Post by simon darkshade on Jul 30, 2018 10:26:19 GMT
1947: Part 1a
Admiralty Citadel, Whitehall, London March 12th 1947
First Sea Lord Admiral of the Fleet Sir Bruce Fraser GCB, KBE, First Earl Fraser of Trondheim, looked up at the four men seated around the long oak table in front of him.
“All things considered, gentlemen, the writing has been on the wall since the end of the war. We all knew this was coming. It could have been worse.”
“Worse, sir?” queried Second Sea Lord Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay. “How?”
Fraser passed over his notes from the meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence. He could understand their reticence to accept optimism, though. The Royal Navy had reached its greatest ever strength and power less than two years ago, smashing the Regia Marina, defeating the Kriegsmarine just as it had the High Seas Fleet and playing a key role in the downfall of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The names of their great triumphs would echo down the centuries alongside their illustrious predecessors from previous wars – Trondheim, Taranto, Matapan, Singapore and Formosa. From that glory to this was undoubtably a considerable decline.
“Treasury was pushing for manpower to be limited to 400,000 men and capping the budget at £1200 million. As it stands, we face two, maybe even three lean years in terms of procurement, but we’ve saved the furniture and our four major building programmes for 1948.”
Fraser turned to Third Sea Lord Admiral Sir Arthur Power.
“It is less than what we hoped for, certainly. No capital ships or cruisers for the next ten years apart from the guided missile battleship and the Audacious class supercarriers. The super battlecruisers have been cancelled, so we must make do with the Orions in reserve. That will put us behind the Soviets just when they are starting to build up, particularly the Stalingrads.”
“That does seem fairly drastic, but not entirely unworkable. It will push what we’ve got right to the very quick.”
“Needs must, Arthur, needs must. The third batch of the Battles will be launched but not completed, which is something of a victory and we’ve saved the Type 12s, so we will not be entirely bereft of modern fleet escorts. That was the price needed to secure the atomic submarine for next year and the first Floating Fortress for 1949. “
“What about the current fleet?”
“The battlefleet and carriers have been hit hardest. Queen Elizabeth, Valiant, the Renowns, all the Nelsons and both Saints are all to be decommissioned. Hawke and Blake will go to the RIN until they get around to ordering modern ships. Five of the new battlewagons and the King Richards are to be laid up, along with six fleets and six light fleets, but that may only be a temporary measure if the Russians and Chinese keep acting up. The older ships aren’t too great a loss, as most had a very hard war and we haven't missed their sister ships who went in '45 and '46. Still, it is seems odd to only have 20 active and commissioned battleships. The changing of the guard, in a way.”
Fraser paused meaningfully after his last sentence, as the other four men absorbed the news grimly. For the first time in over four hundred years, the Royal Navy had the second largest battlefleet in the world.
“The four battlecruisers are to be laid up, along with all the Counties apart from the Londons by ’49, but we stay at 60 active cruisers. In terms of light ships, we’ve got twenty destroyer and a dozen frigate flotillas to cover the work of double that number. Both Royal Marine divisions are safe; the Battle of Formosa and the current goings on in the Far East and Med have made sure of that. The Fleet Air Arm and RNAS are to field a total of 3600 aircraft, but we are limited to a single wing of heavy bombers for the time being.”
“They are cutting rather close to the bone, sir.” remarked Admiral Sir Philip Vian who as Fifth Sea Lord was in charge of naval aviation. “We can live with it, but we are pushed hard with ASW as it stands at the moment, what with the rogues.”
“I know, Philip, I know.” replied Fraser "I don't like it anymore than you do. We give up a lot just after some of our greatest victories, but we've kept the vital programmes for the future. The Audacious class will give us decks that can take the new strike bomber with a 10,000lb Special, which will put paid to the Air Force rumblings about their exclusive strategic role."
"Yes, sir. Without them, we'd be playing around trying to fit them on the Maltas. Getting the Canberras on them was enough of a headache."
“That won’t be the worst of it from your perspective, Philip. The transonic naval fighters will be delayed until next year at the earliest and development of the jet attack fighter has been put off until further notice.”
