I have both written and recorded oral history evidence that the Vildebeests, Vincents and Baffins were all dive bombed in RNZAF service, diving steeply from around 6000 to 8000 feet. This was demonstrated at airshows, and also before the war the RNZAF had a three-ship aerobatic team that appeared at public events to show off the Vildebeests, and they regularly looped in formation. These big biplanes were much tougher than they looked. Remember they had all metal structure under the fabric.

As for torpedo bombing in a Swordfish, here’s a demonstration of torpedo attacks at that time from the Jimmie Allen Manual of the Royal Air Force, which must rank as the first publication ever released to the public about the Battle of Britain I’d think.

The FAA turned down Helldivers and the Dauntless, but used Avengers as bombers (shallow dive) more than Torpedo bombers.

The RNZAF also used Avengers as bombers rather than torpedo aircraft with No’s 30 and 31 Squadron, and I’m fairly sure they did some dive bombing as well as low level and glide bombing. They also fitted them with sprayers and sprayed fuel onto Japanese crops, soetimes ignititing the fields afterwards thoguht the fuel wrecked the food anyway.

Our Baffins, Vincents and Vildebeests were also used as dive bombers believe it or not (not in action, training only).

I don’t have Sky TV so have never seen dogfights.

Paul, were the Vincents used as torpedo bombers in those actions or as regular bombers? The only difference from a Vildebeest Mk III and a Vincent was the tail struts that hold the horizontal stabilizers on, and the Vincents were factory fitted with torpedo gear – but all the Vincents that came to NZ had no torpedo gar as the RNZAF didn’t want it, and some Vildes also served with the sqame gear, so they are basically the same aircraft with different tail strut mods.