Placing the Fairey Battle.

[Juha]

Tony
Yes, Hampdens etc were then called heavy bombers but I used the term medium because they are better known to that later term. And they did same harm to Germans, I read in 80s a history of the Anti-Tank Battallion of the 2nd Panzer Division (was that 57th PzJgAbt?) and in it they told stories on damaging attacks by IIRC Whitleys near Channel coast. I haven't read anything on decisive Skua attack near Dunkerque even if I know that Skuas operated there, cannot remember if they were used as escort fighters to Swordfish or Albacores or doing some divebombing there. And carpet bombing by heavies would have been more effective than dive bombing against PzD in attack formation.
Nick, You are absolutely right, British and French (and Poland) Armies run out of time in their preparations to war.

Juha

[bearoutwest]

Just a couple of things to bear in mind:

• The AASF comprised of Fairey Battle and Bristol Blenheim bombers and an escorting component of Hawker Hurricanes. Given the short range strategic bombing missions similar to those carried at the end of World War One, escorted, medium altitude missions by Battles and Blenheims may not have been so ineffective to start with.
• Unescorted Battle missions were found to be ineffective and suffered high percentage losses, as was discovered by the AASF in 1939-40, prior to the May 1940 Blitzkrieg campaign. These had been pretty much discontinued by early 1940.
• The heavy losses incurred by the Battles and Blenheims occurred during the desperation attacks against fixed positions (i.e. the Meuse bridges) where German AA defences had sufficient time to set up, and where the Luftwaffe had local air superiority. Under those circumstances, I can think of few aircraft of the period, attacking at low altitude, that didn’t suffer very heavy casualties. These included the RAF Battles and Blenheims, the Belgian Battles and also the French Bre 693s, LeO 451 and Po 633 bomber/assault aircraft. (The last three certainly can’t be called old, slow or obsolete.)

It is interesting to consider whether any other aircraft of the time (e.g. Hawker Henley – as a dive bomber, Blackburn Skua, Vought 167, Lockheed Hudson, Tupolev SB, Ju87 Stuka, Douglas Dauntless) could have done any better either as dive or low-level bombers. If such fighter-bombers could have been made available at the time – Hawker Hurribombers, Bell Airacobras, IL-2 – I suspect they would have suffered similar losses due to close quarter ground fire, or had to jettision their loads in order to fight their way clear against defending Bf109s. Remember that in 1945, the Luftwaffe jet bombers (Ar 234 and Me 262) were similarly ineffective, though suffering much lower losses – against the bridges at Remagen.

Throwing 150 Wellingtons, Hampdens and Whitleys in as medium altitude bombers with 100 Hurricanes, Spitfires, Dewoitines and Bloches as escorts may have been the only effective resort, but what sort of losses would/could have occurres; and how many times could the mission have been repeated if we assume the Werhmacht could rebuild the pontoon bridge crossings?

[CJE]

Wisdom comes after the event, as the Japanese used to say.
I don't intend to re-enact the May-June 40 campaign, but the most efficient move would have been to bomb by night the Ardennes roads. The planes would have been secure from Flak and the Germans, favouring speed to security, were driving with their lights on (nice target markers indeed!). Falling trees would have slowed their rush in a considerable manner and given more time to rearrange the defences at Sedan.
The air raids should have been carried out upstream (Ardennes) instead of downstream (Meuse bridges).

[Graham Boak]

Apologies for responding to a number of sub-threads, but I’ve been away and missed the best moments.

Skuas. That number of hits on the Kongsberg is not poor but a fairly good achievement – dive-bombing was a difficult art requiring much training and continual practice. Precision only comes at a cost, and not only in losses against prepared targets.

I know of no specific concerted Skua attack at Dunkirk, although the FAA lost numbers of their aircraft, including new Albacores, in the vicinity. The RAF did carry out dive-bombing missions on the troops around Calais with Hectors; perhaps it is a distorted memory of these missions that is being referred to?

