Crucial points of the Battle of Britain?

[parsifal]

Over Dieppe and the French campaign they lost at about 4:1.

Im not defending Mallory's or anybody's tactics, but its this kind pf one eyed selective editing of the real situations in order to run an agenda that really gets my hackles going. Overall, the campaigns in France were badly managed, and really brought out the RAFs failure to develop longer ranges for its aircraft, of which Dieppe was a prime example. However, there were other times, when the same tactics were employed, and LW losses were much closer to 1:1. Not just as a result of air combat....it wasnt tactics that delivered the RAF what meagre success it did achieve, but the overall loss rates from all causes that attrited the LW. its not that the RAF fought an exemplary campaign....it didnt, but force an opponent to get airborne, force an opponent to get entangled with you, and your opponent will suffer losses, even if you are losing in the actual air combats. There is no such thing as a free lunch in airborne warfare. Moreover these campaigns were critical as a precusor to other developments in the war, often overlooked and conveniently forgotten. People will often trot out the devastation meted out on the LW from January 1944 on, without ever giving a second thought as top why they had become vulnerable by early 1944. It was the attrition, on all fronts (east west, south, even north) that gave the LW no rest, put it on a drip feed as far as replacing losses, that forced it into the situation it was in 1944. Give it even the slightest rest, and the LW will be exponentially stronger than it was by the time of the critical showdown. This is all linked back to the type of war the LW fought, fromeven before BoB. The losses over France were a part of that process.

Instead of trotting out the old chestnuts like Dieppe, we could talk about the RAF success, like June '42, where in Combat LW losses amounted to 89 aircraft and 105 damaged, versus 68 and 48 for the RAF. Sounds great, and challenges this notion about Mallory, or so it seems. But thats playing the same tricks with smoke and mirrors as we are attempting to do with Dieppe. Overall loss rates for the RAF, taking account other ops in the TO and non operational losses again pushed the proportion of losses in favour of the LW.

It had little to do with the tactics. It had everything to do with stretching the RAF beyond what it could reasonably undertake with the gear that it had. It had more to do with the fact that on those few occasions that the RAF got properly organised and looked like winning in the air, the LW refused to engage. It did have something to do with Mallory's stupidity, but this was a relatively minor issue compared to the other challenges being tackled at the time. And lastly , misreporting total LW loses is just one of my real bugbearts, and something I have spent a bit of time researching.

 

[OldSkeptic]

Interceptions of raids during the BoB rarely took place out to sea, unlike he much smaller scale Channel battles that preceded the assault on Fighter Command.
This is largely due to the way the command and control system worked. Raids could be detected forming up over the French coast but this was not the time to launch interceptors. Course, height and direction of the raids were all established in order to get the right squadron or squadrons to the right place at the right time to make the interception.
From the moment that orders were given by group controllers (for 11 Group these came from Uxbridge, scene of Churchill's dramatic visit) to sector controllers they were to be executed by squadrons taking off from airfields in that sector. Once airborne they were controlled from the ground and guided to the raid by their senior sector controller. It is often not understood that when squadrons from different sectors operated together they remained under the control of their own sector controller. As soon as raiders were sighted squadron commanders took charge and no further attempts were made to contact the engaged squadrons from the ground until they reported that the action was over.
It was the group controllers who were at the centre of the action. They had to interpret the filtered information coming in from Bentley Priory. They had to distinguish between major raids and feints and still keep as many aircraft as possible ready for action. Aircraft were not to waste fuel on pointless patrol, nor were they to be caught on or close to the ground. Several balances had to be struck between likely alternatives almost every day. It was a guessing game in which the penalties for guessing wrongly could be (and were) severe.


The Germans certainly had operational radar (Freya) at the beginning of the war but it was not part of a sophisticated command and control system until later. It did not give comprehensive coverage either. I believe the Germans did have some success seeing British raids coming early in the war, but I'd have to look that up to be sure. Someone else may know better
The Luftwaffe's fighters and bombers operated free from ground control (and couldn't communicate with one another) so even had the RAF fighters been detected there is little that could have been done about it.

Cheers

Steve

Several things. Park and Dowding wanted the end of channel shipping because of pilot losses. During the BoB (post the channel fight stage) pilots were instructed NOT to go over the Channel. Basically if you ditched or parachuted into it .. you died.

