British Swordfish vs destroyer

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SubSonic
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British Swordfish vs destroyer

#1

Post by SubSonic » 03 May 2004, 22:50

The british carrier based torped-bomber called swordfish, was obsolete in the biginning of the war, but was still in use. Its 9-cylinder, 690-hp Bristol Pegasus IIIM3 could only bost the plane to a cruise speed of 128mph and slower in strong wind. One time a swordfish was bucking a stiff headwind at sea. This sight promoted a captain of a royal destroyer to flag this messeage to the plane: Do you want to race?

What a sight it would have been. :D

Source: World War II(May,2004)

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#2

Post by varjag » 04 May 2004, 14:24

Even in very high winds, Sub-sonic, the destroyer would probably have lost as it had to labour against heavy seas. But no - I did not loose your point about the lumbering 'String-Bag' as they used to call the Swordfish in the R.N. But have u seen an aircraft fly backwards? No? The Swedish Air Force operated one that could. The Fieseler 156 known as the S 14 Stork - with a stalling speed below 50 km/h - in high winds it actually stayed airborne and drifted backwards.....I've seen it once.


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#3

Post by daveh » 04 May 2004, 16:19

The Supermarine Walrus was a catapult-launched, biplane amphibian with pusher propeller max. speed 135mph. I have been told that in a strong wing this was rumoured to progress sedately backwards! Maybe the pusher propeller gave that impression :) or was it the drink....

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Englander
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#4

Post by Englander » 04 May 2004, 18:19

varjag wrote:Even in very high winds, Sub-sonic, the destroyer would probably have lost as it had to labour against heavy seas. But no - I did not loose your point about the lumbering 'String-Bag' as they used to call the Swordfish in the R.N. But have u seen an aircraft fly backwards? No? The Swedish Air Force operated one that could. The Fieseler 156 known as the S 14 Stork - with a stalling speed below 50 km/h - in high winds it actually stayed airborne and drifted backwards.....I've seen it once.
In your part of the world, isn't there a channel of water where the current is so stong (certain time of the year) that some ships go backwards even if the ship is at full speed???

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SubSonic
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#5

Post by SubSonic » 04 May 2004, 19:19

Do you mean Öresund, which lies between Denmark and Scania.
If so I do know trhat there may be strong, but never thought that it was so strong. Don´t recall that I heard or seen any.

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Aufklarung
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#6

Post by Aufklarung » 04 May 2004, 20:43

What a sight it would have been.


I recently read a book (Behind the Glory), about the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and an instructor mentions him and another couple of instructors flying into a strong headwind in Fleet Finch's at reduce throttle and actually having the whole formation appearing to be moving backwards!!
Image
http://www.canadianflight.org/collect/col_10.htm

Now that would have been something to see!!

regards
A :)

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#7

Post by varjag » 05 May 2004, 13:47

Englander wrote:
varjag wrote:Even in very high winds, Sub-sonic, the destroyer would probably have lost as it had to labour against heavy seas. But no - I did not loose your point about the lumbering 'String-Bag' as they used to call the Swordfish in the R.N. But have u seen an aircraft fly backwards? No? The Swedish Air Force operated one that could. The Fieseler 156 known as the S 14 Stork - with a stalling speed below 50 km/h - in high winds it actually stayed airborne and drifted backwards.....I've seen it once.
In your part of the world, isn't there a channel of water where the current is so stong (certain time of the year) that some ships go backwards even if the ship is at full speed???
Englander - only place I can think of is the so called 'horisontal waterfalls' in some narrow passages in the Buccaneer Archepelago in NW Australia, actually north of Derby for those with an atlas. The tides in that area are huge - 10 - 11 meters (33-36 feet) and when 'the run is on' I wouldn't care to navigate them without a 35+ knot, jetboat....I've only seen 'the falls' from an aircraft. To produce the phenomenon the requirement is 'narrow channel' - and yep - someof them really are!

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#8

Post by Artie Bucco » 14 May 2004, 02:14

It's hard to belive that the obsolete Swordfish sunk dozens of U-Boats and surely dozens of Italian ships in the Mediterranian. It's easy to overlook that since it was a big factor in taking out the Bismark.

