AVG II - What IF US Bombers were based in China ?

[Tim Smith]

Listening to you guys is like putting 3 tomcats in a sack and kicking it to rile them up!

[robdab]

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Tim Smith observed that:

Listening to you guys is like putting 3 tomcats in a sack and kicking it to rile them up!

Agreed, silly isn't it ? The thing that amazes me is that this one wasn't really even my own scenario. I'm just trying to get some informed opinions on the validity of the scenario presented in Armstrong's book, "Preemptive Strike"

Personnal attack and insult just seem to automatically follow here.

[phylo_roadking]

Who do you think they were otherwise being produced for? ALL Hudsons were produced to British or Commonwealth orders.

Exactly. Other Commonwealth nations that would not object too strongly if some of the Hudsons slated for delivery to them were diverted to a Chinese AVGII. Or, some of those 155 that were sitting at Burbank could have been sent by FDR to China.

Er....why do you think they had to get the AMERICANS to build them? Might it be because they couldn't build them for themselves and NEEDED them??? Have you looked at the list of wartime foreign operators of the Hudson? Australia, Brazil, China, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa....all well-known for their large aviaition industries in 1941 Britain needed them because it was already churning out everything it could from its own factories and it wasn't enough, they didn't have the capacity for a longrange maritime patrol bomber...and 1941 was the British low point in the Battle of the Atlantic, among other reasons for want of longrange maritime patrol bombers....66 Hudsons is for instance five full squadrons of patrol aircraft for Coastal Command that simply never appear...and you think the British wouldn't be pissed off? They'd be screaming like stuck pigs!

I'm just trying to get some informed opinions on the validity of the scenario presented in Armstrong's book, "Preemptive Strike"

Robert, the problem is you're getting them in spades, AND informed ones, AND you're choosing to ignore them or declare the data provided says something it clearly doesn't.

Instead - as we're used to with you - you're coming up with kludge after kludge, more ridiculous PODs one after the other to try and make YOUR ideas work...

For you have gone FAR beyond Armstrong's thesis, for example just recently into areas of British foreign and defence policy that indicate how little you really know. THESE meanderings of yours have nothing to do with Armstong's ideas - they're purely YOURS, and yours to defend with sourced material.

You wonder WHY you get it in the neck, why you suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? Might it have something to do that after all the personal insulting - of which YOU have done quite a lot YOURSELF in this thread - you post up something fatuous like this -

I'm just trying to get some informed opinions on the validity of the scenario presented in Armstrong's book, "Preemptive Strike"

...after eight pages of you insulting those informed opinions?

[RichTO90]

Please, quote the posting date when I stated that "my" AVGII flown Hudsons would try to bomb from 75' ? AFAIK, I never have.

robdab on Wed Feb 17, 2010 5:40 pm

Please see http://ibiblio.net/hyperwar/////AAF/rep ... eport.html which details the events of the April 18/42 Doolittle bombing raid on the Japanese Home Islands. Various bombing altitudes between 75' and 1,500' were used for both 500lb demolition bombs and 500lb incendiary cluster bombs, beating LeMay to the punch by at least a couple of years.

I found it interesting to note that Doolittle's flyers dropped several of the M54 incendiary cluster bombs which each contained some 128 x 4lb incendiary bomblets. It seems that my initial choise of incendiary munition wasn't that far off the mark, calendar wise.

Note that yet again this creature has failed to read his own source and note the significance to his "plan", which specifically notes that the production of the 500-lb incendiary was:

"The Chemical Warfare Service provided special 500 incendiary clusters each containing 128 incendiary bombs. These clusters were developed at the Edgewood Arsenal and test dropped by the Air Corps test group at Aberdeen. Several tests were carried on to assure their proper functioning and to determine the dropping angle and dispersion. Experimental work on and production of these clusters was carried on most efficiently. "

They were developed for the mission and there is no indication in his own source that they existed in time to be used in his "plan". Further, he remains blissfully unaware, that the Hudson was incable of carrying 500-lb munitions.

Since you post so few sources, I have often thought so.