Yes the Germans did have radar, technically better radar than the UK had, but correct about the lack of a whole C&C system at that time. But it was good enough to pick up RAF bombers often, which suffered 50%+ losses in many missions. Purely local control sort of thing, but still good enough to intercept many BC raids in those early days. The comms was poor, but that was largely because of resistance with the Luftwaffe itself. Eric Stilpepper (book Spitfire on my Tail) was the comms officer for his Group, and they had good equipment, but Galland and the rest of the 'Spanish' crew were dead set against it (despite his claims in his own book much later). In fact Galland couldn't see the need for fighters to have radios at all.....

Galland was of the school, like Badar, that the fighters should just do what they want, where they want and the commander in the air should be the person that controls everything. The whole C&C system that the RAF had was an anathma to him (and Bader), probably a factor in why the Germans never managed the RAF's level of performance with their later (and in some ways technically better) system, they clung to obsolete and poor tactics. You could make a strong argument that Galland was promoted way above his level.

I mean, large gaggles (their big wings) in late 43/44 forming up were perfect for the US escorts, once they had the range, to see and hammer. And they never, to my knowledge managed to perfect the 'stripping off the escorts' tactics like Park did, even though they were technically capable of doing it (and it would have been hard for the USAAF to respond to). This was despite that at no time did the Luftwaffe face the sort of fighter/bomber escort ratios that the British often did. So you can't help but think that the Luftwaffe underperformed in the Air Battle of Germany compared to their technical resources.

You take a pretty obvious and straightforward tactic. In '43 the Luftwaffe had perfected the hammering of the bombers with heavy weapons in their twins. Then after they were broken up the formations the singles got in. This was fine until, even with P-38s, the USAAF had escorts who could murder the low performance twins the Germans had.

Now a logical move would have been for single squadrons, across Holland, France and Germany to be vectored into to boom and zoom the escorts to make them drop their drop tanks as early as possible, hence crippling their range and keep their twins well back waiting for the now unescorted bombers.. This would have worked either if the USAAF used the earlier tactic of escorting the bombers all the way or the later (more fuel efficient) layered defence where groups of fighters rendezvoused for different escort phases. In the second case they were very vulnerable (full of fuel and heavy) to that sort of tactic. Take a brave pilot not to drop their tanks when a bunch of high flying 109s come hammering in....at the very least it would disrupt the fighters and break them up, reducing the numbers that met the bombers. if you were really smart you would hit those fighters just over the coast when they were at their most vulnerable (didn't matter what they were in, a P-51 would have been just as easy a target as a P-47 fully loaded like that).

In the end, of course, the sheer numbers when the US built up enough fighters could have overcome that, with fighters escorting fighters for different phases, but it could have bought the Germans months of time.

But Galland (and the ilk) copied the 'big wing' approach, the same ones they had happily shot down in droves when they met them and had no 'Plan B' for when the US escorts started clearing the skies of their twins......definitely not a tactical genius.

 

[beitou]

to clarify for myself; Park attacked with multiple squadrons from pretty much as soon as the Germans crossed the UK coast. These attacks were from various directions and continuous. At no time after crossing the UK coast were the Luftwaffe left unattacked, or that was the idea. These attacks were not penny packet attacks, if you are up go and attack, instead they were coordinated from multiple directions using ground control. The Luftwaffe never had such close ground control. Thease attacks pulled the escorting fighters away from the bombers and left the bombers vulnerable to fighter attack. Spitfires and Hurricanses attacked bothe bombers and fighters. Micheal Caine was busy killing Zulus.

To me the idea of big wings seems common sense, get more aircraft up and therefore shoot more down, however the opposite seems to have happened, more up means more targets for the Germans. Zulu spears did not manage to shoot down any Spitfires.


The Germans lost as many pilots as the British and could not replace them any easier than the British.

 

[parsifal]

Yes the Germans did have radar, technically better radar than the UK had, but correct about the lack of a whole C&C system at that time. But it was good enough to pick up RAF bombers often, which suffered 50%+ losses in many missions.

German radar early in the war had virtually nothing to do with these loss rates, moreover, it again skews the overall picture of RAF bomber losses way out of proportion to quote figures like that. RAF losses 39-40 for BC were under 600 aircraft for the 15 month period, equating to 14% of the force structure. The RAF suffered a number of disastrous losses early on, moving through to as late as March, as they learned the bitter lessons that the bomber does not always get through. The attacks on Kiel amd Wilhelmshaven were disasters, not because of radar...the bombers were just hacked out of the sky by conventional means.

