Why is the ‘Dambusters Raid’ so revered when it did not achieve much in the grand scheme of things?

[Alcanman]

This extract from my Dad's flying log shows his first op as an air gunner with 514 Sqdn. The target being a benzol plant in the Ruhr Valley.

 

I asked dad why to explain the meaning of the letters 'D.N.C.O' and he said -  ' Duty Not Carried Out'.

 

He went on to explain that 25 minutes before reaching the target the Lancaster suffered an engine failure. Being unable to keep up with the bomber stream the pilot decided to return to base at Waterbeach, Cambs, flying at low altitude to avoid radar. Luckily at this late stage in the war only light flak had been reported and no enemy fighters. Nevertheless, this must have been pretty scary for a crew on their first op.

 

The bomb load was jettisoned over the North Sea and they made a safe landing on 3 engines at Waterbeach.

 

The next day they were back on ops in the Ruhr Valley and this time successfully carried out their duty!

[F-UnitMad]

5 hours ago, Kickstart said:

What was the reliability issue with the Vulture? Was it something that would have been fixed given development time (inevitable on a new engine), which wasn't viable at that stage in the war, or something that was central to the design? All I can find was big end bearing failures which they were confident of fixing - but whether that fix would allow further power increases to keep it significantly ahead of the Merlin I don't know (the Merlin was within ~20% of the power output of the Vulture in 1940, despite being under 2/3 the capacity)

The Wikipedia page mentions a few things - 

Apart from delivering significantly less than the designed power, the Vulture suffered from frequent failures of the connecting rod big end bearings, which was found to be caused by a breakdown in lubrication, and also from heat dissipation problems.

Seems as well that the Vulture engine wasn't intended for many aircraft types, either, so with a relative lack of demand for it, rather than waste time on it R.R. just ditched it & carried on developing the Merlin.

[pH]

Personal recollections of a 617 squadron pilot who flew on the Dams raid:
 

https://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/chronicles/ken-brown-cgm-dambuster/

[57xx]

11 hours ago, Kickstart said:

What was the reliability issue with the Vulture? Was it something that would have been fixed given development time (inevitable on a new engine), which wasn't viable at that stage in the war, or something that was central to the design? All I can find was big end bearing failures which they were confident of fixing - but whether that fix would allow further power increases to keep it significantly ahead of the Merlin I don't know (the Merlin was within ~20% of the power output of the Vulture in 1940, despite being under 2/3 the capacity)

 

Here's a good video explaining it.

 

Quote

Not sure whether a twin engine aircraft is more reliable than a 4 engine in a bomber. Yes less engines to go wrong, but less redundancy to cope with battle damage.

 

Mentioned in the video, once one of the Vultures failed, the Manchester did not have enough power left to fly and so was lost. With four engines, you have that spare capacity to limp home if one engine is out of action.

[jcredfer]

One of the top designers, of the RR Jet engines, was on the way to the USA to finalise a deal for their engines.  [It was quite a while ago, so names have gone to the mists of time].  He had a microphone thrust, rather lacking in ceremony, under his nose and asked whether, given the wonderful reliability of the modern Rolls Royce engines, would he prefer to fly with two or four of them.  He didn't hesitate and replied ten, then walked quietly on his way.

 

.....   That was in peace time, without the added risks of enemy efforts to damage his aircraft.....

 

[Jeff Smith]

Reliability has some interesting calculations.  But nowadays engines are more powerful and more reliable, hence with the big twins one engine is sufficient to complete the flight.

[Kickstart]

Down side of a 4 engined bomber is twice the chance of an engine failure! But that is not much help if the aircraft can't fly with one engine out, but the 4 engine one can.

 

From the video earlier, looks like they had a fair chance of sorting out the Vulture engine, just better to spend the resources on the Merlin. Although I expect the space issues on a single crank with 24 con rods was probably ultimately a lot more restrictive on power levels.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[whart57]

12 hours ago, jcredfer said:

One of the top designers, of the RR Jet engines, was on the way to the USA to finalise a deal for their engines.  [It was quite a while ago, so names have gone to the mists of time].  He had a microphone thrust, rather lacking in ceremony, under his nose and asked whether, given the wonderful reliability of the modern Rolls Royce engines, would he prefer to fly with two or four of them.  He didn't hesitate and replied ten, then walked quietly on his way.

 

.....   That was in peace time, without the added risks of enemy efforts to damage his aircraft.....

 

 

I suspect that was in the 1980s when there was a requirement for all planes flying the North Atlantic route - and I suppose any other with large distances between landing opportunities - to have four engines. Plane manufacturers and airlines were vigorously lobbying the American government to have that requirement lifted and their efforts spilled out into mainstream news, hence reporters jumping on experts for their opinions. Most experts knew better than to respond to questioning reporters after a quote, though I must say that that response had class. Rolls Royce class.

[whart57]

Coming back to the question of fighters of the 1939-40 period and power plants I had a bit of a look on Wikipedia. The standard Italian fighter when they entered the war in 1940 was the Macchi C200 Saetta. It was a good plane except that its Fiat engine was not up to the power standard set by Rolls Royce and Daimler-Benz engines and as a result the C200 was unable to do much over 300 mph and couldn't carry a heavy enough armament. Then Alfa Romeo got a license to build the DB601 engine. Using that Macchi upgraded the C200 to the C202 which turned out to be the equal of most of its opponents.

[whart57]

Another interesting plane of the immediate pre-war period was the Dutch Fokker D. 21. Interesting in that a plane originally designed for use in the tropical Dutch East Indies proved a success with the Finnish air force in their winter war with Soviet Russia. 

[JeremyC]

When it comes to WW2 British aero engines it's noticeable that almost the only engine that most people seem to know about is the Merlin. While it was a good engine it seems (from things I have read) that Rolls Royce had enough political clout to persuade the Air Ministry not to invest in some of the alternatives. The Napier Sabre (which later powered the Tempest and Typhoon) seems to have had its development  delayed by this. Other engines that don't seem to get much publicity were the Bristol radials e.g. the Hercules, which powered the Halifax, Stirling and many other aircraft.

Edited January 10, 2023 by JeremyC

[whart57]

Coming back to the production bottlenecks in the rapid rearmament efforts after Munich, Britain put embargoes on the export of aero-engines even to allies and potential allies. Not just the RR Merlin but also older radials like the Bristol Mercury. The Dutch Fokker factory produced the D.21 single seater and the G.1 two seat fighter/three seat light bomber. They had to use Bristol Mercurys - which also powered the Gloster Gladiator - because Fokker had some in, bought before the embargo. Getting hold of Pratt and Whitneys from America was nigh impossible too.