P4/34: This aircraft appears to be so little in advance of the Battle as not to be worth any disruption in production: clearly an attitude shared by the Ministry. Air Britain has published a book listing all Specifications; though I suspect it is now out of print, you may care to check their website. What I would very strongly recommend is Colin Sinnett’s book from Frank Cass on British Operational Requirements prewar. This goes into detail on many of the good and bad decisions made, and the reasoning behind them. If this book (also, sadly, out of print) was required reading, there would be rather fewer over-blown over-simplified judgements expressed.

Battles in France: Surviving squadrons were switched to night-time operations, and interdiction missions flown against supply lines. These were as ineffectual as might be expected from the weapons of the time. The blitzkrieg armies did not advance down a single road – look to the Arnhem operation to see the folly of that. The tactics were based on flowing around and behind any strongpoint and moving on. Every road or convenient track (or indeed field!) in the neighbourhood was used. The many streams of vehicles only came together at chokepoints – in this kind of country that means bridges. The French/British were completely correct as seeing these as the prime targets – as did the Germans, which is why they concentrated their flak at the bridges. Bombing a road meant damage to a sub-unit, a platoon or a company, a regiment at best. Dropping a bridge stopped a whole battalion, brigaded or division. The Allied tactics were correct, but their cooperation and their weapons inadequate to the job. It is difficult to see P4/34s, Henleys or anything else making much difference. As said before, statistics show that in Normandy 1944 fighter-bombers would require 250 tons of bombs on average per bridge: medium bomber 500 tons. Payloads in 1940 would be half that of 1944: the number of sorties required were just not available to the Allied Commanders in 1940.

With some qualifications on the terminology, I have to agree that most of the first generation of metal monocoque designs were obsolescent by 1940: but then most of the second generation were obsolescent by 1945. In those days, five years of advancing technology did that to you. It was not the fault of the Battle, Blenheim, Potez 63, SB-2, He 70 or A-17 that their war came too late, or that early setbacks required some of them to be retained in production well past their desired retirement dates.

The arrival of the long-range escort fighter did not save the B-17: perhaps it saved the use of it on deep-penetration missions in Western Europe. It would have continued to have been used on less-distant targets, and the 8th AF fighters would have moved onto continental airfields to expand the range of operations (as planned but not adopted). The B-17’s replacement was already flying.

[Jukka Juutinen]

[quote=Franek Grabowski;47195 Concerning Typhoon - yes it was outdated as well. Airfoil used is not the thing that should have taken place. They have realised that and build Tempest, but too late.[/quote]

What a BS statement. When fitted with similar propeller (4-blade) and Sabre alowing the same boost, the Tempest was a huge 15 mph (less than 4%) faster than the Typhoon at 20,000 ft and its service ceiling was a massive 1500 feet better (according to Mason´s Typhoon/Tempest book). The Tempest´s critical Mach number was a whopping 0.02 Mach (according to Brown´s Testing for Combat) improvement over that of the Typhoon, a huge 2.5%.

Perhaps in Poland you can transform obsolescence into magnificence by a 4% improvement. After all, there is "Polish inverse logic" as used by HP calculators...

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Jukka Juutinen

What a BS statement. When fitted with similar propeller (4-blade) and Sabre alowing the same boost, the Tempest was a huge 15 mph (less than 4%) faster than the Typhoon at 20,000 ft and its service ceiling was a massive 1500 feet better (according to Mason´s Typhoon/Tempest book). The Tempest´s critical Mach number was a whopping 0.02 Mach (according to Brown´s Testing for Combat) improvement over that of the Typhoon, a huge 2.5%.

Then there is a big mystery, and no one likes those.
Fact: the RAF rejected the Typhoon for air superiority in 1942.
Fact: the RAF bought the Tempest for air superiority in 1944.
Why? Were the RAF mad as well as bad (tongue-in-cheek)?

