A better Fleet Air Arm?

[rip89]

I got to thinking about this after starting the British victory in the Indian Ocean thread.

How could you get a better Fleet Air Arm withought butterflying away events like the Washington naval treaty or the continued existence of the RAF?

My take on this is, the OTL inskip award takes place 4 years earlier in 1933, leading to the RN gaining complete control of the FAA in 1935 not 1939. Now I dont see the actual quantity or quality of Carriers being that different than OTL as rearmanment would take place at the same pace but, with the Navy in full control Tactics would be more developed and better aircraft should be the result (with the RAF in control the FAA came bottom with regards to priority for production and design).

I see by 1939 the following aircraft in service Sea Hurricane 1 as the standard fighter, Sea Henleys as a combined Dive Bomber/Fighter not to sure about torpedo bombers could henleys carry a torpedo?

How would this affect the war particularly the Norwegian Campaign and is it realistic?

Also would the Navy have improved AA defences if this was the case?

 

[zoomar]

Eliminate two-seat fighters, which could never match enemy single seat machines. Develop a purpose built single seat fighter rather than "Sea-" modifications of Spits and Hurris - or just buy US Wildcats, Hellcats, and Corsairs, period

British carriers had much smaller airgroups than their US and Japanese equivalents. This was in part because of armored flight decks and catapult launching. Would the RN/FAA have been more effective if Britain followed early war US and Japanese philosophy?

 

[Bearcat]

Eliminate two-seat fighters, which could never match enemy single seat machines. Develop a purpose built single seat fighter rather than "Sea-" modifications of Spits and Hurris - or just buy US Wildcats, Hellcats, and Corsairs, period

Agreed.

British carriers had much smaller airgroups than their US and Japanese equivalents. This was in part because of armored flight decks and catapult launching. Would the RN/FAA have been more effective if Britain followed early war US and Japanese philosophy?

Yes, but it took the lessons of the war to get the RN to even consider open hangars with maximized air groups (the Malta class), and then they were never completed.

 

[Landshark]

This essay looks at the Vickers Venom as a possible FAA fighter.

 

[Bearcat]

This essay looks at the Vickers Venom as a possible FAA fighter.

Interesting. I wonder if it would have been rugged enough to handle the pounding of carrier landings.

Still, it would have been better than OTL, and with one decent single-seat fighter design, the FAA might have been spurred to look at others. By mid-war something more like the Hellcat could have been derived from it, with a more powerful engine and better range.

 

[Some Bloke]

Having read the article, it seems to be a very good early war naval fighter, although, I'm somewhat doubftul about the growth potential for the type,
particularly in the case of the engine, which would be considered old and small. Would the engine have the development capacity to accomadate extra armour plating and 20mm cannon without seriously affecting its performance?

If it is adopted, it may have a profound influence on British fighter design in other areas (an earlier interest in radial engines perhaps).

Assuming it is adopted and begins showing its age in service, Vickers may well consider designing a successor type ITTL (i'd go for the name "Venator")

 

[The Oncoming Storm]

One idea I suggested on the IO thread was that instead of being a bit of a shambles, the Christmas 1914 Cuxhaven Raid is a complete success. Delighted with the results the Admiralty orders more seaplane tenders and accelerates development of the first true carriers. By War's End the RN has 2-3 of these vessels in service and has achieved some other successful raids. The Admiralty realises that Naval Aviation is the future and it manages to keep control of ship based aviation agreeing to let the RNAS' land based aircraft be subsumed into the nascent RAF.

After the War the RN builds more carriers, converting Glorious Courageous Furious and Eagle as IOTL, perhaps Hood or one or both of the R class battlecruisers get the same treatment like Akagi and Lexington do? The Admiralty also invests in modern aircraft so that the FAA is equipped with single seat day fighters, a proper dive bomber and a modern torpedo bomber, no obsolete Swordfish or not much better Albacore by 1939!

Ark Royal is possibly joined by a sister or two and the Illustrious class are built to be roughly the same size as the Hornet class. This would give the FAA real punch at the outbreak of war, the Taranto Raid can be much more devastating and more numerous and capable carriers are available to join Force Z.

So what have I got badly wrong?!

