Army and Navy agreeing with each other, it's like the 1920s again. Let's strangle the young upstart service and reallocate airpower between army and navy. The remaining RAAF personnel can transfer to the APS where they will be right at home.
Royal Australian Air Force [RAAF] News, Discussions and Updates
This is from the Defence department.
One has to wonder why both government ( Defence ) and private enterprise are putting so much energy into this project.
This is not a flight of fantasy, but a real project to explore this realm.
No doubt clever people asking broad and challenging questions to conceptualise an unmanned platform to operate with fast air.
Now from paper concept to a working physical system in an amazing short period of time is an impressive achievement.
Next will be testing of the system and then operating it with manned aircraft.
Test, modify, explore, test again and again. Adjust.
This project is getting energy and commitment.
Will it work or not is for the future.
However I'd suggest enough people within this space have confidence that there is a future in this realm to persevere and explore this space.
Will Ghost bat be expensive and a challenge to maintain. No doubt it will.
But the project exists for a reason.
I suggest it has a big future.
Then again so do manned aircraft
Cheers S
Billy Mitchell used the capability of the time in a test that the U.S.N wanted to show their ships could not be successfully attacked by aircraft consider this was in 1920 ,aircraft can release as an example the Russian kh-47m2 Kinzhal with a three thousand kilometer range at mach 12, multiple aircraft firing these would be extremely difficult to defend against
General William “Billy” Mitchell and the Sinking of the Ostfriesland: A Consideration | National Air and Space Museum
Its likely that A.I in u.a.v,s are in some ways already here
AI Drones: How AI Works in Drones & 13 Examples | Built In
The Air Force Wants AI-Powered Drone Jets by 2023 | Skyborg Drone (popularmechanics.com)
AI Drones: How AI Works in Drones & 13 Examples | Built In
The Air Force Wants AI-Powered Drone Jets by 2023 | Skyborg Drone (popularmechanics.com)
He actually wrecked the scientific value of a perfectly legitimate test for the sake of a publicity stunt.
What happened is well documented and his court marshal was justified. You only need to read how similar tests were conducted to see how pointless his demonstration was.
Colonel Mitchell believed in the truth of what he was saying and was happy to put his career second to this he also believed that Japan then as a power was positioning itself to attack America he was proved right on many counts
The Court-Martial of Colonel Billy Mitchell (historynet.com)
Milwaukee's Billy Mitchell predicted Pearl Harbor attack (jsonline.com)
The Court-Martial of Colonel Billy Mitchell (historynet.com)
Milwaukee's Billy Mitchell predicted Pearl Harbor attack (jsonline.com)
He actually wrecked the scientific value of a perfectly legitimate test for the sake of a publicity stunt.
What happened is well documented and his court marshal was justified. You only need to read how similar tests were conducted to see how pointless his demonstration was
He quite literally sent the heaviest bombers he had, loaded with the heaviest bombs he had on multiple, completely unrealistic low level runs, against a stationary target to prove a point.
What was meant to have occured was over a period of time different weapon systems would be trialled, with periods of inspection to determine the effects of each weapon type, to aid in the future development of weapons.
Mitchell quite literally put ego and politics above science.
Do some reading on the early years of the RAF and how a number of detailed studies were adjusted to fit the strategic bombing narrative. Basically almost all the hard won lessons on tactical airpower were lost, while the effect of strategic bombing was blown out of all proportion by ego and politically driven personalities such as Trenchard and Mitchell.
Overall they did more damage than good as they twisted the true potential of airpower from what it should have been. Ironically the Germans learnt to lessons the UK and US forgot. The results of this were seen through 1939 to 1942.
Battleships Bombed by Billy Mitchell | NCpedia
Air Power:Billy Mitchell Sinks the Ships (centennialofflight.net)
Colonel Mitchell in these articles had reason to believe the U.S.N wanted to control the narrative of the tests and were not interested in airpower over more battleships ,subsequent tests showed again that aircraft could sink ships it was a wakeup call , there were a lot of ego,s and politics on both sides
Air Power:Billy Mitchell Sinks the Ships (centennialofflight.net)
Colonel Mitchell in these articles had reason to believe the U.S.N wanted to control the narrative of the tests and were not interested in airpower over more battleships ,subsequent tests showed again that aircraft could sink ships it was a wakeup call , there were a lot of ego,s and politics on both sides
It was known aircraft could sink ships, navies and air forces were already developing weapons for precisely this purpose. What was not known was the detail of the effects of different weapon types on armoured ships.