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Steve49

Will not wishing interupt the discusion about Battles that it desending into an attack against BC tactics, I will pass comment over the sinking of the crusier Koenigsberg. This already damaged ship (it had been hit by a coastal battery the day before during the initial invasion) was attacked by 15 FAA Skuas whilst alongside a quay in Bergen 10/4/40. The cruiser I believe suffered three direct hits from 500lb bombs and two near misses, hardly an impressive strike rate against an immobile target. All this goes to show is that even a divebomber, supposedly designed for 'precision' bombing was pretty much a hit and miss affair in WWII. I'm not aware of any attack on Bergen by BC, so I fail to see any facts to support the claim that BC 'failed' to sink it.

Regards,

Steve

On the night of 8th/9th April 1940 German forces invaded Norway. In the early morning of the 9th German naval force landed troops in Bergen harbour, support being given by the two cruisers Königsberg and Köln, the gunnery training ship Bremse together with torpedo-boats, E-boats and armed trawlers. The Norwegian harbour defences were hampered by fog, and confused by the fact that the German force approached flying British flags. However the Kvarvan battery guarding the entrance to the harbour did score hits on the Königsberg, Bremse and the E-boat tender Carl Peters. The Königsberg's engines were damaged and two of her 3.7 cm anti aircraft gun positions put out of action, her fire-fighting mains and auxiliary power were also damaged. This did not stop her guns helping to silence the Norwegian coastal batteries around Bergen. The following day a reconnaissance flight by the RAF revealed the two cruisers to still be in harbour and a strike by Bomber Command was launched the same day. Two squadrons (one of Hampdens the other of Wellingtons) attacked at about 1800 hrs and dropped thirty 500 lb bombs but not a single hit was achieved (although one was claimed and it seems a bomb somehow caused a small number of casualties to Köln's crew, but just how is unclear ).
http://freespace.virgin.net/john.del...konigsberg.htm

You're right. BC tactics are under assault. And the best way to sink them is with a dive-bomber!

[Graham Boak]

Brown is clearly wrong on the critical Mach number, which is dependent upon the wing thickness with a modifier for the position of maximum thickness. There is clearly a much greater difference between the Typhoon wing and the Tempest wing than a mere 0.02 would represent.

Why is the speed quoted at 20000ft? Surely this is above the full throttle height of the Sabre? Above this point the thicker wing of the Typhoon could be giving better lift and hence reducing the Tempest's advantage. What is the speed difference at sea-level or full throttle height? However, it is worth pointing out that the Typhoon always was a fast machine in level flight - that was never a reason for criticism. Compressibility due to the thick wing was only important in the dive.

Being passed over in the air-superiority role only means that it was not the best option for that role: the same ruling applied to the P-39 in RAF service which the VVS found a great success. However, the VVS managed to gain air superiority without ever having a fighter with better high-altitude performance than a Typhoon - late Spitfire Mk.IXs excepted, which they retained for PVO use.

[Juha]

Thanks Graham for your excellent answers! I'm in complete agreement with you on these questions.

Juha

[Franek Grabowski]

Graham, I believe there was a smaller drag induced by Tempest's airfoil. Typhoon was indeed fast but not that fast, hence the need of Spitfire XIIs. Overall, judging by the fact that Tornado/Typhoon had to be the main aircraft of Fighter Command (nobody considered Spitfires seriously) but saw the service some 2 years after the plan in a rather limited role and almost cancelled, reaching some usable form only after further 2 years as a Tempest, not to mention Sea Fury that entered the service after the war, it was a failure. I presume the main reason the whole toy was continued was because of both Hawker being a major player and no alternative for production there.
Concerning Soviets, the one must be extremelly careful claiming air superiority there. Air superiority as we understand it was on the Western front and not in any way comparable to the East, just under the very same universal rules of aerial warfare. Of course unless someone uses 'inversed knowledge' which is quite common unfortunatelly.