Feasability of Operation Pike, 1940

[JonS]

But how many "initial disappointments" in the defence does it take to allow the Allies to do major damage

Probably quite a few. Have you heard of a guy called David Bensusan-Butt? It seems he wrote a report, the main thrust of which was that the RAF couldn't find its own arse using both hands. I suspect PIKE would have run out of a/c before they'd done any 'major damage.'

Trying to overawe a few wogs and their camels by throwing grenades out the cockpit window is a little less demanding than trying to damage industrial infrastructure.

[Jon G.]

...how many "initial disappointments" in the defence does it take to allow the Allies to do major damage before remedial action can be taken?

This assuming that the Allies can even find their targets - and this at a time of the war when Bomber Command on occasion had difficulties even hitting the right country.

How long actually did it take the Soviets to change tack in the air in the WInter War?

I don't know, but then the Winter War is a poor basis of comparison - unless you can point us to succesful Finnish deep penetration bombing raids aimed at Soviet oil targets?

...

...On the Russian side, Soviet AF officer A. B. Vorozheikin says the loss ratio was 4 Russ to 1 Jap in May but improved to 1:3 in June, 1:4 in July, and 1:10 in August.

Just like Finland - early major losses followed by slowly increasing success...

And with 48 Blenheims and 98 French bombers assigned to the mission, which side do you think would be able to take the most attrition before running out of aircraft?

Well, according to Osborn, it was nothing more than the French end of the operation vanished in a puff of smoke...

Your Wiki link has it the other way round:

...The French side proposed accelerating the planning, whereas the British side was more cautious, fearing a possible German-Soviet alliance, should the allies attack the USSR...

In the event, the only people able to damage Soviet oil production were the Soviets themselves - the Maikop oilfields being so thoroughly destroyed that the Germans never got anything like the expected amounts of oil out of them, despite allocating lots of specialists to the task of re-opening the fields. It's not like Caucasus is a particularly compact target, either.

[phylo_roadking]

Your Wiki link has it the other way round:

In the planning stage...but once it came time to carry through the material preparations, the British were ahead.

This assuming that the Allies can even find their targets - and this at a time of the war when Bomber Command on occasion had difficulties even hitting the right country

The recce flights didn't seem to have much problem...

And with 48 Blenheims and 98 French bombers assigned to the mission, which side do you think would be able to take the most attrition before running out of aircraft?

As noted several times before, the French contribution was to be night bombing - and I'm not aware of any Soviet nightfighting capability at the time!

It's not like Caucasus is a particularly compact target, either.

Well, I'm tempted to say that it was compact targets that Bomber Command was having problems with at the time! How hard would it be to miss...this? Square mile after square mile of target...





The third image there is very interesting - Baku was fired by the Tartars during an uprising in 1905...and we can ALL remember the pictures of Kuwait...after the initial raid, there's going to be an unmissible navigation beacon in the sky indicating where the target is!

[Jon G.]

...

This assuming that the Allies can even find their targets - and this at a time of the war when Bomber Command on occasion had difficulties even hitting the right country

The recce flights didn't seem to have much problem...

There might well have been unsuccesful recce flights, too? One recon flight ended up with holes in it, indicating a certain Soviet alertness to Allied intrusions of their airspace.

Anyhow, various targetting systems that were invented later, such as Oboe, H2S look-down radars, specially trained pathfinder crews and so on were not yet on hand in 1939-1940.

As noted several times before, the French contribution was to be night bombing - and I'm not aware of any Soviet nightfighting capability at the time!

I have no idea, either, but I would not from that conclude that they had no night fighters. Apart from that, there's flak and searchlights and any other kind of non-aerial combat attrition you can think of.

...Baku was fired by the Tartars during an uprising in 1905...and we can ALL remember the pictures of Kuwait...after the initial raid, there's going to be an unmissible navigation beacon in the sky indicating where the target is!

More like a giant black cloud obscuring the target, making it more difficult for Allied bombers to locate it.

In view of the very limited success enjoyed by RAF Bomber Command in the earliest years of the war, I still consider it very unlikely that this operation would have achieved anything. I think it says something that the perhaps more air-minded British (and conditionally the French too) contemplated bombing a target which the Germans themselves were planning to conquer in a land campaign.

