Why did Britain win the BoB?

"Grantland" wrote in message
...
Alan Minyard wrote:

On Mon, 06 Oct 2003 14:00:35 GMT, "Steven P. McNicoll"
wrote:


"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

However the RAF could still have sallied forth to defend
against an invasion and the Germans simply had neither the
resources to get the invasion force across the channel or
any way of stopping the RN from chopping their force to bits.


Wouldn't the Luftwaffe be a way of stopping the RN from chopping their
force
to bits?

No, not at the time. the Luftwaffe did not have "air superiority" over
the Channel, or over Britain. Would the RN have lost ships? Probably,
but not enough to deter or defeat them.

The Germans had no effective landing craft or amphibious warfare
ships, and would have been annihilated in trying to cross.

Not if the BoB had been lost.

Are you remembering that Churchill had stockpiled and was highly prepared to
use massive amounts of mustard and other CW on them? That would have held
them up somewhat...

John

"robert arndt" wrote in message
om...
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...
"robert arndt" wrote in message
om...
Britain won the BoB because Churchill bombed Berlin and spoofed
Adolf
into diverting the the airfield assaults onto London. EOS.

Grantland

Let me add that it was a lone German bomber that ditched its bombs
over London that caused the British reprisal raid on Berlin and change
of tactics that: relieved Fighter Command, enabled the airfields and
manufacturing plants to be repaired, and assured the Brits that the
German battle for air supremacy would fail now that civilian targets
were being hit instead of military ones. EOS indeed!

Rob

This is in fact an urban legend

The decision to switch targets to London was taken at a Luftwaffe
staff meeting in the Hague on 3rd Sept 1940. The idea came
from the Luftwaffe themselves who believeing their own faulty
intel decided that the RAF was down to its last 300 fighters
decided that the way to destroy them was to attack a target
they had to defend , London.

All the senior Luftwaffe staff officers (except Sperrle IRC)
concurred with the decision wihich delighted Fat Hermann
as he could rush off to der Fuhrer and give him the good news.

Keith

A beg to differ. The lone German bomber ditched its bombs over London
while the Fuhrer's own directive forbid it. The German pilots were
reprimanded for their error even while Goering and the Luftwaffe
senior commanders were planning a switch in tactics.
Regardless, the German bomber incident called for a reprisal raid that
only helped Goerings position and solidified in Hitler's mind the need
to attack London. Although it seems Hitler might have been swayed by
Goering and others in the Luftwaffe, it was Hitler's choice alone and
certainly guaranteed by the reprisal raid on Berlin.
Hitler's September 4, 1940 speech to the German people is filled with
rage over the British raid of Aug 25/26 and promised the destruction
of London. Had the German bomber NOT ditched its bombs over London and
hence, NO reprisal raid thereafter, Hitler might not have agreed to
change tactics on Sept 3, 1940.

The minutes of the 3rd September meeting are a matter of record, your
belief not withstanding. At that meeting the date of 7th september was set
for the first raid on London. It was of course presented as a Fuhrer
order but the words used by Goering at that meeting were clear

Quote
The tactics that we have now implimented in the last month, that is moving
our fighter squadrons to the Pas de Calais so that they will have more time
over enemy territory with our bombers. The culmination of larger formations
of heavy bombers, that we have drawn from different advanced airfields and
Gruppes. The added support of out Bf110 squadrons that are doing damage in
their bombing role as well as that of the fighter. All this, must be a
formidable sight to the British as they, with a deteriating Air Force try to
penetrate our attacks.
My fellow commanders, we are now on the brink of victory. An assault and an
invasion of England is now more promising than ever before. Our intelligence
has now informed us that the RAF is now down to less than a hundred fighter
aircraft, the airfields protecting London are out of action because of the
superb and accurate bombing of our bomber forces, their communications are
in disarray, and now we are told, their air commanders are arguing with each
other.
Gentlemen, another phase is now almost complete. The RAF is now no longer
the great threat that it used to be, and we can now draw every available
fighter plane that the RAF has into the air, because the next target must be
London itself
/Quote


RAF Fighter Command at that point was
weakened to the point that losses were outstripping replacements and
many of their forward stations and airfields lie in wreckage. It was
the Luftwaffe's opinion at the time that despite losses incurred that
the RAF was already close to defeat, so attacking London made no
difference. A big mistake. Attacking London relieved Fighter Command
at their gravest hour and won them the BoB.

