If the RAF had been defeated in the Battle of Britain

OldSkeptic said:

Good eyesight, good shooting skills and the ability to manoeuvre the aircraft as a gun platform were the main key skills, as well as situational awareness.
Deflection shooting skills were a real asset and it is no surprise when you look at all the aces you find nearly all of them had good shooting skills before they learned to fly.

Good aerobatic and formation flying skills were probably a liability for a fighter pilot, the British Vic formation was hopeless.
You needed to keep the plane moving around all the time in a high risk area, to avoid being bounced and to be able to see more. Stanford Tuck said he used to deliberately fly very roughly and he was a superb pilot.

Click to expand...

OS, This is interesting. Reading about the USAAF experience in Java, even the combat vets and those considered ready to begin a combat tour appear to have been rigorously trained to the formation flying model. There seem to have been numerous occasions when an element or flight was tasked with covering their mates while landing or doing ground attack and they were bounced and put away by marauding Zeros. They were presumably engaged in scanning the environment for the enemy so as not to be surprised yet they were and ended up as simply meat on the table for the Zeros.

Thach's weave or beam defense maneuver may have provided more benefits than the mutual lookout and defensive options. Introducing continually changing curved flight paths may have been more confounding to an enemy's targeting and eliminated the inherent vulnerability brought about by a relatively predictable flight pattern. It seems like a tight formation of A/C following either a rectilinear path or a simple steady circle would provide a much simpler enemy firing solution.

pinsog said:

I still wonder, as someone brought up earlier in the thread: You have 300 British fighter pilots and 1600 Germans all flying around in the same airspace and the British only get 56 kills. One wonders what was going on. Were 95% of both sides so incompetent that they just flew around in circles and got shot down?

Click to expand...

Not exactly, but 27 RAF fighters were shot down on that day too.

We shouldn't under estimate the effect of relatively large numbers of RAF fighters on the morale of the Luftwaffe either. Many of the fighters might not have been effective in shooting down the Luftwaffe but they were present in a show of apparent strength.
Even Galland asserted that "anything from two hundred to three hundred [British fighters] might be found" when interviewed after the war. The senior narrator of the Air Historical Branch replied that even with the squadrons from 12 Group engaged there rarely more than three hundred fighter available in the whole southeast of England and, rather, sarcastically, that "it would be surprising if Galland ever saw them all in the air at the same time."

Cheers

Steve

The RAF estimate is that there were approximately 290 to 300 combat actions on the 15th of September, from 705 fighter sorties.

While somewhere between 55 and 60 Luftwaffe aircraft were shot down, at least another 40 bombers and 15 fighters had damage of some kind.

To me, that lends a couple of possibilities:
The .303 was relatively ineffective at bringing down its targets;
Fighter pilots were shooting from too far away;
Pilots gunnery skills were inadequate.

Jabberwocky said:

The RAF estimate is that there were approximately 290 to 300 combat actions on the 15th of September, from 705 fighter sorties.

While somewhere between 55 and 60 Luftwaffe aircraft were shot down, at least another 40 bombers and 15 fighters had damage of some kind.

To me, that lends a couple of possibilities:
The .303 was relatively ineffective at bringing down its targets;
Fighter pilots were shooting from too far away;
Pilots gunnery skills were inadequate.

Click to expand...

Yes and no.

The 'No' is that the 8x0.303 was a good killer for time against fighters and the smaller bombers used (though the Ju-88 was more resistant). The stats (source Bungay again) show that they were possibly more effective than the Me-109 E4 cannons of the time in fighter to fighter combat.

The 'yes' comes from RAF gunnery skills .. woeful comes to mind. Basically zero training. Lots of training on formation flying though .. made good targets for Luftwaffe pilots in their nice formations.
The best squadrons (such as 'Sailor Molan's' abandoned them real fast).
Note the issue, short term, when Dowding introduced the A/B/C system. Because whole squadrons (usually from 12 Group) were switched into 11 Group got caught slaughtered as a whole, doing their lovely formation fllying and 'fighter attacks 1,2 or 3...'..

Made even better ones after Dowding and Park were kicked out and the Leigh Mallory's and Bader's could come out to play with their 'big wings' .. and get slaughtered over and over again for years, against 2 fighter groups (ref my post earlier on another thread that they could have just parachuted onto the, few, German airfields in France in 41/42 and clubbed them to death).
Johnston was polite, but a scathing, critic of that time.
And when the Germans, under Galland no less, tried their own big wing stuff (and he should have known better) got slaughtered even faster.

