What if No Duncan Sandys?

[MKSheppard]

This was originally posted by Reece134 on 10/13/2001; from the days when HPCA was run by Tim Hanna, etc:

10 Downing Street
Present: Duncan Sandys, 'Rab' Butler(Anthony Edens ex-Deputy)
1957

Butler sat in the leather chair that so gracefully adorned the front room of 10 Downing Street. He reflected on the whirlwind of the last few months, and what lay ahead. Sitting infront of him was his younger Defence minister, Duncan Sandys. He was scanning his copy of the Defence White Paper, Butler couldn't believe it, set in ink, on this page was something that could condemn the British Armed Forces. Butler was just shellshocked, his expirience near Tobruk in the War, the landing on the beaches.....at least they had had things to fight with! If this was passed he couldn't be certain about anything.

Sandys sat impatiently, waiting for Butler to pass his verdict.

Butler read out loud.... "Unfortunately, it has gone too far to cancel"

"Duncan, do you have any firm evidence that this obcelesence you talk about is going to happen?"

Sandys jumped, he hadn't expected to be grilled,"Well, yes, 20 years ago who would of thought internal combustion on aircraft would of been obsolete?"

"Yes duncan, I do see were you are coming from, but look at it like this, how long was the catpult around for, what about the mounted cavalry soldier?"

"With all due respect Mr Prime Minister, that is completly different,"

"REALLY, REALLY!! The people put us in charge of their country, they put their trust in us, I feel that this is betraying their trust in a huge way"

"Yes, maybe,"

"You will not give that white paper tomorrow, if I have to knock you out myself I will"

"Yes Sir"

"This is MY defence plan, we will continue developing the Vickers Valiant and the Short Sperrin, which will become the 2nd V- and be renamed in my opinion 'Viking'

Sandys, face red, looking very embarresed, shuffled out.

**************************************

Believable scenario? what would it of done to the British armed forces?

Duncan Sandys is a much-abused figure in British defense mythology yet most of the abuse heaped upon his head is grossly unjustified. In a very real sense he's been made to carry the can for a wide variety of sins that mostly predate his birth let alone his assumption of office.

Before looking at the decisions Sandys took. I think we have to try and look at the problems facing the UK as a whole. These can basically be summed up as "Imperial Overstretch", a term coined by Paul Kennedy and one that has peculiar relevence to the UK. The problem facing the UK defense establishment as a whole was that the functions which they were asked to fulfill far exceeded the resources that the country made available to them. The catch was that the resources that the country was already making to the defense establishment far exceeded its ability to support on a long-term basis. Put another way, the Government was making demands on the armed services that they would not fund and, worse, were grossly overestimating the capability that the funds they were making available would support.

This wasn't new; in essentials this ran back to before the First World War and British defense policy since the start of the 20th century had been to try and square a circle; to support defense commitments that were far out of proportion to the country's ability to fund. This had been done with varying success up to 1939 but post-WW2 had become impossible. In 1948 the Home Fleet was reduced to four destroyers; there were plenty more ships but there were not enough funds to provide them with crews or fuel. In that time-span the Government was selling ships for scrap because they needed the money to pay the daily operating bills for the Government. Just to make matters worse, the Government had inherited a bloated defense infrastructure that was intended to fight WW2. It was huge, expensive and totally obsolete.

In 1950-53 the UK had tried to mobilize in order to restructure its armed forces to fight in the Cold War. That mobilization was a disastrous failure that had to be bailed out by Uncle Sam. In the words of the Prophet "Something Had To Be Done". It was time for a radical rethink. This had been attempted three times in the period 1953-1957 but NONE of the efforts had achieved the necessary results. The primary reason was that the Defense Ministers had proved too weak and lacked the leadership to force the necessary changes through over the heads of the service chiefs.