Rob

In fact although it wasnt clear to either side at the time it was the
Luftwaffe
that was losing the battle of attrition.

On 1 July 1940 RAF reports showed they had 640 single seat fighters
and 1103 pilots available for action

On 1st Sept 1940 they had 648 fighters and 1142 pilots

Source Steven Bungay , the Most Dangerous Enemy Appendix III

So the RAF had maintained their operational strength

During the same period Milch made a survey of Luftwaffe operational
units (beginning 20 August and lasting 5 days) What he found
was deeply disturbing. On average bomber units with a nominal
strength of 40 aircraft could field no more than 30, many as few as 20

source Milch report of 26/8/40 , Milch papers Vol 51/54 page 9
IWM dept of documents

Fighter units were similarly affected, not only were aircraft in short
supply, at a time when Fighter command had several hundred
spares, but pilot shortages were even worse and new pilots were
arriving at the squadrons with less than 10 hours on single engine
fighters. One new unit I.JG77 trannsferred to France in late
August and lost 7 aircraft on Aug 31 alone.

source Milch 9/9/40 p3 report same collection

Whats interesting is the attitudes of the commanders to the situation
they found themselves in. Dowding was an extremely cautious
commander who regarded the minimum number of pilots
acceptable as being twice that of the number of aircraft
on squadron strength, this meant that when he only had 1142
pilots for 650 aircraft he considered his forces seriously
under strength.

Goering at the same time had fewer pilots than aircraft
and the Germans were training pilots more slowly but
was convinced he was winning !

Fact is that far from being seriously atrrited on 1st September 1940
the RAF fighter squadrons were essentially at full strength
but the Luftwaffe was down to about 75 % of the force they
had available at the start of the BOB

Throughout the battle the RAF was able to send pilots
on leave and rotate entire squadrons out of the combat
area, something that was unthinkable for the Luftwaffe.

The failure to provide adequate replacements for pilots
and machines that would plague the Luftawaffe throughout
the war was already evident in Augsut 1940.

Keith

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

Nope. At best the Luftwaffe could intervene in daylight if
they managed to win and maintain air superiority


Aren't we now working under the premise that the Luftwaffe won the BoB and
has air superiority over the channel and southern England?


Sure but they had no airborne radar, like the rest of the
airforces at that time they could only fly such attacks
in daylight.



BUT the
invasion force was going to take more than 24 hours to
reach the invasion beaches and the cruisers and destroyers
sortieing from Harwich cwould be in amongst them at
night in the same way the Japanese steamed down the
slot at Guadalcanal. The Germans had no equivalent naval force
to counter those raids.


Why must the German invasion force operate at night?


Because they have around 30 nautical miles to cover in
barges good for 4 knots , even if we ignore the effects
of the Channel rip currents they would need more than 24 hours
to get the first wave across and then they need to ferry
more troops and supplies using converted river barges
towed by tugboats.

I wouldnt have wanted to be in one of those deathtraps
even if nobody was shooting at me but let loose
30 destroyers and 10 cruisers from harwich and the
result wont be pretty.

Keith

In message , Keith Willshaw
writes

"Steven P. McNicoll" wrote in message
link.net...

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

Nope. At best the Luftwaffe could intervene in daylight if
they managed to win and maintain air superiority


Aren't we now working under the premise that the Luftwaffe won the BoB and
has air superiority over the channel and southern England?


Sure but they had no airborne radar, like the rest of the
airforces at that time they could only fly such attacks
in daylight.



BUT the
invasion force was going to take more than 24 hours to
reach the invasion beaches and the cruisers and destroyers
sortieing from Harwich cwould be in amongst them at
night in the same way the Japanese steamed down the
slot at Guadalcanal. The Germans had no equivalent naval force
to counter those raids.


