Would the RAF had been better off building more transport aircraft than bombers in 1940/41?

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Kevin J

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May 11, 2018
Portmeirion

I've been following the thread on whether or not the Stirling was a good or bad aircraft and it struck me that the night bombing raids on German industrial areas were ineffective in 1940/41. What if we had instead invested in transport aircraft so that the British Imperial Army could have been more easily resupplied in the field. For instance, in Malaya, it was retreat after retreat, as each unit was in danger of envelopment. In Burma, our troops were told to stand firm, and were resupplied from the air. The British Imperial Army successfully defeated the Japanese in Burma in 1944/45. So I'm going to nominate the Short Stirling for the potential role of successfully resupplying the British Imperial Army in the field in Malaya, so no retreats, no loss of Singapore. In other words for use in the reverse of its original roles, so re-supply, troop transport and last of all bomber. What are your ideas? Anyone care to nominate any other aircraft we could have used, but not only in Malaya, but Burma, North Africa, Crete and Greece.
British Production of Aircraft By Year During The Second World War
US Warplanes
Lisunov Li-2 - Wikipedia
Short Stirling Variants
 
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The Sterling has a major problem as a transport. It is the same one that hurt it as a bomber. It is a very high drag airplane compared to the payload it is hauling.
This means it sucked up a lot of fuel for payload over range, one reason it wasn't used in coastal command or anti-submarine work?
It was used as a Paratroop plane but mainly because it was there and they didn't have anything else.

The British had two transports that would have worked, they just didn't have many of them as they concentrated on combat aircraft.
The Bristol Bombay

and Handley Page Harrow


That is they would have worked as aircraft hauling cargo IF the IJA fighters left them them alone, IF the British staff work was up to coordinating the right supplies to go to the right units, IF there were really enough supplies for this type of operation to begin with and IF somebody/s had foreseen the situation and gotten several squadrons of transports (and their ground crew) to Singapore in time.
That is a lot of IFs and perhaps there were sufficient supplies (including av-gas) to make this work, the others I am not so sure of.

These two planes are not as good as the DC-3 but are actually much better than the Ju-52.
 

In order for those transport aircraft to complete their mission successfully, you'd need local air superiority. That's something the defenders of Malaya and Singapore were singularly incapable of achieving. You'd also have to go back in time and alter the mindset of many Army unit commanders in Malaya who failed to train adequately before the fighting commenced. The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were an exception, and the Australian ambush at Muar showed what could be achieved with well-planned operations to blunt the Japanese offensive. However, most of the rest showed little imagination. It didn't help that a large proportion of the forces were poorly trained and equipped. Not only had many Indian soldiers never seen a tank, they had to face those tanks without any weapons that could penetrate the armour.

Bottom line is that I very much doubt whether the Stirling alone would have made any appreciable change to the outcome of the Malayan Campaign.
 
There is simply no way that diverting even the entire production of Stirlings into transports could have made a difference.

It is important to understand just how few transport aircraft the RAF had, and how obsolescent or obsolete most of them were.

On July 31st 1941 the Prime Minister asked the Secretary of State for Air to produce a document to discuss the RAF's strength in transport aircraft over the next two to three months to address exactly the problem the original question addresses. The result made for sombre reading:

Home Based: 24 Squadron, one DH 84, one DH 86 B, nine DH 98 As, five Flamingos and two Lockheed Electras.
271 Squadron, fifteen Harrows and two DH 91 Albatrosses.
Total: Thirty five aircraft. In addition some paratroop Whitleys and some impressed civilian aircraft were available.

North Africa and Middle East: 117 Squadron, four ex Italian Savoia Marchetti SM 79s, three DC-2s and seven Bombays.
216 Squadron, fourteen Bombays.
267 Squadron, one Anson, one Caudron Simoun, two Hudsons, one Lockheed 14, two Electras, seventeen Lodestars (of which two were to be passed to the Free French)
Total: Fifty two aircraft.


India: 31 Squadron, twelve DC-2s, twelve Valentinas, six of each being temporarily in Iraq.
Total: 24 aircraft.

Far East: Nil

On the vital Takoradi-Egypt supply line a motley group of transports operated. four Lockheed 14s, two Lockheed 10as, six Lodestars, a South African Ju 52, nine DH 86s. Six Ex Sabena Ju 52s also helped.

Stirlings in 1941 were operating in low numbers, typically single figures on a given operation. Over a year later, in September 1942, Bomber Command had just 116 Stirlings operational.
It was not the answer to the transport problem.