In early 1957 MacMillan issued a new directive that stipulated British defense planning would now take place on a unified basis. Innocuous words but what they really meant was that the services would now be considered as part of a single coordinated defense policy. There would no longer be an Army Policy, an Air Force Policy and a Navy Policy. There would now be a Defense Policy with the execution of varying part of that policy sub-contracted to the service most suited to handling that particular aspect. All the armed services would be have to provide detailed justifications for their various capabilities in the context of the stipulated defense policy. Duncan Sandys was tasked with holding the investigations into that defense policy and making the appropriate policy decisions.

Thats all background. Its intended to show that there was much, much more to the 1957 Defense Review than just a decision to substitute missiles for bombers. That interpretation omits something like 95 percent of the White Paper. For example, a key part of the White Paper was the decision to abolish conscription. This was purely political and taken on the grounds that public pressure was making the retention of conscription in peacetime impossible. It was recognized that the end of conscription would drastically increase the manpower costs of the armed services and that economic constraints meant that this could only be overcome by cutting the manpower strength of the services. That alone was a major driver towards radical changes.

So what were the tasks of the armed services in the new regime? Basically they were:

A) Strategic (nuclear) attack on the USSR and other enemies
B) The Defense of the UK from direct attack
C) The defense of the sea lanes and supply routes of the UK
D) Participation in the NATO defense of Europe
E) The protection of British interests outside NATO

And so we begin.

The Royal Navy was first on the chopping block. What happened next was undoubtedly Mountbatten's finest hour and what he achieved in late 1956 and early 1957 gains him the honor of being the finest professional head of the Royal Navy of the 20th century. Mountbatten had the wisdom and common sense to realize that times had changes and those who did not go with the tide would be swept away by it. Mountbatten looked through the defense policy, picked out those areas that the Royal Navy could do (and could make a good case should do) and offered to scrap everything else. Those roles were firstly protecting the sealanes to the UK - primarily against submarines but also against long range air attack. The first required frigates, the second carriers. Then he took the "defending UK interests outside NATO. Mountbatten pointed out there were only two ways of doing this. One was station army garrisons at every point of possible contention. the other was to use a mobile mix of carriers and amphibious troops to intervene where trouble threatened. He pointed out that such trouble did not flare up without warning but took time to come to the boil. Therefore good intelligence was also needed. Finally Mountbatten made a grab for the strategic attack role. He started by schmoozing Rickover into handing over details of the US nuclear submarine and Polaris programs. From that he was able to show Duncan Sandys that the stategic strike role could be taken over by nuclear-powered submarines carrying the new Polaris missile. Everything else not needed for this program; the cruisers, the battleships, the huge force of old, ineffective escorts etc etc would be scrapped. The results would be a much smaller, leaner but more effective Royal Navy. Sandys was converted. He had gone into the process bitterly opposed to the RN carrier fleet and naval forces in general. He came out an enthusiastic convert and supporter of the Navy.

Next was the Army. Montgomery was the antithesis of Mountbatten. He had nothing but contempt for Sandys and no regard whatsoever for the new orientation of defense. His contribution was that the Army knew what it had to do, was the way he wanted it, and that was the end of the matter so there. His policy documents made no concession to the political and financial realities that were breaking nor to the requirements of the Cold War. What little strategic vision they possessed was basically that World War III would take up where WW2 had ended. The rest of the Army would go about its business garrisoning various parts of the Empire. The result was the institution of the trip-wire strategy. On the basis of the Army's own submissions, it could not make a reasonable contribution to defending Europe on the basis of the resources available. Therefore its function was cut back to a trip wire that would hold the line just long enough to allow a final attempt to persuade the enemy to abandon the attack or face nuclear weapons. Even that required the legions to return home. There would be no British troops available for far-flung garrisons. What wasn't in Europe would be the UK garrison

That left the RAF. This is the only part of The Way Forward (the official name of the 1957 Sandys White Paper) that gets talked about, primarily due to the effects of the RAF propaganda machine. Again, some background is necessary. There was no doubt that the defense of the UK against air attack would fall to the RAF but how were they best to do that? Here its necessary to remember that the UK aircraft industry had a long history of delivering aircraft that were years late and never performed as well as they were supposed to. Furthermore all the investment made in the aircraft industry since 1945 had been wasted on a clutch of competing prototypes that had always been that little bit too late to be viable. There was no prospect of that changing unless the aircraft industry was totally reorganized. The RAF showed no signs of recognizng these limitations; their proposals rested on more fighters, more bombers. Duncan Sandys had been primed by his meetings with the Navy. He knew the key question to ask. Missiles.

