Forgotten Plane From A Forgotten Campaign: Vultee A-31 Vengeance

hey everyone how's it going today we're going to be talking about some forgotten aircraft when you think about any given conflict any given aircraft role and any given military theater there are probably a few standout planes that come to your mind whether it be due to their prevalence on the battlefield their overall performance or the performance of a single individual for World War I with air combat and its relative infancy the first plane that probably comes to mind is this because of the Red Baron for the Pacific War in World War II you may think of the Japanese zero or maybe the P-51 Mustang over in Europe you may think of the Spitfire or the bf19 or maybe the Stuka I could go on and on but the point is that there are relatively few designs that are most remembered While most others are kind of left forgotten by most of the Gen eneral public similarly in most conflicts certain battles and theaters are far more prominent than others and some lack prominence to the degree that they're basically forgotten conflicts there are several examples of this in World War II from the Burma campaign on the more prominent end of the Forgotten Spectrum to something like the Battle of Madagascar on the other end yes Britain attacked and captured vit France controlled Madagascar in 1942 in a battle that took 6 months it's weird that the Madagascar movies didn't teach me about that maybe they should have had King Julian live in a down British aircraft so with all that being said the subject for today is one of those forgotten planes that by and large served in one of those forgotten theaters a forgotten American plane design with a production run that numbered nearly 2,000 that never actually served with America and instead was far more prominent in South and Southeast Asia serving in the British royal Air Force this is the volti a31 Vengeance the beginning of the a31 project is somewhat contested but one of those scenarios is more likely than the other one the first and more commonly cited scenario is that in mid 1940 around July Britain under the predecessor to blend lease called Cash and Carry sent over aircraft specifications to volte for a new dive bomber design to be produced for and exclusively purchased by Britain this is the short story that's cited by numerous aircraft encyclopedias and similar style books however according to the book Vengeance the vaulty Vengeance dive bomber by Peter C Smith another country was the origin point the the lendly Slash and carry aspect of that story Remains the Same the plane was to be designed and sold to a country that was Allied to the United States as well but it wasn't Britain it was actually France in early 1940 the war situation in Western Europe could be described as being similar to the beginning of a boxing match with both sides just sort of staring at each other sizing each other up and waiting to see if they make the first move while Germany had invaded Poland the year prior which led to Britain and France declaring war on Germany in turn the following 8 months contained very little fighting the so-called phony War while there were some French offensives very early on these amounted to very little in terms of territory gained and casualties caused Germany was simply not at the military capacity to be able to take out France and Britain just yet having devoted the vast majority of their troops into Poland and also Hitler wanted to try and make peace with Britain in the meantime while both France and Britain both also weren't too prepared for the war nor were they really itching to actually fight in the war fearing that any attacks they make would be repaid in kind by Germany this led to a very long period of both sides preparing plans and building up strength and part of this building of strength involved France revamping its stock of aircraft this led to a group of French Air Force officers going over to America in the name of the Lei de how's my French I took French in high school and remember absolutely nothing to search for a new modern aircraft to supplement their stocks drawing upon their knowledge of the effectiveness of the junker ju87 Stuka in the Spanish Civil War they wanted a modern monang dive bomber of their very own for this they would come to an agreement with volte aircraft for a new dive bomber design then known as the model 72 or the v72 measuring in at 12.12 M long 14.63% M tall the v72 most notably had a rather strange Wing shape with the outer sections being almost forward sweat and with the intersections being angled this gave the wings almost a w shape not as severe a w shape as the design of the bvp 1888 but still a w-shaped nonetheless this was done due to the initial straight Wing being installed in such a way that the center of gravity was actually off so instead of moving the entirety of the Wing It was decided to just alter the outer half of the wing and easier fix that wouldn't require changes to the wing route or the fuselage staying with the wing as it was to be a dive bomber the v72 had a somewhat uncommon feature of the wing having a0 degre angle of incidence angle of incidence being the difference between the longitudinal axis and the angle at which the wings are set or mounted typically Wings have a slight upward angle to ensure that the fuselage and cockpit can be parallel to the ground in level flight in a dive though having this slight upward angle can be detrimental to dive bombing accuracy and Aim so the v72 would be given a 0 de angle of incidence to help increase dive bombing accuracy the trade-off though was that in level flight the fuselage and cockpit would have to sit slightly nose up thus reducing the vision of the pilot but given that it was to be a dive bomber first and foremost the vision of the pilot in level flight was probably less important than the vision of the pilot in a dive for its Armament in comparison to the Stuka France's inspiration and reason for wanting this plane the v72 would be a bit stronger in both the gun Armament and maximum bomb load the Stuka design that the French were familiar with the ju 87a was outfitted with two forward firing 79 2 mm machine guns one rear firing machine gun and a maximum bomb load of around 1100 lb but an effective bomb load of half that because the engines weren't strong enough on the v72 there would be four forward firing 762 mm machine guns two rear firing machine guns and an initial Max load of 1100 lb as well but on the v72 the engine was strong enough to actually handle 1100 lb outfitted with a W r2600 Cyclone radial engine with around 1600 horsepower the top speed would sit around 280 mph while the early Stuka sat at under 200 nearly 100 mph slower France would Place their order and was