Battle of Britain II

[Angus]

YOu need to take the med into this equation. The Germans had their paratrooper force butchered at Crete, - it would have been a key force in a "Sealion II" operation.
But...Britain I'd say. LW coming up in daylight with the RAF much stronger and having learned their lesson would mean "B" as in Britain...and Butchery 

[PanosGR]

So true. Crete was a graveyard for the German paratroopers.

[RTHolmes]

i've never bought the BOB lost by LW transferring from airfields to London thing. airfields in 1940 were pretty simple - grass strips and trucks for rearm and refuel. In 1940 in Oxfordshire alone, there were 30 fields capable of deploying fighters. the LW could have spent forever bombing airfields with hardly any dent in RAF operational effectiveness.

[saantana]

i've never bought the BOB lost by LW transferring from airfields to London thing. airfields in 1940 were pretty simple - grass strips and trucks for rearm and refuel. In 1940 in Oxfordshire alone, there were 30 fields capable of deploying fighters. the LW could have spent forever bombing airfields with hardly any dent in RAF operational effectiveness.

Didnt the attack on the airfields include strafing planes on the ground? If so, if that was kept up wouldn't losses exceed production?
Again.. just speculation.

[CAP1]

Didnt the attack on the airfields include strafing planes on the ground? If so, if that was kept up wouldn't losses exceed production?
Again.. just speculation.

At first the Luftwaffe attacked radar stations and airfields.   Although the Luftwaffe lost more planes than the RAF, by the 31 August the RAF was at its last gasp – in the previous fortnight the RAF had lost 295 planes destroyed and 170 damaged, 103 pilots killed and 128 wounded.  Flying five or more ‘sorties’ a day, the young British fighter pilots (nicknamed ‘Dowding’s chicks’) were becoming exhausted; more importantly, the RAF was not training new pilots as fast the pilots were being killed.   The weekend 30-31 August was the worst weekend of the battle for the RAF, with 65 fighters destroyed and 6 of the seven sector stations in the vital south-east Group out of action.   

 

Just as Fighter Command was about to collapse, however, a miracle happened.   On 24 August, by accident, some Luftwaffe bombers had dropped their bombs on London.   The next few nights, the RAF replied by bombing Berlin.   Hitler was angry.   On 2 September he ordered his bombers to attack London.   On 7 September the Nazi bombing raid was so huge that a false alarm went round the south-east of England: code-word ‘Cromwell’ – invasion imminent.   Church bells rang and the Home Guard mobilised.   It was not known at the time but one section of coast identified by the Nazis as a landing ground was defended by a Home Guard platoon with just one machine-gun!

      Hitler’s decision to stop attacking the RAF gave it time to recover.   On 15 September, the Luftwaffe came by day in huge numbers.   It expected to sweep the RAF from the skies.   But the RAF fought them off.   At one point every British plane was in the sky – soon, some would have to come in to refuel and there were no reserves to protect them.   But the Luftwaffe, too, was at the limit and – just in time – it turned back.   



http://www.johndclare.net/wwii6.htm
 

In all, the RAF lost 1,173 planes and 510 pilots and gunners killed in the Battle of Britain.   The Luftwaffe lost 1,733 planes and 3,368 airmen killed or captured.   If the Luftwaffe had succeeded, Britain would have been invaded and conquered.   But the RAF held out, and Britain survived.   

[Badboy]

Although the Luftwaffe lost more planes than the RAF, by the 31 August the RAF was at its last gasp

http://www.johndclare.net/wwii6.htm
 

Once again, a very dramatic statement and common misconception that probably originates from primary Luftwaffe sources, that seem to be used to add drama to the event. This is possible because the Luftwaffe assumed the RAF was at its last gasp, and had been getting there for some time. General Stapf had reported to Halder on 30 August that the British had lost 800 Hurricanes and Spitfires since 8 August out of a frontline strength of 915. Given the intelligence reports on the RAF from Oberst Beppo Schmid, whose estimate of their production capacity of 200 to 300 a month, the British could therefore only have 300 to 400 left at the outside. After another week of pounding in September, they must indeed be down to their last 200 aircraft.

In fact, that was very far from the truth. Up to date and accurate figures show that on the evening of 6 September, Fighter Command had over 750 serviceable fighters and 1,381 pilots available to it, 950 of whom flew Spitfires or Hurricanes. It needed 1,588 pilots to be at full establishment, which is of course what Dowding wanted, so from his point of view he was 200 short and he was very vocal at the time about his concerns.