Note though that Luftwaffe 'newbies' were just as hopeless, the far better trained Americans later on slaughtered the inexperienced Luftwaffe pilots just as fast as the Luftwaffe slaughtered the British ones in the BoB (and the British against the German ones).

Yes good guns help, but the first thing to do be able to do is bring the guns into the target. You could have rubbish guns with good pilots and they will kill bad pilots with better guns with ease.

Here's a translation of a document submitted by the OKM to the Fuhrer Conference of 26th July 1040. It outlines the problems associated with conjuring an invasion fleet out of thin air. The KM got 100% behind the plan, as you would expect from a professional military body, but these sorts of documents relating to everything from personnel, to fuel supplies (distillate for the boilers of the KM's destroyers was a major problem) the limited capacity of the ports and so on crop up frequently throughout the period.
Below is the first of many such documents outlining problems and what would be required to overcome them.

"1) Requisitioning the majority of inland barges and the tugs required to tow them to the conversion yards, and transporting them to the embarkation ports will bring inland shipping to a virtual halt. It is not possible to assess the exact effect upon the defence industry, food industry, retail trade and transport, but it is considered that the implications will be very serious. The Reichs Economics Ministry and the Reichs Transport Ministry support this view.

2) Material Required.
a) 30,000 tons iron and steel. This will require rolling mills to work on this project exclusively for ten days, thus postponing work for other contracts accordingly.
b) 40,000 cubic metres of lumber must be available which will have serious effects on the building sector and armaments industry.
c) Concrete. 75,000 cubic metres must be provided; negative impact on entire construction industry.

3) Shipyards
a) Inland yards: Full capacity of all inland shipyards on the Rhine and in the Netherlands/Belgium needed for at least four weeks; all repair work and new construction will have to be postponed for that time.
b) Coastal yards: a substantial portion of their capacity will be needed for the preparation of ocean going ships (coasters, transports, freighter etc); this would have priority over submarine construction. Moreover several hundred auxiliary ships and transports with degaussing systems are to be fitted out. This work will require the use of the workshops in all German dockyards for approximately four weeks, and will take priority over the submarine programme. This would mean, for example, that the work on Tirpitz would have to be postponed for four weeks.

4) The German cable industry will be heavily taxed with completeion of the approximate 1,000 sets of towing equipment, taking precedence over other production such as of mining cables, submarine nets, etc, for about three weeks. Furthermore, many workers from harbour construction projects are required, so that they must be postponed for four weeks.

5) Transport of materials between the manufacturers and the processing plants (dockyards etc) will require a great deal of transportation, most of which is supervised by the Todt organisation. Its other work would necessarily suffer.

In order to perform this work, which will have serious implications for the armaments industry, trade, transport, and private industry in the Reich, the Netherlands and Belgium and which will lead to the postponement of top priority projects for the Navy and other armed forces, authority must be granted at the highest level for Operation Sea Lion to take precedence over other top priority programmes."

These are the facts, as expressed by the OKM, not opinion. Hitler and Jodl agreed to this demand at the conference. The KM started work immediately.

This is a strong argument that even the aborted operation must have had a significant impact on all sections of the Reich's war economy just as the armed forces were recovering from the cost of the victories in western Europe. It must also have effected preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union, using up large resources that could have been better used elsewhere.

Cheers

Steve

OldSkeptic said:

(ref my post earlier on another thread that they could have just parachuted onto the, few, German airfields in France in 41/42 and clubbed them to death).

Click to expand...

There was actually a plan to do this, but it didn't quite work out in the planning stage, so it was abandoned. 5 French Commandos were parachuted into Northern France and were supposed to ambush German fighter pilots on their way to their airfields, but when it turned out they didn't arrive in one bus, making them a concentrated and very easy target, but rather individually on bikes and in cars as they got ready (and were coming from various billets), the plan wouldn't work other than to kill a handful of pilots, provoke retaliation against civilians, and result in better protection of the pilots in the future. So they abandoned the attack and dispersed, eventually making it back to England. Still, an interesting thought.

OldSkeptic said:

Bungey (and others) go into this quite a lot. Studies of all air warfare show that most kills are made by a small number of pilots (in Bungey's terms the 'hunter killers'). Then you have a large group of people that can survive in the battle field, but don't contribute much, then there is the cannon fodder (the victims). Naturally newbies make up most of the cannon fodder.

Good eyesight, good shooting skills and the ability to manoeuvre the aircraft as a gun platform were the main key skills, as well as situational awareness.
Deflection shooting skills were a real asset and it is no surprise when you look at all the aces you find nearly all of them had good shooting skills before they learned to fly.