Over france, the Battles and Blenheims of the AASF suffered exceptionally heavy losses trying to knock out the bridges at Sedan, but this was mostly due to the flak wall that the RAF, in its failure to react immediately, allowed the Germans to put into place in the three days allowed to them. Radar had nothing to do with these losses. Gallands free range tactics in these battles worked a treat in these situations incidentally...its what they were developed for...more or less instantaneous and autonomous reactions by the guys on the spot over the battlefield, defending the Heers vital needs on an availability basis. Parks, or indeed the RAFs rather cumbersome (in comparison) centralised control methods would not have, and didnt, work very well in these super tactical situations, where the focus was on tactical support. It took the RAF about four years to learn these lerssons that the germans already knew.

For the germans, their methodologies and tactical concepts were about maximising flexibility, hence Gallands advocation of the free range tactics. The German air force was different to the Allies during the BOF because it was a flexible force, abale to switch from tactical bombing of infrastructure, to CAS, to air defence over the battlefield, and everything in between. Allied systems were not nearly as flexible in this regard, and this is what lost them the air war over france in May. not everything that Galland, or the LW did or thought, was silly. They were years ahead in some respects. Its just that in pure air defence, or sustained air operations, they had not planned, or prepared for such work to anythiing like what the RAF had done.

From the RAF own website, the following comments relate to how the RAF organised its CAS efforts in Normandy.

"Fighter bombers began a new direct support role, operating with the assistance of radio-equipped Forward Air Controllers (FACs). The fighter bombers were on call from "Cab Ranks", orbiting points close to the forward edge of the battle area. From these Cab Ranks, the FACs could very quickly call on air support for any targets of opportunity or threats to the troops in their area. The FACs were both RAF and Army personnel, specially trained to identify targets to the pilots and direct thier fire".

Often these FACs were airborne as well, and often the squadron commanders were empoered to act on their own initiative


Almost word for word, you could apply those descriptions to the germans methods of 1940. this is not a weakness, its a strength, and one of the reasons the LW survived for as long as it did.

 

[Koopernic]

Yes the Germans did have radar, technically better radar than the UK had, but correct about the lack of a whole C&C system at that time.

.

It was the German Navy that invented radar; the idea for it literally was that of the chief physicist of their signals branch, von Kunhold and was inspired by their active sonar work. Sonar was proving inadequate for gunnery aiming (yes they were looking at that). If you look at the dates (first detection of target first detection of an aircraft they arguably beat Watson Watt). The radar that evolved from this was known generally as "Seetakt" or roughly "Sea Tactical" and it pretty soon had blind fire capability added. Blind fire ability to 0.1 degree had been demonstrated in 1936 using lobe switching but the German navy waited till a more advanced system that only switched the receiving lobe (thus not loosing range, also harder to jam and also able to distinguish between closely spaced targets) was available so Bismark didn't have blind fire (neither did the Royal Navy at the time)

Seetakt opperated on "G" wave (Initially 60cm then latter 80cm) which was a frequency 10-20 times higher than CH or the early type 279 RAN radars, this was needed for accurate naval blind fire. In order to extend the range for purposes of air warning the company that built them "GEMA" increased power output by reducing frequency. The new frequency was the "F" band, around 2.4m and so it was called F for "Freya". Freya, unlike CH, worked well over land which was a German necessity given geography.

A handful of these "Freya" radars were in service by the time war broke out and they were simply integrated into the air warning and reporting service that was already in existence, so its not quite correct to say they just had no clue, they did have a system but it wasn't as well evolved given latter deployment.

The German Navy had approached a company called Telefunken to help with development but Telefunkens chief engineer/physicist a certain Dr Runge scoffed at von Kunhold's idea and declined. Runge however though about it and changed his mind and Telefunken privately developed what was initially called "Darmstadt" (his university) and latter "Wurzburg" when the wavelength went from 60cm to 54 and power was upped from 1kW to 8kW. (all Telefunken FLAK radars were named after university towns). It's said that the initial insult by Runge effected transfer of know how.

Wurzburg-A was in service a few months after war broke out. It used a 3m dish and was designed as an early warning set, however unlike Freya it had height finding ability though only about 35 nautical miles range , about 1/3rd of Freya's. Three operators were required: one nodded the antenna vertically to find elevation, one nodded horizontally to track bearing while the other read of the range. Accuracy was about 2 degree, about 4 degrees if target was close to ground. It was this out of date radar British Commandos captured at Bruneval.

