I won't fly with that sonofabitch. He'll kill us all.

In message .com,
Gordon writes
On Jun 5, 10:39 pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
You know, the Fairey Swordfish made the Devastator look like superplane,
but at the attack on Taranto and against the Bismarck, they didn't
exactly suck.

They were never once sent in against an enemy fleet with an active
CAP.

Channel Dash, 1942. Six Swordfish went in, all lost, no hits.

Different war. They WERE outmoded, by any stretch or WWII
standard.

Apart from the radar, that is...

If they were sent in against the IJN carrier fleet under an
umbrella of Zeroes, they would have been, well, devastated.

Only in daylight. Leads to an interesting joust as - for example -
Cunningham tries to get in position for a night strike against the
Japanese carriers, without being found and hit during the day...

--
The nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its
warriors, will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done
by fools.
-Thucydides


Paul J. Adam - mainbox{at}jrwlynch[dot]demon(dot)codotuk