XN923I would tend to agree with HpSauce.
What would a remake bring (except better effects)?
Surely there are other great aviation stories from WWII, that have not been told yet.
Hear hear – and I agree with the Vulcan 607 suggestion. Let’s get it greenlit and give XH558 another season!
Other films screaming to be made are Taranto, the Norwegian Campaign, Operation Tungsten, Battle of Matapan, Battle of Philippine Sea, Biopic of Albert Ball etc etc etc
They won’t get made though because the subjects don’t have enough ‘popular appeal’.
XN923This I find really strange. I’ve seen two fatal crashes, and through my work I saw a lot of people die. However, I have never felt the need to go back and watch them die all over again on film.
I know what you mean. I’ve seen one fatal crash and for ages afterwards couldn’t even think about it. I hated the idea of video being out there and people watching it for kicks – and what must the pilot’s family have felt? And yet after a (long) while, part of me wanted to find some video, more so I could see what led up to it – I had only seen the last few moments before the crash so, as duxfordhawk suggests, I can understand a little better what I saw. It’s a small part of me, however, and I have little trouble ignoring it.
As for the rest of it, I think it is ghoulish of people to submit these films to Youtube and even worse for YouTube to show them. As for those who choose to watch such footage for entertainment, I think it says rather more about them than they would like people to know.
Hear hear. One would hope in a civilised society that the hosting website would have rules about this sort of thing. Clearly the only rule is what brings people onto the site is A Good Thing ™.
This is odd. I thought people here were interested in machines of death and destruction, like for example the Lancaster.
I don’t see much of a difference reading about the heroic exploits of bombing Dresden, or watching some video footage of a plane crashing. It’s both pastime on other people’s deaths, no matter how well thought-out the excuses you make for yourself.
I don’t buy this at all. Most people here would appreciate the engineering purity of a machine such as the Lancaster, while at the same time having mixed feelings over what it was required to do – that sometimes bad things have to happen for the overall good. Enjoying watching footage of a Lancaster in flight is something different to seeking out film of bombs falling on Dresden, surely? Does anyone do that anyway??
XN923Welcome to the forum Tex.
Since Tex has reopened this old thread… in the book…. ‘What were they like to fly ?’ by S/L D H Clarke… he also asks the same question about the Henley.
He flew some of the obsolescent a/c for a while and his book includes an extremely low level combat with a German flying boat or seaplane in a Blackburn Roc,I dont know how many times Rocs were involved in combat but must be pretty rare.cheers baz
Rocs were in the front line during the ‘Battle of Scapa Flow’ in late 1939, though their lack of range meant they probably never made contact with any German aircraft. They also operated with 800 and 801 Squadrons during the Norwegian campaign, again with range relegating them to fleet defence duties. Again, I believe they never made contact with any enemy aircraft, though I believe there were some attempts to pursue fleet shadowers.
It was a different story over the Dunkirk evacuations where 801 and 806 Squadrons were in the thick of the action, bombing enemy positions and patrolling over the beaches. It was during these operations that the Roc made its only air-to-air claim of a Junkers 88 destroyed. I’ve also been informed that a Roc that was used as a machine gun post at an airfield also shot down a German bomber during the Battle of Britain – allegedly the only time during the battle that an aircraft was shot down by another aircraft that had not taken off!
The Henley question is an interesting one. Given that it was rather faster and more manoeuvrable than the Battle it would probably had a better chance against German fighters but little difference against flak. It does seem ludicrous that there were 200 Henleys target-towing at the same time as the RAF was sending Hawker Hectors against heavily defended German positions.
XN923For some reason I enjoyed Sundays show more than the September which I found boring but I can not give a reason why. The Mrs agreed with me and suggested that it may have been because the weather was so bad that I appreciated what I saw more. Any one else felt the same?
I didn’t enjoy yesterday’s show all that much unfortunately, largely because I was freezing cold for most of it, and the lack of Vulcan put a dampener on things somewhat. However, I can safely say that the Patrouille France were at least twice as good as the Red Arrows when I first saw them at the Duxford Autumn airshow probably in around 1987.* Still, well done to everyone who worked hard in really tough conditions to put some kind of show on. I also really enjoyed meeting Tony Blackman, Martin Withers and all the other Vulcan VIPs who were in attendance.
*Patrouille France treated us to 2-3 flybys, the Reds only gave us one
XN923🙁
Nooooooo! First Duxford, now Goodwood! That makes one more chance to see her this year.
XN923Unpopular with its crews? Vulnerable?
The Stirling was generally loved by its crews for being tough, roomy and a joy to fly. With its rugged construction and near fighter manoeuvrability, it often proved more than a match for nightfighter adversaries that would have downed a less robust aircraft
‘Millstone’ for Bomber Harris?
