The RAF and Operation Sealion

I read somewhere that the original goal of what woud become the Blitz was to wipe out the RAF [thus acheiving air superiority over England]. At any rate, Churchill ordered an atack on German cities. Hitler had already promised the people that no bombs would fall on the cities and then ordered the Luftwaffe to change targets- from RAF locations to London and other British cities.

Which brings up some interesting questions. If Hitler had suceeded in wipeing out the RAF (which apparently almost happened) could Operation Sealion have been able to progress as planned? Did Churchill's (potentially) risky raids prevent the Axis conquest of the world?

Discussions are open!

 

Actually the Luftwaffe came nowhere near wiping out the RAF at all. In any case the Blitz was one phase of what has become known as the Battle of Britain.

No, Seelowe is a no-goer in any case because of the Royal Navy.

 

IIRC the sequence was something like:

OKL order no attacks on London
24/8/40 German Bomber crew drops load on London (off course, stressed or just bored)
25/8/40 Churchill orders attack on Berlin. 43 aircraft used
Goering wipes egg off face
26/8/40 Goering orders switch to attack on London
11 Group breath sigh of relief and start filling in holes

The rest is history....

Ref: http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/war ... x-1940.htm

 

The rest in brief is:

The book is called "Canada's Fighting Pilots" and it's by Edmund Cosgrove.

 

In which case it is wrong, the RAF was nowhere near being annihilated, Bomber command for instance was largely unscathed by the Battle of Britain, even Fighter Command outside of the South East was not on the verge of annihilation, Leigh Mallory's 12 Group were pretty much immune from Luftwaffe attack by day since they were beyond the reach of the Bf109s to escort the bombers that far.

 

The worst damage was infrastructure, airfield buildings, communication centres and radar stations. Oh and dead pilots.

 

The RAF was suffering from loosing pilots true, however so was the Luftwaffe, the RAF however was fighting over home skies and many of those whose aircraft were shot down could be returned to their units to fight another day.

The Luftwaffe was not so lucky and anyone shot down over the UK was lost to them.

Fatigue and damage to infrastructure were the two biggest problems but again these were mainly felt in the South East, 12 Group being beyond the effective range of the Luftwaffe's bombers in daylight. 12 Group's pilots were also far more rested.

That said for all the losses inflicted RAF Fighter Command strength rose throughout the Battle, hardly seems like a force on the verge of annihilation.

The source seems to have a slightly muddled version of events. Initially a lost Luftwaffe bomber at night ditched its bombs over London, the RAF retaliated by attacking industrial targets in Berlin (Many bombers could not find their targets and brought their bombs home), and in retaliation the Luftwaffe began a day and night bombardment of London's East End which allowed 11 Group to repair, regroup and refit.

It wasn't a bold counterstrike during the height of the attacks on the installations, it was retaliation for the Luftwaffe apparently breaking the unspoken taboo against airforces attacking the respective capital cities.

 

Taboo? Rotterdam had already been bombed by that stage. I think the only taboo was don't bomb anyone who might bomb you right back.

The Germans were actually winning the BoB (expensively) before they switched to hitting London. If they could have forced fighter command to concede at least 109 range over the English SE then they might have triggered a political crisis that could have brought Britain to the peace table. Which is about the only plausable way of knocking Britain out in 1940.

 

The problem with discussing the BoB is that first you must define what 'winning' is.

This is the only real 'win' that could have happened.

 

Sorry, where is Rotterdam the capital city of? In any case this was referring to attacks by the RAF and Luftwaffe which up until that one incident had deliberately avoided attacking Berlin or London respectively.

The Luftwaffe was gaining the upper hand in the battle against Fighter Command in the South East, but that is not the RAF as a whole and to reiterate my original points the RAF was not about to be annihilated and that Seelowe was still a no-goer. Even if Fighter Command had been forced to concede their land presence in the South East that still leaves them with a substantial presence in the UK and more than militarily capable of resisting the Luftwaffe, 12 Group might be out of Bf109 range (And by extension daylight bombing range), but any Luftwaffe activity over the South East will still be in range of RAF fighters.