“A fairly bitter brew to stomach, sir, but one that can be managed, albeit barely. The Sea Hawks and Attackers are decent enough to tithe us over until the Rangers. No hope of the Sea Hunter at all, is there?”
“None, I’m afraid, unless the international situation deteriorates rather sharply; the RAF has superpriority on the frontline jets. On the brighter side, there haven’t been any delays to the SAGW programmes, which will be very important without the new fighters.”
“A small mercy.”
"Indeed. We need the guided missile ship to replace Hood. She is in bad need of a proper refit, but she is coming up on 28 years old soon and it was deemed uneconomical to pursue in the current circumstances. She doesn't have a long time left and we need something that can fill her role as fleet flagship. The atomic submarine goes without saying - I would have given up the battleship to keep her."
"I'm surprised the Floating Fortresses weren't cancelled." said Ramsay.
"It was a damn close run thing. As it is, we only get the one next year and lose Habakkuk, Samson and Gideon. No one wants a re-run of the early stages of the Battle of the Atlantic and we've seen what a modern submarine can do with the Type XXIs. We need the air basing they supply.”
The mood quietened for a few heartbeats as every man around the table grimly contemplated the lessons of that campaign. The last gasp of the German U-Boat menace had been decisively crushed by the middle of 1944, but only through a massive commitment of Allied airpower, hunter-killer submarines, two dozen composite support groups and the heaviest convoy escorts of the war. Above all, it had been airpower that had made the difference, moving in to hammer the U-Boats wherever they were detected and doing so far, far faster than their prey.
“The escort fleet has been gutted by the looks of this. Nothing lighter than frigates and sloops to be kept, in service or reserve.”
“Perhaps that one part of this sorry process has been a boon.” Fraser sat back thoughtfully.
Fourth Sea Lord Rear-Admiral Sir Frederic Walker nodded in agreement “The Rivers and the Flowers are too slow to the point of being effectively obsolete for front-line ASW operations, so all the money we’d waste on trying to get them in order can be redirected on ships fast enough for the new threat.”
“The new gunfire trials that Superb and Rodney have been conducting out off the West Coast of Ireland have been promising. They reached 82 miles the other day.” said Power.
“If we can build upon the promise that holds, and every indication is that we can, then that will achieve two of our long term goals – extending the range of the battlefleet and forcing the Soviets to counter the threat.”
“All of that will come up in Exercise Manticore next month. That will show the substance of what we’re capable of. But in any case, we must do what we must with what we’ve got."
……………………………………………………………………………………………......................................................
Horse Guards, Whitehall, London March 12th 1947
“It could have been worse, Frank. It could have been worse.” said Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery VC, KG, GCB, DSO, First Earl of Alamein and Chief of the Imperial General Staff as he looked out of the window of his sparsely appointed office onto Horse Guards Parade.
“Yes, sir. We could have lost more than a quarter of our active strength.” replied General Sir Frank Simpson, the Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff.
“Quite. 250,000 men, 8 divisions and the only active field army headquarters outside Germany is a lot to lose. That takes us to 27 divisions, barely enough to cover our responsibilities at home and in Europe, let alone in the Empire and the Far East. To do that, we’d need a minimum – a minimum ! – of 42 divisions and two and a half million men, not counting the Indian Army, the Canadians or the rest of the Comonwealth. The American drawback makes that an absolute necessity.”
Simpson grimaced in agreement. The US Army in Europe had shrunk from 129 divisions to a bare 12 in a little under two years and this rapid pace had been matched in the Levant and the Far East.
As it is, the first order of business will be to concentrate on the most important areas – Europe and the Middle East. We’ll have to reduce the garrison in Japan to a single division and hope things in Burma and China don’t flare up.”
“That could well work, sir. We can always redeploy one of the Malaya-based divisions. Things are quiet enough out there.”
“Nominally. Only nominally, Frank. The French in Indochina and the Dutch in the East Indies are burning up and the Chinese situation getting muddier and bloodier by the day. That can’t help but pour over into our territories. We’ve still got to keep a strong garrison at Singers and the general Imperial reserve in India. Speaking of reserves, that is another bugbear. Cutting the Army Reserve and Territorials to 48 divisions is extremely precipitous.”
“We’ve managed to save most of our key weapons development programmes, by the look of it.”
