A Better Way - My Way: WHIF US Air Force Thread

[KJ_Lesnick]

Yes this is of course partially in a joking manner as I don't believe my way is always right: It was supposed to sound so bold and arrogant as to be laughably comical (like Denny Crane in Boston Legal saying "I'm Denny Crane -- even the sound of my name fascinates")

The basic subject revolve around the idea of an independent Air Force forming out of Billy Mitchell's death and that being used as the basis to further the idea of creating cool fictitious aircraft designs on the Artwork forum.

For the sake of this WHIF scenario, Mitchell will die in a plane crash around 1922 after one of his ship bombing trials.  It will be a mechanical failure.  This scenario would get him out of the way and he would become a martyr of sorts which would allow for an independent Air Force to form.  The USN would probably be able to fight off his attempts to take over Naval Aviation, and this would probably be a good thing because of a simple fact.  With the Washington Naval Treaty there would be little demand for quality carrier-suitable aircraft and their capabilities would fall further behind land-based airplanes than they would if they were part of a Navy which clearly saw an interest in them regardless of their numbers.  

The questions I have really come down to this and I need an answer before I can really do anything else

1: If an independent Air Force formed, would this include patrol-aircraft and how would this affect Naval Aviation funding?
2: Would the USN focus more on unmanned aircraft such as this?
3: Would airships be under it's control (The RAF didn't take control of airships until the 1930's though Mitchell had an interest in them as early as 1925 -- however in this story he dies in 1922)

[Old Wombat]

KJ, your link didn't work.

I'm figuring this is where it was meant to go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hewitt-Sperry_Automatic_Airplane

[KJ_Lesnick]

I corrected the link...

Before I go any further I was thinking about something -- remember the Vultee XA-41, the Boeing XF8B-1 and designs like that: Fast, single engine attack/tactical bombers? 

I think that was a big mistake for the USAF to abandon that.  The USAF in real life ended up using twin engined attack planes which were effectively medium-bombers by the standards of some Air-Forces and by requiring attack-planes/light-bombers to have two engines it effectively resulted in a lot of tactical-bombing duties assigned to fighters including nuclear-strike: This ended up resulting in larger, heavier fighters (F-105) that weren't really optimized for medium/high altitude combat and instead geared for fast and low-speed missions that would have better been fitted to tactical bombers. 

[KJ_Lesnick]

Regardless here's what I'm thinking so far regarding the structuring of the WHIF USAF

1: USAAS Pursuit, Bomber, Observation aircraft would be placed under the new USAF which would be formed from the USAAS; the USN would probably be able to keep it's own aviation program under it's own control and it would be better this way to be absolutely honest.  I don't know what Mitchell's views on dirigibles and balloons were prior to 1925 so it's possible that the Army would retain at least some assets in this regard, and the Navy would probably keep everything.

2: New designations: The USAAS's aircraft designation system was simply overly complicated with bombers divided into categories like Day and Night-Bomber, and short and long-range designations; pursuit aircraft divided into designations which included engine type, day or night, twin-seat, special-alert whatever that is.  

Best idea would be to simply the hell out of this with designations as follows from 1923-24
Bomber...............................Pursuit..............................Observation...............................Maritime Patrol
B = Bomber (Medium)...........P = Pursuit........................O = Observation.........................M = Maritime Patrol
LB = Light-Bomber................PB = Pursuit-Bomber..........................................................MB = Maritime Patrol Bomber
HB = Heavy-Bomber.............R = Racer

And further refine it by 1927 as follows
Bomber...............................Pursuit.............................Observation.............................Maritime-Patrol.............................Cargo
B = Bomber.........................P = Pursuit.......................O = Observation.......................M = Maritime-Patrol.......................C = Cargo

The designation could include multi-role designations via the creation of multi-mission designation systems such as
BP = Aircraft which is predominantly a fighter which is also capable of being used as a bomber (most likely a light bomber)
PB = A bomber which due to possessing substantial maneuverability and modifications can be used as a fighter (less likely)
BO = An observation plane which is capable of performing bombing missions (light-bomber most likely)
OB = A bomber which is capable of performing observation missions (light-bomber most likely)
BM = A maritime patrol aircraft which is capable of performing bombing missions
MB = A bomber which is capable of performing maritime patrol missions


