Curtiss SB2C Helldiver - The Worst and Final Navy Dive Bomber
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- When the United States Navy ordered the first prototype of the Curtiss SB2C Helldiver, the plans for the new dive bomber represented a giant leap in technology.
Developed by Curtiss-Wright during World War II, the third member of a dive-bomber family eventually had so many problems during development that it was even investigated by the Truman Committee and nearly ruined Curtiss as a company.
The SB2C quickly earned a questionable reputation for being a dangerous aircraft and became the last dive bomber in the Navy's inventory, but also its most heavily produced.
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My father was a Hellcat pilot. He said the pilots hated the Helldiver. It was unstable and at the end of a long mission the pilots were so tired they had to be helped out of the cockpit.
SBD= Slow But Deadly.
Your comment is confusing. An sbd isn't the helldiver
@@sinformant i looked at it for 20 sec and were very confused
@@sinformant The OP praised the SBD at the end after describing the faults of the SB2C.
SB2C…..SonnovaBitch, 2nd Class……
@@sinformant . He's pointing out that the only thing the Helldiver had over the SBD was speed. Pilots preferred the Dauntless
The name "Hell Divers" goes way back in the U. S. Navy. It was Navy slang for dive bombers from early on. It featured as the title of the 1932 movie starring Wallace Beery and Clark Gable about U. S. Navy dive bombers. I heard the nickname given the SB2C in WW2 (Son of a Bitch, 2nd Class) from veterans of that conflict long before I watched this video. Good video.
He talked about the first hell divers being biplanes. I always love dark (skies, docs, seas) videos. Always very thorough and yet brief.
"Eh, ill keep my dauntless, thanks." - Dive bomber pilots.. probably.
Helldiver carriers were indeed returned to base in order to get the Dautnless back.
50th like
Most definitely.
The helldiver is a UFO (in war thunder)
Ill keep my Stuka, danke.
The Beast fascinated me as a kid because of the near-squirrely rear canopy/gun arrangement; it looked cool and inefficient both. SBD, on the other hand, was a bird any kid could understand.
The SBD could be and was used as a fighter. BTW, the reasons the SBD production line was shut down was the Allies needed C-47s more than the Navy needed dive bombers. Also, by 1944 it was discovered a fighter sweep shooting up a ship and a "glide bomb" (coming at a 45 degree angle) was just as good as a dive bomb. BTW, the A1 Skyrader replaced the SBD and that was one of the finest piston aircraft made.
"....squirrely rear canopy/gun arrangement?" Maybe you just didn't understand the mission profile?
i built the monogram helldiver as a kid. i had three of them. i loved the helldiver so much,; had all these cool working parts...thought it was a powerful plane. now i'm hearing that the real aircraft was mostly a dud.
@@gord-tj6qs i remembered the Monogram 1:48 model,but never built it. I used to built 1:72 and got Airfix and Matchbox Helldivers.
It is still one of my favorite plane,but there's a lot of info that was not a very good one.
4:33 "...self fueling tanks..." 😂
Can I get one for my car? 😇😉✌️
Dark at its usual🤦🏻😄
...self sealing...?
All the Dark channels should be renamed Dark Blunders, since their all filled with obvious mistakes 🤔
@@rorschach7507 armed with high velocity rockets
Shows tiny Tim’s and aim9 b
@@rorschach7507 - So you're saying using possessive "their" for the contraction they're when you mean "they are" is actually not a mistake? 🤔
The SB2C helldiver was originally intended to have double the bombload and at least 50% greater range than the SBD dauntless. If it had been used from land bases that may actually have worked. But in carrier operations it was unsafe with a full load, carrier decks weren't long enough for it to reach an adequate airspeed when taking off. So the bombload and fuel load were cut back to improve acceleration, and in carrier operations the plane wound up not significantly exceeding the dauntless's performance. It was bigger than the dauntless and so fewer could be carried in a carrier's limited space. It was more taxing to fly, and generally achieved fewer hits per sortie, which pilots blamed on unstable handling in the attack dive. It should have been cancelled, not built in large numbers. Some carrier captains flat refused to have them on board, carrying an extra hellcat squadron instead, trained and equipped for dive bombing. Ultimately the helldivers were replaced with AD skyraiders, which were highly successful in Korea and Vietnam, but developed too late for WW2.
Yeah that would be better
The “ Sandy “ .
The SBD was designed by Ed Heinemann, one of the greatest of all time. Among others, he did the A1 A-20, A-26, A-3 and my favorite, the A-4 Skyhawk. I call it "Scooter."
TBH by this point, with the Japanese navy's situation, ironically there was too soon little need, some, for an anti-ship dive bomber at all, or even the Avenger's Torpedo capability. CAS and ground attack was the priority from late '43 onwards.
Then Kamikaze increase meant more CAP.
Avengers were used level or glide bombing and the Hellcats did the rest until the British helped 'fix' the carrier use of the Corsair for which the US navy then cut off supplies to the British ...Ta lads!
US subs did the rest.
The Navy asked too much of the Curtis, they wanted to put too much into one plane for the time, too many cooks on the Navy boards too.
Not the BTD-1s? They could carry both loadouts, torp and bomb
8:30 , wait... Did you just talk about 'Holy Moses' rockets replacing dive bombers at the end of WWII while showing a sidewinder being loaded on an F4D Skyray during the Korean War?
Well, at least it was a rocket!
With Dark Skies, it could have been a bomb. Or a large rock. Or a dildo. Or a . . . .
@@Neilistic1001 XD
LOL, yeah he called them missiles. I wonder how many drinking games exist because of his errors.
"sidewinder on an F4D Skyray during the Korean War." I take it you're being cynical about the frequent misidentifications that are occurring...? Sometimes it's hard to tell; so many "experts" from playing video games chiming in.
What about the reference to "Power dives" ? Dive bombers never use power when diving and usually have speed brakes to slow the dive speed on their bomb run. Keep full power on very long in a steep dive and you will never do it again
SB2C aka "Son of a Bitch, Second Class", aka "The Beast", aka "The Big-Tailed Beast", aka "Ensign Eliminator". That many nicknames on one aircraft is never a good sign. A frequent fault was that on deck landings the tail often broke off.
