The Navy alternated Curtiss and Douglas designs through successive dive-bomber generations. A new type did not instantly erase its nominal predecessor: older aircraft remained in second-line, Marine, or overseas service, as SBCs did in Samoa into 1943. That overlap let the force expand and transfer trained crews gradually instead of attempting an abrupt fleet-wide conversion. It also explains why procurement lineage and service succession do not map neatly onto one another, and why the SB2C's proper technical baseline was the SBC even while it displaced the Dauntless operationally.
Chapter · 12:11-15:17
How the Curtiss-Douglas cycle preserved experience
Alternating Curtiss and Douglas designs created overlapping generations rather than clean one-for-one replacements across US naval aviation.