There were others IIRC working on similar lines, if not earlier. Trucks being shipped with the cargo beds, full (motorcycles etc.).I also believe that standard pattern Canadian trucks were sent stripped down and stacked. I will give you that Lindemann got some things right but IMHO he had far to much influence on Churchill and he pursued his own ruthless agender to serve his own ego.
AHC: Peerless Air Ministry
- Thread starter perfectgeneral
- Start date
Will the result of that be that fewer searchlights are required? That would save money and more important after war was declared people.
IIRC IOTL the research section of the RN Signals School at Portsmouth proposed a 50cm radar in 1931 but development work did not begin to 1935 or 1936 (I can't remember which) and the first sets went into service in 1941.
Meanwhile IIRC RN had adapted the RAF's 1.5m sets into the Type 79 air search radar and when broke out it was fitted to 2 ships (Sheffield and Rodney IIRC).
In this more "joined up" world could the development of the RN's 50cm radar be accelerated so that a land based system could be used by AA Command in place of the OTL GL Mk I and II radars? Could an Airborne Interception set be developed from it also? It wouldn't be as good as the OTL 10cm sets, but it should be a great improvement on the OTL AI Mk I to VI radars which IIRC were all 1.5m sets.
It all depends on time lag. OTL with the delays to 1.5m AI RDF the first 10cm sets were on line before the airborne 0.5 sets were ready IIRC. ITTL with 1.5m, CHL, GCI, AI Marks, I-IV, Gun Control and Naval RDF all up and running in numbers by 1940 there is perhaps a need for 0.5 m RDF. I will look at this. Having both EMI and PYE brought in officially without the almost two years of delay as OTL then like starting the Hispano Early the changes just get bigger. This is true in the case of RDF until you get to Centric sets which have to wait until the Magnetron is developed in 1940. ITTL 'Blackets Circus' have been working with the Army and Navy RDF teams since 1938. so the current system in mid 1940 is on par with or somewhat better than OTL GL MkII. ITTL General Pyle has better electronic toys but no extra guns.
My studies of OTL development of the Magnetron have not yet shown up to me an obvious POD to enable earlier development. Though I must say that I am not a Physicist and therefore that might mean that I am missing some scientific connection that could have spurred the on the Magnetron work.
I would love to see this, with someone then going further, with ‘reusable boxes’, obviously not as large as current containers because they need to be unloaded by the current equipment and fit on the current cargo ships.
So far in PAM. I have had the Monarch test flown in the Battle engine test bed, ITTL 1938/39 it is considered a Bomber engine. The battle test bed was considered over powered with the Monarch. The wing would need a complete redesign to make full use of the engines power. However it is being built into TTL Barracuda TBR toS.24/37 which is being designed around the engines capabilities. In the meantime the Battle and the Fairey P4/34 are being used to spawn the monoplane Albacore using a 1300/1500Hp radial. These are all FAA projects and therefore secondary to this story!
7.8 Northern Lights, Shorter Nights And Sudden Noises Off!
7.8, Northern lights, shorter nights and sudden noises off!
The First lesson that the AM and the RAF learnt during the Norwegian campaign was that you can nether have enough aircraft and crews. With the clash of the two plans, one British/French and the other German the call to “see the other side of the hill” became strident. The losses to RAF reconnaissance aircraft quickly rose as the Luftwaffe established bases in Souther Norway . Maritime Air command crews were flying long missions over the Northern North sea, frequently in atrocious conditions trying to provide both information for the RN and to interdict the movement of German Military units as they attempted to occupy Norway as far north as Trondhiem. Both Crew fatigue and the wear and tear on the somewhat delicate new fangled RDF equipment was taking it’s toll. Maritime Command were moving technicians north to increase the serviceability of those squadrons working on the ‘Norwegian Problem’. This of course was only a short term solution as the effectiveness of the rest of Maritme Commands assets would eventually decline if to many technicians were poached. With the Luftwaffe fighters came the bombers and with that came the cry from the Norwegian Army and the Navy for fighter cover. The quickest way was to fly them off carriers to available bases north of Trondhiem. The problem for the allies was two fold, operations off southern Norway by major units of the RN were now too risky due to the Luftwaffe having air control form their newly captured bases in Denmark and southern Norway. The second problem was trying to get a coordinated campaign organised with a fragmented Norwegian army. The actions of a minority of Norwegian turncoat politicians and service officers in either delaying their response or actually giving direct aid to the invaders further complicated the allies responces. With the near total destruction of the German Naval presence in Narvik fiord Churchill pushed for the earliest possible landing of British troops to achieve this the cruisers that had already embark troops for operation R4 were ordered to proceed with all dispatch to Narvik. Warspite and her escort were ordered to proceed to the fiord to dissuade any interference from German heavy units. At that time the Admiralty were unaware of the damage inflicted on Hipper when she was rammed by Gloworm. The opposed landing at Narvik became what was known as the second battle of Narvik.
