A better Coastal Command?

Juha2 said:

as a defence of the Faithful Annie (Anson), the view from its cockpit was fairly good even if it was a low wing a/c. One of the reason why the only sqn that flew operational patrols with Botha, 608, wanted its old Ansons back was that even if Botha had shoulder wing, view from it was much worse than from Anson. Anson was also very easy to fly, so easy that it wasn't very good training a/c.

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The training missions mentioned in a previous post - the WO would sometimes become the pilot of the Anson. Also, some pilots allowed the WO to take off and land the Anson. This ended when a seagull crashed thru the nose of the a/c and it crashed when taking off (no casualties).

Elsewhere Terraine also mentions it was a "difficult" aircraft to fly.....?




(EDIT > My error - he was referring to the early HUDSON as "regarded at first by aircrew as a difficult aircraft to fly".)

please point in which post I ever advocated the British build a Liberator or equivalent during this or any other time period under discussion.
Please do not put words in my mouth or twist my positions

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I'm not twisting your position, what I'm saying is that you are judging Britain based solely on hindsight by assuming that it should have built equivalents to these modern aeroplanes you keep posting pictures of and that it would have made a difference. My angle is that there was no need to build them at the time. The British were not at war in 1934 to 36. Aircraft being developed in Britain in that time included the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane, two of the most modern fighters in service around the world, not to mention the specs that produced modern heavy bombers and the Sunderland - again, the most modern maritime patrol bomber in service anywhere in the world in 1938. This is why I find your argument bewildering, SR, Britain was developming modern advanced aircraft; it was very much at the status quo, so there's no way that the MS.510 monoplane fighter, or prototypes of the Dornier Do 17 or Italian twin hulled flying boats was going to make a lick of difference.

Bad planning equals screw up. For Bristol building the 9 cylinder 24.9 liter Mercury, the 9 cylinder 24.9 liter Perseus, the 14 cylinder 25.4 liter Taurus and the 9 cylinder 28.7 liter Pegasus equals what?

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Planning in peacetime doesn't equal screw up, which Britain did not endure; yes, some of these engines didn't work as planned, but why bring that into the equation? It's not like they planned it! Britain was not at war in the early 30s when these engines were developed! Why were they a screw up?! Again, what is your benchmark?!

Here's an example of a "screw up". John Terraine's words in Business in great waters on the losses of merchant shipping off the coast of the United States from 1941 to the end of 1942;

"The unpreparedness for war of a democratic civilian population, thee thousand miles from any warlike scene, reared on isolationaism and having enjoyed over three-quarters of a century of peace at home, is an understandable, if in such respects distasteful phenomenon. The equal unpreparedness of those charged with the defence of the nation, with the recollection of 1918 and the vivid example of Britain since 1939 before their eyes, is something less understandable and less forgiveable. For what now transpired was that the US Navy, for all the talk of 'Security Zones' and all the readiness to join in the Battle of the Atlantic, was simply not designed to protect America's own shipping. At the root of the matter lay one simple fact; the sheer lack of anti-submarine vessels and anti-submarine aircraft; and at the root of that lay the far less simple fact of a two-ocean war, with a second enemy of a totally different kind..." Blah blah blah for a bit...

In bold: so much for all those squadrons of modern, all metal, long range flying boats and four engined land based patrol aircraft put into US Navy service in the 30s, then! According to losses quoted in a couple of books I have, over four times the number of ships were sunk off the US east coast coast between January and June 1942 as there was off Britain's entire coast between January and June 1940. Terraine offers these figures as totals: for the entire North Atlantic totals in January to June 1940 were 94 ships sunk by U-boats; a gross tonnage of 492,130 tons. Forward to 1942, the same time period and same vicinity - the North Atlantic: 526 ships sunk with a gross tonnage of 2,831,689. In the book Fighting Ships of World War One and Two on my shelf, hence its use, is the figure of 505 ships sunk by U-boats off the United States' east coast alone to June 1942, hence the 'Second Happy Time"!

Here's the point and something those of you who still choose to blame Britain for its lack of preparedness for WW2 need to consider; blaming a country for its lack of preparation for war in peacetime (let's reiterate for a minute, Britain was not at war in the early to mid 30s and there wasn't a big sign saying "War in 1939! Prepare!") offers nothing to the argument and is just foolish, because it is based almost completely on hindsight, which the British did not have. What is foolish is the lack of preparation during war that could have been avoided by just paying attention to what was going on, and what was being learned from overseas, as in the USA's case. That was foolish and the US government's lack of preparation should be attacked here, if we are attacking the British, SR. Britain, once the war kicked off - did act and put into place measures to defeat the submarine threat by scavenging ships and aircraft from the USA until production could equal what was required to sustain a campaign against the enemy. In essense it learned from its lack of preparedness, as every other country did during the war, with the possible exception of the United States, it seems - granted, it was not at war, but the Britis were advising the admirals and look where that got them, they refused to adopt convoys until June 1942 despite the Brits stating they should.

