Battle of Britain II

I've been mulling over how Britain might defend itself from an all out Soviet attack from the air in 1946.

Here are the parameters

1. Britain is outnumbered 4 to 1
2. They have the VT fuse.
3. Radar is at end of war effectiveness.
4. British pilots are well trained.
5. Spits, meteors and Vampires are the planes of the day

The Soviets
1. Have extended the range and ceiling of of their aircraft enough to range all over the British Isles.
2. Yak 9DD, Yak PD, Yak 3D, Yak 15s, and Mig 9s are the fighters.
3. Pe 2s, Tu2, IL10 are the bombers and ground attack

What would be your strategy for defending this unsinkable aircraft carrier?

Sorry if this is the wrong sub-forum but my posts in another more appropriate forum are apparently being monitored and rejected by the moderator. I don't know why but there it is.

 

Do what Goering did, bomb the airfields...aircraft factories and cut their oil off...A castle is great...until one lays a seige...This battle would take place in East Germany anyway...

 

Out of curiosity, how would the 1946 Red Air combat the existing and improving Meteor and Vampires? Or the left over Thunderbolts, Spits, and Mustangs? Just a query. The Soviet air park didn't yet have a truly decent jet yet in 1946, and most of their piston craft were borderline equal to the existing piston craft of the UK.

And what do you think the USAAF would be doing here? Twiddling their thumbs or sitting on their hands?

 

Which is the point for another reason - by the time the Soviets actually get to within range of the UK, combat attrition will have greatly reduced that 4 to 1 superiority.

OP, radar wasn't the secret of the successful British defence of 1940 - what they did with the information, how it was processed and combined with a multitude of other sources into an integrated GCI command-and-control structure was.

The British had all the rest of the war years to perfect this against many foes - the renewed strategic bombing campaign of 1941, the "Mini Blitz" of 1944, the V-1s, the constant Bf109/Fw190 Jabo "tip and run" raids against the South Coast until late 1944...

 

I rather like playing with your premise, but...

Some basic questions arise, in your scenario:
1) Where are the Soviets based? What areas do they control?
2) Are there any allies of the Brits left anywhere in Europe? If so, what resources might they have available?
3) Has the US completely withdrawn all support from Great Britain? If not, what US resources are available?
4) Are you denying GB all bomber capabilities? No Lancasters? No medium range bombers?
5) Are the Brits allowed to develop V1/V2 technology from Germany?

One cannot formulate an effective strategy based on insufficient information.

 

Based on what you have given us, I'd probably choose to intercept any incoming raids using the eldest/most abundant of my older aircraft, inflicting such damage as is possible. Then, I'd scramble the better and faster models to "blockade" the enemy from returning to home. Make it a war of attrition over English soil.

In the words of 'Hotel California' - "You can check in any time you like, but you can never leave."

 

Good questions.

I have developed a roster of all the squadrons and their where abouts for the RAF and possible allies in the spring of 1946. It does include some Mustangs, Jugs but not a lot. They were not present in existing squadrons, scrapped or overseas. By far the workhorse for the RAF will be the Spit, Tempest and Mosquito. The Meteors and Vampires where few and far between.

The Brits created close to 700 squadrons. A good 150 of them were never functional or equipped or were just renamed by May 1946. Another 42 were transport, training, towing, glider, anti sub, etc. or none combat units. 305 were combat units stationed around the world and in England.


140 squadrons that were disbanded within 6 months of May 1946 so their equipment should be available. However 76 were disbanded overseas in places like India, Java, Sudan, Hong Kong, Palestine, Greece, Italy and their equipment was for the most part obsolete. Of the 64 disbanded in the UK most of their equipment was obsolete as well which makes perfect sense. Why would you disband your best equipped units?


Even a number of still existing squadrons were equipped with obsolete equipment like Hurricanes and Defiants. These units were mostly stationed overseas.

As to the Meteors and Vampires. They have to land sometime. The Soviets can match the Brits maximum effort 4 times a day with over laps of hours. In BoB I the Brits shot down the Germans at a 1.5 ratio. They actually lost more fighters than the Germans. The Brit jets need to land on well documented concrete runways. They have a short legs and have to be near the action.