Because of that, there are many who believe that Fighter Command was on its knees after the attacks on the airfields. However it was a strange way of kneeling. Taking the worst scenario of no increase in output from the training units, and if the Luftwaffe had continued its attacks on the airfields and continued to destroy aircraft in the air at the most favourable rate it ever achieved, there would still have been about 725 Hurricanes and Spitfires ready to take to the air in the third week of September... Hardly a last gasp!

When you consider that Schmid's estimate of the RAF fighter strength for July was 675 serviceable frontline fighters, the RAF actually had more fighters available at the point when it was assumed they were at their last gasp, than the Germans thought they had at the beginning of the Battle. When the Germans thought the RAF would be down to their last 200 aircraft, they actually had almost four times that many.

One of the reasons there are so many misconception about the Battle is that books were being published almost as soon as it was over, the first appearing early in 1941, when accurate figures were not available. Since then there has been a constant stream of publications about the Battle expressing many different interpretations of the information available at the time. It is inevitable that the most dramatic and most popular interpretations are the ones that get repeated and rehashed most frequently. However, we are only recently seeing documents made available by the public records office and new information has been coming to light. There has been considerable rethinking over recent years and if you want to gain further insight into the Battle, read some of the more recent publications. Two I could recommend off the cuff are:

• The Most Dangerous Enemy, a History of the Battle of Britain by Stephen Bungay, 2000
• The Battle of Britain, Victory or Defeat by J.E.G Dixon, 2003

Both titles explode some of the myths and misconceptions, as well as exposing some of the scandals of the time. There is certainly some sensationalism and controversy, but the facts and figures are the most accurate and up to date as can be.

Badboy   

[Badboy]

Didnt the attack on the airfields include strafing planes on the ground? If so, if that was kept up wouldn't losses exceed production?
Again.. just speculation.

You might think that, given that one of the Luftwaffe’s prime goals was to catch aircraft on the ground, the rarity of such cases is a real tribute to the efficiency of the defences and the watchfulness of Park’s controllers. In Poland and France, the Luftwaffe had been used to finding lines of aircraft parked on runways. The RAF’s policy of dispersing planes round an airfield perimeter, and protecting them with the simple but effective E-shaped blast pens Dowding had ordered in 1938, meant that even if the planes were on the ground, a direct hit was needed to destroy each machine. The Luftwaffe’s happy days of gaining air superiority in a few hours were not to come again until June 1941, when the Russians offered them even longer rows of aircraft lined up as if for target practice, and they wiped out thousands of them before they even took off.

People were killed on the ground, but the numbers were surprisingly small. The Kenley raid cost nine dead. The thirty-nine killed at Biggin Hill on the 30th was the worst single incident, and an unlucky one. By and large, the protection afforded to ground staff was effective.

Badboy

[Bear76]

So who would win
everybody knows the outcome of the Battle of Britain in August 1940.  But if it wasn't for Hitler switching his attention to Russia in 1941 there would have been a round 2.  So here is my question, and point of discussion: if a second Battle of Britain commenced in the summer of 1941 would the Germans have won? (And by that I mean gained and maintained air superiority over southern England and the English Channel) The luftwaffe would have been equipped with the BF109F, and the RAF with the Spitfire Mk5, so there is an entire discussion regarding the relative merits of those two planes against each other, and of course let us not forget about the hurricane. 
But there would be many other factors, some subtle and some obvious that could affect the outcome greatly.  Perhaps the most significant of this would be the simple addition of long-range fuel tanks for the 109s.  They lacked these in 1940 and only had a matter of minutes of the South England before they had to return to base.  If this was addressed in 1941 this would have been a significant force multiplier.  But that should be counterbalanced against the increased RAF fight production and pilot training that was on line by 1941 and also the adoption luftwaffe fighter tactics.
So who would win?

SkyRock would own both sides and rub it in on vox

[Karnak]

If the Luftwaffe had succeeded, Britain would have been invaded and conquered.   But the RAF held out, and Britain survived.

This is factually false.

If the RAF had faltered they simply would have pulled back out of the German range with their surviving forces and when the Germans tried to invade, the Royal Navy, covered by the remaining RAF fighters, would have slammed the door shut.  The Germans had nothing capable of stopping the Royal Navy's cruisers and battleships from anniliating the invasion barges and cutting the supply lines.