“Yes, we saved the heavy tank, the new armoured carriers and the two big missile efforts, the ATGM and the SAGW. The airborne divisions and Commandos are relatively intact and we have a guarantee for 400 Centurions a year over the next 5 years. I managed to keep the Dreadnoughts in reserve and get a commitment for the new war machines."
"Those will be handy, sir."
“Handy indeed. We're fine for machine guns and small arms. The 25pdr is fine for our purposes for the forseeable future. It will mean that we’ll have to delay the new heavy field guns, but we have enough war stocks and surplus ammunition to last for a long time.”
“You’ve seen the intelligence reports on what the Russians have. 500 divisions and 12 million men. 30,000 tanks. That is enough to give anyone pause.”
“We have preserved a lot of our war stocks of heavy equipment, though, sir. 7500 Crusaders and 2500 Churchills backing up the Centurions and Super Crusaders for the regulars is nothing to sneeze at. Nor is 30,000 guns.”
“Those wouldn’t last long in a European war though. Two years ago, we had 42 Allied armoured divisions on the Continent. Today, we have 12, if you can count the French as Allies. We need an equalizer, Frank, and a big one at that.”
“Those are several years away, last time I heard, sir.”
"Yes, which is too damn far in my view. We must have those atomic guns and we must have them yesterday. With even a few dozen, we can stop the Red Army dead in its tracks and they know it.”
“You’re that confident about what the boffins have been saying, sir?”
“I’ve seen the footage from the tests and from Manchuria. I’m that confident. In the meantime, we need to manage our manpower as best as we can. The reductions mean that we will have to bring forward ending the detachment of British battalions to Indian Army divisions from 1951 to next year. That will be something of a saving."
“The Indians are more than ready, sir, and have been so since they mobilized back in 1939. We could see about drawing down the African Army as well. These cuts hurt now, but what we can field in 5 or 10 years time will make it worth it. Oh, and we've kept the cavalry divisions in India as well. Goodo!"
“Mmm. In the meantime, the finest army in the world has to play second fiddle to the RAF. I don’t like it anymore than you do, Frank. Still, we’ve got more than enough on our plate to keep us busy.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………....................................................
Air Ministry, Kingsway, London March 12th 1947
“It could have been better, Biggles. No doubt that it could, but we kept what we really needed.”
Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris KG, GCB, GBE, AFC, First Earl Harris of the Ruhr and Chief of the Air Staff sat back in his chair and threw the CID notes across the table at Air Marshal Sir James Bigglesworth VC and bar, DSO, DFC and three bars, AFC, Deputy Chief of the Air Staff.
“Yes sir, I quite agree. Shame we had to lose so many Meteors and Vampires, but I’d rather the Falcons and Warriors in the front line any day of the week. How many Canberras do we get over the next two years?”
“175 this year and 150 next year. That will just allow us to replace the Mosquitoes in front line service at home and in France, but not the Middle East or India. It had to be done, though, otherwise we’d get no Valiants until ’48 or even ‘49. As it is, we get the first twenty four this year.
Twenty four, Biggles! Twenty four jet super bombers, each of them twice as fast as a Lancaster and able to hit anything out to the Urals from Lincolnshire. With refueling tankers and the Middle East bases, they can get to Central Asia and back.”
“They cost us the chance of more Yorks, though, and all the Halifaxes.”
“The York was a brilliant aeroplane in 1944. It still is. But five years from now, what will it be facing? Rocketplanes and jet fighters that would make it seem like a Wellington seems today. The Halifax? A small price to pay. No, Biggles, if we are to keep the peace, then we need jet heavies capable of carrying the A-bomb.”
“Bomber Command is more important than ever then, as we’ve been saying. They’re the longest range weapon the Empire has in this brave new world.”
“Very droll. We kept the refueling plane programme, which will give us the legs we need along with the skyship fleet.”
“Indeed. I see here that we’ve kept Spitfire and Tempest production going at the Royal Aircraft Factory as well. Good move. Cheap numbers and good for Empire work.”
“Yes, it is a blessing in disguise. Not only is it cheaper to get as much use out of the main wartime types as possible, but it gives us breathing space to build up stocks of jet fuel and supporting infrastructure. The devil is in the detail.”
