Avro Manchester Variants,Origins and Projects
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Interesting.
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Of course by the time you get into "four-Merlin Manchester" territory, it becomes something else we all know and love, and a four-Hercules version effectively becomes what we now call a Lancaster II. If you want the Manchester to stay a Manchester you really have to keep to the big twin platform, in which case the twin-Hercules-powered version risks being on the anaemic side. The Centaurus is a different beast altogether, of course; it's got the power and growth potential, if only you can get it into the airframe in time for the platform to be useful, but did anyone ever consider the Griffon in place of the Vulture?
Ultimately the true twin-engined heavy bomber concept seems to have been something of a flop. At least A V Roe were able to recast their design with the four engines it really needed and get it into service, which is more than poor old Ernst Heinkel ever got to do with the He 177.
Ultimately the true twin-engined heavy bomber concept seems to have been something of a flop. At least A V Roe were able to recast their design with the four engines it really needed and get it into service, which is more than poor old Ernst Heinkel ever got to do with the He 177.
An interesting feature of the Manchester and later the Lancaster was the long bomb bay. Specification P.13/36 called for a twin-engine monoplane which was to be capable of carrying, amongst other things, two 18 in (457 mm) torpedoes. Has anyone actually seen drawings or photos of the Manchester carrying said torpedoes?
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Flight 1942, p. 557. Apparently.
You don't happen to have a copy do you?
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Sabre in place of Vulture? For something really different, replace the Vultures with W3420s?
The book Avro Manchester. The Legend behind the Lancaster has copies of the drawings in the tender submitted by Avro. One of those shows the two torpedoes carried on the centreline one behind the other with what looks like monoplane Air tales attached. It can be seen on the Kindle preview on Amazon.
The torpedo requirement was cancelled on 26 August 1937. Given that I’m not sure why there would even be the need to test such a configuration.
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I wish, quoted in Wiki, I did look for it but as far as I can see the archive is unavailable.
The Avro Manchester: The Legend Behind the Lancaster eBook: Kirby, Robert: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
The Avro Manchester: The Legend Behind the Lancaster eBook: Kirby, Robert: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store
www.amazon.co.uk
Manchester and Lancaster family history society. https://www.mlfhs.uk/
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If I remember correctly, The Avro Putnam makes mention of the Manchester Mk.II being proposed with either Napier Sabre or Bristol Centaurus replacing the Vultures. I believe an airframe was sent to Napiers to assist the design of the installation.
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Hmm, maybe
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Thank you, Sir.
Thanks - I actually have that book and totally forgot to check. Here is the image in question.
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More likely it's continuation of the deliberate torpedo attack role of the Wellington.
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-WH2-2Epi-c5-WH2-2Epi-e.html
I've often wondered about the torpedo capability being kept, and indeed taken forward with the Lancaster. Imagine a Lancaster coming in low and fast to drop torpedoes...
That suggests a slightly different bomb bay for torpedo carrying than bomb carrying.
In terms of the numbers of torpedoes carried, 'The RAF and Aircraft Design: Air Staff Operational Requirements 1923 to 1939' says that initially it was suggested that the new medium bomber (P.13/36) should be designed to carry 4 torpedoes. However, this was questioned by the Coastal Command rep who pointed out this would make a very big, expensive aircraft so the requirement was dropped to 2 and even 2 18" caused problems when the designs came to be drawn up.
In May 1937, the Operational Requirements branch said they had new information on torpedoes and 'it was found that the Avro P.13/36 could only carry one internally, and in any case existing torpedoes could not be released at 150mph from 200ft.'
I would assume that if carried externally it could carry two as with the Wellingtons.
I've often wondered about the torpedo capability being kept, and indeed taken forward with the Lancaster. Imagine a Lancaster coming in low and fast to drop torpedoes...
A Helmover torpedo maybe
Re the torpedo carrying Wellingtons there appears to have been a number of torpedo carrying configurations with two torpedoes.
1. Internal side by side (possibly with modified bomb doors deepening the fuselage)
2. Internal with MAT with aft end of bomb bay modified.
3. Centreline one above the other, which no one seems clear how it would work!
There was a discussion here with a link to a Pathe film from the Middle East showing Wellingtons being loaded with torpedoes in 1942 and the bomb doors being closed up.
