Not quit accurate historical speaking American radar technology was years behind the British and for that matter Germans pre war and would have been thought out ww2 had it not been Frankly for the British scientist and Churchill because American radar improved greatly because the British handed over to the Americas what was then ""British top secret technology "" A copy of the ""Cavity magnetron "" this transformed radar in one huge leap a device that created the short wave microwave that changed overnight the Americans understanding of radar we gave them also the latest airborne aír interception/search radar The ASV MK II aswel as H2S sets British bombers were using that and the. ""Proximity fuse"" that was fitted to artillery shells which is used to this day currently in modern ordinance this happened because Churchill decided it was a good Idea to give away all British top secret technology much to the dismay and protest of his scientists and advisors This was called the Tizard Mission 1940

the radar set yes, but the brits developed the centimetric emitter that the set used.

Of course neither version would have been possible without the British cavity magnetron which Britain gifted to their US ally. BTW, the cavity magnetron and centimetric radar are among the several good things to bring up if you find yourself talking to one of those nazi-ists harping on about Germany having ALL the best tech.

The Germans had a lot of good stuff with future potential but often no practical value for the situation they were in. For example V1 and V 2, military worth zero without an accurate target system and an (atomic) warhead. Same thing with the ME 262. great promise for the future, quite useless ad hoc. The allies had really useful stuff like centrimetric radar and the proximity fuse and a lot of perfectly good fighters with the necessary fuel to fly them and train the pilots. And I am german😂. And if the German s built something useful like the Panther tank they ruined it by not having the tooling to build reliable final drives. The devil is in the detail.

Thanks. It can be a challenge. But it's fun.

Spot on footage, amazing dialogues and testimony, immaculately edited, well respected and presented, this channel is a treasure. Gold.

The contributions of the brave men of the RN deserve recognition. The folks who designed their carrier aircraft? Not so much.

@@coogrfan Not fair really. The problem with British Naval aircraft design was the lack of an engine for carrier use, not the fault of the aircraft designers. It seemed every time they did design around an engine either the engine got removed to OTHER duties or had massive teething problems effectively neutering the aircraft in question. It wasn't until the Bristol Centaurus engine became reliable that British aircraft design could take the next step forward. Radials, while heavier than inline engines, were vastly more reliable and also gave that most important boost in HP allowing naval aircraft to carry all that extra carrier landing weight, folding wings weight, and the need for excessive range(fuel) before one even talks about Torpedoes, bombs, etc.

@@w8stral Fair enough.

@@w8stral But the massive teething troubles were BECAUSE of their design work, though. Don't try to pretend that you Brits didn't desperately need American aircraft or that yours were better either, because neither is true, you guys had come up with more ugly, dogshit-performance aircraft than not.

Thank you too!

Glad you like it. I can't always find matching clips. But I try where I can.

Heh, thanks. I do it to counterbalance some of the uninformed crap that's out there. How better to do that than to use the voice of those who were there? They are not always correct in every detail, but they experienced how these aircraft and events fitted the context of the times they happened in.

As a much younger man I worked with someone who had been an RAF armourer very soon after WWII, was very familiar with the rockets, and told me that they had never really worked as reliably as intended during the war, so depending on the mission were often fitted with a concrete warhead because a 60lb lump of concrete arriving at something approaching Mach 1 will make a mess of whatever it hits anyway. 😁

And not a lot of accuracy though?

@@offshoretomorrow3346 Indeed, but I think the basic idea was to spam a target rather than be pinpoint accurate. There are simply too many variables in firing an unguided air-to-surface missile from an aircraft that's also maneuvering to avoid giving anti-aircraft gunners an easy target.

Worth noting that there were 2 warheads; The 60lb warhead was semi-armour piercing and preferred for ground use (it armed Hurricane, Mosquitoe and most famously Typhoon as well) The 25lb warhead was fully armour piercing, solid shot. Used primarily against Submarines. The interesting thing about the 25lb AP rocket was that you could fire them direct at the submarine, but also into the water directly alongside, a few yards away. The rockets, completely unintentionally, would hit the water, be deflected by the impact, then continue at high speed underwater just underneath the surface until they hit the U-Boat and penetrated the pressure hull. So even a near miss could be fatal for a target.

Thanks. There wasn't a lot of available material. But there was enough ...

