How big a difference could the Mosquito have made?

perfectgeneral

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That figure is obtained by subtracting the dry weight from the maximum take off weight so it includes crew, fuel and ammunition as well as the bomb load. Seeing as it had the same wing and engine as a Hurricane it was hardly going to carry three times the bomb load as a hurribomber successfully did.

It was more the range and mostly the top speed I was interested in. The bomb load is good enough and carried internally.

EDIT: The wingspan of the Henley is greater than the Hurricane (same outer wing panel, not the whole wing).
 
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How so? The RAF would still be in charge of fighter command. With less other irons in the fire they will be even more interested in fighter command. Dowding will be sending that letter with more authority. Trafford Leigh-Mallory might be losing a load of Hawker Henley CAS and crew, but the fighters will be all right.

Because production is now being split to supply RAF Fighter Command and the new Army Air Force.

The RAF only just had enough with what was produced at the time, add another Command.......well.

To have any chance of enough aircraft for a separate Command, you need the Shadow Factories in production far earlier, it was the delay in getting the Shadow Factories up and running that had Swinton in September '36 suggest buying 'a few squadrons' worth of aircraft from the US (much it seems to the annoyance of British manufacturers).
 
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perfectgeneral

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There won't be any less Spitfires or Hurricanes if Henleys are made instead of Battles. If anything the common parts will accelerate production of Hurricanes. Demand for Sea Hurricanes might eat into those available for fighter command, but for each specialty that adopts the same aircraft type another factory is freed up from making some inferior alternative and economies of scale improve overall production. As demand increases, so does supply (limited by the overall capacity). Cancel the Battle, Fulmar and Albacore then Fairey have spare capacity for building Henleys and Hurricanes. Maybe with Bristol engines? Did they ever try a triple row, 21 cylinder version of the Taurus (like an Armstrong Siddeley Deerhound)?
 
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There won't be any less Spitfires or Hurricanes if Henleys are made instead of Battles. If anything the common parts will accelerate production of Hurricanes. Demand for Sea Hurricanes might eat into those available for fighter command, but for each specialty that adopts the same aircraft type another factory is freed up from making some inferior alternative and economies of scale improve overall production. As demand increases, so does supply (limited by the overall capacity). Cancel the Battle, Fulmar and Albacore then Fairey have spare capacity for building Henleys and Hurricanes. Maybe with Bristol engines? Did they ever try a triple row, 21 cylinder version of the Taurus?

The first Henley prototype flew March 1937.

The initial Battle production order was placed with Fairey in 1935 (delivered Spring 1937) and additional orders with Austin in 1936 (first flight July 1938) - tooling for both would have been ordered in advance to allow for mass production and given that the RAF only had about 160 Battles in the first place to send to France in 1939, that year delay in ordering tooling could mean no aircraft at all.

You need to change the thinking by 1935 at the latest and have a suitable design ready when that thinking has been changed to have any chance of a separate Army Air Force or even better RAF Army Co-operation aircraft.

There were enough overheating probelms with a double row Taurus, which was part of the reason for the Beaufort being delayed.
 

perfectgeneral

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I was not aware that reliability problems with the Taurus were centred on overheating. I'd be interested in any links or information you have on this as a low diameter radial engine is such a good naval fighter engine. I like the idea of an early Hawker-Bristol-Siddeley merger.


Looks like they might have to stick with the crappy old Merlin ;) .
 
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