The Butterfly Effect: A British AAR

[TheButterflyComposer]

Surely it is past time for an update to this majestic work?

The sloth does what it will and England abides.

 

[Cromwell]

The sloth does what it will and England abides.

God damn it Pip finally had his top of the page spot for about 4 minutes!

 

[nuclearslurpee]

Surely it is past time for an update to this majestic work?

Actually another 20 posts or so should provide sufficiently additional majesty to meet the required posting threshold for this uniquely majestic work.

E: dammit TBC

 

[Wraith11B]

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

God damn it Pip finally had his top of the page spot for about 4 minutes!

Actually another 20 posts or so should provide sufficiently additional majesty to meet the required posting threshold for this uniquely majestic work.

E: dammit TBC

Because he was primed to go for those four minutes I'm sure.

 

[El Pip]

As is so often the case TBC is catastrophically wrong. OK it may be nearer four hours than four minutes, but @Cromwell had in fact got the day bang on and the next chapter will emerge in the next few minutes once the formatting has been beaten into shape. Sadly it will not be in the correct place but we can all ritually "Boo" TBC about that so hopefully he will learn his lesson.

 

[El Pip]

Chapter CXLVII: A Cooled Head in a Crisis Part III.​

It is sometimes said that a Minister can be judged by how they respond to being informed about a leak; a politician will prioritise finding the source of the leak, a statesman will deal with the consequences. Leaving aside the possibility, or even desirability, of differentiating between the two proposed types of Minister, this formulation misses out the most likely response - that the person in question will do both. So it was with the Napier Affair, certainly Churchill and the Ministry worked hard to address the issues raised, but simultaneously a leak inquiry was put in hand and the culprit eventually identified. The essence of the affair was that, due to the leak, Napier had discovered far earlier than was planned that they were to be removed from the Approved List of Air Ministry suppliers and kicked out of the Ring. Napier's management had reacted to this as one might expect; they had rounded up all the local MPs around their factories and suppliers and then terrified them with stories of job losses, economic catastrophe, and general electoral disaster for any MP who failed to keep Napier in the aero-engine business. The Air Ministry had been aware of this potential political opposition, it had been one of the reasons Napier had survived so long, and had factored this into their proposals. It had been planned that Napier would be allowed to complete their existing contracts and provide support the engines still in service, the intent being there would be no sharp stop and plenty of time for the workforce and suppliers to adapt to the change. As both Napier and Fairey were based in West London it was believed the transition could be relatively painless, certainly in the context of the fast growing economy in London and the wider South East. In any event this plan had required briefing the key people first, convincing Napier that a slow 'transition' was better than having their contracts cancelled, getting the local MPs on side in advance and generally being in control of the process. The selective leaking of part of the plan and the subsequent political and media attention meant a new approach would be required.

The Fairey Aviation engineering and development works which, conveniently for our purposes, had it's location branded upon the roof. The Napier engineer works were located in Acton so there was less than 10 miles distance between the two firms, hence the Air Ministry's confidence that there would be minimal disruption for staff and suppliers after the switch. Indeed this has been one of the points against Fairey as a new member of the Ring, government departments were still under an exhortation to look at opportunities to place contracts in the 'Special Areas' and switching from one London firm to another was not particularly in line with this objective. While the Air Ministry had achieved a measure of success in spreading construction and assembly works around the nation (though as much as a strategic measure to counter bombing raids as anything else) development and engineering works were not so easily moved or created.
​

The Napier director's campaign had not been subtle but it had been thorough, in addition to the local MPs they had also contacted every 'air minded' MP the board could think of and passed the story (or a heavily edited version at least) to every media contact they had. Their efforts were rewarded as the matter bubbled up out of the specialist press into the national newspapers and became a subject on which politicians were expected to have opinions. Naturally this opportunity was leapt on by the opposition parties, a chance to accuse the government of disarray, incompetence and any other vaguely plausible allegation was not to be missed, especially on hot topics like defence and employment, and doubly so if the press were actually paying attention. Labour reached into it's policy toolbox and pulled out it's favourite, many would say it's only, hammer and declared this was all the fault of the free market, capitalism and the lack of state control. The Labour response made it clear that only by nationalising the entire aviation industry and merging it into a single state monopoly covering design and production could such issues be avoided in the future. While some in the Parliamentary Party remained uneasy about the embrace of re-armament, and so were unhappy about supporting 'merchants of death' like Napier, the general principle was popular in the wider party and it was a chunk of red meat for the TUC leadership who were pleased to see the Labour benches standing up and championing Clause IV and nationalisation. The response was careful to not explain what a nationalised aero-industry would look like or quite what 'popular administration and control' actually meant in this context, not least because such questions remained the matter of lively internal debate within the party. However for press and parliamentary purposes the basic policy of nationalisation as the solution to any and all problems was all the detail that was required.

