V Bombers Question - The Vickers Valiant

Is there any way to avoid the development or at least introduction of the Vickers Valiant in favour of the Avro Vulcan and Handley Page Victor? Now I understand that the Vulcan and Victor were technologically more complex so the Valiant was the lower-tech stop-gap version just in case anything went wrong and delayed them, combined with the fact that Britain was if not desperate for then at least urgently trying to get a nuclear capability, but building three bombers was rather expensive so I was looking to try and cut costs a little.

Now from I can see the British didn't even have a nuclear device that could be dropped from an aircraft until several months after the Vulcan was introduced so for the first year of its life the Valiant was mostly used to train up pilots and perform technical tests. Is it possible to get the government to see that as the Valiant is about to enter service the Vulcan is on track and only roughly on year away, and with no actual bomb to drop the duplication is too expensive so they should just wait for the Vulcan without using too much hindsight? The general idea was to let them fully develop the plane but then as a cost cutting measure the government decides not to place an order, or for just a limited few to use as test beds, and as a consolation prize and thanks to the government realising as in our timeline that they're going to need jet transports and aerial refueling to get the most out of the V Force Vickers is asked to develop their V-1000/VC7 jet-powered cargo aircraft to meet the specification. This would have the benefit of saving some fairly serious money since you won't be stuck with a large number of bombers that weren't designed to operate at low level thanks to advances in SAM technology and therefore suffer wing fatigue, allow you to roll the cash saved over into the V-1000 project and then buy more of the other two V bombers when they arrive, and throw some major butterflies into the international jet market.
 
More trust in the newer tech in the other V bombers should do the trick. From what I've read the Valient was a low-tech backup in case the Vulcan and Victor didn't work out. Less conservatism within the RAF Bomber Command?
 
Maybe the Short Sperrin proves a more successful design meaning that it serves as the stopgap between the Lincoln and the Vulcan/Victor making the Valiant unnecessary?
 
I think the story was that the Valiant was both miles ahead of the Sperrin and available sooner. Keep in mind that the Brits were desperate for a big bomber, and the later two didn't enter service in good numbers until closer to 1960 than 1955.
 
That's what I was afraid of. It just seemed that as a more basic design that was only in service for roughly ten years before being retired seemed like an easy way to make some savings. The V-1000/VC-7 can still happen, just got to find the extra money for it somewhere else.
 
Tankers

The Valiants were converted into tankers as soon as there were enough Victors and Vulcans, so building them provided value exceeding their limited front line service as bombers. Without Valiants, and with the VC10 still useful as airliners, the RAF would have to find suitable tanker aircraft somewhere. Rebuilt Comets or US sourced KC135?
 
If you want to save some money, how many fighter projects were the RN and RAF carrying out in the 1950's and 60's?
 
If you want to save some money, how many fighter projects were the RN and RAF carrying out in the 1950's and 60's?

Exactly. HM's armed forces had more than ample funding during 1950's and 1960's. RN and RAF still managed to screw almost everything up by pretending that WW II was still going on. Imagine if the FAA and RAF really decided to bang heads together and they might get through to 1980's with, say, three main fighter types (Say, Tunnan, Lansen and Draken analogue for us Sweden fans), three bomber types (Canberra, V-bomber and Buccaneer) etc.
 
Exactly. HM's armed forces had more than ample funding during 1950's and 1960's. RN and RAF still managed to screw almost everything up by pretending that WW II was still going on. Imagine if the FAA and RAF really decided to bang heads together and they might get through to 1980's with, say, three main fighter types (Say, Tunnan, Lansen and Draken analogue for us Sweden fans), three bomber types (Canberra, V-bomber and Buccaneer) etc.

What could have helped prevent that would have been an earlier consolidation of the aviation industry so it could reduce competition. But the Government didn't wasn't to do away with famous names, Avro, De Haviland and Gloster were all part of Hawker Siddeley yet all 4 operated as separate entities resulting in unnecessary duplication.
 
Actually, it probably wouldn't have been so bad if each company had run a particular project group, say de Havilland for fighters, Avro for bombers and Gloster for training/observation.
 
That's what I was afraid of. It just seemed that as a more basic design that was only in service for roughly ten years before being retired seemed like an easy way to make some savings. The V-1000/VC-7 can still happen, just got to find the extra money for it somewhere else.

