In reality dive bombers could generally mess up a ship, any ship, pretty good. But, they rarely were directly responsible for sinking them. A dive bomber, SBD, Ju 87, Skua, what-have-you with a 1000 lb SAP or AP bomb could penetrate about 3 to 4 inches of deck armor. A near miss could dish in hull plating causing extensive flooding in outer hull compartments. Bombs also generally did alot of topside damage especially to unarmored and lightly armored areas.
One need only look at ships like the Jean Bart or some of the Japanese cruisers that took bomb hits to see that a 500 or 1000 lb bomb does substancial damage to ships. They generally will start fires, can cause flooding and in unarmored areas take out substancial sections of hull or superstructure. The British carrier Illustrious was smashed badly by dive bombing in spite of her armored flight deck. The US carrier Bunker Hill was nearly sunk by fire and progressive flooding from a single 500 lb bomb hit.

As for the TBF, it was not the Navy's first choice for a replacement for the Vindicator. Vought's TBU Seawolf was. The TBU was a better plane by far than the Avenger but Vought didn't have the capacity to build large numbers so Grumman's entry was selected for production. The Avenger was a fairly rugged aircraft. It could and often did carry bombs instead of a torpedo also.

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Truth is stranger than bullshit!