No Smuts report- then what?

Thinking about Bomber Command, the obvious what if came up; what if something else had been done with the enormous investment of resources, energy and skilled manpower?

The Smuts Report may be the key to this, because it is the bureaucratic foundation stone of the RAF; and the preamble states that
"the day may not be far off when aerial operations with their devastation of enemy lands and destruction of industrial and populous centres on a vast scale may become the principal operations of war, to which the older forms of military and naval operations may become secondary and subordinate".
-

the strategic bombing mission was always the unique justification for the RAF. How difficult would it be for this to be overtaken by events, for the decision to be taken to shelve it until a moment when backs were not against the wall- and for the strategic bombing survey to not be suppressed in the interim?

There was a postwar assessment made of the results of no.3 wing, 41 Group and the Independent Air Force- the WWI attempts at strategic bombing; and it is damning. Worse than the Butt Report, pointing out enormous inaccuracies in bomb aiming, navigation, damage assessment and worse, the honesty of the high command, who almost invariably believed their own propaganda.

Early strategic bombing was not only ineffective, it was extremely costly. Much of the night bombers' loads, almost fifty percent, was used on airfields as defence suppression for the day bombers. Frequently missed.

In OTL, it was very quickly misfiled and did not emerge until after the end of the cold war. Here, it is openly published.

So, by mid 1919, it emerges that strategic bombing is very difficult, expensive, and probably not a feasible operation of war, and it's advocates have enormously and deliberately oversold their case.

Then what? How does the RFC develop from there? What effect does it have on the rest of the army, and what does the 1937 air force of this timeline look like?
 
The two reports by General Smuts have been oft quoted as being the 'Magna Carter' of Strategic bombing. However if the historic record is observed the strategic role of the RAF bomber force arise's as a method of preserving the intependace of the Fledgeling RAF. Examining Trenchard's concepts of airwarfare as published in 1918/19 it can be seen clearly that he saw the RAF at that time being princeply an adjunct of the Army and the land capaign. Only later did the strategic role of the bomber force emerge to dominate the RAF doctrin of the interwar period. If the forced marriage of the RFC and the RNAS in April 1918 does not take place then there is a distinct posibilty that the domination of the strategic bomber concept never holds sway in the British air warfare doctrin.
 
Last edited:
Flyboys want to do their own thing. Look that the USAAF and its transition to the USAF. It painted itself as the only service to matter in the nuclear age and for a long time was winning the budget wars easily because it was the cheap option that politicians liked.

Of course if there seemed to be a way to win wars with only one service that service is going to shout it from the roof tops.
 
And if they get caught lying about it? Claiming an enormous share of the national wealth on false premises, that they know or should have known to be false, and suppressed the evidence of?

You could argue that Trenchard was right the first time; air to serve the ground forces did, demonstrably, work. Expensive but effective.

So how do things develop- what gets developed- in the absence of the strategic mission?
 
Scouting is an area to develop and one with no other options.
Fighters to drive off the other side's scouts would also be natural.
Ground support, what designs can enhance the benefits aircraft have over artillery?
 
Top