Germany did not lose the Battle of Britain

[BigC208]

The goal was to win air supremacy over the invation area. This goal was not achieved.
Mission acomplished for the RAF.

[MaxGunz]

Brought to you by the people determined to believe that Germany did not lose WWI. That's right, it was a trick.

[ElAurens]

Exactly Max.

[kendo65]

Sorry to revisit this off-topic from a ways back, but...

Originally Posted by deadmeat313

On a similar vein, I have heard that the Germans have their own very different story to tell about the disaster at Arnhem. Bridge too far and all that.

Where the Allies see it as one of those "military operation beset by unexpected difficulties" stories, what the Germans see is that the British dropped their Elite Paratroop force in a major surprise attack - and the local Volksjaeger troops managed to contain, isolate and then defeat them!

To put this into perspective, try to imagine German Fallschirmjäger units trying to capture a British coastal town in 1940 (Lowestoft bizarrely comes to mind), and being thoroughly trounced by Dad's Army. We would bloody well never forget.

I've no sources to back this up. And I'm drunk, so I really shouldn't be posting. If any Germans can elaborate on this I'd love to hear it though.

T.

..think it had more to to with the two SS Panzer divisions that also happened to be in the area unbeknownst to the Allied planners

[MaxGunz]

Leaving the British Isles uncontrolled was the first big loss Germany took in WWII, after their senses of course. Britain staying free was the first big Allied gain. The course of the war bears those out and the major fighting was air battle so how can the result not be a loss for Germany? Besides the pilots lost being a significant strategic factor for no gain there is a front to guard, the resources of the Commonwealth and another bigger potential enemy behind.

Go by period German newsreels/newspapers and you get propaganda, not-facts.

[Asheshouse]

Arnhem is interesting. The airborne forces actually achieved their objectives, captured the Arnhem bridge and held the bridgehead for the time specified.

The failure was in the speed of follow up by the armoured forces.

[mungee]

Originally Posted by SlipBall

I think that air superiority was attempted by the German high command, without the sucess being achived there was no sence to continue

That sums it up for me!

Putting it another way:

"Great Britain's "victory" in the Battle of Briatin, was achieved by denying victory to the Germans!"

[ElAurens]

A victory by any means is still a victory, no matter how the Luftwaffe apologists paint it.

[Asheshouse]

Stephen Bungay 2000, p368 -- Fighter Command's victory was decisive. Not only had it survived, it ended the battle stronger than it had ever been. On 6 July its operational strength stood at 1,259 pilots. On 2 November, the figure was 1,796, an increase of over 40%. It had also seriously mauled its assailant. In a lecture held in Berlin on 2 February 1944, the intelligence officer of KG 2, Hauptmann Otto Bechle, showed that from August to December 1940 German fighter strength declined by 30% and bomber strength by 25%.

A fairly compelling argument I think.

[Crumpp]

Unfortunately many gamers want to place the significance for England's victory on the simplistic concept of their favorite game shapes performance. That is simply not true as design contemporaries did not have the performance gaps required to play any significant in combat.

It is the same silly a notion as Americans claiming the P-51 or any other USAAF designs performance won the air war in Western Europe.

It is arguable that the Battle of Britain was lost long before the Second World War started.

By providing the proper economic and logistics basis for realizing these plans, the air staffs had also established the foundation for increasing Allied air superiority as the war progressed. This is not to say their prewar planning was without flaws. Indeed, at a tactical and operational level, the Luftwaffe enjoyed self-evident advantages. However, by getting the fundamentals right and being prepared to learn from painful early reverses, the Royal Air Force placed itself in a significantly stronger position than the Luftwaffe to fight the Battle of Britain.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...4/ai_74582443/

In terms of aerial combat losses, Fighter Command took a mauling. In the air, the RAF pilots just did not have the training, tactics, or experience to deal with the Germans. Dowding recognized from the beginning though that all FC had to do was survive.

It did not have to maul the Germans in the air. The Germans lacked a logistical system that could replace their losses at the same pace as the RAF. Thus overtime, despite their training, tactical, and experience advantage as an organization the Luftwaffe fewer losses had a larger impact.

What makes this all the more surprising is that Fighter Command's operational losses were significantly higher than those suffered by the Luftwaffe's fighter force (Figure 4). This was equally true for the Battle of France as it was for the Battle of Britain. Thus, for 4 months, July-October 1940, Fighter Command lost more than 900 Hurricanes and Spitfires [37] compared to 600 Bf 109s recorded by the Luftwaffe quartermaster returns. [38]

Not only was FC superior in numbers of single seat fighters and pilots, they flew many more sorties. On average, they had more fighter airplanes in the air and outnumbered their German opponents at the tip of the spear.



None of the facts change the emotional and cultural views taught in English school history. "The Few" grossly outnumbered in their elegant Spitfires and flying circles around the invading evil Nazi's is an image that will forever inspire us.