In article ,
(ArtKramr) writes:
Subject: More long-range Spitfires and daylight Bomber Command raids,
with added nationalistic abuse (was:
From: (Peter Stickney)
Date: 9/20/03 9:12 PM Pacific

A couple of points - the Warwick has always struck me as one of those
"It's nice, but why?" airplanes. It really didn't do anything that
other airplanes did better. By the time it came off the line, the
RAF's Medium bombers were teh B-25 and B-26, (Excuse me,

Peter as you well know in those days we flew whatever would fly. I never heard
of a crew refusing to fly a plane because they didn't like the wing thickness.
Every mission we flew was a maximum effort. Everything that could fly did fly.
That's why.

Art, at the aircrew level, you're absolutely correct. You fly the
airplanes that your unit is issued, and you do your damnedest to be
effective. And yes, that's the way that it has to be.

There's other considerations, though, at higher levels of command.
Just as you as an aircrewman have an obligation to use the weapons you
have as effectively as possible, to accomplish the tasks of your slice
of the war, the people at the higher echelons have the obligation to
see that you have the most effective weapons practicable, and are
assigned the targets that make the best use of the capabilities of
your airplanes and crews toward winning the war. At the mid levels,
say, in the World War II case, the Eighth or Nonth Air Force levels,
that means making sure that you have the proper aircraft, (For
instance, concentrating the on the B-26 for the ETO medium bomber
force, rather than the B-25) and making sure that those aircraft are
supplied with fuel, parts, weapons and ammunition needed to get the
job done, and that the support crews, from the Air Base Civil Engineer
to the guy that's scrubbing the garbage cans, is providing a system
that means that when a mission is on, all the tasked airplanes and
crews are ready to go. (That also means making sure, as much as
possible, that losses in both aircrew and airplanes are sustainable -
that you're not losing more people and airplanes than you can replace.

That was one of the failings of the Lusftwaffe. They could, and did,
produce replacement machines for their losses. Basically, in the ETO,
the entire Luftaffe fighter force was destroyed and replaced 3 times
in 1944. They could replace the machines, but they couldn't, for
reasons as varying as the policy of not rotating the Experten home to
pass on their knowledge to the new pilots, to the gutting of the
flight training system to be wasted trying to fly supply flights to
Stalingrad and Tunisia, to the policies about training in general,
menat that the Luftwaffe's fighter arm had a thin shell of
irreplacable veterans surrounding a soft core of low-time unskilled,
and vulnerable New Guys. Each time the Luftwaffe, after husbanding
its resources, and launching another futile "hammer blow" that was to
knock the RAF and USAAF out of the war, they lost most of the new
recruits, and a fair number of the old guys. By 1945, they had
airplanes parked all over Germany - on airfields, in forests, under
bridges, at repair depots, everywhere. But not anywhere enough pilots
to fly them. By that time, they didn't bother repairing damaged
airplanes. If the pilot came back, they just issued him a new one.
That's unsustainable.

So, where I,m going with this ramble, is that, moving back to the
highest levels, where the production decisions are made, there's a
responsibility to be spending the reseources available (Time,
production capacity, raw materials, money) so that the best possible
weapons are available to accomplish the missions that you're
assigned. For example, somebody I got to know, a bit, was
Gen. Harrison Thyng (Now passed on). He was a very interesting man,
with quite a distinguished career, an Ace in both WW 2 and Korea.

In WW 2, he was a member of the 36th Fighter Group, one of the first
American units to deploy to England. The American fighters available
at that time, the P-39 and P-40, weren't considered viable in the
cross-channel war going on at that time, and they couldn't escort
B-17s into France, let alone Germany. The 36th FG was equipped with
Spitfire Mk Vs, and ended up being sent to North Africa as part of
Operation Torch. He later flew P-47s in the Pacific. That experience
gave him a certain persoective on how Industrial Policy affects Combat
Effectiveness.

During the Korean War, he was Commander of the 4th Fighter Interceptor
Wing, at that time the sole F-86 unit in Korea, flying the only
airplane that could meed the Soviet/Chinese/DPRK MiG-15s on an even
basis. (75 Sabres vs. 750 or so MiGs) They had everytning hard
charging fighter pilots needed - A good airplane, skilled, agressive,
experienced pilots, and a lot of targets, They only lacked one thing -
- There was a horrendous shortage of spare parts. The 4th FIW was, at
that time, only able to keep about half their airplanes Mission
Capable.
Despite requests through the Usual Channels, the priority for Sabre
spares was to Continental U.S. bases units. It's not that spares
weren't available, they weren't being sent to where the fighting was.
It took a personal message from Thyng to the Chief of Staff of the Air
Force that the spares situation was such that "The maintainance of Air
Superiority over Korea was in doubt" to shake people loose and get the
support that the Far East Air Force needed to flow into that
direction. Needless to say, that gave him a bit of persoective on the
responsibilities of the command echelons to provide the support needed
to see that the tools were available to carry out the assognments they
gave.

In the situation I mentioned of the VIckers Warwick, It's a question
of, in this case, the British government allocating resources
efficiently. The Warwick was intended to be the replacement for the
Wellington medium bomber. By the earliest time it could possibly be
ready, RAF Bomber Command had determined that twin-engined medium
bombers weren't suitable for the night bombing campaign. The tactical
air forces, who were conducting the medium bombing campaign, knew
that airplanes with the performance of the Wellington adn Warwick
weren't going to be sustainable in the day bombing that they were
using. They used Lend-Lease B-25s and B-26s to accomplish their
missions. For some reaon, the Air Ministry continued Warwick
production, and they scrambled around looking for someplace to use it.
The Warsicks eventually ended up being use as Air-Sea Rescue aircraft,
carrying droppable lifeboats. While this was a laudable task, it
could also have been (and, in fact was) filled by using the same
flying boat types that the RAF Coastal Command used, and by fitting
war-wary heavies, such as Lancasters, with lifeboats. Is it worse
planning to not build airplanes you know will be useful, or to build
airplanes that you know will be useless?

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster