NZ-based Vildebeest/Vincent torpedos?

[ErrolC]

Quick question, when the Vildebeests/Vincents were patrolling for German raiders in 1940/41, were they armed with torpedoes? If not, could they have been (aircraft capable, weapons available, crews trained)?

Note mention of patrols at www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/RNZAF%20Stations%20North%20Island.htm#Waipap

[Dave Homewood]

No. The NZ Government never purchased torpedoes and the torpedo equipment was all removed from them before they were sold to New Zealand. They were armed with 250lb GP bombs, and Vickers machine guns only.

[ErrolC]

So we wouldn't have had any air-dropped torpedoes in the country then?
You wouldn't enjoy bombing a raider that had its guns unmasked, sounds like a poor chance of getting back to land.

Sent from my D5503 using proboards

[Dave Homewood]

No, the RNZAF never had torpedoes till the Orions were bought.

And that's right, the crews all knew they were unlikely to return if called upon to take on a fleet of invading ships, and the odds were not good even against a single raider. That's what makes me admire these guys so much. They flew well out to sea on long, boring patrols in open cockpit, slow aeroplanes to keep New Zealand safe.

[Dave Homewood]

I guess the reason bombs were favoured over torpedoes was they allowed longer range as the central fuel droptank could be used. The men (including several kiwis) who attacked the Japanese fleet off of Endau, Malaya, in Vildebeests used bombs rather than torpedoes too.

[davidd]

