The Tizard Committee- a genuine POD. Hill and Blackett don't join.

I tend to get rather fed up with some of the threads posted. A completely implausible POD is suggested and when its weaknesses are pointed out more and more suppositions are added- which turns it into fantasy. So here's a plausible one- if perhaps one of limited interest. Suppose either Patrick Blackett or A V Hill (or both) had decided not to serve on the Tizard Committee? Here's a simplified background- it's a controversial business and I've only got a general reader's knowledge of the subject but I think the essentials are here.

In January 1935 a committee of four met under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Tizard, Rector of Imperial College London, to examine the problem of the defence of Britain from air attack. Tizard, a chemist by background, would have been the first to admit he was not a great scientist but he was an exceptionally able administrator. Of the two other scientists on the committee, however, Blackett and Hill, one would win the Nobel Prize and the other already had. Although all sorts of schemes were examined, in the end the main effort went into the development of radar. This was a gamble, they were relying on untested and unproven technology. Eventually for political reasons another scientist was added- the physicist Frederick Lindemann, a close friend of Winston Churchill's. This proved disastrous. Lindemann was an impossible colleague. His recent defenders have claimed that it's nonsense to say that he tried to hinder the development of radar. This, in fact, was never the charge against him. The case appears to be that while Tizard and the rest were ready to put most of their resources into radar, Lindemann saw just as important research into aerial mines and infra-red detection. The other scientists were very doubtful about this. Acrimonious would be a mild way of describing the atmosphere on the committee. Tizard threatened to resign unless Lindemann were removed. In the end, Hill and Blackett, fully supporting Tizard and disgusted with Lindemann, resigned from the committee, effectively winding it up. The committee was quietly reformed- minus Lindemann. Radar defences were prepared- just in time. Most important, there had been an opportunity to devise effective means of co-ordination between defence forces and radar stations.

But suppose Blackett or Hill had not joined the committee? Suppose they saw themselves as creative scientists, that anyone could do this sort of thing, that it was like getting a race horse to pull a cart? A J P Taylor's autobiography, A PERSONAL HISTORY (a work shows that the most interesting autobiographies are written by people who are too old to be discreet) has an account of Tizard as Master of Magdalen College. To his surprise he found Tizard timid. He was a superb administrator- as long as his colleagues were with him. He tended to cave in under pressure. With Blackett or Hill, strong Tizard partisans, absent, the whole balance of the committee would have changed. I suspect Tizard would have made all sorts of concessions to Lindemann- with disastrous results. So Britain has a radar system in 1940 which is not really up to it. Consequences?

Hmm, interesting POD.

Consequences:
I have serious doubts as to whether the UK can be knocked out of the war by air power alone (and the jury is still out on Sea Lion) but it all depends on the extent of the radar being "not really up to it", I suppose. Offhand, we can expect more damage to industrial facilities and airfields and less to populated areas. If radar hadn't helped to effectively counter the Luftwaffe, would the Germans have ever changed their strategy?

Any idea as to what Blackett and/or Hill would have focused themselves on in absence of radar? Perhaps some minor breakthrough in another area.. conceivable?

Alikchi- I agree with you totally on your doubts about German air power and Sea Lion. Nor do I think that Blackett and Hill would have come up with some semi-war winning weapon. But the point I was trying to make was that British radar would have been far less effective in the Battle of Britain had either of these scientists not served on the Tizard Committee. How much this would have mattered is debatable. But what I am arguing for is more interest in PODs like this.

Prunesquallor - While I think your POD and reasoning from it were great, something you said in the first part of your initial post caught my attention:

Prunesquallor said:

So here's a plausible one - if perhaps one of limited interest.

Click to expand...

I think most of us are here for enjoyment and perhaps some education. Some of us have the (apparent) education level you have, but again, I think for the most part we're here to have fun, not to engage in boring, dusty speculation over forgotten, tiny details. While these are usually the ones that produce the most plausible TLs, they are also the ones least likely to attract any attention. Some kind of happy medium is, I think, what people who are serious about creating a good TL try to create.

I didn't mean any of this to offend you, but I think you have to realize that, while many here have a good intellect, a good foundation in history, and perhaps a doctorate or two, this board seems geared to appeal to many different tastes, not just ultra-plausible minutely researched PODs. If this means 'playing to the lowest common denominator'... well, that's life I guess. I'm sorry if you feel that many scenarios here are contemptible and worthy only of being sneered at. I guess all I can say is, don't read 'em, and I hope mine aren't among them!

Intill/Unless a Crosstime device is built every thing on theis board is Fantasy. Thats the FUN of it. Heck, most of my TL grow out of throw away coments in the more fastastic ones

No. Real AH is speculative fiction, not fantasy. I thoroughly enjoyed the Flint/Drake BELISARIUS series but I didn't regard that as true AH, more as a fantasia on historical themes. Likewise Gentle's ASH. These have a place on this site but I see them as off-shoots. To me genuine AH is something like David Divine's THE MOSCOW OPTION where Hitler's temporary incapacity allows the German High Command to set its own strategy. And no, I don't find many of the postings "contemptible"- though in some cases I'll admit I think, "why on earth is he bothering?" They're often ingenious and entertaining. But I don't take them seriously as AH. They're usually just attaching historic names to an implausible situation. You might call it reverse Turtledove. In his Videssos books he takes chunks out of Procopius and fixes them onto his invented characters. Here you seem to have characters called Rommel or Patton or Nobunaga doing things- but they could just as easily be called Denethor or Brandoch Daha or Robert Baratheon.

Well, without radar. the only way to detect incoming bad-tempered germans would be coastguards and watchers. That's not really enough time to get ready to prepare a proper welcome. The RAF would need to mantain constant CAPs and other measures, all of which would tire the poliots out very quickly. The RAF would end up far less effective than OTL.

The RAF might cede air control over dover, which might tempt hitler into trying sealion.

Was the British Radar all that effective? I seem to recall hearing somewhere that the Germans bombed out some British radar towers early on and it was never quite the same afterward, as they weren't rebuilt. I could be wrong here.

In any case, I've always heard that the main reason England won the Battle of Britain was that Germany switched to bombing cities instead of airfields. Radar certainly seems a big factor in the war but mainly by being so lousy and easily defeated/jammed on the German side rather than helping Britain all that much.