What plane (if any) could have made a difference for Germany in the Battle of Britain

[fastmongrel]

Fastmongrel, don't forget they had to stop for tea every so often, but they were still pretty effective.

All RAF aircraft are equipped with a kettle and teapot. Officers get fine bone china, Earl Grey tea and silver sugar tongs. Non coms get a chipped mug and a teabag.

Everyone says it was the carburettor on the Merlin prevented Spits and Hurricanes diving as fast as a 109. It wasnt it was the tea spilling that was the problem. Which was only cured by the invention of the pressure injected Bendix-Stromberg teacup.

 

[Colin1]

All in all it seems pretty common knowledge, as a poster just mentioned the same a couple of posts before mine as well.

For God sakes man
bring yourself to use my name - it was me

Deighton does mention it and I'm going through my biographies/autobiographies to build a consistent picture

 

[Juha]

Hello Kurfürst
so you compared RAF "fighter training" to Knoke's whole flight training, and found out that LW's flight training was clearly longer than RAF fighter training? A bit strange and absolutely meaningless comparison. OTU training might well be cut shorter during the height of the BoB, no doubt on that. But as official figures show, see my earlier message, even if LW fighter pilots got more flight training and more hours on operational a/c before Sept. 42, the difference was much smaller than the impression you wanted to give in your earlier message.

Juha

 

[Kurfürst]

But as official figures show, see my earlier message, even if LW fighter pilots got more flight training and more hours on operational a/c before Sept. 42, the difference was much smaller than the impression you wanted to give in your earlier message.

Juha

Nope, the difference between training on operational types were enormous. Earlier you wrote, based on Murray:

"LW fighter pilots got some 240h of flight training, of which some 80h on operational types, RAF fighter pilots got some 200h, of which 50h on operational types."

The discussion is about the BoB period (July-October 1940 FYI), and the specific question is how did the British and German fighter pilots flying time relate to each other in the period. You, on the other hand, quote an avarage figure via Murray in the period of September 1939 to September 1942. Obviously it includes three periods: pre-war RAF training, where there were a lot of flying, the BoB period when they showed where the stick and pedals were and off you go to shoot Heinkels, and the 1941-1942 period when Fighter Command spending less and less time fighting and more and more time training.

Now, the actual number of flying hours during the BoB period were massively less then that. Delve writes, on page 227, in Chapter "1941 - More problems":

The average OTU course by mid 1941 was 40 hours on type - four times more than it had been in 1940. Although tactics and gunnery were still not significant part sof the syllabus, A great deal of time was spent honing the skills of pilots to enable them to manoeuvre in attack and defence. and it is strange that so little was done to ensure thatthey had a good standa rd of mark smanship. Less than three of the 40 hours were spent on actual firing, and cine-gun, whilst very useful, was of limited use in comparison.

In other words, the avarage OTU course in 1940 was a mere 10 hours. Of course this was an avarage, some got even less, some got more. Delve notes on page 220 that J. Johnson for example had a massive 23 hours of Spitfire flying when he was posted to a Squadron. :

A general comment made by many fighter pilots is that they were given very little tactical training, either in training or on the squadron. In 1940 Spitfires and Hurricanes were in short supply and were needed in the squadrons; there were very few to spare for the training units and pilots had to make do with whatever types were availab le.

However, the policy of leaving such additional type experience and tactical training to the squadrons was massively flawed. It was workable in 1939 and even into early 1940 with the Phoney War, although it very much depended on the attitude of the CO and his senior pilots, some of whom saw 'sprog' pilots as more trouble then they were worth.

In August 1940 Johnnie Johnson was posted to 19 Squad ron at Duxford with a total of 205 hours in his logbook, of which 23 were on Spitfires. The promised extra training was not forthcoming as the Squadron was having problems with its new cannon armament: ' I don't know how we shall find time to train you chaps. We've simply got to get these things working first.'