Politically it could have been enough of a disaster that it wouldn't have got that far of course, but the points remain even the loss of 11 Group's airbases would not have meant the "Annihilation" of either Fighter Comand or the RAF nor necessarily the cessation of RAF resistance to the Luftwaffe.

As Ricky has already mentioned, the Luftwaffe winning the Battle of Britain also touches on the difficulty of defining what "Winning" is. If we accept that winning means that they were achieving their goals then that clouds things further since the Luftwaffe had no real clear cut goal throughout the Battle of Britain.

The goals of the Luftwaffe were muddled at best and the only one they came close to achieving was local air superiority over the invasion area. Every other aspect was beyond their realistic capabilities.

 

Maybe the question should be wich army won BOB!!

RAF , Luftwaffe or something else?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... ttle24.xml


BTW Did the RAF needed to be completly destroyed for invasion?
No ofcoarse not!

 

No the RAF did not need to be destroyed, but then the invasion wasn't going to happen successfully anyway unless the British allowed it.

 

It did.
If the RAF could provide just enough air cover to give at least some protection to the RN units attacking the invasion, the invasion would fail.
Though in truth, even without air support the RN is still probably strong enough to defeat anything the Germans could send

 

Especially as the Luftwaffe lacked effective weapons to take on heavy ships at that point.

 

I can imagine that the RN would engage any invasion fleet with everything they had regardless of the level of air cover the RAF could provide.

The point being that if the RN does not repel any invasion fleet then the war would be lost so the possability of heavy RN casulties from air attack is outweighted by the risk of losing the war.

I do think the the RN would have taken a pounding as the German light and medium bombers would be better matched against the crusiers and destroyers which would make up a lot of the RN fleet.

FNG

 

I disagree with regard to the effectiveness of the Luftwaffe, there is not a single instance of a major warship manouevring at sea being sunk by high altitude level bombing alone, it's just too inaccurate. The Luftwaffe had yet to use or practice skip bombing and had no air-launched torpedoes. The only aircraft in service capable of effectively attacking shipping were the Ju87 (Which by the point Seelowe would have taken place had already suffered heavy losses and whose experience had suffered as a result), or the Ju88 (Which was in the minority of Luftwaffe bombers in 1940).

These could damage and eventually sink or finish off already damaged capital ships I would imagine, but the lack of armour piercing bombs would severely limit their effectiveness against heavy ships.

 

I disagree with this because the Luftwaffe would have had air superiority above the sea at the times when the Ju-87 or Ju-88 would do their dive-bomb attack...and ofcoarse those heavy losses are just as exagerated as the defeat of the RAF...
German aerial torpedo was the F5 wich was in service in 1939....altough they were used by the Kriegsmarine (He-59 and He-115)

 

remember they don't need to "sink" the ships, just hitting them with small to medium sized bombs reduces their effectivness to fight and will force their withdrawal as they lose radar, guns and ranging finding abilities.

Added to this the goal is not to sink the RN, but to protect your own landings. Any damage inflected to the RN will just be a bonus once the landings are successful.

Finally whilst the larger capital ships will be better protected they will still take a lot of superficial damage. Added to that light cruisers and destroyers which will make up the bulk of the RN fleet will be highler vulnrable to such smaller bombs and bombers.

Many a destroyer and light crusier suffered bad damage and was sunk by german light and medium bombers during the war. just look at the ships sunk and damaged at Dunkirk which is the best example given the time it occured and the concentration of forces each side deployed

FNG

 

Even if we give the Luftwaffe total air superiority in SE England, does anyone know how the the Luftwaffe intended to counter the RN if it launched an attack on the invasion fleet at night. :kill:

 

I never said the germans would win, but the RN would take a drubbing from the air but sink the invasion fleet

FNG