Anti Shipping Aircraft

Thanks, Tony! Much obliged for the info!

 

a He 111 armed with a B&V 143, a rocket powered air-delivered torpedo

 

another He 111 but with a Hs 293 radio controled bomb

 

i'm not sure if we can count this one, since it was pre WW II

 

now a He 115 with a practice torpedo

 

The He115 seems to have an internal torpedo...

 

Yeah, it does. But doesnt It carry two torpedos?? :-?

 

i do not think so!!!

 

It might be, but thats strange, the He115 carrfied a 3,300lbs payload, so I always presumed that would be two torpedoes...

 

'm not sure if we can count this one, since it was pre WW II
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It's an Arado Ar 95...

 

It might be, but thats strange, the He115 carrfied a 3,300lbs payload, so I always presumed that would be two torpedoes...

I think it was the size and shape of the torpedoes rather than their weight that prevented more than one being carried.

 

from what i was able to find out, the germans were the pioneers of the air launched anti shipping missiles
we have the FX 1400 or SD 1400, but better know as the Fritz X
the Henschel 293 and the variants Hs 294, Hs 295 and the Hs 296
Henschel GT 1200
the B&V 143
the B&V 264 Hagelkorn

 

Perfectly true. They sank the Italian battleship ROMA with one, while very severely damaging the British battleship WARSPITE and an American heavy cruiser. If Germany had had such weapons a year or two earlier, life would have been a lot more difficult for the Allied navies.

 

Another german anti-ship plane was the Me 210/410 Hornisse, it was used against shipping and had many different weapon sets. It was also used against bombers and tanks, but like the me 110 it was inferior to single engine fighters.

 

Well probably someone wrote this already but Stringbag rocks :smok: .
One needed guts to fly that against something as Bismarck.

 

According to one of BISMARK's survivors, the reason none of the Swordfish was shot down is that the automatic speed adjustment device on the German AA guns couldn't be set low enough to hit one of the biplanes. Seems the designeers never thought anyone would be insane enough to attack BISMARK in such a slow aircraft!

 

That is why i said one needed guts for that.

 

thoughts

the B-25 was the deadliest antishiping aircraft of the war but it was most likely armed with 8 to 12 .50 calber M2s in the nose instead of the 75mm. these weapons could saw a small ship in half. since the attack profile looked like a torb attack the ships would turn into or away and allow a strafing run right down the center of the ship with devestating results. this attack followed by a quick 270 degree turn and a skip bombing attack was fatal. it was the B-25 that developed ship bombing into the deadliest shipping attack style of the war. a 500 lb bomb skipped like a flat rock into the side of the ship was a fairly easy shot and one was usually enough. since the 25 couls carry several it was possible for a single plane to attack many ships on the same mission. the battle of the bismark sea was the classic example of air power killing a convoy and the 25 was right in the middle of it.
the black cat PBYs made low level night attack an atr form. they had good radar for search and targeting as well as radar altimiters. they also used skip bombing as well as standard low level bombing and torps.

 

Re: thoughts

The Battle of the Bismark Sea is the only instance in history that I know of a convoy being, for all intents and purposes, totally annihilated by air power alone, with no assistance from either submarines or surface ships.

The Black Cat PBYs were also in the habit of dropping empty beer bottles on Japanese island positions. Seems the bottles made a whistling noise on the way down eerily similar to that of a dropped bomb.

 

Re: thoughts

Hey, Biggles used that trick in 1918!

re: torpedo bombing at night - they must have been very very good pilots.