Battle of Britain Single Seat Fighter Contest
Geoffrey Sinclair
battle of Britain, their impact on enemy losses was marginal. The Bf110
units seem have shot down a minimum of 44 Spitfires and Hurricanes,
with the possibility of a few more when the fight contained a mixture of
Bf110s and other Luftwaffe aircraft and it is unclear which type was
actually responsible for the RAF loss. The Defiants and Blenheims had
even smaller effects.
Luftwaffe bombers seem to have shot down a minimum of 97 Spitfires and
Hurricanes.
In recent years books like Battle over Britain by Mason and The Battle of
Britain Then and Now have published detailed loss listings for both air
forces. In Mason's case from 1 July to 31 October 1940, in BoBTaN it is
10 July to 31 October. BoBTaN seems to be the more accurate, I use the
Mason figures for 1 to 9 July only.
Other publications like Spitfire by Morgan and Shacklady have published
individual histories for each aircraft built, which can be used as a check.
Unfortunately the Hawker Hurricane, again by Mason, does not have a history
for every Hurricane, the histories are very brief and there appears to be a
high error rate. Even BoBTaN has 3 Spitfire losses which have defied all
attempts to find their serial numbers, being carried as unknown. So they
could be double counted, or possibly actually only damaged.
Detailed loss listings inevitably result in the question, what is a loss?
For example during the Battle of Britain some 34 Spitfires were initially
considered write offs but were ultimately repaired, to counter balance
that 17 Spitfires hauled off to be repaired never flew again. Another quirk
is there are often two dates, one when the aircraft was actually destroyed
and the other when it was officially declared destroyed, and some times
only the official declaration date is mentioned. It seems damaged Luftwaffe
aircraft were candidates for cannibalisation given spare parts problems,
so what damage the aircraft had when it landed could be less, even much
less, than the damage when it arrived at the off site repair facility.
Next hurdle comes from trying to determine the cause of loss, inevitably
there are aircraft that simply vanished, or where the cause of the loss was
not recorded and whether it was an operational or non operational flight.
The overall result is I consider these figures quite accurate, but certainly
not perfect. The time period is 1 July to 31 October unless otherwise
noted.
As a sanity check the Luftwaffe's quartermaster Bf109 loss figures versus
the spreadsheet losses look like this.
July QM, 34 lost on operations to enemy action, another 12 on operations
but not to enemy action, plus 7 not on operations, total 53, spreadsheet
51 on operations, 6 not on operations, total 57 (including 39 credited to
RAF fighters).
August, QM, 177 and 34 plus 20, total 231, spreadsheet 212 on operations
plus 20 not on operations, total 232.
September QM, 187 and 33 plus 14, total 234, spreadsheet 225 plus 9,
total 234
October QM, 104 and 19 plus 22, total 145, spreadsheet 125 plus 17,
total 142.
In the straight Bf109 versus Spitfire and Hurricane losses in the fighter
units to all causes are 379 Spitfires, 597 Hurricanes, total 976 to 665
Bf109s, but the Bf109 units had training units attached, removing those
losses (all in October) drops the Bf109 loss to 659. Or about 1.5 to 1
in favour of the Bf109.
This is versus Spitfire and Hurricane production of 1,653, and Bf109
production of somewhere between 600 and 720, depending on sources.
There is no doubt who would end up with the last fighters flying.
In addition to the Spitfires lost by the fighter units another 34 were lost
by non fighter units, 4 by maintenance units, 1 by the Royal Aircraft
Establishment (which was apparently flying operations at times), 2 on
delivery flights to units, 18 by training units and 9 PR Spitfires. Which
should give an idea as to possible non fighter unit Hurricane and Bf109
losses.
The next thing to note is the evolution of the loss ratio, all causes
July 108 Spitfire and Hurricanes to 57 Bf109s, 1.9 to 1
August 350 to 232, about 1.5 to 1
September, 343 to 234, about 1.5 to 1
October, 174 to 136 (removing the training unit Bf109s), 1.28 to 1.
Of course there were other reasons why fighters were lost other than
their opposite number, some 430 Spitfires and Hurricanes are noted to
have been shot down by Bf109s (Possibly a few of these were to Bf110s
that were present), versus 448 Bf109s credited to RAF fighters in the
spreadsheet.
Removing losses to AA fire, Bf110s, bombers, collisions, friendly fire,
fuel starvation, landing accidents, mechanical failures, bombing, pilot
error, take off accidents and a combination of AA fire and fighter attack
leaves losses listed as being to enemy action, enemy aircraft, fighters,
crashes (the generic catch all) and unknown cause. While most crashes
were not combat related a number probably were. Some 22 Luftwaffe
aircraft were brought down by a combination of RAF fighters and UK
AA fire, including 5 Bf110, 8 Do17, 2 He111 and 6 Ju88.
Switching to losses on operations that were definitely or possibly due to
enemy fighters the results look like
July 73 Spitfires and Hurricanes (Including 19 crashes, many related to
night fighter training and 1 unknown), to 43 Bf109 (2 crashes, 2 unknown)
August 242 Spitfires and Hurricanes (8 crashes, 7 unknown), to 185
Bf109 (4 crashes, 18 unknown)
September 267 Spitfires and Hurricanes (5 crashes, 18 unknown), to 195
Bf109 (8 crashes, 3 unknown)
October 117 Spitfires and Hurricanes (24 crashes, 3 unknown), to 112
Bf109 (9 crashes, 1 unknown)
The loss ratios, including the crashes are July 1.7 to 1, August 1.3 to 1,
September 1.4 to 1, October 1 to 1
The loss ratios, excluding the crashes are July 1.3 to 1, August 1.3 to 1,
September 1.4 to 1, October 0.9 to 1.
Pilot casualties. This leads to the problem of whether the RAF and
Luftwaffe had the same rules for what constituted a reportable wound,
the RAF losses have the category slightly wounded, alongside wounded.
Overall
Hurricane, 181 KIA, 91 MIA, 181 wounded (50 slightly), 1 PoW, from
597 aircraft losses. Dropping the slightly wounded, the results are 45.5%
of losses resulted in the death of the pilot, another 22% in the pilot being
wounded, so your chances of walking away basically unhurt from a Hurricane
loss was around 32.5%. As far as the RAF was concerned the permanent
loss rate (KIA, MIA, PoW) was 45.7%, plus another 22% some of whom
would not recover enough to fly fighters again. So only 32.3% of pilots
were immediately ready to fly again, given slight wounds appear to be
minor cuts, bruises and sprains.
The RAF lost some 18 Hurricanes on non operational flights, with the death
of 11 pilots, plus 2 missing, plus 1 wounded.
Spitfire, 135 KIA, 33 MIA, 85 wounded (26 slightly), 7 PoW from
379 aircraft losses, again dropping the slightly wounded, the results are
44.3% of losses resulted in the death of the pilot, another 15.6% in the
pilot being wounded, so around 41.1% of Spitfire pilots were basically
unhurt when their aircraft was destroyed. As far as the RAF was
concerned the permanent loss rate was 46.2%, plus another 15.6%
wounded. Meaning some 38.2% of pilots were immediately ready to
fly again.
The RAF lost some 11 Spitfires on non operational flights, with the death
of 8 pilots.
Bf109 173 KIA, 71 MIA, 82 WIA, 188 PoW, (43 of which were
wounded) versus 665 Bf109 losses, so around 37% of losses resulted in
the death of the pilot, another 19% resulted in the pilot being wounded,
so if you were in a Bf109 that was destroyed you had a 44% chance of
surviving unhurt. As far as the Luftwaffe was concerned, the permanent
loss rate (KIA, MIA, PoW) was 66%, plus another 19% some of whom
would not recover enough to fly fighters again. So only 15% of pilots
were immediately ready to fly again.
The Luftwaffe lost some 52 Bf109s on non operational flights, including
the 6 with training units, with 20 pilots killed, 6 wounded and 1 PoW.
(The 6 training losses resulted in 2 deaths and 1 wounded pilot.)
It is clear the better Luftwaffe air sea rescue service and the fact the
Bf109 was usually carrying more armour than the RAF fighters during
the battle shows up in the pilot survival rates. Another indicator is the
ratio of RAF Spitfire and Hurricane pilots posed missing versus killed,
10 to 31 July 2.25 pilots were killed for every one posted missing, in
August it was 1.4 but two thirds of the men declared missing happened
in the first half of the month, in September it was 3.4 pilots killed per 1
posted missing, in October 6.9
Why 10.7% of pilots from destroyed Bf109s are MIA, versus 8.7% of
Spitfire pilots and 15.2% of Hurricane pilots will require more details of
actual sortie locations, it does look like Hurricanes drew more convoy
protection patrols.
The lower firepower of bomber gunners should mean fewer RAF aircraft
and aircrew casualties from attacking bombers and therefore overall
but this has to be balanced by the fact the majority of RAF losses were
to Luftwaffe fighters, meaning the percentage figures will only move a small
amount.
The Luftwaffe permanently lost some 432 Bf109 pilots, plus had 82
wounded. The RAF permanently lost some 448 Spitfire and Hurricane
pilots plus had 190 pilots wounded and another 76 slightly wounded.
The disadvantage of flying over enemy territory was greater than the
better protection of Bf109 pilots. So while overall losses were 1.5 to 1
in favour of the Bf109, permanent pilot losses were 1.04 to 1.
Williamson Murray, in Luftwaffe, Strategy for Defeat, has a table that
notes 169 Luftwaffe Bf109 pilot casualties in August 1940 and 229
in September, the spreadsheet indicates 180 casualties in August,
62 KIA, 28 MIA, 39 WIA, 51 PoW, and 177 in September, 56
KIA, 22 MIA, 20 WIA, 79 PoW. Murray's table is losses to all
causes, which means more than just losses on flights. The RAF lost
some pilots when their airfield was bombed for example.
It is interesting that the Bf109 was safer out of operations in terms of
crew casualties but not necessarily in aircraft casualties.
If you look at the 430 Spitfires and Hurricanes reported as lost to Bf109s
(maybe a few of these to Bf110s), 198 of the pilots were killed, or around
44%, in line with the overall results, for the 97 Spitfires and Hurricanes
reported lost to Luftwaffe bombers 26 of the pilots were killed, or around
26.8%. Given the majority of the RAF losses were to Bf109s you would
expect the overall figures to be close to the Bf109 alone figures.
Similarly of the 448 Bf109s reported as lost to RAF fighters, some 166
pilots were killed, 37%, again showing the majority of Bf109 losses
were to RAF fighters.
Luftwaffe aircrew casualties for aircraft destroyed on operations,
10 July to 31 October, by type of aircraft,
Bf109 36.3% killed, 16.3% wounded, 57.3% unhurt, 600 Bf109 losses
Bf110 59.3% killed, 9.5% wounded, 31.3% unhurt, 248 Bf110 losses
Ju87 67.9% killed, 5.7% wounded, 26.4% unhurt, 70 Ju87 losses
Ju88 57.6% killed, 9.8% wounded, 32.7% unhurt, 294 Ju88 losses
Do17 46.6% killed, 14.3% wounded, 39.1% unhurt, 192 Do17 losses
Note the Bf110 figures are assuming 2 man crews, sometimes there were
1 or 3 crew on board, similarly Do17 figures are assuming 4 man crews,
sometimes it was only 3. The He111 figures suffer most from changes
in crew size, day sorties tended to have a 5 man crew, night ones a 4 man
crew. If all He111 losses on operations had 4 man crews the figures are
57.2% killed, 11.2% wounded, 31.7% unhurt, if all crews were 5 man the
figures drop to 45.7% killed, 8.9% wounded, 45.3% unhurt, the true figure
is somewhere between these, from 251 He111 losses.
All up the period 10 July to 31 October cost the Luftwaffe 1,856 personnel
KIA, 808 MIA, 783 WIA, 931 PoW (165 of whom were wounded), total
4,378.
With Blenheim losses still to be properly sorted out RAF fighter units in
the period 10 July to 31 October 1940, lost around 366 KIA, 172 MIA,
409 wounded and slightly wounded, 14 PoW (2 of whom were wounded),
total 961. (The extra Blenheim losses located probably add another 14
KIA and 15 wounded or slightly wounded) Bomber Command took more
personnel casualties during the battle of Britain than Fighter Command
Fly Bf109s or Spitfires in 1940, they are harder to catch in the first place
and better to be in if you are shot down.
