A-20 Havoc? Good? Bad?

[Tank Ace]

For anyone with the knowledge, was the A-20 Havoc light/medium bomber any good? It looks like a good bomber but was it?

[JasonC]

No not really. For a funny set of reasons, actually. It was fast and maneuverable for a bomber, built to deal with pursuit and interception well. In a different war that would have mattered and been very useful. But like most mediums, it had limited range compared to the 4 engine types. No worse than B-25s or B-26s, really, but also no better.

And the thing was, Allied fighters owned the skies at those shorter ranges, by 1944 in the ETO anyway. Making speed and evasion relatively unimportant for the mediums. Out at the distances the 17s and 24s were flying, still full of German fighters, that would have been very useful, but in empty skies it wasn't.

And it didn't have a great bomb load - that is what they gave up to get speed etc. In the ETO, B-26s were much better because they could haul twice the bomb load or more. A B-26 group could hit a target as hard as B-17s could, just at shorter range.

Meanwhile in the PTO, the B-25 was superior, despite being slower. It had better range and the same bomb load issues came up. In addition, the Japanese fighters were so lightly protected but maneuverable, it mattered more whether you could dish out punishment back - and take some, certainly - than whether you could evade. The B-25 was better protected for a medium, with its several dual 50 cal turrets. Not exactly easy to bring down with an Oscar.

A really nice fast bomber came out later, the A-26. That one had even better speed than the A-20, and as good a bomb load as either the B-25 or B-26, plus range to boot. (The Brits also got excellent use from their light Mosquitos, which were a cut above in the speed department - fighter speed basically - and also had very long range).

One man's opinion...

[Tank Ace]

hmmm

[Siege]

The A-20 really found it's role not as a bomber, but as a heavy ground attack aircraft. In may respects it was used in the pacific in much the same way the P-47 was used in Europe. Later versions mounted numerous 20mm guns in the nose to penetrate through the foliage that a .50 cal was considered too weak to be effective. The A-26 Invader (not related in any way to the B-26 Marauder), was an extension of the A-20 design that was supposedly a devestatingly effective aircraft in that role.

The P-70 was a night-fighter conversion of the A-20 that suffered from too low of an operational ceiling and was mostly useless in that role. After a short attempt to use them in combat they were sent back the states as radar trainers, and we acquired some Beaufighter's to serve the night-fighter role until the P-61 Black Widow's came into service.

-Hans

[Tank Ace]

thanks for your help and knowledge guys.

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Siege:

The P-70 was a night-fighter conversion of the A-20 that suffered from too low of an operational ceiling and was mostly useless in that role. After a short attempt to use them in combat they were sent back the states as radar trainers, and we acquired some Beaufighter's to serve the night-fighter role until the P-61 Black Widow's came into service.

I understood that the Brits got pretty good service from it as a night intruder for a while. The practice was to loiter around a German airfield and wait for returing bombers to enter the pattern and turn on their lights. After 1941 though there wasn't much call for that. Later on when they wanted to do the same to German night fighters they had Mosquitos that were much better for the task.

Michael

[Siege]

I'll have to look into Brit usage of the P-70. I know that US pilots found it useless as it couldn't go high enough to intercept anything it was sent against. Kinda like the Bleheim, they found that slower light bombers converted into fighters was a seriously flawed idea. Unfortunately they found out by trial and error rather than common sense.

I know the British had used a lot of Beaufighter MK VI's as nightfighters, and sent some to us to use in North Africa. Later on those were replaced by the P-61's and Mosquitos.

Hmmm....

-Hans

[JasonC]

To Seige - actually the 4x20mm version was considered a failure and most of them were sent to Russian as LL, or refitted with 50s. The ROF of the 20s used was too low, and they jammed too frequently. Earlier models without self-sealing tanks (B model) were also sent to Russia.

The standard wartime model in US service was the G with 50s rather than 20s. 6 in the nose, 2 top rear (in a turret in late models), 1 bottom rear. They were used for low level attacks in the Pacific, successfully.

But compared to a B-25 they had only 2/3rds the bombload and only 2/3rds the range. B-25 also had 2 twin turrets rather than 1, plus 4 other flex 50s in waist or side of front cockpit positions. In addition to 8 in the nose for the common strafer versions used in the SW Pacific. This made the B-25 much harder for the underprotected light Japanese fighters to attack, as well as going farther and delivering more.