James Henry Thomas, more commonly known as JH Thomas, railwayman, trade unionist and MP for Derby since 1910. Originally elected as the Labour party candidate he had been amongst the small group that had stayed loyal to Ramsay MacDonald and joined the National Government in 1931. The fall of Baldwin and MacDonald losing his seat in the 1935 general election has been body blows to 'National Labour' from which it never recovered; In it's weakened state the departure of the National Liberals and the final implosion of the National Government had all but finished off the movement. Unwilling to join the Conservatives, and still viewed as a traitor by the Labour Party, Thomas jumped ship and joined the Liberal Social Democrats. A former cabinet minister and Lord Privy Seal he was one of the more experienced members of the new party and threw himself into the endeavour with vigour. He would be a leading light of the effort to carve out a distinctive position for the new party on it's own terms and not just relative to the existing main parties.​

The Liberal Social Democrats (LSD) were particularly tenacious and vocal in their response to the affair, because this was a subject on which they had a policy which was both distinctive and potentially popular, making it an excellent opportunity to define themselves to the press and public. As might be expected their industrial and economic policy charted a course between the Conservative and Labour approaches, it might even have been called the "Middle Way" had that phrase not already been claimed by Macmillan and the left wing of the Conservative Party. The LSD declared that the Labour approach of nationalising everything was neither necessary nor even desirable, because it would remove the vital element of competition and freely determined prices. They also castigated the Conservatives for being too hands-off and failing to intervene before problems became crises and then being too hesitant and weak-willed when intervening. In the specific case these ideas led them to argue for the nationalisation of Napier, but only Napier, and for it to be merged with parts of the Royal Aircraft Establishment to form a resurrected Royal Aircraft Factory. Parallels were drawn with the navy (which had the Royal Dockyards) and the Army (the Royal Ordnance Factories) to suggest the RAF was somehow losing out by lacking such an organisation. The Shadow Factories were dismissed as irrelevant because, while they were government funded, they were managed by the private sector and so the Ministry was not gaining the practical experience of running a design studio and factory which was, it was claimed, vital. This 'moderate' approach was acceptable to the LSD's union side, which was mostly the TGWU and associated unions, as they were less fussed about quite who owned a factory as long as their members got good jobs out of them, a stark contrast to the TUC/Labour approach. Internally there was agreement this approach was a good idea politically, the party was sure that there were many voters who viewed massed nationalisation as unsettling but nevertheless wanted to see some big changes after the great recession. Where there was debate was between those who though the "national champions" would inevitably out-compete the inefficient private sector and those with more government experience who were doubtful about the actual creativity and productivity of a state controlled firm. But, as with their Labour colleagues, outside of a general election it was enough for an opposition party to have a clear and distinct headline policy on the issues of the day, detail beyond that was not required.

The site of the R.101 Airship crash in Northern France. The dirigible came down in bad weather in October 1930 killing 48 of the 54 passengers and crew on board, including the Air Minister Lord Thompson as well as it's design team from the Royal Airship works. For much of the popular press the failure of the state designed and built R.101, in contrast to the relative success of the private sector R.100, was a decisive argument against a nationalised aero-industry. Within the Air Ministry the view was more nuanced, certainly the R.101 had had design flaws but the cause of the disaster had been primarily political not technical; after the success of Vicker's R.100 in crossing the Atlantic and touring Canada the Labour government had been desperate for 'their' airship to have a success, so R.101 had been ordered to make passage to India in spite of many warning signs and known problems. For the Ministry the key argument against the idea was in fact the original Great War-era Royal Aircraft Factory; having one organisation responsible for specification, design, manufacture and approval had resulted in some truly terrible aircraft entering service and then staying in production for far too long.​