Yeah, you're right, I actually have no knowledge of this subject, the sources, or the background, and just make it all up as I go along. That's why I have been posting regularly here for some eight years, without challenge, that I am aware, by the moderators, about my ability to back up my claims with sources.

What have you done?

[Personal remarks removed]

[phylo_roadking]

They were developed for the mission and there is no indication in his own source that they existed in time to be used in his "plan".

In fact....quite the reverse....we have had several sources confirming they weren't available BEFORE DECEMBER 1941.

[robdab]

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phylo stated,

I've come to the conclusion you ARE nothing but a troll.

Sorry that you feel that way but I still don't agree with you.

Production in 1941 was far below requirements with only 2.25 million being produced

The British Government was SHORT on its own needs by several hundred thousand EVERY MONTH through 1941. Between April and December 1941 they were short by OVER FOUR AND A HALF MILLION on what they had planned to produce. No, they will NOT be transferring ANY to a third party fighting someone they're not even at war with yet!

By your logic the Americans would never have traded 50 destroyers to Britain nor supplied PBY and B-17 aircraft that their own armed forces were so short of in the immediate pre-war period. America wasn't yet at war with Germany so why did those ships and warplanes get transfered to the British ? Because an Allie was in a time of need, and asked. Not having those PBYs based on Oahu sure hurt a short time later, on Dec.7'41. How could Churchill not return the favour, especially when such small bomb tonnages were involved ? One AVGII firebomb raid would need something less than 26,400 4lb incendiaries, just 52 tons. Ten such raids on Japanese Home Island cities (after losses) would demand just 500 or so tons.

Not even anywhere near one full cargoship's load.

They WERE, in spades - Bomber Command was running an offensive that consumed tens of thousands of tons of ordnance monthly as it was.

Exactly my point. Would switching just 500 tons of incendiaries for 500 tons more HE really make a difference to Bomber Commands overall offensive when tens of thousands of tons of bombs were already involved ? I'd doubt it.

You spout absolute nonsenese about a nation at war doing something it physically COULDN'T do...it couldn't produce enough for its OWN use[/i]....

Your own source indicates that Britian produced 2,25 million 4lb incendiaries in 1941 so they COULD and DID produce more than enough to supply an ATL hinese AVGII. All that was required was a choice to be made by Churchill, to do so.

You DO realise what sort of state the British were in in 1941??? They were busy LOOSING - pushed back AGAIN in the Western Desert, they lost Crete and nearly all direct access to the Middle East via the Med, in the first half of the year the KM's uboats took the British right to the edge of loosing the Battle of the Atlantic...the ONLY place they were consistently on the offensive against Germany was in the air - and were panicking because they were well short of the specific ordnance they required for that - and you honestly think they'll transfer any of what little they have to the Far East? Why on earth do you think British defences in the Far East WERE so bad???

Considering your Belfast location, are you really old enough to have been in overall command of His Majesty's Far Eastern defences back then ... ?

I really don't see that dropping 500 tons more HE on Germany, rather than 500 tons more 4lb incendiaries, would have made much difference at all. Not when by your own admission, tens of thousands of tons of HE was ALREADY being dropped on Adolf's friends. A difference of a spit into the ocean.

For that matter, I think the entire incendiary sub-topic to be a "red herring" anyway and I have typed so previously. The Armstrong book that started this entire thread indicates that Chennault wanted to drop incendiaries onto Japanese Home Island cities but I imagine that had he been provided with an AVGII and no incendiaries for it to haul, he would have happliy dropped HE on the Japanese instead.

The weapons used don't really matter. Delivering the message to Japan's population that they were NOT invulnerable was important if FDR's message of deterence was to be be heard by Tojo and Hirohito.

[Peter H]

Everyone,lets tone down the insults.

[RichTO90]

They were developed for the mission and there is no indication in his own source that they existed in time to be used in his "plan".

In fact....quite the reverse....we have had several sources confirming they weren't available BEFORE DECEMBER 1941.