Context... The problem of the opinion of the day and in modern times was in calling them fighters instead of what they were: Attack aircraft. Change the term and no one has "problems" anymore. As for the accounts of those who use them... well uh, pilots ALWAYS love their planes unless it is a complete DOG where you are more likely to die than do anything useful like the USN Devastator. The RN aviator 1st hand accounts are especially questionable since no one was actually shooting at them. Its like all the pilots of the Cold war era praising their aircraft from any nation... How truthful are they? None of them were exchanging direct fire other than a very select few over Vietnam and even then there were so many rules as to make things fairly ridiculous. The ultimate of the WWII is the swordfish... it was a complete and utter relic/dog, but due to a couple early war surprise uses, it escapes being called a dog, when in reality, everyone knows... it was a dog just like the joke called the Douglas Devastator. EDIT: The truth is, you use what you have, not what you wish you had and why the use of the swordfish gets the praise it did as those USING the swordfish got the maximum from it whereas dogs like the Douglas Devastator... did not.

Why did FAA insist on two-seat, multi-roll fighter-recon and torpedo-recon aircraft? How did they expect to counter Japanese types with Fireflys and Barracudas? The UK invented carrier aviation but ended up needing Seafires, US Hellcats, Corsairs and Avengers.

@@w8stral Dog. Ha ha. Harsh. Admittedly, both were more poodle than greyhound.

@@littlefluffybushbaby7256 Harsh, but accurate. Every pilot "loves" their aircraft ... 99% of the pilots experienced "opinions" the hottest aircraft they had ever flown was their dog(dogs are loyal), just not very useful. It is utterly absurd to take pilots opinions as anything other than Nostalgia and certainly not accurate.

@@w8stral Last year I did quite a bit of gliding and flew in two types of glider. I had a preference, but would have to admit, although there were concrete reasons for the preference, part of it was looks. Like picking a car so many factors come into play. There's something to be said for ones that are reliable (or loyal) as opposed to sporty. There's probably a veteran pilot out there that had a favorite fighter based on the fact it had a beer holder and an ash tray. :) The Firefly's nose does look very dog-like though.

W Harrison's book about the plane makes interesting reading, and mentions the problem. At first the tailplane itself was blamed and they changed its manufacture from canvas to metal, but it wasn't until one of the pilots of 1770 sqdn survived a canopy being detached and was able to report what happened that the boffins realised what was happening. It turned out that when the aircraft was flown at high speed the pilots canopy flexed causing it to detach, hitting the pilot in the head. The test pilot losses were probably due to them being knocked unconious and therefore unable to recover the plane.

It even soldiered on into the Korean War and was very effective there, just like the US Corsair's.

Spit wing was too thin to have a wide undercarriage

They still have a carrier

@@sugarnads It's no longer supports fixed wing operations, though. I think they still fly helicopters off it.

A good thing for His Majesty that the well-known laxative effect of an extrememly low-flying a/c did not occur. While making the 1954 film 'The Dam Busters', low flying at 40 feet (as requested by MrAnderson), in the Lake District, some toilet rolls were dropped over a stately hotel. The 'plane was reported by a resident who was a displaced member of a European royal family.

See the picture "Malta Story" (1953) which used derelict Fireflies* as 'war-damaged Spitfires'. * with 'peacetime' underwing serials

You can say that again!

As always, it's a matter of comparing apples with apples. And that means timeframes. The Fairey Fulmar was in combat when the primary US Naval fleet fighter was the F2F biplane, for example. But yes, the pace of change during the War often meant "cutting edge" became "obsolete" within just two or three years - such as 1939 to 1942.

@@michellebrown4903 Talking straight out your ass again I see. How old are you? I know you can’t be more than about 25. Keep trying.

@@ArmouredCarriers Or 1917-1918

​@@ArmouredCarriers or even a year

Well...Capt. Buckmaster (Yorktown), I think, had the idea of using the SBD as CAP against torpedo bombers. Best I remember from Lundstrom's "First Team", it did not work well. However, groups of Dauntlesses could hold off Japanese attackers so incautious as to forget that the SBD had a dual-30 caliber machine gun, and that a group of them could be pretty tough when working together. And sometimes an ornery Dauntless pilot might shoot down a Zero that got in the way of the twin-50 cal forward-firing guns. The Firefly, though, reminds me more of a two-seated radar-bearing Typhoon. Imagine if USN escort carriers had had Fireflies at the Battle off Samar! (Having read Hornfisher's "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors", and the way that Wildcats raked the bridges of Japanese battleships and cruisers)

I think I included comments from Wilkey in my videos on Palembang. But there's not enough audio that I've been able to find to do a specific Firefly episode, sorry.

