Biplanes and Bombsights: British Bombing in World War I - Stories about the Sopwith Strutter, Zeppelin, Dehavilland, Handley Page, General Hugh Trenchard, and Lord Rothermere

Biplanes and Bombsights: British Bombing in World War I - Stories about the Sopwith Strutter, Zeppelin, Dehavilland, Handley Page, General Hugh Trenchard, and Lord Rothermere PDF Author: Air University Press
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781549870941
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
This study develops and substantiates a comprehensive evaluation of British long-range bombing in the First World War. Its findings run directly counter to the generally held opinion. Natural limitations, technical shortfalls, and aircrews lacking proficiency acted in concert with German defenses to produce far less results than those claimed.In broad brush, this study balances wartime claims against actual results as determined after hostilities. It also documents the cost, in men and equipment, of the bombing offensive waged by 3 Wing, Royal Naval Air Service, and components of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force--specifically 41 Wing, Eighth Brigade, and Independent Force, between July 1916 and the Armistice. The study's organization was based on the organizational scheme of Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland in their four-volume history of Bomber Command in World War II, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany. Maj Gen Hugh M. Trenchard's Independent Force, the major strategic force to undertake significant and protracted bombing operations in the Great War, levered into place the cornerstone of the postwar Royal Air Force and shaped its doctrine during the interwar years. It also conditioned domestic expectations concerning the offensive potential of aerial campaigns in any future conflict. The lessons supposedly gleaned from the Great War heavily influenced the progress of British military aviation during the 1920s and 1930s, underpinning RAF doctrines, expectations, and policies up to the initial phases of the Second World War. The subject thus deserves careful study in its own right. Fundamental discrepancies between the materials and conclusions reported in the January 1920 Air Ministry's classified evaluation of the Great War's long-range bombing offensive on the one hand, and those contained in seven volumes of evidence gathered firsthand by RAF intelligence officers who surveyed German-occupied territory immediately after the Armistice on the other, prompted an initial interest in this aspect of military history. Data from seldom-consulted records of the bombing study conducted independently by the United States Air Service complicated these differences. Subsequent examinations of RAF, Air Ministry, and other official archives brought even more contradictions to light.Contents * FOREWORD * INTRODUCTION * Chapter 1 * NO. 3 WING ROYAL NAVAL AIR SERVICE (JULY 1916-MAY 1917) * Notes * Chapter 2 * BRITISH BOMBING BEGINS * Notes * Chapter 3 * 41ST WING ROYAL FLYING CORPS (JUNE 1917-JANUARY 1918) * Notes * Chapter 4 * EIGHTH BRIGADE AND INDEPENDENT FORCE (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER 1918) * Notes * Chapter 5 * EIGHTH BRIGADE AND INDEPENDENT FORCE OPERATIONS * Notes * Chapter 6 * POSTWAR ASSESSMENTS

Biplanes and Bombsights: British Bombing in World War I - Stories about the Sopwith Strutter, Zeppelin, Dehavilland, Handley Page, General Hugh Trenchard, and Lord Rothermere

Biplanes and Bombsights: British Bombing in World War I - Stories about the Sopwith Strutter, Zeppelin, Dehavilland, Handley Page, General Hugh Trenchard, and Lord Rothermere PDF Author: Air University Press
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781549870941
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
This study develops and substantiates a comprehensive evaluation of British long-range bombing in the First World War. Its findings run directly counter to the generally held opinion. Natural limitations, technical shortfalls, and aircrews lacking proficiency acted in concert with German defenses to produce far less results than those claimed.In broad brush, this study balances wartime claims against actual results as determined after hostilities. It also documents the cost, in men and equipment, of the bombing offensive waged by 3 Wing, Royal Naval Air Service, and components of the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Air Force--specifically 41 Wing, Eighth Brigade, and Independent Force, between July 1916 and the Armistice. The study's organization was based on the organizational scheme of Sir Charles Webster and Noble Frankland in their four-volume history of Bomber Command in World War II, The Strategic Air Offensive Against Germany. Maj Gen Hugh M. Trenchard's Independent Force, the major strategic force to undertake significant and protracted bombing operations in the Great War, levered into place the cornerstone of the postwar Royal Air Force and shaped its doctrine during the interwar years. It also conditioned domestic expectations concerning the offensive potential of aerial campaigns in any future conflict. The lessons supposedly gleaned from the Great War heavily influenced the progress of British military aviation during the 1920s and 1930s, underpinning RAF doctrines, expectations, and policies up to the initial phases of the Second World War. The subject thus deserves careful study in its own right. Fundamental discrepancies between the materials and conclusions reported in the January 1920 Air Ministry's classified evaluation of the Great War's long-range bombing offensive on the one hand, and those contained in seven volumes of evidence gathered firsthand by RAF intelligence officers who surveyed German-occupied territory immediately after the Armistice on the other, prompted an initial interest in this aspect of military history. Data from seldom-consulted records of the bombing study conducted independently by the United States Air Service complicated these differences. Subsequent examinations of RAF, Air Ministry, and other official archives brought even more contradictions to light.Contents * FOREWORD * INTRODUCTION * Chapter 1 * NO. 3 WING ROYAL NAVAL AIR SERVICE (JULY 1916-MAY 1917) * Notes * Chapter 2 * BRITISH BOMBING BEGINS * Notes * Chapter 3 * 41ST WING ROYAL FLYING CORPS (JUNE 1917-JANUARY 1918) * Notes * Chapter 4 * EIGHTH BRIGADE AND INDEPENDENT FORCE (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER 1918) * Notes * Chapter 5 * EIGHTH BRIGADE AND INDEPENDENT FORCE OPERATIONS * Notes * Chapter 6 * POSTWAR ASSESSMENTS

