British rearmament earlier and more effectively in the 30s

[uk 75]

This subject has probably been covered elsewhere but I remain fascinated by it (especially in the light of the Parliamentary vote on Syria).

Could Britain have rearmed earlier and more effectively in the 1930s? If it had done so, could it have either prevented war or defeated Hitler earlier?

Most of the orthodox histories suggest that in the absence of a powerful and effective French army and air force there was little Britain could have done on its own. However as this is the Alternate History thread?

 

[Grey Havoc]

Properly refitting HMS Hood would have been a start. Also reactivating the G3 battlecruiser program would have helped, especially with regards as to the Pacific War, though hindsight is 20/20.

 

[cluttonfred]

The RAF was relatively slow to rearm in the 1930s and even then the only frontline fighters available in real numbers for the Battle of France and the Battle of Britain were Hurricanes. There are any number of scenarios which would have provided more and possibly better British air power in the late 1930s.

For example, had the Air Ministry identified the potential of the Martin Baker MB.2 early on and supported and accelerated its development and manufacture, the relative fighter numbers could have been quite different. Rapid production of an improved, Merlin-engined MB.2 would have had a significant impact.

 

[Tony Williams]

Well, there are various different issues here, as the question could be taken in three ways:

1. Could Britain have rearmed more effectively, if they knew then what we know now? Hell, yes, massively so. I had fun with this one when writing my novel The Foresight War, which imagines what might have happened if present-day British and German historians had woken up in 1934.

2. Could Britain have rearmed more effectively, on the basis of what they knew then? Perhaps in some areas, but probably not by much. Britain actually got quite a lot right in the run-up to WW2, especially the creation of the whole Fighter Command system.

2. In what circumstances might Britain have been prompted to rearm more effectively? In other words, what might have happened to cause any change in plans? After all, we can talk about bringing forward specific projects and abandoning others, but what would have made them do that, since they didn't know what we know?

 

[uk 75]

I think my question (given the focus of this site on projects and equipment) is more along the lines of what projects could or should have been developed and were not?

For example, the various tanks and aircraft programmes contained some winners (Matilda II and Hurricanes) and some lemons (Matilda 1 and Battle).

Could the RAF have developed a better tactical support force earlier?

On the impact of knowing then what we know now, I always liked Fred Hoyle's October the First is too late, a novel in which the world suddenly is divided into different eras and a British Government in 1966 is faced with having to stop the fighting in 1916 France.

My own private fantasy would have been to give Neville Chamberlain the V Force in 1938 at Munich so that his warnings of the dangers of bombing could have had real force. However, a German friend of mine pointed out that Hitler was so arrogant and hostile to the Democracies that he would have doubted our will to unleash the Vulcans and Victors on German cities.

Harry Turtledove has also done a series of novels based on war starting in 1938, but they seem to assume the same orders of battle as existed in real life. Russian involvement on the Allied side comes into this one.

 

[Tony Williams]

I think my question (given the focus of this site on projects and equipment) is more along the lines of what projects could or should have been developed and were not?

For example, the various tanks and aircraft programmes contained some winners (Matilda II and Hurricanes) and some lemons (Matilda 1 and Battle).

Tank design and production was probably the weakest aspect of British equipment procurement (the brief reign of Matilda II aside) so much better tanks could certainly have been designed. However, I don't know of any superior British designs which could have been built instead.

Could the RAF have developed a better tactical support force earlier?

Yes, certainly, but you have to remember the inter-service politics: the very existence of the RAF was threatened by the other services, so they concentrated on doing those things which they alone could do - mainly, strategic bombing. They neglected any roles which were subservient to the other services, especially close air support.

To resolve this problem you'd have to assassinate most of the RAF's senior officers, starting with Trenchard.

 

[Grey Havoc]

The lack of Heavy cruisers available to the Royal Navy was something that definitely should have been rectified. At the very least, procurement of the York class should have been renewed & increased. The Surrey class program (developed from the York class) should have also been reactivated and procured in numbers.

 

[Tony Williams]

The lack of Heavy cruisers available to the Royal Navy was something that definitely should have been rectified. At the very least, procurement of the York class should have been renewed & increased. The Surrey class program (developed from the York class) should have also been reactivated and procured in numbers.

And what would you have cancelled in order both to pay for these ships and to free up the slipways needed to build them?

It's very easy to say what extra equipment would have been desirable, but rather pointless unless you also say how it could have been provided within the budget and other resource limits the UK worked under.

 

[Grey Havoc]

And what would you have cancelled in order both to pay for these ships and to free up the slipways needed to build them?

It's very easy to say what extra equipment would have been desirable, but rather pointless unless you also say how it could have been provided within the budget and other resource limits the UK worked under.

As a start, cancel the initial batch of the Leander class, and the Gloucester class (Town sub-class). Cancel all the B-class destroyers as well as the C-class & I-class.