Think of the ME262 in 1945. Most where shot down taking off, landing, or on the ground.

The USAAF has it's own plans and the RAF has to go it on it's own for at least 6 weeks. Then the trap will be sprung. The plan is to draw the Reds in and then strike at their heart. In the meantime the RAF has to carry on alone.

 

Great information.

How about the tactic of coming in under the radar. The Soviets were masters at low level combat anyway and were quite used to being jumped from above by the 109 and 190. Quite frankly it is pretty easy to defeat a boom and zoom attack if you are taught to do it. You have no offensive choices but you can survive and do your job in a IL 10 quite well while dodging zooming Spits. The Meteors and Vampires would be almost useless at low level.

Granted the Spits should be at home in a turn and burn engagement but they will be outnumbered and the Yak9 and Yak3 are no slouches either at this kind of fighting.

 

By July of 1946 they have all of Germany, France, the low countries and Scandinavia.

There is a very thin defensive line formed at the Pyrenees Mountains where the Soviets are slowly but surly forcing their way through. In two months they will be through the mountains and into the plains.There are a few Spanish, British and US divisions to slow them down but not enough to stop them.

On paper yes. The Soviets have been led to believe that the US is fed up with saving Europe. In reality they are preparing a daring counter attack on another front and need all of their resources for a massive strategic bombing effort and amphibious landings elsewhere. They will not allow the Brits to fall but they have to keep drawing in the Soviets so they don't suspect what is about to occur. It has to appear that the RAF is on it's own for the most part and just a little more effort and just a few more Red Air Force squadrons will do the trick. Squadrons drawn from other more strategic areas.

The Brits are aware of this strategy on a HQ level. The vast majority of the British people are not for obvious purposes. Resentment is obviously very high but this deception is vital.

At this point the RAF has very few bomber squadrons ready to go. They have concentrated on the fighters. A limited number are available but previous attempts at daylight and night bombing have been repulsed with heavy casualties due to a primitive SAM system based on the Wasserfal rocket and a new guidance system. This combined with a Soviet spy system (see Cambridge Five) allows Stalin to bluff. The US and British believe that there is a massive SAM system in place when in reality it is very small and very primitive.

Yes but they are out of time for now.

 

Good tactics but could it be kept up for long? 4 times a day the Red Air Force can put up raids that equal the RAF maximum effort.

 

Sorted long since by Chain Home Low; even during the BoB the problem was less prevalent than normally realised, what happened was lowlevel raids by the likes of Erpro210 were lost by the ROC once they had passed the coast and the radar line.

Chain Home Low provided the UK with its first sea-level radar coverge as early as 1940; so much so that the Army got nearly a dozen sets to cover likely invasion beaches. RAF Operators could actually see buoys, ships at sea etc. and even the visual effects of sunlight on wavetops on Chain Home Low! After a few weeks of operation, RN liaison officers were put in each CHL station to report sea traffic sightings to local Flag Officers Commanding.

Really? The last Defiant-equiped squadrons weren't combat units, they were target-towing and Air Sea Rescue units....and the the latter had all been reequiped anyway.

But British factories could repalce monoplane fioghters on a 3:2 basis compared to Germany's aero industry And that was 1940, with Castle Bromwich only just starting to produce, and no other Spitfire shadow factories, and only two factories building Hurricanes. They also had, and in this engagement would have something the Soviets won't - the Civilian Repair Organisation, returning something like 50% of what should have been write-offs back to combat in days.

The very high loss rate of ME262s is another huge area for discussion; they lost so many landing because they "landed long" - a very long, slow approach right down to the runway over many miles - when the pilots risked a catastrophic flameout fatally close to the ground if they had to jerk open their throttles in a panic I.E. they couldn't evade an attack!

On the ground...dozens were lost when the Americans bombed factories and destroyed lined-up, finished ME262s whose runways were too soft to allow them to be flown off! Dozens more were damaged or written-off in taxiing accidents due to the nosewheel and front strut issues, occasionally fatally.

