LWD wrote:But there was enough time to cycle them was there not? Or was British doctrine to put them all up at once if a raid was detected?
Have to dig out the detailed descriptions of the air attacks to answer that one. I think the skill of any central interceptor control would have more to do with it, and pilot discipline, than cycle time. Tho recovery cycle would be important. The USN fighter control system was not 'perfected' in 1942. Some of the shipboard controlers used a confusing terminology for commands, ect.. On the pilot side discipline frequently broke down with pilots ignoring orders, and jamming the radio frequencies with transmissions during combat.
LWD wrote: The US also used Dauntlesses in a CAP role at times did the British do similarly with some of their bombers?
The Albacores & Swordfish bombers were impossibly slow. A head to head shot would be the only likely killing approach. I dont even know if either had forward firing MG ??? Neither had the speed to make astern pursuit or beam approaches to a bomber very practical.
There is also a question of what ammunition the Brit fighters would have carried. The Japanese bombers were extremely flammable, and structurally fragile. A higher portion of tracer rounds or incendiary, and HMG means a higher kill rate.
And, yes the USN dive bombers were credited with a few IJN bombers in 1942. At least one with a Zero with a head to head shot as well.
My previous post was incorrect. The Japanese did attack the Lexington with torpedo bombers, but there were no torpedos available to the just arrived 4th Air Group. They attacked with bombs either in the 250 or 500 kilo weight range. The attacks were made from low altitude with the final approach well under 5000 feet, possiblly as low as 1000 feet. What was the actual attack altitude of the bombers on the British? I recall from the photographs and text it was far under 10,000 feet. Is that anywhere near correct? Were they dropping from above 10,000 feet I'd be suprised if more than a single hit were recorded. Vs the Lexington about a third of the attackers dropped bombs near the carrier. One plane load landed close enough to scatter fragments onto the ship. Several of the bombers were on fire & had parts like engines and wings falling off when the bombs dropped.
Tim Smith wrote:Carl Schwamberger wrote:To understand what might have happened with a CAP vs torpedo bombers examine the experience of the USS Lexington & TF11 vs the IJN G4M1 of the 4th Air Group.
True - but there was only one attack on the Lexington on that occasion.
Techincally two attacks. The Japanese commander split the bombers into two groups, which managed to attack from two different directions in the same few minutes. That led to a example of the CAP being maldistributed with only two fighters intercepting one of the bomber flights.