Why must the German invasion force operate at night?


Because they have around 30 nautical miles to cover in
barges good for 4 knots , even if we ignore the effects
of the Channel rip currents they would need more than 24 hours
to get the first wave across and then they need to ferry
more troops and supplies using converted river barges
towed by tugboats.

I wouldnt have wanted to be in one of those deathtraps
even if nobody was shooting at me but let loose
30 destroyers and 10 cruisers from harwich and the
result wont be pretty.

Not to mention MTB's at night. Sinking the tugs for the barges would be
enough.

Mike
--
M.J.Powell

Keith Willshaw wrote:


Snip


Your point A) isn't any scraping the barrel by any means. The
Allies
wasted immense resources on bombers and strategic bombing. If
Britain, and the Allies, had cut out four engined bombers in order
to
have a large increase in top fighters and a boost to strong,
fast,and
long-ranged 2 engined bombers: Then Germany would have had a
harder
time much sooner. Hopefully, I'm not reading to much into your
sugggestion, I have long put forward similar notion that most of
the
strategic bombing was a waste, or it could have been done with
much
less and even better. During the Summer of 1940 the Allies could
have
had more fighters and more fuel, and have had the bombers on lower
level missions cutting up Germans energy and transport.

Hardly, the first 4 engined bomber, the Short Stirling didnt
enter service until 1941 and the fighters had absolute priority
on production in 1940. Cancelling all 4 engined bomber production
would have made no difference at all to the BOB

The RAF had bomber production going during the BoB. Yes, the RAF did
think fighters were more important than bombers. I would for the sake
of the game eliminate new bomber construction, or only go with the
hottest 2-engined bombers that are in fact or could nearly be top
fighter-bombers if configured that way.


All strategic bombing could have, and should have, been done by
long
ranged fighter-bombers, and fast 2-engined bombers, and 100% of the
effort shoud have been against German military targets, energy, and
transport. IN 1947 the USAAF stated that 95% of startegic bombing
reasouces were wasted, only 5% of the strategic bombing effort was
worthwhile. But Christ, that 5% was a knock-out! Viturally, all
the
crippling damage done by strategic air attack was done by
long-ranged
fighter bombers and 2-engined bombers attacking at low altitude,
and
almost no serious damage was done by the wasteful other line.

This is flat wrong, most of the oil campaign was carried out by
B-17's, Halifax and Lancaster bombers. The light bombers
of the USAAF were predominantly used to attack transport
infrastructure and tactical targets

I could go down to the libary get direct quotes from the 1947 USA
Almanac. The assessement in 1947 lead to the USAAF, USN, USMC, and
USA Army spending very heavily in other directions than strategic
bombers, not that the strategic bomber is absent even today. Perhaps
the 4-engined bombers were most effective when deployed at low
altitude. What sort of altitude were the attacks on Germany's oil
production carried out at? Of course, 4-engined bomber can run low.
It is just that it is better to use 1 and 2-engined planes. There are
awesome things the Allied could have done if 4-engined bombers are cut
back around 75% or more.
For example, what-if the the Allies funded, resourced, the dreams of
the airbornne generals. In some alternative history story or wargame
we can explore 100,000 strong airborne armies backed by thousands of
trasnport planes. Imagine D-day with a lot more and better supported
airborne troops!


One hundred Mustangs each with a single 1,000lbs bomb, flying in
low
in order to lay down 50+ direct hits on railline is very
troublesome
to the GErmans, and did I mention the destoyed and badly damaged
locomotives, loads, and other equipment, and the need for Germany
then
to disperse AAA? The Allies can put down 500 fighter-bomb sorties
like that a day in the Rhur by 1943 and sleep in to boot.


But 500 fighter bomer sorties will deliver only 10% of the bombload
of a 1000 bomber Lancaster raid and in any event neither the USSAF
nor the RAF had 500 P-51's in 1943.


