Torpedo Planes crew of 3

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: Gaspote

I'm thinking torpedo get a torpedo officer because in B5N, during the attack of Pearl Harbor they send bomber with 900kg in level bombing and the guy aiming was the torpedo officer.

In TBF the ventral gunner was the torpedo officer, a ventral gunner isn't necessary at 100m.



We can see the gunsight and which seems to be the radar too.


But I'm pretty sure they didn't use a torpedo officer for every mission like naval search or skip bombing mission.

As I said, the USN didn't have an "airborne torpedo officer". The only officer in the crew of a USN Strike aircraft , till the early 1960's , was a pilot. The Naval Flight Officer program did not exit.

[AW1Steve]

And your "torpedo officer" was an enlisted Radio/RADAR/Navigator/gunner/cook/plane cleaner dog's body. [:D]

[wdolson]

To add a little more, I looked at my Hasegawa 1/48 scale Japanese torpedo planes. I have the Kate, Jill, and Grace. The Grace was a dual purpose plane and only had a crew of two. All three had a bombsight that was in the second cockpit, or the rear in the case of the Grace. On the Kate and Jill, there was a significant step down between the pilot and the second seat, so the second seater had very poor vision over the top of the plane out the front.

The Grace's bombsight had an optical periscope arrangement that poked out the bottom of the bomb bay. With a torpedo installed, the bomb bay doors were closed and the torpedo rack was attached to the outside. The periscope bottom was flush with the bomb bay doors. It is conceivable, but unlikely that the second seater could use the periscope on a torpedo mission. The second seater was more likely manning his gun. At that point in the war any torpedo strike would have been heavily defended by Allied fighters.

The Kate and Jill had a window in the bottom of the plane connected to the bombsight, but they were flush with the bottom of the fuselage. On the Jill the window was a little off center, so conceivably the middle seater had a view out the bottom through his bombsight. On the Kate, the window was on the centerline of the plane. When carrying bombs, there were two racks, one to each side of the centerline leaving the window free. When carrying a torpedo, the window was covered by the torpedo rack.

I don't see anyway the middle seat guy could have done anything to aid the offensive mission on a torpedo strike.

And in the diagram of the TBF above, the "Optional Seat" was only there on the first production run. The seat was removed during the first production run to make room for electronics and all WW II combat TBF/TBMs after that used that space as an electronics bay. Post war the Avenger was cast into many support roles like they became the first COD aircraft and many were modified into dedicated ASW aircraft. I believe some post war aircraft had the seat put back in. Additionally most restored Avengers today have a seat there so they can carry a passenger. 1940s electronics was very bulky and had to go somewhere.

Bill

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

In the case of the Japanese , the middle crewman navigated , had a bomb sight and did level bombing as a bombardier. He often was an officer , and strike leaders would frequently fly in this position ...

I thought I saw the strike leader in the Pearl Harbor movie we can name -- "Tora, Tora, Tora" -- in the middle seat with a map as the flight approached PH.

[Gaspote]

Call him like you want but the pilot isn't dropping the torpedo, it's someone else. To drop a torpedo, you are suppose to fly at 300km/h (perhaps even slower) at 30m from the sea, in this position you don't see the ship you're aiming. It's possible that pilot get a button to drop but even in this case, someone have to say when he can drop the torpedo.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Gaspote

Call him like you want but the pilot isn't dropping the torpedo, it's someone else. To drop a torpedo, you are suppose to fly at 300km/h (perhaps even slower) at 30m from the sea, in this position you don't see the ship you're aiming. It's possible that pilot get a button to drop but even in this case, someone have to say when he can drop the torpedo.

Didn't the back-seater on a Brit Fairy Swordfish TB have to practically wing walk in order to tell the pilot when it was OK to drop the fish?
I seem to recall similar acrobatics during the sinking of the Bismarck.

[Gaspote]

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: Gaspote

Call him like you want but the pilot isn't dropping the torpedo, it's someone else. To drop a torpedo, you are suppose to fly at 300km/h (perhaps even slower) at 30m from the sea, in this position you don't see the ship you're aiming. It's possible that pilot get a button to drop but even in this case, someone have to say when he can drop the torpedo.

Didn't the back-seater on a Brit Fairy Swordfish TB have to practically wing walk in order to tell the pilot when it was OK to drop the fish?
I seem to recall similar acrobatics during the sinking of the Bismarck.

I think it was because torpedoes suck at this time so they basically breaked into water if they weren't release at the right time.

[wdolson]

I suggest you read some accounts of people who have actually dropped torpedoes. In every account I have ever read, it was the pilot who did the drop. And they had zero problem seeing the target. I also believe 30m was pretty low for a typical torpedo bomber run in. I have read accounts of more like 300 feet (about 100 m).

Bill

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: wdolson

I suggest you read some accounts of people who have actually dropped torpedoes. In every account I have ever read, it was the pilot who did the drop. And they had zero problem seeing the target. I also believe 30m was pretty low for a typical torpedo bomber run in. I have read accounts of more like 300 feet (about 100 m).

Bill

I've seen torpedoes dropped from 300'. Admittedly it was a modern torpedo , not a ww2. Our biggest problem was generally speed related , vice altitude. [:)]

[wdolson]

By late war the US put a breakaway box around the fins of torpedoes so they could be dropped from higher altitude and higher speeds. I believe 300 feet was the standard drop altitude by 1944.

Bill

[EHansen]

At the start of the war, the standard drop parameters for the MK 13 mod 0 and mod 1 were 50 feet and less than 150 knots, and then there were 50% or more failures.