It's essentially the same circular, clusterfuck mentality he brings to every one of these sessions, which are apparently designed so that he can eventually make the claim that the entire world/all the posters/the website are simply against him and don't want him to receive the "information" that is all he really wanted in the first place.

He even has the gall to reply with

Operational plans must allow some flexibility if any successes at all are to be expected.

in answer to THE ACTUAL OPERATIONAL PLAN ENUNCIATED AS ITS PARAMETERS!

What an absolute crock of shit, waste of time, and waste of space this cretin is.

I only decided to throw my two cents in because I was tired of the inane idiocies being spouted with regards to the aircraft and ordnance available. This supertroll can continue his noxious unmoderated waste of bandwidth if he choses, but I'm not wasting my time again.

I will make no more replies to robdab's request for sources. If a moderator or another poster should be so inclined to ask they may reach me by PM.

[phylo_roadking]

The British Government was SHORT on its own needs by several hundred thousand EVERY MONTH through 1941. Between April and December 1941 they were short by OVER FOUR AND A HALF MILLION on what they had planned to produce. No, they will NOT be transferring ANY to a third party fighting someone they're not even at war with yet!

By your logic the Americans would never have traded 50 destroyers to Britain nor supplied PBY and B-17 aircraft that their own armed forces were so short of in the immediate pre-war period. America wasn't yet at war with Germany so why did those ships and warplanes get transfered to the British ? Because an Allie was in a time of need, and asked.

Robert - I posted just a short time ago that you are constantly betraying your lack of knowledge on things outside your immediate interest - and equally immediaitely you THEN go and prove it....

Those 50 destroyers were MOTHBALLED pieces of obsolete WWI trash. Many of them required extensive renovation before they could be sailed to the UK...and were NOT in use by the USN nor had they been for many years...Nor were they planning to! How many of the remainder did the USN recommission on the outbreak of hositilities?

How many B-17s did the British get? Exactly TWENTY....and AS YOU HAVE BEEN TOLD BEFORE AND IGNORED they were given them to trial them in a European air war context I.E. for equally selfish American reasons.

How could Churchill not return the favour, especially when such small bomb tonnages were involved ?

Because "small" to you is MASSIVE to Bomber Command when they were hundreds of thousands short ALREADY every month through 1941!

You spout absolute nonsenese about a nation at war doing something it physically COULDN'T do...it couldn't produce enough for its OWN use[/i]....

Your own source indicates that Britian produced 2,25 million 4lb incendiaries in 1941 so they COULD and DID produce more than enough to supply an ATL hinese AVGII. All that was required was a choice to be made by Churchill, to do so.

No, Robert. My source - as I have indicated EXTENSIVELY and IN DETAIL - indicates that the Bitish were MILLIONS of incendiaries short on what they planned and needed in 1941. They did NOT produce enough FOR THEMSELVES, so they would certainly NOT supply them to a third party. The article couldn't be more clear on that.

You DO realise what sort of state the British were in in 1941??? They were busy LOOSING - pushed back AGAIN in the Western Desert, they lost Crete and nearly all direct access to the Middle East via the Med, in the first half of the year the KM's uboats took the British right to the edge of loosing the Battle of the Atlantic...the ONLY place they were consistently on the offensive against Germany was in the air - and were panicking because they were well short of the specific ordnance they required for that - and you honestly think they'll transfer any of what little they have to the Far East? Why on earth do you think British defences in the Far East WERE so bad???

Considering your Belfast location, are you really old enough to have been in overall command of His Majesty's Far Eastern defences back then ... ?

See what I mean about your insults, Robert?

Not old enough, no - but educated enough and interested enough over the years to go and find out MORE than what I gleaned at university to add to what I read in books. I would recommend you go and educate yourself likewise before you commit any more blunders like this.

For that matter, I think the entire incendiary sub-topic to be a "red herring" anyway and I have typed so previously. The Armstrong book that started this entire thread indicates that Chennault wanted to drop incendiaries onto Japanese Home Island cities but I imagine that had he been provided with an AVGII and no incendiaries for it to haul, he would have happliy dropped HE on the Japanese instead.

