Did the RAF have designs for a long range escort fighter?

buffnut453 · Feb 14, 2019

With all due respect to Mr Grayling, his nice clean distinction between military and civilian targets gets awfully blurred the closer one gets to Clausewitz's concept of Total War. Arguably (depending on the nation), WW2 was the closest we've ever come to Total War, where the entire resources of nation states are pitted virtually exclusively towards the prosecution of the war. What, then, the role of civilians under those circumstances? Those civilians who make munitions, grow food that feeds soldiers, take on jobs so healthy, military-age men can be conscripted etc etc?

Frankly, t's easy to think of war purely from the post-WW2 perspective...in other words, a period where we in the west haven't even come close to Total War. Warfare has become separated from the civilian experience, except for that (relatively small) proportion of the population directly impacted because they have serving relatives. It's easy to make the case that military and civilian targets must, of need, be treated differently when we're not in a Total War, in other words when we aren't fighting to preserve our way of life. However, that only goes for the countries who aren't fighting for survival. Take North Vietnam, for example. Its war against America absolutely was a fight for national survival. Conversely, Vietnam was not a strategic schwerpunkt for America. Total War can exist in the modern world but it's all down to your perspective.

Sadly, WW2 was much, MUCH closer to Total War for all major nations involved than any war before or since (WW1 could claim an exception to this statement). If the entire resources of the nation are being put towards prosecution of the war, it could be readily argued that every aspect of the nation state then becomes a viable target...and that includes the civilian population.

Shortround6 · Feb 14, 2019

Well, the moral distinction between killing a factory or shipyard worker when he is on the job (clocked in) and when he is home (clocked out?) seems to be a rather fine one.

Once factories, shipyards, railroads and means of transportation became "legitimate" targets then the housing for the workers and indeed the workers themselves seems to be a very small step indeed. Killing is killing wither it is done on avenue A on the job or on avenue E when off shift.

stona · Feb 14, 2019

You have to remember that Grayling is a philosopher, not a historian. He examines and makes moral arguments for and against the sort of strategic bombing carried out during WW2. His attempts to put it into a historical context, or understand the competing doctrines of air power that led to it are, frankly, rather weak.
Cheers
Steve

Peter Gunn · Feb 15, 2019

I started to watch a series on Amazon Prime called "Science and the Swastika", I got through 2/3rds of the first episode and had to stop because I was totally d i s g u s t e d.*
I literally had to watch two Band of Brothers episodes to put things on an even keel.

WWII was fought against one of, if not THE most immoral evil empire this planet has ever seen. Losing to the Nazi's was (and still is) unthinkable, the darkness that would have descended over humankind is too horrible to think about.

To me, everything in Nazi Germany was fair game, maybe I'm just a cold hearted bastard, but that country could NOT be allowed to succeed with the regime it had.

I'm certain there were good Germans who did not go along with the Nazi philosophy and policies, for those I feel genuinely sorry as they were caught in a maelstrom not of their making or desire.

I try to keep an open mind, but in Band of Brothers, one of the characters says, "Been in Germany x months, met a lot of Germans, still not one Nazi".

My mothers brother was on the ground at the business end of the Allied advance through Europe. I got virtually no war stories from him ever, except to echo that line from Band of Brothers. He suspected there were far more volk that were Nazi's than were willing to admit.

Not trying to start a political debate or even whether the average German was a Nazi. But to not go after Hitler's Germany with EVERY means imaginable is utter poppycock. That regime needed to be put down and HARD, so Sons of Bitch's like that would never get a second chance.

Sorry for the rant, no offense to anyone intended.

* Stupid editor keeps changing the word d i s g u s t e d to a smilie.

Ascent · Feb 15, 2019

The trouble I have with that argument though is what we knew when the fighting was going on and what we discovered as the war was drawing to a close. With hindsight it obvious what kind of state Nazi Germany was but during the conflict itself, although a little was known, the full extent of what the state was doing was hidden.

Saying all out, anything goes to defeat such a state is applying a degree of hindsight.

buffnut453 · Feb 15, 2019

stona said:
You have to remember that Grayling is a philosopher, not a historian. He examines and makes moral arguments for and against the sort of strategic bombing carried out during WW2. His attempts to put it into a historical context, or understand the competing doctrines of air power that led to it are, frankly, rather weak.
Cheers
Steve

Yeah, I know. And my post was in no way a dig at you, Steve. I just get frustrated by this rather one-sided evaluation of the situation. What was the UK supposed to do in 1938-1940...let Herr Hitler do whatever he wanted? Were we supposed to go to war with one arm (or both arms) tied behind our backs against one of the most evil and repressive regimes in history? Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. The trick is not losing one's own moral compass while accepting that nasty, perhaps sometimes hideous, deeds must be perpetrated to squash a tyrant.

stona · Feb 15, 2019

buffnut453 said:
Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. The trick is not losing one's own moral compass while accepting that nasty, perhaps sometimes hideous, deeds must be perpetrated to squash a tyrant.