The concept of on-squadr n training was totally flawed, especially at a time when the squadrons were hard-pressed to maint ain operational status. Most Flight and Squadron Commanders did the best they could and tried to shield new boys from ops unt il they had built-up a few more hours and had flown a few mock combats. Sadly, for many a bright young fighter pilot his first combat experience was often his last.

Now, how much training did on avarage a Luftwaffe fighter pilot got in avarage between 39-42 on an operational type, 80 hours? And I am pretty confident they got more early in the war than in 1942.. and these were the freshmen. I dare not to imagine how much time the veterans of Spain, Poland and France had under their belt on their operational type, and at the start of the Battle they were pretty much all veterans, and at the minimum flying their operational type for at least a year..

 

[Milosh]

Steinhilper wrote about one of his replacement pilots:

Quote:
High also on the list of losses as the battle wore on were the replacement pilots. They simply didn't have the experience that we pre-war regulars had acquired. In our Gruppe at the beginning of the French Campaign we had thirty-six experienced pilots, none of whom had less than three years flying experience. Now we were getting replacements for the experienced pilots we had lost straight from Jagdfliegerschule (fighter school]. At that time we still tried our best to take care of these fledglings until they could accrue some experience.

Typical of these youngsters was a young Gefreiter who arrived in late September. His flying time was minimal - he had only fired a few shots at a ground target, had never flown on oxygen and still had no idea how to use his radio. We tried to increase their experience before they actually came along on combat missions by taking them up on patrols between missions. Then we would talk on the radio, climb to altitudes in excess of 8,000 metres (25,000 ft) and make them use oxygen. Of special importance was teaching them how to change the pitch of their propeller to get maxmum pull from the engine at high altitude. A flat pitch would allow the engine to rev up to its maximum so that the super-charger would deliver the maximum volume of air to the cylinders and produce optimum power; changing to a coarser pitch would have that engine power converted into more pull and consequently speed our rate of climb. It was vital they mastered this technique if they were to keep up in a battle-climb or at high altitude.5

After about ten hours of 'tuition' we would take them out over the Channel to shoot at shadows on the water or cross to Dungeness and shoot at a black medieval tower which stood there (the old Dungeness Lighthouse). Finally when we could not excuse them combat duty any more we would have to take them along with us. This became the case with the Gefreiter and so I took him as my Rottenhund Iwingman]. We began our climb almost immediately after take-off and he was constantly using the radio to ask us to slow down so that he could keep up. It was obvious that he wasn't manipulating the pitch control with the skill of the more seasoned pilots to produce the same power as our machines. We tried to tell him what to do on the radio but to no avail. Eventually, about half-way across the Channel and at 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) Kiihle told him to leave the formation and return to base. He broke away but in his confusion he turned not for home but towards Dover. Kiihle realised what was happening and ordered me to give chase and take him home. I rolled out and soon overhauled him, just before we reached the balloon barrage at Dover. I had tried to raise him on the radio but he was in such a state of anxiety that he wouldn't or couldn't respond. Positioning myself in front of him I rocked my wings, using the signal for him to follow me. He dutifully hung onto my tail and we were soon back at Coquelles. This was one of only two missions I missed during the whole of our time in the Battle of Britain.

As a result we decided that we would not take any more replacements on high altitude missions until we could give them more, much more, training. They were supposed to be replacements but in the event they were more of a problem for us than reinforcement for the squadron.

 

[Juha]

Hello Kurfürst
one could get flying time in rather vaguely termed operational a/c already in service flying training schools, which doesn't at least usually in 1940 mean in Spitfires/Hurricanes. And you have completely forgot the training given in "C" Class sqns, which were given in operational a/c usually in Spits and Hurris. This scheme using resting operational sqns in North to give the final tactical training was in force from Sept 8 to Dec 1 1940, ie until new OTUs were formed.

One didn't necessarily use Spits or Hurris in operational training, older fighters would do too. The main things to be learnt were the principles of formations and tactics.