Demands from the opposition benches for radical change were essentially harmless, particularly for a government with a healthy majority, but rumbles on the government benches about the issue were another matter entirely. While the aims of the Ring system were broadly accepted there was a degree of disquiet in Conservative ranks about the execution and particularly the approach to competition in the industry. The Air Ministry was more vulnerable that it liked to admit to these concerns as they were longstanding and cut to the heart of one of the rationale behind the Ring. The Air Ministry wanted to retain capacity in the industry but it also wanted, and the Treasury had all but demanded, competition between the firms, both technically and commercially. A similar capacity in terms of number of factories and workforce could have been maintained by a much smaller number of larger firms, but just as the Admiralty had been 'encouraged' to keep it's armour plate supply spread between three firms so the Air Ministry had kept five engine supplies and fifteen airframe manufacturers in the Ring. Such a lengthy Approved List of manufacturers meant some degree of work share was almost inevitable, both to keep firms in business and to stop the successful firm being overloaded. Broadly speaking the industry was happy with this state of affairs, while it limited the opportunity for growth it also ensured a certain stability and a safety net if the next design turned out to be duff. A significant minority of backbenchers and many voices in the Lords were less pleased with the arrangement, seeing it as rewarding failure and preventing new firms with new ideas from entering the industry. The less politically experienced might expect this group to have been happy with the Napier affair, after all it was notionally about a firm being kicked out of the Ring for repeated failure and a replacement being inducted. This was, of course, not the case. While the objectors were mostly pleased to see Napier being removed from the list they were upset about the Air Ministry's choice of replacement firm, some because it was once again the civil service 'picking winners' not a free competition, but others for baser reasons.

Lord Sempill, seated in the cockpit of his BAC Super Drone, essentially a glider with a small 30hp engine nailed on top. While infamous for his dealings with Imperial Japan, Lord Sempill was also active the continent and to describe him as well connected in Germany would be an understatement. When he made his record breaking flight from Croydon to Berlin in the Super Drone the welcoming committee included Foreign Minister von Neurath and he would later meet General Milch (Secretary of State at the Reich Air Ministry) and Colonel Udet (then Inspector of Fighters and Bombers in the Luftwaffe). While Sempill boasted of these connections and his resulting 'in-depth' knowledge of foreign powers aerial capabilities, it was well known in intelligence circles that these connections worked both ways and information on British designs and capabilities leaked back, certainly to Japan and potentially to Germany. With Britain's growing détente with China, and growing rivalry with Japan, Sempill's Japanophilia induced espionage stopped being an annoyance and became an inconvenience; he would be arrested and convicted of espionage in a scandalous trial before the decade was out.​

The pro-competition lobby of this period has been somewhat tarnished by association due to the calibre and motivations of it's most vocal members. There was a tendency for those members who argued that, for instance, the Nuffield Organisation should be added to the approved list to have a close relationships with either Lord Nuffield or a constituency close to where the new factory would be located. Likewise the cause of foreign engines, either licensed or direct from the supplier, was most vigorously promoted by Lord Sempill and his subsequent treason conviction inevitably raised questions about the motivations of those that made similar arguments. Despite this there were many who made those argument in good faith and even if badly motivated the points still stood, specifically there were areas where British aero-firms could learn from abroad (for instance fuel injection) and it was at least arguable that a competition (as opposed to a Civil Service choice) to determine which new firm should join the Ring would be more in keeping with the purpose of the policy and may produce a better choice. Naturally the Air Ministry was aghast at this, as discussed in previous chapters using overseas designs went against decades of careful policy and it can easily be understood why senior civil servants were repelled from the idea that they were not entirely capable of 'picking winners' and selecting the correct firm. The next stage is somewhat murky to this day and how much was genuinely 'independent commercial decision making' is far from clear, though almost certainly there was a degree of at least unofficial discussion and approval from the Air Ministry and no small amount of political pressure from above for that approval to be granted.

Thomas Dugdale, MP for Richmond (Yorkshire), Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Ministry of Defence Co-ordination and source of the leak to Napier. While the Whips Office and a degree of pressure from the Air Ministry onto the industry had identified Dugdale as the source, there was no official sanction. Partly to avoid embarrassment but partly because leak is an irregular verb; "I give confidential briefings, you leak, he has been charged under section 2a of the Official Secrets Act". No doubt a charge could have been found but it would be politically embarrassing for all involved, so the government decided to deal with the matter quietly and internally rather than make a scandal out of it. Dugdale was frozen out of all Air Ministry business and officially replaced in the Autumn reshuffle, he would subsequently "take the Chiltern Hundreds" and retire as an MP before the next election. While this approach avoided the immediate scandal the lack of any obvious punishment for the leaks would have unfortunate consequences for party discipline.​