On the 10th of April Air attacks were carried out by both Furious and Courageous on Trondhiem, unfortunately the Hipper had already left and was heading south for Germany. However as a distraction and to try an persuade the Germans that the RN was still operating near the south of Norway, a squadron of Skuas had flown from RNAS Hatston in the Orkney Islands to Bergan where they sank the damaged light cruiser Konisberg.
By hurrying Glorious back from the Mediterranean, Where she had been flying off another load of aircraft to Malta. RAF Hurricanes of No 263 Squadron were then taken to Norway and flown off to frozen Lake Lesjasskou. Several operations like this were carried out with the four available fleet carriers rotating back to Scapa to refuel and re-store. The movement of additional squadrons from Maritime Air Command plus the addition of no less than three squadrons from Bomber Command (much to the disgust of RAF high command who were overruled by the politicians) principally to provide extra aerial mining capacity had been undertaken to provide further support. These reinforcements help to stabilise the situation in Norway and by the start of the second week of May it looked as if the allies would succeed in holding northern Norway.
On the 10th of May everything changed. For on that day the Germans attacked the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. The first units involved were perforce the aircraft of the BEFAC, one thing the Phoney war had allowed was time for the various units to become complacent. The British at least had been able to set up a basic RDF system using mobile units with trucks and tents, as operations rooms. Two of these RDF units had been tasked to cover the area which had been assigned to the Polish Contingent. The British crews of these units had complained bitterly when the Polish officers insisted in relocating the mobile units at irregular intervals but at least once a week. It was only later upon hearing from their surviving colleague who had been sat in the same position for the entire phoney war and had been visited by JU87’s in dawns early light, did the wisdom of the Poles become evident. It was a harsh lesson learnt at high cost, not only in the immediate destruction of the vital early warning system but also the effect it had on the BEFAC to carry out it’s primary task of protecting the BEF. On the morning of the tenth of May the Air Component consisted of the following:-
Four Henley Squadrons (1 Polish)
One Lysander Squadron
Six Blenheim Squadrons (2 Polish)
Eight Hurricane Squadrons (four Polish)
And the Advance strike force:-
nine Fairy Battle Squadrons
Four Blenheim squadrons
Two Hurricane squadrons.
Some had considered the RAF command chain in France to top heavy with senior officers. With Air Marshal Arthur Barratt as Air Officer Commanding British Air Forces in France, with Air Vice-Marshal Patrick Playfair as the Air Officer Commanding the Advanced Air Striking Force and Air Vice Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory as Air Officer Commanding the Air Component of the BEF. However it seemed to work with Barrat working with the French High Command and his two subordinates runnning the operational units.
One action taken by Leigh-Mallory early in his command was to arrange for the Polish Squadron due to form on Battles and be assigned to the Advanced Strike Force to actual fly Henleys and Blenheim’s and be attached with all the other Polish squadrons to the AC, BEF. This great simplified the communications and the administration for the Polish contingent. Whilst Lee-Mallory did not make an impression upon the Polish Pilots as had Sir Keith Parks they soon came to realise that he was a competent and aggressive commander who like them wanted to ‘Get at the Hun’. The AC,BEF were based in the North whilst the AASF and the BAFF headquarters were further south near Rheims. With the first reports of the German assault on Belgium and Holland coming in the AC, BEF were committed to covering the advance of the BEF to the Dyle Line and reconnaissance to locate the German spearheads. By the end of the 10th of May the news that Maastricht had already fallen and that the majority of the Belguim Air Force had already been lost either on the ground or in air combat was already causing concerns with the Headquarters of the BAFF. The loss if even only temporarily of a third of his mobile RDF units was particularly worrying Leigh-Mallory at the AC,BEF.
