Better British Aviation 1918-39

IIRC the SOP of the time was for the Spitfires to take on the escort and the Hurricanes concentrate on the Bombers, that might account for both the disparity in kill ratio (it probably being easier to kill a bomber rather than a fighter) and the loss ratio, as if the Spitfires fail to hold al the escort off then the Hurricanes could well be bounced when at a height disadvantage.
 
Change those five squadrons to Spitfires and that might still have an important effect on the rate of losses.
According to Allied Fighters of World War II it was 2,309 Hurricanes and 1,383 Spitfires delivered to 7th August 1940, when there were 32 Hurricane and 18½ Spitfire squadrons. At the same time there were also 2 Defiant squadrons and according to Bowyer in Aircraft of the Few 162 Lysanders in 9 squadrons or the equivalent of 13½ single seat fighter squadrons which had 12 aircraft each instead of 18.

Does anybody know why Nuffield was given the Castle Bromwich factory to manage in the first place. At the same time Vickers Armstrongs, which owned Supermarine, was building factories in Blackpool and Chester to build Wellingtons and AFAIK the Government paid for them. Similarly the Blackburn factory at Dumbarton, built to make the Botha was also Government sponsored. Furthermore during the Battle of Britain the Hawker Siddeley Group was building Hurricanes at 3 factories, that is Brooklands (Hawker), Langley (Hawker) and Gloster. IIRC from Leo McKinstry's book about the Hawker Hurricane the Langley factory was specifically built to make Hurricanes and paid for with Government money.

The only explanation I can think of was that it was part of the Shadow Factory scheme, which also had Austin building Fariey Battles and Rootes building Bristol Blenheims before the war.
 
The only problem I see with the Harrow as an airliner is that it was cloth skinned rather than metal. That's fine for a bomber of the time (it makes repairing it easier) but not for an airliner, still I don't suppose it would be too difficult to use aluminium sheets instead of linin ones.

View attachment 293905

......................................................................................

Simply re-skinning a fabric-covered airplane with sheet aluminum makes no difference in performance or damage-tolerance. "Metalizing" does reduce long-term maintenance because it eliminates the need to re-cover every decade or so. That was why thousands of 1940s-vintage American light planes were "legalized" during the 1950s and 1960s as fabric-finishers demanded higher and higher wages.
Re-covering was not difficult for the RAF as they already had thousands of fabric finishers on staff and no-one expected airplanes to survive a decade in combat. Furthermore, rapid advances in technology soon rendered airplanes obsolete in less than a decade after manufacture.

During the late 1930s production shifted from "fabric over sticks" to stressed-skin, semi-monocoque, sheet-aluminum construction. The disadvantage is the huge investment in tooling (hydraulic presses, etc.) required to convert to sheet aluminum construction.
In the long run, HP and Bristol should have developed semi-monocoque fuselages for their respective high-winged transports (Harrow and Bombay). This POD would eventually lead to series of high-winged transports with cargo ramps under the tail (ala. Budd Conestoga, C-123, Cariboo, Hercules, etc.). Those cargo ramps would encourage earlier development of LAPES to deliver cargo and vehicles quicker to front-line troops.
 
IIRC the SOP of the time was for the Spitfires to take on the escort and the Hurricanes concentrate on the Bombers, that might account for both the disparity in kill ratio (it probably being easier to kill a bomber rather than a fighter) and the loss ratio, as if the Spitfires fail to hold al the escort off then the Hurricanes could well be bounced when at a height disadvantage.
IIRC the exact quote was along the lines of, "A Spitfire pilot had the same probability of shooting down an enemy aircraft as a Hurricane pilot, but a Hurricane pilot was twice as likely to be shot down than a Spitfire pilot."

There was no disparity in kill ratio. The source I'm using (Liddell Hart) said that the Luftwaffe lost 1,733 aircraft in the Battle. Based on the above 60% were shot down by Hurricanes and 40% by Spitfires because the Hurricane equipped 60% of Fighter Command's squadrons during the battle and the other 40% had Spitfires.

Also on based on the above the 30-odd Hurricane squadrons were loosing aircraft at double the rate of the 20-odd Spitfire squadrons. That is each Hurricane squadron with 12 aircraft was loosing twice as many aircraft as each Spitfire squadron with 12 aircraft.

IIRC the SOP was what you think it was. If we are correct then I would have expected the Hurricanes to have shot down more aircraft than the Spitfires because bombers were easier to intercept, bigger and less manoeuvrable than fighters. And if anything the Spitfires would have had a heavier loss rate because the Bf109s were better at fighting back than the bombers.
 
According to Aircraft of the Few by Chaz Bowyer a total of 1,994 Hurricanes saw service in Fighter Command squadrons between 1st July and 15th October 1940, 523 or 26% were written off during operational flying.

It also says that 1,142 Spitfires saw service in Fighter Command squadrons over the same period, but does not give the number that was written off during operational flying. If losses really were half the rate of the Hurricane, i.e. 13% then 148 would have been lost. That seems too low because 523 plus 148 equals 671 and according to Liddell Hart the RAF lost 915 aircraft, leaving a discrepancy of 244 aircraft, which are unlikely to have been Gladiators, Defiants and Blenheims.