The problems found tracking destroyed aircraft are much worse when it
comes to damaged aircraft, given damage can be anything from a few
bullet holes to weeks of work to repair, with the minor damage unlikely
to be fully accounted for in the paperwork. So the following figures
should be treated as interesting, rather than definitive.
Hurricanes, overall 499 damaged and 597 destroyed, when hit by fighters
140 damaged and 238 destroyed, when hit by bombers 70 damaged and
36 destroyed, when hit by enemy aircraft 93 damaged and 132 destroyed.
The figures are consistent, 63% of the time a Bf109 hit a Hurricane the
Hurricane was destroyed, dropping to 34% if a bomber hit the Hurricane,
and the results from a mixture of bombers and fighters sees 41% destroyed.
By the way in addition to the above Bf110s hit 71 Hurricanes, shooting
down 36 of them.
Spitfires, overall 413 damaged and 379 destroyed, when hit by fighters
161 damaged and 192 destroyed, when hit by bombers 67 damaged and
34 destroyed, when hit by enemy aircraft 69 damaged and 52 destroyed.
The figures are consistent, 54% of the time a Bf109 hit a Spitfire the
Spitfire was destroyed, dropping to 34% if a bomber hit the Spitfire, and
the results from a mixture of bombers and fighters sees 43% destroyed.
By the way in addition to the above Bf110s hit 26 Spitfires, shooting
down 8 of them. It does seem the Spitfire was harder for German fighters
to shoot down than the Hurricane in 1940, one reason given for this is the
German 20mm shells were fused for instant burst and the fabric covered
parts of the Hurricane did not normally initiate the fuse, meaning more
shells exploded inside the aircraft, the all metal Spitfire skin normally
initiated the fuse action. Another reason could be early in the battle some
of the Hurricane fuel load was not in self sealing tanks. The fact
Spitfires and Hurricanes appear to have been equally vulnerable to
bomber fire would suggest the 20mm fuses were the more important reason.
Bf109s, overall 241 damaged and 665 destroyed, when hit by fighters
52 damaged and 448 destroyed, which firstly shows up the disadvantage
of flying over enemy controlled territory but also it is probable the RAF
fighter armament was more lethal than the Bf109 armament in fighter
versus fighter engagements. Enemy action accounted for another 20
damaged and 40 destroyed Bf109s.
Bf110s, overall 92 damaged and 275 destroyed, when hit by fighters
48 damaged and 185 destroyed, the stronger airframe and second
engine clearly playing a part in the better survival ratio versus the
Bf109. Enemy action accounted for another 14 damaged and 15
destroyed Bf110s.
Ju87s, overall 55 damaged and 95 destroyed, when hit by fighters
29 damaged and 49 destroyed, which is actually a better survival rate
than the Bf110. The Ju87 airframe was strengthened to handle dive
bombing, plus it was deployed against shipping and coastal targets,
not much flying over Britain. Enemy action accounted for another 3
damaged and 7 destroyed Ju87s.
Ju88s, overall 207 damaged and 336 destroyed, when hit by fighters
36 damaged and 115 destroyed, the Ju87 had a higher survival rate.
What is interesting is the low percentage of losses to RAF fighters,
the Ju88 was certainly the hardest Luftwaffe bomber to catch, and it
was the heaviest, which should mean a higher damaged to destroyed
ratio, given the stronger airframe. The downside is crashes account
for 57 damaged and 63 destroyed, or about a quarter of all Luftwaffe
aircraft I have classified as crashed during the period, with Bf109s
accounting for around a fifth of all crashes. It does indicate the Ju88s
early reputation early as being handful to fly has a basis in fact, which
could also account for the damaged to destroyed ratio, the problems in
keeping damaged Ju88s in the air. Also unknown causes account for
36 more destroyed Ju88s, Bf109s another 24, out of a total of 118
destroyed for unknown reasons. Enemy action accounted for another
16 damaged and 16 destroyed Ju88s.
Do17s, overall 124 damaged and 231 destroyed, when hit by fighters
52 damaged and 99 destroyed, a similar survival rate to the Ju87.
Enemy action accounted for another 23 damaged and 23 destroyed
Do17s.
He111s, overall 166 damaged and 299 destroyed, when hit by fighters
39 damaged and 119 destroyed or about the same survival rate as the
Ju88. Enemy action accounted for another 13 damaged and 10 destroyed
He111s.
British AA fire seems to have damaged a minimum of 33 Luftwaffe aircraft
and destroyed 77, a combination of RAF fighters and AA fire accounting
for another 7 damaged and 22 destroyed Luftwaffe aircraft. Barrage
Balloons destroyed 3 and RAF raids on German airfields damaged 20
Luftwaffe aircraft and destroyed 19.
All up the spreadsheet records the destruction of 2,060 Luftwaffe and
1,086 RAF aircraft. This includes 24 aircraft lost by the training units
attached to Luftwaffe combat units, and all Blenheim fighter losses,
regardless of whether the unit was officially Coastal or Fighter Command
for the period 1 July to 31 October 1940.
Finally a note on the Blenheim squadrons. Coastal Command had four
squadrons of Blenheim fighters, transferred from Fighter Command in
early 1940. It seems three of these squadrons were seconded to Fighter
Command control at times during the battle. This leads to interesting
accounting of the losses, Coastal or Fighter Command, with losses
being missed or even double counted.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.
peter_ga
destroy as many British fighters as possible, while the British would
have sought to avoid the German fighters and hit the bombers.
The Germans lost about 1000 aircraft more than the British. Did the
bombs they dropped compensate for this?
The British invested heavily in a strong airforce over the British
isles for the rest of the war. Did this concentration of force lead to
their losing Crete and Singapore?
William Black
> I would have thought that the aim of the German fighters was to
> destroy as many British fighters as possible, while the British would
> have sought to avoid the German fighters and hit the bombers.
>
> The Germans lost about 1000 aircraft more than the British. Did the
> bombs they dropped compensate for this?
Obviously not, they lost...
--
William Black
So I looked at the script
It was six weeks filming in the desert.
No girls, no dialogue, just guys with guns.
They said "Do you want wages or a percentage?"
It looked like a certain turkey.
When they came the second time I was ready.
I haven't had to work since...
Eli Wallach on his roles in
"The Magnificent Seven"
and "The Good the Bad and The Ugly
Bay Man
news:ba21b0be-560d-416c...@k13g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
> The British invested heavily in a strong airforce over the British
> isles for the rest of the war. Did this concentration of force lead to
> their losing Crete and Singapore?
Singapore was an embarrassing screw up. Crete was all lost to the Germans
who gained an airstrip and turned it. The gain to the Germans was expensive
in airborne troops, so much Hitler refused to drop them again in masses by
air, effectively ending their airborne unit.
peter_ga
<xyxbayman...@xyxmailinator.xyxcomnospam> wrote:
> "peter_ga" <peter...@linuxmail.org> wrote in message
At Crete, the allies lost quite a few elite troops, more than the
Germans. I don't see the Australian sixth division, an experienced
first-pick all-volunteer unit, fighting as a division again until
1945. The Australian official historian concludes that the allies were
lucky to lose Crete, because the Germans had such an advantage in air
power in terms of numbers and nearby bases, they would have won the
battle of attrition and sucked the allied middle eastern air power
dry. In terms of losses, killed wounded captured, and naval losses,
Crete was an overwhelming axis victory.
At Singapore, the outstanding Japanese advantage was in air power. At
Milne bay, a year later, where the allies were on the defensive but
had air superiority, during the day the Japanese were forced to hide
in the jungle. During the night, their naval superiority allowed them
to advance, up to the killing grounds anyway.
peter_ga
> peter_ga wrote:
> > I would have thought that the aim of the German fighters was to
> > destroy as many British fighters as possible, while the British would
> > have sought to avoid the German fighters and hit the bombers.
>
> > The Germans lost about 1000 aircraft more than the British. Did the
> > bombs they dropped compensate for this?
>
> Obviously not, they lost...
>
> --
They lost the balance of aircraft lost contest.
They won the quantities of bombs dropped contest, killing 40000
civilians by memory.
They lost the battle to destroy British morale.
They forced the British to focus their air power in Britain, leading
to several important axis victories elsewhere.
Similarly, later in the war, the allied bomber offensive, while taking
extremely heavy losses, forced the Germans to concentrate their air
power over Germany, leading to important allied advantages.
In the overall context of the war, from the axis point of view, the
battle of Britain was worth doing, if anything was.
Yauming
Britain vintage planes still in existence? Meaning - a Spitfire plane
that fought in the Battle of Britain in 1940.
mtfe...@netmapsonscape.net
Dunno about that, but this reminds me of something.
We went to Boston last April, and took the "Duck Tour" of the city. They're
retiring them now, but the one we took was an original DUKW from the
Normandy operations. Noisey, clunky, and the replacements are definitely
an improvement in performance, but it's kinda cool to say you've been
on a vehicle that landed Normandy.
Mike
William Black
Well there's something that looks very like a machine gun armed Spitfire
at the Imperial War Museum 'outdoor site' (most of it is actually under
cover now) at Duxford
William Black
> On Jul 15, 3:03 am, William Black <william.bl...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>> peter_ga wrote:
>>> I would have thought that the aim of the German fighters was to
>>> destroy as many British fighters as possible, while the British would
>>> have sought to avoid the German fighters and hit the bombers.
>>> The Germans lost about 1000 aircraft more than the British. Did the
>>> bombs they dropped compensate for this?
>> Obviously not, they lost...
>>
>> --
> The Germans won the single seater fighter contest.
It wasn't a contest.
The British had no interest in shooting down fighter aircraft.
> They won the quantities of bombs dropped contest, killing 40000
> civilians by memory.
Not if you take the time line across the whole of WWII.
> They lost the battle to destroy British morale.
There is information to suggest that civilian morale was shattered in
several places.
The people of Southampton left the city and slept in the fields, many
in London moved into the 'deep' tube. Both groups acted against
government advice and instructions.
In reality it mattered a sight less than the destruction of the Avis
plant in Coventry...
> They forced the British to focus their air power in Britain, leading
> to several important axis victories elsewhere.
Which Axis victories were caused by the lack of RAF fighter aircraft?
Certainly not in the Far East
> In the overall context of the war, from the axis point of view, the
> battle of Britain was worth doing, if anything was.
Well no. There was no clear view of where such a major air battle would
lead.
The German military, if not their political leadership, realised that
defeating the RAF was not an end in itself and that they would have to
defeat the Royal Navy in order to produce some sort of decisive blow.
Bill Shatzer
The Spitfire IIa (P7350) in the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight
reportedly entered service in August 1940 and is claimed to have
actually participated in the BoB with 266 Sqdn and 603 Sqdn.
P7350 is in flyable condition and is, SFAIK, the only Spitfire BoB survivor.
Michele
news:7f8fb91f-1ffe-4543...@a7g2000yqk.googlegroups.com...
Later in the war, the Allies were forcing the Germans to concentrate air
power (and high tech, research resources, AA guns that were good tank
killers too, and personnel, and repair resources...) in Germany. _But_ at
the same time they were capable of waging land offensives that, while being
advantaged by the strategic bombing campaign effects, were advancing onto
Germany in any case.
In mid-war, the British also focused on the strategic bombing campaign quite
a lot of resources, and began obtaining the above-mentioned effects. But it
is important remembering that they had almost no other way of getting at
Germany.
Now let's look at 1940. Calculating who won the aircraft-downed or the
bombs-dropped contest is way way less important than assessing an operation
for what it achieved and for what those who started it thought it could
achieve.
In 1940, the Germans thought that ideally, the air offensive would convince
the British to sue for peace. It failed at that. Should that not be
possible, the Germans hoped air supremacy could be established over the
Channel and Southern England, thus making a risky gambit possible. The air
offensive failed at that, too.
Without what the Allied SBC achieved, the Allies would still have pushed
ground troops into Germany.
Without what the Luftwaffe failed to achieve in 1940, not only Germany would
never be able to land ground troops in Britain; it would also turn out that
it would be impossible to push Britain out of the war. Which fact had lots
of cascading effects, unfavorable to the Axis and far worse than the loss of
Singapore.
I'll also point out that if you assess the long-term consequences, aside
from those bean-counting contests, it is worth observing the following.
Fighter Command ended the struggle stronger than when it had begun it. the
Luftwaffe ended it weaker. There is no way to assess the consequences on the
Eastern Front and over the skies of Germany years later, if the Bf 109 force
had not dropped by 30% in six months and the bomber force by 25%.
