Actually I provided a list of facts, and received an editorial, including how good the Wellington strikes were in 1942.
I was referring to the many details about the operational history with the Wellingtons in the Med which were posted in some other recent discussions on this very forum. In fact, some of this was in one long thread which you yourself posted in quite a bit, so I thought you would remember it. It's quite clear to me from those operational details that Wellingtons were used successfully, as I noted, to sink ships and strike ports and logistics targets.
This is one post where I quoted from that source,
this post has more specific data including about Wellington ops.
Having already posted a lot of this data myself direct from the source (Ehler's Mediterranean Air War), and seen several other people post corroborating data with more detail in the same threads, I thought it would be a bit tiresome to go pull the book down from the shelf and re-post all this data just because you feel like a less detailed or 'in the weeds' comment (i.e. "Wellingtons could clearly perform that kind of mission") is an "editorial" or "opinion".
So now it's being claimed that I just talk with no basis in fact.
From my notes on this, it seems there were at least two Wellington torpedo bomber units active in the Med in 1942 -
38 Sqn RAF switched to ship hunting in March 1942, and
458 squadron RAAF went into ship hunting mode in September 1942. There was also
221 Squadron RAF (or were they Coastal Command?) which was operaitonal against Axis Maritime assets in the Med from January 1942 but I don't know if those planes were carrying torpedoes or not. There appear to be another 6 Squadrons of Wellingtons operating in the Tactical role, with
205 Group by the time of Second El Alamein. At least four more seem to have arrived in Theater by the time of Operation Husky in 1943.
Lots of reasons why, the different climate and the greater distances. Rain forests tend to have lots of rain clouds, deserts tend to have the opposite.
Your original comment was "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."
If that is indeed an insurmountable problem, then I guess the Swordfish is out. My assumption is that they could find a way to cope with this issue with some kind of coating or something.
Apart from once again providing opinion instead of weather references the South Pacific is the blue bits to the east of the Solomons and New Zealand, the proposed battlefield is around the South China Sea, lots more land, forests and different weather systems. The British are unlikely to start a drive north from the Solomons for a while.
I've been in the South Pacific area before, and I've been in Northern Europe, and so have many other people. I thought it was general knowledge. Vast horizon to horizon cloud cover is not common in that region, but the weather is very volatile. If there is a typhoon, it can be. Do I really need to go dig up meteorological data to prove this?
I was not suggesting operations in the Solomons, especially early. I was talking specifically about the Dutch East Indies as being a viable target from Australia.
Of course, only you are allowed to assume what will be good or bad.
I was basically suggesting that we (including myself) not make assumptions. Do you have data showing that the float plane Spitfire would be effective in that role?
There is a reason why I normally ignore your messages, confining myself to reading replies to them, you propose Wellington bombers with as little as 500 pounds of bombs will do lots of damage to Japanese installations etc., but the 4 engined types which would be carrying maybe 10 times the weight of bombs "I'm not sure what good the larger four engine bombers would have been against Japan". So why are all those airfields housing those high impact Wellingtons unable to take 4 engined types, or is it only the Wellington has the range to reach the proposed targets? Your assumptions become facts, while facts that do not fit become assumptions.
I find that your objections to my "messages" are often turgid and incomprehensible. For example I don't know what your objection was precisely to my comments about Wellingtons operating in the Med in 1942. Your posts are also typically very long. But I try to read them anyway because you sometimes have useful data, though sometimes the relevance of this data is a bit mysterious.
By end 1941 there were 168 Stirling, 168 Halifax, 18 Lancaster and 199 Manchester built, a peace time RAF is not going to expand anything like it did in 1940 and 1941, nor take the losses, the belief in the heavy bomber would be strong, to keep within peace time budgets the obvious thing is to wind down the twin engined bomber production as the 4 engined types appear. There is little doubt production would be lower across the board as would losses but not of the new 4 engined types in 1940/41 as they were largely filling pre war orders.
At the risk of being accused of writing another editorial, I will try to explain my thinking. I don't know how many four engined types would be available, but yes I suspect they would be difficult to operate from remote remote or jungle fields, and they (with the exception of missions like 617 RAF with Lancasters) don't seem to have been made to strike operational or tactical targets. I never heard of them carrying torpedoes, though I know they did drop some big bombs on German ships at dockside a few times. That said the USAAF and USN did operate B-17s and B-24s respectively in the Pacific so maybe they would have a role, but unlike those aircraft i see the British four engine heavies as being maybe a little too vulnerable for daytime operations.
Basically the four engine heavies were developed (if not originally designed) to burn down German cities at night. That is the mission they got pretty good at. What I was envisioning for the Wellington in the Pacific is basically the same role they played in the Mediterranean in 1942-1943. Which is more precisely targeted. I never claimed that this was the only possible interpretation. You however did assert categorically that the Wellington was not going to work in the Pacific.
Right, 14 squadrons by end of war with all that experience, the RAF had 545 Beauforts built in Britain by end 1941. The RAAF Catalina squadrons, 11 sqn in March 1941, 20 sqn in August 1941, 43 sqn in May 43, 42 sqn in June 1944. The RAAF received 18 Catalina February to October 1941, another 12 March to July 1942, it meant as of mid October 1942 the RAF had 17 PBY "Strength includes 3 from United States Navy, only one of which can be regarded as an operational aircraft." Early 1943 saw more deliveries so by end of April 1943 strength was up to 35 including the 3 USN ones. The RAAF Chiefs of Staff reports are full of detailed information. With increasing allied airpower and known Japanese losses the Catalinas could move from defensive patrols to offensive actions exploiting their range. A Britain versus Japan war has a long hanging flank into the Pacific, from Canada to the Gilbert Islands to the Solomons and New Guinea, with various neutral zones depending on the French and US attitudes. Then if the Dutch are at peace another big gap. Even without US involvement the trade routes through the Panama canal will be active and need protecting.
RAAF 11 squadron was in Port Moresby, pulled back to Cairns, Queensland November 1942, then to Rathmines New South Wales in July 1944. 20 squadron was also in Port Moresby, back to Bowen in May then Cairns in November 1942, went to Darwin in September 1944, 42 squadron was formed in Darwin, 43 squadron formed at Bowen, stayed on the Australian east coast until to Darwin in April 1944. Cairns is over 500 miles south of Port Moresby, Bowen over 700 miles, made it hard to undertake offensive sorties. What was possible in 1944/45 is different to what was possible in 1942.
Assuming there is some sort of warning, the RAF should have been able to deploy about 4 squadrons of Stirling, 4 of Halifax and say 10 of Beaufort end 1941, assuming the airfields existed. For what it is worth Malaya was largely used as advanced training for the Indian army, new drafts were being shipped in and then out to help expand the army strength in the Middle East.
This is a good example of some data, which seems interesting, but I don't know what the relevance is to the thread. I brought up the "Black Cat" PBY squadrons just to point out that this was similar to what Wellingtons were doing in the Med, and showed that night torpedo and / or low-level bombing attacks were successful in the Pacific.