Wellington Torpedo Bombers.
I am trying to find pictures of Wellingtons with 2 torpedoes fitted, did they run the centre bomb door or was that removed, I have a copy of the Wellington bomb load diagram that was on an earlier thread which shows the 2 x torpedoes attached to a bomb carrier beam and what looks like no centre d...
www.britmodeller.com
the above mentioned video:
www.britishpathe.com
WORK OF THE WELLINGTONS
Wellington+bombers+dropping+torpedoes+during+exercise+in+Mediterranean.
www.britishpathe.com
Sherman Tank
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Re the torpedo carrying Wellingtons there appears to have been a number of torpedo carrying configurations with two torpedoes.
1. Internal side by side (possibly with modified bomb doors deepening the fuselage)
2. Internal with MAT with aft end of bomb bay modified.
3. Centreline one above the other, which no one seems clear how it would work!
There was a discussion here with a link to a Pathe film from the Middle East showing Wellingtons being loaded with torpedoes in 1942 and the bomb doors being closed up.
Wellington Torpedo Bombers.
I am trying to find pictures of Wellingtons with 2 torpedoes fitted, did they run the centre bomb door or was that removed, I have a copy of the Wellington bomb load diagram that was on an earlier thread which shows the 2 x torpedoes attached to a bomb carrier beam and what looks like no centre d...
Interesting that a design that had torpedo carrying in its original spec ended up with less torpedo carrying capability than the Wellington which did not.....anyone know what dimensions of the Wellington's bomb/torpedo bay was....the only thing I have ever heard about the Wellington's bomb bay was that it was capable of carrying a 4,000lb Cookie.
Re the torpedo carrying Wellingtons there appears to have been a number of torpedo carrying configurations with two torpedoes.
1. Internal side by side (possibly with modified bomb doors deepening the fuselage)
2. Internal with MAT with aft end of bomb bay modified.
3. Centreline one above the other, which no one seems clear how it would work!
There was a discussion here with a link to a Pathe film from the Middle East showing Wellingtons being loaded with torpedoes in 1942 and the bomb doors being closed up.
Wellington Torpedo Bombers.
I am trying to find pictures of Wellingtons with 2 torpedoes fitted, did they run the centre bomb door or was that removed, I have a copy of the Wellington bomb load diagram that was on an earlier thread which shows the 2 x torpedoes attached to a bomb carrier beam and what looks like no centre d...
Interesting that a design that had torpedo carrying in its original spec ended up with less torpedo carrying capability than the Wellington which did not.....anyone know what dimensions of the Wellington's bomb/torpedo bay was....the only thing I have ever heard about the Wellington's bomb bay was that it was capable of carrying a 4,000lb Cookie.
[/QUOTE]
The links below point to some difference at the rear of the bomb bay, if these are indeed all torpedo carriers:
nuuumannn
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Thanks - I actually have that book and totally forgot to check. Here is the image in question.
Interesting diagram, but I'm curious about the location of the torpedoes fore and aft. The bay is around 33 feet long, yet in line with what P.13/36 stipulates, and I quote: "18" diameter 18' 2 1/2" length with a special tail portion...", I would have thought the load would have been alongside each other, not as depicted here. Clearly the torpedoes are shorter than 18 feet, but fitted with the 'special tail portion', surely side by side makes better sense?
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nuuumannn
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In Tony Buttler's Warpaint volume on the Manchester is a nice drawing dated 3 December 1940 of an in-flight refuelling mod for the Manchester. Caption: "The aircraft could be equipped as either a tanker or receiver, the former having a 1,000 gal (4,5469 lt) fuel tank in the bomb bay along with a refuelling line. Fuel was to be received at the rear turret position and then pumped into the aircraft's main wing tanks."
The drawing shows a hose drum unit mounting below the flight deck as the tanker, with the 1,000 gal transfer tank in the bomb bay.
The drawing shows a hose drum unit mounting below the flight deck as the tanker, with the 1,000 gal transfer tank in the bomb bay.
