Battle of Britian

And at the rate the Luftwaffe was losing aircraft which it was going to need for Barbarossa - yes.

 

The airfields may have not been completely knocked out but there was alot of damage to them and the factories and you don't think that had the german invasion had worked that the captured british industry could produce enough aircraft to replenish the lost aircraft needed for Barbarossa?

 

A lot of vagueness on this thread.

Which airfields ? Which factories ? ( How much damage to the shadow factories in the North of England ? ) Why would the British have not destroyed the factories and jigs in the North if the Country had been invaded in the South ?

 

So you think that the british would have destroyed there factories before the germans could get them?

 

Prepare.

The problem for the Germans is there bomber losses were high right from the start of the battle, averaging about 8% of sorties dispatched. That meant they couldn't cut escort numbers (about 3 fighters per bomber). Because they didn't have enough fighters, they couldn't fly enough bomber sorties.

Hooton in Eagle in Flames has figures for Luftwaffe day bomber sorties in the BoB. The peak week was 12 - 18 August, the week that was supposed to destroy the RAF. In that week, the Luftwaffe managed only 1,650 day bomber sorties. That's less than 240 bombers a day. In the last week of August, that fell to 875 day bomber sorties, 125 a day.

With figures like that, the Luftwaffe simply couldn't do enough damage. They could do a little damage to a lot of targets, or a lot of damage to a few targets, but they could not do enough damage to enough targets to keep them suppressed.

There was some damage to the airfields, but only to the support services. The RAF had found out in exercises pre war that the best way to protect aircraft on an airfield was dispersal. As a result, few aircraft were knocked out on the ground. The sector control rooms were hard to spot, and none were seriously damaged. 11 Group also had backup sector control rooms a few miles from the airfields.

The fighters could operate perfectly well from grass strips, so damage to runways wasn't a serious concern.

In mid July, just after the battle started, the Fighter Command had 1,365 aircrew (not all fighter pilots) and 568 serviceable Spitfires and Hurricanes.

On 10th August, just before the Luftwaffe launched their all out attack, FC had 1,396 aircrew and 627 serviceable Spitfires and Hurricanes.

On 7th September, the day the Luftwaffe gave up attacking RAF airfields and switched to London, FC had 1,381 aircrew and 621 Spitfires and Hurricanes.

Over the month that the Luftwaffe devoted to destroying the RAF, FC remained at almost the same strength.

In contrast, the Luftwaffe declined markedly. Number of serviceable aircraft by type:

Type - 13 Aug - 7 Sept
Bombers 1008 - 798
Dive bomb 286 - 133
SE Fighter 853 - 658
TE Fighter 189 - 112

The number of single engined fighter pilots went from 869 fit for duty on 1st August to 735 on 1st September.

Now the Luftwaffe and RAF numbers are not directly comparable, for example FC aircrew includes those on obsolete types, and even navigators and gunners in Blenheims and Defiants. It also includes pilots not fit for duty. The Luftwaffe number includes only 109 pilots fit for duty.

However, the trends are clear. The RAF numbers over the month were down, but only slightly. The Luftwaffe numbers were down heavily. In fact, if you look at the number of 109s vs Spits and Hurris, on 13th August the RAF had 579, the Luftwaffe 853. By 7th September the figures had changed to 621 for the RAF, 658 for the Luftwaffe.

At that rate, the RAF would have achieved parity by late September. If the Luftwaffe couldn't win when they had superior numbers, how were they going to win when they were outnumbered?

 

very good points, is the battle of britain your expertise Hop?

although I think the Germans won when it came to ground warfare they lagged a bit when it came to aircraft, with no real heavy bombers there terror bombing would take longer then say if you were using a lancaster or B-17, as you explained Hop they needed more sorties over england with medium bombers but they couldn't achieve it so what if they had heavy bombers do you think that they would have done enough damage to english bases and factories to change the outcome?

 

Germany needed to gain air superiority and thus needed to blow the RAF out of the sky. By hitting the radar stations and airfields, it could have accomplished this. This would draw out the RAF and bring them to the German fighers. The German fighters had limited range but Goring could have sent them out in waves to tangle with the RAF pilots. This would either knock them of the the sky or wear them down. Now the RAF pilots were good and were putting a dent onto the Luftwaffe. If an RAF pilot was shot down and he bailed out, he could come back and fight again. Whereas a Luftwaffe pilot shot down over England could not. This was wearing the Luftwaffe figher force. Thus, time was a big factor for the Luftwaffe. It had to beat the RAF quick.

