Copyright 2011 by Brandon Cope

Home Page

Back to Vehicles

Northrop A-17 attack bomber

The A-17 was a two-seat, single-engine ground attack and dive bomber built for the US Army in the mid-1930's. While not used by the US in combat, it was employed by several other countries. Single-engine attack bombers fell out of favor with the US Army just before the US entered the war (the Navy continued to use them throughout).

A total of 129 A-17A's were built. After only 1 1/2 years in service, 93 of these were returned to Douglas (who had bough a significant percentage of Northrop stock by the earl 1940's), who sold them to England. The British named them the Nomad I (not to be confused with the three-seat Northrop Nomad float-plane). They kept four, sending 57 to South Africa and 31 to Canada. Some 440 A-17's, A-17A's and 8A's were built.

While the A-17 did not have any significant impact on the war, it was an important step towards the development of the Douglas SBD Dauntless, which caused so much damage to the IJN in 1942.

The A-17A had a crew of two: pilot and observer/gunner. It uses 33.6 gallons of aviation fuel per hour.

Subassemblies: Medium Fighter Body +3, Medium Fighter-Bomber Wings +3, three retractable wheels +0
P&P: 615 kW aerial HP gasoline engine w/615-kW aerial propeller, 250 gallons aviation gasoline in standard fuel tanks [Wings]
Occ: 2 CS Cargo: None.

Armor

All: 2/3

Weaponry
4xAircraft LMG/Browning M-2 [Wing:F] (250 each)
Aircraft LMG/Browning M-2 [Body:B] (500)

Equipment
Body: long range radio transmitter and receiver, bombsight, navigational instruments, 600-lb bomb bay. Wings: 600-lb hardpoint each

Statistics

HT: 8
HP: 120 [body], 165 [each wing]; 12 [each wheel]

Stall: 62 mph. -4 mph per loaded hardoint

Design Notes
Design speed was 230 mph. Wing cost, weight and HP were divided by two. The historical wing area (363 sq/ft) have been used. Loaded weight and performance statistics assumes full internal bomb load and unloaded hardpoints. With empty bay and a loaded hardoints, speed decreases to 212 mph, stall increases to 64 mph, aMR is 7.25, aDecel is 30 and weight is 4.04 tons.

It normally carried twenty 30-lb bombs in its internal drop chutes and four 100-lb bombs under the wings, but could carry up to 1,200 lbs of bombs externally (usually four 300-lb bombs) with no internal load and a reduction in fuel.

Variants:
The Gamma 2C (1933) was the first on the type to be designed for combat rather than commercial purposes. It was modified and accepted for trials as the YA-13. This was found to be underpowered and send back to the factory. It was re-engined and designated the YA-16, but this proved to be overpowered. Both of theses were abandoned with the success of the Gamma 2F, which eventually led to the A-17.

The A-17 (1936) was similar to the A-17A, but used a 560-kW engine and fixed landing gear, good for a top speed of 206 mph. A hundred and ten were built (including the Gamma 2F prototype). Within a year they started being moved to training units in favor of the A-17A.

The Gamma 2E (1934) was very similar to the A-17 in game terms, but lacked an internal bomb bay, instead having six 250-lb hardpoints (two under each wing, two under the fuselage). The observer/gunner had two positions, the second being a ventral retractable tub behind the wing and under the observer position, which was the bombardier position. It had a provision to mount an Aircraft LMG ventrally, but this had to be moved from the dorsal position – only one gun was provided. Fifty were supplied to China (25 built in the US and 25 assembled in China), but was phased out by 1938 due to high combat losses. Most were operated by the 14th Squadron with foreign (mostly US and French) pilots and Chinese gunners, along with Vultee V-11's.

The Northrop 8A was specifically built as the export version of the A-17 and A-17A. The 8A-1 was similar to the A-17, but with an 686-kW engine. They were license-built in Sweden as the B-5B (63) and B-C (31). The 8A-2 were 30 planes built for Argentina, based on the A-17, using 626-kW engines and replacing the four wing guns with one 11.35mm Madsen (Medium Aircraft HMG) in each. The 18 8A-3N were A-17A's built for the Netherlands. Due to a shortage of fighters and insufficient fragmentation bombs for the planes, the Dutch were forced to deploy their twelve operational 8A as fighters against the invading Germans, with disastrous results. Ten A-17A's were delivered to Peru under the designation 8A-3P; these were used in their 1941 war against Ecuador They had 820-kW engines. The 8A-4 were 15 A-17A's with 746-kW engines for Iraq which did not last long against the British. Finally, the 8A-5N (1941) were 36 improved A-17A's built for Norway, but taken over by the US after Norway was invaded. They were designated the Douglas A-33 (Douglas having recently bough a significant percentage of the Northrop stock) and used mostly for training. In 1943, 13 were sold to Peru. They had 895-kW engines providing a top speed of 275 mph and could carry up to 1,800 lbs in bombs.