Did Chamberlain's "Peace for our time" make a difference to the air war?

[oldcrowcv63]

The P-36 only entered USAAF service in April 1938 and there were many teething troubles and technical issues that took a number of years to resolve. Overall, I think it unlikely that the P-36 was a viable option for going to war starting in 1938. As for the B-17, that too entered USAAF service in April 1938 so, again, I don't see that being available for the RAF and even less so for the French AF. The F2A-1 only entered service with the USN in December 1939 so that's really out of the running as an option for the starting line-up in a 1938 outbreak of war in Europe.

I don't think you fully appreciate the power of the almighty dollar and the potential of a long line of customers let alone how fast Corporate leaders and stock holders will respond to same. That's kinda hard to believe since you commonwealth folks and your bloody East India Company and all taught us most of what we know.

So, I think all you anglo- and euro-philes just don't want the good ole' USA to play.

Therefore, I am taking my P-36s and B-17s and going home.

 

[stona]

So, I think all you anglo- and euro-philes just don't want the good ole' USA to play.

Therefore, I am taking my P-36s and B-17s and going home.

Very good, and I appreciate the light hearted nature of your comment,but you weren't going to play for real until Japan attacked you.
I'm not denying that the USA pushed the boundaries of neutrality but any P-36s would have to be paid for and we had Hurricanes. B-17s were not needed in a '39/'39 scenario.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Readie]

Guess I failed...

Don't take it too hard BN.
As soon as I see this posted... 'Good on Hitler'... its not worth any discussion.
Best wishes
John

 

[oldcrowcv63]

I think you mean Hilter, no?

 

[nuuumannn]

how the Ottoman Empire was divided up. That was decided by war. If the Ottomans had not defeated the 1919 Greek invasion Turkey would be a tiny rump state, if it existed at all.

At the risk of going off topic in a really big way, the fate of much of the Ottoman Empire was that territories were divided up by treaty before the end of WW1. The Sykes Picot Treaty to be exact, named after the French and British foreign ministers who signed it in secret. This was a ploy because many in Europe were not keen on seeing Lawrence of Arabia's vision of a United Arabia with Damascus as its capital. This was how British Palestine became a state and where much of the troubles in the region since WW1 began, but that's another story...

Back to a flight of He 51s attacking a squadron of Vickers Wellesleys about to bomb German factories in the Ruhr Valley...

 

[davebender]

Several of those treaties didn't work as planned.
- Italy didn't get Trieste.
- Japan didn't keep Tsingtao.
- Border between Greece and Turkey was decided by combat.
- Border between Poland and the Soviet Union was decided by combat.
- Border between Germany and Poland in Silesia was decided by combat to some extent.
- Borders of Baltic States and Romania were decided by combat to some extent.
- Finland was decided by civil war and the Finnish Army deterring a Soviet invasion.

 

[Readie]

I don't think you fully appreciate the power of the almighty dollar and the potential of a long line of customers let alone how fast Corporate leaders and stock holders will respond to same. That's kinda hard to believe since you commonwealth folks and your bloody East India Company and all taught us most of what we know.

So, I think all you anglo- and euro-philes just don't want the good ole' USA to play.

Therefore, I am taking my P-36s and B-17s and going home.

Oh, I don't know Mal...you can come and play, preferably with a brace of A bombs on Berlin.
We might even let you colonials fly god's wonderfull Spitfire
John

 

[oldcrowcv63]

Fair trade... nuc Hilter for a ride in a spit. Definitely in keeping with the original history script wherein yanks were provided many gratis Spit mounts.

 

[Readie]

Fair trade... nuc Hilter for a ride in a spit. Definitely in keeping with the original history script wherein yanks were provided many gratis Spit mounts.

An astonishing bargain... obliterate the lunatics and get to fly a Spitfire over the the White cliffs, doing a victory roll of course...
Win win.
John

 

[tomo pauk]

Several of those treaties didn't work as planned.
- Italy didn't get Trieste.
- Japan didn't keep Tsingtao.
- Border between Greece and Turkey was decided by combat.
- Border between Poland and the Soviet Union was decided by combat.
- Border between Germany and Poland in Silesia was decided by combat to some extent.
- Borders of Baltic States and Romania were decided by combat to some extent.
- Finland was decided by civil war and the Finnish Army deterring a Soviet invasion.

Trieste is a part of Italy from 1918 until present day.

 

[davebender]

We colonials prefer the P-51. Airframe designed to a British specification and powered by a British designed engine.

It's unfortunate we colonials were so late to appreciate the Mustang / Merlin engine combination. We could have been flying P-51Bs during 1942.

 

[Readie]

We colonials prefer the P-51. Airframe designed to a British specification and powered by a British designed engine.

