Bomber Command by Max Hastings

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Escuadrilla Azul

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Feb 27, 2020
Just download an excerpt of Bomber Command written by Max Hastings and in a brief space thumbled in some affirmations that baffled me.

By no way I'm an expert in Bomber Command or WW2 aviation in general (this forum teach me that you are the true experts by far) and ask for your comments about this ones:



Was the B-17 bombload so limited? True that it can't haul the same amount of bombs at the same distance than the british heavies, but to say that was severely limited I think is going to far.


Were the Whitley, Blenheim, Hampden and Wellington all stop gap bombers waiting for the heavies? First time to heard that. Sure the Whitley was near obsolete at the war start but to said that was a stop gap measure seems some what a stretched comment.



It look to me that this implies that, by november 1938, BC already knew that the Blenheim was an obsolete aircraft. Mk I entered service March 1937, Mk IV in early 1939, so was actually obsolete? I'm not asking if it was capable of withstanding a determined onslaught (we all know the answer) but if, by November 1938 standards, was an obsolete aircraft. I doubt so.


This is about early Hurricane & Spitfire armament. For some reason he thought that 8x .303 in machine guns for a fighter in 1939 was a light weaponry. Don't look so to me when other fighters had less guns of the same caliber or 2x .50 in, except for Bf 109 (some) & 110, that have 2x 20mm cannons beside some .30 in guns.



German planes were just rubish, it looks like. Never heard of those "acute technical" problems early in the war in those sistems; the lack of use of power operated turrets thought that was due to design and boosting crew moral choices and that the MG FF was a good enough weapon early in the war.


And finally the Battle production. A brief search shows some 2.200 built.

I know that is a 1979 book but it looks like to me that it was outdated and out of touch with the truth almost from the publishing date.

Or I'm the one outdated and out of touch?
 

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Hi there, the book is a good reference source for the political aspects of the narration and yes, it is worth taking these statements with a grain of salt, although it's worth examining where he gets his information from in the book's bibliography, which will give you source info for his claims and the context within which he states it.

Escuadrilla Azul said:
Was the B-17 bombload so limited?
Click to expand...

In the first incarnation of the B-17 that the RAF operated, the Boeing Fortress I, compared to contemporary British four-engined bombers, which could carry loads of 14,000lbs in weight, yes, the Fortress I's internal load was smaller (according to Aircraft of the Royal Air Force since 1918, Owen Thetford, Putnam, 1988 was 2,500lbs), although the B-17C's load which the Fortress I was, was larger at around 4,800lbs according to this:

Boeing B-17C Flying Fortress (historyofwar.org)


Firstly, no; these aircraft were built to earlier specifications than the four-engined heavies and the Wellington and Whitley in particular were initially classified as heavy bombers, that is, until the four-engined heavies arrived, when they were re-classified as medium bombers. They were not stop-gaps.

As for the Whitley being near obsolete at the outbreak of war, I wouldn't state that at all. It had a good bomb load (7,000lbs), good range (1,650 miles), better defensive armament than all of its foreign contemporaries, particularly to the rear, in the Whitley IV of 1938, with its Nash and Thompson turret armed with four machine guns, and good load carrying capability. That the early versions were powered by the AS Tiger was unfortunate, but the Whitley IV inservice at the outbreak of the war and V with the Merlin and all-power operated turret defensive armament proved valuable and still relevant workhorse in the first years of the war, being replaced in 1942. After retirement as a frontline bomber, the type saw service as a long range maritime patrol aircraft equipped with surface search radar with Coastal Command.

Escuadrilla Azul said:
Never heard of those "acute technical" problems early in the war in those sistems; the lack of use of power operated turrets thought that was due to design and boosting crew moral choices and that the MG FF was a good enough weapon early in the war.
Click to expand...

It looks like Hastings is picking things that afflicted German aircraft rather than rubbishing them outright, as you are stating he's doing. Yes, in practise, German bombers were found to have poor defensive armament both in practise during the Battle of Britain and compared to British bombers and their powered turrets, as for the oxy systems and the claim the German cannon were inadequate, can't say. He does express that German aircraft were superior in quality and quantity in the mid to late 30s, but ends that statement with an acknowledgement that Britain's wartime production and resources enabled it to build large fleets of four-engined bombers that exceeded what the Germans had in service in numbers and capability by a wide margin, which is true.

Hastings is a good author of considerable repute and has written many fine books, and it's fair to say Bomber Command could do with an upgrade - based on its research materiel from where he gets some of his aircraft information - the likes of Bomber by Len Deighton, it could benefit from it. I'm sure that today the book might have drawn a few different conclusions about this sort of thing, but the bulk of the story, the meat and potatoes, so to speak remain a good source of research in terms of analysing the function and course of Bomber Command's history.
 