This is where Radar plays a major part. It cut down the time an RAF pilot was in the air. He did not have to 'patrol' because the Radar controllers could direct him straight towards the enemy. This meant that when the RAF pilots went into battle, they were not fatiqued by patrol duties. Had there not been any radar, the outcome could have been very different if the Germans stayed on task and not directed their efforts against London.

So, all Great Britain had to do was to stay alive by sending up the RAF. Time was on their side. The bombing of the airfields, railways and cities were not a factor, just bringing up the RAF to the German fighters. The Germans forgot this, lost focus and made the battle personal and instead, led the bombers straight into the RAF.

Poor leadership on the German side, solid focus and perseverence on the British.

 

No, but I am very interested in it.

By the standards of the day their bombers were pretty effective. They managed to drop over 50,000 tons of bombs on Britain in less than a year. Bomber Command only managed about 31,000 tons in 1941, and 45,000 tons in 1942.

The advantage the Germans had is that their bombers were based in France, very close to Britain, whereas the RAF had to fly much further to reach Germany. But the main advantage of heavier bombers in the early war years was increased range, which wouldn't have helped the Germans much in 1940/41.

Larger bomb bays were mainly a function of later war aircraft. For example, the RAF's heavy bomber in 1940 was the Whitley, which could carry 7,000 lbs of bombs. The He-111 wasn't far behind with 5,500 lbs.

Heavier bombers would have been a bit better for the Luftwaffe, but what they really needed were more training schools, higher production, a better repair organisation and larger stocks of spare parts.

That's precisely what the Luftwaffe tried to do, and it didn't achieve air superiority.

Again the problem is the lack of capacity. An airfield can be damaged by a raid, but it needs repeated raids, day after day, to keep it out of action. Same for most other targets.

The Luftwaffe simply didn't have the ability to do this. They sent small numbers of bombers to each target, crossed them off the maps as "destroyed", and moved on to the next target. Meanwhile the "destroyed" airfield was back in operation within a few hours.

Look at the strength figures again. The Luftwaffe wasn't failing to engage the RAF fighters, in fact the Luftwaffe was engaging so hard it's own fighter force was dwindling, in pilots and aircraft. The problem for the Luftwaffe is that they simply weren't scoring well enough, they needed to achieve a much better kill/loss rate than they actually managed.

Actually the RAF did a lot of patrolling. Radar wasn't completely accurate, it could miss raids, and couldn't distinguish between types. The Luftwaffe also flew feints that the RAF had to respond to.

Somewhere on the RAF web site they have the diary of 303 squadron (the highest scoring in the RAF during the Battle, iirc). For the first week of September, the height of the Luftwaffe campaign against airfields:

1st September - Airfield patrol, 12 aircraft. Nothing to report
2nd September - 12 aircraft left to intercept raid (presumably a scramble)
3rd Sept - 12 Hurricanes on patrol, various vectors and patrol orders
3rd Sept - 9 Hurricanes patrolled Maidstone and Dover, met many friendly fighters
4th Sept - 2 separate patrols, no contact with enemy
5th Sept - Morning patrol, no contact made. Afternoon "After various sectors, S/Ldr Kellett, Red 1, at 22,000 ft, near Gillingham, saw AA across the Estuary and led Squadron to attack. " (sounds more like a patrol that encountered the enemy than a scramble)
6th Sept - "After various patrol orders the Squadron was over Western Kent and saw very large formations of enemy aircraft moving up from the coast to the east of them and above."
In the afternoon 2 separate airfield defence patrols, no contact made
7th Sept - "11 Hurricanes left Northolt 16.20. 9 Hurricanes landed Northolt 17.50 hrs onwards. Combat over Essex about 17.00 hrs." (this was the attack on London, and 303 were scrambled early)

There are far more patrols than scrambles on that list.

Again this ignores the fact that the Luftwaffe fighters were not failing to come to grips with the RAF. In fact, the Luftwaffe were suffering unsustainable fighter losses against the RAF. They just weren't inflicting unsustainable losses on the RAF.