The merger of Alvis and Napier was, officially at least, an entirely commercial decision taken by the two companies. This was widely disbelieved by almost everyone, prior to the leak Napier's stock price had been flying high on the general re-armament boom and it's directors would never have agreed to a merger with the far smaller (financially) Alvis. After the leak the share price had collapsed as it emerged that the most valuable things about Napier was it's position on the Approved List; the car business had long since been wound up and aside from eccentrics looking to break world records there were no other customers for Napier's aero-engines, so Alvis had no reason to want to do the merger. The only rationale behind the Alvis-Napier merger was that the combined firm would be able to keep it's place on the Approved List and that the Air Ministry had given unofficial assurances this would be the case. Thus Napier got to stay in business, after a fashion, while Alvis gained a place inside the Ring, contacts inside the Air Ministry and the experienced British design team it had previously lacked. For the Air Ministry this solution calmed the MPs local to Napier and it's suppliers, pleased those who had been campaigning for Alvis' entry and was grudgingly acceptable to most of the backbench lobby as it at least retained the appearance of competition and consequences for failure, not least because the 'merger' was basically a take-over. Alvis-Napier, as the aero-engine division would be called, retained the development contract for the H-24 Sabre but would be supported by a large contingent of Resident Technical Officers, the Ministry being keen to ensure that the merger did not just result in Alvis learning all of Napier's bad habits. Fairey would not be allowed into the Ring but would keep their contract to develop the Monarch engine, partly to avoid re-starting a fight with the Fleet Air Arm, partly because they recognised Fairey would just do it anyway and partly as a lingering threat to the incumbents that the replacement could still happen.

As the Air Ministry tentatively started to relax and look forward to it's summer it was only natural that on the South Coast of the country two separate groups of boffins were working their socks off on projects that would throw these carefully made plans into disarray.

---
Notes:

JH Thomas achieved his OTL moment of fame by being forced to resign due to a fairly tawdry budget leak scandal (copyright @LeJones I believe) in early 1936. Here his reputation is saved (perhaps?) as he and the other National Labour types got frozen out so never knew anything about the budget to leak, as he seemed a slippery ambitious type I decided he would jump to the LSD. In the unlikely event anyone wondered what happened to National Labour, now you know. It is very unlikely they will come up again.

Conversely Thomas Dugdale didn't have his scandal till post-war where he was involved in the Crichel Down affair, due to the general shake up of politics he got a government role sooner than in OTL and promptly threw it away. I can absolutely see an Eden government trying to keep it quiet, and the press and Napier being happy to go along with that, but equally the lack of immediate and obvious consequence for such leaks will be noted.

To round out the people part the career of Lord Sempill had been slightly baffling to me, MI5 had known about his links to Japan since the 1920s (he led the Sempill Mission to Japan to teach the IJN about carriers, back when the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was still active) and he had hardly been discreet about it. What I had not known was quite how well connected to Germany he was, his mad glider flight (11hours Croydon to Berlin) was OTL and was that well attended, he was also in all the aristocratic and ineffectual Anglo-German Fellowship type groups. With everyone taking Japan a bit more seriously in Butterfly Sempill is not going to get the many chances he got in OTL, certainly he will still get too many and probably more than a less aristocratic traitor would, but fundamentally the balance has changed and while it will still be embarrassing to try him his actions will be seen as that much more serious and so 'worth' the cost.

The LSD section on policy could have been a been quite the monster discussing the difference between Market Socialism and Social Capitalism, but then I realised that would be a waste of electrons. The debate is roughly as it was in OTL so there is no point me just regurgitating it, the players may have moved around a bit but the argument remains the same; are prices important and how much central planning do you want. The left in general will be continuing to argue about this for quite some time, the wet end of the Conservative Party will continue to flirt with bits of it and the LSD will revel in it as the various ideas can be used to justify completely opportunistic policy making as they are being "pragmatic" about things. For now it is enough to know the ideas are swirling around.

We somewhat glossed over the R.101 disaster in the airship section, it happened and it did kill off most of the airship enthusiasts in government and the civil service. As the update says the crash didn't happen because it was a public sector designed and built craft, it happened because the cabinet demanded it be launched in bad weather, while over-weight because they couldn't stand seeing the private sector do 'better'. The inquiry concluded that while there were design flaws, not least an over-weight structure and under-powered engines, it was not a bad design provided it only flew in good weather with a much reduced crew and cargo (which I suppose is proof that it was a bad design as it didn't meet the specifications or requirements, but I am really trying to be fair here).

