Pre 1957 RAF cancellations

[JFC Fuller]

The 1957 and 1960s cancellations always receive all the limelight, which is a little unfair as there were plenty before that to provide us with some fodder. As anyone who has read the excellent BSP series will know the major programme cancellations for combat aircraft were the Hawker P.1083, Supermarine Type 545, Gloster F.153 type and the Vickers Valiant B.2. However, there were also a number of production cancellations in the 1952-4 period following the Conservative governments "radical review". So far I have identified the following:

DeHavilland Venom: Bristol Filton production line was cancelled along with major order cancellations (other lines were De Havilland Hatfield which was later transferred to Chester, Fairey Stockport and Marshall Cambridge)

Gloster Meteor: Numbers are unclear but Gloster was forced to layoff over 1,000 staff in 1952-3 as a consequence

EE Canberra: Handley Page and Avro production runs of the B2 were cut from 150 to 75 each. Shorts also had a line but I have not been able to establish if their order was cut or whether EE lost some orders themselves

Supermarine Swift: There were definitely substantial cancellations (Shorts were a major subcontractor and took a big hit) I don't know how many were cancelled but the number 497 is floating around for the total number of orders

Boulton Paul Balliol: Numbers were cut substantially following a change in the RAF syllabus

If anyone can add to this please feel free!

 

[alertken]

There were very many more. Start by trolling through UK serials site, from say WP, yet that only lists the chop where MoS had placed a long-lead materials production contract with assigned serials, to secure materials priority in the NATO resources Committees. Budget aspirations were many and extra.

Key dates were 27/7/53: Korean Armistice, and 6/54, when US ceased paying for much of our production, under MSP. (Sea)Venom, Hunter and Swift had been designated as NATO Standard Programs, so, for example, 346 Swifts had been MSP-funded 7/52, for RAF/RBAF/RNethAF; in 1954, 115 Hunter F.4 had been US-funded for the nascent Luftwaffe. Go to H.Leigh-Phippard,Congress&US Military Aid to Britain,Mac,95.

MSP was core to everything, paying for 15 Ham minesweepers for France, Centurion tanks for Denmark/Norway. All, repeat, all conspiracy theories on US trying to do down the competitive threat from UK Aero are contrary to the actualite. If UK had been paying for France's rearmament, for example, would we have imposed Meteor or Hunter off UK-jobs...or would we have done as US did - pay for Dassault to build 225 Mystere IVA? and Noratlas, not C-119C? and tool Nord/Bourges into wire-guided ATMs...and...

 

[JFC Fuller]

alertken,

Thank you for the reply. One of the issues I am running into is that some cancellations were because types were over taken or failed. So the Swift F.2 for instance was simply a failure and production was cancelled for that rather than for economy measures. I imagine that a lot of the Vampire cancellations came about due to the Venom and a lot of the Firefly AS.7 cancellations were because of the Gannet. I would like to try and align programme cuts with force structure cuts but I am having real difficulty identifying pre-radical review force targets. I have that in 1954 2TA had 19 fast jet squadrons consisting of Sabre and Venom but I am not finding much beyond that.

On the subject of the Canberra, Shorts also got a 150 aircraft order but did not experience a cancellation until 1957, their aircraft were delivered as follows:

B.2: 60
B.6: 49
PR.9: 23 (a further 18 were cancelled in 1957)

There may have been some industrial policy at play, I am guessing, Shorts were apparently hit hard by the Swift cancellation (major sub-contractor) and seemingly had nothing on the horizon whereas Avro and HP both had B.35/46 types due under development. The only Canberra order I need to pin down now is the EE one.

On the Venom front, the cancelled Bristol run at Filton was to have been 160 aircraft (FB.1)

 

[pathology_doc]

The 1957 and 1960s cancellations always receive all the limelight, which is a little unfair as there were plenty before that to provide us with some fodder.

Mostly because they represent the canning of glamour aircraft that represented huge leaps forward with massive potential, but with the exception of TSR.2 we never got to see them fly (and TSR.2 was never exactly flown to its limits). They're also fascinating because of the false premise under which they were cancelled.

 

[alertken]

What false premise? Good reasons for every one. Give me the one(s) you believe to have been wrong and I will amplify.

