Lies, damned lies, statistics as they say... numbers don`t show everything, especially if selectively qouted. First, your numbers include British pilot reserves but ignore the German reserves - why?
Because the Luftwaffe had no pilot reserves. Even the RAF didn't have "reserves", as such.
An RAF squadron had an established strength of 20 pilots (this changesd at various times), and approx 18 - 20 aircraft. Established strength is not actual strength. The squadron would not fly 18 - 20 aircraft. Some aircraft are always in repair, or maintenance, pilots on leave, etc.
By early September, pilot strength had fallen and their were only around 16 per squadron (the number of squadrons had been expanded during the battle, diluting pilot strength), but a squadron is not supposed to fly more than 12 at a time anyway.
As to Luftwaffe reserves, if they had them where were they? Pilot strength had fallen to 200 or more below established strength, and operational pilots were 450 or so below established strength.
Second, in air combat, and this was proven hundreds of times, it was pilot quality that mattered. The British could only keep up with their pilot`s losses if they drastically reduced their training.
No. The RAF had the luxury of keeping a large part of their strength away from the battle. Pongo summed it up nicely:
"The Germans gave it everything they had in the Battle of Britain. And the Brits stoped them with half of what they had."
The RAF had around 53 operational Spit and Hurricane squadrons for most of the battle.
11 group, which bore the brunt of the battle, averaged 20 squadrons.
12 group, which was involved on occasion, had 12 squadrons.
10 group, which was again involved on occasion, had 9 squadrons.
13 group, which became involved only on 1 day, had 11 squadrons.
The RAF could afford to keep a large proportion of it's strength out of the battle at any one time, and new pilots were frequently posted to squadrons in quiet areas to gain experience.
However by early September, over 50% of British fighter pilots had only really marginal training 5-10 flying hours on their combat types, sometimes not even that much, vs. many hundred hours of their LW adversaries.
The problem with that claim is that a new pilot can only have 5 - 10 hours for a short time, before they begin to gain experience. Say a week before they get enough flight hours in. That means, according to your figures, the RAF was replacing it's force every two weeks. Around 700 pilots trained per week.
We know 500 or so RAF pilots were killed, and another 500 or so injured, so in the 4 months of the BoB they would have gained around 10,000 pilots, and lost 1,000 (assuming no injured pilots returned). Strangely, I've never heard such figures before (like most of your claims)
Wonders do not happen in war, the British were able to raise so many new pilots because they cut back on training.
That's the point, they did not raise so many new pilots. Total output of the training schools rose to 320 pilots per month, during the battle.
Given that both parties are of equal quality, the more numorous should of course. But this wasn`t the case, it was quality vs. quantity again. 1000+ fighters, yes, but only 1/3 of them were equal to the 109s.
Strangely they still managed to win.
The Luftwaffe were pressuring the RAF with a very high sortie rate and attacks on airfields. They began those tactics in the last week of August, when they flew nearly 4000 fighter sorties. But they couldn't sustain it, flying only 3200 sorties in the first week of September, then dropping to only 1400 in the second week of September.
... and similiarly, the RAF`s fighter sorties also dropped? Why?
They didn't. The RAF flew 5000 sorties the last week of August, 4900 the first week of September.
Well, the weather:
7th September 1940 : Fair with some haze.
8th September 1940 : Fair early morning and evening, cloudy for the remainder of the day
9th September 1940 : Scattered showers, thundery in the east. Channel fair.
10th September 1940 : Generally cloudy, some rain.
11th September 1940 : Mainly fine with some local showers. Cloud in the Channel and Thames Estuary.
12th September 1940 : Unsettled, rain in most districts
13th September 1940 : Unsettled.
14th September 1940 : Showers and local thunder. Cloud in the Straits, Channel and Thames Estuary
Trust me, that's good for a British summer. It also only covers the second week of Sept, not the first week, when the sortie rate was already dropping.
It`s more like a simple case that the Automn was coming, and the weather turned bad, making flying impossible.
But not for the RAF, apparently.
As the British themselves admit, ie. on 16th September :
16th September 1940 :
Weather largely hindered fighter action.
Isegrim, that's the 16th, the
third week of September. Find a similar comment for the second week, when the sorties dropped. Let alone the first week of September, wjem they were down from the last week of August. You know, the weeks we are discussing.
No, that`s wrong. If Britain actually though the German front line strenght was 5800 planes, then it was quite correct. The actual German numbers for 11th April 1940 was 5298 planes, including 1356 s-e fighters, 1711 bombers and 414 dive bombers and others.
Those are the three plane types the RAF were refering to as frontline strength. The rest, the transports, recce aircraft etc were not considered front line strength. The RAF actually believed the Luftwaffe possesed 14,000 including transports, training aircraft etc.
As sidenote, to the "Jagdwaffe was breaking in September" fanatics, it`s interesting to note that the German fighter strenght was increasing in Septmber, ie. the 7th state was 831 single engined fighters (increased to 920 by the 28th Sept), of which 658 was servicable (increased to 712 by the 28th). The RAF had 621 fighters servicable on the 7th of September, which fell slightly, to 604 servicable fighters on the 28th.
Source? I think it's possible, however, because the Luftwaffe was suffering more from pilot shortages. Overy gives the following figures for Luftwaffe 109 pilots ready for duty:
1st june 906
1st aug 869
1st sept 735
1st nov 673
Without the pilots available, the mechanics had more time to work on getting planes serviceable.