Could the fighter defenses proposed fend off ballistic missile attack? No. Could the fighters get off the ground fast enough to avoid being destroyed by ballistic missile attack? No. Could fighters respond fast enough against bombers to prevent them launching long-range supersonic cruise missiles? No. Any good reason why we should build fighters then? Errrrrr - they look nice? Sandys knew that the USSR was investing heavily in ballistic missiles of various types targeted on Europe. He knew that they were building new generations of missile-carrying bombers. The fighters operated by the RAF and those supposed to enetr service were great for fighting the Battle of Britain but that was of no significance. they couldn't protect the UK against the most likely threats so what was the point of having them. On the other hand missiles could. They could respond instantly and offered the chance of defending against missiles. Sandys was well aware of what was going on in the USA and where the fabulous Nike system was going. there was a threat, missiles could meet it, fighters couldn't. Bye-bye fighters. There would, of course be an interim gap so that was filled by an interim fighter. Hello Lightning. A side benefit was that none of the proposed missiles would have been built by the existing aircraft industry (some of the names were the same but the design teams were not). So they didn't have a demonstrated record of failure.

The RAF wanted to keep strategic attack with bombers. Could bombers, existing or planned penetrate the missile-based air defenses of the USSR projected for the late 1960s (assuming they were at least equal to Nike)? No. Bye-bye bombers. Replace them with missiles. If the land-based missiles failed go with the Navy's Polaris. As an interim there was this thing called Skybolt.

So viewed in the context of the times, Sandys had the right answers to the right questions. In reality he did a good job. When he left office in 1959 he had placed Britain's defense forces on a secure strategic, administrative and financial base. If, as the question presumes, his White Paper had been abandoned, the results would almost certainly have been the total collapse of the UK armed forces and the bankruptcy of the UK. The British just couldn't have gone on the way they were where the defense forces were consuming more than 10 percent of GNP (and not getting a proportionate return on that money).

Stuart your essays and essay type ansewers definitly make for outstanding reading.

Got a question , thats basically of an enquiry if nothing else

How far do you go back , I hate to ask age and what not , but since you are in the business, does your knowledge of the avrow arrow square with what the canadian government basically said.

Between what the historical archives say and usenet and about a number of people that have an interest in the Arrow , i am pretty much confident that there was no real conspiracy , but I would like to hear from someone who might have been around at that time.

Its the little things that turn an argument around , as you did with the above question on Duncan Sandys

Curiosity question Stuart,

If I understand you correctly, Minister Sandy's plan (as you have expanded upon it), basically says that the UK could fight a nuclear war or a brush fire war but nothing in between. Is that a correct summary?

As far as the RAF, I could only agree that fighters make no sense only if you have no intention of fighting a conventional war or never have the need to drop an iron bomb. Or, when you say "fighters," do you really mean "interceptors?" Then I could understand the skepticisim. Otherwise, as the USAF found out during the early years of Viet Nam, having tactical aircraft that were primarily - if not exclusively - intended for nuclear operations have limited usefulness when tasked to carry conventional munitions. Perhaps that leads back to my initial question about all or nothing.

If aircraft could not scramble in time to prevent their destruction in the advent of a surprise ICBM attack, then may I question your implied suggestion that British missiles could be launched prior to their destruction under the same circumstances? I forthrightly admit that I have zero access to classified material, but the unclassified material regarding USAF silos of the 1950s that I have seen throws a good deal of doubt about their survivability in the advent of a nuclear attack. Didn't that lead to the "launch on warning" debate and the whole argument about "recallable planes?"

The problem when comparing Britain and the USA is simple. Flight time.

Any assets on the ground will get what? Maybe half if that much of the warning that the same assets in the USA will get? This gets even worse if the Soviets were to fire from prepositioned submarine forces. Then the reaction time falls down into mere seconds.

