Crump, before we get into an argument over semantics this is a school work-sheet for, I would presume, nine to eleven year olds. It is not "propaganda", it is factual.

Kids in this age range are taught a basic factual time line. The Spitfire and the Hurricane did give the RAF the edge in the battle. I would imagine the outcome rather different if the RAF had been flying Gladiators. The worksheet nowhere says these planes defeated the '109. It is about the tools the RAF had been newly equipped with.

You are correct that a number of other factors came into play however the carriculum can't cram everything in and for this age range should'nt either. Note how it says "historians are interested". At this age the idea is to equip the kids with the tools they'll need further on in their school career.

I find the use of the word "propaganda" in this thread interesting too. Not something we British need to use too often as we're very rarely subjected to it.

Sure it is...

It builds national pride in British Children. It is not different than "George Washington and Cherry Tree" type stories we get told are fact as children in the United States.

http://en.allexperts.com/q/U-S-Histo...history-20.htm

Every country does this with their children.

That is how I read it.

It definitely leads the reader to make the assumption and paints the picture the Luftwaffe was defeated because of the Spitfire and Hurricane.

http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/7...ewonthebob.jpg


The sheet poses the question question: Why did the RAF win the Battle of Britain?

And it answers the question: "the RAF had the edge over the Luftwaffe with its new faster fighters the Spitfire and Hurricane."

Does all this verbal self abuse really matter?

The Gemans lost, and it's a damn good thing.

[QUOTE=Crumpp;298958]





That is how I read it.

It definitely leads the reader to make the assumption and paints the picture the Luftwaffe was defeated because of the Spitfire and Hurricane.

You read it that way because you're a middle-aged aero-engineer in the mid-west not a nine year old British school kid.

The Luftwaffe was defeated because of the Hurricane and Spitfire, not the Gladiator or Defiant. They inflicted on the LW a rate of attrition it was unable to sustain. The LW task was to establish air superiority over southern England. In this they were defeated. A tactical defeat.
The establishment of air superiority was a prerequisite for any invasion attempt. As this was not established no invasion attempt was made in the summer of 1940. A strategic defeat.

The Spitfire and Hurricane were not put in the air by the "allies" either but by Great Britain and were flown by members of the RAF from Great Britain and it's dominions, a handful of brave Americans and some very determined Czechs and Poles.

These are facts. Not "propaganda."

Are you sure American schools still teach the George Washington thing?

No, it contains wrong information - or at least a bent truth - and the relations are exaggerated. "...the small innocent britain all alone versus the mightly german warfare power..." - in that picture...

But not by the RAF - by The Channel!

Thats what allied politics wanted Germany to do since WW1 ended.

Well thats different... grown up in the GDR (socialistic) I've got taught a quite extreme version of history. Nowadays its a western based sight, but Germany's self chosen role in the world as a 'Offender nation', which has to bow head about our history, hasn't been overcome yet by our politics (at least I feel so). And so the school stuff is not the same, but similar as in that british sheet. Allies won, because we as the bad ones just couldn't win. We... however... don't get teached pride for our country, even if it has nothing to do anymore with the one from 1933-1945. And maybe thats a pity, but maybe not.

Not by the RAF? C'mon. Who honestly believes that the RAF and its tactical situation had nothing to do with defeating the LW?

The LW had its own struggles, that's for sure, by fall 1940 they suffered from lack of resources, lack of experienced pilots and got down-prioritized on the western front. Most pilots during the start of the BoB had atleast 3 years experience. Majority of the resources went east for the Soviet campaign. They were on serious fuel shortage, U.Steinhilper mentioned in his book that they were cut down on fuel and the hourly engine warm ups was stopped because of that shortage and so on. They even started mixing small amounts of fuel in the engine oil to get the performance from the engines needed for a scramble from cold starts. Figured that should save them some drops.

Couple more things about the LW and its tactics. The schwarm formation was good and all but the setup of that schwarm was highly ineffective for the guys not leading it. They used "katschmareks" at the back, which only role was to protect the wing leaders/higher rank and usually they were the most inexperienced pilots. The high scorers like Galland was always under protection from a "katschmarek", usually never the other way around. It was never a collaboration and that cost them dearly. Many claims that those tactics were in fact reducing their pilot stock from the "recruitment side" which explains why they were in such shortage of pilots early on.

