The Whale has Wings

[Obfuscated]

And then was ordered scrapped because Heinkel was not supposed to built jets.

What is it with aircraft procurement and pants on head retards ?

[Astrodragon]

Originally Posted by Simreeve

"What?"
"It's that bunch of Chinamen."
"What?"
"If it rains while you're off watch then you can collect some soap and go up on deck..."

Oh, and the Rum ration is at 1100...

[trekchu]

Originally Posted by Astrodragon

Oh, and the Rum ration is at 1100...

This is probably the least disliked difference....

[Garrison]

Originally Posted by Obfuscated

And then was ordered scrapped because Heinkel was not supposed to built jets.

What is it with aircraft procurement and pants on head retards ?

Actually the He 178 was placed in a museum and destroyed by Allied bombing, you're thinking of the He 280. The only good thing to be said about the Air Ministry is that it was better organized than the RLM.

[sonofpegasus]

FTMEP, The Thorneycroft Hunts were first proposed in 1938 and finally ordered in July 1940,
They were longer than the standard Hunts at 296ft, on a beam of 31’ 6” Therefore my proposed Butterfly would be practicable but as Simon has suggested the B gun would probably have to go.
Both the AA and anti submarine version would be viable without B mount and have all the benefits of the greater internal volume.
If these were ordered of the original 1938 proposal the first would have been working up in 1940 going by the OTL build times.

[Garrison]

So as it stands there's a fresh Japanese attack coming in Malaya. Not likely to go well given they are attacking prepared defences, the remaining airflieds have radar cover, and the British forces have been resupplied, just not sure did they get replacements for the lost Matilda's?
There's also going to be a battle in Borneo but that's more of a toss up given the level of confusion that seems to prevail.
Force Z(really going to have to renamed when the reinforcements arrive ) is going to intervene as best it can which will probably lead to elements of the KB being sent to deal with them.

So all in all apt to be some dry, uneventful updates.

[Peg Leg Pom]

A group of toddlers playing in a sand pit is more organised than the RLM. At least the toddlers don't have a drug addict in charge.

[Gannt the chartist]

Might have been the going to war with Poland Britain and France the clouded the RLM perspective on that one.

[Peg Leg Pom]

Partly but like the rest of Nazi Germany the RLM was full of men who cared more about carving out their own personal empires that the good of the whole organisation. If some one else had an idea it was a terrible one because you hadn't thought of it and must be crushed.

[El Pip]

Originally Posted by PMN1

I get the impression they were about the only ones he would trust which is strange given his fear that an established company would drown the project and push him out.

Whittle only got involved with RR after he had been told by the Air Ministry that he was going to have to get involved with an established company for volume production. I'm pretty sure that Rover were already involved (and had started stealing ideas, with Air Ministry connivance, and pushing him out) before RR seriously worked with Whittle.

Of course it helped that RR were honest, they wanted to work with him in research but wanted to keep him away from any development or production. That honesty was a big change from the attitude at Power Jets and working with Rover so I think that's probably why he trusted them. It's also why it would never work before things went down the drain. RR were good relatively speaking, but they still pushed him out of large areas of work and swamped the project with their own people. Pre-war Whittle would never have accepted that.

I've got to stand up for Rover though, they tend to get written out of this but they put some damned good people on the job. When the development was moved from Rover to RR the Rover head engineer moved across as well, he ended up Chief Engineer of Aero Engines at RR post-war so clearly knew his stuff.

Could RR have done the work pre-war? Maybe not, it was the RR supercharger division that became the jet engine team and the supercharger division didn't really exist till the late 1930s when Hooker and others joined. The best option was probably MetroVicks, they were the turbine experts and were less bothered about going to outside parties (like Lucas) for any odds and ends. Of course the problem is they were busy working for the Air Ministry on axial turboprops with the RAE, so weren't really available to do centrifugal turbojets with Whittle.

