The Gyrocopetr in Anti-Submarine Warfare

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Tomg44
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The Gyrocopetr in Anti-Submarine Warfare

#1

Post by Tomg44 » 26 Mar 2009, 12:55

Could the Gyrocopter have played a significant anti-submarine role in WW2?

As early as 1934, a gyrocopter landed and took off from a Spanish Navy ship. By 1936 a gyrocopter could take off and land in little more than its own length. The rotors folded to make storage easier. They had a range of up to 250 miles. Britain had been a leading producer of gyrocopters pre-war. There was an American producer if needed. There were enough civilian examples to form an RAF squadron at the outbreak of war. It was what is now called a “Mature Technology”.

Wolf packs depended upon the U-boat which sighted the convoy, surfacing and maintaining contact, while informing HQ of its position, course and speed. If the U-boat could not safely surface, the whole strategy collapsed. The mere presence of gyrocopters patrolling around the convoy would surely have forced the U-Boat to stay submerged - if it was spotted, the escorts would soon arrive. The Japanese apparently, fitted gyrocopters with small depth charges.

The total “Loiter Time” of a few gyrocopters taking of and landing on ships within the convoy could have been far greater than that of conventional aircraft flying from distant bases. The aircraft were cheap, small simple fight decks could have been fitted to far more merchant ships than the Merchant Aircraft Carriers which were later used. Nowadays it is recognised that “Swarming”. - large numbers of small cheap attackers can overwhelm the most sophisticated defence. It seems reasonable to assume that in the case of a convoy, the reverse would work. How would you assemble and attack a convoy if the sky was swarming with defenders many miles beyond torpedo range?

Gyrocopter would obviously have been less able to work in periods of bad weather. The U-Boats probably achieved fewer sinkings then anyway. The failure to use them as part of a “Full Spectrum” approach to AS warfare is hard to understand.

Sadly, the person with the knowledge, vision and energy to make it happen - Juan de la Cierva died in a plane crash in 1936.

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Ironmachine
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Re: The Gyrocopetr in Anti-Submarine Warfare

#2

Post by Ironmachine » 26 Mar 2009, 19:48

The Japanese apparently, fitted gyrocopters with small depth charges.
Yes, they did use their Kayaba Ka-1 autogyro as an anti-submarine aircraft, even operating from light escort carriers. They were armed with 2 x 60kg depth-charges.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/kayaba_ka-1.php
Here you can find a video with some flying tests of the Ka-1, including some footage of carrier trials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EFt7cLCRSY[url][/url]
It is sometimes stated that a Ka-1 autogyro sank a submarine during World War II, but no definitive proof seems to be available.

Autogyros did have some major problems, mainly low speed and very limited load capacity, and to compete with aircraft they had little to offer. There is an interesting article about the failure of the autogyro as a weapon here:
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airc ... emple.html
The main problem for your idea may have been that by World War II the autogyro was seen as a failure. With this prejudice in mind, it would have been difficult that anyone could have proposed using it in a combat role.
On the other hand, if you are going to use autogyros on a continuous basis from ships, you will need much more than a simple flight deck. You will need hangars for the autogyros, storage places for aircraft fuel and weapons... Once you begin to modify a ship so much, it is probably much more efficient to carry conventional aircraft, as was made with the Merchant Aircraft Carriers you mentioned.


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phylo_roadking
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Re: The Gyrocopetr in Anti-Submarine Warfare

#3

Post by phylo_roadking » 26 Mar 2009, 22:03

You will need hangars for the autogyros, storage places for aircraft fuel and weapons...
..two or more pilots to keep up a flight regime, a mechanic/fitter/armourer trio for the aircraft itself, service spares, a couple of spare engines; the amount of maintenance an operational aircraft in WWII needed is often underestimated.

