Why the USAAF gave up on the A-36 in favour of the P-47.

[Juha]

Hello Kutscha
I looked some info on A-36, even if deployed in NA it missed Tunisia campaign, it flew its first oper. sorties on 6 Jun 43 against Pantelleria.

Also one must to notice, that during the German evacuation from Sicily Germans noted that contrary their expectations evacuation during daytime across the Strait of Messina was more easier, in spite of day bombers, fighter bombers AND two full groups of A-36s, than during the darkness because of difficulties to load and unload in the full darkness and because of night bombing attacks by RAF. That even if they could count for protection only on AA because they lacked any meaningful day-fighter protection.

Again have anybody any definite info on that dive-bomber Mossie? I didn't find anything on it even if I looked on a couple Mossie books.

Juha

[Kutscha]

CJE,

The DH98 was for Spec B.18/38 (Bowyer). Spec B.1/40 was written for the DH98. The DH98 could not be ordered before a Spec had been written for it.

[CJE]

Originally Posted by Kutscha

The DH98 was for Spec B.18/38 (Bowyer). Spec B.1/40 was written for the DH98. The DH98 could not be ordered before a Spec had been written for it.

Well, I might say I'd rather trust Bowman than Bowyer in general, based on my personal experience.
Of course, no aircraft could be built before a spec was drawn up but as it turned out the D.H80 was not built against spec B.18/38, since the project was turned down by the AM.

[Kutscha]

Juha,

I have to make a correction thanks to your post. Another 2 months must be added to my 13 months. The 13 months was the time it took to arrive in theater.

I to have not come across any info on Mosquito dive bombers.

Interesting comment re. the evacuation of the Germans from Sicily.

Do you have any combat performance info on the Ju88 (much heavier than the Mossie) dive bomber and the Pe-2 (slightly lighter than the Mossie) dive bomber?

[Kutscha]

Nice comment in an Osprey book about Flak vs A-36s.
http://books.google.com/books?id=U2O...0Stuka&f=false

[Juha]

On Pe-2
All I can say that the Finnish liaison officer ar the HQ of Luftflotte 1 reported that Germans had warned that some special Pe-2 units were very good bridge busters, they attacked out of sun during a big raids and Germans concluded that the big raid was in fact a decoy with allowed the specialist Pe-2 unit to approach unnoticed and began its dives unhindered by AA.

On the other hand when the German AA-ship Niobe, ex-Dutch armoured deck cruiser Gelderland (commissioned 1900) was sunk by VVS KBF on 16 July 44 in Kotka harbour, Pe-2s were used more like a decoys, the real killers were 4 skip-bombing A-20G Havocks/Bostons. According to Soviets the 22 Pe-2s (á 2x250kg + 2x100kg) got 2 hits on Niobe, but as I wrote Niobe was sunk by A-20Gs which got two 1000kg hits.

Pure Pe-2 attack on 12 Jul 44 on Niobe by 30Pe-2s of 12th Guards BAP KBF didn’t achieve any hits.

On Ju-88
all I can say now that it has automatic dive-bombing sight and was fairly accurate, but I recall only some Finnish claims and I have not time to validate them. IIRC LW Ju 88s sunk at least some ships from Arctic convoys, some convoys suffered rather heavy losses to LW, especially PQ-18 which lost ten merchant ships to LW attacks, but I cannot recall how many were sunk by torpedo bombers and how many by Ju 88s.

On A-36
what I read yesterday, in all books and articles there was comment that A-36 was fairly vulnerable to German AA, but the loss rate was clearly sustainable. Also according to USAAF final evaluation even with dive-brakes deployed it accelerate too fast for a proper dive-bomber but its dive properties were very good for a fighter. At least some pilots seemed to have liked it and thought that they got good results in their dive bombing attacks but at least their claims against German evacuation shipping in the Strait of Messina seemed to have been optimistic when I compared them to German info. Also A-36 seemed to have suffered higher fatality rate per flying hour than any other a/c during training in Continental USA during early part of its career.

Juha

Addition: IIRC a big RN light cruiser Trinidad, which had earlier torpedoed herself (extreme cold had put one of its torpedos run a circle and hit her instead of a German DD) and hastily patched at Murmansk, was hit on home run by a 250/500kg bomb dropped by a Ju 88 and the fire the bomb had started got out of hand and the cruiser had to be scuttled.

[Juha]

Hello
checked the reasons of the losses of the 10 merchantmen lost to air attacks from Convoy PQ18, 9 were torpedoed and one, which the crew managed to beach but which was not salvaged, was hit by both torpedo and bombs. Against some earlier convoys Ju 88 dive-bombers had been more successful. LW losses during the attacks on PQ 18 were also heavy, some 28-31 planes.

Juha

[Juha]

Checked a little more
Ju 88
wasn’t a dive bomber in same sense like Ju 87, Blackburn Skua or Douglas SBD Dauntless, A-4 was optimized for 60deg dive bombing, and it seems that earlier A-5 (in essence A-4 with earlier, less powerful engines) was optimized for 50 deg dives, which in fact means glide-bombing. In 43 Germans were modifying also A-4s for glide bombing, removing dive-brakes, calibrating automatic dive-bombing sight for shallower dive angles etc in order to use 88s as level bombers or glide-bomber which used 30 deg dives.

After dive brakes were removed Finns used 45 deg dives with their Ju 88A-4s.

Pe-2
Finns used some war-booty Pe-2s, but as fast recon planes, but they tested also its dive capabilities. Max dive angle used was 85 deg because the CSUs didn’t work properly at 90 deg dives. But one must remember that all FAF’s Pe-2s were early production types, so later version, which had different engines might not have suffered from that handicap.

Juha

[Juha]

Hello Tony
of course you and Kurfürst can have 100% trust on Closteman but if you look for ex Shores’ and Thomas’ 2nd TAF, almost all the claims of 2nd TAF during the first 10 days of July 44, didn’t bother look more, and there are many of them, were made by the Spit IX pilots.

Juha

[tcolvin]

Hi, Juha, but it's a question of timing, and we've been discussing 1945, not mid-1944.

Page 532 (Vol III) of Shores & Thomas states that 'Superfighters' (Tempests and Spitfire XIV) replaced Mustang III in 122 Wing and Spitfire IX in 125 Wing already at the end of September 1944 under impact of the Me-262. By January 1945, they state that the Tempests 'had begun to find their form against the latest FW-190D and Bf-109K'.

2TAF were therefore clear about the equipment needed for air superiority in 1945, and it wasn't the Spitfire IX/XVI which was relegated to fighter-bombing, as Clostermann stated.

Tony