J.E.J.'s experience was rather unique, No 19 Sqn being the only sqn operating with Spit Mk IB at that time. Of course the sqns were run rather independently, so much depended on S/L's attitude. And in fact he was soon trasferred to 616 Sqn just because they did not have time to train him in 19 Sqn.

Quote: "I dare not to imagine how much time the veterans of Spain, Poland and France had under their belt on their operational type, and at the start of the Battle they were pretty much all veterans, and at the minimum flying their operational type for at least a year.."

Also RAF pre-war regulars and even pre-war auxiliaries had clearly more flying hours under they belts than LW pilots coming to combat sqn, so again apples and oranges. But yes in average LW fighter pilots had more combat experience and more importantly, they had much better tactics. But many FC pilots had some combat experience before BoB, from France or from Dunkerque

Juha

And on Murray's Sept 39 to Sept 42 clearly didn't include prewar training, in 1941-42 IMHO the training system didn't change much, syllabus might have but of course in sqns there was more time for training, but that is a different matter

 

[Juha]

Hello
I checked Rall's memoirs, when he was transferred to 4./JG 52 on 20 Sept 39, he had 55 min, yes minutes, not hours, flight time in Bf 109, and that in D model. In the Staffel, which was a first-line Staffel, he got 10 hours in Bf 109E before his first combat sortie.

Juha

 

[Juha]

I checked a bit more
Rall had spent 2 months in Werneuchen Fighter School, but most of time flying in Ar 68 in tight vic, only 5 gunnery exercises, but he cannot remember was even one air-to-air. He was introduced to Rotte and Schwarm flying only at 4./JG 52, he also flew 2 gunnery training flights in 4./JG 52 before his first combat sortie.

Not so much different to what Tim Elkington got, when he arrived No. 1 Sqn in mid July 40, so during the BoB , with 166 flight hours in his logbooks. Before his first combat sortie he accumulated in the sqn 16 hours incl. 2 flights in Miles Master, rest in Hurricane, one air firing exercise.

And as I remembered from a couple articles on RAF training during the BoB, same info from Vincent Orange's Park p. 155 When Park arrived at South Cerney, he was astonished to learn that the flying schools were working at only two-thirds capacity and following peacetime routines more than 15 months after the outbreak of war.

As Kurfürst wrote OTUs were the bottleneck, and that was tried to easy by introducing "C" Class sqn training, but otherwise training was run as before but expansion programs in UK and in Commonwealth.

Juha

 

[fastmongrel]

And as I remembered from a couple articles on RAF training during the BoB, same info from Vincent Orange's Park p. 155 When Park arrived at South Cerney, he was astonished to learn that the flying schools were working at only two-thirds capacity and following peacetime routines more than 15 months after the outbreak of war.


Juha

Hi Juha do you have any information on why the flying schools were running at 2/3 capacity. Was it lack of instructors, planes or trainees. I would have thought flying schools would have been working flat out from early 38 could it possibly have been because training command was spread too thin as it was also building up the commonwealth training schemes at the same time.

 

[Juha]

I cannot remember much of those articles other than attitude, urgency wasn't there. Park also found out that not all the daylight wasn't used for flying and the way the things were organized wasn't the best one, so with a little stick and organising things better the output was increased.

Juha

ADDITION: On material side there was especially lack of spares and Park thought that there was a need for more permanent runways, so that rain and frost would have hindered less the use of airfields but his boss objected preferring grass airfields. Also rapid expansion of training meant lack of experienced instructors and proper training planes. But already by organising the flight training better the resourced already there could be utilized more effectively.

 

[Nikademus]

IMHO there was some gunnery training during yearly armament camp week, but of course those coming to sqn after last armament camp week not necessary have any gunnery training to speak with. But in fact I cannot recall other AFs other than USN that gave a good gunnery training to its pilots, the Finnish AF in theory also gave rather good gunnery training, but in FAF there were fighter pilots who had not got that training.