Good aerobatic and formation flying skills were probably a liability for a fighter pilot, the British Vic formation was hopeless.
You needed to keep the plane moving around all the time in a high risk area, to avoid being bounced and to be able to see more. Stanford Tuck said he used to deliberately fly very roughly and he was a superb pilot.
The German formation was excellent and is the standard everyone uses today.

Dowding's A/B/C squadron idea was also a response to whole squadrons of inexperienced pilots being slaughtered when they were moved into 11 Group. Ones that had no experience of combat at all.
In other words they were all cannon fodder.

Same thing happened to the only German one of 109s that got moved into the Battle that was inexperienced (unfortunately for the British virtually all the German ones were very experienced).

Click to expand...

I have to agree with a lot of what is being said here.
I have recently seen 2 documentaries which featured George Beurling. It would seem that he was a naturally gifted pilot who was top of his training class, was an exceptional marksman with incredible eyesight and instincts.
He also was not - particularly in the early days a team player or a good follower of orders etc.
He practiced scanning to make sure he would see any aircraft at maximum range, became outstanding at deflection shooting, and made alterations to the make up of his ammunition, and harmonization of his guns.
I know a lot of people say he was not a nice person, but he was sure effective in the air.

stona said:

In order to perform this work, which will have serious implications for the armaments industry, trade, transport, and private industry in the Reich, the Netherlands and Belgium and which will lead to the postponement of top priority projects for the Navy and other armed forces, authority must be granted at the highest level for Operation Sea Lion to take precedence over other top priority programmes."

These are the facts, as expressed by the OKM, not opinion. Hitler and Jodl agreed to this demand at the conference. The KM started work immediately.

This is a strong argument that even the aborted operation must have had a significant impact on all sections of the Reich's war economy just as the armed forces were recovering from the cost of the victories in western Europe. It must also have effected preparations for the invasion of the Soviet Union, using up large resources that could have been better used elsewhere.

Cheers

Steve

Click to expand...

Thanks for that. It helps disprove the theory that the invasion plans were a mere 'bluff'.

The Normandy invasion was tough enough with total air AND sea domination by the allies.

What would have happened if there had been no surface ship protection from the US and British fleets and a fleet the size of the Royal Navy had sailed in attacked the defenseless invasion fleet?

That is correct, the invasion would have failed, and the allies were 100 times more prepared for the invasion than the Germans would ever have been.

redcoat said:

Thanks for that. It helps disprove the theory that the invasion plans were a mere 'bluff'.

Click to expand...

Yes and no. There was initially an intent to mount the invasion. As I alluded to at the top of the post the problems simply kept piling up, particularly for the Navy (KM). Many senior officers simply did not believe it was possible, some thought it would be suicide. In the end it did end up being an expensive bluff. Just like poker, have your bluff called, and it was when the British failed to negotiate, and you have to pay up.

I highly recommend Peter Schenk's "Invasion of England 1940- the planning of operation sea lion" ISBN 0-85177-549-9, to anyone interested in the German side of the operation. It is the best book out there on the subject and benefits from meticulous research and also benefits from the earlier works of authors like Ansel, Klee and Wheatley on the subject.
My trusty copy has been well thumbed recently!

Cheers

Steve

Hello Steve
yes, Schenk's book is good.

Juha

Excellent discussion(s) and so varied that I'll just jump around.

RAF saving Britain: I wrote an article for the BoB 75th anniversary with a long look at German abilities, since it's uncertain that Hitler intended to invade. (Obviously, his fondest goal lay in the other direction.) In the summer & early fall of 40 the Wehrmacht lacked an adequate phib capability--I cannot find evidence of any bow-ramp landing craft, let alone those capable of delivering heavy vehicles across a beach. (Recall the troop barges to be towed from France across the channel. Hooboy...) Therefore, an invasion would require securing one or preferably two large ports such as Dover, Portsmouth or Plymouth. (Southampton's too far inland.) Presumably cranes would've been needed to hoist tanks/trucks ashore, and obviously the Brits would not leave those ports intact if forced to abandon them.

There's a widely held notion that many aces were good shooters before entering the service. It's not true. Even with the 1940s demographics of a heavily rural population, few were thoroughly familiar with firearms, let alone skilled wing shots. Joe Foss was one of the exceptions, growing up on a South Dakota farm, and Dick Bong in rural Wisconsin. But I knew a couple of hundred aces, and often asked about their firearms interests. The huge majority had little experience before enlisting. Those who did well in combat seemed to combine innate ability with ample training. McGuire comes to mind.

