Sealion Posts

It is noticeable that recently, we have had several 'it must be possible' threads on it - perhaps understandable given time of year. Nevertheless, its curious the lack of greater RAF success. It would be interesting to have some where the RAF does much better! I can only quickly recall one where the RAF has jet fighters!

Now the Lw could have done better, with better command decisions, or maybe with a different mix of aircraft and functions. Also, perhaps easier - the Lw could have done better, with worse RAF 'decisions' & 'aircraft'.

But what range of PODs do we need to get the RAF to do much better. Moreover, it still needs Dowding to be able to switch of the 'tap' of fighters going to France - although PODs may delay the end of the Battle of France.
 
Some thoughts:

I recall reading books many years ago regarding one weakness that could be fixed easily was in sea rescue. Doesn't affect the later stages of the battle, but during the Channel battles in July, a better functioning sea rescue could see more RAF pilots survive and hence better experienced pilots in the later stages.

Another idea is fitting cannons to Spitfires and Hurricanes far sooner rather than the machine guns they initially had.
 
The British hierarchy utilized the expression "Harrumph!' when faced with anything they did not believe in. Overcoming officialdom's inertia in facing viable alternatives is relatively ASB. And they believed in the end that they won the BoB. Not true. The Luftwaffe lost. Developing better aircraft, equipment and tactics would have required getting rid of officially approved aircraft, equipment and tactics.
 
Some thoughts:

I recall reading books many years ago regarding one weakness that could be fixed easily was in sea rescue. Doesn't affect the later stages of the battle, but during the Channel battles in July, a better functioning sea rescue could see more RAF pilots survive and hence better experienced pilots in the later stages.

Another idea is fitting cannons to Spitfires and Hurricanes far sooner rather than the machine guns they initially had.

Developing the cannon to work and fitted with a larger magazine would be one of those things they could do. They refused to fit larger drums on Beaufighters long after the larger capacity magazines had been developed.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
How about going with a better aircraft than the Fairy Battle? Though that might have made the Battle of France different...

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
How about going with a better aircraft than the Fairy Battle? Though that might have made the Battle of France different...

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

The Battle gets criticised but it would be interesting to put other aircraft from the same timeframe in exactly the same situation and see what happens.
 

Grey Wolf

Gone Fishin'
Donor
The Battle gets criticised but it would be interesting to put other aircraft from the same timeframe in exactly the same situation and see what happens.

True, but did the RAF really know what it was for? I got the impression that they ended up being used as fighters, tho I might be wrong. Would not a dive bomber have been better as a 'light bomber' for battlefield tactical support?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
The British hierarchy utilized the expression "Harrumph!' when faced with anything they did not believe in. Overcoming officialdom's inertia in facing viable alternatives is relatively ASB.

Wow, that's not crude inaccurate stereotyping at all. Did they also think the battle was secretly a game of cricket?
 
The British hierarchy utilized the expression "Harrumph!' when faced with anything they did not believe in. Overcoming officialdom's inertia in facing viable alternatives is relatively ASB. And they believed in the end that they won the BoB. Not true. The Luftwaffe lost. Developing better aircraft, equipment and tactics would have required getting rid of officially approved aircraft, equipment and tactics.

Example: make sure you have altitude over your enemy and the sun at your back. A pretty standard tactic you'd have thought yes? Not according to the RAF circa 1940. A number of pilots tried to get this changed, including Douglas Bader, and recieved the above response.

How about going with a better aircraft than the Fairy Battle? Though that might have made the Battle of France different...

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Anything - Hurricanes with bombs chucked out the cockpit would have been better.
 
True, but did the RAF really know what it was for? I got the impression that they ended up being used as fighters, tho I might be wrong. Would not a dive bomber have been better as a 'light bomber' for battlefield tactical support?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Unrelated to the BoB topic, the Fairey Battle suffered more from the way it was used than from it's own inadequacies. Combined operations and local air superiority doctrines, espoused by the Germans, had yet to be learned and adopted by the Allies in the Western Desert Campaigns. Battles won VC's for attacks on critical bridges three days after they had been crossed and AA protection established. A more timely attack may have changed the course of history.
 
I'm reading a book about BoB RAF pilots at the moment, mostly in their own words.

The main complaints I've noticed the pilots had at the time were lack of realistic training (particularly in firing their guns), woeful radio and concentration on practising formation flying and over-rigid "attack patterns" rather than dogfighting.

All of those issues seem solvable.
 
True, but did the RAF really know what it was for? I got the impression that they ended up being used as fighters, tho I might be wrong. Would not a dive bomber have been better as a 'light bomber' for battlefield tactical support?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Well, they got more or less what they asked for, the P.27/32 spec that led to the Battle was for bomber that met the limitations of the Geneva Conference. The Geneva Conference was proposing that bombers should have a maximum tare weight of 6,300lb and the P27/32 spec was written around this. Battlefield tactical support was not something that the RAF was all that fussed about.

However, when this spec was drafted, it was thought that the RR Griffin would be the powerplant.

The Hawker Henley is quite often mentioned as being a better option but that was to the P4.34 spec by which time the Geneva weight limitation proposals had gone out of the window.
 