Terraine again;

"Like the British Admiralty until 1939 the Navy Department had neglected the small craft in large numbers which WW1 had shown to be essential for dealing with submarine attack, believing that they could be improvised and quickly mass poroduced in the smaller yards at short notice..."

This statement also contradicts one of Steve's points, that assuming the RN could tackle the U-boat threat with surface ships was an error of judgement. It wasn't. During the Great War the majority of U-boats were sunk by patrol vessels and convoy escorts. Fighting Ships.. again: Total U-boats lost, 178, total sunk by patrol vessels and convoy escorts; 71. What was needed was numbers, numbers, numbers. The problem was that between the wars the British had an almost universal acceptance that Britain could and would defeat a future submarine threat by its surface fleet, equipped with asdic and its maritime patrol aircraft. (Terraine, page 179). This was an error of judgement, of course, but one made in light of experience gained during the Great War and also based on the fact that Britain was NOT AT WAR. Yes, an error of joudgement then because after the Great War, Britain's military was stripped to the bone.

Here's something else, as I made the point earlier; no other country in the world could have been prepared for WW2 as Britain was, bearing in mind it was very unprepared for it. None expected, nor was planning for WW2 in the mid to late 30s, with the exception of Germany, of course. If the tables had been turned and it was Britain planning to launch war against Germany and the same tactics were used, the Germany would have been as poorly prepared for it as Britain was; unprepared, as was every country in the world, not least the United States, as has been proven, so again SR and Steve, I ask, what are your benchmarks for blaming Britain for being unprepared for war in 1939?

stona said:

And yet men were still expected to go to war in them in 1939

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Yep, 'fraid so, because Britain should be blamed for getting involved in a war in 1939. Yes, Steve, jokes aside, it is reprehensible that the Vildebeest was still in service in 1939, heck, the RNZAF still had them in 1941! It should have been replaced - I agree, and that's what the Beaufort was, wasn't it? Let's look at it slightly differently. Let's say that Britain had only PBYs and Sunderlands in service in 1939, would it have made a difference in the beginning of the war? Probably, but by how much, and would it have stopped the Germans from achieving what they did? Look to the US example. The figures I quoted in my above post give an indication of shipping losses suffered off the US east coast at the hands of U-boats; more than four times those suffered in British waters in 39 - early 40, some 500 ships lost to June 1942, yet, the US Navy had 14 squadrons of PBYs in 1938, the year the Sunderland entered service. I don't have a figure for US maritime patrol aircraft assests in service at the end of 1941, but I can assume that it was be higher than CC totals in 1939, and with more modern equipment, to boot. So, bearing that in mind and the disastrously high losses suffered by merchant shipping in US waters that the difference might not have been as great as we expect, or at least that it takes a lot more than modern combat aircraft to win a war against a determined submarine fleet.

Also to add that this is not an excuse for keeping the Vildebeest or the Anson in service, and I do wholeheratedly agree with both you and SR regarding these aircraft and their unsuitability in a modern combat environment, but, my point is that modern combat aircraft might not (that is a might not, not a definite would not) have made much of a difference in what the British and US were faced with, all things considered.

Going somewhat in reverse, Britain as a whole was not unprepared for war, I don't believe I have said that it was. The RAF alone having a succession of expansion schemes to vastly enlarge the RAF as a whole in numbers of squadrons, numbers of planes, personnel and numbers of Airfields. The Army was being enlarged by large amounts and the RN was building a large number of new ships.

There was a gradual realization during the 30s that war was coming, Nobody knew when but they knew that not preparing was not an option (at least in Europe, Americans hoped to stay out.)

That doesn't mean that Coastal command was NOT unprepared or perhaps we should say woefully ill equipped for the duties it was supposed to do.


There are two aspects to anti-sub warfare. One is stopping the subs from sinking your ships. the other is sinking the enemy subs. They are NOT the same thing. During WW I just about all the sub killing had been done by surface ships. However it had been well noted that air patrols quite noticeably affected submarine activity in the areas patrolled. Much like the claims in both wars that conveys escorted by lighter than air aircraft suffered either very low losses or no losses even though lighter than air aircraft sank (or damaged) almost zero submarines. This does not really mean that unarmed or poorly armed aircraft can do the job as effectively as a well armed aircraft.

