[Kurfürst]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

The fact remains that the Luftwaffe lost a lot of aircraft, both in Poland and in the Battle of France, that seriously degraded their abilities.

I partially agree. Poland was a victory march for the Luftwaffe, they wiped out the Polish Air Force in a matter of days .Not to downplay the PAF, they fought bravely but were essentially steamrolled. They lost 250-300 aircraft in total, but only 93 of these were to enemy action: 13 Bf 109, 9 Bf 110, 27 Do 17, 25 He 111, 16 Ju 87, 3 Hs 123. This probably includes losses to everything, ie. Polish AA. PAF fighters had little chance as they could hardly catch up with LW bombers. As far as the losses go though, the LW had more and better aircraft (they dumped obsolate versions like Jumo engined 109s and 110s for example) by the end of September 1939 than at the start.

France was another matter, there the LW indeed had serious losses, as a matter of fact it rivaled the losses as though the only serious was the bombers which strenght fell by about 200 aircraft compared to the begining of the campaign, but all other strenght was maintained or even improved. As a sidenote, they handed the RAF's and the FAF their respective assess (the former lost some 900 aircraft, the latter was simply annihilated) and were instrumental in creating a strategical position in Western Europe that was simply not going to change until the Americans entered the war. The French Army, the only one that could hope to defeat the German army was defeated, and the Brits were kicked out of the continent, and everyone knew they just can't come back on their own.

Add the losses between the time of Dunkirk and the "start" of the BoB in August and it is clear that the Luftwaffe could not sustain a campaign to "take" Great Britain. It's laugable to think that they could.

Laughable or not, they did exactly that, from mid-August 1940 to mid-May 1941. With the war industry on peacetime footing. Even with the Kriegsmarine's weakness that prohibited a landing (certainly in 1940), they could keep up an air campaign until Britain sinks into the sea..

The Luftwaffe was a very young service. There was no depth of experience in their officer corps, unlike the RAF, which is of course the world's oldest independent air force.

Silly. First of all all this empty boasting about the RAF - I find it difficult to find a talented officer amongst the rows of aristocratic idiots, to be frank. At least I can find no other reason why they appeared to have no single idea what to do with all those aircraft during the whole war. Certainly between 1939 and 1940 they seemed to have done nothing but f.ing up all the time - BC was forced to bomb at night when they could hit virtually nothing, the expediationary air force they sent over to the continent was wiped out with nearly 1000 aircraft lost, and as for Dunkerque, well, they managed to score of 92 German aircraft, with only 37 fighters amongst them, for the loss of 106 RAF fighters.

Secondly that 'very young air service' had a top brass made up by people who were flying in combat before the 'world's oldest independent air force' came into being, with top/mid-level commanders like Moelders, Osterkamp Richthofen, Sperrle, Stumpf, Kesselring etc. who had seen actual combat flying and organisation in Spain. A little reading wouldn't hurt you as a matter of fact.. They had top notch aircraft to do their bidding, and in sufficient numbers, and the service was technologically advanced - look at the bomb sights, or blind bombing equipment for example, the RAF simply didn't have such, neither it had, on avarage either fighters like the Luftwaffe had (mostly Hurricanes) nor bombers (mostly Wellingtons and Blenheims), nor close support aircraft (err... Battle )

Considering how much younger and more inexperienced they were supposed to be, they seem to have built a better and larger air force on all levels by 1940.