I was watching a documentary about the IJN Yamato, and they had a guy who said a quote to the effect of, “If you want to put holes in ships, use dive bombers. If you want to sink ships, use torpedo bombers”.
Granted, in WWII carrier warfare, both were used effectively by both sides. I’m wondering which was better, and what exactly would go through a captain’s mind when he was deciding how many planes to send out, and of what kind.
Dive bombers can stay at high altitude right up until they attack, which seems advantageous. They also had dive brakes which allowed them to slow down enough that pursuing fighters would overtake them (no cite for this, sorry) in a dive. Also, because of the distance they dropped bombs, dodging bombs by veering your ship around seems like pretty much a no-go.
Torpedo bombers are hitting a ship below the waterline, causing it to take on water and start to sink/list. They can cripple a ship this way (Swordfish bombers crippling the Bismark). However, torpedoes are relatively slow, traveling at 30-45 knots at a fixed course. Even big ships were nimble enough to dodge them if they spotted them from far away. The bombers would also have to fly at low altitude in a straight line before launching, which sounds like it would make them more vulnerable to ship AA fire.
So which was better? Both were used to sink ships, but from the weaknesses of torpedo bombers, I’m surprised carriers didn’t simply use dive bombers exclusively. What exactly could you do with a torpedo that you couldn’t do with a 1,000 lb bomb?
Put holes beneath the waterline, causing the ship to sink.
Note that even most of the ships that were destroyed by dive bombers (including all four Japanese carriers at Midway) were actually sunk either by friendly fire or by opening the sea valves to let in the ocean after the ship had suffered too much fire damage to be recoverable.
In contrast, the USS Lexington (CV2), USS Yorktown (CV5), USS Wasp (CV7), USS Hornet (CV8) all were hit by Japanese torpedoes that directly or indirectly led to their sinking. Similarly, even heavily armored ships (HMS Repulse and HMS Prince of Wales, the Italian battleships at Taranto and the US Navy battleships at Pearl Harbor) were susceptible to torpedoes.
One thing that makes it difficult to compare tactics in the Pacific is that the Japanese had superior torpedoes to those of the U.S. and the Kate was superior to the Devastator as a delivery vehicle at the beginning of the war. (The Avenger that replaced the Devastator changed that equation, although the Kate remained a good weapon.)
Now, following WWII, advances in bomb technology and tactics led the US Navy to abandon torpedo bombers by around 1950, but through WWII, the torpedo bomber was still the most effective ship-sinking airplane.
The problem with torpedo bombers was that they had to keep an awfully predictable path on their attack run; AA swated them like flies (only one US pilot survived from Midways first wave of torpedo bombers), on the other hand a sucessful hit could make devastating damage.
Dive bombers won the day at Midway for two reasons, the ships were busy mopping off torpedo bombers from the sky and didn´t notice they where coming and the decks of the carriers were full of planes being rearmed and refueled, lots of stuff that would go off if hit by even a single bomb.
Dive bombers had better chances of survival, but unless the bombs hit something like an ammo hold, chances are that they´d probably only cripple a big ship rather than sink it.
Playing armchair admiral I´d send my dive bombers first to distract the AA and damage the ships and sneak in the torpedo planes to finish them off.
Actually, I misspoke; Yorktown was initially hit by both bombs and torpedoes, during the battle of Midway. However, the torpedoes that sank it were fired by a submarine.
Maybe, but your objective is not sinking ships. Your objective is to put enemy ships out of action.
A dive bomber starting them on fire does this just as much as a torpedo putting a hole in the side. And the fire is faster; ships often take a long time to sink, and can keep fighting while sinking. (And sometimes they don’t sink at all; the Lexington survived the first 3 or 4 torpedos.)
And more dive bombers tend to survive vs. torpedo bombers, thus being available to strike the enemy again the next day. That’s important in winning the war, not just today’s battle.
[At about noon, as these planes approached USS Yorktown (CV-5), the most exposed of the three American aircraft carriers, they were intercepted by the U.S. combat air patrol, which shot down most of the bombers. Seven, however, survived to attack, hitting Yorktown with three bombs and stopping her.