Wurzburg-B never existed but was meant to use infrared optics to track bearing. Within a Year of deployment of Wurzburg-A the new Wurzburg-C came out in early 1941 and introduced conical scan, for which Runge had patents. It was now possible for a single operator to track the target to within 0.3 degree in both elevation and bearing and the crew was reduced to two. Accuracy dropped to about 0.5 degrees if the aircraft was low.

Wurzburg-D came out only a few months latter with some deliveries and some 80 on the production line around June 1941. Wurzburg-D reduced range accuracy to less than 24 meters and added selsysn's so that the FLAK predictor "Kommandogerat 40" could directly accept inputs from the Radar. Wurzburg also had an analog computer to convert spherical co-ordinates to Cartesian which included speed and altitude.

The same time as Wurzburg-D was coming into service in 1941 a variant called Wurzburg-Riesse (Riesse = giant) which added a 7m power driven dish to replace the 3m dish of Wurzburg-D was introduced. This more than doubled range and increased accuracy to under 0.2 degrees. It was designed as a FLAK radar but because of its high accuracy and range two of them could be used to guide a German night fighter to within 100m or so of a Bomber.

Both Wurzbug-D and Wurzburg-Riesse were the worlds finest blind fire AAA radars till mid 1943 when the US built SCR-584 started deploying. The US SCR-268 was inferior in accuracy, the Germans easily jammed them during the Anzio landing and the British Army didn't really have anything at all because their priorities lay elsewhere. (Hence the need to borrow US SCR-584 radar during the V1 offensive)

Wurzburg Riesse could often cut through Allied Jamming even if Wurzburg-D wasn't effective due to its much tighter beam.

When British commando's captured a Wurzburg-A the Germans implemented a anti jamming program, within 2 weeks there was a way to adjust frequecies over 3MHs via a field instruction, then 6MHz, then 3 islands of 6MHz and then automatic retuning systems. "Windows" was overcome with "Wurzlaus" which was a Doppler system initially developed to detect low flying aircraft and Nurnburg which allowed the operator to hear propeller modulations to help reacquire a target in heavy jamming. Refinements such as ability to compensate for high altitude winds and other forms of anti jamming. Wurzbug Riesse with a moving target indication called k-laus could get through jamming. There was also a Wurzburg-Riesse Gigant with 20 times the power.

About 4000 Wurzburg were produced with another 500 Wurzburg Riesse.

1943 saw a new radar on a 3m sized Wurzburg dish called Mannheim which added auto track, doubled power. Manheim-K was to switch to 27cm wavelength but became a project called Manheim-KK when the 9cm British magnetron was discovered. This was deployed as Rotterheim, one of about 100 microwave radars the Germans got into service between the Luftwaffe and German Navy.

These are just the main Luftwaffe radars, the Germans were trying to replace them or upgrade them.

 

[OldSkeptic]

to clarify for myself; Park attacked with multiple squadrons from pretty much as soon as the Germans crossed the UK coast. These attacks were from various directions and continuous. At no time after crossing the UK coast were the Luftwaffe left unattacked, or that was the idea. These attacks were not penny packet attacks, if you are up go and attack, instead they were coordinated from multiple directions using ground control. The Luftwaffe never had such close ground control. Thease attacks pulled the escorting fighters away from the bombers and left the bombers vulnerable to fighter attack. Spitfires and Hurricanses attacked bothe bombers and fighters. Micheal Caine was busy killing Zulus.

To me the idea of big wings seems common sense, get more aircraft up and therefore shoot more down, however the opposite seems to have happened, more up means more targets for the Germans. Zulu spears did not manage to shoot down any Spitfires.

The Germans lost as many pilots as the British and could not replace them any easier than the British.

Correct. The idea always was to shoot down bombers, but you have to neutralise the escorts too. it wasn't so much about shooting down the escorts (though that was always a bonus) but disrupting them, causing them use up fuel and altitude and position (hence the term 'stripping away'), letting other fighters in to hammer the bombers. And the Luftwaffe couldn't handle that attrition, it's fighter manufacturing was inferior to the British (plus they were unable to make up bomber losses too) and their training wasn't able to produce the numbers needed for the losses. Newbie Luftwaffe pilots were just as useless as the RAF ones and just as easily shot down. So the Luftwaffe steadily suffered attrition in both aircraft, pilots/crews numbers and quality.