[phylo_roadking]

I think it says something that the perhaps more air-minded British (and conditionally the French too) contemplated bombing a target which the Germans themselves were planning to conquer in a land campaign.

Remember - after June 1941, the British contemplated bombing the target BECAUSE the Germans themselves were planning to conquer it in a land campaign...both operations were about resource denial...

There might well have been unsuccesful recce flights, too?

Yes - but NOT because of navigational issues! That first March 3rd flight was regarded in Cairo as unsuccessful because the film was underexposed and the quality thus unsatisfactory.

Unfortunately that's all I can see on googleview, Osborn's book seems an interesting prospective purchase.

Apart from that, there's flak and searchlights and any other kind of non-aerial combat attrition you can think of.

Over the oil refinery at Batumi, yes....but obviously not over Baku itself, where F/O's Burton and Dixon lingered (no aerial interception either!) for an hour...

More like a giant black cloud obscuring the target, making it more difficult for Allied bombers to locate it.

Didn't work that way in September/October 1940 for the Luftwaffe at night...the smoke over London didn't obscure the city as much as the flames below revealed the target burning...ditto for the huge smoke pall over Dunkirk...

[Jon G.]

Remember - after June 1941, the British contemplated bombing the target BECAUSE the Germans themselves were planning to conquer it in a land campaign...both operations were about resource denial...

It was more than that in 1941 and (especially) in 1942. The German threat to the southern parts of the Soviet Union meant that the British had to keep sizeable forces in reserve in the Middle East. And remember - also in 1941 Operation Pike wasn't carried out.

There might well have been unsuccesful recce flights, too?

Yes - but NOT because of navigational issues! That first March 3rd flight was regarded in Cairo as unsuccessful because the film was underexposed and the quality thus unsatisfactory.

Do you know if there were other reconnaissance flights? In any event, you can't outright conclude that a bomber stream, however tiny, would find the target just because a single Lockheed Electra could.

...

Apart from that, there's flak and searchlights and any other kind of non-aerial combat attrition you can think of.

Over the oil refinery at Batumi, yes....but obviously not over Baku itself, where F/O's Burton and Dixon lingered (no aerial interception either!) for an hour...

But the April 5 flight got both AA fire and an interception attempt directed at it. It will appear that any element of surprise would have been lost by then.

More like a giant black cloud obscuring the target, making it more difficult for Allied bombers to locate it.

Didn't work that way in September/October 1940 for the Luftwaffe at night...the smoke over London didn't obscure the city as much as the flames below revealed the target burning...ditto for the huge smoke pall over Dunkirk...

No, but London isn't an oil field, and it seems you're maintaining that the Blenheims earmarked for the operation were supposed to fly at day?

[phylo_roadking]

Probably quite a few. Have you heard of a guy called David Bensusan-Butt? It seems he wrote a report, the main thrust of which was that the RAF couldn't find its own arse using both hands. I suspect PIKE would have run out of a/c before they'd done any 'major damage.'

Trying to overawe a few wogs and their camels by throwing grenades out the cockpit window is a little less demanding than trying to damage industrial infrastructure.

JonS, I missed your earlier post, my apologies!

Regarding the Butt Report, this investigation was carried out and the Report written in reaction to concerns regarding Bomber Command's supposed "precision night bombing" performance

In relation to this -

Trying to overawe a few wogs and their camels by throwing grenades out the cockpit window is a little less demanding than trying to damage industrial infrastructure

A/ the actual mechanics of operating a medium bomber force in the field in the Near East on minimal spares backup hadn't actually changed very much from the colonial policing days - and I would hesitate to call Habbaniya minimal, even in 1940....AND the RAF courtesy of their experience proved a very few years later to be very good at doing so in the Desert Air Force - living in dugouts, runways nothing more than cleared desert hardpack etc., etc...

B/ As noted to JonG - the target itself was a very different prospect to those that Bomber Command was attempting to hit in Germany in 1940...as would possibly be the Soviet's ability to effect repairs to miles of pipeline, acres of tank farm, extinguish oil rig fires etc. while under bombardment.

[phylo_roadking]

It was more than that in 1941 and (especially) in 1942. The German threat to the southern parts of the Soviet Union meant that the British had to keep sizeable forces in reserve in the Middle East.

