The Fairey Albacore was a World War II carrier-based biplane used as a torpedo-bomber by the British Royal Navy. Developed to replace the Swordfish, it made its first flight in December 1938 and was delivered to the Royal Navy’s Fleet Air Arm in 1940. Although, it had been designed as a carrier-borne aircraft, most Albacores were land-based throughout their careers; however, the Albacore’s most important and successful operations were carried out from a carrier platform as the type’s moment of glory arrived when the Albacores from the carrier HMS Formidable severely damaged the Italian battleship Vittorio Veneto during the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941. After this time the Albacore was occasionally used for bombing in the Western Desert, in North Africa, usually at night to prevent the depredations of Axis fighters, and the type played an important part in the operations leading up to the Battle of Alamein in October 1942. The Fairey Albacore was also used with some success as a support aircraft during seaborne invasions, notably those of Sicily, Italy and northern France, the last in the hands of Royal Canadian Air Force squadrons.

Type: torpedo-bomber
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Manufacturer: Fairey
Power plant: one 794.2-kW (1,065-hp) Bristol Taurus II radial piston engine
Maximum speed: 259 km/h (161 mph) at 2134 m (7,000 ft)
Range: 1320 km (820 miles)
Ceiling: 6309 m (20,700 ft)
Weapons: one forward-firing 7.7mm (.303) Vickers machine gun and two 7.7mm (.303) Vickers K1 machine guns in the rear cockpit, plus one 457mm torpedo or up to 907 kg (2,000 lb) of bombs
Wing span: 15.24 m (50 ft 0 in)
Wing area: 57,88 m2 (623 sq ft)
Length: 12,13 m (39 ft 9.5 in)
Crew: 3

The Fairey Swordfish was a carrier-borne torpedo-bomber aircraft deployed by the British Royal Navy during World War II. Developed by Fairey, the Swordfish first flew in 1934, entering service in 1935. By the outbreak of war in 1939 a total of 689 aircraft had been delivered. The Swordfish was a three-seat biplane powered by a 559.3-kW Bristol Pegasus XXX radial piston engine, producing 750 horsepower. It was armed with one fixed forward-firing 7.7mm (.303) machine gun and one tramable 7.7mm (.303) gun in rear cockpit, plus an offensive load of one 457mm ( 18-in) torpedo or eight 27.2-kg (60-lb) rocket projectiles.

type: ship-borne torpedo aircraft
Country of origin: United Kingdom
Power plant: one 750-hp Bristol Pegasus XXX radial piston engine
Maximum speed: 230 km/h (138 mph) at sea level
Range: 880 km (546 miles)
Ceiling: 5867 m ( 19,250 ft)
Wing span: 12.87 m (45 ft 6 in)
Wing area: 56.39 m2 (607 sq ft)
Length: 10.87 m (35 ft 8 in)
Crew: 3

Although Italy and Japan (two of the three main Axis nations) also turned out significant numbers of tanks before and during World War II, it is the German tanks which clearly stood out from the rest of the Axis nations’ armored vehicles. By the end of World War I the tank was a familiar sight on the battlefield. Nevertheless, it took the power of the German Blitzkrieg to convince conventional military strategists that the tank, and more importantly its method of use, can have a profound effect upon the outcome of a battle. In 1939, during the Polish campaign, the Panzer I (PzKpfw I) and Panzer II (PzKpfw II) were the most common models, but within a few years these had been phased out of service and replaced by the Panzer III (PzKpfw III) and Panzer IV (PzKpfw IV). The latter had the distinction of remaining in production throughout the war. It was an excellent design that proved to be capable of being upgunned and up-armored to meet the changing battlefield threat.