Next - exactly what ships can these be flown from??? Most ships of the period had centrally-located superstructures...and inconveniently-located derricks and masts! As far as I can see - Autogyros were VERY short take-off and landing aircraft...but STILL needed a slow approach run, and a longer take-off run - they were NOT VTOL aircraft. How would a fragile little Cierva's undercarriage stand up to meeting its landing area rising towards it sharply on an Atlantic swell even in good flying weather boggles the mind! :lol: Next...AFAIK they have to take off into a wind? Even a light one??? So a cargo ship is to drop out of convoy position to turn into the wind and launch its autogyro....and lose its place in the formation? Ditto they do have a very low stall speed...but not zero like a helicopter, a slow-moving cargo ship would have to manouver out of position again to recover its bird.

Compare an autogyro with an ASW-configured Swordfish, the Swordfish has a 550-mile combat radius, with 1500lbs or ordnance and HF-DF in the MkIII version. Configured for long-range maritime patrolling, out to 2100 miles radius - the B24 Liberator could still carry nearly 3000lbs of ASW ordnance and ASV MkII radar...and was being flown by mid-war out from both sides of the Atlantic....even the Hudson had a patrol radius of over 900 miles and 750lbs of depthcharges to patrol the Western Atlantic and the Northern Approaches.

And what can a carrier or camship do that a Cierva autogyro can't???

Fight off Luftwaffe longrange patrol and anti-shipping aircraft...the other responsibility for maritime patrol aircraft and carrier aircraft in the Atlantic during the war.

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Re: The Gyrocopetr in Anti-Submarine Warfare

#4

Post by Dave Bender » 26 Mar 2009, 22:41

http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/models/Air ... r-282.html
By 1942, the Kolibri was operational on warships with suitable platforms, escorting convoys in the Baltic, Mediterranean and Aegean Seas, and was thus effectively the first military helicopter in the world.

The helicopter was found to be especially valuable at dawn and dusk when pilots of fixed wing aircraft did not have good visual contact in the poor light. During the day observation was especially favorable in the Mediterranean where the clear water allowed the helicopter crews to 'see' submarines as deep as 130 feet.

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Tim Smith
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Re: The Gyrocopetr in Anti-Submarine Warfare

#5

Post by Tim Smith » 27 Mar 2009, 13:26

That's a helicopter, Dave.....not an autogyro. So you are off-topic.

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That's a helicopter not an autogyro

#6

Post by Dave Bender » 27 Mar 2009, 13:48

http://www.jefflewis.net/autogyros.html#differences
Early autogyros require only 50 feet of runway to take off.
Early autogyros require only 20 feet of runway to land.
Runway requrements are so small that they operated from post office roof tops.
Autogyros can fly as slow as 15 mph.

Autogyro performance is similiar to helicopter performance. So I think the comparison is valid.

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Ironmachine
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Re: The Gyrocopetr in Anti-Submarine Warfare

#7

Post by Ironmachine » 27 Mar 2009, 14:27

But this thread is not about the feasibility of operating a scout autogyro from a ship to do the occasional search mission. We are talking here of having a number of autogyros operating simultaneously from a ship, autogyros that would need to have the capacity to carry out successful hunter-killer missions against submarines in the middle of the Atlantic.
I really doubt that an autogyro with adecuate performance for such a task could be built. And I think that if you are going to modify a ship to operate with autogyros on a sustained cicle of operations, it would be more cost-effective to modify it to operate with conventional aircraft.
AFAIK, only the Japanese tried the path of the anti-submarine autogyro, and they did it not because they thought that the autogyro was the best option, but because it was almost the only option. And they did not seem to have had great success.

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Re: The Gyrocopetr in Anti-Submarine Warfare

#8

Post by Dave Bender » 27 Mar 2009, 16:21

capacity to carry out successful hunter-killer missions against submarines in the middle of the Atlantic.
Not even modern day helicopters can do that. They are short range assets to extend ship recon capability and perhaps carry a couple of light ASW weapons.

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Re: The Gyrocopetr in Anti-Submarine Warfare

#9

Post by phylo_roadking » 27 Mar 2009, 17:06

I've come across Jeff Lewis' page before (anyone with an interest in Little Nellie and Ken Wallis have trouble missing it!) - but it neeeds to be read as a piece.