3: Aircraft Roles

P = Pursuit aircraft are designed to dominate the skies through the process of taking control of the skies or maintaining existing dominance.  Operating offensively, such an aircraft would be thought of modern day as a traditional fighter; operating defensively, they are sometimes thought of as interceptors particularly when they are specialized for rapid climb, high-speed, and heavy armament to help destroy bombers.

B = Bomber: Bombers are designed to drop bombs on selected targets which range from

• Troops and troop formations in support of ground forces
  
• Military targets including tanks, aircraft on the ground, airbases, army bases, naval bases, ports & harbors, submarines, and surface vessels
  
• Supply lines leading to the battlefield including railways, trains, roads, bridges, trucks, and tunnels
  
• Destruction of supply depots, aircraft and weapons factories, and other war-industry
  

..
There really need not be any distinction between an attack plane and a light-bomber as they both are used in a tactical fashion, have similar loads and can be both built as dive-bombers.  In practice bombers are not entirely different from artillery and mobile artillery platforms in that their aim is to bombard targets, whatever they happen to be.

• Light bombers (attack-planes) are more like the kind of artillery you can call in to smash the crap out of enemy troops that have your guys pinned with the runway symbolizing the cannon/barrel and the artillery shell symbolizing the aircraft: The major difference is that the light-bomber doesn't have to actually dive itself into the target, they merely drop a bomb on it, and can then return back to the base from where it launched -- they are also greatly slower, though they can maneuver which can more than offset the benefit and are more accurate at longer ranges due to their ability to maneuver and strafe.  In addition to blasting up enemy troops, they can also serve interdiction roles to hinder the supplies of troops and equipment to the front-lines.
  
• Heavy-bombers are less like re-usable artillery shells that can maneuver and also strafe; they are more like a airborne artillery platforms (and arguably a flying battleship) in their basic role with the ability to travel some seriously long distances inside enemy territory and deliver a heavy-duty degree of bombardment against the enemy.  While war-industry would be a primary target, the fact is that enemy air-fields, large army and navy bases, and harbors could easily be nailed with these aircraft as well; interdiction should not be placed outside their role either since they can deliver very heavy loads.
  
• Medium bombers are somewhere in between and seem to sort of possess traits similar to flying artillery and airborne artillery platforms.  They make good interdictors in practice as they are basically mini heavy-bombers.
  

..
Of course it's a lot more complicated than this as these are aircraft, not flying battleships or flying artillery guns, or artillery shells.  It's merely that conceptually they do have some overlaps.

Strategic bombing had started out as early as 1914 with a dirigible dropping bombs on Antwerp, this would eventually spread to England with directed attacks aimed at the civilian population and would soon be joined by specialized bomber aircraft.  The Zeppelins were eventually done in with incendiary rounds that turned the airships into colossal fireballs; the bombers were a bit more difficult to deal with.  Soon enough the British RNAS and occasionally the RFC would return the favor with strategic bombing campaigns of their own and by 1918 they had merged into the RAF.

With the military taking a more defensive posture, he was a big proponent of offensive air power and using it to induce operational paralysis so as to either produce a military defeat or to cause the enemy government to change its policies.  With the German Zeppelin attacks, attacks against civilians seemed probably to be a good idea to him, though by 1919 terror had become a definite objective after a palace was bombed by a Handley-Page V/1500.  Though a palace could be argued to be a command-center and thus a justifiable target, the terror produced by the attack and the immediate request for peace had lead to an increased popularity for directed attacks against civilians which technically was wrong even then.