But remember: they were asserted by their proud parents as deliverable on time, on Spec, on budget. These were the same teams responsible for...everything funded during Korea that was not so delivered....such as Swift. Govt and Services did not believe a word of any brochure. The wonder is not the cancellations, but that Ministers had been persuaded to initiate them. FM Earl Alexander had not been a happy Defence Minister, and was conned into wondrous devices of zero practicality - like Avro 730. We were awash with MSP $ until June,1954. Without that none of the 1950s' lot would have been launched.

 

[pathology_doc]

The false premise being "Manned interceptors are obsolete".

 

[alertken]

Just so. Like all Aero conspiracies, Sandys as evil ignores or perverts the facts: RAF briefed MinisterJ.Amery,10/60 “we needed a Fighter Command to police the skies against intruders (not) much more(. Emphasis) on the defensive side (was with scrambling and dispersal)” The Move to the Sandys White Paper,M.D.Kandiah/G.Staerck(Eds), ICBH/KCL Seminar 7/88,pub.02,Pp44/5. For the "policing" role in his time at MoD/MoA Sandys ordered 47 Lightning F.1/1A, 44 F.2, 70 F.3.

 

[pathology_doc]

Except that this is merely "the bomber will always get through", writ large. And true, when the bomber is an ICBM, it will. But that makes the assumption that any NATO/Warsaw Pact war was was going to start with (or rapidly progress to) an ICBM-based spasm of mutual destruction. Hence the premise being false, or at least misguided.


It all comes down to whether you really think NATO would have gone through with a tripwire strategic nuclear response to Soviet conventional aggression in Western Europe, or whether sanity would have prevailed once a few tac nukes had gone off and awoken both sides to the godawful hand they'd deal themselves if they fired everything. And even when you're just talking a small force to shepherd intruders out, you still want a decent long-range patrol interceptor and some degree of combat persistence, not a rapid-reaction fighter with limited armament whose pilot always has one eye on the fuel gauge.


It's all very well to cancel your next-generation interceptor capability on the basis that it cannot save you from annihilation, but when all of a sudden bombers start coming in instead of missiles, and you realise in a flash of sanity that you dare not fire your missiles until you're sure those bombers are nuclear-armed, what then? If you launch on warning and then, in the dying whimper of humanity that results from On The Beach coming to life, find that the enemy a/c were carrying nothing but thousand-pound HE... just how are you going to feel? (And remember that the horrific irony of THAT scenario is that the real enemy wasn't even the Russians, but someone else under a false flag.)


ETA: It's not so much "Sandys as evil" as "Sandys as misguided."

 

[Grey Havoc]

No, Sandys was spot on. Why on earth, in a general European conflagration, would the Soviet Union waste its limited strategic and medium bomber capability in a conventional bombardment of the UK when its primary striking force existed in its nuclear equipped missiles?

I would disagree with you on Sandys; the 1957 Defence Paper was primarily based on a seriously flawed (although, to be fair, somewhat widespread at the time) belief that missiles, in particular ICBMs and SAMs, would render manned aircraft obsolete. Those within the RAF higher echelons who supported Sandys tended to be firm adherents of this belief, much to the RAF's detriment, as well as arguably that of Great Britain in general.

And as regards the Soviet Union's ICBM force, until the late 1960s, the strength of that force was mostly an illusion, with the Soviets relying very heavily on their bombers and much shorter ranged rockets and missiles for deterrence.

 

[CNH]

Bloodhound would cope with a major part of any bomber attack on the UK. Indeed, after the late 50s, there was no point in bombing raids on the UK. And Russia didn't need ICBMs: relatively short range missiles in Eastern Europe would do the job.

What was cancelled by Sandys? The SR177 and the 155. No useful role for either. Neither was any use in a conventional role in a European (read: inner German border) war.

 

[JFC Fuller]

I would disagree with you on Sandys; the 1957 Defence Paper was primarily based on a seriously flawed (although, to be fair, somewhat widespread at the time) belief that missiles, in particular ICBMs and SAMs, would render manned aircraft obsolete.

