War and Power, page 23
In the end, Churchill was unable to see his plan put into action, because the war ended more abruptly than he had anticipated. In 1918, the German Army and people, worn down by their constant losses and having lost the belief that they could win, capitulated more quickly than Churchill had expected. However, having developed the plan, Churchill was able to put it into action in World War II.
Becoming prime minister in 1940, as the German Army was streaking through France, Churchill was soon presented with a situation more perilous than Britain had ever faced in World War I. A few weeks after he became PM, the French asked the Germans for surrender terms and the British had to face a European continent without a reliable, strong ally. In such a situation, Churchill doubled down on production and the preservation of British manpower. Above everything, he stressed the building of aircraft to protect the British Isles, and ships to keep the sea lanes to North America open. He would bide his time until his great, non-European possible ally, the United States, stepped in with an industrial might that could rival all of Europe’s put together.
The American production of mass in the war was extreme – not just in terms of the depth but also the breadth of construction. Certain powers were able to concentrate their construction efforts – the USSR on land warfare, the Japanese on naval vessels and aircraft. The US, on the other hand, built up a large air force (then part of the army), navy (with its own air wing) and army. This meant that it needed to produce masses of equipment in a large number of areas, from the most expensive items such as large warships and four-engine bombers, to the smallest such as rounds of ammunition and small arms. Indeed, the story of US ammunition production, particularly artillery ammunition, shows just how pre-war capacity was inadequate for the needs of a modern military and how important it was to be able to scale up production quickly – often for items that were not even being built before the war started.
At the commencement of World War II in Europe, US Army units were commonly provided with some of the oldest artillery pieces to be found in any major army. These included French-designed and -built 75mm and 155mm howitzers, which had come straight out of World War I.11 Though still serviceable, they would not be up to the task of winning World War II, so the US Army set about having new artillery pieces designed. They settled on three barrel sizes, 75mm, 105mm and 155mm, which they built in large quantities and had mounted on a number of different vehicles – from self-propelled guns to tanks – or had towed. To give one example of this extraordinary expansion, the construction of the new-model 75mm gun barrels went from 50 in the first six months of 1941, to 1,166 in the second six months, to a remarkable 6,431 in the first half of 1942, and 12,454 in the latter half of that year. So, within two years, production had risen by many thousand per cent.
Making ammunition for all these new barrels also required mass production – and quick ramp-ups. In 1941, the US manufactured 777,000 shells for 75mm guns – which might sound like a large number but was only a tiny fraction of what was needed. In 1942, production reached 18,792,000. For the whole war it was over 100 million – of just this one type.
Ammunitions Deliveries to the US Army, 1940–44
Item 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944
75mm, gun & howitzer 310 777 18,792 27,931 20,815
105mm, howitzer 0 353 10,487 14,884 37,790
155mm 0 …… 4,920 4,914 8,567
Rounds of Ammunition ‘000
Technological Adaptation and the World Wars
Being able to produce in mass is only part of the creation of a war-winning force. One must also produce the right equipment. And the longer a war goes on, the more military technology progresses, and the more important designing, developing and adaptation becomes in the creation of that equipment. As the story of Ukrainian UAV production shows, systems thought to be more peripheral to military success can become vital as wars develop, and strenuous efforts must be made to design and produce these in larger numbers than ever imagined before the war started. The evolution of aircraft throughout both world wars, for instance, reveals just how rapidly technological developments can accelerate, putting enormous pressure on productive systems to keep pace.
When World War I started, aircraft were flimsy, short-range and low-altitude flying contraptions whose military value was still regularly being questioned. Indeed, there were many who believed that aircraft would be of little use in the upcoming war. These ‘pessimists’ were quickly proved wrong in one area: it was revealed almost immediately that aircraft had a crucial role to play in military reconnaissance. A pilot could see further behind enemy lines than a land-bound soldier ever could, and soon the powers were all looking for aircraft to scout out enemy positions.
As the war went on, however, it became clear that scouting was only one of the roles for aircraft at war. Aircraft were quickly adapted to attack other aircraft. Seeing that scouting with aircraft was becoming so important, it was thought sensible to try to devise ways to stop the enemy from doing the same thing. This started with the simplest of solutions – arming pilots with small arms – but this was just the beginning. Aircraft were soon armed with machine guns, which themselves required a number of technical solutions.
One of the initial problems with machine guns was that they could damage the propeller of the plane if not placed perfectly. The French came up with the first effective resolution to this problem, when engineer Raymond Saulnier developed a firing synchronizer device that stopped bullets from being fired if they were going to hit the propeller.12
Of course, one machine gun was never going to be enough. Efforts were made to develop aircraft with two machine guns, and the British, Germans and French all designed multiple fighters that were so armed – and these would prove some of the most famous and successful aircraft of the war. The Sopwith Camel (British), SPAD S.XIII (French) and Fokker Dr.1 (German – and the preferred aircraft of the Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen) were all effective designs with multiple machine guns.
