Good Morning, Oppo

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 09/11/2019 at 08:30 • Filed to: good morning oppo

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Grumman XTBF-1 Avenger m ockup, 1940.

Nibby > ttyymmnn 09/11/2019 at 08:57

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my descent is the story of every man
I am hatred, darkness and despair

Milky > Nibby 09/11/2019 at 09:24

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Happy metal morning to you too.  

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > ttyymmnn 09/11/2019 at 09:25

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You forget how big they are till you have a human for scale

Nibby > Milky 09/11/2019 at 09:47

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Snuze: Needs another Swede > gmporschenut also a fan of hondas 09/11/2019 at 09:54

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I also always forget they have a little compartment below for the bombar dier. He also opperated a lower rear gun, but had to sort of stand/bend and spin around.  It sounds wildly uncomfortable. 

ttyymmnn > Snuze: Needs another Swede 09/11/2019 at 10:17

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This is an interesting read about the three crew positions in the TBF/TBM (the Avengers manufactured by Grumman were TBF, those manufactured by GM were TBM). The Avenger was really pretty much a deathtrap for the rear gunner and the radio man. There was not enough room for them to wear their parachutes, and the gunner had to climb down into the rear of the plane to put his chute on and then they both had to exit out that little crew door on the side. And the underneath compartment where the radio guy sat was not armored, so they were sitting ducks for AAA.

Snuze: Needs another Swede > ttyymmnn 09/11/2019 at 10:21

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Thanks for the link, I’ll check it out a bit later. I do recall also reading (maybe this is covered in the link) that the middle seating position usually contained   radio gear which was impossible for the turret gunner or bombardier to get to the pilots seat in the event he was incapacitated.

ttyymmnn > Nibby 09/11/2019 at 10:21

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Maybe you should rethink your breakfast choices. Don’t be the cloud.

Nibby > ttyymmnn 09/11/2019 at 10:23

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ok that was pretty funny.

ttyymmnn > Snuze: Needs another Swede 09/11/2019 at 10:23

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There was armor plate between the gunner and the pilot, and the radio operator would have been blocked by the radios and the bomb bay. AFAIK, if the pilot dies, they all die. 

ttyymmnn > Nibby 09/11/2019 at 10:28

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That was hilarious.  I absolutely needed that this morning. Thank you.

Nibby > ttyymmnn 09/11/2019 at 10:30

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*bows*

Snuze: Needs another Swede > ttyymmnn 09/11/2019 at 10:36

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Ahh, that makes more sense.

An interesting side note to the TBM/TBF is it’s main weapon, the Mark 13 torpedo, and it’s storied development. It was widely considered a dud at the begining of the war, and was largely so through 1943. A funny stat I recall was that they had something like a “95 % failure rate and only 30% success rate ” - they would count each failure seperately on the same weapon, hence the >100% total. Anyways, the torpedo situation was so bad the Ordnance Bureau started 2 programs - one to fix the Mk 13 and one to design a new torpedo to hedge their bets. One thing they found was that the Navy thought pilots needed to go slow and level to avoid damaging the torpedos, but this actually caused them to “belly flop” which damaged them more, and it made the planes vulnerable. By the end of the war changes in tactics and a few relatively minor changes (some internal upgrades and aerodynamic fairings) had the weapons running a phenomonally high success rate and it was considered one of the best torpedos of any nation. 

ttyymmnn > Snuze: Needs another Swede 09/11/2019 at 10:48

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Good stuff. Thanks. My first thought is about Waldron’s Torpedo 8 and their obsolete Devastators.

The next day, June 4, the 15 Douglas   TBD-1 Devastators of VT-8 launched from Hornet’ s flight deck in search of the enemy. Before takeoff, LCDR Waldron had a dispute with the Hornet’s Commander, Air Group , Stanhope C. Ring, and Hornet CO Marc Mitscher about where the Japanese carriers would be found. Despite having a contact report showing the Japanese southwest of Hornet , Mitscher and Ring ordered the flight to take a course due west, in the hopes of spotting a possible trailing group of carriers. Waldron argued for a course based on the contact report, but was overruled. Once in the air, Waldron attempted to take control of the Hornet strike group by radio. Failing that, he soon split his squadron off and led his unit directly to the Japanese carrier group. Waldron, leading the first carrier planes to approach the Japanese carriers (somewhat after 9:00AM local time, over an hour before the American dive bombers would arrive), was grimly aware of the lack of fighter protection, but true to his plan of attack, committed Torpedo 8 to battle. Without fighter escort, underpowered, with limited defensive armament, and forced by the unreliability of their own torpedoes to fly low and slow directly at their targets, the Hornet torpedo planes received the undivided attention of the enemy’s combat air patrol of Mitsubishi Zero fighters. All 15 planes were shot down. Of the 30 men who set out that morning, only one—Ensign George H. Gay, Jr. , USNR—survived. Their sacrifice, however, had not been in vain. Torpedo 8 had forced the Japanese carriers to maneuver radically, delaying the launching of the planned strike against the American carriers. After further separate attacks by the remaining two torpedo squadrons over the next hour, Japanese fighter cover and air defense coordination had become focused on low-altitude defense. This left the Japanese carriers exposed to the late-arriving SBD Dauntless dive bombers from Yorktown and Enterprise , which attacked from high altitude. The dive bombers fatally damaged three of the four Japanese carriers, changing the course of the battle. ( Wiki )