"Scout Planes on Battleship in the Later War" Topic

Every battleship seemed to continue to carry scout planes through the end of the war. Did they see much use? Was this use more prevalent in one theater vs. another? With radar becoming more effective and prevalent on later ships, was there as much of a need?

I'm just curious if there seemed to be a need for these aircraft, or if they just took up space for the planes and the crew in the later part of the war?

I'm familiar with their use in the early part of the war, especially with raiders, but not so much in the later part of the war. Were they used for their intended role or merely as rescue planes, or at all? Or where they in common use and I just don't know much about it?

It strikes me that on escort battleships in the pacific especially they were of limited use if the ship was in close proximity to a carrier.

The Japanese used them heavily for scouting throughout the conflict. I am not sure about the US or Britain.

IIRC (and I may not) the USN used the Kingfisher (and
earlier OS's) to spot the fall of shot and radio back
to fire control so corrections could be made.

Since there were so few ship to ship actions of
consequence, the observation planes would have been
more used to spot for bombardment forces.

Scout planes were also carried by CA's and CL's and
served the same purpose. Data for USS Baltimore (WWII
CA) indicates she could carry up to 4 Kingfishers,
if they were the folding-wing model.

One of USS Baltimore's aircraft rescued a Hellcat pilot
from inside Truk lagoon, 17 February 1944, approaching
to within 6,000 yards of Dublon Island to make the
rescue.

There is an extant picture of USS Ticonderoga taken
from USS Miami (Cl-89) in January, '45. It clearly
shows a Kingfisher on Miami's starboard catapult.
Ticonderoga, hit by a kamikaze, is afire in the
background.

The OS's were apparently also used to photograph
beachheads and formations, although I couldn't find
any of those.

Yes, the US used the Kingfisher on battleships and cruisers, IIRC, primarily for naval artillery spotting and secondarily for things like rescue work, etc.

US Navy VCS-7 pilots that flew gun spotting missions on D-Day instead of flying the OS2U Vought Kingfisher seaplane they preferred flying the Spitfire.

"Perhaps because of the high demand on P-51s for strategic bomber escort duties, it was decided that 17 VCS and Battleship Observation (VO) pilots aboard the cruisers Quincy (CA 71) Tuscaloosa (CA 37) and Augusta (CA 31) and the battleships Nevada (BB 36) Arkansas (BB 33) and Texas (BB 35) would be checked out in RAF Spitfire Mk Vbs."

"Spitfires/Seafires were chosen rather than Mustangs to give VCS-7 commonality of aircraft with the RAF/FAA spotter squadrons with which they were operating. The aircraft complements of all three forces was pooled for operations.

As Sundance said above. Mostly for spotting when the ships were providing fire support for the marine landings. IF they anticipated a naval engagement the few carried would be launched to provide spotting data(radar and other electronics could easily fail from the shock of firing the ships own guns, let along being hit by enemy heavy shells or torpedoes) and to reduce the chance of fire from enemy hits or again the blast from ones own guns.
The US mainly relied on their carriers and forward LBA to provide search patrols. Late war, US Ship borne planes were on occasion used as short range recon supplement to the CVL's or to ferry personnel, mail or equipment/parts.