No it was not, it was based on the logic that in a nuclear/thermonuclear exchange using ballistic missiles as launch platforms the interceptor and manned strategic delivery platform would be useless. The RAF had effectively reached the the same conclusion in their abandonment of the Avro 730. The people who perpetuate the nonsense you repeated above also fail to mention that the 57 review cancelled Blue Envoy (a large long range SAM) yet authorised ABM studies and accelerated UK work on ballistic missiles because it does not fit with their narrative.

 

[uk 75]

An interesting link between pre and post 1957 cancellations is the Valiant B2.

The RAF had a requirement for an operational theatre nuclear delivery system capable of also being used in limited conventional wars. The Valiant B1 served ably in this role both at Suez and until 1965 as a NATO asset for delivering nuclear weapons on targets on the Continent and the Soviet Union as determined by NATO's Supreme Commander in Europe. I would argue that if the B2 had been developed as a specifically low level platform it might have allowed the RAF to concentrate on a smaller version of TSR 2 simply to replace Canberras.

The Valiants were replaced by Vulcan B2s which carried on their theatre and limited conventional role between 1968 and 1981. Tornado eventually took on the task but lacked the range to reach many of the Soviet targets previously covered by the V bombers or proposed for TSR 2. NATO covered the gap by deploying US F111s to the UK in greater numbers than originally planned (Heyford wing followed by Lakenheath wing as opposed to aircraft flown in from the States as had been the case with the B47s).

The fighter aircraft cancelled were overtaken by developments. Even the Lightning in its initial F1A form was hopelessly underarmed compared with US F102s (again the US had to deploy some of these to Europe to cover gaps identified by NATO).

It would be useful to know whether NATO or the US will release the NATO planning documents for the Cold War. I suspect these would help to explain many facets of UK decision making on programmes covered here.

 

[Grey Havoc]

No it was not, it was based on the logic that in a nuclear/thermonuclear exchange using ballistic missiles as launch platforms the interceptor and manned strategic delivery platform would be useless. The RAF had effectively reached the the same conclusion in their abandonment of the Avro 730. The people who perpetuate the nonsense you repeated above also fail to mention that the 57 review cancelled Blue Envoy (a large long range SAM) yet authorised ABM studies and accelerated UK work on ballistic missiles because it does not fit with their narrative.

Theory, rather than logic, as events proved. You also forget that Sandys was among those who believed that the air defence of civilian population centers was not cost-effective. Hence the cancellation of the Stage plan, especially Stage 2/OR.1137 which Blue Envoy was meant to fullfill.

An interesting link between pre and post 1957 cancellations is the Valiant B2.
The fighter aircraft cancelled were overtaken by developments. Even the Lightning in its initial F1A form was hopelessly underarmed compared with US F102s (again the US had to deploy some of these to Europe to cover gaps identified by NATO).

I'm wouldn't so sure about that. The Lightning for example was originaly planned to be a relatively cost interim point defence interceptor to cover the gap until more capable designs were ready. Of course things changed when Sandys took a wrecking ball to everything, meaning that Great Britain ended up being unable to meet various NATO requirements and requests, such as the need for nuclear capable interceptors resulting from the adoption of MC 14/2 as NATO's primary defence doctrine (i.e. First Use of nuclear weapons in any conflict with Soviet & Warsaw Pact forces).

 

[JFC Fuller]

Theory, rather than logic, as events proved. You also forget that Sandys was among those who believed that the air defence of civilian population centers was not cost-effective. Hence the cancellation of the Stage plan, especially Stage 2/OR.1137 which Blue Envoy was meant to fullfill.

No, logic, and events proved Sandys to be quite correct as ballistic missiles became the primary means of strategic nuclear delivery. The Stage Plan was meant to defend against manned attack and was thus becoming irrelevant and actually the RAF had abandoned the comprehensive defence of UK population centres much earlier.

I'm wouldn't so sure about that. The Lightning for example was originaly planned to be a relatively cost interim point defence interceptor to cover the gap until more capable designs were ready. Of course things changed when Sandys took a wrecking ball to everything, meaning that Great Britain ended up being unable to meet various NATO requirements and requests, such as the need for nuclear capable interceptors resulting from the adoption of MC 14/2 as NATO's primary defence doctrine (i.e. First Use of nuclear weapons in any conflict with Soviet & Warsaw Pact forces).