The Salmond report of 1928 (Air Marshal Sir John Salmond, KCB, CMG, CVO, DSO, ADC, RAF) was rather cautious on the claimed efficacy of the aerial torpedo, but nevertheless he recommended that this weapon be adopted for the defence of NZ. In place of the existing small force of Territorials (who were expected to man temporary flying units formed up at short notice in an emergency with what few aircraft were available at the time), he recommended the following PERMANENT units and sub-unit to defend New Zealand:- one Army Co-operation squadron (at Wigram), two single seater Fighter Flights (at Wigram and Hobsonville), two Torpedo Bomber Flights (at Hobsonville and Blenheim), and one Coastal Reconnaissance Flight of two Flying Boats (Hobsonville). Salmond realized that Territorial units had SOME value, but stated that "In the interests of efficiency and economy, therefore, it is imperative that any future development of the New Zealand Air Force must include a certain minimum of Permanent units, and my recommendations in the report .... are confined to these". He noted that his opinion of torpedoes was based almost entirely on theoretical results obtained in peace-time maneouvres by Royal Naval units in 1926, as actual war experience during the Great War was very limited, although these few attacks did show some promise. At the time Salmond penned his report, the NZPAF comprised just 5 officers and 17 other ranks, all serving at Wigram apart from 2 officers and one OR at HQ in Wellington. Aircraft on strength (all located at Wigram) were 12 service types and 6 training types, of which all but 3 service types were described as obsolete. There were no formed units as such, and no mobilisation equipment. The Great Depression from October 1929 onwards meant that very few of these recommendations were ever adopted, although the formation of two Vildebeest-equipped Bomber Reconnaissance Flights at Hobsonville and Wigram in 1935 was obviously influenced by Salmond's report. Salmond also realized the difficulty of training crews in aerial torpedo tactics (not to mention maintaining these skills by regular practice) and recommended that in fact the two Permanent Torpedo Bomber Flight mentioned above in fact be formed and equipped intially as Bomber Reconnaissance Flights. "It is recommended that this type be succeeded by Torpedo Bomber (types) when more experience in United Kingdom has been gained of working as an independent shore-based unit". Salmond also mentioned with relation to the Coastal Reconnaissance Flight's flying boats, that "They are capable of bombing, and are being designed to carry torpedoes".
In Cochrane's 1936 report, however, no mention is made of torpedoes, probably because this Officer designed his ideal air force (now the RNZAF) around two squadrons, each equipped with twelve of the new Wellington bombers, plus six reserves. This type he considered ideal for the various tasks these aircraft were expected to carry out when required, from local defence, defence of the sea lanes and the South Pacific Islands, as well as the defence of Singapore should this naval bastion be threatened in the future. Wellingtons were not envisaged as torpedo bombers at this early juncture, although of course they were operated as such later in WW2 by RAF in Middle East.
I cannot for the life of me lay my hands on the Bettington Report (1919?) at the moment, but my memory of this is that he was not very enthusiastic about aerial torpedoes (too new and unproven?), but I will leave it at that for now.
The next mention of aerial torpedoes in relation to the RNZAF was the proposal in mid-February 1942 that the RAF send out to New Zealand two fully manned and equipped squadrons of torpedo bombers or medium bombers, presumably Beaufort or Blenheim equipped, to assist in the defence of NZ, and NZ also evinced some interest in the Australian-built Beauforts at this stage, but nothing ultimately came of these schemes.
In December 1942, following the signing of a Mutual Aid agreement between NZ and the USA in Washington the previous September, the RNZAF learned that the US Navy Air Commander, South Pacific Forces, had recommended that the RNZAF be prepared to man and equip two torpedo bomber squadrons of eighteen aircraft each for deployment to the forward area in his theatre of operations during latter half of the following year. Sixty three TBF Avenger aircraft had just been allocated for shipment to New Zealand from production from July 1943 onwards. As the RNZAF headquarters planning staff began to consider the implications of this obligation during the early months of 1943, and particularly during April and May, the enormity of this enterprise began to crowd in (which also upset Treasury). Where were the torpedoes to come from, what about modern torpedo attack simulators?, and how were they to obtain suitable vessels to equip the torpedo training school; also which aerodrome in NZ was capable of operating TBFs, which had higher wheel loadings than could be handled by most of these existing 'dromes. And where could be found a suitable area for setting up the facilities for practicing torpedo attacks - this of course should ideally be in proximity to the main TBF base, which was originally Gisborne, but Hobsonville was also considered. Few good locations suitable for such a facility seemed to exist, and it also had to have good road connections, as well as large specialist sheds, slipways and jetties. And who would service and overhaul the torpedoes, of which the RNZAF had no experience? Of course the Royal NZ Navy had some experience of naval (ship) torpedoes, and offered to provide places on training courses for suitable RNZAF technical personnel. The RAAF was also asked to assist and they also offered places on torpedo maintenance courses, and supplied plans for a vessel suitable for torpedo recovery, etc, as well as plans for their overhaul and storage facilities. The RAAF was attempting at this time to set up a full organisation to support four Beaufort TB squadrons, including an OTU. At one stage it was being seriously considered to ferry the RNZAF TBFs to Australia to use their facilities, with an alternative scheme involving sending just the aircrew to the Australian OTU where they were to be converted to Beauforts, complete the course using all the Australian training facilities, then return to NZ to relearn how to do all this on their own TBFs before deploying to the forward area. However the Americans came back into the picture at about this time, made light of the problems of the gloomy Kiwis and offered training facilities in Hawaii (including practice torpedoes); this was soon changed to the more convenient New Hebrides (present day Vanuatu), where excellent facilities were being set up. Later in 1943 (the TBFs didn't start to arrive in NZ till September) the Americans passed on the latest operational information on developments in the South Pacific war, which included fact that torpedoes were now found not to be very useful as few opportunites for their use were now presenting themselves, and training should concentrate on horizontal and shallow dive bombing (also known as glide bombing). Finally, about a week and a half prior to 30 Squadron departing New Zealand for the forward area, the South Pacific commander advised that the RNZAF was not required to carry out any torpedo practice and would be employed purely on bombing activities, and possibly on anti-submarine patrols in emergencies.
The next time the RNZAF had any association with aerial torpedoes was when our PV-1s (in the foward area only initially) were provided with the small electric-powered anti-submarine acoustic torpedoes from about March 1944 onwards, it being believed that a few Japanese subs were still lurking about in the area. Only one of these acoustic torps was ever launched against an enemy submarine (in April 1944, by 2 Sqdn) but was non-functional for some reason. The successors to this torpedo (known in WW2 by the code name FIDO) are the ones which have been used by our helicopters and patrol aircraft since the 1960s. The "full-sized" high speed aerial torpedoes as used from late in WW1 till the end of WW2 never seems to have been revived after the latter war, as being rather too difficult to obtain good results with on operations as compared to other types of weapons such as various types of crude rockets, then the larger but much more effective guided anti-ship missiles, including the devastating sea skimming models which came to prominence in the Falklands war.
Another thought has just disturbed me - does anybody know if the RNZF ever contemplated using versions of the electric acoustic torpedoes in the days of the Catalina and Sunderland? They probably required American bomb carriers or adapters, and should not have presented any physical problems as such, although on Catalinas they would be carried out in the slipstream. Perhaps it was understood that such torpedoes would be supplied to the RNZAF from USA or British or Australian stocks in case of international emergencies, particularly those involving "unfriendly" large powers with modern submarine fleets such as the USSR. Any thoughts?
David D

[Dave Homewood]

Fascinating stuff. I have never come across any reference to the Venturas carrying torpedoes, that is totally new to me. I'm amazed the many veterans I have interviewed did not mention them.

