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There was a prominent school thinking in Britain after the experiences of the first war that hoped the necessity for the presence of any British service personnel on continental Europe might be avoided in future conflicts. Air operations would be launched from the UK and the RN, rather obviously, would do its bit, blockading etc from the sea as it had done for over a hundred years.
Cheers
Steve
I quail at the issue of a variety of corks given to the navigator to plug any shot holes in the tank. Does that qualify as a self sealing tank?
Any bomber is a strategic bomber if it could attack the factories that allow a war to be fought. But since those targets often have multiple layers of defenses, and are at ranges that exceed short or medium, the end result is an airframe that can carry an adequate fuel supply, defenses active and passive, and a payload that makes the potential mission worthy.
End result is a 4 engined airframe.
I wouldn't say that a 4 engined airframe is necessarily required. Take a bridge, for example. If it is blown up to prevent troop movements and resupply then, yes, it is tactical bombing. But if bombing the bridge restricts or stops flow of raw materials and supplies to factories then it is strategic bombing. And a bridge could be taken out by a fighter-bomber or light bomber, probably more efficiently than could a 4 engined heavy. The same can be said of rail roads and water ways. Reducing the efficiency of those can have an effect on production too.