If someone takes an almighty dump in your living room you are bound to get your hands dirty clearing up the mess

To be fair to Grayling he does acknowledge this, though in more erudite words.

"First, it is unquestionably true that if Allied bombing in the Second World War was in whole or part morally wrong, it is nowhere near equivalent in scale of moral atrocity to the Holocaust of European Jewry, or the death and destruction all over the world for which Nazi and Japanese aggression was collectively responsible: a total of some twenty-five million dead, according to responsible estimates. Allied bombing in which German and Japanese civilian populations were deliberately targeted claimed the lives of about 800,000 civilian women, children and men. The bombing of the aggressor Axis states was aimed at weakening their ability and will to make war; the murder of six million Jews was an act of racist genocide. There are very big differences here....nothing in this book should be taken as any form of revisionist apology for Nazism and its frightful atrocities, or Japanese militarism and its aggressions, even if the conclusion is that German and Japanese civilians suffered wrongs."

Cheers

Steve

Peter Gunn · Feb 15, 2019

I admit, my tirade has a fair bit of hindsight in it, but I think many leaders at the time had an inkling of what Hitler was up to. And they knew it was pretty evil.

KiwiBiggles · Feb 15, 2019

Ascent said:
The trouble I have with that argument though is what we knew when the fighting was going on and what we discovered as the war was drawing to a close. With hindsight it obvious what kind of state Nazi Germany was but during the conflict itself, although a little was known, the full extent of what the state was doing was hidden.

Saying all out, anything goes to defeat such a state is applying a degree of hindsight.

No retrospectroscope is required.

Churchill speaking before Battle of Britain:

What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over ... the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science.

Not much room for doubt there.

Churchill was fully aware of what Germany had become, and that the only moral value that mattered was stopping it. Suggesting that reference to Germany's crimes was an ex post facto rationalisation for the Allies' actions during the war is insulting to the people who stood up to evil when they saw it.

For Britain and the Commonwealth, WWII was a moral crusade right from the start. There was never any possibility that Britain would emerge from the war better off than they were at the start, but they fought it anyway, because Germany had to be stopped, by any means necessary.

buffnut453 · Feb 15, 2019

Ascent said:
The trouble I have with that argument though is what we knew when the fighting was going on and what we discovered as the war was drawing to a close. With hindsight it obvious what kind of state Nazi Germany was but during the conflict itself, although a little was known, the full extent of what the state was doing was hidden.

Saying all out, anything goes to defeat such a state is applying a degree of hindsight.

Not really. The number of Jewish evacuees from Germany in the late 1930s gave some indication of the state of things at that time. Resistance movements would have reported the rounding up of Jews in occupied countries. Plus, according to this article, the Allies knew as early as December 1942 that over 2 million Jews had been murdered.

All that being said, the extent of German horrors still isn't the prime driver behind the point I'm making, which is that Britain perceived itself to be in a fight for its very survival. Intelligence reporting spoke of how quickly Germany had re-armed prior to hostilities, and also showed the force imbalance during the early stages of the war...and imbalance that was exacerbated by tactics against which the Allies had little answer (at least in 1940). Then there's the experience of Czechoslovakia and Poland.

Bottom line is that, while British leaders may not have known EVERYTHING that was going on under Nazi rule, they probably knew enough to make a pretty accurate assessment.

buffnut453 · Feb 15, 2019

stona said:
If someone takes an almighty dump in your living room you are bound to get your hands dirty clearing up the mess

To be fair to Grayling he does acknowledge this, though in more erudite words.

"First, it is unquestionably true that if Allied bombing in the Second World War was in whole or part morally wrong, it is nowhere near equivalent in scale of moral atrocity to the Holocaust of European Jewry, or the death and destruction all over the world for which Nazi and Japanese aggression was collectively responsible: a total of some twenty-five million dead, according to responsible estimates. Allied bombing in which German and Japanese civilian populations were deliberately targeted claimed the lives of about 800,000 civilian women, children and men. The bombing of the aggressor Axis states was aimed at weakening their ability and will to make war; the murder of six million Jews was an act of racist genocide. There are very big differences here....nothing in this book should be taken as any form of revisionist apology for Nazism and its frightful atrocities, or Japanese militarism and its aggressions, even if the conclusion is that German and Japanese civilians suffered wrongs."

