# An amazing bag of string



## Foxbat (Apr 17, 2018)

Nicknamed the _Stringbag_, the Fairey Swordfish was already obsolete by the beginning of World War Two. And yet, amazingly, it sank more tonnage than any other allied aircraft. When you think of the titanic carrier battles in the Pacific, you'd think it would be something like the Corsair that would take the prize for greatest tonnage but, no. It was the Stringbag.

Incredibly, 27 Swordfish operating in the Med in 1940 were sinking an average of 50000 tonnes _per month_ and hit a peak at 98000 tonnes. They attacked enemy convoys at night to achieve this - without any night instrumentation. Used successfully against the Italian fleet at Taranto (an attack which the Japanese used as a blueprint for Pearl Harbour), and against Bismark (disabling her rudder and leaving her vulnerable for the Home Fleet to finish off) in the Atlantic, it was during the channel dash of Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen that their vulnerabilities finally came home to roost. All attacking Swordfish were shot down by 109s with thirteen of the eighteen crew members killed. 

After that, they were assigned to anti-submarine duties, where they excelled in attacking and sinking U Boats. The Swordfish was also the first aircraft to pioneer the use of air-to-surface radar. 22 U Boats were lost to Swordfish attacks.

An absolutely incredible record for a plane that shouldn't have even been flying in WW2!

Fairey Swordfish


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## Edward M. Grant (Apr 17, 2018)

From what I remember, one reason it was successful was because it was such an old design that it was actually really hard to damage. I remember reading about one of the attacks in WWII where the pilot said he was literally sitting there with his ass in the wind because a shell from the ship tore out the entire belly of the plane and took his trousers with it, but the plane kept flying anyway. If you didn't hit the crew, the engine or an essential part of the wings or controls, it could keep on going.

As you say, though, they were sitting ducks for any kind of modern fighter.


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## WarriorMouse (Apr 18, 2018)

I believe there are only 2 of the Swordfish that are in flight worthy condition. One in Britain and one in Ontario Canada.
The one in Canada was restored in the 80's and first flown again Sept 1 1991. I was at the airshow in which it was supposed to be reflown again one month earlier but the official flight worthiness certificate did not come in time. So I only got to see it do some tail up taxi runs. The airplane is quite surprisingly large.


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## Foxbat (Apr 18, 2018)

Edward M. Grant said:


> From what I remember, one reason it was successful was because it was such an old design that it was actually really hard to damage


I remember reading an article on why so many RAF pilots preferred the older Hurricane to the newer Spitfire and it was (like the Swordfish) the amount of damage it could take and keep going. The Spitfire was the faster, more nimble of the two but didn't take a lot of punishment very well. I'd imagine the old, large and slow Swordfish probably also made an excellent and stable platform from which to launch a torpedo.

Edit to my first post: when I said Corsair, I actually meant Dauntless Dive Bomber. Corsair was primarily a fighter


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## Venusian Broon (Apr 18, 2018)

Foxbat said:


> ...sinking an average of 50000 tonnes _per month_ and hit a peak at 98000 tonnes.



Foxbat, you seem to be wading deep into the literature, so I have a question for you. Putting the "sinkage" as tonnage is sure impressive...but actually how many ships does that equate to? Did they meticulously find out what ships were sunk and add up the unladed weight? (Did they include cargo?) Or was it estimated on reported size?

I assume there must be at least something like a formula or official measurement for it, because the statistics for the battle of the Atlantic are regularly quoted. It feels like there was a beancounter in the UK government compiling stats on this during the war.

I just can't get my head around the numbers. Is it tens of ships or hundreds? (Or is it a couple of big oil tankers or a thousand armed trawlers???)


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## Foxbat (Apr 18, 2018)

Firstly, the tonnage rates for the Med appears refer  mostly to night raids on enemy convoys so I'm assuming most were merchant ships. Also, if today is anything to go by, merchant ships tend to be much greater in size than your average frigate (around 4000 tons) or destroyer (around 8000 tons). Today's destroyer is roughly equivalent to a WW2 light cruiser. 

I'm no expert but I'd say that 50000 tons of merchant shipping could be about three or four a month (assuming around 15000 tons per ship)?

I have no idea on whether cargo was taken into account but I'd assume (again) that the ships were identified and their tonnage taken from official records. Of course, all this is pure conjecture on my part


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## Foxbat (Apr 18, 2018)

Venusian Broon said:


> Foxbat, you seem to be wading deep into the literature,



Not as deep as you think I have a Fairey Swordfish in my model stash that I intend to build sometime this year. I just like to do some background work on whatever I'm building - nothing more


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## Venusian Broon (Apr 18, 2018)

I tend to see actual numbers of ships when warship are involved (i.e. number of u-boats sunk each month) and I do think tonnage refers in some manner to merchant shipping soley. 

