The Japanese Nakajima B5N “Kate” (235mph, 1 x 7.7mmm mg, 1760lbs torpedo or bombs, 1,075 mile range) torpedo bomber had been introduced in 1941, and was the mainstay of the early years of the wartime Japanese carrier operations. It had good range, was reliable, and had a good payload. But it still lacked armour or self-sealing fuel tanks. As a result it was desperately vulnerable to daytime operations against reasonable fighter opposition.
Almost exactly the same could be said for the American Douglas Dauntless dive bomber (255mph, 2 x 0.5 and 2 x 0.3 mg, 1,200lbs bombs, 1,115 mile range). Arrived at the same time, same strengths, similar weaknesses. Like all American aircraft it could absorb considerably more damage than any Japanese plane, but like all daylight attack aircraft, its top speed made it a sitting duck against organized fighter defenses. The greatest success of the Dauntless was at Midway, where the sacrificial run of the TBD Devastator torpedo bombers fortuitously arrived just far enough in advance to pull the entire Japanese fighter cover away and allow the Dauntlesses exactly the sort of unopposed attacks that the theoretically inferior Japanese “Val” dive bombers had enjoyed at Ceylon and Coral Sea. The increased success of the Dauntless later in the war was in direct parallel to the increased ability of American fighters to clear a path. By the time of the sinking of the Yamato in 1945, Dauntless formations always had almost completely unopposed runs. (Perhaps that is why it continued in operation when every other contemporary aircraft had been replaced?)
Nigel Davies, “Comparing naval aircraft of World War II”, rethinking history, 2010-12-20.
June 29, 2021
QotD: Carrier dive bombers in the early Pacific war
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