British responses to German air rearmament

[phylo_roadking]

Jon -

You're also staring yourself blind on a fruitless comparison with RAF capabilities and strategies of the time. Comparing what the Germans might have accomplished with a fleet of four-engined bombers with what the RAF did accomplish with its strategic bomber fleet does not answer the original question

The RAF did squat with its strategic bomber fleet in 1939, 1940, and 1941 - THREE FULL YEARS of a seven year war. The British seriously deluded themselves about the efficacy of the 1939 to 1941 strategic bomber campaign...forcing the analysis of the Butt and Lindemann Reports on them - with their earthshattering results. Quite simply - the Germans did a relatively large amount with their twin-engined bomber fleet...the RAF did very, very little.

When comparing a project which was cancelled in 1937 with a 1940/1941 situation as you do, you're definitely projecting

No. That's where you're wrong. Take a look at the aircraft for example that formed the RAF's day and nightbomber forces up to 1941. And check out WHEN they were all designed. There's a list of specifications and issue dates on Wiki. You'll see that ALL the RAF's bomber types in service in the first years of the war were designed, tested and built to specifications issued between 1934 and late 1937! They had exactly as much leadtime as the Germans...or even slightly less given that the Germans ALREADY had monoplane, retracting-undercarriage fast designs like the Ju-86 in the air in service before the British got similar designs off the drawing board. The Germans didn't just give up the bomber development race, they gave it up when they were ahead.

Example? The Germans abandoned the Ural Bomber in 1937; the Short Stirling's first specifications, B.12/36, was issued in 1936....and didn't fly until 19th September 1938. The specification for the Halifax was originally issued in 1935, and a second time in 1936 as P.13/36...but the first prototype didn't fly until October 1939...

Which, BTW, isn't strictly true, since the Germans had the He-177, which was ridden with engine trouble for much of its active life.

As I said - "The decision to built engine installations consisting of two medium-power piston engines powering a single prop, and designing them into what the Allies would describe as a "medium" bomber is ONE way to solve both the problem of the range AND the availability of very high-power aero engines and the fuel suitable for them" Yes, it had major issues. They were horrendously unreliable and prone to fire.


The point about both the Ural Bomber AND the America Bomber is simple - because the Germans did neither, they didn't have the incidental capacity to bomb Britain at a strategic level. The semantics of the names is almost totally irrelevant to the issue of Germany not having any strategic air capacity. If they had even designed a four-engined strategic bomber pre-war that could carry a five or ten-ton bombload to PARIS from Germany, it could have reached London from the Channel coast.

[phylo_roadking]

First of all look at the RAF's bombers; the RAF made a distinction between "day" and "night" bombers right the way through the 1930s and the issuing of specifications. The Wellington and Whitley were the "designated" night bombers, and the very numerous Blenheim was a day/tactical bomber. The real advantage of the British nightbombers at the start of the war was their long range - as they were designed to reach targets in Western Germany - and in the case of the Wellington its ability to withstand damage, compared with the hsorter ranges and lives of German twin-engine "equivalents".

The notion about the LW's "tactical" bombers is how the LW intedned and did use them - as you say attacking marshalling yards, supply depots, rail stations, bridges and road junctions - but as *I* said, they intended to do so more immediately behind the enemy's front line or further to the rear to prevent the supporting of troops at the front. THIS was the job in the RAF of aircraft like the Blenheim, it was the direct equivalent of the JU88, certainly in performance, the first years of the war. The LW didn't plan to carry a bombing campaign right into the infrastucture of an enemy, as the Germans hoped NOT to have to fight any protracted campaigns, the sort that necessitated planning bombing targets against an enemy's industrial production and delivery two and three years into the future.