While Yorktown’s crew worked to repair damage and get their ship underway, a second force left Hiryu, this one consisting of ten torpedo planes and six fighters. Though the U.S. carrier was moving again by 1430, and even launched more fighters, the Japanese aircraft penetrated heavy air and gunfire opposition to hit Yorktown with two torpedoes, opening a huge hole on her midships port side. The stricken ship again went dead in the water and took on a severe list. Concerned that she was about to roll over, her Captain ordered his crew to abandon ship.](http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/midway/mid-8.htm) Had the I-168 shown up in the middle of the air battle when she had been stopped by damage from the dive bombers, I would have to modify my claim, but she got under way, again, after the dive bombing attack and was halted and initially abandoned only after the aircraft torpedo attack.
Not only one pilot from the first wave from Midway, but also only one pilot from the first wave from the Navy task force too. Torpedo Eight (the squadron of Navy torpedo bombers assigned to the USS Hornet and Midway Island) launched two attacks, with only one plane and three airmen surviving. Later in the same battle, Torpedo 3 and Torpedo 6 (from Yorktown and Enterprise, IIRC) didn’t fare much better.
A squadron of Army B-26 Marauders carrying torpedos IIRC had one plane shot down in return for no hits, and a group of of B-17s lost no planes, shot down one Zero (which made the mistake of attacking a formation of Forts alone) and scored no hits while bombing from altitude (it takes a long time for bombs to fall 15,000 feet, and the ships were able to get out from under them.)
Also, all of the IJN’s air cover had dropped to low altitude to attack the torpedo bombers. The dive bomber squadrons, which had been cut off from the torpedo bombers and eachother due to weather, I think, arrived over the Japanese fleet at around the same time VT-6 was being chewed up, also while the Japanese bombers were being fueled up with armed bombs for attacking the US fleet, AND also before the bombs recently removed from a planned second strike against Midway had been defused and stowed in the magazine belowdecks.
Essentially, the Japanese suffered from one of the single most remarkable strokes of bad timing in the history of modern warfare. In a matter of seconds, Japan had gone from winning the battle to losing three fleet carriers and several hundred of their most experienced airmen in a firey inferno, along with some of their more experienced officers (IIRC, Admiral Nagumo, a Princeton-educated officer and Yamamoto’s second in command, was killed by flaming debris from a fuel truck hit by a bomb on his ship).
I think US Navy doctrine at the time was for the dive bombers (called “Scout Bombers” for whatever reason) and the torpedo bombers to arrive simultaneously, forcing the Combat Air Patrol and the AA gunners to divide their attention between enemies approaching from several different directions (the dive bombers would come down from above, and the torpedo bombers would split into two groups in an “Anvil Attack” and pinch the target ship between them, forcing it to either turn to give one or the other a better shot, or keep going straight to give both of them a good shot). Meanwhile, the fighter escort would engage the CAP and protect the bombers.
The dive bombers would not only distract the enemy from the torpedo bombers, but their attacks would tend to strike against various vital systems that aren’t related to a ship’s bouyancy. An aircraft carrier with it’s flight deck blown to splinters and on fire is as useful to an enemy as it would be sinking to the bottom of the sea. Similarly, cruisers and destroyers keep most of their weapons on the top of the ship, where bombs could hit them and put them out of commission.
Someone previously mentioned the battleships at Pearl Harbor being vulnerable to torpedos. While this is certainly very true, it’s worth noting that the most dramatic image recorded of the Pearl Harbor attacks is that of the USS Arizona being blown apart by an armor-piercing bomb that hit the ship’s forward magazine (I think this bomb was dropped by a high-altitude horizonal bomber, not a dive bomber, I’m not sure if this would have made a difference had the bomb struck the same spot). Never underestimate the effectiveness of the Golden BB.
(All my sources in regards to Midway consist of the book “Miracle at Midway” by Gordon Prange).