By the end of the BoB Fighter Command was actually stronger that it was at the beginning, while the Luftwaffe had declined significantly. It wasn't even close to a draw.
Some have argued (which I agree with) that the Luftwaffe never really recovered after that and never achieved that peak combination of numbers and quality ever again.

 

[OldSkeptic]

For the Germans, their methodologies and tactical concepts were about maximising flexibility, hence Gallands advocation of the free range tactics. The German air force was different to the Allies during the BOF because it was a flexible force, abale to switch from tactical bombing of infrastructure, to CAS, to air defence over the battlefield, and everything in between. Allied systems were not nearly as flexible in this regard, and this is what lost them the air war over france in May. not everything that Galland, or the LW did or thought, was silly. They were years ahead in some respects. Its just that in pure air defence, or sustained air operations, they had not planned, or prepared for such work to anythiing like what the RAF had done.

Yes and no. If you look at the history of the Luftwaffe from it's inception it was designed to be a part of 'combined arms', reflecting the lessons the Wehrmacht (which was the name for the entire German forces, the Army actually was the Heer) had experienced in 1918 against Monash.

The role of the fighters under that doctrine was to gain local air superiority so things like their Stukas could get in and be a 'long artillery' of the Heer, while their medium bombers were an 'interdiction' force. They laid great importance in catching the enemy air force on the ground.
But at the same time, within the fighter community there was a thread of 'Red Baron' type followers, or a more scathing person would say 'score chasers'.

From 1939 to 1942, except in the North African Desert, that combined arms doctrine served them well. But the rot was setting in and their effectiveness was declining.
A lot of that came from the BoB, When Goering over promoted his 'young Turks' (people like Galland) who had great scores and were the ideal of the the 'warrior heroes' that the Nazis ideologically admired.

But these people (remember Galland's dislike of radios?) had no idea of proper air tactics. So the Luftwaffe air arm became a sort of inverted idea of what a real fighter air force should do.

So you see in the North African campaign people like Marsaille happily shooting down heaps of P-40's and Hurricanes while they never shot down bombers, great scores and headines and medals and money for them, sod the poor soldier on the ground being bombed. And this 'warrior/hero' thing had by then became so perverted that a Luftwaffe squadron was really a life support mechanism for a single high scoring pilot, rather than a combined fighting unit achieving a tactical and strategic aim.

This fighter pilot mentality was not unique by any means. When Harry Broadhurst took over the DAF and put bombs on Spitfires there was a lot of pilot opposition, but he (with Monty's backing) made sure it happened and the DAF's effectiveness went up a lot (noting the Park had already done that months before in Malta).

This meant, overall, that the Luftwaffe, which was the world leader in 39-42 was by then falling behind, the allies were catching up and overtaking them and the internal rot was getting worse. By early 43 the DAF had developed far better CAS (and interdiction) than the Luftwaffe ever had. This became the western allies doctrine and though the US, until very late 44/early 45 never got quite as good as the DAF and the later 2nd Tactical air Force, they became good enough to become a contributing war winning tool.

By that time the Luftwaffe had long gone into total self destruct. Galland's 'big blow', as an example, was a strategic and tactical nonsense. His own book , very self serving, showed his own weaknesses, he was for several years the 'Inspector General of the Luftwaffe', basically second only to Goering. Hitler, for all his many military faults was by that time totally skeptical of the Luftwaffe .. and basically he was right to be that, because by that time it was useless. Galland, forgetting his own slaughtering of big wings.... pushed big wings. Like the rest was enamoured by 'new gadgets' when what they needed was a better 109 that could be mass produced, a higher altitude 190 and a fast twin, close ground control and good tactics ... and forgetting totally 'big scores' by individual pilots.

They needed, for the air defence of German a C&C system like the British had, with someone in charge that could do things like 'strip off the escorts'... that person was not Goering or Galland, who's tactical ideas by that time was 'super weapons' or 'mass attacks' (and for Galland, the idea that someone on the ground could tell a fighter pilot what to do was a total anethma).

In his own book he never understood how Park beat the Luftwaffe (and lied about it and blamed Goering for all the faults) and hence never learned the lessons, and then when he was in an over promoted level never made the right things happen.

There is a parallel, most German generals never admitted they were ever beaten, except by Hitler's useless orders. Right. Galland, in his own mind was never beaten (even in the BoB) .. except for Goering...total amateur...

 

[stona]

To me the idea of big wings seems common sense, get more aircraft up and therefore shoot more down, however the opposite seems to have happened, more up means more targets for the Germans.