The effect was there, it had been noted and acted upon with hundreds of aircraft devoted to anti sub work by the end of 1918. This experience was almost ignored leading up to WWII. And it seems to be ignored in the interest of promoting a different mission, strategic bombing. The RAF was not alone, I have no idea why the RN thought they could go back to "offensive patrols" as an anti-sub tactic after abandoning such tactics in WW I.

I will say that this part of your post " Britain was not at war in the early to mid 30s and there wasn't a big sign saying "War in 1939! Prepare!")" is pretty much nonsense. Yes Britain was not war and yes, nobody knew that the war would start in 1939. However the whole shadow factory scheme started in 1935 so somebody was planning something.

If you want to start a thread on how the US screwed up (or failed to plan properly) be my guest but two wrongs don't make a right. The US screwing up by the numbers doesn't excuse the British mistakes.

Even with the vast increase in spending in the mid and late 30s there wasn't enough money for new "regular" warships and small craft and/or coastal escorts. Unfortunately for the British the small amount of spending on small craft during the 20s and early 30s had left them without the infrastructure (read engine supply for one thing) to support much of a building program of motor launches or fast small craft. This meant buying the engines from other countries.
Yes the RN waited a bit too long to investigate the Corvette/Frigate option but until the naval treaties collapsed completely such ships might count to total tonnage and building such ships instead of modern destroyers was seen as a mistake (at least at the time).
RN was also more than a little lax in investigating better ways of actually killing submarines, Asdic helped you find them, using WW I depth charges (literally, some were still in storage) shows that while preparing in some ways there was a lack of preparedness in others. But with restricted budgets you can only do so much.

Getting to the First part of your post
" what is your benchmark?!"

How much of a benchmark do I need to criticize a 100lb antisub bomb that was designed in 1924, modified on paper, sealed in 1926, taken out, dusted off, in 1930 but NOT ORDERED until 1938? and never with a live shot against even a simulated submarine hull.

At least the Army fired their anti tank guns at real pieces of armor plate.

The reason for showing all those aircraft was to get by the notion that the Anson was a modern, up to date aircraft when it went into service. It wasn't and all the protesting in the world about how everybody was flying biplanes won't change that. Everybody else was changing to monoplanes and doing it faster than the British, even if biplanes took a while to totally die out. Being the last major power in Europe to adopt a monoplane at least for some sort of use is hardly leading the way, or reason for self congratulation.
I was also trying to show what was common knowledge, German and Russian aircraft at the time not being well publicised. French and Italian and AMerican Commercial aircraft should have been much better Known in England.

Sorry SR but your arguments are going in circles. If all it required to deter submarines was to have an aircraft in the air over likely sub patrol areas, what does it matter whether that aircraft was modern or obsolete, biplane or monoplane?

Yes, there was a need for longer-ranged aircraft and certainly more of them but constantly haranguing the UK for not having modern aircraft seems counter to your point that ANY aircraft would cause a submarine to dive.

British war plans fully expected a strong French ally to help patrol the Mediterranean and Channel area. The French capitulation in May 1940 drastically altered the strategic situation in a way that NOBODY (not even the Germans) foresaw. I'm not sure how Britain could have better prepared for an eventuality that nobody expected.

The other question that must be asked is what would you stop producing, or which other Command would suffer, as a result of bolstering Coastal Command? With a finite amount of production capacity, something had to give in order to free up resources for Coastal Command. Yes, there were wasted resources and aircraft built that turned out to be duds, but that's the case in EVERY nation in the run-up to WW2. If we accept that as a fairly standard amount of "noise" in the system, what gets cut in order to improve CC?

Leading up to Sept 1939 replace most of the Ansons with Blenheim IVs.
That is the quickest and easiest way to get a better aircraft into the hands of Coastal Command.
It also has the least impact on Bomber Command as it only takes 3-4 MK I Wellingtons to replace an entire squadron of Blenheims for bombing long distance targets(short range a pair of Whitley's can do it) . Lets face the fact, the idea of strategic bombers carrying 1000lb payloads was more than a little wasteful. Granted they weren't available in 1939 but single Halifax or Lancaster could carry about the same amount of bombs as a 12 plane squadron of Blenheims so for perspective the transfer of 6-8 squadrons worth of Blenheims wouldn't actually change Bomber Commands capability all that much.
That also puts bomber Commands whining and moaning into perspective.