Juha

Yes, there was some, but it didn't amount to alot and in some cases was lacking entirely. My main point was that one cannot look at Flying hours in general and get a complete picture. Said discussion triggered memories gleaned from the books i've collected on the BoB. A relevent passage is below from Patrick Bishop's "Fighter Boys";

The pilots who went into action for the first time in 1939 and 1940 might have known a lot about flying. They knew little, though, about how to fight in the air and less about how to shoot. Aerial gunnery was supposed to be taught as part of training and each regular fighter squadron was expected to go to an annual camp at one of the armament training stations for practice with live ammunition, shooting at drogues towed behind other aircraft, or at ground targets. This was occasionally suplemented by use of camera guns, from which theoretical scores could be deduced. It was a long way from reality. In retrospect, the amount of time spent on what was a fundemental air skill would seem desperately inadequate.

Some pilots [per the author] never fired at all at an aerial target before going into action and Al Deere wrote after the war that gunnery practice in it's entirty was dreadfully neglected. His opinion was that squadron morale, (vs. straight shooting) carried the "few" safely through the early fighter battles.

One explanation for the state of things was money. The Air Ministry felt that the budgetary funds were better spent to man and equip new squadrons vs. building gunnery ranges and allowances for practice ammunition were cut to a bare minimum before the fighting started. After the war started, shortage of time was the primary culprit. As noted, normally pilots emerging from ranks such as the Volunteer Reserve went to OTU's which normally put them through a six week training process "marrying" the pilot with the machine he would do actual fighting in. Due to the heavy losses of May and June 1940, this process was shortened to two weeks. Worse....shortages of pilots was so severe that the OTU's were bypassed entirely putting the men directly into the front lines from the Flying training schools. Overall national training was eventually cut in half to 22 weeks total by mid 1940

Part of the problem too was the losses suffered by the RAF before the battle of Britian even started. According to Bishop, the Battle of France cost the RAF 110 pilots + another 47 wounded and 26 taken prisoner. This tore holes in the ranks of virtually every squadron that participated. 3 Squadron CO's (+1 POW), six flight CO's (+1 POW) and 12 section leaders were among the casualties.


Fortunately, pilot skills and plane attributes are only one part (albeit an important part) of the mix that goes into large scale fighter combat. It is also true that the Luftwaffe (obviously) was not manned purely by Experten. As history would show, whatever edges the sharp end of the Jagdwaffe might have in terms of experience and fighter vs fighter tactics, it would not prove sufficient by itself to overcome the RAF. (anymore than simply substituting a long range strategic fighter for the Messer leaving all else the same)

Pointing out the challenges facing the RAF to me only highlights the acomplishments made by Fighter Command during the BoB. This highlights to me though why Dowding worried about one thing and one statistic above any other: Pilot levels, before and after the missions. I'm reminded of the never ending Cannon vs. MG arguments. Both sides have good arguments. Here, its been mentioned in more than one book that a boon to the young RAF recruits, in addition to flying a robust plane like the Hurricane, was having those 8 x .303's with a generous ammo supply. Cannon's require finese.....MG's you can afford to go with brute force more and spray your target. Against a good fighter pilot it may or may not work more often than not. Against a Stuka or a level bomber? Odds are better. I've felt for some time that being armed as such was a hidden boon to the RAF during the Battle.

 

[Juha]

Hello Nikademus
IMHO the greatest handicap for FC was the clearly more backward tactic. Even if Rall and even Maimberg, who arrived in JG 2 in Dec 39, had been trained only to tight vic tactics at Fighter Schools, and in Maimberg's case the use of that tactic continued a while in the sqn but then arrived an officer with experience from Spanish Civil War who said, forget all your tactical training, and then began Rotte and Schwarm flying.