I thought the F4U Corsair was the "Ensign Eliminator"?🤔
Well said.
Did better than the Hawker Typhoon - the tail fell off that dumpster fire mid-flight - it didn't have to touch anything. The best part for the mechanics was starting the bloody thing every 20 minutes in cold weather because if you didn't the sleeve valves would be jammed solid when you tried to spin it over cold and it'd irreparably destroy itself. The tolerances were far too tight.
@@daveb.4268 The nickname was applied to several aircaft. I may be wrong in this case, however.
@@rosiehawtrey Unlike the SB2C - which only really "won" by dint of numbers produced - Hawker did at least fix the Typhoon and used it to develop the superb Hawker Tempest.
Self-fueling tanks. =) I think you mean Self-sealing.
Damn, i want a self-fueling tank in my motorcycle as well.
Self-fueling would be highly convenient!
LOL what kind of demonic monkey business is this!?!? Our plane is cursed! We were almost out of fuel and now all of a sudden we are full! Lol
I think it would be great never going to the gas station 🤣😅
@@paoloviti6156 I´m willing to bet money Mussolini thinks so too.
I didn't know that Helldivers were fitted with sidewinders 8:27 infill I know
Lol
I would think that he meant rockets, but used a different clip, as you can see (what i think are) F3Hs. The earliest model of Air to Air missile was the Hughes Aim 4 Falcon was first being developed in 1946. I am no expert on the topic though, so if anyone else knows more, surprise me.
The shape of the rear and front fins on that missile they are loading onto the plane in that segment of the video identify it as an AIM-9B Sidewinder, the first production version of the AIM-9.
Later AIM-9 Sidewinder models had slightly different shaped and sized rear and front fins. The AIM-4 Falcon missiles had much longer delta shaped rear fins. They were also pretty useless.
The plane in the background on the left is a Douglas F-4D Skyray - you see it starting at 8:25 in the video. The plane has the characteristic triangular engine air intakes and swept back delta wing of the Skyray, and the nose is smaller and shorter than an F-9F Cougar (which also had triangular engine air intakes and swept wings).
The long nose and dark paint scheme of the plane that they are loading the AIM-9B Sidewinder onto indicate that this is most likely an F-9F Panther or Cougar, which were usually painted dark blue until the Navy decreed a grey/white paint scheme in February 1955.
The mixture of color schemes, with the Skyray in the background painted in the grey and white color scheme indicate that this part of the video was almost certainly from 1955, as the aircraft color schemes were in transition that year and mixed color schemes could be seen in carrier groups:
I originally included some links to document what I wrote above, but that seemed to have gotten this comment erased from RUclips, so you can google those topics yourself.
they are NOT sidewinders - they are merely rockets - meaning glorified fireworks with some half ass and rather primitive stabilizers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Germans who are apparently the most common source of information regarding these weapons - especially since so many were fired at them during the Battle of Falaise Gap - suggest that the rockets were carried large warheads and could be quite scary and quite noisy but were often NOT especially accurate since at the time of firing the aircraft HAD TO BE FLYING in a stable way - thus if the machine was dodging anti aircraft fire - twisting and turning - and Nazis had lots of anti aircraft guns -and fighter pilots dont like getting shot down - the G forces on the wings would often throw the rockets way off target as they slid along the rails under the wings during the launch!!!!!!!
So not a great weapon since many went off target - but not a bad one either since they were adopted by so many countries!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
🤣🤣🤣🤣 That's Dark Skies for you...
Curtiss not only produced substandard aircraft but also engaged in corrupt activities by conspiring with some Army officers to let defective engines pass inspection. These officers were later court martialed. Arthur Miller even based his play All My Sons on this.
I saw the movie ( I believe on UT) starring Edward G. Robinson. Excellent film.
Oh yeah.....given the chance I would have stuck with and tolerated my first wife over my second one. The shit that happens.
The F4U-4 hit the fleet in early 1945. It had a greater payload than either the Avenger or Helldiver rendering both aircraft redundant in the bombing role.
Dauntless are probably some of the best dive bombers in history they deserve soo much love for their actions during the battle of midway
My ex-wife had a second cousin named Bob Allen (now deceased) who flew the SB2C during WWII. He told us that's its nickname "the beast" was well deserved. It was difficult to fly, with rather heavy stick forces and not nearly as maneuverable as the "Sweetheart of the Pacific" SBD-5 Dauntless that it replaced. He flew Dauntlesses before being transitioned to the Helldiver and said the general impression of the airplane in the fleet was not particularly favorable.
The SB2C; a classic example of trying to fix something that isn’t broken.
Curtiss Wright convinced the Navy that they could produce an aircraft that was superior to the Douglas SBD Dauntless. The Helldiver was the beginning of the end for Curtiss Wright as an aircraft manufacturer. A string of experimental fighter aircraft, like the P-55 Ass Ender and even worse XC-76 were the writing on the wall. The 4 engine XP-87 jet night fighter was the last gasp. Despite the fact that the military wanted to jeep Curtiss Wright alive as an aircraft manufacturer, they rejected this lemon.
@Lord of Epic Randomness
I don't agree exactly, the SBD was not perfect either ... pilots had to open the cockpit in Dives to try to avoid fogging both the Canopy and the bomb sights ... just because the replacement was rushed in over procured with requirements does not make the SBD the saint here, she was "good enough" for 1941-2 but it needed replacing they just did a Navy Procurement/Curtis mess on it instead for a requirement that lasted just about another 6 months (late 43 to mid 44) really.
I completely agree. Just another example of a company trying to make money during wartime using the explosive and never ending flow of money during such times...
It's not a case of fixing what's broken, it's a case of trying to improve on a plane with limited performance. By the time the SB2C came along, the Devastator torpedo bombers had been replaced with Avengers, and the Wildcat fighters had been replaced with Hellcats (on full size fleet carriers -- wildcats continued in use on small carriers). Both were longer ranged and could carry a larger bombload than the Dauntless. The Dauntless was an enormously successful aircraft, the hero of Midway, but by late 1943 it was looking a bit wimpy.