During the BoB the problems with Big Wings were many and obvious.

They took too long to assemble and set of for an interception. Leigh-Mallory was happy not to intercept the bombers before they bombed and said so on at least two occasions I can think of. This was anathema to men like Park and Dowding who considered the air defence of Great Britain to entail an effort to prevent the bombing or at the very least disrupt it.
Bader complained that his wing should have been sent off earlier but in this he reveals a complete lack of understanding of how the coordinated system worked and also ignorance of the technical limitations of the system, particularly Chain Home.

A wing cannot climb as fast as a squadron, particularly when made up of the RAF's two principle fighters and much crucial time was lost in take off and the climb and assembly. As Park commented in October 1940.

"Bitter experience has proved time and time again that it is better to intercept the enemy with one squadron above him than by a whole wing crawling up below, probably after the enemy has dropped his bombs."

When Malan briefly operated with 12 Group he managed to join the wing whilst refusing to be part of it. According to Flt.Lt. HM Stephen who was present at Malan's initial meeting with Leigh-Mallory, Malan insisted that he and his squadron should be on top in the air, above everyone else. He and his men would be Park's 'one squadron'.

Jonnie Johnson came to the conclusion that two squadrons was the optimum wing formation for air fighting.

"My own later experience on both offensive and defensive operations confirmed that two squadrons of fighters was the ideal number to lead in the air".

Squadron Leader H. Broadhurst told Johnson.

"Sometimes in 1940 our control and reporting system was unreliable so that plotting enemy raids on the ops tables at Fighter Command and 11 Group was not always accurate. I remember at least one occasion when
there were no hostile plots on the table and yet some of our chaps were shot down. It was, therefore, very important for a flight leader to obey the controller's instructions so that, down in the hole, he would know exactly where the leader was. If like Douglas [Bader] you went darting about all over the place, it upset the whole plotting table. So, when I lead the Wittering wing I obeyed instructions and did what I was told to do."

These men understood how the system worked something Bader demonstrably did not. Bader believed that

"the Battle should have been controlled from Fighter Command HQ, where they had the map of the whole country, and knew the state of each squadron."

Such breath taking ignorance of how the system worked is surprising even from a man like Bader. Group Captain Townsend had this to say about Bader's opinion.

"Douglas Bader wanted control by Fighter Command, by Dowding himself in the last resort. But as Commander in Chief Dowding was far to preoccupied with strategic decisions to follow the Battle blow by blow. He left that to his Group Commanders. 'Bader's suggestion beats the band,' was Park's subsequent comment. 'It would have been impossible for one controller to handle fifty squadrons.'

Bader was only able to get away with all this because of his close relationship with Leigh-Mallory and because the man sitting at a desk under whose control he was supposed to be, Wing Commander AB Woodhall, the Duxford controller, failed to control him. Bader brazenly disobeyed orders 'darting about all over the place' even when he was supposed to be covering 11 Group's airfields.

What experience did Bader base his assumption that WW1 'Flying Circus' type tactics were appropriate to the BoB? He was a recently appointed squadron commander (June 1940) who imagined that he better knew how to fight the Battle than the two men most responsible for creating Fighter Command , themselves masters of strategic and tactical matters. He had little experience of aerial combat either. A close look at 'Big Wing' operations is a salutary lesson.
From 7th September to 29th October the 'Big Wing' undertook 37 operations. It made 7 interceptions, none at all in October when most raids came in at higher altitudes. This was the sum total of Bader aerial combat experience. Even Fighter Command's harshest critics admit an interception rate better than the Wing's 19%. Even 'Dizzy' Allen, who had a decidedly unique but nonetheless valid view of how the battle was fought, admits to a 50% interception rate and his claim is the lowest I've seen.

I will not discuss how many aircraft the Wing shot down as that sort of thing invariably generates more heat than light. Not even Leigh-Mallory's most ardent supporters would believe that it was anything like the 105 that Leigh-Mallory claimed in the summary to his September 1940 report. The number doesn't even tally with the narrative of each patrol in the report which it summarises! Dowding didn't beat about the bush in his response to Leigh-Mallory's creative arithmetic.

"I read a great many combat reports and I think I am beginning to pick out those which can be relied on and those which throw in claims at the end for good measure."

That is just about as close as one senior officer can come to accusing another of cooking the books.

