Placing the Bell P39 Aircobra.

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Graham Boak

Did pilots go vertical in the Typhoon - probably, although almost certainly less often than is claimed. Did this make them more accurate? Very doubtful indeed. If accurate dive-bombing was possible without airbrakes, then why did specialist aircraft have to have them?

Because it was hairy and dangerous to dive a fighter without air brakes as the wings would come off over a certain speed.

The point is this. Accuracy required vertical delivery. The RAF refused to operate aircraft designed for vertical delivery. Typhoon pilots wanting accuracy delivered from the vertical nevertheless. Therefore the RAF are condemned of supplying the wrong equipment. QED.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

The RAF refused to operate aircraft designed for vertical delivery.

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 future 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.

[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.

[Nick Beale]

Originally Posted by tcolvin

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.

Equally, it is regrettable (but perhaps revelatory in ways you didn't intend) that you should imagine my reference to "going nowhere" could somehow be intended as patronising. Review this thread from the start. Do you see evidence of an emerging consensus or meeting of minds over the issues under discussion? If not, then maybe it is going nowhere.

I am of course deeply concerned to learn that my "mindset" is dominated by the RAF of the 1930s and 1940s, as you conceive it to have been, reaching out to those - like myself - yet unborn. Despite this malign influence, I believe you will search my collected writings in vain for any endorsement of strategic bombing as a war-winner.

"Refusal" was in inverted commas (aka "quotation marks") because I was quoting your words. I did not know (and nor did I claim to) whether at some point after the BoB someone in an RAF future requirements paper specifically said "we should acquire our own dive-bomber" and some high-up specifically refused. Whether they did or not, I sought only to point out that there were by then rational grounds for doubting the survivability of such an aircraft in the face of a modern air defence system: viz, the RAF had shot down a lot of Ju 87s in the BoB and believed they had shot down even more; the Luftwaffe pulled the Stukas out of the fighting. Ordering RAF dive-bombers in that particular context might possibly have been seen as ill-advised.

[tcolvin]

Originally Posted by Nick Beale

I did not know (and nor did I claim to) whether at some point after the BoB someone in an RAF future requirements paper specifically said "we should acquire our own dive-bomber" and some high-up specifically refused. Whether they did or not, I sought only to point out that there were by then rational grounds for doubting the survivability of such an aircraft in the face of a modern air defence system: viz, the RAF had shot down a lot of Ju 87s in the BoB and believed they had shot down even more; the Luftwaffe pulled the Stukas out of the fighting. Ordering RAF dive-bombers in that particular context might possibly have been seen as ill-advised.

Since you don't know then let me inform you of the following;
a) dive bombers were ordered, delivered, and paid for, but
b) RAF Air Marshals overrode the army and refused to use them as dive bombers but diverted them to target-towing instead, while
c) publicly rubbishing dive bombing in the press to justify their position. But
d) the RAF and IAF in Burma, and the RAAF in Burma, used them successfully as dive bombers. However
e) the RAF Air Marshals insisted the dive bombers be replaced, and
f) the Air Marshals killed news of the dive-bombers' success in order to save themselves from the embarrassment of having to admit publicly that they had been wrong all along and that many good men had dies as a result.

All this has been covered earlier.
It can be read in Peter C. Smith's book, 'Vengeance!'.

There is a potentially infinite number of additional explanations as to why the RAF "refused" to operate dive bombers. But William of Occam's razor, aka lex parsimoniae, states that 'entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity'.

Therefore please forgive me for failing to realise you were only making a philosophical contribution to the debate.
Perhaps you will understand why I would think you were offering an alternative explanation, and that you were doing so in order once more to save the RAF from a collective red face. The RAF Air Marshals abused their position in their lifetimes in order to cover their arses. But on this occasion the truth has come out.

[tcolvin]

The RAAF used the Vengeance in New Guinea and not Burma. Sorry for the typo in my previous posting.
Tony

[Ruy Horta]

Lets try to keep this thread constructive, more importantly perhaps respectful. It doesn't matter if you don't agree as long as the discussion is constructive and informative.