WI: Sandys decided Missiles are crap?

Another thing has occurred to me as a result of the Sandystorm, with the TSR2 being the only thing for the RAF to focus on until the P1154 came along in December 1961 it was 'vultured' by officials with nothing else to do but interfere with this project. This interference extended all the way down to the layout of cockpit switches and had a negative effect on the programme overall.

Without the immediate cancelling of the F155T, SR P177 and other things these officials will have a normal spread of projects to occupy their attention and thus won't interfere with the TSR2 as much and this should reduce costs and delays a bit.

Perhaps a Sandystorm should have been even more drastic, perhaps with elimination of RAF as both manned strategic bombing and air defence of UK were becoming obsolete? Turn over the remains to the Army (RAFG, Transport Command...) and FAA (Coastal Command...). Make aircraft industry focus on naval aircraft, transports (which also have civil applications) and missiles. Naval aircraft would suffice for tactical strikes, expeditionary duties and air policing duties over UK.

Now, with RAF clearly under a fundamental threat to their ethos of manned flying aircraft they turned to sabotaging RN during 1960's. Or perhaps this was Treasury plan all along, make the services eat each other out?
 
Sure, but by that time the nukes will be flying.

So you aren't a believer of the ladder of escalation; that there won't be a bit of conventional fighting before the nukes fly?

I personally believe there would have been, simply to see if the war could be won without glassing everything and find out what has to be nuked if they do have to fly.

In case of RAAF I understand the requirement for deep strike. By the way, couldn't a mix of Buccs and KC-135 be a possibility?

I don't know if the Bucc-KC135 is a practical possibility given what the RAAF evaluation sheet says about IFR. All the probe and drogue options (KC130E and Buddy) state that refuelling options take place between 15-22,000 feet, but that the KC135 could refuel the F4C at cruising altitude. In that sense I get the feeling that P&D IFR could only be done at 22,000' or below back in 1963, which doesn't make the KC135 the best candidate to support a Bucc fleet.

However the RAAF specified that the new strike aircraft must be capable of Mach 2 at altitude and a supersonic burst at below 200ft and a combat radius of 900nm. The RAAF didn't put this requirement out there due to ignorance, they were on the verge of introducing the Mach 2 Mirage III after evaluating out the Mach 2 F104, and was operating the Bloodhound SAM. The RAAF was also familiar with the likes for the RAF and US Mach 2 aircraft and with US and other British SAMs, so knew the best chance to avoid them was and thus set a spec that the Bucc just couldn't meet.

Perhaps a Sandystorm should have been even more drastic, perhaps with elimination of RAF as both manned strategic bombing and air defence of UK were becoming obsolete? Turn over the remains to the Army (RAFG, Transport Command...) and FAA (Coastal Command...). Make aircraft industry focus on naval aircraft, transports (which also have civil applications) and missiles. Naval aircraft would suffice for tactical strikes, expeditionary duties and air policing duties over UK.

Given how the 60s panned out such a decision would have invited drastic measures against a Britain that wasn't able to defend against and thus deter such actions. WW2 showed that missiles were as cost effective as manned aircraft in conventional operations and the Nth Vietnamese fired 5800 SAMs to shoot down 208 US aircraft proving the limitations (woeful inadequacy?) of SAMs. How would the UK deter diplomatically various threats with only missiles?
 
make the services eat each other out

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English is not my first language, although with googling I find some interesting material with the phrase :)

But what I mean, with RAF under a clear threat it seems that it focused on killing FAA's capabilities.
 
Given how the 60s panned out such a decision would have invited drastic measures against a Britain that wasn't able to defend against and thus deter such actions. WW2 showed that missiles were as cost effective as manned aircraft in conventional operations and the Nth Vietnamese fired 5800 SAMs to shoot down 208 US aircraft proving the limitations (woeful inadequacy?) of SAMs. How would the UK deter diplomatically various threats with only missiles?

As for defence of UK it was by deterrence anyway. As for expeditionary operations the tactical aircraft would suffice. It must be remembered that NV used second rate Soviet SAM's against US aircraft. Use of Western SAM's during the period was very rare, but USN did score pretty impressive kills during Vietnam. Hawk SAM also was no slouch.

I don't know if Bloodhound or Thunderbird saw any action. Bloodhound was selected by the Swiss and Swedes which most probably means it was a good system.

And it didn't help them.

No, not at all, but it perhaps helped the Treasury in cutting down defence spending, which is what I meant.
 
As for defence of UK it was by deterrence anyway.

Deterrence with the nukes, Army, RAF and RN in conjunction. A weaker RAF, Army and RN gives the British less deterrence.

No, not at all, but it perhaps helped the Treasury in cutting down defence spending, which is what I meant.

No money was saved, in fact money was wasted because so many projects that were advanced to the prototype stage were cancelled.
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No money was saved, in fact money was wasted because so many projects that were advanced to the prototype stage were cancelled.

