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Semi OT about troop carrying seaplanes

A post here about the seaplanes jogged my memory about a thought I had while building the old Revell Tradewind and when I picked up the Spruce Goose for 1/2 price at Hobby Town.

I've read that the idea was to use these aircraft for quickly transporting men to invasion beaches for "surprise" assaults.

Was any doctrine actually developed? Anyone know what it was or where to find info about it? It just seems a little nutty to me flying these large slow targets onto a hot beach. Were they just gonna use them once? It seems like a lot had to be going your way to make it work. You need a protected area, bay or inlet to land and then taxi to the beach. Under fire? And then what, the planes leave (well the ones not shot to pieces) and leave the troops in place with no backup, no additional supplies? Maybe you have ships over the horizon to bring in supplies after the initial assault. But I also thought that the idea was to put men where ships couldn't get to easily or quickly.

So you're leaving your men on a contested island with no immediate supplies and no air support. If you got 6 of the Tradewinds down you have 450 to 550 soldiers plus jeeps, light arty and supplies for how long.

Or did they think it through and that's why it wasn't pursued?

Frank

Reply to
Gray Ghost
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The original design for the Hercules (Howard will turn over in his grave to hear it refered to as the Spruce Goose) was to transport men and material to England, because so much was being lost due to ship shinking in the Atlantic. It was not designed to transport troops into a hot war zone. The tradewinds were just to be sea going C-130's, although a little bigger and more powerful. Its kind of funny, or maybe not, that every airframe designed around the engine used in the tradewind would ultimately fail and not be produced.

Mike

Gray Ghost wrote:

Reply to
MQM107

As I said in another thread, I remember seeing an artist's conception of a Convair design for an =FCberseaplane (looked like it was designed by Dornier) and coupled two Tradewinds together like the German Zwilling concept. According to the article, it was supposed to carry some 900 troops, or supplies. The drawing, which appeared in a late-1940s Popular Mechanics (or Popular Science, can't remember which) showed two craft, one disgorging troops and the other off-loading some heavy trucks. I have a Xerox of the article ~somewhere~ in my stash. Let me know further via e-mail if you'd be interested in it, I could scan it and send you a copy.

-- John

Reply to
Old Timer

Funny ou should mention that. In the experimental designs section of the book "Lockheed Aircraft from 19?? to 19??" (don't remember the dates, sorry) there is a 3-view of an experimental C-130 Flying Boat. I have a scanned copy of the drawing if you're looking to kit-bash a Hercules......

Reply to
Old Timer

The Westinghouse T40 was responsible for almost all the design failures. It never lived up to the promise of its designers. It almost did in the concept of turboprops and did convince Westinghouse to ease out of the aircraft engine biz.

Bill Banaszak, MFE

Reply to
Mad Modeller

Just an idea: wasn't this also the sort of thing the Soviet Ekranoplanes were supposed to do? Maybe looking into that might turn up something interesting.

Rob

Reply to
Rob van Riel

The aforementioned seaplanes were otherwise conventional aircraft, not WAG. The Hughes Hercules, while admittedly having only flown once, and then not very high in altitude, may have been WAG, but the Seamaster had a ceiling of 40,000'

-- John

Reply to
Old Timer

i thought wag was wild ass guess? did i err?

Reply to
e

"e" wrote

No. Should be WIG: Wing In Ground effect.

KL

Reply to
Kurt Laughlin

now i get the ekronoplano reference. wish i could find that kit. everytime i see it listed and order it, i get an out of stock....20+ companies, so far. damned annoying.

Reply to
e

The SeaMaster wasn't a transport tho. There was a proposed transport based on the P6M, & it was much larger. SeaMistress or something.

Reply to
frank

Interesting thread. Aerodynes of the size and performance of the Tradewinds and Spruce Goose (Hercules) would not be used in assault landings for the reasons mentioned. The doctrine for their employment would be for strategic movement of troops from North America to Europe or the Pacific. (The original intent, as I understand it.) They would also have a doctrinal role of logistical support once the troops were established ashore. For the assault role, check out the Allied Aviation gliders of 1941 (XLRA 1 and 2). A US Navy requirement asked for "flying boat" gliders carrying 10 Marines each for beach assault landings. After USMC experience in amphibious landings and the difficulties of getting even armoured vehicles ashore in the face of resistance, the idea of glider un-APCs was scrubbed in 1942 and they never saw operational service. It was an attractive glider and interesting because of the low wing and seaplane hull. I don't think there is any way to kit-bash this one. Cheers, Doc

"Gray Ghost" wrote in message news:Xns968B8AEC03042Wereofftoseethewizrd@216.196.97.136...

Reply to
Doc Hopper

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