Cheers

Steve

 

[stona]

I'll leave Bader alone for a bit.......I've plenty more

Let's get back to Leigh-Mallory and his support of the so called 'Big Wings'. On 29th January 1941 Leigh-Mallory conducted a paper exercise (familiar to any college trained officer) based on an actual attack on Kenley, Biggin Hill and Hornchurch on 6th September 1940. His intention was to demonstrate that large formations would have been more effective, both in defending the airfields and inflicting losses on the Germans. Unfortunately he completely mismanaged the defence. The raid was not intercepted at all on the way in and, worse, Kenley and Biggin Hill were both bombed whilst the RAF was still on the ground. It's a good job this was a 'theoretical' raid. Several of his mistakes were pointed out to him by Wing Commander Thomas Lang, one of 11 Group's senior controllers. Leigh-Mallory's response was that next time he would do better. There was no next time and a next time wasn't a luxury that Park could have afforded.

Cheers

Steve

 

[merlin]

So, judging by all the unfavourable comments about - Leigh-Mallory, where would a more likely place for him to be, instead of AoC 12 Group e.g. Army Co-op in France 1940, or still in the Middle-East, or ..... ??

 

[Aozora]

So, judging by all the unfavourable comments about - Leigh-Mallory, where would a more likely place for him to be, instead of AoC 12 Group e.g. Army Co-op in France 1940, or still in the Middle-East, or ..... ??

Walmington-on-Sea? Town Trail Walmington-on-Line

 

[Shortround6]

What have you got against the Home Guard ????

 

[OldSkeptic]

What have you got against the Home Guard ????

Good one....

 

[stona]

Leigh-Mallory should have been anywhere but Fighter Command, an organisation which he didn't properly understand at any level. He should also have been kept away from the Americans later. They did not have confidence in him, unlike Tedder.
Cheers
Steve

 

[OldSkeptic]

Leigh-Mallory should have been anywhere but Fighter Command, an organisation which he didn't properly understand at any level. He should also have been kept away from the Americans later. They did not have confidence in him, unlike Tedder.
Cheers
Steve

He pissed off Monty too on several occasions because of his timidity at times. I think he had gotten his fingers burnt too much during that 41/42 period and later on became very loss sensitive.

 

[stona]

An illustration of how Park handled his squadrons is required to show how the command and control system worked and also why Dowding was so keen to keep Fighter Command so far south.

13th August 1940. Park receives good information from radar that a large raid has formed up and is approaching.

1. Left flank. A small formation is put up over two airfields in Suffolk.
2. Left flank. Two full Hurricane squadrons and one Spitfire squadron are ordered up. They are positioned over a convoy in the Thames estuary and the forward airfields at Manston and Hawkinge.
3. Right Flank. A squadron of Tangmere's Hurricanes are sent up. One section patrols its base the rest patrol a line from Petworth to Arundel (West Sussex).
4. Centre. A squadron of Northolt's Hurricanes are sent to a position over Canterbury from where they can be sent either east or west as required.
5. Finally the left is reinforced by two sections of a Spitfire squadron from Kenley and the right with another of Tangmere's squadrons.

These dispositions left Park with about half of his Hurricanes and one third of his Spitfires uncommitted.

The result?
The raid split into two, one part was intercepted by the Canterbury Hurricanes near Bognor, the other by one of the Tangmere squadrons near Worthing. All the Brits will notice that these are two famous seaside towns. Neither reached or bombed its targets. This is a perfect demonstration of the concept of 'forward interception'. One of Park's cardinal principles was in his words "to intercept the enemy before he reached his coastal objective". and this is exactly what he achieved on that day.

Another consequence of the effective resistance put up over SE England on that day was the erroneous conclusion reached by the Luftwaffe that fighters must have been moved south from the North and the Midlands by Fighter Command. This in turn led to the August 15th raids, launched from Norway and Denmark, against targets in those areas. This was another debacle for the Luftwaffe. It's a good job that it was because had any encouragement been offered to the Luftwaffe in those operations they would surely have been repeated, stretching Fighter Command's resources even further.

On 19th August Park summed up the lessons of the recent fighting in one of his numerous instructions to his controllers. He was confident that the Luftwaffe could be thwarted so long as sector aerodromes remained in service and the temptation to swop fighter for fighter was avoided.

It is obvious who drew the most confidence from the operations of the previous week and who thought that, if they hadn't won the exchanges, they had at least achieved the stated objective of avoiding defeat.

