Placing the Fairey Battle.

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Graham Boak

Perhaps you could also quote the real ratios of funds given to the Army, navy and AirForce in the 1930s?

From 1933 to 1939; RN got £273.5 million; RAF got £260.9 million; and the Army got £162.8 million. Source: http://ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK...duction-1.html

Originally Posted by Graham Boak

You seem to have lost contact with reality. No one can just take an aircraft in use for target towing, strap a bomb on it, find some convenient airmen and send them out against an inconvenient bunker! You want a dive bomber force (in itself an perfectly arguable option) then you start preparing for it two years in advance to select the aircraft (which the RAF had, as a back-up policy), then select and train your crews. Could you perhaps tell us the thickness of this bunker, and then let us judge whether the bombs from any divebomber could have made any impression at all? If the firepower from the massed ranks of warships could not have been brough to bear because of the loss of the ground control, how was this nebulous force of divebombers with non-existing concrete-busting weapons to be brought to bear?

You miss the point entirely. A British Army Air Corps would have used the Vengeances for CAS at no extra cost to Britain since they were being misused to tow targets on D-Day. The Army had the responsibility for taking Caen on D-Day, but it was denied the all-arms means enjoyed by the Wehrmacht and the Soviet Army.
The question is why?
Hillman sits to this day above Sword Beach. Worth a visit.

[Kutscha]

Could you perhaps tell us the thickness of this bunker, and then let us judge whether the bombs from any divebomber could have made any impression at all? If the firepower from the massed ranks of warships could not have been brough to bear because of the loss of the ground control, how was this nebulous force of divebombers with non-existing concrete-busting weapons to be brought to bear?

Good question Graham. Would like to see an answer.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

The Army had the responsibility for taking Caen on D-Day, but it was denied the all-arms means enjoyed by the Wehrmacht and the Soviet Army.

I know the plan fell through on the day but are you saying that gunfire from capital ships (which were designed to deliver plunging fire on to heavily armoured moving structures - viz. other capital ships - were they not?) wouldn't have been a suitable means of destroying a heavily armoured static structure like a bunker complex? Sounds pretty much ideal to me.

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

I know the plan fell through on the day but are you saying that gunfire from capital ships (which were designed to deliver plunging fire on to heavily armoured moving structures - viz. other capital ships - were they not?) wouldn't have been a suitable means of destroying a heavily armoured static structure like a bunker complex? Sounds pretty much ideal to me.

Of course naval guns were effective and therefore ideal.
But you don't plan to get to Berlin by relying on gunfire from battleships, monitors and cruisers, which are only good for the first 15 miles. And on this occasion they were unavailable.
The army needed CAS every step of the way to Berlin, including the first small step for mankind. You can't take enemy positions without it.

[Juha]

Tony
I agree with Rod and to add a few thinks. Naval AA was weak because of the wrong HA fire-control system selected and wrong weapons. 133mm gun (5,25 inch) and its twin turret were too heavy but admirals insisted them because its shell had more stopping power against enemy destroyers and 2pdr pom-pom had too low muzzle-velocity and .5 inch mg was simply too ineffective against modern a/c. I think its wrong to blame RAF for those mistakes.

In Britain there was no eagerness to massive land operations in Continent and French army had the reputation of being best in the world, so it was not surprising that British army has not high priority before the war. When the BEF went to France it was IIRC the most motorized army in the world. That generals had put so much of effort to motorization wasn't RAF's fault. On the other hand France and British were the countries which had largest proportion of their tanks designed to be well armoured, British infantry tanks were only tanks in service in 1939 that fullfilled your wishes. Soviet and Germans were occupied by Blitzkrieg or deep strike theories which you seems to dispise. OK I admit you have noticed that the key of German success was the all arm idea. That is right. British formations were too tank heavy and French too specializes. But still in 1940 the side with flimsier tanks which were concentrated for deep trust clearly won the enemy with better armoured tanks of which great portion was dispersed for close infantry support. How this could happen?