[The Short B.8/41, the ‘Super Stirling] ‘does not justify the change over – the switch will cost 126 Stirlings at Rochester… The best course is to concentrate on the Hercules VI Stirling
Unsuited to mass production?
Before long, Stirling components were being built in some 20 factories…The Stirling’s modular construction lent itself to dispersed production techniques.
There are a number of contentions which just don’t stand up. You claim the Stirling was no improvement or very little improvement to the Wellington, yet Stirlings generally replaced Wellingtons in Bomber Command. You say the Stirling was worse than the B-17 and B-24, and yet Bomber Command kept using Stirlings as frontline bombers while Fortresses were very quickly sent to Coastal Command and Liberators were never with Bomber Command. You say that Wellingtons outlived Stirlings in the bombing role and in production as a bomber – but those Wellingtons were all for the Middle East or Coastal Command, not the European theatre. You say the Stirling was designed to the same basic requirements as the B-17 – it was not, the B-17 was intended as a long range maritime bomber for the Pacific theatre. It emphaticially did not have a worse payload/range than the B-17, the figures just don’t bear that out – Stirling 14,000lb @ 740 miles, B-17 4,000lb @ 800 miles.
It’s worth keeping the purpose of the thread in mind – we are talking about the biggest increase in RAF capability brought by a single aircraft. Not which did more for the war effort, not which was available in greater numbers. The Stirling was the first Bomber Command ‘heavy’. It could carry three times the load of its predecessors as far as vital Ruhr targets and could still go further than they could with a small bomb load. The fact that better aircraft came along shortly afterwards is immaterial, the jump from pre-war medium bombers to wartime heavy bombers had been made.
It’s fairly clear we are not going to agree (although I think we are disagreeing on different points) so I’ll leave it there.
XN923For the long-range missions (what we were talking about), they most certainly did. Once enough Lancs and Halifaxes were available, the Stirling was sidelined to other roles, such as glider-towing and transport. It was a good plane, and I think that it’s the best-looking of the three, but that doesn’t take away from that fact that it just wasn’t as good.
This is a simplification. Bomber models of Stirling were in production well into 1943 and the Stirling continued as a front line bomber until 1944 – the last bombing raid by Stirlings was in September 1944. Stirlings replaced Wellingtons throughout the whole of 3 Group – the only reason more squadrons didn’t exchange their Wellingtons for Stirlings in early 1942 was that production was struggling to keep up with demand. Shorts suggested improved Stirling models twice during 1942, one of which received an official specification but was subsequently cancelled because of the need to keep up standard Stirling production.
I don’t dispute that the Stirling wasn’t as good as the Lancaster and, to a lesser extent, the Halifax. What I do dispute is that it was no better than the Wellington. Of course it made sense that Halifaxes and Lancasters would take on the majority of the longer range missions, but this meant that Stirlings could concentrate on targets in France, the Netherlands and western Germany – still important targets which Bomber Command needed to keep up the pressure on.
Please keep grammar out of it. The meaning of that sentence is equivocal. If it reads as you suggest then the word ‘typical’ is redundant.
XN923Really? That’s not what I’d read. In fact, I’d read that that’s exactly why they switched to the Lancaster & Halifax.
Logan Hartke
The RAF did not switch to the Lancaster and Halifax, the three ‘heavies’ operated concurrently throughout 1942-3. The Stirling could carry up to 18,000lb of bombs up to 2,000lb while the Wellington could carry 4,500lb and the Whitley 7,000lb. The Stirling was 20mph faster than the Wellington and 25mph faster than the Whitley. Its range was nearly 1,000 miles greater than the Wellington’s. It was the first bomber that could take significant weight of bombs to Germany, albeit not too far into Germany. Undoubtedly it was an inferior aircraft to the Lancaster, and in some respects, the Halifax, but my point was that it represented the biggest increase in capability that Bomber Command had ever seen – the Lanc and Halifax were by comparison, incremental improvements.
The Stirling’s maximum bomb load was only able to be carried for relatively short distances of around 590 miles. On typical missions deep into Germany or Italy a smaller 3,500 lb (1,590 kg) load was carried, consisting of seven 500 lb (227 kg) bombs. This was the sort of load being carried by the RAF’s medium bombers such as the Vickers Wellington and, by 1944, by the de Havilland Mosquito.
This quote is not really fair – a mission to Berlin, while common later in the war, could not be described as ‘typical’. The Stirling could carry a much larger bomb load as far as the Ruhr and a smaller bomb load far further than the early war mediums (or any of the American ‘heavies’ come to that). It was also a big improvement in protection, a significant improvement in speed and later introduced H2S radar to Bomber Command.
XN923diving steeply from around 6000 to 8000 feet.
Er, isn’t that actually climbing?