There are two ways you could change things for the Luftwaffe to win the battle. First would be to greatly expand the training schools and aircraft factories and depots so that the Luftwaffe is much larger. Second would be to make the Luftwaffe fighters shoot down more British aircraft whilst losing less themselves. Everything else is just tinkering around the edges.

 

What is the breakdown in Luftwaffe losses (fighters/bombers). The total number of aircraft losses is greater for the Germans but what about RAF fighter losses vs Luftwaffe fighter losses? It has been documented that the RAF was reaching the beginning stages of breakdown when the London bombing incident occured. Had the Luftwaffe kept hitting the airfields and drawing out the RAF fighters, it could have raised the RAF losses. I am curious to find out the Luftwaffe fighter losses compared to the RAF.

 

I found this on Wiki but can't vouch for accuracy

Strength:
Great Britain
754 single-seat fighters
149 two-seat fighters
560 bombers
500 coastal
1,963 total

Germany
1,107 single-seat fighters
357 two-seat fighters
1,380 bombers
428 dive-bombers
569 reconnaissance
233 coastal
4,074 total

Casualties and losses
Great Britain
Fighter Command: 1,023 fighters
Bomber Command: 376 bombers
Coastal Command: 148 aircraft
1,547 total
27,450 civilians dead,
32,138 wounded

Germany
873 fighters
1,014 bombers
1,887 total.


If this is true, then the Luftwaffe could have subdued the RAF. The downed aircraft are not the only figures here but also the pilots who are fatigued. They would not be able to continue on for much longer and it has been noted that the RAF did reach that point when the accidental bombing of London took place. It was then the German pilot's turn to be fatigued. I am surprised that it was Kesselring who wanted a strategy to bomb the cities vs Sperrle's strategy of hitting the airfields.

 

Surely pilot fatigue is not the only point - a German pilot baling out over England was lost to the Luftwaffe's strength, whereas an RAF pilot is not.

 

If Churchill wouldn't have bombed the German city knowing Hitler would call for the bombing of London allowing him time to strengthen his forces Britain would have lost. -The Allies were the ones who started bombing cities, won't find that in your typical history book.

 

OK, first attack on London : 7th September.
Battle lost : 15th September.

That's a pretty quick 'strengthening of forces'.

And you will find those dates in your average history book.

 

Will you find that in any history book??

 

????? Who was it that bombed Guernica in Spain, Warsaw in Poland and The Hague in Holland?

Give the man one of those Bolshevic firecrackers, someone has fallen asleep in the snow.

 

right but you can't point the finger at the Nazis without pointing the same finger at the Allies.

 

What were Britain and America and Russia doing in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland? Bombing German cities when they werent even in the war yet?

 

Yeah you might find it in a Revsionist or German Apologist history book.


Rotterdam's city center after the bombing. The heavily damaged (now restored) Laurenskerk stands out as the only building reminiscent of Rotterdam's medieval architecture.

Rotterdam destroyed by German bombing​

 

They look about right, but bear in mind the British casualties are for all aircraft from the RAF in Britain, even if they had nothing to do with the battle, eg air raids on Turin.

The RAF fighter pilots were certainly getting tired. But then so were the Germans. Steinhilper writes in Spitfire on my Tail:

Steinhilper touches on a couple of the important differences between the RAF and Luftwaffe pilots. Firstly, the RAF pilots usually didn't face a long trip back across the channel, which all the pilots were frightened of ending up in. When the Germans flew over Britain, they knew they had 20 or 30 miles of water to cross on the way back, sometimes with a damaged aircraft.

More importantly, though, the RAF only devoted about half their fighter strength to the battle, with some units on the periphery taking part occasionally. About a third of RAF units were based in the North or West, well away from the fighting. Pilots, and sometimes whole squadrons, were rotated in and out of the battle area, meaning most pilots fought only part of the battle, whereas most German pilots fought from the start to the end.

Fatigue was certainly an issue in the BoB, but it affected the German pilots more than the British.

Kesselring believed the poor German intelligence reports that said the RAF was almost defeated, with only 100 or 200 fighters left. He felt that a big attack on London would draw in those last fighters where 5 - 600 German fighters could shoot them down en masse.

 

And BTW Warsaw was bombed twice. Once in 1939 and again in1944. So tell us again that the British started bombing cities first?