The Battle of Britain Was The First Defeat For The German Luftwaffe.

[MB_Avro_UK]

How did they cope with it?

[ATAG_Snapper]

I don't believe at the airmen level it was seen so much as a "defeat", but more as a change of orders. All attention was next focussed upon Operation Barbarossa, so the significance of what had occurred, ie losing the Battle of Britain, didn't play such a huge part in the eyes of the German fliers that were gearing up for a much larger battle ahead.

That's my take - I could be wrong.

[ACE-OF-ACES]

Originally Posted by MB_Avro_UK

How did they cope with it?

First of many.. Till they got use to it

[ElAurens]

The simple fact is that up until the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffe had never faced an adversary that was even mildly prepared to go to war.

The same was true of Barbarossa. The Russians were poorly equipped and trained, had the best of their officer corps murdered by Stalin during the Purges, and had a high command that thought they would not go to war with Germany because of the non-aggression treaty.

Add to that the fact that the Luftwaffe leadership was overly political, and had only a short experience of actually running an air force, coupled with an industrial base that didn't go on a "total war" footing until the war was pretty much lost, and had a raw materials supply chain that was tenuous at best, and failure was pretty much the only outcome.

In spite of the obvious skill of individual pilots, the Luftwaffe, like Germany as a whole, never had a chance in the long run.

Much the same can be said for Japan.

[csThor]

Don't think it was seen as the beginning of the end. Remember the Wehrmacht went to the Balkans and made short work of Greece, Yugoslavia and the British Expeditionary Forces there. And then they even captured Crete ... and then there was, of course, Rommel and his Afrika Korps.

The main result was, however, a beginning crisis of trust between the frontline and the leadership back in Berlin in the person of Göring and his closest cronies. Before the jokes about his considerable girth and his pompous manners were said with some kind of amused goodwill, but now they took on a decidedly acidic tone and grew more cutting than before. Especially among the fighter pilots who felt they'd been hung out to dry and then made scapegoats for the bomber losses (when it was apparent that Göring's own Intelligence section was better suited for writing fairy tales).

[csThor]

Actually the numerical losses were made good, it was just the loss of experienced and pre-war trained pilots and leaders that proved problematic but - in the longer run - not unsolvable..

A lot has been said about the BoB and the effects it had on the Luftwaffe, especially by Galland, but when one looks at the facts as presented by Prien/Rodeike/Stemmer/Beck the situation loses the drama Galland and others have attributed to it. The only two arms that really lost numbers (when one compares 1941 to 1940) were the destroyers and the Stukas. And still both arms would make a considerable contribution to Barbarossa.

[Kongo-Otto]

Originally Posted by cheesehawk

I was meaning the beginning of the end for the Luftwaffe, the losses over Britain were never quite made good. They were always small to begin with, and couldn't expand as much as the additional campaigns needed. The Wehrmacht still had successes to come, and didn't taste defeat over England, they'd wait for Stalingrad and El Alamein for that.

Stalingrad and El Alamein, were just lost battles, not more and not less.
El Alamein was the beginning of the End for the Africa Korps, but even without this event, the Allied would have landed in Sicilly sooner or later anyways.
El Alamein was a win for the Brits and polished their self esteem, because they sucked the Months before.
Stalingrad was kind of a german Trauma, because it was the first Major Victory for the Red Army, but the real smell of Defeat came with Operation Bagration. IIRC this was the hugest defeat in German Military History.

[Xilon_x]

my oppinon is GERMANY - ITALY ATTAK BRITTAIN ERROR.... if SPAIN enter in tripartite patc GERMANY JAPAN AND ITALY we winn the war.
immagine spain and italy and germany massive attack to england.


operation barbarossa germany attak northrussia and midlerussia italy attak centerrussia and middlerussia front and japan attak from east front.
RUSSIA loser.
IF ITALY conquerer the caucaso and ejipt after for germany is simple project a strategical attak to RUSSIA but italy loser in libia and south africa the project is failed.

another question Mussolini go order attak england but ITALY use only a little number air force but not NAVAL force because the italian navy not running over GIBRILTAIR if GIBRILTAIR is free much ITALIAN NAVAL FORCE ATTAK BRITTAIN.

[JG5_emil]

Dowding was a smart cookie....he's refusal to let the RAF be drawn up in significant numbers over the channel and even later over land was a significant part of wining the battle. The point of the bombing raids was to entice the RAF up where they could be destroyed in the air. They failed at this and the changes in tactic by Goering made matters much worse....in many was you could argue that the Luftwaffe defeated itself.

[flyingblind]

It was never about winning or losing individual battles or about skill or courage. The axis lost due to a lack of resources. Germany went into Russia and particularly North Africa to secure oil supplies. When they failed they had no chance even without the overwhelming output of equipment from America. The same with Japan. The Americans had more fuel in a fuel dump on one island in the Pacific than the entire fuel available to Japan. This was a large part of the rational behind Kamikazi tactics. They literally could not keep flying missions and it was a last desperate attempt to inflict maximum damage on the advancing enemy.

There was a good documentary on the Battle of Britain done by the BBC a little while back. The premise of that was that Germany failed in its objectives due to tactics and logistics. The Germans over engineered thier aircraft and simply could not keep up with the numbers of the more basic British offerings. The British had a good system of pilot rotation whereas the Germans were soon suffering from fatigue. Also the British had a good system of radar that was used to good effect. On top of all that was Goerings monumental blunder of switching from military to civillian targets. Finally the Germans ran out of time and missed the chance of mounting an invasion before Winter set in and so continuing that particular battle became pointless.