V Bombers Question - The Vickers Valiant

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.

The problems in the British motor industry were mainly in the volume car end, Britain had many successful makers of upmarket and sports cars and commercials. When BL was founded in 1968 some of its constituent parts such as Jaguar, MG, Leyland Truck and Bus, Rover and Triumph were leading brands in their sectors, the theory behind national "champion companies" such as BL was that the good companies would strengthen the weak because of their better management. Instead the opposite happened, the successful brands were starved of investment because of a political imperative to keep the Austin-Morris volume car business churning out abominations like the Allegro, Maxi and Marina. The former British Motor Corporation was an absolute quagmire that I doubt Henry Ford could have made a success of, BL's senior management such as Donald Stokes and Harry Webster were from a heavy trucks and sports car background and didn't seem to understand the volume market.

What the Government should have done was what happened with GM and Chrysler, split off the good from the bad and ensure that what's viable isn't dragged down, however the mass redundancies this would have entailed was anathema in a Britain that was committed politically to full employment at all costs.
 
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?

Yep, can I suggest James Hanilton-Patterson's Empire of the Clouds? It's an excellent account of the state of the British Aviation Industry post war, some of the blunders are real facepalm moments! :(
 
The problems in the British motor industry were mainly in the volume car end, Britain had many successful makers of upmarket and sports cars and commercials. When BL was founded in 1968 some of its constituent parts such as Jaguar, MG, Leyland Truck and Bus, Rover and Triumph were leading brands in their sectors, the theory behind national "champion companies" such as BL was that the good companies would strengthen the weak because of their better management. Instead the opposite happened, the successful brands were starved of investment because of a political imperative to keep the Austin-Morris volume car business churning out abominations like the Allegro, Maxi and Marina. The former British Motor Corporation was an absolute quagmire that I doubt Henry Ford could have made a success of, BL's senior management such as Donald Stokes and Harry Webster were from a heavy trucks and sports car background and didn't seem to understand the volume market.

What the Government should have done was what happened with GM and Chrysler, split off the good from the bad and ensure that what's viable isn't dragged down, however the mass redundancies this would have entailed was anathema in a Britain that was committed politically to full employment at all costs.

So maybe the thing to try is keeping the mergers, and some of the subsidy, but retaining private management?
 
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.

Well, the way around this might be for Vickers to ram through the V-1000 project and/or (preferably both) the De Havilland Comet not avoiding the problems with metal fatigue it had IOTL. Dodge those two problems and Britain would have a commanding lead in the world's aviation industry, and having jumped forward successfully, the Valiant could be avoided out of a thought that the Victor and Vulcan would work, because the stuff we're building is working.

Getting a wee bit off-topic for a moment, the biggest issue with British Leyland's cars was the mentioned multiplication (which happened all over the place) and probably more importantly the fact that the 1960s and 1970s British cars had truly abominable workmanship, worse than the Americans or French and easily as bad as the Italians of the time. The level of multiplication was so bad that when Triumph was developing the Stag sports car they insisted on their own V8 engine, even though Rover's V8 was already proven and bulletproof by then. Likewise, some of the horror stories of the British cars of the time, such as cars with wood trim that hadn't been sanded and gave new owners splinters, hurt things. The nearly constant industrial action of British industry in the 1970s added to the problem. The best thing one could do here is keep Leyland and BMC separate, and instead of BMC go bust and get re-organized.
 
The best thing one could do here is keep Leyland and BMC separate, and instead of BMC go bust and get re-organized.
Doesn't solve the problem. BMC didn't need re-organising, it needed burning by a priest and then burying in salted ground under a crossroads in a lead coffin.

More seriously most of the problems you list were 'features' of the system. Take duplication, if Triumph had just used a Rover V8 then they would have had to sack their own engine development team and close their engine factory, something that would (a) have prompted the union into another strike (although to be fair Red Robbo would strike at anything) and (b) pissed off the government who wanted full employment.