I do know when the US Navy first told the RNZAF they required torpedo bomber squadrons to be formed it surprisingly became public knowledge and the NZ Herald speculated that the RNZAF was to get Fairey Swordfish!

[Dave Homewood]

Do you know who the 2BR crew was that dropped the torpedo David?

[davidd]

Dave H, Yes, the crew was that of F/L E H Perry (with Nav F/O K C Bolland, WOAG F/Sgt L Curreen, and A/Gs F/O R T Aitchison and Sgt T J Blewman) and date was 1/4/44 (I kid you not).

On this date, 2 Squadron was tasked with seven routine patrols, including four known as "Channel Patrols" which simply followed a route which took them up through St George's Channel between New Britain and New Ireland. The Squadron Form 540 (Operations Record Book, these days known as Unit History Sheet) has this small summary of events. "F/O Bolland, navigator for F/L Perry, spotted an enemy sub in position 0.8-31S, 150-56E, approximately 10 miles off Kalili, New Ireland. F/L Perry carried out a very good attack ..... but FIDO failed to fuse. Negative reports from other six aircraft."

As to general knowledge at the time of the use by RNZAF of these rather small and slow electric powered acoustic homing torpedoes, their employment on operations was tightly controlled due to security concerns, and hope that their very existence on the Allied "front line" could be kept from the enemy for as long as possible. For instance it could only be deployed against an enemy submarine if there were no other enemy sea or aircraft, or shore observation sites close to hand and in a postion to notice what was happening, and security on the airbases equipped with FIDO-equipped aircraft was strict, and only personnel who needed to know (including a proportion of the aircrew) were supposed to have any knowledge of them. I think the first FIDOs were delivered to British and American anti-sub squadrons in the Atlantic war in about mid-1943, and first kill claimed against a U-boat in about August. Easy to look this up with the assistance of Mr Google. However one of the volunteers in the RNZAF Museum remembers FIDO when they were at Munda and Piva North in early 1944, although his trade (flight mechanic on 10 SU) gave him no inherent need to know of their existence. He says they were always loaded under quite tight security in a separate area, but most technically-minded people on the base probably had some knowledge of them - additional security almost always automatically heightens everybody's curiosity. Incidentally the British, Germans and Japanese (and probably the Soviets and Italians, latter till their capitulation) were all working on their own acoustic torpedos, including air-dropped as well as ship-launched models, with the Germans probably being about as advanced as the Americans, if not more so. However scientists in all these countries would have been familiar with their design problems, and would have been quick to realize what was happening if their ships or submarines suddenly started sinking under mysterious circumstances.
David D

[Dave Homewood]

Thanks for that David. I have not concentrated my efforts on No. 2 Squadron yet as heavily as I have for several of the other squadrons, so this is new to me and most interesting indeed.

[nuuumannn]

Terrific information, Dave. Interesting that torpedoes were not sent here; it only makes sense. How much more evidence did Salmond need to prove the use of torpedoes in warfare? During the Gallipoli campaign, Short 184 torpedo droppers sank three ships out of three torpedoes fired, although these were moored rather than manoeuvring at sea. let's not forget that the Short 184 was a highly unlikely success in this role. In terms of training, aside from actual live torpedo firing, which was not widely carried out owing to the loss of torpedoes, although during the Great War the RAF employed divers to recover fired dummy torpedoes during torpoedo training carried out in 1918, Coastal Command employed synthetic torpedo training simulators to aid Beaufighter crews.

[davidd]

Grant,
I think Salmond only reflected much opinion in the RN in the mid/late 1920s, who considered that although the aerial version of the torpedo was an interesting development, it was, so far as they were concerned, still unproven against larger ships at sea and manoeuvering, and anti-aircraft defences by this time were far more developed than they were in 1915, when they hardly existed at all. Thus it was not that "could aircraft torpedoes sink ships?" so much as "can aircraft torpedoes sink defended ships under modern opeational conditions?" I am assuming somewhat that the sinkings in the Dardanelles were in semi-sheltered waters against anchored or slow-moving ships that were not putting up much, if any serious resistance, and that the attacks were of the surprise kind. You can see how salty crusty admirals and the like could put forward these reasons for the success of these undoubtably courageous flyers, and definite efforts were put into improving fleet defences against aircraft attacks (bombs or torpedo) in the remaining years of WW1 as well as the early postwar years by most navies. I really will have to locate Bettington's thoughts on aerial torpedoes too. Do you have a copy of his 1919 report Grant?
Of course the funny part of the fleet defence story, at least as far as the RN is concerned, is that when they finally introduced realistic training for ship A/A gunners in the early 1930s (advent of the DH Queen Bee "aerial target"), the gunners proved to be universally appalling BAD! It took a long time before the gunners were able to bring one of these targets down with their fire. And these were quite slow aircraft (low-powered float biplanes) carrying out gentle manoeuvres within easy reach of the guns for the most part; at least they had the rest of the 1930s to correct this particular weakness, thanks to the revolution in understanding brought about by this little-known and underrated aircraft.
David D

[Dave Homewood]

So, who was the first pilot/aircrew/squadron to actually sink a defended ship under 'modern' operational conditions with an aerial torpedo? Which ship?

