Why wasn’t the Fieseler Storch used for Naval reconnaissance?

[perseus]

In view of their lack of aircraft carriers, I wonder why Germany didn’t place these on board conventional ships for naval reconnaissance? All what is needed in a small ‘heli-deck’, since the forward motion of the ship would allow them it to take off and land vertically relative to the ships deck, and storage would be easy due to the fold back wings.

I suspect that super destroyers or light cruisers with a rear ‘heli-deck’ to accommodate half a dozen Storch’s would have caused the Royal Navy substantially more problems than much larger surface ships with their limited number of fair weather seaplanes.

The Fieseler Fi 156 Storch (stork) was a two man liaison/reconnaissance aircraft used by Germany in WW2. This remarkable little aircraft could fly as slow as 50 km/h (32 mph), take off into a light wind in less than 45 m (150 ft), and land in 18 m (60 ft) and had a Radius of 380 km. With its very low landing speed the Storch often landed "at place" or even backwards, in case of wind from directly ahead. The wings could be folded back along the fuselage. The long legs of the landing gear contained oil and spring shock absorbers that compressed about 450 mm (18 inches) on landing, allowing the plane to set down almost anywhere. One captured aircraft became the personal transport of Field Marshal Montgomery.

(Edited from Wiki)

 

[rattler]

In view of their lack of aircraft carriers, I wonder why Germany didn’t place these on board conventional ships for naval reconnaissance? All what is needed in a small ‘heli-deck’, since the forward motion of the ship would allow them it to take off and land vertically relative to the ships deck, and storage would be easy due to the fold back wings.

I suspect that super destroyers or light cruisers with a rear ‘heli-deck’ to accommodate half a dozen Storch’s would have caused the Royal Navy substantially more problems than much larger surface ships with their limited number of fair weather seaplanes.

(Edited from Wiki)

Interesting question.

I never had the chance to fly one, but I did fly its modern (kind of) sequel, the Do 27, for many years, both in the Luftwaffe as trainer as well as later as a private pilot: Itself developed from the Do 25 (compare the pix below and you will see the similarities), it had very similar STOL capabilities (Storch 50kmh/32mph stall speed at 700kg, Do 27 stall speed 74 kmh/46 mph at 1100kg) and the same slats and profile (but could seat 4 pax).

In a good headwind it could also land virtually vertically or backwards as seen in this vid:

Do 27 near vertical landing

From this experience I think the Storch would not have made a good plane to land on a heli type of deck: Given the turbulent wake induced behind a ships deck structure and chimneys the Storch had too little mass to maneuver safely at the speeds given, which in turn means safe recovery would not have been guaranteed most of the time. Also, I do not recall the wings of the Fieseler were fold back, but admittedly I might be wrong here.

Interesting anecdote about the Storch:

The Storch was also the last German aircraft shot down in air combat on the Western Front, on the morning of V-E Day. Lieutenants Duane Francies and William Martin, flying a Piper L-4 Cub for the 5th US Army Division, spotted a Storch circling below them. They immediately dove on the airplane and opened fire with their Colt .45s, with the result that the Storch made a emergency landing with its engine hit. The Americans landed their Cub and - following a short gun battle - captured the two Germans.

Pix of Storch, Do 25 and Do 27 respectively:

My 2c,

Rattler

P.S.: The Do 27 was one of the "friendliest" a/c I have ever had the chance to move, here a nice vid of 50 yrs Do 27 with spectacular liftoffs and landings and also some good pix on profile and the typical slats for both types:

50 yrs Do 27

 

[perseus]

Fascinating stuff Rattler.

Yes I thought turbulence would be a factor. Suppose you would have to reroute the smoke stack and attach an elevated deck which might also be useful for clearing the waves. I suspect landing on a small carrier in rough seas was no easy task even with the best of aircraft.