Scrapping the RAF's useless Scheme A expansion would have freed up quite a bit of change, as would have killing the Blackburn Botha (you could have funded the [initial two units] of the Surrey class out of what that program ultimately cost alone).

Keeping open Palmers (in particular it's Jarrow yard) would have helped matters greatly, and not just in the production of Heavy cruisers. Junking the fiasco that was the National Shipbuilders Securities would have been another good idea.

 

[Tony Williams]

Cancelling light cruisers and destroyers in favour of an inevitably smaller number of heavy cruisers might not have been a good exchange. The RN was desperately short of any kind of cruiser, and of modern escorts.

Killing useless aircraft projects like the Blackburn Botha would certainly have saved money and freed production resources for building more of the better planes. But it wouldn't necessarily have enabled you to build more warships - they used different production facilities (you can't build warships in an aircraft factory!).

 

[Abraham Gubler]

The lack of Heavy cruisers available to the Royal Navy was something that definitely should have been rectified. At the very least, procurement of the York class should have been renewed & increased. The Surrey class program (developed from the York class) should have also been reactivated and procured in numbers.

You do know there were naval treaties which stopped this from happening. And it was the UK pushing these treaties so they didn't have to build more and larger cruisers than they did. Also even if they did without a significant boost in aircraft carrier striking power it wouldn't have made much of a difference for the RN's battles of the first half of the war.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Tank design and production was probably the weakest aspect of British equipment procurement (the brief reign of Matilda II aside) so much better tanks could certainly have been designed. However, I don't know of any superior British designs which could have been built instead.

The tank designs were a result of the flaws in British Army doctrine for armoured warfare: infantry tanks, cruiser tanks and all that. There is no reason the British couldn’t have built a good >20 ton medium tank in the mid to late 1930s without this doctine holding them back. Something like a new generation to follow the Medium Tank Mks 1, 2 and 3. This tank could have been built in place of all the Matildas and Cruisers leading to a Mk 5 circa 1940 that would be similar in capability to the M4 Sherman.

But while a relief for the Army armoured forces it would only have been operationally significant in the Desert Campaign. Too little to change the outcome of the fall of France. But it could have possibly lead to victory in North Africa in 1941. Which could result in more troops available to stop the Japanese invasion of Burma and/or an Allied invasion of Italy in 1942.

To resolve this problem you'd have to assassinate most of the RAF's senior officers, starting with Trenchard.

How about you assassinate General Smuts? So there is no RAF just the RFC and RNAS. There could be some demarcation of cross over roles like the RFC gets strategic bombing and RNAS gets air defence of the UK. RFC would therefore be split into a tactical air force and a strategic bombing air force. RNAS into a proper naval air wing and a strategic air defence force.

 

[Tony Williams]

The tank designs were a result of the flaws in British Army doctrine for armoured warfare: infantry tanks, cruiser tanks and all that. There is no reason the British couldn’t have built a good >20 ton medium tank in the mid to late 1930s without this doctine holding them back. Something like a new generation to follow the Medium Tank Mks 1, 2 and 3. This tank could have been built in place of all the Matildas and Cruisers leading to a Mk 5 circa 1940 that would be similar in capability to the M4 Sherman.

I agree with you that it was primarily a doctrinal problem, but I'm not sure that the British were capable of producing a good tank design of any type until they had learned from experience. They had all sorts of technical and practical problems, and when the US tanks arrived in the Western Desert they were a revelation to the British - so easy to drive, so reliable...

How about you assassinate General Smuts? So there is no RAF just the RFC and RNAS. There could be some demarcation of cross over roles like the RFC gets strategic bombing and RNAS gets air defence of the UK. RFC would therefore be split into a tactical air force and a strategic bombing air force. RNAS into a proper naval air wing and a strategic air defence force.

Yep, I'll go for that. I've thought before now that creating the RAF could well have been a mistake.

 

[Hood]

These sorts of questions are hard to quantify given the variables. Greater rearmament when? 1933, 1936, 1938, 1939?
I'm not sure much of what was done could have been done much differently. The RAF was fairly well equipped, sure the Battles and Blenheims were of doubtful value when they really began to be mass produced but there wasn't many other options at the time. When you examine how many aircraft designed between 1938 and 1945 actually made it into service or were successful there is a lamentable record of lateness and unsolved problems. Engine development was another bottleneck that endured right through the war.
A split RFC and RNAS scenario is interesting, though its doubtful whether two aerial services fighting for scarce money and resources during the 1920s and 1930s would have achieved more than the RAF did. An RFC tactical force of Fairey Battles and Blenheims is no better than an RAF one. Who would be responsible for aerial defence of Britain? If the RFC would they fund Chain Home or would the Admiralty fund Chain Home when it needed more ships if the RNAS had the home defence role? If no heavy bomber fleet what would the RFC have done between 1940-1944 other than limited cross-channel sweeps and how would Britain have claimed it was doing anything to win the war during the dark days of 1941-42 when Stalin was demanding action? Even if the RAF had been of greater strength in 1939 those aircraft would still have needed replacement with newer types or improved variants by 1942-43 anyway.

