That Swordfish by itself is nothing...wait for its owner. The trauma causer with the compound bow. (Mind you during those first years of the war, the slow, large Swordfish could carry radar, and torpedo at night. And While German AA wasn't all that good since they had the tendency to mount anti-ship secondaries rather than good dual purpose guns...the Italians just sucked at fighting at night, and their AA wasn't all that good either).
Must have been pretty traumatic and embarrassing to be sunk by an Aircraft design that is so outdated, it is called by it's own user as "Stringbag"
Technically, the "stringbag" moniker was given because it was "capable of holding nearly anything", just like a (then popular with women going grocery shopping) big cloth sack you tied off with a string.
Due to it being a biplane, the "stringbag" had a very, very low stall speed for a naval aircraft (lift is wings surface area times speed times efficiency of the planes, so having twice the wing area at the same efficiency meant you could fly half as fast) and that meant it could carry heavier loads and fly slower while still actually flying.
The stringbag was therefore the first naval aircraft capable of night misisons because it was the first aircraft capable of holding the clunky early radar systems to hunt warships at night, which is exactly what happened during their surprise night raid against Taranto, the direct inspiration for Pearl Harbor.
They had zero maneuverability or aerial combat potential, but made up for that by simply fighting in situations where the enemy was simply incapable of launching any form of Combat Air Patrol, such as at night, or far enough away from the land bases of their carrier-less European enemies that no air power could arrive or would arrive in time. (In Taranto,
Also due to their low stall speed, the Swordfish was fairly survivable even after damage. None of the Swordfish that attacked Bismarck were shot down, for example, even though one took over 150 individual scratches (mostly of shrapnel from the defensive flak) and had a wounded pilot. Compare this to the notoriously dangerous Japanese designs, where the "Hamaki" (cigar) bomber was notorious among Allied air crews as the "one-shot lighter" because it was basically just a giant armorless fuel tank (the whole wingspan was a fuel tank with no safety systems) or the fact that the primary difficulty US crews had in reverse-engineering the Zero was finding one that didn't explode at the first scratch thanks to its stripped-out safeties.
In short, the Swordfish was sort of like what the A-10 (Thunderbolt II) "Warthog" is today - something that would lose every aerial supremacy fight it would ever be caught in, but very capable of inflicting widespread damage against surface targets with weak air defense due to being slow and heavy enough to pack tons of ordnance. Its success is entirely due to the sheer incapacity of Britain's opponents to field naval air defenses, and it only had any lifespan at all in the Indian Ocean due to its night-flying capacity. (The IJN attacked at night, then retreated during the day against the USN, fearing its day-only carrier-based aircraft. The IJN attacked during the day, then retreated at night against the RN, fearing its night-capable carrier-based aircraft.)
Man when they see Ark Royal personally lugging around Swordfish, its gonna be one helluva chaos in ido's base.
That is, if he would get Ark Royal, seeing as there were still ships hanging around with the abyssals, it would mean that Warspite would be left with defending Swordfish from European Axis ship alone
Well, we didn't vote for her. Abyssal lolis lying in oceans distributing swordfishes is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Well, we didn't vote for her. Abyssal lolis lying in oceans distributing swordfishes is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
If I declared myself Admiral just because some albino jailbait lobbed a takoyaki at me, they'd put me away!
That is, if he would get Ark Royal, seeing as there were still ships hanging around with the abyssals, it would mean that Warspite would be left with defending Swordfish from European Axis ship alone
Let's pray that Tirpitz doesn't see a certain 12,000lb bomb. Everyone knows how that story went.
Yes let's all pray. Also, if they implement Tirpitz, I can already see she will have a grudge and trauma against British carriers.
I like and pity Tirpitz for these reasons xD: 1. She was the last standing German battleship 2. Spent a lot of time 'trapped' in a port and a fleet-in-being 3. She first and only fired her 15 inch guns on a weather station 4. A LOT of air raids were done on her (and a few submarine attack attempts) 5. That was at least done 20x by both British and Russians, mostly British. 6. She was a sitting duck when the final air raid was done on her
Yes let's all pray. Also, if they implement Tirpitz, I can already see she will have a grudge and trauma against British carriers.
I like and pity Tirpitz for these reasons xD: 1. She was the last standing German battleship 2. Spent a lot of time trapped in a port and a fleet-in-being 3. She only offensively fired her 15 inch guns on a weather station 4. A LOT of air raids were done on her (and a few submarine attack attempts) 5. That was at least done 20x by both British and Russians, mostly British. 6. She was a sitting duck when the final air raid was done on her
I predict a "Big Hatsuyuki" to meet Bismarck's "Big Akatsuki".
The stringbag was therefore the first naval aircraft capable of night misisons because it was the first aircraft capable of holding the clunky early radar systems to hunt warships at night, which is exactly what happened during their surprise night raid against Taranto, the direct inspiration for Pearl Harbor.
I have never heard that at Taranto, against moored ships and in a limited space (where radar use, I seem to recall, became problematic), the Swordfish used radar; the use of one plane as a flare dropper further points to an attack made visually.
Besides, the raid itself was a tale of bravery, but if you think about it, the planning and the execution could have been better. Out of eleven torpedoes to launch, I can get the five that were aimed at Littorio (three connected), but the others were subdivided among many other targets; they should have just gone for the Vittorio Veneto, as the crippling of their two best battleships would have been a worse blow for the Regia Marina rather than the crippling of the Duilio or the virtual loss of the Cavour, both ships with limited fighting value at best.
Swordfish
Victims Association
Ooh...If it isn't a Swordfish!Due to its excellent versatility, these British torpedo bombers were quite the success!Ha-ha-ha!Aaahhh!!My word!
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