Not really. The SBD was becoming obsolescent. It was short on range and payload and vulnerable to fighters, even at Midway. After that things were only going to get worse. What kept it going was that it had an admirable combat record and was an accurate dive bomber. Unfortunately, the Curtiss was simply a poor design but the Navy was already committed to it when the war started. It might have eventually met all its design specifications but that doesn’t include operability and combat effectiveness. In these respects, the SBD was an overachiever while the SB2C underachieved.
Helldivers are also huge. Like excessively so much like a skyraider. You can almost fit two dauntlesses in the area of a helldiver
But the A1 Skyraider/Spad was a whole hell of a lot better and serve up to and through Vietnam quite successfully
Ah, but space isnt important on a carrier is it? ; )
@@navyreviewer it actually really does matter badly
nay, where else do you think they keep the icecream?
Save for the folding wings.
I read in a book that the SB2C was picked, despite failing all the US Navy's requirements, because the only other competitor, the Brewster SB2B, was even worst.
That’s a bruh moment right there
I think it is the SB2A. But, yes it was worse.
The Halldiver also had a tendency to flip over and crash due to control issues. Men died.
Ian Toll's Pacific War trilogy includes several interviews with engineers, pilots, and commanders who were involved with the development and deployment of the Helldiver. Basically the determining factor was its cruising speed and ease of manufacturing, but that the real replacement for the SBD-2 was the F6F fighter-bomber.
You are correct. TBM/TBF took up the slack thank goodness.. We were so desperate for aircraft The Beast was pressed into service
WOW - self-fueling fuel tanks! Must've been economical to operate.
Was wondering if anyone else was going to catch that. Give me self sealing anyday
Just imagine the range with something like that! 😉
@@davidweston6653
Yup-sure did😉
@@patrickwhite1076
🤣🤣🤣
Interesting Fact. The Hell Diver was partially designed by female engineers that were recruited out of high school. My grandma was one of them, at the end of the war she had a college education in aeronautical engineering but no high school diploma.
13 year old girl did the calculations for the weight of fire for the S7 Supermarine Spitfire on the kitchen table after school.. She's why the early models were fitted with the 8 x Vickers .303 using the mk 8 Spitzer rounds.
A TYPE wing was 8 .303
B TYPE wing was 4 x .50 M2 Browning
C TYPE wing was 4 x .303 & 2 x 20mm Hispano cannon*
* the engineers won a £100 bet with the RAF - RAF people said it couldn't be done, engineers said it could. Bader *hated* the C model due to the reduced rate of fire - his call sign "dogsbody".
No wonder it was such a lousy plane.
@@rosiehawtrey why was there not an
A Type wing 8 .303 mg
B Type wing 6 to 8 Browning 30 caliber mg
C Type wing 4 x .50 M2 Browning mg
D Type wing 4 x .303 & 2 x 20mm machine cannon
Because to my knowledge the browning 30 caliber machine gun had more power behind the bullet than a British 303 caliber? I could be wrong quite easily I don’t know much about British ammunition or ammunition overall
@@k3D4rsi554maq king
Wow this is a great story !!! Thank you for this great comment. I believe this very story deserves to be covered in a proper hour long documentary, maybe longer !!! Thank you for this great comment. Is your Grandmother still alive ??? God Bless the greatest generation. For their suffering, we are strong and free.... Thank you again 🙏
My dad flew both SBD’s and SB2C’s and far preferred the former. He also flew AD’s and liked that better as well.
He deserves my salute
My great uncle flew both the "Slow but Deadly" and the "Son of a Bitch 2nd Class" but he said that towards the end, the name "Big-Tailed Beast" was more fitting because he said he could blow apart Japanese planes with those 20mm's with little effort if he got the jump on one. I'd love to own one, I think for looks, it's the J-lo of dive bombers :D
Regardless of its performance, it did have beautiful lines
Actually the A1 Skyraider was also capable of being a dive bomber, it was designed to take the place of both the SB2c, and the TBM Avenger.
Not sure if they were specifically designed to do so, but trained pilots executed dive bombing attacks in F/A-18s during Desert Storm (only about 5% of all bombs dropped were smart bombs, so other techniques were required to get the job done with cheaper ordnance)
@@jeffbenton6183 Our pilots found that a dive from around 7000 feet left the Hornet almost invisible when viewed from head on.
@@chrisnichols4962 I did not know that. That's an interesting (and important) little tidbit - thanks!
Cool. I didn't know that Helldivers and Skyrays were in service at the same time........................
Second Lieutenant William Henry Brown, a Canadian from British Columbia serving with the RFC and flying a Royal Aircraft Factory S.E.5a, made the first attack on a vessel on 14 March 1918, destroying an ammunition barge on a canal at Bernot near St Quentin, diving to 500 ft (150 m) to release his bombs.
Dive Bomber Crewmen….those guy’s had balls…ALL WW2 VETS are AMAZING MEN….we as American men need to find that spirit that we seem to have lost so much…I don’t know many men of our current generations that could survive the HORRORS of the Pacific War, whether land, sea or air. I know that I’d be in for the challenge of lifetime if I ever know war in my lifetime.
Those men and women sacrificed so much so that we can have the nice life that we each are lucky enough to have….GOD BLESS YOU WW2 VETS!!
No bone spurs on THEM.
Don't get TOO carried away, BLACK folks have to fight foreign enemies AND half of White America for 200 years
That's an unusual clip at the ten seconds mark - it's a Vought Kingfisher, with the fixed undercart, as used by the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm, amongst others. The Kingfisher is normally a floatplane, with a large central pontoon, and a small float on each wing. I like to think of the slow and stately Kingfisher, as the American equivalent of the much-loved Supermarine Walrus (aka. 'Shagbat') amphibian.
Helldivers were tested by the RAF and Fleet Air Arm, and were found to be sadly wanting, and orders for them were cancelled. Several earlier biplane versions were retained by the RAF, and redesignated 'Cleveland'. They were used as utility aircraft, and ground crew trainers.
When I built the Airfix 1/72 model of the Kingfisher as a kid, there was a landing gear option and in the brief history included it mentioned use as a dive bomber.