Quote:" Overall national training was eventually cut in half to 22 weeks total by mid 1940"

Can you say what that means in flying time? Because at least in theory one could get more flying time per week in summer (longer days and usually better weather) than during winter. After all Elkigton had 166 hours, accumulated in 7 months, when he arrived to 1. Sqn in mid July 40. He seemed to have skipped OTU but he came from Cranwell. And JEJ had 205 hours when he arrived to 19 Sqn and was trasferred to 616 Sqn just because they did not have time to give him more training in 19 Sqn. Anyway at the beginning of Nov 40 OTUs were extended to 4 weeks, but again that doesn't necessary meant doubling the flying time in OTUs because shorter days and more bad weather.

Juha

 

[Njaco]

Hi Juha do you have any information on why the flying schools were running at 2/3 capacity. Was it lack of instructors, planes or trainees. I would have thought flying schools would have been working flat out from early 38 could it possibly have been because training command was spread too thin as it was also building up the commonwealth training schemes at the same time.

As Juha pointed out, I think this is because of a peace-time attitude towards the training program. BoB an BoF changd that.

I believe I have Hans Ekkard Bob's diary that lists his flight training hours to get an idea of LW about that time.

 

[Jerry W. Loper]

Never mind substituting a fighter, let's try a different bomber. Considering that the RAF's single seat fighters were armed with eight .303-caliber guns, how would they have fared against the durable B-17 (the version flying in 1940, not the later B-17G with the thirteen .50-caliber guns)?

 

[BombTaxi]

They would probably have fared quite well, as the LW's fighters did when they faced that model of Fortress over Germany some months later, operated by the RAF's 90 Squadron.

The B-17D had no tail guns, no ventral guns, no powered turrets, and a very small bombload if it were to travel any useful distance. Once the close escort had been stripped away, Hurricanes and Spits would have been able to beat such big bombers up with impunity. While they wouldn't have shot many down, they would have been able to break up the formation and dilute the effects of the attack, much as they tried to do with the Heinkels. I am sure the RAF would not have suffered any higher losses operating against early-model B-17s, nor would the Germans have derived any significant benefit. The B-17 prior to the E/F/G versions was not a type to be feared, IMHO.

 

[Colin1]

A 1940 B-17
is still a tough, durable ship, 8 x .303s are going to take some time (ammo) to start hurting it.
He might not be bristling with .50 cals yet but he's got a reasonable'ish chance of toughing it out; if He111s made it back to France riddled with thousands of bullet holes, I see no reason why B-17s couldn't do the same in larger numbers.

 

[BombTaxi]

My point is that the lack of defensive armament increases the risk of the formation being broken up, regardless of the real damage inflicted on the airframes. Also, the small bombload means that no significant advanatge would be acquired by operating a much larger, fuel-and-manpower-hungry machine like the Fortress as opposed to the LW twins.

 

[Colin1]

Surely
if a 1940 B-17 isn't bristling with guns just yet, then the absence of weapon systems, ammunition and crew to man them translates into a decent bombload?

 

[claidemore]

A 1940 B-17
is still a tough, durable ship, 8 x .303s are going to take some time (ammo) to start hurting it.
He might not be bristling with .50 cals yet but he's got a reasonable'ish chance of toughing it out; if He111s made it back to France riddled with thousands of bullet holes, I see no reason why B-17s couldn't do the same in larger numbers.

Hi Colin1,

You are probably right, but how do we measure it? What would make the B17 tougher than an He111?

It is approximately 1/3 bigger than a Heinkel and 1/3 heavier. Would that make it 1/3 harder to damage or destroy?

It's a bigger target, hence higher hit probability, does that offset heavier construction in a larger aircraft?

While 8 x .303 is probably not as effective as mulitple .50 mgs or 20mm cannons, it is not "ineffective". Didn't some FW200s succumb to .303 fire from Hurricanes?

edit: After a bit of research the first FW200 to be shot down was by a catapault launched Hurricane 1A from the CAM ship Maplin.

 

[Shortround6]

Surely
if a 1940 B-17 isn't bristling with guns just yet, then the absence of weapon systems, ammunition and crew to man them translates into a decent bombload?

Why it didn't I don't know but here is one description:

Boeing B-17C Fortress