Bump. Bumpety bump. Just because its a good tl...![]()
FFS, it has been dead for a year! PM the Author if you want it continued rather than necromancing the thread.
Bump. Bumpety bump. Just because its a good tl...![]()
Bump. Bumpety bump. Just because its a good tl...![]()
Ditto. In re FAA, if Air Ministry is more aware of foreign types, can this mean a spec resembling the F4U? Even early purchase of F4Us, in place of Seafires (Sea Shrikes, excuse meBut yeah, I'll chip in too and say it'll be nice to get some good updating for 'tis very, very fascinating TL!
I hadn't known about the He-112's test trouble. Nevertheless, I'd agree, it should've won. IIRC, it was Messerschmitt's political connections that got the contract. The 112 was better in almost every way. I've tended to think of it as RAF having a choice between Spit & Hurry, & picking Hurry because it's cheaper...Very interesting, I hadn't really considered this, as it was such a short time after the PoD. Looking into the details, the He-112 failed in direct competition with the Bf-109, and was also judged to be more complex to construct. Even with the rush on production, I can't see the testing being skipped completely, and the He-112 is an aircraft that crashed twice during evaluation.
Interestingly despite the first production order being given in March, right after the news of the Spitfire contract, it seems testing continued until October, when after continued failure of the He-112 to match the Bf-109, the former was definitively chosen. If this happened IOTL, I can easily see Heinkel receiving in order in late February, which is then either cancelled or scaled down by October as its aircraft's problems become apparent.
If people really think the He-112 should have gone into production, I can go with either option, stay with the 109, have the Luftwaffe end up with a mix of 112s and 109s, or go completely with the 112.
IIRC, BFW was about bankrupt at this point. Without the 109 contract, it folds up & is never heard from again... Maybe frei WillieIf there position was reversed, it seems likely that their results would be too.
The performance was pretty marginal at the time. IDK if it was because they couldn't make the dynamic components strong enough for higher hp, or just couldn't get better engines because everybody else had better claims than "the silly damned eggbeaters". Even a 600hp R1340 equivalent would be a big step up, tho I've a hunch even trainers, which might use them, got priority... IDK enough about Brit engines to say. I'd guess having more Merlins will help, & so will having more turbines, since it'll reduce the strain on piston engine makers (providing they're not also making turbinesWhat other uses do we think they could have been put to. I'd expect that the Commandos would have become intereted in them, but they may not have been capable of to much at this stage.
You'd think so, but as a matter of fact, crew fatigue was the decider. Unless Coastal Command figured out they could carry two crews & leave gunners home?Well I think the air gap in the mid Atlantic could be covered far easier by refueling aircraft to enable longer patrols.
IMO, the need for fighters to refuel en route (both ways) is much more pressing in any event, but I don't disagree. Can you feature tankers stationed to fuel them coming back? And battles over the tankers, as German fighters try to down them?...bombers could be refueled over the UK in defended airspace after they have reached their operational altitude. As they use the most fuel taking off and climbing to that altitude that would enable higher payloads and/or greater distances covered. The same could be done with the fighters to escort them.
Not going to happen. Especially not with a worse loss at Pearl than OTL: one CV, which wasn't OTL. (I must ask how you explain that, since AFAIK, even Enterprise was fully a day out 7 Dec. Or do you change the date? I had a sense it was 14 Dec TTL...)You'll also have noticed that the Philippines haven't been invaded quite yet. Whether this is good or bad for the Americans remains to be seen, as it may just gve them the opportunity to do what the Britih did IOTL and rush troops there just to surrender.
Given Bomber Command shifting to very high altitude jets, I'd expect hundreds of Lancs & Stirlings becoming available to Coastal Command. That's extremely bad news for BdU.Some nasty shocks coming in the Atlantic from what you said earlier but with higher German and lower British losses and the stronger basis for LR a/c should be chance to secure the supply lines pretty quickly hopefully.
There is another issue at play, what you could call "AA doctrine". As I understand it, the Brits fired aimed AA, where the U.S. relied on barrage, & barrage was more effective (if more profligate).On the AA, the need has ben recognised, and ships have been refitted when possible. Of course, those ships that have been away from the UK for longer have had less opportunity for this too happen.
This has some very important knock-ons downstream. One, it means the tanker crisis of OTL '43 doesn't happen. Two, it means the Bengal famine of '43 or '44 (I don't recall) doesn't, either, since it was (at least in part) the product of diversion of British shipping to cope with the above crisis. Three, it impacts British relations in India & Bangladesh postwar (obviously...Whilst the total tonnage loss is much less bad than IOTL, the movement of the uboat fleet to the US seaboard has produced a much greater relative increase in the loss rates. This will make it look like the USN is performing even worse in this theatre than they did IOTL, even though the KM is actually sinking less tonnage there.