At the start of the battle both sides had a fairly good idea of each others strength. Then the fog of war descended and they both set off in different directions. Both sides overclaimed by about two to one, but the Germans underestimated UK production if fighters and the British overestimated German production. Since the LW started with many more aircraft the two sides view of the situation became increasingly at odds. The LW seemed to change plans and strategies but some believed they were winning based on incorrect intelligence, it will never be clear how many thought the RAF were down to their last 50 planes but some had that idea and any LW pilot at the time could have told them it was nonsense.
Battle of Britain - 80yrs Ago This Summer - Discussion Thread
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buffnut453
Captain
No, it's written from the perspective of what the Germans could and should have focused on. The lack of intelligence effort on Chain Home and Fighter Command C3 aligns with the general lack of a clear objective for the Angriff gegen England. German intelligence suspected the purpose of the RFD sites but insufficient effort was focused on trying to understand their true role and purpose. Again, if the operational objective was accurately defined as the neutralization of 11 Group, then the priority intelligence requirements that flow from that definition should enable greater intelligence effort on all aspects of RAF operations in southeast England.
Don't disagree that divining the RAF's ground control system would have been difficult...but it was far from an impossible task, particularly if operational intelligence was correctly focused and fed into an accurate assessment of the RAF's performance and operational strength.
In fairness, in addition to the RDF and GCI sites, you'll note that I also included the 11 Group stations as part of the target system. We all know it's really hard to knock out an airfield. However, destroying hangars, maintenance workshops and MT would greatly hinder the ability of squadrons to maintain high-tempo operations.
Again, I'm not arguing this from a position of hindsight. I'm simply positing that Germany completely failed to define what "success" looked like, and consequently did not implement the necessary intelligence, planning and assessment activities to determine progress towards those goals.
Confirmation bias can have very far reaching effects. The LW only had to destroy 500 aircraft, so what's the problem? Attacking Chain Home had no discernible effect and in any case you want the RAF in the air to get destroyed (like Wellingtons would shoot down as many LW fighters as the Germans sent up with their high tech turrets). The sector stations were attacked and destroyed as were many other fighter fields says confirmation bias, in fact the fighter fields were never as badly damaged as first thought and many airfields that were attacked were not even fighter airfields.
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miss, bullets would go under the right vertical stabiliser, I'd be horizontal with your deflection but double the lead.
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Hornchurch
Airman
- 38
- Jul 3, 2020
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One of the British/Spanish lads (dual-nationality), on another forum asked me.... "Any more details on this particular picture/gun-cine' ?"
Took a li'l while to find, but we've found some more info' regarding the attacking Supermarine Spitfire in question.
This gun-cine-footage was taken from Plt/Off Mike Staple's plane that day, 'X.4234'
By chance, I came across a VERY interesting footnote, later, which mentions TWO Spitfires in particular..... (see down the bottom/post)
609's ORB entry for the date/combat-above, is as follows... "27th Sept' 1940....Once more, in action over the South Coast".
Fg Off Dundas X4472 ME110 Destroyed, Plt Off Bisdee X4165 and Plt Off Crook R6961 together Destroyed ME110,
Plt Off Staples (flying Spitfire) 'X.4234' = ME110 Probably Destroyed,
N.B - THIS IS THE SAME A/C involved in attacking the Me.110 (pictured in the gun-cine-film)
Plt Off Ogilvie R6706 ME110 Destroyed, Plt Off Agazarian R6915 ME110 Destroyed, Fg Off Forshaw X4471 ME109 Probably Destroyed,
and Fg Off Nowierski N3223 ME110 Damaged. Plt Off Miller collided with a ME110 during the fight; both aircraft crashed, no survivors.
609's O.R.B goes on to say... "Bullet holes found in X4234 and R6915".
Again, take note of THAT last-named Spitfire, because it is none other than THE actual plane/Spitfire in the I.W.M at Lambeth, London.
Yep, that's right, it's THE actual one that WAS (& prob' still "is"), hanging from the ceiling, since 1960's-onwards (sans makover), till today.
By chance & "fate", Spitfire R.6915 found her way, not only into preservation, but is seen by millions of London tourists, every year !
P.S ; This shot of R6915 in London's 'I.W.M' was taken by Brian Marshall, available via FLICKR - (his copyright picture)
Regardless, the Germans simply didn't have the naval forces to invade, so speculating about different targets for the Luftwaffe was moot. Eventually, if they wanted to push the RAF fighters back far enough to give air control over the Channel, they would have needed to be attacking targets as deeper inland than London.
buffnut453
Captain
My premise is that Germany didn't need to invade. If the Luftwaffe can neutralize 11 Group, it leaves London entirely exposed. Such a chain of events would leave Churchill in a precarious position given that a sizeable proportion of the establishment was interested in at least exploring peace options after the fall of France. If 11 Group collapses, those voices would likely become much louder. A vote of no confidence in Churchill's leadership would likely result in his being listed and replaced by Halifax or another appeaser who would seek terms with Berlin. A compliant government in London achieves Hitler's aims without the need for invasion.