Still, as with most industrial/technology problems of Britain in the era, nothing that shooting Tony Benn as a warning to others wouldn't solve.
 
More seriously most of the problems you list were 'features' of the system. Take duplication, if Triumph had just used a Rover V8 then they would have had to sack their own engine development team and close their engine factory, something that would (a) have prompted the union into another strike (although to be fair Red Robbo would strike at anything) and (b) pissed off the government who wanted full employment.

In terms of contextualising the mismanagement of so many nationalised sectors in post war Britain this is the really important thing to remember. Operating them as functional businesses, or even sustainable instittutions was very much secondary to ensuring full employment, and to the leaders of the time (on all sides) that very much meant maintaining the status quo, and certainly not the form of disruptive reorganization that we can say with hindsight would have done a much better long term job, even by that employment standard.
 
Doesn't solve the problem. BMC didn't need re-organising, it needed burning by a priest and then burying in salted ground under a crossroads in a lead coffin.

More seriously most of the problems you list were 'features' of the system. Take duplication, if Triumph had just used a Rover V8 then they would have had to sack their own engine development team and close their engine factory, something that would (a) have prompted the union into another strike (although to be fair Red Robbo would strike at anything) and (b) pissed off the government who wanted full employment.

Still, as with most industrial/technology problems of Britain in the era, nothing that shooting Tony Benn as a warning to others wouldn't solve.

BMC was of such a size that had it failed nearly half of Britain's auto industry would have sank with it. I am well-aware of what insanity British Motor Company and British Leyland got up to, believe me. But there was much among BMC and BL's engineering departments, but what good they had got smothered under the massive duplication, arrogant management, militant workforce and meddling government owners that BMC/BL was saddled with. Re-organize to toss out the shitty management and large amounts of duplication, and in the process send a message to the unions that we can't go on as is, and that if you want these jobs, work with us rather than strike every time the local beer supply gets high enough.

It's worth pointing out that some of the cars made by British Leyland were excellent ideas with somewhat poor execution (Triumph Stag, the ADO16 cars, Austin Maxi, Austin 1800, Leyland P76, Triumph 2000, most everything made by Jaguar at time) and some genuinely brilliant cars with stupid problems (Triumph Dolomite Sprint, Rover P6 and SD1, Jaguar XJS). Avoid the problems and you'd almost certainly have a successful automaker. The problem was that so much effort was put into cars that were total shit (namely the Morris Marina and Austin Allegro, two of the biggest pieces of shit ever built at a time when Ford, Volkswagen and others were producing excellent automobiles. It is possible to make BL into something, though it is admittedly not terribly easy.

Bureaucromancer hit the nail on the head with the problems with Britain in the 1960s and 1970s in general. The idea of full employment drove pretty much everything in Britain's economic policies at the time, even though they became horribly destructive in the long run to the overall economy, and then Thatcher compounded the damage by allowing most of the firms themselves to be chopped up and sold off or just allowing them to completely flop out. It could have been different, dare I say should have been different.
 
BMC was of such a size that had it failed nearly half of Britain's auto industry would have sank with it. I am well-aware of what insanity British Motor Company and British Leyland got up to, believe me. But there was much among BMC and BL's engineering departments, but what good they had got smothered under the massive duplication, arrogant management, militant workforce and meddling government owners that BMC/BL was saddled with. Re-organize to toss out the shitty management and large amounts of duplication, and in the process send a message to the unions that we can't go on as is, and that if you want these jobs, work with us rather than strike every time the local beer supply gets high enough.

It's worth pointing out that some of the cars made by British Leyland were excellent ideas with somewhat poor execution (Triumph Stag, the ADO16 cars, Austin Maxi, Austin 1800, Leyland P76, Triumph 2000, most everything made by Jaguar at time) and some genuinely brilliant cars with stupid problems (Triumph Dolomite Sprint, Rover P6 and SD1, Jaguar XJS). Avoid the problems and you'd almost certainly have a successful automaker. The problem was that so much effort was put into cars that were total shit (namely the Morris Marina and Austin Allegro, two of the biggest pieces of shit ever built at a time when Ford, Volkswagen and others were producing excellent automobiles. It is possible to make BL into something, though it is admittedly not terribly easy.