“Cutting Fighter Command down to 2400 frontline planes is something I’m very reluctant to accept, sir. It leaves absolutely no margin for error in our calculations and we need proper reserve to back them up. We have quality, but some quantity would be abundantly nice as well.”
That had been one of the most telling lessons of the war – numbers counted. The British edge in technology that had been almost flippantly taken for granted by the popular press before the war was now gone, well and truly overtaken by the Americans and quite likely equaled by the Russians. All three of the superpowers had raced to take full advantage of the considerable advances made by the Germans during the war, but the continental states were better placed to exploit them by their sheer scale.
“What were the Soviet estimates?”
“12,000 combat aircraft in Eastern Europe and Russia, rising to 20,000 on mobilization. A further 2500 in the Far East, but they are nicely balanced by the Americans, the Australians, the RIAF and the Far Eastern Air Force. If something happens, then Europe and the Middle East will be the main threat areas. That’s why we have almost 1600 Lancs in reserve. And why we need those two dozen Valiants.”
"Fighters?"
"We've got what we wanted. Hunter production in '48 and the go ahead for the new Supermarine jet and the Gloster all weather fighter. de Havilland will continue on with the DH.110. We have a qualitative edge over the Russians and anyone else in Europe. The only thing that bothers me is rockets."
"We seem to be quite well sorted for rockets at the moment, sir."
"The Silver Sword is the best in the world right now. 250 miles is fine for Germany, but rather short though if we want to hit Russia from Britain. Red King will go part of the way, when we get it. But we need more."
“That would be the Vanguard, at least to begin with, sir. All of the tests and indications thus far have been exceptionally positive.”
“That is quite right, Biggles, but we need something on top of them that can do a bit more damage than a few thousand pounds of high explosive.”
“An atom warhead? The reports I’ve read indicate that any such bomb is anywhere between six and ten years away.”
“The decisions we make today will shape our force structure and content for the next decade. We must ensure that we’ve got the best, particularly when it is inevitable that Moscow gets their own bomb. The Army and the RN have it worse than us, much worse, but will still need a lot more.”
Admiralty Citadel, Whitehall, London March 12th 1947
First Sea Lord Admiral of the Fleet Sir Bruce Fraser GCB, KBE, First Earl Fraser of Trondheim, looked up at the four men seated around the long oak table in front of him.
“All things considered, gentlemen, the writing has been on the wall since the end of the war. We all knew this was coming. It could have been worse.”
“Worse, sir?” queried Second Sea Lord Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay. “How?”
Fraser passed over his notes from the meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence. He could understand their reticence to accept optimism, though. The Royal Navy had reached its greatest ever strength and power less than two years ago, smashing the Regia Marina, defeating the Kriegsmarine just as it had the High Seas Fleet and playing a key role in the downfall of the Imperial Japanese Navy. The names of their great triumphs would echo down the centuries alongside their illustrious predecessors from previous wars – Trondheim, Taranto, Matapan, Singapore and Formosa. From that glory to this was undoubtably a considerable decline.
“Treasury was pushing for manpower to be limited to 400,000 men and capping the budget at £1200 million. As it stands, we face two, maybe even three lean years in terms of procurement, but we’ve saved the furniture and our four major building programmes for 1948.”
Fraser turned to Third Sea Lord Admiral Sir Arthur Power.
“It is less than what we hoped for, certainly. No capital ships or cruisers for the next ten years apart from the guided missile battleship and the Audacious class supercarriers. The super battlecruisers have been cancelled, so we must make do with the Orions in reserve. That will put us behind the Soviets just when they are starting to build up, particularly the Stalingrads.”
“That does seem fairly drastic, but not entirely unworkable. It will push what we’ve got right to the very quick.”
“Needs must, Arthur, needs must. The third batch of the Battles will be launched but not completed, which is something of a victory and we’ve saved the Type 12s, so we will not be entirely bereft of modern fleet escorts. That was the price needed to secure the atomic submarine for next year and the first Floating Fortress for 1949. “
“What about the current fleet?”