The Lightning was a central part of RAF planning throughout the 50s and Sandys did not cancel any planned replacement for the aircraft. And nuclear capable interceptors to do what exactly? How was a Fairey Delta III going to stop a Soviet MRBM? MC 14/2 was an overarching strategy document that established NATO's response to all but the most limited Soviet aggression as massive retaliation, something would come to depend on ballistic missiles over manned platforms.

 

[uk 75]

JFC

My point about the TSR 2 being more of a Valiant than a Canberra successor was based on the fact that TSR 2 like the Valiant was designed to carry 2 nuclear stores rather than one like the Canberra (or Buccaneer). Also, a true Canberra successor would have been more multi-role than the TSR 2 which emerged primarily as a nuclear bomber and was less suited to conventional delivery.

Had the Valiant pathfinder replaced the Valiant B1s as SACEUR's nuclear force in the earky 60s the Vulcans could have left service in 1968 when Polaris came on stream. This assumes of course that the Valiant B2 had delivered on its early promise to be a strong and capable low level system.

The removal of the requirement to loft 2 nukes would have made the Buccaneer a more realistic Canberra replacement (perhaps with Medways instead of Speys). It also might have allowed P1154 to be a lighter aircraft or indeed a P1127 RAF in 1962. P1154 was originally a nuclear system as well.

 

[JFC Fuller]

JFC

My point about the TSR 2 being more of a Valiant than a Canberra successor was based on the fact that TSR 2 like the Valiant was designed to carry 2 nuclear stores rather than one like the Canberra (or Buccaneer). Also, a true Canberra successor would have been more multi-role than the TSR 2 which emerged primarily as a nuclear bomber and was less suited to conventional delivery.

Had the Valiant pathfinder replaced the Valiant B1s as SACEUR's nuclear force in the earky 60s the Vulcans could have left service in 1968 when Polaris came on stream. This assumes of course that the Valiant B2 had delivered on its early promise to be a strong and capable low level system.

The removal of the requirement to loft 2 nukes would have made the Buccaneer a more realistic Canberra replacement (perhaps with Medways instead of Speys). It also might have allowed P1154 to be a lighter aircraft or indeed a P1127 RAF in 1962. P1154 was originally a nuclear system as well.

Actually TSR-2 was designed to carry only 1 nuclear store, a single Red Beard, it was only with WE.177 development that this changed and the number of weapons carried increased. There was also nothing about the TSR-2 that made it unsuited to conventional weapons delivery, with 6,000lbs of internal weapons and a very sophisticated nav-attack system it could have been a great conventional striker.

The RAF never had much interest in P.1127 until it was effectively given to them for free, they wanted a supersonic strike aircraft with a large weapons load and a fancy nav-attack system, more Buccaneers would not change that. The core of what you are saying seems to be that TSR-2 was overambitious, something which I now think is consensus but the Valiant B.2 is very much not the answer, in fact just like the Vulcan it would have been another 1940s design (complete with analogue H2S) shoehorned into the theatre bomber role. TSR-2 was a recognition that flying low at high-speed (genuinely low, not Valiant B.2 low) required some very clever avionics which the V-Bombers did not have.

 

[alertken]

GH: "first use" is not my summary, nor is it what was done. "Studied ambiguity" was...and I can see that could be seen as willingness to use it before we lose it. Logic was not master in nuclear matters.

Sandys' boss, the PM, instructed him to reduce Defence spend, so your (and all Sandys-traducers') beef is with Supermac. This was his Progress Report: “(A)n unprovoked surprise attack on (UK would only be made if Sovs) were confident they could simultaneously eliminate (US world-wide)strategic bases (and thus not be) open to (US’) annihilating retaliation (It) is out of the question (USSR) could ever knock out (US) power by an attack with manned a/c (so) attack can be ruled out until (USSR builds) up a powerful (IC/RBM) capability” Sandys to Cabinet,14/11/58: I.Clark,P247.

This is the essence of 1949 NATO Charter: one for all and all for one. UK chose - chooses - to accept that US would hazard New York to defend London. De Gaulle (said he) did not, so duplicated with his own triad. We may mourn a paper scheme...but the real issue was (is) how much is enough. I suggest >30,000 nuclear warheads per side was more than enough and it does not really matter if some were to be delivered by machines that got chopped.