But in the end, by 1970's RN was downsizing to through-deck cruisers and RAF did not have TSR-2 or F-111. I would imagine the Treasury was not at slightest interested in whether UK had good aircraft and ships or not, just how much did it cost. But the infighting and constant resuffling of defence projects, caused largely by rapidly shifting goals set by Cabinets, prevented the Services from creating clear set of goals and priorities, and above all, an united front.

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But in the end, by 1970's RN was downsizing to through-deck cruisers and RAF did not have TSR-2 or F-111. I would imagine the Treasury was not at slightest interested in whether UK had good aircraft and ships or not, just how much did it cost. But the infighting and constant resuffling of defence projects, caused largely by rapidly shifting goals set by Cabinets, prevented the Services from creating clear set of goals and priorities, and above all, an united front.

NOMISYRRUC knows this sort of thing better than I do.

AFAIK in the period 1945-70 HM Treasury wasn't as hostile to the British aviation industry as is often thought because it earned foreign currency. There's also the, "Jobs for British workers," argument. BAC, Hawker Siddeley and Rolls Royce paid British corporation tax. Their employees paid British income tax. Boeing, Pratt & Whitney and their employees paid the American equivalents of these taxes.

E.g. in the late 1960s BEA wanted to buy some Boeing 727s and 737s, but because HM Treasury didn't want to spend the Dollars it made BEA buy 26 Trident 3s (plus an option on 10) and 18 BAC-111-500s (plus an option on 6) but paid the airline compensation for forcing it to buy British.

I don't have the evidence to back it up, but I suspect that Sea Dart was developed because the Treasury wouldn't let the Royal Navy buy Tatar. I also suspect that the Treasury mandarins were very unhappy about the failure of the Avro Tudor and the subsequent purchase of Boeing Stratocruisers and Lockheed Constellations. I suspect that BOAC purchase of Canadian Canadair DC-4Ms instead of more American airliners was because the Treasury had more Canadian Dollars than American Dollars. Similarly I think the Treasury officials were rather upset when BOAC decided that it wanted to buy 15 Boeing 707s instead of 15 VC.7s in the 1950s and then in the 1960s reduced its VC.10 order from 45 to 29 in favour of more Boeing 707s (even if 19 of the 31 Boeing 707s eventually bought by BOAC had British RR Conway engines). Finally I suspect that it wanted the FAA to buy the P.1154RN rather than the Phantom, which (AFAIK) the RN wanted in the first place. I also suspect that once both versions of the P.1154 were cancelled it tried to have the British content of the F-4K and M maximised to reduce the Dollar spend. However, that backfired on them because it increased the absolute cost.

I'm guessing that if Treasury knew what the RAF was going to spend between 1965 and 1980 to get the supersonic low level strike aircraft they needed the Treasury would never have allowed it to be cancelled.
 

SsgtC

Banned
So you aren't a believer of the ladder of escalation; that there won't be a bit of conventional fighting before the nukes fly?

I personally believe there would have been, simply to see if the war could be won without glassing everything and find out what has to be nuked if they do have to fly.
Personally, I think anything other than a Cuban Missile Crises situation starts conventional. How long it stays conventional though? I think the over/under is a week. Either the Red Army is too successful and NATO resorts to nukes to stop the armored spearheads, the Red Army gets stopped cold and the Soviets resort to nukes to blow holes in NATO lines, or someone misreads a conventional deep penetration raid as a nuclear strike and launches on warning.
 
But in the end, by 1970's RN was downsizing to through-deck cruisers and RAF did not have TSR-2 or F-111. I would imagine the Treasury was not at slightest interested in whether UK had good aircraft and ships or not, just how much did it cost. But the infighting and constant resuffling of defence projects, caused largely by rapidly shifting goals set by Cabinets, prevented the Services from creating clear set of goals and priorities, and above all, an united front.

There is a big difference in per capita GDP defence spending over decades and year to year saving as a result of cancelling an acquisition project or three.

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Just for context, the British forces slice was about 55% Army, 25% RAF and 20% RN and acquisition forms about 25-40% of the services' budget, at the lower end for the people-heavy Army and at the higher end for the equipment-heavy Navy and Air Force. A big chunk of that is sustainment spare parts and the like for the equipment already in service, for ship refits and aircraft major servicing and the like, and even little things like goops, glues, washers, gaskets, nuts and bolts which the services breathe like air. Another chunk is for non-sexy COTS and MOTS shit like forklifts, scaffolding, trucks and busses, cargo loaders, instrument test benches all the way up to a batch of rifles, mobile radars, civil light aircraft, not to mention ammo which has a shelf life and has to be purchased constantly to keep stockpiles fresh.

