The TBF was the main torpedo bomber of the U.S. Navy during World War II, and compared with the fierce battle of TBD in Midway, the TBF finally turned in a much better result, including playing an important role in the sinking of the Yamato and the Musashi of its class, avenging Pearl Harbor, and living up to the name "Avenger". There is also a TBM in the US military that is also an Avenger, and the two are basically the same thing. Because the wartime Grumman company also had two important fighters F4F and F6F, it was too busy, so it was handed over to other companies to produce through authorization, Grumman's own name was TBF, General Dynamics production was called TBM, at the beginning of the two joint production, and then Grumman simply handed over to General Dynamics.
TBF standard photo
Compared to the TBD, the TBF's firepower was slightly enhanced, with an early model with a 7.62 mm machine gun inside the hood, synchronized with the propeller by a coordinator, and a 12.7 mm and 7.62 mm machine gun inside the turret and belly, respectively. Later, in the operation, the front line maintenance personnel removed the 7.62 machine gun directly in front, installed 2 12.7 mm machine guns at the base of the wing, and also fired through the coordinate, which enhanced the front-firing fire, and after this plan was fed back to Grumman, Grumman simply removed the coordinator and extended the position of the machine gun outward beyond the rotating surface of the propeller to shoot.
Tail turret
The TBF also had three crew members: the pilot in front of the cockpit, the turret gunner in the back, and the radioman/bomber/belly gunner inside the belly. The pilot is responsible for aiming and firing when torpedoes are mounted in combat, and only when hanging ordinary bombs are controlled by the bomber, which is basically the same as the way TBD is carried. Because it is also a Grumman product, the TBF's wing folding borrows from the F4F's way, flipping and folding backwards. The torpedo is built-in, with a huge bomb bay inside the belly, usually a Bliss-Leavitt Mark 13 torpedo, or a 907 kg bomb, or up to four 500 lb (227 kg) bombs, and the radioman and bomber's seat is behind this torpedo chamber.
TBF's wings folded
Main internal structure
One of the "Avengers" pilots grew up to become the future President of the United States, the 41st President, George Herbert Walker Bush, whom we generally affectionately refer to as "Old Bush." Bush joined the Navy in 1942, became the youngest naval pilot in history in June 1943, began flying the Avengers in the summer of 1943, was shot down by a Japanese aircraft on September 2, 1944, and was rescued by a U.S. submarine, and neither crew member survived. The Bush family was also passionate about aviation, and Bush Jr. later flew F-102 fighter jets in the National Guard, and in June 2014, bush the elder celebrated his 90th birthday by skydiving.
The second from right in the back row is George H.W. Bush, and the background is TBF
Due to the existence of the bomb bay, the TBF does not look very good, and the thick and fat neck is short, but the performance is much higher than that of TBD. For a greater bomb load, the TBF is more than a meter more than the length and wingspan of the TBD, the normal takeoff weight is more than 7 tons, nearly 3 tons more than the TBD, and it has won the title of the largest single-engine aircraft during World War II; the maximum flight speed is 447 km / h, which is one-third higher than the TBD; the range can be 1600 km when fully loaded, which is twice that of the TBD. But the most difficult torpedo launch process on TBD, because the early torpedoes were still the same, so the launch restrictions were not improved.
TBF fleet
Therefore, the TBF that participated in the war for the first time was not better than the TBD, and although the performance was improved, the full-time fighters of the US military could not win against the Zero at that time, and the TBF of the division bombing was naturally not enough to see. At the beginning of the Battle of Midway, although TBF had not yet officially boarded the ship, 6 TBFs deployed in Midway also flew over the Japanese ship at 7:10 and launched an attack, this wave of debuts was not only brilliant, but even a little tragic: 5 of the 6 TBFs were shot down by the Zero in succession, and the last pilot of the 1st was shot down by the Zero at a glance, threw away the torpedo and fled back, and was attacked by 2 Zeros in the middle of the way, and finally the tail gunner was killed, the radioman was injured, the flight was seriously damaged, one of the ships was broken, and the bullet hatch could not be closed. The elevator was also blown away.