 

[rip89]

Eliminate two-seat fighters, which could never match enemy single seat machines. Develop a purpose built single seat fighter rather than "Sea-" modifications of Spits and Hurris - or just buy US Wildcats, Hellcats, and Corsairs, period

British carriers had much smaller airgroups than their US and Japanese equivalents. This was in part because of armored flight decks and catapult launching. Would the RN/FAA have been more effective if Britain followed early war US and Japanese philosophy?

I agree with you on the two seat fighters, though the Fulmar was a useful recee aircraft, and for the 39/40 period could have made a decent night fighter. Maybe have squadrons of fulmars which have detachments on larger carriers for Night fighting/recce. The Firefly (IMO one of the most beautiful aircraft made), would be an ideal Anti submarine aircraft for the late war period to operate from escort carriers instead of Swordfish.

With American aircraft I dont see pre war major combat types being brought from america as Britian did have an advanced aircraft industry.

The Hurricane was pretty rugged with decent performance and in the 39-41 period would have made a good carrier fighter particularly in the Med. I see it being adopted due to economy of scale.

Were their any serious proposals for high performance carrier fighters in the timeframe 1937-1939?

As for a better carrier how about a scaled up armoured version of the ark royal in the 30000 ton class, ie a carrier with the protection of the Illustious class but a 60-72 aircraft capacity.

 

[rip89]

One idea I suggested on the IO thread was that instead of being a bit of a shambles, the Christmas 1914 Cuxhaven Raid is a complete success. Delighted with the results the Admiralty orders more seaplane tenders and accelerates development of the first true carriers. By War's End the RN has 2-3 of these vessels in service and has achieved some other successful raids. The Admiralty realises that Naval Aviation is the future and it manages to keep control of ship based aviation agreeing to let the RNAS' land based aircraft be subsumed into the nascent RAF.

After the War the RN builds more carriers, converting Glorious Courageous Furious and Eagle as IOTL, perhaps Hood or one or both of the R class battlecruisers get the same treatment like Akagi and Lexington do? The Admiralty also invests in modern aircraft so that the FAA is equipped with single seat day fighters, a proper dive bomber and a modern torpedo bomber, no obsolete Swordfish or not much better Albacore by 1939!

Ark Royal is possibly joined by a sister or two and the Illustrious class are built to be roughly the same size as the Hornet class. This would give the FAA real punch at the outbreak of war, the Taranto Raid can be much more devastating and more numerous and capable carriers are available to join Force Z.

So what have I got badly wrong?!

Sounds good, though weren't the number of battlecruisers that could be converted limited by the WNT? With approaching war I dont see frontline battlecruisers being converted.

The divebomber I see as being the Henley the RAF rejects it as in OTL but the RN takes over the project, What would the torpedo bomber be?

I would like to see this carrier fleet "Taranto" the KM 3rd september 1939.

 

[Some Bloke]

Maybe the adoption of the Venom sets off an ealier drive to modernisation in the FAA, leading to the adoption of the Hawker Henley as a divebomber, however, in this scenario torpedo bombers lag noticably behind (the Barracuda did not enter service until late 1943, prior to which the RN was equipped with Swordfish and Albacores), unless we go down the France Fights On route with more attention paid to ironing out the reliability issues in promising engines. If we assume for the sake of argument that the Venon has the same replacement timetable as the Hurricane (successor types being in squadron service by mid 1942), and it uses the Centaurus engine (itself owing much of its development from the Taurus/Aquilla which would have been used on the Venom), we could be looking at a fighter with comparable performance to the Sea Fury two years ealier.

On another note, we see a lot of discussions on this thread which never get off the ground, lots of hows and techical details, but never anything approaching a coherent timeline, I say we get the technical details hammered out and then start of a timeline, maybe with a snappier title.

