Germany adopts late war 8th AF tactics during the BoB

[Balljoint]

Wouldn't it depend on the objective? If it was just huffing and puffing to intimidate with the objective of a "peace" settlement, the tactics were about as good and useless as any. But, if Sea Lion was a serious invasion plan, then air superiority should have been the objective. Killing GB fighters and, more importantly, pilots as per Doolittle would have been the better tactic.
With the LW resources available, a long way from success, but the better tactic.

 

[davebender]

Germany publically made a peace proposal and they had no landing craft. That speaks for itself.

Getting the Luftwaffe chewed up in daytime air battles Germany could not hope to win only encouraged Britain to keep fighting. Dropping bombs all over London while attacking the docklands (which were located in center of London) didn't help matters either. Nobody likes having their home bombed even if it was an accident.

1940 Germany needs a different strategy for bringing Britain to the peace table.

 

[stona]

A drop tank for the Bf 109,which was entirely possible in 1940,would have dramatically incresed the endurance of the aircraft. Range was not really an issue with airfields 20 odd miles from the English south coast, across the Channel in northern France.
This was a situation not envisaged by pre-war RAF planners who had not anticipated the arrival of bombers,escorted by single engine fighters,over southern England.

There is absolutely no need for the sort of fuel loads carried by later war allied aircraft carrying out deep penetration raids into Germany across hundreds of miles of the North Sea and continental Europe. Such loads,unlike a drop tank,were,and remained,impossible for the Bf 109.

Fighter Command wasn't interested in standing patrols. Both its principal fighters were short range interceptors developed not in isolation but as part of a system. Dowding considered standing patrols to be inefficient use of his limited force,a pointless way of using up engine hours and tiring out his aircrew. The whole point of developing a well coordinated air defence system was to avoid exactly that sort of thing.
The adoption of standing patrols is not to be confused with the sort of small reconnaissance flights used to distinguish between the different types of raids Airframes mentioned near the start of the thread.

Cheers

Steve

 

[davebender]

I agree.

535 liters of internal fuel plus 300 liter drop tank (i.e. similiar to Fw-190) would allow German fighter aircraft to provide effective escort over S.E. England from bases in France. Unfortunately (for Germany) neither Fw-190s nor 300 liter drop tanks were available in quantity during summer 1940.

 

[stona]

I agree.

Unfortunately (for Germany) neither Fw-190s nor 300 liter drop tanks were available in quantity during summer 1940.

No they weren't that's so.
Drop tanks (and the additional oil reservoirs to cope with the longer endurance) could have been available for the Bf 109 in 1940. At least one aircraft shot down down during the BoB had such equipment and a note reminding the pilot to transfer the extra oil after an hours flight time,though not the tank,installed.
The Luftwaffe,just like the USAAF later,was very slow off the mark with this relatively simple and cheap expedient for increasing the range of its fighters. It was just one of many opportunities missed.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Cheers
Steve

 

[Jabberwocky]

Germany publically made a peace proposal and they had no landing craft. That speaks for itself.

Hitler's 'Last Appeal to Reason' was hardly reasonable, and not really a peace proposal, more a call for capitulation, interspersed with rambling about capitalist conspiracies and Hitler's personal obsession with Churchill.

Given that that the Luftwaffe was bombing British ships in the Channel that morning, 141 Sqn Defiants got a severe shalacking in the afternoon and Glasgow, Portsmouth and Swanage were bombed at night, I can seen how genuine he was...

As for having no landing craft, well, that's the Kriegsmarine's fault for not thinking ahead, rather than any sign that the Germans don't want to invade. Witness the frenetic conversion of barges later in the summer.

 

[stona]

As for having no landing craft, well, that's the Kriegsmarine's fault for not thinking ahead, rather than any sign that the Germans don't want to invade. Witness the frenetic conversion of barges later in the summer.

It's not that Germany didn't want to invade. It's that Germany couldn't invade. This has been discussed many times here.

The allies invaded on D-Day with complete air superiority,tens of thousands of airborns troops,thousands of ships of all types,landing craft,specialist armour etc. In the aftermath the brought their own harbours and laid fuel pipelines under the Channel. It was a massive undertaking and yet was still not a forgone conclusion. Just what exactly was the Wermacht supposed to do?

Of course the Luftwaffe tried to keep the pressure on to back up Hitler's appeal. It wasn't an armistice,it was a bluff.

Cheers

Steve

 

[bbear]

From a newbie (ie this comes with a high caution rating)

If you'll excuse me (partly recycling senior statements from other threads). I think, surely, it would take more than technical capability of range.

The response from RAF FC in the BoB was strategically different to the response of the LW in 1944. By 1940 the capacity existed so that aircraft could be replaced quickly. A fighter pilot, according to Dowding, took a year to train to a survivable level of combat performance.

As I understand it to win, to deny air superiority to the enemy, you don't need to destroy him completely, just kill/capture more of his pilots than you lose yourself every day and keep your facilities and factories open. Airfield raids in the BoB did not produce the required airborne defensive over-commitment - 'Rhubarb' operations for the allies didn't work well in France later either, as I recall.

So keeping your fighter pilots on the ground as much as possible is the winning defensive move in the 1940's.

Why the German JGs engaged the 8th so strongly in 1944 I don't know. Politics? Goering? Or just that the 8th onslaught was overwhelmingly threatening – I'm still reading ….

 

[drgondog]

Why the German JGs engaged the 8th so strongly in 1944 I don't know. Politics? Goering? Or just that the 8th onslaught was overwhelmingly threatening – I'm still reading ….