There was a government owned and operated Royal Aircraft Factory in WW1 and it did do design and manufacture, but sadly it also did specifications, approvals and had a hand in procurement. So while it did produce some excellent aircraft, like the S.E.5 fighter, it was also associated with several scandals, such as badly obsolete aircraft staying in production for too long because the Factory was producing them (the B.E.2) or getting it's own terrible designs into service despite them failing assessment (the B.E.12). This experience made the Air Ministry realise that they should not "mark their own homework" and influenced their post-war plans for the industry and future wartime expansion.

OTL Napier got 'merged' with English-Electric who promptly kicked out the old Napier board and brought a bit of order to the place, but only after a few years of things going quite badly wrong production wise with the Sabre. With Churchill in the Ministry there is pressure for a bit more intervention and the Alvis-Napier merger does make sense from quite a few perspectives. It is also a substantial change from OTL so I feel worth doing just for that reason.

 

[nuclearslurpee]

It is quite a lot of words to say, essentially, that a bunch of political types said some words and then the thing that was going to happen, happened anyways. Truly this update is a monument to...something, no doubt. Ironically, not to aircraft engine cooling, which in any other AAR would be what we expect but we here in Butterfly have learned to expect the otherwise unexpected.

I must once more express my dismay at the lack of fisticuffs despite the excessive political arguing.

So it was with the Napier Affair, certainly Churchill and the Ministry worked hard to address the issues raised, but simultaneously a leak inquiry was put in hand and the culprit eventually identified.

What is most surprising here is that the leaker was in fact found in good time, a rare display of government efficiency.

Naturally this opportunity was leapt on by the opposition parties, a chance to accuse the government of disarray, incompetence and any other vaguely plausible allegation was not to be missed, especially on hot topics like defence and employment, and doubly so if the press were actually paying attention.

Here I must disparage the opposition parties, they should not need any excuse to mount such accusations, the simple existence of the government ought to be enough.

The response was careful to not explain what a nationalised aero-industry would look like or quite what 'popular administration and control' actually meant in this context, not least because such questions remained the matter of lively internal debate within the party. However for press and parliamentary purposes the basic policy of nationalisation as the solution to any and all problems was all the detail that was required.

The downside that all planes would be designed and built by the same company, thus having the same critical design vulnerabilities and aerodynamic flaws, to say nothing of insufficient cooling systems, was roundly ignored by these proponents.

The Liberal Social Democrats (LSD) were particularly tenacious and vocal in their response to the affair, because this was a subject on which they had a policy which was both distinctive and potentially popular, making it an excellent opportunity to define themselves to the press and public. As might be expected their industrial and economic policy charted a course between the Conservative and Labour approaches, it might even have been called the "Middle Way" had that phrase not already been claimed by Macmillan and the left wing of the Conservative Party.

The Central Path. The Median Road. The Balanced Boulevard. The Compromi--okay, this may be too on the nose.

Within the Air Ministry the view was more nuanced, certainly the R.101 had had design flaws but the cause of the disaster had been primarily political not technical; after the success of Vicker's R.100 in crossing the Atlantic and touring Canada the Labour government had been desperate for 'their' airship to have a success, so R.101 had been ordered to make passage to India in spite of many warning signs and known problems. For the Ministry the key argument against the idea was in fact the original Great War-era Royal Aircraft Factory; having one organisation responsible for specification, design, manufacture and approval had resulted in some truly terrible aircraft entering service and then staying in production for far too long.

"No, this failure of nationalisation is not reflective of the inherent flaws of nationalisation, this one is!"

Despite this there were many who made those argument in good faith and even if badly motivated the points still stood, specifically there were areas where British aero-firms could learn from abroad (for instance fuel injection) and it was at least arguable that a competition (as opposed to a Civil Service choice) to determine which new firm should join the Ring would be more in keeping with the purpose of the policy and may produce a better choice. Naturally the Air Ministry was aghast at this, as discussed in previous chapters using overseas designs went against decades of careful policy and it can easily be understood why senior civil servants were repelled from the idea that they were not entirely capable of 'picking winners' and selecting the correct firm.

It turns out that all the parties believe in competition on a free market, they simply disagree on how to define "free". And, in the case of Labour, "market".

The next stage is somewhat murky to this day and how much was genuinely 'independent commercial decision making' is far from clear, though almost certainly there was a degree of at least unofficial discussion and approval from the Air Ministry and no small amount of political pressure from above for that approval to be granted.

Translation: "I have gotten myself in too deep, let me wave my hands around and pretend that nothing has happened while whistling innocently."

