Originally posted by Nashwan
Keith Park to Lord Willoughby de Broke, Chief Controller 11 Group, morning of 7th September 1940, just before the Luftwaffe turned to attacking London.
FC held a meeting on the 7th September to discuss the situation. Douglass Evill, Dowding's deputy, prepared lists of losses and replacements. He found 348 fighter pilots had been lost or injured in the previous 4 weeks, 280 replacements had been turned out by the training units.
At the meeting Dowding outlined plans to increase output to 320 pilots a month.
On the 6th Sept, the RAF had 950 Spit and Hurricane pilots ready for duty.
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They made great cannon fodder for the Germans. What the British were doing was throwing young lifes at the well trained German fighters to buy some time. Out of those 950 pilots, 75% of them had only 7-8 hours flown in a Spitfire or Hurricane. In contrast, even the poorly trained rookies of the 44/45 Luftwaffe had at least 30 hours flown in their operational type before entering combat... Many if not all British pilots had not even fired the guns or had shooting practice, *Fighters* mentions that the case of one RAF trainee who was very surprised when his guns turned silent after 1 second of firing. That was the amount issued for *training*... they had shortage of everything, not to mention most of the training time was spent with stupid things like flying in a nice parade formations, like what the Germans called *idiots column*, while air combat manouvers were totally neglected.
That training was good enough for them to take off, and let themselves killed by Experten like Moelders and Galland, who score skyrocketed towards the end of the Battle, just like British losses. It was not rare for an Experte to shoot down half a dozen British fighters in a single day by October.
The RAF lost 348 pilots and received only 280 replacements in month before September, whos *traininig* was already drastically shortened to just 6 weeks. Even with the shortened training the schools could not cope with the losses...
So Dowding had to make a cruel decision to take the pilots from flight schools BEFORE they even completed that 6 week session... In contrast, German fighter training did not give up quality training, giving more and more edge for the Germans as time passed in single engagements. *Fighters* notes that a number of British pilots simply run off when they spotted 109s.. they called this the 109 panic.
In contrast, the Germans had become seriously under strength.
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In contrast of your claims, the German strenght was pretty much the same during the whole battle, and quality did not decline as happened on the RAF side.
On his second tour he found serviceability at 75% for 109s, 70% for bombers, 65% for 110s.
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Thats interesting before just before the Battle the bombers had 67% servicibility rate, fighters were at 77%. It seems that British efforts were insignificant enough to let the Germans even INCREASE their servicibilty rates or keep them up. 70-75% was otherwise quite typical for their units during the whole duration of the war. British Squadrons on the other hand were way down in servicibilty, with 8-hour cannon fodder to fly those planes.. no wonder that morale was so low.
Fighter geschwader complaining replacements had only done 10 landings in 109s, and had never fired a cannon in training.
(Perhaps this explains the 109 landing accidents issue?)[/B]
Nice rhetorics again as firing training was done with MGs and not cannons... but then I guess, a German rookie was better off with the hard training he received with MGs than an RAF one who typically never fired a shot until he first met the enemy.
Also nice rhetorics on the *109 landing accident issue*. There was no such special *issue*. Landing accidents happen to all planes, especially if rookies fly them. Spitfires were notorious for landing accidents, thats why rookies preferred the Hurricane over the Spitfire, it was much easier to handle for them.
No. Dowding, at the Sept 7th meeting, outlined plans to:
"meet wastage greater than any incurred so far" (This was the creation of "C" squadrons in quiet parts of the country, which would take newly trained pilots and give them operational training away from the battle) (This wasn't an ption for the Germans as they had committed almost all their fighter units to the BoB)
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Hmmm, those C squadrons were created in despratation because it was realized that RAF fighter training was so poor at the time that those pilots, even for Dowding, were totally unfit for combat... Naswhan is of course wrong that the Germans committed *all* their fighter units to combat, in fact only about 70-80% which was circulated. During the whole war, German empolyed similiar 2nd line *Erganzungs* units, in which the rookie pilots got through familirization with their type from veteran trainers before sent to 1st line units, where they received further training under the wings of an experienced pilot. Training revolved around simulated air combat, air gunnery and practicing combat formations and the Moelders formation until it become a second nature, in contrast to RAF practice that trained pilots to fly in neat by useless close formations for airshows..
What was happening that the RAF was putting fresh meat into the meatgrinder, and the LW was happy to turn the handle.
And as to it being a long fight, on the 7th Sept Park said he did not believe the fight could last longer than another 3 weeks, Dowding said he was planning on it going on "very much longer" than that.
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Park had a realistic view on the events to come. After Dowding took the pilots from the classes before they finished their training, they could expect a gap in the replacement pilot classes in just 3 weeks. They would simply run out of pilots and no replacemts would come. It was a bluff from Dowding, and a rather cruel one. But the British military never seemed to worry about crew losses, just look at the Bomber Command.
Their "continuous campaign" had seen the RAF increase by about 200 pilots and 150 fighters between early July and 7th September, whilst the Luftwaffe strength had declined quite sharply. (See Milch's figures above) [/B]
Unfurtunately your rhetorics dont hide away the reality. The RAF was seriously lacking quality as early as August, over 50% of their pilots received less than hours of training, whereas a German trainee came with over 250 hours to his unit. Fact. Fact also is that the RAF lacked modern fighters, most of its fighters were not up par with German 109s. By August RAF formations lost most of their Wing Commanders and Flight Leaders, which was (there was squadron which lost 3 of its commanders within a week). In short, the RAF was trying to make up quality with quantity. Or at least buy some time by sacrificing a few hundred pilots. Dowding couldnt care less about them.
Finally, the RAF losses amounted 1960 fighters in total, which does not compare well to the ca 500 Bf 109s they managed to bring down in return, including the ones shot down by AAA. By September, the RAF was at a countdown, either it was they run out of the rookie cannon fodder under the LWs hammering, or the worsening wheater saves them, if they could not save themselves.
