Battle of helicopters.
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They definitely wouldn't be combat-capable, but could conceivably be used for logistics (might make resupplying the 6th much easier) and for lightning commando raids.
Extremely improbable. The loads even the FA-63s could carry were small compared to what so much as a single division, let alone an army, needed.BeardedHoplite said:
Very possible. I can easily see them supplementing, even replacing, paratroopers. Heliborne invasion of Malta?BeardedHoplite said:
Vertical insertion into Antwerp, with supply 'copters?Oh, really? Fl-382, with a 600hp or so Brahmo? R-4D with about a 600hp R975? Add a quad of 7.92mm or pair of .50s, or a couple of packs of 50-75mm rockets... (Rockets make more sense IMO: less weight, no recoil.)BeardedHoplite said:
They'd probably look something like the early Sikorsky radial-engine helicopters--H-19 and H-34. Turbine engines weren't quite up to the task yet.
They'd see first use in medical evacuation and recon. Mountain and jungle warfare would benefit from their use--conceivably, they'd be most useful in Italy, supplying partisans in the Balkans, and in the Pacific War.
They'd see first use in medical evacuation and recon. Mountain and jungle warfare would benefit from their use--conceivably, they'd be most useful in Italy, supplying partisans in the Balkans, and in the Pacific War.
The floatplanes carried at the time had much better range and speed, so probably not.
Destroyers carrying helicopters to assist in antisubmarine operations is more plausible.
I imagine you'd see a lot of overlap with helicopter use in the Korean War IOTL. Scouting, casevac, carrying small numbers of troops or light loads.
I'll add another vote for ASW use as well. Even without much carrying capacity having a helicopter as "eyes" for a convoy would make life hard for U-boats considering how much time they had to spend on the surface.
I'll add another vote for ASW use as well. Even without much carrying capacity having a helicopter as "eyes" for a convoy would make life hard for U-boats considering how much time they had to spend on the surface.
Hmm. Could helicopters be carried on lightly modified merchant ships, like the MACs? With less need for even a full-sized flight deck, you could either maybe do a hangar as superstructure for more choppers, or not as extensive a conversion for the same number of patrol 'choppers as they had planes IOTL.
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I imagine it would take less modification to built a helipad than it did to make MAC ships. The Victory ships are certainly big enough for most helicopters of that era to operate from and the Liberty ships likely big enough as well.
It depends, at least in the early war (up to say 1942) I can't actually see a lot of point to helicopters (aside from say S&R, and not greatly even then), they're slower, shorter-ranged and probably less manoeuvrable than dive-bombers, and there aren't any guided missiles in operation, so their being able to hover behind terrain is going to be of limited use.
A landing platform on every tanker would have been dead easy. (Useful abd DDs & 'vettes, too, obviously.) There were trials with R-4s OTL. What the helos needed was more power to carry more payload. If Fido could have been put in service sooner, or a smaller, dedicated ASW torpedo or DC developed, helos could have been extremely useful.e of pi said:
IDK if this is enough to push an earlier introduction of the Type XXI, but, if it is, it means the Allies TTL are uniquely ready to cope with it. They'd also be extra-ready for nuke boats. (That'll need faster *Fidos, but that's no big problem.)
If Germany has Fl-282s in service sooner, there's a chance they get provided to Japan...which could create problems for the Pac Fleet Sub Force.
Also, talking about apps, there were proposals for small helos aboard subs,
as spotters. Helos might also be useful from raiders, replacing the seaplanes. (As for cruisers/BBs, still useful as spotters: a higher horizon line benefits.)IMO, the key question, really, is engine power. Were engines of around 600hp readily available in numbers, without diversion from other uses? My first guess is, this takes the R975s from M3s & M4s, which means they have to be replaced with something: Hall-Scott or Hercules multibanks? Chrysler multibanks? I'd guess Guiberson could be turned over to making more lower-power radials. Maybe Hall-Scott, too?
I'd disagree. You'd free up the plane guard tincans, for one thing. A lot of tasks liaison a/c did could be done by helo: FAC, arty spotter, messenger. In fact, give them rockets & you remove the need for a lot of arty & CAS: think Vietnam. (Right at the front line, AA is much less an issue IMO. And helos are harder to hit than you might think.)MattII said:
Also, if the Germans have them, equipping them with X-7 for use against T-34s is going to be pretty obvious. (Presuming pods of Föhne aren't enough.)
Absolutely. Which suggests the earlier introduction of the *MASH.Alex1guy said:
That has important implications to casualty rates everywhere, but especially (on first thought) to the Allies in Normandie: lower infantry losses means no "crisis".
More than that, tho, better (faster) plane guard means lower aircrew losses. It also has fairly big butterflies when the freed-up DDs are used elsewhere. (How big an influence that is IDK, but it's not trivial.)
Why not just use the P&W Wasp? That one goes back to 1925, puts out 600hp, and even had OTL service powering the H-19. The later Wasp variants put out even more power, the R-2800 bringing to bear enough power for something akin to the H-34, and the later ones were certainly produced in great enough numbers that only a slight increase in production rate would be needed to mass-produce helicopters (if Republic could find enough Wasps to fit a P-47 with an engine every hour, then enough Wasps can be found for helicopters that, even in the best case, aren't going to be nearly as prolific).
Here's another application for helicopters--search-and-rescue in the Pacific and Atlantic. They don't have the range of the PBY Catalina, but might make up for that by operating off ships.
The R-1340 would do for something the size of the Sikorsky H-19, and probably similar helicopters. Bigger engines-->bigger helicopters.
As for engine production, perhaps the helicopters can replace another user of the Wasp family. The PBY Catalina, for example, might be replaced in the search-and-rescue role. That would free up a good many R-1830s. Helicopters in attack roles could reduce fighter demand somewhat, freeing up radial engines another way. Then again, both of those had other roles, and, in the commander's place, I'd rather have the more versatile fixed-wing aircraft. Maybe cutting down T-6 Texan production? Or, for a limited run of up to a thousand helicopters, maybe just cannibalizing planes that already carried the Wasp and were in civilian hands. Hardly any gas to run them properly during the war anyway.