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#9

Post by varjag » 14 May 2004, 12:32

Artie Bucco wrote:It's hard to belive that the obsolete Swordfish sunk dozens of U-Boats and surely dozens of Italian ships in the Mediterranian. It's easy to overlook that since it was a big factor in taking out the Bismark.
Not only a big, but THE factor, in sinking the BISMARCK. Which - doesn't speak very well for the quality of BISMARCK's AA!

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#10

Post by daveh » 14 May 2004, 15:08

or perhaps the Bismark s AA systems was too modern!....maybe it was designed to deal with high speed attackers and could not cope with the Swordfish being so slow!! Too fast for anti ship methods too slow for AA :lol:

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#11

Post by Mark V » 04 Feb 2007, 22:33

daveh wrote:or perhaps the Bismark s AA systems was too modern!....maybe it was designed to deal with high speed attackers and could not cope with the Swordfish being so slow!! Too fast for anti ship methods too slow for AA :lol:
Wonder how modern fire control systems would react to Swordfish torpedo bomber attack ??

I think it is possible that Aegis system would not categorise "Stringbag" battling an strong headwind as an aircraft at all, nor would R2-D2s CIWS of ships...

So, maybe "milk run" in todays warfare against missile cruiser or something like that.

:D

- military systems, weren't, and aren't good on engaging something that is "out of the box". Swordfish was that already in 1940s.


Mark V

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#12

Post by Jon G. » 04 Feb 2007, 23:54

It depends not only on the aircraft but also on the circumstances. Surprise definitely also plays a part. For example, all six Swordfish attacking the Scharnhorst, the Gneisenau and the Prinz Eugen during the Channel Dash/Cerberus were shot down.

The Swordfish had an easier time in the Mediterranean, attacking the radar-less Italian fleet at night or Italian merchantmen at dusk while another Swordfish was illuminating the target with flares dropped behind the target. The very slow speed of the Swordfish was also very useful when looking out for U-Boats - and it was fortunate for the Swordfish's continued service life that it could also carry a radar. I would venture to claim that if the Swordfish had been useful as a torpedo bomber only, it would have been withdrawn from frontline service in about 1943.

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Re: British Swordfish vs destroyer

#13

Post by JonS » 05 Feb 2007, 00:08

SubSonic wrote:The british carrier based torped-bomber called swordfish, was obsolete in the biginning of the war, but was still in use. Its 9-cylinder, 690-hp Bristol Pegasus IIIM3 could only bost the plane to a cruise speed of 128mph and slower in strong wind. One time a swordfish was bucking a stiff headwind at sea. This sight promoted a captain of a royal destroyer to flag this messeage to the plane: Do you want to race?

What a sight it would have been. :D

Source: World War II(May,2004)
My grandfather was a radar wonk in the RNZNVR during WWII, and had a couple of stories about the Swordfish. He saw - IIRC - a trick known as "the Square Circuit" done. In this, the a/c would take off into a strong head wind, then throttle back while increasing the angle of attack so that the a/c climbed vertically, then at the desired altitude the pilot would throttle back some more and drift backwards along the length of the runway. At the appropriate point the throttle was increased till the a/c was stationary wrt the ground, and the a/c would start to descend, then at the right altitude the throttle was once more increaded and the a/c came in for a landing. :D

Of course, there were some serious problems with the low max airspeed. Swordfish patrolling behind convoys heading up to Murmansk would occasionally find themselves a bit too far behind the convoy, with the headwind a bit too strong, and the ships moving away a bit too fast :(

Brave men.

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#14

Post by redcoat » 08 Feb 2007, 02:55

daveh wrote:or perhaps the Bismark s AA systems was too modern!....maybe it was designed to deal with high speed attackers and could not cope with the Swordfish being so slow!! Too fast for anti ship methods too slow for AA :lol:
In the late 30's -early 40's torpedoes could only be launched successfully if the attacking aircraft slowed down to around 90 mph, if it travelled any faster the torpedo would break up on hitting the water.
In the attack on the Bismarck the Swordfish dived into their attack positions and then had to slow down to launch their torpedoes.
So if there is any truth in this myth, it would mean that the designers of the AA system had little knowledge of the then current torpedo bomber tactics

ps
Another flaw in this theory, torpedo bombers flew directly towards the ship, so there would be very little deflection to take into account when aiming

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