Every simulation of a German invasion ends in failure and the British inventorying their newly captured tanks and guns.

The Germans had no viable way of taking England.

[Scherf]

I've often wondered though, if whether the Germans had put troops, any troops, on the ground in southern England immediately after Dunkirk, whether Churchill would still have been able to resist calls from within the cabinet to accept terms.

<shrug> coulda woulda shoulda

[Obie303]

I've recent read a book about the American "Eagle" Squadrons during the BoB.  "The Few" by Alex Kershaw.  Very good book about the insight of American pilots that flew for the RAF in 1940.  I'm also currently reading a book by Peter Townsend "Duel of Eagles". 

From what I've read by Townsend, there appeared to be a power struggle within the German ranks starting as early as 1938.  I believe that the combination of the German offensive loosing it's direction and the brave pilots of the RAF amounted to the British winning the BoB.

<S>

[Hazzer]

 Germany probably did not need to land troops,what she did need to do was to almost totally destroy the RAF to a point were the Luftwaffe could fly freely through British airspace without any significant resistance from British fighters.

 Once achieved it's unlikely the Churchill administration would have held,and  Halifax would have sued for peace.Having failed to maintain air superiority,those in the Halifax camp would have been able to force a change in leadership.

 Halifax was in peace negotiations with Goering-through Sweden-even as the battle was starting.Churchill only just hung on to power in 1942,and of course lost it in 1945.

 It took the combined strategic bomber commands of Britain and the USA,from august 1942 till May 1944 to bring the Luftwaffe to it's knees.
 So victory would be both unlikely, and costly,for Germany.

[Angus]

The RAF wasn't on its last legs. But 11th group was in serious trouble. 13th group was almost idle, and 12th group didn't get into the real business before September or so...
The LW did get into serious trouble though. When the focused on London, they plonked almost every 109 down in the same sector, - facing 11th group, since more distance to the west left them out of that area. So, they were upping up to 3 fighters for every bomber.
But, another 20 minutes on the plotting table was vital for fighter command, and it gave 12th and some of 10th group the time needed to intercept.
In short, when both opponents went as big as possible, the blood started running faster out of the LW.
(Well, possible is maybe not the right word for the RAF, for they still had several squadrons absolutely out of reach)
And as for pilot training, pilots being trained in the BoB were sometimes not in combat before the fall of 1941....

[Angus]

BTW, Somewhere I have a list of lost aircraft in the BoB, within a certain timeframe, and air-to-air.
It was the result of some 20 years or more, of work.
It left the RAF somewhere near the 900 and the LW at some odd 1200.
These were all supposed to be absolutely confirmed, so the numbers wouldn't get any smaller.
I am not sure how much has come out of the LW loss archives, but as far as I have experienced they are nowhere as complete as the RAF ones. Well, Germany got run over in the end, and the UK didn't....

[spit16nooby]

Of course this subject.  I think that we can look at this and find out what the chances were.  I will show the possibilities if everything went right. 
1. Germany had a much higher production CAPACITY we will assume that somehow hitler got convinced to go into war time production after france and Britain declared war.  effect of this the loss of AIRCRAFT does not matter to the luftwaffe they can easily produce enough to keep their pilots supplied    advantage:Germany
2. germany can train pilots to make up for losses in pilots that Britain has a hard time replacing but britain can keep pilots that bail because they are recoverable after they bail.  advantage: tie
3.  if Goering simply would have just kept pounding the RAF instead of attacking london he would have won.  Also it would have been a smart move to pound the British radar too.  He had every advantage more pilots better aircraft(the spitfire only made up a small part of the RAF at this time and hurricanes really shouldered most of the work) and numbers.  The only thing the RAF really had was radar.  With this they could concentrate their forces where the germans were.  The germans could have done many smaller raids that would cover more area instead of large assualts that would spread the RAF thin were their numbers would be an advantage.  final: German hold a 70% to 30% advantage in my opinion.




On a side note:   The germans had a naval production plan to give them a navy comparable to the british one by 1944-45.  If Hitler would have waited to attack Poland til 1944 or 45 the war would have taken a much different perspective and if the Germans would have forced France to give her her navy Germany would have the best airforce army and navy in the world a absolutely unstoppable force.