“The battlefleet and carriers have been hit hardest. Queen Elizabeth, Valiant, the Renowns, all the Nelsons and both Saints are all to be decommissioned. Hawke and Blake will go to the RIN until they get around to ordering modern ships. Five of the new battlewagons and the King Richards are to be laid up, along with six fleets and six light fleets, but that may only be a temporary measure if the Russians and Chinese keep acting up. The older ships aren’t too great a loss, as most had a very hard war and we haven't missed their sister ships who went in '45 and '46. Still, it is seems odd to only have 20 active and commissioned battleships. The changing of the guard, in a way.”
Fraser paused meaningfully after his last sentence, as the other four men absorbed the news grimly. For the first time in over four hundred years, the Royal Navy had the second largest battlefleet in the world.
“The four battlecruisers are to be laid up, along with all the Counties apart from the Londons by ’49, but we stay at 60 active cruisers. In terms of light ships, we’ve got twenty destroyer and a dozen frigate flotillas to cover the work of double that number. Both Royal Marine divisions are safe; the Battle of Formosa and the current goings on in the Far East and Med have made sure of that. The Fleet Air Arm and RNAS are to field a total of 3600 aircraft, but we are limited to a single wing of heavy bombers for the time being.”
“They are cutting rather close to the bone, sir.” remarked Admiral Sir Philip Vian who as Fifth Sea Lord was in charge of naval aviation. “We can live with it, but we are pushed hard with ASW as it stands at the moment, what with the rogues.”
“I know, Philip, I know.” replied Fraser "I don't like it anymore than you do. We give up a lot just after some of our greatest victories, but we've kept the vital programmes for the future. The Audacious class will give us decks that can take the new strike bomber with a 10,000lb Special, which will put paid to the Air Force rumblings about their exclusive strategic role."
"Yes, sir. Without them, we'd be playing around trying to fit them on the Maltas. Getting the Canberras on them was enough of a headache."
“That won’t be the worst of it from your perspective, Philip. The transonic naval fighters will be delayed until next year at the earliest and development of the jet attack fighter has been put off until further notice.”
“A fairly bitter brew to stomach, sir, but one that can be managed, albeit barely. The Sea Hawks and Attackers are decent enough to tithe us over until the Rangers. No hope of the Sea Hunter at all, is there?”
“None, I’m afraid, unless the international situation deteriorates rather sharply; the RAF has superpriority on the frontline jets. On the brighter side, there haven’t been any delays to the SAGW programmes, which will be very important without the new fighters.”
“A small mercy.”
"Indeed. We need the guided missile ship to replace Hood. She is in bad need of a proper refit, but she is coming up on 28 years old soon and it was deemed uneconomical to pursue in the current circumstances. She doesn't have a long time left and we need something that can fill her role as fleet flagship. The atomic submarine goes without saying - I would have given up the battleship to keep her."
"I'm surprised the Floating Fortresses weren't cancelled." said Ramsay.
"It was a damn close run thing. As it is, we only get the one next year and lose Habakkuk, Samson and Gideon. No one wants a re-run of the early stages of the Battle of the Atlantic and we've seen what a modern submarine can do with the Type XXIs. We need the air basing they supply.”
The mood quietened for a few heartbeats as every man around the table grimly contemplated the lessons of that campaign. The last gasp of the German U-Boat menace had been decisively crushed by the middle of 1944, but only through a massive commitment of Allied airpower, hunter-killer submarines, two dozen composite support groups and the heaviest convoy escorts of the war. Above all, it had been airpower that had made the difference, moving in to hammer the U-Boats wherever they were detected and doing so far, far faster than their prey.
“The escort fleet has been gutted by the looks of this. Nothing lighter than frigates and sloops to be kept, in service or reserve.”
“Perhaps that one part of this sorry process has been a boon.” Fraser sat back thoughtfully.
Fourth Sea Lord Rear-Admiral Sir Frederic Walker nodded in agreement “The Rivers and the Flowers are too slow to the point of being effectively obsolete for front-line ASW operations, so all the money we’d waste on trying to get them in order can be redirected on ships fast enough for the new threat.”
“The new gunfire trials that Superb and Rodney have been conducting out off the West Coast of Ireland have been promising. They reached 82 miles the other day.” said Power.
