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 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 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?