The RAF always planned to carry out this sort of a bombing campaign, and by night, AND based in England not on the continent and certainly not from fields right up against the German border...which in effect as what the Germans did when the attacked from bases in the Pas de Calais. But they ALSO intended a bombing offensive by day by the so-called medium-heavies like the Hampden, and shortrange tactical bombing by Blenheims....with the Army Cooperation/battlefield tactical bombing of the Fairey Battle - pardon while I puke. The Germans only PLANNED two of those levels, and incidently had the capacity available that made them believe they could carry out a night campaign with their limited aircraft.

As for the He177 - that was a sad aberration that took SO long to mature that any results it gained were FAR outwieghed by the mechanical losses and the missed opportunities. That aerodynamically-"clean" frontage required the use of surface radiators - but these were impracrftical so the much-more limited-area nanacelle-mouted circular items were fitted instead - causing drag, thus demanding extra fuel for the specified range and thus increasing the weight and thus stress on the engines. Inside the engine oversized oil scavenge pumps caused the engine oil to aerate and foam at altitude...leading to siezures and fires in already-overheated engines. Meanwhile the aerated oil, pressurized over spec, would burst out of engine joints and split rigid piping onto almost white-hot exhaust manifolds between the two engine banks....and burn, igniting oil that had already dripped and pooled in the bottom of the nacelles. Then - IF the engines didn't burst into flames....they were SO closely mounted to the fuselage that there was no room for a firewall between them and the rest of the fuselage at the spar mount...overheating wiring etc. and leading to electical fires...oh, and the fuel tankage was prone to leaking...One famous sample aircraft was analysed and FIFTY-SIX potential problems sorted - but the underlaying major issues required SO much work that it was felt that to incorporate modifications would have severely disrupted already-torturpusly slow production!

[phylo_roadking]

I don't know why you persist in your comparison with RAF bomber types and strategies

For the remarkably simple and obvious reason that in and around the SAME time period before the war, the two nations' Air Ministries faced the SAME planning constraints of money versus the variety range of capabilities and strategies that politicians and military planners expected from the aircraft they EXPECTED to be fighting the next war with - whether that turned out to be 1938, 1939 or 1940.

The Germans made the incorrect decision as it turned out, and halted the development of a four-engined strategic bomber. The British made the right one - but that decision ONLY came right after the beginning of 1942 with a change of targeting priorities and how Bomber Command went about doing its job. Also, the RAF's four-engined bombers only came into service beginning in 1941, long after when the Germans could have expected their first four-engined types to arrive with squadrons. If they had carried on in 1937, and not given up their lead, the Germans would have had a capability that would have come into service at least a year, very possibly two years ahead of the RAF. They didn't just turn their back on the type, they also dropped out of the race. A double mistake.

You think that fact is unimportant?

[Jon G.]

I don't know why you persist in your comparison with RAF bomber types and strategies

For the remarkably simple and obvious reason that in and around the SAME time period before the war, the two nations' Air Ministries faced the SAME planning constraints of money versus the variety range of capabilities and strategies that politicians and military planners expected from the aircraft they EXPECTED to be fighting the next war with - whether that turned out to be 1938, 1939 or 1940...

Those constraints apply at all times, to all air forces and all governments. You're presenting it as a false dilemma. War between Britain and Germany was not in the cards in 1934 when Wever first put down his specifications for a bomber which he wanted to be capable of reaching the Urals, nor did war between Germany and Britain seem much more likely by 1937. In fact, the 1935 Anglo-German naval treaty allowed Germany a vastly larger navy than the Versailles Treaty allowed for.

For what it is worth, though, much British inter-war defense planning was based on the explicit assumption that no major European war could be expected for the next twenty years. From a purely budgetary point of view, Wever & his Ural Bomber programme clearly had an advantage - not that that makes the comparison between RAF & Luftwaffe pre-war procurement policies which you insist on making any more relevant in relation to the original question which started this thread.

...You think that fact is unimportant?

Comparing an air force which eventually turned down the four-engined bomber with another air force which persevered with developing the four-engined heavy does not really illuminate the point originally raised. The political goals and overall strategic situations for inter-war Germany and inter-war Britain were so different that you can't deduct anything at all from the fact that one air force went with the four-engined heavy and the other didn't.