Only then do you have major, politically-charged capital investment projects like combat aircraft. Given the RAF spent ~25% of the Defence Budget, ~35-40% was on materiel and maybe ~40% of that materiel budget was spent on sustainment and minor projects cancelling the BAC TSR2, AW(HS) 681 and HS P1154 was really only going to affect ~5-6% of the overall Defence budget. But these cancellations didn't mean the money wasn't going to be spent, because the RAF bought C130, F4K/M and tried to buy the F111K/AFVG/UKVG and did buy the Jaguar/Buccaneer/Tornado. This is why despite big cuts in 1957 and 1965 you don't see a dip in the budget.
 
and the Nth Vietnamese fired 5800 SAMs to shoot down 208 US aircraft proving the limitations (woeful inadequacy?) of SAMs.

of the SA-2 Guidelines. Now look at US and UK

Range:
Nike Hercules: 140km
Talos: 92km
RAF Bloodhound: 80km
SA-2 Guideline: 50km

Speed:
Nike Hercules: Mach 3.65
SA-2 Guideline: Mach 3.5
Bloodhound: Mach 2.7
Talos: Mach 2.5

Warhead: HE
Nike Hercules 1,106 pounds 600 pounds of HBX-6, the rest being 20,000 steel squares for fragmentation
Talos 465 pounds, continuous rod
SA-2 440 pounds
Bloodhound 395 pounds shaped charge Mk2

Now the US and UK SAMs used an top attack profile, would climb to over 100k and dive down.

Hercules could turn at 10G, no pilot could out turn it. limited ABM ability, too

Edit: added Talos info for the USN guys
 
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I'll concede that point. The F-111 was a more capable airframe than the A-6. However, outside of a nuclear strike, I don't see them doing many deep penetration raids into WARPAC airspace. The odds of even a successful mission being one-way are just too high to risk on a conventional bombing mission unless there is a REALLY high value target there. And if NATO feels the target is of high enough value to risk that kind of strike, I think they'd also consider it high enough value to risk launching a nuke at it. And if that's the case, there are a lot more cost effective ways to do that than a massive penetration raid.
I recall reading a account from an author who interviewed Cold War era USAF F111 crews whose war time missions reportedly included dropping 750 pound bombs on Warsaw Pact air bases. Reportedly there was a considerable degree of enthusiasm amongst the air crew for the acquisition of more effective conventional munitions. From reading the authors account I was left with the impression the air crew expected those missions to be rather difficult.
 

Tovarich

Banned
Nth Vietnamese fired 5800 SAMs to shoot down 208 US aircraft proving the limitations (woeful inadequacy?) of SAMs.

Is that actually a bad rate of return, though?

25 SAMs to 1 Aircraft sounds like a lot, but a SAM is surely heck of a lot cheaper than a manned Aircraft (especially one loaded with expensive ordnance too), plus the loss of trained crew ranging from a solo pilot to half a dozen or so on a Bomber, or even more on a Transport.
 
Is that actually a bad rate of return, though?

25 SAMs to 1 Aircraft sounds like a lot, but a SAM is surely heck of a lot cheaper than a manned Aircraft (especially one loaded with expensive ordnance too), plus the loss of trained crew ranging from a solo pilot to half a dozen or so on a Bomber, or even more on a Transport.

Dunno, but its certainly far cheaper and easier to train a SAM crew than a fighter pilot which makes it an option for poorer countries with less developed education sectors.

However it does illustrate the point that SAMs aren't a cheap and easy solution, its not like 'we'll buy 100 SAMs to shoot down the neighbour's 100 planes in the next war', even good SAMs like the HAWK might require 5 or 10 $250,000 missiles for each kill. What's more the NthV integrated with SAMs with manned fighters and AAA for greater coverage and versatility.
 

SsgtC

Banned
I recall reading a account from an author who interviewed Cold War era USAF F111 crews whose war time missions reportedly included dropping 750 pound bombs on Warsaw Pact air bases. Reportedly there was a considerable degree of enthusiasm amongst the air crew for the acquisition of more effective conventional munitions. From reading the authors account I was left with the impression the air crew expected those missions to be rather difficult.
I can see hitting Frontal Aviation bases. They would be realativly close to the front and contain a plethora of targets that have a direct impact on the ground war. Fuel and ammo dumps would also be useful targets to hit, but if they're too far back, there's a distinct risk of Moscow assuming the inbound strike is nuclear and launching.
 
Lightnings and if neccessary TSRs modified to the role à la Tornado F2/3. The speed of the TSR would make a decent missile platform and a good enough missile could intercept any bomber.

how are lightings going to fly long range all weather CAP over fleet operations in the 1980s . In such a situation surely an upgraded Phantom would be much better?
 
how are lightings going to fly long range all weather CAP over fleet operations in the 1980s . In such a situation surely an upgraded Phantom would be much better?

Especially if these Phantoms were operating from CVA01 and either a Phantomised Eagle or CVA 02.

The whole 4 hour CAP thing was a direct result of cancelling the CVAs and the final disposal of HMS Ark Royal in 1978.
 
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