Allied CVs, early war

[Onime No Kyo]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

ORIGINAL: Onime No Kyo

ORIGINAL: Historiker

DB Ju-87 - now TB Ju-87 [;)]

Thats even cooler! Are those bombs on the wing hardpoints as well? Double trouble. [:D]

That should be droptanks. So a little longer legs...

I want German planes as Japan!

Oh sure and the Grossdeutschland too while youre at it?

[Onime No Kyo]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

ORIGINAL: Onime No Kyo

Wow. Thats very cool.

Were there a lot of JU52s with floats?

Ju-52/3m could be fittet with floats and skis whenever needed. Skis were used in the Norway campaign for instance.

Thats awesome, I did not know that.

I remember seeing pictures of I-16s on skis and whatnot but I figured it was just stunts for the newspapers.

[Onime No Kyo]

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

Playing with gadgets is great for war, not so good for wargames. I think allowing torpedoes on some patrol planes already causes some unbalancing effects as players exploit it to the hilt. Similar problem exists for amphibians being able to move in and out LCU devices. Thus the petition to expand on torpedo carrying aircraft in the stock AE came was thumbs downed.

Modders of course can do whatever they like [:D]

Totally see the point.

[Historiker]

BTW...

Intended to be used from German bombers, the AR 234 among them...

Glide Torpedo LT 950 D

[Onime No Kyo]

Errr.....

[Historiker]

looks dang dangerous! [:D]

[Onime No Kyo]

So apparently Japan had developed quite a few heavy bombers in the 20s-early 30s. They just gave up on the idea. Interesting...

[Onime No Kyo]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

looks dang dangerous! [:D]

Well I wouldnt wanna fly it. [:-]

[AW1Steve]

I wouldn't want to fly ANY Lysander! [:D]

[Onime No Kyo]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

I wouldn't want to fly ANY Lysander! [:D]

Yes I know, you Navy types are used to planes with cupholders. [:'(]

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: Onime No Kyo

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

I wouldn't want to fly ANY Lysander! [:D]

Yes I know, you Navy types are used to planes with cupholders. [:'(]

No, but I DO draw the line at aircraft that take birdstrikes from BEHIND! [:D]

[Justus2]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

looks dang dangerous! [:D]

For the pilot!

[Onime No Kyo]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: Onime No Kyo

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

I wouldn't want to fly ANY Lysander! [:D]

Yes I know, you Navy types are used to planes with cupholders. [:'(]

No, but I DO draw the line at aircraft that take birdstrikes from BEHIND! [:D]

Shot down by goose droppings. Oh the ignominy! [:D]

[AW1Steve]

Just for the heck of it, I looked at the B-26 in the editor. It lists the plane as carrying a torpedo. [X(] I tried to see if I could set up the plane so that torpedo's were optional. I set it to naval attack (1k feet). And in the editor I reclassified it as a torpedo plane. And I sent it to San Diego where the Air HQ was given 20 torpedos. No joy. So obviously there is more involved.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

I want German planes as Japan!

I suspect that would be OK for your opponents. Provided that you limited the Japanese to the number of historical aircraft carriers that the Germans had IRL. [:'(]

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve
And what's the name of a B-25? [:D]

Dunno. How do you say 'target' in Japanese? [:'(]

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Historiker

I've found it [:)]

I'm presenting: TP Ju-52/3m - now TB Ju-52/3m

Gott im himmel! The trim characteristics on that pig must have been terrible!

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Onime No Kyo

So we're back to the original point. It was very possible, but it wasnt done.

The reason for it not being done seems to be that bombs worked well enough.

The conclusion I'm coming up with is that AE does not model the damage which bombs could realistically do to ships. Even with lower historical hit rates it seems that bombs were indeed good enough (seems to me that historical hit rates were more like what you'd expect from the Dutch on turn 2 [:D]).

Of course we cant get AE to model such things because with hit rates we get in the game you could eradicate fleets of ships in a single turn. And if we didnt, there would be a general uprising.

Does that seem fairly accurate or is that an unsustainable leap of inference?

You've discovered the secret. Simply install UV version 1.0 The one TRUE BOMB is contained in it. Its called the 1000lb HE bomb. It can penetrate any armor, including the Yamato class. 4-5 hits and it goes glug glug. If it can do that to the Argo (er....i mean "Yamato") then what do you think it'll do to a poor dutch merchant? [:D]

[Nikademus]

ORIGINAL: Onime No Kyo

Errr.....

This is a rare photo. In 1945, US military experts were stressing over how to deliver the ultimate bomb developed by a dude named Opie. A B-29 was after all, too loud. It might attract attention. So the idea was to modify a more modest plane to deliver it.

Thus Fat Man was carried by Little Boy. The Lysander was seen as a perfect choice.

Only problem was getting out of the target area in time. They never solved that part of it. Which is why none of you have heard of it.

But i know. Compelling evidence suggests that I know it. Wood is a good thing. Ask the designer of the Mosquito.

[sandman455]

ORIGINAL: jeffk3510

How come the Allies never had a long-legged land based torpedo bomber? No need with their carrier striking power?

Perhaps the reason there was little effort to hang the Mk13 on to LBA aircraft was there weren't many of them around and the ones that were available were just horrible. At least that was my opinion from personal experience reading about them while in the Navy. But for what its worth here is some supporting comments from the Navweaps website:

A total of 156 Mark 13 Mod 0 torpedoes were produced which was enough to provide two loads for each of the four 18-plane torpedo squadrons assigned to the pre-war carrier fleet plus a dozen spares. Mod 0 differed from later mods by having a rail-type tail in which the propellers were in front of the rudders. This was the only US torpedo to ever have this feature. The Newport Torpedo Station was unhappy with arrangement for reasons unknown and the Mod 1 entered service in 1940 with a conventional propeller arrangement, as can be seen in the photographs above. Unfortunately and unlike the Mod 0, the Mod 1 proved to be an unreliable weapon, with only one of ten torpedoes dropped by VT-6 during an exercise in July 1941 having a hot, straight and normal run. Of the others, four sank and could not be recovered while the other five experienced erratic runs.

These problems continued into the early war years, with a mid-1943 analysis of 105 torpedoes dropped at speeds in excess of 150 knots found that 36 percent ran cold (did not start), 20 percent sank, 20 percent had poor deflection performance, 18 percent gave unsatisfactory depth performance, 2 percent ran on the surface and only 31 percent gave a satisfactory run. The total exceeds 100 percent as many torpedoes had more than one defect. The early models were further handicapped by the need to drop them low and slow - typically 50 feet (15 m) and 110 knots - which made the torpedo planes carrying them vulnerable to attack.


I think by mid or late 1944 they finally got the Mk13 modded enough to make it semi reliable. It was still inferior (way too slow) compared to what everyone else was using, but it at least worked as advertised 75% of the time. But by that time there weren't many viable targets left for the weapon. I can't see trying to get new aircraft and crews up to speed on delivering it when there were so many under utilized TBF's in the Pacific.

As for skip bomb being some kind of replacement for torpedo bombing; absolutely not. Totally different targets and mission requirements. Heh, you don't want to get me going on skip bombing again. Just search the forums for that thread. And after reading and digesting all that skip bombing literature that was offered up. . .

I'm even more confident about everything I posted on the subject.