Secondly, widespread use of "Freie Jagd" basically served as intel for the RAF and RAF usually routed their wings away from those so that they could focus on bomber formations. LW tipped off the RAF too much by doing that and the LW probably severely underestimated RAFs radar, comms and control systems. LW didn't know how much RAF knew IMO.

And lastly, tactical situation. There were one time where RAF was under heavy pressure and that was up to the end of the airfield raids and bombings. Suddenly the Germans focused on bombing London and cities which resulted in some extra breathing space for the RAF. Besides the fact that UK had more resources, huge tactical advantage, higher production and better recruitment, I guess the LW had a chance. But not with the antique attitudes they struggled with from a less mature air warfare that many pilots from the Legion Condor enforced.

Some pretty good points all around and a very balanced analysis from Crumpp which i mostly agree with, except the propaganda part (i wouldn't call a simplified school assignment meant for 10 year old children that).

On another note:

This is not about fuel economy, it's for making the engine easier to start. When the oil is cold it's more viscous and needs more torque for the engine to fire, placing a strain on the starter motors and/or battery supply in case of failed starts and subsequent retries, not to mention having to wait longer until it warms up because otherwise the oil pressure is too much, pipes burst and oil leaks develop.

By mixing fuel the oil can be diluted and that lowers its viscosity, making the engine easier to start. Eventually, the fuel in the oil gradually burns and/or evaporates and things are back to normal.

The way i read the whole thing is that since they couldn't afford fuel for hourly warm-ups to maintain the engines in a "ready to run" condition, they started using the next best alternative method.

Many aircraft (especially the USAF ones and probably most of them) later in the war had oil dilution switches just for that purpose, so the engineers wouldn't have to manually mix fuel into the oil reservoir. If a pilot expected cold weather during his next start-up and take off or if the plane was to be left with the engine off for a longer period of time, the pilot would set the oil dilution switches to on after landing and keep the engine running for a few minutes before shutting down.

This ensured that on the next start-up, oil would be pre-mixed with fuel and the engine would be easier to start. ;)

According to one of the guys that was there, yes it was. DB601's(or 605's for that matter) never had start problems compared to carburetted allied engines. Fuel savings by thinning out the oil a bit compared to warming up a 35/37L V12 every hour is pretty self explanatory. It was also a great compromise because cold starts with dilluted oil kinda messes up the viscosity quite a bit. Some claimed that the gasoline in the oil would vapourize and ventilate out from the crankcase but they also knew that cold starts with that dilluted oil would put more friction on internal components as opposed to warm ups thus decreasing the engine's operating time between rebuilds/check ups. Which is pretty accurate.

To keep the oil from freezing and there is nothing wrong with that practice. If the oil is too thick, it will not lubricate the engine causing damage on starting. The fuel lowers the viscosity and prevents freezing. As the engine warms up, the fuel vaporizes and escapes out the breather.

Airplane oil was single viscosity and not the multi-viscosity popular today. That being said, there is a trend to return to single viscosity oils. I use good AeroShell 100W single viscosity in my airplanes.

http://www.mountainflying.com/Pages/...nter_woes.html

This was in France, Coquelle airbase in september and october 1940. XXXX wasn't freezing there then. I'll drop a direct quote from Steinhilper himself so that you speculators can focus on something else:

"From the middle of September there was a new procedure whilst our aircraft stood 'at readiness' which showed that supplies were being tightened up on the Channel front. We didn't spot it at the time, but it was probably one of the first signs that High Command was beginning to accept that the battle was over and didn't want to waste any more supplies than absolutely necessary on it.

Normally, when we were in our Stage 1 readiness, the ground crew started the aircraft up every hour to keep the engines warm. This was to keep the engine oil thin and the moving parts ready to go at full power for a scramble. The pilots sat close to the aircraft in deck-chairs, a scene identical to our counterparts, who would be sitting a few miles north across the Channel. It was decided that this constant starting and warming up of engines was a waste of precious fuel and so a technical directive came from the head of Luftwaffe Engineering. In future, as soon as the engines had been warmed up for the first time, two litres of aviation grade petrol were to be poured into the engine to mix with the lubricating oil. Any shortfall on the oil level would then be topped up to just above normal. Then the engine was briefly run again to achieve a good mixture of oil and petrol throughout the lubrication circuit."

From the book "Spitfire on my tail" by Ulrich Steinhilper & Peter Osbourne.