Biplanes and Bombsights: British Bombing in World War I

Biplanes and Bombsights: British Bombing in World War I PDF Author: George K. Williams
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
ISBN: 178625025X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description
This study measures wartime claims against actual results of the British bombing campaign against Germany in the Great War. Components of the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS), the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), and the Royal Air Force (RAF) conducted bombing raids between July 1916 and the Armistice. Specifically, Number 3 Wing (RNAS), 41 Wing of Eighth Brigade (RFC), and the Independent Force (IF) bombed German targets from bases in France. Lessons supposedly gleaned from these campaigns heavily influenced British military aviation, underpinning RAF doctrine up to and into the Second World War. Fundamental discrepancies exist, however, between the official verdict and the first-hand evidence of bombing results gathered by intelligence teams of the RAF and the US Air Service. Results of the British bombing efforts were demonstrably more modest, and costs in casualties and wastage far steeper, than previously acknowledged. A preoccupation with “moral effect” came to dominate the British view of their aerial offensives. Maj Gen Hugh M. Trenchard played a pivotal role in bringing this misperception to the forefront of public consciousness. After the Armistice, the potential of strategic bombing was officially extolled to justify the RAF as an independent service. The Air Ministry’s final report must be evaluated as a partisan manifestation of this crusade and not as a definitive final assessment, as it has been mistakenly accepted previously. This study develops and substantiates a comprehensive evaluation of British long-range bombing in the First World War. Its findings run directly counter to the generally held opinion. Natural limitations, technical shortfalls, and aircrews lacking proficiency acted in concert with German defenses to produce far less results than those claimed.

Biplanes and Bombsights

Biplanes and Bombsights PDF Author: George G. Williams
Publisher: www.Militarybookshop.CompanyUK
ISBN: 9781780392752
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Originally published in 1999. Colonel Williams presents a comprehensive study of British bombing efforts in the Great War. He contends that the official version of costs and results underplays the costs while overplaying the results. Supported by postwar findings of both US and British evaluation teams, he argues that British bombing efforts were significantly less effective than heretofore believed. Colonel Williams also presents a strong argument that German air defenses caused considerably less damage to British forces than pilot error, malfunctioning aircraft, and bad weather. That we believed otherwise supports the notion that British bombing raids had forced Germany to transfer significant air assets to defend against them. Williams, however, found no evidence that any such transfer occurred. Actual results, Colonel Williams argues, stand in strong contrast to claimed results.

Bloody Paralyser

Bloody Paralyser PDF Author: Rob Langham
Publisher: Fonthill Media
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Bloody Paralyser: The Giant Handley Page Bombers of the First World War tells the story of the largest British bombers of the First World War and the men who flew them. In 1915, the biggest plane ever seen in Britain took flight for the first time a twin-engine monster with a 100- foot wingspan, designed to be a Bloody Paralyser to the Germans. Operating mainly at night, the Handley Page bombers attacked Germany and Germanoccupied towns and cities, disrupting the enemy s industry and transport and targeting U-boats that were causing heavy losses to merchant shipping. The men that flew in the Bloody Paralysers were the forerunners of the crews of Bomber Command in the Second World War, and now their story is told in their own words.