My little book of WWII Aircraft indicates that the P-51 was in Europe
from 1942.
Any way, the 500 fighters cost something like 1/8 the cost of the
1,000 bombers, and the real bomb load of a Mustang (Ok, my stats are
for a D) is 2,000lbs. The Mustang also has 6 50cals for ground
attack, say for peppering a locomotive. 500*2000=1,000,000 and
1,000*4,000=4,000,000. Plus the fighters will be much much harder to
shoot down, and their bombing will be more accurate as exteremly low
altitude bombing is possible which is very accurate.


John Freck














Keith

Keith Willshaw wrote:

"robert arndt" wrote in message
om...
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...
"robert arndt" wrote in message
om...
Britain won the BoB because Churchill bombed Berlin and spoofed
Adolf
into diverting the the airfield assaults onto London. EOS.

Grantland

Let me add that it was a lone German bomber that ditched its bombs
over London that caused the British reprisal raid on Berlin and change
of tactics that: relieved Fighter Command, enabled the airfields and
manufacturing plants to be repaired, and assured the Brits that the
German battle for air supremacy would fail now that civilian targets
were being hit instead of military ones. EOS indeed!

Rob

This is in fact an urban legend

The decision to switch targets to London was taken at a Luftwaffe
staff meeting in the Hague on 3rd Sept 1940. The idea came
from the Luftwaffe themselves who believeing their own faulty
intel decided that the RAF was down to its last 300 fighters
decided that the way to destroy them was to attack a target
they had to defend , London.

All the senior Luftwaffe staff officers (except Sperrle IRC)
concurred with the decision wihich delighted Fat Hermann
as he could rush off to der Fuhrer and give him the good news.

Keith

A beg to differ. The lone German bomber ditched its bombs over London
while the Fuhrer's own directive forbid it. The German pilots were
reprimanded for their error even while Goering and the Luftwaffe
senior commanders were planning a switch in tactics.
Regardless, the German bomber incident called for a reprisal raid that
only helped Goerings position and solidified in Hitler's mind the need
to attack London. Although it seems Hitler might have been swayed by
Goering and others in the Luftwaffe, it was Hitler's choice alone and
certainly guaranteed by the reprisal raid on Berlin.
Hitler's September 4, 1940 speech to the German people is filled with
rage over the British raid of Aug 25/26 and promised the destruction
of London. Had the German bomber NOT ditched its bombs over London and
hence, NO reprisal raid thereafter, Hitler might not have agreed to
change tactics on Sept 3, 1940.

The minutes of the 3rd September meeting are a matter of record, your
belief not withstanding. At that meeting the date of 7th september was set
for the first raid on London. It was of course presented as a Fuhrer
order but the words used by Goering at that meeting were clear

FWIW, Hough and Richards state the following, after describing Hitler's speech
on 4 September:

"This public intimation of fresh work for the Luftwaffe followed a meeting
between Huitler and Goering on 30 August. There the Fuehrer had withdrawn his
ban on bombing London [Guy note; after several nights of RAF raids on Berlin
on/subsequent to 25/26 August] and expressed an ardent desire for attacks on the
British capital in retaliation for Bomber Command's raids on Berlin. An
appropriate directive from Goering followed." They then discuss the meeting of
3 September.

I'm hesitant to say this is definitely the case, as this is a work for a general
audience and there are several basic errors in it that never should have
appeared. For instance, it claims that the Me-109E-1 (which they write "109E1")
had "four heavy calibre (roughly .5 inch) machine guns . . . To the more popular
twin heavy machine guns augmented by the much more lethal and longer-ranging
20mm cannon, one in each wing ["109E2" according to them]," although they do go
on to say that the most likely armament was two 20mm and 2 x 7.9mm. So at least
they got that right.


Guy

"John Freck" wrote in message
m...
Keith Willshaw wrote:


Snip


Your point A) isn't any scraping the barrel by any means. The
Allies
wasted immense resources on bombers and strategic bombing. If
Britain, and the Allies, had cut out four engined bombers in order
to
have a large increase in top fighters and a boost to strong,
fast,and
long-ranged 2 engined bombers: Then Germany would have had a
harder
time much sooner. Hopefully, I'm not reading to much into your
sugggestion, I have long put forward similar notion that most of
the
strategic bombing was a waste, or it could have been done with
much
less and even better. During the Summer of 1940 the Allies could
have
had more fighters and more fuel, and have had the bombers on lower
level missions cutting up Germans energy and transport.