Bureaucromancer hit the nail on the head with the problems with Britain in the 1960s and 1970s in general. The idea of full employment drove pretty much everything in Britain's economic policies at the time, even though they became horribly destructive in the long run to the overall economy, and then Thatcher compounded the damage by allowing most of the firms themselves to be chopped up and sold off or just allowing them to completely flop out. It could have been different, dare I say should have been different.

TBF to the Allegro it was also a good idea with terrible execution, check out Harris Mann's original design but this was distorted during development by a series of blunders by management turning it into a caricature of Mann's concept.

The Marina was always intended to be a stop gap "parts bin special" to compete with the Ford Cortina. Therefore it was basically a rebody of the Minor, despite having severe understeer when launched, it did become BL's biggest seller and sold over a million units during its life. The Marina's biggest crime was that it lived far too long, it was to be replaced by a larger car codenamed ADO77 but this was canned in the aftermath of BL's nationalisation and the Ryder Report, along with the Dolomite replacement, the SD2 resulting in both cars having to soldier on into the 1980's despite being increasingly obsolete.

Another project that suffered post nationalisation was LC10 the Maxi replacement. The design of this car was frozen by 1976/77 but because the Austin Metro had been given priority status it's launch was continually delayed and didn't reach the showrooms until 1983 as the Austin Maestro, what could have been an interesting and radical car in the late 1970's was completely outdated by the mid 1980's, the Montego that emerged the following year fared little better. Being fair to Thatcher, BL's management had assured her that these cars would sell strongly, when they both bombed, and even sold less than the Allegro and Marina, her patience ran out and she became convinced that BL needed to be broken up.

The whole debacle was a catalogue of blunders by Management and Government, in particular the Wilson Government should have taken a firmer grip on BL post nationalisation, instead Benn used it as an experiment for his idea of "industrial democracy" which basically meant letting the workers decide if they wanted to turn up for work or how half assed they did it if they did. It wasn't until Jim Callaghan and Eric Varley decided that BL had to be put back on to a commercial basis and brought Michael Edwardes in to do the sort of rationalisation that had been needed since the formation of BMC some 25 years earlier that things began to improve, then again if Callaghan hadn't shafted Barbara Castle over In Place of Strife, then things would have been very different!
 
Dragging back on topic, with the aim being the V-1000/VC-7 here's one way it could work.

The POD is the Brabazon Committee actually talking properly to BOAC and other airlines and working out the Type I (OTL Bristol Brabazon) was never going to work and killing it. As an added bonus this also kills of the S-R Princess which had a similar 'logic' behind it. Instead the Type IV (OTL Comet) gets split into a medium range and a translantic design, both jet powered.

The medium range design is considered lower risk and goes ahead first as the OTL Comet, maybe with BAOC involved there are less constant re-designs and no mucking about with tail-less designs, maybe even enough to avert the OTL problems but that might be wishful thinking.

Anyway there is thus a hole, Type IVA, waiting to be filled by some aircraft. Thus when the Vickers Valiant gets knocked back the first time as per OTL the Ministry direct Vickers to go after the Type IVA with a civilian version of the Valiant. Vickers decide a certain contract is better than arguing with the government and go for it. With BOAC actually involved this time with the spec Vickers avoid the dead-end of the VC-5 and end up with the VC-7 to meet the Type IVA spec.

Something like that? Or have I got the post-war politics and planning of BOAC/Air Ministry terribly wrong somehow?
 
