Recent content by El Pip

If it's 5,000 ft (purely because that's one of the set number in the pilots notes) then it's only 50 gallons of fuel used in the climb, which is probably not worth the fuss of refuelling. The transport/tug Mk.IV and .V versions were about 3,700lb lighter than the bombers when empty (important...

For the Stirling it would be helpful but nothing incredible. Short Stirling pilot notes say it carried 2,254 gallons standard and burns about 300 gallons getting up to altitude, so you do use a bit over 10% of the fuel just getting to altitude. The same notes say that at minimum boost/rpm at...

The best route would probably be an earlier Butt Report and Tizard/Blackett winning out in the subsequent bun fight. So it is accepted that Bomber Command is not hitting much and that the main benefit is distracting/tying up German resources in air defence, that means a much smaller 'main force'...

Given the Lancaster only had a 102ft wingspan, the 99ft wingspan on the Stirling should have been fine. The real problem with the Stirling was it's size and the weight gain during development, the fuselage was just far too long, it had massive interior bulkheads and various heavy structural...

There shouldn't be much extra metal in the block and if anything the manifold might be a bit smaller as you'd (probably) have fewer valves per cylinder. You'd gain weight from the larger cylinder head, but save by removing the sleeves themselves and the valve train probably ends up being lighter...

I admire the effort but the meme is too strongly established at this point. It is far easier for the fanboys to blame HM Treasury rather than admit the War Office/British Rail/Whoever-else actually made the really critical mistakes.

I just add on that the USN's Mk 15 torpedo (the standard destroyer torpedo) was also initially very unreliable. As it was developed alongside the Mk 13 and 14 by mostly the same people it had the same problems, though at least one major fault was apparently all it's own. The older destroyers...

180 soldiers on a training mission is a tiny commitment compared to the manpower and resources required for the Burma Road. China is a low priority for Britain, so low cost support like Tulip Force are fine and may even expand a bit. But anything major will need the US deciding its a priority...

If the Grand Fleet can do 24-25knots sustained vs 21knots of OTL that could make a big difference at Jutland or whatever the big fleet battle ends up being. I think the lack of the 'Splendid Cats' is also an advantage, it means the Battlecruiser Force from OTL doesn't exist as the capital...

It was 1991 under the Delors Commission that the EEC first start saying it liked the idea of splitting track operators from train operators - Council Directive 91/440/EEC of 29 July 1991 on the development of the Community's railways - "if a distinction is made between the provision of...

Was that really a serious problem though? I'm not arguing they were using old kit, but the RR armoured cars did a decent enough job in Iraq and Western Desert. As for the Far East, would any of the modern kit even have been sent there? And given all the other problems would it have made a...

The version I heard was it was a UK civil service goldplating of the EU Rail Regs. There is a requirement in the first railway package that the train operating company and the infrastructure owning companies have to be separate, which the civil service and lawyers insisted mean a Big Four...

This was the position of the British Army pre-war, they wanted an artillery spotter and one of the complaints against the Lysander was that it was too fast to do that job properly. As I understand it neither Army nor RAF had any doctrine for a Stuka/Il-2 type CAS aircraft pre-war and so would...

Who said it would be easy? Possible is not the same as easy, though I accept this entire thread hinges on ignoring that fact. As I said, letting the Germans play around with IVS where the British had a spy gave them an inside line. Forcing it to shut would not have stopped the Germans...

Sigh. Germany already did this in OTL. Look up IVS, a dummy company setup in 1922 in the Netherlands to build submarines. All the shareholders were German shipbuilders, the chief designer and design staff were all Germans who had worked on U-boat design before/during WW1. When the submarines...