Naval treaties prevented any real numerical expansion of cruisers, especially heavy cruisers. The RN quickly got more destroyers and Dido class cruisers and eventually had more than enough ships. I don't really understand Grey Havoc's love for the Surrey Class. Yes, they solved most of the problems of the earlier classes but were still woefully armoured and no more than two would ever have been built. Building light cruisers was a far greater priority. Grey Havoc's spending cuts for naval ships makes no sense since it ignores the effects of the Great Depression and most of the ships he mentions were laid down 5-6 years after the Surrey's were cancelled. The RN kept to the promise not build more 8in cruisers, even rebuffing orders for heavy cruisers from South America to attempt of halt the spread of such ships.

British tanks were not that bad, certainly no worse than French tanks and equal to Soviet design practice. The Germans relied a lot on Czech designs during 1939-41 to increase their strength. The British had no 75mm or even a 57mm tank gun ready in 1940 so suggestions of a British M4 seem a bit far fetched. Cobbling together a hull as armoured as a Matilda II with a Nuffield Liberty engine would have been possible but the result would have been a fairly slow tank and one still armed with a 2pdr gun firing solid-AT shells only. Relying on the massive French Army and its armoured forces and fortifications was a limiting doctrine, the BEF was just meant to be that, a small mobile fighting force, not an independent Army of great size.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

A split RFC and RNAS scenario is interesting, though its doubtful whether two aerial services fighting for scarce money and resources during the 1920s and 1930s would have achieved more than the RAF did.

Sure but they would probably have better suited aircraft to the various missions rather than the RAF’s attempt to general aircraft able to win a war all by themselves. This would probably only be significant on the Navy side but a decent fleet air arm (and carriers) and a long range maritime recce aircraft would be significant gains for the UK in the first hald of the war. Also the RFC being part of the Army would presumably have far better air land integration for the tactical air force and the willingness to use medium/heavy bombers for tactical support when needed.

The British had no 75mm or even a 57mm tank gun ready in 1940 so suggestions of a British M4 seem a bit far fetched.

The word used was similar. And even a 1930s British Army universal tank could be similar to the Sherman. If you merge the requirements for the Mk 1s Cruiser and Infantry tanks you have something capable of 25 mph (40 kph) with frontal armour of 2.5” (60mm). Thanks to the frontal armour requirement you wouldn’t be able to have the ridiculous two hull MG turrets and even though main armament is limited to a 2 pounder you still have a useful three man turret. The only significant difference to a Sherman is the limited tank gun. Even with that it is a tank en par with the early Panzer IIIs (37mm gun) that would be far better than legacy Cruiser Mks 1 and 2 and Matilda Mk 1. It would also be prime for up gunning to 6 Pounder when they are available.

 

[robunos]

Regarding British tank armament, I think that this thread :-

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,18235.msg174095.html#msg174095

has relevance here...

cheers,
Robin.

 

[Tony Williams]

The British had no 75mm or even a 57mm tank gun ready in 1940 so suggestions of a British M4 seem a bit far fetched.

Actually the design of the 6pr 7cwt tank/anti-tank gun was finalised in 1938 and a prototype test-fired in 1939. This would have entered production in 1940 (a contract for 400 guns was issued in June), except that the Dunkirk evacuation left such quantities of 2pr guns behind that it was decided to give priority to production of the 2pr in order to replace the losses as quickly as possible.

 

[uk 75]

I am very grateful to contributors to this thread as WW2 is not my period and I have only limited knowledge.
Contributions so far suggest that the British could not have done a great deal to deter Hitler through rearmament measures and that it is more a question of being better prepared for the "inevitable" general war with Germany and Japan.
Chamberlain feared that if the UK broke its economy through rearmament/war it would destroy the UK as a major power (not rocket science as WW1 had already done much to this end). Events proved him right but the alternatives (tolerating Hitler and his activities on the Continent, eventual domination of Europe by a victorious Soviet Union) were of course far worse. How I wish I could have given the old man flying to Munich in his frail Lockheed Electra of the V Force and Polaris which would deter war in my lifetime.
My favourite World War 2 plane is the Mosquito because it was so useful and arrived despite the lack of interest from the RAF. Could it or a similar plane have made much of a difference?

 

[Abraham Gubler]

An interesting what if that could make the RAF far more powerful, more flexible and easier to grow is if the concept of the fast bomber was adopted earlier on in place of the heavy bomber. As was the post war case when even heavy bombers were built as big fast bombers and as articulated, unsuccessfully, during the war by the creator of the Pathfinder Force Gp.Capt. Don Bennett.

