Naval History Forums

On the same page, he continues "the Barracuda had virtually no hope of survival against any German or Japanese fighters it was likely to encounter". I sometimes question Brown's judgment and impartiality but, in this case, he was spot on. The Barracuda, clean, with 1/2 fuel was a ~11000lb...

Bgile wrote:Tirpitz was sitting still, or moving?

Tirpitz was moving at about 5-10 knots during the first attack and partially covered by a smokescreen during the 2nd attack.

I had wondered why there didn't seem to be any inline engines on US carriers, and found a discussion on another site. This summarizes the answer: "Navy regulations specified an air cooled engine, liquid cooled engines were heavier, more vulnerable and harder to maintain." There are a numb...

Djoser wrote: Do you recall which book it was? I read 'The Great Ships Pass' many years ago and remember him discussing the clear imbalance of power in the Indian Ocean, but I wasn't aware that he had possibly written another. It was the book about British cruisers that he wrote with John R. Dominy...

By definition, all the 10 Barracudas (G&D state 9) that dropped 1600lb bombs on Tirpitz on April 03 1944, had to drop them in 60deg (or less) dives, but with the additional complication of having to drop them above 3500ft (although not all did), yet despite these handicaps, they hit Tirpitz with...

. I have a book coming in the mail that might provide more detail as it contains some first hand accounts of the battle. I got my book, Carrier Combat , by David Wragg, but unfortunately it doesn't contain much in the way of new hard data, but it does confirm that the Victorious' Albacores of 828 a...

Not necessarily a certainty, but I think it would be the most likely outcome. Historically, the IJN was aware that RN carriers were nearby because they intercepted several Albacore recon flights. Yet despite this knowledge, Nagumo's carriers never found Somerville, but at~1600 hours on April 05 Som...

dunmunro, what specifications do you need? Just count the number of wings! The Royal Navy was so satisfied with biplanes that they accepted a new biplane, the Sea Otter, in 1944! Do you really want to bring up the Firefly? First operational in late 1943, it was actually slower than the prewar Hurri...

Well, the SBD can carry a much superior bomb load over a greater range and competes reasonably well with the Fulmar as a fighter. How about replacing all the Fulmars with SBDs? The lack of folding wings disqualified the SBD from FAA service. As well it's power to weight ratio was 30% lower than the...

I found out a bit more about the Fulmar. The Fulmar II was given the capability to carry a single 60 gal (273l) centreline drop tank. This hardpoint could also carry a 500lb bomb: Testing of the Fulmar II, at Boscombe Down, in June 1942 showed that the Fulmar could safely drop a 500lb bomb during 60...

I don't understand. In the Yorktown example above, she launched 58 aircraft. I just took a gander at First Team and Lundstrum, p169, states that Yorktown had 60 operational aircraft on May 04 1942 and launched 40 aircraft (28 SBD and 12 TBD) on the strike, "in two deckloads", although she...

There's no doubt that the USN CVs could range and launch larger strikes, but for example the USN CV's that launched the afternoon strike against the IJN on June 20 1944, launched an average of 35-36 aircraft each for the 5 Essex class CVs and 28 from Enterprise, so when the USN wanted to launch a st...

Thanks, for some reason I couldn't see the Despatch on your second link earlier. I've just taken a quick look and It does in fact mention 3 Me109s and 6 Me110s. If we just had the official German reports to know how many aircraft were in the air at that time and thus verify the accuracy of that inf...

However this raid is very interesting as it might be the first large scale multi-carrier strike of the war. The FAA flew off 60 aircraft including 53 against Kirkenes and Petsamo, from two carriers. Yes, but I can't help noticing the fact that USS Yorktown alone launched a larger strike during the ...

The common perception is that 9 Fulmars versus 3 Me109s and 6 Me110s should result in a slaughter of the Fulmars, but this didn't happen, instead 2 Fulmars were lost but in turn downed an Me110. Don't forget the presence of the 20 Albarores (11 lost and several other damaged). The fact is that we d...