@@ArmouredCarriers all god I did hear it But Your videos have been such an inspiration to me I am painting up “squadrons“ of aircraft for blood red skies to do a Palambang scenario

@@SGusky Glad you've found them so useful.

@@ArmouredCarriers Thanks I used the decal sheet that you featured on your website ( forgotten campaigns from casper)showing the different aircraft involved I had a Miscellaneous Miniatures make up the Decal Sheets for each Squadron And the folks at Lead Pursuit help design the aircraft STL files in 1/200 I have everything but those darn fireflies There might be a liquor two over on my channel I think I posted the Nicks versus corsairs.. Putting together a Campaign pack for the game right now…. Thank you for being inspirational I am also building a lot of the aircraft in 1/72 scale for another game we play

Skyraider came in 1946. So that's the same 3-year development cycle that saw the Firefly come after the Fulmar of 1940. Three years was a long time back then.

The RN had 50 Skyraiders, but they were used in the carrier borne aew role until replaced by the Fairy Gannet.

The requirement that lead eventually to the AD-1 started off as a two-seater.

the 4 x 20 mm Hispano Mk II cannons carry 160 rounds per gun for a total capacity of 640 rounds.

You need an eye exam

The Royal Navy also had a handful of night fighter Hellcats aboard HMS Formidable off Japan in the last days of the war. By all accounts they were effective enough for the "delousing" (looking for hostile aircraft following returning strike aircraft) job they did. I'm not certain if the Fireflies aboard Implacable and Indefatigable operated in that role at that time.

It’s constantly amazing how so many ideas look obvious - after they are thought of!

Ha! Just what I thought!

I assume they re the intakes for the engine carbs

@@johngriffiths118 more efficient engine?

Later versions of the Fairey Firefly looked much better.

I think the RAF insisted it be in the specification. The didn't want navy types getting above themselves. OK, you can have aircraft, but not pretty ones. I think for a plane to be able to survive being slammed into a deck they have to be a bit robust, add to that other similar factors and there weren't many elegant looking carrier planes. They tend to be more brutal.

did he have nazi ties

No. But his wife did.

The Firefly was used in Korea as a ground attack aircraft by the Royal Navy and RAN. Also used by Canada and the Netherlands it flew well into the 1950s. It was a versatile aircraft that was used for many roles including ASW.

@@timb3499 It was designed as a fleet defense fighter, but as you said yourself ended up as a ground attack / ASW platform. Its large size and slow speed made it unsuitable for its designed role, as the Fulmar was before it. They were sold off cheap to other to other navies using small carriers unsuitable for higher performance aircraft

@@billballbuster7186 just trying to make the point that it’s more than a target tug.

I think British carrier operations were largely in the overcast and stormy Atlantic and arctic rather than the sunny skies over the pacific. Hence a navigator was required.

@@annoyingbstard9407 The RAF and the RN both thought that an aircraft needed a navigator to fly over water. (The RAF controlled all British aircraft procurement until just before war broke out). The USN, which had the advantage of never having been forced to give up control, had had single-seat fighters for many years. The USN operated carriers in both the Atlantic and Pacific. In December, 1941, Yorktown (CV-5) and Hornet (CV-8) were at Norfolk, and Ranger (CV-4) and Wasp (CV-7) were also in the Atlantic.

Agree 👍

Feel free to break out your calculator

@@WALTERBROADDUSStupid Reply, Why convert it to KMH when it would of been in Knots irigionaly

@@ianlitchfield9273 because most people don't use nautical miles. I don't know why you're stressing about this?

@@WALTERBROADDUS Excuse me for pointing out that most of the worlds aircraft , and ships, use knots !! A knot is 15% more than mph, but more importantly it is directly related to the earths diameter , one minute of arc, and charts are laid out in nautical miles.

No more so than the Hellcat is just an improved Wildcat.

I guess the US Marine Corps is naval, yes. But they didn't become operational on US aircraft carriers until after the order was given in November 1944 to move Marine Corsair squadrons aboard carriers to help combat kamikazes. But the RN began using Corsairs at pretty much the same time as Fireflies in late 43.

@@ArmouredCarriers Veteran VF-17 equipped with Corsairs went to sea on USS Hornet in 1943. The Navy pulled the Corsair for logistical reasons not because of poor carrier suitability. They wanted a single aircraft across the fleet carrier force.

If you would have said SBD Dauntless you might have scored.

@@ArmouredCarriers The Corsair may have been late to sea but was the backbone of US Navy air groups until 1954 outlasting the Bearcat by 4 years. French F4U-7s were flown operationally into the 1960s.