The problem when comparing Britain and the USA is simple. Flight time.

While true, I'm afraid that this statement in no way answers my question, which, if I may restate it, was "if the British fighters were considered to be vulnerable to a surprise attack and therefore useless then why weren't British ICBMs also considered to be vulnerable to such an attack and therefore worth having?" I'm simply pointing out what seems to be a minor point of illogic in Stuart's very interesting post about British Cold War planning.

Given the much more destructive potential of a British ICBM, which would have unquestionably lead to a corresponding "are you certain?" sort of high-anxiety conversation that would have occured prior to a launch order being given, I would go so far as to say that British ICBMs were more, not less, vulnerable to a surprise attack than were bomber aircraft. Which is a fair restatement of the point I was making in my prior post - and is also a constant argument made in the constant debate of aircraft vs. missiles, one I'm certain that we've all heard many, many times.

Planes are out and about in places that make them easier targets. They can also be taken out with precision targetted cruise missles. On the other hand the only thing that is going to take a ICBM and silo out is another ICBM or a nuclear gravity bomb.

BTW did you mean to say:

""if the British fighters were considered to be vulnerable to a surprise attack and therefore useless then why weren't British ICBMs also considered to be vulnerable to such an attack and therefore NOT worth having?""

Tim,

Your gracious apology warmly accepted.

Perhaps I should have better worded my statement thusly?

"If the British fighters were considered to be vulnerable to a surprise attack and therefore useless then why were British ICBMs considered to be INvulnerable to such an attack and therefore worth having?"

Is that clearer? Anyway, I think I've somehow managed, however ineptly, to convey my point.

Side note: Can you turn on the "Edit" option on these boards? I have that on my own boards and must say that it makes for easier self-elimination of such gaffes.

Edit should be on. Anyone can edit their own posts or are supposed to be able to. I will check though since each mini-forum has its own security field. I just checked the author of a post is allowed to edit them based on the current security settings.

I do believe the difference between the two is the fact that most ICBM silos are not vulnerable to standard attacks while aircraft are.

"Minister Sandy's plan (as you have expanded upon it), basically says that the UK could fight a nuclear war or a brush fire war but nothing in between. Is that a correct summary?"

Thats right; it wasn't put quite so baldly but thats the essentials. There were two roles defined, an Empire Policing Role - which after the Empire went away became the "East of Suez" role and the Hot War role - which was essentially World War III. There was nothing inbetween. There was a third role which was the Royal Navy's creation and which they sold to Duncan Sandys. This was the "Broken Backed role" This envisaged the period after the nuclear exchange where the home countries were devastated but the war went on elsewhere. the Navy elements - and in particular the carriers - were an essential part of that role.

The Navy ships were for both the Empire and the Hot war roles. Lets take the County Class as an example. Their Seaslug missiles and ASW helicopter were the Hot War systems; the 4.5 inch guns were the Empire Role weapons. The Type 12s and their successors were the same. Note how the first ships designed after the East of Suez Role went away (the Type 22s) lost their 4.5s. The frigates replaced the cruisers in the Empire Role; they did the job just as well but cost a lot less to run. Note how the frigates carried on the old cruiser names?

As far as the RAF, I could only agree that fighters make no sense only if you have no intention of fighting a conventional war or never have the need to drop an iron bomb. Or, when you say "fighters," do you really mean "interceptors?"

In this context, the replacement of manned aircraft by missiles, means more or less interceptors for the defense of the UK. In a very real sense Nike-Ajax and Nike-Hercules killed the British manned fighters. They could do the defense job much better than manned aircraft - or so it seemed. In fact, had the UK simply bought Herc, that is exactly what would have happened. As to dropping iron bombs, we go back to the two roles. The Empire Role is done by carrier-based aircraft. The Hot War Role doesn't exist for iron bomb dropping and, by implication, for manned aircraft. The airbases were all in range of Soviet missiles and they wouldn't survive. So the whole generation of aircraft designed to operate from those bases were useless; obsolete before they were flown. Now look at something else - the sudden surge of interest in VTOL in the UK and (eventually) the Harrier/Sea Harrier families. They also come directly out of the Sandys White Paper; if we reject the White Paper, no Harriers. There were, by the way, VTOL transports planned as well for exactly the same reasons.