I was just trying to think, I know the Germans had no aircraft carriers in WWII (in action at least) and thus I assume they had no real Fleet Air Arm style organisation. I seem to recall their coastal command type aeroplanes were usually Junkers Ju88's and Focke Wulf Condors. So did the Germans use aerial torpedoes at all in WWII? And as an aside were the pilots and aircrew in the Arados etc that were onboard their ships members of the Luftwaffe or the Navy?

[ErrolC]

I knew from general comments that I'd read that German aerial torpedoes in WW2 were poor, and they then got a lot from the Italians.

Some snippets hunting around
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_torpedo

German aerial torpedo development lagged behind other belligerents—a continuation of neglect of the category during the 1930s. At the beginning of World War II, Germany was making only five aerial torpedoes per month, and half were failing in air-drop exercises. Instead, Italian aerial torpedoes made by Fiume were purchased, with 1,000 eventually delivered.
...
In April 1942, Adolf Hitler made the production of aerial torpedoes a German priority, and the Luftwaffe took the task over from the Kriegsmarine. The quantity of available aerial torpedoes outstripped usage within a year, and an excess of aerial torpedoes were on hand at the end of the war. From 1942 to late 1944, about 4,000 aerial torpedoes were used, but some 10,000 were manufactured during the whole war. Torpedo bombers were modified Heinkel He 111 and Junkers Ju 88 aircraft, but the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft was successfully tested as a delivery system.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_115

Ordnance used by He 115 variants included LTF 5 or LTF 6b torpedoes and SD 500 500 kg (1,100 lb) or SC 250 250 kg (550 lb) bombs. Some also carried LMB III or LMA mines.
...
At the beginning of the war, the He 115 was used for dropping parachute mines in British waters, normally aiming for narrow passages in close vicinity of heavily trafficked ports on the English south coast. The River Thames was also a prime target. However, the aircraft had its finest moment when operating in the anti-shipping role against the Arctic convoys from bases in Northern Norway. Because these convoys initially lacked air cover, the low speed and comparatively light armament of the He 115 was not such a big problem as it had been over the heavily defended English coastline.

www.ww2incolor.com/forum/showthread.php/4537-German-Torpedo-Bombers-What-Were-they

Potentials of air-launched torpedoes, however, were discovered commensurately very late, because the German torpedo development had been completely in the hands of the Kriegsmarine since 1932, which had actually purchased the Horten naval torpedo patents from Norway in 1933 and the Whitehead-Fiume patents from Italy in 1938. Germans, essentially, had used a variant of the Norwegian aircraft-dropped torpedo – the 450mm Schwarzkopf F5 with a range of 2000 meters and maximum speed of 33 knots. It was armed with a 200 kg Hexanite explosive warhead. Subsequent German derivative, improved LF 5B travelled at a speed of 40 knots, and was armed with a 180 or 250 kg warhead filled also with Hexanite.

It has to be maentioned, however, that the technical development toward German air-launched torpedoes was pursued in a rather leisurely manner, mainly bcause it was conducted by the Seeluftstreitkrafte (naval air division of the Kriegsmarine), and the results of trials and reports of combat operations were jealously guarded by the navy. During extensive torpedo-dropping trials, carried out in 1939, both the He 59 and He 115 floatplanes were used, and the failure rate of the torpedoes was a amazing 49 percent!

forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=198298

Any more attention to maritime air warfare would have been better than the near neglect that existed. The torpedos were just one aspect. During the Spanish war a very few German pilots experimented with extreme low level techniques using conventional bombs. This "Swedish Turnip" technique was promising much like some similar experiments in the US. ... but like the US little follow up was done and in 1939-1940 when the German Air Force faced a maritime opponent only a dozen of fewer pilots had any knowledge of the difficult but productive extreme low alltitude attack technique.

Related was a lack of knowledge of open ocean navigation, experience at the nuances of long range radio comm. over water, target identification of ships, oceanic reconissance or search techniques. Despite that the Baltic & North Sea were important to Germanys defense the German AF was unprepared for any useful operations. The October 1939 fiascos against British fleet ops in the North Sea & Baltic are a understudied illustration of the German problem.

