Best Air Force 1939-1941

Best Air Force 1939 to 1941?

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Excuse me for using wikipedia but : ''It was signed into law on March 11, 1941, a year and a half after the outbreak of the European war in September 1939, but nine months before the U.S. entrance into the war in December 1941''.

How can aircraft in '42 in N.Africa and Far East be bought and paid for by the Brits?

Regarding your second post that's my entire argument that Britain was simply unable to continue the war without active US involvement one part of which was LL.
 
ctrian said:
Here we go again... How many american tanks in N.Africa? How many american planes in N.Africa?
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Here we go again...

How about we keep this on topic! If you all want to address Lend Lease start a damn thread for it! If the LL has to do with who has the best airforce, that is fine, but this is getting way off topic and I am sick and tired of it! That goes for everyone! If it does not have to do with Best Airforce 1939-1941 start a new thread! Tanks do not fly!
Who cares where the aircraft were built! That has nothing to do with the capability of an airforce.


ctrian said:
I'll also speak very very slow so you can understand.
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Careful...

Snide insulting remarks will not be tolerated as well. All of you quit the childish bullshit!
 
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I cannot speak for all the dominions, but I can tell you a little about my own country. In WWI, Australias Prime Minister had said, "we will fight for Britain to the last man and shilling" And very nearly did. In the lead up to WWII, the Australian economy was raidly industrialising. If 1936 is taken as the base year, with an industrial index of 100, then by 1945, that index had grown to over 1500. We were still mainly an agricultural nation, but we could not grow enough sheep and cattle, shear enough wool, harvest enough wheat, mine and smelt enough iron, dig enough coal or aluminium or copper to meet our domestic and world markets. In 1940 we posted a surplus of over 35m pounds. In the second world war we approached the war from the standpoint of not fighting to the last man and shilling. We would do what was posible with no pain or hurt to the domestic economy however there were never any difficulties for Australia in terms of trade or balance of payment figures. Where we came up short was in manpower. We chose not to invest our surpluses in capital infrastructure. Some of the surplus went to purchase of foreign military equipment, a mix of British and American stuff mostly. But with a surplus the size we had, it was easily within Australias capacity to increase our defence expenditures, and that meant purchase of foreign equipment. We could easily have doubled or tripled our foreign purchases of US equipment, and still not be i too much trouble. That is demonstrated in our 1941 and 1942 expenditures. in that year, the only year that we felt significantly threatened, we really did triple our foreign purchases, as well as increasing domestic production by 1.6 times. And still we did not eat into our reserves.

Australias trade routes were never more threatened than anybody else really, and our balance of payments were certainly never threatened by it. In 1942, when it looked for a time that allied shipping was in trouble, due to the stupidity of Ernest J King, and also because of a Japoanese submarine campaign down the east coast of Australia (that sank 250000 tons of local shipping) plans were well under way to build close to amillion tons of replacement shipping. It was never needed. our brothers in Canada did produce over 1.3 million tons of shipping, and I understand they still had spare capacity as well. It was not needed, and given that the Americans had the economies of scale, the most effieicient industrial base in the world, we fell back into simply payting them for what we needed

Moreover I am certain that the other dominions were in similar good shape financially . There was easily the capacity in the dominions to take up the slack of cash and carry, if the lend lease deal had not been signed. What may have happened with this increased committment earlier in the war is that our economic growth later in the war might have slowed, because of a lack of investment. I dont see that as a big issue however...how many times can you shoot your enemy.....

After the war broke out our first premier, Menzies, wanted to increase our commitment to the ETO, but were overruled, in part I think because the Americans were seen as providing assistance to the British empire. if that support had been witheld, by not signing the LL agreement, I dont think it all unreasonable or unrealistic to assume the Australians, and the other dominions, to increase their wartime committments and simply buy what the british could not. It was well within their capabiliies, based on the figures I have posted.

I can only repeat what I have been saying to you for a while now. Lend lease was a mutual assistance package that helped everyone....the some of the parts together amounted to more than the sum of the parts separately. There would have been some pain if the LL agreement had not been signed, but there was never the slightest chance of the catastrophic collapse that you keep rabbiting on about.
 

Hi Adler


I was going to post the aircraft reinforcements for the North African TO, by type and nationality. I thought that was still on topic, but I do agree we have lost our way. Do you think what I am intending is sufficiently relevant to follow through?

I know this is turning into a bit of a bloodfest and I am partly to blame, but there is still some good stuff coming out of this. I would like to try and improve on that.

Your call
 
ctrian said:
Der adler is correct we need to move out : http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/ww2-general/lend-lease-britain-29474.html
Oh and adler nice thing to notice my remark but not his.
Click to expand...

I noticed everyones remarks.

I commented on yours because I already gave a generic warning to everyone. You seem to ignore it, and are doing so in several threads.

May I do my moderating job? If so, act like an adult and move on...


As long as it is relevent to the topic it is fine.

michaelmaltby said:
View attachment 171034"..... Tanks do not fly!.."

Not for lack of trying ....

MM
Click to expand...

Smart ass...
 
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Okay, this was for Buffnut, whom I promised I would post some details about deplyment by nationality.

