Aviation Videos.

Mikinton

Mikinton

Well-Known Forumite
BobClay said:
I still think the Vanguard would have made a great museum though.
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Maybe, but I think it would have needed a bit of history, like HMS Victory or the Aurora in St Petersburg.

Yes, for all the money spent on them, and the prestige, instances when battleships fired on battleships in the 20th century are few and far between. The Russo-Japanese war saw a few, Tsushima being the most notable. In WW1 there was Jutland, and Dogger Bank if you include battlecruisers (Fisher's ocean greyhounds), though of course there were several occasions when capital ships dispatched armoured and light cruisers in fairly quick time. I can't think of anything between the wars. Then in WW2, there was Hood/Bismarck, Mers el Kebir, various night actions around the Solomon Islands, the sinking of the Scharnhorst and, as Noah mentioned above, Surigao Straight.

Yes in WW2, with a swordfish effectively putting paid to the Bismarck and the raids on Taranto and Pearl Harbor, battleships had to look for another role, but always one where air superiority was assured or at least negated (e.g. night actions) - something like supporting landings through bombardment and as command centres, which the yanks were still doing up until the first Gulf war.
 
BobClay

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
The US were using them basically as gun platforms in the more recent conflicts. Guns of that calibre usually have to be mounted on rails for land based artillery. On a ship they can go anywhere there's sufficient water. Glorified Monitors in effect.

But very heavy artillery is a bit of a white elephant these days.

When the German Panzers rolled across France in 1940 their supporting heavy artillery couldn't hope to keep up. But that didn't matter, the job was done by this ugly looking bird.

Ju87.jpg
 
Mikinton

Mikinton

Well-Known Forumite
They were something else that needed air superiority. Quite useful in the invasion of Russia in 1941, and probably a year or two after.
 
Gramaisc

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Mikinton said:
They were something else that needed air superiority. Quite useful in the invasion of Russia in 1941, and probably a year or two after.
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Well worth reading Hans-Ulrich Rudel's Stuka Pilot - it was his preferred method of transport right up to the final day of the war, when any pretence of air superiority was long gone. Although he was shot down 32 times in one, it was always as a result of ground-fire. He did get shot up on the ground by a P51 once, but he was in a FW190 at the time.
 
BobClay

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
You probably know of Capt Eric 'Winkle' Brown, one of the greatest test pilots ever to have lived. He still holds all kinds of incredible records for the number of different types of aircraft flown and the number of carrier take-offs and landings. He flew a Stuka (Ju87) and was quite impressed with it as a dive bomber. He reportedly commented that it was the only dive bomber he'd ever flown that could comfortably dive bomb at a vertical angle. (You do have wonder what the word 'comfortably' meant to the Winkle. Pretty sure it means something else to most other people .. :eek:)
 
Mikinton

Mikinton

Well-Known Forumite
I've just been reading Stephen Bungay's "The Most Dangerous Enemy". He lists 6 reasons why they struggled in the Battle of Britain, #4 about the problems Bf109s had escorting them was the most amusing (they'd let the Stukas get half way across the channel before taking off, and had to zig-zag to stay with them).
 
BobClay

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
One reason why ships get uptight with aircraft. HMS Antrim, RN Destroyer at the Falklands in 1982. The damage you see is from 30mm cannon strafing which went through her like a knife through butter. She also took a 1000lb bomb which skidded along the flight deck and embedded itself inside the ship. Fortunately it didn't explode, that would probably have finished her.
There were no deaths reported at the time, but several injuries from minor to serious. After this she was detached and sent down to South Georgia to cover some Merchant ships that had suffered air attacks.

HMSAntrim.jpg
 
BobClay

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Test flights of some kind ? Instrument calibration ? Demonstrations ? ..... or maybe a practice run for an eye test at Barnard Castle ... :P
 
BobClay

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
The 3D tracker got within about 50 ft of the runway before the signal fell off. That's pretty good, it usually wobbles before they get that low ....

Well ... that's my summer holiday in Ireland over. :P

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BobClay

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Somebody put this pix of an Avro Lincoln bomber on a shipping and history site I visit. It's such a good pix I thought it might be appreciated here. It's in Australian colours (RAAF) and the location is Japan in 1947.
I'm told the Lincoln was basically an upgraded Lancaster, fitted with Rolls Royce Griffin engines. It was even converted for passenger carrying for a while !!!! (Wow that must have been noisy.)

AVROlincoln.jpg
 
Noah

Noah

Well-Known Forumite
Lancasters were converted into the Avro Lancastrian, passanger & mail transport carrying from 9 to 13 passangers. A couple of Lancastrians were converted to Sapphire Lancastrians as flying test beds with the outer engines replaced by turbojets.

Lancastrian 3, 13 passenger British South American Airways -

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And a bit on the Lincoln/Lincolnian

http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/Avro_695_Lincolnian
 
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