As a sidenote, I seem to recal that US Army bombing tests showed the most effective means of sinking a ship with bombs was to drop the bombs close to the side if the ship, but in the water. The resulting explosion would rip open the hull under the water line if you placed it right.
Yah, I think the tests (run by Billy Mitchell, as famous for his inability to shut up as he is for his strategic foresight) were done against stationary defenseless German ships. Various navy guys argued that the results would have been quite different if the ships could maneuver and fire their guns in defense.
In addition to the above excellent points by Raguleader, there was a well-nigh incredible series of incidents, most of which turned out well for the US and bad for Japan:[ul]
[li]The Japanese had originally planned to have a picket line of submarines watching the route from Pearl Harbor to Midway. Had they been in place on time, they may well have sighted the US fleet; but the operation was delayed and then cancelled. When no report was received, everybody assumed that meant that the US carriers were still in Pearl.[/li][li]The Japanese cruiser floatplane which was assigned the sector that contained the US fleet got off late due to mechanical problems.[/li][li]When it finally made its initial sighting, it misidentified the American ships as “five cruisers and five destroyers.” Its later report of a carrier arrived just in time to interrupt rearming the Japanese reserve—held back in case there were American ships around—for a second strike against Midway, and the resulting confusion had a great deal to do with the fact that the decks were full of planes, fuel hoses and munitions when the dive bombers struck.[/li][li]The bombing and scout* squadrons from the Enterprise initially missed the Japanese fleet, but CDR Wade McClusky saw a single Japanese destroyer heading northwest at high speed. He decided to follow its course, which led his pilots directly to the carriers.[/li][li]As a result of the above, the Enterprise dive bombers arrived over the Japanese at almost the same moment as the dive bombers from the Yorktown, which had delayed launching until she had retrieved her scouting squadron. While this accidental coordination didn’t affect the immediate situation, it certainly added to the Japanese confusion, as well as leaving them only one carrier to retaliate.[/li][li]The IJN Akagi was sunk (okay, “fatally damaged”) by one bomb, or two at the most. During the search, several pilots in the Enterprise’s scouting squadron had trouble with their oxygen, so Dick Best, their commander, took the squadron down to 15,000 feet (5,000 feet below the bombing squadron). When they encountered the Japanese, Best assumed that his squadron, being lower, would attack the nearest carried (Kaga) while the bombers took the next in line (Akagi). But McCluskey chose to attack the Kaga as well, and by the time things got straightened out Best had only himself and his two wingmen left. Most accounts state that one of the three bombs was a miss, Best’s was a hit, and the third wasn’t certain. But one was enough, further proof of the vulnerability of a carrier when servicing planes.[/li][/ul]*The distinction between “bomber” and “scout” squadrons was operational only—both flew the SBD Dauntless. Later, when the TBF Avenger torpedo plane took over scouting duties due to its greater range, all dive bomber squadrons took on the “bomber” designation.
RADM Tamon Yamaguchi, who elected to go down with the Hiryu, last of the Japanese carriers to be struck. A disaster for Japan—by all accounts, he was a brilliant officer, and if his advice had been followed (he argued for an immediate attack against the US fleet with whatever planes were available, rather than waiting to rearm), the battle may have taken a radically different turn.
Also, I think (but I am not sure) that the Scout Squadrons may have carried smaller bomb payloads to maximise range. I do know that when they were launching all of the bombers at once, the ones that launched first carried a smaller payload so they could gain flying speed before they ran out of runway.
The thing that gets me is that the designation for the plane itself (SBD) is “Scout Bomber, Douglas”. It’s replacement, the Curtiss Helldiver, was the SB2C, for “Scout Bomber, 2nd from Curtiss” (also known as the Sonofa Bitch, Second Class). I don’t think they ever had any plane designation for “Dive Bomber”.
And the TBF amuses me. A navy plane with a turret. Also, have you SEEN one of those things in person? JEEBUS they’re HUGE! I can’t figure out how they got into the air, much less off the deck of a carrier at sea. :eek:
Also, warships tend to have a bunch of flammable and explosive material on board, which can create secondary explosions when ignited, and cause further damage.