Juha

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Juha

In Britain there was no eagerness to massive land operations in Continent and French army had the reputation of being best in the world, so it was not surprising that British army has not high priority before the war. When the BEF went to France it was IIRC the most motorized army in the world. That generals had put so much of effort to motorization wasn't RAF's fault. On the other hand France and British were the countries which had largest proportion of their tanks designed to be well armoured, British infantry tanks were only tanks in service in 1939 that fullfilled your wishes. Soviet and Germans were occupied by Blitzkrieg or deep strike theories which you seems to dispise. OK I admit you have noticed that the key of German success was the all arm idea. That is right. British formations were too tank heavy and French too specializes. But still in 1940 the side with flimsier tanks which were concentrated for deep trust clearly won the enemy with better armoured tanks of which great portion was dispersed for close infantry support. How this could happen?
Juha

The British gave no priority to the army or to all-arms because of RAF politicking by the usual suspects.
Gp Capt Harris, the later Butcher, wrote this in September 1936 to Ellington about the Air Staff's veto the Army's plane for a force to occupy the Low Countries to prevent a knockout blow by the LW against London. Harris said the RAF wuld not need the Low Countries for long because of the increasing range of the new bombers. He called the army's sneaky plan, "a Bogey employed to stampede us into maintaining the intention and cadre of a future national army....The War Office would be bound to experience natural difficulties in obtaining sufficient morons willing to be sacrificed in a mud war in Flanders in endless marching upon short rations with an mg bullet in the stomach and a shell hole to lie in as the only possibility of relief". In 1936 the RAF helpfully suggested that the army should be trained for "protecting our naval and air bases". The RAF sold a prospectus to politicians which had a big bomber force and no army, because Britain could not afford both.
The RAF refused to believe the evidence from many sources and from its own discussions by the Secretary of State for Air with Stumpf in 1937 that the Germans planned no knockout blow. And not until well into 1938 did the Germans begin to think of strategic bombing, and then only when they realised how terrified the British were of it. That was the real reason behind Munich and Peace In Our Time because Hitler realised he could play on this British fear which Hitler knew was irrational. Hitler said in 1939 (quoted in Galland) that "a country cannot be brought to defeat by an air force. If the LW attacks English territory, England will not be forced to capitulate". But the British, and Ismay said as much, always believed that Germany MUST be planning a knock-out blow. They thought the bomber would always get through, and the only defence against it was deterrence. Hence the order for 2,500 Battles and an AASF stationed around Lille for strategic retaliation against the Ruhr.
How, you ask, could it happen that balanced all-arms Blitzkrieg could defeat a fractured scratch British force in the early stages of rearming with few modern Bren guns and 25-pdrs, and no 5.5-inch or CAS like the Stuka, and few Matildas. And this was the state of affairs because Britain had spent its resources on a bomber force to retaliate against a non-existent threat of a knockout blow. You only have to phrase the question properly to answer it for yourself.

[tcolvin]

Sorry for the garbled second sentence. It should have read:

Gp Capt Harris, the later Butcher, wrote this in September 1936 to Ellington about the Air Staff's veto of the Army's plan for a force to occupy the Low Countries to prevent a knockout blow by the LW against London.

[CJE]

And not until well into 1938 did the Germans begin to think of strategic bombing

This not quite right.
The first chief of staff, Walther Wever, launched a programme, called "Ural Bomber", which led to the Do 19 and Ju 89, both "stragetic bombers".
The programme was cancelled after Wever's death in 1936.
Better read (again) Williamson Murray.

[Kutscha]

I would say that tcolvin does not know that that the Ju-87 began having its dive brakes removed and became a level bomber beginning around the time of Kursk (July 1943).

On Oct 5 1943 dive bombing was officilly abandoned by the LW, with units having their designator name changed from StG to SG to reflect their new role of low level ground attack.

Increasingly, the Ju-87 was being replaced by Fw190 fighter bombers in the daylight attack role.

[Juha]

"Gp Capt Harris, the later Butcher, wrote this in September 1936 to Ellington about the Air Staff's veto the Army's plane for a force to occupy the Low Countries to prevent a knockout blow by the LW against London"

Tony, read a good book on British political history on 30s and you will see that the possibility to get funding for a ground force to invade the Low Countries was nil in 1936. RAF meddling or not.

"from its own discussions by the Secretary of State for Air with Stumpf in 1937 that the Germans planned no knockout blow"

Now do you really believe that if the LW had had plans for a knockout blow against UK, Stumpf would have admited it to British in 1937 when asked on it? So if Stumpf said that LW had not such a plan, it didn't matter.

Remember, Germans defeated both the French and British armies and the British were very junior partner in ground war then. Just as the British had hoped. It's not because of RAF, historically British didn't like permanent armies and over that came the experiences of WWI trench warfare.
IIRC Germany had 136 divisions, British had 10-12 in France. BEF was small as it had been in 1914, the idea was that the French carried the main burden of ground warfare, after all the fight was in France. BEF role was to show commintment to common cause, of course also to help French, but its role was that of minor partner.

And the French had more guns and clearly more heavy guns than Germans and lot of tanks which were better armoured than the best of German tanks and most of their tanks were designed to use as infantry support vehicles, so what went wrong?

Juha