 

[wotevaman]

The RN faced different challenges to US Pacific Fleet consequently it had different CAGs. In the Atlantic the threat was U-Boats, Luftwaffe long range recon and surface ships in that order. So you would have torpedo bombers and fighters in that order in your CAG. For the Med the threat was land based air, U-Boats/Subs and then surface ships. CAGs would this time have more fighters then torpedo bombers.
The dive bomber was I believe worthless in the ASW role hence the need for TBs. In order to have more dive bombers you'd need a whole new war.
Why stringbags?
What else is there in the run up to WW2? hmm let's see ah yes the Devastator or maybe the Albacore. Some hypothetical design based on or perhaps in response to the Kate maybe. The Avenger was a good replacement for the Swordfish but the Pacific Fleet would probably have objected to these going to the UK during 42, the Barracuda (adequate and doubled as a dive bomber apparently) only got introduced in 43. Shrugs how can you get a decent TB into FAA service sooner?
Not that I'm a big fan of morons who love biplanes for aesthetic reasons but... The stringbag did have a couple of things going for it which may explain the longevity of these museum pieces.
1. Incredibly good STOL coming from it's extremely low stall speed (extremely low any speed?) say you were coming in to land you could slow to a crawl and then just flump onto the deck.
2. Ability to launch regardless of wind direction - apparently if they did have the wind with them they could launch from an anchored carrier.
3. Weather resistant - useful in the Atlantic theatre.
The swordfish did a reasonable ASW job up to the point where the Germans started increasing the 2cm Flak guns on the U-Boats. At which point in view of losses the RN prohibited single swordfish attacks on them. Maybe it should be thought of as a WW2 ASW helicopter e.g. can launch land off any flat space, does ASW and has limited anti ship capability.

I figure if the FAA had had the Henley it would have gone the same way as the Blackburn Skua e.g. Killing the Konigsberg, getting misused as a fighter and relegated to target tug.

The Venom idea seems pretty cool but I can't see anyway for the development of anti carrier dive bombing in FAA outside of a radically different TL.

 

[Anderman]

AFAIK the RAF was formed from the Royal flying Corps and the Royal Navy Air Service, so the POD could simply be that the Admiralty says that anything on board a Royal Navy ship must be under full control of the RN. So the RAF is only in charge of every plane land based and the RN in charge of every plane on a ship.

 

[rip89]

The RN faced different challenges to US Pacific Fleet consequently it had different CAGs. In the Atlantic the threat was U-Boats, Luftwaffe long range recon and surface ships in that order. So you would have torpedo bombers and fighters in that order in your CAG. For the Med the threat was land based air, U-Boats/Subs and then surface ships. CAGs would this time have more fighters then torpedo bombers.
The dive bomber was I believe worthless in the ASW role hence the need for TBs. In order to have more dive bombers you'd need a whole new war.
Why stringbags?
What else is there in the run up to WW2? hmm let's see ah yes the Devastator or maybe the Albacore. Some hypothetical design based on or perhaps in response to the Kate maybe. The Avenger was a good replacement for the Swordfish but the Pacific Fleet would probably have objected to these going to the UK during 42, the Barracuda (adequate and doubled as a dive bomber apparently) only got introduced in 43. Shrugs how can you get a decent TB into FAA service sooner?
Not that I'm a big fan of morons who love biplanes for aesthetic reasons but... The stringbag did have a couple of things going for it which may explain the longevity of these museum pieces.
1. Incredibly good STOL coming from it's extremely low stall speed (extremely low any speed?) say you were coming in to land you could slow to a crawl and then just flump onto the deck.
2. Ability to launch regardless of wind direction - apparently if they did have the wind with them they could launch from an anchored carrier.
3. Weather resistant - useful in the Atlantic theatre.
The swordfish did a reasonable ASW job up to the point where the Germans started increasing the 2cm Flak guns on the U-Boats. At which point in view of losses the RN prohibited single swordfish attacks on them. Maybe it should be thought of as a WW2 ASW helicopter e.g. can launch land off any flat space, does ASW and has limited anti ship capability.

I figure if the FAA had had the Henley it would have gone the same way as the Blackburn Skua e.g. Killing the Konigsberg, getting misused as a fighter and relegated to target tug.

The Venom idea seems pretty cool but I can't see anyway for the development of anti carrier dive bombing in FAA outside of a radically different TL.

The requirements of facing landbased air in the North Sea and Med is why the RN went for armoured carriers, which is why I suggested an enlarged armoured Illustrious/Ark Royal hybrid for a carrier ITL, air group size plus protection.

Up unil the Mid 30s the RN was more focused on a possible war against Japan than anyone else as it was seen as the only threat, Italy came around in 35/36 due to abbysian war, Germany after Hitler came to power, Now if has been suggested above the FAA remains under navy control in 1918 or gets transferred back earlier the aircraft/ tactics would be more focussed on this, leading to the need for an anti carrier dive bombing capability being recognised. After Italy and Germany become to be seen as threats then you add in ASW etc, but fleet carriers are not the best for this witness the sinking of Courageous ITTL would this lead to the earlier devlopment of escort carriers? Maybe based on converted obselete cruiser hulls?