As part of an academic discussion, saying the 8 mgs of a Hurricane and Spitfire was heavy armament for the time is a valid comment, but it didn't impress any BoB pilot who had been hit by a cannon shell they wanted cannon THAT WORKED.
 
pbehn said:
As part of an academic discussion, saying the 8 mgs of a Hurricane and Spitfire was heavy armament for the time is a valid comment,
Click to expand...

Completely, bearing in mind that when the specifications for those two were written up, the existing Luftwaffe fighter was the Heinkel He 51 with a total of two machine guns. The first Bf 109s that entered Luftwaffe service only had four rifle calibre machine guns and no cannon, although it was intended that they should have.
 
As I said it was true historically, BoB pilots were not aware of how many bombers sailed through their gun fire and crash landed back in France never to fly again, they were aware of the holes a cannon shell made and as soon as Bf109s got cannon the RAF pilots thought they had pea shooters.
 

Yup, the impact of the Bf 109's cannon was significant, especially since the British interceptors were almost always outnumbered by the escort fighters. Of course, the RAF didn't know it at the time, but they did do a lot of damage however - their not so impactful machine gun armed fighters managed to create a generally higher kill-to-loss ratio against all German types, although the Bf 109 consequently notched up the highest kill-to loss ratio out of the fighters in use in the BoB (according to Bungay in Most Dangerous Enemy).

Put simply, Bf 109s shot down more Spitfires and Hurricanes than Spitfires and Hurricanes shot down Bf 109s, but the British fighters even up the score by shooting down lots of bombers and Bf 110s, enough to tip the scales in favour of the RAF in terms of numbers.
 
Words such as heavy, front line and interim are very time sensitive. In peace time and at the declaration of war the Hampden Blenheim etc were front line and especially the Wellington could be considered a heavy bomber, but after the fall of France and the Blitz it was obvious much more and heavier bombers were needed and were starting to come in service they were "interim" although it took a long tme for the Wellington especially to be replaced.
 

That´s what I thought by reading de excerpt, good for the grand background and general picture but not so for the frontline details (so to speak). In the excerpt there is no reference for the bibliography and, by the telling in the foreword, it leans heavily in interviews with senior officers ("Bomber" Harris, AVM Bennett, high ranking civil servants) for the big picture. Given that the book was published in 1979, surely it must be in the making since the early-mid 70´s, so those officials were problably very old by then and, perhaps, the mist of time had taken a toll and the memories faded.


http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_B-17C.html

The B-17 bombload was so limited given the trade off in performance and defensive fire? I´m prone to take the 4,800 lbs bombload more than the 2,500 lbs, but have no way of deciding. Web surfing is inconclusive for the early variants and I can´t get most of my books for a time, they are in my parents house and due to covid I can´t take a ride to see them (neither my parents neither the books). Maybe the bad results in early RAF service take a grip in the high ranking officers that Hastings interviews and permeated to the book.


http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_B-17C.html

The Whitley obsolescence I mention is due to the lack of daylight raids of the type. AFAIK it only did paperbombing during the Phoney War and, after the assault in the west, started to drop bombs but both missions by night and the only day use was in Coastal Command service, so I asume that BC didn´t have much faith in the aircraft surviving day missions.


http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/weapons_B-17C.html

Surely Hastings wasn´t trying rubbishing the contemponary german planes and is more I was not undestanding him and thought the oxi and guns problems were examples of whole technical problems and not limited to them, althought never heard about them before.


I tend to have Hastings in esteem, so I get very baffled by some of the affirmations quoted in my first post. And as an example I mention the Battle production. Don´t know if it wasn´t know in the 70´s (I doubt that) or that a kind of canary in the mine for careless or hurried writing of the book and makes me wonder if there are other mistakes that maybe I can´t be able to pick out and go unnoticed.


P pbehn Sure, the 8 mgs weren´t enough to bring down every enemy planes Hurrys &Spit faced. As you said, some concepts aged fast in WW2 and the rifle caliber mgs was one of them but I think that my comment is fully valid and by 1938 the 8 mgs arrangement couldn´t be taken as light one.
 
I agree with everything you have posted here.

Escuadrilla Azul said:
That´s what I thought by reading de excerpt, good for the grand background and general picture but not so for the frontline details (so to speak).
Click to expand...

Pretty much, and, as you've said, Bomber Command was first published in 1979. We know now and have access to far greater resources than Hastings did back then, mind you, the info he sought wasn't too hard to find, but perceptions of old still stood at that time. You get the picture.

Escuadrilla Azul said:
The Whitley obsolescence I mention is due to the lack of daylight raids of the type.
Click to expand...