@@russkinter3000 - Indeed. I have the reboxed kit. I've never seen that footage of the land-based Kingfisher before, though, and as it's one of my favourite WW2 aircraft, it pleased me greatly. I have the old Matchbox kit of the Cleveland, too. It looks great in RAF camouflage, but was used basically as a flying Ford Transit van.
RAF or fleet never really took to dive bombing, was there a particular reason for this, seems to have worked well for Germany etc
@@alanwilkin8869 except Skua and Barricuda
@@AreeyaKKC - Those were used by the Royal Navy as part of the Fleet Air Arm. The RAF would do evaluation tests on aircraft they were offered by the US under the Lend-Lease agreement. They were tested at places like RAE (Royal Aircraft Establishment) Farnborough and RAF Martlesham Heath. The Navy's aircraft policy was separate and different from the RAF's. This included using dive bombers.
It doesn't help that the Dauntless had such a stellar reputation. Swede Vejtasa proved you could dogfight in one.
My great uncle was a USMC night pilot and they would practice dogfighting in their Dauntless'. He moved to Hellcats when they became available and loved both. He had a mid-air with his wingman in SBDs, wingman's wingtip hit his at the wing root, almost separating the wing. Both still managed to make a carrier landing after. The Dauntless lived up to its name
It is claimed, not proven he did. Can't dogfight a Zero in a SBD. If he shot one it was a 'hit and run' tactic......
@@Four-of-Six nah, Swede hit his dive brake with one right on his tail and let him fly past, then opened up on him. History Channel's "Dogfights" did an episode on it.
@@Four-of-Six I grieve for mankind sometimes. The internet was mean to make us smarter. It was a vast library we could access so we could learn anything. Instead it's a place for dipsticks to point at the achievements of their betters and go "UH UH". Lets run this down. Did he have a witness? Yes, he had one strapped to the back seat of the Dauntless. Did the plane have the capacity to do what he said? Yes. The Dauntless was a solid but capable design and if it hadn't been he would have been called out on it. Did the plane have the physical damage to match the story? Yes, otherwise he would have been called out on it at the time. Have you flown a SDB Dauntless? Well, have you? Were you there? NO. Were THEY there? YES.
@@johnbenson4672 There was probably gun camera footage as well.
I remember reading some where that the carrier air group thought that they had arranged to replace all the Helldivers with Hellcats during 1944 but were over ruled due to Curtiss political pull.
Please be honest due to Curtiss willingness to spread cash / bribes to any congress man or senator who wanted it .
No, they were replaced. Not all of them but the number of them deployed on each carrier was cut in half (more or less). This was in response to the kamikaze attacks that began in 1944 during the invasion of the Philippines. The cry went out from the fleet that they needed WAY more fighters to deal with the new threat (which was legit, they were taking significant damage). Part of the calculation in deciding to cut the deployed numbers of Helldivers was the fact that the F6F and F4Us were at least as good a bombing platform than the SB2C, so replacing them did not downgrade the fleet's bombing capability much. Not sure where you read that goofy idea about "pull" but it's just conceptually dumb once you know the basics of the real story.
@@cmdredstrakerofshado1159 if only the NAVY had Skydiver....but it's classified, so it will never make it to 'Dark Skies'.
The Guardian was the intended replacement if I'm not mistaken
In Cornelius Ryan’s book “ A Bridge Too Far”, he related that the Curtis C46 Commando was a dangerous plane as any penetrations of the wing fuel tanks leaked fuel into the cargo area, dousing paratroops and supplies with fuel.
The point about the dive bomber in WW2 seems to me to be: It was the only way there really was to butcher the largest battleships. The terrible torpedoes made torpedo bombing a very difficult proposition.
That divebombers were the main weapon against hostile fleets - and were seen as such: Just count the sheer number AA-guns the Musashi and Yamato carried in the end. The real result of that much gunslinging was that the improvement in performance of the SB2C over the Dauntless was marginal.
One thing was that Curtiss was not an excellent aircraft producer/designer; but the USA was not (at that time) in a position to be critical. The entire concept of dive bombing was flawed - in spite of its success. The flaw was that the safest way to deal with AA-guns for aircraft is: Not be within effective range.
My, my - what an obtuse and silly video.
My pop was a Helldiver radioman, also involved in the stateside teething process that brought it into the fleet. Although designed and built to a nearly impossible set of specifications, it ultimately met and exceeded all requirements. It quickly took more Japanese shipping than any other type. It did the job. Always great to hear people who weren't there trashing the old girl. And, naturally, the video's producers have to take a few gratuitous swipes at the astounding P-40 and the C-46 before they quit running their mouths. Both were, in fact, excellent planes with admirable service records.
Don't believe everything you see and hear on RUclips. Some of us apparently had better sources than THESE guys do.
Trigger much?
@@joesantamaria5874 - naaaah. Not much. It's the difference in sources - and in knowing what yer' talkin' about as opposed to having no IDEA...
Whenever someone tips a bucket on an American design, there’s always some guy who needs to leap to its defence. It’s like those guys who swear that a Brewster Buffalo in Finnish service could shoot down MiG-21s and still give the pilot a blow job on the way home. What made the Helldiver achieve what it did was not the design but the proficiency of its crews. The aircraft might have met design specs but it was never popular. In fact, the crews hated it. Read Eric “Winkle” Brown’s comments on it. Had it been a better aircraft, it might have achieved a lot more and with fewer losses.
The last thing engineers and pilots want to hear is "More Trouble"
C 46 Commando and P 40 Warhawk were never disappointments. Talk to the Flying tigers or Buffalo Airways for a true analysis. Ditto for Martin Marauder. Poor flying instruction is not the same as poor design.
Very true - but in the SB2C's case the design was a dud.
It's just a horrible, silly video. My pop was a Helldiver radioman. He just laughed at such alleged "reporting." New planes - especially carrier-based planes - come with teething troubles - and the SB2C was built to an incredibly difficult set of demands by the Navy. We were talking one day about the Yamato. He said, with a wry grin, "Yeah - awesome ship - but the HELLDIVERS got her..." Despite late arrival, the Helldivers too more Japanese shipping than any other. And when it came to the P-40, strictly an Army plane, but a type he worked on from time-to-time - "The P-40 was a GREAT fighter which, in the hands of competent pilots could stand with any in the world. We were lucky to have it. Unlike the P-38 which was so complex that it was always out for maintenance, P-40s were ALWAYS ready to go..."
