[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

I was trying to stay out of this because it's clearly been going nowhere for some time but ...

As far as the RAF was concerned, its fighters had repeatedly massacred "aircraft designed for vertical delivery" in the Battle of Britain. Any so-called "refusal" to operate such aircraft itself was most likely because the RAF had learned the lessons from that campaign.

When the RAF was framing its futrue operational requirements, how could anyone possibly know what the strength of the Luftwaffe's fighter force would be in the West two, three or four years hence? Would you have bet on its near-impotence? No one could have known that by mid-1944 a hypothetical divebomber might be able to operate over Europe with little fighter opposition.

The patronising statement that this discussion has "been going nowhere for some time" reveals a mindset dominated by RAF apologia.

Why "refusal" in inverted commas? Why was this "refusal" "most likely because the RAF had learned the lessons from that (1940) campaign"? You seem unclear.

It is fanciful to believe the RAF was commanded by people who took account of experience except to confirm their prejudices.

The RAF top brass was quite clear about what its mission was and what its mission wasn't. Its mission was to win the war by bombing German civilians as a substitute for destroying factories which they couldn't find. Its mission was not to support the Army. There is a vast mass of evidence that this was true. That was the reason why there was no dive bomber. Pointing to the Stuka's fate over southern England was a rationalisation of an RAF strategic doctrine that precluded army support.

In 1934 Wing Commander Slessor said; "The aeroplane is NOT a battlefield weapon". Air Marshall Slessor (who became an AM because he was judged to be sound by RAF luminaries, and not because he knew anything about winning wars) repeated this stupid statement in 1941 after Poland, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France, Greece, Yugoslavia, Crete and large areas of Russia had gone down to an all-arms system of warfare with an integral air-based ground attack element (which in 1939 included the dive bomber) that the British under Monash had invented in 1918. In the spring of 1941 Slessor said; "...we don't want aircraft skidding around Kent looking for enemy tanks, that is the job of the anti-tank gun" - the blinkered idiot.

And that is the explanation of why there was no "hypothetical divebomber" operating over Europe with or without fighter opposition, which in the event the 'US ARMY AF' had obliterated over Portal's dead body and which - and here is the only statement you make that is based on reality - was opposed by the RAF who could not imagine beating the LW day fighter force. Portal was another sound RAF chap who could prove that a long-range fighter could never compete with a short-range fighter, just as he could prove the RAF's task was to support 'brown jobs' through winning the war strategically far from the battlefield.

2TAF used Typhoons to nip over the front-line and range in the rear areas shooting up transport and destroying bridges (except they couldn't hit them), rather than field a dive bomber which could with certainty destroy Paks, 105-mm howitzers, and the lethal mortar and Nebelwerfer. This had been decided in 1936 when Slessor wrote Air Power and Armies, in which he 'proved' the use of air attack was to seal off battlefields from enemy reinforcements and supply rather than destroy enemy weaponry on the battlefield a la Monash.

The RAF set up 2TAF for only one reason - from fear of losing it to the Army. It was done on the RAF's terms and in pursuit of the RAF's mission. The resulting lack of effective Allied all-arms is the reason why the war ended in May 1945 with the Russians in Berlin rather than in October 1944 with the Anglo-Americans in possession of the continent. Th RAF wartime commanders have a lot to answer for.