That's fascinating stuff; the number of German built surviving He 111s is small - looks like another has been discovered.
Do not underestimate how badly Hitler had dismantled the appeasment movement. His breaking of every promise that he had made had really soured the Brits and they rightfully wondered,w hat point would there be to a peace that Germany would break at her earliest convenience?
There is a book "Invasion 1940". The author claims that during the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe DID actually achieve local air superiority over the invasion area. It was only a mild superiority, heavily contested, but the Luftwaffe could operate over the area. The author goes on that any actual invasion was still impossible, because the Luftwaffe (to say nothing of the Kriegsmarine) wasn't strong enough to protect any invasion force from the Royal Navy, I found his arguments compelling.
You can't focus on something you don't know.
The Luftwaffe wanted to destroy Fighter Command, so it attacked aircraft factories, which it thought it knew. For example yesterday, 80 years ago, the Boulton Paul factory in Norwich was attacked when Wolverhampton would have been a better target. During WW2 Boulton Paul in Norwich took on the unglamorous role of making prefabricated buildings for the armed forces, not a vital target for the Luftwaffe in 1940. It also went after British aerodromes because they were identifiable targets. It couldn't even focus on RAF aerodromes never mind Fighter Command stations or 11 Group's sector stations, because it didn't know which they were.
It did attack Chain Home stations, which were clearly visible, and in fact enjoyed more success than it understood. The British went to great lengths to deceive the Germans into believing that stations were on air, even when they were not operational.
The point is you do know all these things, with the benefit of hindsight, and could therefore employ your Luftwaffe far more effectively. You or I could probably win the Battle for the Germans, with the knowledge we have today.
Yep, hindsight is a wonderful thing!
The Basket
Senior Master Sergeant
- 3,712
- Jun 27, 2007
Hindsight ain't wonderful.
Moment you change history then history is no longer the history you know so you end up back to square one.
To say this and that would have happened is again at best supposition.
Unless you're parking German tanks on Buckingham Palace lawn then and only then is Britain defeated. And we still won't listen.
Moment you change history then history is no longer the history you know so you end up back to square one.
To say this and that would have happened is again at best supposition.
Unless you're parking German tanks on Buckingham Palace lawn then and only then is Britain defeated. And we still won't listen.
That's my point. Arguing that the Germans could or should have done this, that or the other is pointless because they couldn't have, given their knowledge and ability at the time.
With hindsight we would do things very differently.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing because with my knowledge today I could go back to 1940 and very probably win the BoB for the Germans, by a better application of the force historically available. It would be quite easy. Start with a campaign against a section of Chain Home in the South-East, say the stations from Poling to Canewdon, and keep bombing the stations. Then ignore all other targets and go after seven or eight of 11 Group's sector stations (I would ignore Middle Wallop). Fighter Command would be in a serious mess within a week or so.
History is not cast in stone. There are facts which can be interpreted in any number of ways and the narratives constantly change as they are revised. The version of the Battle of Britain presented in the 1960s film was prevalent at the time, but would not be accepted by any serious historian today. Interpretations don't change outcomes, which are simply another set of facts.
Prior to the outbreak of war the Germans had taken thousands of aerial reconnaissance images across the whole UK, particularly airfields, factories and military installations. These were largely taken by Lufthansa aircraft with secret hatches in their bellies concealing cameras, as well as military overflights. These were all part of Wilhelm Canaris' strategic reconnaissance arm of the Abwehr directed by Theodore Rowehl (and everyone thought Sidney Cotton was the only one doing this before the war) as a separate air unit from Luftwaffe control (which naturally annoyed the pants off Goring).
The scale of these reconnaissance flights have, over the past thirty years come to light as images taken have been declassified and are now accessible to the public. In Scotland there is a resource that collects German aerial reconnaissance images for the period and the list of what exists is extensive, to say the least. The subjects are within Scotland alone, but give an indication of how many overflights the Germans were making.
Search | NCAP - National Collection of Aerial Photography
The scale of these reconnaissance flights have, over the past thirty years come to light as images taken have been declassified and are now accessible to the public. In Scotland there is a resource that collects German aerial reconnaissance images for the period and the list of what exists is extensive, to say the least. The subjects are within Scotland alone, but give an indication of how many overflights the Germans were making.
Search | NCAP - National Collection of Aerial Photography
I think it's fair to say they didn't have a coherent plan.
The problem is that though this produced a huge amount of potentially valuable data it was never properly analysed.
An aerodrome looks like an aerodrome, but who uses it is important. For example, the Luftwaffe did bomb Lympne so heavily it was unusable for a while (how long that 'while' was is still contested) but Lympne was a satellite field, and while an important forward airfield for 11 Group it was hardly vital to the defence of Britain, no squadrons were based there and hadn't been since a French squadron was there in May.
