An Overlook of the Air Defence of Great Britain: 1946-1985
By:
R. Colon
PO Box 29754
Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico 00929
With the end of World War II, there were a
sense in most political and society circles inside Great Britain that the
country could gradually scale down its high military alert status.
Unfortunately for them, the Berlin crisis of 1948 and the Korean War just
two years later, rekindled in the country the memory of Hitler’s Blitz of
1940. As a direct result of those two crises, the Royal Air Force (RAF)
Fighter Command strength remained about the same levels of WW II during
much of the 1950s.
Fighter Command achieved its maximum in total
air assets in 1957. Total inventory that summer topped 600 operational
fighters augmented by a powerful network of airfields and radar arrays.
That year also marked a major policy shift inside the Ministry of Defence.
This “shift” would drain Great Britain of its air defense independence
within a couple of decades.
In the autumn of 1957, policymakers began
evaluation the Soviet Union’s nuclear missile capacity and the threat it
actually represented to the U.K. At the time, the United States enjoyed an
overwhelming nuclear deterrence force. This overwhelming arsenal would
lead Britain’s leaders to adopt a new policy. A policy referred to as
Trip-Wire. As part of the policy review, it was decided that from 1957
onward, the biggest threat facing Britain was the vulnerability of its
nuclear delivery force: the newly developed V-bomber fleet, to the USSR’s
ever increasing nuclear ballistic missile force.
It was suggested that a fighter shield,
augmented by a powerful detection network ringing the V-bomber’s bases
could provide the force enough time to take-off and to commence its
retaliatory profile. The “tripe-wire” strategy was coupled with Britain’s
ability to deliver a massive nuclear strike deep inside the USSR. It was
because of Britain’s leaders strong beliefs in the ‘trip-wire’ that
Fighter Command did not proceed with many advanced research and
development projects. It also did not see the necessity to invest highly
in fighter concepts and/or procurements of new systems. But as the
Soviet’s ballistic missile capacity grew, both policies began to show
their flaws. Because of the projected parity between American and Soviet
nuclear arsenals, leaders in the UK began to understand that the next
conflict will most likely be fought in a mixed (conventional and nuclear)
environment. Britain’s whole defence posture would now be asked to operate
in a non-nuclear environment as well as an atomic one. This change in
position destroyed the operating assumption of the tripe-wire strategy
and, to a lesser extent, that of massive retaliation.
In the mid 1960s it was recognized by the MoD
that a Soviet conventional air threat was larger than their nuclear one.
Unfortunately for Britain, years of following “trip-wire” had reduced its
operational air defence structure to a bare minimum. It was not just a
matter of the numbers of available airplanes it was also the matter of the
shortness of men and material. Years of budgetary constraints and of
neglecting available systems left Britain’s once powerful radar and
control network in a state of decay. Adding to this problem was the lack
of operational airfields. By the end of 1945, the UK possessed one
airfield per twenty kilometres. A ratio that held true for most of the
1950s. But by the late 1960s there were only a handful of them. Most of
the decommissioned airfields were handed over to municipalities for land
development.
The arrival of the new air-deployed stand-off
weapon platforms in the early seventies forced air defence specialists to
think again. Air defence’s operational ranges were now pushed out hundreds
of kilometres in order to engage the launching aircraft in time. By now
the British were assigned by the Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT)
and Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) a much wider air defence
sector. Beside the Home Islands sector, the UK was now responsible for the
vital East Atlantic area which extends from the Channel to the North
Norwegian Sea in the north and out very nearly to the coast of Iceland in
the west. This was a tall order for any country to assume. If NATO’s fears
were ever to be realized then Britain’s air resources in the mid-seventies
would prove inadequate for the task because as a rearward base for SACEUR
and a forward base for SACANT, roles that were assigned to England because
of its geographical position rather than by air defence strategies, they
would be a prime target for the numerical superior, Soviet Red Air Force.
SACLANT called for a British operational
profile that beside air defence included anti-submarine warfare and air
patrols in support of maritime shipping operations in the Eastern Atlantic
and Channel areas. SACLANT’s command also viewed the UK as its home base
for mounting flack support for its strike fleet in case it needed to fight
its way against the Soviet sea and air assets deployed in the North
Norwegian Sea. The other command, SACEUR planned to use the UK as a
mounting base for much of the deeper air penetration effort just inside
the forward edge of the Soviet’s battle sector in Continental Europe. In
the case of war, the UK bases would have also served as the “world”
largest air bridge. Much as it happened during World War II, Great Britain
would act as a gigantic aircraft carrier. Heavy lift aircraft and jumbo
commercial planes carrying thousand of troops and supplies would make the
UK its staging area before deployment to the Continent. It was in this
area where the British Air Defence Commander asserted its independence,
because it was his Command that was assigned the task of defending the air
bridge.