It's unfortunate we colonials were so late to appreciate the Mustang / Merlin engine combination. We could have been flying P-51Bs during 1942.

The volunteer colonials were honoured to fly Spitfires dave.
To say that we were gratefull is an understatement.

 

[Vincenzo]

Trieste is a part of Italy from 1918 until present day.

Probably he wanted write that i call Fiume and you Rijeka

 

[tomo pauk]

Maybe, but Rijeka/Fiume, too, was part of Italy. From 1918 until the end of ww2

 

[Vincenzo]

Maybe, but Rijeka/Fiume, too, was part of Italy. From 1918 until the end of ww2

From 1924 not from peace treaty as promise from allied if i remember right

 

[tomo pauk]

As always, you're right, Vincenzo
Rijeka was under control of many forces between 1918-24, newer under control of the Kingdom SHS (later renamed as Kingdom of Yugoslavia.)

 

[yulzari]

And who are the 'colonials'. As I recall the French conquered the English in 1066. To quote from Georges Clemenceau, doctor, journalist, politician and Prime Minister of France: "Angleterre; une colonie quis fait mal". England; A colony that went wrong.

For what it is worth; I think that war in the east in 1938 would have descended into a Balkan feeding frenzy from Bulgaria to Poland in the east (yes I know Poland and central europe are not in the Balkans.) While the west would have been a posturing stalemate where nobody wanted to re run the bloodbath of the Great War.

The French and British air forces would have the numbers to restrain the Germans over France and German tactical bomber commitments in the east would make western germany a fighter war. A sort of 1944 in 1938/9 where the Luftwaffe sought to protect Germany from (at this date light and poorly directed) allied bombing. The Italians would be most concerned to keep the Balkan madness away from their territory and to see what they could pick up along the way.

As far as aeroplanes are concerned. Most biplane fighters were similar in performance on all sides. Stressed skin monoplanes too few to alter the overall results. The bulk of the bombers were all similarly slow and vulnerable without escort and carried limited loads that would need low level bombing in daylight to have effect. The only wild card would have been the emerging stressed skin fast bombers. Try catching a Blenheim, or even a Battle with a Heinkel 51.

 

[buffnut453]

Yes, England went so very, very wrong! We're actually quite proud of that!

For your later comments, I believe Germany probably had an advantage - the Bf109 had been in service for some time and, by August 1938, the Bf109D made up roughly half of Germany's fighter force which has been listed as approx 650 total first-line fighters in late 1938. However, the D-model still had difficulties with wing strength, lack of armament etc.

I suspect Germany may have had a harder time had war broken out in 1938, indeed I suspect we'd have seen an extended "Phony War" period through, perhaps, the middle of 1939 as both the Allies and the Germans sought to strengthen forces and get ready for the big fight.

 

[stona]

And who are the 'colonials'. As I recall the French conquered the English in 1066.

Errr,the Normans were not French. Go one step back and you'll find that the Normans came from Scandinavia and were conquerors of the Frankish and Gallo-Roman peoples of what became the Duchy Normandy. The reason it was a Duchy and not a Kingdom is that it was a fiefdom of the French crown. William the Bastard,later William I of England, was a vassal of the French King (Philip I,lovely Greek name).
According to the Bayeux tapestry,which obviously gives a Norman version of events,all the trouble started because Harold Godwinesson (lovely Scandinavian name) had also sworn an oath making him in turn a vassal of William which he had reneged on.
The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England also had its cultural origins in Scandinavia.

Not entirely relevant to this thread but history is history. It is the mis-application of centuries old popular myths and tabloid history (Bush's use of the word "crusade" springs to mind) which can cause serious problems in the modern world.
Cheers
Steve

 

[yulzari]

Stona, I'll leave this one alone afterwards as too off topic.

Yes the Normans were ex-vikings, but by 1066 they had always married French women, spoke French, indeed were essentially culturally French.The giveaway is that French became the official language of the ruling classes and the law (mind you, their new Common Law was a close match to North African Muslim law as practiced in Norman Sicily.)

Had they been Scandinavian speakers and culturally Scandinavian then the English would have had little problem. After all Cnut and Harthacnut were both Danish kings of England and Harold 1st was half Danish. I doubt England would have had any real problem coping with yet another Scandinavian king but it was the Normans being French that changed England.

Personally I would rather that Harald Magnusson had won the Battle of Stamford Bridge then England could have remained allied to the Scandinavian world (speaking as a part East Anglian.)

Lastly let us remember England has not had an English monarch for nearly a thousand years (having been ruled by French, Welsh, Scots, Dutch and Germans) so raise a glass to the memory of the last English king of England, hailed by the Witangemot in 1066 after the death of Harold 1st. To Edgar 1st, Edgar Aetheling!