RAF: Separate & Independent Force

Captain Lewis issued Birthday Greetings to the RAF on the 1st April.
What does the Forum think? Should an Air Force be independent from the other services or tied to the army and navy as in the U.S. of A.
Did it mean more co-operation and less internecine warfare over the means of production?
Ignore the Independent Bomber Force. I was thinking of the period between the wars and the onset of WW2.
Apologies if this has been raised before,
VBR
Peter S.

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Peter S.:
I would say yes, the Air Force should be independent of the Army and Navy, and most importantly be co-equal.
In our case before 1949, Army doctrine determined what the U.S.Army Air Forces would be and what they would do. Also the command and control was subordinate to the Army. In the case of Naval Aviation, results of the carrier war in WW2 over shadowing the surface fleet and they gradually became subordinat to the carrier, the caarier admirals took over control of the Navy and established it command and control and doctrine. Most importantly established control over the developement of the navy's future requirements with the carrier air arm first, and submarine missile second and surface fleet third.
With the establishment of the RAF on 1 April 1918, and it';s own Ministry gave the RAF the control of it developement. Had it not happened the Royal Army would have disbanded the RAf after the war , which it tried to do in the fight for money. I would hate to think where we would be today had that happened, we might be speaking German and commerorationg Hilter's birthday as a national holiday.
Blue skies,
Dan-San Abbott

[Billy_Bishop]

And for a look at the other direction, we have the CAF, Canadian Armed Forces. Thanks to some silly politician, they're all combined together, and now totally FUBAR.

VBR,

Al Lowe

Hi Dan
Your erudition as usual is near perfect.
I don't think it would have ceased to exist but would have been a specialist branch. The Royal Flying Corps was there before 1914.
The RAF did make many mistakes but you could also say look what happened to the Tank Corps (and the prevailing view that the horse was supreme.i.e. Allenby & the desert)
How come the U.S.A. managed to arrive in W.W.2 with a reasonable bomber force.? I don't know much about the fighters but they seem to have performed as well as ours.
We British are a bit odd, only part of the army is Royal i.e. Royal Engineers, Royal Horse Artillery, Royal Flying Corps etc. but The Black Watch, etc. etc.
If only the skies were blue at home. We have had the wettest March since records were kept (1761)
VBR
Peter S.
P.S. The Germans deny there was a Battle of Britain. I must say it certainly felt like one to us. But would Hitler have invaded? He had an inflated idea of our Naval Superiority.) P.

If I might offer another view, the USMC has had an Air arm since the early '20s, fighting bandits and revolutionaries in Haiti and Dominica. The focus of the MAW has always been on support of ground forces, rather than swanning off to Duel in the Empty Blue...
Another problem has been the Key West Accords, wherein the Army got control of rotary wings and the Air Force had all fixed wing aircraft. There was a push in the late '80s by the USAF to ditch the A-10 Warthog 'cause it did not fit with the "Air Superiority" concept, and the USAF thus pushed them off onto reserve units, where it was expected they would die of benign neglect.The Army, however, who had foisted the A-10 on the USAF, could not fly it, and could only gnash it's teeth as "Close Air Support" remained a Marine specialty. (The Army labors under the mistaken view that if they do things like the Corps, they will be as good as a Marine...)
The Gulf War saved the A-10, but USAF STILL doesn't want them, and can't get rid of them.

>And for a look at the other direction, we have the CAF,
>Canadian Armed Forces.

Australia has the ADF, or Australian Defence Forces, this is just the amalgam of all administration though, through the one organization. The arms still exists as sperate units.

The RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force) which was created as a seperate air arm in 1921, suffered from the Army and Navy fighting up until the late 1930's. Richard Williams was the 'Army' bloke by being ex-AFC and Stan Goble the 'Navy' bloke by virtue of him being ex-RNAS. The government actually made them take turns at being the Chief of Air Staff so neither the Navy or Army would get too much a say in the Air Force! Because of this all aerial forces were consolidated into the RAAF. It was the RAAF which issued the spec for the Walrus, a Naval aircraft!

In WWII there was the odd situation of 9 Sqn RAAF supplying the aircraft for the Navy, the RAAF also supplied the close support aircraft for the Army. After WWII the Navy wanted aircraft carriers and got the Sydney and Melbourne, with that they got the RAN FAA (Royal Australian Navy Fleet Air Arm ), the FAA still exists but only the choppers. In Vietnam the RAAF operated the Bushrangers and Emus ( gunships and slicks to the Americans ) but the Army wasnt happy wth RAAF's support of their forces, so now the Army has it's own co-operation units with the RAAF supplying the fix-winged transport aircraft.

As the RAAF exists (IMO) for it's strike abilities around the North-West shelf oilfields it makes sense the Army and Navy manage it's own co-operation forces. There was no real analogy for aerial independance in Australia for WWI as the AFC remained an Army Unit until 1919 despite serving in RAF administration and logictical command. The Australian Navy had no aerial forces in WWI, the few instances involved borrowed RNAS aircraft.



cam
http://members.nbci.com/pointcook/

[Volker_Nemsch]

Hello Peter!

Being an independent (air)-force is a necessity for real development of the force itself. It is simply the chance for testing new techniques, structures or tactics. If a force is just one of many branches in an army there will be to many (often conservative) people be asked for their opinion before something is really done. This causes a considerable loss of time. A progressive other force (perhaps the enemy in a war to come) will take the advantage out of this.

In my opinion the French airforce in the late 1930´s is an example for really slow development.

The ´Battle Of Britain` is known in Germany as the `Luftschlacht um England`. The first step for the Luftwaffe was the defeat of the whole British airforce and then the Navy would have been nearly helpless (Prince of Wales, Repulse, Pearl Harbour, etc.).

The German Navy itself was at no time a real worthy opponent for the Royal Navy. Just compare the number of battleships, aircraft-carriers, cruisers, destroyers etc.. The Germans knew this and focussed on building submarines.

Best regards
Volker Nemsch

[Dan_San_Abbott]

Peter S.:
The reason the US Army Air Corp arrived in WW2 with some fair bombers was the advocates of General Billy Mitchell's bombing policies were in power and maintained those policies and doctrines, and doing so had set the the direction of bomber developement in the late twenties and early thirties that lead to the B-17, B-24, B.25 and B-26 by the beginning of the war, however foghter developement suffered under those policies and doctrines. It took the war to get the Army off it's collective rear ends! Then we got the P-51 and that's another story of the Army with the head up their rear end!. Peter Patti and I visited your beautiful England in 1972 in September-October, the weather was great. Had I been offered a job by Irvin or some other parachute company, WE would be English today, I fell in love with England, it;s very gracious people and magnificent scenery. However driving on the left with a car with the steering wheel on the left was an experience, specially when passing. It scared the hell out of Patti!
Blue skies,
Dan-San Abbott
Blue skies,
Dan-San Abbott

[leo]

I have to agree with Dan-San. Britain is a lovely place to visit. As far as the driving is concerned, shut your eyes and hit the accelerator.

In our Navy, the carrir pilots, as all naval aviation, is seperate from the USAF. What is the situation in the Royal Navy? Are they seperate or are they in the RAF?

leo

[mike_baram]

Peter,
The Germans were ready for an invasion of Britain; Operation Sea Lion.
The nasty RAF bomber blokes smashed the hell out of the invasion barges, so the invasion was called off.
How do you say in German "Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Fuhrer has decided to cancel this year's cross-channel excursion. The Wehrmacht apologizes for any inconvenience."?
VBR,
Mike