Originally posted by Vermillion
I forgot that info post on the naval site. Stupid of me since I have it printed out and in my little library.
Can you imagine a combat radius of 50 nm ? At sea level you can see 26 nm, from surface to surface.
Its just a guess, but I would bet that at 50 nm from the deck of a carrier or the superstructure of a battleship you could see literally see the tops of the opposing fleet, not to mention their smoke plumes from the boilers.
These heavy loads where generally used by the Marine Corps SBDs engaged in close support work. Typically, they operated from airfields bulldozed out of the coral, sometimes within sight of the front lines. So, flight endurance was never an issue. SBDs where used effectively for blasting bunkers and caves on several different islands during the island hopping campaigns of 1943-45. Indeed, the Jarheads liked the SBD because nothing else in their inventory could put bombs on target with accuracy even close to that attained by the Dauntless.
Such loads where not used by USN SBDs, because the required takeoff run was too great even for the Essex class CVs, much CVLs and the little CVEs. There is the possibility that overloaded SBDs could be catapulted off.
By the way, escort carriers (CVE, initially built on merchant ship hulls) would be a terrific addition to the game. Flying only Wildcats, SBDs and TBMs, (although the F6F and F4U did fly from CVEs for training purposes) they would be ideal for supplementing the current TGs. I think they would be of great value for TODs, where suicide runs are discouraged by the fact that you have just one life to lose.
My regards,
Widewing
