Chapter LXVIII: Questions of Classification.
Turning to bombers it is important from the outset to confront the often confusing RAF categorisation of bombers, a system that was often far more about politics than useful description. The base of the problem was that the technical differences between the groups were decidedly ill defined, the boundaries set by a mixture of range, role and bomb load. Moreover the advance of technology and the merging of aircraft roles blurred the boundaries further; a mid 1940s fighter-bomber could carry more load, further and faster than many 1930s light bombers. The formation of Strike Command was the final complication, with many aircraft types straddling the borders their exact classification would determine which squadrons went to which command. With more squadrons meaning more power and influence it was in the interest of both Bomber and Strike Command to massage the definitions, in the end most decisions had to be referred all way up to the Air Council before being settled. It should therefore be noted that the classifications used for RAF bombers should be treated with caution, being often wrong and regularly down right misleading.
We begin with the heavy bombers, or to be strictly accurate the heavy bomber, there only being one modern aircraft in RAF service in 1936 that met even the most lax definition of the term. The Armstrong Whitworth Whitely had by some margin the largest bomb load of any active British bomber and would form the backbone of the strategic bomber force until the the far large four engined heavies came into service at the end of the decade. Aside from the high profile Rome Raid the Whitely squadrons, along with the rest of the RAFs older strategic bombers, had a very quiet war and had suffered in the post war settlement as a result. Despite the Air Council re-organisation of priorities the Whitley didn't lost out entirely, the procurement programme would continue until the biplane squadrons had been completely replaced and there would even be a modest expansion, though far below what Bomber Command had been expecting. Equally significantly while the volume production Whitley would incorporate several improvements, not least replacing the thoroughly archaic bungee cords on the bomb bay doors with proper hydraulics, they would not be allowed to use the Merlin engine but would have to retain the radial Tiger VIIIs used on the MkI. Taken together these decisions demonstrate the fall from grace of Bomber Command, no longer would they have first call on the budget and be able to automatically secure the best equipment. The modest Whitley programme and the reservation of the Merlin where deliberate choices by the Air Council under it's plans to re-allocate resources away from Bomber Command towards the new Strike Command and, to a lesser extent, the historically under-resourced Coastal Command. While the Air Staff were far from pleased with the arrangement, the 'bomber boys' still dominated much of it's upper reaches, a combination of professionalism and the growing number of non-bomber staff officers ensured the Air Council had few practical difficulties implementing it's plans.
Dropping down to medium bombers the RAF had a slightly wider choice of modern aircraft, with the Vickers Wellesely and the Handley Page Hampden both entering service, even if the latter was somewhat rushed to enter service in time for the war. With bomb loads of 2000lb and 4000lb respectively the two types bracketed the usual range for a medium bomber and certainly offered vastly improved performance and payloads than their biplane predecessors. After a significant bout of institutional horse trading both Commands came away with a reasonable compromise, the heavier Hampdens would stay with Bomber Command while the lighter Wellesleys would be transferred to Strike Command. It is tempting to consider this more an organisational ideal than a harshly enforced division, certainly in the overseas bases and stations the squadrons would serve side by side in the same chain of command. For the Metropolitan based squadrons, however, it determined training; the Hampden crews joining the heavy squadrons in practising long distance navigation and night bombing tactics, while the Wellesley trained with their lighter brethren in Strike Command, working on the techniques of direct ground support. As Strike Command refined their doctrines and tactics in light of the war experience and exercises the differences between the two medium bombers capability would widen, despite both aircraft materially changing very little.
Two Vickers Wellesleys in flight over North Africa, note the distinctive streamlined 'pannier' bomb containers on the wings and the panel effect on the fuselage indicating the geodetic structure beneath. The Wellesley began life as an alternate entry to Specification G.4/31, a highly demanding specification that called for a design capable of level, dive and torpedo bombing in addition to reconnaissance and general army co-operation duties. Despite Vickers winning the contract with their original Type 253 submission they had developed a bomber only variant, the Type 246, as a Private Venture and submitted that to the RAF as well. In the end the Air Staff preferred the superior performance of the Type 246 and abandoned the original specification in favour of pushing the design into production as the Wellesley. Aside from it's bomber role several Wellesley variants would serve with the RAF's Long-Range Development Flight, modified aircraft flying non-stop from Ismailia (Egypt) to Darwin (Australia), taking the world distance record to over 7,000 miles, one they would hold for over a decade.