It seems more likely that the committee would come up with a short ranged European focussed version of the Comet and OTL Britannia for long range routes to me (not that bad a combination really). That said, in that combination the V-1000 in its original incarnation as a direct spin off of the V-Bombers starts to seem more reasonable as well.

If you wanted a really interesting timeline I could imagine something along the lines in British investment in the North Star/Argonaut as a short term aircraft and the Avro Jetliner as the European jet transport with entirely British work on the Britannia and V-1000.
 
Certainly it's far better if the Brabazon Committee had a more commercial focus rather than just seeming to dream up implausible aircraft like the Brabazon and Princess that a short chat to the airlines would have told them weren't wanted. But there's then an institutional preference for American aircraft in BOAC as they were in use by just about all the World's airlines and BOAC wanted them. Britain's record in airliners had been pretty poor, during the War Britain didn't build any transports meaning that designers didnt have much experience of the commercial market. This resulted in a series of poor designs such as the Lancastrian and the Tudor which was a total death trap, these eroded the airline's confidence in British aircraft, and then BOAC had its fingers badly burned by the Comet and Brittania.

What was suggested in Empire of the Clouds was that instead of trying to build a full range of commercial aircraft, the Brabazon Committee should have instead suggested the development of the Comet and 2 or 3 other propeller driven types that could have been developed quickly and to maximise the resources instead of spreading them too thin. There also needed to be much closer supervision by the Ministry, particularly of the Comet that may have picked up its design flaws. It may have been better if it's development hadn't been carried out by De Havilland who had been a maker of fighters and trainers, maybe it's given to Vickers who have the experience of larger aircraft and the Comet becomes a commercial success. The knowledge gained from the Comet speeds up the development of the Valiant/V-1000 and the new airliner replaces the Comet and becomes Britain's 707?
 
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?

not only were Britain and France in the 50s manufacturing a multitude of different fighter a/c

France - Ouragan, Mystere, Super Mystere, Vatour, Mirage

Britain - Meteor, Vampire, Venom, Sea Venom, Attacker, Sea Hawk, Hunter, Swift, Javelin, Lightning

they were also importing Foriegn fighters jets

France - Sea Venom [Aquilon], F-84 Thunderstreak, F-100 Super Sabre

Britain - Canadair Sabre

of the indigenously produce fighters of these two military economies. only the Meteor, Vampire, Sea Hawk, Hunter, and Mirage had any great export appeal in a market dominated by US and USSR manufacturers

indeed many countries in Central America, and South-East Asia and African Air Forces used WW2 surplus and 1950s piston-engines, some using Mustangs into the 1980s

the Vickers Valiant was the easiest of the three V-bombers to manufacture and the nicest to fly, and though the Vulcan and Victor were more advanced and powerful, their development and production was much more protracted - and without the Valiant the RAF would have had to soldier on with B-29s and Canberras, neither of which were really adequate for the job.

Of course the Valiant was the only aircraft capable of dropping the British H-bomb, and the only V-bomber to be used in combat prior to the Falklands War [Suez]
 
What was suggested in Empire of the Clouds was that instead of trying to build a full range of commercial aircraft, the Brabazon Committee should have instead suggested the development of the Comet and 2 or 3 other propeller driven types that could have been developed quickly and to maximise the resources instead of spreading them too thin. There also needed to be much closer supervision by the Ministry, particularly of the Comet that may have picked up its design flaws. It may have been better if it's development hadn't been carried out by De Havilland who had been a maker of fighters and trainers, maybe it's given to Vickers who have the experience of larger aircraft and the Comet becomes a commercial success. The knowledge gained from the Comet speeds up the development of the Valiant/V-1000 and the new airliner replaces the Comet and becomes Britain's 707?

