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Source on that? I've looked at E.R. Hooton's numbers of losses during the Blitz and there is no reference to that number being only for the first week in May.
According to postwar British memoirs talking up their achievements; the reality was quite a bit different.
Merchant Shipping and the Demands of War, Behrens, C. B. A. London: HMSO and Longmans, Green, 1955
Coal, Court, William H. B. London: HMSO, 1951
I based my post on these.
The difference was that the German radar could detect aircraft at a greater altitude than Chain Home Low, which was only for the altitudes of 500 to 800 feet. Its great that they were more accurate, but they didn't have the range of the German units.
Oil: A Study of War-Time Policy and Administration, Payton-Smith, D. J. London: HMSO, 1971
This contradicts that.
When was that though? Swansea wasn't importing in 1940.
Oil: A Study of War-Time Policy and Administration, Payton-Smith, D. J. London: HMSO, 1971
For example, in the months after the fall of France, the railway lines out of South Wales were blocked by the trucks loaded with coal that could no longer be exported to the Continent. Consequently the oil port of Swansea with its five ocean tanker beths, which had received 46,000 tons of oil a week in June when its storage had been nearly empty, could
Early in September there was heavy loss at Llandarcy in a fire which temporarily closed the oil port of Swansea to tankers
That's comparing apples to potatoes. Germany produced her own oil at several massive facilities that dwarfed the British refineries, but Britain wasn't refining oil on site anymore once France fell; instead they were importing refined fuels,
That's comparing apples to potatoes. Germany produced her own oil at several massive facilities that dwarfed the British refineries, but Britain wasn't refining oil on site anymore once France fell; instead they were importing refined fuels, so the vulnerable spots aren't the large refineries, but rather the storage facilities and the oil stations in the ports. That's a much more concentrated target that is easier to damage and requires far less tonnage than the German cracking facilities.
Chain Home was an obsolate and dead end and very much exploitable radar technology. CHL was based on the same simplistic technology - it has trouble even picking off single aircraft, let alone having any 'accuracy'.
But it was useful and practical as an early warning system. Its range come from a single factor, that it was mounted on a 360 ft high tower, and therefore, could see further beyond the horizon at altitude.
The Bf109E's internal fuel load was 400L or 88 gals, when they eventually fitted a drop tank to the late E models it was 300L or 66 gals, that increased the range 75%. You use the fuel from the drop tanks to the British coast, or until combat if possibly. Then internal fuel for combat and RTB.Drop tanks help but it won't be enough. There's no substitute for internal fuel capacity once the fighting starts.
Perhaps we need an English to English translation?
I don't know what country Viking85 is from but in English railway terminology "trucks" are freight cars, usually with 2 fixed (non-pivoting) axles.
Likewise the term "wagon" was often used to describe the same thing.
View attachment 222504
or
The Battle of Cambrai | Imperial War Museums
in the caption "British Mark IV tanks are being loaded onto railway trucks"
They could reliably hit a port city, anything else was a bit hit and miss. You only have to look at the bomb map of London to see how bombs were scattered over a vast area. According to Hooton 18% of assigned crews failed to find Coventry, despite the massive fires lighting up the sky for miles around.
Someone already corrected me and thanks for being dickish about it.
I ordered it earlier today, so I'll check it out.The Night Blitz, John Ray
Someone else already answered this.The reality is the accuracy the Luftwaffe achieved in their raids on Britain. They could reliably hit a port city, anything else was a bit hit and miss. You only have to look at the bomb map of London to see how bombs were scattered over a vast area. According to Hooton 18% of assigned crews failed to find Coventry, despite the massive fires lighting up the sky for miles around.
I don't own copies of these books, so I'll have to reorder them via interlibrary loan.What exactly do they say? I can't believe any book would make the claim Britain was importing coal, and that consumption was about 20 million tons a year. Can we please have the quotes from the books that led you to that conclusion?
Chain Home was the primary British radar system at the time, so in the sense of what is deployed in the largest amounts it was the most important system in 1940. Just like Freya wasn't the only German radar system either.The mistake is in thinking British radar = Chain Home. That was just part of it. Chain Home was an early, long range radar chain. It was supplemented with other radars.
I'll have to interlibrary loan the books again to get an answer.What exactly does it say? I have given you exact figures, broken down, from the War Cabinet.
Same as I said above.Swansea was importing oil for Llandarcy from the 1920s until the Pembroke oil terminals took over in the 60s or 70s.
