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Reviewing the history of British aviation in World War II is, in many ways, an example of the triumph of crisis management compensating for rather poor pre-war planning. Now, a large part of this is due to a lack of money, but even more is due to a lack of imagination and motivation on the part of the Air Ministry.

I'm particularly thinking of:


  • the massive delay in introducing cannon armed aircraft pre war, which meant that there wasn't enough time to do it properly, due to messing around with getting the licensing arranged before investigating modifications.
  • the delay in beginning development work on jets. For example, the de Havilland Goblin took 1 year to design, 2 months to debug, and then a further 10 months to get into production thanks to the limitations on production at that time. The much more powerful Ghost was simply a scaled up version of this original design.
OK, so how can we change this?

In OTL, Viscount Swinton essentially failed as Secretary of State for Air, and his successor, Kingsley Wood was little better. So I suggest that Charles Vane-Tempest Stewart is not successfully hounded out of office by the pacifists in the Labour Party before the election. I will further assume that he retains his post after the election.

The 7th Marquess was a pilot, and believed in preserving the strength of the RAF, so I assume he would be more forceful in making the Air Ministry do its job, and as a long term minister of the department would be successful at changing it's rather slow and conservative culture. Thus, in the late '30s, when trials began to reveal the weakness in the RAF's pipeline, e.g. .303 machine guns being inadequate, and the Peregrine engine being unreliable and lacking potential, the Air Ministry would be more proactive.

Let us say then, that in '37 the Air Ministry realises this, and feels an urgency to do something about it. It issues a specification for:


  • an alternative to piston engines in case high power piston engines prove impossible to deploy successfully
  • a gun capable of reliably shooting down modern, armoured aircraft

It is soon realised that the Hispano is by far the best option for the gun, and, thanks to Tizard, that Whittle's jets offer the only realistic alternative to pistons.

Unfortunately, the Hispano is French and has to be licensed, and Whittle's Power Jets lacks capacity for the task. It is at this stage that real divergences start to occur. The Air Ministry decides to:

  • purchase multiple copies of the gun and give them to British companies to investigate required modifications and how to integrate them into airframes in parallel with licensing negotiations
  • nationalise jet development and bring in other designers. Substantial amounts of money flows into Power jet immediately, but the other engine designers are also necessary and need their piece of the work for it to get everything.
  • issue a specification for aircraft carrying modified cannon and powered by jets
This is all done by the end of 1937. By the end of 1938:

  • many issues with deploying the Hispano have been discovered, and some fixes have been suggested. The Air Ministry have already committed to licensing the design by this point, so they request that the interested companies liaise with the French designers to resolve these issues.
  • both Power Jets and Halford, amongst other less successful designs, have delivered stable jet designs, whilst Rolls Royce has developed the Merlin, demonstrating that high power pistons are viable. Despite the latter, and the issues with range and maintenance, that jets have far more potential than pistons.
  • new aircraft designs have been submitted, and a de Havilland (forgive me the anachronism, but for a backup, future proofing project the major aircraft manufacturers are likely to be encouraged to concentrate on less risky types) single engined all wood design, and a Westland all metal twin design have been selected to be produced as prototypes
The Air Ministry issues specifications for cannon armed variants of existing piston designs, particularly the Spitfire and Hurricane, and for all new jet powered cannon armed interceptors. By the end of 1939:


  • new Spitfire variants are being manufactured with cannon, but limitations on the production of the modified, belt fed Hispanos restrict the number that can be made and prevent the conversion of older aircraft
  • prototypes for both jets have flown, and demonstrated excellent performance. Contracts for 200 of each design have been signed, with delivery due to start in June. A conversion course for experienced pilots has been agreed to start in the spring.
So, a little bit of a wank, but hopefully not too much, if anything's impossible or completely implausible, let me know. Handwaving wildly to kill butterflies, what do we think happens next?

There shouldn't be too much impact on the Fall of France, as the jets won't exist and there were few Spitfire deployed there. I would imagine that it means a rather more rapid end to the Battle of Britain, then things start getting interesting. Some questions that occurred to me:

  • Where does British jet fighter development go from here, given the lessons the British have learned with their interceptors?
  • What is the German response?
  • If the Germans also introduce jet interceptors early, how does Bomber Command counter?
  • Can it?
  • Can jet bombers be manufactured?
  • What is the American response?
  • Do the British remember their mid air refueling experiments?
  • Do the FAA get in on the jet game?
and many others. What are your thoughts?
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