Exactly right. hence my comment about what is Handley Page and Bristol not building before the war, when the outcomes that we know today could not have possibly been known in 1939 or earlier. far too much retrospectoscope gazing.
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creating a 100 or more transports in late 1941 means ordering them in 1939 or so.
There's no truth to the statement made that the RAF couldn't hit German targets at night. It was their ability to hit inland industrial targets that was lacking and solved by the use of pathfinders and area bombing.
The last 30 Bristol Bombays were never built. Let's assume we have them available in Malaya. How many troops could they resupply? 4000? So we'd have about 10% of the ideal force size.
In late 1940 and early 1941 the RAF had trouble finding the right German cities. Better navigation came later. One Reason the first 1000 bomber raid was done on Cologne was that it was within range of GEE as it existed in the spring of 1942. Cologne is about 30 miles from the Belgian/Dutch border.
Capabilities changed considerably over the course of the war.
If the the British had been able to hit German targets at night in 1940/41 then the Butt report
Butt Report - Wikipedia
is either disinformation or a myth.
The chances of the British setting up a GEE system in Burma when they were struggling to build enough units for bomber command in England in late 1941/early 1942 are about zero.
Our troops on the ground would guide our transports in.
The Bristol Bombay's were actually built by Shorts and Harland in Belfast. Bristol being too busy building Blenheims. However Shorts replaced the Bombay production with Handley Page Herefords (Hampdens with Napair Dagger engines) who's major contribution to the war effort was providing airframes that could be converted back to Hampdens with a suitable supply of Pegasus engines
Increased Bombay production certainly looks possible given 20/20 hindsight.
Given the RAFs lack of transport ability however and the general tendency to shift planes progressively eastward Singapore is lucky they didn't wind up with the Vickers Valentia for transports.
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This rather depends on the situation. Lighting up the airfield to land transports for resupply because you are surrounded and land supply is cut off generally means the surrounding enemy can see the airfield and bring it under fire. Their fighters may not get you but the mortar/artillery fire will.
The forward troops will not have radar to spot the incoming transports, they can only hear them. And if the British troops can hear them the Japanese troops can hear them. trying to direct the transports to the proper area to begin landing before lighting up the field seems to be rather iffy and if the planes are 5-15 miles off what then?
This scheme relies too much on a command/control system that was nonexistent in Burma and the Malaysia in Dec 1941/Jan 1942. If such a command and control system had existed one would assume that the British forces would have done better than they did.
Go back and read the wiki article on the Butt's report.
"Postwar studies confirmed Butt's assessment, showing that 49% of Bomber Command bombs dropped between May 1940 and May 1941 fell in open country.[5] As Butt did not include those aircraft that did not bomb because of equipment failure, enemy action, weather or which failed to find the target, only about 5% of bombers setting out bombed within 5 mi (8.0 km) of the target."
Your version of the RAFs navigation and bombing accuracy seems to be at odds with their own studies/reports.
a few bombing success stories out of many failures is a pretty thin thread to hang the airborne resupply of a number of widely separated units on.
"Valentias were used for night bombing operations over the Western Desert in 1940[1] and remained in service with the Iraq and Persia Communications Flight until 1944.[1] The South African Air Force pressed a Valentia into service as a bomber in the East African Campaign in 1940–41"I don't know whether to laugh or cry.
I really can't help but think that our government was dangerously fixated on bombing to the detriment of the army. After 400 to 500 miles of retreating the Soviet Army counter attacked at Smolensk. We simply surrendered."Valentias were used for night bombing operations over the Western Desert in 1940[1] and remained in service with the Iraq and Persia Communications Flight until 1944.[1] The South African Air Force pressed a Valentia into service as a bomber in the East African Campaign in 1940–41"
There's no truth to the statement made that the RAF couldn't hit German targets at night. It was their ability to hit inland industrial targets that was lacking and solved by the use of pathfinders and area bombing.
really can't help but think that our government was dangerously fixated on bombing to the detriment of the army
Don't forget the Navy and the whole Coastal Command/anti sub fiasco of the first few years of the war.
It wasn't the government so much as the high command in the RAF that was trying to prove to the government that the RAF was fully the equal (in not superior) to the Army and Navy and deserved the bigger part of the budget/resources.
The Germans had 5000 Ju 52's
the USSR, 5000 Li-2's
to further the last post, Russia had a really crappy rail network, at least as far as number of rail lines per unit of land mass. The Road network was pretty dismal and may not even deserve the title road network (at least during WW II) Russian infrastructure was such that they made wide use of hydrofoils and air cushion river ferries in the 1960s and 70s to make use of the rivers when they were not frozen. With vast distances and often not a lot between major cities air travel/transport made more sense than in some other countries.