Ditching the 100lb antisub bomb in 1935-36 would have meant the Anson was almost out of the running anyway. Unless up powered or otherwise modified to carry a greater war load. The Blenheim could carry four of the 250lb AS bombs which is far from ideal but far ahead of the Anson.

Carry on with the plan to build the Beaufort, if it works, great, if it falls on it's face (as it did historically, at least temprorarly) at least you have the Blenheims in place.

as far as some of the "duds" go the Botha was a poster child for Dud aircraft and one that should have been seen coming. The Mercury and the Perseus used the same bore and stroke ( same displacement ) and ran at the same RPM so what miracle (the sleeve valve?) was going to endow it with enough extra power to handle the extra weight compared to the Blenheim? That doesn't need the hindsight from after WW II to figure out. 2nd chance was when the mock up was inspected. They couldn't figure out the vision wasn't very good? That is what mock-ups are for, to check things in 3 dimensions that might look OK on flat paper. The instability or control problems probably wouldn't have shown up (or thrown a warning flag) until actually flown. But you don't need math geniuses to figure out power to weight ratios.
Every air ministry is supposed to have technical officers that evaluate proposals before contracts are signed to weed out the bad ones. Most (or all) also check things periodically to see if things are on track (like no excessive weight gain).

No 2 would be to either spec another monoplane flying boat or buy 1-2 dozen Catalinas in 1938. The two they did fund both dropped in the crapper,
Both designed to a March/1936 specification (which shows there was some interest and money) the Blackburn B-20 was rather ambitious.

A pair of RR Vultures and an experimental hull form, it wound up not flying until 1940.
They did by 21 Saro Lewricks which turned out to be a waste of money but these did not have the warning flags the Botha did. At least not until flown. But a number of planes didn't handle well until modified, unfortunately no amount of changes seem to turn the Lerwick into a good handling aircraft.
I don't if the plane gained a lot of weight during detail design and construction but even with a pair of Hercules engines it was under powered and would not stay in the air on one engine. At any rate it was bad enough that No 240 squadron stopped flying them in Oct of 1939 and went back to their old biplanes. Unfortunately too much was already invested in the production train and even though it was recommended to scrap the project in Dec 1939 the remainder of the aircraft were completed which took until May of 1941. ( a production rate that averaged one a month or less)

I would note that the US blimps of WW II carried four 325lb depth charges so while they may not have "killed" more than one U-boat (over 100 blimps built) they were far from toothless. Problem with blimps is the 60-70mph top speed which makes it hard to close the range before the Submarine goes under water. However a couple of depth charges dropped near the last position of the submarine is a good reminder that submerging was good idea

You do have to provide the majority of your aircraft with a credible threat. If a sub is in the receiving end of a number of "fake" attacks how long before they don't submerge at the sight of an aircraft?
WW I aircraft used 116lb bombs, 165lbs and 230 light case bombs and if big enough 520lb light case bombs. One of these damaged a WW I German sub and allowed a surface ships to catch it and finish it off.
Who ever thought reducing the standard AS bomb to 100lbs remains an unsung non hero.

I would note that over 200 flying boats were used by the British during WW I (and almost two hundred more built post war) and hundreds of floatplanes and land planes for antisub patrol
Going into WW II with less than 200 operational aircraft and the vast majority being Ansons seems to show that something slipped.

Granted the British had ordered the Hudson back in June of 1938 Minimum of 200 aircraft but all that could be delivered up until Dec 1939, max 250 aircraft and all 250 had been built by Oct 1939 (Built in California sure doesn't mean operational in England)
So again, interest and money were there, if a little late and for a country at peace they were sure buying up as much stuff as they could.
Australia had ordered 50 Hudsons during this time.

In the eyes of the Air Ministry the submarine threat was not going to be defeated by Coastal Command, not even the Royal Navy. It was going to be defeated by the RAF's strategic bombers who would bomb the factories building the vessels, the shipyards assembling them, and the ports from which they operated. It never occurred to them that this might not work, given the capabilities of Bomber Command in 1939-1942. These were reflected in the Western Air Plans of 1st December 1939, generally W.A.5(a), specifically W.A.7 and W.A.10. Almost all the aviation eggs were put in one basket, which then got dropped.
Cheers
Steve

Going back to the opening post in this Thread;

"Somebody questioned a while ago about the number of threads that were concerned with improvement of German capabilities and the relative lack of such threads/suggestions for the allies.

So here is one.