The essence of the fast bomber idea is that a small bomber without gun turrets for self-defence is far more capable as a system in getting bombs onto targets over a campaign despite carrying a smaller bomb load per sortie. The figures in comparison of a Mosquito and a Lancaster are:

Mosquito carries to Berlin half the bomb load carried by a Lancaster
Mosquito loss rate is just 1/10 of Lancaster loss rate
Mosquito costs a third of the cost of a Lancaster
Mosquito has a crew of two, compared to a Lancaster's crew of seven
Mosquito was a proven precision day bomber and the Lancaster wasn’t

Which means a Mosquito force of similar cost to the Lancaster force will drop 50% more bombs, require 15% less aircrew and suffer 70% less losses. Those bombs will also be far more effective as they can be dropped by day with precision. The fast bomber force will also be much easier to build as it won’t require larger and complex aircraft.

 

[Tony Williams]

Yep, in The Foresight War I have the Mossie given a much higher priority, becoming the standard RAF bomber for much of the war, with four-engined planes mainly reserved for long-range maritime patrol.

 

[Tony Williams]

In April 1944 a meeting of senior RAF/Air Ministry people recorded in the National Archives looked at the specifications of future bombers. They focused on a day bomber, which would need to be very large to accommodate the heavy defensive armament required. In passing, it was noted that (from my notes): "large bombers were not suitable for night work as defensive armament of little use and small bombers in large numbers more efficient."

So it seems that they had come to appreciate the clear advantages of the Mosquito (or similar) in night bombing.

 

[JFC Fuller]

So it seems that they had come to appreciate the clear advantages of the Mosquito (or similar) in night bombing.

The RAF considered the Lancaster small versus the Stirling. Without context that line tells us very little, they could have been talking about anything and I wouldn't build an impression about an entire entities opinion on something from a single passing line. Indeed with the context you have given that line could simply be about the difference in weights required for defensive armament between day and night bombers with no reference to any other parameter of the aircraft. What does tell us something is that the only RAF bomber to make it to the hardware stage that was actually a successor to the P.13/36 origin aircraft was the Windsor which still took a 12,000lb bomb-load but further attempted to raise the aircraft's cruise speed- it got so heavy that Griffon, Centaurus and Clyde versions were schemed and it acquired a significant armament.

 

[Tony Williams]

So it seems that they had come to appreciate the clear advantages of the Mosquito (or similar) in night bombing.

Hardly, the RAF considered the Lancaster small versus the Stirling. Without context that line tells us very little, they could have been talking about anything and building an impression about an entire entities opinion on something from a single passing line is silly. Indeed with the context you have given that line could simple be about the difference in weights required for defensive armament between day and night bombers with no reference to any other parameter of the aircraft.

Nope. Later in the meeting there was a debate about the need for big bombers, with mathematic proof being provided that larger numbers of smaller bombers were more survivable. They discussed an alternative approach to day bombing relying on very high speed medium bombers, but still with 20mm defensive armament.

It was clear from the context that by a small, unarmed night bomber they were talking about the Mosquito or similar. By a fast medium day bomber it seems they were discussing a heavier twin designed around much more powerful engines than the Merlin.

 

[Hood]

General Alanbrooke's diaries during 1940-41 feature concerns over tactical air power and arguments favouring a tactical air force more wedded to the Army. Certainly a what-if scenario could reasonably be constructed around that split during those years. Army Co-operation Command had been woefully equipped, not until the creation of the Allied Tactical Air Forces did a powerful ground-support force take shape. By 1944 effectively there were two split air forces; the strategic force of Bomber Command, 8th and 15th AF and the tactical force of 2TAF and 9 and 12th AFs.
It's odd that the RAF was so wedded to strategic bombing yet its combat experience during the 1920s and 1930s in the Middle East and NW Frontier was entirely tactical in nature and the only strategic bombers were vulnerable Vickers Virginias and Fairey Hendons in small numbers. The rearmament focus certainly redressed that balance with the specifications released in 1936 and thereafter, but generally all types of RAF aircraft were modernised and there was no neglect of tactical or strategic or fighter needs. What was produced was not always ideal, but the major types were modern 1930s aircraft. Cutting Wellingtons to build more Blenheims would not have been an ideal answer. Saying that, I feel had the Hawker Henley been built it in its intended role, it would have proved beneficial in 1940. A Henley with Hurricane wings with 8x.303in might have been a potent ground-attack aircraft.
Interestingly we are looking at a more tactical-orientated RAF, but generally historian's discredit the Luftwaffe from being too tactical and only having tactical bombers and ground support doctrines. The VVS (and the IJA to an extent) managed well without strategic bombing forces. Has the historiography of strategic bombing conditioned our thoughts against tactical air forces? Would a tactical RAF equal the Luftwaffe's successes of 1940-41? Is it not doctrine rather than the equipment that conditions the success (assuming both nation's aircrews were trained to equally high standards)? Abraham's mass Mosquito force makes economic and manpower sense (though perhaps lacking in destructive power, especially in terms of incendiary payloads) but could we really imagine the planning staffs at Bomber Command sending 1,000 Mosquito tactical bombers to bomb Berlin or Hamburg? More likely such a powerful force operating to tactical doctrines would have been confined to cross-Channel and Mediterranean operations.