He notes for instance in the section Dave cites that -
Early autogyros required only about 50 feet of runway to take off and could land in under twenty when airplanes were using hundreds of feet. Later autogyros reduced their need for a runway to less than fifteen feet, and eventually to vertical take off and landings. This allows autogyros to be flown from practically anywhere, needing almost no runway. In fact, in the 1930's and 40's, autogyros were used to carry mail from post office rooftops in Camden, NJ, Philadelphia, PA, Chicago, IL, New Orleans, LA, and Washington, D.C., as well as other cities in the north east.
...which does look excellent for the purpose intended. Unless you begin to wonder how a freewheeling autorotating prop can rotor can provide enough lift for VTOL...

And Lewis doesn't provide an answer in THAT section - instead its tucked away in the "history of" section...
Earlier in this paper, it was stated that autogyros have the potential for vertical take off and landing. Although all the autogyros discussed so far have been capable of vertical landings at least in an emergency, they have also all needed some minimum takeoff run. But, if the rotor was powered before take off to make it spin at the minimum speed for autorotation, why not just continue to power it to a higher speed and take off from the lift created that way. That is exactly what happened. In August of 1933, experiments were begun on a C.30 in this new method of takeoff, which came to be known as a jump takeoff. These first experiments were promising, but not satisfactory. Spinning the rotor on the ground caused too much vibration, and the aircraft was only capable of making low jumps. By October 28, 1934, after over a year of experimenting and refining, the C.30 finally made a successful jump takeoff. Many later autogyros were also designed for jump takeoffs, most using the same method as the C.30. A few later autogyros had tip driven motors where either a jet or a rocket was put at the end of each rotor blade to spin the rotor that way
In other words - we're starting to veer into helicopter territory...
The C.30, besides being the first autogyro to make a successful jump takeoff, was notable for another aspect as well. It was the first autogyro to use direct control. Direct control was a method where the pilot tilted the rotor instead of a rudder and ailerons. This greatly simplified the control of the aircraft, as well as the design. A pilot now had one control for yaw, pitch, and roll, and designers only needed to design that one control. In the C.30 and later autogyros of comparable size, this consisted of a bar connected directly to the rotor hub that extended into the cockpit. For larger machines, the controls of the pilot were mechanically linked to the rotor hub. The C.30 also proved to be the most popular production autogyro ever designed, with more than 180 of them being built.
With the C.30 we're talking about the ONLY difference with a helicopter being that the autogyro's rotor wasn't used for forward propulsion as well. And THAT advance with the C.30 was made only in 1934...with the Breguet-Dorand 314 making the first modern helicopter flight less than a year later in 1935. This, accompanied with Cierva's death, stunted further autogyro development well before the outbreak of war - while Igor Sikorsky's V.S.300 flew early in the war, on December 8, 1941.

It's quite clear Lewis likes autogyros; he does gloss over the handling problems mentioned in the other report...but you can see where the ommissions are made -
In an autogyro, the wings are the rotor and are moving through the air at the speed at which the rotor is spinning, not the speed at which the aircraft is moving. The aircraft does have to be moving forward some to maintain the autorotation, but this is a much lower speed than the speed airplanes must maintain to produce lift. Autogyros can fly at speeds as low as 15 mph. Men can run faster than that speed. And unlike low speed airplanes which have huge wings creating enough lift for low speed flight which means a huge increase in drag, autogyros do it with the faster spinning rotor, so autogyros have a larger speed envelope, or they are capable of flying in a greater range of speeds than airplanes.
In other words - just at the point of landing, an autogryro is literally falling out of the sky and the pilot has little control! For the slower he goes to make a precision landing in limited space - the less lift is generated by the rotor.

Try that in a pitching deck and an Atlantic gale 8O A camship would probably have been cheaper in pilots and aircraft....

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Re: The Gyrocopetr in Anti-Submarine Warfare

#10

Post by phylo_roadking » 27 Mar 2009, 17:11

(an off-topic Easter Egg - and a memory from my childhood. What the autogyro SHOULD have become...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv6Gr2mL ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r9aTHn_ ... re=related

We should have been flying those from city airports nowadays...
Last edited by phylo_roadking on 27 Mar 2009, 17:11, edited 1 time in total.

