Mitchell vs batleships

[PainRack]

While Mitchell ultimate claims came true, regarding the actual test that occured and the use of bomber against warships, which side was correct?
The "bombers" who claimed the tests proved the superiority of aircraft and the USN were stoning their way via Battleship admirals, or the Navy who pointed out that the tests were overly staged and not relevant to actual conditions?

[Kitsune]

At that stage, it was probably too much staged to be an effective demonstration. We discussed it extensively elsewhere...wish I could remember where

Specific points were that the battleship was completely stationary, not firing back, and had no damage control teams. One item that is clearly been shown is that warship crews can save ships often though unsavable.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Unless someone is going to give the bomber pilots some seriously good sighting systems plus some ballistic computer that could take into account wind conditions and the bombs can guide themselves to the target via some feedback mechanism and the target in question was in very stable seas, no. Absolutely not with the technology of the day. It was difficult enough to hit a target on the ground, it's going to be difficult to hit a target in a sea which is potentially moving or in some rough seas. Even in those days hitting a target on the ground required plenty of bombs with the off chance of even missing the target by several meters. Bombing a battleship target would require a low altitude bombing and getting past all the flak from escorting destroyers?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The targets were stationary, they were not buttoned up to simulate actual battle conditions, and no damage control was possible, obviously. But it's the second which is crucial--progressive flooding, IIRC, sank a couple, which is just ridiculous as a damage metric when there's no crew on board to conduct damage control.

[Kanastrous]

There was no adjustment in the tests, to simulate the presence of damage-control crews?

[Adam Reynolds]

[quote="Kanastrous"]There was no adjustment in the tests, to simulate the presence of damage-control crews?[/quote]

The whole point of the tests was for Mitchell to prove that bombers would prove the battleship obsolete. They were rigged vastly in favor of the bombers.

[Sea Skimmer]

A few officers went onboard between spurts of bombing runs to inspect damage, but no damage control was attempted, that would be totally impractical and unsafe. Ostfriesland did have all her watertight doors closed, but watertight integrity in WW1 battleships was never good.

The whole point of the tests was for Mitchell to prove that bombers would prove the battleship obsolete. They were rigged vastly in favor of the bombers.

How can you claim the test was rigged for the army air corps when everything was setup by the USN? The USN restricted the bombers from making more then 2-3 hits at once (part of the reason for the protracted sinking), banned aerial torpedoes, banned bombs heavier then 2,000lb and threw on a few other restrictions besides that.

The test was no realistic, had the battleship been underway and defended it probably wouldn’t have been hit at all or closely missed, but it still did prove that heavy bombs could threaten a warship.

I say the USN was more right in the end, certainly the aircraft could not replace the battleship in the 1920s. The USN took the lessons of Ostfriesland, and the sinking of several other battleships in later tests to heart and designed its later battleships armor schemes to defend against both large blast bombs and armor piercing bombs. The USAAF meanwhile assumed it could easily hit ships from 15,000 feet and sink them with a B-17 dropping 600lb bombs.

Planes built before 1935 would have had virtually no chance against battleships on the open sea except with torpedoes, and modern or properly upgraded battleships proved highly resistant to bombing throughout WW2.

[Elfdart]

Were AA guns even part of the armament of a WW1-era ship?

[Stark]

Were AA guns even part of the armament of a WW1-era ship?

Many used 3-4" HA guns, but without appropriate directors they're useless.

[Adrian Laguna]

Unless someone is going to give the bomber pilots some seriously good sighting systems plus some ballistic computer that could take into account wind conditions and the bombs can guide themselves to the target via some feedback mechanism and the target in question was in very stable seas, no. Absolutely not with the technology of the day. It was difficult enough to hit a target on the ground, it's going to be difficult to hit a target in a sea which is potentially moving or in some rough seas. Even in those days hitting a target on the ground required plenty of bombs with the off chance of even missing the target by several meters. Bombing a battleship target would require a low altitude bombing and getting past all the flak from escorting destroyers?

You don't need a ballistic computer or an impressive sighting system to put a bomb on a battleship. Nor do you need to come in at low altitude. Have you never heard of dive bombers?






Or are you going to tell me that the US Navy built 13,000 of these things for nothing?

[Simplicius]

You don't need a ballistic computer or an impressive sighting system to put a bomb on a battleship. Nor do you need to come in at low altitude. Have you never heard of dive bombers?

Since this thread is about the Mitchell trials, it doesn't make too much sense to include dive bombers for consideration as neither the technique of dive bombing nor aircraft of the dive bombing type were used. The Martin MB-2s and Handley Page O/400s used in the tests were ancestors of the US' multi-engined heavy bombers which employed level bombing against warships in WWII to little or no effect.

The ability of aircraft in general to strike capital ships can't be disputed here, and the sinking of Roma with Fritx-X guided bombs shows that larger bombers can be effective ship killers with the right weapon, but that hardly proves that aircraft in 1923 could be so effective.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

As Simplicius said. The trials if I am not wrong was done with a bomber flying over it. There's no question a dive bomber could do the job, assuming it got pass the destroyer screen, but a bomber flying up high back then? A lot of fuses weren't even developed then!

[Adrian Laguna]

I took Fingolfin's statements to be broadly generalizing to the time beyond the Mitchell trials and into the war itself. I guess this was not the case.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Did those Fritx-X bombs use a laser or a radar to guide? I heard that these weapons were somewhat around during WWII, but largely not used.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Did those Fritx-X bombs use a laser or a radar to guide?

