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I think it's fair to say they didn't have a coherent plan.
There lies the problem. When do you look at your pilots claims and say "I don't believe you"? If they report an airfield is destroyed why do you tell them to attack it again? If you want the RAF to meet you in the air, why attack their RADAR? If a raid is not intercepted is that really not intercepted or have the RAF withdrawn all defence to London? The two most important statistics, aircraft production and pilots lost couldn't be known in Germany at the time.Third, there was no clear plan as to how the RAF was to be defeated. The entire German plan was predicated on the fallacy that if the RAF fighters could be forced up to fight, then they would be shot down. The Luftwaffe also had to do this while retaining enough strength for later operations. Head of Luftwaffe Intelligence estimated British fighter strength at 675, to his own 725. So by its own estimates, if the Luftwaffe could achieve a 1:1 exchange ratio it would eliminate itself from the campaign and future operations. It had to achieve an exchange ratio of better than 2:1, and nobody seems to have considered this unlikely, or even difficult.
Finally, there was the opposition, a coordinated air defence system, largely commanded by the men who had developed it and had spent the last ten to fifteen years planning how to oppose and defeat an enemy air assault on Britain. They did have a plan and it would have a significant effect on the third point (above).
There lies the problem. When do you look at your pilots claims and say "I don't believe you"? If they report an airfield is destroyed why do you tell them to attack it again? If you want the RAF to meet you in the air, why attack their RADAR? If a raid is not intercepted is that really not intercepted or have the RAF withdrawn all defence to London? The two most important statistics, aircraft production and pilots lost couldn't be known in Germany at the time.
The first bit of hindsight needed would be France falling in 10 weeks. The Germans didn't have a plan because no one could reasonably expect them to need on in 1940, if hindsight can be used to improve the performance of the LW then it can improve the RAF.
Only if you consider crossing the channel to be a big river crossing, you not only need a plan you need a lot of special equipment and lots of practice and training, look at the allies efforts before D-Day.It doesn't take years to develop a plan. In reality, you plan within the time available. Obviously, more time to plan typically results in a better output but it's entirely feasible to do a solid effort in just a few weeks.
The hiatus after the fall of France provided ample time for the Luftwaffe to develop a solid plan. They didn't/couldn't because the objective wasn't clearly defined and kept changing over time. That approach is a recipe for disaster.
Only if you consider crossing the channel to be a big river crossing, you not only need a plan you need a lot of special equipment and lots of practice and training, look at the allies efforts before D-Day.
To put pressure on the government there has to be some threat of invasion.I'm not talking about Operation Sealion. I'm talking about the Luftwaffe plan to neutralize the fighter defences around London to pressure a change of government. Planning for what I describe can easily be done in a few weeks.
I think the issue goes deeper. If you read this Radar Pages Home page. The Chain Home system was based on primitive technologies, but by linking the stations together and using various "dodges" they were able to get a lot of information about range height speed and numbers that probably wouldn't be obvious to someone just picking up signals offshore. From the same pages "Much has been written, and rightly so, of the 'Daventry Experiment' of 1935. Few people will know of an equally important experiment which took place between 1936 and 1937. At the instigation of Henry Tizard, with typical foresight, a series of trials was carried out to establish an operational procedure for interception of hostile aircraft by control from the ground." How much were the LW aware that chain home could not only detect an incoming raid but vector an interception? I cant really find anything.Again, an intelligence failure touched on earlier by Nuuuman.
As for attacking radar, the Germans knew that it was detecting their aircraft, they just had no idea how that information was analysed and acted upon, which is hardly surprising, given how they were doing it themselves in 1940. However, they would have been happy to catch the RAF on the ground, particularly in the third phase of their so called plan.
I would just say the Dowding looked at 12 Group claims and said 'I don't believe you', just not exactly in those words.