Coastal command was in pretty dismal shape in the early part of the war and an "improved" Coastal Command might have made a significant difference. This would require several "AH HA" moments in the early/mid 30s."

What could have been done differently if there had been a change in thinking (politics if you will between the various groups) or a more realistic assessment of capabilities of weapons. aircraft ships?

We know what happened historically and we know the positions many of the decision makers held.
What would it have taken to change some of those positions/policies or what would some changes in policy have resulted in?
There seems to be a black or white argument in a lot of these discussions. Or among the leaders of the day. Like Bomber Command refusing to give up even few squadrons of their 2nd or 3rd worst bombers to augment CC in the first year of the war. They (and some modern commentators) immediately jump to not wanting to send many score (or hundreds) of large bombers roaming all over the ocean which is understandable but not really the issue. The issue was using a few score of light/medium bombers in selected areas or orbiting actual convoys, groups of ships or choke points.
Unfortunately in history you had the new service (the RAF) so desperate to prove itself and it's unproven/untested theories/doctrine that they ignored the proven tactics of the past.

Now with the purchase/funding of the Hudson and the specification that lead to the Lerwick there was obviously a somewhat belated realization that better aircraft/equipment was needed, so what is so terrible about proposing either an earlier shift or a somewhat larger shift?

Especially considering some of the more obvious short comings/ like the 100lb ant-sub bomb and it's lack of testing.

Shortround6 said:

Britain as a whole was not unprepared for war,

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If not WW2, which 'war' was Britain prepared for, exactly? Britain was quite unprepared for the ensuing conflict, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion! Yes, SR, like Mark said, you are going round in circles. You can't criticise Britain's lack of modern aircraft and equipment on one hand, then say it was prepared for war on the other.

However the whole shadow factory scheme started in 1935 so somebody was planning something.

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That's called strategic planning. In peacetime it is advisable to at least put something toward defence. ! You're using that as an excuse to prove Britain was preparing for WW2, yet are still accusing it of being drastically unprepared?! Yes, you are going in circles.

If you want to start a thread on how the US screwed up (or failed to plan properly) be my guest but two wrongs don't make a right. The US screwing up by the numbers doesn't excuse the British mistakes.

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No one is saying it does; my point for adding the USA into the mix is two fold; 1) to enforce my statement that no one was really prepared for what unfolded in WW2, regardless of their pre-war planning, and 2) to prove that regardless of what was equipping the armed forces, the U-boats still (initially) triumphed; your criticism of Britain for not building more advanced aircraft pre-war is flawed and that it takes a lot more than modern aircraft to defeat a determined submarine offensive. To add to that, though, as I did mention, Britain did have advanced aircraft, just not many of them. As did the United States and according to Terraine, not as many as it should have.

How much of a benchmark do I need to criticize a 100lb antisub bomb that was designed in 1924, modified on paper, sealed in 1926, taken out, dusted off, in 1930 but NOT ORDERED until 1938? and never with a live shot against even a simulated submarine hull.

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That's it? You are holding up your defence with a bomb?

My angle on this is that it is futile to accuse Britain of screwing up because it can only be done in hindsight, which nullfies the argument as the British were not privvy to what we are 80 years later, also, it's not like they did it deliberately! That doesn't mean that for the sake of argument we can't say whether this or that decision was a dumb one or not, but to universally condemn them for what they really had no control over is fruitless. In peacetime it is hard to justify planning for war; invariably things won't always work out the way that even the best strategists expect. Britain was not alone in this and this is why I keep asking what your benchmark is, because no-one could foresee what happened in WW2 - and again why I brought the USA into this - and as Mark pointed out, not even the Germans, and they kicked it all off.

Again, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

But, in the end, would it have made a difference if Coastal Command had been better equipped and managed right from the start? Shipping losses in the first couple of years of the war were relatively low, compared to 1942/1943. Even if Bomber Command had been eviscerated, and all its heavy equipment given solely to CC,it wouldn't have made that much of a difference.

I know Terraine gets quite heated in his opinion that CC was the critical command for Britain during the war. But a sober look at the statistics for the Battle of the Atlantic shows that the threat was really not as great as was perceived at the time. Over the course of the war only 10% of convoys were attacked at all, and in those convoys, on average only 10% of ships were sunk. Overall, more than 99% of voyages reached their destination successfully.

I think any discussion of an improved Coastal Command has to at least attempt to show that Britain would have been significantly better off if CC had been better equipped, given that any better equipment could only come at the expense of other commands.