[phylo_roadking]

Comparing an air force which eventually turned down the four-engined bomber with another air force which persevered with developing the four-engined heavy does not really illuminate the point originally raised.

From a purely budgetary point of view, Wever & his Ural Bomber programme clearly had an advantage

Wrong. It backs up what I said up the thread - that the German decision was a pro-active one; it wasn't "forced" on them in the same way that the curtailed and mere dallying with the development of a four-engined bomber in quantity DURING the war was forced on them by a range of hard, concrete issues. In 1937 it was a policy decision they made acording to how they intended to make war, not how they HAD to make war like the second occasion the decision point came round.

Nor is it a false dilemma. For IF as you say war with Russia was on the cards as early as 1934....then WHY abandon the Ural Bomber project at all No pocket battleship was going to help the Germans defeat Stalin in the Kremlin

As for a European war not being obvious by 1937, it certainly was by April 1938, when the Ural Bomber project was not long buried - Paul Deladier told the British in that month that that Hitler's real aim was to eventually secure

"a domination of the Continent in comparison with which the ambitions of Napoleon were feeble...Today it is the turn of Czechoslovakia. Tomorrow it will be the turn of Poland and Romania. When Germany has obtained the oil and wheat it needs, she will turn on the West. Certainly we must multiply our efforts to avoid war. But that will not be obtained unless Great Britain and France stick together, intervening in Prague for new concessions but declaring at the same time that they will safeguard the independence of Czechoslovakia. If, on the contrary, the Western Powers capitulate again they will only precipitate the war they wish to avoid.

Remember, Britain was bound to move to military support France in the event of an attack not only by the longstanding alliance but more recently by the Treaty of Locarno. Neville Chamberlain thankfully did not represent the views of the various British planning ministries and War Ministry...

[phylo_roadking]

(just as an aside - if it wasn't Germany, WHO then was Britain rearming against beginning in the MID-'30s...???)

[phylo_roadking]

From Wiki's article on Stanley Baldwin

Rearmament
On 31 July, 1934 the Cabinet approved of a report which called for expansion of the Royal Air Force to the 1923 standard by creating forty new squadrons over the next five years. Six days after receiving the news that the German air force would be as large as the RAF within one year the Cabinet decided, on 26 November, 1934, to speed up air rearmament from four years to two. In April 1935 the Air Secretary reported that although Britain's strength in the air would be ahead of Germany for at least three years, air rearmament needed to be increased so the Cabinet agreed to the creation of an extra thirty-nine squadrons for home defence by 1937. However on 8 May, 1935 the Cabinet heard that it was estimated that the RAF was inferior to the Luftwaffe by 370 aircraft and that in order to reach parity the RAF must have 3,800 aircraft by April 1937—an extra 1,400 on the existing air programme. However it was learnt that Germany was easily able to outbuild this revised programme as well. On 21 May, 1935 the Cabinet agreed to expanding the home defence force of the RAF to 1,512 aircraft (840 bombers and 420 fighters).

On 25 February, 1936 the Cabinet approved of a report calling for expansion of the Royal Navy and the re-equipment of the British Army, though not its expansion, along with the creation of "shadow factories" built by public money and managed by industrial companies. These factories came into operation in 1937. In February 1937 the Chiefs of Staff reported that by May 1937 the Luftwaffe would have 800 bombers compared to the RAF's 48.

Look at the dates I've emboldened - war may have not been regarded as inevitable, but Germany was clearly the prospective enemy to be armed against and in parity with as early as 1934...and stated as such by the British Cabinet.

[Jon G.]

Wrong. It backs up what I said up the thread - that the German decision was a pro-active one; it wasn't "forced" on them in the same way that the curtailed and mere dallying with the development of a four-engined bomber in quantity DURING the war was forced on them by a range of hard, concrete issues. In 1937 it was a policy decision they made acording to how they intended to make war, not how they HAD to make war like the second occasion the decision point came round.