 

If the Soviets had attacked and conquered France, Scandanavia, Germany, etc, one would think that the rest of the world would have noticed. England would not be sitting there alone again. The US and Australia, for starters, would be right there with them, and Stalin did not want to go head-to-head with the US. Our tech level was always better, we had the A-bomb, and I'd imagine our troops (even the de-mobbed ones) would be rather pissed that someone came through and re-conquered the territories we'd just liberated.

 

I see a whole lot of Q&A here in an attempt to set up your imaginary chessboard. Now... other than the simple tactic I offered, does anyone have a better strategy to present?

 

Colonel, there are a couple of problems with it - in that you don't WANT to be attempting to intercept intruders THAT close to home....you don't have time to et up to their altitude, and give away a major advantage to them; the RAF suffered badly in the first weeks of the BoB by doing this, flying up interceptions from very close to the coast - Hawkinge, Lympne, Manston etc. very often Fighter Command came off worst in those. The destruction/closing of Lympne and the frequent compromising of manston was a blessing in disguise for Eleven Group, in that while interceptions took place over Kent then, aircraft from further inland had more time to get to altitude when scrambled.

Plus....it cedes a considerable amount of the three-dimensional box that is the aerial batlefield to the enemy; if you're fighting an attritional air battle, then you WANT as much time for that attrition to work as possible....so you make the Red Air Force fight for every mile further over the Channel they get. You want to use the extra range of late war fighters, and the early warning provided by radar - sometimes as much as 100-120 miles in good conditions, the RAF could see raids forming up deep inside France - and meet them over the French coast. Fighting an enemy over your own territory is great for rescuing downed pilots, but means you've not attrited the enemy over all those miles.

There's also no need to choose between types of aircraft to hit them on the way in, from those to hit them on the way out....this was what radar did anyway - allowed you to DO BOTH; before the war, everyone only ever expected to be able to react to raids once they'd happened - for of course that gave you a darn good idea where the enemy had shown up! - but radar I.E. good early warning.... was a force multiplier in that it allowed you to attack the enemy on his entire journey.

 

I believe I said "intercept", yes? With a 4:1 numerical advantage, there are bound to be some that "get past the (early) interception". This is what I was refering to as the increased attrition rate necessary over English soil, and I don't think I want to lose what few planes and pilots I have by watching them go into the drink, where the Russians can have air superiority anytime they choose. Do you wanna take your rowboat out and fish them from the channel with Sturmoviks buzzing you all day?

 

Just as an aside here, in response to the low flying craft invading British airspace. How does the existing Chain Home Low, coupled with radar guided AA and proximity fuses factor in. These were all existing defenses by the end of the war.

 

The Soviets will ONLY have air superiority over the Channel if -

1/ the RAF cedes it to them, or

2/ they take it - this being an important attritional air superiority battle all of its own!

It's what the Luftwaffe spent all of July 1940 fighting, the so-called Kanalkampf; the RAF was hampered because then, the range of 1940-era Spitfires and Hurricanes meant they had only 10-15 minutes or so right out towards the French coast, the same problem the Luftwaffe was later to have with its Bf109s over London...but by 1945 the range of the Spitfire was vastly increased, so it's quite effective over the far side of the Channel.

The RAF Air Sea Rescue organistion was a tad more professional than that; even in 1940 they were using Coastal's flyingboats to rescue aircrew, and had ASR launches stationed in every harbour and river estuary for the purpose. By the END of the war, the RAF had large numbers of aircraft given over to being able to drop both inflatable dingies and survival packages, even entire hardhulled boats, to downed aircrew. The Channel system had remained in place throughout the war because of the large numbers of Bomber Command aircraft flying to and fro during the war...and very early on had been extended into the Mediterranean.

 

So over water they were well covered? How are the hundreds of small drug running planes sneaking under the radar from Mexico etc. even with today’s radar and even EWACS up and running? Once they got over land how low could the Brit radar track them reliably? Why do we still use NAP and Popup attacks?

How long do you think the engagement would last? How long could the British hold out at four to one odds? How long does it take to build a Spitfire from scratch and how many a day could be produced?

