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Anti Aircraft Q ship

Started by tigercat, March 05, 2012, 09:05:41 AM

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tigercat

March 05, 2012, 09:05:41 AM
Is this remotely feasible ? not sure if the idea is sheer lunancy or one of those eccentric ideas that sometimes actually work.

Basically a very shallow draft ship ( to minimise chance of torpedo hit) packed to the gunwals with hidden antiaircraft guns  and cork and other floaty things.  With an armoured deck and engines mounted on shock absorbers.

To pose as a straggler perhaps with a fake list and artificial bomb damage to lure aircraft in then destroy them.

Fairly suicidal but then again some of the tactics of the WW1 Q ships were a touch on the insane side.



pyro-manic

#1
March 05, 2012, 10:08:24 AM
What time period are we talking?
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tigercat

#2
March 05, 2012, 11:13:01 AM
I guess WW2  there probably werent enough aircraft attcking convoys in WW1 to make it worth while and post war as soon as the air to sea missile appears well....

Hobbes

#3
March 05, 2012, 01:03:29 PM
Even in WW2 aircraft attacks on convoys were not that common in the Atlantic (except for the Murmansk approach, maybe?).

It'd be more useful in the Pacific, hiding among a landing force to take out kamikazes. 

rickshaw

#4
March 05, 2012, 03:28:21 PM
Why hide?   Once you open fire, any concealment is gone.  Any single ship, no matter how heavily armoured or armed will invariably be overcome by air power.

Air attacks against convoys occurred in the North Atlantic (Condors), around the UK (Western Approaches, North Sea), the Bay of Biscay, the Murmansk run and "Bomb Alley" (the Mediterranean).  As the war progressed, the attacks decreased but were still occurring up till 1945 in the North Sea.
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raafif

#5
March 06, 2012, 03:44:39 PM
in the middle of a Falklands Islands supply-convoy before the "real" Military got there ? ;D

I can see the Atlantic Conveyor with Harriers under a false roof of containers - on attack roof flops open and jet ups & counters the Etenard ?
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pyro-manic

#6
March 06, 2012, 03:55:57 PM
I think for convoys the reverse would be preferable - as much firepower on display as possible, and all loaded with tracers, to keep any attackers as far away as possible. Could go so far as fake AAA - mounted as conspicuously as possible.
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Hobbes

#7
March 07, 2012, 12:37:21 AM
Did the British ever try to use aircraft to hunt down the Condors ? This would be difficult without radar, and IDK if the British had anything available with enough range?

PR19_Kit

#8
March 07, 2012, 12:55:21 AM
Weren't the CAM ship Hurricanes tasked with doing exactly that? And later the escort carriers could do it with their Wildcats AFAIK.
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pyro-manic

#9
March 07, 2012, 01:19:57 AM
If the boxart of the Airfix kit is to be believed, Sunderlands took the Condors on as well. ;D
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Mossie

#10
March 07, 2012, 02:34:46 AM
Quote from: pyro-manic on March 07, 2012, 01:19:57 AM
If the boxart of the Airfix kit is to be believed, Sunderlands took the Condors on as well. ;D

There were definately encounters between the two, as well as other heavies.  Later on in the war Beaufighters & Mossies took on the Condor & made a considerable impact.
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rickshaw

#11
March 07, 2012, 02:44:46 AM
Quote from: Hobbes on March 07, 2012, 12:37:21 AM
Did the British ever try to use aircraft to hunt down the Condors ? This would be difficult without radar, and IDK if the British had anything available with enough range?

Depends how you define "hunt down".  Did the RAF specifically go looking for the Condors?  I doubt it, they were simply too elusive to be able to intercept them.  Did they attempt to interdict the Condor bases?   More than likely, on occasion but by the time they were able to with any degree of reliability, the "Condor Menace" had been largely defeated by, as Kit points out, the CAM ship Hurricanes and then, later the Escort Carrier Wildcats.   Eric "Winkle" Brown earnt a DSC as the consequence of his encounter with a Condor IIRC. 
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#12
March 07, 2012, 04:32:29 AM
Quote from: Mossie on March 07, 2012, 02:34:46 AM
Later on in the war Beaufighters & Mossies took on the Condor & made a considerable impact.

A few strenuous manouevers could do it too.  The Condor was never really a warplane, with a weak structure for what it was asked to do, and suffered catastrophic failures, usually fuselage spars.  Plenty of photos of Condors with broken backs on French airfields.
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tigercat

#13
March 07, 2012, 05:48:18 AM
I wonder what the heavies AA armament ever mounted on a Merchant ship was. I know they crammed them on to any ships on the Malta run. Plus the Liberty ships standard outfit was in a whole different league to what the Merchant Navy started out with.

I can well imagine some ships based in the Med acquired surplus Italian weaponry I know Royal Navy ships did.  
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