Cheers

Steve

Steve...I entirely agree with your first point.

The quote from Grayling is the classic weasel-wording of an academic who's only too willing to point the finger about how bad humanity is but won't/can't offer any useful ways to resolve complex problems involving multiple players with competing objectives. It's very easy to sit on the sidelines and criticize (with the benefit of hindsight, no less) those who are making decisions and doing the job.

I'm pretty sure the men of Bomber Command didn't like the idea of bombing mothers and small children but, equally, it was Hitler who militarized the youth and who put rifles in the hands of 8 year-old boys in a last vain attempt to maintain power. I'd have a lot more respect for Mr Grayling if he offered alternatives for how the war could have been successfully prosecuted without the extensive efforts to reduce Germany's industrial-military complex...ah, but he's not a historian so he can't do that, can he?

Sorry...letting my frustration vent out here. I think I'll leave this subject for a while so I can cool down.

pbehn · Feb 15, 2019

buffnut453 said:
Bottom line is that, while British leaders may not have known EVERYTHING that was going on under Nazi rule, they probably knew enough to make a pretty accurate assessment.

The British people knew or at least strongly suspected, there may be moral differences between a bombing raid targeted on a dock setting urban areas alight and a gas chamber, the result is the same. To my uncle it was a simple choice, them or us, the only rational choice is "them" that's what my uncle said and did and a milder, softer tempered more reasonable man you couldn't wish to meet.

Zipper730 · Feb 16, 2019

Shortround6 said:
Actually on the P-51Ds they preferred to keep 25-35 gallons in the rear tank.

Why would you do that?

The British wired the fuel fillers shut in peace time and you needed written orders from the squadron commander to unseal the tank/s and fill them.

I thought the British Mustangs didn't have a center-tank?

Reluctant Poster said:
You beat me to the punch. Actually the US was far worse. They had observed over 2 years of war which quite clearly showed that unescorted bombers were siting ducks and yet they convinced themselves that their aircraft and tactics were superior and they that would succeed where everyone else had failed.

Their belief seemed to be driven by the fact that they could fly higher and were better defended (more defensive armament, and higher caliber).

The B-17's did better than I'd have expected (I'd have figured they'd have gotten skewered operating alone -- when I was younger I'd have thought the guns were simply a last line of defense when the fighters failed to take out attackers).

And of course we should never forget the YB-40 escort "fighter" which was an idea that never should have seen the light of day.

That idea was dumb -- they had however pursued that idea for a ridiculous period of time: Early on they thought fighters with a rear-gunner would provide a flying gunship effect, with the agility of a fighter.

Then they just thought of having bombers with no bombs and more firepower to simply hose down more enemy fighters, and then from there they developed the YFM-1. I'm amazed the P-30 didn't remove their faith in that idea...

buffnut453 said:
I would agree with many of your sentiments. The visceral animosity within the USAAF between the "bomber boys" and anyone taking an interest in pursuit caused no end of problems, including the loss of some quality senior leaders (everyone knows about Chennault but there were others).

Yeah, the bomber boys got a lock on things and then they made sure that anybody who didn't drink the kool-aid didn't get promoted or got bounced out on his ass.

As a result it meant that the people who had the ability to develop effective tactics for bomber escort, and specifications for practical escorts would never be able to do so... until bombers started getting cut-apart left and right.

It could be argued that the internal squabbles had a significant impact on fighter aircraft development, hence in 1941 the USAAF's most modern fighter was the P-40C which couldn't even get close to the altitudes that B-17s could fly at...hence self-reinforcing the pre-war view that "the bomber will always get through".

That's not entirely true, there were both fighter and bomber-guys who are big proponents of high-altitude capability.

The problem was that the USAAF had little interest in twin-stage superchargers, and focused almost totally on turbochargers. They did work well in producing high critical-altitudes, but they can be kind of bulky compared to superchargers and, as a result, they wouldn't always fit properly in the aircraft.