Cheers

Steve

 

[OldSkeptic]

An illustration of how Park handled his squadrons is required to show how the command and control system worked and also why Dowding was so keen to keep Fighter Command so far south.

13th August 1940. Park receives good information from radar that a large raid has formed up and is approaching.

1. Left flank. A small formation is put up over two airfields in Suffolk.
2. Left flank. Two full Hurricane squadrons and one Spitfire squadron are ordered up. They are positioned over a convoy in the Thames estuary and the forward airfields at Manston and Hawkinge.
3. Right Flank. A squadron of Tangmere's Hurricanes are sent up. One section patrols its base the rest patrol a line from Petworth to Arundel (West Sussex).
4. Centre. A squadron of Northolt's Hurricanes are sent to a position over Canterbury from where they can be sent either east or west as required.
5. Finally the left is reinforced by two sections of a Spitfire squadron from Kenley and the right with another of Tangmere's squadrons.

These dispositions left Park with about half of his Hurricanes and one third of his Spitfires uncommitted.

The result?
The raid split into two, one part was intercepted by the Canterbury Hurricanes near Bognor, the other by one of the Tangmere squadrons near Worthing. All the Brits will notice that these are two famous seaside towns. Neither reached or bombed its targets. This is a perfect demonstration of the concept of 'forward interception'. One of Park's cardinal principles was in his words "to intercept the enemy before he reached his coastal objective". and this is exactly what he achieved on that day.

Another consequence of the effective resistance put up over SE England on that day was the erroneous conclusion reached by the Luftwaffe that fighters must have been moved south from the North and the Midlands by Fighter Command. This in turn led to the August 15th raids, launched from Norway and Denmark, against targets in those areas. This was another debacle for the Luftwaffe. It's a good job that it was because had any encouragement been offered to the Luftwaffe in those operations they would surely have been repeated, stretching Fighter Command's resources even further.

On 19th August Park summed up the lessons of the recent fighting in one of his numerous instructions to his controllers. He was confident that the Luftwaffe could be thwarted so long as sector aerodromes remained in service and the temptation to swop fighter for fighter was avoided.

It is obvious who drew the most confidence from the operations of the previous week and who thought that, if they hadn't won the exchanges, they had at least achieved the stated objective of avoiding defeat.

Cheers

Steve

Great stuff Steve, keep it up. Sadly an awful lot of people don't know just how good Park was. And he kept it up week after week and basically never put a foot wrong. Amazing performance, one of the greatest pieces of generalship in all history.

As I have mentioned before the BoB is probably one of the most wargamed battles around. And no one has even beaten Park's performance. Incredible to think how he had mastered the tactics of aerial warfare to such an extent....far too many people struggle with it now.

 

[Marcel]

Dutch AF

In 1940, the Dutch AF had 29 Fokker DXXis and 41 GIs (which they commandeered). The Fokker CX bombers were destroyed in the opening day of the assault. most of the medium bombers; Fokker T4, T5 and T8W were in the NEI, but there were 12T5s and at least 8 T8W seaplanes used,

Total Dutch strength at beginning
90 a/c (not including the CX)

Sorry for bringing up an old post and being not on topic, but just read this and these numbers are all wrong. We had 29 D.XXI's, 23 G.1's, which were not all operational on May 10th. 3 of the "spanish" G.1's were actually made partly operational on the last day and flew one mission. Th C.X was far from wiped out, as the matter of fact they flew right up until the last hours of the fight, and didn't suffer that much. The T.V was the main bomber in the Nl, but there were about eight. The last of that one was shot down doing an attack on the moerdijk bridge on May 13th. The T8W was a navy float plane, they flew around and a couple of them fled to the UK flying right until september, forming 320 squadron. I don't believe the T.4 saw any action.

The T5,T8W were never in the NEI

 

[Marcel]

Curious as to why there aren't Dutch pilots listed there. There were several that escaped after Germany overran the Netherlands.

There were no dutch fighter pilots in england at the time. There were naval pilots (see the T8W's that fled to England) and the 320 squadron, but I don't believe any Dutch fighter pilot made it to the UK before August. They were pretty locked up in there.

 

[GrauGeist]

I recall reading where several did make it to Britain after the Netherlands fell to Germany in May.

In addition to those pilots joining the RAF in time for the BoB, there were Dutch Navy Fokkers and crew that made it over to Britain, which became the core of 320 and 321 Squadron.

Eventually, the RAF formed 322 Squadron, an all Dutch fighter unit, but that was in 1943.