Geoffrey Sinclair
news:ba21b0be-560d-416c...@k13g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
>I would have thought that the aim of the German fighters was to
> destroy as many British fighters as possible, while the British would
> have sought to avoid the German fighters and hit the bombers.
The Germans were trying to invade the place, so they would need
to destroy the RAF, certainly fighters had a priority for the obvious
reasons both the RAF as a whole had to be weakened. As the
battle went on the Luftwaffe found destroying Fighter Command
was so hard minimal effort could be paid to the rest of the RAF.
As for the RAF they fully understood they needed to destroy Luftwaffe
aircraft. Bombers are better, because they contain more crew, cost more
and if they are shot down or forced to abort their attack before bombing
it reduces the destruction from bombing. It was also necessary to attack
the Luftwaffe fighters escorting bombers, to keep them away from other
RAF fighters and to inflict losses. That way the escorts have to stay alert
for threats to themselves as well as the bombers rather than being confident
they could pick when to fight.
What the RAF needed to avoid was pure fighter versus fighter battles.
If the sortie figures from Eagle in Flames are correct for most of the
battle the Luftwaffe was usually flying 2, 3 or even 4 day fighter sorties
per day bomber sortie, based on weekly sortie totals.
> The Germans lost about 1000 aircraft more than the British. Did the
> bombs they dropped compensate for this?
No. And if you are going to talk about the British you need to add in
the Bomber and Coastal Command losses, which add something like
another 600 RAF losses.
> The British invested heavily in a strong airforce over the British
> isles for the rest of the war. Did this concentration of force lead to
> their losing Crete and Singapore?
The Luftwaffe assembled around 550 combat types and 500 transports
to assault Crete. Perhaps it would be a good idea to show where on
Crete enough fighters to stop this force could be based, and where the
infrastructure was to support the defender's operations. Also what
happens if say the Luftwaffe increases the number of combat types
used to attack Crete.
Singapore fell because all three services were weak, you cannot use
an air force to substitute for a navy or an army and vice versa. Add
command problems, complacency and underestimation of the opponent
to the mix as well. With the underestimation swinging wildly to over
estimation.
On other posts, there is one Spitfire that actually flew with a squadron
during the Battle of Britain in existence, P7350 a mark II flying with
266 and 603 squadrons.
German bombing killed some 51,509 civilians in Britain during the
war, the vast majority in night raids after 31 October 1940, that
is the RAF decreed end of the Battle of Britain and the start of
the Blitz.
Finally the Australian 6th Division, it took significant losses in
Greece and Crete and did not see active service again in the
Middle East. Shipped home in early 1942, it garrisoned Ceylon
for a time before actually making it home. Its HQ arrived in New
Guinea in September 1942, given jungle warfare and garrison
requirements it did not fight as a division until 1943. New Guinea
diseases ensured it was hard to maintain combat strength, not losses
from Crete, similarly New Guinea terrain made it hard to deploy
even a full strength division and the disease problems made it
desirable to minimise troop commitments.
By the way in the January to May 1944 period the Luftwaffe
certainly won the day fighting over Germany in terms of personnel
casualties and cost of aircraft lost, they even may have won it in
terms of numbers of aircraft lost. The cost was the Luftwaffe fighter
arm took so many pilot casualties it became strategically irrelevant.
Something the June and July 1944 casualties made worse.
Tero Mustalahti
> There is no way to assess the consequences on the
> Eastern Front
No way of course to assess accurately (the same applies to all
counter-factual speculation), but there are many reasons to assume that
in 1941 the Luftwaffe already achieved nearly everything that was
possible on the Eastern Front with the equipment they had. They could
not do effective strategic bombing in any case due to lack of suitable
long range heavy bombers and escort fighter and tactically the Luftwaffe
had a very strong air superiority or air supremacy practically
everywhere on the Eastern Front after a few week into the campaign.
In the long run the effects of having more single-engine fighters and
pilots available in 1941 would very likely become diluted, so it's
unlikely it would have any major impact beyond 1941 in the East or
indeed in the West. For what it's worth, the Soviet air effort at
Stalingrad was not a big success historically and the Soviets still won
the battle despite a very strong and mostly well executed Luftwaffe
effort to stem the tide.
Tero P. Mustalahti
Michele
news:h3l0gt$1e5k$1...@bowmore.utu.fi...
but there are many reasons to assume that
> in 1941 the Luftwaffe already achieved nearly everything that was possible
> on the Eastern Front with the equipment they had.
Maybe it's so. Note that as long as there was the Luftwaffe on Malta's
doorstep, Malta was neutralized. But then the Luftwaffe had to leave for
Russia. They could be either there, or here - with the strength they had in
1941, after the Battle of Britain. They couldn't be in both places. Which
greatly helped Malta, and caused problems to the Axis convoys across the
Med.
Rich Rostrom
There's one in the Museum of Science
and Industry in Chicago.
It's a Mark 1A from 1940, so it almost certainly
flew in the BoB - and IIR the exhibit text C, is
recorded as being used to shoot down several
German planes.
Geoffrey Sinclair
news:fab9a6b1-2b62-4feb...@b14g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
For the record of the roughly 1,548 Spitfires completed as mark I and
flew at least once as such (even if it was to the base to be converted to
a PR III or PR IV) some 229 were officially produced after 31 October
1940.
The picture of the Spitfire unfortunately seems to have a light flash
right near the serial number, making it hard to see. History for
Spitfire mark Ia
P9306 First Flight 19-Jan-40, 24MU (Maintenance unit) 24-Jan-40,
74 Sqn 6-Jul-40, shot down by Bf109E damaged Bf109E and 2 Bf110s
P/O P C F Stevenson, 54MU 17-Jul-41, 131 Sqn Jul-41, 52OTU
Oct-41, 61OTU Category B accident, WA (Westland Aircraft?)
4-May-43. Extant Chicago Museum of Science and Industry USA
The paint scheme is actually post Battle of Britain, something like 1942.
The yellow wing leading edges, the rear fuselage band and the thin white
and yellow bands in the fuselage roundel. The museum is overclaiming
the Spitfires role in the Battle of Britain. Victory markings tended to be
on the other side of the fuselage.
Evan Brennan
> peter_ga wrote:
> > They forced the British to focus their air power in Britain, leading
> > to several important axis victories elsewhere.
>
> Which Axis victories were caused by the lack of RAF fighter aircraft?
Poor deployment of the RAF definitely accelerated the chain of
disasters. The prewar planning for securing bases was none too good
either.
In the 18 months following the Battle of Britain, all fronts were
starved of RAF aircraft except in the United Kingdom, where the
fighters were needed the least. The Germans diverted the bulk of their
flying units from Western Europe for invasions of Eastern Europe and
the Balkans. To make matters worse Churchill then agreed to transfer
thousands of fighters to the Russians, at a time when Japan was
clearly preparing to swallow up Asia.
In January 1941 there were 75 fighter squadrons based in the UK; far
more than required for air defense. There was little enemy activity
over England after 1940 and the RAF should have been able to defend
the home islands with less than half that many fighters. Obviously,
British forces were then demolished in battle just about everywhere.
It was criminal negligence to leave so many RAF planes sitting on
English bases.
William Black
> On Jul 15, 8:23 am, William Black <william.bl...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>> peter_ga wrote:
>
>>> They forced the British to focus their air power in Britain, leading
>>> to several important axis victories elsewhere.
>> Which Axis victories were caused by the lack of RAF fighter aircraft?
>
>
> Poor deployment of the RAF definitely accelerated the chain of
> disasters. The prewar planning for securing bases was none too good
> either.
>
> In the 18 months following the Battle of Britain, all fronts were
> starved of RAF aircraft except in the United Kingdom, where the
> fighters were needed the least. The Germans diverted the bulk of their
> flying units from Western Europe for invasions of Eastern Europe and
> the Balkans. To make matters worse Churchill then agreed to transfer
> thousands of fighters to the Russians, at a time when Japan was
> clearly preparing to swallow up Asia.
It makes you wonder why everyone was so surprised when Japan attacked...
Geoffrey Sinclair
news:4726b958-38d3-4791...@c14g2000yqm.googlegroups.com...
> On Jul 15, 8:23 am, William Black <william.bl...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>> peter_ga wrote:
>
>> > They forced the British to focus their air power in Britain, leading
>> > to several important axis victories elsewhere.
>>
>> Which Axis victories were caused by the lack of RAF fighter aircraft?
>
> Poor deployment of the RAF definitely accelerated the chain of
> disasters. The prewar planning for securing bases was none too good
> either.
Between June 1940 and June 1941 the only major enemy Germany
had was the Commonwealth, with the UK the key. As a result the
world expected a Battle of Britain round 2 starting with the good
weather in 1941.
So is poor defined as the use of hindsight? The Germans were going
east, the USSR would survive, Rommel would receive only basic
support and the better thing to do was building up the defences of
Malaya, a non combat zone?
The British Army shipped the 2nd Armoured division to the Middle
East in October 1940, the 1st Armoured in November 1940. The
next division to leave was the 50th infantry in April 1941, then the
18th infantry in October 1941. This left a nominal 27 divisions in the
UK but not all were front line. In December 1941 and January 1942,
6 divisions were put into the Lower Establishment category.
In the period March to August 1942 six divisions were shipped out
from Britain.
Is the failure to move the army also "poor deployment"? What
about the lack of significant RN presence outside of the Atlantic
and Mediterranean?
The reality was in 1941 in any fight on the continent the axis could
put more strength into the field than the allies. Anything shipped out
of England was largely lost as far as the forces in England were
concerned, given the time required to return it.
> In the 18 months following the Battle of Britain, all fronts were
> starved of RAF aircraft except in the United Kingdom, where the
> fighters were needed the least.
Until December 1941 the planning assumption was the fall of the USSR,
plus the continued neutrality of the USA, despite the help in the North
Atlantic and Lend Lease.
Why exactly should the UK send a great deal of force overseas given
how hard it would be to return the forces if the USSR fell?
> The Germans diverted the bulk of their
> flying units from Western Europe for invasions of Eastern Europe and
> the Balkans.
Internal lines are quite useful, those units could return quite quickly
if required. It took days for the German units to move, it took
weeks for RAF fighters to move from the UK to the Middle East.
RAF Bombers could fly direct by risking landing in Malta.
As of 30 June 1941 the Luftwaffe in the east had some 3,094 aircraft,
in the west and Germany it was 747, in Norway 316 and in the
Mediterranean 535.
> To make matters worse Churchill then agreed to transfer
> thousands of fighters to the Russians, at a time when Japan was
> clearly preparing to swallow up Asia.
Given the time it took to actually ship fighters from the UK to the
Far East how much of a difference would this make? The pilots
and ground crew needed to be shipped as well. There is also
the underestimation of the quality of the Japanese forces.
By July 1942 the British had shipped some 1,822 fighters to the
USSR, 211 were still on the way as of 25 July 1942. The point
to make is that some of them were American Lend Lease aircraft
passed on, like the P-39.
For every 3 fighters sent, 4 tanks were shipped.
Given the effort needed to ship aircraft by sea, and ideas of how
suitable US aircraft were, the decision was taken to ship much of
the North American production allocated to the UK to the Middle
and Far East. In 1942 there were the needs of the Pacific fronts
as well.
So in 1941 the UK imported 1,712 aircraft from North America
and another 2,394 in 1942. Shipments directly from the US to
UK forces overseas were 2,761 in 1941 and 3,504 in 1942.
However many more of the overseas deliveries were trainers.
Taking trainers and miscellaneous types out the figures become,
in the UK 1941 1,602 imports, 1942 2,152 imports, overseas
1941 1,402, 1942 2,527.
> In January 1941 there were 75 fighter squadrons based in the UK; far
> more than required for air defense.
Not all the 75 were operational, my hand count of the OOB shows
Hurricane 40, Spitfire 20, Whirlwind 1, Defiant 6 (151 a mix of Defiant
and Hurricane) Blenheim/Beaufighter/Havoc 7. There were 4 Blenheim
day fighter squadrons with Coastal Command.
So a nominal 61 day fighter, 13 night fighter and 4 long range day
fighter squadrons. There were something like 56 day fighter squadrons
in existence on 1 September 1940, plus 2 Defiant and I think 6 Blenheim
squadrons, so 56 day, 7 night fighters plus the 4 long range fighter units.