The factories were out of fighter cover range in 1940. In 1946 they are not. The British Empire was beyond broke in May 1946. It was in the most dire of straights of any modern nation ever in modern history. It was way beyond anything ever seen. The US itself was 123% of GDP in debt. There was no China to buy war bonds.

Where would the money come from to build a constant stream of fighters? The US was not in the mood to lend any more money and in fact was demanding payment for services rendered. A cabal of Southern Senators was holding up any funding for Britain until well into 1947. Would the British workers work for free? Would suppliers around the world donate more resources to the bankrupt British Government with no hope in sight of any kind of payment?

And how would our scenario be different. Escorted bombers would be ranging all over the British Isles. Would the Vampire and Meteor be any faster off the ground or to land then the Me 262? How much faster? Did the early British jets not need concrete runways? Runways whose exact location was common knowledge in 1946? How many airbases could take the jets and were where they?

 

The centrifugal style engines the west used were far superior to the axial flow Wagner type the Germans were saddled with, they were actually faster to altitude, more reliable, and not nearly as "wedded" to concrete runways as is supposed. Good solid grass strips could and did suffice in emergency instances. War would be an "emergency". Then the Soviets would have to get through the pre-stationed P-80As which were already in Germany at the time, which were supplemented by both Mustangs and Thunderbolts even then. America didn't just "cut and run" home when the war ended. Stalin knew it, and also shot down his own Generals who had encouraged him to attack west. He saw it would be a failure of epic proportions, the USSR was just getting back to feeding its own people from its own crops and animals.

If the Soviets had been showing any sort of aggression toward the west post-war, the completion of the B-36 most likely wouldn’t have been as slow as it was during the war. The progress of the development of the B-29’s replacement, a true intercontinental bomber was slow to say the least. Mostly because the existing bombers in America’s airpark were sufficient for the task at hand. The first XB-36 wasn’t completed until September 8, 1945, and achieved its first flight on August 8, 1946. The first B-36A production model took flight in August 1947, and the B-36 remained in service with the Strategic Air Command throughout the 1950s. The first non-jet assisted B-36s could fly from Bangor Maine to Moscow with an atomic bomb, and return without refueling. On the tenth anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack a single B-36 flew from its Texas base to Hawaii, dropped a dummy atomic off shore, and returned to Texas. Without being spotted by our own radar due to its altitude I believe.

And what about the wonderful little P-80A that was produced in the hundreds (just under a thousand I think), but still a substantial force. The first P-80A was accepted by the AAF in February of 1945, and the last one was delivered in December 1946. These fighters were formidable weapons in the hands of experienced pilots, and would have been a great surprise to the USSR’s airforce in 1946. Remember, in the first "jet to jet" combat in Korea, the P (now F)-80 was the victor over a MiG-15., it was a C model, and much better than the A and B models, but still…

On November 7, 1950, Lieut Russell J. Brown, flying F-80C #49-0737, shot down a MiG-15 near the Yalu River, scoring the first victory in air-to-air combat between jet fighters.

Apart from the four P-80s that had been sent to Europe just prior to V-E Day, the first overseas P-80s were issued to the 55th Fighter Group under Col Horace Hanes, which received 32 Shooting Stars for its 38th Fighter Squadron based at Gibelstadt in Germany. This unit evolved into the 31st Fighter Group. In 1946, Shooting Stars were delivered to the 38th Squadron of the 55th Fighter Group and the 27th, 71st, and 94th of the 1st Group stationed in the USA, the 31st Group (307th, 308th, and 309th Squadrons) based in Germany.

Specification of the P-80A:

Engine: One General Electric J33-GE-11 or Allison J33-A-9 turbojet, rated at 3850 lb.s.t. Later production blocks powered by 4000 lb.s.t. Allison J33-A-17. Dimensions: wingspan 38 feet 10 1/2 inches (without wingtip tanks), length 34 feet 6 inches, height 11 feet 4 inches, and wing area 237.6 square feet Weights were 7920 pounds empty, 11,700 pounds gross, and 14,000 pounds maximum takeoff. Fuel load: 425 US gallons normal, 885 US gallons maximum. Performance: Maximum speed was 558 mph at sea level and 492 mph at 40,000 feet. Initial climb rate was 4580 feet/minute, and an altitude of 20,000 feet could be attained in 5.5 minutes. Service ceiling was 45,000 feet. Normal range was 780 miles, and maximum range was 1440 miles. Armament: Six 0.50-inch machine guns.