Cheers

Steve
 

So you're telling me that we had 111 transport aircraft globally? Sounds like a pretty big problem to me. No wonder we had to 'carry on' retreating. So an extra 13 Stirlings in 1940 and 163 in 1941 would have more that doubled our transport capacity.
Junkers Ju 52 - Wikipedia
Just looked up the Ju 52, 4845. So everyone other than ourselves had figured out that transports are useful. That sounds like a big problem which was identified a full six months before the disaster at Singapore.
 
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I'm telling you what the Secretary of State for Air told the Prime Minister.

It was hoped that the transport problem would be ameliorated by the arrival of US aircraft, particularly 347 'Dakotas', but then Pearl Harbour happened and the Americans decided that they needed them.

The British did not supply by air. Unlike the Germans, who were a continental power, the British depended on the sea. If a large number of men and a lot of materiel needed to go somewhere they went by sea.

It wasn't until August 1941 that a decision was taken to form ten heavy and medium transport squadrons to carry 5,000 fighting men and their basic equipment. Every time the notion of converting bombers was raised Bomber Command blocked it. In November Bomber Command did agree to give up some Stirlings as paratroop transport, but in the end they were rejected due to paratroop exit problems (which were later solved).

None of this was realised and another plan a year later called for even more aircraft. Again there was big talk about squadrons of Yorks, Albermarles and Dakotas, but the reality was that in India, in August 1943, there was one squadron operating thirteen DC-2s, eight DC-3s, a Lodestar and five Valentias. There were civilian aircraft available too, four Stinson Tri-motors, nine single engine Wacos, two single engine Beech D-17s a Beech 18twin and a Percival Gull.

Allied transport needs were met to a great extent by the USAAF.

The reason the Stirling became a glider tug was that neither the Lockheed Lodestar, nor Dakota, nor any other British type excluding front line Bomber Command aircraft could tow a loaded Horsa. The Stirling was cleared to do so (or tow three Hotspurs) on 29th January 1942. Towing equipment was fitted on the production line from 31st March 1942. Once again, use of the Stirling as a transport had been deemed secondary to another need, to operate with Britain's new airborne forces, which also happened to be a pet project of the Prime Minister.

Cheers

Steve
 
There may have been more Harrows and Bombays sitting in depot, but they only built 50 Bombays and 100 Harrows (which at one time equipped 5 bomber squadrons) so the numbers in service may not match the number really available ( if you could conjure up enough ground crew for several squadrons). Then you have the problem of how serviceable some of those ex bombers are. granted they may have only been used for training but how many hours were left on the engines and other equipment?
 
It is difficult to over emphasise just how little consideration was given by the Air Ministry to transport aircraft before the war. After the 1936 bomber requirements were issued (B.12/36 and P.13/36) the Air Staff decided that their use as transports should be considered, but acknowledged that this might not be possible, and proposed a provisional allocation of funds to meet this eventuality.
It was only when the Experimental Aircraft Programme for 1937 was discussed that a decision was taken that at least one of the bombers must double as a transport, but by then it was a bit late for those being developed to the 1936 specifications.
By dint of design and the fitting of the various internal equipment that were required for a bomber this was always going to be difficult.

Regarding a Stirling transport, the idea was considered by a committee to decide the future role of the type in July 1943. Three versions were proposed. The Stirling 'A', a conversion of existing Mk IIIs into transports; the Stirling 'B', or Mk IV, a fully redesigned Mk III with all turrets deleted, intended as a glider tug or paratroop carrier; The Stirling 'C' or Mk V with a fully redesigned fuselage for passenger and freight work and a large freight door aft, it would become Shorts post war civil aircraft.

They were never operated in numbers overseas. They were not easy aircraft to operate and maintain, and many overseas airstrips were far too small for them anyway.

Cheers

Steve
 
Okay, so both the Ju 52/3m and Li-2 are bomber transports with the emphasis on transport. We have the Bombay and the Harrow. Pre-war we have four twin engine bombers: the Blenheim, Hampden, Wellington and Whitley of which the first and the last were derived from transports. Potentially, we could have built the first and the last as transports to rival the Lockheed Electra, its derivatives, and the DC 2/3. As for our four engine bombers, perhaps a Stirling bomber / transport.
 

well, sort of..........
The Ju-52/3m started as this in 1931

One 600hp or so V-12 engine, Note the propeller, about 7 built (?) and rather underpowered. Changed to the 3 radial engines which did grow in power over the years.
Germans used it as a bomber as it was available (in production).
The Li-2 was a licensed DC-3 with over 1000 modifications to metrify it. This includes different wing and fuselage skin thickness as the original sheet aluminium was not available in a metric size. The Russian may have used a few to drop bombs but it was hardly a bomber.

