Fairey Swordfish
 

In Storm of war are there also the Fairey Swordfish?

I'd want to see that, probably not to fly it, but to escort it would be good.

One of the most effective torpedo bombers in the war.

:arrow:The guys who flew thoes stringbags must have had HUGE balls , mucho respecto to them.....:cool:

Salute

Well, when I asked Oleg if he was interested in some pictures I took of a Swordfish cockpit, he said yes. So I sent them to him.

I doubt the Swordfish will be in BoB, since it didn't play a big role there, but later... who knows what he will do with them... ;)

One of the 40 I sent: (click three times on image)

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/5...e012oz0.th.jpg

Good job *Buzzsaw*, please upload all of picture You have taken, in order, all of us to enjoy them. Thanks.

<------BB-09------<<<

~S!

Are there ever be an SOW?

Oh ye of little faith.

I would love to fly the swordfish, the string bag is an aircraft with incredible character. it would be awesoem to do skins for as well.



One of the most effective ??? I do not think I would go that far.

I would say the Kate, SM 79, and TBF/TBM were far better. Actually the Devastator was better.

The Swordfish just happened to be all the Brits had for that role, so it got used in a couple of famous ops.

It was the best Britain had for the role, in the early war, there were others. I suspect one factor may have been it's low speed, which meant that a torpedo entered the water at about the speed it was going to run at. Apparently they were still in production in 1943.

If anyone has figures for torpedoes launched against tonnage sunk, for any torpedo bombers, I'd be interested to hear them.

That would be interesting.

Most US torpedo bombers spent the majority of their service dropping bombs though.

Aerial torpedo attack reached it's zenith with the attack on Pearl Harbor, I would think.

Perhaps Google is our friend here....

Actually most Swordfish spent the majority of time laying mines and dropping bombs and presumably depth charges.

A torpedo was an unusual load out.

The Swordfish had a very good record against submarines ....


1940
U-64,

1941
U-451,

1942
U-577, U-652 +, U-589 +,

1943
U-203 +, U-89 +, U-752, U-617 +,

1944
U-472 +, U-366, U-973, U-653 +, U-288 +, U-277, U-674,
U-959, U-765 +, U-344, U-394 +, U-365,



21 U-boats lost to Swordfish aircraft. + means that the Swordfish shared the credit for the sinking.

It also shared credit in the sinking of the Bismark..

Some other interesting trivia ..

- Several flights of Swordfish were fitted with floats.

- Rocket Assisted Takeoff was used operationally with the Swordfish.

About torpedoes launched to tons sunk, the problem would be for the americans at the early stage of the war till late 1942, when their torpedoes had very poor reliability compared to those of other nations.

I remember when the first silent hunter came out I've read an article about how they had problems with torpedoes sinking to low and going under the target, or hitting but not detonating, etc...

Yeah, except that the Bismark, being crippled, was scuttled to avoid capture, not sunk by enemy (British) fire. Shared credit in a crippling doesn't sound quite so glamourous, but it was enough.

I wonder what we'd have done with a captured Bismark?

Thats what they get for using the variant number Mark 13 Torpedo. If they had only named it 12 or 14 then things would have been fine!

But in all seriousness yeah I've also read about how bad the Mark 13 was. Torpedo bombing was in itself such a dangerous occupation - flying low and slow in order to drop the torpedo. It couldn't have helped that the weapon they were using would only work on odd occasion.

I certainly wouldn't have liked to be a torpedo bomber pilot....

The Swordfish was so low and slow it was actually hard to hit. They flew too close to the water for your typical high speed attack pass and flew too slow to safely dogfight particularly in planes like the fw190. The book "War in a Stringbag" describes how fw190 pilots regularly used flaps to get slow enough and even then had trouble hitting such a slow moving relatively manouverable target right on the water.

The Bismarck had lost all its fire control, gun turrets and was a floating hulk. It had no defence. The fact it was was scuttled is irrelevant to its defeat. The German crew may have done the deed, but the ship would have been captured otherwise.

As far as the Swordfish were concerned, they were instrumental in the destruction of the ship. One of the torpedos they launched hit Bismarck's rudder and steering geer and jammed it. The ship then circled helplessly while the British pursuers caught up, and was unable to maneuver effectively to avoid the British fire. Without the Swordfish torpedo hit, the Bismarck would likely have escaped to a French port.

The Swordfish may have been obselescent in terms of its performance, but it had an ability to land or takeoff in weather and sea conditions which would have been impossible for other Torpedo planes. This was a function of its extremely low stall/landing/takeoff speed. During the launch of the Swordfish's last attack on Bismarck, sea state was 5, wave height was 4 meters, and wind was blowing 50 kph.

The Swordfish had its greatest moment at Taranto when it sank or disabled 3 Italian Battleships and one Cruiser. The negative result of this event was the Japanese were inspired to try the same technique at Pearl Harbour.

There was a seaworthy hull, and a heck of a lot of steel. It might have made a nice aircraft carrier. Or, after a refit, maybe it would have reverted to being a battleship.

I did say it was enough. :)

Again, yeah.

Not entirely true.. In doing the crucial damage to the Bismark, under a defensive AAA, more than any American plane has ever faced - they were mostly downed by Zero's (cannot say the same for the Kate's though, but..), The Swordfish hit it's mark due to one important fact.... It was made not of metal, but fabric.. ...Work this one out for yourselves.
;)

Not to mention.. put 8 rockets on the wings, and every UBoat commander dreaded the Swordfish more than a Devastator, TBF, or F4(6)F