My post said too little, too late and I am sure! You cannot make one part of the expression bold and not the other. Yes they were there at the start, but what EPG 210 worked on had to be perfected and part of LW strategy before the battle started. By batted out of the game I meant it was proved uncompetitive with single engined fighters as a fighter. In total, its losses amounted to all its front line strength at the start, what was left in service represented what had been produced during the battle, substantially less than produced which is unsustainable. By the end Spitfire and Hurricane numbers were substantially more. If the Bf 110 was used as a precision ground attack weapon things may have been different. However "Erprobungsgruppe" has a clue in its name, it was a test unit ( from my knowledge of German where I worked but not in 1940), experimenting with a new use for the Bf110. To have a dramatic and game changing effect many or most Bf 110 should have been used that way. But then you must remove many units from the Battle of France with their kills and in the Battle of Britain with their kills because they were bombers. I agree they should have concentrated on the RADAR stations and they should have concentrated on airfields. Having Manston downgraded to an emergency field by late August sums up the issue, it was closer to LW airfields in France than it was to London, it should have been rendered inoperable in the first few days. From German intelligence they won. They eliminated the front line strength of the RAF during the battle but completely underestimated British production of fighters and pilots. Their lack of "intelligence" in the military sense also meant they successfully wrecked airfields that were nothing to do with defence, like coastal command fields a complete waste of effort.
All this is a "what if". The German military in all other battles had rolled up the opposition. Once you over run the first airfields, even if planes and pilots escape you have the spares ground crew and any plane that couldnt fly that day. Very quickly you have the opposition on the run and less and less effective. When the LW came up against the channel it was a different opponent and a different situation. They never really understood the role of RADAR, when they knocked some out and they were still intercepted they gave up trying. Did they not consider that they overlapped? Even their intelligence told them they did. To really knock a hole in it you need to take three out side by side along the coast and keep them out then the middle one is the hole.
I think the fall of France took everyone by surprise, most of all Germany. They hadnt considered at all what they would do or how they would attack UK because they didnt expect to be in that situation. They hadnt come across a defence system using RADAR as the basis for command and control, even when it was over they (or Goering) were pretty much unaware of what happened and how it happened.
An excellent post, pbehn!
I'll answer some points.
First paragraph:
I highlighted too late because I was surprised at that, given 210 were already in action on 13th July.
Too little - yes as far as deploying far more Bf 110 units as fighter-bombers. But the concept was in its infancy. It was worked up at Rechlin, and Hauptmann Karl Valesi was seconded from Rechlin to the unit (3. Staffel) because of the work he had done on the Bf 109 E as a fighter-bomber there.
I'm not so sure of this: "...it was proved uncompetitive with single engined fighters as a fighter..." It knocked down its share in the Western Campaign in the Spring of 1940, and also in the Battle of Britain. That is not to say it didn't get knocked down in numbers itself, because it did, but as I pointed out, lossed for all four main fighters in the BoB ran into hundreds.
And yes, 'Erprobungsgruppe 210' was, as its name implies, a test unit. I believe the speed of the German victory caught the Luftwaffe High Command by surprise. From working up the Me 210, matters changed to the Bf 109 and Bf 110 as fighter-bombers. In transferring 1/.ZG 1 to 1./Erpr. Gr. 210, they took their Bf 110 C-6s with them (single 30 mm, cannon in place of the two 20 mm. cannon), and 1./Erpr. Gr. 210 did not get their first fighter-bombers until early August, with the first mission being flown as fighter-bombers on 11th August.
It is also a fact British aircraft production (and repair through the Civilian Repair Organisation [CRO]) totally out-performed German production.
And I agree it was a mistake to back off the RDF stations. The German High Command simply did not know the workings of the 'command and control' in place within RAF Fighter Command. But I believe the ordinary aircrews did. Edmund Ernst (1./Erpr. Gr. 210, PoW 6th September 1940) once said to me, in so many words 'Mr. Vasco, once we took off and headed over the Channel, we knew you were watching us. We knew young lads like us were climbing into fighters, taking off, and being guided on to us. It had happened too often for it to be coincidence. That fear in the pit of your stomach was always there'.
Second paragraph:
Yep, all other campaigns had been in support of the ground forces. Advancing and moving forward from base to base. Suddenly, a 'static' campaign, with no movement of a 'front'. Fighting on their own, not co-ordinating. On the other hand, we had our battle lines drawn, backed up by the then most modern defence system in the world.