The First lesson that the AM and the RAF learnt during the Norwegian campaign was that you can nether have enough aircraft and crews. With the clash of the two plans, one British/French and the other German the call to “see the other side of the hill” became strident. The losses to RAF reconnaissance aircraft quickly rose as the Luftwaffe established bases in Souther Norway . Maritime Air command crews were flying long missions over the Northern North sea, frequently in atrocious conditions trying to provide both information for the RN and to interdict the movement of German Military units as they attempted to occupy Norway as far north as Trondhiem. Both Crew fatigue and the wear and tear on the somewhat delicate new fangled RDF equipment was taking it’s toll. Maritime Command were moving technicians north to increase the serviceability of those squadrons working on the ‘Norwegian Problem’. This of course was only a short term solution as the effectiveness of the rest of Maritme Commands assets would eventually decline if to many technicians were poached. With the Luftwaffe fighters came the bombers and with that came the cry from the Norwegian Army and the Navy for fighter cover. The quickest way was to fly them off carriers to available bases north of Trondhiem. The problem for the allies was two fold, operations off southern Norway by major units of the RN were now too risky due to the Luftwaffe having air control form their newly captured bases in Denmark and southern Norway. The second problem was trying to get a coordinated campaign organised with a fragmented Norwegian army. The actions of a minority of Norwegian turncoat politicians and service officers in either delaying their response or actually giving direct aid to the invaders further complicated the allies responces. With the near total destruction of the German Naval presence in Narvik fiord Churchill pushed for the earliest possible landing of British troops to achieve this the cruisers that had already embark troops for operation R4 were ordered to proceed with all dispatch to Narvik. Warspite and her escort were ordered to proceed to the fiord to dissuade any interference from German heavy units. At that time the Admiralty were unaware of the damage inflicted on Hipper when she was rammed by Gloworm. The opposed landing at Narvik became what was known as the second battle of Narvik.
On the 10th of April Air attacks were carried out by both Furious and Courageous on Trondhiem, unfortunately the Hipper had already left and was heading south for Germany. However as a distraction and to try an persuade the Germans that the RN was still operating near the south of Norway, a squadron of Skuas had flown from RNAS Hatston in the Orkney Islands to Bergan where they sank the damaged light cruiser Konisberg.
By hurrying Glorious back from the Mediterranean, Where she had been flying off another load of aircraft to Malta. RAF Hurricanes of No 263 Squadron were then taken to Norway and flown off to frozen Lake Lesjasskou. Several operations like this were carried out with the four available fleet carriers rotating back to Scapa to refuel and re-store. The movement of additional squadrons from Maritime Air Command plus the addition of no less than three squadrons from Bomber Command (much to the disgust of RAF high command who were overruled by the politicians) principally to provide extra aerial mining capacity had been undertaken to provide further support. These reinforcements help to stabilise the situation in Norway and by the start of the second week of May it looked as if the allies would succeed in holding northern Norway.
On the 10th of May everything changed. For on that day the Germans attacked the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France. The first units involved were perforce the aircraft of the BEFAC, one thing the Phoney war had allowed was time for the various units to become complacent. The British at least had been able to set up a basic RDF system using mobile units with trucks and tents, as operations rooms. Two of these RDF units had been tasked to cover the area which had been assigned to the Polish Contingent. The British crews of these units had complained bitterly when the Polish officers insisted in relocating the mobile units at irregular intervals but at least once a week. It was only later upon hearing from their surviving colleague who had been sat in the same position for the entire phoney war and had been visited by JU87’s in dawns early light, did the wisdom of the Poles become evident. It was a harsh lesson learnt at high cost, not only in the immediate destruction of the vital early warning system but also the effect it had on the BEFAC to carry out it’s primary task of protecting the BEF. On the morning of the tenth of May the Air Component consisted of the following:-
Four Henley Squadrons (1 Polish)
One Lysander Squadron
Six Blenheim Squadrons (2 Polish)
Eight Hurricane Squadrons (four Polish)
And the Advance strike force:-
nine Fairy Battle Squadrons
Four Blenheim squadrons
Two Hurricane squadrons.