 

[Just Leo]

I have spent inordinate amounts of time ruminating on two areas of Britain's lead-in to WWII. One was the lack of capable aircraft in the FAA. Another was the aimless development of Bristol engines. The problem stemmed from the proliferation of pompous know-it-alls in positions of power, such as the Air Ministry and Bristol Board, and the lack of suitable champions of the cause to perpitrate a victory against all odds. Adm.Denis Boyd eventually won against the odds, but in 1943, late enough to be rather pointless. Sir Roy Fedden, creator of Bristol engines and the successful sleeve-valve series, quit in 1942, after receiving knighthood. The Henley would have looked nicer with a Hercules.

By the way, the Firefly was only beautiful post-war. The early models were homely. The Hercules engine, post-war,proved to be a very reliable engine of 2100 hp, post-war. War-emergency output of 2500 hp. Two thousand hours MTBO reliability. The Centaurus engine was post-war,because Bristol engineers were side-tracked to Sabre development.

The Vickers Venom wasn't a promising fighter due to a lack of wing sophistication. The Miles M-20 was a failure for the same reason. The Gloster f.5-34 had a nicer wing but lacked sophistication in other regards. It also lacked priority due to the more important development of a tube-and-rag bi-plane.

Incidentally, the first Bristol sleeve-valve engines were the Aquila and Perseus. The board didn't want to build a useful engine size because there were no aircraft which could use one. The tail wagging the dog.

 

[Astrodragon]

The 4 lightweight radial-powered fighters were intended for use in tropical climate, presumably on rought strips, which may well explain the lack of sophisticated features.

Something built around the perseus or pegasus engine and intended as a naval fighter could have been noticeably better.

How about this POD. In 1930, when the big budget crunch comes due to the depression, the RAF say they arent going to spend any money on naval aircraft - bombers are far more important. The Admiralty (which actually had a LOT of support for naval air), says OK, then as we NEED this, we'll fund it. And you give us control (no, you cant not pay for it and still have control). The RAF agrees (more money for the bomber imams, you see...

The RN cant affort many aircraft initially, but someone suggests that as only 3 navies are using carriers seriously, why dont we get together with the USN and do some joint excerises and evaluations and so on? As a result, the RN sees what you can do when you ignore the RAF restrictions on what you can do from a carrier and just tell the pilots to 'bloody well get on and do it...'. So when they design Ark Royal, they also spec some new aircraft for it. They know they need a fighter, and they already want a dive bomber - the swordfish is a perfectly good TSB of the day, so lets use the same engine for all 3 and see what we can do.
There will of course be the concern of a single-seat fighter, but the yanks can do it, so they are hardly going to admit they cant. And when someone has a chat with Tizard about what radar can do, it only takes someone joining the dots to realises that THAT is the missing link to controlling/directin/finding your single seat fighter....

Given much more capable planes, the ABH carriers could have carried more planes by reducing the side armour and a deck park (they'll probably still want armour, they are thinking in terms of the Med and the North Sea), but it would now only be part of the solution (last ditch defence when the fighters cant stop the enemy)

 

[Just Leo]

The Pegasus engine was created by Roy Fedden as a development of his ground-breaking Jupiter. It had the frontal area of a Centaurus with less than half the power. 9 cylinders, single row. The Perseus was the 9 cylinder single row engine which was the basis of the Hercules 14 cylinder 2 row. It thus had 9/14th the power. Neither was a good choice to power anything other than the Stringbag, or the Shagbat(Walrus). The Taurus engine used smaller cylinders from the Aquila in 14 cylinder 2 row configuration, and powered the Albacore and Beaufort. The Hercules would have been a better target engine for quick development. I have proposed the twinning of the Perseus 9 into an 18 cylinder 2 row, called Orion. Similar to the American P&W R-2800, but with 3000 cid. The Air Ministry would call it preposterous and the Bristol board would have harrumphed. Aircraft couldn't fly with such a monstrosity on it. Could they? Only the Hellcat, Corsair, Thunderbolt etc. In 1913, Louis Bechereau built a monocoque racer with twinned rotary engine. First aircraft to top 200 kph. Making the Orion would have been easier than making the Hercules. It may have made the Centaurus superfluous. It may have made the Napier Sabre superfluous.