It looks like peak day fighter strength in 1941 was around 77 squadrons
in the final quarter of the year.
Given the numbers and the odds in 1940 why does 5 extra day and
5 extra night fighter squadrons in January 1941 become "far more"?
I mean given the RAF won the Battle of Britain does that say there
were too many fighters defending Britain in 1940, they should have
been moved to the Middle East? That earlier there were too few
fighters sent to France?
> There was little enemy activity
> over England after 1940 and the RAF should have been able to defend
> the home islands with less than half that many fighters.
Except of course one reason the activity was kept down was the
strength of the defences.
The number of Luftwaffe day bomber sorties over England in August
and September 1940 was 3,500 to 4,000 per month, plus around 2,000
night sorties in August and 3,500 in September. There were also around
500 anti shipping/minelaying sorties in August and 370 such sorties in
September.
In March 1941 it was 800 day and 4,300 night bomber sorties, plus
around 500 anti ship/minelaying, in April 1941 800 day and 5,250 night
bomber sorties plus around 500 anti ship/minelaying.
The big decline in Luftwaffe activity over the UK was post May 1941.
The minelaying and anti shipping operations ran at an average of 670
sorties per month in the second half of 1941, around 30% at night.
Bomber sorties for the 6 months were around 1,525 sorties, of which
970 were in July and October.
> Obviously,
> British forces were then demolished in battle just about everywhere.
Due to a lack of strength of all three services.
> It was criminal negligence to leave so many RAF planes sitting on
> English bases.
And if the USSR had fallen? If the Diplomatic efforts had deterred Japan?
Or Japan had decided to wait until the USSR had surrendered?
German air activity over Britain declined as the 1940/41 winter set in.
It increased as the weather improved before being run down, for
example the Luftwaffe was running fighter sweeps over Kent in late
May 1941. In terms of offensive sorties the Luftwaffe bombers largely
left in mid May, the fighters a week or two later.
So by the end of May the Luftwaffe becomes harder to find, by the
end of June it is obvious why.
Then comes the decision of whether the USR would survive, if so the
strength in the UK can be moved out, if not then the strength largely
has to stay in order to prepare for the 1942 assault.
So your clock starts in July, where are you going to move the forces
in Britain? Given it would take months for them to make the Middle
East and Far East and noting the shipping shortage which means the
forces have to move in stages. Plus of course finding the extra shipping
to keep the forces active in their new theatre. Sending the RAF alone
is not enough, all services need to increase their strength, and the
shipping has to be found to support them. One simple measure to
help Malaya would be to not treat the Indian formations there as
training units, with men shipped out to more urgent areas once they
had done some training to be replaced by raw recruits.
The RAF did plenty wrong in 1941, the channel stop operations were
mainly a way to lose Blenheims, the fighter sweeps cost a lot to learn
better tactics, the night bombers were generally exporting bombs in the
general direction of Europe. The RAF in the Middle East seems also
to have been less effective than its numbers would indicate.
It was only in late 1941 and early 1942 Spitfires were finally released
for overseas service, once fighter command was largely re-equipped,
the Typhoon problems hurt the plans to retire the Hurricane, forcing
more Hurricane production to make up the numbers. In hindsight of
course it is easy to say the Spitfire could have been exported and
the delay in the Typhoon was not a big problem.
The strategic situation was one front that if it was lost the war was lost,
but was under lighter attack compared with the previous year, as far
as the air force was concerned. One other active front which could do
with some help, and another front that might become active. There was
also an ally who was fighting hard and could do with lots of help.
The Germans held the initiative.
Michele
news:4a65c59b$0$9740$5a62...@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au...
Thank you for your informed and detailed reply. I wanted to say something
like this, but you did it far better than I could.
There were something like 56 day fighter squadrons
> in existence on 1 September 1940, plus 2 Defiant and I think 6 Blenheim
> squadrons, so 56 day, 7 night fighters plus the 4 long range fighter
> units.
The figure I have is 55, including #263 with a mix of Hurricanes and
Whirlwinds; plus 2 Squadrons with Defiants; plus 8 night fighter units (if
you count the FIU as a unit), all with Fighter Command.
WaltBJ
the RAF before and during the BoB. Recall that the LW had revived the
Rotte - finger-four fighter fighting formation - during their post-
graduate exercise in the Spanish Civil War and adopted it force-
wide.Whereas many of the RAF squadrons were still using the close-
spaced ''vic' and the steroetyped attack modes devised in the early
thirties. 109s, having the height advantage for the most part, were
often able to come down undetected until too late . . .
Secondly, a lot of RAF fighter pilots missed serving in France and
thus came into the BoB as green horns not having learned to keep a
constant lookout. Thus even Me110s could catch unaware RAF fighters
and shoot them down.
Note that the Polish fighter pilots, having 'been there and done
that', had a much lesser loss record than the usual RAF pilot, at
least at first.
As for bombers shooting down fighters, the M81Z could put out a
respectable amount of firepower ca. 2400 rpm and the RAF fighters
lacked self-sealing fuel tanks, which were situated over the CG -
right in front of the pilot. Luck works both ways.
Walt BJ
Bill Shatzer
-snip-
> Note that the Polish fighter pilots, having 'been there and done
> that', had a much lesser loss record than the usual RAF pilot, at
> least at first.
Not to disagree but the raw numbers would seem to belie that claim.
Out of the 140 ex-Polish fighter pilots who participated in the Battle
of Britain with Fighter Command, 30 were KIA/MIA - a loss rate of 21%
Out of the 2945 FC pilots of all nationalities who participated in the
BoB, 507 were KIA/MIA - a loss rate of 17%.
Of course, there are all sorts of variables hiding in those numbers -
perhaps the Polish pilots flew more sorties or were more aggressive and
thus exposed themselves to greater risk of being downed.
But the raw numbers would seem to indicate that the Polish pilots had a
greater, not much lesser, loss record than FC as a whole.
Michele
news:8faad8dc-2220-4fa8...@b14g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
> As for bombers shooting down fighters, the M81Z could put out a
> respectable amount of firepower ca. 2400 rpm
Oh, even more than that. The MG81Z has that Z because it was a Zwilling - a
twin, two-barrel mount. And it was belt-fed, to cope with the extremely high
rate of fire. So it would have been nice if the German gunners had it. Or
even the single MG81, for that matter.
But actually in 1940 they had the MG15 or the MG17, earlier models having a
much lower rate of fire (1000 rpm for the MG15, IIRC), and a magazine feed
with 75 rounds. And AFAIK, the vast majority if not all the mounts had a
single MG, no twins.
So they'd have a gunner using a manually controlled mount (i.e. fighting
against the air flow), trying to line a single MG with a much lower rate of
fire than you thought. Additionally, while the fighter pilot makes aiming
and piloting one action, in the case of the bomber gunner, the slightest
intervention by the bomber pilot on the controls would spoil his aim.
and the RAF fighters
> lacked self-sealing fuel tanks, which were situated over the CG -
> right in front of the pilot.
And right behind a sturdy engine.
> Luck works both ways.
Sure. But if I were to choose, I'd prefer to be on the receiving end of one
MG aimed the way a bomber's defensive guns were, than on the receiving end
of 8 MGs, aimed the way a fighter's offensive guns were. of course it's
easier to down a single-engine smaller aircraft than a twin-engine larger
aircraft; during the Battle of Britain, some German bombers made it back
with a hundred holes. Then again, it's unlikely their entire crew had
remained unscathed, and the personnel losses were even a worse drain for the
Luftwaffe's combat-worthiness, than the losses in machines.
Geoffrey Sinclair
news:8faad8dc-2220-4fa8...@b14g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
> One must review the over-all tactical experiences of both the LW and
> the RAF before and during the BoB. Recall that the LW had revived the
> Rotte - finger-four fighter fighting formation - during their post-
> graduate exercise in the Spanish Civil War and adopted it force-
> wide.
Yes it was a decided advantage.
> Whereas many of the RAF squadrons were still using the close-
> spaced ''vic' and the steroetyped attack modes devised in the early
> thirties.
The RAF tactics presumed unescorted bombers, to be hit with a
mass of fighters. The short term adjustment were "weavers", fighters
trailing the main formation to act as a look out from the rear. Often
they were simply the isolated victims.
The RAF took most of 1941 to figure out the change from vics
to pairs with the correct distance between the aircraft, it was one
reason the Luftwaffe won the fighter engagements over France
so well that year.
> 109s, having the height advantage for the most part, were
> often able to come down undetected until too late . . .
At times yes, and at times no, it came down to RAF raid tracking
if the altitude was estimated correctly. The closer the Luftwaffe
fought to its bases the harder it was for the RAF fighters to have
a height advantage.
There are plenty of examples of the Bf109s being bounced, a
loss ratio of about 1 Bf109 to 1.3 Hurricanes/Spitfires is not a
one sided score line, given the RAF need to attack the bombers.
I do note the Luftwaffe seems to have been more successful on
average when they did bounce RAF fighters compared with the
other way around.
> Secondly, a lot of RAF fighter pilots missed serving in France and
> thus came into the BoB as green horns not having learned to keep a
> constant lookout.
The RAF pilots knew to keep a good look out, though the careful
but swift quartering of the sky instead of quick glances all round had
to be learned. The tight formations they flew generally meant most
of the lookout was to stop collisions, instead of what was in the sky
around them.
At the start of the battle Fighter Command overall had less experience
than the Luftwaffe fighter force but a lack of Bf109 pilot replacements
and the losses seems to have evened things out during the battle.
Certainly the October fighting, when the Bf109s had fewer bombers
to worry about, had the loss ratio move the RAF's way which indicates
the combat effectiveness was close.
> Thus even Me110s could catch unaware RAF fighters
> and shoot them down.
They did not do it often though. Bf110's definitely account for around
4% of Spitfire and Hurricane losses, overall for every Bf110 credited
with shooting down a Hurricane or a Spitfire five Bf110s were shot
down by RAF fighters, and it could be as high as 6 to 1. Even 5 to 1
is worse than the around 3 to 1 RAF fighters to bomber ratio.
By the way I have heard of a Ju87 shooting down an RAF fighter that
was busy shooting down another Ju87.
> Note that the Polish fighter pilots, having 'been there and done
> that', had a much lesser loss record than the usual RAF pilot, at
> least at first.
My understanding is the Poles gave and took higher casualties.
I agree they did not suffer the early losses due to inexperience
that ripped some RAF units apart but they did not have much of
a chance to build up experience in Poland, it really depends on
whether they fought in France, which would have also given them
access to French ideas of fighter tactics. That way they could
compare the tactics of three allied air forces as well as the Luftwaffe.
UK nationality pilot losses are put at about 17% of strength, for
Polish nationals it was around 20.5%.
For 10 July to 31 October,
In the spreadsheet there are 70 units mentioned, 303 squadron is
21st for aircraft lost, 1st for aircraft damaged and overall 7th in
terms of aircraft lost or damaged, with 19 Hurricanes destroyed
and 32 damaged. It lost 9 pilots KIA or MIA and 12 WIA or
slightly WIA. It became officially operational on 31 August 1940.
501 squadron fought the entire battle as part of 10 or 11 group,
it lost 41 Hurricanes destroyed, 28 damaged, making it the unit
that took the most losses and the most total losses. It lost 19
pilots KIA or MIA and 15 WIA or slightly WIA. Note 501 had
been deployed to France on 10 May 1940 so it was a very
experienced unit in one sense but it lost the equivalent of its entire
authorised pilot strength during the battle, plus had other wounded.
603 squadron is second for aircraft lost, all up 35 Spitfires. It lost
2 while defending Scotland, moved to Honchurch on 28 August
1940, it then lost 8 Spitfires probably all to enemy fighters by the
end of August (4 pilots killed or missing) and another 17 in September
(5 pilots killed or missing)
> As for bombers shooting down fighters, the M81Z could put out a
> respectable amount of firepower ca. 2400 rpm and the RAF fighters
> lacked self-sealing fuel tanks, which were situated over the CG -
> right in front of the pilot. Luck works both ways.
As far as I know the M81Z (twin MG) was not fitted to Luftwaffe
bombers during the Battle of Britain. It was single mounts, without
the benefits of accuracy turrets bring.
The Spitfire had all self sealing tanks, the Hurricane reserve tank was
not self sealing, it became one of Dowding's top priorities to change
that.