I would venture that had it been required, RAF bombers could have reached Baku somewhat faster than the British Army could have...

And remember - also in 1941 Operation Pike wasn't carried out.

This was a failure/oversight??? I'm not aware the Germans reached the Caucasus in 1941...

Do you know if there were other reconnaissance flights?

At least the two, I'd need to see Osborn to comment on more.

But the April 5 flight got both AA fire and an interception attempt directed at it. It will appear that any element of surprise would have been lost by then.

That's exactly one of the things we would need to establish, as I've noted before - the state of Soviet defences and where....the oil refinery at Batumi being a far different prospect than the oil field at Baku. We would need to find out IF the Soviets indeed reacted to the Baku flight by beefing up defences elsewhere....or IF the dfences at Batumi had been there all the time...

[Jon G.]

From an article by Charles O. Richardson in French Historical Studies, vol. 8 no. 1, 1973 entitled French Plans for Allied Attacks on the Caucasus Oil Fields January-April, 1940

It's 1973, so probably not the cutting edge of historical research, but Richardson makes some interesting points, namely that the French were far more eager for attacking the Soviets than the British were, and also emphasising that diplomatical difficulties (namely securing the support of Turkey) were among the main reasons why the plan did not get the go-ahead, and also that security surrounding the plans wasn't particularly tight.

With hindsight, you can speculate that letting the Soviets know about the plans was the intention all along.

[phylo_roadking]

Jon, there ARE some items of great interest in there - but not necessarily the ones you mean

First of all - there's the snippet of information that reveals the Russians had to ask the Americans about how to deal with massed oil field fires...mind you, we don't know from that if the Americans told them anything!

Interestingly - there's that snippet that the Soviets WERE worried about an attack on Baku and moved troops into the area at the start of March...however, perhaps that makes their failure to react to the first, protracted, aerial reccce of Baku at the END of March even more embarassing for the defenders?

In the last paragraph - "If the bombings had taken place it is highly doubtful they would have achieved their purpose"...

The "highly doubtful" is NOT a questionmark over how successful at damaging Baku the attacks might have been - it's in regard to would the attacks have hindered the German war effort!

As for the idea in the first two paragraphs that Germany's foreign sources of oil were the foremost reason for any attack...looking again at the Wiki article -

According to the report by General Gamelin submitted to the French Prime Minister on 22 February 1940, an oil shortage would cripple the Red Army and Soviet Air Force, as well as Soviet collective farm machinery, causing possible widespread famine and even the collapse of the Soviet Union: "Dependence on oil supplies from the Caucasus is the fundamental weakness of Russian economy. The Armed Forces were totally dependent on this source also for their motorized agriculture. More than 90% of oil extraction and 80% of refinement was located in the Caucasus (primarily Baku). Therefore, interruption of oil supplies on any large scale would have far-reaching consequences and could even result in the collapse of all the military, industrial and agricultural systems of Russia."

....the USSR itself was just as much of a target! remember, the plans were first drawn up when BOTH the British and the French, separately then together, were drawing up plans to directly engaged "Hitler's ally" the Soviet Union in the West I.E. the often-discussed plans to get into the Finnish war with the USSR.

Your article doesn't seem to take into account at all either these plans in the West, nor that the plans in the Near East were aimed at the USSR as much as Nazi Germany. I take it that is a sign of how outdated it now is?

With hindsight, you can speculate that letting the Soviets know about the plans was the intention all along

As a view to making the Soviets transfer forces FROM elsewhere, you mean? As in, perhaps, away from Western Military Districts??? We'd need to find out what was moved at the beginning of March, and from where...

And of course - was this aspect ever discussed by the British/French with respect to Pike? It might just have been a lucky gain from the whole thing....or something the British banked on to ease the way for their plans to intervene in Finland before the end of the Winter War a very few days later...

Except I've been through the CAB files from the end of April/start of March some time ago for other reasons if you remember, and can't recall any mention at all of this Soviet reassignment of troops to the Near East in relation to the British plans for Western/Scandanavian intervention

[Jon G.]

Jon, there ARE some items of great interest in there - but not necessarily the ones you mean

'The ones I mean' were those I posted?