 

[rip89]

How about this for a carrier fleet in 1939 based on the POD that in 1930 the FAA gets handed back to the navy to save the RAF money. Im assuming that with greater interest in avaition in the navy Carrier development in terms of production is about 1 -2 years ahead of OTL.

Training carrier- Argus.

Trade Protection carriers (OTL escort carriers)- Hermes based on Ceylon, Eagle based on Capetown
4 converted C class cruisers carrying 12 aircraft each, based Liverpool/Plymouth/Gibraltar

Light Fleet carriers - Courageous and Glorious based Alexandria part of the Med Fleet 48 aircraft each
Furious - Channel Fleet based between Plymouth/Gibraltar 40 Aircraft.

Fleet Carriers all with Home fleet.
2 x Ark Royal class (OTL design to comply with treaties enterd service 1937) 60 Aircraft Ark Royal and Splendid
2 x Illustrious class with 4 building (basicly an enlarged Ark Royal still 60 aircraft but the protection of OTL Illustrious entered service 1938 and 1939) Illustrius and Victorious. 3 of these carriers are with the main Home fleet at Scapa 1 at rosyth with the Battlecruiser force.

Also plans for a cheap to produce merchant hulled escort carrier have been made for mass production in Wartime.

As for aircraft fighter Vickers Sea Venom a version with an upgraded engine, Dive Bomber - Sea Henley, Torpedo bomber Fairy Spearfish a aircraft with similar performance to the Japanese kate possibly based on the Battle airframe. What do people think? (Thanks to astrodragon for the POD I could realy see that happening)

 

[Riain]

There was a vote on the matter in 1923 which the RAF narrowly won, that would be the perfect PoD, giving the FAA plenty of time to develop a suitable culture.

The FAA operated in a different fashion to the USN and IJN, it flew planes in a predictive range, with little capacity to pulse strikes like the USN and IJN. However I think that if the RN got control of the FAA early enough the RN would move in the direction of large air-groups and pulsed strikes. Similarly I think with enough time the FAA would stop demanding 2 seat fighters and focus on making the most capable planes possible to face up to land based threats in the Med.

 

[Anime Ninja]

How soon could a aircraft like the Sea Fury be designed and built for the FAA. If they have something like that soon enough it might mean that the USN would be buying from them.

 

[wotevaman]

Fairy Spearfish a aircraft with similar performance to the Japanese kate possibly based on the Battle airframe. What do people think? (Thanks to astrodragon for the POD I could realy see that happening)

Fairey Spearfish first flew in July 45 and was rejected due to it's abysmal handling characteristics.
If we're thinking about stuff that didn't exist prior to WW2 then I'm thinking maybe Barracuda. Ostensibly a torpedo bomber it was used to dive bomb the Tirpitz - 42 aircraft, 14 hits, 1 aircraft lost. With this in hand you have all bases covered pretty much. The design specs date from 1937 and first flight was in 1940 but it took till 43 to get a better engined version going whereupon it was introduced. However it didn't perform well in tropical climate and they were replaced with Avengers during our late war carrier ops against Japan.
An alternative could be the Avenger itself which was accepted as a replacement for the Devastator in 39 (dunno if this involved an actual test/prototype). Again this could bomb as well as torp and ASW but getting it into service pre 39 would need quite a bit of pushing on the imagination front.
The fighter of choice remains the Wildcat but yet again it didn't really exist pre war (first prototype was a biplane itself). Some were delivered in 1940 to the UK - the French order had fallen through apparently, something to do with panzers in the post office! Maybe a more determined push to get more of these would get the RN a decent fighter for 41 and early 42.
Perhaps the outcome of more joint USN RN exercises during 37 with a view to fighting Japan as allies and intel on the Kate from Sino-Japanese war in 38 might have got the British to utterly insist on a replacement for the biplanes they would inevitably have been using. Seeing the Devastator would convince them of feasibility of monoplane TB and a worrying report of a way better Japanese TB could have sent the RN running to anybody they could find US or Brit for a "like Devastator but better" aircraft.
P.S. Some other insights on the Henley:
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=37909