Don't believe everything you see on RUclips, folks....
Correct about the marauder. Dad flew 50 missions in Europe. Once they knew how to properly fly that fast medium bomber, it achieved the second highest safety record of any Allied aircraft…after the venerated Mosquito. The high wing-loading design required the highest landing speed of all the Allied aircraft…faster than fighters of the era.
Peyton McGruder, B-26 designer at Martin, was way ahead of his time.
The Helldiver was much worse and they should’ve kept the SBD Dauntless just gave it a stronger engine And I actually knew that nickname for it before this episode
you have to admit the hell diver was a great looking plane shame it did not live up too it's looks but it was cool looking
SBD slow but deadly so much better than a POS helldiver
@@shawnbeckmann1847 Probably could’ve fit a Pratt and Whitney R2800 double wasp on the SBD or at least something with a lot more oomph to it’s power to wight ratio output
@@USS_Grey_Ghost agreed I wish Douglas would have tried a bigger engine
@@rustycann6887 I actually don’t care for the shape of the SB2C Helldiver
I once built a 1:72 scale model kit of the Helldiver. It looked great, particularly in the dark blue / medium blue / white colors. At the time I was unaware of the problems the aircraft had. But I've read the book of the TV series ''The Pacific'' which unlike the TV series also covers experiences of naval pilots. Among which Curtiss SB2C pilots.
"Self-fuelling tanks"?
Self-sealing.
Kinda looks like the Brewster Buccaneer only difference is it actually saw action and wasn't used as target practice right off the assembly line
@Kyle Shiflet. I always thought the Brewster's designation, I.e., the Buffalo, and Buccaneer, were of British code names.
@@siliconvalleyengineer5875 hell yeah
@@rogerrendzak8055 its British codename was The Bermuda and was hated by them as well
@@kyleshiflet9952 Okay. Was Brewster a British aircraft, manufacturer? I remember seeing the Brewster, "Buffalo" model, years ago, when I was a kid, only with the British insignia, on it's fuselage.
@@rogerrendzak8055 American but Britain bought some of them aircraft
Interesting, how the an aircraft's actual appearance alone, will call out whether it's a dud or a winner. This plane visually falls into the super dud category.
Well thats opinion based. I for one like the squarish engine cowling
Although the SB2C was heavily disliked from its introduction to late war, by the time the SB2C-4 came out, many of its problems were fixed.
It shares credit with avengers for sinking Yamato and Musashi, multiple Japanese carriers (example being Zuikaku) and numerous other smaller ships. Helldivers did deserve their dislike early war but by late war, it was good enough to be a successor to the Dauntless but because of the reputation at first it instead gets the legacy it has today
A must read: DAUNTLESS HELLDIVERS, by Harold Buell. Buell piloted both aircraft during WW2. EXCELLENT book !
Ill have to check it out! Thanks!
@@sinformant Youbetcha ! This is one of a few WW2 books that are written by an actual (combat vet) that puts the reader "there"---in this case, IN THE COCKPIT.
@@blusnuby2 I bet it is good. I have had the extremely lucky privilege to have met and sat down with a group of the flying tigers as well as chuck yeager back in 2001 and it was once in a lifetime experience to hear their stories and experiences. This was at airventure in oshkosh. Wish I could go back one of these years and take my boys. Also met truman smith who is a local that flew b17's in ww2. He was at our local airport when "aluminum overcast" made a stop in my town.
@@sinformant It IS, & well worth your time...One of the handful of WW2 books written by a (combat veteran), that actually "puts you in the cockpit" as his crate pitches near-vertical in a dive to the enemy carrier`s deck ! Another OUTSTANDING book about ETO fighter pilots & aircraft in WW2: P-47 THUNDERBOLT, by Marvin Bledsoe (combat pilot). Warning: strap yourself down before cracking these books---you`re goin for a RIDE !
Thanks for the suggestion, my grandfather also flew both aircraft during the war. I'll have to check this book out!
The much maligned Curtis Helldiver SB2C actually had a respectable combat record after the beginning of 1944. The loss of Helldivers during the Marianas Turkey shoot was mostly Admiral Marc Mitschner's fault due to launching an unnecessary air strike against distance Japanese carriers at the extreme range of the Helldiver and other fighters late in the day. The Curtiss Helldiver was an excellent ground troop support aircraft giving heavy bomb loads in the support of amphibious invasions. The Helldiver's longer range and larger bomb load capacity were needed in the later stages of the Pacific War. The battle of Leyte Gulf, the Marianas turkey shoot, the bombing raids on Truk, and conquest of the Philippines, including Saipan/Tinian/Guam, Iwo Jima and Okinawa were all made possible because of this hard hitting Curtis Helldiver. Despite the many developmental problems, the Navy pilots grudgingly learned how to fly the Helldiver effectively into combat. Heavy naval air raids on Japan and the many Philippine island invasions meant the Helldiver was constantly in heavy combat from the end of 1943 until the end of the war.
The most important lesson here are the problems of developing a new warplane design during an active shooting war. As more information from the combat zones comes back home to the offices of engineers and design teams, many changes are made to the original plan. The increased weight from the many hundreds of US Navy changes set back the Helldiver a good year or more. The increased weight proved a problem for carrier operations. The Helldiver really needed a serious weight "redesign" in order to get the weight down for easier carrier operations. The more powerful engines of early 1944 greatly helped the Helldiver. But the heavy weight of the Helldiver meant is was always going to be a difficult warplane to fly. But the truth is the Helldiver proved to be a good bomb truck for the US Navy. It also had a long postwar service record with Greece in their civil war, the French-Indochina war and other early Cold war deployments for the Navy. The Helldiver was replaced by the Skyraider a much improved design with rockets, cannon and a heavy bombload. The Skryraider in Korea proved everything the Helldiver couldn't achieve as a dive bombing design.
The aircraft was rubbish. The crews were good.