It was the Sovs who spent themselves to implosion, but it was very nearly us. I submit it's China that has it right. Forget 3Mn. men under arms: their role is Aid to the Civil Power. SIPRI and others believe PRC has one operational SSBN and 20 or so silo'd ICBMs...enough to deal with any 2 capitals of candidate-Threat nuclear Powers.

(Not really drifting) Macmillan instructed Sandys to bring Defence from 10% to 7% of GNP. He did so, got rid of conscription by substituting a professional Force, contributed to his Party's re-election, so was further promoted as an all-round good egg. If all the 1950s' cancellations (inc. Sandys-at-MoS, of Vickers Special Red Products) had retained their funding...I put it to you that UK security would not have been enhanced. Some would have failed, some (all) would have been inoperable, all would have vacuumed money and engineers for decades. Avro 730 looks good as What If artwork...but how many could be held serviceable for how long? Few and brief.

 

[pathology_doc]

a very sophisticated nag-attack system

a fancy nag-attack system,

I pity the elderly horses. ;D

 

[zen]

The 1957 and 1960s cancellations always receive all the limelight, which is a little unfair as there were plenty before that to provide us with some fodder. As anyone who has read the excellent BSP series will know the major programme cancellations for combat aircraft were the Hawker P.1083, Supermarine Type 545, Gloster F.153 type and the Vickers Valiant B.2. However, there were also a number of production cancellations in the 1952-4 period following the Conservative governments "radical review". So far I have identified the following:

DeHavilland Venom: Bristol Filton production line was cancelled along with major order cancellations (other lines were De Havilland Hatfield which was later transferred to Chester, Fairey Stockport and Marshall Cambridge)

Gloster Meteor: Numbers are unclear but Gloster was forced to layoff over 1,000 staff in 1952-3 as a consequence

EE Canberra: Handley Page and Avro production runs of the B2 were cut from 150 to 75 each. Shorts also had a line but I have not been able to establish if their order was cut or whether EE lost some orders themselves

Supermarine Swift: There were definitely substantial cancellations (Shorts were a major subcontractor and took a big hit) I don't know how many were cancelled but the number 497 is floating around for the total number of orders

Boulton Paul Balliol: Numbers were cut substantially following a change in the RAF syllabus

If anyone can add to this please feel free!

If this is the basis of a thread on pre-1957 RAF and FAA numbers then perhaps that should be a little more explicit, such as in the thread's title.
Though I might suggest its getting a bit outside 'alternative history and future speculation'. Unless we're talking of soviet levels of defence expediture or the sudded improvement in UK finances.


If however its a debate over the merits or lack of various pre-1957 cancellations perhaps that too ought to be in the title. It does fall properly into the scope of the 'alternative history and future speculation'.

Assuming it is the latter, one really does have to question the value of the Type 545, dayfighters without decent radar were increasingly seem as invalid against the perceived threat.
It does surprise me how far Hawkers seem to have gone with their competing design.

Scimitar development and variants is a very interesting question we've touched on before.

Glosters Thin Wing Javelin might well be something to look at, however far ahead Canada might have seemed the costings didn't seem to add up. One has to ponder what the impact of the Gloster machine might have had in the light of Sandy's later cuts and beyond to the train of decisions leading to the RAF's purchase of the Phantom II and its subsequent roles.

Valiant B2 poses its a number of conundrums.
Would the existence of this and the development of the 'new' lighter and smaller nuclear stores shift effort towards the improved navigation and attack equipment, or the simple ditching of the type for a more glamorous supersonic machine?
On the face of it the later GOR.339's runway requirements suggest the latter answer, even if it wasn't supersonic.

 

[Grey Havoc]

No, logic, and events proved Sandys to be quite correct as ballistic missiles became the primary means of strategic nuclear delivery. The Stage Plan was meant to defend against manned attack and was thus becoming irrelevant and actually the RAF had abandoned the comprehensive defence of UK population centres much earlier.

