Air Ministry vs Ministry of Aircraft Production.

[rossm]

As part of my attempt to summarise Coastal Command camouflage I have run up against two seemingly parallel documents, A.M.O.664/42 and D.T.D.360.

I believe AMO to have come from the Air Ministry and DTD from the Directorate of Technical Development which seems to have been part of the Ministry of Aircraft Production.

Were there two independent bureaucratic empires with parallel specification systems - one applied to the factories producing the aircraft and the other to the RAF units using, overhauling and modifying the aircraft ???

Thanks in advance for any enlightenment,

Ross

[Graham Boak]

I think of them as operating at different levels. The Air Ministry will produce the specifications for the aircraft design, or initially the operational requirements passed out to industry in advance of the actual design. The DTD will deal with the specifications for the metals, the paints, the electrical and mechanical standards etc. So the AMO will call for (say) Dark Green paint to a given DTD, which will be stored under a specific Stores Number specifying the colour, quantity, and composition. The DTD standards will apply equally to the factories and the service units.

[rossm]

I think of them as operating at different levels. The Air Ministry will produce the specifications for the aircraft design, or initially the operational requirements passed out to industry in advance of the actual design. The DTD will deal with the specifications for the metals, the paints, the electrical and mechanical standards etc. So the AMO will call for (say) Dark Green paint to a given DTD, which will be stored under a specific Stores Number specifying the colour, quantity, and composition. The DTD standards will apply equally to the factories and the service units.

So given both DTD360 and AMO664/42 dealt with camouflage and markings giving details of which colours were to be used by different categories of aircraft which document would have been used by which organisations (e.g. factories under MAP control and MUs under RAF control)? Or would the AMO document have been interpreted by the DTD for use by both? The problem I see with this is I don't think the RAF came under MAP control while DTD seems to have done.

Edited January 24, 2015 by rossm

[rossm]

Another detail that makes me suspect both documents were used in parallel by different organisations is that DTD 360 details colours for serials only (presumably applied at the factory) while AMO664/42 details colours for serials and code letters (the latter applied by the RAF at MU or unit level).

Edited January 24, 2015 by rossm

[gingerbob]

One clue is in the name: "Ministry of Aircraft Production". This was a new ministry created out of (or in some minds "stolen from") the Air Ministry in Spring 1940. It included serving RAF officers, and had no say over RAF activities, though sometimes the RAF felt like they had no or not enough say over MAP activities! "AMO" stands for Air Ministry Order.

bob

[Edgar]

The Air Ministry ran the RAF, and told the factories what they wanted; the Ministry of Aircraft Production ran the factories, and told the Air Ministry what they could have

[gingerbob]

Not a bad bon mot, Edgar- but the Treasury was also involved- sort of the middle-man telling both parties whether they could have the money to make it happen!

bob

[rossm]

One clue is in the name: "Ministry of Aircraft Production". This was a new ministry created out of (or in some minds "stolen from") the Air Ministry in Spring 1940. It included serving RAF officers, and had no say over RAF activities, though sometimes the RAF felt like they had no or not enough say over MAP activities! "AMO" stands for Air Ministry Order.

bob

The Air Ministry ran the RAF, and told the factories what they wanted; the Ministry of Aircraft Production ran the factories, and told the Air Ministry what they could have

I guess not all relevant documents appear in the RAF Museum book so I'm guessing there was a desire by both sides to have ultimate control but it was given to neither so they ran independent but interlinked systems with the AM telling MAP via AMOs what they wanted from the factories and the same AMOs being used within the RAF at MU and station level. MAP (via DTD) then "interpreted" the AMOs for the factories as DTD360.

At the bottom of page 17 in my copy of the RAFM book is an amendment to an AMO stating "delete 'Air Publication and Forms store' and substitute 'Ministry of Aircraft Production (R.T.P.4)' ". Can you detect someone typing with gritted teeth?

So possibly the factories were producing aircraft in a scheme that had been modified by an AMO that had not yet filtered through DTD but the modified scheme was simultaneously being applied by MUs during overhauls. I don't even want to think about US supplied aircraft!

DTD also seem to have interpreted both ways for paint factories with the specifications and stores numbers appearing in DTD360 but not (at least in the RAFM book) the AMOs. So would DTD 360 also have been needed by RAF Units? It doesn't seem as if it could be the only source as it doesn't mention code letters whereas the AMOs do.

Also missing from either is how the factories knew the ultimate role of multi-role aircraft to know which scheme to apply - presumably in the contract?

[Work In Progress]

In the order rather than the contract.

[ClaudioN]

The Air Ministry ran the RAF, and told the factories what they wanted; the Ministry of Aircraft Production ran the factories, and told the Air Ministry what they could have

I'd stress "what they could have on time and in quantity".

The whole matter of having a Ministry for Aircraft Production, if I understood well, was to organize efficiently the mass-production of very complex things, like aircraft, that require specialized equipment, skilled workforce, etc.

I remember reading that a Canadian railway engineer had a relevant role, so I'd say the matter was more about organization than aviation.

Claudio