First of all - there's the snippet of information that reveals the Russians had to ask the Americans about how to deal with massed oil field fires...mind you, we don't know from that if the Americans told them anything!

You're jumping to assumptions.

We'll have to take the Turkish foreign minister's word for that they actually asked, can you think of any motives why he might tell the French that the Russians were seeking American oil-firefighting expertise? Maybe his subtle way of telling the French that the Turks considered bombing Baku and surrounds a bad idea? Interestingly, the French interpreted the Turks as more willing to provide airspace for the operation - with a view to eventually joining in an Allied war on the USSR - than the British did.

What we have from the article is an ambassador telling his government what he's been told by the Turkish foreign minister, who in turn must have gotten the info from sources in the Soviet administration, perhaps by way of the Turkish ambassador to the USSR. That hardly even qualifies as hearsay. Who but the Soviets themselves knew what they were doing, and capable of, in 1940 or in 1973 for that matter?

I posted the excerpts to give an impression of what information the Allies had on hand in 1940, not as a judgement of actual Soviet capabilities and intentions at the time and place, and how the Allies acted on that information.

Interestingly - there's that snippet that the Soviets WERE worried about an attack on Baku and moved troops into the area at the start of March...however, perhaps that makes their failure to react to the first, protracted, aerial reccce of Baku at the END of March even more embarassing for the defenders?

If so, then what would that mean about the level of resistance Allied bombing raids might encounter? How do we know if the first recon flight wasn't intercepted, or shot at, because the Soviets couldn't, or because they wouldn't?

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Your article doesn't seem to take into account at all either these plans in the West, nor that the plans in the Near East were aimed at the USSR as much as Nazi Germany. I take it that is a sign of how outdated it now is?

That's a rather grand assumption to make about what is, and what is not in the article based only on excerpts I posted? There's plenty of stuff in the article about public French sympathy for Finland and plans to take the war to the Russians in Scandinavia and Finland. But it's not central to this discussion, so I didn't post it.

With hindsight, you can speculate that letting the Soviets know about the plans was the intention all along

As a view to making the Soviets transfer forces FROM elsewhere, you mean? As in, perhaps, away from Western Military Districts??? We'd need to find out what was moved at the beginning of March, and from where...

And of course - was this aspect ever discussed by the British/French with respect to Pike? It might just have been a lucky gain from the whole thing....or something the British banked on to ease the way for their plans to intervene in Finland before the end of the Winter War a very few days later...

I doubt if you can find anything contemporary in writing about it. I however maintain that there is more to learn from the fact that the bombing plans were never carried out, rather than speculating how succesful they might have been.

[phylo_roadking]

We'll have to take the Turkish foreign minister's word for that they actually asked, can you think of any motives why he might tell the French that the Russians were seeking American oil-firefighting expertise? Maybe his subtle way of telling the French that the Turks considered bombing Baku and surrounds a bad idea?

Did what I wrote read as if I doubted they asked? Quite the reverse, the Americans would indeed be the perfect people to ask - what I meant was...we don't know if the Americans replied!

However - I've been doing some more reading through what of Osborn IS available on the Net this afternoon - and the Soviet military movement into the Cuacasus at the start of March may not have been due to any fears of ALLIED attack...it appears the locals were restless again! The Soviets had transferred local regiment out of the area, and moved forces from more distant military districts IN! The Soviets may simply have been, in asking advice from the Americans, worried about a repeat of that 1905 attack on and destruction of the Baku oil field by rebels; given that petroleum was far more important to the Russian economy by 1939-40 than it had been in 1905!

Interestingly, the French interpreted the Turks as more willing to provide airspace for the operation - with a view to eventually joining in an Allied war on the USSR - than the British did.

I'm not sure this is correct; or rather, the Turks may not have been open to British prodding on actually joining a war - but the Turkish general staff was liaising with the British Ambassador, Knatchbull-Hugessen in Ankara, as early as October-November 1939 regarding the growing disorder in the Caucasus, and were confident THEY could prod the locals into rising, and would help the upset along if it flared up by supplying arms to the rebels!

Knatchbull-Hugessen had to actually dissuade the Turks from doing this!

I doubt if you can find anything contemporary in writing about it.

