Originally Posted by
nipva
Tengah Type I think that you are being very optimistic with your reaction times and having a bunch of sleepy disgruntled armourers at the line 'in a few minutes' is unrealistic. I would say at least 30' from initially rounding them up and that would in itself be remarkable. As to the ready-prepped gunpacks, these would have been loaded with practice rounds i.e. ball and from what I recall from my time at Chivenor and Brawdy only two guns were ever pre-loaded. Even in those days where the words Health & Safety were yet to be thought up, it is inconceivable to me that, in peacetime, gunpacks would have been stored with HE ammunition as a matter of course. However, someone better placed may correct me.
All in all, taking into account the time of day, the chain of command, the ancient comms system and human reaction times, I cannot see a Chivenor Hunter being ready in less than an hour from the first moment that the US called for help even if they did so which is open to question. By this time the horse had well and truly bolted..
Back in the late 1950's/early '60's it was common practice to have aircraft(Hunter F6) armed with ball ammo but gun fuses removed from aircraft over night this happened when early morning Nordhorn range was to be used and something similar happened at Sylt. Normally in practice all four guns would be loaded but only two fused (two inners or two outers) The same situation could have existed at Chivenor where four aircraft would fire on one banner. So potentially four aircraft could have been ready to go in about 4 to 5 minutes. This is all conjecture mind but aircraft were certainly left armed over night in RAF Germany.