Placing the Fairey Battle.

[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?