The bombers were certainly capable of defending themselves, Luftwaffe
bombers are definitely credited with 99 Spitfires and Hurricanes, plus
obviously more carried under "enemy aircraft" and "unknown" in the
spreadsheet, compared with 311 Do17, He111, Ju87 and Ju88
definitely credited to RAF fighters, plus obviously some of the losses
listed under enemy action and unknown.
WaltBJ
wasn't installed until the 111H's armament was increased in 1942.
Still, closing to kill range against an MG firing the heavy 7.92
bullet was not without risk. A cool gunner in the target has an
essentially non-maneuvering target coming right up his tail. Not many
pilots were good deflection shooters.BTW the bomber' guns would
outrange the fighter back at six shooting 'uphill'.
The comment on self-sealing tanks came from my own suppositions about
the number of pilots injured by flaming fuel, such as Richard
Hillary.
As for the Polish pilots, that was cited in a book concerning the
Polish pilots in the RAF, which I bought for my son-in-law's father,
Alexander Franczak, who flew for the RAF. I conjecture the comparison
must have been on on a sortie per loss basis, then. The book
specifically mentioned the Poles' visual scan was significantly better
than the average RAF pilot at that time; the Poles had already been
through the learning cycle. I doubt if the figures were rigged to
favor the Poles. BTW, Flight Sgt Franczak was a Polish pilot who
escaped Poland after their surrender, evaded through Romania and
Bulgaria, reached Turkey, and via an English freighter got to England
and joined the RAF. Alex was flying Spitfires, got shot down, wounded,
recuperated in an English hospital, married his English nurse,
emigrated to the USA, raised five children and recently passed away,
aged 84. An honorable gentleman, he was. Oddly enough he shared a
birthday with me, 22 January, although he antedated me considerably.
Odd we should both be fighter pilots, too.
Walt BJ
Geoffrey Sinclair
> Sorry, Geoffrey. Mea maxima culpa. I checked my refs and the 81Z
> wasn't installed until the 111H's armament was increased in 1942.
Forums like this when working are great to test the evidence,
and inevitably sometimes mistakes are made. Look at my
Meteor correction just recently.
Not sure how much ammunition per gun was carried in 1940,
it would not have been a lot of firing.
> Still, closing to kill range against an MG firing the heavy 7.92
> bullet was not without risk. A cool gunner in the target has an
> essentially non-maneuvering target coming right up his tail. Not many
> pilots were good deflection shooters.BTW the bomber' guns would
> outrange the fighter back at six shooting 'uphill'.
As noted it appears the kill ratio was around 3 to 1 in favour
of the RAF fighters. When it came to fighter pilots being killed
the Bf109 was more deadly.
The trouble for the bomber gunners is they had 1 machine gun and
the slipstream to contend with when aiming. I suspect a number of
the kills against fighters were all about formation flying, picking off
a fighter going after another bomber.
> The comment on self-sealing tanks came from my own suppositions
> about the number of pilots injured by flaming fuel, such as Richard
> Hillary
Self sealing helped, but there was no guarantee, and things like holes
in fuel lines or in the engine could end up creating fires as well.
.
> As for the Polish pilots, that was cited in a book concerning the
> Polish pilots in the RAF, which I bought for my son-in-law's father,
> Alexander Franczak, who flew for the RAF. I conjecture the
> comparison must have been on on a sortie per loss basis, then.
It would be good to nail this down, if only for the sources of the
squadron sortie rates. Then of course comes comparison with
the Luftwaffe losses, given the inevitable over claiming,
> The book
> specifically mentioned the Poles' visual scan was significantly better
> than the average RAF pilot at that time; the Poles had already been
> through the learning cycle.
Yes, you need to quarter the sky, the eye picks up movement better
than a stationary object, so you need to spend the time to pick up
any movement, balanced by making sure the entire sky is regularly
searched.
A good way of noting experienced RAF fighter pilots was their
abandonment of the collar and ties, which chafed, for things like
silk scarfs.
As one RAF ace noted, quarter the sky, search it and move on,
react to peripheral vision movement, look out behind and fly a
loose formation so you can do all of the above.
Thanks of the biographical detail.
Would he be the Sgt Alexander Franczak shot down on 16 August
1941, flying Spitfire II P8524 with 306 squadron? Interesting what
a name in a search engine can bring up.
Evan Brennan
> Between June 1940 and June 1941 the only major enemy Germany had
> was the Commonwealth, with the UK the key.
> receive only basic support and the better thing to do was building up
> the defences of Malaya, a non combat zone?
> So your clock starts in July, where are you going to move the forces
> in Britain?
Monomania is not a strategy. The clock was a timebomb that was ticking
before the war started. It's a ridiculous appeal that British war
ministers, the RAF, and the Admiralty had no choice but to ignore all
prewar and wartime hints of German and Japanese overseas aggression
until it was too late to do anything about it.
There is no truth to your notion that the U.K was forced to let
colonial air defenses wither on the wine. They had a powerful navy and
enough ships to transfer more airpower to defend important strategic
and economic bases. Had they done this more wisely and preemptively,
it would not be necessary for the RAF to hire British and American
aircraft carriers as its Last-Minute-Limousine service.
> > In January 1941 there were 75 fighter squadrons based in the UK;
> > far more than required for air defense.
>
> Not all the 75 were operational, my hand count of the OOB shows
> Hurricane 40, Spitfire 20, Whirlwind 1, Defiant 6 (151 a mix of Defiant
> and Hurricane) Blenheim/Beaufighter/Havoc 7. There were 4 Blenheim
> day fighter squadrons with Coastal Command.
You are hair-splitting, the few squadrons not at full readiness soon
would be.
> The number of Luftwaffe day bomber sorties over England in August
> and September 1940 was 3,500 to 4,000 per month, plus around 2,000
> night sorties in August and 3,500 in September. There were also around
> 500 anti shipping/minelaying sorties in August and 370 such sorties in
> September.
>
> In March 1941 it was 800 day and 4,300 night bomber sorties, plus
> around 500 anti ship/minelaying, in April 1941 800 day and 5,250 night
> bomber sorties plus around 500 anti ship/minelaying.
>
> The big decline in Luftwaffe activity over the UK was post May 1941.
Based on a barrage of statistics in your long reply, it's reasonable
to assume that you are not terribly concerned about the wisdom of
cherry-picking numbers to fuel a fantasy.
You overlooked that British air defense grew stronger while German
airpower declined. By the end of 1940, RAF Fighter Command had almost
50% more pilots than it did six months earlier. But Luftwaffe fighter
and bomber units had about 30% fewer pilots than they had six months
earlier.
It also escaped your attention that 11 Group (Air-Vice Marshall Keith
Park) usually did most of the fighting. But 12 Group (Air-Vice
Marshall Trafford Leigh-Mallory) was often idle, or unable to help due
to poor positioning, slow-reaction time, and clumsy Big Wing tactics.
The ineffectiveness and limited activity of 12 Group at the peak of
German bombing proved the RAF did not need 50 fighter squadrons, let
alone 75.
> the world expected a Battle of Britain round 2 starting with
> the good weather in 1941.
The geeks at Bletchley Park knew that Operation Sea Lion was an
implied threat, not a real one. They also realized the air battle had
played advance party to a charade. The "invasion fleet" of river
barges and other unseaworthy vessels was a joke. By October 1940 ULTRA
decyphered orders to stop amphibious training, return equipment to
storage, and recall warships for normal duties. Churchill released 150
tanks for service in the Middle East because he was sure they were not
needed in England. With Hitler's bluff called in "Round 1", there was
no logical reason to fight "Round 2".
What's more, destroying all airfields and factories on either side of
the Channel was next to impossible without atomic bombs. Craters could
be filled. Fixed bases were desired for convenience but parked
fighters, ground support, and light manufacturing were quite mobile
and easily camouflaged. Even if the Luftwaffe could damage more
targets, the British could disperse as their opponents did later.
The Germans were in a no-win situation; and this is another reason why
it was a serious mistake for the British to stockpile so much fighter
defense in England at the expense of ignoring other threats.
> It looks like peak day fighter strength in 1941 was around 77 squadrons
> in the final quarter of the year.
Increasing the quantity of day fighters was less important than
improving the low quality of RAF pilot training. Fighter Command was
slow to give up on prewar tactics thanks to strong institutional
resistance. By 1942, many RAF squadrons abandoned the rigid, airshow-
like battle formations and adopted the more flexible tactics of German
fighter patrols. But until then RAF methods were not well suited to
practicing economy of force.
RAF pilots who understood air combat complained that Fighting Area
Attacks, tight formations, V-shaped sections of three planes, and Big
Wings were inefficient, caused unnecessary losses and lost
opportunities, and lingered in battle for years after serious defects
had surfaced. The more hidebound RAF pilots looked for external
scapegoats to explain lack of success; blaming it on aircraft
performance or pure chance, instead of their own poor tactics.
Minimum entrance requirements in the RAF were rock-bottom. Screwball
Beurling joined the RAF because he was rejected by the RCAF. Many
Americans joined the RCAF after they failed to pass the more demanding
US military benchmarks for pilot training.
> > The Germans diverted the bulk of their flying units from Western
> > Europe for invasions of Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
>
> Internal lines are quite useful, those units could return quite quickly
> if required. It took days for the German units to move, it took
> weeks for RAF fighters to move from the UK to the Middle East.
> RAF Bombers could fly direct by risking landing in Malta.
Germany could not sustain a larger overseas force than the British. If
German supply lines were "internal" then why did the Allied navy
strangle these lines?
Great Britain started the war wielding a much larger surface fleet,
including aircraft carriers, and a huge overseas network of army, air
and naval base infrastructure that Germany could only dream about. The
British held Malta and kept it, with U.S. assistance furnished in the
form of USS WASP, on loan to deliver RAF fighters and supplies.
Several dozen American pilots were members of Malta's Spitfire
squadrons.
The British held nearly all advantages for intercontinental warfare.
That they allowed those advantages to decay is another matter.
> What about the lack of significant RN presence outside of the Atlantic
> and Mediterranean?
Compared to a much greater lack of Kriegsmarine presence.
> > It was criminal negligence to leave so many RAF planes sitting on
> > English bases.
>
> Given it would take months for them to make the Middle East and Far
> East and noting the shipping shortage which means the forces have to
> move in stages.
Japanese forces that landed in Malaya, New Guinea and Guadalcanal, and
German forces sent to Egypt, North Africa and Sicily had the same
problems to a greater degree than British and Commonwealth forces.
> Given the time it took to actually ship fighters from the UK to the
> Far East how much of a difference would this make?
British authorities knew well in advance that Japan wanted unlimited
access to Asian strategic raw materials. In July 1941 Japan took over
airfields in French Indochina (Vietnam). In retaliation, Japanese
assets were frozen in America, England and the Dutch East Indies. That
in turn caused a predictable reaction; Japanese military expansion to
seize rice, rubber, tin, oil, and other commodities in U.S. and
European colonies of the Pacific Rim.
A single wing of Spitfires or few more squadrons of Hurricanes -- had
they been placed there before or shortly after the property seizures
-- might have saved the island fortress of British Singapore from
unconditional surrender, or at least delayed it to buy time.
They also could have provided the Admiralty with more protection from
air attack, especially if more sensible naval officers were in charge.
Even though Pearl Harbor was devastated a few days earlier, Admiral
Tom Phillips had no respect for the Vietnam-based Japanese airpower
that sank his ships. He had declined offers from the RAAF to provide
small fighter patrols over HMS PRINCE of WALES and REPULSE.
Phillips was supposed to be reinforced by the new carrier HMS
INDOMITABLE but Captain Harold Morse ran the ship aground in November
1941, causing serious damage. Too bad because this carrier was capable
of delivering an entire RAF fighter wing to Singapore, as it did via
Java the following January, by then too late to make a difference.
> Until December 1941 the planning assumption was the fall of the USSR,
> plus the continued neutrality of the USA, despite the help in the North
> Atlantic and Lend Lease.
You contradict yourself here twice.
The British delivered fighters to their own outposts at a snail's
pace, so one wonders how you propose they could deliver them to Russia
any faster. If, as you claimed, all British planning hinged on a
belief the Soviets would probably collapse in a few months then why
would Churchill approve a massive transfer of equipment to a lost
cause?
Using your timetable of doom, only a modest amount of British military
aid could be shipped to Eastern Europe before Russia's projected
demise. In other words, not very useful to Stalin but very wasteful of
Churchill's limited resources.