I shall perhaps do a bit of internet sleuthing later and see!

And yes, biplanes much more fun to airfix - loads more bits to glue together, than a streamline mono-wing


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## Foxbat (Apr 18, 2018)

Venusian Broon said:


> And yes, biplanes much more fun to airfix - loads more bits to glue together, than a streamline mono-wing



Tell me about it! Busy working on a Revell Fokker D VII right now and I made a fatal mistake: I followed the instructions. Instead of fixing the struts to the lower wing as stated, I should have gone with my instinct and fitted them to the upper wing first. So much easier to fit that way. 

Still, my airbrushing's getting a lot better


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## Edward M. Grant (Apr 18, 2018)

Foxbat said:


> I remember reading an article on why so many RAF pilots preferred the older Hurricane to the newer Spitfire and it was (like the Swordfish) the amount of damage it could take and keep going.



Yeah, I believe the Hurricane was another canvas-over-frame design, while the Spitfire was steel skinned. I remember that being one reason a damaged Hurricane could often be back in the air much faster than a damaged Spitfire: just stick a few patches on the canvas rather than having to weld in repair sections.

I've read that the Hurricane gun layout was also easier to hit things with. So it was well-suited to shooting down bombers while the faster Spitfires dealt with any fighters that had come with them.


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## Venusian Broon (Apr 19, 2018)

Foxbat said:


> I'm no expert but I'd say that 50000 tons of merchant shipping could be about three or four a month (assuming around 15000 tons per ship)?



From a quick gander at a variety of sources, I believe the tonnage we _might _be talking about is Gross Register Tonnage which represents the total internal volume of a vessel, where one register ton is equal to a volume of 100 cubic feet. So it's more a measure of volume really. (Possibly this is measurable from the attacking planes/uboats - if you can see a shape you are aiming at - you can possibly get a rough length/height and therefore an estimate of volume?)  

It would appear that, from other quotes I've found, that 50,000 tons would equate to about 8-10 ships as a sort of rough ball-park figure, although clearly if they were GRT tons it should matter what size of ship you sink.


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## Foxbat (Apr 19, 2018)

Venusian Broon said:


> From a quick gander at a variety of sources, I believe the tonnage we _might _be talking about is Gross Register Tonnage which represents the total internal volume of a vessel, where one register ton is equal to a volume of 100 cubic feet. So it's more a measure of volume really. (Possibly this is measurable from the attacking planes/uboats - if you can see a shape you are aiming at - you can possibly get a rough length/height and therefore an estimate of volume?)
> 
> It would appear that, from other quotes I've found, that 50,000 tons would equate to about 8-10 ships as a sort of rough ball-park figure, although clearly if they were GRT tons it should matter what size of ship you sink.



Alternatively, perhaps the tonnage actually refers to displacement
Displacement (ship) - Wikipedia


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## Venusian Broon (Apr 19, 2018)

Foxbat said:


> Alternatively, perhaps the tonnage actually refers to displacement
> Displacement (ship) - Wikipedia


The reason I thought it might be GRT is because someone on  'U-boat' website explicitly mentioned it as a measurement. 

GRT would have the advantage of being constant no matter if the ship had cargo or not? 

Anyway I think we sort of have an answer (ish)


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## Venusian Broon (May 8, 2018)

Hey, @Foxbat 

Thought you might like this :


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## Foxbat (May 8, 2018)

Wow! I'm stunned that one Swordfish survived 175 hits. Just incredible! 
Also, ironic that what appeared to be weaknesses (fabric construction, slow air speed) were actually strengths.The video  actually gives a better understanding of why such an (apparently) obsolete plane became so successful in sinking enemy shipping.


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## Brian G Turner (May 8, 2018)

Foxbat said:


> ironic that what appeared to be weaknesses (fabric construction, slow air speed) were actually strengths



I seem to recall a TV programme once saying the same about Hurricanes vs Messerschmitts.


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## Foxbat (May 9, 2018)

Brian G Turner said:


> I seem to recall a TV programme once saying the same about Hurricanes vs Messerschmitts.


Yes, you probably did hear that. The Hurricane had a fabric covered frame rather than an all-metal construction. This meant that it was much easier to repair and could take more damage (bullets often just passing through the fabric). One weakness it had in the amount of punishment it could take was the fact that it used an in-line liquid cooled (water/glycol) engine. It was a much more effecient engine and much easier to create a streamlined shape than using an air-cooled radial. The radial, however could take a lot of punishment, lose cylinders and still operate. One hit to the cooling jacket of a liquid-cooled and it was going to fail pretty quickly.


