Admiral Beez
Major
Watching the Barracuda land so apparently easily shows how good design help. It might be ugly, but all those flaps along with an excellent pilot view must help.
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Alternatives to the Blackburn Firebrand
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Jimbob
Airman 1st Class
Yep, the Sea Fury was no better performing than the proven F4U-4, wasn't as tough, had a maintenance hog of a very fragile engine.
The F4U-4 was never made available under Lend Lease. In 1943 when development of the Sea Fury began, Britain was beginning to look forward to a time when US aircraft might well cease to be available, so dependency on US aircraft had to be reduced.
So the Sea Fury was British at a time (1947 onwards) when Lend Lease, and the prospects of getting the F4U-4, were no longer available. And being basically broke, Britain was not going to spend valuable dollars buying from the US.
The last operational FAA, F4U-1 Corsair squadrons disbanded in Aug 1946 on their return to Britain from the Far East.
The F4U-4 was never supplied to the FAA as the war ended before it was 'next up'. The FAA had lots of new F4U-1's at depots in Australia at wars end that got ditched at sea after VJ Day. Had the war continued, the F4U-4 would have been supplied.
Ditching the Corsair after VJ Day, most were ditched over the side by VJ Day + 12 weeks to avoid paying for them, left the FAA with no effective naval fighter for two years.
The Sea Fury was a pointless make work for Hawker - other air forces such as the Aeronavale had no problem buying cheap surplus F4U's, and indeed, the British could have bought its F4U's for just 10c on the $.
Instead, we had the stupid situation of Hawker building an obsolescent propellor plane, while farming out production of the Sea Hawk naval jet fighter
The F4U-4 would probably not have become available.
By mid-1944 the war against Japan was expected to be over by the end of 1946. RN planning in 1944 looking forward to 1946 therefore was based on Lend Lease drying up in that kind of timescale. Hellcat deliveries were expected to dry up by the end of 1945 for example. So a move to reducing dependence on US aircraft was already being put in place. So Seafire production was ramped up, which would have been aided by the RAF requirements reducing with he end of the European war probably 12 months earlier.
So Corsairs were decided to only be required for the 3 Illustrious class plus the first 4 Colossus class plus their replacement air groups. By mid 1945 virtually all the squadrons for those had been formed. So the need was for attrition replacements not expansion.
In mid-1945 a significant number of USN and USMC units were still flying the F4U-1. The RN would have had to play second fiddle to those requirements. The US was beginning to take a harsher view of Britain's needs by then.
As for the Aeronavale, they began in 1946 by buying Seafire III and then XV to operate alongside the SBD. In 1950 they got F6F-5 and SB2C-5. France didn't acquire F4U-7 and AU-1 Corsairs until 1953 and 1954 respectively. And the former were new build for them not second hand. As for the 3 South American post war operators of the F4U, they didn't get them until the mid 1950s. That was about the same time Britain was selling second hand Sea Furies to Burma & Cuba.
While you consider the Sea Fury as "make work" for Hawker, it's development had been largely paid for by the end of WW2. Building it saved spending precious dollars. Even better it actually earned Britain money from overseas sales.
Oh, and you might want to research the British aircraft industry. Hawker Aircraft Ltd and Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft Ltd were both members of the Hawker Siddeley Aircraft group, and had been since 1935. Avro & Gloster were also sister companies. So it just represents best use of the Group's resources and not some "farming out" exercise.
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As I said, the FAA had a huge stock of attrition airframes in Australia. But an F4U-4 option had been pencilled in for when it was required - after all, the war was expected to last through to 1947.
As for all the add on outfits building obsolete planes… that was the British aircraft industry showing the seeds of its own destruction. Too many make weight small companies building stupid and totally not viable flights of fancy. There should have been a ruthless cull of contracts after VE Day.
And moving smartly onwards, we had the FAA buying TBM's in the early 50's, the same TBM's it had pushed over the side by the hundreds in 1945/6 to 'save' a few $$$$
Geoffrey Sinclair
Staff Sergeant
- 922
- Sep 30, 2021
The definition of huge stocks. 207 Corsair imported into Australia December 1944 to September 1945 inclusive. The British Pacific Fleet operations as part of the Okinawa operation cost 98 aircraft plus another 105 that needed replacement, total 203 of which 84 were Corsairs. The July/August 1945 operations lost 101 aircraft and needed another 40 replaced, total 141, Corsair losses 36, replacements 10. Then add the losses in the training and supply system. So probably over 100 Corsairs in the training and supply system in Australia end September 1945.
As for hundreds of Avengers pushed over the side the British Pacific Fleet in July 1945 carried 62 Avengers (and 73 Corsairs). The British record wartime imports as 686 Avengers of which 80 went to Australia. And there were plenty of wartime losses. The 1950's Avengers were supplied under the Mutual Defence Assistance Program, so not quite sure about how much was paid by whom, the TBM-3E was still in service with the USN, awaiting the Grumman Tracker's arrival, not quite the same as the TBM the RN had in 1945.
There was a cull of contacts in 1945/46. What the British aviation industry needed post WWII was a large civil market, even more so than the vehicle industry the cost of a new design was pushing consolidation to have the financial strength to cope with designs that failed to sell enough, consolidation was well underway in Britain pre WWII. Even if the Comet had been a major success from the start the British civil industry was unlikely to keep up with the US one, how many jet airliner companies were around in the west in the 1960's versus the current number?