Hardly, the first 4 engined bomber, the Short Stirling didnt
enter service until 1941 and the fighters had absolute priority
on production in 1940. Cancelling all 4 engined bomber production
would have made no difference at all to the BOB

The RAF had bomber production going during the BoB. Yes, the RAF did
think fighters were more important than bombers. I would for the sake
of the game eliminate new bomber construction, or only go with the
hottest 2-engined bombers that are in fact or could nearly be top
fighter-bombers if configured that way.


Why ?

You cant rapidly switch factories building Whitleys or Wellingtons
to building Spitfires and Hurricanes and new shadow factories
for those aircraft were already entering production, the RAF
had no shortage of airframes in any event.

All strategic bombing could have, and should have, been done by
long
ranged fighter-bombers, and fast 2-engined bombers, and 100% of the
effort shoud have been against German military targets, energy, and
transport. IN 1947 the USAAF stated that 95% of startegic bombing
reasouces were wasted, only 5% of the strategic bombing effort was
worthwhile. But Christ, that 5% was a knock-out! Viturally, all
the
crippling damage done by strategic air attack was done by
long-ranged
fighter bombers and 2-engined bombers attacking at low altitude,
and
almost no serious damage was done by the wasteful other line.

This is flat wrong, most of the oil campaign was carried out by
B-17's, Halifax and Lancaster bombers. The light bombers
of the USAAF were predominantly used to attack transport
infrastructure and tactical targets

I could go down to the libary get direct quotes from the 1947 USA
Almanac. The assessement in 1947 lead to the USAAF, USN, USMC, and
USA Army spending very heavily in other directions than strategic
bombers, not that the strategic bomber is absent even today.

The USAAF ceased to exist in 1947 and from that date on
the US Army has not operated significant numbers of fixed
wing aircraft

The USAF and Strategic Air Command on the other hand ordered
and operated large numbers of strategic bombers including the
B-29, B-50, B-36, B-47, B-52, B-1 and B-2

Perhaps
the 4-engined bombers were most effective when deployed at low
altitude. What sort of altitude were the attacks on Germany's oil
production carried out at? Of course, 4-engined bomber can run low.
It is just that it is better to use 1 and 2-engined planes. There are
awesome things the Allied could have done if 4-engined bombers are cut
back around 75% or more.

And awesome things they couldnt have done, fact is a single heavy bomber can
carry more bombs than 6 fighter bombers of WW2 and do so over a
longer distance

For example, what-if the the Allies funded, resourced, the dreams of
the airbornne generals. In some alternative history story or wargame
we can explore 100,000 strong airborne armies backed by thousands of
trasnport planes. Imagine D-day with a lot more and better supported
airborne troops!


Airborne troops dont do well against armoured formations, see
Arnhem for an example.


One hundred Mustangs each with a single 1,000lbs bomb, flying in
low
in order to lay down 50+ direct hits on railline is very
troublesome
to the GErmans, and did I mention the destoyed and badly damaged
locomotives, loads, and other equipment, and the need for Germany
then
to disperse AAA? The Allies can put down 500 fighter-bomb sorties
like that a day in the Rhur by 1943 and sleep in to boot.


But 500 fighter bomer sorties will deliver only 10% of the bombload
of a 1000 bomber Lancaster raid and in any event neither the USSAF
nor the RAF had 500 P-51's in 1943.


My little book of WWII Aircraft indicates that the P-51 was in Europe
from 1942.

In small numbers as the Mustang I with an Allison engine in RAF service,
I suggest you rely on something a little less lightweight than the
'little book of WW2 aircraft'

Any way, the 500 fighters cost something like 1/8 the cost of the
1,000 bombers, and the real bomb load of a Mustang (Ok, my stats are
for a D) is 2,000lbs.

So you spend more money per ton of bombs dropped and risk 5 times
as many pilots. RAF losses per ton of bombs dropped were
lowest for the Lancaster bomber and highest for the light bombers.