When the low level tactics were tried in Europe, they failed. German light Flak was too strong, and loss rates were too high as a result. True FBs might deal with light Flak but twin engined bombers were too big and unmaneuvering targets to fly treetop and strafe against Germans, over a defended continent, rather than Japanese, mostly over open ocean or jungle.

So the A-20s went up to 10,000 feet for medium altitude raids. They just weren't very good at it, compared to B-26s. (Those had their own teething problems to be sure, but in tight formations and over closer targets, escorted, were better than A-20s. Twice the bomb load, too).

The replacement for all of the above came late in 1944 in the form of the A-26 Intruder. By far the best medium bomber of the war. It had the internal bomb load of a B-26 (4000 lbs), plus underwing hardpoints to carry 2 bombs or napalm plus 8 rockets (or 14 rockets) under the wings, plus 14 (!) forward firing 50s - 8 in the nose and 3 in each wing - plus 2 double 50 turrets for defense. And it was fast - 350mph max, cruised at 285.

It came too late to see tons of service in WW II, but did fly 11,500 mission in 4 bomb groups. After WW II, the old B-26 was retired and the name of the A-26 changed to B-26. All the B-26s you hear about in later history are not the stubby winged bomb haulers of WW II vintage but these. They flew 55,000 sorties in Korea as the main US medium of that war. The French also used them in Indochina, where they flew 15,000 sorties.

The A-26 later B-26 was a highly successful medium bomber. It could haul the kitchen sink and deliver it accurately - internal bombs, external FB type stuff, and massive 50 cal strafing firepower (5000 rounds). But the early A-20 was not nearly as capable, and was only really successful against limited opposition in the SW Pacific around mid-war.

[Lars]

Originally posted by JasonC:

The replacement for all of the above came late in 1944 in the form of the A-26 Intruder. By far the best medium bomber of the war.

Best medium bomber of a couple later wars too.

[Michael Emrys]

One of my neighbors was a gunner in the Douglas B-26 during the Korean war. He has given some graphic descriptions of hitting a locomotive with all 18 .50 MGs at the same time.

Michael

[Stalin's Organ]

The A-26 was still being used in Vietnam wasn't it?

[JasonC]

The A-26/B-26 was used extensively by the French in their war in Vietnam. In the early 60s, the US advisors there had a squadron of them, ostensibly as trainers for ARVN but in reality used for counter-insurgency missions by US aircrews, typically with one ARVN observor along for the ride.

After US intervention geared up, a number of them were refitted and sent, but used largely for training at first. A-1E Skyraiders took over their previous interdiction role. The B-26 model being used then was withdrawn from service after a couple of crashes on training flight.

But 40 new reworked versions, the K model, were refitted for service. They took out the wing 50s but otherwise it was basically the same bomber. They were based in Thailand (and redesignated "A" rather than "B" again, to finesse their "bomber" nature diplomatically) and flew missions over Laos. They were finally withdrawn from service in 1969.

[Charlie Rock]

From a technical standpoint the A-20 was clearly inferior to the A-26, which came out afterword. Routinely flew with a crew of two once the bombardier position was stripped out.

In a counterintuitive sense, it was a technically inferior aircraft that did a great deal of the yeoman's work in the 1943 SW Pacific campaigns, in the offensive on Rabaul and actions against shipping in and around New Guinea--Bismarck Sea, etc. Not because it was more effective then the B-25, but because the forces in the ETO clearly had little need for it and Kenney's 5th Air Force picked them up in quantity. MAJ Pappy Gunn was the tinkerer in charge who pioneered the strafer modifications. There were better aircraft around but the A-20 was plentiful and could be modified into something effective.

It's kind of like the hurricane or wildcat--not the best plane around but it was good enough and plentiful at acritical period when something good enough was needed and the better planes weren't available in quantity. I'm talking SWPacific, though.

[Michael Emrys]

The A-20 was one of the best twin engined light (as opposed to medium) bombers of the early war, but the whole concept of the twin engined light bomber became passé when aero engines became powerful enough to build single engined single seat fighter bombers with almost the same warload. Thus the P-47, the Corsair, the Typhoon. Then a little later (post war) came the Skyraider and Fury.

Michael