If you read this Radar Pages Home page. The Chain Home system was based on primitive technologies, but by linking the stations together and using various "dodges" they were able to get a lot of information about range height speed and numbers that probably wouldn't be obvious to someone just picking up signals offshore. From the same pages "Much has been written, and rightly so, of the 'Daventry Experiment' of 1935. Few people will know of an equally important experiment which took place between 1936 and 1937. At the instigation of Henry Tizard, with typical foresight, a series of trials was carried out to establish an operational procedure for interception of hostile aircraft by control from the ground." How much were the LW aware that chain home could not only detect an incoming raid but vector an interception? I cant really find anything.
Did they expect to just sweep the RAF from the sky?
I don't know how much value there is in the memoirs of defeated leaders, some seem to want to re run the battle. Kesselring was aware of his pilots claims, if they were correct then the RAF had been defeated, but they weren't. He was also aware of LW losses which means the RAF were fighting, just not how he wanted them to. An attrition rate of 75 per month is 2.5 per day. If you try to keep 150 Bf 109s above Kent from sunrise to sunset in all weathers you would probably lose 2.5 per day without any enemy involvement at all.Unfortunately, that does seem to have been a widely held assumption at all levels. This persisted even after the war. Kesselring wrote in his memoirs
"Our difficulty was not to bring down enemy fighters - in Galland, Molders, Oesau, Balthasar etc., we had real aces, while the huge figures of aircraft shot down are further proof - but to get the enemy to fight."
That a man like Kesselring was still labouring under this delusion after the war is an indication of how rooted it was in the German psyche.
Osterkamp calculated that in order to protect the invasion beaches he would need two complete Geschwader (almost 150 aircraft) over the beach head at all times. By his maths this would require a strength of 12 Geschwader, almost 900 aircraft, more than the Luftwaffe started the Battle with. This implied that they could not sustain any net losses at all. This meant that a gross attrition rate of about 10% per month, say 75 aircraft, was the maximum acceptable. He further calculated that within these constraints and in order to reduce Fighter Command's strength by 50% the Luftwaffe fighters would have to achieve an exchange rate of 5:1. This was in fact the target he set JG 51 when it took up its position on the Channel coast in early July. He ordered his pilots only to attack when a tactical advantage assured them of success with minimal risk. At least Osterkamp had bothered to do the sums. The problem was that the Luftwaffe could never shoot down something like 100 British fighters a week without taking risks. If the British lost 100 fighters in five weeks, to the Germans 20, achieving a 5:1 exchange rate, they would still be able to fight over the beaches and the Luftwaffe would have failed. Essentially, the German plan was dependent on the British committing large numbers of fighters to large air battles, allowing themselves to be bounced and shot down by the Luftwaffe's aces in their Bf 109s. Unsurprisingly, the British did not oblige.
I don't know how much value there is in the memoirs of defeated leaders, some seem to want to re run the battle. Kesselring was aware of his pilots claims, if they were correct then the RAF had been defeated, but they weren't. He was also aware of LW losses which means the RAF were fighting, just not how he wanted them to. An attrition rate of 75 per month is 2.5 per day. If you try to keep 150 Bf 109s above Kent from sunrise to sunset in all weathers you would probably lose 2.5 per day without any enemy involvement at all.
If anyone swallowed it, it was Churchill. Not the myth of Aryan supremacy but a huge respect for the German military and industry. His ancestor John Churchill fought with the Germans at Blenheim (Hochfeld) and he himself understood from his time as minister for munitions in WW1 knew what was involved in an industrial age war. The LW lost 285 aircraft in Poland, 260 in Norway and 1,428 in France Belgium. with similar numbers damaged. Throughout the battle British s/e fighter production was at least twice that of Germany. In front line strength the LW lost about as many Bf110s as it started with but produced enough to replace them. The problem was really with two engined bombers, not only are they easier to hit but they have more engines, crew and "stuff" than a 109. so they are more easily rendered unseviceable.I guess my question is did the higher ups of the LW have any plan for replenishment of lost A/C and crew? I mean they couldn't have bought totally the Aryan Supremacy thing could they?
Great post, very informative, especially for someone like me that realizes how little I know.Unfortunately, that does seem to have been a widely held assumption at all levels. This persisted even after the war. Kesselring wrote in his memoirs
"Our difficulty was not to bring down enemy fighters - in Galland, Molders, Oesau, Balthasar etc., we had real aces, while the huge figures of aircraft shot down are further proof - but to get the enemy to fight."