The Blenheim was developed from a "transport"

That seated 8 people. It was an executive transport.

The Whitley was developed from the AS. 23

which competed for the same contracts/specification as the Bristol Bombay and the HP Harrow, it lost.
With a much skinner fuselage it was turned into the Whitley bomber. It also needed new engines. Before and in the early months of WW II any old Whiteleys with the Armstrong Siddeley radials were banned from over water flights.
The Bristol 142 might have rivaled the Lockheed 10.
The only way the AS 23 was going to catch a DC 3 was with a rocket (or more than one) strapped to it.
 

Should that have been DH 89A, as in the Dragon Rapide?

The DH 98 being, of course, the Mosquito.
 
I think the UK would have been better off building the bomber aircraft, but using more of them to patrol and hunt U Boats in the Bay of Biscay, versus the Atlantic Gap or bombing the mainland.

Also, I have read, ( I can't remember the source) that the US provided the transport needs of the UK with C-47, to focus UK production on bombers and fighters, that way post war, the US would be in a better position to dominate the civilian air market.
 
The Brabazon is one of my favorites. But it was an aircraft designed with everyone's inputs except those of the user.
 
Kevin J said:
Okay, so both the Ju 52/3m and Li-2 are bomber transports with the emphasis on transport.
Click to expand...
Like the Ju52, the Li-2 started out as a civil passenger transport.

Both were pressed into military service and even on rare occasion, served as bombers "pro tem".

And the Li-2 is actually a licensed Douglas DC-3, like the L2D of Japan was.
 
Well, they wound up trying to build about 10 different aircraft, which was probably too many for the British aerospace industry to handle at one time (considering the amount of military work still going on).

The American "leg up" pretty much consisted of the DC-6 (stretched re-engined C-54) and the Lockheed Constellation. It took quite a while for the Martin 202 and the Convair 240 to gain much of a market as there were too many surplus C-47s, C-54s and C-46s flooding the market at super cheap prices.
The First DC-7 didn't fly until 1953.
The Boeing 377 Stratocruiser was pretty much of a dud sales wise. They only built 56.
 

The Wellington and Whitley were not derived from transports. I don't have B.9/32, from which the Wellington originates, to hand but it was originally for a twin engine day bomber, I don't remember a transport requirement. The transport requirement was removed from the 1934 specifications (the Whitley was built to B.3/24) when its impact on the projected performance of the aircraft was discussed with industry and the then Director of Technical Development reported that it would result in a loss of 10 mph in speed. A transport requirement was never part of the 1936 specifications.

Transport requirements were almost completely ignored before the war. Once war started the chances of prising any aircraft capable of carrying bombs away from Bomber Command were slim indeed. Coastal Command, which had been allowed to descend into a terrible state in the interwar years had first claim, and was consistently denied.

You are not going to get the transport aircraft you seek in any realistic wartime scenario. The types of aircraft built and the Command's to which they would go were prioritised according to the perceived needs, and transports came close to, if not at, the bottom of the list.

Compromises were made. When glider tugs were required the Stirling was the only option. It is impossible to argue that it was a good tug, it was just about capable. A Stirling at 54,300 lbs (allowing 1,160 gallons of fuel) could get off the ground with a fully loaded Horsa at 15,250 lbs. It took 2,040 yards to clear 50', well over a mile! It took 26 minutes to reach 8,000' at which point its rate of climb was just 150 fpm and falling. It was far from ideal, but it was what we had.

Cheers

Steve
 
pinehilljoe said:
I think the UK would have been better off building the bomber aircraft, but using more of them to patrol and hunt U Boats in the Bay of Biscay, versus the Atlantic Gap or bombing the mainland.
Click to expand...

Some at the time would have agreed. Harris took a different view. Rather than 'gallivanting' around the oceans looking for needles in haystacks he argued, successfully, that the best place to attack U-boats was where you knew they were, in the factories and dockyards.

The debate continues today, but for much of the war Bomber Command was prioritised over Coastal Command and Harris had his way.

Cheers

Steve
 
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