If you look carefully at the cross section with torpedoes, they seem to be fitted with “wings”.Thanks - I actually have that book and totally forgot to check. Here is the image in question.
Interesting diagram, but I'm curious about the location of the torpedoes fore and aft. The bay is around 33 feet long, yet in line with what P.13/36 stipulates, and I quote: "18" diameter 18' 2 1/2" length with a special tail portion...", I would have thought the load would have been alongside each other, not as depicted here. Clearly the torpedoes are shorter than 18 feet, but fitted with the 'special tail portion', surely side by side makes better sense?
In the late 1930s there were a number of schemes involving giving torpedoes winged attachments designed to allow them to be dropped from higher altitudes and faster speeds and stay intact on contact with the water. One example dating from 1939 was the Toraplane.
British Aerial Ordnance Exotica
Toraplane In 1939 Sir Dennistoun Burney and Nevil Shute worked together on an air-launched gliding torpedo, the “Toraplane”, and a gliding bomb, “Doravane”. Despite much wor…
weaponsandwarfare.com
The only one that actually saw it into service was the Monoplane Air Tail (MAT) which can be seen here if you scroll down the page.
World War II Torpedoes of the United Kingdom/Britain - NavWeaps
Once you have a winged torpedo it becomes difficult to fit them in the bomb bay side by side, hence the need for a very long bomb bay to carry them one behind the other. The torpedo requirement was dropped in mid-1937, too late for changes to the Manchester design. That change however did happen in time for it to be taken into account by Handley Page when it was redesigning the twin Vulture engined HP.56 as the Merlin engined HP.57 Halifax. So that aircraft could have a much shorter bomb bay.
Of course the long bomb bay came into its own when the Tallboy and Grand Slam bombs appeared in service in 1944 when the Lancaster was the only aircraft with a bomb bay big enough to take them.
In the Wellington, the rear of the bomb bay had to be cut away to accommodate a torpedo with a MAT. Whether they could then only carry one torpedo, I’m not clear about.
nuuumannn
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Thanks for the heads-up about winged torpedoes, very interesting and news to me. The drawing might have been put together specifically for an experimental concept because, as I pointed out, P.13/36 stipulated the length of torpedo to be carried, which, with a 33 foot long bomb bay meant that two could not have been placed one in front of the other.
Interesting about the Toraplane in the first link you posted, stating that it was intended for the Albacore, Barracuda and Beaufort only, so it seems unlikely that the winged torpedo would be mated with the Manchester, and the wings appear too small in that Manchester drawing (and they are not visible in the side view), not to mention that by 1939 when Dennistoun Burney and Norway proposed the idea, the torpedo carrying requirement for the Manchester had been abandoned two years earlier, which means that the drawing appears to pre-date the Toraplane. Which then raises the question regarding the drawing again; is that what it is actually about and if not, then what?
It was definitely a benefit that the Manchester retained the lengthy and unsectioned bomb bay - it was unique in a big bomber of course. It also meant that the Lancaster was mentioned in a report written in 1943 by Dr Norman Ramsey of the Manhattan Project because it was the only aircraft that could carry the 17 foot long Thin Man atomic bomb without modifications to its bomb bay.
The Monoplane Air Tail was created to stabilise the torpedo during dropping, if I can recall. It's interesting to note that during air dropping trials during the Great War, torpedoes suffered instability on entry into the water and various fixes were carried out including drogues, strakes along the side of the torpedo body and giving it a more pointed nose, but not the fitting of a tail.
Interesting wee sub note, both Dennistoun Burney and Norway were interested and active parties in the Imperial Airship scheme, before that died a death.
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Interresting. The German winged torpedoes are done to death, I know of some US ones (in the GB guided bomb line), but never heard before about the British projects...
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There's a whole discussion on the Britmodeller site about that very subject.
Are we sure that the Manchester drawing actually shows wings on the torpedoes (MAT type or not)? Nothing of the sort is visible in the side view, as noted above. When I looked at the cross sections, I assumed that the "wings" in the torpedo version were actuator struts for the bomb bay doors in closed position, shown in open position in the cross section of the bombed-up version.