Apart from the fact that the predicted demise of manned military aircraft never came to pass, The Stage Plan did have at least some ABM capability. Stage 2 had a limited ABM capability. Stage 3, which was much more ambitious, was still stuck in committee when the Stage Plan was cancelled. Unfortunately, Sandys was fatally enamoured with the 'Missile will always get through' meme, therefore in his opinion and that of his supporters, air defence of the United Kingdom in general was a waste of time. The prevailing 'wisdom' was Atomic warfare had made both aircraft and conventional forces obsolete, so much better to invest in missiles and bunkers. In actuality, missiles proved to be not quite the wonder weapons that their 1950s & 60s proponents promised (in many cases, anything but). Indeed, some of the major shortcomings of ICBMs and SLBMs have persisted to the present day e.g. extremely expensive (especially silo based ICBMs and Boomers), reliability problems, not as flexible as manned bombers, etc. Time has proved that ballistic missiles work well together with manned bombers, not as an outright replacement.

The Lightning was a central part of RAF planning throughout the 50s and Sandys did not cancel any planned replacement for the aircraft. And nuclear capable interceptors to do what exactly? How was a Fairey Delta III going to stop a Soviet MRBM? MC 14/2 was an overarching strategy document that established NATO's response to all but the most limited Soviet aggression as massive retaliation, something would come to depend on ballistic missiles over manned platforms.

Actually, the Lightning was always seen as an interim type; Before Sandys, it was seen as filling the gap until an new generation of advanced interceptors came on-stream and made short legged point defence interceptors unnecessary. After Sandys, it was still seen as an interim type, but only until missiles replaced manned aircraft completely, in this case for what ever air defence was still seen as needed. However things did not go as Sandys and co. forsaw, to put it mildly.

As for MC 14/2, it is interesting to see how it, and the 'New Look' defense doctrine in general, can be traced back to the British Chiefs of Staff 1952 Global Strategy Paper, which represented an unfortunate mindset that atomic warfare could not be defended against. That same mindset also believed that the juggernaut that was the Red Army could never be stopped by any amount of conventional forces that NATO could hope to bring to bear. Therefore that paper called for the replacement of most conventional forces with atomic weapons, with small 'economical' blocking forces to hold Soviet Forces in place for the short time that would be required to deploy atom bombs in their rear areas.

GH: "first use" is not my summary, nor is it what was done. "Studied ambiguity" was...and I can see that could be seen as willingness to use it before we lose it. Logic was not master in nuclear matters.

'Ambiguity' is not a term that I would have used in connection with MC 14/2. Together with the preceeding MC 70, it codified the replacement of members massed conventional forces as the lynchpin of NATO's collective defence with tactical nuclear weapon systems, and the automatic first use of said weapons in any conflict with the Eastern Bloc that was above skirmish level.

Will post more later.

 

[JFC Fuller]

Apart from the fact that the predicted demise of manned military aircraft never came to pass, The Stage Plan did have at least some ABM capability. Stage 2 had a limited ABM capability. Stage 3, which was much more ambitious, was still stuck in committee when the Stage Plan was cancelled. Unfortunately, Sandys was fatally enamoured with the 'Missile will always get through' meme, therefore in his opinion and that of his supporters, air defence of the United Kingdom in general was a waste of time. The prevailing 'wisdom' was Atomic warfare had made both aircraft and conventional forces obsolete, so much better to invest in missiles and bunkers. In actuality, missiles proved to be not quite the wonder weapons that their 1950s & 60s proponents promised (in many cases, anything but). Indeed, some of the major shortcomings of ICBMs and SLBMs have persisted to the present day e.g. extremely expensive (especially silo based ICBMs and Boomers), reliability problems, not as flexible as manned bombers, etc. Time has proved that ballistic missiles work well together with manned bombers, not as an outright replacement.

Why do you keep repeating such complete and utter nonsense? The only countries who still use strategic nuclear bombers as part of their deterrent forces, and only as a small minority of those forces, are Russia and the US. Are you seriously suggesting that in the context of a strategic nuclear exchange the ballistic missile has not become the dominant means of delivery? The Stage plan was unaffordable and largely pointless as it was not an ABM system. As is well documented the UK undertook considerable study into ABM and found it also to be unaffordable.