They were manually guided via radio. The first lasers were constructed in the 1950s, and I'm pretty sure there was no possibility of constructing a radar guidance system small enough to fit into a bomb during WWII.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Did those Fritx-X bombs use a laser or a radar to guide?

They were manually guided via radio. The first lasers were constructed in the 1950s, and I'm pretty sure there was no possibility of constructing a radar guidance system small enough to fit into a bomb during WWII.

Radio guided? Does someone have to steer it manually?

[Stark]

Radio guided? Does someone have to steer it manually?

Do you know anything about early guidance systems? 'Steer projectile so it's tail flare remains superimposed over the target' is about the simplest command guidance you can get.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Radio guided? Does someone have to steer it manually?

Do you know anything about early guidance systems? 'Steer projectile so it's tail flare remains superimposed over the target' is about the simplest command guidance you can get.

Well, I'm unsure about the feedback mechanisms. As far as I know, the Germans had this wire guided missile.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Radio guided? Does someone have to steer it manually?

Do you know anything about early guidance systems? 'Steer projectile so it's tail flare remains superimposed over the target' is about the simplest command guidance you can get.

Manual Command Line Of Sight (MACLOS) Guidance.

[Sea Skimmer]

They were manually guided via radio. The first lasers were constructed in the 1950s, and I'm pretty sure there was no possibility of constructing a radar guidance system small enough to fit into a bomb during WWII.

For anyone but the United States that’s true. Our superiority in advanced electronics and radar shines on this subject. We had both active and semi active homing radar guided bombs, besides TV, infrared, radiation homing and radio command guided weapons, many of which saw at least some operational testing during the war, though others had to wait until Korea. None of them exactly worked well, but accuracy could at least beat that of iron bombing from 35,000 feet.

The active radar guided bomb was designated Special Weapons Ordnance Device Mk9 Bat, changed postwar to ASM-N-2 Bat. It was a 2,000lb glide weapon built around a 1,000lb bomb that entered service in early 1945. It was used with some success by navy patrol planes against Japanese warships and several bridges, including destroyer was sunk by a single hit at a range of 20 miles.

Bat was mass produced during and after the war, but its radar system was easily confused and it glided slow enough that it was actually within conception for enemy anti aircraft guns to shoot it down. It would probably not have been possible to make a WW2 radar guided bomb that dived on the target like Fritz-X did, too much reflection off the sea surface.

Well, I'm unsure about the feedback mechanisms. As far as I know, the Germans had this wire guided missile.

Fritz X and Hs293 originally used a radio command link. However the allies developed two different means of jamming this, one was a simple noise barrage jammer, the other was deception jammer that mimicked the command signels to slam the control surfaces at the extremes of movement. To counter radio jamming (which the Germans fully expected), they developed versions of both bombs which used a wire guidance link. However its believed that the wire guided bomb was never actually used because by the time it was available allied air superiority made guided bomb attacks totally suicidal.

[Sea Skimmer]

As for dive bombing…

The thing about dive bombing is not all dive bombing is equal nor always effective. The first dive bomber BTW that could haul a bomb large enough to threaten a large ship appeared in about 1930.

It’s a matter of release height and payload. To get really high dive bombing accuracy you have to release low, 3,000 to as little as 1,500 feet above the target. At that point you might score as much as 33% hits (Japanese Val pilots in 1942) but you’re also going to take murderous losses from anti aircraft fire, even small free swinging automatic weapons are highly effective. What’s more, dive bombers in a dive use dive breaks to avoid traveling faster then about 250mph, this is not a very high speed for a bomb to travel at, and the lower you release the bomb, the less time the bomb has to accelerate to a velocity sufficient to pierce even a thin armor deck. Combind with with dive bombers typically carrying only 500 or 1000lb bombs (even the planes that could carry heavier bombs usually didn’t to get more range) and even an older battleships deck armor could ward off the hits. Damage to the upperworks might be extensive, but that wont sink a battleship. There was always the threat of flooding the ‘soft ends’ of the battleship, but that risk was minimized by good subdivision, and in newer battleships by spreading a thin armor deck over those ends to the greatest extent possibul.

Dive bombers could release higher, which greatly improved the ability of AP bombs to penetrate, but accuracy dropped off enormously. In 1948 the British had Barracuda dive bombers conduct a series of trials against the battleship Nelson to test this issue and also the effectiveness of a new very high quality (forged casings) 2,000lb AP bomb. Despite being flown by a crack squadron with an undefended and completely stationary target the total hit rate was less then 10% with 104 bombs dropped. All 39 bombs dropped from 8000 feet missed, and only two dropped from 6,000ft hit. However, one of those 6000ft hits did pierce the main 6.25in thick armor deck, demonstrating that with some luck a dive bomber could be effective.

As a result of this accuracy/effectiveness conundrum, which was well known during the war, it wasn’t typical for dive bombers to carry heavy AP bombs to try to outright sink battleships. Usually they simply carried normal high explosive bombs (though ones which might be as heavy as 2,000lb) which served to damage the target and suppress its anti aircraft defenses while torpedo bombers went for the kill.

A couple battleships, all of them WW1 era vessels, did sink in WW2 from dive bombing attacks, all in port, but the modern Tripitz withstood in one case no less then fifteen of hits in a matter of a few minutes and many others survived anything from 1-8 hits without being at risk of sinking.

[Kitsune]

In one of those History Channel programs, there was the idea of a missile guided by a pigeon pecking a screen.

[MKSheppard]

In one of those History Channel programs, there was the idea of a missile guided by a pigeon pecking a screen.

That's more than an idea. I've seen the actual prototype at the Smithsonian.