set to begin receiving the v72 in October 1940 with just a handful being delivered per month until until 1941 where that would increase two dozens per month their total order would amount to around 300 ples and they would receive exactly zero of these this was because France was invaded in May 1940 and fell by the end of June so there wasn't really a France that was left to receive the planes sure there was VY France and the free French government in Exile but still with the fall of France that order would never actually be fulfilled instead Britain in July 1940 in their own search for a dive bomber design would come across the in progress v72 and then believe they had the perfect dive bomber for their Air Forces the order placed by the British would be less than the French order 200 planes instead of 300 but there was a definitive contract in place that VTE wouldn't actually be able to fill and with the purchase of a new Factory in Nashville Tennessee from which to build the v72 in just about 8 months the first frame was completed in March 1941 and by July 1941 the v72 had taken to the air it was either in March or in July that the first flight took place some conflicting information on one of those days a christening of the plane took place with the presence of Lord Halifax of Britain and his wife the initial flight testing of the v72 showed that it was a relatively decent aircraft controlling relatively well with a decent top speed but there was also some room for improvement for example one test pilot disliked the dive brakes that were installed on the v72 were dive brakes that looked like an air vent grate and this one test pilot wanted dive brakes that looked closer to Swiss cheese he was ignored and the air vent breaks were proceeded with also in the meantime while work and design continued the British would increase their total order to around 600 planes with their spare parts and added radio equipment installed as well this would cost tens of millions of dollars in 19441 but Britain was good for it no amount of money though would end up changing what happened in late 1941 that would drastically Al Al the course of the v72 on December 7th 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor the American Military swiftly took measures to look into their military stocks to see what they would need and to prepare for the war that was ahead of them drastically lacking in US Stocks were modern dive bombers of just about any kind while planes like The Dauntless and the hell diver had flown prior to Pearl Harbor the us had very few of these to go around and the hell diver then basically went into production hell so other than those few the stock of di bombers they had mainly consisted of old Banes and repurposed heavy aircraft like the a20 with volte in the process of producing hundreds of dive bombers right in Tennessee the immediate solution was clear the US military seized upwards of 300 frames basically negating the British contract first priority would go to the United States which did lead to a bit of Anger from the British Military and the US military would basically just shrug that off with upwards of 300 V 72s to be allocated to the US military the question was now this did they actually want them for one the US would call them the a31 not the v72 not terribly important but still going forward it would be called the a31 as the a31 was designed to French and British specifications that differed in what American designers and the US military wanted there would have to be a lot changed on this design the US military found the armor lacking the fuel tanks not leak proof and also lacking armor the forward Armament was lacking the engine power was lacking and the nose up level flight was just annoying and they didn't like it additionally they also found that American bombs were not the correct size for the Bombay I guess British bombs were a bit smaller so either the bombs or the bay would have to be altered as well so much had the change in the a31 design that by March 1942 the decision to seize 300 planes for the US military was actually being called into question and the Very production of the a31 was also being called into question considering all of the work that needed to be done in converting the a31s into viable American aircraft proposed Solutions included completely modifying them to be viable on one end of the spectrum to fully allocating them for foreign sale and giving them all to the British in the middle to outright cancelling the a31 production program entirely on the other end of the Spectrum in the end basically two of these were done in some capacity for combat aircraft the vast majority of the a31s made would go to other Allied countries like Britain on the other hand volte and the US military would make an improved version of the a31 known as the A35 with alterations that would make it more appealing to us Pilots the engine would be upgraded to help increase top speed the desired armor was added and the angle of incidence of the wing was increased to a more standard level this of course then changed how it handled in dive bombing but Vision in level flight seems to have been deemed more important by the US Military and quickly we'll get America's experience with the a31 sl35 out of the way now as they kind of didn't do anything with them the problem for the A35 was that the US now had far more subst stantial numbers of dauntless dive bombers at their disposal and in the war they were being used to decent effect by late 1942 early 1943 the military situation in the Pacific against the Japanese was changing in America's favor and with the dauntless currently being effective there wasn't really a need for a new dive bomber to add to the fold even though some apparently believe that the new and improved A35 was actually better than The Dauntless there was simply no need for it of the hundreds of A35 made for the US military a good number of them were either sent over to the British or if they stayed in the US they were converted for other less important roles like training and as a Target tug basically to be used for aerial target practice the first Allied country to receive a production model a31 was is Britain sort of technically it was Australia but Britain still had some level of influence and control over their once directly controlled Colony so kind of Britain by proxy Australia would place an order for some dive bombers in mid1 1940 an order for 243 Brewster Bermudas also known as the buccaneer in America however problems with that design led to Britain stepping in and suggesting that they instead take some small numbers of the a31 that the British would be receiving Australia began receiving the a31 in very small numbers in May 1942 but not really enough yet to Warrant