TBF in flight
Later TBFs also often hung ordinary bomb attacks, because the bomb bay was large enough to hang various bombs under 2,000 pounds, and several rockets could be hung under the wings. TBF can use a timer to drop bombs at intervals, the interval time is manually set by the bomber, the pilot pilots the aircraft to dive to an altitude of 500 feet, and 4 bombs are dropped sequentially at intervals of 60 to 75 feet, and the hit rate is greatly improved.
TBF launches rockets
Due to its long range, long endurance, and ability to carry four bombs, the TBF was also highly efficient in carrying out anti-submarine missions, and in 1943 the TBF began to be equipped with ASD-1 radar, a parabolic antenna and radome were installed on the leading edge of the right wing, and additional Yagi radar antennas were installed on the wings. The modified TBF took off at sunset and flew all night on the sea, and by the end of the war, 14 carrier anti-submarine groups operating in the Atlantic had sunk a total of 53 German submarines and captured one U-505; in the Pacific Theater, 8 anti-submarine formations on escort aircraft carriers had sunk 11 Japanese submarines. Later TBF also further installed APS-20 radar, and even the prototype of the carrier-based early warning aircraft that flew at a low altitude of 100-150 meters was already on the horizon.
Radar Avengers
But the name "Avenger" is not the namer's random fantasy, Pearl Harbor incident for the United States is not only a blow to the United States but also a bloody vendetta, the Avenger is really carrying the American mission of revenge on the battlefield. The initial folding did not depress the TBF, and the inactive TBD after the Battle of Midway was quickly eliminated, and the era of TBF began.
In August 1942, the U.S. army carried out landing operations on Guadalcanal, and since then japan and the United States have engaged in a seven-month tug-of-war on Guadalcanal. On August 24, the Japanese light aircraft carrier Ryūjō was formed into the First Air Force of the Third Fleet of the Mobile Force to protect the Landing Force. After bombing Henderson airfield on Guadalcanal, the Dragon Waswolf was under the heavy attention of the U.S. Army Ground Air Force and Naval Aviation Corps, and finally 30 SBD dive bombers and 8 TBF torpedo attack aircraft aboard the U.S. aircraft "Saratoga" (CV-3) launched an attack on the Dragon Horse, hitting a torpedo in the middle of the starboard side of the "Dragon Horse" and 4 bombs on the ship, causing fire and capsizing, and sank in the northern waters of Guadalcanal four hours after the attack.
TBF, which is dropping torpedoes
On November 13, the Japanese Navy dispatched the battleships Hiei and Kirishima to shell the U.S. airfield on Guadalcanal, encountered and engaged in close-range artillery battles with the U.S. Navy fleet at night, and in the confusion hi-Ri was fired at close range by the U.S. destroyer Rafi, all senior commanders of the fleet were seriously injured, the superstructure caught fire, the steering device was damaged, the command was lost and the control was lost, and the next day the TBF From the U.S. Marine Corps launched an attack on the Vieri, hitting multiple torpedoes. The following night the battleship, which had been in service since World War I, sank in the waters off the Solomon Islands, with 188 crew members sunk with it.
Such a crew is lucky
During the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944, the strength of the US and Japanese navies was completely out of the same grade, and the US military had a total of 140 major ships, including 7 main aircraft carriers and 8 escort aircraft carriers, carrying 194 TBFs, fighter jets were also replaced by the Zero Killer F6F, Japan only had 55 major ships, but there were also 9 aircraft carriers. During the battle, the Japanese aircraft carrier first launched an aerial attack on the US army, but under the high-performance fighters and strict protection of the US army, liao Liao lost more than half of the carrier-based aircraft, which made the famous "Mariana Turkey Hunting" for the US army. At first, the US military did not find the Japanese warships, but two submarines successively sank the two aircraft carriers of the Japanese Shozuru and the Dafeng, until the next morning, the US carrier-based aircraft caught up with the fleeing Japanese fleet, TBF sunk the Japanese aircraft carrier Flying Eagle with torpedoes, and some TBF also hung bombs to attack other ships, seriously damaging the other two aircraft carriers. In this war, 3 Japanese aircraft carriers and 2 tankers were sunk, 4 aircraft carriers were injured, and only 5 U.S. warships were injured.