But arming aircraft was only part of the challenge – the war set off a competition to make faster and longer-ranged aircraft, a race that has played a major role in all wars. This required the growth of more powerful aircraft engines, which saw a huge rise in the horsepower being produced. At the start of the war, aircraft engines commonly produced under 100 horsepower, with the absolute best generating just over this.13 Aircraft powered by these engines were necessarily slow, and most had a top speed well below 100 miles per hour.
The pressures of war, however, led to massive investment in engine production, as suppliers were asked to increase the horsepower generated while not making the more powerful engines that much heavier. This became one of the great goals of US engine producers. By 1917–18, the United States was mass-producing twelve-cylinder Liberty engines, which possessed the ability to create a nominal 421 horsepower and a maximum of 449, while weighing what seemed to be an extreme heavy 844 pounds, but was actually relatively light considering the horsepower produced.14 The British and French were likewise pushing the frontier of engine development. The result was that aircraft by the end of the war were able to achieve speeds of up to 150 miles per hour.
And as aircraft were getting faster and better armed, their roles were expanding. They were used more and more for ground attacks. This could be done by the machine guns mounted on the airframes, or even, as the war went on, by the dropping of bombs on enemy targets. The history of bombing in World War I is, like that of gun-firing, one of a major technological leap forward. When bombs were first dropped, it was semi-comical and wildly inaccurate. The pilot – or the co-pilot in a double-seated aircraft – would hold a bomb in his hand and drop it from the moving aircraft in an attempt to hit a target on the ground. It was rarely successful.
Soon, however, the advanced powers started developing much larger aircraft with the specific role of bombing enemy targets. The British were one of the most successful bomber aircraft designers. By 1918 they were producing the Handley Page V/1500,15 which was a massive technological leap forward from earlier in the war. Indeed, in comparing the Handley Page to any widely used aircraft from 1914, it could be argued that several generations of aircraft design had been surpassed in only four years.
One of the first British aircraft to arrive for military duty in France in World War I was known as the B.E.2b.16 An adaptation of a 1912 design, it was an aircraft that would see action for both reconnaissance and bombing. Its single engine could only produce 90 horsepower, which meant that its top speed was only about 90 miles per hour.17 Even then, it could not fly particularly far, with a range of fewer than 200 miles and the ability to reach 9,000 feet. It could only carry about 200 pounds of ordnance, above and beyond the weight of the airframe and engines, and a pilot and co-pilot (it was a two-seater aircraft). That being said, it had to do a significant amount of service in 1914 and 1915, and in the end 3,500 were built. Compared to a Handley Page V/1500, however, it was a flying (small) dinosaur.
The V/1500 was a massive aircraft with a wingspan of 126 feet, a length of 64 feet and a height of 23 feet. It was so large that it could accommodate a flying crew of eight or even nine. It had four large Rolls-Royce engines, two mounted on each wing, with every engine capable of generating 375 horsepower. These engines allowed the aircraft to reach an altitude of 11,000 feet and gave it an operational range of 625 miles – meaning it could fly from south-east England to Berlin and back. It also had up to eight different machine guns for protection and could carry approximately 7,500 pounds of bombs. It was the kind of aircraft that was a precursor to the heavy bombers of World War II. And it was the kind of technological change that only a handful of the most advanced economic and technological powers were capable of producing.
In World War II, if anything, the technological leaps that were achieved and put into production were even more extreme. While it would be impossible to discuss all aircraft design during the war, it is worth highlighting three areas where aircraft saw extreme changes between 1939 and 1945: jet engines, Long Range Bombers and unpiloted flight. These elements, which remain key parts of aircraft and air power today, all moved from the abstract to the actual in combat aircraft during World War II. It was a sign of just how important the air war was in the economic/technological competition between the World War II powers. Though the war is often seen as being determined by the outcome of land battles, this is a popular myth writ large. In fact all the powers (with the possible exception of the more technologically backward USSR) spent far more effort and expense building aircraft than any other weapon of war, usually by a factor of many times. Germany, for instance, usually devoted more than 50 per cent of its war output to the building of aircraft and the weapons needed to arm them. In comparison, the Germans spent less than 10 per cent of their output building and arming tanks and other AFVs.18
This choice was deliberate and considered, as it became apparent in the war that control of the air led to victory in other domains. However, with that stress on aircraft development, it was crucial to get things right, and that was not easy. The development and use of jet-powered aircraft revealed just how important getting the design process right could be – and what could happen, even with massive investment, when it went wrong.