During the 1920's this had been put into place throughout the Middle-East with the aim of subduing unruly tribes.  Though the RAF had successfully carried out close-air-support, tactical-bombing, and even strategic airlifts, they also carried out incendiary attacks against villages, dropping poison gas, and probably strafing.  Imperialism is an ugly business and it's only uglier when you feel the people under your thumb are barely human.  Interestingly, Winston Churchill was actually the person who advocated using poison gas on tribespeople and called anybody who disagreed with them as ignorant and standing in the way of scientific progress (perhaps the scientific process of gassing people to death though the Germans would sadly become better at this and would horrifically employ it against people they deemed unworthy of living).

In 1921, Giulio Douhet published a book which while articulately written effectively advocated breaking the will to resist by dropping high-explosives, incendiaries, poison gas, and possibly bacteriological agents on civilians in a deliberate manner, so as to coerce a surrender, after decimating the nations airfields.  Though he had a number of good ideas (if you command the air over a nation, you control what happens to the nation), he had numerous flaws in his reasoning believing that big self-defending bombers could always fight their way through and that the population would fold in a couple of weeks (which rationalized his position -- he felt war was amoral so any amoral act was acceptable to finish the war no matter how horrible; he figured death tolls would be high but would ultimately be lower than carrying out a normal war)

Billy Mitchell had actually popularized Douhet's teachings among the USAAS, and was in communication with Trenchard, who was also in communication with Douhet and their ideas kind of cross-pollinated.  Mitchell seemed to call for more tactical bombing similar to Trenchard, but also called for terror-bombing of civilians as well -- he felt it would produce an uprising among the population against their government to make the war stop.  

Ironically despite this he would actually play a role in bombing methods which were more practical due to his interest in bombing ships from high altitude.  Though his ideas seemed like a good idea (the Navy thought so too), it truthfully was fundamentally flawed as the ship could maneuver if it saw the aircraft.  Highly accurate bombsights came out of the desire to bomb ships and while they weren't so good for ships, they weren't half decent for fixed targets.  With an aim on precision, the objectives tended to change from terror to taking out nodes in the industrial web and attacks on specific targets.  Not that there was any real desire to spare civilians as far as I know, the idea was more along the line of a sharp-shooter versus a guy shooting inaccurately -- you can destroy more targets with less bombs since more will hit, and with the same number of bombs you can destroy more targets.


4: Doctrine & Procurement

In a large war, one would best use a combination of tactical and strategic bombing not one or the other with the objective of using each to complement each other.  Strategic bombing which would be autonomous from ground or sea operations would allow long-range penetration into enemy airspace and weaken enemy tactical forces, and tactical forces would weaken enemy defenses allowing a successful penetration for strategic attacks.

Tactical aviation would also improve the effectiveness of the Army as it would no longer have aviation assets and would need some form of CAS capability, and being that the same type of aircraft used in CAS can also be used for interdiction, there isn't really a major problem.  Enemies cannot also be relied upon to surrender and might very well need ground support to allow the troops to simply occupy the place.

Interservice cooperation would probably be necessary as we would have pretty much all aviation assets, including all the USN's maritime patrol aircraft.  There would need to be some kind of working relation established.  This could be based on the wisdom of operating in mutual cooperation or appealing to their sense of self-preservation by illustrating how bad it would affect them by not cooperating (i.e. coordination of air-power with sea-power is vital for the Navy) with the Air Force.  You'd also want to establish a corps of liason-officers to help smooth things over, find people who are receptive to your ideas, people who have the ear of high-ranking officials etc.

As for overall funding, early on R&D would be highly important to catch up and maintain equal footing at least with foreign countries in regards to all aircraft types.  It would be a good idea, for example, to develop fighters that are actually indigenously built -- it's not good to depend on foreign nations for your weapons -- they could very well later end up an enemy -- you never know.

Regarding aircraft type

• Heavy bombers require more resources (being larger, requiring multiple, and possibly larger engines, and more defensive armament) and technology (viable bombsights, superchargers or turbosuperchargers) than the light and medium bombers, they would need a sizable amount of funding.
  
• Medium bombers would follow, then light-bombers predictably and truthfully would probably be developed in larger numbers than the heavies especially early on.
  