Robert - you ONLY began to say that AFTER you were caught out so remarkably badly as to not even know OR BOTHERED TO FIND OUT that the U.S. didn't have any incendiaries in the period you're dealing with.

Don't even TRY to shut the stable door now after that horse has bolted

The weapons used don't really matter.

Of course it matters; it matters in the context of this WI that the OP got the incendiary issue so absolutely and completely wrong.

[robdab]

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phylo protests further with:

....66 Hudsons is for instance five full squadrons of patrol aircraft for Coastal Command that simply never appear...and you think the British wouldn't be pissed off? They'd be screaming like stuck pigs!

Since the Chinese historicaly got 2 squadrons of 12 A-29s anyway, it would only be three Coastal Command Squadrons that would have arrived late. NOT a case of "never appear" as you claim above, just delayed to be provided by later production. IIRC that was the reason that the British historically agreed easily to give up the early mk P-40s that went to the AVGI's pilots. The British instead got more capable later mk P-40s, when they had trained enough pilots to fly them.

Perhaps FDR or Marshall could have worked out the same kind of deal with the British for their additional A-29s since it sure seems that the British didn't have sufficient pilots available to take delivery in Burbank, anyway ?

Maybe they'd scream but since they were buying US equipment ON CREDIT, who would really be listening ? Or care ? "Beggars can't be choosers" is the old saying that comes to mind.

I'm just trying to get some informed opinions on the validity of the scenario presented in Armstrong's book, "Preemptive Strike"

Robert, the problem is you're getting them in spades, AND informed ones, AND you're choosing to ignore them or declare the data provided says something it clearly doesn't.

Nah. All I'm getting here is the usual micro-scale BS style objections about Matador, HE vs incendiaries, LeMay & Doolittle's bombing altitudes and eventual IJA counter-attacks on SE Chinese airfields. None of that really matters to the larger strategic picture that I'd like to get some opinions on.

No one has yet even commented about the likely effects on Japan's population, leadership and historical warplans IF the AVGII had begun bombing Cam Ranh Bay, Formosa and Japanese Home Island cities just after Oct.31'41, as Armstrong's book proposes. After almost 8 pages of BS postings here. What a waste.

[phylo_roadking]

Robert, the problem is you're getting them in spades, AND informed ones, AND you're choosing to ignore them or declare the data provided says something it clearly doesn't.

Nah. All I'm getting here is the usual micro-scale BS style objections about Matador, HE vs incendiaries, LeMay & Doolittle's bombing altitudes and eventual IJA counter-attacks on SE Chinese airfields. None of that really matters to the larger strategic picture that I'd like to get some opinions on.

Robert - YOU'RE the one brought in most of these when your other flights-of-fancy were being shot down in flames.

For instance, don't try and complain NOW about the MATADOR discussion....when it was YOU who brought it up and again made a number of statements on it that were patently and completely wrong.

No one has yet even commented about the likely effects on Japan's population, leadership and historical warplans IF the AVGII had begun bombing Cam Ranh Bay, Formosa and Japanese Home Island cities just after Oct.31'41, as Armstrong's book proposes. After almost 8 pages of BS postings here. What a waste.

Maybe it's because the whole idea as expressed/constantly modified by you is a complete non-starter, and having been knocked down at the detail level, the "strategic" level is completely and totally superfluous???

The British instead got more capable later mk P-40s, when they had trained enough pilots to fly them.

Eh??? Source that, please. Do you even know what the British were doing with their P-40s??? And had been since 1940?

Perhaps FDR or Marshall could have worked out the same kind of deal with the British for their additional A-29s since it sure seems that the British didn't have sufficient pilots available to take delivery in Burbank, anyway ?

Ah, so it was a group of young schoolkids who ran off with them under their arms, was it???

Once again - and mentioned before - you seem unaware that the Americans had been running TWO large training schemes, one for the RAF and one for the RN, for at least 18 months by then, to train British aircrew in the U.S. and convert them to American Cash-and-Carry/Lend Lease types.

[Peter H]

Topic now closed and locked.