The Flatpack Bombers

The Flatpack Bombers PDF Author: Ian Gardiner
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 1844684628
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
The author of The Yompers details the history of Great Britain’s innovation in combatting the German Zeppelin during World War I. Our vision of aviation in the First World War is dominated by images of gallant fighter pilots dueling with each other high over the Western Front. But it was the threat of the Zeppelin thatspurred the British government into creating the Royal Flying Corps, and it was this menace, which no aircraft could match in the air at the beginning of the war, that led Winston Churchill and the Royal Navy to set about bombing these airships on the ground. Thus in 1914, the Royal Naval Air Service, with their IKEA-style flatpack airplanes, pioneered strategic bombing. Moreover, through its efforts to extend its striking range in order to destroy Zeppelins in their home bases, the Royal Navy developed the first true aircraft carriers. This book is the story of those largely forgotten, very early bombing raids. It explains Britain’s first interest in military and naval aviation, and why it was that the Navy pursued long distance bombing, while the Army concentrated on reconnaissance. Every bomber raid, and every aircraft carrier strike operation since, owes its genesis to those early naval flyers, and there are ghosts from 1914 that haunt us still today. “Well written and very informative, this really is one of those books you go though from cover to cover as you learn so much more about those early men and machines.” —The Great War Magazine

The First Blitz

The First Blitz PDF Author: Ian Castle
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472815319
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
The First Blitz tells the story of Germany's strategic air offensive against Britain, and how it came to be neutralized. The first Zeppelin attack on London came in May 1915 – and with it came the birth of a new arena of warfare, the 'home front'. German airships attempted to raid London on 26 separate occasions between May 1915 and October 1917, but only reached the capital and bombed successfully on nine occasions. From May 1917 onwards, this theatre of war entered a new phase as German Gotha bombers set out to attack London in the first bomber raid. London's defences were again overhauled to face this new threat, providing the basis for Britain's defence during World War II. This comprehensive volume tells the story of the first aerial campaign in history, as the famed Zeppelins, and then the Gotha and the massive Staaken 'Giant' bombers waged war against the civilian population of London in the first ever 'Blitz'.

The Baby Killers

The Baby Killers PDF Author: Thomas Fegan
Publisher: Pen and Sword
ISBN: 0850528933
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
Just over a decade after the Wright Brothers’ triumph of powered flight, the conduct of war was changed for ever. Until the Kaiser’s Zeppelins raided British cities and towns, it had been unthinkable that civilian populations and property hundreds of miles from the battlefield could be at risk from sudden death and destruction. In the first section of The ‘Baby Killers’ Thomas Fegan charts the precise chronology of the air raids on Britain in this most thorough and fascinating work. From the start-point of the doom-laden prophecies of HG Wells and others, he describes the development of the German threat and the desperate search for answers to it. He analyses public reaction and assesses the effectiveness of the campaign as it progressed from airships to Gotha heavy bombers and, later, ‘Giants’. The second part of this superbly researched book features a gazetteer to the places bombed. The extent of the list, which includes Edinburgh, Hull and Greater Manchester, will almost certainly surprise most readers. Helpfully there are also comprehensive lists of memorials and relevant museums. The ‘Baby Killers’ provides a chilling insight into an aspect of The Great War which is all too often overlooked. Yet, at the time, these raids, while modest compared with those of the Second World War Blitz, shook national morale and instilled great fear and outrage. This is an important and highly readable work.

Bloody Paralyser

Bloody Paralyser PDF Author: Rob Langham
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780752471570
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Bloody Paralyser

Zeppelin Blitz

Zeppelin Blitz PDF Author: Neil Storey
Publisher: Spellmount Publishers
ISBN: 9780750956253
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"In the early years of the First World War, German lighter-than-air flying machines, Zeppelins, undertook a series of raids on the British mainland. German military strategy was to subdue Britain, both by the damage these raids caused and by the terrifying nature of the craft that carried them out. ... Zeppelin Blitz is the first full, raid-by-raid, year-by-year account of the Zeppelin air raids on Britain during the First World War, based on contemporary official reports and documents."--Back cover.

Zeppelin!

Zeppelin! PDF Author: Ray Rimell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Fortæller om luftskibene, der blev anvendt under 1. verdenskrig, om deres indsats og kampen imod dem.