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## BigBadBob141 (May 22, 2018)

I remember reading "Fly For Your Life" about Robert Stanford Tuck.
He always said that the first thing that would happen if hit in the engine, the windscreen would be covered in coolant!
But inline engines are much more streamline then radials.


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## WarriorMouse (May 23, 2018)

There is a true story written by a WW2 American Army pilot of one of his first flights over France in a P-47D Thunderbolt (Jug). A German ace tried 3 times to shoot or force him down on that flight. He was injured and the plane shot to pieces but it kept flying and he nursed it back to England. The plane was so shot up that it never flew again. It had a Prat and Whitney radial engine which had 2 cyl heads shot off, but it kept going. Fascinating  story that I read years ago.


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## Foxbat (May 23, 2018)

WarriorMouse said:


> There is a true story written by a WW2 American Army pilot of one of his first flights over France in a P-47D Thunderbolt (Jug). A German ace tried 3 times to shoot or force him down on that flight. He was injured and the plane shot to pieces but it kept flying and he nursed it back to England. The plane was so shot up that it never flew again. It had a Prat and Whitney radial engine which had 2 cyl heads shot off, but it kept going. Fascinating  story that I read years ago.


I read recently that the P47 was a complete and utter beast of a plane and took a hell of a lot of punishment before it could be put out of action. Apparently, pilots  were initially sceptical of this plane but soon grew to love it


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## Dave (May 23, 2018)

Just as regards quoting "Tonnage", I think it would be customary to use the Net and Gross Tonnage as given in Lloyd's Register of Shipping (published every year and updated after modifications - it actually reads like a "car's log book" for ships.) This would then be the Net and Gross Tonnage that the ship was insured for, against loss. 

However, the problem here would be that most of the ships are Naval, and foreign, and that the specifications may be unknown (though probably no longer today); or else the ships were merchant vessels not registered with Lloyds. Therefore, I guess the question of the accuracy of the figures given in that website is a valid one. As a "History" website, the referencing on that page is very poor (there are endnotes, but very few of the facts and figures are referenced) but that is just part of a much more widespread problem with referencing on the internet as a whole.

So, I think they can only ever be taken as estimates. On the other hand, the tonnage is so large that it doesn't change the validity of the Swordfish's claim to the title at all.


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## Venusian Broon (May 23, 2018)

Dave said:


> However, the problem here would be that most of the ships are Naval, and foreign, and that the specifications may be unknown (though probably no longer today); or else the ships were merchant vessels not registered with Lloyds. Therefore, I guess the question of the accuracy of the figures given in that website is a valid one. As a "History" website, the referencing on that page is very poor (there are endnotes, but very few of the facts and figures are referenced) but that is just part of a much more widespread problem with referencing on the internet as a whole.



Would not most of the ships attacked by German U-boats be British or British Empire ships - and then US? Or ships hired by the British/US to carry cargoes to the UK and other places required by the UK and the US? Hence therefore known or estimated by both governments at the time?

So would not someone in the British Government, say, have tracked volumes of supplies going across Atlantic/Pacific/Indian ocean. Also a convoy system was put in place pretty much from the get go etc...?

I do realise there would still have been freelancers and neutral ships quite late on, especially in certain areas that might have been deemed secondary - like the Caribbean and South America - so perhaps the figures are not totally correct, but...

on Wikipedia they take information (extremely detailed) with tonnage figures for, I think, all merchant ships in convoys in WW2 from here: Arnold Hague Convoy Database!


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## Matteo (May 23, 2018)

Fond memories of the Swordfish - and a long-running joke in my family...

Many years ago (must be about forty - I was in Junior School) I went on a school trip to the Fleet Air Arm Museum.  I was fascinated by the Swordfish and spent my pocket money on a mug depicting the plane.  The very next morning my father reached into the kitchen cupboard to get another mug, pulled that out, and in doing so my as-yet-unused mug fell to the floor and broke into pieces...

It has to be said that several other mugs met the same fate over the years - including three in one go once (he must have something against them).  But none of those were as devastating as the _Swordfish Mug Incident_ as it was thereafter known.  I still remind him of it from time to time.


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## Dave (May 23, 2018)

Venusian Broon said:


> Would not most of the ships attacked by German U-boats be British or British Empire ships - and then US... on Wikipedia they take information (extremely detailed) with tonnage figures for, I think, all merchant ships in convoys in WW2 from here: Arnold Hague Convoy Database!


I will bow to your superior knowledge on this. That website still doesn't reference where his figures come from though, and I just have a thing about that, given the amount of fake news about, especially on small websites not maintained by academic institutions or reputable news gathering organisations, like that one, although he does at least give us his name.


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## Venusian Broon (May 23, 2018)

Dave said:


> I will bow to your superior knowledge on this. That website still doesn't reference where his figures come from though, and I just have a thing about that, given the amount of fake news about, especially on small websites not maintained by academic institutions or reputable news gathering organisations, like that one, although he does at least give us his name.