This is a minor injury
The battleship Musashi was the second ship of the Yamato-class battleships. In October 1944, the Japanese 2nd Fleet, including Musashi, took part in the Battle of Leyte Gulf in an attempt to attack the Allied landing fleet in Leyte Gulf. At 10:00 a.m. on October 24, 24 U.S. planes appeared over the Japanese fleet, a bomb exploded on the outside of the bow of the Musashi ship, and two minutes later, a torpedo dropped by THE TBF accurately hit the Musashi's starboard side, causing damage to the cabin and jamming the main gun; at 11:38, the second wave of U.S. aircraft hit 227 kg and 3 torpedoes on the starboard side of the Musashi, and the Musashi hull tilted and the foredeck sank a full 2 meters due to excessive water inlet. At 1:30 p.m., Musashi was hit by 4 bombs, 1 round of close-up bullets and 5 torpedoes by the US planes in a row; 21 minutes later, 12 SB2C dive bombers and 23 TBF torpedo planes attacked Musashi again, hitting 10 bombs and 11 torpedoes on Musashi in a row. At 7:35 p.m. on October 24, 1944, Musashi disappeared into the Sibuyan Sea in the Philippines with 1,021 officers and men, including its captain, Rear Admiral Toshihei Inoguchi, and was hit by 20 torpedoes, 17 bombs, and 18 close-up shells before sinking.
The sunken Musashi
Against such a super battleship, the ordinary bomb power is relatively small, there is no large number of hits can not cause serious damage to the battleship, although the torpedo is relatively easy to dodge, but after all, the charge is large, the attack site is mostly located near the waterline, and the single shot damage to large ships is higher. Half a year later, Yamato, the flagship of Yamamoto's fifty-six combined fleet, suffered the same fate as the Musashi. Although the Yamato had not yet entered service at the time of pearl harbor, and although the sinking of the Yamato was somewhat "ordered to commit suicide", the final blow given by the "Avenger" to the Yamato, which was once the pride of the Combined Fleet, always made people feel a little emotional.
On March 26, 1945, the U.S. military began to carry out the Okinawa landing operation, and Japan dispatched a fleet of surface ships, including yamato, to support the Japanese in Okinawa. On 5 April, the Japanese military command formally ordered operations on the Yamato to make a suicide attack, and on 6 April, 10 warships of the 2nd Fleet, with Yamato as the flagship, set sail from the Tokuyama anchorage in the western Part of the Seto Inland Sea under the command of Vice Admiral Tetsuichi Ito. At noon the next day, the Yamato was attacked by the U.S. Navy Task Force 58, 4 bombs landed near the main turret No. 3, at 12:43 a.m. by a torpedo in the front of the starboard side, at 13:37, the middle of the starboard side was hit by 3 torpedoes, another 450 kg aerial bomb blew up the drainage valve, a few minutes later in the middle of the starboard side was hit by 2 more torpedoes, at 14:01 the middle of the starboard side hit 3 more bombs, at 14:07 a torpedo hit the starboard side, at 14:12, The Yamato was hit by 2 more torpedoes in the middle and rear of the starboard side, and at 14:15 the starboard side was hit by another mine, the speed gradually decreased to 7 knots, and at 14:23 the Yamato's main ammunition depot exploded and sank, sinking 2498 people, including the commander of the 2nd Fleet.
The Yamato has disappeared below sea level
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