While some of the Italian tanks were fairly modern in 1939, by the early part of Italy’s war they had become completely obsolete. The better armed and armored P 40 heavy tank never entered service with the Italian army, although a few were taken over by the Germans. Japan used tanks during the invasion of China before World War II as well as during the Far Eastern campaigns from 1941. As few Allied AFVs were available at that time the Japanese vehicles were quite adequate. The main role of the Japanese tanks was infantry fire support rather than tank-against-tank operations. Czech tanks are included as Axis tanks, as many were subsequently taken over by the Germans during the invasion of France in 1940 and remained in production in Czechoslovakia after that country’s occupation.

The Italian Wars (1494–1509) saw the first large-scale demonstrations of the potency of field artillery and firearms on the battlefield. At Cerignola (1503), the Spanish fought from shelter behind a trench and earth parapet, subjecting the French cavalry to withering fire. At the battle of Ravenna (1512), the combat opened with a two-hour artillery duel, the first of these ever to be recorded. This era of open warfare, however, was soon replaced by a long period in which sieges became once more the dominant feature in military campaigns. The spread of trace Italian fortifications meant that sieges became prolonged and costly affairs and the benefits to a defending army of remaining safe within city walls more obvious. The development of new siege artillery led to a search for improved forms of military architecture. The solution was polygonal and angled bastions, which, when manned by arquebusiers, created interlocking fields of fire and a killing zone for attackers. From its origins in Italy, the new type of fortification became known as the trace italienne. New levels of sophistication were reached in the late 17th century by the French engineer Vauban, whose employment of concentric rings of outworks and exploitation of topography to maximize defensive firepower made fortresses such as Lille forbidding obstacles for besieging forces.

The arquebus was a primitive firearm that was widely used from the 15th–17th centuries. Around the 1520s a new weapon appeared: the musket. Weighing up to 20 lb (9 kg) —much heavier than the arquebus— it required a forked rest to allow its bearer to fire, but did have the advantage of delivering a ball with much greater force. The musket’s unwieldiness meant it was most effective in sieges. The advent of gunpowder weapons did not, at a stroke, make infantry stalwarts such as the pike obsolete. Swiss pike formations were a common feature of early 16th century battles, and their aggressive tactics, such as charging entrenched arquebusiers at Novara (1513), made them rightly feared. The proportions of pikemen in armies steadily declined, however, to as little as one in five by the mid-17th century. The retention of the pike was one aspect of a self-conscious tendency in European armies for military theorists (as much as Renaissance architects) to draw on ancient classical models, such as the spear-wielding Greek hoplites or the disciplined ranks of the Roman army, for their own campaigns. In 1534 Francis I of France established seven companies d’ordonnance, each 6,000-strong, modeled on the Roman legions, while Italian theorists promoted a standard infantry company of 256, drawn up in a 16 by 16 square.

The overwhelming importance of carrier aircraft as power projection in warfare at sea was only dimly foreseen in the years which led up to World War II. Historically, it had been the battleship and the naval gunnery which had dominated the oceans ever since the days of the Spanish Armada right up to the Battle of Jutland. In addition, battleships considerably outnumbered carriers in navies throughout the world. Nevertheless, the 1930s saw the evolution of the methods and tactics that were to dominate the Pacific Theater of Operations and which were also to contribute greatly to the successful conclusion of the war in the Atlantic. It was the US Navy that was eventually to become the master of carrier warfare; however, both the Royal Navy and the Imperial Japanese navy were able to make significant contributions.

Generally, carrier-based aircraft had inferior performance when compared to their land-based contemporaries – although this did not prevent the Fairey Swordfish from amassing a war record which was second to none – while conversions of land-based planes, such as the Supermarine Spitfire produced performance – at the expense of durability. Instead, it was left to the Japanese to show that the carrier aircraft, in the shape of the Mitsubishi A6M Zero, could outfly and outfight its land-based opponents. It was, however, the swarm of big, beefy US Navy aircraft, which were based upon the navy’s massive American carrier force, that was to prove decisive in the Pacific. Led by the Grumman F6F Hellcat and the Vought F4U Corsair, US and Allied naval aircraft in their thousands ranged the skies over Japan during the final months of the war, in a display of naval air power undreamed of only five years before.