FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1940
1940 - 1055.PDF
APRIL IT, 1940 the residents than the useful position-indicating number. It is strange that the most romantic Service should have eliminated personality and substituted numbers. Think what a difference it would make to the public if H.M.S. Nelson were to be known as H.M.S. 56. Yet that is what the Air Force does with its squadrons. Again, the Navy describes its separate parts with easily understood directness: the Home Fleet, the Atlantic Fleet, the Mediterranean Fleet, and so on. Any schoolboy can understand that classification; what is more important, in a way, is that his mother who (unless she has a son in the Navy) doesn't give herself a headache puzzling things out, knows at once what it means. If the Royal Air Force had a habit of shifting its Headquarters every week or two, or of moving its units constantly from place to place, there might be some logic in the queer way the Air Ministry has of calling a spade an agricultural implement. But the fact is that the proportion of truly mobile units in any air force is necessarily limited by the nature of the area in which operations are conducted and by the type of campaign in which the force is engaged. It may appear anomalous to speak of a fixed air force. But that is only because we are accustomed to think of every aeroplane as a highly mobile vehicle. So it is, provided it has got the necessary chain of base aerodromes manned by the required ground crews, with fuel and oil supplies, ammunition and bomb stores, spares, workshops and all the hundred and one things multiplied to the »th power that are needful to enable the modern aeroplane to carry out its functions to a precision programme. Military Air Routes Consider for a moment how long it took Imperial Airways to complete the flying boat routes to Australia and South Africa. And in that really big job of organi- sation there were not the complications of military equipment and personnel. Moreover, it is (or should be) easier to devise a civil air route than to improvise a military one, because the civil route may be a matter for negotiation whereas a neutral Power may bar the passage of military aeroplanes at a critical moment. To remain mobile, either the air force concerned must then defy the neutral Power or dominate it by bring- ing it into the struggle. In other words, the mobility of an air force is conditional upon a number or factors, one of which is right of passage. When the passage of the aeroplanes is barred, it might be possible to ship them to a convenient port of disembarcation. But that action does not bespeak mo- bility in an air force. It simply means that the air force has thrown out a branch in the form of an ex- peditionary force, which might conceivably be cut off and become unable to extricate itself. The other limiting factor in the mobility of air forces is the law debarring the passage of belligerent aircraft over neutral territory. Not only does this prevent belligerent aircraft from using the territory as a corri- dor, but it effectually cuts off their right to seek shelter or to obtain supplies, even in coastal ports (seaplanes) or shore aerodromes. Compare this restriction with the freedom accorded to ships and one reason for the greater mobility of ships is at once apparent. Apart from the passage of the aeroplanes yet another limiting factor in air force mobility may be the means available to transport the ground "personnel and stores squired to maintain the unit for whatever period of service is contemplated. That operation, simple in peace, may be difficult in war. The war in Finland provided just such a case. The prerequisites for true mobility in aeroplane squadrons are therefore unrestricted rights of passage plus the possession of bases (fully manned by trained personnel and fully stocked with all necessary stores) sited at such intervals as will enable any or all of the aeroplanes to operate over a given area and to move freely from one area to another with all the speed of which the aeroplane is capable. ' Less Mobile than Navies On this basis, no nation in the world, and at the moment no group of nations, can claim for its air forces a degree of mobility equal to that possessed by the British and French naval forces. But it may be claimed that the British and French Empires together possess geographical conditions which are able to offer facili- ties for a degree of air mobility which no other nation, or existing group of nations, can rival. These geographical advantages are, however, to-day mainly apparent in lines of communication. Germany still has some way to march before the British and French air forces outside the two home countries can offer opposition. At the present time, therefore, the geographical advantage of the Allies is not readily translatable into a concrete military air asset, for there are only two areas whence air attack may be launched against our only declared foe, Germany; these are Britain and France. This situation will not alter unless the area of belli- gerency alters. British fixed air forces, stationed in certain zones, all possess mobility within their own areas. For ex- ample, squadrons move aircraft interchangeably between Britain and France, and about the Egypt- Palestine-Transjordan-East Africa zone which is de- signated by the unglamorous title of the Middle East Command. But these two forces are not really inter- changeable one with another, nor would it appear possible to fuse them into one with the speed of which the aeroplane is capable were such a course believed to be desirable. Not True Mobility An air-striking force gives an impression of mobility because its aeroplanes themselves provide the line of com- munication between their operational base and the objective. But this is not true mobility. It is power of local movement within a given area. It may be likened to the "mobility " of a shell travel- ling between its gun muzzle and its target. I know the analogy is crude, for the aeroplane can turn back, be deflected towards a different target after its flight has begun, release bombs in series, and so on. But the analogy does emphasise that mobility in this sense is nothing more than radius of action. Otherwise, it must be laid down that the mobility of a bomber is greater than the mobility of a fighter, which is absurd. As well try to compare the relative mobility of a flea and a frog! To return to the analogy of artillery again. Napoleon set great store upon the mobility of his artillery, even when it was sheer brute man-power that hauled them into action. But the genius of Napoleon lay in his ability to select the site of his battle to suit the restricted mobility of his epoch, so that the minimum time was required to bring his guns to bear upon different sections of the enemy force. To-day a tremendous amount of ingenuity, engineer- ing skill and special training is applied to give the great-
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