As to smaller fast bombers, the DH.102 Griffon-powered enlarged 3-seat Mossie was dead by the end of 1942, the Miles M.39 never progressed past a unauthorised flying scale-model programme. The B.3/40 fast bombers (Blackburn B.28 and Hawker P.1005) never materialised, the latter had been intended for production but an estimated 700 Typhoons would have been lost from the production programme no production capacity was likely before the end of 1944. The Bristol Buckingham to Spec B.7/40 was much more traditional in being festooned with guns and its performance was never good enough and the production need never strong enough for mass production. The 1942 ground attack draft specification for a single-seat attack aircraft brought forth lots of innovative designs but none that proved effective or able to be produced quickly. Capt. Liptrot assessing the entries felt the ideal was a Mosquito-type aircraft.

 

[Tony Williams]

In short, they were discussing, conceptually, the Windsor, a fast medium bomber with rearward facing defensive armament. My own work in the archives has revealed, in multiple documents, that the standard features the RAF were looking for in bombers in the latter half of the war were the following:

The ability to carry a single 12,000lb bomb fully enclosed by the bomb doors
Four 20mm rearward facing cannon controlled from the tail
twin .50 nose turret machine guns (RAE ideal Nose as fitted to the Lincoln and planned for production Windsors)

The big bomber debate is likely derived from the various 75-100 ton bomber studies undertaken in 1943-4- some with as many as 12 20mm cannon and 64,000lb bomb-loads.

For day bombers, I agree. Bu you missed this part: "It was clear from the context that by a small, unarmed night bomber they were talking about the Mosquito or similar."

 

[JFC Fuller]

In short, they were discussing, conceptually, the Windsor, a fast medium bomber with rearward facing defensive armament. My own work in the archives has revealed, in multiple documents, that the standard features the RAF were looking for in bombers in the latter half of the war were the following:

The ability to carry a single 12,000lb bomb fully enclosed by the bomb doors
Four 20mm rearward facing cannon controlled from the tail
twin .50 nose turret machine guns (RAE ideal Nose as fitted to the Lincoln and planned for production Windsors)

The big bomber debate is likely derived from the various 75-100 ton bomber studies undertaken in 1943-4- some with as many as 12 20mm cannon and 64,000lb bomb-loads.

The rearmament focus certainly redressed that balance with the specifications released in 1936 and thereafter, but generally all types of RAF aircraft were modernised and there was no neglect of tactical or strategic or fighter needs. What was produced was not always ideal, but the major types were modern 1930s aircraft. Cutting Wellingtons to build more Blenheims would not have been an ideal answer. Saying that, I feel had the Hawker Henley been built it in its intended role, it would have proved beneficial in 1940. A Henley with Hurricane wings with 8x.303in might have been a potent ground-attack aircraft.

Tactical air forces were utterly ignored to provide resources for Bomber Command. The general purpose aircraft that was to have succeeded the Blenheim, the Albemarle, was crippled by the decision to use non-vital materials (steel) and was largely used to test out one of the B.1/39 landing gear configurations. The Henley, as you rightly say never happened. Under Scheme M, the final pre-war RAF expansion scheme the Recce and Army cooperation force was to have consisted of 28 squadrons (supplemented by 10 out of total of 50 fighter command squadrons allocated to the BEF) against 85 Bomber Command squadrons for which there were seven different bomber types under development in 1939 (Warwick, Manchester/Lancaster, Halifax, Stirling, Supermarine Type 317, HP and Bristol B.1/39s).

The reason the Typhoon (a failed Fighter Command interceptor) and a series of US twin engined bombers became major components of 2TAF was the under investment by the RAF in tactical Army support aircraft.

 

[Tony Williams]

It's included under AIR 2/5487 in my notes. Which is nominally about guns and gunsights but includes various other things (as is usual with Kew).

 

[Abraham Gubler]

The RAF perfectly understood, even prior to the war, the necessity for greater speed to aid survivability. The various discussions around B.1/39 and the "ideal bomber" frequently discuss this.

However despite this understanding they still specified bombers with a degree of weight on-board that cut speed. The whole point of the fast bomber concept as proven with the Mosquito and post war strike aircraft was that the fastest possible was better than just fast.