Still having trouble with this. The switch to night bombing was realised fairly quickly by the British, to their credit bearing in mind what they were up against, but that didn't affect the Whitley too much as it was intended on being a night bomber from the outset, as was the Wellington and Hampden, notice how even during daylight raids they were painted black.
 

I guess that at this point we have a disagrement. The Fairey Battle also wore black undersuperfaces at the war start and I don´t belive that the RAF was thinking of using it during the night. The A W Whitley was the first monoplane bomber of the RAF and with 230 mph max speed in the Mk V, I don´t think that the RAF was confident in its survival in daylight by the beginning of the war, specially since then they got the Wimpy & Hampden for heavy duty.
 

Sure, the more recent usually the best.

Just shock me that such a reputed historian made those statements in a subject that I guess was not so obscure in the 70´s (were are not talking about the VVS and von Hardesty Red Phoneix)
 
Escuadrilla Azul said:
I guess that at this point we have a disagrement.
Click to expand...

I guess so. I also have trouble with your assessment that it was obsolescent because it wasn't commonly used as a day bomber. That doesn't confer obsolescence, that confers a choice of specific role. Are you able to justifiably point out where the British expressed this fear of using the Whitley by day? Or is this presumption?
 
Is a presumption.

Since the RAF strategy in the interwar period was daylight bombing and all other early bomber were used that way in the beginning (but not the Whitley) and since it was the oldest model, I made that guess.

Could be also something read at any point (perhaps in Donnelly "The Whitley Boys") that get stuck deep in the brain but I can't recall and can't check at this point due the lack of access to my books.

Of course, any evidence against it is very wellcome.
 
nuuumannn said:
The fact that it was used at all and remained in service until 1942 and following that frontline service as a maritime patrol aircraft? What about not using it during the day confers obsolescence?
Click to expand...

Well, that it was used as night bomber until 1942, when more capable planes were available and when the Nachtjad started to make some dents, and as a marine patrol aircraft where aerial opposition wasn´t fierce don´t seems to me evidence enough.

Sure, it talks a lot of the goodness of the plane (range and loitier time, spacious fuselage and cargo load) but not of been modern, in the same way that the use of the Swordfish till war ends in some roles didn´t made it "unobsolet" in the TB role.

Both found a niche role and gave sterling service, but were obsolete.
 
True, but also true that the Hurricane was submitted as a proposal for the 4 cannon armed fighter which was won by the Whirlwind, even in 1938 8 mgs was seen as the best at the time but more was wanted.
 
When you are obsolete for one task it does not mean you are obsolete for another.

It is i think commendable that it did good service in a role it was not build for. And remember, an awfull lot of more modern bombers were shot down. And they were the best they could make.
The NJ could be succesfull not only for the machines and the radar. When the Brits understood they had to overrun the boxes, losses dropped.
 
As far as classifications of the British bombers go we can either try to find contemporary references, much harder now that the flight magazine archives are down or private, like magazine articles.

However as one source we can use is "The British Bomber" By Mason.
In a list of squadrons in service in Jan 1st 1938 the Whitley squadrons are designated as (H) as are Handley Page Harrow squadrons, Handley page Heyford squadrons and the Fairey Hendon squadron
The Vickers Wellesley squadrons (and one Overstrand squadron) are designated (M) squadrons
Hawker Hinds, Bristol Blenheims, Fairey Battles are in (L) squadrons.

No squadron was listed as a night bomber squadron although I believe the Fairey Hendon at least was referred to as a night bomber.


The Jan 1st 1940 list has
Whitleys and Wellingtons in (H) squadrons
Hampdens are in (M) squadrons
Battles and Blenheims in (L) squadrons.

The notes at the end say H-Heavy Bomber, M- Medium Bomber, L-Light Bomber
There were also TB- Torpedo bomber, BR-Bomber Reconnaissance, and FDB-Fighter Dive Bomber but they don't concern this discussion.

In the Jan 1st 1944 list the Wellington X Squadrons in Italy were listed as (M) squadrons.


The Whitley may have been referred to as a night bomber in magazine articles of the time.
 

You use what you've got, not what you want in future. The Whitley was clearly not obsolescent by the time the war began. It was so as a bomber by the time the four-engined heavies entered service, but they all didn't enter service at once, of course.

Let's look at the definition of obsolescence and obsolete. Obsolescence means the condition of becoming nearly obsolete, and obsolete means that there is no longer a use for it. That the Whitley still operated until 1942, then served in Coastal Command afterwards means that it was NOT obsolete, nor obsolescent.

Obsolescence | Definition of Obsolescence by Merriam-Webster (merriam-webster.com)

Obsolete | Definition of Obsolete by Merriam-Webster (merriam-webster.com)
 
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