 

[LeEnfield]

Okay I have seen this plane working and it is impressive, but just what ships would carry it and where would it be stored. Now all this was tried by the British during WW1 and although successful landings were made on a turret of a ship the problems arose from cross winds and heavy gusts of wind. No wind is really steady all the time it varies from minute to minute and this is what caused the death of a few pilots that tried all this in WW1 and made Britain develop the Aircraft Carrier

 

[MontyB]

In view of their lack of aircraft carriers, I wonder why Germany didn’t place these on board conventional ships for naval reconnaissance? All what is needed in a small ‘heli-deck’, since the forward motion of the ship would allow them it to take off and land vertically relative to the ships deck, and storage would be easy due to the fold back wings.

I suspect that super destroyers or light cruisers with a rear ‘heli-deck’ to accommodate half a dozen Storch’s would have caused the Royal Navy substantially more problems than much larger surface ships with their limited number of fair weather seaplanes.

(Edited from Wiki)

I am guessing the answer is because most German capital ships had the Arado AR-196 meet this purpose.

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/technicallayout/aircraft/aircraft_information.html

 

[perseus]

I am guessing the answer is because most German capital ships had the Arado AR-196 meet this purpose.

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/technicallayout/aircraft/aircraft_information.html

However this is a fighter seaplane, and weighs 3 times as much, so it couldn't be landed on rough seas or stored in significant numbers on a small ship.

The emphasis with a storch is on reconnaissance and evasion, when the merchant vessel is sighted perhaps 100s of km away the destroyer closes in for the kill with a single small gun. Alternately the destroyer evades a hostile vessel.

An interesting variant is where the aircraft guides the gun from a distance of 5-10 miles in ground visibility of a few miles into a escorted convoy, Hence the convoy escort cannot attack the destroyer. Obviously the allies would try to counter with an aircraft of their own, but I don't think the allies had one with this STOL capability, nor escort carriers in the early days.

You could have had hundreds of these ships covering the entire South Atlantic and Indian Ocean for the cost of battleships which were supposed to be used as merchant raiders, you don't need 15 inch guns to sink a merchant vessel.

I accept what the others say about cross winds and turbulence though. Perhaps a much larger elevated deck could have been welded on to the rear of these smaller ships.

 

[MontyB]

However this is a fighter seaplane, and weighs 3 times as much, so it couldn't be landed on rough seas or stored in significant numbers on a small ship.

The emphasis with a storch is on reconnaissance and evasion, when the merchant vessel is sighted perhaps 100s of km away the destroyer closes in for the kill with a single small gun. Alternately the destroyer evades a hostile vessel.

An interesting variant is where the aircraft guides the gun from a distance of 5-10 miles in ground visibility of a few miles into a escorted convoy, Hence the convoy escort cannot attack the destroyer. Obviously the allies would try to counter with an aircraft of their own, but I don't think the allies had one with this STOL capability, nor escort carriers in the early days.

You could have had hundreds of these ships covering the entire South Atlantic and Indian Ocean for the cost of battleships which were supposed to be used as merchant raiders, you don't need 15 inch guns to sink a merchant vessel.

I accept what the others say about cross winds and turbulence though. Perhaps a much larger elevated deck could have been welded on to the rear of these smaller ships.

The Allies had the Westland Lysander as a STOL aircraft and it did the job extremely well, certainly it required more distance to get off the ground but given its size and weight it was still an impressive aircraft.

 

[BritinBritain]

Someone once mentioned to me that the Fieseler Storch was the only aeroplane during WW2 that suffered bird strikes on the trailing edge of the wings.

 

[LeEnfield]

To try and land one of those planes on a small area with the ship bucking and rolling in any form of rough seas would have made these planes unusable during any thing like rough weather. Also they become a great fire hazard if a shell hits any where near them.

 

[redcoat]

In view of their lack of aircraft carriers, I wonder why Germany didn’t place these on board conventional ships for naval reconnaissance? All what is needed in a small ‘helideck’, since the forward motion of the ship would allow them it to take off and land vertically relative to the ships deck, and storage would be easy due to the fold back wings.(Edited from Wiki)

It wouldn't be practical, even with the Storch's short take off and landing abilities, the space available would be too small. The turbulence off the ships superstructure as it travelled at high speed would also be a major problem.