> Why exactly should the UK send a great deal of force overseas given
> how hard it would be to return the forces if the USSR fell?
This is a silly excuse for Britain's failure to protect their troops
and overseas bases. One could also ask what if the USSR fell after the
British thought the Russians could win?
So you want us to believe it was clever to commit large ground forces
in battle with almost nonexistent air cover, because they might need
to recall the planes later.
> > British forces were then demolished in battle just about everywhere.
>
> Due to a lack of strength of all three services.
There was no lack of strength, but a lack of common sense and command
ability in the British and Commonwealth authorities.
Chris
wrote:
> I do note the Luftwaffe seems to have been more successful on
> average when they did bounce RAF fighters compared with the
> other way around.
This would be true in all cases and situations. A read of Lundstrom's
_First Team_ and _First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign_
demonstrated to me that the real difference between the F4F and the
A6M were dominated by who had the height advantage that day -
generally, in that theater, whether US radar and radio (and sometimes
coast watchers and their radio's) were working that day. When the
Wildcat's had the height advantage they were generally able to make
the first attack, and break up the attack formation and record good
results versus the Zero's, Val's, Betty's, and Kate's. When the
Japanese had the height advantage they would generally punish the
Wildcat's and their attack planes would do their job and the vast
majority of them would go home.
While air combat in WW2 was a bit more complicated than 'fighters with
height advantage win' it is a very good rule of thumb. If you had both
height advantage and eyes-on first, you were generally going to
dominate the air combat, as long as your planes were decently close in
performance. (And in extreme cases, even with a great deal of
difference in the performance of your aircraft.)
Chris Manteuffel
Geoffrey Sinclair
> "Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclai...@froggy.com.au> wrote:
>> Between June 1940 and June 1941 the only major enemy Germany had
>> was the Commonwealth, with the UK the key.
>> The Germans were going east, the USSR would survive, Rommel would
>> receive only basic support and the better thing to do was building up
>> the defences of Malaya, a non combat zone?
Lots of deleted text, to the next >>
So is poor defined as the use of hindsight? The Germans were going
east, the USSR would survive, Rommel would receive only basic
support and the better thing to do was building up the defences of
Malaya, a non combat zone?
The British Army shipped the 2nd Armoured division to the Middle
East in October 1940, the 1st Armoured in November 1940. The
next division to leave was the 50th infantry in April 1941, then the
18th infantry in October 1941. This left a nominal 27 divisions in the
UK but not all were front line. In December 1941 and January 1942,
6 divisions were put into the Lower Establishment category.
In the period March to August 1942 six divisions were shipped out
from Britain.
Is the failure to move the army also "poor deployment"? What
about the lack of significant RN presence outside of the Atlantic
and Mediterranean?
The reality was in 1941 in any fight on the continent the axis could
put more strength into the field than the allies. Anything shipped out
of England was largely lost as far as the forces in England were
concerned, given the time required to return it.
Until December 1941 the planning assumption was the fall of the USSR,
plus the continued neutrality of the USA, despite the help in the North
Atlantic and Lend Lease.
Why exactly should the UK send a great deal of force overseas given
how hard it would be to return the forces if the USSR fell?
Internal lines are quite useful, those units could return quite quickly
if required. It took days for the German units to move, it took
weeks for RAF fighters to move from the UK to the Middle East.
RAF Bombers could fly direct by risking landing in Malta.
As of 30 June 1941 the Luftwaffe in the east had some 3,094 aircraft,
in the west and Germany it was 747, in Norway 316 and in the
Mediterranean 535.
Given the time it took to actually ship fighters from the UK to the
Far East how much of a difference would this make? The pilots
and ground crew needed to be shipped as well. There is also
the underestimation of the quality of the Japanese forces.
By July 1942 the British had shipped some 1,822 fighters to the
USSR, 211 were still on the way as of 25 July 1942. The point
to make is that some of them were American Lend Lease aircraft
passed on, like the P-39.
For every 3 fighters sent, 4 tanks were shipped.
Given the effort needed to ship aircraft by sea, and ideas of how
suitable US aircraft were, the decision was taken to ship much of
the North American production allocated to the UK to the Middle
and Far East. In 1942 there were the needs of the Pacific fronts
as well.
So in 1941 the UK imported 1,712 aircraft from North America
and another 2,394 in 1942. Shipments directly from the US to
UK forces overseas were 2,761 in 1941 and 3,504 in 1942.
However many more of the overseas deliveries were trainers.
Taking trainers and miscellaneous types out the figures become,
in the UK 1941 1,602 imports, 1942 2,152 imports, overseas
1941 1,402, 1942 2,527.
>> So your clock starts in July, where are you going to move the forces
>> in Britain?
>
> Monomania is not a strategy.
I gather this is the response to the idea losing the UK was the single
most damaging thing that could happen to the anti Nazi fighters in
the period to mid 1941.
By the way it would be a good idea to leave my text in the order I
wrote it, rather than moving it about in the reply. My text above is
from my 5th last paragraph.
> The clock was a timebomb that was ticking
> before the war started.
I see. When in need simply roll back the clock for as long as is
necessary.
Also ignore the lead times in creating and mass producing
aircraft, and building times for warships.
So tell us all your timeline, what does "before the war" mean
in terms of a specific date?
> It's a ridiculous appeal that British war
> ministers, the RAF, and the Admiralty had no choice but to ignore all
> prewar and wartime hints of German and Japanese overseas aggression
> until it was too late to do anything about it.
Note my timeline starts in July 1941 but now apparently we must
go back to 1937, when Japan invades China again, or perhaps
1933 when Hitler came to power or even 1931, over Manchuria.
The British certainly did not ignore the pre war hints about German
rearmament, hence all that defence spending. What was not clear
was Hitler was rearming at a pace that would break the German
economy, the allied rearmament was not as forced, it also started
later.
In November 1939 RAF had around an official total of 56
fighter squadrons in the UK and France, 17 Hurricane and 13
Spitfire, the rest were units with Blenheims, Gladiators, Battles,
Defiants or simply had no aircraft at all.
As for Japan it was, by September 1939, firmly bogged down in
China, looking for a way out, provided the Japanese controlled
part of China increased. It was also facing a problem that the Red
Army was better than the IJA, stifling the junior army officer's ideas
of striking north.
The Tripartite pact was signed in Berlin on 27 September 1940,
before that the Japanese government had gone through some soul
searching as its main ally in the anti Comintern pact had signed a
non aggression pact with the USSR, so Germany had some explaining
to do. The Japanese non aggression pact with the USSR was signed
in Moscow on 14 April 1941.
In June 1940 the fall of France deprived the allies of a major fleet,
air force and army. The Japanese occupation of French Indo China
was one direct consequence, another was the need to keep major
forces in the UK. Is it your idea pre war British planning should
have allowed for the fall of France within a year of the war
beginning?
By the way I presume you believe the British did not ignore the Italian
overseas aggression. Also what is German overseas aggression?
Norway? North Africa?
> There is no truth to your notion that the U.K was forced to let
> colonial air defenses wither on the wine.
Except I said no such thing. The defences all around the British Empire
were strengthened from the late 1930's onwards. They had to cope
with the big shock of France surrendering, and they were not strong
enough in 1941 in Malaya.
The war situation simply did not allow the sort of reinforcements you
think were available to actually be available, short of guarantees the
USSR would be attacked in mid 1941 and survive.
> They had a powerful navy and
> enough ships to transfer more airpower to defend important strategic
> and economic bases.
This is simply wrong. The first U-boat happy time was in full swing for
about a year after the fall of France. The RN was incredibly stretched,
the Mediterranean fleet heavily hurt in the battles for Greece and Crete,
the home waters in desperate need of more anti submarine ships. So
construction in things like the final pair of Illustrious aircraft carriers
was suspended.
Not only that but early in the war was the time for learning how to
efficiently ship tanks and aircraft.
The RN had 107 modern and 79 older destroyers in September
1939, by June 1940 the numbers were down to 83 and 69
respectively less those under repair, as the concentration was on
building anti submarine forces. Escorts had gone from 32 in
commission to 207, plus the 50 ex USN destroyers.
> Had they done this more wisely and preemptively,
> it would not be necessary for the RAF to hire British and American
> aircraft carriers as its Last-Minute-Limousine service.
I gather this refers to the Malta reinforcements. Pre war Malta was
considered near indefensible, given its location and the size of the
Italian air force. It became even more indefensible when France fell.
the fact the axis attack on Malta was relatively weak air attacks and
not invasion gave the British a chance to keep the place, at a
considerable cost by the end of 1942.
Is the idea to stock Malta with two years worth of fighters, where
would they store them? And a 1940 fighter was obsolescent in
1942 anyway.
Or is it simply that with the Luftwaffe growing so large pre war
that the RAF should have been sending lots of fighters to the
Middle East and Malaya?
How about a refusal to commit any fighters to France, given we
know now it was doomed cause, the RAF lost some 450 or so
Spitfires and Hurricanes in May and 1 to 20 June 1940. This
is comparable to the looses 10 July 10 31 August.
Is this the time to mention the Battle of France cost the Luftwaffe
comparable numbers of aircraft as the Battle of Britain?
>> > In January 1941 there were 75 fighter squadrons based in the UK;
>> > far more than required for air defense.
>>
>> Not all the 75 were operational, my hand count of the OOB shows
>> Hurricane 40, Spitfire 20, Whirlwind 1, Defiant 6 (151 a mix of Defiant
>> and Hurricane) Blenheim/Beaufighter/Havoc 7. There were 4 Blenheim
>> day fighter squadrons with Coastal Command.
>>
> You are hair-splitting, the few squadrons not at full readiness soon
> would be.
Oh sorry, I thought I was reporting as accurately as possible the
real UK fighter force strength, but then I realised we have someone
wanting to inflate the numbers, for example the night fighter units were
not going to be much use in Malaya.
More deleted text, to the next >>
So a nominal 61 day fighter, 13 night fighter and 4 long range day
fighter squadrons. There were something like 56 day fighter squadrons
in existence on 1 September 1940, plus 2 Defiant and I think 6 Blenheim
squadrons, so 56 day, 7 night fighters plus the 4 long range fighter units.
It looks like peak day fighter strength in 1941 was around 77 squadrons
in the final quarter of the year.
Given the numbers and the odds in 1940 why does 5 extra day and
5 extra night fighter squadrons in January 1941 become "far more"?
I mean given the RAF won the Battle of Britain does that say there
were too many fighters defending Britain in 1940, they should have
been moved to the Middle East? That earlier there were too few
fighters sent to France?
(Luftwaffe in 1941 versus UK)
Except of course one reason the activity was kept down was the
strength of the defences.
>> The number of Luftwaffe day bomber sorties over England in August
>> and September 1940 was 3,500 to 4,000 per month, plus around 2,000
>> night sorties in August and 3,500 in September. There were also around
>> 500 anti shipping/minelaying sorties in August and 370 such sorties in
>> September.
>>
>> In March 1941 it was 800 day and 4,300 night bomber sorties, plus
>> around 500 anti ship/minelaying, in April 1941 800 day and 5,250 night
>> bomber sorties plus around 500 anti ship/minelaying.
>>
>> The big decline in Luftwaffe activity over the UK was post May 1941.
>
> Based on a barrage of statistics in your long reply, it's reasonable
> to assume that you are not terribly concerned about the wisdom of
> cherry-picking numbers to fuel a fantasy.
Ah in other words the figures punch a big hole in the Luftwaffe went
away in January 1941, so they have to be declared wrong. Hence
the mass deletions noted above.
Why not note the upswing in air combat as the weather improved
in 1941?
Can it be explained how the Luftwaffe went away given the reported
activity?
More mainly deleted text, to next >
The minelaying and anti shipping operations ran at an average of 670
sorties per month in the second half of 1941, around 30% at night.
Bomber sorties for the 6 months were around 1,525 sorties, of which
970 were in July and October.
And if the USSR had fallen? If the Diplomatic efforts had deterred Japan?
Or Japan had decided to wait until the USSR had surrendered?
German air activity over Britain declined as the 1940/41 winter set in.
It increased as the weather improved before being run down, for
example the Luftwaffe was running fighter sweeps over Kent in late
May 1941. In terms of offensive sorties the Luftwaffe bombers largely
left in mid May, the fighters a week or two later.
So by the end of May the Luftwaffe becomes harder to find, by the
end of June it is obvious why.