Coastal command did not need to carry any "credible threat" in 1939 to do its job. The issues affecting the uboat war in 1939 were the paucity of uboats, so any sighting report that could re-route a convoy away from a uboat was going to avoid an attack on that convoy. The average number of boats at sea in 1939 was a paltry 13, so a sighting report by a CC a/c ahead the convoy would almost certainly thwart the entire attack. The first wolfpack attack did not occur until March 1940, and was not repeated until June, just to clarify. once the uboats resorted to pack attacks it did become necessary for the CC to provide augmenting fire power additions to the convoy escorts but this was totally unnecessary in 1939. what you needed in 1939 was a command structure for escort command, and training standards that allowed accurate and timely sighting reports to be passed out to the convoys in quick order. The convoys needed a command ship to send and receive messages and issue orders to the convoy elements, particularly relevant since most convoys lacked any escort at all at this time, except until the convoy got to within 100 miles of the british coast.

Despite all this, the Uboats were not all that successful in the first three months of the war. somebody mentioned a figure of 165 vessels sunk in the first month of the war. nearly all these sinkings were of neutrals operating in the Baltic and narrow seas, Polish and Finnish flagged vessels (Finn vessels were treated as enemy vessels by BDU until well after the March 1940 peace treaty with the USSR), but the vast majority of losses were neutral ships sailing independently in the belief that BDU would observe the rules of war and not attack unescorted and clearly marked neutral shipping. BDU did not observe those rules, and in a short sighted approach decided to attack neutral shipping regardless, gradually extending the unrestricted campaign to cover all manner of ships in any location. It was short sighted, because it had the effect of turning nearly all of the neutral ships, amounting to about 5.5 million tons from Europe alone, to the direct control of the allied (ne british) control commission. Far more shipping ran to the british to escape German atrocities at sea than the germans were ever able to sink at sea in those opening months.

in 1939 CC was not able to do even that basic function of search and report. , and therein lies the chief problem facing the command. no amount of fancy aircraft would change that. in the situation facing the british at that time they needed numbers, an effective command system and training, not any new types to worry about.

I think at this point we are all going around in circles.

The British churned out a lot of what turned out to be crap while preparing for war. So in a way they were both preparing for war and yet unprepared for the war they had to fight. Leaving the field of aviation Britain built 1342 MK VI light tanks between 1936 and 1940. This is after build around 170 light tanks from 1930 through 1935. About 465 of those MK VIs were built from 1936 though the 3rd quarter of 1938 At what point does it take hindsight to figure out that tanks with 14mm armor or less won't last long on the battlefield? 1935 ? when design of the Matilda I started?

Yes other countries did make mistakes. Some a lot of them.

The British were falling behind in aerodynamics during the early/mid 30s. It was taking too long to get planes into service after the initial specifications.
And too many planes were put into production without adequate (or even any) testing of the theories behind them.


You keep referring to hindsite while ignoring the experience of WW I. You refer to hindsight when I bring up the British tardiness in adopting production monoplanes. Or that there was no need since they weren't at war.
That is a monoplane of practically any type, Wood or metal, fixed landing gear or retractable, braced monoplane or cantilever.
The British were certainly behind the curve on variable pitch or constant speed props. You may call that hindsight but with scores of airlines (not airliners) adopting such propellers and such propellers being licensed to a number of countries and winning awards they were hardly a secret at the time.

Perhaps the long time needed to bring new types into service was due to the sudden change over in designs/forms of construction?
It takes time to learn how to design all metal monoplanes with retracting landing gear. And time to learn how to make them. And too many planes were being build to make up "numbers" in the RAF expansion schemes that may have hindered changing over.
528 Hawker Hinds starting in Nov 1935? Plus Hectors?
Aside from being built quickly and cheaply what did they have in their favor?

As an indicator to how much hindsight is really needed here is a four page article from Flight magazine August 23rd 1934 issue.
air corps | air force | army air | 1934 | 0860 | Flight Archive

I do like the line " ....and it will be interesting to see if the American " Monoplane Vogue" will spread to this country."

we also have this page from a slightly earlier edition (May 24th 1934) which reveals how delusional some people were at the time.
air ministry | station sports | air force | 1934 | 0527 | Flight Archive

with the line describing the Overstand bi-plane bomber.

"When one recalls that the " Sidestrand III," fitted with " Jupiter " X.F. engines cowled by Townend rings, had a speed of 167 m.p.h. at 11,000 ft., it is apparent that the "Overstrand," with engines of a more modern type than the " Jupiter," will have a top speed comparable with those attained by some of the latest American cantilever monoplane bombers with retractable undercarriages. And, into the bargain, it will be much more manoeuvrable, will have a higher ceiling and rate of climb and will land much more slowly than these."