The problem was that for the destruction of most targets, especially large industrial targets, large amounts of ordnance were required on target even with the greatest level of precision available with the technology of the time. This meant larger bomb loads, which the mosquito could not do.

The whole point of the Mosquito vs Lancaster type argument is based on force vs force not individual aircraft vs individual aircraft. Thanks to the efficiencies of the fast bomber a two to one ratio in aircraft is more than feasible allowing for the same level of striking power per mission.

The mosquito was cheap because it was made of wood,

An all-aluminium type similar to the Mosquito would still be much cheaper, at least half as cheap, as a Lancaster type. Wood construction of the Mosquito takes its cheapness to the next level. Plus of course other costs like aircrew, fuel, maintenance, etc are in the 1/3 to ½ ballpark for the twin engine, two crew fast bomber compared to the four engine, seven crew heavy bomber.

Even a two crew, gunless Hampden would be cheaper to build and operate than the legacy aircraft. Not by much but it would certainly make a force vs force difference. A two crew, gunless Wellington would be far cheaper.

At least part of the Mosquito's accuracy with the pathfinder forces was derived from the quality of its crews, something which would have been diluted over a much larger force. Finally, there was the limited flexibility of the small bomb-load it carried, four x 250lb or 500lb bombs or a single 4,000lb weapon. A Lancaster could be and often was loaded with fourteen 1,000lb bombs.

Bombing accuracy is going to be far better in streams by day than by night regardless of crew competency. As to the particular bomb layout this is predicated on the exact same aircraft solutions. If the RAF had never built the heavy bombers then while the Mosquito is likely to be a huge part of its force there would probably be other fast bombers able to carry 4-6 1,000 lb bombs. Providing this type of ground saturation when needed. And Tallboys and the like could be carried into action in a handful of Wallis style Victory bombers (four engine, high altitude, fast bombers).

Perhaps the most significant element of the fast bomber vs heavy bomber equation is the effect of attrition. The RAF lost 5,000 Lancaster and Halifax bombers in action in 1942-45. Replaced two to one with Mosquito and Mosquito like aircraft this casualty figure would have only been 1,000 aircraft. That’s a huge increase in striking power brought about by a reduction in attrition. Tens of thousands of aircrew would also not be lost to action. It is reasonable to suggest that by 1945 Bomber Command would have at least five times as many Mosquito type aircraft in service than the Lancaster and Hallifaxs it had.

 

[alertken]

Start 14/11/35. National Govt. PM Baldwin did not/dared not call an earlier Election and/or visibly Rearm earlier because he perceived war weariness/Threat Denial by an electorate open to Red or worse voter rejection of Tory warmongering. Churchill, alone in the wilderness warning of the Threat, would castigate Baldwin as near-traitor, but...we, here today, understand his dilemma.

Within brief months of getting in, Baldwin had funded the shadow, military conversion of auto and other civilian engineering. All that arterial road/mock-Tudor ribbon residential housing make-work stopped and most construction resources moved into military infrastructure. Kit was funded apace: grotesquely expensive capital ships, any half-way credible aircraft design...from a proven, low-risk Ring team (so, no Martin-Baker MB.2); not much Army. Baldwin's intent/hope was not to use any of it, but to deter loons, not confined to Hitler. In that he failed. So, how might he have succeeded?

Not by spending us to death on more obsolescent 1934-designs. Not by diverting economic activity more than (seemed to be) essential - a judgement. And not by assuming we would lose the geographic advantage of Alliance behind the Maginot: if demise of France had been war-gamed, the outcome would have been to treat with Germany and point them East.

AVM Freeman caused Warwick, then the (to be) Viermotoren, to attract resources just as soon as was technologically practical. It is legitimate to argue that they did the job of shock and awe...by pre-empting Hitler to move in 1939, against professional advice to wait until 1941. KGV/Illustrii ditto likewise. (More Army would not have helped - we had ample poilus.)

Deterrence Theory rests upon the rational actor with equities to protect. Modern German teaching is that Hitler was mad. My A the Q is that, even as Alternative fun...not much could have been done that was not done.

 

[uk 75]

Thank you everyone for the really interesting and informative contributions to this thread. I am learning a lot as usual.