• Light-bombers and fighters are far less intensive on resources being smaller, light-bombers being dependent on a relatively small amount of defensive armament, both having fixed-guns as offensive armament, and all dependent on only one engine.
  
• Pursuit-type aircraft which serve a vital role and demand high quality so despite not necessarily being very expensive compared to heavy bombers might come up higher than light-bombers in terms of R&D cost at the very least
  

..
The idea of bomber escorts would be something that would be highly important and something which a number of air-power theorists at various times felt were necessary -- even Hap Arnold.  His his concepts were fundamentally flawed -- he wanted a two-man fighter with an aft-gun as a long-range bomber escort -- it would almost seem as if he wanted to use the tail-gun to fend-off enemy fighters trying to make a run at the bomber.  If you want an effective fighter you build extreme speed and agility into the design and win by being able to outrun and outmaneuver your opponent, not by using a tail gun and is more of a bomber-solution.   Admittedly there were desires for fighters as far back as WW1 with tail-guns assuming some ideas that weren't fleshed out to give them more versatility and allow them to penetrate Lufbury circles while using the tail-gun to fend off other fighters in the circle.  The idea had actually persisted with the Berliner Joyce P-16. 

Personally, I think it's stupid, but if I was alive back then I don't know if the idea would have been stupid based on WW1 experience or would have thought some merit to the idea -- regardless if pilots were claiming the tail-gun was useless I would stop procuring any fighters with defensive armament as it didn't work in WW1 and won't work in this case either.

The long-range fighter, regardless, should have been pursued more vigorously, and even if it couldn't be done from the outset, it would be good to place the idea on the list to be periodically reviewed as advances are made.


5: Uniforms

Any new service requires a new uniform -- it's a fundamental rule.  Personally it would be a good idea to start distancing the service from it's Army roots... it's not part of the Army so why should we use a bluish army uniform?  I think the ranking system used by the Army for officers is is fine because I think the RAF's system is totally stupid -- no offense to people here who are british but I don't like the idea of having a rank called a "Pilot Officer" if you're not a pilot, or having a "Flight Lieutenant" if you work on the ground, a "wing-commander" if you don't command an air-wing, and so on..  Admittedly one could say the same thing about an Army Captain or a Navy Commander or a Navy Captain -- but somehow they don't seem as hokey.

The Blues: Personally, I think the RAF had a pretty-cool blue uniform in basic principle, but I'd have changed a number of things (and yes, btw -- I do like lists)

Officer/Warrant Officer

• Darker blue color for the uniforms (Late 1960's or 1994 era)
  
• Pocket-sizes similar to those used by our Army or Marine Corps
  
• Insignia, buttons based on the USAF 1994 uniform
  
• White shirt
  
• Striping set up similar to the RAF and USN for officer with each stripe consisting of a bright inner silver/silver-gold stripe, and an outer silver/gold stripe
  
• For warrant-officers, I think it would be best to use the same stripe but with a square notch for W1, Two notches together for W2, 3 for W3, 4 for W4 and some kind of stripe cutting down the middle for W5
  
• Hat-crown to be the same color as the uniform, piping the same color, and a silver/silver-gold band around it
  
• Cap device should look different than the Army or Navy's -- I think something revolving around a bird with spread wings a shield and I don't give a crap about the rest so long as it looks cool, realistic and in line with American traditions and stuff
  

..
ENLISTED

• Same coloring, pocket, button, shirt-color, and insignia coloring stuff
  
• Initially chevron set up to be similar to the Army's and later to adapt to something newer
  
• Chevrons to have a light color on the inside, and darker on the outside
  
• Cap with a black band instead of silver and a smaller simplified cap-device
  

..

