- Yes
- No
Hello! and welcome to my second suggestion for the Vultee A-35 Vengeance in RAF service, this time around I will be focusing on probably the most well known iteration of the Vengeance, the Mk.IV, identical to the A-35B currently in game under the French Tree, I feel this could come to game to bring a 2.7 attacker to the UK tech tree.
History
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Now, as I mentioned in my previous suggestion for the Mk.II (found here) The vengeance was originally designed for the French under the name V-72, however following their capitulation, a desperate britain having seen the success of aircraft like the Ju-87 Stuka in the early stages of the war took interest in the dive bomber type, and with the V-72 being the only suitable option, the french orders for 300 were quickly picked up by the Brits in late 1940.
However, due to various issues the first Vengeances would not be ready for service until mid 1942, which by then they had been judged unsuitable for service in both the European and North African Campaigns, in which they were vulnerable to the strong German and Italian Aircraft threats, however they did see use for them in the far east. With the first squadrons receiving aircraft in October that year, however this suggestion is not about these first variants, no, this is about the Mk.IV.
As the US entered the war in late 1941, they began pursuing the Vengeance for their own uses, however the Mk.Is and IIs they had acquired from Britain (dubbed A-31) were not up to the standard for dive bombing that the Americans wanted, and thus they began pursuing an upgraded version of the A-31, this variant was dubbed the A-35 by the US, and the Mk.IV by the British and featured a wide array of changes over the previous Mk.IIIs, with the replacement of the 7.7mm armament with 12.7mm Machine guns (with one more gun overall), a changing of the wing geometry, a new engine and finally an increased bomb load of 2000 lbs as opposed to the older variants 1500 lbs.
These improved variants arrived sometime in 1943, with them being used extensively against japanese forces in Burma, also seeing extensive use with Australia who was the largest operator of the type outside of the UK or US, mainly using them in the Pacific islands like new guinea and later as part of a Mobile strike force. The aircraft also saw service with india, whose fledgling air forces used the type to major effect, with it being one of the first major types to see service with them.
Following the war many of the aircraft were scrapped, however the RAF chose to convert many of the Mk.IVs to target tugs, to replace the ageing Interwar aircraft like the Bolton-Paul defiant. These converted vengeances remained in service across all regions of the RAF for several years after the end of the war, with the last Vengeances being retired in 1948 as newer aircraft began to fill their roles.
Images
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A Vengeance Mk.IV in the US prior to being delivered
A Vengeance Mk.IV during evaluations at Boscombe down in 1944
The Mk.IV “FD216” following being converted into a Target Tug
A Ground crew maintaining a Mk.IV
A Vengeance during take-off
A Mk.IV Flying over Hong Kong following its conversion to a target tug
Specs/Armament
Spoiler
General Characteristics/Performance
- Crew: 2 persons
- Length: 12.1 m
- Wingspan: 14.6 m
- Height: 4.7 m
- Wing area: 332 sq ft (30.84 m2)
- Gross Weight: 6.4 tons
- Engine Wright R-2600-13 (1700 hp)
- Service Ceiling: 22500 ft (6860m)
- Max Speed: 278 mph (15500 ft)
- Range: 860 Miles with 1000 lbs of bombs
- Takeoff run:
- Min: 300 yards
- Max: 1400 yards
Armament
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Guns
- 6 x 12.7mm (.50 cal) Machine guns in the wings
- 1 x 12.7mm (.50 cal) Machine gun in a flexible turret
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Bombs (max bombload: 2000 lbs)
- 2 x 500 lbs bombs in bomb bay
- 2 x 250 lbs OR 2 x 500 lbs bombs under the wings
Place in game
Spoiler
I feel this would be a good addition to the british tree as it currently lacks any form of attacker for its 2.7 lineups, having to rely on an array of uptiered Fighters capable of carrying bombs, or lower BR attackers such as the Hurricane Mk.IV, and this would be one of the only, and certainly the most versatile of the options britain could get to fill this gap.
This Vehicle is also already in the French tree under its US name, the A-35B, so this would be a relatively simple addition of copying over the aircraft with a few minor differences such as a new skin and would help fill a rather major gap in the British trees capability.
Sources
Spoiler
Vultee A-31 Vengeance - Wikipedia
A-35B (France) | War Thunder Wiki
Database: Vultee Vengeance
National Archives of Australia: Publication of Technical Order -Vengeance Instruction No 6 - Identification of Different Models of Vengeance Aircraft
Pilot’s Flight Operating Instructions for the A-35B-1-VN
SUUP 9-2 USA Type L-Z, Page 170&171, Vengeance IV Aircraft Data Sheet