Case Studies in the Achievement of Air Superiority - Air Force ...

LESSONS BEFORE WORLD WAR I1
suited to imperial police chores than European deterrence. The RAF naturally
preferred twice as many bombers as fighter planes under rearmament
schemes, which generally allocated one-third of each year’s defense budget
to air matters. This reflected Trenchard’s contention that strategic bombardment
could win a war. Still, a residue of obsolete biplanes remained
on-line until the end of the decade. Westland Wapiti, Hawker Hart, Fairey
111, and Vickers Wildbeast bombers sufficed for controlling the Northwest
Indian frontier, perhaps, but their payloads would contribute little to a
European battle. Even the Vickers Vimy and Virginia as well as Handley
Page heavy bombers, designed for continental fighting, hardly equated with
emerging monoplanes across the English channel. RAF fighter aircraft
were no better, althou’gh biplanes like the Armstrong Whitworth Siskin,
Bristol Bulldog, Fairey Fox, Gloster Grebe/Gamecock, and Gloster Gauntlet,
as well as Hawker Fury, wore sleek aluminum paint schemes of peacetime.
Newer twin-engine monoplane bombers began to enter RAF service
by the mid- thirties in the form of the interim Fairey Hendon night bomber,
and the Armstrong Whitworth Whitley, Bristol Blenheim and Type 152
Beaufort, Fairey Battle, Handley Page Hamden, Vickers Wellesley, and
Vickers Armstrong Wellington. The decision to produce four-engine heavy
bombardment aircraft followed, although it would be the Wellington (1,200-
mile range, 4,500-pound payload, and 235 miles-per-hour speed) and her
twin-engine counterparts which would have to carry Trenchardist theory
to German skies if war were to develop in the late thirties. RAF officials
decided by 1938 that research and development would proceed on a longrange,
four-engine aircraft but admitted that rollout could not begin before
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Ironically, it would not be so much bombardment as a tactical air
defense for defending Great Britain that pushed that nation into developing
forces for air superiority. Soon after the 1935 plan (or “scheme” as the
British called it), which aimed at doubling the existing strength of the socalled
Metropolitan Air Force, Air Ministry officials decided that the defensive
as well as the offensive nature of British air policy dictated reorganization
along more functional lines. This led to establishment in 1936 of
Bomber, Fighter, and Coastal Commands, supported by Training Command
and Maintenance Group (later Command), with subsequent additions including
commands for Balloon, Reserve, and Army Cooperation. Overseas
commands remained area rather than function oriented, and essentially
multi-functional in composition. This move insured that commanders
would not be overburdened with a multiplicity of responsibilities in Great
Britain, and that no arm would be slighted in budgetary allocations.
Although the Fleet Air Arm was lost to the Admiralty in 1937 (land-based
air remained under RAF control), the “First Article of the Air Staff Creed”
had triumphed in the form of a unified Air Force. Even formulation of an
Advanced Air Striking Force (AASF) as part of the British Expeditionary
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