuttle herHornet was hit by several air-dropped bombs and torpedoes, but the major hits are:>A flight of Nakajima B5N "Kate" torpedo bombers attacked Hornet and scored two hits, which seriously damaged the electrical systems and engines. As the carrier came to a halt, another damaged "Val" deliberately crashed into Hornet's port side near the bow. With power knocked out to her engines, Hornet was unable to launch or land aircraft, forcing her aviators to either land on Enterprise or ditch in the ocean.and>Repair crews were on the verge of restoring power when another flight of nine "Kate" torpedo planes attacked. Eight of these aircraft were either shot down or failed to score hits, but the ninth scored a fatal hit on the starboard side. The torpedo hit destroyed the repairs to the electrical system and caused a 14° list. After being informed that Japanese surface forces were approaching and that further towing efforts were futile, Vice Admiral William Halsey ordered Hornet sunkWhich underscores the really deadly thing about torpedoes. An armoured ship can take a couple of bomb hits and still sail home, battered though it may be. A single torpedo hit however is often enough to damage if not wreck propulsion, steering, or electrical power (without which only short-range hand-trained AA is available), making it much more vulnerable to follow-on attacks.
>>65442173Worth noting that all the American torpedoes likely either detonated early due to defective magnetic detonators, detonated too low due to defective depth setting gauges, or failed to detonate due to defective contact detonators in case the magnetic detonator failed entirely, and that’s why and how the Hornet seemingly survived an additional ten torpedo hits that went off of the sixteen fired.
>>65442125The mark 13 had design and doctrinal issues that took several years to be fixed. Pilots were flying too low and slow so the torp belly flopped on the water and didn't run right. I'd guess the PBY had better success because as a larger multi engine aircraft the crew flew at a higher altitude which allowed the torpedo to adopt a more nose down attitude when it hit the water.
It is worth noting that providing protection against torpedoes, aerial or otherwise, negatively impacted other aspects of the warship's characteristics. An armored deck to resist bombs added weight, but it also gave protection against shells and splinters. A TDS didn't.
>>65442237Pilots were flying low and slow but it was also outright defective. Most Mk13s from PBYs failed to do what they were supposed to and from dedicated torp bombers the failure rate was as high as 2 out of every 3 in 1942.
>>65442237>>65442333it's obvious the discussion was about the detonators, don't be nitpicky>>65442250is this a Bristol Beaufighter?
>>65442342Bro, it's a Blenheim Mk.V.
>>65442353ahhh thanksI thought the lump under the chin was odd, but I'd totally forgotten the other Bristol B
>>65442250Is this from the 'med?
>>65442164Anon, here's a sketch of Hornet drawn by a sailor aboard the destroyer Akigumo hours after she was crippled by air attack and attempted scuttling by US destroyers. If she was sinking, it wouldn't have happened for at least a few more days.
>>65442391>a sketch of Hornet drawn by a sailor aboard the destroyer Akigumo hours after>bombed and torpedoed carrier does not blow up within minutes like our Kido Butaiunknown technology bagero!good drawing tho
>>65442391Also note, I believe the black mark along the waterline just behind the funnel is where the mark 15 detonated.
>>65442391It had a 20 degree list, the chance of it getting back to a harbor capable of repairing it before a strong wave finished it off was approaching absolute zero. The ship was also completely gutted from an internal fire and would have inevitably sunk over the next few days as a result of the fires, yes.
>>65442415If there was no threat from the Japanese surface fleet and she wasn't hit with the mark 15, then there was a chance that damage control could have gotten her stable enough to be towed. Probably still wouldn't be worth repairing, but it's impressive how tough the Yorktowns were despite being treaty ships. To be fair to Japan, the Shoukakus were also pretty tough, but they were built after Japan left the treaties.
>>65442333>>65442342Nose/tail rings retrofitted to existing mk13s, that better controlled angle of entry into water, resulted in greatly increased reliability without changes to the detonator.
>>65441470F4F was good tho.
>>654421735”/38 guns not in twin turrets were fully manually operable in local control.
>>65442391>details include the camo patternhuh. The nippon had a good eye as an artist. Pic related is the real Hornets cameo pattern as seen today
>>65442391the Hornet also slammed into the seabed and slid down a soft hill. Pic related is its bow and you can see comparing the anchors, the forward gun nest and the sketch how deep she is sitting
>>65442391another pic showing the flight hangar that is almost at level with the sea floor
>>65442391and finally the most famous pic of the Hornet. it sunk rather leveled as evidenced by the tractor still sitting by another flight hangar doorway still intact. Bet you could restore it if you could tow it up
>>65442559But much slower and with accuracy severely degraded without a fire director
>>65442250European theater naval combat always looks like the government job edition of naval combat when you compare it to scenes from the Pacific, they were still pretty low in the navy tech tree
>>65440587iirc the british and americans did compartmentalization well. removal of gas fumes in the refueling system, by some method.... but i dont remember what it was.
>>65444322blown out with compressed air
Based on lessons learned in combat, U.S. aircraft carriers were supposed to have the piping running from the tanks to the upper decks routed outside the hull.
>>65444324thanks desu. gas fumes are a bitch. had a collegue on board that wanted to make a grill out of a oil barrel on a ship. he cut it open with a gas torch, but it turns out it had some oil at the bottom, not much. shit exploded with a loud boom, but luckily he only got a big scare and no shrapnel or anything. lesson is, respect gas fumes!
>>65444326Not carriers but combat aircrafts design guidelines recommend running fuel lines inside fuel tanks.
>>65444324>pumping compressed air into avgas>what can go wrong They purged fuel lines with CO2
>>65444346Is your college the captain of Taihou?
>>65438809Japanese planes are neat
>>65444324Co2
>>65435814Technology, motherfucker! Plane technology advanced at breakneck speed at the time. Take a look at what divebombers were like in 1939 and you can see why torpedo bombers were considered a good thing to have. This ain't late-war where you have engines good enough to create effective multi-role attackers that do everything in one airframe and carry several thousand pounds of boom around. On the HIGH end what you get in 1939 on a carrier divebomber is a single 1000-pound bomb.
>>65442658And?My correction of the post to which I replied stands.
>>65445717>Andit's functionally useless and need not be mentioned