SOB 2nd class😆😅
if I was in that time i would rather fly a devistator tarpido(?) bomber with NO escort fighters than THAT thing
(edit/add)
by the titile
hold your fire your not helping here
You literally choose even worse aircraft
I went to an airshow in Frederick, Maryland in the mid '90's and there was a flyable SB2C. It was great to see it fly. It's still on the circuit today.
Strafing the field with fireballs along with the A-10's, you could feel the heat on your face. I was there with my son's. Nice Air show.
I believe it's the last one, as far as is known.
I always thought it was a good looking airplane though.
My father was an SBD pilot flying off the USS Hornet CV-8 and the USS Lexington CV-16. He flew it into action at Midway, Santa Cruz, Truk Lagoon and the Battle of the Philippine Sea as well as many other missions. He hated the SB2C and was glad he never had to fly it. He also referred to a "Son-of-a-Bitch 2nd Class". He much preferred the SBD which he referred to as "Slow But Deadly".
How did he get out of flying the Helldiver? Philippine Sea was the last time Dauntlesses were used by the US Navy and I think only Enterprise still had them at that point.
@@sirboomsalot4902 Not exactly sure but I think Air Group 16 always had SBDs. They were the more experience pilots at that point in the war and preferred to fly SBDs. Also, not sure if they were given a choice or if the SB2Cs were just deployed to other carriers. After the battle of the Philippine Sea which was in June of 1944, he was reassign to NOTS (Naval Ordnance Test Station) now known as NAWS (Naval Air Weapons Station) in China Lake, California. There he test fired the Tiny Tim and other rockets for fleet deployment. For test firing he mostly flew the F4U and the F7F. They didn't use the SB2C for testing.
if it had crashed on japanese ships then you would have your own kamikaze
Self-fueling tanks? That's pretty fancy tech!
Interesting and some false comments. Especially when the P-40 was successful in the pacific theatre with over 15,000 built.
"Overshadowed" which it kinda was
Couldn't turn as fast as a Zero resulting in loses
@@82luft49 either could many other of the allied fighters
@@82luft49 almost nothing could. The p40 was good at boom and zoom. Most us aircraft are that way.
Incredible: as shown at 3:54, the second prototype hit the ground so hard that it turned into a multi-engine aircraft!
And the P-40 was a "failed project"? Really? . . . .
[Dark Skies, you've done it AGAIN!]
@Neilist Nielist. Yeah, I've seen that, too. Probably weren't paying attention, or thinking someone would see, the difference. The P-40, was quite successful, on all theaters, until more newer planes, came to be. Just look at Clair C's, 'Flying Tigers'!!
Same with calling the C-46 a failure. They were bigger than a C-47, had a bigger payload, higher service ceiling, and better range. They were the only twin engine transport that could operate reliably over The Hump. The C-46 would have been used in greater numbers if Curtis had been capable of ramping up production faster. The C-46 continued in freight service in South America, Africa, and Alaska, with a number remaining in service well into this century.
@@sarjim4381 Well documented comment
@Peter Lorimer Thanks. I wasn't sure if Buffalo was still flying them or just had them on the roster. It's unfortunate that Curtiss wasn't able to get better organized and build more of them in 1940-1941, when they were so desperately needed. If Curtiss wasn't spending so much time playing catch up with just producing enough planes, they may have been able to fix most of the early teething problems that all large and complex aircraft have, especially in those early days.
My father, an electrician on CVX Yorktown II from 1945 to the end of the war, observed that the Helldiver, compared to other US Navy aircraft, landed very fast
One of these is currently being built at West Pac in Colorado Spring.
Is nobody going to talk about the fact he called the Yamato “Yamoto”
He's an idiot it's fine.
And “self fuelling tanks”
Tomato tamato I don’t really care
*big anger*
@@TheJudge2017
Lovely glass house you have there.
They wanted to get rid of the warthog, nuts, dump the osprey. Love the Corsair.
DOD never sure of needs. '54 D.O.D. wanted single engine fighter bomber so gave Uncle w/D.O.D. connections crayon drawing (I was only 4) of twin engine Phantom blt '58 & in '55 D.O.D needed single engine trainer so gave him twin T-38 Talon/F-5 pencil drawings blt '59. Uncle hired by D.O.D. in 1960, promoted to Director of Automotive Tank Command, loved testing tanks himself as Commander, had unusually small Driver, but still looked forward to his birthday & plans for a new plane that would perform circles around his tanks! I never got much out of it except seeing my Uncle doing good, and of course a Top Secret I.D. Card confiscated by smart teacher at Kindergarten Show & Tell! Boy did she catch Hell!!!
My ex wife had a second cousin, LCDR Bob Allen, who flew them after flying Dauntlesses. He HATED them. They were slow, sluggish, had high stick forces and were a bear to bring aboard. He always said if the Japs didn't kill him, that airplane would. He managed to survive them both, fortunately.
My father flew on Helldivers. He hated the plane. Now I have a soft spot for the SBD Dauntless.
As a veteran War Thunder player (I know, I know, you can thank me for my service later), I can confirm, the SB2C is absolute turboshit
Somebody in the Navy got a great kick-back to put this POC in the air.
No point going down that path. The SB2C went into service because the Navy had very few options. It was intended to replace the SBD and the design and testing phase was already well established. Under normal circumstances, the project might have been terminated but then the war started and they had to go with what they had.
No conspiracy there.
Built the model as a kid my Revell I believe. Never knew what a problem child it was.
"...even before the prototype took to the air the SB2 already showing signs of trouble..."
"MORE TROUBLE"
Why "infamous" Stuka ??....like it or not it was a very effective tool, especially in the hands of Ernst Rudel...
I think if the AD-1 Sky Raider had made it before the Helldiver there would have fewer lost pilots and crew and more ships sunk.
Did I hear 'self-fueling tanks'? Now that would have been an innovation all right!
Seems the differences between a dive bomber and a Kamikaze aren't clear around here. Not the same thing by far.
When someone claiming to have the 'scoop' says the Avenger was the "direct competition" for the Helldiver you know these people don't actually know anything about these aircraft types and are just dialing this stuff in off wikis.