The purpose of the post is to put into some sort of perspectve the contribution of Lend lease to the North TO. It goes to how well or bad the effect of lend lease would be to a particular theatre

The figures are from 9/40 through to 5/41:

9/40: 3 Fulmar, 2 Hurri
10/40: 30 Blen, 6 Skua, 4 B17D
12/40: 12 Blen, 40 Well,
1/41: 44 Hurri, 12 Blen, 1 Well
2/41: 30 Hurri, 38 Blen, 2 Well, 2 Maryland
3/41 13 Hurri, 24 Blen, 16 Well, 6 Lys, 2 P-40C, 6 Maryland
4/41, 66 Hurri, 28 Blen, 27 Well, 6 Lys, 25 P-40C, 6 Maryland
5/41 165 Hurri, 9 Blen, 15 Well, 16 Beaf, 21 P40C, 7 Maryland
6/41 136 Hurri, 35 Blen, 6 Well, 12 Lys, 15 Beaf, 10 Glad, 41 P-40C, 6 Maryland

By my calculation, aircraft of British origin accounted for 825 airframes, whilst the LL aircraft accounted for 120 airframes. Lend lease represented 12.7% of the total air strength. There were 495 fighters supplied to the theatre, of which 89 were US. That represents 17.9% of the total, or roughly 1 in 6 airframes.

I really did not want to post the figures for the entire campaign, since this whole discussion began about this early 1941 period, when I believe subtle changes to the balance of power between the air forces of Germany and Britain were occurring. In other words I am trying not to derail the thread.
 
It has to be the Luftwaffe.

The reasons are the quality of the aircrews, the quality of the aircraft and the applied tactics and the fact that along with the German Army the whole of continental Europe fell under German control.

RAF is a close second though since for the first time such an integrated air defense network was developed. It would not be enough to save Britain from invasion and defeat without the German leadership blunders but still it was an innovation.
 

I would not be so sure of that if I were you. Invasion possibly, successful establishment of a beachhead maybe, subjugation of the U.K. doubtful. This would not be the same as the Norman's in 1066 invading to fight a poorly organized and exhausted Kingdom. I agree the Luftwaffe was tops but only by a slight edge as I have stated earlier.
 


Even if the Germans had landed a force somewhere on the south coast and dared to invaded our green and pleasant land the whole idea of actually subjugating the British people is improbable to say the least.
We are not just not used to some ghastly foreign army trampling across our land.
Cheers
John
 
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My perspective on the invasion issue is based on the fact that air power played a key role towards coastal invasions throught WW2. In the case of an invasion of Britain, I am thinking that the Luftwaffe under a competent leadership would be able to provide air cover to the landing troops and denial to the RN to interfere in the channel without horrific losses. British terrain is suitable for tank warfare and operations of highly mobile armored units. Add to that the location of many British airbases, near the southern coast, which the Germans could capture and fly in reinforcements and extend the range and loiter time of their short-legged Me109.
Consider also that the spine of the RAF air defense system, the radar antennas, were mostly located along the southern coast, not inland, therefore once those had been neutralized the Fighter command would have a much reduced awareness of the situation compared to the channel front operations.
So the Battle of France outcome could be repeated in Britain, it is perhaps fortunate that Luftwaffe was lead by Goering who himself answered to Hitler. English are so much smoother to the ear as a second language than German -no offense to my german counterparts in here -
 

A very reasonable and plausible argument unless you consider the German history of major amphibious landings from the sea and major airborne assault against alerted and strong defense. The former as far as I know was almost non-existent (England is no Norway) and the latter as Crete showed was extremely expensive in lives against no where near as much opposition as would occur in England. It is my understanding that after Crete Hitler forbade anymore large Airborne attacks. Considering the difficulties the Allies with enormously more resources had in carrying off Overload and the uncertainty at the time of its success, I think it doubtful a German invasion would succeed. Perhaps the biggest problem the supporters of Sealion had was grasping the fact that crossing The Channel is not just a scaled-up river crossing. It is my understanding that even with complete Luftwaffe success the German Navy and Army commandeers believed they did not have enough resources and were very relieved when Sealion was cancelled.
 
MaximusGR said:
British terrain is suitable for tank warfare and operations of highly mobile armored units.
Click to expand...

Not all of Britain is as suitable as you suggest....
The Germans did not have it in them to make the assault. D Day took the combined resources of the allies and years of planning to achieve.
I prefer French as a second language
Cheers
John
 

Yet by mid '42 1/3 fighters is P-40 and 1/5 bombers is Hudson ,Fortress and Boston.
 


Very good points to consider Lightning There are as many factors that could thwart a German invasion as those that could give it a chance to succeed, especially regarding airborne operations, as we saw in the Battle of Crete, D-Day and Market Garden It is also correct that experience from such operations was non existent for the Germans but throught the war good commander of all sides have shown remarkable adaptiveness to different circumstances and resource levels (Rommel, Zukov, Patton to name a few). I was mostly thinking that Luftwaffe was up to the task of offering complete air dominance in that scenario if the Army and Navy played their part successfully as well.

Readie even in the case of a British capitulation the outcome of WW2 would not change, so your peculiar affection to the French language would still be safe

A short comment on LL and air forces...Isnt it irrelevant where the assets of an air force are coming from? We are discussing the best air force, not the best air-force formed by domestic airframe designers How much LL has affected each of the Allied nations is an issue of a separate thread as it has been stated a few posts back.
 
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the problem is, that the argument being put forward is that the british AF was completely and 100% dependant on "US charity" You cannot get to the right conclusions from that point. If you accept it, then you will come to the wrong conclusions Fore example, if that position is allowed to stand, then it can be argued that all the Spitfires and Hurricanes etc that were built, might as well have not been built, because they have no military worth.

I know its a stupid argument, but the discussioon cannot move forward until the stupidity is withdrawn
 
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