We finally come to the light bombers where things were somewhat less clear, the Air Staff desire to abolish all the light bomber squadrons being more a power grab than a genuine reflection of the aircraft coming into service. While the new designs were far larger and had heavier bomb loads than the biplanes they replaced, compared to the new heavy and medium bombers most were considerably smaller; several front-line designs had an all up weight less than the bomb load of a single Whitely. However that was certainly not the case for the first design we will consider, the Bristol Blenheim, an aircraft that very clearly demonstrates the classification problems discussed at the start of this chapter. The Blenheim began life as a high speed passenger aircraft, Bristol answer to Lord Rothermere's challenge of recapturing the fastest civilian aircraft in Europe title away from Germany. First flying in April 1935 the aircraft proved faster than almost anything in RAF service, the unarmed prototype could just top 300mph making it far faster than the biplane fighters then in front-line service. Naturally this piqued the Air Staff's interest and a formal specification for a military version soon followed, indeed so great was official enthusiasm that the design was ordered straight from the drawing board. The wisdom of this move would become apparent when the Abyssinian War broke out, the new Blenheims forming a significant part of the reinforcement squadrons the RAF sent to reinforce the Desert Air Force. Despite it's twin engines and large size (the production models tipped the scales at just over 12,000lb all up, making them heavier than the single engined Wellesley 'Medium' bombers) significant sacrifices had been made to give the aircraft their high speed; the small cross-section had produced a cramped cockpit and fuselage while, crucially, the bomb load was limited to just 1,000lb total. It was the combination of high speed and small bomb capacity that pushed the Blenheim into the light bomber category and into the willing arms of Strike Command, for whom the former was important and the latter an acceptable price to pay. To judge by the export success of the design many other air forces agreed; Blenheims served in all the Dominion air forces, were licensed for production by Finland and Yugoslavia and were brought outright by air forces across Europe from Turkey to Portugal.
We conclude our look at designs by considering two different specifications with the same aim; the replacement of the legions of Hart and Hind light bombers. The first issued was P.27/32 which produced the Fairey Battle, later out of the blocks was P.4/34 that resulted in the Hawker Henley and the Fairey Firefight. The two specifications produced markedly different aircraft, a reflection of the ideas of those who framed them. Taking the Battle first, despite starting life as a two seat light bomber it had grown into a larger three man aircraft, reflecting Bomber Command's preference for large bomb load and dedicated navigators and gunners. This 'bloating' had left the Merlin engine over-worked and produced a relatively slow aircraft, about the same speed as a Gloster Gladiator and far slower than the monoplane Spitfire and Hurricane. The close air support proponents in the RAF at the time, few in number and chaffing under Fighter Command control, had nevertheless noticed this worrying trend and managed to convince the Ministry to issue a new specification, P.4/34. This repeated much of the earlier P.27/32, but was less open ended and explicitly put performance above bomb load in stark contrast to it's predecessor. The manufacturers, correctly anticipating that the design would not find favour with the 'bomber boys' in the Air Staff, responded with variants of existing designs rather than going to the extra expense of starting from scratch. The final submissions were the Hawker Henley, a two seater sister to the Hurricane and the Fairey Firefight which was, somewhat ironically, a smaller version of the Battle.
While the Battle had been the front runner of the three the formation of Strike Command had a decidedly negative impact on it's prospects, the design being too slow and heavy for the tastes of the new Strike Staff yet lacking the bomb load to tempt the Bomber Command into purchasing it for strategic work. Lacking support or a champion on the Air Staff the type 'fell between the gaps' and was not taken past the prototype stage. In contrast the smaller Henley and Firefight were both pushed forward to final prototype with trials starting at the beginning of 1937. While that mean volume production would not begin until the summer of that year Strike Command were prepared to wait for a good aircraft instead of rushing for an average one, though there is little doubt that the decision to wait was made easier given the other new aircraft pouring into service at the time.
The Fairey Firefight in flight during flight trials. Developed from the earlier Battle the Firefight traded away a 1000lb of bomb load and a third crew member for speed and manoeuvrability. The design was not to the taste of Bomber Command who, quite aside from finding the 500lb bomb load too low, disliked giving bombing control to the pilot and feared the second crew member would be overloaded working as navigator, telegraphist and air-gunner on the rear mounted Vickers. For Strike Command however combining pilot and bomber made sense, indeed was considered vital for successful dive bombing, and believed that close air support work by it's very nature would not involve too much complex navigation. Piggy backing of the Battle gave Faireys a big lead in development, especially with Hawkers concentrating on rushing the Hurricane for much of the year, but had come at the cost of several compromise to performance. Conversely the Hurricane inheritance meant the Henley was faster, cheaper and simpler to maintain but had suffered development delays as the Air Ministry demanded 100% effort on getting the Hurricane ready. The Summer 1937 trials were generally considered too close to call, the question being if Hawker could make up for lost time or if the more refined Fairey design could hold onto it's development lead.
