The idea about winning a war of material is to get your enemy to waste more of his assets/ resources than you are. Losing men/material to actually gain something, even if the "gain" is a few days time to save a larger amount of men and material is one thing. Losing men and material just so you can "say" you are hitting back is another.
The Russians had more men to lose than the Germans and they used/lost them to stop the Germans and drive them back, but they were also running out of men in the spring of 1945. Maybe they 'spent' a little too freely earlier in the war?
'Showering the enemy with Merlins amd Aluminium doesn`t count plus its pricey. Please note I`m conversant on Spit ops no expert but I wholeheartly believe the Spit was mis employed'
Shortround pbfoot, I have a great deal of respect for your views.
I understand the Russian V German battle and Stalins disregard for the value of his men's life.
The British and Commonwealth, the American ,the French and German troops had had a belly full of General's disregard of life in WW1.'lions lead by Donkeys' is a good book.
The 'Rhurbarb' and 'Circuses' were expensive, 200 pilots in 3 months and that is why Churchill stopped those operations. We could not sustain that loss rate. Even Bader and Stanford Tuck were shot down.
The answer to your points is more complex than I believe you think. If you look at the British (and I include all those other countries whose men had volunteered) position after the BoB you will see that we had had a close shave. The immediate threat of invasion had passed and while Britain was continually attacked for the remainer of WW2 the German invasion plan never resurfaced.
So, what do we do? The LW have been defeated /gave up ( you decide) and our allies have yet to join in the European war in any meaningful way and the Lend Lease deals are still being thrashed out.
We have the improved Spitfire to use as a ground attack weapon, We have our bombers and we have our Navy to fight with.
The Royal Marine Commando raids on occupied Europe and North Africa are a subject in themselves with loss of men, bad luck and very hard lessons learnt.
Churchill
had to keep the momentum going, keep the British chin up, whatever expression you care to use and the military that could be used to hit back at the enemy was used as well as we could at the time.
The effectiveness of the rescources used and wasted during this period are all now judged with the benefit of hindsight. I have read a lot about the Commando and bomber raids and the low level attacks and I am saddened at the sheer cost of achieving very little, other than being seen to fight on and show Germany and the rest of the world that Britain was not done.
I believe these operations were entirely acceptable and understandable in the context of the time.
Cheers
John