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British air innovation during the Interwar Period

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Military innovation during the Interwar Period (1918-1939) largely occurred through an evolutionary process, gradual improvements in technologies, tactics, and operational concepts.[1] The great powers (Germany, Great Britain, Japan, and United States) all dealt with constrained military budgets; consequently, innovation addressed each state’s perspective on future military conflicts. For the United States and Japan, innovations in naval airpower and amphibious warfare were essential to the conduct of warfare in the Pacific. The offensive-minded German military advanced their land (armored) warfare. Great Britain directed innovation against the threat of blockade and invasion from the sky.[2]

By the mid-1930s, Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain prioritized research and development of a homeland defense system above strategic bombing initiatives. This was a controversial decision given the offensive air power doctrine of the time. Sir Hugh Dowding, head of Royal Air Force (RAF) Research and Development and later Fighter Command was chosen to manage this extensive task. The RAF, influenced by Dowding and Hugh Trenchard among others, chose to replace bombers with fighters, arguably winning them the Wikipedia:Battle of Britain; Bomber Command did not achieve success in the first two years of war, but later improved through fighter escorts and navigational and targeting technologies inspired by Dowding.

Modern systems for air defense closely resemble the Dowding System.

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Introduction of development programs

Sir Hugh Dowding’s influence with the Chamberlain government secured financial support, the critical requirement for innovation. Dowding consequently diverted resources away from Bomber Command, a remarkable achievement given the use of bombers by Germany and Britain during WWI and the universally accepted offensive airpower doctrine.[3] Only Dowding’s vision for air defense addressed Britain’s greatest threat, the German bombing capability.[4] The Chamberlain government trusted Dowding’s assertion that the German bomber was stoppable.[5] His influence also reached into other government institutions, like the Home Office where he maintained a liaison to synchronize efforts.[6] Radar development, fighter development and subsequent developments in navigation, target identification, and the air defense system all trace back to Dowding’s financial maneuvering.[7]

The military historian Williamson Murray describes Dowding’s accomplishments as “revolutionary” as Dowding’s Fighter Command capitalized on new technologies and operational concepts to advance the context of air warfare.[8] Dowding’s air defense system was inspired by the pioneering work in radar development, but Dowding himself acquired government support, developed a guiding vision, and managed the disparate components that together established the air defense system of World War II.

Both the technical and operational concepts of homeland defense were addressed.[9] His contributions to the technical specification of the Supermarine Spitfire and Hawker Hurricane fighters and radar systems resulted in coordination between sensors and shooters. This allowed Britain to economize fighters, directing fighters to the right place and the right time.[10] Dowding refined radar operations to feed a command and control hub at RAF Bentley Priory; this connectivity far surpassed Germany’s operation of technically superior, but isolated radar systems. Then, by integrating the defense system into RAF exercises, Dowding was able to improve operational performance. Dowding’s leadership inspired solutions to other homeland defense challenges, including how to distinguish enemy and friendly formations, deter low flying enemy formations, protect shipping vessels, and safely integrate air defense guns. He also prepared for contingencies, including amphibious landings and airborne assaults by the German army.[11] Despite the many critics of his endeavors, Dowding’s vision for homeland defense drove innovation that proved successful during the pivotal Battle of Britain, 1940.

A variety of entrepreneurs and researchers from both civilian and military ranks were assembled, most notably members of the Tizard Committee and radar specialist Robert Watson-Watt. The military and civilian collaboration proved instrumental for rapid radar development and integration.[12] Dowding also established standards for innovation through his participation in experiments and testing. He adapted his strategies to new circumstances, especially after the tragedy of the “Battle of Barking Creek” where friendly aircraft were incorrectly identified and destroyed. Williamson Murray describes Dowding’s leadership style as a model for all military officers preparing for future wars.[13]

Dowding’s innovations enabled the Royal Air Force to enter World War II prepared for the German air threat. Unfortunately, Bomber Command did not achieve success in the first two years of war, but later improved through fighter escorts and navigational and targeting technologies, all inspired by Dowding. Dowding challenged the notion of bomber supremacy and prevailed. Even today’s systems for air defense closely resemble the Dowding System.

Slow development

The Royal Air Force is understood by historians to have lagged behind in the area of close air support (CAS)[14] and bombing,[15][16] in the interwar period.

These are general categorization made by most historians, but few historians acknowledge the innovations that the RAF did make, and in the age of GPS coordination of forces take modern radar-fighter coordination for granted. to Dowding's decision to replace bombers with fighters[1] is claimed to be an error,[16][15] when fighters were what held the German Blitz bombers back.

Hindsight seems to be used primarily to knock the strategic position unique to Britain; for example, the RAF is criticized as not developing anti-submarine warfare because of its success in using convoys and sonar, but it was the only force to have to face concentrated submarine warfare in the early years of the war, and the sources fail to show in what way the British forces were inadequate in the face of this.[17]

These may be American biases, perhaps as compensation for the late involvement in WWII.

Reaction against bombing

Some scholars completely ignore the reduction in strategic bombers and replacement with fighters,[14][15] and see strategic bombers as a deficit to Britains inter-war transformation; one blames another Hugh, Hugh Trenchard, as responsible for "influencing" Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA), causing the RAF to increase strategic bombing.[14] Paradoxically, the story includes the fact that moral objections to bombing were raised after WWI,[14] but this, and evidence from the Battle of Britain would only seem to have influenced what closer examination of the issue by Dowding's biographers shows: Dowding's shift towards fighters.[1]

Close air support

Not all the criticisms of the Royal Air Force interwar development are unfounded. The US developed their close air support in the interwar period, and RAF were behind them in this area.[14] The British had experienced CAS in 1918 practiced by German air units against them, and it seems reasonable to expect that they could have learned from this.[14]


References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Williamson Murray and Allan R. Millett, eds., Military Innovation in the Interwar Period, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 308.
  2. ↑ Murray and Millett, 276.
  3. ↑ Murray and Millett, 366.
  4. ↑ Dowding possessed a keen understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the German Luftwaffe, the air threat that would drive his approach to innovation. See Murray, 307.
  5. ↑ Murray and Millett, 278.
  6. ↑ H200 Course Book: Military Innovation in Peace and War, AY 2010-11, US Army Command and General Staff College, September 2010, 474.
  7. ↑ Murray and Millett, 281.
  8. ↑ Murray and Millett, 306.
  9. ↑ Murray describes Dowding's top-down leadership as adding expertise to both technical as well as conceptual details of an innovation. See Murray and Millett, 306.
  10. ↑ Murray and Millett, 283.
  11. ↑ H200, 466 & 470.
  12. ↑ Murray and Millett, 281.
  13. ↑ Murray and MIllett, 325.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 14.5 Air & Space Power Journal fall 03, page 115, summary of Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945], Tami Davis Biddle
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 The RAF and aircraft design, 1923-1939: air staff operational requirements, Colin Sinnott Chapter 9, page 217
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare: The Evolution of British and American Ideas about Strategic Bombing, 1914-1945, Tami Davis Biddle
  17. ↑ Air power in the age of total war, John Buckley page 93
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