If aircraft could not scramble in time to prevent their destruction in the advent of a surprise ICBM attack, then may I question your implied suggestion that British missiles could be launched prior to their destruction under the same circumstances?

Thats exactly the reason why Blue Streak, the British land-based IRBM was axed and why Mountbatten sold Sandys on Polaris. The British had four minutes warning of any inbound attack. SAMs could cope with that - or at least Herc could - but manned fighters and bombers and the soft IRBMs certainly could not. In the event of a hot war any systems based in the UK were dead unless the SAMs could get the attackers first - then the British went and bought the wrong SAM. Ahhh well.....

So I was right when I mentioned how little time there was of warning and how that meant anything not really dig in like an ICBM silo was considered lost.

Or Stuart did not mean ICBMs, all he said was missiles.

I think he means SLBMs.

Tony was asking about ICBM though.

Excuse me... ...but what ICBMs did the British have? They axed their IRBM program (Blue Streak: see Stuart's post). The only ballistic nuclear counterforce of which I'm aware of the British possessing was the Polaris weapons, which evade the survivability question by positional uncertainty. I don't know of any Royal equivalent to the Minuteman silos that dotted the US prairie.

If my failing memory is correct, the British defence program was fairly consistent with the limitations noted here. If they did have an ICBM system, my apologies -- but I'd be interested in learning about it.

I thought the talk was about theoretical systems back when Britian was trying to determine what she could effectively deploy that would not get easily destroyed on the ground.

The real world answer was SLBM which was half an answer since SLBM do not have the accuracy or at least did not back then to take out hardened targets.

Seems like they knew that, and modified the SLBM force to take out that single, unhardened target...a remarkable success for the Galosh system.

I may have misinterpreted the whole discussion, and if so, I'm sorry. I just was afraid that, judging from Tony's question, I'd missed a fairly important nuclear weapons system (a British ICBM/IRBM would be pretty major). It seems that, unless the British were willing to give up a lot of positive control over their counterforce, a theoretical land based, first strike capable system would not be feasible; given the 4 minute decision time allowed by proximity to the USSR. That would have been a really tight trip-wire, and the Soviets would have had to have the same, given that they must be 4 minutes from the Brits, if the Brits are 4 minutes from them. History might have been a lot different if the USSR and USA hadn't had the luxury of considerable distance and flight-time from each other.

There never was a British ICBM (or at least as far as I know there never was one). There wasn't the need; all the targets were in IRBM range and IRBMs are a lot easier to build that ICBMs. Duncan Sandy's point was that the warning times were so short that no offensive systems could get off the ground from the UK fast enough to avoid destruction. SAMS were preferable to fighters because they could be fired at very short notice and without running through a complex command loop. They were fired, met the target and blew up. They offered a chance to kill an inbound in that four minute bracket. Fighters didn't.

The RAF made a great play with its instant alert and takeoffs but the reality was that the V-bombers that weren't already airborne when the sirens went off were radioactive shortly afterwards. Hence the logic behind Skybolt; bombers could cruise around carrying it and so not be there when Comrade Devices got initiated over their airfields. Its just that Polaris in SSBNs made a much better case; the long range plan was always to go for Polaris, the death of Skybolt just speeded things up.

And that was Duncan Sandys real crime and the one for which the RAF propaganda machine has vilified him ever since; he took the strategic bombing role away from the RAF and gave it to the Royal Navy. In reality, the UK has a lot to thank him for.

quick question Stuart You say that the RAF villified sandys for taking them out of the strategic bombing business, but that was probably no bad thing.

Do you feel that the RN unfairly vilifies Dennis Healy for his 1966 decision to cancel CVA01 or do you think that it was a big mistake to cancel the fixed wing carrier replacement?

Stuart,

Thank you for the explanation.