[Dave Homewood]

Cheers for that. The Junkers 88 really was a highly versatile aeroplane wasn't it?

[suthg]

Did the Japanese ever drop a torpedo from aircraft?

[Bruce]

Oct 12, 2014 6:48:56 GMT 12 suthg said:

Did the Japanese ever drop a torpedo from aircraft?

Pearl Harbour...

[rayo]

Um the Japanese were the masters of the use of the torpedo both airborne and seaborne during WWII. Apart from Pearl Harbour they sank 4/5 US Carriers if I recall correctly in the early part of the war using them in conjunction with Dive bombing.

[Dave Homewood]

Yes, they then realised it made a bigger bang if they left the torpedo attached to the plane.

[nuuumannn]

Dave, can't say I've read the Bettington Report, although I have seen mention of it; I'm sure it would be interesting as a contemporary document. In 1919 they probably did believe that air launched torpedoes against ships at sea were a little untried to be of real use, which seems to be to be typical of contemporary thought - every reason why it might not succeed was used as the reasons why the idea was not pursued. Silly.

The RN pioneered torpedo dropping and offensive use of the torpedo and there were many within the admiralty who thought, which transferred to the RAF post 1 April 1918, that torpedo dropping was a viable means of sinking warships and practise was carried out during exercises against the fleet on numerous occasions in the 1920s and 30s. During the Great War it had its advocates, Director Aircraft Development Murray Sueter being one, who kept bugging the Admiralty to the extent that he was sent to Italy to command a torpedo squadron of Short 310s at Otranto in the hope of sinking the Goeben. Although this was more a means of getting him out of the Admiralty's hair than anything else! Post war he wrote a book on the subject called Airmen or Noahs, which is essentially a diatribe against the establishment and extolling the virtues of submarines, mines and torpedoes - he had been commanding osifer of HMS Vernon, the RN's torpedo training establishment at Gosport before the war. Another post war advocate of torpedoes was gunnery expert Percy Scott who even went so far as to predict the end of battleships as the front line and the advent of carrier aircraft as the primary naval weapon, in 1919, although precient, his exhortations were still a few years off.

Immediately post war the RAF had only one torpedo squadron from 1920, this was 210, it had been preceeded by 185 and 186, but these were disbanded in early 1919 and 210 formed from their nucleus. This was a carrier based squadron (aboard Argus) and regularly carried out exercises against the fleet, where it was noted in 1922 off Portsmouth that numerous battleships whilst underway and manoeuvring were 'sunk'. I have pictures of Cuckoos taken from the battleship Malaya (?might be Warspite?) during such an exercise.

The essential problem was one of funding post war. Britain was scaling back and had little money for much offensive warfare development. I suspect - and this might be something of a guesstimate that it might have been a matter of expense and that the admiralty did not have the facilities or personnel to release to New Zealand for the development of experience in torpedo warfare. The Vildebeest was definitely old technology by the time we received them, as the Beaufort had entered service as the RAF's primary land based torpedo bomber in 1939.

Yes, German torpedoes were rubbish until around 1941, obviously the sinking of Royal Oak in Scapa was a celebration for them, but Prien had fired 7 torpedoes of which only two exploded, at a ship at anchor in sheltered waters. During the first few months of the war, U boats fired torpedoes at the carrier Ark Royal, battleships Nelson, Rodney and Warspite and all failed to detonate, the one fired at the Nelson actually hit the ship but still did not go off.

The Germans had two main torpedoes at the beginning of the war, the G7a, which ran on compressed air and produced a stream of bubbles, thus giving away its position, and the G7e, which was an electric torpedo that didn't produce bubbles, but was slow and was primarily used against merchantmenn. The problem was the magnetic pistol called the MZ, which was designed to go off in the proximity of the ship, rather than by striking it. Unfortunately it was riddled with issues; in northern latitudes it went off prematurely owning to the earth's magnetic field and often failed to work at all. Between the wars, the German navy put a lot of stock into the MZ and it was widely manufactured, but its issues plagued it even in testing, but little was done to fix them, although an adjustement for different latitudes with 16 settings was designed for the torpedo, but this still didn't work properly in different locations and environmental conditions. In Northern locations, submariners were warned about seeing the Northern Lights, which indicated solar activity and this, believe it or not, also had an impact on the MZ.

The problem was the Germans were aware of these failures before the war, but even a body set up to investigate, the TEK (TorpedoErpobungsKommando) in 1937, published results, which criticised the torpedoes, was rubbished and ignored by 'experts'. Donitz at one stage, after Prien had fired at the Warspite in April 1940, ordered every U boat back to port.