Also, German destroyers were originally designed for service in the Baltic, they were heavily armed but short ranged, so they normally operated within the range of land based aircraft support

 

[perseus]

Of course this begs the question why helicopters don't have similar problems since they are notoriously unstable in gusty winds. I was going to suggest a sort of cable which is let down from the undercarriage for accurate positioning of the aircraft. So I had a look at helicopter deck and what do I find?

Shipboard landing for some helicopters is assisted though use of a haul-down device that involves attachment of a cable to a probe on the bottom of the aircraft prior to landing. Tension is maintained on the cable as the helicopter descends, assisting the pilot with accurate positioning of the aircraft on the deck; once on deck locking beams close on the probe, locking the aircraft to the flight deck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_deck

I wonder if the RN considered these when practising landing on the Turrets?

With regard to turbulence perhaps something elevated like this?

 

[Chukpike]

Of course this begs the question why helicopters don't have similar problems since they are notoriously unstable in gusty winds. I was going to suggest a sort of cable which is let down from the undercarriage for accurate positioning of the aircraft. So I had a look at helicopter deck and what do I find?



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicopter_deck

I wonder if the RN considered these when practising landing on the Turrets?

Not sure if this was ever really done. Scares the heck out of me. This makes about as much sense as a motorcycle rider wearing a seat belt. Would you want to be straped to a piece of metal that would pound you to plup if something went wrong?

 

[LeEnfield]

Helicopters fly along side the ship then move side ways on to the landing pad and they can set the movements of the helicopter to match those of the ship, some thing a aircraft can never do. The landing pads constructed during WW1 on the turrets were there as they could be installed in a short time and removed in time to use the guns.

 

[Chukpike]

Here is a picture of a helicopter refueling in the air from the USS Bainbridge DLGN-25. Notice the ships wake, we were steaming at 20+ knots. Since the sea was calm the Helicopter pilot kept almost the exact position throughout the refueling. He could not land to refuel because he would have had to move to close to the missile launcher for a safe landing.
View attachment 657

This picture gives you an Idea of what LeEnfield was describing.

 

[mmarsh]

What role would it have been used for Naval Reconnaissance? Its range was too short. An Artillery Spotter? Too Slow, not enough ceiling, too vulnerable to just about everything hostile to it. Not to mention the fact that since its not a float plane the Kreigmarine would had had to remove the rear turret of its warships in order to provide sufficient space for operations despite its STOL ability.

Dont get me wrong', I think the stork did its job as a liason/training aircraft incredibly well.

 

[perseus]

What role would it have been used for Naval Reconnaissance?

To be honest what started me thinking of the Storch aircraft was the more general question facing German naval industry in the 1930s. Against a numerically superior Royal Navy (RN) what would be the best use of their limited resources?

Perhaps with hindsight the best strategy was to build a combination of U-boats and aircraft carriers rather than battleships. However, some of the disguised merchant raiders also created problems for the RN, particularly in WW1. So I asked the question, would the equivalent resources placed into building dozens of smaller merchant raiders be more effective than using a few large gunned ships?

I think the answer depends partly on reconnaissance, since once the enemy was spotted, a small warship would be able to close quickly to destroy merchantmen with a light gun, or evade the larger enemy warships. So the question then arises what is the best aircraft for reconnaissance on a single gun ship considering that some deck space could be given to a small landing platform? After examining that the stall speed of the Storch was slightly less than the fastest ships I concluded (perhaps wrongly) that this aircraft could land vertically on a moving ship and would be suitable.

I also wondered why the larger merchant raiders were not more successful with their seaplanes. After viewing this http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d91_1201684471 I speculated that the Arado 196 might not be operational for much of the time due to its inability to land on uneven seas. If fishing Arado’s out of the sea is a better option then landing Storch’s on a small deck, I suppose a small merchant raider ship could launch them using a ramp at the front whilst mounting the main armament at the rear. This effectively becomes a hybrid carrier/destroyer.