A Better Decade - a British TL.
- Thread starter Sarthak
- Start date
Thanks to the new onboard Radar sets, The Germans found out the hard way that the night was dark and full of terrors.
It wasn't built because Gloster built 200 Hawker Henleys and 2,750 Hawker Hurricanes.
The irritating for me was that Gloster could have built another 200 Hurricanes instead of the 200 Henleys and 350 Hurricanes instead of the last 350 Gladiators that were built to Air Ministry contracts.
Glyndwr01
Banned
The Henley with Hurricane wings would be an excellent light bomber able to defend its self.
The Henley with Hurricane wings was a light bomber.
Whether it would have been excellent and able to defend itself is debatable.
I think it wouldn't have done any better than the Battle and Blenheim in the Battle of France. It would have been less useful than the Blenheim in the Middle and Far East because of its inferior range and payload. The Henely would have become obsolete just as quickly as the Battle and Blenheim.
I think that the much maligned Air Ministry was right to reduce the contract from 400 Henleys to 200 because it allowed Gloster to build another 200 Hurricanes before the Battle of Britain ended.
IMHO 200 Hurricanes would have been of considerably more use to the RAF than the 200 Henleys that Gloster built IOTL and that includes using the Henleys to equip some of the AASF squadrons in France.
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Glyndwr01
Banned
One thing the Henley would have over the others is accuracy if set up as a dive bomber as was planned it would have most probably been able to take out the bridges the Battles could not! It just needs some of the Air Ministry to loosen their ties to allow some oxygen to their underused brains!
There might be some knock on effects on the economies of the Dominions too
They'd have been shot to pieces by the Bf109s and flak first.
Yes it's maximum speed was 272 mph compared to the Battles 241 mph, yes its cruising speed was 235 mph instead of the Battles 210 mph and yes it would have been a sitting duck for a Bf 190E flown by an average pilot.
AIUI the Battle suffered such high losses because of the overwhelming odds and because the fighters often failed to rendezvous with them so they had to attack without an escort.
IMHO the mistake was ordering the Henley into production in the first place. When ordered in 1936 the aircraft in the production contract were intended to be used as an armament trainer for bomber crews and not as a bomber. As we know it ended up being used as a target tug.
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Yup. That most definitely will happen. Already has, considering in 1931 OTL Canada narrowly voted in favor of pegging their currency to the Dollar, however with better British economic performance, they narrowly voted in favor of staying in the Sterling Block.
Glyndwr01
Banned
We'll have to agree to disagree I think a dive bomber is better than a level bomber in close support, the Henley with improved tankage would have been a good FAA aircraft as well.
It isn't any better than a level bomber if both are shot down before reaching their targets.
You're effectively describing the Fulmar the navalised version of the light bomber that Fairey built to Specification P.4/34, which was also the specification that the Henley was built to. People think the Fulmar was a bad FAA aircraft. I doubt that a "Sea Henley" would have been any better due the weight that navalisation and the extra tankage would add.
While that is probably true, the Stuka was also torn to shreds when it was unescorted or attacking targets with too heavy of AA. Any dive bomber would have been. But the Stuka is remembered well because it gained fame when used as it was intended. So, yes, a Henley in the conditions seen in France probably would not have made an improvement but a dive bombing doctrine in the early war might have been useful. And the Henley is probably one of the best options for a dive bomber the British had at the time.
A wrench is not a bad wrench because it is found to be a poor hammer.
A fighter-bomber might be better than both because it's less vulnerable to fighters.
In any case the Battles and Blenheims in the AASF and ACBEF weren't in France to give close support to the BEF. The AASF was a strategic bombing force and the 2 Blenheim bomber squadrons in ACBEF were tactical bombers, but AIUI their job was to attack targets beyond the range of the Army's artillery. The attack on the Meuse bridges that you alluded to weren't a close support target in any case.
The Lysander army co-operation squadrons were the closest that the ACBEF had to a close support force. The Henley should have equipped those squadrons if they were going to equip any. This would have been logical in a way because AIUI the Henley was developed to replace light bombers like the Hawker Hart and Hind. The Lysander replaced the Audax and Hector which were army co-operation versions of the Hart and Hind.
However, it would have been better to re-equip the army co-operation squadrons with the Hurricane because they had a better chance of surviving than the Lysander and Henley, which would have offset the smaller weight of bombs that they could carry. OTOH the Hurricanes could also strafe targets with their machine guns and could be used as fighters if the need arose.
If I understand JustLeo’s old posts correctly, the Hurricane did not yet have the power to be a true fighter bomber in France. Based on the dates when all this would have had to have been decided, I think the Henley would have been the more logical choice for Army Cooperation. It would have needed replacing fairly soon, probably with a Hurribomer, but for France, I would say it is still useful. I do agree the Muese would have chewed them up though.
AIUI it couldn't carry a useful load of bombs until the Mk II appeared.
However, a Lysander could only carry six light bomb below its stub wings so there wasn't much capability lost there and it only had 2 forward firing machine guns to the Hurricane's eight so the latter was clearly superior for strafing targets.
Comparing the Hurricane Mk I to a Henley...
The former didn't carry a useful load of bombs, but it did have 8 forward firing machine guns for strafing, was less vulnerable to fighters and could also be used as a fighter if needed. The Henley could carry up to 750lb of bombs, but was slower and didn't have any forward firing guns so it couldn't be used as a fighter if needed.
So it's what one thinks is more important. I happen to think that survivability and versatility are more important than the ability to carry 750lb of bombs.
The Gloster F.5/34 was so called because it was designed to Air Ministry specification F.5/34.
F. meant it was a specification for fighter and 5/34 meant it was the fifth specification issued in 1934. Ergo there can't be a Gloster F.5/34 in 1931 because the specification wasn't issued until 1934.
As a CAS aircraft I would prioritize its ability to support ground troops. Which to me probably means bombs. Especially as machine guns won’t really damage anything harder than a soft-skinned truck. That said, this would depend on enemy fighters being kept away from the vulnerable dive bombers and ground troops.