Just perusing through the site states, for one particular part of the website:

_The data contained in this section is based on  Lloyd's of London records currently held in the Guildhall. Note that these records are not in the same format as the Merchant Shipping Movement Cards held in The National Archives. They require diligent interpretation which has been done by Tony Cooper over the years. His records have now been collected in this database to allow access over the Web._

I'd guess that's where a lot of the info comes from, plus other sources.

Perhaps you're being a bit too cynical with 'fake news' but I'd be willing to give it the benefit of the doubt given the sheer scale of it. Not that I'd ever use it, there is that.

I guess the problem here is that the actual records in the Guildhall, National Archives (see Discovery | The National Archives) and the other sources that they have (allegedly, if I am reading your mood ) is that I guess they are all hand-written and will require a great deal of work to translate to the internet. Even trying to find something to get started on the national archives website is tough enough...and what do you know, if you find something interesting you get:

_This record has not been digitised and *cannot be downloaded.* 
This record is stored off site and will take three working days to be delivered to The National Archives._

One could presumably try and get access to some records yourself and check them with what is published there


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## Dave (May 23, 2018)

I hadn't read that. In which case I'm happy to take his word for it.

I'm only "cynical" because there is an incredible amount of information passed online as 'truth' which has no real basis, or evidence to back it up. In this particular case, I expect those figures are as accurate as possible.


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## Venusian Broon (May 24, 2018)

Dave said:


> I hadn't read that. In which case I'm happy to take his word for it.
> 
> I'm only "cynical" because there is an incredible amount of information passed on as 'truth' which has no real basis, or evidence to back it up. In this particular case, I expect those figures are as accurate as possible.



I know what you mean. 

To be frank, I have little evidence, other than a few sentences and other bits and pieces telling me this that this (massive) database has been faithfully put together from the original sources...but I have stumbled across many amazing data troves set up on the internet doing various things. (It's incredible what's out there if you put the effort in to dig it out.)

So my spidey sense is on the side of giving this one more trust than doubt


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## BigBadBob141 (May 24, 2018)

I saw a flim on you-tube a while back.
A modern American navel jet fighter had a mid air collision.
The pilot somehow managed to keep control of the plane.
With a great amount of difficulty he managed to land it.
It was only then that found out he only had one wing!


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## WarriorMouse (May 25, 2018)

It was an F-15 of the Israel Air Force. The collision took off 95% of the wing outboard of the right side engine.


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## WarriorMouse (May 25, 2018)

Seem to still be having update teething issues.


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## Foxbat (May 25, 2018)

BigBadBob141 said:


> I saw a flim on you-tube a while back.
> A modern American navel jet fighter had a mid air collision.
> The pilot somehow managed to keep control of the plane.
> With a great amount of difficulty he managed to land it.
> It was only then that found out he only had one wing!



There was a pretty spectacular collision at (I think) Farnborough. It was one of the first times the MiG 29 had been at the display and a pair of them were doing aerobatics until the horror moment when they crashed in mid-air (all live on TV). The commentator spoke of his relief when both pilots ejected and appeared to be coming to earth in one piece. The camera zoomed in on one pilot who, once down, calmly reached into his pocket, drew out a cigarette and lit it. Then, the camera swung over to the second pilot who was marching across a field towards his wingman. When he got there, he decked his comrade. I couldn't help but laugh...


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## mosaix (May 25, 2018)

Foxbat said:


> Wow! I'm stunned that one Swordfish survived 175 hits. Just incredible!
> Also, ironic that what appeared to be weaknesses (fabric construction, slow air speed) were actually strengths.The video  actually gives a better understanding of why such an (apparently) obsolete plane became so successful in sinking enemy shipping.



There was science fiction story in Analog in (I think) the 80s along the lines of a modern fighter pilot and his 'plane accidententy time-travelled back to the First World War.  Everyone thought the 'plane would make mince meat of the enemy aircraft but it was useless. First, it traveled too fast for the pilot to zero in on the slower planes and second, his missiles were unable to lock onto wood and canvas targets.


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## WarriorMouse (May 25, 2018)

Modern fighters have a landing speed that is faster than WW1 fighters had as a flying speed.
eg. F/A-18 Super Hornet  landing approach speed is 135 knots or 250kp/h
      Sopwith Camel  max flight speed - 100 knots or 185 kp/h


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## BigBadBob141 (May 28, 2018)

I have the copy of Analog this story was in.
Bit of a silly idea that everyone seem to except that it was the latest model.
But a think he could bring down other planes simply flying past them closely at high speed.
I think the shock waves from his flight would cause the older planes to lose control.


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