Goto:


Lockheed P-80A Shooting Star

One must couple the USAAF into the equation, America wasn’t going to sit on the sidelines in Europe this time, I am certain we had learned our lesson and we held the atomic solution as well even though production had been slowed. Soviet aggression would have altered this situation without doubt. Add our planes and the AA abilities of the British to their own internal fighters, like the Meteor and the Vampire and taking on the British Isles would be a formidable task. For a good run-down on the early British Jets:

Goto:

Warbird Alley: deHavilland Vampire
and:

Warbird Alley: Gloster Meteor

Your scenario simply doesn't wash.

 

Don't ask me, I don't run drugs or live in the USA. But I DO respect Brian Lavery the naval historian's opinions and information on this - P.148-9 "We Shall Fight On The Beaches", ISBN 978-1-84486-101-9, also file number AIR 16/430 at the National Archive, Kew.

Have you heard of the Royal Observer Corps? THEIR job was to plot and report the paths and bearings of raids once they passed the radar line that faced outward from the coast; the entire country was covered in a grid of Observers, who tracked raids by sight and sound, and reported the data into Fighter Command. This data was integrated into the command plot exactly as radar data was.

No they weren't - Supermarine's main production plant for Spitfires until Castle Bromwich got into full swing was still Woolston in Southampton, and it suffered five raids IIRC....and one of the two Hurricane production lines was at Brooklands. That was one of the mistakes the Luftwaffe made - it bombed the production line at Brooklands next door and a hundred yards away...for Wellington bombers!

Would this be the U.S. that then turned round and bankrolled all of Western Europe with Marshall Aid? In this scenario - the U.S. would simply have continued Lend Lease to the UK....and of course halted it to the USSR!

Because the war WAS over - here...it's not, it's started again, and the one thing those senators would be more anti-British than it's anti-Communist!

And of course, with Amrican forces remaining in Western Europe after the war as they did historically - they'll have died under Soviet tank tracks....or been evacuated to the UK. Nothing fires up American blood like....American blood.

If they got through, which is not guaranteed as long as there's a fighter defence. It's worth rememebring too that while the historical 1940 BoB was foght by Eleven Group in the South West for most of the time, with some input on occasion by Ten Group, and Thirteen Group on a handful of occasions against the very few raids from Norway - and of clurse eventually over the Home Counties by Twelve Group - by 1945 all thse opther groups had their FULL complement of front-line fighters, not the scrappers they had in 1940; each Fighter Command Group was capable of mounting and carrying out its own Group-sized air battle. There was even a complete on-paper Group for Northern Ireland, and a complete coommand-and-control setup established through the war with a copy of the Bentley Priory "Hole" only a few miles from me that could have commanded Fighter Command in 1940 if the Home Counties had been occupied after invasion. In other words - by the end of the war - a full, 1940-style Home Counties defence could be flown all over the UK.

It would be far to say that as both types were flown off carriers during their history, they didn't have the same take-off issues as the Me262!

The 262 needed a very long runway, because what it had to do was accelerate above its high stall speed with its wheels on the ground...THEN the pilot lifted the wheels - so that it was flying alongat the height of the undercarriage above the runway! Only then could the pilot SLOWLY open its throttles - to avoid flameout - and climb away.

O Lord, do you know how many airfields there were in England alone by the end of the war??? HUNDREDS Some of the Home Counties like Cambridgeshire had dozens to accomodate the USAAF, others, like Norfolk, equally many to accomodate Bomber Command. Then there were all the trianing fields and OTUs, all the communication fields beside major military camps; and all the Fighter Command stations....AND all the Fleet Air Arm shore bases! And of course...diversion and dispersal fields for lots of those!!!

It was no joke that Orwell came up with the name "Airstrip One" for 1984!