Both Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain were in awe of the striking power of the bomber. This view was reinforced by the statistics they were given extrapolated from World War 1 German bombing raids and later from the Spanish Civil War. Neville Shute's novel "What (It) happened to the Corbetts" and the seminal film "Things to come" showed fleets of bombers destroying British cities with little opposition from British fighters. Chamberlain's comment to Hitler about the fragile houses he had seen from his first plane journey showed again his fear of bombing.
The "knock out blow" by a strategic air force plus the search for a low cost "deterrent" to compensate for numerical inferiority obssessed British planners.
The reality of the RAF at the time of the Rhineland crisis in 1936 was of course very different. Both then and at Munich it was the Luftwaffe rather than the RAF that exercised a "deterrent" effect. However, the main obstacle to military action to confront Hitler was the shadow of the deaths of the First World War and France's hollowness as a military counterweight to Hitler.
The only power that could have altered the balance was the Soviet Union. It is a completely different what-if to wonder what would have happened if the Soviet Union had been a more politically acceptable partners to the Western allies.
In the first months of the war the RAF tried to hit German naval targets. Could different aircraft have helped in these raids? The Wellingtons and Hampdens seem pretty illequipped (but then German aircraft of the period were similarly unsuited to raids on decent air defences).
The British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was a considerably more effective force than the Infantry Divisions available in 1936. One wonders what a 1936 BEF could have done, other than join the French in digging in.
The politicians and planners of the period from 1934-39 faced a range of unpalatable choices. It seems that they made more good calls than bad ones?

 

[uk 75]

Alertken

I agree with you very much on this point "Hitler was mad".

Chamberlain realised this far too late, but in fairness most politicians in the West assumed that the Dictators could be reasoned with (notably Roosevelt).

As I said earlier, no amount of striking power (whether a 1942 Bomber Command or even a 1962 V Force) could have deterred Hitler from makings his moves. General War against Germany and Japan was inevitable.

 

[JFC Fuller]

The reason they added weight was because they found they needed it; everything from self-sealing tanks, radios, fuel, etc, etc. The RAF was not in the habit of piling unnecessary weight on to aircraft.

Force versus Force scenario was exactly what I was talking about, and its all in the archives. The RAF knew that to actually be able to destroy targets it had to put a very large amount of ordnance on target but it had to do this within a certain cost threshold- the best way to achieve this was with larger night bombers. As the war went on they also found they needed ever larger bombs, not just the often talked about Tallboy/Grand Slam but large 8,000-12,000lb blast bombs which were the real drivers behind the bulged bomb-bay doors on many Lancasters and the multiple attempts to increase the depth of the bay in the Halifax.

It would take 3.5 Mosquitoes to carry the same load in tonnage terms as a Lancaster, but without the Lancaster's bomb load flexibility, thus wiping out its cost advantage. Fast bombers bigger than the Mosquito get very expensive very quickly as they need much larger engines, especially once they start to be made out of metal. The Buckingham programme is instructive here as is Hood's earlier reference to the P.1005. The German B-Bomber project is also a useful lesson.

On the survivability front, if the RAF had focussed entirely on fast bombers the loss rate of the type would have increased dramatically as the Luftwaffe would have been able to focus the entirety of their resources on the fast aircraft threat. All those BF-109s loaded with under-wing cannon pods and Fw-190s with rocket launchers would have been much more lightly armed and armoured and better able to engage fast bombers. The Luftwaffe would also have engaged them far more frequently and decisively if they were carrying the weight of the bomber offensive. In fact the use of just fast bombers may have simplified (not necessarily eased) the Luftwaffe's defensive burden by meaning they only had a very narrow target set of fast agile aircraft, no requirement to carry very heavy cannon into combat on interception missions.

As for Victory bombers, it is highly unlikely that such a thing would have worked as the Windsor demonstrated.

 

[Tony Williams]

On the survivability front, if the RAF had focussed entirely on fast bombers the loss rate of the type would have increased dramatically as the Luftwaffe would have been able to focus the entirety of their resources on the fast aircraft threat. All those BF-109s loaded with under-wing cannon pods and Fw-190s with rocket launchers would have been much more lightly armed and armoured and better able to engage fast bombers. The Luftwaffe would also have engaged them far more frequently and decisively if they were carrying the weight of the bomber offensive. In fact the use of just fast bombers may have simplified (not necessarily eased) the Luftwaffe's defensive burden by meaning they only had a very narrow target set of fast agile aircraft, no requirement to carry very heavy cannon into combat on interception missions.

True to a degree, but a fast bomber provides a greatly reduced interception window for a fighter. Interceptors have to be launched at exactly the right moment to be able to climb up to the interception point (which they must do flat-out, burning up the fuel). If they miss that exact conjunction, then they'll probably run out of fuel before they can catch up.

The Luftwaffe actually established at least one squadron of day fighters dedicated to intercepting the Mosquitos. As I recall, they used Bf 109s which were stripped down and polished up to gain the highest possible performance. This effort was abandoned after a while as it achieved zero successes.

Then again, lots of small, agile bombers provide other options which would provide headaches for the defenders. They don't have to come in one predictable formation or stream - they can scatter and come in at low level from various angles. And the fact remains that it takes a certain quantum of time to carry out an interception, so a fighter can manage very few in one sortie (running out of fuel, again). So if each successful interception results in the downing of a small light bomber rather than a heavy, that's an attritional advantage to light bombers. And of course, it is likely that a much smaller percentage of attacks will be successful, as a small, fast, agile bomber makes a much more difficult target than a big, slow one. Of course, the same applies to Flak gunnery.