In service the Overstrand had top speed of 143-148mph. Unless the more modern engines were rockets the Overstrand had zero chance of having a top speed comparable to the Monoplanes with retracting landing gear.

Criticizing an organization or individual decision makers for throwing out hard won knowledge/experience paid for in lives for untested theories/weapons doesn't really require much hindsight.

parsifal said:

Coastal command did not need to carry any "credible threat" in 1939 to do its job. The issues affecting the uboat war in 1939 were the paucity of uboats, so any sighting report that could re-route a convoy away from a uboat was going to avoid an attack on that convoy. The average number of boats at sea in 1939 was a paltry 13, so a sighting report by a CC a/c ahead the convoy would almost certainly thwart the entire attack. The first wolfpack attack did not occur until March 1940, and was not repeated until June, just to clarify.....

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Looking at the maps on U-boat. net (there is a map for every month)
in Sept there were 52 ships claimed as hit (not sunk) of which 14 seem to off the coast of Norway. 4 off the east coast of England 1 off the Faroes Islands and one off Weymouth. all the rest are west of line drawn through the Irish Sea.

In Oct 37 ships were hit (initial -boats are back in harbor?) None of the coast of Norway, four near Hull, another near Weymouth and two near Swansea. Eight around northern Scotland up past the Shetlands.the rest are all west of Lands end and south of Belfast.

In Nov numbers drop to 30, One off Norway. Ten between John O'Groats and Dover, another one off Weymouth and couple north of the Orkney's. A few are hit in the Bay of Biscay but that should be France's problem.

In Dec things get nasty, while 46 ships are hit a full 25 are in the North Sea north of Hull. 5 more off great Yarmouth and 3 off north west Scotland.
The rest are in the south west approach.

Jan sees the number rise to 58 from the Orkney's to Portugal and includes 3 sunk off liverpool by the U-30.
Feb sees 54 .

Some would be out of range for anything CC could put in the air on a regular basis, Patrolling the Portuguese/SPanish coast even with Sunderlands from Gibraltar wasn't practical on a continuous level. Crap winter weather and short days means less effective air patrols.

However the previous statistic of 57 sightings in 1939 and 40 attacks, 8 claimed damaged shows that something more could have been done with better aircraft/weapons. Slow planes can't reach the sub in time to make an effective attack. Small bombs needed direct hits, a near miss of even a few feet doesn't work, with the 100lb bombs even direct hits are no guarantee of success. (a hit on the deck is several feet away from the pressure hull). and all too many of the early bombs turned out to be duds (lack of testing?)

I am not claiming that better planes/weapons would stop the U-boats in their tracks. But just raising the damage rate a bit would help, Or longer patrols keeping subs under for longer? Were they really providing dawn to dusk coverage? Or just occasional flyovers?
The loss of the Courageous sure shows a lack of operational knowledge. They sent all aircraft into the air to search at one time, landed them all and took almost two hours to service the planes prior to launching another search. Ship was torpedoed near the end of the two hour window. U-Boat commander sure didn't know the timing and perhaps having planes in the air wouldn't have made any difference bu tit sure seems like poor procedure, this is with hindsight.

what your figures are not looking at is the breakdown of whether the ships hit were neutral, or under the control of the allied control commission. For example in September, a total tonnage of 226000 tons of ships were lost to all causes, however of this total, only a little over 100000 tons were lost whilst in allied service (and moreover, more german ships were seized by the allies in this period to replace losses than were sunk by the germans), and none were lost whilst travelling in convoy. this trend continued until well into 1940. the neutrals operated in the mistaken belief that they were safer to sail independently, and so long as they were not in the service of the allies, would not be targeted by BDU. BDU kept their official policy as "stop and search" to add to the confusion for quite some time, to sow confusion with the neutrals mostly, but in reality from the beginning of the war many Uboat skippers were incensed that ships would transmit course, speed and attacker info clearly in contravention of the 1930 and 1936 conventions, and as a result would simply sink on sight any ship neutral or allied (or in one or two cases even german ships sunk by uboats) without warning. a better or worse coastal command could not alter these losses to the neutrals who were not under allied protection. In the end these illegal attacks on neutral shipping by the germans yielded vast tonnages to the allies for relatively few losses to the shipping companies.