[wdolson]

If they hovered and placed the torpedo in the water like it was an egg, they probably would have still had a 50% failure rate.

Bill

[EHansen]

I found conflicting information, but it would appear that about 30% of the early MK-13 actually worked right if released correctly. The rest ran deep, erratic, prematurely detonated, sank, broke up, duded, etc.

[CT Grognard]

As already indicated, the B5N2 Kate had a crew of three - pilot/torpedo operator, observor/navigator/bombardier, and radio-operator/gunner.

The pilot aimed and released the torpedo. There was a torpedo-launching sight inside the cockpit, with a further aiming sight on the front cowling just behind the prop.

The initial Type 91 torpedo had to be released at less than 130 knots from below 100 feet altitude. This was easier to do in the slower Jean biplane.

The new Revision 2 torpedoes first received in August 1941 were much better. These could be launched from 200 ft at 160 knots. Dropped from 800m from its target, the torpedo would hit after around 25 seconds (four seconds in the air, 21 seconds in the water).

When the Kate carried bombs, these were armed, aimed and released by the bombardier sitting in the belly.

[gradenko2k]

ORIGINAL: mind_messing
Those hours invested in the Silent Hunter series haven't been totally wasted. It's hard enough aiming torpedos for a submarine, doing it while flying must be something else!

I rather think being able to shoot your fish from much closer in and having much faster control over your heading for a 0-gyroangle shot would make air-dropped torpedo attacks somewhat easier on the calculus than the submerged kind.

It's the drastically higher closure rate and the lack of surprise that really gets you!

[Gaspote]

http://books.google.fr/books?id=xxG4MKY ... do&f=false

"Only the pilot release [...] the torpedo in TBM", page71
Although there are something about the bombardier ,at the end, .3 page74.

For TBM the bombardier is necessary in level bombing but not in torpedo bombing.

About the TBD, http://academickids.com/encyclopedia/in ... Devastator

"A crew of three were carried beneath a single, large "greenhouse" canopy almost half the length of the airplane. The pilot, of course, sat up front; a rear gunner and radio operator took the rearmost, rear-facing seat, while the Torpedo Officer (bombardier) sat in the middle seat during flight. During a bombing run, the bombardier lay prone, sliding into position under the pilot to sight through a window in the bottom of the fuselage."

Although I think bombardier/torpedo officer wasn't use every time. Perhaps in a flight of 3 plane, the leader was in the middle plane and aim for the ship. The two others plane just have to fly in formation with the leader and release when he release.
In operation such like Pearl Harbor Jap probably used full B5N in order to have a very high hit rate and because they made level bombing too.

[wdolson]

The third crewman always had a job on the TBF/TBM because the turret gunner's only job was in the turret. The third crewman operated any electronics on board and did any other duties. There was a bomb sight in the back of the bomb bay which the electronics guy could use, though frequently the pilot released the bombs on bombing missions as well as torpedo missions. I have read an account of VT-10 crews who perfected night bombing ships and the pilot was in complete control of bomb release.

In the TBD, the middle guy was just along for the ride on a torpedo strike. He added weight and contributed nothing.

The Jill had two gun positions, one in the rear cockpit and another tunnel gun pointing down forward of the tailwheel. I believe the middle seat guy could climb back into the rear fuselage to man the tunnel gun if he wasn't needed to bombing duties. I don't think the middle guy had any job in the Kate on a torpedo strike. I don't know if they carried them or not. They may have for something like crew unity and sharing the joy of victory or something like that.

Overall this is a poorly documented subject so we're left with a lot of speculation. Someone should ask this question as j-aircraft.com. Those guys are fanatics about every minutiae of Japanese aircraft.

Bill

[Dili]

The pilot aimed the plane and delivered the torpedo. The three crew had to do with peacetime theories. The torpedo aircraft were to get the best crews due to the fact that they had the weapon that could kill enemy battleships.

[wdolson]

A bit more detail on this. I got an Osprey book on TBDs yesterday. It had tables for every combat mission the TBD ever flew with the mission, load, squadron, and where possible the names of the crew, the serial number of the planes, and the squadron number of the planes. I think one table has an error where the gunner column is empty and a bombardier is listed for each plane. That was for the first aerial torpedo strike by the USN flown by VT-6 in Feb 1942.

The strike on the Shoho flown by VT-5 had crews of three, but in every other case, torpedo strikes had a crew of two and bombing missions carried three crew members.

I don't have any data on Japanese doctrine, and the Avenger's third crew member had other jobs than just being bombardier, but with TBDs it looks like standard practice was to leave the middle seat guy behind on torpedo strikes.

Bill

[String]

ORIGINAL: CT Grognard

As already indicated, the B5N2 Kate had a crew of three - pilot/torpedo operator, observor/navigator/bombardier, and radio-operator/gunner.

The pilot aimed and released the torpedo. There was a torpedo-launching sight inside the cockpit, with a further aiming sight on the front cowling just behind the prop.

The initial Type 91 torpedo had to be released at less than 130 knots from below 100 feet altitude. This was easier to do in the slower Jean biplane.

The new Revision 2 torpedoes first received in August 1941 were much better. These could be launched from 200 ft at 160 knots. Dropped from 800m from its target, the torpedo would hit after around 25 seconds (four seconds in the air, 21 seconds in the water).

When the Kate carried bombs, these were armed, aimed and released by the bombardier sitting in the belly.

Just because they could drop them from so high doesn't mean that the crew did it.