The US built 35,001 civil types in 1946, far more than its 1930's output, then 15,617 in 1947, 7,302 in 1948 and 3,545 in 1949. That contraction was painful enough and partly due to them selling largely pre war designs lacking things like full instruments and radios. According to the Ministry of Supply British Military aircraft production for export *plus* all civil production was under 700 aircraft in 1946, rose to under 800 in 1947 then settled into 450 to 500 a year 1948 to 1950.
Next comes the US was not interested in selling its modern military types overseas. Hence why so many countries flew the Meteor, Vampire, Lincoln, Sea Fury and Firefly in the late 1940's. The needs of a post war world were more transport aircraft, not fighters but the European militaries wanted some rebuilding but military aircraft production was a low priority until Stalin was clearly becoming a problem, also worrying was the unit cost growth, the $51,000 P-51 or $83,000 P-47 of 1945 had become a $258,000 F-86A in 1948. That meant fewer aircraft made and so fewer aircraft makers.
Then we add the US abruptly withdrew Lend Lease in 1945, that was fine for military equipment but not so for the other items being provided, like food or spare parts, that made US dollars a very precious commodity until the US relaxed its policies. Before then an economic mess occurred worse than the world is currently in. The rest of the message is about food, for those who prefer flying on a full stomach.
The European economies, including Britain, had run down their export sectors during the war, plus were struggling to repair the damage. There was a world wide food shortage in 1945/46 with the allies now responsible for feeding Japan and Germany. Montgomery signalled his wheat requirements were basically the British wheat crop size wise. Many traditional non US food exporters had a lot of wartime damage plus neglect of pest control, irrigation etc. maintenance to make up. Burma was the pre war rice bowl of Asia for example. Lack of workers had seen cut backs in land under cultivation.
In early 1945 the US Army in the ETO cut its non combatant rations by 10%, post VE day same for the combat troops. People starved to death in Japan in the 1945/46 winter and the US shipped food aid in 1946. The lack of food for humans meant less food for livestock, so less meat etc. production. In mid 1945 Britain cut pork/ham, cheese and cooking fats rations then first rationed bread in July 1946. While wartime rationing in Britain generally improved nutrition, not so post war. Shortages of bread and refined sugar lead to riots in Verdun and Le Mans in September 1947. The US population started purchasing food parcels to send to Europe. The population of France sank by over 1 million people between 1936 and 1946, to 40.5 million, the average 14 year old in 1945 was 7 to 9 kg lighter and 7 to 11 cm shorter than their 1935 counterparts. Germany had requisitioned a lot of French food production.
Anybody who suggests a 1946 attack to force Stalin out of Eastern Europe needs to factor in fighting during a famine.
Until the world wide bumper harvests of 1948 the US was the main source of surplus food. Average wheat available for export 1934-38 was around 535.8 million bushels, and net imports came to 516.2 million bushels, in 1946-47 the figures were exports 758.5, imports 748.5, 1947-48 exports 926.8, imports 932.5. Australia, Argentina and the USSR had bad years in 1946-47 but this was offset by a rise in US wheat exports from an average of 24.4 million bushels in 1934-38 to 405.7 in 1946-47, then in 1948 the US exported 484.9 million bushels. The top 5 exporters in 1934-38 as Canada 33% of world trade, Argentina 23%, Australia 19%, USSR 5%, USA 4%, with all others accounting for 16%. In 1948 the big 4 (non US) exporters managed around a 4% increase on their pre war average exports, the US had increased exports by around 21.5 times
Having US dollars to spend on food was vital. As people have recently discovered supply chains can break but they can also shatter, with no quick and simple repairs possible. For example pre war France imported around 10% of its food needs. During the war some 3,000,000 acres had gone out of cultivation. With industry largely not working, most of the new machine tools had been looted, only 20% of the necessary spare parts for agricultural machinery were available, then add fuel shortages. German requisitions had seen the horse population reduced from 2.2 million to 1.5 million. The result was the French had to concentrate on keeping only the most fertile farms in full operation, leading to resentment amongst those who missed out. Despite the release of some 1.2 million PoWS held by the Germans there was a major labour shortage. It was not a case of sending people back to the farms and watch food production steadily increase.
From the 1950 Canada Yearbook,
"Wheat - The crop year 1948-49 brought about for the first time in several years a near balance between world what supplies and import requirements. Generally excellent crops were harvested in 1948 with world production of both bread grains and coarse grains reaching considerably higher levels than in 1947. Production also exceeded the 1935-39 average by a considerable margin with improved crops being harvested quite generally in both importing and exporting countries. With this easing of previously existing tight supply situation, governments of some wheat importing countries abolished bread rationing while others lowered the compulsory extraction rate in flour milling and considerably reduced the amounts of coarse grains which were formally mixed with bread grains in the manufacture of flour. These two actions provided larger quantities of milling offals and coarse grains for live-stock feed, and so promoted the expansion of live-stock production. The optimism generated by increased available supplies led to the dissolution of the world allocating agency, the international food council of the Food and Agricultural Organisation."
