Talk:TBD/@comment-67.11.151.121-20161118163448/@comment-108.88.197.98-20161118191341

5 torpedo bombing stat is gonna be a dud against most abyssals anyway... Still, it is weird that it gets overall better stats than the B5N, considering the latter's superiority.

It did have some successes though, helping to sink Shouhou and performing adequately in bombing roles during the early war. The Midway disaster gives an exagerratedly negative color to the aircraft, when the main reasons for that debacle were lack of fighter cover, a defective torpedo design, and the inherent faults of torpedo bombing. The Avengers didn't do any better at Midway, despite being a fine aircraft. The Devastator pilots were hung out to dry, but they at least didn't die in vain, as their slaughter left the Dauntlesses free to make their attack runs while the Zeroes were stuck at low altitude swarming the torpedo bombers.

Overall, an adequate, unexceptional, aircraft for its time that was known to be obsolete even prior to the U.S. entering the war. Pushed into use well past that point, the results were predictably bad, but the aircraft itself was only one part of a larger problem with U.S. torpedo bombing efforts.