Then comes the decision of whether the USR would survive, if so the
strength in the UK can be moved out, if not then the strength largely
has to stay in order to prepare for the 1942 assault.
So your clock starts in July, where are you going to move the forces
in Britain? Given it would take months for them to make the Middle
East and Far East and noting the shipping shortage which means the
forces have to move in stages. Plus of course finding the extra shipping
to keep the forces active in their new theatre. Sending the RAF alone
is not enough, all services need to increase their strength, and the
shipping has to be found to support them. One simple measure to
help Malaya would be to not treat the Indian formations there as
training units, with men shipped out to more urgent areas once they
had done some training to be replaced by raw recruits.
The RAF did plenty wrong in 1941, the channel stop operations were
mainly a way to lose Blenheims, the fighter sweeps cost a lot to learn
better tactics, the night bombers were generally exporting bombs in the
general direction of Europe. The RAF in the Middle East seems also
to have been less effective than its numbers would indicate.
It was only in late 1941 and early 1942 Spitfires were finally released
for overseas service, once fighter command was largely re-equipped,
the Typhoon problems hurt the plans to retire the Hurricane, forcing
more Hurricane production to make up the numbers. In hindsight of
course it is easy to say the Spitfire could have been exported and
the delay in the Typhoon was not a big problem.
The strategic situation was one front that if it was lost the war was lost,
but was under lighter attack compared with the previous year, as far
as the air force was concerned. One other active front which could do
with some help, and another front that might become active. There was
also an ally who was fighting hard and could do with lots of help.
The Germans held the initiative.
> You overlooked that British air defense grew stronger while German
> airpower declined. By the end of 1940, RAF Fighter Command had almost
> 50% more pilots than it did six months earlier. But Luftwaffe fighter
> and bomber units had about 30% fewer pilots than they had six months
> earlier.
Amazing, so the Germans were unable to regroup over winter and
come back in the summer, is that the idea? Or are the Germans sending
accurate strength reports to the UK so the UK can know the decline
in German strength will be permanent?
Like for example the recovery of the Luftwaffe fighter force from
817 in January 1941 to 1,277 in May, versus 1,071 in July 1940?
Given the need to more than a third of the Spitfire and Hurricane
squadrons into something a bit more then training units by November
1940 why exactly is 50% more pilots a problem? Oh sorry, I
forgot, the man from the future arrives and announces the Germans
are going east.
In any case as of 3 August 1940 Fighter Command had 708 aircraft
and 1,434 pilots on strength, as of 3 March 1941 it was 1,240
aircraft and 1,702 pilots.
The Battle of France cost the RAF some 320 pilots killed or missing,
plus another 115 taken prisoner or interned. As of 15 June Fighter
Command reported it had 1,094 pilots, 362 less than establishment.
Note the gain to August, and note that in nearly 2 months pilot strength
had gone up 30%, to go up 50% required another 213 pilots.
Why not actually use the pilot strength figures for the Battle of Britain,
not the ones at the end of the Battle of France.
>From 1,094 pilots on June 15 strength rose steadily to 1,434 on
3 August, the figure then hovered around the 1,400 mark until
14 September when it reached nearly 1,500. The big increase
in pilot strength was post 21 September from 1,509 to 1,752
on 12 October. It was 1,796 on 3 November. Which is the
strength it basically kept until March 1941.
> It also escaped your attention that 11 Group (Air-Vice Marshall Keith
> Park) usually did most of the fighting.
I presume the rotation of RAF fighter squadrons between the groups
is being ignored, 11 group stayed, the squadrons in it changed.
Also check out 10 group activities.
> But 12 Group (Air-Vice
> Marshall Trafford Leigh-Mallory) was often idle, or unable to help due
> to poor positioning, slow-reaction time, and clumsy Big Wing tactics.
Yet 12 group did intervene and it ensured no German day bomber
strikes outside of Luftwaffe fighter cover in the area 12 Group was
responsible for. Or are you happy for the Germans to be allowed
unopposed strikes by day on places like Coventry?
Also the idea was the RAF would minimise commitments, it had
to survive to the winter.
Anyone else noted the concept of reserves seems to have been
ignored. Plus take away 12 group and the RAF needs to be more
cautious, as it has fewer forces.
Going to add 13 group to the idle list? After all why have fighter
cover over Scapa flow, the Germans did not drop many bombs
there during the battle.
> The ineffectiveness and limited activity of 12 Group at the peak of
> German bombing proved the RAF did not need 50 fighter squadrons,
> let alone 75.
For a start kindly deduct the night fighter squadrons from the totals
being used, or is the idea the defence of Malaya needed a strong
night fighter force?
Secondly please note that as of 3 November of 55 squadrons of
Hurricanes and Spitfires some 22 were classified as class C, basically
close to training formations, able to tackle unescorted bombers.
That was the result of pilot casualties.
Going to add 10 and 13 group units to the idle list?
To defeat the UK the Germans needed to either successfully
blockade it, including use of airpower, attack it directly by aircraft
until it surrendered, or invade it. The air and naval actions would
complement it, the threat of a 1941 invasion required more shipping,
not more troops.
By the way under the idle fighters act I presume most of the
Luftwaffe fighters in the west and Germany, day and night could
have been moved elsewhere in 1941.
Furthermore all the home based RAF day fighters should have
deployed to France in 1940, correct, after all if France stays in
the war it really helps the allies. Or does the opposite apply
and the British should have sent the airpower and ground
forces to the Middle East and Malaya? Plus hijack as many
French merchant and war ships as possible?
>> the world expected a Battle of Britain round 2 starting with
>> the good weather in 1941.
>
> The geeks at Bletchley Park knew that Operation Sea Lion was an
> implied threat, not a real one.
As noted it would be good to reply to my text in the order in which it
was written, the above is part of my second sentence.
The short answer here is no.
> They also realized the air battle had
> played advance party to a charade.
No. The idea was to seize a once only opportunity, if airpower
was as good as pre war theories, or even the Battle of France
seemed to indicate then it was possible to invade.
The Luftwaffe could have done without the cost of the Battle
of Britain, as could the economy given the disruption from
assembling the invasion shipping.
> The "invasion fleet" of river
> barges and other unseaworthy vessels was a joke.
Of course. The Germans had a lot to learn.
However the German worked on the ideas and were coming up
with better shipping which they used in the Mediterranean. F
lighters and Siebel ferries.
> By October 1940 ULTRA
> decyphered orders to stop amphibious training, return equipment to
> storage, and recall warships for normal duties.
This is not surprising given the weather and the losses at the
invasion ports.
> Churchill released 150
> tanks for service in the Middle East because he was sure they were not
> needed in England.
The convoy left England on 22 August 1940.
And of course the tank plants in England were replacing the tanks. Do
not forget the 12 Hurricanes arriving in Malta from HMS Argus on
1 August 1940, or 12 more on 17 November.
By the end of 1941 some 361 Hurricanes had been sent to Malta
via Aircraft Carriers, 333 had arrived, about 150 were sent on
to North Africa.
The British were quite confident the Germans could not invade
successfully in 1940, they were also quite worried about the
fight with the Luftwaffe.
> With Hitler's bluff called in "Round 1", there was
> no logical reason to fight "Round 2".
So let me understand this, there is no logical reason for Hitler to keep
attacking his main enemy.
A negotiated peace or something? The illogical thing to do was add
more enemies, just like Japan kept doing.
> What's more, destroying all airfields and factories on either side of
> the Channel was next to impossible without atomic bombs.
Yes hindsight is being used.
In 1940 the air forces all had a rather exaggerated idea of their
effectiveness. The Luftwaffe thought it had done quite well, the
RAF fighter opposition had only allowed about half the bomber
force to be used by day, so there was clearly room for
improvement. And night raids like Coventry also made the
case for the bombers.
> Craters could
> be filled. Fixed bases were desired for convenience but parked
> fighters, ground support, and light manufacturing were quite mobile
> and easily camouflaged.
This appears to be wishful thinking, as the fighters grew in size
fixed runways became important.
> Even if the Luftwaffe could damage more
> targets, the British could disperse as their opponents did later.
I see, and of course all this was known to the British in 1940, correct?
Also what is light manufacturing, steel plants? Given steel was the
basic component of almost all weapons.
Things like the problems of supplying the dispersed factories with
workers (the Germans had a lot of labour that had no choice) and
materials will of course not for example cut aircraft production in the
1940/41 period, right?
Same for warship construction?
> The Germans were in a no-win situation; and this is another reason why
> it was a serious mistake for the British to stockpile so much fighter
> defense in England at the expense of ignoring other threats.
So in other words Hitler should have surrendered. Not tried again.
Good to know that one.
>> It looks like peak day fighter strength in 1941 was around 77 squadrons
>> in the final quarter of the year.
>
> Increasing the quantity of day fighters was less important than
> improving the low quality of RAF pilot training.
Of course the fact so many pilots were killed in 1940 played
a part in the lack of training.
> Fighter Command was
> slow to give up on prewar tactics thanks to strong institutional
> resistance. By 1942, many RAF squadrons abandoned the rigid, airshow-
> like battle formations and adopted the more flexible tactics of German
> fighter patrols.
In other words the change over took place in 1941.
Which RAF squadrons were still using rigid formations in 1942?
> But until then RAF methods were not well suited to
> practicing economy of force.
So the RAF needed a lot more strength to protect a given area, got
that one, so more fighters at home.
Alternatively of course the ground controlled interception system was
the ultimate in economy of force.
> RAF pilots who understood air combat complained that Fighting Area
> Attacks, tight formations, V-shaped sections of three planes, and Big
> Wings were inefficient, caused unnecessary losses and lost
> opportunities, and lingered in battle for years after serious defects
> had surfaced.
Do you mean the USAAF fighter groups arriving in England in
1943, trained in Vic tactics?
Wing tactics are or are not appropriate depending on the situation.
So is the idea the RAF at home was still using Vics in 1942 or 1943?
Along with the other wrong tactics?
> The more hidebound RAF pilots looked for external
> scapegoats to explain lack of success; blaming it on aircraft
> performance or pure chance, instead of their own poor tactics.
Yes folks, the worst of the RAF is being written about, no names
though.
> Minimum entrance requirements in the RAF were rock-bottom. Screwball
> Beurling joined the RAF because he was rejected by the RCAF. Many
> Americans joined the RCAF after they failed to pass the more demanding
> US military benchmarks for pilot training.
Many Americans, so how many is many? Is the idea the peace
time USAAF and USN having higher standards than an RAF rather
short of pilots a shock?
Given how good a pilot Buerling was perhaps it was the RCAF
that had the problem.
So let us understand after telling us all how bad the RAF fighter pilots
were it is only they that can save the empire.
>> > The Germans diverted the bulk of their flying units from Western
>> > Europe for invasions of Eastern Europe and the Balkans.
>>
>> Internal lines are quite useful, those units could return quite quickly
>> if required. It took days for the German units to move, it took
>> weeks for RAF fighters to move from the UK to the Middle East.
>> RAF Bombers could fly direct by risking landing in Malta.
>
> Germany could not sustain a larger overseas force than the British. If
> German supply lines were "internal" then why did the Allied navy
> strangle these lines?
Really, tell us all how the allied navies strangled the German supply
lines to France and the USSR Or stopped Luftwaffe units transferring
to and from North Africa and Norway.
I presume the supply lines being referred to are the ones to
North Africa, and the answer is of course, in that case, a lack
of protection.
Just like removing 12 group from the Battle of Britain would
have allowed really strong attacks on aircraft targets in the
English midlands, plus 13 group and Scotland becomes
vulnerable. Plus of course the way units in 12 and 13 group
could refit and train.
Again I note my text has been moved into a different order
> Great Britain started the war wielding a much larger surface fleet,
> including aircraft carriers, and a huge overseas network of army, air
> and naval base infrastructure that Germany could only dream about.
Germany started WWII with a bigger air force than the RAF, with
more modern aircraft, and an army England could only dream of.
Plus a population about 50% bigger, counting Austria and at least
parts of Czechoslovakia.
And how do the fortifications in the Falkland islands help the
war against Germany very much?
> The
> British held Malta and kept it, with U.S. assistance furnished in the
> form of USS WASP, on loan to deliver RAF fighters and supplies.
> Several dozen American pilots were members of Malta's Spitfire
> squadrons.
This seems to be an advertisement for the US. The cost of keeping
Malta supplied was rather high, in warships and merchant ships.
> The British held nearly all advantages for intercontinental warfare.