Do you have a source or any other evidence to the effect that the Germans binned the Urals Bomber because it did not fit their ideas on how they would fight the next war? AFAICS the project lived and died with general Wever.

Nor is it a false dilemma. For IF as you say war with Russia was on the cards as early as 1934

Where did I write that war between Germany and the USSR was in the cards by 1934? If it was, do you think the Germans would have gone along with anything as long-term as a heavy bomber?

I simply wrote that war between the UK and Germany did not seem likely in 1934, and only slightly more likely by 1937 when Wever's bomber was axed.

....then WHY abandon the Ural Bomber project at all No pocket battleship was going to help the Germans defeat Stalin in the Kremlin

The pocket battleships were built under Versailles rules. The programme predates both Wever's bomber and the Nazi regime. What is your point?

As for a European war not being obvious by 1937, it certainly was by April 1938, when the Ural Bomber project was not long buried...

Please note that the relative unlikelyhood of German-British war in 1937 does not equal the overall unlikelyhood of European war. The Germans clearly saw things differently, and British planning assumptions were clearly wrong from September 1919 on. That is also why pre-war British four-engined bomber procurement policies vis-a-vis pre-war German four-engined bomber procurement policies can't really be compared in a meaningful way.

[phylo_roadking]

You'd better look above your last post to mine; the British government clearly saw parity between the two air forces as being vital, so the two procurement policies HAVE to be compared as one government was clearly pegging their procurement against the others'. Any comparative historian would tell you that you can't separate study of the two. They were exected from the early 1930s to be enemies, and in historical fact DID become enemies as we of course know, and of the two main participants in the arms race one accounted its spending and development to match the other.

Where did I write that war between Germany and the USSR was in the cards by 1934? If it was, do you think the Germans would have gone along with anything as long-term as a heavy bomber?

I simply wrote that war between the UK and Germany did not seem likely in 1934, and only slightly more likely by 1937 when Wever's bomber was axed.

...and when between 1934 and 1937 did the project become known as the Ural Bomber?

[phylo_roadking]

Well, from Wiki's article on Wever himself...

However after his death, his successors Ernst Udet and Hans Jeschonnek favoured smaller aircraft as they did not expend as much material and manpower. They were proponents of the dive-bomber (Junkers Ju 87) and the doctrine of close support and destruction of the opposing airforces on the 'battle-ground' rather than through attacking enemy industry. As a result, high-speed medium-bombers like Heinkel He 111, Dornier Do 17, Junkers Ju 88 were developed, with much initial success

I could give chapter and verse from better sources than Wiki, but it's handy at this time of night. It died with Wever BECAUSE his immediate successors favoured other tactics, and the aircraft for them. A particular project doesn't flounder if its designer or proponent dies...and it is still wanted or needed; someone else steps in. Did Moscow miraculously move a thousand miles closer to Berlin between Wever's death on 6th June 1936 and the cancellation of the Ural Bomber project on 29th April, 1939? ? The targets were still there, and Russia as the enemy was still there...

For example, Reginald Mitchell only lived to see K5054, the first Spitfire prototype, fly - it was Joe Smith and his team who oversaw bringing the project into service and all the subsequent changes and mark variations.

[Jon G.]

You'd better look above your last post to mine; the British government clearly saw parity between the two air forces as being vital, so the two procurement policies HAVE to be compared as one government was clearly pegging their procurement against the others'

The Wiki entry doesn't really cover the rather dramatic shift from bombers to fighters which took place in the late 1930s. Also, striving for air parity doesn't equal war, and in any event British leaders had far more than just German air strength on their plates - Britain sought to appease Germany while being noticeably harder on Italy, and taking as hard a stance against Japan as possible, if only for the sake of her overseas dominions. In 1935, the League of Nations imposed an embargo on Italy, largely on British initiative.

1935 was also the year when the Anglo-German naval agreement was entered. Would you allow Germany to expand her navy well beyond what past agreements allowed for if you were intending to go to war with her?