Hello Barrett
in fact Germans had many solutions how to land heavy vehicles to beach from their barges and ferries up to Pz IIIs and IVs. In Peter Schenk's book there are several photoes and drawings on these.

Juha

pinsog said:

The Normandy invasion was tough enough with total air AND sea domination by the allies.

What would have happened if there had been no surface ship protection from the US and British fleets and a fleet the size of the Royal Navy had sailed in attacked the defenseless invasion fleet?

That is correct, the invasion would have failed, and the allies were 100 times more prepared for the invasion than the Germans would ever have been.

Click to expand...

...total air and sea domination and successful opposed landings in North Africa, Sicily, and a few spots in the Pacific (do you really think that Marine and Army planners for US forces in the Pacific didn't talk to their opposite numbers in Europe?

Juha[/QUOTE]

Juha2 said:

Hello Barrett
in fact Germans had many solutions how to land heavy vehicles to beach from their barges and ferries up to Pz IIIs and IVs. In Peter Schenk's book there are several photoes and drawings on these.

Juha

Click to expand...

This is so, but not easily as we would see the Allies do a few years later.

In order to unload vehicles the barges, once tethered bow on to the beach, would have to wait for the water level to drop with the ebbing tide. The landings were supposed to be timed so that this wait would be between 15 and 45 minutes. During this time the barges and their cargoes would present a large and stationary target to any land, sea or air based defences.

The Germans did have both submersible and 'swimming' panzers. The submersibles may have got ashore, the swimmers needed almost a flat calm, not commonly found on the English Channel in September.

Cheers

Steve

The Germans were fully serious in their intent to land, but their arrangements and planning were nothing short of laughable. DKM were completely sceptical of their ability to get across the channel (with or without the control of the air), and to my mind were the only one of the three services to apply serious feasibility analyses to the problem. Even without RN interference the rhine barges would have struggled to even get across the channel. With a best sea speed of 2.5 knots (some vessels could do more, but the fleet speed would have been under 3 knots). at that speed, some craft would struggle to deal with tidal currents, and with an average distance of 80--100 miles to cover, it would have taken the best part of week to make the crossing (taking into account zig zag defence and the like). Allowing 4 days of loading time from the damaged channel ports, you have your assault echelons on board for more than a week in completely unhygienic conditions, most of the soldiers would have been dead or very sick by the time the heer had been transported to the assault beaches.

The army likened the exercise to an elaborate river crossing, while the LW were as usual intent on winning the whole battle on their own .

Perhaps one of the few men to appraise the chances realistically was hitler whose directives never specified the carrying out of the landings, rather just to prepare, suffixed by the odd term "and if necessary carry it (the invasion) out". That is not the stuff of a definite directive. That says to me that hitler doubted it was possible. compare the language used in the Sealion fuhrer directive, to the way he gave firm and un-arguable instructions for Fuhrer directive 21, the invasion of the USSR

The Germans may have been fully serious about invading Britain, but the British would have been even more serious about stopping it. The RN would most certainly have repeatedly attacked the invasion force; the remnants of the RAF would have done the same.

About the only chance hitler would have for victory in WWII is an extreme right regime in the US, and such a government would still be likely to go to war with hitler's ally, Japan

This is an excellent threat on the reception side of possible German landing, and at the exact point shows a coprasion between Atlantic Wall and British preparations State of British Ground Forces, September 1940, Sealion • Axis History Forum

But the whole tread is very informative.

swampyankee said:

About the only chance hitler would have for victory in WWII is an extreme right regime in the US, and such a government would still be likely to go to war with hitler's ally, Japan

Click to expand...

A more likely recipe for success would be the replacement of Churchill with a more compliant individual. Had the RAF lost air superiority over southeast England during the early phase of the Battle of Britain, it's possible that a vote of no confidence in Churchill's leadership at that early stage might have resulted in a more appeasement-focused government that was willing to make a deal with Hitler. That would give Hitler precisely what he wanted - a single-front war against the USSR. There would be no threat from the US because of the lack of operating bases near Europe and history would be very different...with no need for the German military to invade the UK (at least not in an opposed sense).

The build up of forces in the channel was as much political as military, hoping the threat of invasion was enough to promt a change of leader and a peace deal.

You cannot cross a channel with currents of upto 6 kts towing barges at two kts. You land when and where the sea allows you to land, and the chances of making it back to where you set off from and then coming back to land more troops and equipment are close to zero.