Losses on the famous precision raids such as those by Mosquito's
on the prison at Amiens and the Shell centre in Copenhagen
varied between 20 and 40 percent. German flak was too good
to routinely operate large numbers of bombers at low level
attacking defended targets


The Mustang also has 6 50cals for ground
attack, say for peppering a locomotive. 500*2000=1,000,000 and
1,000*4,000=4,000,000. Plus the fighters will be much much harder to
shoot down, and their bombing will be more accurate as exteremly low
altitude bombing is possible which is very accurate.


You are in error once more, review the data for aircraft losses
in the ground attack role and you'll find Mustangs suffered heavily
due to their liquid cooling system.

The P-47 was far better suited to the ground attack role
but NEITHER was well suited to strategic roles such as
the oil campaign..

Keith

On Wed, 08 Oct 2003 06:11:40 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

FWIW, Hough and Richards state the following, after describing Hitler's speech
on 4 September:

"This public intimation of fresh work for the Luftwaffe followed a meeting
between Huitler and Goering on 30 August. There the Fuehrer had withdrawn his
ban on bombing London [Guy note; after several nights of RAF raids on Berlin
on/subsequent to 25/26 August] and expressed an ardent desire for attacks on the
British capital in retaliation for Bomber Command's raids on Berlin. An
appropriate directive from Goering followed." They then discuss the meeting of
3 September.

There are two issues at stake here, the second is the actual German
decision-making process that lead to the deliberate bombing of London
after the withdrawl of Hitler's ban on attacking it. As the Luftwaffe
had been bombing targets in British urban centres at night* since
June, I feel adding London to the target list was only a matter of
time, regardless of what impulses drove the decision at the time.

[*And the night was significant: the Luftwaffe dropped a lot more
tonnage on London by night than they did by day: Hitler's apparent
desire for a retributional policy against London did not begin and end
in the first deliberate daylight attacks on the city, whatever the
peripheral consequences were for Fighter Command)

More important is the issue of whether the first daylight raids on
London were a critical watershed in enabling the RAF to recover from
incipient defeat at the beginning of September. The hard facts are
that they weren't at the position of imminent crisis and defeat, and
the attritional exchanges continued much on the existing basis.

All the Luftwaffe targetting change did was reduce the pressure on
selected forward airfields and their infrastructure. However, the
success or failure of Fighter Command in totality did not rest on the
status of Biggin Hill, Hornchurch and Kenley and their hosted
squadrons in isolation.

What really interests me about this assertion are the emotional
well-springs that fuel it. These seem to be very deeply embedded, and
involve satisfying the basic desire to provide a simplistic
revisionist narrative that appropriates success or failure in the
Battle of Britain to German agency alone, and specifically Hitler in
particular. Surely it is long since time that this myth was laid to
rest, and for it to be understood in the light of the emotional
impetus that created it.

A similar myth is the one about Churchill protecting Enigma by letting
Coventry be bombed. These myths say more about popular prejudices in
regard of the leaders concerned than they do about anything else.
They are resiliant to factual refutal because their primary basis
stands outside factual debate.

Gavin Bailey

--

Another user rings. "I need more space" he says.
"Well, why not move to Texas?", I ask. - The ******* Operator From Hell

"Paul J. Adam" wrote in message

To have any chance of surviving at all. Night offers at least some
concealment.


The Germans needed the concealment of night to have a chance of survival
against what? The Royal Navy? Surface vessels could not survive against
determined airpower without air support of their own.

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

Because they have around 30 nautical miles to cover in
barges good for 4 knots , even if we ignore the effects
of the Channel rip currents they would need more than 24 hours
to get the first wave across and then they need to ferry
more troops and supplies using converted river barges
towed by tugboats.


Why does it take a full day for the first wave to cover 30 miles at 4 knots?



I wouldnt have wanted to be in one of those deathtraps
even if nobody was shooting at me but let loose
30 destroyers and 10 cruisers from harwich and the
result wont be pretty.


They'd certainly get some of the invasion force, but those surface vessels
wouldn't last long against determined airpower without supporting airpower
of their own.