Apparently the distance from Italy to North Africa is that big.
> That they allowed those advantages to decay is another matter.
It is called the reality military spending is consumption spending, too
much and the drain on the economy means it cannot support larger
militaries in the future, since potential investment money was used to
fund military consumption.
Is it possible to include a date for these claims, are we in 1920, 1930
or 1940 now?
>> What about the lack of significant RN presence outside of the Atlantic
>> and Mediterranean?
>
> Compared to a much greater lack of Kriegsmarine presence.
Imagine that, the Kriegsmarine was going to provide the shipping
for the invasion of Malaya it seems.
Plus the Italian fleet is written off.
>> > It was criminal negligence to leave so many RAF planes sitting on
>> > English bases.
>>
>> Given it would take months for them to make the Middle East and Far
>> East and noting the shipping shortage which means the forces have to
>> move in stages.
>
> Japanese forces that landed in Malaya, New Guinea and Guadalcanal, and
> German forces sent to Egypt, North Africa and Sicily had the same
> problems to a greater degree than British and Commonwealth forces.
So the idea is it takes as much time to sail from Japan to Singapore
as it does to sail from England to Singapore via South Africa.
Nice to know shipments to North Africa from Germany took as
long as UK to the Middle East via South Africa. Even Germany
to Sicily takes as long.
Nice to have that one sorted out.
You have read Behrens Merchant Shipping and the Demands
of War? Or the US history Global Logistics and Strategy?
>> Given the time it took to actually ship fighters from the UK to the
>> Far East how much of a difference would this make?
>
> British authorities knew well in advance that Japan wanted unlimited
> access to Asian strategic raw materials.
So what is well in advance defined as please, before or after the
fall of France. And why isn't the fall of France mentioned as a
problem for the British when it comes to the defence of Malaya?
Or is it after June 1941?
> In July 1941 Japan took over
> airfields in French Indochina (Vietnam). In retaliation, Japanese
> assets were frozen in America, England and the Dutch East Indies. That
> in turn caused a predictable reaction; Japanese military expansion to
> seize rice, rubber, tin, oil, and other commodities in U.S. and
> European colonies of the Pacific Rim.
Ah so "well in advance" is apparently July 1941.
Japan had already decided to strike south before July 1941, the
advance into southern Indo-China, they had been in the north for
the best part of a year, was the result of the decision to expand.
Germany's attack on the USSR was a surprise to Japan, which
again caused problems with trying to figure out what Germany
was up to, including early indications Germany was not interested
in Japan's help against the USSR and then later indications maybe
it was.
The freezing of assets stopped the allies supplying materials
Japan was going to use to invade the rest of the world.
It probably brought forward the timetable but given the IJN had
concluded the best time to take on the USN was during December
maybe not that much at all.
> A single wing of Spitfires or few more squadrons of Hurricanes -- had
> they been placed there before or shortly after the property seizures
> -- might have saved the island fortress of British Singapore from
> unconditional surrender, or at least delayed it to buy time.
This fundamentally ignores firstly the claims the RAF fighter units
were supposed to be so bad, secondly the problems with ground
forces, particularly their state of training and thirdly the lack of RN
which meant the Japanese could use the sea to outflank defence
lines.
You would need a bigger air force than a couple of fighter units.
Also can it be told how the fighter units are going to stop or
slow down the IJA advance?
> They also could have provided the Admiralty with more protection from
> air attack, especially if more sensible naval officers were in charge.
Given the range of the Hurricanes and Spitfires naval cover was
not going to be forthcoming too far from the coast.
> Even though Pearl Harbor was devastated a few days earlier, Admiral
> Tom Phillips had no respect for the Vietnam-based Japanese airpower
> that sank his ships. He had declined offers from the RAAF to provide
> small fighter patrols over HMS PRINCE of WALES and REPULSE.
Actually what he did do was fail to ask for fighters when it was
obvious his ships had been spotted, the Repulse asked for them
and the fighters arrived to watch the ships sink. There was a
squadron of fighters held for support of force Z.
The idea Spitfires on call would change this seems rather remote.
> Phillips was supposed to be reinforced by the new carrier HMS
> INDOMITABLE but Captain Harold Morse ran the ship aground in
> November 1941, causing serious damage.
Apparently striking an unmarked reef is the captain running the
ship aground.
Good to know the entire premise is incompetence, with the writer
failing to realise who is really having problems.
Also given the problems of an Illustrious class carrier having a large
number of fighters on board do not be sure the Indomitable would
have made a big difference.
> Too bad because this carrier was capable
> of delivering an entire RAF fighter wing to Singapore, as it did via
> Java the following January, by then too late to make a difference.
Crated Hurricanes. I note somehow a wing of fighters is going to work
with great effect if it is present in December but irrelevant in January.
>> Until December 1941 the planning assumption was the fall of the USSR,
>> plus the continued neutrality of the USA, despite the help in the North
>> Atlantic and Lend Lease.
>
> You contradict yourself here twice.
No.
> The British delivered fighters to their own outposts at a snail's
> pace, so one wonders how you propose they could deliver them to Russia
> any faster.
Ignoring the US deliveries I see.
The sailing time from the UK to Murmansk versus the sailing
time from the UK to Singapore via South Africa?
The fact the UK did not have to supply the air force infrastructure
to the Red Air Force but did need to supply airfields, ground crews,
radar stations, communications to places like Malaya and then keep
them supplied?
By the way, given Panama was never attacked couldn't the US ship
the fighters based there to say Malaya? The US had plenty of time
and shipping. Or would an extra 30 to 60 fighters mean the Philippines
would either not fall or not fall until much later, after all the IJA force
there was around half that in Malaya. So the fighters could surely have
a bigger effect, even if they were RAF ones.
> If, as you claimed, all British planning hinged on a
> belief the Soviets would probably collapse in a few months then why
> would Churchill approve a massive transfer of equipment to a lost
> cause?
It is called contingency planning. If the USSR collapsed then England
was going to be in for a big fight in 1942.
In the mean time it was clear keeping the USSR in the war would
probably mean the defeat of Nazi Germany. The loss of Malaya
was bad but not as catastrophic as the USSR being defeated.
By the way I note the continued use of adjectives rather than hard
data so massive amounts went to the USSR but snails pace went
to UK outposts.
Please define massive and snails pace.
> Using your timetable of doom,
Yes it looks like the timetable is not liked.
> only a modest amount of British military
> aid could be shipped to Eastern Europe before Russia's projected
> demise. In other words, not very useful to Stalin but very wasteful of
> Churchill's limited resources.
Yet amazingly more resources can be shipped much further, even
as it is requiring much more support when it arrives.
Also above the aid shipped to the USSR is massive, now it is modest.
Please define modest.
>> Why exactly should the UK send a great deal of force overseas given
>> how hard it would be to return the forces if the USSR fell?
>
> This is a silly excuse for Britain's failure to protect their troops
> and overseas bases.
Ah in other words someone is busy assuming the ground and air
forces can be moved around like pins on a map.
> One could also ask what if the USSR fell after the
> British thought the Russians could win?
By that stage the US was in the war and starting to send air units
to England. The 8th Air force sort of thing.
> So you want us to believe it was clever to commit large ground forces
> in battle with almost nonexistent air cover, because they might need
> to recall the planes later.
Actually what I want people to believe is I am dealing with someone
who is using lots of hindsight to proclaim stupidity.
The Far East became a probable combat zone in July 1941, as
opposed to a possible one. The move into Indo China told the
allies Japan was not being deterred by what the US might do.
And the defences of Malaya were being strengthened, those Buffalo
fighters. The trouble is air and naval striking power was very weak,
the RAF needed anti shipping forces. Vildebeests were not very
modern attack aircraft in 1941.
The RAF had some 265 combat aircraft in Malaya, counting 4
Hudsons, 6 Blenheims and 39 Buffaloes in maintenance units.
Of the 265 some 181 were serviceable, including 44 Buffaloes
in the fighter squadrons, with also had another 20 unserviceable
Buffaloes on strength.
The single best thing the British could have done in Malaya was
to stop using the Indian divisions as training formations, making
them much more combat effective.
>> > British forces were then demolished in battle just about everywhere.
>>
>> Due to a lack of strength of all three services.
>
> There was no lack of strength, but a lack of common sense and command
> ability in the British and Commonwealth authorities.
No there was a lack of strength followed by someone using hindsight
to announce they do not want to learn history.
WaltBJ
> Would he be the Sgt Alexander Franczak shot down on 16 August
> 1941, flying Spitfire II P8524 with 306 squadron? Interesting what
> a name in a search engine can bring up.
> > Geoffrey Sinclair
>
When Poland shucked its Communist government the Polish veteran pilots
gathered in England and returned the PAF's colors to Poland. It was
quite a celebration, red carpet and all, at the airport in Warsaw. My
son-in-law escorted his father to the gala and they told us all about
it upon return.
I know Alexander dictated some of his story to one of his daughters; I
don't know what she is going to do with it, but I will find out.
Walt BJ
WaltBJ
> A good way of noting experienced RAF fighter pilots was their
> abandonment of the collar and ties, which chafed, for things like
> silk scarfs.
> > As one RAF ace noted, quarter the sky, search it and move on,
> react to peripheral vision movement, look out behind and fly a
> loose formation so you can do all of the above.
>
>
Since there were two fighter bases there plus Navy birds coming in to
walk on dry land the chances of bouncing someone or being bounced
oneself were very good. Excellent post-graduate training since there
were usually scattered build-ups to hide behind to make teh search
challenging.
BTW wearing the old canvas horse-collar Mae West we indeed did relearn
the value of silk scarves. For quite a while I had scars on my nape
from boils resulting from chafing in that hot humid climate. Another
requirement was a flexible trunk well muscled so one could look aft as
far as possible, even under G.
Walt BJ
Michele
> Still, closing to kill range against an MG firing the heavy 7.92
> bullet was not without risk.
Not without risk, but riskier for the bomber being closed in. And I don't
see why the bullet should be considered that heavy. A circa 7-8mm round was
the lightest airborne round at the time, and it was what the British fighter
threw back too.
A cool gunner in the target has an
> essentially non-maneuvering target coming right up his tail.
True. On the other hand, every maneuver the fighter pilot would carry out
would serve to enhance his own aim, while every maneuver the bomber pilot
would carry out would spoil his gunners' aim.
Not many
> pilots were good deflection shooters.
Which is irrelevant as far as the fighter is coming at the tail.
OTOH if the fighter is coming right at the side of the bomber, he's at a
disadvantage because he's trying a difficult deflection shot. But the waist
MG gunner is at a disadvantage because he's trying to aim that non-motorized
MG mount right against the air flow, hitting the side of his barrel.
BTW the bomber' guns would
> outrange the fighter back at six shooting 'uphill'.
Well, yes, if the fighter was coming up from a lower altitude, which the
intercepting pilots seldom did. Anyway, range is not all that important. At
extreme range, that is the range at which the difference in altitude would
make a difference in range, the chances of a hit would be below minimal.
Effective range, that is the range at which a hit is a significant chance,
was so short that a difference in altitude wouldn't be important.
WaltBJ
>
> BTW the bomber' guns would outrange the fighter back at six shooting 'uphill'.
The point I was trying to make (poorly phrased) was that the fighter
at six was shooting into the wind at a bomber while the bomber's
gunners was shooting into a much lesser breeze. Also the 7.92 bullet
was rather heavier than the .303 so would retain its velocity better.
One thing I was amazed to discover was the fantastic deceleration
forces on a bullet - forex the standard 20mm round from 'Nam days met
a 44G decelerative force as it left the muzzle. I actually witnessed
this effect while function-testing the M61. I was at 500 ASL doing 500
when I fired the gun. (it worked fine.) I was looking out to see where
the short burst hit and was surprised to see the spashes in the water
at about a 15 degree depression angle. So I did it again and saw the
same thing. Never noticed anything like that strafing since
immediately after shooting one always laid on 4G or so to keep away
from ricochets and of course terra all too firma.
Walt BJ
Michele
I misunderstood what you meant by "uphill".
Nevertheless, I'd like to point out that:
- during the battle, the fighters' MGs were field-adjusted for a collimation
at 200-250 yards, even if as a factory default that had been at 500 to 600.
That gives an idea of what the pilots thought about the actual effective
range.
- seldom if ever did a fighter engage a bomber at 500 (be these meters, or,
gosh, feet) ASL. Air is thinner at the usual engagement altitudes.