The Royal Navy led the development of aerial torpedo attacks. The first recorded torpedoing of a ship by an aircraft in combat occurred on 12 August 1915, when a British Short 184 floatplane torpedoed a Turkish supply ship in the Gulf of Xeros, near the Dardanelles.
Or did it? At about the same moment, the British submarine E-14 claimed to have torpedoed the same Turkish ship.
But five days later another Short 184 torpedoed a Turkish supply ship in the Dardanelles—and minutes later another of the Royal Navy aircraft torpedoed a Turkish tug. The latter attack was made with the aircraft on the water, as that Short 184 had come down with engine trouble.1 (Without the weight of the torpedo, the aircraft was able to take off and return to the seaplane carrier.)
These and other exploits led the U.S. Navy to initiate several torpedo-carrying aircraft programs after World War I.2 Among the efforts was the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics scout-bomber-torpedo plane, which was assigned to the Glenn Curtiss firm after competitive bidding. Under the existing designation system the plane became the CS, indicating Curtiss Scout.
The aircraft followed a pattern of the time: a biplane configuration powered by an inline, water-cooled engine, with a crew of three, interchangeable wheels or twin floats, and the ability to carry a full-size torpedo under the fuselage. The CS-1 was unusual in having an upper wingspan shorter than the lower wing. And the wings folded back for carrier operations. The three-man crew consisted of a pilot and rear gunner in tandem cockpits and a torpedoman/bomb-aimer/radioman inside the fuselage, where he had access to a machine gun firing through the aircraft’s belly. The aircraft had no forward-firing guns.
Curtiss received an order for six CS-1 aircraft in June 1922, with the first taking to the air in November 1922. These planes were built in Buffalo, New York. Meanwhile, the rival Glenn Martin firm—smarting from Curtiss having underbid it for an Army order for 50 MB-2 bombers that had been developed by Martin—underbid Curtiss for additional torpedo aircraft for the Navy. It won a contract for 35 production aircraft, designated SC-1—a simple reversal of the original nomenclature. Curtiss refused to provide complete drawings and data, so Martin in part reverse engineered a Curtiss-built CS-1 provided by the Navy. Martin built the SC planes at its factory in Cleveland, Ohio.
Curtiss also built two CS-2s for the Navy with more powerful engines, greater fuel capacity, and provisions for a third float. These aircraft set several speed, distance, and endurance records for seaplanes. On 10 October 1924, Navy Lieutenants Andrew Crinkley and Rossmore D. Lyon flew for 20 hours, 28 minutes, in a flight of 1,460 miles, in a CS-2. The flight surpassed world records for endurance and distance, but because it was not officially timed, it could not be recognized as an official record.
Martin then won a contract to build 40 CS-2s for the Navy. One aircraft that was provided with a further upgraded engine and other modifications by the Naval Aircraft Factory became the CS-3. Martin refined the design and produced 124 of these torpedo planes as the T3M, worsening the feud between the two aircraft manufacturers.3
The first fleet deliveries of the CS-1 aircraft were to Scouting Squadron 3 in March 1924. The subsequent aircraft began entering Navy torpedo squadrons in 1925 and, later, served with training squadrons. The CS/SC production totaled 83 aircraft—8 by Curtiss and 75 by Martin.
Both Curtiss and Martin continued to produce aircraft for the U.S. Navy through World War II. The Curtiss line ended with shipboard floatplanes. Martin entered the jet age. Its BTM/AM Mauler lost out to the Douglas AD Skyraider, while the turbojet-piston P4M Mercator lost out to the Lockheed P2V/P-2 Neptune, but the P5M Marlin piston-engine flying boat was highly successful. The “successor” all-turbojet P6M Seamaster—an “attack” flying boat vice patrol plane—also was aborted.
Thus, Martin outlasted Curtiss and with respect to the CS/SC series, outproduced it.
1. These attacks are detailed in N. Polmar, Aircraft Carriers: A History of Carrier Aviation and Its Influence on World Events, vol. I, 1909–1945 (Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2006), 16–19.
2. The aircraft descriptions are derived from Peter M. Bowers, Curtiss Aircraft, 1907–1947 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1979), 189–91; and Gordon Swanborough and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft since 1911 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1968), 139–40.
3. Additional design changes by Martin led to the T4M and TG torpedo aircraft.