There's really no reason to cancel a V-Bomber if that V-1000 is the goal. Ultimately that cancellation was downright arbitrary, and had more to do with BOAC's enthusiasm for the Britannia than anything else. British conservatism again, but it does raise the prospect of the Valiant being replaced by a turbo prop bomber, possibly related to the Britannia.
 
But the Government didn't wasn't to do away with famous names, Avro, De Haviland and Gloster were all part of Hawker Siddeley yet all 4 operated as separate entities resulting in unnecessary duplication.
This pretty much happened. The Government did encourage rationalisation, from the late 1950s they heavily pushed mergers and certainly in the case of Hawker Siddeley the brands you listed had all been killed of by the early 1960s.

I suppose you could have that rationalisation start earlier, and be done faster, but I'd say the basic method was wrong. What Britain needed was either a cut in capacity or more exports and given the post-war situation a big enough boost in exports were never that likely - countries either produced their own or brought US/Soviet depending on ideological pressure. That means what was needed was factories shutting, people losing their jobs and companies closing down, merging just delays that decision and makes it more political (why are H-S closing all the Avro facilities but no Hawker ones?).

I guess the more optimistic POD is to stop successive governments just giving away the jet engine to anyone who asked for it. If you can delay US jet development enough then maybe enough countries would choose a British jet over a US prop to keep all the factories open. But what are the chances of Britain getting some intelligent post-war politicians? :(
 
How many countries actually bought new aircraft in the late 1940's and early-mid 1950's?

Did a lot of countries run on war surplus US and British aircraft in that period?

How big was the market for jet fighter and bomber aircraft?
 
Well we did, we bought Meteors to fight in Korea as well as Vampires for the rest of the RAAF. The Berlin Blockade and Korean war soon shook the world out of it's complacency and there were few jet aircraft on the world market.
 
Well we did, we bought Meteors to fight in Korea as well as Vampires for the rest of the RAAF. The Berlin Blockade and Korean war soon shook the world out of it's complacency and there were few jet aircraft on the world market.

Plus Canberra, Lincoln, Sea Venom etc.

Sure, but what did the South American and the (few) Independent Asian countries do?
 
Plus Canberra, Lincoln, Sea Venom etc.

Sure, but what did the South American and the (few) Independent Asian countries do?

Early British jets did actually quite well in commercial market, I'm not listing all the export deals here:

Argentine: 100 Meteors
Australia: 104 Meteors
Belgium: 347 Meteors
Brazil: 62 Meteors
Denmark: 69 Meteors

DH Vampire: 1521 built for export and under license. Those exported after RAF service not counted.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
. But the Government didn't wasn't to do away with famous names, Avro, De Haviland and Gloster were all part of Hawker Siddeley yet all 4 operated as separate entities resulting in unnecessary duplication.

You're shitting me. You HAVE to be shitting me. No Government could just stick it's finger into private industry THAT badly, could it?
 
I suppose you could have that rationalisation start earlier, and be done faster, but I'd say the basic method was wrong.

How about a POD in which the Attlee cabinet decides to nationalise aircraft industry and truly merge it into one large company? Perhaps, in light of wartime development, it might even push for a reform in which aircraft factories are owned by state and there is a number of design bureaus which would compete to fulfill a specification? The overproduction problem might be solved by directing the overcapacity factories into producing prebuilt housing, new railroad carriages etc.
 
How about a POD in which the Attlee cabinet decides to nationalise aircraft industry and truly merge it into one large company?
Because British nationalised industries have such a stellar success rate. You need only look at British Leyland. Or British Steel. Or British Coal. Or any of the other countless industries that no longer exist in Britain after they were nationalised, merged into one large company and then spectacularly driven into the ground by stunning incompetence from everybody involved; governments of both sides, management and unions.

For that idea to work the first POD would have to be 'Post-war British governments are capable of competently running a nationalised industry'. Given most of them weren't capable of organising a booze up in a brewery while holding a copy of 'How to organise a booze up in a brewery for dummies' that's quite an ask.

Not to say it's not possible to have effective nationalised industries, France and many other countries have and do. Just that successive British government have lacked the skills/willpower/whatever to consistently do so and I have a feeling that a POD early enough and large enough to effect such changes would butterfly away any recognisable post-war situation.
 
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