Quote:
Originally Posted by Bill Walker
A proper root cause analysis will lay a fair bit of blame on Herr Hitler, and the 1920s and 1930s European governments that did nothing to enforce the Treaty of Versailles. RAF top brass, Churchill, and the 2TAF did what they could with the mess they had been handed.
I have a hard time understanding why you keep bringing up the Vengeance. The Americans had a lot of them too, and found they couldn't stand up to Japanese air power. Do you really think they would have done much good in Europe? Personally, I view them as a slightly updated Fairey Battle, with all the same potential for greatness.
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I cannot see how you can pin responsibility on Hitler for the RAF's choice of equipment. The “mess” you mention was entirely of the RAF's making, having promised that its strategic bombers, (Battle, Blenheim, Hampden and Wellington) would attack the Ruhr and the German fleet in daylight. The Advanced Air Striking Force went to France not to help the British and French armies but to place its short-range strategic bombers within range of the Ruhr. (Richards, Vol 1, page 32). They were not designed for tactical use against bridges in support of the army but to bomb objectives in Germany, "not only to damage the German war machine in general, but to force the Germans to withdraw fighters and flak from the front to the rear, and to divert their bombing offensives to objectives in England". (Portal quoted by Terraine, "The Right Of The Line", page 145).
Sholto Douglas knew the RAF was responsible for the disastrous Fairey Battle, a strategic bomber misused as a tactical bomber. The RAF should instead have built a Stuka; “When those (Battle) squadrons were put to the test and they suffered so disastrously I could not help thinking with the deepest regret that it would have been so much better if, years earlier, we had developed a dive-bomber along the lines of Ernst Udet's Ju-87, the Stuka, instead of devoting so much of our resources to the design, the development and the production of those wretched Battles”. (“Years of Command”, page 55).
And yes, the Vengeance would have done well in Europe just as it did well in Burma in May 1943. 7 Squadron (Indian Air Force), after a few months of training, “could place their 500-lb bombs within 15 yds of the target”. (Peter C Smith, “Vengeance”, page 75). This was because the Vengeance dived at 90 degrees with nil angle of incidence at a terminal velocity of 320 mph. Spitfire fighter-bombers, Bombphoons and Typhoons firing RPs could not achieve anything like this accuracy, as Fighter Command had discovered in January 1943 when Mustangs and Typhoons were sent against a mockup of a German divisional artillery of 48 guns and inflicted only 'negligible damage', even though 'every effort was made to assist the fighter-bombers in their attack'. 2TAF's OR Section found there was little improvement during the following year. (Copp, “Fields of Fire”, page 88).
When the great success of the Vengeance in the Far East began to be reported on the BBC, the RAF withdrew them from front line service to save themselves from embarrassment. (Smith, “Vengeance”, page 104).
Tony