Quote:
Originally Posted by Blakduk
It's quite silly to question the LW as being the preeminent airforce in the world in 1940- they were better equipped and better led in tactics than then RAF. During the BoB the RAF learned some very hard lessons, the ill-conceived Defiant and 'Vic' formations are prime examples. In 1941 the RAF's performance over France was pathetic- the attrition in Spitfires alone was almost criminally negligent.
The BoB campaign was really aimed at imposing a cost on the British and challenging the will of their citizens to continue hostilities against Germany when they were cast out of the continent of Europe. The intransigence of Churchill and the unexpected resilience of the populace were what thwarted the German offensive.
The British failed to learn the lesson however and made exactly the same mistakes against the Germans when they started to take the offensive in the air. The Germans developed a coordinated air defence, chose which raids to confront, and the German people displayed the same stoicism as the British had when bombs fell on their cities. The RAF performance during the Dieppe raid was a travesty.
What the Germans didn't do however was gear their industry for full war production until Speer took over in late 1943- far too late. The LW never acquired a large enough strategic reserve and each pilot basically flew until he was dead, captured or crippled.
The attrition finished them in the end- their men were men after all, not ubermensch.
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Very good, well balanced post.
There's no reason getting worked up when studying history, unless we want to reach wrong conclusions
I mean, one time we hear how the RAF was fighting tooth and nail while outnumbered (the legend of the few) because we like boosting the heroic aspect of the allied war effort, then we hear how the RAF had better training and production to boost the ingenious aspect of the allied war effort and make us feel good that the allies beat the axis in their own game (industry), many times from the exact same people.
Well, it doesn't take a genius to understand that these statements openly contradict each other unless we provide the correct frame of reference for each one. We can't say the RAF had the better manufacturing and logistics AND was fighting an uphill battle at the same time. What we can say is that the RAF was in situation A until that point during the battle, then they learned from experience and their preparations started having a result which got them to a better situation B during a certain month.
Don't get me wrong, i'm glad the axis lost, but when studying history there's no need to prop up the actions of anybody.
The way i see the whole WWII in Europe is that Germany was all about trying to produce the absolute best in terms of manufacturing, equipment, new technologies and training of the people in their armed forces without having sufficient strategic resources and logistics planning in place to ensure this would work long term. Naturally, after a point in time they couldn't keep up and their system collapsed by the allied decision to do the opposite: focus on outnumbering them first, essentially throwing bodies and inferior equipment to the fire to stem the tide while stockpiling strategic reserves (of all kinds), then turning that strategic advantage into a quality advantage at a time where the axis quality factor was on the decline.
If we wanted to draw an internet meme analogy, Germany was putting 100 ninjas on the field against a haphazard crowd of 1000 less experienced and worse equipped enemies. It worked initially, but then attrition took its toll on numbers, training was accelerated to replace losses and their blacksmiths lacked the metals to give them shinny,razor sharp swords to fight with, while the crowd of 1000 was growing in numbers, improving in experience and getting better equipment, so they lost