I take the bomb bay actuator struts to be the diagonal fixtures that appear in both drawings (they appear under the bomb load in the other drawing). That leaves the horizontal "struts" that only connect to the circular torpedo and the vertical lines that penetrate into the fuselage above. The latter don't appear in the bomb load drawing. That suggests that they are something unique to torpedo carriage.
But can I turn that question on its head for a moment. Why was there a need to fit the torpedoes one behind the other in the first place?
I seem to recall reading that form of carriage was part of the Spec, but can't put my hands on it just now. Does anyone have a copy of the actual P.13/36 specifcation issued to the aircraft companies? The Handley Page HP.56 competitor design sketch shows a similarly long bomb bay.
One diagram shows the bomb load of 16 bombs carried four abreast. These are presumably 500lb bombs to make up the 8000lb max bomb load. RAF 500lb bombs were between 11.5" and 12.9" wide, so that demands 52" of bomb bay width plus some space around the bombs. A Manchester / Lancaster bomb bay came out at 60" wide and could carry 4x500lb bombs abreast amongst its various loads. It could also carry a 4000lb Cookie without bulged bomb doors, a weapon that was 30" in diameter.
The airborne torpedoes of the period were 18" in diameter. The bottom of the aircraft seems very flat and the bomb doors seem to open far enough to allow for carriage of the torpedoes side by side. But they weren't planned that way. So the question is why not? Given the drawing and knowing that work in the field of winged torpedoes was going on in the period, it seems a logical conclusion that the planned torpedoes were going to be a lot wider than 18". Now whether the lines are meant to represent actual wings or just provision for the space is another matter. It can't be a MAT that was being thought about as that addition would have made the pair too long for the bomb bay.
The only other thing I can think of was that in the discussions that led up to Spec. P.13/36 being issued, there was talk of a requirement for carrying 4 torpedoes which would have necessitated side by side carriage with one pair behind the other. But AIUI that was dropped when the Spec was drawn up. So was the tandem carriage a hangover from that discussion? But that seems unlikely to me.
Also note that the bomb bays in the two drawings are of differing lengths. A more detailed drawing in the tender document shows 6 rows of bombs so just how much reliance can we place on these sketches?
The torpedo carrying requirement was dropped by the Air Ministry in the same month that Handley Page stopped work on the HP.56 design with the HP.57 Halifax design beginning a couple of weeks later. So the Halifax was able to dispense with the overly long bomb bay.
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The "wings" seems to me as part of the tail, i.e. Monoplane Air Tail.
nuuumannn
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Already have. I asked the same question in my reply to your answer. Interesting to ponder this Ewen, but the illustration clearly shows two torpedoes only being carried, not four as in the front view there is only the one. The torpedoes in the illustration look around 13 feet long each and are likely to be 18-inch ones. This length is shorter than standard and the only thing I can equate it to is this one in the illustration below of a Sopwith Cuckoo, which is shorter than the standard Mk.VIII torpedo in use at the time.
The Cuckoo's was a 1,099lb 18-inch Mk.IX according to various sources and matches the length by comparing to scale drawings of the aircraft, but I can't find any precise figures. The second image shows a Short Shirl dropping a Mk.VIII. The Shirl and the Blackburn Blackburd were built to carry the bigger torpedo than that carried by the Cuckoo, as there was a fear the Mk.IX wasn't sufficiently powerful enough to penetrate German battleship armour. Neither type entered service and the Cuckoo became the RAF's first torpedo carrier.
The final illustration is of a dummy torpedo that was carried during torpedo dropping trials off Gosport during and after the Great War using Cuckoos. It is on display at the FAA Museum and gives a good indication of the small size of these weapons compared to their contemporaries.
If anyone else can provide any further clues, it might help address the drawing's origins.
Attachments
If anyone else can provide any further clues, it might help address the drawing's origins.
I got them from “Avro Manchester” by Robert Kirby. According to the author these outline drawings were taken from Avro’s P.13/36 Tender submissions and are credited to the G A Jenks Collection.
I got them from “Avro Manchester” by Robert Kirby. According to the author these outline drawings were taken from Avro’s P.13/36 Tender submissions and are credited to the G A Jenks Collection.
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