As the Air Ministry tentatively started to relax and look forward to it's summer it was only natural that on the South Coast of the country two separate groups of boffins were working their socks off on projects that would throw these carefully made plans into disarray.

I do hope at least one of these projects is in some fashion related to engine cooling, else we may have to open a serious investigation into our authAAR regarding allegations of title abuse.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

As is so often the case TBC is catastrophically wrong. OK it may be nearer four hours than four minutes, but @Cromwell had in fact got the day bang on and the next chapter will emerge in the next few minutes once the formatting has been beaten into shape. Sadly it will not be in the correct place but we can all ritually "Boo" TBC about that so hopefully he will learn his lesson.

Thus far no boos have been met, and in the interests of the party, I shall therefore ceremoniously boo myself.

"Boo!"

That most certainly should have taught me a lesson.

The Labour response made it clear that only by nationalising the entire aviation industry and merging it into a single state monopoly covering design and production could such issues be avoided in the future.

...seriously?



At least Butterfly has a functioning british economy and political institution. A rare thing in the current HOI AARs.

 

[nuclearslurpee]

Thus far no boos have been met, and in the interests of the party, I shall therefore ceremoniously boo myself.

I meant to, but the forum software screwed up my multiquote. I blame Paradox for your lack of lessons learned.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

I meant to, but the forum software screwed up my multiquote. I blame Paradox for your lack of lessons learned.

I also blame Paradox then, for not been given the lesson in the first place.

It is tremendously fitting that this should happen though, I suppose.

 

[Cromwell]

I am too rather shocked at a leaker actually being discovererd, I wasn't aware that was possible.

 

[roverS3]

Oh, a forced take-over that looks like a merger? Such a creative solution. So instead of simply switching out Napier for Alvis or, some other manufacturer, Napier gets to save face, Alvis gets into the ring through it's de facto takeover of Napier and the politicians get to proclaim that they saved the jobs of all those napier-related employees. On the face of it, it looks like a win all-round. That is, until Alvis-Napier starts rationalising it's operations, making some of those workers redundant in the name of efficiency. I guess they're going to need plenty of government contracts in order to not let some of those less necessary workers go... Looks like the venom will be in the tail.

I'm actually quite shocked that you posted this chapter not at the top of the page. That does seem strangely impulsive by your standards...

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

I'm actually quite shocked that you posted this chapter not at the top of the page. That does seem strangely impulsive by your standards...

Childish tantrum ensues.

Also, it has always been possible to figure out who leaked. The catch is doing anything about it. Civil servants can't be punished, and politicians can't be punished safely. You have to either add it to the list of things they've done to hold over them, or try to get them out through other means (because just saying they leaked and taking action will lead to the target leaking everything they know to the press).

Something something, Dominic Cummings.

 

[Wraith11B]

 

[RustyHunter]

Just wanted to let you know @El Pip , I have been reading and enjoying this gargantuan project! I have learned far more about British industrial policy than I ever thought I wanted or needed, but I enjoy the amount of effort you put into these updates!

having one organisation responsible for specification, design, manufacture and approval had resulted in some truly terrible aircraft entering service and then staying in production for far too long.

That does seem like a bit of a problem, but it seems like something the government would do! It is good to see that Britain makes mistakes like anyone else, and it really makes all the successful aircraft much more impressive!

 

[nuclearslurpee]

Just wanted to let you know @El Pip , I have been reading and enjoying this gargantuan project! I have learned far more about British industrial policy than I ever thought I wanted or needed, but I enjoy the amount of effort you put into these updates!

Like the rest of us, you have now surely found that you in fact not only want but need to know far more about British industrial policy than has yet been provided, thus another addict has been born. Curse the name of El Pip, blessed be his name!

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

Like the rest of us, you have now surely found that you in fact not only want but need to know far more about British industrial policy than has yet been provided, thus another addict has been born. Curse the name of El Pip, blessed be his name!

The best bit is you never do get the huge tech or industrial policy dump. It's shown, we get interested...hey look at that, Spain!

 

[RustyHunter]

Like the rest of us, you have now surely found that you in fact not only want but need to know far more about British industrial policy than has yet been provided, thus another addict has been born. Curse the name of El Pip, blessed be his name!

I never knew this part of me existed, but now it does!

The best bit is you never do get the huge tech or industrial policy dump. It's shown, we get interested...hey look at that, Spain!

He is a cruel master, and we are all but servants of his whims

 

[Wraith11B]

The best bit is you never do get the huge tech or industrial policy dump. It's shown, we get interested...hey look at that, Spain!

How else would we still be in 1937?