That would work well, especially if the V-1000 beats the 707 to the punch, and that's not only possible but quite easy. Boeing and Douglas are sure to grab big shares of the American market, but if the Vickers V-1000 is a commercial success than its a big moneymaker for Vickers, and also builds confidence in Britain's aviation industry. Vickers and De Havilland are busy with the big planes projects, which leaves the job of the V Bombers to Handley Page and Avro, which allows the Victor and Vulcan to arrive, as well as speeding them up somewhat. This also means that the Victor and Vulcan are built in greater numbers, and the success off the aircraft is such that Britain keeps them in service for longer. The 1957 Defense White Paper never happens.

The repeated failures of the French aviation industry in the 1960s (The Caravelle and Mercure being two of the biggest flops in aviation history) allows the British aerospace industry to fairly quickly be the dominant player in Europe, and by the 1970s they have joined forces with the rest of the Europeans in an attempt to keep the Americans from owning the market. The V Bombers themselves change roles in the 1960s after the U-2 incident and the realization that the high-flying bombers would not be effective in that profile. The Victors are refitted in the 1960s as the RAF's conventional bombtrucks (in a similar manner as the B-52 for the USAF) while the Vulcans all take over tactical nuclear strike roles, their huge range allowing them to be used in tactical strikes roles as well as nuclear strike jobs. The Vulcan B.3 trades its fuel-hogging turbojets for Rolls-Royce turbofans in the mid-1960s. The greater aviation industry success and better economic times in Britain allow the TSR.2 to be better managed, and while Britain moves much of its nuclear strike roles to the SSBNs in the 1960s, the Vulcans and Victors remain in service. The Vulcan force is reduced in size with the arrival of the TSR.2 in 1966 (the TSR.2 is also sold to the RAAF and IAF).

By 1970, the Bomber Command fleet of the RAF stands at 65 Victors, 27 Vulcans and 78 TSR.2s, and is one of the most dangerous units for Warsaw Pact air defenses. The RAF also uses a large number of V-1000s and later VC-10 airliners as aerial refueling aircraft, and this gives the RAF a massive range in its operations. This is proven in exercises against the USAF's air defense units several times in the 1960s and 1970s, with the TSR.2 being a particular pain in the backside for the USAF interceptors because of its blazing speed at low level. Even American F-15 Eagles in the late 1970s found catching TSR.2s difficult. The Handley Page Victor B.3, first used in 1967, used its large anti-shock bodies under its wings as secondary bomb bays for its bomb truck role, boosting its bomb capacity to 59 1000-lb bombs, as well as being fitted with Conway turbofans. The Vulcans are most frequently fitted with Martel missiles, but they can also carry conventional bombs.
 
By what standard was the Caravelle a flop? They sold almost 300, even managed to break into the American market and were the first reasonably practical short range jet by quite a few years. It certainly didn't make them rich, but my understanding is that the breakeven point was under 200 frames.
 
Dragging back on topic, with the aim being the V-1000/VC-7 here's one way it could work.

The POD is the Brabazon Committee actually talking properly to BOAC and other airlines and working out the Type I (OTL Bristol Brabazon) was never going to work and killing it. As an added bonus this also kills of the S-R Princess which had a similar 'logic' behind it. Instead the Type IV (OTL Comet) gets split into a medium range and a translantic design, both jet powered.

Or the Brabazon 1 is turbofan powered and doesn't make the mistake of a luxury interior......:cool:

Added bonus of it being jet powered is the the possibility of the Princess being jet powered so avoiding screwing up the Proteus with the reverse flow layout.
 
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 is the entire raison d'etre of the valiant a stop gap based on more conventional technology ...

the V bomber story is cut short by a whole sale shift to Polaris and the plug being pulled on Skybolt

incrementally, had skybolt not been cancelled we would have seen stretched version of the Vulcan the B3 at least and possibly a later thin wing olympus 593 powered cross between a Vulcan and Concorde as a big brother to the TSR 2

for a high altitude strategic bomber the Vulcan also made a suprisingly good interdictor and low altitude tactical bomber ... although in a timeline where policy is different the TSR2 or F111s take that role instead of FAA cast off Buccaneers and Vulcans
 
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