That a man like Kesselring was still labouring under this delusion after the war is an indication of how rooted it was in the German psyche.
Osterkamp calculated that in order to protect the invasion beaches he would need two complete Geschwader (almost 150 aircraft) over the beach head at all times. By his maths this would require a strength of 12 Geschwader, almost 900 aircraft, more than the Luftwaffe started the Battle with. This implied that they could not sustain any net losses at all. This meant that a gross attrition rate of about 10% per month, say 75 aircraft, was the maximum acceptable. He further calculated that within these constraints and in order to reduce Fighter Command's strength by 50% the Luftwaffe fighters would have to achieve an exchange rate of 5:1. This was in fact the target he set JG 51 when it took up its position on the Channel coast in early July. He ordered his pilots only to attack when a tactical advantage assured them of success with minimal risk. At least Osterkamp had bothered to do the sums. The problem was that the Luftwaffe could never shoot down something like 100 British fighters a week without taking risks. If the British lost 100 fighters in five weeks, to the Germans 20, achieving a 5:1 exchange rate, they would still be able to fight over the beaches and the Luftwaffe would have failed. Essentially, the German plan was dependent on the British committing large numbers of fighters to large air battles, allowing themselves to be bounced and shot down by the Luftwaffe's aces in their Bf 109s. Unsurprisingly, the British did not oblige.
The Germans must have been aware that Chain Home would give a range and bearing, and altitude would have been assumed as it was a fairly straightforward problem to solve (you can see the dipoles at different heights on the receiving masts in decent pictures and any German engineer could have worked out what they were for). Chain Home never gave reliable information on numbers, which was very much down to the interpretive skills of the operators, and never gave any information on type.
The Germans knew that the British fighters were controlled from the ground, but had no idea of the overall integration of the system across not just 11 Group, but Fighter Command as a whole. The prevalent German belief seems to have been that each squadron was individually and independently controlled on the basis of information received by its controller, as was their way in some pre-war exercises. This also meant that each squadron was tied to its home airfield. They had no idea that the information from an entire radar system and other sources was being input, processed (filtered in the parlance of the day) and disseminated from Headquarters, to Group and then Sector level. They did not understand the structure of the system, so even if they had known which aerodromes housed the sector stations, they would not have understood their significance, that this was where the squadrons they were fighting were ultimately controlled from.
It's worth a very brief re-cap of how the system worked. Information from Chain Home (with the exception of the most northerly stations) went to Fighter Command HQ at Bentley Priory where it, and any other information was 'filtered' and represented in the operations room on one of the map tables so familiar from a certain famous movie. This was then sent to the relevant Groups, for example Park at 11 Group in his operations room at Uxbridge. Here more information, from the Observer Corps was added, direct from 'tellers' in the Observer Corps groups in his area. This was plotted on the 11 Group map table. Park also had information on the state of his squadrons, position, and even the levels of fuel and oxygen in those airborne. It was the group controllers that issued the orders to sector controllers as to which squadrons should be ordered off. Once airborne they were controlled from the ground by their sector controller and ordered to pre-determined patrol lines or directly vectored to an incoming raid. Squadrons from different sectors, operating together always remained under their own sector control. Once contact was made with the enemy squadron commanders took control and no further attempts were made to contact the squadrons from the ground until they reported that the action was over. This was all completely unknown to the Germans.
The Germans knew that the radar masts formed part of an early warning system, indeed Martini urged Goering to destroy them before launching a major strike against Fighter Command's airfields. Like so much of the Luftwaffe campaign the result was half hearted and inconsistent. On 12 August 5 stations were damaged, Ventnor was put off air for a considerable period, but there were no continuous or even systematic attacks on the chain. The same can be said of the sector stations. Several were bombed and damaged, but again, the Luftwaffe did not persist in these attacks, allowing repair and recovery (Park was censured for using Army personnel to do this).