The jet engine was actually a British design, though it would be the Germans who first developed it for a mass-produced aircraft capable of combat. This was, most famously, the Messerschmitt Me 262, which entered service in 1944 and quickly revealed itself to be a formidable weapon of war. It was faster than any non-jet fighter of the day, even the legendary P-51 Mustang, which played a major role helping the western Allies win the air war over Germany. The Mustang could reach a speed of just over 430 miles per hour, which was impressive until the Me 262 appeared with a top speed of 540 miles per hour.19
However, the great failure for the Germans was that they were only able to make the Me 262 operational quite late into the war – by which point they could do nothing to change the course of events. One of the reasons it arrived so late was because of Adolf Hitler’s interference in the design process. Always stressing the offensive aspect of aircraft, when Germany started getting close to making an operational jet-powered military plane, he at first insisted that it be developed as a dive bomber. He wanted a weapon to try to strike back at Britain in 1943, as at that point the British and Americans were hammering German domestic targets with their large four-engine bombers almost every day.
It was a stupid idea. Dive-bombing had shown itself to be effective very early in the war, as it could place a small amount of ordnance quite accurately on a small target. However, it also left the aircraft extremely vulnerable, as they had to hold course and get close to the ground. Designing a jet dive bomber was also superfluous to Germany’s immediate need, which was defence against British and American bombers. But Hitler delayed the appearance of the Me 262 as a fighter for a considerable period. Even though what would become the Me 262 did its first test flight in the spring of 1941, it did not appear as a fighter over Germany until the summer of 1944 – by which time the strategic air war was all but lost. It was a salutary lesson in investing wisely in your strategic needs. Germany had the opportunity to develop the best air-interception fighter of the war, but threw it away. Something similar happened with the development of VLR bombers for the Germans, but didn’t for the US, which shows how being able to develop new systems in war is important.
The German story is short and expensive. For years, the Germans tried to develop a VLR bomber, at one point even imagining an aircraft that was nicknamed the Amerikabomber. It never came close to fruition, however, as Germany even struggled to build a four-engine bomber to compete with the US B-17 or British Lancaster. The US, however, set up a multi-layered and extremely well-funded operation to come up with a VLR bomber and eventually succeeded in producing arguably the most advanced operational aircraft of the war, the B-29.
The American VLR bomber programme – sometimes also called the Very Heavy Bomber (VHB) – produced a workable aircraft far more quickly than most. Though the specifications desired by the US air force were only passed to US aircraft manufacturers in early 1940, the first B-29 was delivered by Boeing in September 1943.20 It was a technological leap in many ways, and required resources on a grand scale – both money and the willingness to use some of the scarcest of raw materials. The B-29 was so large that its production required the equivalent materials of eleven P-51 Mustangs. In 1944, when production ramped up, it still cost more than $600,000 to build one B-29 – compared to about $51,000 for a Mustang.21 Overall, the cost of developing and building the B-29 was by far the most expensive weapons programme of the war – costing more than the atomic bomb project, for instance.
The B-29 was able to play a key role in cutting Japan off from the outside world in 1944 and 1945. Though it is controversially known for its role in the firebombing of Japanese cities (which was both ethically and strategically questionable), it also helped cut off all sea communications into and out of Japan, through the mining of Japanese harbours and the bombing of Japanese railways. In addition, it was the only aircraft capable of dropping the atom bomb. It did all of this from the Marianas Islands, about 1,500 miles from Tokyo (a city which was heavily bombed a number of times).
Average Unit Cost of Combat and Transport Aircraft Models, US Army Air Forces, 1939–45
Model 1939–41 1942 1943 1944 1945
B–29 …… 893,730 …… 605,360 509,465
B–24 379,162 304,391 …… 215,516 ……
B–17 301,221 258,949 …… 204,370 187,742
P–51 …… 58,698 58,824 51,572 50,985
P–47 113,246 105,594 104,258 85,578 83,001
C–47 128,761 109,696 92,417 88,574 85,035
Prices in US Dollars
If the Germans struggled on this front during the war, they were able to develop one very important weapons system – not for winning World War II but for showing the future of war. This was the unpiloted aircraft or missile. They created two such systems, which they put into operation in 1944. These were the so-called V-weapons (‘vengeance weapons’, or Vergeltungswaffen in German): the V-2 rocket and the V-1 flying bomb. The latter was arguably the first operational cruise missile.
They were an interesting contrast. The V-2, which was formally entitled the A4 rocket before propaganda needs took over its name, required massive investment. It was a completely new attempt to build the world’s first offensive ballistic rocket and took years of effort and cost – it was probably the most expensive German weapons system of the war. Under the design control of Wernher von Braun, who after the war would be spirited off to the US where he would play a key role in the US space programme, the Germans eventually developed and even started mass-producing a missile that could be fired from western Europe and hit Britain.
As a technological achievement, it is worthy of note. The V-2 could launch a payload weighing 1,600 pounds for 220 miles, and quite amazingly for the time could reach a ceiling of about 60 miles and travel faster than the speed of sound, reaching more than 3,000 miles per hour.22 It was so fast and travelled so high that it was impossible to intercept, and the people unlucky enough to be killed by the V-2 would have had no idea that it was even descending on them before they were obliterated.