Ordinarily I'd say the solution is for A A Griffith to have a tragic accident, with him out of the way the Air Ministry may well go for Whittle's idea (Griffith wrote several damning reports on Whittle's jet). The problem is much of Griffith's work with Metrovicks ended up being shared with Whittle and without his work on turbine blades you risk inducing extra delays. Frankly it's a mess.

One last one, the turbine blade metallurgy was waiting on Nimonic alloys Chrome-Cobalt-Nickel (and trace of everything else). You can do a turbine engine without that, it' just won't work very well or for very long, see Germany's efforts.

[Garrison]

Originally Posted by Peg Leg Pom

Partly but like the rest of Nazi Germany the RLM was full of men who cared more about carving out their own personal empires that the good of the whole organisation. If some one else had an idea it was a terrible one because you hadn't thought of it and must be crushed.

Projects would get rejected by RLM, approved by Goering, cancelled again by RLM and then randomly reinstated months later.

[trekchu]

That they did get as far as they did shows how mind-boggingly incompetent the Allies could be in places. More and more I come to the conclusion that the British held on in spite of the Air Ministry instead of because of them.

[Obfuscated]

Originally Posted by Garrison

Projects would get rejected by RLM, approved by Goering, cancelled again by RLM and then randomly reinstated months later.

There was also a bit about mandating which factory should use which method of building aircraft.

Naturally Factory A was forbidden from using Method A pioneered there and had to use Method B while Factory B was instructed to use Method A.

It would only be slightly more useless to switch around factories producing Mosquitoes and Lancasters.

[trekchu]

What were (IMO) Britain's saving graces in 1940 were the Shadow Factory system and the Chain Home stations.

[Peg Leg Pom]

That and they did occasionaly put the right man in the right job. Dowding being a prime example. Of course when the crisis is over the sycophants and empire builders climb out of their nice safe bunkers and sack the victors.

[Incognitia]

Originally Posted by Peg Leg Pom

That and they did occasionaly put the right man in the right job. Dowding being a prime example. Of course when the crisis is over the sycophants and empire builders climb out of their nice safe bunkers and sack the victors.

Well, as the saying goes, the victory goes to he who makes one mistake fewer!

[Astrodragon]

Originally Posted by trekchu

That they did get as far as they did shows how mind-boggingly incompetent the Allies could be in places. More and more I come to the conclusion that the British held on in spite of the Air Ministry instead of because of them.

The FAA would agree with you

[Astrodragon]

Originally Posted by Garrison

So as it stands there's a fresh Japanese attack coming in Malaya. Not likely to go well given they are attacking prepared defences, the remaining airflieds have radar cover, and the British forces have been resupplied, just not sure did they get replacements for the lost Matilda's?
There's also going to be a battle in Borneo but that's more of a toss up given the level of confusion that seems to prevail.
Force Z(really going to have to renamed when the reinforcements arrive ) is going to intervene as best it can which will probably lead to elements of the KB being sent to deal with them.

So all in all apt to be some dry, uneventful updates.

The British haven't recieved tank replacements yet, but they are on the way, diverted from Russian-bound shipments. They haven't lost that many, mainly to mechanical breakdown.

The Japanese have already gutted one division getting this far, and they are now outnumbered by defenders in prepared positions, without air superiority and with no way of killing the British armour...no, it is looking a trifle awkward for them...

[Garrison]

Originally Posted by Astrodragon

The British haven't recieved tank replacements yet, but they are on the way, diverted from Russian-bound shipments. They haven't lost that many, mainly to mechanical breakdown.

The Japanese have already gutted one division getting this far, and they are now outnumbered by defenders in prepared positions, without air superiority and with no way of killing the British armour...no, it is looking a trifle awkward for them...

Hmm, a broken down Matilda would still make for a very nice pillbox inserted into the defensive line, just to give the Japanese an extra warm welcome.

[StevoJH]

Hmm....They'd Need to cut down a lot of Jungle to create fire zones and prevent themselves from being flanked i'm assuming....