. Any comparative historian would tell you that you can't separate study of the two. They were exected from the early 1930s to be enemies...

That's taking a British decision to expand her air forces much too far. You can't view Anglo-German relations in a vacuum; specifically can't use British air policy decisions to shed light on German air policy decisions.

From an article by Malcolm Smith in the Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 12 no. 1, 1977:




...according to Smith, the decision to concentrate on fighters backfired at least as far as appeasement went:




Of course, none of this makes us any smarter with regards to the question why Germany decided not to field a four-engined bomber force.

[phylo_roadking]

The Wiki entry doesn't really cover the rather dramatic shift from bombers to fighters which took place in the late 1930s

Which, as you like to say, isn't part of this thread. We're dealing with strategic bombers and the allover planning policies that included or did not include them.

1935 was also the year when the Anglo-German naval agreement was entered. Would you allow Germany to expand her navy well beyond what past agreements allowed for if you were intending to go to war with her?

Seeing as there are plenty of comparisons with british air planning policy you don't want me to make, it's of course VERY strange that you should start talking about comparing naval rearmament policies. Naval growth has only come into the discussion because of the often-heard remark that it was a conflict of resources between aircraft and ships that contributed to Germany's emphasis on tactical bombers. Strangely enough, no nation tended to build entire aircraft out of face-hardened steel armourplate...

BUT to answer your question - what you DO do is....rubberstamp your prospective rival's naval growth because you're not ready to take things to the "politics by another means" level...for a few more years, anyway...and knowing that they can NEVER rival you at sea.

That's taking a British decision to expand her air forces much too far. You can't view Anglo-German relations in a vacuum

Hardly in a vacuum - when I've already given you the French government's view of Germany in the middle of the decade. And how can it be taking it too far...when the Cabinet is talking in such general terms...

Regarding your quotation - did I anywhere say that Britain rearmed for the correct "defence analysis"? They were bean-counting...and relying on the men in trenchcoats with miniature cameras to bring them the specifications and capabilities And of course the Cabinet was very much at the mercy of whatever "expert" testimony the Air Ministry brought them regarding the capabilities of those German aircraft. And of course government Ministries NEVER compete for resources and money...

[phylo_roadking]

...and especially never during a cash-strapped Depression...

[Jon G.]

Seeing as there are plenty of comparisons with british air planning policy you don't want me to make,

You can compare all you like. The problem is that it is not really going to answer the basic question which opened this thread. In the larger image of things German rearmament obviously provoked various responses from various countries; but the basic question - why Germany dropped the heavy bomber from its rearmaments programme - can't be answered from looking at British air rearmament plans.

it's of course VERY strange that you should start talking about comparing naval rearmament policies...

I brought up the Anglo-German naval agreement in response to your remark that Britain and Germany were ex[p]excted to be enemies from the early 1930s.

That also applies to this remark of yours:

That's taking a British decision to expand her air forces much too far. You can't view Anglo-German relations in a vacuum

Hardly in a vacuum - when I've already given you the French government's view of Germany in the middle of the decade. And how can it be taking it too far...when the Cabinet is talking in such general terms...

What you've given is a post-Anschluss French appeal for unity in the face of German expansionism. But in extension of my remark that you should not be viewing Anglo-German relations in a vacuum, perhaps you could tell me how 1/the German decision to develop a long-range heavy bomber, and 2/ the German decision to drop said bomber again affected French, Czech and Soviet rearmament plans in the 1934-1937 time frame?

[phylo_roadking]

but the basic question - why Germany dropped the heavy bomber from its rearmaments programme - can't be answered from looking at British air rearmament plans.

No, but you can examine and wonder why two nations faced with roughly the same constraints of time development required, availability of modern airframes, engines and alloys, and undertaking HUGE rearmament programmes - and when one definitely regarded the other as its potetntial rival/enemy in Europe at the very start of its rearmament programme and planned to build the capacity to bomb the other - reached two so different conclusions. Or does the value of comparative history escape you?