Northrop N-3PB

[Lawman]

I was looking at a list of WW2 torpedo bombers, trying to find a 'better' Swordfish alternative for the Royal Navy, in my alternative scenario, where Britain enters WW2 in 1941. I came across the Northrop N-3PB floatplane torpedo bomber, which served with Norway in modest numbers. It had startling performance, not just for a floatplane, but as a torpedo bomber in general. It had a cruising speed of 186 knots, and a maximum speed of 223 knots, which is pretty impressive considering it was on floats. A revised model, without the floats, could have made for a very impressive torpedo and dive bomber. It had a pretty respectable bombload, and decent gun armament.

In my scenario, Britain is in a much better situation economically after WW1, having only actually fought for eighteen or so months. Without the major involvement in the war, there is no RAF formed, instead sticking with the Royal Flying Corps, and Royal Naval Air Service. These become the Army Air Force and Naval Air Force respectively, with greater emphasis on their own missions. The Navy have overall responsibility for overseas warfare, and long range operations. The Army have responsibility for general air defence and close support.

There is great interest in providing a good series of common designs, with common engine designs. As such, the Hurricane and Spitfire are both developed, but each in two versions, one using a piston engine, and the other a radial engine. Naval versions are given high priority, almost as high as the Home Defence role Army aircraft. Similarly, there is an urgent need for a modern torpedo bomber, to supplement the Swordfish/Albacore, which are felt to be short term expedients. The competition is opened up to multiple companies, and Northrop bids with their N-3PB, which is the surprise winner, due to its sheer performance edge. These are to all use a common series of engines, in the 1000-2000hp. The aim is to allow for natural progression of aircraft, to allow them to be fitted with larger and larger engines.

The N-3PB is ordered into urgent production, at a new factory in Canada, to keep production space free in Britain. British factories are to produce fighters and patrol bombers as urgently as possible, while the British-owned Canadian factories are to produce engines, torpedo bombers and transports. Each company buys space within a huge new government owned factory, in Ontario, designed to take advantage of easy access to American supplies.

The Navy is thus able to get proper maritime patrol aircraft into service much earlier, with long range patrol bombers being bought right from the start, not just ex-RAF hand-me-downs. In this scenario, Britain starts basing huge numbers of patrol bombers in Iceland, Greenland and Canada. This allows much better coverage of the North Atlantic, making U-boat operations much harder. The N-3PB gives much better strike capability, even being fitted to fire a modified Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar. This is fired from a relatively safe altitude, whenever a submarine is sighted or detected by surface units. Against all the odds, this turns out to be a highly successful weapon, mainly due to the high ingress speed of the N-3PB, allowing it to fly towards the target undetected, then climb, release the weapons and run. This gave the U-boats very little warning, and many U-boats were caught near the surface, being detected by long range seaplanes, and sunk by these torpedo bombers.

In addition, they prove highly successful in operations in the Pacific, performing strikes against Japanese shipping and warships. They find themselves carrying out torpedo and dive bombing missions, and cause great problems for the Japanese forces. One of their more useful tactics is to fly in large formations, and put large numbers of torpedoes in the water, while others come in from high level, and drop heavily modified naval gun shells. This gives them the ability to put the equivalent of 16in shells through the decks of aircraft carriers, above all their armour protection. These massed air fleets are used to great advantage, allowing Britain and Australia to punch well above their weight - flying massed torpedo bomber and fighter raids on Japanese convoys. These '100 bomber raids' are used to hunt down the German warships as well, with all of their major surface units being sunk within two years of Britain entering the war.  

[elmayerle]

Given that the N-3PB originated as the N-3 landplane, this is quite plausible.  For modelling purposes, I'd suggest using either BT-1 or SBD landing gear since the BT-1 is an earlier Northrop design with influences that still show on the N-3 and the SBD is a development of this (Douglas-El Segundo was originally the second Northrop Corporation -the first, Avion, Inc, was bought by Boeing and consolidated with another division - and was partly financed by Douglas; when Jack Northrop wanted to mainly work on flying wings, he sold the whole operation to Douglas).

[Lawman]

Thanks, I'd not read up on it very thoroughly, and hadn't spotted the Douglas aspect. Having looked at the SBD Dauntless though, it does seem to carry a pretty limited warload, being a divebomber. I wonder if a float-less N-3 would have been more capable, i.e. pretty much combining the torpedo bomber abilities of the TBF Avenger, and the dive bomber capabilities of the SBD! This could have been particularly useful for Britain, given the limited deck space, allowing a more 'rounded' airwing. In addition, the dive bomber aspect might have lent itself well to the (British) Army Air Force, for close support. It would hopefully be a much less vulnerable Stuka or Battle equivalent. It was consistently proved that dive bombing was about the most accurate form of bombing possible before precision guided bombs became abailable. These aircraft might have been pretty useful for close support of British Army units!

[jcf]

Great Britain was not an aircraft design vacuum in that period, 'modern' high-speed monoplane torpedo bomber design specifications had been issued and designs tendered from British manufacturers. In 1937 two private venture designs were put forward by the Blackburn and Fairey companies. On March 3, 1938 Specification S.24/37 was issued, the Fairey Barracuda was the result. Floats or wheels were originally a requirement, this was later dropped. The project was delayed while the Ministry decided on an engine, Fairey wanted to use its own more powerful P.24, the Ministry insisted on the Merlin. The first of many delays and demands originating with the bureaucrats that led to major design changes, including moving the wing up from its original low position.

The story is covered in 'British Secret Projects: Bombers and Fighters 1935 - 1950'.

So if you want a doable and intriguing What-If? then build a Barracuda with the original low-wing design powered by the contra-prop equipped P.24. You'd easily have it in service for your 1941 entry and it would be superior to the Northrop N3PB.

Jon