Sure, but there is a limit to what a population can take in terms of austerity; the British government was certainly worried about rationing in WW1 for instance. Also the strike you mention involved a certain class, thus limiting the reach of social unrest; if there is only enough for the government elites and certain protected classes (soldiers and police) then the problem is going to be much more widespread. This is the reason Hitler made damn sure the German people got enough to eat throughout the war.phylo_roadking wrote: Er....there IS a slight difference between the reach of 18th century monarchies and 20th century governments! Seriously, Peter Laurie is a very good read for LOTS of relevant WWII reasons...and should be very cheap too!
P.S. don't forget the British government had "recently" done successfully exactly what it planned to do in 1940 etc. - insulate itself from a restless population and carry on the functions of government notwithstanding...the interwar General Strike
Mersey and Clyde would cut off over 90% of British imports. The British had shut all but the major Western ports to trans-Atlantic shipping. The small ports are meaningless in terms of imports because they didn't have enough inland rail connections to import any great volume nor oil stations to bring in fuel; after the fall of France Britain was at an all time low in terms of fuel, so was potentially very vulnerable to having the major port areas shut down. AFAIK there were three major import areas Bristol/Avonmounth, the Clyde (Glasgow/Clydeside), and Merseyside (Elsmere station), shut those down and Britain is in trouble.phylo_roadking wrote: The point is THAT amount of effort wasn't enough to close ONE port....how many UK ports does the Luftwaffe need to close??? We had/have dozens of large ones, and hundreds of small ones!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Blitz
As well as providing anchorage for naval ships from many nations, the Mersey's ports and dockers would handle over 90 per cent of all the war material brought into Britain from abroad with some 75 million tons passing through its 11 miles (18 km) of quays. Liverpool was the eastern end of a Transatlantic chain of supplies from North America, without which Britain could not have pursued the war.
Sure, range and payload with the basic armor and armament being enough.phylo_roadking wrote: Exactly - you only have in hand enough extra power to improve one or two factors - not range AND bombload AND armour AND defensive armament and gunners! ...AND strength/weight of airframe to carry it all...
Worked just fine for the B17, Short Stirling, Lancaster, and Halifax bombers, which were all heavier than the Ural Bombers (except the B17 vs Ju89), yet had much smaller wing area:phylo_roadking wrote: Exccept you're fighting against TWO things...
1/ you can't simply trade weight saved in smaller wings for extra payload weight and carrying capacity in volume....you still need to generate lift for the extra weight and extra size!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_Lanc ... aster_I.29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dornier_D ... o_19_V2.29Wingspan: 102 ft 0 in (31.09 m)
Wing area: 1,297 sq ft (120.5 m²)
Empty weight: 36,457 lb (16,571 kg)
Loaded weight: 68,000 lb (30,909 kg) [43]
Major difference thereWingspan: 35.00 m (114 ft 10 in)
Wing area: 162 m² (1,744 ft²)
Empty weight: 11,865 kg (26,158 lb)
Loaded weight: 18,500 kg (40,785 lb)
We can even include the He177:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_H ... -5.2FR2.29
Wingspan: 31.44 m (103 ft 1¾ in)
Wing area: 100.00 m² (1,076.40 ft²)
Empty weight: 16,800 kg (37,038 lb)
Loaded weight: 32,000 kg (70,548 lb)
Do you have a source for the claim that the large wide chord wings were what was 'done'? Or was that the result of not having access to higher powered engines that would have made them unnecessary? I understand your point about the delayed design work of due to Versailles, but we have to ask were the bad designs a function of not having access to high enough powered engines or not knowing better; if you have a source on that I would greatly appreciate it.phylo_roadking wrote: 2/ you've missed that large, wide chord wings was how German designers "did" things through the 1930s; to have them doing something else, you need for them to realise any disadvantages FAR earlier I.E. during the big flyingboat designing days of the late 1920s...and THEN spend the early and mid 1930s designing small, narrow-chord wings into "proving" design after proving design BEFORE reaching the pinnacle of German aviation design, a four-engined strategic bomber...
Thing is - that change CAN'T come early enough because of the restrictions built into the Treaty of Versailles on the German aero engine industry and the size of ebngines it could build through the 1920s and very early '30s. The 1920s German learning experience on "big" aviation was large wings holding lots of low- and mid-powered engines.
What I'm getting as is that there 's little or no way short of a "Road to Damascus" revelation or a "Eureka moment" that German aviation designers start the 1930s intending to come out the far end of the decade with the sort of wing you want.