Could a WWII torpedo bomber be used like a dive bomber?

Question

I could just imagine a TBF-1 Avenger going into a steep dive, like a dive bomber and releasing a torpedo into a Japanese carrier of something. Could it do it? Here's the situation, there's a Japanese ship with no anti-aircraft defenses, flak, or anything. An avenger is aproaching the Japanese ship 2000 ft above it. Could it dive down and drop it's torpedo on the ship, or just drop it right on top of the ship without going into a dive? What would happen if it did? Would it damage the Avenger, because it is heavily armoured and rugged so i think it could handle the dive.

Answer 1

It wouldn't work and it would be a huge waste of resources. Most of the weight of a torpedo is in the body and not in the warhead, so dumping a torpedo on someone from the air wastes 2/3 of the load. The torpedo also wouldn't arm, it needs water flowing over it to arm the SAFU (Safety Arming and Fuzing Unit). So there'd be no bang. The Avenger also wouldn't be high enough to escape AA fire, so it would have little chance of getting close enough. The dive would rip its wings off.

There's lots of reasons why they don't dive bomb with torpedos.

Answer 2

The answer is NO, because a torpedo bomber lacks the dive brakes that a dive bomber would have. Thus the torpedo bomber would have to pull up earlier, be less accurate, and all that. Dive bombers have these "flaps with holes" drive brakes on both wings to help them slow to proper attack speed.

Also, torpedoes are NOT designed to be dropped at altitude. If you drop them at altitude the shock will either destroy the torpedo outright, or the gyros in the torpedo won't be able to bring it back to the surface before it failed.

Answer 3

Some torpedo planes like the avenger could do both jobs another switch hitter was the Fairey Barracuda. The avenger was so good at both jobs that the dauntless and hell diver were phased out after the war but the avenger stayed on. Their is war footage of an avenger in a dive dropping two bombs from it's bomb bay.

Answer 4

Grumman designed the Avenger as a torpedo bomber, but the plane could carry bombs in the internal bomb bay or a mixed load of depth charges and 5" rockets under the wings. Avengers were superb sub hunters and both the U.S Navy and Royal Navy used the plane to hunt German submarines which preyed upon Allied shipping in the North Atlantic and Arctic Ocean. In the Pacific, Avengers hunted down the Japanese surface fleet and supported Marine and Army troops during island landings. Former President George Bush piloted both the TBF-1C and TBM-1C versions of the Avenger and was forced to bail out of a VT-51 TBM in the Pacific. He narrowly escaped capture by the Japanese and was quickly rescued by a U.S. Navy submarine.

Answer 5

if he is at 2000 feet all he has to do is just release the torpedo on the ship and it will take of the ship . if can take a dive or could when it was newer now i would be afraid to even fly it straight and level

Answer 6

Dropping a torpedo during a steep dive tremendously increases the velocity of the torpedo. A higher velocity = a more powerful impact, and the more powerful the impact, the more it can maximize its damage to the Japanese carrier.