The irrefutable facts list,
By end 1941 all 3 RAF four engined bombers were in production, forget Wellingtons and the other twins, an at peace RAF would be phasing them out and would be worried about fabric covering in the tropics.
There were no SAAF Wellington squadrons until 26 squadron in May 1943, and then it was mark XI for GR work. Then came 28 Bomber squadron in July 1943. As of February 1943 the RAF in India held 47 Wellington Ic and 14 Wellington Ic torpedo bombers.
The RAF learnt a lot about how to do effective bomb damage from Luftwaffe raids. The one pre war trial on staked out aircraft showed how little damage was done.
The Arthur Harris Accuracy table, notes bombs within 3 miles of target in German cities (except Berlin) shows under 25% in early 1942, around 28% in April 1943, hitting 50% in June, staying at 50 to 60% until April 1944, reaching 88% in December. The accuracy problem was not solved in 1942.
What was possible in 1943 at much shorter distances with experience built up over 4 years is not the same as what was possible earlier. The US introduced Loran in 1942 firstly for ships, then for aircraft.
Spitfire V and IX float planes were trialled.
One of the early Dutch submarine successes was sinking a ship containing Japanese oil industry people and their equipment. Yes the Japanese resilience is lower, but then again they did not need the local refineries working well until they hit refinery capacity in Japan or tanker capacity, whichever is less. Sinking the ships would be a better solution than bombing the refineries.
The USSBS notes how resilient oil targets were, lots of the production losses were due to disrupted gas and water supplies, not equipment damage.
The reality is the amount of effective sabotage the allies would be able to do before occupation would make a bigger difference than bombing campaigns at long range, unless the bombing went on for enough time.
The Palembang refineries were about 50 miles inland, it was the area that had about 75% of Dutch East Indies production. Lutong is on the coast, as is Balikpapan. Palembang minimum monthly rainfall is around 3.3 inches in August, maximum December at 12.3 inches. Balikpapan range 5.6 inches in September, 12.9 inches in January, at around 103 inches of rain a year, versus Berlin at 11 inches of rain plus 5 inches of snow a year. Lots of rain means lots of clouds.
Japan's pre war crude oil output was around 7,271 barrels per day, Dutch East Indies 170,101, Brunei 19,444, finding the people to keep crude production going was the first task, Japan pre war was refining around 42,000 barrels of imported crude per day. Refineries in the Dutch East Indies and Borneo areas came to around 197,000 barrels per day. Palembang was back on line within 3 months, and worked up to more than pre war levels, it took until September 1942 for a limited restart of Balikpapan and another 4 months for Sungai Gerong (Palembang). The Lutong refinery in Borneo was rebuilt, taking 2 years. Some 7,000 Japanese oil workers moved into the area, to be replaced by the untrained and some slave labour, Japanese home production dropped 10%.
Japan ruled the force that captured the oil facility would control it. Refineries score: Army 3 Sumatra, 1 Borneo, 2 Java, plus oil fields, Navy 1 Balikpapan, oil: 85% Army, 15% Navy. And it was finders keepers until some sense prevailed, until then it was navy used its monopoly on transport to counter army monopoly on supply.
All air forces trained their navigators to a series of levels, the highest was for over water. Pre war the RAF "knew" that above 10,000 feet in Europe the stars were usually visible. Navigation errors distance wise tend to increase with time in flight, compass errors accumulate, clock drift, the slower you are going the more you need to worry about things like winds and so on. Good crews worked to make the navigation fixes as efficient as possible, starting with keeping the aircraft steady and helping the navigator. In May 1941 when the sighting reports came in for Bismarck, after around 6.5 hours in flight the Catalina was 25 miles out, Bismarck was around 80 miles out. During the night action U-556 reported Bismarck was 60 miles from where it said it was.
We are not talking about the Pacific, but the area around the South China Sea. The proposed battle zone is subject to Monsoons, with Malaysia being part of the boundary between systems
Mumbai, India from June to October
Bangkok, Thailand from April/May to October/November
Kelantan, Malaysia from October to March
Darwin, Australia from October to April
Typhoon/Cyclone season in Hong Kong is April to October, Australia November to April.
Rain forests spend their time pumping water into the atmosphere, which tends to return as afternoon rain if the forests are big enough. The tropical ocean has lots of evaporation. Tropical islands therefore have a tendency to be marked by clouds, at least the ones that have enough elevation, but climate varies, you only have to look at the Galapagos to see that.
No.
No. Wellington were certainly being used on night raids.
Lots of freight moved along the Danube, including oil for Germany, in any case consider the counter, the further away you are the more self sufficient you need to be when it comes to repairs and replacements, otherwise you lose a lot of production while waiting The European Oil Industry was bigger, it had more resources, starting with Romania itself.
What was the lasting damage to Darwin? Not the loss of aircraft but the airfields knocked out for long periods of time. Similar for the other targets. The post war research showed bombing had to be sustained and usually caused repairable damage.
In peace time, much easier to get lost, similar in wartime.
The reality is the supply and warning systems in the Pacific generally meant aircraft had little chance of en route encounters which is irrelevant to the navigation problems of knowing where the aircraft was. It does mean the aircraft can stay at economic cruise giving a greater range. Mixing up the chance of being attacked and figuring out where you are is wrong.
Which weather site are you using to determine relative cloud densities at different altitudes at the locations? Note the rainfall figures.
What does fairly quickly translate to, and effective for that matter? Over water navigation is actually harder, so say all the experts.
A remarkable way to have one off strikes being turned into sustained campaigns, the Midway ship was damaged. Can you provide a summary, numbers etc, say from Air War Pacific from Hammel? The USSBS notes Japanese merchant ship losses to mines were 5 to May 1942, then 1 in September and another in November 1943. Navy land based air sank 18 ships August 1942 to February 1943, then 1 in May then 1 in December. In 1942 the PBY was in short supply and needed for a lot of defensive patrol work. In this what if the Japanese can route merchant ships via the east coast of the Philippines to minimse exposure. When was Rabaul or at least the port and airfields there totally destroyed, it was the number one target for a long time, by Pacific standards lots of bombs dropped.
No to SAAF.
No, more so if it is a 500 pound bomb load.
215 squadron arrived in India in April 1942.
When it comes to building up forces in Australia, no Wellingtons made it, the distance is 930 miles Darwin to Alice Springs rail head, Darwin officially had 944 people, Northern Territory 4,591 people. Start with how good that road was before even thinking about how much capacity the rail link would have. Bases in Northern Australia meant "in fact most materiel needed to repair damaged … facilities of any kind would have to be brought in by ship."
The Wellington raids are a non starter.