Also 523 Hurricanes is 57% of 915 total RAF losses and that fits in nicely with the Hurricane equipping about 60% of Fighter Command squadrons. So it looks like what I read at the Science Museum was wrong unless Bowyer and Liddell Hart were using data calculated on different bases.
 
The Hurricane was significantly more vulnerable to frontal attack, such as from defensive fire from bombers, compared to Spitfire. This was assumed to be from armor placement, and that pesky fuel tank which only received a belated sealant coating.
 
There is one other little butterfly that could be affected by more spitfires early.

Early in 1940, the Admiralty wanted navalised Spitfires. Ideally with folding wings, but they would settle for a navalised version. This was all put back as the Air Ministry wouldnt realease any Spitfires.

Now if more were available, its possible a few could have been released for trials/conversion, and maybe even enough to put on a carrier.
Seafires over Norway could have been interesting...
 
The better-than-OTL Hurricane would've been quite an asset, too. Have had somewhere the side elevation of it with chin radiator (hopefuly earns a few MPH, plus ditching qualities are better), along with an later variant with bubble top.
Here is a thread about thin wing Hurricane (link), Just Leo's drawing is at post #28.
 
IOTL the Government department responsible for merchant shipping wasn't the Admiralty. Instead it came under first the Board of Trade and then the Ministry of Transport when it was created after World War One. The Air Ministry receives a very bad press on here so would civil aviation have been better off if it had been under the Ministry of Transport instead of them?
 
It's before the POD, but what if the Smuts Committee had not recommended the creation of an independent air service? He merely recommended that the RNAS should concentrate on naval aviation and give its squadrons supporting the BEF and engaged in strategic bombing be transferred to the RFC.

I don't see a radical expansion of maritime aviation, that is at least before 1935, because the Royal Navy would be receiving about the same amount of money. However, because the RNAS officers that transferred to the peacetime RAF IOTL would be in the peacetime RN ITTL so that by 1930s there should be some naval aviators of flag rank and trading off battleships and cruisers for aircraft carriers would be easier because the aircraft carried would belong to the Royal Navy instead of the RAF.

Any ideas of how the RFC would have fared between 1919 and 1939? I'm guessing that there would have been less emphasis on strategic bombing and imperial air policing would not have been developed as far as it was IOTL. However, there would not necessarily be a corresponding increase in air defence and army support. The money saved might be spent on the Army proper or not spent at all.
 
The formation of a committee which ended up forming the RAF came about as a reaction to Zeppelins and bombers attacking Britain. The only defense that had been assigned to defend Britain from air attack was the RNAS which had been assigned to defend naval installations, only.

It has been suggested that the Imperial Air Policing policy was necessary in justifying the very existence of the RAF, being the cheapest way to suppress dissent in the Empire.
 
The formation of a committee which ended up forming the RAF came about as a reaction to Zeppelins and bombers attacking Britain. The only defense that had been assigned to defend Britain from air attack was the RNAS which had been assigned to defend naval installations, only.
The first part of that statement is correct. However, the Air Defence of Great Britain had been transferred from the RN to the Army well before the air raids of 1917 that precipitated the formation of the Smuts Committee. As far as I can remember it was the end of 1915. At that time the authorised strength of the RFC was 70 service squadrons and 10 of them were assigned to home air defence. The ground organisation of AA guns and searchlights operated by the Royal Navy were transferred to the Royal Garrison Artillery and Royal Engineers respectively and expanded.
It has been suggested that the Imperial Air Policing policy was necessary in justifying the very existence of the RAF, being the cheapest way to suppress dissent in the Empire.
So probably no Imperial Air Policing at all.
 
I was going to do Civil Aviation for 1937-39 in one post, but because its not complete. I'm going to put what I have done in stages.
 
To Flesh Out Post 43...
Phase 3 - 1937-39 - The Growth of Imperial Airways IOTL


IOTL Imperial Airways went a long way between 1924 and 1937. It would go even further between 1937 and 1939.

In the fiscal year 1924-25 it operated a network of 1,520 route miles, which had grown to 19,351 route miles in 1936-37. This was largely due to the creation of the imperial air routes, which began with the Airline taking over the Cairo to Basra route from the RAF in 1927 and extended as follows:
  • Cairo to Cape Town 1931-32, with the Khartoum to Kano (Nigeria) branch opening in 1936;
  • Basra to Sydney 1929-34, with the Bangkok to Hong Kong branch opening in 1935.
In spite of loosing its European routes (which it did not want) to British Airways Mk 1 its network grew to 22,432 route miles in 1937-38 and 24,905 route miles in 1938-39, which was an increase of 25% over 1936-37.