The use of Oil: A Study of War-Time Policy and Administration as a reference for saying Swansea wasn't being used for oil imports is odd. I don't have the book, but a Google search of it returns the following snippet:
So Swansea was definitely being used for oil imports in 1940, on quite a large scale. Can you quote the parts of the book that made you believe it wasn't?
I have to reorder the books to get one.Can you please provide a quote for this claim. Not simply a reference to a book, but what the book actually says.
Looking at the numbers you have above and the earlier numbers you posted, refining crude was a fraction of overall British fuel supplies.A war cabinet report from November 1940 gave the following production figures for 100 octane fuels from UK refineries:
Heysham - 150,000 tons
Billingham - 15,000 tons
Stanlow - 55,000 tons
It would have made no sense whatsoever to abandon refining.
But refining was a fraction of fuel supplies as your own numbers show. Disrupting the ports and oil stations makes it harder and harder to bring the fuel in. Knocking out the biggest and most important stations forces the British to use far smaller and less efficient stations to discharge fuel from tankers. Did Port Talbot have an oil station to unload tankers?Hardly. Refineries have very specialised equipment that can be very difficult to replace. Imports are much, much easier to route to different ports etc, hence the provision of emergency off loading ports (like Port Talbot) as a contingency.
Just like Würzburg. It had limited utility and just plugged the gaps that the main radar deployed at the time had. What was its accuracy compared to Freya or Würzburg and how many units were available?No, Chain Home Low had nothing to do with Chain Home. CHL was based on a gun laying radar produced by a different air ministry team.
I don't know what country you are from, you don't have a country or flag listed.
American and British terminology is not the same. In America the "truck" is the 4 wheel bogie that goes under the car/wagon. If you are not a railroad buff it may be an honest mistake. If that is being "dickish" then so be it.
In July 1940 the Germans were making express reference to terror bombing British cities,whatever the apologists and revisionists might like to believe.
The Führer and Supreme Commander
of the Armed Forces
Führer Headquarters,
1st August 1940.
10 copies
Directive No. 17 For the conduct of air and sea warfare against England
In order to establish the necessary conditions for the final conquest of England I intend to intensify air and sea warfare against the English homeland. I therefore order as follows :
1. The German Air Force is to overpower the English Air Force with all the forces at its command, in the shortest possible time. The attacks are to be directed primarily against flying units, their ground installations, and their supply organisations, but also against the aircraft industry, including that manufacturing antiaircraft equipment.
2. After achieving temporary or local air superiority the air war is to be continued against ports, in particular against stores of food, and also against stores of provisions in the interior of the country.
Attacks on south coast ports will be made on the smallest possible scale, in view of our own forthcoming operations.
3. On the other hand, air attacks on enemy warships and merchant ships may be reduced except where some particularly favourable target happens to present itself, where such attacks would lend additional effectiveness to those mentioned in paragraph 2, or where such attacks are necessary for the training of air crews for further operations.
4. The intensified air warfare will be carried out in such a way that the Air Force can at any time be called upon to give adequate support to naval operations against suitable targets. It must also be ready to take part in full force in 'Undertaking Sea Lion'.
5. I reserve to myself the right to decide on terror attacks as measures of reprisal.
6. The intensification of the air war may begin on or after 5th August. The exact time is to be decided by the Air Force after the completion of preparations and in the light of the weather.
The Navy is authorised to begin the proposed intensified naval war at the same time.
signed: ADOLF HITLER
The war against England is to be restricted to destructive attacks against industry and air force targets which have weak defensive forces. ... The most thorough study of the target concerned, that is vital points of the target, is a pre-requisite for success. It is also stressed that every effort should be made to avoid unnecessary loss of life amongst the civilian population.
The other night the English had bombed Berlin. So be it. But this is a game at which two can play. When the British Air Force drops 2000 or 3000 or 4000 kg of bombs, then we will drop 150 000, 180 000, 230 000, 300 000, 400 000 kg on a single night. When they declare they will attack our cities in great measure, we will eradicate their cities. The hour will come when one of us will break – and it will not be National Socialist Germany!
Naturally when the RAF choose to bomb Berlin, the Luftwaffe responded in kind on 7 September 1940. In a public speech in Berlin on 4 September 1940, Hitler announced that:
Indeed Londoners and other unlucky inhabitants of other cities in the UK soon found out that this was a game at which two could play.
I believe Halifax was considered the main candidate for PM (and IMHO would have been a better choice than Churchill in any case).