Keep trying to justify what an arrogant individual was rightly court marshaled for, it doesn't change the facts.
Sopwith Cuckoo - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Oh I certainly am not advocating for Billy Mitchell for saint hood and if arrogance was a prerequisite for court martial the courts would be very busy but he has a legacy that seems to stand the test of time in his doctrinal concepts
Brig Gen Billy Mitchell’s: Continuing Legacy to USAF Doctrine
Brig Gen Billy Mitchell’s: Continuing Legacy to USAF Doctrine
John Fedup
The Bunker Group
Despite the Mitchell gong show, it added to the concerns that large capital ships were vulnerable to air strikes.
Firstly, dive bombers weren’t around during 1921 - aeroplanes just didn’t have the structural strength. There is no way for example, that a Handley Page O/400 or a Martin MB2 was going to enter a “Stuka like” dive. Despite earlier experiments, with far lighter aeroplanes and stores loads, dive bombers only started to come of age in the early 1930s.
secondly, the navy banned torpedos from the test.
Next, in the interest of accuracy, he wasn’t court-martialled for proceeding with the test, and destroying Ostfriesland. He was court-martialled, 4 years later in 1925, for making disparaging comments to the press.
Lastly, if anyone truly believes the USN didn’t have their own prejudices in the design, implementation or reaction to the tests I’d argue they’re being either naive or obtuse…“Billy Mitchell” said:
Of course the USN had officers who had their own prejudices, but they also had a significant number of air minded officers, as did the US Army and USMC.
You are of course correct that the court marshal was later, after his transfer, which was the actual punishment for derailing the tests.
If anyone doubts the type of testing I'm talking about there is plenty of information out there on the extensive work done by the USN and RN on ex German, their own retired warships, as well as on incomplete construction made surplus by the Washington treaty.
Incidentally, it makes sense banning torpedoes from the tests as they were already known to be devastatingly effective, irrespective of being launched from aircraft, surface ships or submarines.
If you want to assess the effect of bomb hits of different sizes on a target, you don't start with the biggest you have. You start small, measure the effect, escalate, measure, escalate, measure. It's not rocket science but it is still science.
At least the air forces have grown up and are now very serious about science and technology. Arguably, what happened to Mitchell shows there were grown ups back then as well.
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As a mildly opinionated counter, but based on my school-boy understanding of the Battle of Britain, if the Luftwaffe had had a VLR capability in 1940 we might all be speaking about Churchill's hanging in Japanese. Fortunately, Goering and his other Nazi goon's were running their air development over drugs and murders so missed the bit about Strategic air power.
Likewise, your man with a very bushy mo, General Giulio Douhet wrote in 1921 The Command of the Air (Giulio Douhet - Wikipedia) which may have started the wildly inaccurate but politically and publicly accepted fact in the mid-1930s that the next war would last a few weeks because that was how long it'd take to bomb/gas whole cities by opposing air fleets.
Likewise, your man with a very bushy mo, General Giulio Douhet wrote in 1921 The Command of the Air (Giulio Douhet - Wikipedia) which may have started the wildly inaccurate but politically and publicly accepted fact in the mid-1930s that the next war would last a few weeks because that was how long it'd take to bomb/gas whole cities by opposing air fleets.
I don't see Germany possessing strategic bombers in 1940 would have made any difference at all as their bases were in France etc. attacking across the Channel.
In fact, heavy bombers may well have been more vulnerable than their high performance medium bombers. Assuming similar loss rates to the defending RAF fighters, each loss would have been more damaging to the Luftwaffe, i.e. twice as many engines, twice the crew, greater opportunity cost per loss.
Yes but you said 1940.
Even then the effect is debatable as the lack of long range escort fighters may have resulted in unsustainable losses. Considering the devastation the Russians tolerated in the land war, besieged cities etc. I doubt terror bombing of cities would have made any difference.