Quote:
Originally Posted by Splitter
Imagine for a moment that the Nazi leadership had developed a good, fast, bomber prior to the BoB and had actually produced it in quantity. They had that ability, but they stayed with the planes that had worked in the past against more inferior forces.
Splitter
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They actually had this already in the Bf110, but insisted on its continued use as a fighter.
If you look up the exploits of Eprobungsgruppe 210 during the Battle, they used Bf110's experimentally for shallow dive bombing at high speed, which proved as accurate as the Stukas, but with far superior speed and defence.
If this had been adopted as a widespread tactic, it would have been highly effective.
As it was, both the Stukas as bombers and the Bf110's as fighters were almost totally withdrawn from the Battle due to high losses..
Also, the Ju88 was renowned for being very tough to kill, and once the bombs had gone could be very difficult to catch.
As to whether the Battle was won, Sternjaeger and Mungee, Germany gave up before the Luftwaffe was wasted away altogether, (due to manufacturing and training shortcomings) the invasion plans were postponed (if it was ever really intended in the first place), and Britain was not forced to negotiate. What more of a definition of winning do people need?
They also had nine months between the BoB and Barbarossa to re-supply and train up. It's not like Barbarossa was immediately afterwards!