True, but did the RAF really know what it was for? I got the impression that they ended up being used as fighters, tho I might be wrong. Would not a dive bomber have been better as a 'light bomber' for battlefield tactical support?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Battles as 'fighters'? Know that would be weird. I can't see a plausible way to dispense with the Battles completely. Though production could have been reduced e.g. Austin Shadow factory produces Hurricanes rather than Battles.
In OTL the initial contract in May 1937 for the Henley was reduced from 350 to 200, with the RAF having 122 in September 1939 (according to Owen Thetford). In an ATL more than the proposed initial order may have been in Squadron service.
Though, it does help if the RAF knew what 'dive-bombing' was. See my coment on 'RAF Udet' thread.

PS Grey Wolf - whereabouts in 'deepest Mid-Wales?
 
ASB. And they believed in the end that they won the BoB. Not true. The Luftwaffe lost. .
The Luftwaffe indeed lost.
However, there is little that the Luftwaffe could have done given the same equipment levels and replacement rate that could have won them the battle.
 
I think that the Luftwaffe faced an impossible task - not that they themselves seemed 100% clear on what the task actually was... I think to equip Germany to either a) successfully invade Britain or b) mount a successful strategic bombing campaign against Britain requires a POD somewhere back in the early 30s, at least, to the extent that the *WW2 that takes place won't resemble our WW2 very much at all.

I know, this is nothing people haven't already pointed out on other threads... :D

Basically, to get rid of the philosophy of Fighting Area Attacks and adopt more realistic tactics, the RAF needs to do what the Germans did and get involved in a shooting air war in the 1930s, one where there are other fighter pilots trying to kill them. That would concentrate their minds wonderfully, as the expression goes. The only question is what POD provides that experience without also kicking off *WW2 prematurely?
 

Cook

Banned
b) mount a successful strategic bombing campaign...

This keeps having to be pointed out.

Strategic Bombing was not decisive in World War Two. The British and Americans pounded Germany for near on three years with fleets of bombers ranging into the 1000 on a single raid and it did not defeat Germany. Sure it helped, especially when they actually started targeting strategically important industries and transport choke points, but it did not win the war.

Unless and until you get some 19 year old kid from Nebraska or Liverpool with his boots on the ground in Frankfurt you don’t have a victory. Likewise for the Germans; they still need a way of getting Fritz marching up the High Street.
 
This keeps having to be pointed out.

Strategic Bombing was not decisive in World War Two. The British and Americans pounded Germany for near on three years with fleets of bombers ranging into the 1000 on a single raid and it did not defeat Germany. Sure it helped, especially when they actually started targeting strategically important industries and transport choke points, but it did not win the war.

Unless and until you get some 19 year old kid from Nebraska or Liverpool with his boots on the ground in Frankfurt you don’t have a victory. Likewise for the Germans; they still need a way of getting Fritz marching up the High Street.

Strategic bombing has been criticized on practical grounds because it does not always work predictably. The radical changes it forces on a targeted population can backfire, including the counterproductive result of freeing inessential labourers to fill worker shortages in war industries.[140]
Much of the doubt about the effectiveness of the bomber war comes from the oft-stated fact that German industrial production increased throughout the war. While this is true, it fails to note production also increased in the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, Canada and Australia. And, in all of those countries, the rate of production increased much more rapidly than in Germany. Until late in the war, industry had not been geared for war and German factory workers only worked a single shift. (Incredibly, German apprenticeships for aircraft electrical fitters still lasted four years at the war's end.) Simply by going to three shifts, production could have been tripled with no change to the infrastructure. However, attacks on the infrastructure were taking place. The attacks on Germany's canals and railroads made transportation of materiel difficult.

The attack on oil production, oil refineries and tank farms was, however, extremely successful and made a very large contribution to the general collapse of Germany in 1945. In the event, the bombing of oil facilities became Albert Speer's main concern; however, this occurred sufficiently late in the war that Germany would soon be defeated in any case. Nevertheless, it is fair to say the oil bombing campaign materially shortened the war, thereby saving many lives.[citation needed]

German insiders credit the Allied bombing offensive with severely handicapping them. Speer repeatedly said (both during and after the war) it caused crucial production problems. Admiral Karl Dönitz, head of the U-Boat arm, noted in his memoirs that failure to get the revolutionary Type XXI U-boats (which could have completely altered the balance of power in the Battle of the Atlantic) into service was entirely the result of the bombing. The United States Strategic Bombing Survey (Europe), however, concluded the delays in deploying the new submarines cannot be attributed to air attack

- Wikipedia

Just some info on the effectiveness of Strategic Bombing.
 
Well, you could have the RAF switch to fighting pair/finger four formations earlier (from their late ww1 style vic formation) and have the entire fighter command fly that way by early June. The Finns were flying that way from 1932, the Germans from 1938.

You could also have RAF develop large-scale combat tactics earlier - waves of fighters coordinated. One engages the escort and brings them down, another pounces the escort from above once it is down in altitude and a third pounces the bombers. It probably requires centrimetic radar earlier though.
 
Top