Actually, the Lightning was always seen as an interim type; Before Sandys, it was seen as filling the gap until an new generation of advanced interceptors came on-stream and made short legged point defence interceptors unnecessary. After Sandys, it was still seen as an interim type, but only until missiles replaced manned aircraft completely, in this case for what ever air defence was still seen as needed. However things did not go as Sandys and co. forsaw, to put it mildly.

Actually you are completely wrong, Lightning was central to RAF planning throughout the 1950s and was regarded as the first type that could actually perform both the day and night-fighter role. Sandys did not intend for all UK manned fighters to be replaced by SAM's it was always intended to retain a number of fighter squadrons for defence against jamming and reconnaissance aircraft and for the global role. Please stop making things up.

As for MC 14/2, it is interesting to see how it, and the 'New Look' defense doctrine in general, can be traced back to the British Chiefs of Staff 1952 Global Strategy Paper, which represented an unfortunate mindset that atomic warfare could not be defended against. That same mindset also believed that the juggernaut that was the Red Army could never be stopped by any amount of conventional forces that NATO could hope to bring to bear. Therefore that paper called for the replacement of most conventional forces with atomic weapons, with small 'economical' blocking forces to hold Soviet Forces in place for the short time that would be required to deploy atom bombs in their rear areas.

Nothing unfortunate about it, just a cold analysis of reality, the UK was burning through 10% of GDP on defence per year and was coming nowhere near the original NATO force goals for central Europe, it was for that reason that the British pushed for German re-armament. That from the late 50s onwards the UK could not defend against a soviet nuclear bombardment using ballistic missiles is indisputable.

Will post more later.

Please don't, most of what you have posted is not even based in fact.

 

[Grey Havoc]

[shrugs] I'll leave you to your delusions then.

 

[pathology_doc]

Dear God, can you imagine what it would have been like if we'd had the internet and this site back in the late fifties? The Canadians and Brits would pretty-well have had it swamped!


Sticky threads if the board had existed in 1956-8:


Avro-Canada Arrow no-holds-barred thread
Thin-wing Javelin no-holds-barred thread
Fairey Delta III no-holds-barred thread
Vickers Red Dean/Red Hebe no-holds-barred thread


etc. etc. etc.


And similar for TSR.2 in the early to mid sixties!


How many pages for each, do you think? Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen!

 

[zen]

Hmmm........
perhaps one should question the wisdom of arguing over 1957 in a threat titled "Pre 1957 RAF cancellations"?

 

[Spark]

Hi Folks, Pathology,
Agreed! But not as loud as our Australian cousins if they knew they had paid for the beginnings of the world’s first spaceport. Possibly more per capita than the Soviets did on human spaceflight in the same period 1958-1960.
That Woomera’s LC-6A and 6B were built to serve the largest of the medium lift (equivalent to ATV payload) military SLVs. These were first purpose built launch-pads for manned vehicles/spaceplanes and space station construction.
The most LOX needed for a missile flight was 67 tons, including chilling and topping-up. The plant could produce 18,250 tons LOX a year. Peak planned number of LRBM trial launches 18.
Four UK manufacturers making space suit in 1960 at time of programme cancellation.
Major Reason for cancellation Common Market and integration/transfer of industrial base to Europe.

Remember V-1000 was for V Bomber support, Empire supply etc.
Kind regards Spark

Dear God, can you imagine what it would have been like if we'd had the internet and this site back in the late fifties? The Canadians and Brits would pretty-well have had it swamped!


Sticky threads if the board had existed in 1956-8:


Avro-Canada Arrow no-holds-barred thread
Thin-wing Javelin no-holds-barred thread
Fairey Delta III no-holds-barred thread
Vickers Red Dean/Red Hebe no-holds-barred thread


etc. etc. etc.


And similar for TSR.2 in the early to mid sixties!


How many pages for each, do you think? Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen!

 

[pathology_doc]

And not half as annoyed as the Kiwis must have been, paying until something like 1955 (IIRC) for a battlecruiser that had gone to the scrapyard 30 years before...

 

[Spark]

Ooch!

And not half as annoyed as the Kiwis must have been, paying until something like 1955 (IIRC) for a battlecruiser that had gone to the scrapyard 30 years before...