Speer was extremely alarmed regarding the threat posed by US strategic bombing capabilities. Milch, who replaced Udet, combined with Galland argued somewhat successfully with Hitler to re-allocate aircraft production to increase fighter Production in 1943 and started the transition from a LuftFlotte 3 in the West and a weak Luftwaffenbefehlishaber Mitte (Lwbh Mitte) in Germany to LuftFlotte Reich which drew increasing reinforcements from East and South to meet the combined Operations threat posed by RAF and 8th AF.

Hamburg in July 1943 and Ploesti/Schweinfurt in August blew the 'concerns' into a real fear of the consequences of Allied bombing of Germany - both politically (Hamburg) and militarily (Ploesti and Schweinfurt). The LW developed a layered defense in which LF3 and western elements of LF Reich engaged 8th AF over North sea, Holland and France to extract significant losses (but also losing critical skills) but truly punished the 8th when un-escorted. 1944 was just an extension of the Fall commitment in 1943 and units continued to be transferred into LF Reich through May 1944 trying to stem the onslaught on critical German industry as well as fighter pilots.

 

[stona]

So keeping your fighter pilots on the ground as much as possible is the winning defensive move in the 1940's.….

Which is why,even as early in the latter stages of the BoB Fighter Command tried to ascertain the make up of Luftwaffe raids as the formed up over France. They would not rise to "freijagd" fighter sweeps. The Luftwaffe did exactly the same later and in 1941. The RAF tried to bait them with flights of bombers.
The situation for the Luftwaffe later in the war was quite different. The allies were attacking targets that either for military or political reasons,it had to defend.
Cheers
Steve

 

[vinnye]

I believe that the LW suffered from too much success in their early campaigns. This lead to over confidence in its pilots and leader, so when it was faced with a different proposition - the integrated defence of the UK - they struggled to find a solution. They did try to engage the RAF with fighter heavy raids on ships in the Channel. The RAF (Dowding) became wise to this and refused to engage unless there were bombers to attack. As previously posted - this was a crucial way of avoiding over taxing the pilots and ground crews of the RAF, conserving them for the times when it was necessary to engage the LW.
I also agree that poor intelligence meant that bomber airfields were sometimes targetted in the belief that they were fighter bases - a waste of time, materiel and pilots.
When the LW attacked the radar installations, they did it half heartedly. There were not enough raids devoted to this sort of attack for them to be successful. If they had achieved their goal in blinding the RAF, then the RAF may have needed to resort to standing patrols with all of the drawbacks that involves.

 

[stona]

Dowding also made it clear that the target for the RAF's fighters was the Luftwaffe's bombers. He did not want them to become engaged in fighting with the fighter escorts. Both the RAF's principle fighters during the BoB had been designed to shoot down bombers,it's why they were armed with eight machine guns.
Cheers
Steve

 

[fastmongrel]

When the LW attacked the radar installations, they did it half heartedly. There were not enough raids devoted to this sort of attack for them to be successful. If they had achieved their goal in blinding the RAF, then the RAF may have needed to resort to standing patrols with all of the drawbacks that involves.

There were mobile Chain Home stations that could have filled the gaps. They were nowhere near as long ranged as the Cain Home or Chain Home Low towers but they could have helped with early warning and fighter control. Also a big part of the Chain was the Royal Obsever Corp and the LW could never have stopped them working unless they took every phone exchange in the area out as well

 

[vinnye]

Yep, I recognise the importance of the Observer Corps, they were able to identify the type of aircraft, height, speed and course in a raid. This was valuable additional information to that from the radar sets. I had not realised that there were additional mobile units to help plug any gaps that were made by the LW or equipment failure.

 

[stona]

There were mobile Chain Home stations that could have filled the gaps.

Really? In 1940. How could you move 360' high towers or masts and the 240' high receivers?

The Observer Corps was vital because Chain Home looked out to see in a 60 degree arc. Once a raid reached the coast it was invisible to British radar.

The "Air Ministry Experimental Station Type 2" or Chain Home Low could be moved but the limits of its capabilities are in the name......"Low". It also operated with a narrow beam which had to be rotated,initially manually,with all the fun and games that entailed

Cheers

Steve

 

[fastmongrel]

Really? In 1940. How could you move 360' high towers or masts

Steve

Didnt explain myself properly the mobile stations werent Chain Home. They were AA gunnery RDF sets that could also be used as warning sets. Range was short but they would have detected a raid before it crossed the Channel. Nowhere near the warning time of CH but they would have filled in the gaps temporarily.

I am on a phone that wont let me do links but there is a great site Radar Pages Home page that has loadsof information.

 

[vinnye]

Thanks for the clarification Fast. I had assumed that the mobile units would have to be smaller than CH - and had linked that with the reduced range and hence warning time provided by them.

 

[stona]

Chain Home Low was based on work done on early gun laying radar.
It could be moved but certainly wasn't mobile in the modern sense.
The first mobile radar that I can think of went into service sometime in 1942. The cavity magnetron (and many other technological advances) made things a lot smaller. I want to say that this was the Type 11 but don't take my memory for it
Cheers
Steve

 

[fastmongrel]

I think the mobile sets were type9 but it should say on the site I couldnt link to. One of the mobile sets was left behind in France and the Germans were very sniffy about its crude design and build compared to the German radars. Despite the fact that German radars had barely got into production, whilst Britain was producing them as fast possible. Typical of the British good enough for today and the German best tommorow.

 

[vinnye]

Thank god the "It will do" mentality pervaded at the time!