Just found it - in Osborn. But it's not from the Cabinet papers - it's from the JIC, the Joint Intelligence Committee...regarding the fact that rumours about British interventions in Scandanavia which were already rife (this was late January-February). I can't cut-and-paste from googleview, so I'll paraphrase...

To ally wories about actions in Scandanavia, it would be best to provide indicators of potential actions in the Middle or Near East to convince the Germans that the shipping tonnage uptaken for Norway was actually to transport men and materiel to the Middle East...rumours and superficial indicators wouldn't be enough -

"...it was considered that measures to deceive the enemy could not be successful unless some definite action was taken in the Middle East, which could only be intended as a preliminary to operations in that area..."

Thus we couldn't just be seen to do something there, we actually had to do it!

Regarding the earlier raised issue about violating Turkish airspace to carry out the attacks - apparently the French had sewn this one up in advance of british protests (voiced at the Spreme War Council by Ismay; Reynaud was able to announce that the French ambassador to Ankara, M. Massigli, on the basis of private conversations with Turkish politicians had suggested that the Turks would be "covered" if the Allies carried out the raids THEN apologised to Ankara while the raids were in progress! Thus the Turks could feign ignorance to Moscow...Chamberlain wasn't happy at the Council meeting, and the minutes apparently record that he was unhappy with the idea that they should attack first and rely on the Turks being appeased after the fact!...

But as Osborn notes - the minutes do NOT record that the first British recce was due to fly and the process would violate BOTH iranian AND Turkish airspace...and that the French probably knew this too!

....and the Council finally decided that if the proposed offensive could harm BOTH the USSR and Germany, then it should be proceeded with.

Regarding the Blenheims and day operations, Jon - I think they indeed were; while the specific page is one I can't view.... just before googleview jumps a page, Newall asks Slessor if a squadron of Whitleys could be also be made available for night operations In a later chapter, it's proposed by Newal that a small British contribution to night ops against Batumi should be by aircraft already in the area, that is....the Wellesleys in Egypt.

Do you know if there were other reconnaissance flights?

I can firm this up a bit now; the bits of Osborn I can see don't mention more....but they do mention that the photo-recce flights were part of an overall SIS-managed operation using one of Sydney Cotton's specially-converted Lockheeds, "Cloudy Joe" to not only photograph the targets...but to photograph the entire area of the Caucasus to update the RAF's maps of the region

[Jon G.]

Stalin's regime was not very firmly rooted in the Caucasus regions; this is well-known. For example and AFAIK, the Caucasus peoples were initially not subjected to the general draft issued after the German invasion of the USSR due to doubts over their loyalty.

Richardson pursues the political/diplomatic angle of the Anglo-French plan more than the strictly tactical aspects of it.

For example, he places the French desire to go for the Soviets firmly with what would later be known as the Vichy/pro-fascist/pro-Munich camp.

A few more bits from the article:

French sympathy for Finland:


About who was more eager to bomb Baku:


Reynaud vehemently denied supporting the plan in his post-war memoirs, but the evidence against him is pretty damning. Apparently, the French were sharing their plans quite freely with the Italians?!

Reynaud took over after Daladier, in part because Daladier was accused of being too passive towards the Soviet attack on Finland:


The French ambassador's assessment of Turkey's possible stance:


...cont'd, British assessments of ditto:


Massigli was the French ambassador to Turkey; Steinhardt was their ambassador in Moscow.

[phylo_roadking]

Jon, I'd have to note that Massigli was reporting conversation with the British diplomatic presence in Ankara - possibly somewhat remote from what his bosses were by then discussing and agreeing to at the Supreme War Council - AND he wouldn't necessarily have much view of the British military preparation or intentions; he'd also be having conversations with the same people as Massigli was...and if he came to a different conclusion those conclusions may have been somewhat subjective.

The difference is in the two diplomats' interpretions of their conversations with the Turks - unless the Turks were intentionally telling the two parties two different things! Which, given they were very close allies, would be a tad stupid to do, unless the Turks also thought the French and British ambassadors never chatted to each other!

[Jon G.]

Something slipped in the copy-paste process. Anyhow, you seem to be ignoring the point that the French plans seemed to be fuelled as much by calls for action to break the strategic stalemate of the war and anti-Communism as it was fuelled by realistic assessments of what was, and what wasn't possible?