Examples I can readily recall would be

Y1P-37: What the P-40 was actually intended to be: A P-36 with a V-1710 and turbocharger. Unfortunately the radiator and intercooler configuration produced an aircraft with absurd proportions, and to avoid excessive length, the cockpit had to be shoved back along the fuselage. Sitting on the ground, there was virtually no forward visibility, and the wings blanked anything the nose failed to succeed in doing. I know many tail-draggers had visibility that let a bit to be desired, but this was too much. The P-40 was built instead with a conservative set-up as it could be guaranteed with what existed already.
XP-39: Intended with a turbocharger like the P-38, but there wasn't enough room for an effective turbocharger installation combined with the radiators and intercoolers (as an intellectual exercise, me and P-39 Expert pretty much thought up nearly every possible way to shoe-horn such a configuration in and we came up without any realistic set-up). It instead used a single-stage supercharger and, while the P-63 would ultimately use a practical twin-stage supercharger, the intercooler design hadn't been worked out, so it simply made use of a whole lot of ADI.

The P-38 and P-47s were successful installations, though both had their own problems -- but they could stuff the desired equipment inside them.

Zipper730 · Feb 16, 2019

Buffnut453 said:
I just get frustrated by this rather one-sided evaluation of the situation.

Uh, I never meant what I said as being some kind of one sided evaluation. In fact, it was my opinion that this policy (bombing cities and civilians) was a policy that was practiced by seemingly all sides in WW2. This policy started, arguably, before WWI (the Germans planned to use Zeppelins for this in 1911 from what I remember hearing), and continued through the interwar period, gaining additional supporters and proponents (Mitchell and Douhet), there were cases of this being carried out during the interwar period

UK
- Used poison gas on a village
- Dropped bombs, poison gas, and incendiaries on colonies
Japan
- Among possibly others, Chongqing was attacked as early as 1938 (though some raids would continue past 1939-1941)
Italy
- Bombed villages
- Dropped poison gas on villages and over towns
Germany
- Guernica & Madrid

With all due respect to Mr Grayling, his nice clean distinction between military and civilian targets gets awfully blurred the closer one gets to Clausewitz's concept of Total War. Arguably (depending on the nation), WW2 was the closest we've ever come to Total War

When you reach the point of Total War, everything becomes an acceptable target, and all practical methods can be used (by practical I mean the only restraint are things that would destroy you too -- though some don't even draw that line).

Of course, my position is that this desire traced from ideas that took place long before WW2, and what happened in WW2 was basically the logical result of these ideas.

stona · Feb 16, 2019

If you have any evidence that the British used poison gas anywhere, including the colonies, after WW1 a lot of people would love to see it.

Diphenylchloroarsine was probably used against the Russians in 1919.

There are allegations about use in Iraq in 1920, but little hard evidence to support them.

Such agents were certainly not used in what was then India after WW1, there use being expressly forbidden.

Cheers

Steve

Zipper730 · Feb 16, 2019

stona said:
If you have any evidence that the British used poison gas anywhere, including the colonies, after WW1 a lot of people would love to see it

. . . .

There are allegations about use in Iraq in 1920, but little hard evidence to support them.

Didn't Churchill push extensively for the use of poison gas in the middle-east? There's this article (Comment: Gas, chemicals, bombs: Britain has used them all before in Iraq) which I'm not terribly fond of because it has that classic "blame the west for every iniquity in the world" quality about it -- that said -- if it's accurate.

Diphenylchloroarsine was probably used against the Russians in 1919.

That I can believe...

Greyman · Feb 16, 2019

It was tear gas. Of course the article fails to mention it.

stona · Feb 16, 2019

What is true from that article is:

"An uprising of more than 100,000 armed tribesmen against the British occupation swept through Iraq in the summer of 1920. In went the RAF. It flew missions totalling 4,008 hours, dropped 97 tons of bombs and fired 183,861 rounds for the loss of nine men killed, seven wounded and 11 aircraft destroyed behind rebel lines."

While it is true that Churchill advocated the use of poison gas against what he called 'uncivilised' enemies, even the article, despite the title, does not actually suggest it was used in Iraq at this time. It can't, because there is no evidence that it was, much as the author of the article might wish it.

Cheers

Steve

Zipper730 · Feb 16, 2019

Greyman said:
It was tear gas. Of course the article fails to mention it.

So, my hunch was right that it was kind of a "blame the west for all ills" kind of thing. Okay, I'm glad that's sorted out.

It still has to be noted that the other descriptions of events involving attacks on populations during the interwar period appear valid, regardless: It's merely indicative of the doctrine of the times, one that was adopted and accepted by a number of nations that seemed to be playing out of the same text-book.

Greyman · Feb 16, 2019

Pulling on this thread a bit and poking around wiki ...

Alleged British use of chemical weapons in Mesopotamia in 1920 - Wikipedia
"It has been alleged that the British used chemical weapons in Mesopotamia in 1920, during the Iraqi revolt ... However no tear gas and no poison gas was actually used in 1920-22."

Did the RAF have designs for a long range escort fighter?

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