“If we can build upon the promise that holds, and every indication is that we can, then that will achieve two of our long term goals – extending the range of the battlefleet and forcing the Soviets to counter the threat.”
“All of that will come up in Exercise Manticore next month. That will show the substance of what we’re capable of. But in any case, we must do what we must with what we’ve got."
……………………………………………………………………………………………......................................................
Horse Guards, Whitehall, London March 12th 1947
“It could have been worse, Frank. It could have been worse.” said Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery VC, KG, GCB, DSO, First Earl of Alamein and Chief of the Imperial General Staff as he looked out of the window of his sparsely appointed office onto Horse Guards Parade.
“Yes, sir. We could have lost more than a quarter of our active strength.” replied General Sir Frank Simpson, the Vice Chief of the Imperial General Staff.
“Quite. 250,000 men, 8 divisions and the only active field army headquarters outside Germany is a lot to lose. That takes us to 27 divisions, barely enough to cover our responsibilities at home and in Europe, let alone in the Empire and the Far East. To do that, we’d need a minimum – a minimum ! – of 42 divisions and two and a half million men, not counting the Indian Army, the Canadians or the rest of the Comonwealth. The American drawback makes that an absolute necessity.”
Simpson grimaced in agreement. The US Army in Europe had shrunk from 129 divisions to a bare 12 in a little under two years and this rapid pace had been matched in the Levant and the Far East.
As it is, the first order of business will be to concentrate on the most important areas – Europe and the Middle East. We’ll have to reduce the garrison in Japan to a single division and hope things in Burma and China don’t flare up.”
“That could well work, sir. We can always redeploy one of the Malaya-based divisions. Things are quiet enough out there.”
“Nominally. Only nominally, Frank. The French in Indochina and the Dutch in the East Indies are burning up and the Chinese situation getting muddier and bloodier by the day. That can’t help but pour over into our territories. We’ve still got to keep a strong garrison at Singers and the general Imperial reserve in India. Speaking of reserves, that is another bugbear. Cutting the Army Reserve and Territorials to 48 divisions is extremely precipitous.”
“We’ve managed to save most of our key weapons development programmes, by the look of it.”
“Yes, we saved the heavy tank, the new armoured carriers and the two big missile efforts, the ATGM and the SAGW. The airborne divisions and Commandos are relatively intact and we have a guarantee for 400 Centurions a year over the next 5 years. I managed to keep the Dreadnoughts in reserve and get a commitment for the new war machines."
"Those will be handy, sir."
“Handy indeed. We're fine for machine guns and small arms. The 25pdr is fine for our purposes for the forseeable future. It will mean that we’ll have to delay the new heavy field guns, but we have enough war stocks and surplus ammunition to last for a long time.”
“You’ve seen the intelligence reports on what the Russians have. 500 divisions and 12 million men. 30,000 tanks. That is enough to give anyone pause.”
“We have preserved a lot of our war stocks of heavy equipment, though, sir. 7500 Crusaders and 2500 Churchills backing up the Centurions and Super Crusaders for the regulars is nothing to sneeze at. Nor is 30,000 guns.”
“Those wouldn’t last long in a European war though. Two years ago, we had 42 Allied armoured divisions on the Continent. Today, we have 12, if you can count the French as Allies. We need an equalizer, Frank, and a big one at that.”
“Those are several years away, last time I heard, sir.”
"Yes, which is too damn far in my view. We must have those atomic guns and we must have them yesterday. With even a few dozen, we can stop the Red Army dead in its tracks and they know it.”
“You’re that confident about what the boffins have been saying, sir?”
“I’ve seen the footage from the tests and from Manchuria. I’m that confident. In the meantime, we need to manage our manpower as best as we can. The reductions mean that we will have to bring forward ending the detachment of British battalions to Indian Army divisions from 1951 to next year. That will be something of a saving."
“The Indians are more than ready, sir, and have been so since they mobilized back in 1939. We could see about drawing down the African Army as well. These cuts hurt now, but what we can field in 5 or 10 years time will make it worth it. Oh, and we've kept the cavalry divisions in India as well. Goodo!"
“Mmm. In the meantime, the finest army in the world has to play second fiddle to the RAF. I don’t like it anymore than you do, Frank. Still, we’ve got more than enough on our plate to keep us busy.”
