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

[MD_Titus]

Failure to meet objectives? Check
Loss of irreplaceable experienced crews? Check
Tactical defeat? Check
Ultimate strategic hammering by failing to meet objectives which would have led to capitulation of the UK? Check

Simplistic I know, but hey.

[Sternjaeger II]

Originally Posted by MD_Titus

Failure to meet objectives? Check
Loss of irreplaceable experienced crews? Check
Tactical defeat? Check
Ultimate strategic hammering by failing to meet objectives which would have led to capitulation of the UK? Check

Simplistic I know, but hey.

erm, it's kinda hard to keep on repeating the same things over and over, but hey...

Loss of irreplaceable experienced crews? They had losses, but learned a lot from the experience, if you look at the pilot organic numbers, by 1941 they recovered the lost pilot with new ones and had learned an immense lesson in terms of tactics. Don't really see it as much of a "defeat" there. Loss of personnel and material is an evaluated risk in warfare.

Tactical defeat? Hardly, it was more of a tactical stalemate. No changes in the frontline, only war of attrition between air forces and extra damage to civilian targets with thousands of civilian casualties. The Battle of Britain was followed by months of bombing offensive, and up until 1945 the Germans used their V1s and V2s. I really struggle to consider that a "victory".. Operation Sea Lion was never cancelled, only postponed.

Ultimate strategic hammering by failing to meet objectives which would have led to capitulation of the UK? Really? Have you read about the historical analysis that was published a few pages ago? The Germans didn't really have the same take on the whole Battle of Britain affair..

You see what I mean? You're judging a historical event from your side, not from an impartial point of view.

As for the damage GB sustained:

loss of many pilots (more or less experienced)? Mega check. By the end of the big aerial offensive, the RAF was on its knees, they had pilot with as little as 25 hours on the Spit that took off to engage bombers and fighters.

extended damage to civilian and military targets? Tens of thousands of civilian casualties, whole cities and factories turned into rubble, interruption of primary services. The situation was pretty grim by the end of the bomber offensive, it was obvious that mentioning a "victory in repelling the attacks" was of paramount importance back then. What they failed to say to the population obviously is that it wasn't a case of the RAF having crippled the Luftwaffe for good, but that the German forces were concentrating their efforts on a new frontline.

[Triggaaar]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II

Don't really see it as much of a "defeat" there. Loss of personnel and material is an evaluated risk in warfare.

Your line of arguement means that it doesn't matter how many men/machines you lose, you can just right them all of as evaluated risk. That makes no sense. When drawing up the plans to invade, you would make such evaluation, and you'd find out whether you met your objectives after the event. Given that the objective was not met, the losses were not worth it were they.

Tactical defeat? Hardly, it was more of a tactical stalemate. No changes in the frontline, only war of attrition between air forces and extra damage to civilian targets with thousands of civilian casualties.

Germany's objective was to clear the way for an invasion that year. They failed. Britain's objective was not to gain air superiority over the channel, it was to prevent invasion, and they succeeded.

Operation Sea Lion was never cancelled, only postponed.

Do you think the operation is still live? No, so you realise it failed, and Britain didn't get invaded.

By the end of the big aerial offensive, the RAF was on its knees

No it wasn't, you need to look up some modern data.

Tens of thousands of civilian casualties, whole cities and factories turned into rubble, interruption of primary services. The situation was pretty grim by the end of the bomber offensive, it was obvious that mentioning a "victory in repelling the attacks" was of paramount importance back then.

If the German objective was to kill a lot of British civilians, and the British objective was to prevent the death of any British civilians, then Germany won the BoB. But they weren't the objectives, much as you might like to twist them to your arguement.

[adonys]

BoB was rather a skirmish, nothing more, nothing less. A first phase in the operation Sealowe, not a battle per-se.

You think that if Germany wouldn't have really wanted to start and carry the war in the east, could have not dispose of the english?!! By that time, or shortly after, they've got their droptanks, and that would have changed everything in a BoB phase 1 operation.

Simply, they've stopped it because there was no point in trying to enforce it at that time: Britain was in no way a threat for the continental Europe, and they've rather go east, as the Lebensraum doctrine was stating it. And after that, the russian bear gave them too much trouble to care about the silly brits and their island anymore.. until the americans came decided they want to have a go visit Paris..