Before leaving the world of bombers we will briefly look at the development pipeline, the upcoming designs and the specifications issued that indicate the thinking of the Air Ministry as they looked to the future. Nearest to completion was the Vickers Wellington, the elder and larger brother to the Wellesley bomber. Despite starting life from the same specification as the Hampden the design had suffered due to it's more complex geodesic construction; with so many designs being rushed into service due to the Abyssinian War something had to give and the Wellington development programme was one of the things that did. The delay however did give time for Vickers and the Ministry to evolve out some of the design kinks, so many in fact that the name formally changed (the design had originally been named the Crecy). With all the delays and so many other designs entering service the Wellington prototype would not be completed until the late spring of 1937, with trials running until almost the end of the year.
Moving further out we see the 'bomber boys' of the Air Staff had not lost all their influence, issuing two ambitious specifications of their own; P.13/36 and B.12/36. Both specifications would be given a high priority by the Air Ministry, a quid pro quo for the sacrifices made over Strike Command and a gesture towards the very strong feelings of the Air Staff. P.13/36 was another attempt at the twin engined, 'general purpose' medium bomber for worldwide use, a pre-occupation for a service with world wide commitments and used to limited budgets. Requiring capability for long range, high altitude and a large bomb load the specification was ambitious and demanding, though fortunately the truly challenging demand for dive bombing capability with an 8,000lb+ bomb load did not make the final draft. Attracting interest from Avro, Handley Page and Vickers this specification was intended to provide the future 'main force' of Bomber Command and be in service in the majority of the hoped for future bomber squadrons. B.12/36, was the actual heavy bomber specification that explicitly called for a four engined design and an even vaster bomb load. Somewhat ironically the specification was a big beneficiary of the formation of Strike Command, early drafts contained mention of the ill-fated 'Support bomber' concept, the idea of a heavy bomber flying troops out to a remote Imperial frontier base then acting as air support. Fortunately the formation of Strike Command, and the logistical experiences of the Abyssinian War, quickly killed of the concept as Bomber Command washed their hands of supporting troops. The Air Staff also took the chance to remove the train portable requirements and relax the harsh runway requirements, the later after RAF staff officers in North Africa saw how just quickly Royal Engineers could clear obstructions, if given enough explosives. Despite all this the specification was still very demanding in terms of bomb load, altitude and speed, given the struggles the tendering firms of Armstrong Whitworth, Shorts and Supermarine had the mind boggles at the difficulty of designing such an aircraft as a 'Support Bomber'.
The natural progression at this stage would be to consider the Army, however even in comparison to big changes in the other services the Army was very much the service most in flux. Partly this is due to the considerable debate over the role of tanks and mechanisation (while the Imperial General Staff were all committed to mechanisation as an idea, they were deeply divided over how to implement it in practice). However the Army was also busy with the ongoing British involvement in the Spanish Civil War. This was not a problem for the other services; at sea the Royal Navy felt, quite rightly, it had nothing to learn from a conflict that lacked a naval dimension while in the air a variety of factors kept the air forces of both sides mostly grounded thus keeping Royal Air Force interest low. On the ground however both Monarchists and Republicans were receiving significant material aid and were clashing regularly, providing the British 'advisers' with a constant stream of experience and lessons. Moreover, as we shall see later, the line between advise and influence was blurring, particularly as more British supplied equipment arrived, presenting the Army with fertile ground to test tactical ideas and develop new doctrines. This experience, on top of the Abyssinian War lessons and the existing differences over mechanisation, left the Army overloaded as it struggled to digest all the information. The delay in settling internal differences and deciding on a new way forward would last until well into 1937 and as such is best covered in later chapters. Until then we will move back to the murky world of politics, there being few murkier places in 1936 than the smoke filled rooms of post-election America.
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Game Notes;
Heavy Bombers - One more unit of Strats to give me a rounded off 4 x Lev I Strats (no escort fighters though). And the bungy cord part is entirely true, until worryingly close to the war many British heavy and medium bombers had bungy cord to keep the bomb bay doors shut and used the weight of the bombs to open them. Unsurprisingly this did little to help bombing accuracy and so hydraulic opening doors replaced them. The Short Stirling is being lined up to be the Lev II, should be a good deal faster than OTL without the ridiculous wing size, runway and troop carrying restrictions. The other spec is the Halifax and Manchester/Lancaster one so expect a few delays and problems on that one.
Medium Bombers - Something had to suffer, the Wellington is that aircraft. Still a few delays will push it back far enough to fit Lev III TAC so the delay serves two purposes.
The Blenheim and Wellesley are pretty much just for flavour, no tech modification but they were around and had to go somewhere. If you want to think of them as something, they probably represent the new CAS and TAC units I'll put in the queue once I get the capacity.
Light Bombers - The Fairey Firefight is the OTL P.4/34 which was never named. This time round, as it goes forward, it gets a a name; Firefight as the design is clearly smaller than a Battle....
Game effect is CAS I researched but not in the queue yet.
Coastal Command - No NAVs researched so no mention here. Ditto the FAA as no new carrier tech.
Finally, as promised onto the US election. I do hope the 'official' explanation for the delay is acceptable.
