The Royal Ruritanian Army Air Force – Part Five – Strategic Supply

Every airforce needs certain givens; air space, landing fields, aircraft, fuel and armament, and personnel. An enemy to fight is also useful for purposes of publicity.

The RRAAF was no exception to this. They had potential enemies enough, airspace limited only by mountains and fogbanks, and enough flat ground near to the town to allow planes to land. There were also enough taverns and welcome houses near the airfields to keep the servicemen happy. Aircraft were ordered from several firms, along with spare parts, and the only real problem was the provision of fuel and weapons.

Fortunately the Kingdom had a fine tradition of arms making as practised in the eighteenth century that had equiped the army with world class flintlock muskets. Converted to hammer guns, they still formed the primary arm of the infantry. But not much good in the air against modern opponents. in this respect the RRAAF was completely unarmed.

Step forward Science. The advent of the 1930’s saw intense interest on the part of scientists and military engineers in the development of the rocket. Soviet, American, and British pioneers scorched their respective countrysides in ever-larger experiments. This was not unnoticed in Ruritania. While reverse-engineering a Maxim or Browning machine gun from diagrams in a Boys Own magazine may have proved too difficult for workshops of Strackenz, packing a simple tube with compressed powder and explosives was easily done and with the development of the Reisemueller Igniter the fearsome RRAAF air combat rocket was ready for service.

It must be remembered that the ability of a conventional British fighter plane of the time to fire the .303 mchine guns was limited to 15 seconds in small bursts. The RRAAF fighters carried at least six rockets each and could therefore be thought at least as effective as the Hurricane in combat. Theoretically…

The problem of a fuel supply was thornier. Ruritania has no oil wells and few coal mines. She has no resources to buy oil from Araby. Fortunately she has vast fields of cabbage, rutabaga, and potatoes. These yielded the raw materials for a very high quality alcoholic spirit which when triple-refined and combined with sap from the Alpine Pigberry formed a very potent aviation fuel. A good harvest meant plenty of flying.