Originally Posted by
Finningley Boy
It's incredible to compare the effort to present an adequate defence posture back in the 1950s compared with anything today. to do that
FB
FinningleyBoy,
Not so sure that it was as straight forward and positive as you make out! Bear in mind that this construction programme was started in the early to mid 50's when the only means of delivering the 10,000lb monstrosities which were the atomic weapons of the time required large 4 jet bombers that simply would not have been able to operate from the tired and run down wartime airfields which is what the RAF had at the time. There were no other delivery options available then, so when the Labour Government of the day took the decision that the UK would be an atomic power, and later Churchill took the same decision about the hydrogen bomb, we had no option but to build the 10 Class A airfields that you mention.
At the time the USAF were constructing even more and larger airfields in the UK to house SAC forward deployed as the B-47 could not reach the Soviet Union from the US, and this programme dwarfed the RAF one.
And it was not all rosy and positive, there was a cost to the building of these 10 airfields, three V-Bombers and the Atomic and later Hydrogen bombs. This cost was the disbandment of the entire operational strength of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, (20 fighter squadrons and many many more Fighter Control Units and Royal Auxiliary Air Force Regiment LAA squadrons) a reduction of over a half in flying squadrons in Germany, two thirds in Fighter Command, the axing of the RNVR flying squadrons, the disbandment of every single RAF Regiment squadron in Germany (over 30) and the complete abandonment of the conventional ground attack and day fighter role in Germany.
And it didn't last that long. The B1 Victors were gone by 1964, the Valiants by 1965 and the B1 Vulcans by 1967. The Thor force and the Mk 1 Bloodhound squadrons (to be the future core of the Royal Air Force) were all gone by 1963 without replacement.
And is it such a contrast to today? The V-Force peaked at 144 bombers, the UK F-35 force will peak at 138. We have four Trident submarines and a replacement class under design and development, the UK Cold war fighter force shrank to a low of 5 Lightning squadrons at the height of the cold war, we have 5 equivalent Typhoon squadrons going to 7 or 8 and we have two huge 65,000 ton aircraft carriers.
Looking back with rose tinted spectacles can be extremely misleading.