Sorry sorry sorry 😮
XN923Do we need to be clear about what the difference between dedicated official dive bombing versus the more informal concept beloved of the media and casual aircrew conversation?
A dedicated dive bomber was normally stressed for the job, and critically had some means of swinging any fuselage bomb clear of the prop arc where appropriate. Aiming and pull out aids were also sometimes fitted. As XN923 says, the RN weren’t that fussed about true vertical or near vertical dives, while it seems the USN and Luftwaffe (for instance) were. And anything that wasn’t level bombing from altitude was ‘dive bombing’ in the accounts.
I can’t speak for the Swordfish, but the Albacore certainly had dive bombing written into its specification, as did the Barracuda . Mind you, the Swedish Air Force developed dive bombing tactics in their Hawker Harts, an aircraft certainly not designed with that in mind, but apparently eminently capable of it. It seems that with biplanes, less dive-bombing specific design was required, and only when monoplanes became the norm did airbrakes, pull-out devices and the concept of ‘stressing for dive bombing’ become necessary. Not all dive bombers needed a crutch to swing the bomb clear as some used wing racks (e.g. Henschel Hs123, Barracuda, though this did later gain a centreline mount). Let’s not forget that where specific design, stressing, pull-out aids are concerned, the Ju 88 and He 177 are technically dive bombers!!
I have read one definition that anything up to 45 deg is glide bombing, anything above that may be called dive bombing. Certainly though in the Second World War you come across phrases such as ‘shallow dive bombing’ (presumably glide bombing) and ‘high dive bombing’ (releasing the bomb above 1,500ft IIRC). So much did the RAF abhor the idea of dive bombing in the 30s (when they grudgingly carried out some testing) that they wanted to call it ‘losing height bombing’! (According to Peter Smith at any rate). The RAF came to the conclusion that with its existing aircraft, Battles and Hampdens etc (!) which could not dive steeply, there was no advantage (!) although in the future purpose built aircraft may be beneficial. A neat way of ducking the issue for the time being. The Fairey Battle did in fact have a wing mounted bomb rack that could extend the bombs from their semi recessed position to allow them to be released in a dive safely, though the Battle could not dive steeply. The P.4/34 was to have been fitted with these devices too but when it morphed into the Fulmar they seem to have been deleted.
XN923Short Stirling. First RAF bomber that could carry a useful bomb load a useful distance, and a massive improvement over Wellingtons and Whitleys. Similarly to the Blenheim, if it hadn’t been for the Lancaster coming along, the Stirling would be remembered as a sea change in Bomber Command’s offensive capabilities.
XN923great shot, Southport (EGCO), September 7, 2008
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Untitled/Avro-698-Vulcan-B2/1395110
Great shot. Was a bit narked she went to Southport but not Duxford (where I was) as originally planned, but the weather was so awful I’m surprised she flew at all.
Will try to get to Goodwood Revival and Duxford autumn show. Went to Farnborough but found that (contrary to what I thought at the time) seeing the revived Delta Lady once was not going to be enough…
XN923To the RN, dive bombing generally meant 60-70deg. It was generally felt that a vertical or near-vertical dive was unnecessary to achieve accuracy, and their aircraft could not really dive much steeper than that anyway. I imagine a Vildebeest could manage a similar dive angle to a Swordfish. Let’s not forget that the terminal velocity would be pretty low, meaning there would be a lot less strain on the structure when pulling out of a dive than a faster and more heavily loaded monoplane.
XN923I’ve got a couple of referances which cover Swordfish actions in Norway, so I can put something together here if anyone’s interested and it doesn’t take things too far off topic!
Go right ahead.
I think James knows something about the U-64 sinking and the Second Battle of Narvik…;)
PS just looked at that link… says the U-boat was sunk by a 350lb bomb. I presume they must mean 250lb – don’t recall any bomb of the former size in UK service at this time (or any other come to that).
XN923Swordfish were certainly capable of steep dive bombing, as were Albacores. As Vildebeest says, the standard torpedo bombing tactic was to dive quickly to deck level, as close in to the target as possible, to make the aircraft as difficult to hit by flak as possible. This fact did mean that a good torpedo bomber often made a good dive bomber (though the Albacore and Barracuda specification also included dive bombing explicitly). All the drag on a Swordfish made a fairly effective airbrake!
Part of the reason the Douglas TBD-1 was so ineffective as a torpedo bomber was that it was not capable of a steep dive to launch height so they had to make a long, shallow, straight dive which made them sitting ducks for both flak and fighters – at least the Swordfish was nimble enough to avoid AA most of the time.
I’m fairly sure Swordfish dive bombed during the Norwegian campaign, and probably in the Med as well. They weren’t quite as effective as some aircraft like Skuas/Dauntless because their diving speed was lower which imparted less energy to the bombs.
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