In a similar way one factory complex looks much like another. The old Boulton Paul factory in Norwich was bombed, even though Boulton-Paul Aircraft Limited had moved to a new factory in Wolverhampton long previously. This bombing was bad news for the six killed and forty wounded, but did nothing to diminish British aircraft production, which was the point of the operation.
Raw intelligence, like the thousands of reconnaissance images captured by the Germans before the war, is close to worthless without proper analysis
Precisely, and this is where the Germans failed. They had this massive resource of images but it offered them potential targets only. The next issue was that once the shooting started, access to these potential targets was impossible without being detected by the air defence network, so post-raid reconnaissance was all but impossible and the Germans were never able to quantify the results of each raid, which led to an overestimation of the strategic situation in its favour, but it was far from the real situation on the ground.
buffnut453
Captain
That's simply not true. The entire purpose of establishing priority intelligence requirements (PIRs) is to find out the things you don't know. Note that there's a difference between something being unknown and something being unknowable.
The planning process starts with defining the commander's objective. Once that's understood, a staff estimate is created which documents the facts (things that are known), assumptions (things that are thought to be known), intelligence gaps (which encompasses both unknown and unknowable information), constraints (things the force must do) and restraints (things the force must not do). The intelligence gaps drive the creation of PIRs. The staff estimate process was well understood and practiced during WW2.
The key problem for the Germans is that their planning process was crap. Senior Nazi leadership tended to work on assumptions rather than facts. Even when a sound operational plan was developed, the tactical focus for German forces tended to overcome the intent. The classic example is the Blitzkrieg into France in 1940 with the tanks outstripping the infantry, which was absolutely not what was planned. That over-focus on the tactical environment severely limited Germany's efforts at operational or strategic planning...one could argue that the latter seldom, if ever, happened.
Germany knew about the RDF sites and conducted the world's first airborne ELINT collection against them in 1939. After the fall of France, SIGINT sites were set up on the French coast to intercept British transmissions. Greater effort could and should have been devoted to understanding the role of these sites. As it was, the Luftwaffe did attack them and the British clearly thought that German SIGINT was listening in, otherwise why bother trying to deceive that a non-operational site was still functioning?
The location of RAF airfields was also known. Even to this day, it's easy to identify a 1930's expansion-era RAF airfield because the buildings were all built to the same patterns. You can go to any 1930s RAF officers' mess and know exactly how to find your way around because they used the same layout...it was the fastest way to build airfields. Guardrooms, MT yards, POL facilities...all had a very similar appearance across the different airfields. The target sets I selected (maintenance facilities, POL etc) specifically impact the ability of the force to operate. You can disperse the operational aircraft to satellite fields but, at some point, they will require a major service. Hinder the ability of the maintenance crews to perform that function, and force strength suffers. This is not hindsight, it's common sense based on the way all air forces operated at the time.
Of all the target sets that I identified, the only truly unknowable one was the location and purpose of the Sector and Group Control Centres. Luckily for the Germans, if they'd targeted the maintenance and other support areas of 11 Group airfields, there was a decent chance that they'd hit at least part of the C3 infrastructure. Yes, the facilities could be (and were) dispersed away from airfields eventually...but that still imposes an operational cost. Also, the benefit of the Sector/Group Control construct is heavily dependent on RDF. Lose RDF and you're back to the Observer Corps, which reduces warning and would greatly hinder the ability of 11 Group to respond in time to intercept. It also would likely put more strain on the aircraft as they tried, in vain, to gain altitude...which further stretches your maintenance facilities.
None of this is hindsight. It was all entirely knowable at the time. The simple fact is that the Nazis didn't take the time to conduct operational planning.
Now we're back to using a tactical force for strategic effect. Destroying Fighter Command is a strategic goal that is impossible to achieve. It's like a partially filled balloon - squeeze it in one area and it only bulges somewhere else. Gaining air superiority over the approaches to London is a much better goal and is much more achievable.
Similarly, aircraft factories are strategic targets. If you want a quick operational victory, you don't hit factories. You go after the front-line forces and deny them the ability to operate. Again, Germany was using its tactical air force in an effort to achieve strategic effects and that's a really hard thing to accomplish.
Have to disagree here. As noted above, RAF airfields are easy to identify and, as others have observed, Germany had plenty of pre-war reconnaissance imagery to work on. The fact that they didn't is a failure not only of intelligence but also of operational planning...which is the entire point I'm making. You don't even have to hit all the 11 Group airfields. You just need to hold London at risk. Drive through a path to London where RDF can't see you and the defending airfields are at low levels of operational capability, and you have the elements necessary for an operational success.
Hopefully, I've explained myself sufficiently to make it clear that all my assertions were entirely knowable at the time. The fact that the Nazis failed to capitalize on knowledge that was there or could be readily obtained is something for which we should all be eternally grateful.
No, because you are using hindsight. we'll have to agree to disagree.
You are using knowledge that the Germans did NOT have, and the idea that much of it was easily attainable, in 1940, is simply false.