English Electric lightning
It is lucky that war never erupted in the mid
to late 1960s because the RAF was woefully unprepared for it. Years of
attrition and budgetary constraints had left the RAF Fighter Command a
“shell of its former self”. Gone was the force that once could blank most
of the sky above Europe. But the situation began to improve in the mid
1970s. By the fall of 1976, the RAF as a whole was beginning to rise from
the ashes. That same year the RAF added two additional air defence
squadrons fitted with upgraded Lighting interceptors. The RAF was also in
the process of making the F-4 Phantoms the backbone of its air defence
component.
F4 Phantom
Ferranti Bloodhound SAM
It had re-deployed the effective Ferranti
Bloodhound surface-to-air missile system (SAM) to the south east corner of
the country for low level protection. SAMs were also deployed to the
country’s northern areas to guard the vital bomber bases. If the present
looked good to the RAF’s top brass, the future was looking even better. In
the pipelines laid the much anticipated Tornado air superiority platform
which was scheduled to replace the Phantom by the mid 1980s. The force was
also expecting delivery of its coveted Nimrod Airborne Early Warning
aircraft. Major improvements were also undertaken to the vital radar and
communication network. The RAF was also planning the deployment of a new
and flexible jamming resistant data link connecting the United Kingdom Air
Defence Ground Environment (UKADGE) with fighter base control centres and
early detection platforms. UKADGE was a control and communication
interface system that worked through mutually supporting hardened control
centres and accepted digitized data from all sensors (ground, early
warning stations, sea bases sensors and airborne radar platforms) British,
French and NATO. The system gave Air Defence Commander an immediate
profile of the air threat and resources available to counter it.
Tornado
The mid 1970s also produced another, equally
important, development; a shift in the political environment in Great
Britain. The massive Soviet expansion of the early 1970s brought the
threat of conventional destruction to the UK’s door step. In this climate,
the RAF was able to find many influential allies inside the House of
Commons who were able to push forward a very ambitious air expansion
programme. Of course, any major rearmament effort not only needs monetary
support but a broader production base that not only includes production
lines, but also the training of thousands of skilled workers and their
support facilities. Nevertheless, rearmament began in the late 1970s at a
frantic pace. By the summer of 1985 delivery of Tornado units were
prolific thanks to the efforts of around-the-clock production lines. That
same year, the Nimrod began entering front line service replacing the aged
Shackleton (AEW). New SAM batteries were deployed at every operational
airfield. New systems, such as the EUROSAM, a joint British-French
venture, were also in the process of being incorporated into the RAF’s air
defence structure. For air-to-air refuelling, the RAF began to utilize the
recently converted V-10 transport aircraft as well as a small number of
converted Boeing jets.
Despite these and other measures taken by the
RAF during the first half of the 1980s, the force was still short of the
skilled manpower needed to run its new and sophisticated systems. As the
seventies gave way to the eighties, more and more RAF pilots and
specialized ground personnel began to emigrate into the more profitable
private sector. Despite several pay increases, such as the one of 1978,
RAF retention rates began decrease dramatically. By the middle of the
decade, turnover rates in the RAF began to stabilize and, in some areas
(ground support personnel) it actually stopped. It’s safe to say that by
1985 the RAF’s operational capabilities were back to its immediate post WW
II levels. Total number of available aircraft by 1985 fluctuated between
850 and 1,100 (including the Royal Navy) with more (around 200) on reserve
status. Its once vaunted radar detection system was again one of the
world’s top technological marvels and its active and reserve manpower was
increasing in ratio with the country’s population for the first time in
three decades. Not small feats considering the turmoil of the 1960s and
70s.
The Encyclopedia of 20th Century Air
Warfare, Editor Chris Bishop, Amber Books
2001
The Classic Book on Military Strategy,
BH Liddell Hart, Penguin Book 1991
How to Make War, James
F. Dunnigan, HarperCollins Books 1993
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