………………………………………………………………………………………………....................................................
Air Ministry, Kingsway, London March 12th 1947
“It could have been better, Biggles. No doubt that it could, but we kept what we really needed.”
Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Harris KG, GCB, GBE, AFC, First Earl Harris of the Ruhr and Chief of the Air Staff sat back in his chair and threw the CID notes across the table at Air Marshal Sir James Bigglesworth VC and bar, DSO, DFC and three bars, AFC, Deputy Chief of the Air Staff.
“Yes sir, I quite agree. Shame we had to lose so many Meteors and Vampires, but I’d rather the Falcons and Warriors in the front line any day of the week. How many Canberras do we get over the next two years?”
“175 this year and 150 next year. That will just allow us to replace the Mosquitoes in front line service at home and in France, but not the Middle East or India. It had to be done, though, otherwise we’d get no Valiants until ’48 or even ‘49. As it is, we get the first twenty four this year.
Twenty four, Biggles! Twenty four jet super bombers, each of them twice as fast as a Lancaster and able to hit anything out to the Urals from Lincolnshire. With refueling tankers and the Middle East bases, they can get to Central Asia and back.”
“They cost us the chance of more Yorks, though, and all the Halifaxes.”
“The York was a brilliant aeroplane in 1944. It still is. But five years from now, what will it be facing? Rocketplanes and jet fighters that would make it seem like a Wellington seems today. The Halifax? A small price to pay. No, Biggles, if we are to keep the peace, then we need jet heavies capable of carrying the A-bomb.”
“Bomber Command is more important than ever then, as we’ve been saying. They’re the longest range weapon the Empire has in this brave new world.”
“Very droll. We kept the refueling plane programme, which will give us the legs we need along with the skyship fleet.”
“Indeed. I see here that we’ve kept Spitfire and Tempest production going at the Royal Aircraft Factory as well. Good move. Cheap numbers and good for Empire work.”
“Yes, it is a blessing in disguise. Not only is it cheaper to get as much use out of the main wartime types as possible, but it gives us breathing space to build up stocks of jet fuel and supporting infrastructure. The devil is in the detail.”
“Cutting Fighter Command down to 2400 frontline planes is something I’m very reluctant to accept, sir. It leaves absolutely no margin for error in our calculations and we need proper reserve to back them up. We have quality, but some quantity would be abundantly nice as well.”
That had been one of the most telling lessons of the war – numbers counted. The British edge in technology that had been almost flippantly taken for granted by the popular press before the war was now gone, well and truly overtaken by the Americans and quite likely equaled by the Russians. All three of the superpowers had raced to take full advantage of the considerable advances made by the Germans during the war, but the continental states were better placed to exploit them by their sheer scale.
“What were the Soviet estimates?”
“12,000 combat aircraft in Eastern Europe and Russia, rising to 20,000 on mobilization. A further 2500 in the Far East, but they are nicely balanced by the Americans, the Australians, the RIAF and the Far Eastern Air Force. If something happens, then Europe and the Middle East will be the main threat areas. That’s why we have almost 1600 Lancs in reserve. And why we need those two dozen Valiants.”
"Fighters?"
"We've got what we wanted. Hunter production in '48 and the go ahead for the new Supermarine jet and the Gloster all weather fighter. de Havilland will continue on with the DH.110. We have a qualitative edge over the Russians and anyone else in Europe. The only thing that bothers me is rockets."
"We seem to be quite well sorted for rockets at the moment, sir."
"The Silver Sword is the best in the world right now. 250 miles is fine for Germany, but rather short though if we want to hit Russia from Britain. Red King will go part of the way, when we get it. But we need more."
“That would be the Vanguard, at least to begin with, sir. All of the tests and indications thus far have been exceptionally positive.”
“That is quite right, Biggles, but we need something on top of them that can do a bit more damage than a few thousand pounds of high explosive.”
“An atom warhead? The reports I’ve read indicate that any such bomb is anywhere between six and ten years away.”
“The decisions we make today will shape our force structure and content for the next decade. We must ensure that we’ve got the best, particularly when it is inevitable that Moscow gets their own bomb. The Army and the RN have it worse than us, much worse, but will still need a lot more.”
