T18B

Description

The T18B is a rank Swedish bomber with a battle rating of (AB), (RB), and (SB). It was introduced in Update 1.95 "Northern Wind".

General info

Flight performance

The T18B-1 is an exceptionally fast aircraft at its rank, zooming past its contemporary bombers and reaching into fighter territory, able to reach an excellent 595 km/h (370 mph) in RB and a staggering 619 km/h (385 mph) in AB. Its high speed and reasonable armament platform of 2 x 20 mm cannons + 1 x 13.2 mm machine gun allows it to be a respectable multi-role aircraft that can take on almost any combat situation you throw at it. One might think that the high performance comes at the cost of payload, as would be traditional with the Schnellbomber type of bomber, but this is not the case with the T18B, as it carries more than enough ordnance to either heavily damage a base (AB) or destroy a few (RB).

Details

Survivability and armour

Protective components found in the T18B.

• 10 mm steel - cockpit floor under pilot's seat
• 10 mm steel - pilot's backseat
• 10 mm steel - rear gunner protective plate
• 10 mm steel - cockpit floor under gunner's seat
• 10 mm steel - aft protective plate

Modifications and economy

Your research path should be tailored to the role you wish to employ the T18B in. For the traditional bomber, it is important to research payload first as the stock payload is a pitiful 18 x 50 kg bombs. For the heavy fighter/interceptor, the offensive cannon upgrades are of great importance followed by flight performance upgrades. Ground attacker should be a mix of the two, as it is important for a ground-pounder to have both speed and payload.

Armaments

Offensive armament

The T18B is armed with:

• 2 x 20 mm Akan m/41A cannons, chin-mounted (60 rpg = 120 total)
• 1 x 13.2 mm Akan m/39A machine gun, wing-mounted (300 rpg)

Suspended armament

The T18B can be outfitted with the following ordnance:

	1	2	3	4	5
50 kg sb m/42 bombs		4	10	4
250 kg mb m/40 bombs			3
500 kg mb m/41 bombs			2
600 kg mb m/50 bombs			2
psrak m/49B rockets	4				4
srak m/51 rockets	4				4
450 mm m/38 torpedoes			1
Maximum permissible loadout weight: 1,620 kg Maximum permissible weight imbalance: 450 kg

Defensive armament

The T18B is defended by:

• 1 x 13.2 mm Akan m/39 machine gun, dorsal turret (300 rpg)

Compared to the other Saab 18 models, the T18B has one less defensive 13.2 mm Akan m/39, leaving its belly open for enemy fighters to attack from below if left unattended. The single 13.2 mm can still prove lethal to planes at the BR, if a enemy is straight behind the 13.2 mm can do quite some damage to their engine and knock out pilots.

Usage in battles

Speed and altitude are your best friends when flying the T18B-1, as you must keep both up in order to ensure your survival. You may be fast, but you are not invincible, as there are many aircraft at the BR that will easily catch you such as the P-47D, P-61, Bf 109 F-4 and the I-185 twins. However, you can easily turn the tables on your would-be attackers by forcing them to stall then shred them with your impressive forward armament.

Alternatively, you can take the offensive route by employing a heavy fighter flying style and hunt down enemy bombers. You can mainly do this as a result of your bomber air spawn, but you must be careful to avoid enemy interceptors. One must take care not to expend too much ammunition on a single target, so in order to avoid doing so, they must aim for the critical components of the enemy bomber (wings, engines or tail) if they can't force a head-on.

Lastly, the T18B can be used as a reasonably effective ground attacker thanks to its immense loadout options. It is not recommended to use the bomb loadouts that mount the extra m/42 bombs when employing this play style unless they are skilled with aiming their bombs, as the m/42 bombs have a very small explosion radius and have to be directly on target to nab a kill. Your ideal loadouts should be either the 3 x m/40 bombs, 3 x m/40 + 8 x m/49A rockets, or 2 x m/50 bombs + 8 x m/49A rockets for some overkill, as the m/50 bombs have a very high effective destruction radius of 18 meters, although the pilot should take care that they don't end up exploding themselves (also known as a "significant emotional event"). Using a time fuse for the m/50 bombs is a must, unless the pilot is going on a high altitude bombing mission instead of low altitude CAS. 2-4 seconds for the m/50 should suffice.

Manual Engine Control

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Reasonably effective armament layout
• Excellent speed, faster than a good amount of fighters at the tier
• Good manoeuvrability for a twin-engine aircraft, especially for a bomber
• Highly effective air brakes make landing and rearmament much easier
• Can operate as a twin-engine fighter, high altitude bomber or strike fighter (depends on chosen payload)
• Can mount rockets with up to 500 mm of penetration
• Has access to two of the massive Swedish m/50 bombs
• Has access to a torpedo
• Despite only having one MG for defence, the MG itself is excellent

Cons:

• Poor protective components compared to other strike fighters
• Only one turret
• Fairly unstable on landing
• No ventral turret, defenceless when attacked from below
• Torpedo has very poor drop speed, and you need to slow down a great amount to drop it

History

In 1941, Flygvapnet wanted a new modern torpedo bomber that would be able to drop aerial torpedoes. SAAB recommended the Saab 18 as the frame to be the base of the new torpedo bomber. The B 18A was first option considered due to it being slower so it would be able to drop the Swedish torpedoes, but the bomb bay was deemed too small to fit a torpedo. Plans were laid to have the torpedo external on the frame of the aircraft, but this was scrapped on completion of the design.

It was decided to use the B 18B which had a slightly longer frame and was planned to have a new designed bomb bay where they could fit in a torpedo. The resulting T 18B didn't prove successful as a torpedo bomber, it was trialled with a 53 cm torpedo which was most likely called Torpedo fm/45 but had to be loaded at a 4.5⁰ angle forward in the bomber bay. During trials of the torpedo it was shown that it could only make a successful drop from 15 m in the air which was not sufficient enough for Flygvapnet.

T 18B along with the new bomb bay got also a different more aerodynamic nose but also lost one of the defensive gunners below. Other trials went with the T 18B with a 57 mm.

Media

Skins

• Skins and camouflages for the T18B from live.warthunder.com.

Images

Videos

See also

Related development

• SAAB 18 (Family)

Aircraft of similar configuration and role

• PV-2D
• Do 217 E-2
• Tu-2

External links

• "FPL 18 – Historik." 2020. Svensk Militär Flygplanshistorik. October 7, 2020. https://svfplhist.home.blog/fpl-18-historik/.