Besides no mention of the laughable US Navy procurement and the excessive requirements for the time, its a miracle it eventually made good at all ... which it did ...ish.
The SB2C was never a good aircraft.
I will call it the ‘Heck Diver’ because it didn’t live up to it’s name, except maybe putting it’s crews through Hell.
From the days when we still gave our warplanes badass names.
Raptor not cool enough? And Lightning is a fine legacy name
@@connormclernon26 Fat Amy is also known as the Panther.
It comes in my mind also the Viper, a cool name indeed as also the F-16 an airplane that I liked very much!
@@paoloviti6156 Viper is a nick name taken from Battlestar Galactica. It's officially an F-16 Falcon.
@@jn-ny8bh you are right! Hope I'm not getting senile....
I never knew of those nicknames before. The Helldiver was always one of my most favorite model airplanes to build as a kid. I built several because they usually succumbed to BB gun fire or firecrackers.
LOL me too with my Revell model P40 Warhawks
LOL same as my models, death by firecrackers, till nanny state here in australia banned them
My Dad was a Marine Gunner/Radioman in the Dauntless SBD on Solomon Islands Henderson Field mostly from Sept 1943 to dec 1944. His Unit was VMSB236. I remember him telling about the few times they had to fly the SB2C( Most Pilots and Gunners) hated the SB2C. It was Very Heavy - caused problems pulling out of a dive and the and the "Tail" would break off too easily depending on speed and angle. The SBD was a Solid Strong Aircraft. Very few gunners & pilots liked the SB2C. Out the Original 25 Pairs of "Pilots & Gunners" of VMSB236 that arrived in the Solomon only 5 pairs come back whole after 1 year - the other 20 pairs either 1 or both were killed ! My Dad and His Pilot were one of the 5 pairs to come home whole.
Musashi was eventually hit with 19 Torpedoes and 17 Bombs. In 2008 they hoped to refloat the Musashi and create a war museum out of her. She was known to have sank in one piece. Sadly after finding her she apparently blew up after she went under and her pieces scattered 3000 feet below the water. Dashing all hopes of refloating her.
How many Helldivers did she take with her when she blew up?
@@k3D4rsi554maq She shot down 4 hell divers according to Wiki.
@@Wallyworld30 I think he might of been joking. A 'plug', against the Helldiver's!!
@@rogerrendzak8055 Haha, missed that.. I had literally just read 4 Helldivers were shot down by Musashi so didn't think about it like that. Half her crew were rescued at least.
I have the wings of a VB20 Aviator. his daughter gave them to me.
I love the subject but the narrator is terrible, sounds as if he is in pain and is rushing to a finish the job.
"Self-fuelling tanks". Now that is innovative.
Can you talk any faster, maybe Chip and Dale can understand you!
Diving into the wrong targets? When and where?
Carrier smasher
Against the enemy and friendlies
Taucht der was? - Nein, der taucht nichts;-)
(Little German wordplay: Taugen - to be good for s.th. / tauchen - to dive). Furthermore, "taugen" is pronounced the same way as "tauchen" with a hard German "ch" in many areas.
Therefore, the sentence about means: "Is it any good/does it dive? - No, it is no good/doesn't dive".
The SBSC in many ways really deserved it's name and many pilots crews really disliked this plane and considering it dangerous and accident-prone. Why couldn't the navy order more Avengers that had much better reputation and was far more versatile?
They did.
Politics and lobbying. Avengers were like Swiss Army knives. Dive and torpedo bombing, night fighters, etc.
Avengers were not dive bombers.
I also read that the United States Navy requirements with the given power were unrealistic that if either the defensive Gunner or the stupid internal bomb bay we're left out of the requirements that the aircraft would have been smaller stronger and the r2600 engine would have been able to have done its job
It was literally a case of "okay you want it to do what and have this much crap with that and Jimmy who have to be kidding me"
Another thing I also read is that was supposed to have a powered defensive gun which mercifully was thrown out of the design before the prototype was built but still I think this was a case of asked to do too much with not enough power maybe if this thing had an r2800 it would have been so bad but they r2600 kind of stunk for this application
Sounds exactly like the F-35.
How about looking at the Blackburn Skua? The Fleet Air Arm's dive bomber.
@Brian Roome That dark dank little rock that gave you the means of mass communication?
@@richardsawyer5428 Yep, radar, computers, and sorted out the Corsair for carrier operations..... Plus the Merlin for the Mustang....... Not bad for a "Dank little rock"...... Oh, and I forgot, crucial technology for the X1 that came from the Miles M52......
Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web, you're communicating in English aren't you?
I wonder if this is just a coincidence that Helldiver looks so much like a development of Brewster dive Bomber. Did Curtis pick up where Brewster failed thinking they can do better?
As I recall, the Brewster was a direct competitor for the same contract.
Thanks
Hard to say which manufacturer was the worst - Curtiss or Bell.
Bell got the same treatment in Vietnam since LBJ's wife had stock in the company. Kiowas were chosen over better designs like OH-6. Nothing bad against Hueys, or Cobras, those designs worked.
Why must the most beautiful planes be the most mediocre? My two favorite dive bombers of all the ones used in WWII by all countries are the SB2C Helldiver and the TBD-1 Devastator. They’re both gorgeous yet were failures compared to the likes of the Dauntless and Avenger.
TBD and TBF weren't dive bombers
@@PlaneSpotter505 I guess not. Still, similar roles, simply designed to fulfill them through different methods.
@@owencarey2954 They were torpedo bombers
@@PlaneSpotter505 Ah. Well, I guess you know better than I do. I suppose they were used in conjunction with dive bombers but you’re right, I guess they were technically different roles. Thanks for correcting me.
@@owencarey2954 np!
He called the plane a mono plane then said it was the last bi plane but for the navy
Buy he is getting better, I think.
Dive bombing seems crazy in the best circumstances. Can't imagine doing so in a known inferior plane !
fun fact: the US really sold the german reich a dive bomber even though it was forbidden for the german reich to posess any war birds since Versailles Treaty?
No wonder that this encourage them to go that way they went if even an ally ignored the rules.