So it really wouldn't much matter what the Luftwaffe did - they would almost certainly shoot down far fewer small fast bombers than big slow ones, and each small one would be a fraction of the loss in human and material terms.

 

[starviking]

All that arterial road/mock-Tudor ribbon residential housing make-work stopped and all Paddies moved into military infrastructure.

Paddies? Surely you mean navvies?

 

[JFC Fuller]

So it really wouldn't much matter what the Luftwaffe did - they would almost certainly shoot down far fewer small fast bombers than big slow ones, and each small one would be a fraction of the loss in human and material terms.

I would suggest it would make a substantial difference what the Luftwaffe did, focussed on intercepting agile high-speed and lightly armed targets (conveniently similar characteristics to a fighter) and actually intercepting major raids conducted by such a type rather than ignoring nuisance raids the Luftwaffe would inevitably push the Mosquito loss rate up rapidly. Given the difference in bomb-load between a Lancaster and a Mosquito and the usually quoted difference in loss rates (2.2% versus 0.7%) as many Mosquitoes and Lancasters would be lost just to deliver the same bomb-load not even taking into account the higher loss rate that would result from it being the focus of the Luftwaffe's efforts.

 

[Tony Williams]

I would suggest it would make a substantial difference what the Luftwaffe did,

Perhaps you could explain what they could do to overcome the substantial problems I outlined in my last post?

They tried their best, with the special anti-Mosquito squadron(s) I mentioned, and failed abysmally.

 

[JFC Fuller]

Perhaps you could explain what they could do to overcome the substantial problems I outlined in my last post?

They tried their best, with the special anti-Mosquito squadron(s) I mentioned, and failed abysmally.

Given the overwhelming focus on intercepting heavy bombers they hardly tried their best, especially not with one squadron. And a number of Mosquitoes were lost to single engined German fighters

 

[Tony Williams]

To give themselves any chance of downing Mosquitos on a substantial basis in the way did with the heavies (as opposed to occasionally getting lucky), the Luftwaffe would have needed interceptors with a very high rate of climb, a substantial speed advantage over the Mossie and a large fuel supply to enable them to overhaul the bomber in a long chase. There was no such plane available to them during the war.

Incidentally, the special anti-Mosquito day organisations were JG 25 and JG 50. These were fairly large organisations, since the number of aircraft in a Jagdgeschwader increased during the war from 112 at the start to 276 at the end. They also had a night group, JG 300 (IIRC). None of these proved particularly effective at shooting down Mosquitos.

Furthermore, the Luftwaffe home defence control system would have a much tougher job tracking a swarm of separate bombers coming in on varying tracks and at varying altitudes, plus vectoring fighters on to them.

 

[JFC Fuller]

The FW-190 claimed a good number Mosquitoes from 1942 onwards, they were capable of doing it and there was more than just luck involved. Indeed it was between March 1942 and June 1943 when the Mosquito B.IV Series II was flying precision daylight raids that the types loss rate was approaching that of the Blenheim when that type was flying daylight missions, and the primary culprit was the Fw-190. Also, the RAF actually found that the best way to penetrate the Kammhuber line was with a single massive bomber stream rather than multiple aircraft attacking from different vectors due to the distributed nature of the German air defence network.

Edit; I knew I had seen these figures somewhere- from "The Science of Bombing: Operational Research in RAF Bomber Command" by Randall Thomas Wakelam. A series of mid-to-late war studies were done on the efficiency of different bomber types and resulted in the following interesting statistics.

The Lancaster, between 1 June 1943 and 15 September 1943 dropped 112.6 bombs for every missing aircraft versus 29.8 tons for the Mosquito. A further April 1944 study found that the Lancaster and the Mosquito cost twenty man months per ton of bombs dropped but the Mosquito only achieved this when flying with a single 4,000lb bomb- thus underscoring its lack of payload flexibility. All this in an environment where the Luftwaffe was primarily orientated against the four-engined "heavy" threat.

Edit 2: Just another note, apparently JG25 and JG50 never got much above Gruppe size before being transferred to the RLV mission so probably peaked at 40-50 aircraft each.

 

[Tony Williams]

I think that we may be at risk of confusing day and night bombing, which were very different scenarios requiring different tactics (on the part of both the bombers and the defenders).

A postwar study in the NA (AVIA 46/116 De Haviland Mosquito papers, 1939–1945) is stated as demonstrating: "that the RAF found that when finally applied to bombing, in terms of useful damage done, the Mosquito had proved 4.95 times cheaper than the Lancaster."