It was not a matter of whether the air force was independent or a branch of the army, and to offer that as an explanation for why they didn't attack jammed supply lines implies the most ridiculous stupidity. They didn't attack them because they couldn't; the Luftwaffe had command of the air almost as soon as the battle begun. Hence, my question as to whether the Luftwaffe's air superiority over France could have been prevented, maybe even mitigated to air parity, had the RAF deployed in full strength in France before May 1940.
Again, to me, that the RAF wasn't deployed in full strength in France is symptomatic of more general lukewarm effort to defend allied nations, with France being equally culpable. The Poles were abandoned to their fate, the Finns fought the Russians alone, they made a desultory attempt to help the Norwegians, and then, when it came down to the two strongest powers that hadn't really bothered to defend their weakest allies, they displayed the same flaccidity toward each other.
Lastly, the US was ready to watch the UK surrender to Germany. This is a fact. It's a disheartening chapter in the history of the west.
Again, I disagree. The RAF was not fully equipped to match the Luftwaffe in the Battle of France, nor was it in the Battle of Britain.
The fact of the matter is that the Luftwaffe was fully modernised with over 5,600 +/- planes against a combined force (that is French, British, Belgians and Dutch) of mostly outdated or outclassed totalling 2,900 +/- planes. Overall, I think the pilots of the allies air forces accounted well for themselves if you consider that they still accounted for 1,600 +/- of the Luftwaffe planes with loosing themselves of 2,000 +/- planes. That is pretty even outcome considering the disparity of quality of planes and numbers. So, to say that the Luftwaffe achieved air superiority... again, if they would have concentrated the forces to hit particular areas instead of spreading them throughout the front line, I can see them decimating the supply lines. But, they weren't, they were spread under the command of the ground forces... who didn't care about hitting targets beyond its tactical area.
As to the issue of the RAF, my point is that had the Armee de L'air been independent, better equipped, and better organized, it could have have held the Luftwaffe at bay. But, it wasn't, and a few antiquated British planes would not have made much of a difference when the bulk of the air forces would have still been French.
Just looking at the disposition of the RAF in the Battle of Britain, the numbers again show an unprepared air force. 1,900 +/- British planes versus 4,000 +/- Luftwaffe planes. The difference of numbers in the Luftwaffe shows its losses in the Battle of France. Although the Luftwaffe lost 1,800 +/- planes, the RAF lost 1,500 +/- planes. It was fighting over a smaller area, over its own territory, without a worry about ground support, and it still nearly collapsed, and with better planes than while in France. It just was not going to make much of a difference in France.
I do agree that it was a sad episode, made even sadder by the lack of better leader prior to the war when it could have made all the difference in preparing and reorganizing both the RAF and the Armee de l'Air, and for that matter, the ground forces too.
