Battle of Britian

City bombing per se I still find weird that the Germans must have noticed that in Blitz it did not win the war ( except for Göring and Hitler ), and in Bombing of German cities it did not win the war for Bomber Command. Probably on both sides and times it only stiffened the resistance. And until Aug-Sept 1944 the German production figures just kept going up.

 

But terror bombing worked on nagasaki and Hiroshima forcing the japanese to surrender thus winning the war.

 

They were about to surrender anyway very soon, which is also used as an argument against the dropping of the bombs, you know? Emperor´s position was as I recall the main point when discussed about the future Japan and surrender terms.

 

Sometimes you can be happy that some things went the way they did.

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These are naturally extreme possibilities but if some of them had happened instead...

Just something to think about:

1.What if the Air Ministry had ordered a new generation of biplane fighters, as they had wanted to? Planes that lacked the speed, the armament and the height to take on Hitler's Luftwaffe.

If the Air Ministry had had its way, the Luftwaffe would have been met by planes like the Tiger Moth.

2. What if Churchill's friend Professor Lindeman had had his way, and that work on an infrared detection system had replaced the development of radar?

3. What if Arthur Harris - appointed to Bomber Command at the same time Dowding was appointed to Fighter Command - had got his way, and Britain had concentrated on building bombers in 1938? Hitler's bombers would have got through.

4. What if Dowding had caved in to Churchill's demand for an extra ten squadrons of fighters for France in May 1940?

Dowding refused, and gave the War Cabinet his reasons.

The author tells us that no one spoke. No one supported him. They were all terrified of Churchill.

 

Anouther Air Ministry gem that you posted before was to make the bombers wing span under 100 feet so they would fit in the hanger doors. The Short Sterling crews paid for that stupidity.

 

Wouldn't they have been more like the Gladiator and Bulldog or Fury then the Tiger Moth. The Tiger Moth was not designed as a fighter.

 

For research purposes The Battle of Britain - Home Page

This is the honour roll, but is part of the RAF Battle of Britain History Site. I posted it earlier this evening on the Non-British in RAF Battle of Britain thread in case it had not been shared earlier. On that thread there is quite a bit of information on the Polish Squadrons.

 

a quick question, regarding this topic. If the Germans had successfully removed the RAF wouldn't they still have to worry about their large Navy before invading their country?

 

Who ever controls the air controls the war just look at normandy and allied air supremacy stopping the germans from moving in day light and properly reinforceing there positions. The Germans could just bomb the RN without the fear of the RAF interferring.

 

Just to throw in that at Normandy the Luftwaffe was hardly a threat to the Allies due to the small amount of aircraft available. So it was easy to attain air supremacy for the invasion LOL. Look at "Pips" Priller and his single strafing pass over the beaches on D-Day LOL.

 

You know the only reason that I know about that is because of I watched the movie 'the longest day' and it has it in there, I got interested in that and had a look it was quite interesting really put into perspective allied air supremacy.

 

I loved that scene in the movie . IIRC there were about 200 Luftwaffe aircraft avaiaible and not all of the were combat aircraft.

 

There is no evidence that the Air Minstry wanted a new generation of biplane fighters, because it was the Air Ministry who issued the specifications which lead to the Spitfire and Hurricane.

This is complete nonsense, Harris didn't become head of Bomber Command until 1942, well over a year after Dowding had retired from his position as head of Fighter Command

ps, the 'author' also claims that Churchill sacked Dowding after the BOB, this is also untrue, Churchill had nothing to do with it, Dowding fell victim to a power suggle within the RAF.

 

I guess that strategic/terror bombing does have a purpose...

Look at D-day. Most of the German aircraft were back in Germany, attempting to fend off bombers.

The bombing of fuel sources, munitions plants, etc. certainly affected German levels of training and logistics. And, of course, completely leveling a city while killing thousands of people tends to reduce productivity. Not to mention that the German Economy, as Speer put it, had to be based on locations that were the most camouflaged, not the most productive. And, of course, the sheer amount of people and AA/AT material that had to be diverted to AA work was simply staggering. Both America and Britain had much higher productivity per capita than Germany.

As for Japan, the Atom Bombs were just the death knell. Japan's surrender probably has more to do with the earlier firebombing of cities (Tokyo) and unrestricted submarine warfare. However, in this case, terror bombing worked in completely annihilating Japan's industry.

On a side note, I greatly prefer the deaths of over 200,000 Japanese people to the, albeit unlikely, alternative (the alternative being Downfall). The previous Japanese terms of surrender were unacceptable due to...

1: No occupation.
2: Japanese try the Japanese for war crimes (what a farce).

The fact still remains that the US Military still printed out 500,000 Purple Hearts, just in case stuff happened. Not to mention the death rate of civilians in the Pacific Theater due to the continuation of war. And the Soviet advance. In all likelihood, strategic bombing would have continued in the absence of the Atom bomb. In this case, taking it safe was probably the better bet.

 

read from somewhere that in 1944, germany rolled out more tanks, more u-boats, more artillery, and more combat planes than in any other year between 1939 and 1945.

 

Yes, and wothout strategic bombing, they'd have rolled out even more - and the V-2 would have arrived on the scene 3-4 months earlier....

 

Actually it was a blessing Adolf loved those V-weapons so much. If he had put all the money into other weapons and vehicles used in the front line, the war would have lasted longer.

 

The fact that German industrial productivity rose in 1943 isn't a sign of the futility of terror/strategic bombing. It's a sign of Germany's utter lack of economic planning from 1939-1942.

Think about this; until about the middle in the war, most of Germany's workers were still working on a single shift. The quality and quantity of consumer goods dropped by a very marginal amount until late in the war (which meant that military gear was being ignored). And, despite pleas and tears from Speer, women remained Germany's largest untapped labor force. Let's not forget about Germany's remarkable lack of centralization in the early war.

Speer's reforms did a lot. But he tirelessly complained about the effects of bombing on centralization and productivity.

We really should thank Adolf for the creation of the V2.

 

Yes, radar was a big factor for the RAF. It allowed them to vector their fighters to the proper place efficiently.
Another thing is the loss of crews for the German side. Any German pilot or crewman surviving being shot down over England is sure to be captured while for the British, pilots who survive being shot down can be back on their bases for action again the next day.

 

could anyone give credence to saburo sakai's stand that, had the germans used zeros, they would have won the battle?