Some had considered the RAF command chain in France to top heavy with senior officers. With Air Marshal Arthur Barratt as Air Officer Commanding British Air Forces in France, with Air Vice-Marshal Patrick Playfair as the Air Officer Commanding the Advanced Air Striking Force and Air Vice Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory as Air Officer Commanding the Air Component of the BEF. However it seemed to work with Barrat working with the French High Command and his two subordinates runnning the operational units.
One action taken by Leigh-Mallory early in his command was to arrange for the Polish Squadron due to form on Battles and be assigned to the Advanced Strike Force to actual fly Henleys and Blenheim’s and be attached with all the other Polish squadrons to the AC, BEF. This great simplified the communications and the administration for the Polish contingent. Whilst Lee-Mallory did not make an impression upon the Polish Pilots as had Sir Keith Parks they soon came to realise that he was a competent and aggressive commander who like them wanted to ‘Get at the Hun’. The AC,BEF were based in the North whilst the AASF and the BAFF headquarters were further south near Rheims. With the first reports of the German assault on Belgium and Holland coming in the AC, BEF were committed to covering the advance of the BEF to the Dyle Line and reconnaissance to locate the German spearheads. By the end of the 10th of May the news that Maastricht had already fallen and that the majority of the Belguim Air Force had already been lost either on the ground or in air combat was already causing concerns with the Headquarters of the BAFF. The loss if even only temporarily of a third of his mobile RDF units was particularly worrying Leigh-Mallory at the AC,BEF.
The thing was, everyone knew about magnetrons in the 30's. But they were frequency-unstable, making them no real use in a working radar system.
Randal and Boot solved this pretty much by accident, so there is no reason such an accident couldn't happen earlier. But there is no driver causing this, or indeed someone else having the breakthrough. Making it earlier would, I'm afraid, just be author fiat, given that all the big effort was being put into metric radar to get that working.
marathag
Banned
And in a way, Magnetrons are a dead end. It excelled in being relatively cheap at lower power levels, and able to be mass produced.
But as more power and frequencies was desired for Radar application, cavity magnatrons were at their limit, couldn't scale up.
But they made awesome 2.4ghz RF generators for making water molecules vibrate. You know, like an oven.
Radar and other high power RF generators went on to using Klystron, TWT and IOT Tubes
This makes me wonder if they discover the problem of lack of radio channels; OTL, they couldn't control more than one intercept at a time. And do they figure out the current system introduces a delay? As data goes through the Filter Stations, instead of direct to Sector Controllers.
Both the lack of radio channels and the use of different sets by the RAF and the RN/FAA have been identified and whilst not completely rectified work arounds were in place AIMIP.
After the 'Battle of Barking Creek' the time lag problem became apparent and each group HQ now has a filter room and the next stage of going down to sector level filtering is being looked at, again as posted ITTL. The big change will be that the entire area the UK over which the BoB was fought is ITTL already covered by the GCI RDF system. This means that the operators 'Chasing the Maggots' on their PPI screens are virtually self filtering. OTL Churchill likened the fact that CH only looked out to sea and once the Enemy aircraft reached the coast tracking the enemy formations was reliant upon the Observer Corps to "going from the twentieth century to the stone age". ITTL the Observer Corps are operating as OTL providing visual reporting, including height, numbers and aircraft type when visual conditions permit. However in ITTL There is RDF coverage in land so the tracking, filtering and plotting of raids will be that much faster and all weather.
After the 'Battle of Barking Creek' the time lag problem became apparent and each group HQ now has a filter room and the next stage of going down to sector level filtering is being looked at, again as posted ITTL. The big change will be that the entire area the UK over which the BoB was fought is ITTL already covered by the GCI RDF system. This means that the operators 'Chasing the Maggots' on their PPI screens are virtually self filtering. OTL Churchill likened the fact that CH only looked out to sea and once the Enemy aircraft reached the coast tracking the enemy formations was reliant upon the Observer Corps to "going from the twentieth century to the stone age". ITTL the Observer Corps are operating as OTL providing visual reporting, including height, numbers and aircraft type when visual conditions permit. However in ITTL There is RDF coverage in land so the tracking, filtering and plotting of raids will be that much faster and all weather.
Bravo.
That means both my major concerns about controlling GCI, when it is used operationally, are solved. Bravo again. Galland will not know what hit him.
Her Galland, Meet the Defiant, yes Four I repeat Four 20mm cannons, it will kill you just as dead as a bomber crew!!!