The general duty-uniform: Big heavy suits, ties and stuff are stupid when you're just going around doing routine work

Officers/Warrant Officers

• Same button, insignia colors as before
  
• Khaki uniform, short sleeves, epaulettes with rank insignia on them
  
• Khaki colored hat, blue piping, and as before same cap-band
  

..
Enlisted

• Same button, insignia colors as before
  
• Khaki uniform, short sleeves, no epaulettes (no need for 'em)
  
• Chevrons on the sleeves
  
• Khaki colored hat, blue piping, black cap-band and the smaller simpler cap-device thingie
  

The Dress Khaki: I guess no military uniform is complete without those babies

They're basically the same as the blues except khaki, and a khaki hat in both cases.  I think that should be simple enough as I really don't feel like going on and on about a uniform description.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Since I'm not particularly interested in fighter and aircraft development in the late 1920's which I think should largely progress similarly with a few exceptions here and there.  I'm just going to jump to the early and mid 1930's

Bombers

Heavy: I was thinking of a four-engined monoplane design which would effectively be built in lieu of the Fokker XB-8 and one of the Keystone series: It would basically be what the Barling bomber was supposed to be, top speed would not necessarily be all that fast but boy could it hoist a load (5,000 to 7,500), maybe even do it a respectable distance LOL.  I'm not sure how realistic this would be but it would be cool and would effectively be a late 1920's version of the V/1500

Medium:

1: Something like the Martin B-10.  It was highly advanced design with good performance and though it's range wasn't ideal, it still was an improvement over earlier designs.  And of course like the real B-10 it would quickly be fitted with NACA cowls, variable pitch propellers, tested with a turbocharger and all that cool stuff; there are some ideas that I would have never proceeded with (i.e. putting floats on it -- we'd already operate maritime-patrol aircraft), but there are others that I would have.  Here are some of them

• Building a variant with V-1710's: It had it's roots in a 1929 proposal for new high performance fighters and bombers but due to small design teams and a small demand, it could never quite get far until the mid/late-1930's.  So the idea would be to re-engine or build a new variant of the B-10 with these engines to give industry a push; a supercharger would be a pretty cool touch as well if possible as they still add power and are less temperamental than the turbos of the era.
  

..

Light: Avoiding switching to twin-engined attack planes, incorporating retractable gears into ground-attack planes sooner if necessary, or at least limited retractability like the BT.

Fighters

1: A plane like the P-24/P-30 without a twin-crew or defensive armament
2: A plane like the P-36 with an inline V-1710 and a good radiator*

• The same principles behind the NACA cowl could be cross-applied to create a radiator for an inline engine
  
• I'm not sure about exact timetable figures but if it took the same time to develop the NACA cowl, it might have been doable by 1935
  

It would be built around the strength of the P-36, but with supercharger and possibly a different wing to improve high-speed performance.


I'll get to the late 1930's later...

[Rheged]

I'm amazed nobody has anything to say

I'm still  taking in all of the carefully crafted material.  There appears to be huge whiff potential here.

[Rheged]

Rheged

Yeah, plus imagine if the twin-seater fighter ideas like the YP-24 and P-30 were never developed and instead either
A: More existing fighter types were bought with the budget
B: A single-seat closed-cockpit monolane was built instead

The second idea really interests me as I think the P-24 was already the fastest plane in the USAAC's inventory, if it had the same engine, and a smaller airframe... PHWOAR!  That thing would be able to seriously move!

I'm with you on option B.............and the  Merlin would become available for the  last of the development  aircraft if I have my timings correct.  A P-24 B  with a thousand Rolls Royce horses up front  would have a very interesting career ahead of it!

[KJ_Lesnick]

Rheged

The only pitfall I could see is that it might hinder the development of other fighters that were coming around in the mid-1930's.  And for a WHIF idea, imagine a P-36 that had an inline engine from the outset -- kind of a light-weight P-40 and a comparable aircraft to the Spitfire

[MadJack76]

A lightweight P-40?  I'm listening...

[KJ_Lesnick]

I'm thinking a 360 mile an hour interceptor in 1935 would rock...

[KJ_Lesnick]

I'm wondering if that could mean that a successor to the 360-mph interceptor could include a design similar to a Hawker Typhoon/Tempest, which was also carrier suitable.  Combine that with an F4U and you got some seriously cool poo-poo.