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Try that in a pitching deck

#11

Post by Dave Bender » 27 Mar 2009, 17:11

Let the relatively small gyrocopter land on a net. Just like catching a butterfly. :)

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Re: The Gyrocopetr in Anti-Submarine Warfare

#12

Post by phylo_roadking » 27 Mar 2009, 18:12

Dave - that's potentially worse...

Just imagine; autogyro settles into a net laid on a flat deck...and ship drops, or tilts, or a gust blows the autogryo sideways - with it's wheels caught in the net...the wheels are held in one place but the rest of the the craft isn't. Crunch, and an expensive write-off.

Landing on the flight deck of a carrier at sea is no picnic...but that bulk does damp out/slow down a lot of sea movement, especially with the carrier running at speed into the wind (See James' The Paladin - it's the reason why RN carriers between the wars and into WWII needed so frequent reconditioning, the having to run at prolonged full speed so often for carrier ops). And if the weather too difficult for carrier ops - it's too inclement for LW recce/anti-shipping sorties...OR for a sub on the surface to keep in sight of a convoy...anyway.

Frankly, like Lewis I LIKE autogyrops, particularly modern ones; but even Ken Wallis admits in his many interviews they are severely limited in application.

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Re: The Gyrocopetr in Anti-Submarine Warfare

#13

Post by Ironmachine » 27 Mar 2009, 18:37

Dave Bender wrote:
capacity to carry out successful hunter-killer missions against submarines in the middle of the Atlantic.
Not even modern day helicopters can do that. They are short range assets to extend ship recon capability and perhaps carry a couple of light ASW weapons.
What I was trying to say is that conventional aircraft had the capacity to sink submarines on their own. Appendix II in Hunter-Killer - U.S. Escort Carriers in the Battle of the Atlantic by William T. Y' Blood lists the following sinkings by escort carrier groups:
By squadrons: VC-9: 9; VC-13: 6; VC-1:5; VC-29: 3; VC-53: 3 (1 shared); VC-19: 3 (1 shared); VC-6: 2 (1 shared); VC-42: 1; VC-69: 1; VGS-27: 1; VC-95: 1 (shared).
and by carriers: Bogue: 12; Card:11; Croatan: 7; Block Island:7; Core: 6; Guadalcanal: 4, including U-505; Santee: 3; Mission Bay: 2; Solomons: 1; Wake Island: 1.
In fact, for 1943 sinkings by the aircraft of the carrier groups greatly outnumbered sinkings by the destroyer escorts.
That is a significant number of kills in addition to their capacity "to extend ship recon capability".
My point is that with gyrocopters, with their limitations in speed, range and payload, achieving the same results would have been impossible.

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Re: The Gyrocopetr in Anti-Submarine Warfare

#14

Post by phylo_roadking » 27 Mar 2009, 19:58

Ditto for the British, even with something as "dated" as the Fairey Swordfish; in one convoy trip from the UK to North Russia in 1944, Swordfish from HMS Vindex sank four U-Boats. Once the Swordfish had its lower wing metal-pannelled and able to bear the weight of rockets and with ASV MkX radar, the MkIII Swordfish was a formidable submarine hunter-killer, with nine squadrons still in frontline service in early 1945.

One other thing to remember, typified by the Swordfish; carrier aircraft were far more versatile as weapons platforms during WWII than an autogyro could be. Swordfish for instance could be configured with torpedoes for anti-shipping missions - OR as bombers for raids in Norway and France in 1940, Italy in late 1940 and early 1941, and the Western Desert. They could lay mines, drop flares at night...and even hunted German midget submarines in the North Sea in January and May 1945.

An autogyro, with its severly compromised carrying capacity, would be limited in application strictly to what it had been tailored to do. From the point of view of "value for money" - carrier-based aircraft would always beat it.

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Aircraft of the carrier groups

#15

Post by Dave Bender » 28 Mar 2009, 00:33

It's a matter of cost. A CVL plus a half flotilla of DD escorts costs about $40 million. That doesn't include the price of the airgroup.

A light weight aircraft to sit on the DD fantail costs maybe $20 thousand. It's less effective then a CVL/CVE hunter-killer task force. But it's $40 million cheaper.

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