"Business is business. " I suppose. Or as they say in Singapore "Close one eye. "
Self fueling tanks. How convenient! (I know, he meant self sealing)
I don't think this was the most produced dive bomber in WW2. Anybody hear of the IL-2 Sturmovik?
Il-2 was, well, a Sturmovik (attack aircraft, literally "assault aircraft") which was heavily armored and used not only bombs, but also cannons and rockets against ground targets.
George Bush flew 58 combat missions in ww2 in a TBM Avenger including surviving being shot down twice .
Senior, that is.
I was too young to have much of an opinion of him but if you’re going to name an aircraft carrier after any President from the last 50 years, Bush Sr. is definitely the one I’d pick.
Yes, there is also a footage of George Bush doing a great "landing" on the sea with his crew and was then standing on the wing. In my opinion he was a though guy like many flyers of the period and I think he was a president but it is only my opinion...
@@paoloviti6156 Honestly I like the idea of politicians fighting in wars and tend to think that would make them less likely to risk lives but then there is Hitler and many others who have done the exact opposite.
Can't say I was a big fan, but no bone spurs on him.
Whatever you say its awesome in war thunder (maybe best divebomber aircraft)
I'd love to learn more about C46 Commando and why it failed.
Troublesome engines, hydraulic and cables snapped, a couple lost wing in flight whilst flying cargo over the hump supporting the flying tigers, and poor range compared to the C-47.
And that is from Department Of Defense records
C46's are still being used in Alaska to deliver fuel to mining camps.
@@Kevin_747 yeah, though updated, and very very few are.
More DHC-9 & Douglass C-47's.
Majority of the C-46's sit in Arizona in a bone yard
@@troygroomes104 C47's sitting in Arizona?
@@jimjoe9945 yeah at the old aircraft boneyard, there are 747's just south of my hometown waiting for conversations to waterbombers
When the USN had SBDs and Devastators only the SBDs could do the damage then they had SBDs and Avengers, they were in top form. But when they had SB2C and Avengers they're back to square one
Did I catnap through this and miss something? Where's the part about diving into the wrong targets?
Also, that is a very interesting thumbnail, showing a Helldiver launching an ASM-N-2 Bat radar homing antiship missile. The Bat was used in 1945 and sank several Japanese ships, from as far as 20 miles. It was usually carried by larger land-based bombers.
(Sorry, Argentina, but your claim of being first to sink a ship with an air launched missile is almost 40 years too late.)
Google HMS Egret. Sunk by a German air-launched missle in the
Bay of Biscay. Television-guided.
@@jimstrict-998
One might give the Germans credit for the battleship Roma, but that depends on if you call a guided free-fall bomb a missile.
My father worked on the Ryan TD-1 tv guided drone with a 1,000 warhead, which was tested on some Japanese ships, but they were grounded so it wasn't really a combat test or sinking a ship.
@@mikearmstrong8483 Confusingly, the HMT ROHNA (Her Majesty's Transport) was sunk by a Hs-293 rocket-assisted glide bomb off the
coast of Algeria. Many U.S. Army personnel were aboard, and 1,050 ended-up being killed, with 35 dying of injuries afterwards. It is the worst loss
of life in any single-ship incident in US military history, even more than
the 879 lost from the USS Indianapolis.
Don't be surprised if you've never heard of it. Besides heavy war-time censorship, the US Govt was reluctant to acknowledge the sinking
until many years after the war. Some veterans were denied benefits
because the event was not mentioned in the official US Navy history
of WW2. Google it.
The Italian ship ROMA was hit by the German Fritz-X.
The British transport ROHNA was hit by the Hs-293 rocket-assisted
glide-bomb, which was guided by radio-commands from a bomb-aimer
aboard the plane, who worked a joystick while maintaining visual
contact with the target. This weapon also definitely sunk the HMS
Egret, also in 1943, and several others, while damaging more.
(Wikipedia, "list of ships sunk by guided-missles")
@@jimstrict-998
The Hs-293 and the Fritz-X were of limited effectiveness due to the fact that they required manual controller guidance, which meant the launch plane had to stick around within line of sight and visible range of the target until impact.
The Allies were quick to identify the threat and determined that a good combat air patrol was the best defense. Several German attacks with those weapons were thwarted by fighters shooting down the loitering bombers, a factor that the Germans couldn't counter, having lost air superiority.
The Bat had the advantage of active radar homing, making it the first autonomous fire-and-forget weapon. It's small profile and lack of any smoke trail (such as that left by the guidance flare on the Hs-293), combined with its range, made it effectively invisible to the target.
Its weakness was the parameters of the early guidance radar which had no discrimination circuitry to eliminate background clutter, so it could only be used against targets in a low sea state and which did not have a land backdrop.
Why on why doesn't this channel change the voice on its videos?
The narrator has video of the channel's owner taken on Epstein's Island
Thanks for putting that red circle around the airplane. I wouldn't have noticed it otherwise.
Self fueling tanks, huh?
My uncle worked on the Helldiver production line during World War II. Someone gave him a copy of Robert Olds' book, Helldiver Squadron, about Bombing 17 and their "Beasts." I have it now ... Incidentally, Olds explained that the Navy wouldn't let him use the actual name or number of their carrier (CV-17, USS Bunker Hill), but he was able to use the crew's nickname for it, the "Holiday Inn" (so called because so many of its attacks were carried out on holidays! - Christmas on Rabaul, for instance.)
You consistently fail at providing accurate information in your videos. In this one, at 3:05 mark, you specifically state , "The first prototype arrived at Curtiss's plant in Buffalo, New York, in December 1940, and World War II had already begun."
This obvious error, along with almost every other video, contains references to a particular aircraft, but the images shown are clearly not the one featured or described.
I really want to learn more about Dark Skies and your other channels, but it is painful to suffer the lack of accuracy and integrity of your work.
Also SBD-2’s had longer range and where much more likely to come back.
As he points out during the battle of Leyte, ALL launched SBD-2’s where able to return to land back while almost all of the Helldivers had to ditch
I was at Otay resevoir in 2010 when they salvaged an SB2C Helldiver.
It was in pretty good condition despite being submerged in a freshwater lake for 70 years.
From what I understand its still in Pensacola Florida.