DG :-
Dive bombing and our friend DannyWith reference to above re. the Vultee Vengence The paragraph below is taken from an article I read about the "Oslo report", a piece of intelligence covering many important military technical and scientific advances which were in train in Germany, It was dropped off at the British embassy in Norway in 1939.
Quote:
" What would the information on the Ju-88’s dive-bombing capability have meant to a British analyst in 1939? If such an aircraft was to operate as a dive-bomber, the Germans were apparently able to build strong aircraft—but given the reputation of German engineering that could hardly have been in doubt anyway. But the mere mention of “dive-bombing” would have tended to douse the interest of a British analyst nurtured in the catechism of the RAF, for the concept of dive-bombing went against the RAF’s very psychological grain. Pin-point accuracy bombing reeked of a subordinate role of aviation in direct support of the army, and the raison d’être of the RAF was as an independent force on an equal hierarchical footing with the Royal Navy and the British Army. Hence, dive bombing was regarded as anathema in the RAF, so much so that the use of the word itself had been forbidden. Since 1938, it had been decreed (ref. 7) that the only acceptable expression was “losing height bombing”! The psychological make-up (and concern about their career prospects!) of RAF analysts would thus tend to make them regard any reference to this “confounded losing height bombing” as irrelevant."
When I read this piece I immediately thought of our friend Danny. He couldn't understand why the RAF never used dive bombing tactics elsewhere, The answer may lie above.
I suspect this quote was from someone who felt that a separate (or Independent) Air Force was unnecessary and a misuse of resources. Danny himself contended that Dive Bombing, though highly effective, could only succeed under a state of Air Superiority in general or local tactical advantage at the very least (witness Midway, his default example of its tactical success having a strategic effect). He credited his own survival to the total disinterest of the Imperial Army's Air Arm in opposing the Vengeance forays (an Air Arm supposedly established for direct Army support!). As to the "Independent" RAF it was nonetheless used to great effect in tactical support of the Army in the Western Desert campaign and in the Invasion of Western Europe and the subsequent land campaigns, as well as in Burma, and in addition to its Maritime Operations in the Battle of the Atlantic, and of course the Strategic Bombing Campaign itself.
As to "Losing Height Bombing" I've never heard of it before though that doesn't necessarily discredit it. I believe though that the word Stuka is an abbreviation for the German words of a "Falling Fighting Aeroplane". Hardly trips off the tongue does it?
Our detractors continue though unabated, witness the unrelenting output of Mr Max Hastings!