BoB & Spitfire vs Hurricane (vs 109-ish) - an interesting viewpoint

[Fenrir]

Evening all.

Ok, to start I'm a loosely patriotic Brit but am well versed in this countries Pros & Cons, throughout history and at present - I also regard myself as being able to evaluate an argument on it's merit and as such re-evaluate my position.

My first point is this - Battles are more often lost than won.

To clarify, it's usually the side that makes fewest mistakes that wins. That criteria alone would lean us towards a German 'loss'.

However, air battles are not land battles - no territory is gained or lost, and though one side may lose more than another in numbers, their logistical foundation may be better able to absorp the losses and keep them in the fight. So you can't always trust the victory tally either.

Air Superiority is a vague term to actually define and even harder to quantify; at what exact moment can you say empirically that you have air superiority? And you are right to argue semantically about it. It's rather more an art of perception than of accountable fact.

As such I would propose that any aerial battle is won in part by the greater attrition of the enemies numbers, but also by the meeting of your own objectives with as few losses as possible and the clear perception (at the present time of battle) of enemies reluctance or inability to decisively and regularly meet you in combat.

In all cases I suggest that presents a German loss.

Turn these citeria upon the RAF during the 1941-42 Cross Channel air battles and you see a similar outcome, without the poor logistical support that the Luftwaffe faced during the BoB. In fact although the RAF 'lost' the Cross Channel campaign in the early years by learning the lessons and braving the losses they eventually turn the tables through '43 into '44 with the assistance of the USAAF because they had the political desire to stay in the fight and most importantly the economies to support the action.

Similarly Malta. Who won the air war there? Arguably at any time the Luftwaffe was offensive over the island they quickly made things incredibly difficult for the RAF. However, the will to commit decisively was consistently inconsistent, allowing the RAF to build forces and prevent the Axis powers from gaining complete domination.

The will to fight the attrition battle on all of these occasions was knocked out of the Luftwaffe and the German high command in particular - their eyes were always elsewhere, tryng to conserve forces for future offensives or crisis spots in all off the presented campaigns.

I present to you that the Germans lost the battle of Britain because battles are more often lost than won - that the Luftwaffe made more mistakes: they suffered from vague objectives that changed at a crucial juncture because of faulty intelligence - and I suspect no small measure of inflated self worth - but most importantly a lack of commitment in terms of economic and logistical infrastructure and in willingness to focus to the cause at hand. They did not meet their objectives; they suffered heavy losses that they could not keep pace with. The RAF met theirs whilst suffering losses and even further, it grew stronger in numbers whilst doing so.

These criteria point to a German loss, and ergo, a British win for me.