them being used in combat it wouldn't be until April 1943 that substantial numbers of the a31 arrived in Australia and as they trickled in in late 1942 and early 19 43 Australian Squadron number 12 would use their small number of a31s for patrols training and search missions never actually seeing combat early on in June 1943 the a31s would finally see some actual combat against the Japanese in conjunction with other Allied Forces number 12 Squadron and their 12 a31s would attack two Japanese occupied villages on the island of solaru in Indonesia as Japan was possibly constructing an Airfield the mission was completely successful and all 12 a31s were turned alive ultimately from this point until March 1944 the Australian a31s played a very minor role in the Pacific Theater occasionally being tested with dive bombing Japanese positions as part of Greater Allied offensives while also seeing minor use as Patrol aircraft their overall service in Australia was mixed the a31s did suffer from some general maintenance issues that led to equipment failures but when they were used in combat they were relatively effective still they were also viewed as not being as effective as Allied leadership wanted which led to them being replaced by B24 liberators for much greater offensive potential as for the British they would use the a31 much more extensively probably more than Australia and America combined but they wouldn't be using them in Europe one major reason was that Britain's experience with dive bombing in North Africa had kind of soured them to the idea so they probably didn't want them to be used in the more important European theater additionally testing LED them to believe that the a31 was an overall wor aircraft than the fairy battle light bomber a design first flown in 1936 with them believing that the a31 was worse in every regard this meant that even though they had probably dozens to hundreds of a31s by late 1942 early 1943 they kind of didn't want them either so they were largely transferred over to Asia to serve in the Burma campaign alongside Indian forces in this theater the a31s were surprisingly effective especially given that Britain didn't want them in early but still rather extensive combat operations against Japan in mid 1943 in East India and West Burma the combat record of the a31 was actually outstanding two squadrons the 82nd and10th would use the a31 for at least dozens of sorties hitting their targets far more often than not and losing a grand total of zero planes in return again even though Britain didn't really want these planes anymore and went so far as to publicly state that they did not like dive bombers they would also publicly state in July 1943 that the a31 had been incredibly effective in Burma showcasing maximum efficiency and no losses still though they stuck to their guns and wouldn't not use the a31 anywhere but the Pacific where they would continue to see rather significant success even as the rainy season came and severely reduced the effectiveness of di bombing on account of all the clouds in the sky the a31s managed to adapt and carry out their missions still changing on the fly from dive bombing to lowlevel bombing perhaps much like a light bomber would continuing into 1944 the a31s continued to see success against Japanese encampments and supply lines with Pilots reportedly kind of loving this design however while the pilots did like the planes and were rather successful against the Japanese the British military commands still didn't like them and after July 16th 1944 Britain would pull the a31 from active combat Duty as this was pretty much smack dab in the middle of monsoon season and flying and combat in general was all the more difficult because of it this was their perfect opportunity to finally pull it they wouldn't be flying as much anyway and in mid1 1944 Japanese forces were struggling severely and the war situation was much different with them on their last legs bigger and more powerful aircraft could come in and help clean up the remaining and retreating Japanese forces the a31 was was well-liked in the theater but it just simply was not as strong as medium or heavy bombers could be especially not in more widespread offensives after being pulled from active combat the a31s in British hands would largely fill the same roles that they did over in America as trainers and Target tugs they would also use them for some experiments fitting sprayers to them to test them as mobile smoke screens or even as chemical weapons dispensers even though those had been banned in 1925 but still the Allies were winning so if the British did end up using them I do doubt they would have received any form of punishment anyway in total just under 2,000 a31s were made up into 1944 before production would cease most went to either Britain or the United States with a good number also going to Australia and a few going to free French and Brazilian forces their stories in those two cases are far less extensive as they were basically just used as trainers in both cases with Brazil using them until 1948 for training and during the war they used them for some patrols as well the free French for their part found them lacking when they received them and only use them for training it was mainly with the British that they saw a rather surprising in amount of success albeit in an of ignored theater of the war in all fairness it isn't terribly surprising that the a31 is pretty much a forgotten plane not being used either in Europe or in the Pacific directly with American forces and otherwise it was used as a trainer I mean how talked about is something like the T6 Texon with their 15,000 strong production run trainers just aren't the most interesting planes regardless though the a31 has a rather interesting story and journey Changing Hands changing plans being unloved and still performing well regardless all right and with that we're going to go ahead and end for today so thank you all for watching Remember to like comment and subscribe I do love that for such an underappreciated plane it had the name of Vengeance it's like the water Brand's liquid death it's just water but what a great more extreme name the a31 was just an okay dive bomber but it had a great name it'd be like if the Toyota Prius was called The Destroyer but anyway I hope you enjoyed the video and I hope you learned something so see you

Channel: IHYLS

Views: 60,726

Keywords: Vultee Aircraft, Convair, vultee a 31 vengeance, dive bomber, bomber aircraft, british aircraft, american aircraft, ww2, world war 2, military history, aviation history, military aircraft, royal air force, airplane, pacific war, burma campaign

Id: I5jFbJx-u8c

Length: 24min 48sec (1488 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 09 2024