The aircraft miles flown, the number of passengers carried and the ton miles of freight flown increased as follows:
  • 1924-25 - 699,900 aircraft miles flown, 10,321 passengers carried and 350,700 ton miles flown;
  • 1936-37 - 4,789,000 aircraft miles flown, 60,374 passengers carried and 4,868,600 ton miles flown.
The number of aircraft miles climbed to 5,700,800 in 1937-38 and 8,958,400 in 1938-39, which meant they had nearly doubled in 2 years. The other hand the number of passengers grew slightly to 64,629 in 1937-38 and declined to 51,287 in 1938-39, which was the Airline's worst year since 1934-35. On the other hand the number of ton miles grew to 7,548,500 in 1937-38 and 14,200,000 in 1938-39, which was about treble 1936-37.

This growth was largely due to the Empire Air Mail Scheme coming into operation in 1937 operated by the Short Empire Flying Boats.

However, the picture wasn't as rosy as these statistics indicated. The Airline was always been short of aircraft in the period 1924-37, largely due to the manufacturers delivering them late. This trend continued into the 1937-39 period. The Armstrong Whitworth Ensigns ordered in 1934 for delivery in 1936 did not arrive until 1938 and only 12 of the 14 aircraft ordered had been delivered by the time B.O.A.C. was created in April 1940. The high loss rate for the E.F.B. (9 of the 29 originally ordered had been written off by June 1939) combined with the late delivery of the Ensign meant the Airline did not have the luxury of having reserve aircraft.

A shortage of aeroplanes also delayed the opening of new routes. For example the extension of the Australasian line from Sydney to New Zealand was not completed until November 1939, 15 months late. Although it was to be operated by British Airways Mk 1 a shortage of suitable aircraft also prevented the opening of the line to Lisbon, Bathurst in the Gambia and South America before World War II broke out. It also prevented the development of the Reserve Route from East Africa to Perth in Western Australia and the West African route to South Africa. However, the biggest gap was the transatlantic service, which should have been a joint US-UK venture, but the Americans started on their own in June 1939 due to the shortage of Empire Boats and because the larger Short Golden Hinds hadn't been delivered.
 
It took a long time for me to phrase this correctly so I hope you like the way I wrote it even if you don't like what I wrote.

Phase 3 - 1937-39 - The Growth of Imperial Airways ITTL
Routes

The airlines that formed Imperial Airways were flying to all the major European Capitals, Hong Kong, Sydney, Cape Town and Kano in Nigeria by 31st March 1924. Therefore when Imperial Airways came into existence on 1st April 1924 it inherited a network of routes that was even larger than the one it built up between 1924 and 1937 IOTL.

Between 1924 and 1937 the TTL Imperial Airways extended this network as follows:
  • A line to South America by 1929;
  • A joint transatlantic service with Pan American in 1936;
  • An extension of the Australasian Line to New Zealand by March 1937;
  • The Reserve Route from East Africa to Perth by March 1937. This was in case a war in the Far East made it impossible to fly to Australasia via Singapore;
  • The West Africa to South Africa Route by March 1937. This was developed after lobbying from the Union of South Africa in case the East Africa Route was cut by a war in the Mediterranean and Middle East.
Therefore there having created all the significant routes by 1937 ITTL, Imperial Airways spent the last years of peace improving its service on the existing routes rather than opening new ones.

Traffic Statistics

Originally I was going to say that the number of air miles, passengers and ton miles Imperial Airways flew between 1924 and 1937 was quadruple OTL in line with the quadrupling of state support for civil aviation in that period and double from 1937 to 1939 when state support was doubled. However, that only works if the Airline was operating a more intensive service over the same route mileage as OTL and ITTL the network in 1924 was much bigger than the one that existed in 1937 IOTL. Therefore I am only going to make estimates for the last 3 full financial years before World War II, i.e. 1936-37, 1937-38 and 1938-39.

ITTL there was no Imperial Airship Scheme between 1924 and 1931 because the Government decided to concentrate its money on aeroplanes. Therefore the support to Imperial Airways in that period was effectively octupled instead of quadrupled. Although the subsidies from 1931 to 1937 would be quadrupled and from 1937 to 1939 doubled the operating statistics for Imperial Airways would be octuple OTL 1931-37 and quadruple OTL 1937-39. That is:
  • 1936-37 - 38 million aircraft miles flown, 480,000 passengers carried and 39 million ton miles flown - i.e. octuple OTL;
  • 1937-38 - 23 million aircraft miles flown, 260,000 passengers carried and 30 million ton miles flown - i.e. quadruple OTL.
  • 1938-39 - 36 million aircraft miles flown, 205,000 passengers carried and 57 million ton miles flown - i.e. quadruple OTL.
The above are intended to be very rough "guesstimates", especially for 1937-38 because it's the transition period between the loss of the European Routes to British Airways Mk I and the completion of the Empire Air Mail Scheme. The most accurate one would be 1938-39. However, even then it is only meant to be a rough guide as they are the traffic statistics for the OTL routes of 1938-39. They don't include the traffic statistics for the North Atlantic, South American, East African and Reserve Routes, which I have not tried to estimate.
 
Top