The point is this. The early battle was firstly a battle to win over the neutrals to trust the allies and work for them rather than remain neutral. The allies won this hearts and minds battle hands down, and CC played virtually no role in that element of the early battle. Much of the often quoted losses of the early part came from neutral shipping being attacked whilst defenceless and unprotected by a uboat arm prepared to ruthlessly break the rules of war in the name of their tonnages. they were actually not that successful in their tonnages but did manage to deliver the neutrals shipping fleets to the allies, including the vital Norwegian tanker fleets in that time.

The other element of the early battle was a battle to organize the defences to make convoy protection a viable war strategy. Initially as you point out, the majority of attacks on allied controlled shipping were in the local waters, including the north sea (much shipping was being used to buy out the Norwegian and Swedish ore markets so many allied ships were traversing the North sea to Norway to pick up this cargo. many of the other battles, as you confirm and as ive said for some time now, within 100 miles of the british coast, in places like the Irish sea. these early battles were really a race between how quickly the convoys could be reinforced, local waters made safe by the extemporized commissioning of over 1000 coastal escorts and the organizing of a somewhat effective escort command, including an integrated CC into that command. the allies won that part of the battle as well, forcing the uboats further offshore, outside the range of both the coastal escorts (for example, like the black swan class sloops) as well as the CC aircraft that by January 1940 were providing effective patrol services in the coastal waters of britain

The early battle should be awarded to the british in my view. Where things went horribly wrong was later as the battle moved offshore. The CC types in service at that time lacked the range and the numbers of long range surface escorts pitifully small and totally inadequate . The Germans began to successfully use rudel taktiks at this time and losses started to enter the catastrophic zone. This was the point...September 1940 to March 1941 that Britain was almost brought to her knees as she was battered relentlessly by heavy and sustained losses. there was no effective or quick fix to the challenges of this part of the battle until the escort famine was solved and longer ranged patrol aircraft with ASV radar became available that could operate from the new bases in Iceland (and later from Gibraltar). that CC was not equipped adequately during this and the later 1942 phase of the battle can be placed mostly at the feet of BC, who almost scored a fatal own goal by their stupidity.

The RN knew about trade warfare; they'd been dealing with piracy since Alfred and the "Sea Dogs" of the Elizabethan era were the U-boat captain analogues of their day. Convoy and associated procedures introduced much more quickly than in WWI. The problem was more with Coastal Commands hardware and, early on at least, integration with RN coastal and anti-submarine efforts.

This is, to some extent, the opposite problem to the US, which had aircraft, some with the USN and some with the USAAF (Maritime patrol with landplanes was in the USAAF's purview) but the US didn't have the procedures in place to deal with the U-boats operating against coastal and Caribbean shipping. Later, the US did have light, single-engined aircraft impressed from civilians flying patrols because there was far too few aircraft like B-10s and Catalina on hand.

... and some in the US Navy were obsessively opposed to convoys.

There was a monoplane flying boat design from the UK that almost went into production - Blackburn Sidney. 1st flown in 1930.

Blackburn also built two aircraft to try to do a comparison test.
Blackburn C.A.15C - Wikipedia
Nearly identical fuselage, tail, engines and landing gear.



And while a they never really did a side by side fly-off test the numbers available DO NOT point to the superiority of the Biplane.
Both planes made first flights in 1932.

From Alfred Price's book Aircraft versus submarine please see between the red lines.



This should have been known to the planners during the 30s and not post WW II and so not require much hindsight.
Mr Price does make a few mistakes in other places.
However he claims two major deficiencies in anti-sub equipment at the start of WW II in addition to the 100lb anti-sub bomb.
of which here is a photo of the U-46 after it made it back to port after a direct hit.

Oct 25th 1940.
the 2nd deficiency was the lack of a bombsight. He claims the standard RAF bombsight wasn't useful below 3000ft (rather useless for Anti-sub work) and required a period of straight and level flight in any case. Compound this with few, if any, 100lb bombs being available for training or testing bombsight with in early 1939 (first deliveries of production bombs) obviously leads to poor results. Pilots were reduced to flying low and dropping "by eye" which resulted in at least three aircraft lost and perhaps more due to their own bomb fragments.

3rd deficiency was only the Hudson was fitted with an intervalometer that allowed the the bombs to be dropped as a string instead of a salvo or pilot trying to hit switches/releases a fraction of a second apart. Now perhaps he is in error and the Sunderland had the intervalometer but the fact seems to be that the vast majority of aircraft (the Ansons) had two bombs only, no effective bombsight and no intervalometer.

These are deficiencies that should have been known at the time.